President Obama Pays Tribute to Fallen Police Officers

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Colleen CurtisMay 15, 2012
03:48 PM EDT Share This Post

President Barack Obama, with Chuck Canterbury, president, Grand Lodge Fraternal Order of Police, arrives at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service, an annual ceremony honoring law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in the previous year, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. May 15, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama was at the U.S Capitol today for a ceremony where he paid tribute to law enforcement officials who were killed in the line of duty in the previous year. The serive is part of the annual Peace Officers Memorial Day and National Police Week. 

In his remarks, the President acknowledged and thanked the families of those who have fallen, and highlighted the courageous acts of those we lost. He also praised the bravery of all those who serve as law enforcement officers across our country:

Every American who wears the badge knows the burdens that come with it -- the long hours and the stress; the knowledge that just about any moment could be a matter of life or death.  You carry these burdens so the rest of us don’t have to. 

And this shared sense of purpose brings you together, and it brings you to our nation’s capital today.  You come from different states and different backgrounds and different walks of life, but I know that you come here as a community:  one family, united by a quiet strength and a willingness to sacrifice on behalf of others. 

The rest of us can never fully understand what you go through.  But please know that we hold you in our hearts -- not just today, but always.  We are forever in your debt.  And it is on behalf of all of us, the entire American people, that I offer my thoughts, my prayers, and my thanks.

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President Obama Congratulates the LA Galaxy

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Megan SlackMay 15, 2012
07:16 PM EDT Share This Post

President Barack Obama welcomes Major League Soccer champions, the LA Galaxy, to honor their 2011 season and their MLS Cup victory, to the East Room of the White House, May 15, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Obama welcomed the LA Galaxy to the White House this afternoon to congratulate the team on its 2011 Major League Soccer Cup Championship.

The team, which has three of soccer’s biggest stars on its roster-- David Beckham, Landon Donovan, and Robbie Keane--won a tough championship match after going undefeated at home all season long.

“So everyone who's a part of this club -- the staff, the players, the fans back in L.A. -- together you pulled off one of the toughest feats in team sports:  You lived up to the hype.  You combined star power, hard work; it paid off,” President Obama said.

After the ceremony in the East Room, the team took questions from young soccer players as part of a Let’s Move! event encouraging kids to take up sports as part of a healthy, active lifestyle.

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Republicans Already Showing Weakness on Keystone Pipeline

Well, that didn’t take long.  Just one week into the conference committee on the highway bill, Republicans are showing signs of caving on their insistence that the Keystone pipeline be approved as part of the deal.

Throughout the past few months, we have been chronicling how Republicans have been apathetic to the underlying vices of the highway bill (S. 1813).  They basically told the Democrats in committee that they have every intention of passing the Senate bill; they just want a provision approving the Keystone pipeline as part of the agreement.  As any negotiator that lacks the credulousness of a toddler understands, once you take your bargaining chip off the table, the other side has no reason to give in.  Since Republicans have guaranteed Democrats that the tax and spend highway bill is too big to fail, Democrats will wait them out until they agree to jettison the Keystone provision.  And that is exactly what is happening.

Take a look at these quotes from The Hill:

Republicans are pressing for approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in a final House-Senate transportation bill but appear unlikely to draw a line in the sand that jeopardizes the infrastructure legislation.

While the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline is a top GOP and oil-industry priority, Republicans might have incentive to keep the matter unresolved, enabling them to continue using Keystone as a political weapon during the campaign season. [...]

“The overall Republican conference position is not to sink the conference report over [Keystone XL], however, as keeping that issue alive through the elections is also acceptable,” an oil industry source told The Hill.

Let’s be straight: the Keystone pipeline should never be used to pass bad legislation.  It’s just humorous to watch these guys capitulate on their one line in the sand.  As we’ve noted before, there are numerous problems with the underlying bill:

Taxpayer Bailout of Private Pensions: As part of an oblique effort to raise revenue for the faulty highway trust fund, the Senate bill allows corporations to put less money into company pensions that are backed by the taxpayer-funded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).  This would increase net profits for corporations, and by extension, generate $7 billion more in taxes to Uncle Sam.  In addition to serving as a convoluted way to fund the tenuous highway trust fund, it will also expose taxpayers to future bailouts of the PBGC when it becomes clear that the pension plans are underfunded.  [read more on this at the Heritage Foundation].General Fund Transfer: Just hours before the Senate bill was brought to a floor vote on March 14, Barbara Boxer slipped in a manager’s amendment that contained a provision (section 40313) authorizing a $5 billion general fund transfer to the highway trust fund.Nanny-State Enhancement Mandates: James Inhofe, the Republican architect of Boxer’s transportation bill, promised Republicans that the bill offered flexibility to the states for spending their infrastructure dollars, exempting them from the 10% “enhancement” mandates.  Well, the manager’s amendment appears to have vitiated that agreement.Other Top-Down Mandates and Anti-Free-Market Policies: There are sundry provisions that impose eco-fascism, establish anti-growth “made in America” mandates, discourage private sector investments in infrastructure, and offer giveaways to Big Labor.New Bureaucracies: The bill expands the size of government.  According to the Washington Letter on Transportation, as cited in Ken Orski’s Innovation News Briefs, the bill creates a new National Endowment for the Oceans, Coasts and Great Lakes, which will be housed in the Department of Commerce. It also provides for a seven-year reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a green program of the National Park Service within the U.S. Department of the Interior.Big Brother: The bill mandates that every new motor vehicle beginning in 2015 be equipped with a recording device designed to store data related to vehicle safety.IRS out of control: The bill grants authority to revoke passports of those who owe more than $50,000 in unpaid taxes.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of this 1676-page bill.  It also serves as a stark reminder why we should not lock up authority for all transportation responsibility in Washington.  This is not a bill we should support in any shape or form – Keystone or no Keystone.

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President Obama to Barnard College: "Fight for a Seat at the Head of the Table"

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Matt ComptonMay 14, 2012
05:37 PM EDT Share This Post

President Barack Obama sits with Barnard College President Debora Spar, left, and Chairwoman Jolyne Caruso-Fitzgerald before he delivers a commencement address for Barnard College graduates at Columbia University in New York, May 14, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

This afternoon, President Obama offered some advice to the 2012 graduates of Barnard College in New York:

After decades of slow, steady, extraordinary progress, you are now poised to make this the century where women shape not only their own destiny but the destiny of this nation and of this world.

But how far your leadership takes this country, how far it takes this world -- well, that will be up to you. You’ve got to want it. It will not be handed to you. And as someone who wants that future -- that better future -- for you, and for Malia and Sasha, as somebody who’s had the good fortune of being the husband and the father and the son of some strong, remarkable women, allow me to offer just a few pieces of advice. That's obligatory. Bear with me.

My first piece of advice is this:  Don’t just get involved.  Fight for your seat at the table.  Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.

Barnard is one of the famous "Seven Sisters" -- private female liberal arts colleges founded to offer first class education to women before many elite institutions allowed their admittance. It counts Maya Soetoro-Ng, President Obama's sister, among its alumni.

This was President Obama's first commencement address of 2012. You can read his full remarks here.

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Romney/RNC almost catches up with Obama/DNC in April.

The New York Times reported this morning that the combined raised total for Romney and the RNC was $40.1 million in April, with Romney having $61.4 million in the bank: in comparison, Obama/the DNC raised $43.6 million. Barack Obama’s own cash on hand for April – it was $104.1 million at the end of March – and we probably won’t be told it until the Sunday deadline, or possibly a little later than that. Though, to be fair, Romney and the RNC haven’t submitted their latest fundraising reports to the FEC, either.

Also: while I give points to the NYT for mentioning that this was a significant jump from Romney’s March haul of $12.6 million, they might have kept comparing apples-to-apples and included the RNC’s March fundraising total ($13.7 million). Or noted that the Democrats’ $43.6 million number for April represents a drop from March’s $53 million. Then again, I suppose that there’s a narrative in place.

The real question, of course, is just how much any of this means. Answer: thanks to the latest round of campaign finance reform, not as much as it would have in 2008. Romney and the RNC having this money is good, because it’ll fund infrastructure, campaign worker payrolls, GOTV efforts, and everything else you need to apply a force multiplier to local/grassroots efforts. And they’ll have the money to get the specific message that they want out. But, thanks to the Citizens United case, groups with an interest in the election have a much larger opportunity to have their voices heard, this cycle. Given that the central message this election will be Are you better off now than you were… heck, last month? you can imagine how much this upsets the Democratic party, despite the fact that nobody’s stopping them from likewise grabbing a microphone and singing out.

One last note: I don’t like lumping Romney and the RNC together like this, because it implies that the relationship between the two is essentially identical to that of Obama to the DNC. Which is false. Romney does not control the RNC the way that Obama owns the DNC; obviously the RNC will be working with the candidate, and naturally the Presidential race is the big one this year. But there are still House and Senate races for the national committee’s consideration. I note this because the DCCC and DSCC have been already told that there’s no DNC money for them*, and they are not happy about it…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

(H/T: @RyanGOP)

*In contrast, the RNC, NRCC, and NRSC have created an interlocking support network for the three national committees, including financial assistance when necessary.

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