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After Newtown, a president unleashed

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(Reuters) - Barack Obama came across like a president unleashed on Wednesday as he invoked the Connecticut shooting tragedy not only to address gun violence, but to tell Republicans to "peel off the partisan war paint," accept that he won the election and get on with the job of averting a fiscal calamity.

After Newtown, he suggested, the world looks different to him. Why not to everyone else?

"Goodness," he said, "if this past week has done anything, it should just give us some perspective."

Obama's news conference - on the day he was named Time Magazine's "Person of the Year," - was billed as an announcement of a new drive to tackle the problem of violence. But it ranged over the "fiscal cliff," the National Rifle Association, partisanship in America and the Republican Party's troubles with the conservative Tea Party movement.

While saying he was willing to compromise with Republicans on reaching a deal to avoid a year-end fiscal cliff of economy-shaking tax increases and spending cuts, he offered no concessions of his own even as he scolded them for intransigence.

With Americans' feelings still raw over last week's deadly shooting rampage at a Newtown elementary school, Obama signaled a willingness to take on the nation's powerful gun lobby in a way he had always avoided in his first term.

His stance was much tougher than the more conciliatory approach he took on November 14 at his first news conference after defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

It also appeared to reflect the emerging confidence of a president who, without the need to ever again seek re-election, is now thinking more about his legacy.

Speaking of Republicans still spurning his offers to resolve the standoff over the cliff, he said: "They keep on finding ways to say 'no' as opposed to finding ways to say 'yes.' I don't know how much of that just has to do with (that) it is very hard for them to say 'yes' to me."

He understood, he said, that some Republicans are "more concerned about challenges from a Tea Party candidate or challenges from the right."

But, he added: "If they're not worried about who's winning and who's losing, did they score a point on the president, if they extract that last little concession, did they force him to do something he really doesn't want to do just for the heck of it, and they focus on actually what's good for the country, I actually think we can get this done."

"If you kind of peel off the partisan war paint, then we should be able to get something done," Obama said.

TAKING ON THE GUN LOBBY?

After previously speaking only vaguely on the need to address gun violence, Obama ordered a high-level Cabinet group headed by Vice President Joe Biden to give him concrete policy recommendations within a month and vowed to move swiftly to submit them to Congress.

"This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task to pull together real reforms right now," Obama said.

Obama himself has done little to rein in America's gun culture in his four years in office. Gun control has been a low priority for most U.S. politicians due in large part to the clout of the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun industry lobby.

But the Democratic president appears to sense a possible tipping point in Americans' attitude toward guns after the horror of the Newtown killings, and made clear he will put the issue high on his second-term agenda.

Challenged by one reporter to explain "where have you been" on gun control until now, Obama sternly stared down his questioner, saying: "I've been president of the United States dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, an auto industry on the verge of collapse, two wars. I don't think I've been on vacation."

But he said the Connecticut shooting, just the latest of a string of such incidents on his watch, "should be a wake-up call for all of us."

Whatever steps the Biden group comes up with are likely to face some criticism because many Republicans see the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms as sweeping and sacrosanct.

Obama also did not mince words about the gun lobby, which has often succeeded in blocking gun legislation but this week said it also wanted to help prevent a repeat of Newtown.

"The NRA is an organization who has members who are mothers and fathers, and I would expect that they've been impacted by this, as well. And, hopefully, they'll do some self- reflection," he said.

Touting his approach to the fiscal cliff as the best way to prevent tax hikes on the middle class, Obama also bluntly warned Republicans that he would not negotiate with them over raising the national debt ceiling, which will need to happen in the first few months of next year, as leverage for a fiscal deal.

"The idea that we lurch from crisis to crisis, and every six months, or every nine months that we threaten not to pay our bills on stuff we've already bought, and default and ruin the full faith and credit of the United States of America, that's not how you run a great country," he said.

(Editing by Fred Barbash and Eric Beech)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/19/us-usa-fiscal-obama-idUSBRE8BI15720121219

That in bold is the kind of ####### that annoys me. They're all dug in and neither is willing to budge. It's like a game of chicken, but the only ones who lose are the citizens. I've thought the Republicans should budge on some things, but when I hear of a POTUS not practicing what he preaches, it gives me pause to reconsider if the POTUS is unwilling to do the same. Politics and government require compromise, from both sides, not just one.

 

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That in bold is the kind of ####### that annoys me. They're all dug in and neither is willing to budge. It's like a game of chicken, but the only ones who lose are the citizens. I've thought the Republicans should budge on some things, but when I hear of a POTUS not practicing what he preaches, it gives me pause to reconsider if the POTUS is unwilling to do the same. Politics and government require compromise, from both sides, not just one.

I don't know. Last I heard, Obama had moved the income threshold for the expiration from 250K to 400K and the revenue target down from $1.6TN to $1.3TN - that's $300BN move towards the other side. What has Boehner brought to the table? He moved the revenue target from $800BN to $1TN - that's a $200BN move towards the other side. How is a lesser amount reflective of a greater willingness to compromise? Right, it isn't. And remember, the negotiating positions are not equal. The President's starting position is what America voted for and supports. Boehner's starting position is what America has rejected. Elections have consequences, you know?

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I don't know. Last I heard, Obama had moved the income threshold for the expiration from 250K to 400K and the revenue target down from $1.6TN to $1.3TN - that's $300BN move towards the other side. What has Boehner brought to the table? He moved the revenue target from $800BN to $1TN - that's a $200BN move towards the other side. How is a lesser amount reflective of a greater willingness to compromise? Right, it isn't. And remember, the negotiating positions are not equal. The President's starting position is what America voted for and supports. Boehner's starting position is what America has rejected. Elections have consequences, you know?

I've thought the Republicans should budge on some things

See above-I already said I think the Repub's should compromise. I think the Pres should do the same on spending. It's clear to me; we need both. I don't know who Barack has worked consistently with across the aisle? I know he co-opted some Republican policy things that the Repub's then went against, I know he appointed some Repub's to positions, etc...but as a man-- which Republican in the congress or senate that he can go to and talk to? He made no allies with any R;s in his time in the Senate? At least Dumbya could find some common ground with Ted Kennedy and Lieberman and some others to get things done(not always for the better, but at least they would do something).

 

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Yes, it is true. The tyrant is unleashed. Long live the tyrant. Nobody can stop him for at least two more years. The House can hold hearings and pass articles of impeachment everyday, and the Senate will ignore them until the Republicans regain the Senate. Even then, they will never reach the two-thirds necessary to remove the tyrant. Harry is so excited he is finally taking up Nancy's invitation to bang her in the coat room to celebrate.

Edited by The Patriot
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The Republicans don't appear poised to take the Senate in two years and the 'tyrant' (very patriotic) took a fair majority of the popular as well as the substantial electoral vote. Sorry man, the R's stand only to lose more if they don't bend and get something done now.

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ROMNEY WINS ELECTORAL LANDSLIDE

victorymap.png

AUSTIN, Texas – November 6, 2012 –President-Elect Mitt Romney tonight accepted congratulations from Barrack Obama after winning a stunning electoral college upset. Romney won all but five states and the District of Columbia, garnering 489 electoral votes to 49 for Obama. The Obama campaign was at a loss for words to explain how the President ended up losing every swing state.

Romney addressed a victory party crowd from the Austin, Texas headquarters of Hart InterCivic Inc., the leading national provider of election voting systems, election management products and services. Romney said that Obama’s poor handling of Frankenstorm Sandy is what had turned the election at the last minute. “That storm not only flattened Atlantic City, it flattened the Chicago Political Machine too,” Vice-President-Elect Paul Ryan told the cheering crowd in Austin.

Political scientists will long be studying this election as Romney won by a remarkably consistent 5% margin in every state he carried, while Obama won by 5% in the handful of states he carried. The overall popular vote turned out to be 55% for Romney, 40% Obama, and 5% for all third-party candidates combined. Romney described the campaign as both his biggest and best investment ever.

New York Times “Five Thirty Eight” blogger and prognosticator Nate Silver had put Obama’s chances of victory at close to 85% and said only, “How could I have been so wrong?” when asked repeatedly by reporters to explain his fallacies.

http://trudgereport.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/romney-wins-electoral-landslide-do-not-release-prior-to-11-p-m-et-election-night/

Yes, it is true. The conspiracy is exposed.

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See above-I already said I think the Repub's should compromise. I think the Pres should do the same on spending.

He has. He put several hundred billion dollars of spending cuts on the table in addition to the $1.5TN that he already agreed to. That is more than a dollar of cuts for every dollar of revenue. That's what America supported in November. That's what's on the table. And the President can actually deliver the votes in Congress for what he puts on the table. If only the tan man could do that. Turns out that he made offers to the President that he can't get passed his caucus. What's the point of negotiating with Boehner? He's nobody. He can't deliver what he offers. He's a joke.

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