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1. Scott M. | February 27, 2013 at 10:41 am

   Interesting story about a mass shooting in Switzerland. I think this is relevant because it’s often one of the counter-examples used when people talk about more gun control.

   http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/world/europe/deadly-shooting-in-swiss-factory.html?_r=0

   ….Mass shootings are uncommon in Switzerland, but the shooting in Menznau was the second such episode in two months, and it could revive debate on gun control in Switzerland, where it is estimated that there are between two and three million guns in circulation among the country’s population of eight million people.

   In January, a mentally ill man, armed with a hunting rifle and an early-20th-century army carbine, shot and killed three women and wounded two men in the southern Swiss village of Daillon. That shooting renewed calls for stricter gun controls, ranging from setting up a central registry of weapons to ending the tradition that allows people who perform military service to keep army-issue weapons at home.
2. John R | February 27, 2013 at 2:47 pm

   Bob Woodward, the reporter who took down Nixon, castigated Obama for ignoring his duty as commander-in-chief to protect the US!

   He said today Obama is showing a “…kind of madness I haven’t seen in a long time” for Obama not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of the possible sequester. Woodward went on to say he couldn’t imagine Ronald Reagan or George Bush ignoring their responsibility to protect the interest of the US based on budget concerns.

   Meanwhile Sec. Napolitano is releasing tens of thousands of detained illegal aliens before the sequester even takes place. The irony is that the DHS will have a larger budget after the sequester than it did last year! The same goes for the Pentagon as well!

   Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bob-woodward-obama-sequester-republicans-2013-2#ixzz2M82uFO2w

   The White House devised the sequester. The House has passed two bills to stop the sequester. Obama refuses to negotiate a solution and the Senate refuses to bring forward a bill to prevent the sequester.

   This all about politics and not leadership. Obama wants the sequester to happen, then he will make it as painful as he can, just so he can blame the Republicans. It’s all about the Dems regaining control of the House in’14.
3. 89Hoo | February 27, 2013 at 3:18 pm

   2 – John, the release of illegals by DHS was, according to the White House, the decision of career government employees within DHS who did not consult the White House before releasing them. The assumption is that the White House would have denied the request. So Obama is throwing the lifetime government employees under the bus, but he’s got the back of his appointees. It smacks of desperation.

   http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/02/white-house-was-not-involved-in-ices-decision-to-release-158027.html
4. 89Hoo | February 27, 2013 at 3:52 pm

   More scare-mongering hype:
   .
   Teacher pink slips claim by Duncan not backed by evidence
   .
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/teacher-pink-slips-claim-by-duncan-not-backed-by-evidence/2013/02/27/8a87aa2a-8113-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html
   .
   The descriptions of the post-sequester landscape that have been coming out of the Obama Administration have been alarming, specific–and, in at least some cases, hyped.
   .
   “There are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
   .
   When he was pressed in a White House briefing Wednesday to come up with an example, Duncan named a single county in West Virginia and acknowledged, “whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know.”
   .
   And, as it turns out, it isn’t
   .
   Officials in Kanawha County, West Virginia say that the “transfer notices” sent to at least 104 educators had more to do with a separate matter that involves a change in the way West Virginia allocates federal dollars designated for poor children.
   .
   The transfer notices are required by state law and give teachers a warning that they may be moved to a different position next school year. They don’t necessarily mean a teacher has been laid off, said Pam Padon, director of federal programs and Title 1 for the Kanawha County public schools. “It’s not like we’re cutting people’s jobs at this point.”
   .
   She said those 104 notices will ultimately result in the elimination of about five to six teaching jobs, which were likely to be cut regardless of the sequester.

   “The major impact is not so much sequestration,” she said. “Those five or six jobs would already be gone regardless of sequestration.”
5. Sandi Saunders | February 27, 2013 at 4:06 pm

   John R, I think it is safe to say that “the reporter who took down Nixon” is bucking to go out like Dan Rather.

   Naturally, I do not have the intellect to question your point, but there are those who do. Darned lucky for me:

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/bob-woodward-sequester_n_2774774.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
   –

   “Well, as it happens, Article One, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution actually does stipulate that Congress has the power to declare war. But in this day and age, that’s become a quaint notion, trampled underfoot by expanding executive power and the shifting definition of “war.” That said, if Congress wanted to defund the War in Afghanistan today, and they had the votes to override a presidential veto, then the very scenario Woodward declares to be beyond human imagination would, in fact, be reality.

   But more to the point, what Woodward dismissively (and, frankly, frighteningly) refers to as “this piece of paper and this agreement” is the official law of the land. Congress passed it. The president signed it. It happened. It’s happening. It’s the rock in the road that you can’t get around. In recent years, presidents may have claimed a certain amount of leeway in interpreting the bills passed by Congress in the form of signing statements. But signing statements are generally considered to be a sort of cheap trick — and at any rate, I can’t imagine that “if the day comes that this law just becomes too hard, I reserve the right to completely ignore it” would actually fly as a signing statement.”

   –

   Call me incapable of understanding reality if you like, I think Woodward is full of it.
6. Sandi Saunders | February 27, 2013 at 4:09 pm

   After beating your head against the brick wall of obstruction that Congress has been for over 4 years, I can see someone thinking “desperation” is worth a shot.

   –

   I am sure no detainees have ever been released without specific Oval Office approval before.
7. Sandi Saunders | February 27, 2013 at 4:14 pm

   Since so many other people have to tell me what to think and say, I have become alarmed at this startling information that I am sure you all have been aware of all along!

   –

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/women-work-for-free_n_2775267.html?utm_hp_ref=business

   –

   “Women workers are spending weeks toiling away for free as their male colleagues get paid — about 11 weeks and 3 days per year to be exact, according to an analysis for The Huffington Post by Ariane Hegewisch at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.”

   –

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/racial-wealth-gap_n_2772840.html?utm_hp_ref=business

   –

   “The wealth gap between blacks and whites has ballooned since the middle of the Reagan administration, nearly tripling between 1984 and 2009, according to a new Brandeis University study.”

   –

   My, my how far we have come. Throw in a little gambling and this rube would be “Shocked!, shocked I tell you!”
8. Jim Lucas | February 27, 2013 at 4:21 pm

   ‘Hoo….Napolitano was trotted out to blame the releases directly on the (not yet manifested) sequester.

   She works directly for Obama as a political appointee.

   SOP…..Obama duplicity & scaremongering.
9. Sandi Saunders | February 27, 2013 at 6:10 pm

   So clear this up for me, did you all truly think that all of the heads of the departments facing cuts would just smile and claim it would all be fine? Who does that? If they do not make this seem important (and I have no idea whether they are all just being hyperbolic or living in fear of the cuts), why would they ever get more money? You KNOW how this funding game is played and so your shock that it is played seems disingenuous. But, what do I know? I believed the employers who threatened to fire people for not voting right, so I am obviously not grasping this either.
10. Jim Lucas | February 27, 2013 at 7:20 pm

    #9 First of all, once again, they are not cuts.

    Secondly, do you imagine for a moment that Napolitano makes such a media appearence without Obama’s orchestration/approval?

    Hope that helps clear it up.
11. Sandi Saunders | February 28, 2013 at 10:54 am

    Well no, Jim Lucas, helpful as your kind efforts were, it cleared up nothing.

    –

    For months in and months out, it has been beaten into my humbly ignorant head that profits must rise or nothing grows, now suddenly the biggest driver of the economic bus is in total disarray, moving from crisis to crisis and never even resembling an actual governing body with a plan, and these budget cuts (which you somehow claim are not cuts, –that matter to us in funding, but make no difference in cutting), will have no effect?

    –

    Perhaps I have finally lost my mind. I was certainly warned.