Obama to impose new gun control curbs next week

This coming:

President Obama will meet with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch on Monday to finalize a set of executive actions on guns that he will unveil next week, according to several individuals briefed on the matter.

White House officials declined to comment on Obama’s plans beyond releasing his weekly radio address on Friday, a day earlier than usual. But according to those familiar with the proposal, who asked for anonymity because it was not yet public, the president will expand new background-check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume gun dealers.

Obama to impose new gun control curbs next week

Why was President Obama standing during his Oval Office address?

Lots of theories floating around online about his today.. Standing = power? The resolute commander in chief?

I thought the stage looked strange.. Obama looked tired. The curtains behind him crabby and dull.. And he seemed uncomfortable standing..
For me it didn’t work..

Why was President Obama standing during his Oval Office address?

CLIMATE SUMMIT: A ‘WORKING DINNER’ IN PARIS 

A MAJOR SOLAR FLARE CAUSING LOW NORTHERN LIGHTS.. AND A PLAN FROM OBAMA?

I have been paying a lot of attention over all of my years on this site blogging and clogging up the networks about solar flares and the like.. See evidence here (http://coalspeaker.com/tagged/solar-flare) .. 

Tonight, there is a chance that northern lights will be as low as my state of Pennsylvania.. that’s a big deal. Far down here. It was a major solar flare and storm that obviously caused such an event.

And such an event could be a catastrophe..  And now timing from the Obama Administration couldn’t be more impeccable. A solar flare awareness is evident.. hopefully cool non-flared heads will prevail and this nation will advance beyond 20th century technology and insulate our grid. It would be a stunning achievement for the President–call it a new Dwight Eisenhower interstate system.. it could create jobs and maintain future economy might and security.

A failure?

That could be awful.

As FOX news reports, about the White House plan and obvious dangers:

“The efforts undertaken to achieve the objectives of this strategy will establish a national approach to the security and resilience in the face of our improved understanding of the seriousness of the space-weather risk, and the steps we must take to prepare for it,” Suzanne Spaulding, undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, said Thursday during an event hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) that discussed the new documents.

That risk is indeed serious, many experts say. High-energy solar flares aimed at Earth can affect the operation of orbiting satellites, and the most powerful emissions can even pose a risk to astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Of even larger concern are coronal mass ejections (CMEs), huge eruptions that send clouds of solar plasma streaking through space at millions of miles per hour. CMEs that hit Earth can spawn intense geomagnetic storms, with the potential to disrupt power grids, satellite navigation and radio communications temporarily.

In March 1989, for example, a strong CME caused a blackout that left 6 million people in the Canadian province of Quebec without power for 9 hours, OSTP Director John Holdren said during Thursday’s event, which was webcast live.

The news just so happens to coincide with a major solar storm.

All of earth should take notice.

BATTLE OF THE NATIONS: PUTIN VS OBAMA AT THE UN OVER SYRIA // World leaders including Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Raul Castro and Robert Mugabe speak at 70th UN General Assembly in New York

BATTLE OF THE NATIONS: PUTIN VS OBAMA AT THE UN OVER SYRIA // World leaders including Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Raul Castro and Robert Mugabe speak at 70th UN General Assembly in New York

"Michael Crowley in POLITICO writes: "Barack Obama faces a slew of Middle East crises that some call the worst in a generation, as new chaos from Yemen to Iraq — along with deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations — is confounding the president’s efforts to stabilize the region and strike a nuclear deal with Iran."

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pkVLqSaahk?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=374]

West may be caving on the Iran deal.. Adding some some more straws to the camel’s back: Saudi Arabia wants nukes. But will still not let women drive.

And this is the world we live in.

"Michael Crowley in POLITICO writes: "Barack Obama faces a slew of Middle East crises that some call the worst in a generation, as new chaos from Yemen to Iraq — along with deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations — is confounding the president’s efforts to stabilize the region and strike a nuclear deal with Iran."

10,000 US troops will be remaining in Afghanistan through the end of this year, clearly no drawdown will take place as earlier promised

President Obama said this is not a return to combat..
He also said that he will bring troops home by the end of 2016..

The troops were slated to leave Afghanistan very soon, but now that Afghan president asked for troops to stay longer, the United States has agreed.. 

The war goes on. We just stopped it war.

That’s why you will not be president.

Barack Obama, in a joking response to Jimmy Kimmel last night after Kimmel said the first thing he’d do as president is open the files on AREA 51, Roswell, and UFOs.. 

And another UFO related quip from the show:

On President Clinton’s claim that he went through the secret files on extraterrestrials and found nothing:
"That’s what we’re instructed to say."

Obama went on to read ‘mean tweets’ . . his comments about UFOs are considered, of course, jokes.

But let’s not forget.. for a joke to truly work, there’s always a shed of truth behind it.. Perhaps it is why people like KIMMEL, who always seem to ask Presidents about UFOs, will not be President..

Kimmel had previously made some waves after asking former President Clinton about aliens.. at that time, Clinton was analyzed to have had ‘stressed’ behavior during his response.. I can’t find any analysis yet of Obama’s reaction..

Jokes.. Jokes.. laughable moments. Teachable moments?

Am I overreaching here?

Gov. Scott Walker: ‘I don’t know’ whether Obama is a Christian

The potential 2016 contender dismissed questions about the president’s faith as insignificant.

So this is the debate for ‘16 now?
This..?

Gov. Scott Walker: ‘I don’t know’ whether Obama is a Christian

If people think this is journalisitucally offensive they probably never visited the Newseum or have any inkling on just how rude and crude newspapers once were.. that’s not to diminish what this paper did. But shouldn’t first amendment protections be afforded to those who we disagree with the most?

Quite frankly this is one of the major problems I have with Raw Story and other publications geared to promote themselves in Facebook. The vast majority of time is spent on click bate or controversial headlines that often neglect to delve any deeper than the byline.

Online news gathering and consumption should NE amazing. Instead we are left to debate mundane and insignificant events on social media.

One last bow.. 
Obama to make short trip to Saudi Arabia to pay respects to King Abdullah..

The state of the union.. the state of a presidency.. a President, once unpopular, now becomes a populist.. ....he rants against the wealth and proclaims his pain for the poor–he begs a Republican majority to pass Middle Class reforms they will never consider.

But standing ovations were common on the left, eye rolls on the right. But he was dead on accurate.. no Keystone Pipeline when a bigger project could prevail.. no little ideas. Big ideas–but why does he cut NASA? Why doesn’t he stand in the way of intrusive spying and corporate giveaways? Because.. I suppose, he’s a politician..  I have a feeling that some of the KoolAid left over from 2008 will be back on the shelves by tomorrow morning’s news run.. Though there’s only two years left.. Two years that will feature no minimum wage increase.. no sick pay for nursing mothers.. no big jobs program.. no reforms for the Middle Class. However it will make a hell of a few issues for 2016. And that’s the point.. politics is always getting in the way of real reforms. The standing ovations are all for show. Theater at its finest. Or worst.

This photo just about sums up the night quite well, don’t you think?

And if you want some more words, rely on Andrew Sullivan to provide him in a very good live blogging session of the 2015 State of the Union address..

NEW YORK TIMES splashes headline: Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty

The NEW YORK TIMES correctly points out this:

But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

And it then goes on to say how President Obama will get around that pesky rule:

To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions

 

NEW YORK TIMES splashes headline: Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty

MAUREEN DOWN HITS OBAMA: "THE GOLF ADDRESS"

You can read her full ultra-sarcastic op-ed in the NEW YORK TIMES..She writes as President Obama ..  I picked some of the money quotes worth reading:

THIS:

Now we are engaged in a great civil divide in Ferguson, which does not even have a golf course, and that’s why I had a “logistical” issue with going there

This:

I’ve heard all the carping that I should be in the Situation Room droning and plinking the bad folks. I know some people think I should go to Ferguson. Don’t they understand that I’ve delegated the Martin Luther King Jr. thing to Eric Holder? Plus, Valerie Jarrett and Al Sharpton have it under control.

Another:

I know it doesn’t look good to have pictures of me grinning in a golf cart juxtaposed with ones of James Foley’s parents crying, and a distraught David Cameron rushing back from his vacation after only one day, and the Pentagon news conference with Chuck Hagel and General Dempsey on the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Syria.

And finally: 

We here highly resolve that these golfing greats shall not have competed in vain, especially poor Tiger, and that this nation, under par, shall have a new birth of freedom to play the game that I have become unnaturally obsessed with, and that golf of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. So help me Golf.

A few things to remember—and in all fairness, one major thing to remember: Obama has spent less time on vacation then his predecessors ..  It may not seem so, but it’s true.

What does not look good, however, is a nation at war with itself churning and ISIS or ISIL gaining and beheading Americans while your sway away like Meryl in SIGNS. 

Also, if you read the full op-ed by Dowd, take a peak at the comments section.. already very angry pingbacks are happening and equally angry critical comments at Dowd’s obvious sarcastic criticism of the President..

Minus away the obvious political debate that will come from such a column and post.. and enter this: The president, some will say, is solitary by nature. Obama is to himself.. often appearing aloof and even in another world.. The isolation of the office has been spoken about by a number of Presidents in the past—and the argument has been made that a vacation clears the mind of a Chief Executive constantly mired in crisis..

But ti just looked awful to see the President hitting up the links as the Foley family wept for their deceased son—the same way it looked terrible for President Bush to say terrorism will not stand, followed by ‘now watch this shot’ as he too chipped away on a golf course..

MAUREEN DOWN HITS OBAMA: "THE GOLF ADDRESS"

…MEANWHILE..

Missing: a life-size statue of President Obama in Wilkes-Barre. Someone swiped the statue off the porch of a home in Wilkes-Barre, and it upset the owner so much, she ended up in a hospital.

Missing: a life-size statue of President Obama in Wilkes-Barre. Someone swiped the statue off the porch of a home in Wilkes-Barre, and it upset the owner so much, she ended up in a hospital.

White House Knew of Recent ISIS Threat to Kill James Foley

And the official reaction:

White House Knew of Recent ISIS Threat to Kill James Foley

THE VACATION IS OVER

The awkward nature of social media.. While Ferguson MO erupted in violence and the entire social media report erupted in virtual reality, the Obamas wined and dined with surf and turf–and danced nearly every song. A good time, we were told in a tweet, was had by all..