Monthly Archives: March 2013

U.S. Capitol official: Obama wrong on janitors’ pay cut – CBS News

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The president’s mention prompted Carlos Elias, the superintendent of the U.S. Capitol building and the Capitol Visitors Center, to email his employees within hours of Mr. Obama’s comment.

“The pay and benefits of EACH of our employees WILL NOT be impacted,” Elias wrote.

“There was a specific mention in the news today by a high ranking official that said ‘The employees that clean and maintain the US Capitol will receive a cut in pay’ (not specific quote but very close to it),” Elias continued.

“This is NOT TRUE,” wrote Elias. “Therefore, I request that you please notify all of our employees about the importance of ignoring media reports.”

via U.S. Capitol official: Obama wrong on janitors’ pay cut – CBS News.

Woodward’s Apostasy by Harry Stein – City Journal

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Bob Woodward’s charge that he was threatened by a high-ranking Obama administration official after publishing a column critical of the White House was, it turns out, at least somewhat exaggerated. But it’s no accident that the media has chosen to focus on Woodward’s characterization of his exchange with White House economic director Gene Sperling, while all but ignoring the essence of the column that touched off the brouhaha in the first place: that Obama’s claims about Republican responsibility for the looming sequester were false, and that it was “months of White House dissembling” that had “eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans.”

Indeed, the media treatment of the episode provides an all-too-telling glimpse into the administration’s relationship with the press. It hardly bears repeating that from the start of Barack Obama’s career on the national stage, he has enjoyed an unprecedented kinship with the media—one that, as frustrated opponents rightly observe, often seems indistinguishable from outright alliance. On contentious issues like those involving the budget, especially, the administration has been hugely dependent on a compliant press—not only to shore up public support for its ongoing campaign of class warfare, but also to marginalize competing arguments.

via Woodward’s Apostasy by Harry Stein – City Journal.

Actor John Cusack: ‘Is the President just another Ivy League A**hole?’ | WashingtonExaminer.com

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Yes. Next question.

“One is forced to asked the question: Is the President just another Ivy League A**hole shredding civil liberties and due process and sending people to die in some sh*thole for purely political reasons?” asked actor John Cusack in a recent piece published yesterday on TruthOut.org.

Cusack was sharply critical of President Obama’s decisions to continue President George W. Bush’s drone program and continuing the war in Afghanistan.

Referring to a speech given by the president at West Point in May 2010, Cusack noted that “the Christian president with the Muslim-sounding name, would heed the admonitions of neither religion’s prophets about making war and do what no empire or leader, including Alexander the Great, could do: he would, he assured us ‘get the job done in Afghanistan.’”

via Actor John Cusack: ‘Is the President just another Ivy League A**hole?’ | WashingtonExaminer.com.

What We Lose When Kids Can’t Play in Their Own Streets – Neighborhoods – The Atlantic Cities

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As children run and wheel and dance their way across the liberated asphalt, the adults on the street – mostly mothers — look on and smile. The things they say bring home just how much we lose when we give the streets to cars, in both urban and dense suburban settings.

“We wanted our children to have the same sort of freedom that we had to play outside,” says one of the group’s organizers, Alice Ferguson. Her co-founder, Amy Rose, adds that they were looking for “a model that took away the traffic problem and brought people together and explored the street as play space.”

via What We Lose When Kids Can’t Play in Their Own Streets – Neighborhoods – The Atlantic Cities.