Tag Archives: Carney

Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic

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USA Today is reporting today that President Obama has accepted the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Fox News is reporting today that the President has also accepted the resignation of Jay Carney as White House press secretary.

USA Today reports:

Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson will take temporary charge of the department, Obama said, adding that he will nominate a new permanent secretary soon.

Obama began what he called a “serious conversation” with Shinseki Friday just hours after the VA secretary apologized to all veterans and the nation for scandal involving the systemic delay of health care to veterans.

While accepting Shinseki’s resignation, Obama went out of his way to praise the retired four-star general.

“He is a very good man,” Obama said. “He’s been an outstanding soldier. He’s a good person who’s done exemplary work.”

Secretary Shinseki is an outstanding soldier, but he obviously did not have the management skills to solve the problem at the VA. It is questionable if any person alive has those management skills. I suspect Mitt Romney does, but obviously, his talents will not be tapped.

Fox News reports:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is stepping down, ending a lengthy term in what is considered one of Washington’s toughest jobs. 

Carney has served as President Obama’s lead spokesman since 2011. The president interrupted Carney’s daily press briefing to announce his departure, calling him one of his “closest friends” and a trusted adviser. 

Noting Carney’s background as a reporter, Obama said: “I actually think he will miss hanging out with all of you.”

Jay Carney used to be a reporter. I wish him well in future endeavors, but I have to admit that I will never again believe anything he reports.

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All Elections Have Consequences

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The 2014 mid-term election is rapidly approaching. We can’t change the White House, but we can change Congress. Unfortunately we have two more years of President Obama in the White House. One of the consequences of that fact is the decline of respect for America around the world.

Military.com posted an article yesterday that illustrates how far America has fallen during the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

A Russian Su-24 fighter jet made multiple low-level passes close to a U.S. destroyer in the Black Sea in the latest “provocation” by Moscow related to the crisis in Ukraine, Pentagon and White House officials said Monday.

The Russian Jet never flew directly over the Arleigh Burke Class destroyer Donald Cook but at one point made a pass at 500 feet within 1,000 yards of the ship, Pentagon officials said.

The article further reports that the destroyer did not go to battle stations. Why not?

The article further reports:

Carney also said that President Obama was expected to phone Russian President Vladimir Putin to protest the Cook incident and warn of tougher economic sanctions if Russia fails to pull back the estimated 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders.

Carney stressed that the faceoff with Russia was not intended to start a new Cold War but “we have profound differences with Russia, and we confront those differences directly.”

“I can assure you that Russia’s provocations and further transgressions will come with a cost,” Carney said, referring to economic sanctions that are being discussed with the European Union.

“Certainly if they go further down the road in attempting to destabilize Ukraine the costs will continue to grow,” Carney said.

I think Russia has already figured out that President Obama’s red lines are drawn with invisible ink. We need someone in the White House who will honor the treaty obligations we made with Ukraine and make sure we honor our treaty obligations with NATO, because President Putin will be testing those shortly.

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Where You Meet Actually Matters

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Politico posted an article yesterday showing how the Obama Administration is claiming to be transparent while holding meetings outside the White House so that those meetings will not appear on the released White House visitor records. There are also private email accounts used to keep the emails out of the public record.

The article reports:

A House Energy and Commerce Committee report out Tuesday is stocked with emails sent from private addresses and meetings scheduled away from the building to avoid official record. Among these are several sent to a pharmaceutical industry lobbyist by Messina, then President Barack Obama’s then-deputy White House chief of staff, making promises about language for the health care reforms despite the resistance of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the measure.

The article cites an email from a private account of Jeff Smith, a senior adviser to the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, to Jim Kirkland, an executive from the GPS industry, which involved an invitation to meet away from the White House:

“Jim – coffee at Caribou Coffee – across the corner from the WH – would work at 11:30 a.m. on Friday…plus getting you through the new WH security rules these days almost takes an act of Congress almost (and you know how well that’s going these days),” Smith wrote. “[P]lus you’d appear on an official WH Visitor List which is maybe not want [sic] you want at this stage …”

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said in a statement accompanying the report that he isn’t alleging illegal activity — just that the administration’s actions has fallen far short of its transparency promises.

I might be more tolerant of these meetings if they hadn’t involved under-the-table deals which impacted legislation under consideration.

The article points out:

Rick Weiss, the director of strategic communications for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a statement that “Jeff Smith played no role in the LightSquared-GPS process.”

After POLITICO published a story in February 2011 on meetings arranged at offices on Jackson Place near the White House, White House press secretary Jay Carney said “the guiding principle here is transparency, and we believe that — nobody is, that I’m aware of, is hiding where they’re meeting.”

“It is routine for the White House officials to meet with all types of people, including lobbyists, and frequently here,” Carney said. “The suggestion that we’re not being transparent is laughable given the unbelievable precedent this administration has set in its — closing the door, the revolving door, and releasing these records.”

It really is time for these people to go back to Chicago.

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