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Obama’s compromise means ultimately that women would still get birth control without having to pay for it, no matter where they work. The president insisted he had stuck by that driving principle even in switching his approach, and the White House vehemently rejected any characterization that Obama had retreated under pressure.

Yet there was no doubt that Obama had found himself in an untenable position. He needed to walk back fast and find another route to his goal.

The controversy over contraception and religious liberty was overshadowing his agenda, threatening to alienate key voters and giving ammunition to the Republicans running for his job. It was a mess that knocked the White House off its message and vision for a second term.

Leaders from opposite sides of the divisive debate said they supported the outcome – or at least suggested they probably could live with it. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, the head of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops and a fierce critic of the original rule covering hospitals and other employers, said the bishops were reserving judgment but that Obama’s move was a good first step.

Conceding he wanted a resolution, Obama ordered advisers to find a middle ground in days, not within a year as had been the plan before the uproar. He said he spoke as a Christian who cherishes religious freedom and as a president unwilling to give up on free contraceptive care.

“I’ve been confident from the start that we could work out a sensible approach here, just as I promised,” Obama said. “I understand some folks in Washington may want to treat this as another political wedge issue, but it shouldn’t be. I certainly never saw it that way.”

Under the new plan, religious employers such as charities, universities and hospitals will not have to offer contraception and will not have to refer their employees to places that provide it. If an employer opts out of the requirement, its insurance company must provide birth control for free in a separate arrangement with workers who want it.

“Very pleased,” was how Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, reacted in a statement distributed by the White House. Her trade group represents Catholic hospitals that had fought against the birth control requirement, and Keehan said the new arrangement addresses the concerns it had.

Planned Parenthood, a prominent women’s health organization, said Obama had reaffirmed his commitment to birth control coverage. The group’s president, Cecile Richards, added, though, that it would be monitoring for “rigorous, fair and consistent” enforcement so women get the promised coverage.

Before announcing his decision to reporters, Obama telephoned Keehan, Richards and Dolan.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, many shrugged and said the rewrite did not change anything.

“It’s an accounting trick,” said Mike Gonzales of the Heritage Foundation. “Do they think people are stupid?”

The debate within the White House was intense even before the Jan. 20 decision was announced to exempt only churches and other houses of worships from the requirement that employers must cover free contraception. Other religious organizations were given an extra year to comply, but that concession didn’t do enough.

First in a rumble, and then in a roar, critics formed a movement to overturn what they considered to be an egregious violation. Bishops assailed the policy in Sunday Masses and Republican leaders in Congress pledged to push a legislative repeal.

The White House seemed to be caught flatfooted.

“The past three weeks have witnessed a remarkable unity of Americans from all religions, or none at all, worried about the erosion of religious freedom and government intrusion into issues of faith and morals,” said Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The turmoil, in turn, prompted advocates from other sides to get vocal in the battle for public opinion. They defended the rights of women and the need for preventive health care, including contraception, to be provided without fee for people of all faiths, no matter where they work.

Officials said Obama has the power under his health law to compel insurance companies to provide free contraception coverage directly to workers.

The health insurance industry voiced concern that putting the burden on them could set a precedent of shifting cost its way. The insurance companies will weigh in later as Obama’s new policy undergoes review, said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the America’s Health Insurance Plans trade group.

Administration officials say providing birth control won’t cost insurers any more in the long run, because it’s less expensive than the costs of maternal care and delivery. But insurers say they’ll have to pay drug companies for pills and doctors for prescriptions, so it won’t be free to them. The costs probably will be passed on to policy holders, as is happening already with other requirements of the health care law, such as allowing young adults to stay under their parents’ coverage until age 26.

By keeping free contraception for employers at religious workplaces – but providing a different way to do it – Obama was able to assert he had found “a solution that works for everyone.” Unclear was why the White House had not come up with the idea in the first place.

While Obama in 2008 won the total Catholic vote, 54 percent to Sen. John McCain’s 45 percent, he lost the white Catholic vote, 52 percent to 47 percent, according to exit polls. Once reliably Democratic, Catholics are now swing voters, with white Catholics making up the majority of the group.

The Rev. Joel C. Hunter, a moderate evangelical leader and a spiritual adviser to the president, said he thinks Obama responded quickly enough to heal the rifts with many of his religious allies. “I think it’s simple enough that most people will say, `Oh good, we can get to other things now,’” said Hunter.

Yet the change just led to more criticism from some of Obama’s opponents.

Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady said the revamped rule marked a “full scale retreat by a disconnected president who now knows that Washington shouldn’t force American to abandon their religious convictions.”

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said that that initial response indicated church leaders were not yet convinced the mandate respected religious freedom. Boehner has said he believes the original measure violates First Amendment rights, and his office said Friday that he would seek legislation.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., an ardent support of the original measure, offered a restrained response. Focusing on the benefits of health care, she said: “I appreciate the president’s unifying approach.”

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He hosted an event that features performances from Stevie Wonder and Ne-Yo at the Hollywood Palladium for his i.am angel foundation, established in 2009.

The Black Eyed Peas leader said he was inspired by the 2010 documentary “Waiting for Superman,” about U.S. public education. He said that “Superman is not coming to save no neighborhood or no education system.”

“They might as well call that movie ‘Waiting for William.’ That’s the reason why I’m doing what I am doing because that movie hits straight to heart because my mom went to one of those schools,” he said.

Will.i.am also talked politics: He said President Barack Obama is not a “magic man,” and that people shouldn’t expect him to solve the country’s problems with “some freakin’ plan.”

“We can sit and point fingers and say Obama’s not doing his job, but you’re supposed to do your job,” said will.i.am , who has supported Obama in the past.

Thursday night’s event, dubbed “TRANS4MATION EXPERIENCE,” was the first annual celebration for will.i.am’s foundation. Videos played in the background highlighted students struggling to get an education from various neighborhoods, including Boyle Heights, where will.i.am grew up. One message on the screen read: “It’s time to bring good to the hood.”

Will.i.am performed with the Black Eyed Peas, though Fergie was absent. The night’s top guest was Wonder, who played the harmonica and the keys and sang classics like “My Cherie Amor” and “Superstition.” The veteran singer said he was delighted to support will.i.am.

“How do you show your true friendship?” Wonder asked. “You put actions behind your words.”

Ne-Yo followed after Wonder, saying loudly to laughs from the crowd: “I want to know who wants to put me after Stevie Wonder. What the (expletive)?”

Other performers included K’Naan and Flo Rida.

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Ulugbek Kodirov entered the plea during a hearing in Birmingham before U.S. District Judge Abdul K. Kallon, an Obama appointee.

Defense attorney Lance Bell said the 22-year-old Kodirov avoided a potential life sentence by pleading guilty. He faces up to 30 years in prison, though Bell expected Kodirov to receive about half that. The judge also told Kodirov that he will face deportation once he’s released from prison.

Kodirov pleaded guilty to three counts: Threatening to kill the president, possessing an automatic weapon, and providing material support to terrorists. Four other charges were dropped as part of the deal.

The plea agreement says that in July 2011 Kodirov began communicating with a person known as “the Emir.” Kodirov said the person was a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. The agreement does not reveal the identity of “the Emir” or say whether the government believes he actually is an Uzbek terrorist.

The Emir “asked Kodirov if there was anything Kodirov could do about President Obama since Kodirov was closer geographically to the president than the Emir.”

Kodirov and the person discussed possible ways to kill Obama, including from long distance using a sniper rifle.

The agreement says Kodirov became disheartened when he realized how expensive sniper rifles are and realized he lacked the skill to pull off the shot. Kodirov then decided he could shoot the president from a closer distance in public.

“Kodirov said that he did not care if he got shot and killed, as long as he killed President Obama,” according to the plea deal.

Kodirov then struck up a friendship with another person in Birmingham who spoke Uzbek, and the two often attended Mosque together. The two often looked at jihadist websites and videos on Kodirov’s laptop, the agreement says.

On July 11, after the two went to a mosque in Birmingham to pray, Kodirov asked his friend to buy a gun for him so he could kill Obama.

Kodirov told the person he “knew this was what he was supposed to do for Islam,” the plea agreement says.

Kodirov, who once worked at a suburban shopping mall, has been held without bond since he was arrested in July.

He was accused of making four separate threats against Obama within a five-day period when he was meeting either with a witness who went to police or an undercover officer.

A complaint said Kodirov contacted an unidentified person trying to buy weapons in early July, and that person became a confidential source for the government. Accompanied by the witness, Kodirov purchased a Sendra M115A1 automatic rifle from an undercover agent at a Birmingham-area motel on July 13, when authorities said the final threat was made against the president. The agent also gave Kodirov four hand grenades with the powder removed.

Authorities say Kodirov was in the country illegally because he obtained a student visa but never enrolled in school.

Uzbekistan is located in central Asia and was once part of the former Soviet Union. It is slightly larger than California and the vast majority of its population is Muslim. Islamic terrorists have been linked to sporadic violence in the country for more than a decade, according to the State Department.

And see our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

See our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

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The first Black POTUS has always been considered the holy grail of African American achievements.  Most of us didn’t think we’d have a Black president for another 100 years.  We also didn’t consider the fact that the first Black president could have easily been a Republican (Former Secretary of State Colin Powell). Yet here we are, with some of us having more access to power than we’ve ever had before, and it’s turning into a mess.

One of the great challenges of being Black in America is that we sometimes become heavily dependent on our historical oppressors to validate our success.  We forget that the most successful African American on the plantation was not the one who made it into the big house; it was actually the one who escaped.

African Americans contributed heavily to the success of the Obama presidential campaign, but millions of white Americans had to give their stamp of approval before he was allowed into office.  So, to consider the first Black president to be the most accomplished African American in history moves us dangerously close to saying that getting approval from white America somehow makes you into a better human being.

Another thing we must be careful about is comparing Barack Obama to Martin Luther King, Jr. Not that one (a Civil Rights Activist) is better than the other (President of the United States), but in many cases, they are diametrically opposed.  No one can say what the relationship between Dr. King and President Obama would be if King were alive, but given that one of them (Dr. King) spoke endlessly about the ills of poverty, militarism and racial inequality, it’s not hard to imagine that the two might be at odds with one another.

A final area in which the Obama presidency has made its impact on Black history is through the tremendous divide that has been created in Black leadership.  The battle between Cornel West and Al Sharpton is both sad and counter-productive, as one man (West) has been marginalized by the administration and the other (Sharpton) has publicly stated that he refuses to say anything critical about the president (a promise that has never been made by any civil rights activist with access to the White House).

Both of these men have been politically neutered, as we live in a nation that refuses to listen to West and has simultaneously sought to control the voice of Sharpton.   If a man leaves his wife to date her sister, the sisters should not be fighting one another.  More plainly, Sharpton and West should be standing together, not battling one another as the White House sits without accountability for its actions.  Both men should be presenting a Black agenda to the president that is offered in exchange for their endorsements.  If the first job is to get Obama into office, then the second job should be pushing the administration to act on behalf of our community.

Obama is certainly an important part of Black history; we all know that.  But his presidency tells us more about our future than anything.  Similar to the Malcolm/Martin divide during integration, we are being invited to sit at important tables, as long as we are willing to eat the scraps.  We must be smarter now than we were 50 years ago, when we formed deep partnerships with our oppressors without stating our conditions in advance.

Black history is made, at least in part, by advances in the fight against racial inequality; so, racial inequality must be a consistent part of the national conversation to allow President Obama an opportunity to make more than a symbolic contribution to African American history.   Being a Black man in the big house is a wonderful thing, but it matters more that we get off the plantation.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Gutierrez used statistics to show that Obama was not in fact, the “Food Stamp President” and compassion to show that there is nothing wrong with helping struggling people survive.

The Huffington Post reports:

Let’s review — and let’s agree, Republicans and Democrats together — that the numbers don’t lie.

Under the food stamp President:

Spending increased by more than 19 billion.

The number of people using the program increased by nearly 11 million.

And the amount of the benefit increased by a historic amount.

We may not like the facts — but sometimes the truth hurts. [SLIDE 5]

George W. Bush is the Food Stamp President.

Under Food Stamp President George Bush, we spent more money, had more recipients and gave each recipient more money for food.

Read More At The Huffington Post

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Obama said his upcoming budget proposal, set to be released next week, would include a request for $80 million from Congress for a new Education Department competition to support math and science teacher preparation programs. Obama made a similar request to Congress last year but the measure didn’t pass.

Separately, he announced $22 million in investments from the private sector to support math and science efforts. Among the organizations committing fresh funding are Google and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Obama said a renewed focus on math and science education should be an American imperative.

“The belief that we belong on the cutting edge of innovation, that’s an idea as old as America itself,” Obama said. “We’re a nation of thinkers, dreamers, believers in a better tomorrow.”

Obama has set a goal of preparing more than 100,000 math and science teachers and training a million additional math, technology, engineering and science graduates over the next decade.

Seeking to highlight the benefits of math and science education, Obama hosted the White House science fair earlier Tuesday, featuring projects designed by over 100 students from across the country. The projects included a robot that helps senior citizens connect with their families via Skype and a portable disaster relief shelter that could be used to house people who have been displaced from their homes.

“It’s not every day you have robots running all over your house,” Obama said of the science fair. “I’m trying to figure out how you got through the metal detectors.”

The president said the students participating in the science fair were an inspiration, and made him confident that the nation’s best days were yet to come.

“You’re getting America in shape to win the future,” Obama said.

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The White House made a point of declaring it wanted to ease the concerns of church-affiliated employers – many would be required to provide birth control coverage to their workers under the new rules – but there was no word on how those concerns might be addressed.

The two-track drama pumped new furor into longstanding disputes that sometimes take a backseat in political campaigns because the lines are so familiar and firmly drawn. Last week’s Komen-Planned Parenthood dispute stirred many women’s groups that support legal abortion. And the Obama ruling touched a nerve with moderate Roman Catholics who support contraceptives but also defend their church’s right to run its hospitals and other institutions according to religious convictions.

Republican presidential candidates pounced on what they considered a blunder by President Barack Obama. They believe his administration’s ruling will alienate moderate Catholic voters who could prove crucial in November in Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

There also could be political repercussions from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure controversy. The breast-cancer charity, facing fierce criticism, mostly from women’s groups, quickly overturned its decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a major provider of abortions, but it also screens women for breast cancer and other health problems.

In Atlanta, Karen Handel, a Komen vice president who played a role in the fund cutoff decision, resigned Tuesday. A Republican who ran for governor in Georgia, Handel was seen by some as an example of what they felt was an increasing tendency by Komen to bring partisan politics into the charity’s decisions.

“I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale and my involvement in it,” Handel said in her resignation letter.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for his part, said he supported Komen’s original decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood.

The arguments came as the GOP presidential hopefuls campaigned in several states and Republicans voted in Colorado and Minnesota. Each candidate tried to take advantage of the unusually intense focus on reproductive issues.

Romney, a Mormon, decried Obama’s “assault on religion,” telling Colorado voters the new contraception ruling was “a real blow … to our friends in the Catholic faith.”

Newt Gingrich, a Catholic, told Ohio Republicans, “There has been a lot of talk about the Obama administration’s attack on the Catholic Church.”

But Gingrich, who is struggling to narrow Romney’s lead in the GOP nomination race, also turned his fire on the former Massachusetts governor. “Governor Romney insisted that Catholic hospitals give out abortion pills, against their religious belief, when he was governor,” Gingrich said.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, also a strong anti-abortion advocate and a Catholic, made similar remarks about Romney in a written article Tuesday.

As governor, Romney enforced a law that required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. Some Catholics say the so-called morning-after pill is a form of abortion. Romney said he did not support the law, which passed despite his veto. But he also said at the time, “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information.”

Romney may have given Gingrich and Santorum a new opening Tuesday when he likened “morning-after pills” to “abortive pills.” Romney supported legalized abortion when he ran for Senate and governor in Massachusetts, but he now opposes it.

The White House and Obama’s re-election campaign endured another day of sharp debate over the contraception ruling, which falls under preventive-health measures attached to the 2010 health care overhaul. Church-affiliated employers’ health insurance plans will have to cover birth control, regardless of the institutions’ religious principles. Churches are not covered by the rule, but affiliated employers such as colleges and hospitals are.

The ruling follows the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation to treat birth control as preventive health because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies. For religious-affiliated employers, the requirement will take effect in mid-2013.

Workplace health plans will have to cover all forms of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including the birth control pill, implantable devices, sterilization and the morning-after pill. There is no mandate to cover abortions.

Last Sunday, Catholic bishops in more than 140 dioceses issued denunciations of the decision that were read at weekend Masses.

Sister Carol Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association – which supported Obama’s 2010 health care law – summed up the feeling of some moderate Catholics who say political analysts are missing the point.

“It’s not the issue of contraception but religious freedom,” she said. “It’s not about preventing women from buying anything themselves, but telling the church what it has to buy, and the potential for that to go further.”

Wall Street Journal editorial writer Peggy Noonan said the contraception ruling might cost Obama the election.

But Jen Psaki, a former Obama aide, said millions of American women, including Catholics, see it differently.

“This is about one issue, and that is making sure all women, especially those who can’t afford it, have access to health care,” said Psaki, who is Catholic. “And if Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich continue to make a political issue out of such an important human right, they risk jumping the shark with women voters of all political stripes.”

Groups on the left and right raced into the debate.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he hopes the Obama administration “backs down on this rule that violates conscience. If not, we’ll do everything in our power to repeal it.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America defended the new ruling.

“This is one of the biggest victories for women’s health in a generation,” said Nancy Keenan, its president. “Nurses, janitorial staff and professors who work at colleges and universities that do not currently cover birth control will get access to contraception.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney didn’t say how employers’ concerns might be addressed, though he said there were a lot of ideas for doing it.

He said Obama’s focus is making sure that women employed by Catholic-affiliated employers like hospitals, colleges or charities are able to get contraception. At the same time, Carney said Obama wants to respect religious beliefs and convictions.

David Axelrod, a top political aide to Obama, hinted at possible adjustments to the rule or its application. He told MSNBC the administration didn’t intend to “abridge anyone’s religious freedom.”

“This is an important issue,” Axelrod said. “It’s important for millions of women around the country. We want to resolve it in an appropriate way, and we’re going to do that.”

Santorum suggested this week that efforts to reach an accord won’t be easy.

“The Catholic Church has been arguing and negotiating this for a year, and the administration is saying `it’s just a misunderstanding,’” Santorum said while campaigning in Colorado. “It’s just a bunch of bull. They are folks who are trying to use their power to force people to do things that they believe they should do and are right. They don’t care about their religion.”

Speaking at a 2006 Call to Renewal conference, organized by the religious anti-poverty group Sojourners, Obama said secular Americans were wrong to ask churchgoers to “leave their religion at the door before entering the public square.”

But Obama also said religious groups must be recognize “ground rules for collaboration” and the importance of the separation of church and state.

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The Obama campaign said Monday it had decided to return the donations arranged by Chicago brothers Carlos Cardona and Alberto Rojas Cardona, who had begun raising money for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee last year.

The New York Times reported late Monday that the fundraisers are the brothers of casino owner Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, who skipped bail in Iowa in 1994 and has since been linked to violence and corruption in Mexico.

The campaign said it refunded the money raised by family members after the newspaper asked about the brothers’ fundraising role. Obama campaign officials said they were identifying donations bundled by other people connected to Cardona, expected to be about $100,000, and would return those funds as well.

“On the basis of the questions that have been raised, we will return the contributions from these individuals and from any other donors they brought to the campaign,” said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

The newspaper reported that Gordon Fischer, a lawyer and the former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, had sought a pardon for Juan Jose Rojas Cardona from Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat, but none was granted.

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The relative said Sarah Obama was traveling to her home in the village of Kogelo, in western Kenya, when the accident happened Saturday night.

He said the vehicle lost control and rolled as the driver attempted to overtake a truck near the Kisumu airport. The relative asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak for the family.

Najim Mawji, the chief operating officer of the Agha Khan hospital in Kisumu, said doctors discharged her Saturday night after she had gone through several tests.

Mawji said she coped well with the shock that came from the accident.

Sarah Obama is the second wife of Obama’s paternal grandfather. Obama referred to her as “Granny” in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” and described meeting her during his 1988 trip to his father’s homeland and their awkwardness as they struggled to communicate.

Barack Obama has visited his Kenyan relatives three times in Kogelo, and his step-grandmother has gone to the U.S. at least three times. In a 2008 interview she said they are close, although they have to speak through an interpreter.

Kenya has a special regard for President Obama, the son of a Kenyan economist and an American anthropologist. Children, shops and dozens of minibuses — which carry names in Kenya — are named after the president.

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Obama said in a pre-Super Bowl interview on NBC that his administration is creating more than 250,000 jobs a month, the most since 2005, and a reversal from the 750,000 jobs the economy was losing three years ago.

The president said American manufacturing still needs a boost and “We have got to make sure we are pushing American energy, not just oil and gas, but clean energy.”

Obama also said the country needed to return to “old-fashioned American values,” so “everyone gets a fair shake.”

Three years ago, Obama said if the economy hadn’t turned around by this time, his presidency would be “a one-term proposition.”

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The Grio’s Political Analyst, Perry Bacon, Jr., examines the unemployment numbers and what it could mean in a potential Romney/Obama match-up in November:

The job news puts Romney in a complicated situation, as he must in some ways root for the jobless rate to go back up or not dip too low, as that would further threaten his route to the presidency. At the same time, he must of course avoid rhetoric that sounds like he is not enthusiastic about economic growth.

The alternative for Romney is to acknowledge the positive news, but say the economy would have rebounded even faster if he were president, a kind of counter-factual that is hard to convince voters of. [President Barack] Obama has struggled with this problem for three years, as voters have largely not supported his argument the recession would have been even worse without the 2009 stimulus.

The GOP candidate took this approach on Friday, after the jobs’ numbers were released.

“We welcome the fact that jobs were created and unemployment declined,” Romney said in a statement. “Unfortunately, these numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama’s policies have prevented a true economic recovery. We can do better. He added, “long-term unemployment remains at record levels.”

With Romney still rebounding from his “I’m not concerned with the very poor” gaffe, this evidence that Obama may just be on to something does not bode well for the Massachusetts millionaire. Conversely, the fact that unemployed people who have stopped seeking jobs were not included in the latest statistics — leaving open the possibility that when they hit the market again the numbers will rise — means that Obama shouldn’t rest easy just yet.

Read more on what the unemployment numbers means for election 2012 at TheGrio.com

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“I don’t think there’s a better time than African-American History month to consider the tremendous progress we’ve made through the sacrifices of so many, or a better time to recommit to the challenges we face right now,” said Obama in a video to his supporters.

It is expected that the Democrats would work to shore up their Black base right before the president’s bid for re-election. The dampened enthusiasm among Black voters who are facing 15.8 percent unemployment and rapidly declining wealth levels is also expected. The Black unemployment number is more than double that of white Americans, which stands at 7.5 percent. Throughout the Obama presidency, White unemployment has improved, while Black unemployment has gotten markedly worse.

Ironically, the “African Americans for Obama” website says that the president has been fighting “to restore economic security that has been eroding for American families for a decade.”

President Obama won 96 percent of the Black vote in 2008. His approval rating today stands at 91 percent. The black community continues to be the strongest and most loyal base of the Obama Administration.

Political commentator, Yvette Carnell, has something to say about the issue:

“I have no problem with Obama targeting African-American voters. None. He needs us and he knows it,” said Carnell. “What I do have a problem with, however, is how most of the targeting begins during campaign season and ends on election day. We’re more than just a voting bloc. We’re real citizens with real needs, needs which I hope the President begins to acknowledge and address.”

Columbia University Professor Christopher Emdin doesn’t agree with Carnell’s assessment.

“I do not believe the ‘frustration and dampened enthusiasm’ cited within Af-American communities is as pervasive as we are led to believe. With that being said, these facts do not negate the fact that these communities are dealing with serious issues related to education and poverty,” said Dr. Emdin. “I do not believe that Obama’s campaigning in Af-American communities is reflective of some ulterior agenda to “use them when he needs them.  It very well may be an effort to make a shift to explicitly focus on the needs of this community.”

The pending re-election of Barack Obama has put Black voters in a quandary. While many would agree that conditions have worsened for the Black community under Obama, the Republican Party provides no reasonable alternatives. In many cases, Black people have become the political orphans of America:

You can either live with the parents who abuse you or live with the child molester down the street. While one fate is clearly worse than the other, there is no end to the pain in sight.

It is actually logical for the Obama Administration to keep Black voters on the back-burner. When a group gives you 91 percent approval and asks for nothing in return, there is almost no political incentive to do anything for them. This calculation likely played a role in the statement that the “rising tide will lift all boats” made three years ago, when the president was asked about inequality in wealth and unemployment. The “lift all boats” policy was a clear and miserable failure, for most economic experts can tell you that racial inequality is not going to fix itself without targeted economic policy.

Right now, in the Black community, there are at least two types of people: those who are suffering and those who are not. The suffering group consists of the poor, unemployed, and those who live under the thumb of the criminal justice system. The rest of us have jobs, food to eat and are not impacted directly by mass incarceration. If you’re in the second group, it’s difficult to find fault with the Obama Administration, for a Black president grants the symbolic comfort that comes along with the “Mama I Made It” syndrome that justifies the trade-offs many of us make for the sake of economic and social progress in a White supremacist society.  Being the first Black president is the granddaddy of all “proud mama” moments, so there are millions willing to forgive nearly any short-coming of the Obama White House to maintain access to the throne.

For those who care about the poor, there is almost no redemption when the president barely mentions poverty in his speeches.  For the unemployed, it’s hard to imagine how your life will get better by supporting an administration that helped white folks find jobs while letting the Black numbers reach levels approaching those of the Great Depression. For those suffering with the effects of mass incarceration, it’s hard to get excited about a president who has not directly confronted the debilitating effects of the drug war, which has destroyed millions of families and an entire generation of children.  All of these issues indicate a state of emergency in the Black community; but thus far, we’ve only given White Americans the right to express dissatisfaction with their condition.

The implicit African American slogan for the Democratic Party is “You should just stop complaining, because the Republicans are even worse than we are.” The threat of political punishment is clearly enough to secure the Black vote without doing a thing. But at the same time, the Black political orphans of America do have a choice. WEB Dubois, when faced with few quality political options 50 years ago, simply said that he refused to vote at all.  Rather than behaving like a teenage girl who shares her body with the first man who buys her a cheeseburger, Dubois advocated for the idea that we save our votes for politicians who have truly worked to earn them.

After a mass holdout from conscientious Black voters, perhaps the Democrats will then strive to honestly earn the Black vote instead of simply telling us that they are not as horrible as the Republicans.  It should not be taboo to request that Black voters have enough self-respect to demand that all politicians give priority to the issues that lead to our suffering. There are no victims, just volunteers, and we don’t have to be political orphans forever.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here,

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Obama’s remarks Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast were his most explicit account of how his personal religious beliefs factor into his decision-making on the nation’s pressing problems. The comments came amid election-year criticism from Catholic groups and some Republicans that the president is waging a war on religion following his decision to require church-affiliated institutions to cover free birth control for employees.

Speaking to more than 3,000 people at the annual breakfast, Obama said “faith and values” should play as much as role in tackling the nation’s challenges as sound decision-making and smart policies.

He said, for example, that his own call for fairness in the tax code – a central tenet of his State of the Union address and his 2012 campaign – is both economically sound and consistent with the teachings of Jesus.

“If I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense,” he said. “But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that `for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’ It mirrors the Islamic belief that those who’ve been blessed have an obligation to use those blessings to help others, or the Jewish doctrine of moderation and consideration for others.”

He also said the Wall Street reform he championed both “makes the economy stronger for everyone” and abides by God’s command to “love thy neighbor as thyself” because it helped people who had been hurt or treated unfairly by financial institutions.

And Obama said he believed in a “biblical call” to care for the poor and to follow “the responsibility we’re given in Proverbs to `Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.’”

The president’s remarks came one day after Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, created a flap with clumsy comments about the poor.

Romney said wasn’t concerned about the “very poor” because they have a safety net. He also said he wasn’t concerned about the very rich and intended to focus his campaign on the middle class.

“You can focus on the very poor; that’s not my focus,” Romney said.

While the White House said the president’s remarks were not meant to be political, his comments did fit neatly into the Obama campaign’s effort to draw sharp contrasts between the president and Romney.

The former Massachusetts governor is among Republicans who have criticized the president for not exempting religious organizations from a requirement in the 2010 health care law that requires insurers to cover birth control for their employees. Romney said this week that the president was ordering “religious organizations to violate their conscience.”

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Obama has “declared war on the Catholic Church,” and House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday the mandate violates the Constitution.

Obama never mentioned the controversy in his remarks Thursday, nor did he reference his Republican rivals by name. But his broader defense of his policies was a rare interjection of politics into the annual prayer breakfast. The breakfast is organized by bipartisan congressional lawmakers, but speakers often avoid overt political references beyond calling for civility and respect in Washington.

While Obama speaks often about his faith, he prefers to worship in private. He said Thursday that he starts each morning with a brief prayer, then spends time reading scripture. Sometimes, he said, pastors come to the Oval Officer to pray with him, for his family and for the country.

He also described his own religious transformation in deeply personal language Thursday, from growing up in a non-religious home to finding Christ later in his life. He recalled a visit a few years ago with the evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, which ended with the president feeling compelled to pray for the aging Graham.

Obama said when he found himself at that moment not knowing what to say, the Holy Spirit interceded.

“I have fallen on my knees with great regularity since that moment, asking God for guidance not just in my personal life and my Christian walk, but in the life of this nation and in the values that hold us together and keep us strong,” he said.
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In the video, he shares his understanding of the plight of everyday Americans and juxtaposes it with emotional — or so he hopes — references to the Civil Rights Movement and slavery and urges Black voters to “keep making history”:

This month we are announcing the 2012 launch of African Americans for Obama. I don’t think there’s a better time than African-American history month to consider the tremendous progress that we’ve made through the sacrifices of so many, or a better time to commit to meeting the very real challenges we face right now.

Every day I think of the generations of African-American men and women who overcame slavery and oppression, risked their own safety to cast a ballot, even gave up their lives to help build a country that lived up to its founding principles. Their extraordinary hope, their unwavering determination changed this country. Their efforts made it possible for somebody like me to be here today.”

Beginning in November, when Obama surprised attendees of the first African-American Policy In Action Leadership Conference, and gaining momentum with the White House release of “The President’s Agenda and the African-American Community,” the president has quietly tried to staunch the flow of resentment that many in the Black community feel for his seemingly blatant disregard for the nearly 16 percent unemployment rate – nearly double the national average — and his continued focus on the middle-class while an estimate 27.4 percent of African-Americans are living below the poverty line.

Still, according to a statement on BarackObama.com, that shouldn’t stop African-Americans from coming out in droves in November in support of the president:

In some ways this election is more important than the last for our community. If we fail to re-elect President Obama, some people will say everything we’ve accomplished since 2008 was a fluke. That’s why we’ve got to speak loudly about his accomplishments and make sure that, throughout the campaign, we’ve got President Obama’s back.”

For many in the African-American community, that decision hinges upon clear evidence that Obama has ours.

To learn more about the campaign, click here.

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President Barack Obama showed the world that he is musically inclined, when he coyly sang a few lines from Al Green’s romantic ballad “Let’s Stay Together” at a campaign event in January.  “That was completely spontaneous,” Mrs. Obama told Jay Leno during the interview.   “I didn’t even hear about it until it got on YouTube, but he does have a beautiful voice, and he sings to me all the time.”

The First Lady, who admits she can’t sing, was caught on video last May busting a few moves at a middle school dance party.  She demonstrated without a bit of shyness that she can do the Dougie, Running Man and Cha-Cha with the best of them.

“Let’s Stay Together” is apparently one of Obama’s favorite songs according to the First Lady.  She also admitted that the president seems to prefer the classic slow jams. “I knew when people said he sang, I thought I’ll bet he sang Al Green,” Mrs. Obama said. “He sings a lot of Al Green, Marvin Gay, a little Stevie. He likes the classics.”

On the flip side, while Mrs. Obama doesn’t mind having her husband serenade her, the children feel differently.  Malia and Sasha aren’t big fans of their dad’s crooning and are big believers in the adage “silence is golden.”  “Anything we do is highly embarrassing. They just want us to be very quiet, very quiet,” Mrs. Obama said.

As for the Mitt Romney‘s rendition of “America the Beautiful,”  the First Lady tactfully said, “It’s beautiful! It is America’s song, and it’s a song that’s meant to be sung by every American.”

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The picture also appeared on the page of a high school student and is being investigated by the secret service.

MSNBC reports:

Shearer, who said he would sacrifice his life for President Barack Obama, told ABC15 that he didn’t “think that them shooting up the T-shirt was a big deal.”

“I think it was more of a political statement obviously,” he added. “It’s not like they were going to go out and shoot the president.”

Read More At MSNBC

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You’ve heard it from the pundits:  ’Obama is cloistered in the White House.’ ‘He’s aloof.’ ‘He’s in the bubble.’ He’s not connecting,’ joked Obama. “And that’s why one of my big goals this year was to get out and be among every day, ordinary Americans — like the men and women of the Alfalfa Club.

Obama even mentioned his surprisingly formidable singing talents at the dinner as well:

At least my harshest critics can agree, I have a promising future as an Al Green impersonator, said Obama.

The president kept the jokes flying, even poking a bit of fun toward the direction of Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner:

John, I want you to know – I am eager to work with members of Congress to be entertaining tonight. But if Congress is unwilling to cooperate, I will be funny without them.

It wasn’t all jokes at the event as Occupy DC protestors gathered outside the Capitol Hilton, glitter bombing Senators Joe Lieberman and Mark Warner, who reportedly still had glitter in the hair. Police also reported that some of the female protestors taunted guests by ripping off their shirts.

The Alfalfa Club counts former presidents as part of its selective membership. George H.W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush were guests at the dinner. Michael Bloomberg and former presidential hopeful John McCain were also in attendance.

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From Rep. Joe Wilson’s now infamous “You Lie!” outburst (watch above) to fellow Republic Congressman Doug Lamborn’s “tar baby” remarks last summer, Obama has had to deflect some of the GOP’s harshest barbs, exhibiting a grace that has caused some critics to complain that he should meet the fire head on. The latest line stepping from a GOP elected official happened this week, and the images captured froze a moment that won’t soon be forgotten.

On Wednesday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (pictured) was snapped in an Associated Press photo with her finger in the face of Obama, who had his right hand on her left elbow as she seemed to be yelling at him once he landed in the governor’s state. Although speculation surrounding the confrontation swirled about, Brewer addressed the perceived argument in a press conference (report courtesy of USA Today) last night.

I must say, I was not hostile, I was trying to be very, very gracious, said Brewer of the moment between she and Obama.

Brewer claimed that upon meeting the President on the tarmac, Obama switched the subject to her memoir, “Scorpions for Breakfast,” where she described him as “patronizing” after a 2010 White House meeting. Of the photograph, Brewer again showed slick politician savvy by answering a direct question of whether she was disrespectful to the President in that moment:

I probably have better photographs of me than that, said Brewer. But I hope will take it into context that I was talking and I talk with my hands.

Talking with one’s hands is one thing, pointing your finger in the face and yelling at the President of the United States is another matter all together.

Obama isn’t the first president to endure such a blitz from an opposing party: Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both suffered under the hot glare of critical analysis.

The particular way President Obama has been handled, though, points to racism as the bottom line.

In an election year still shaping itself for an epic November showdown between Obama and whoever the GOP nominee shall be, Republican officials and conservative pundits are surely sharpening their pens and words in attempt to maim the President’s name and perhaps rattle his formidable shell.

Still, the likes of Brewer, Wilson, and Lamborn should be taken to task for their behavior and outright racism. Even though the President has helmed the assassination of Osama bin Laden, forced insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, coordinated the rescue of two Navy Seal hostages, reformed student loans, and rehabilitated the American auto industry, I would argue that President Obama is indeed one of the most disrespected — if not the most disrespected– president of this country.

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“He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident,” Geithner said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another Treasury secretary.”

Geithner is the only remaining top official on Obama’s original economics team. He had considered leaving in August after the congressional battle over raising the debt limit was resolved.

Obama asked him to reconsider and remain in the Cabinet, and Geithner did. But the incident heightened expectations that Geithner would serve only through the 2012 election.

Asked for reaction to Geithner’s comments Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said, “In August, when the president asked Secretary Geithner to remain in his position, Secretary Geithner made it clear he intended to leave after the election and the president understood that decision.”

Geithner, who helped lead the administration’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, has been a frequent target of criticism in his three years at Treasury. Many accused him of siding too closely with Wall Street in the government bailout of the financial system.

As the administration’s highest-profile economic figure, Geithner been a lightning rod for criticism of its economic stewardship. Critics contend that government spending under Obama failed to keep unemployment from rising and gave the country record budget deficits.

But Geithner also received praise for his leadership in getting a sweeping financial overhaul through Congress and in the efforts he made to stabilize the financial system

Geithner’s supporters also argue that the Treasury secretary provided Obama with sound advice on how to restructure the financial system. They note, too, that he successfully managed the government’s $700 billion financial bailout to limit taxpayers’ losses.

In the interview Wednesday, Geithner offered no hints of what he might do after leaving the administration.

“I’m very fortunate,” he said. “I work with tremendously talented people, and this is one of the most important times in modern history to be in the world of economic policy and finance. And I work for a great president, who I believe in.”

It isn’t unusual for Cabinet secretaries to leave after just one term of a two-term presidency. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both had three Treasury secretaries during their two terms in office.

The only Treasury secretary in recent history to serve more than four years was Nicholas Brady who served as Ronald Reagan’s third Treasury secretary. Brady then stayed to serve for all four years of the George H.W. Bush administration.

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His job approval ratings point to an uptick. The Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden just pulled off a daring rescue that Obama authorized in Somalia. He’s fresh off a big speech before Congress, and the Republicans who want his job are criticizing each other probably more than they are Obama.

As he hits the road for three days of travel to important political states, Obama is on a roll.

Feeling good, he even tried his hand at a bit of public crooning a few days ago, channeling the Rev. Al Green to a fundraising crowd at the Apollo Theater in New York and securing the highest of pop culture distinction: a ring tone.

It could be a fleeting moment for Obama. While the economy is improving with indicators trending positively, unemployment remains high at 8.5 percent and international debt crises and tensions could unravel the gains.

For now, Obama is not hiding his upbeat demeanor.

Arriving in Iowa on Wednesday, he jogged, grinning, to a rope line of a couple of dozen supporters. He later expressed nostalgia for the days in 2007 when he was campaigning in Iowa and struck a defiant tone against congressional Republicans that was even sharper than the repudiation he offered Tuesday night in his State of the Union address.

“Our economy is getting stronger, and we’ve come too far to turn back now,” he told workers and guests at a conveyor manufacturing plant in Cedar Rapids. Speaking of Republicans, he said, “Their philosophy is simple: We’re better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.”

“Well, I am here to say they are wrong,” he said.

The spring in his step comes as polls show slight improvement in his job approval ratings. A Washington Post/ABC poll last week had him evenly split 48-48 on that question. A Gallup tracking poll has him even in recent surveys, compared with a few months ago where more disapproved than approved

On the road through Friday, Obama will bask in the afterglow of his prime-time address and use the power of the presidency to compete for headlines with leading GOP White House hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich as they knock heads ahead of the Jan. 31 Florida primary. He will try to promote a populist message of income equality that Obama’s team believes can resonate with voters.

If 2011 began with overtures to Republicans and big business, 2012 is about operating on his own terms. He will challenge Congress to pass his initiatives, some of which he has tried before without success. For now, Obama is liberated. The thrust and parrying of governing has not picked up in Washington yet.

The road gives him an opportunity to goad congressional Republicans, believing he has been able to sway public opinion with his presidential megaphone before. He cites Washington’s decision to extend, for two months, a payroll tax cut for workers. He’s now seeking to extend it for the full year, and while there’s little doubt that Congress eventually will agree, Obama prodded anyway.

“Your voices convinced Congress to extend this middle-class tax cut before,” he said. “You remember there was little resistance there last year. I need your help to get them to do it again. Tell Congress to pass this tax cut without drama, without delay. No soap operas. Just get it done.”

Political events are going his way as well.

Just as he stepped up his call for a minimum 30 percent tax rate for millionaires, Romney released his tax returns under pressure, revealing that he paid an effective tax rate of 14 percent. That not only underscored Romney’s wealth, it also provided an argument for altering the nation’s tax laws, a central element of Obama’s re-election campaign.

Gingrich on Wednesday helped keep the focus on Romney’s wealth, saying that the wealthy businessman lived in “a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatically $20 million income for no work.”

Romney and Gingrich have been forced to target each other in the GOP presidential contest, freeing Obama from the fray. For instance, Romney has ads in Florida and Nevada blaming the housing crisis on Gingrich and concludes that nothing would make Obama happier than Gingrich winning the nomination.

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The Atlanta Jewish Federation called for Adler’s resignation. saying,

While we acknowledge his public apology and remorse, the damage done to the people of Israel, the global Jewish people, and especially the Jewish Community of Atlanta is irreparable.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

In the column, Adler suggested that there were three options for Israel, should Iran acquire nuclear weapons: A strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, a strike against Iran, or “three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

After the Gawker website publicized the column, Adler apologized and said it was intended to “get a reaction” from the Jewish community.

Read More At The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Obama’s 9 p.m. EST address before a politically divided Congress will be built around ideas meant to appeal to a squeezed middle class. He is expected to urge higher taxes on the wealthy, propose ways to make college more affordable, offer new steps to tackle a debilitating housing crisis and try to help U.S. manufacturers expand hiring.

Designed as a way for a president to update the nation and recommend ideas to Congress, the State of the Union address has become more than that, especially during that one window when the address falls during the re-election year of an incumbent. It is televised theater — and Obama’s biggest, best chance so far to offer a vision for a second term.

He will frame the campaign to come as a fight for fairness for those who are struggling to keep a job, a home or college savings and losing faith in how the county works.

The speech will be principally about the economy, featuring the themes of manufacturing, clean energy, education and American values.

No matter whom Obama faces in November, the election is likely to be driven by the economy, and determined by which candidate wins voters’ trust on how to fix it. More people than not disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy.

The overarching political goal is to give voters a contrast between his vision of a government that tries to level the playing field and those office-seekers who, in his view, would leave people on their own. Without naming them, Obama has in his sights those after his job, including Republicans Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

The presidential campaign sets an unmistakable context for the speech, right down to the nation’s income gap between haves and have-nots. Obama will speak on a few hours after Romney, a former governor and businessman whose wealth is the hundreds of millions of dollars, will release tax records for 2010 and 2011.

The lines of argument between Obama and his rivals are already stark, with America’s economic insecurity and the role of government at the center.

The president has offered signals about his speech, telling campaign supporters he wants an economy “that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few.” Gingrich, on the other hand, calls Obama “the most effective food stamp president in history.” Romney says Obama “wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society.”

Obama’s tone will be highly scrutinized given that his address falls smack in the middle of a fierce and frenzied Republican presidential nomination process. He will make bipartisan overtures to lawmakers but will leave little doubt he will act without opponents when it’s necessary and possible, an approach his aides say has let him stay on offense.

The public is more concerned about domestic troubles over foreign policy than at other any time in the past 15 years, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. Some 81 percent want Obama to focus his speech on domestic affairs, not foreign ones; just five years ago, the view was evenly split.

On the day before Obama’s speech, his campaign released a short Web ad showing monthly job losses during the end of the Bush administration and the beginning of the Obama administration, with positive job growth for nearly two Obama years. Republicans assail him as failing to achieve a lot more.

House Speaker John Boehner, responding to reports of Obama’s speech themes, said it was a rehash of unhelpful policies. “It’s pathetic,” he said.

Obama will offer economic proposals for this year, despite long odds against getting the help he would need from Republicans.

Presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that Obama is not conceding the next 10 months to “campaigning alone” when people need economic help. On the goals of helping people get a fair shot, Carney said: “There’s ample room within those boundaries for bipartisan cooperation and for getting this done.”

For three days following his speech, Obama will promote his ideas in five states key to his re-election bid: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan. He speaks on Friday about college affordability at the University of Michigan.

Meanwhile, the Republican race is suddenly a race again, given Gingrich’s resounding win in the South Carolina primary over the weekend. Romney, who appeared the strong front-runner coming into that primary, is now focusing on Gingrich more than Obama as the GOP contest unfolds in Florida.

Vice President Joe Biden, in an interview with radio host Ryan Seacrest, said Monday there is no ideological difference between any of the Republicans seeking to challenge Obama. He said the campaign will offer the clearest choice in which direction to take the country since the era of the Great Depression.

Polling shows Americans are divided about Obama’s overall job approval but unsatisfied with his handling of the economy.

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Google announced Monday that Obama will participate in a 45-minute live video chat room known as a “Hangout,” part of the online search giant’s social networking site Google Plus. The chat will take place Monday afternoon, Jan. 30, capping a week of social media engagement the White House is planning around the State of the Union speech.

Obama speaks to Congress and the nation on Tuesday.

Google Plus will solicit questions over the video sharing site YouTube, and users will then vote on their favorites. The president will answer some video questions, and will also chat directly with a group of the questioners.

The exchange will appear on the White House Google Plus page, and will be live streamed on the whitehouse.gov website.

Obama participated in YouTube town halls after his last two State of The Union speeches, taking questions submitted to the video sharing site. The planned Hangout goes a step further, offering some of those questioners a chance to interact directly with the president.

Macon Phillips, White House director of digital strategy, said the White House would have no role in choosing the questions or participants in the Hangout.

“For online engagement to be interesting, it has to be honest,” Phillips said. “We want to give Americans more control over this conversation and the chance to ask questions they care about.”

Google has hosted Hangouts with other political figures, including Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. But Obama’s planned Hangout will be a presidential first and is certain to draw more attention to Google Plus, which has battled to catch up with social networking giant Facebook in membership and influence.

The Hangout element “will make for really personal conversation with the president that’s never really happened before,” said Steve Grove, head of community partnerships for Google Plus. “Whether it’s good for Google Plus or not, I guess viewers will decide by how well we pull it off.”

Google, Facebook and other social media sites have been steadily boosting their presence in electoral politics.

Facebook cosponsored a Republican primary debate with NBC News earlier this month, and last year Obama visited Facebook’s headquarters in California, where he took questions submitted to the site.

Google sponsored a Republican debate with Fox News in September and has been a go-to hub for online political advertising.

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Gingrich also failed to take into account that during Bush’s last year the amount of people receiving EBT tripled and the fact that while Bush inherited a $236 billion surplus from Bill Clinton, Obama inherited a $5 trillion deficit and a recession from Bush.

Fact Check.Org reports:

Newt Gingrich claims that “more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.” He’s wrong. More were added under Bush than under Obama, according to the most recent figures.

But Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.

And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama’s time in office than during Bush’s.

The economic downturn began in December 2007. In the 12 months before Obama was sworn in, 4.4 million were added to the rolls, triple the 1.4 million added in 2007.

Read More At FactCheck.Org

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Many Independents, who were pivotal in 2008, are said to now view the president negatively. The New York Times reports:

A majority of independent voters have soured on his presidency, disapprove of how he has dealt with the economy, and do not have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish if re-elected.

The poll revealed that only 31 percent of Independents viewed the President positively, while two-thirds of Independents were unhappy with the President’s economic progress. These poll findings mean that much of the swing voter base is up for grabs, although it should be noted that most Independents also have a negative view of Republicans.

To the President’s credit, though, when pollsters were asked who they trust more, he came out on top, with 44 percent believing the President will make better decisions in regards to health care, jobs, Social Security, and Medicare.

The President is scheduled to present his accomplishments to Congress next week. As the election draws near, how these swing voters perceive the President’s track record as well as what he can do for the future of this nation will make all the difference in whether he reclaims the White House for the next four years.

Read the rest at the New York Times.

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After Obama sang the first part of Green’s “Lets Stay Together,” “I’m so in love with you,” the crowd broke out in cheers. Obama would say “those guys didn’t think I would do it” and referenced the Apollo character who would chase bad performers off stage saying “the sandman did not come out.”

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Republicans hope to again force Obama to make a politically risky decision, while he is seeking to put it off until after the November election.

Obama blocked the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday, at least temporarily, but Republicans immediately signaled their intention to try again to force the issue. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he will call Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who recommended Obama’s rejection, to testify at a hearing as early as next Wednesday, the day after Obama gives his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress.

“This is not the end of the fight. Republicans in Congress will continue to push this because it’s good for our country and it’s good for our economy and it’s good for the American people,” especially those who are out of work, said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Republicans are looking to drive a wedge between Obama and two key Democratic constituencies. Some labor unions support the pipeline as a job creator, while environmentalists fear it could lead to an oil spill disaster.

The plan by Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, through a 1,700-mile pipeline across six U.S. states to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Obama was already on record as saying no, for now, until his administration could review an alternate route that avoided environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska – a route that still has not been proposed. But in an unrelated tax deal he cut with congressional Republicans, Obama had been boxed into making a decision by Feb. 21.

The deal required that the project would go forward unless Obama declared by that date that it was not in the national interest. The president did just that Wednesday, generating intense reaction from all sides.

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said in a written statement. “I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision.”

Republicans got out their toughest rhetoric for the occasion.

Newt Gingrich, campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination in South Carolina, called Obama’s decision “stunningly stupid,” adding, “What Obama has done is kill jobs, weaken American security and drive Canada into the arms of China out of just sheer stupidity.”

Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said the decision was “as shocking as it is revealing. It shows a president who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy.”

Project supporters say U.S. rejection of the pipeline would not stop one from being built. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada is serious about building a pipeline to its West Coast, where oil could be shipped to China and other Asian markets.

TransCanada said it would submit a new application once an alternative route for the pipeline is established. Company chief Russ Girling said if approved, the pipeline could begin operation as soon as 2014. He said TransCanada will continue to work with Nebraska officials to determine the safest route for Keystone XL that avoids the environmentally sensitive Sandhills area, which he said should be completed this fall.

But Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters that if TransCanada submits a new application for a different pipeline path, it would trigger a new review process.

“We cannot state that anything will be expedited at this time,” she said. “We would look to information that is out there to extent we can. It is a new permit application so the process would have to be started over again.”

The proposed $7 billion pipeline would pass through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma en route to Texas.

The pipeline is a dicey proposition for Obama, who enjoyed strong support from both organized labor and environmentalists in his winning 2008 campaign for the White House.

Environmental advocates have made it clear that approval of the pipeline would dampen their enthusiasm for Obama in November. Some liberal donors even threatened to cut off funds to Obama’s re-election campaign to protest the project, which opponents say would transport “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract.

But by rejecting the pipeline, Obama risks losing support from organized labor, a key part of the Democratic base, for thwarting thousands of jobs.

“The score is job-killers two, American workers zero,” said Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

O’Sullivan called the decision “politics at its worst” and said, “Blue-collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.”

Yet some unions that back Obama oppose the pipeline, including the United Auto Workers, Service Employees International Union and Communications Workers of America.

TransCanada says the pipeline could create as many as 20,000 jobs, a figure opponents say is inflated. A State Department report last summer said the pipeline would create up to 6,000 jobs during construction.

Obama appeared to have skirted what some dubbed the “Keystone conundrum” in November when the State Department announced it was postponing a decision on the pipeline until after this year’s election. Officials said they needed extra time to study routes that avoid a 65-mile stretch through the Sandhills area, which supplies water to eight states.

The concerns were serious enough that the state’s governor and senators opposed the project unless the pipeline was moved. Any new route would have to be approved by Nebraska environmental officials and the State Department, which has authority because the pipeline would cross an international border.

Obama said his decision does not “change my administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.”

To underscore the point, Obama signaled that he would not oppose development of an oil pipeline from Oklahoma to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. TransCanada already operates a pipeline from Canada to Cushing, Okla. Refineries in Houston and along the Texas Gulf Coast can handle heavy crude such as that extracted from Canadian tar sands – the type of oil that would flow through the Keystone XL pipeline.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said he doesn’t believe the Keystone XL is dead. He said the Obama administration did not have enough time to review the project, given the Republican-imposed timeline.

“I don’t believe this is the end of the story,” Conrad told The Associated Press. “My personal view is that it should be constructed. It’s clear Canada is going to develop this resource, and I believe it is better for our country to have it go here rather than Asian markets.”

Bill McKibben, an environmental activist who led opposition to the pipeline, praised Obama’s decision to stand up to what he called a “naked political threat from Big Oil.”

—

Associated Press writers Ben Feller, Dina Cappiello, Laurie Kellman and Sam Hananel in Washington, Shannon McCaffrey in Warrenville, S.C., Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston and James MacPherson in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this story.

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President Barack Obama cannot “stop” the SOPA internet bill, as originally reported. NewsOne cited a Forbes article saying as much. But another Forbes writer, E.D. Cain, followed-up with this:

This isn’t quite right on several levels. The bills wouldn’t give copyright holders the capacity to sue – this is already the law of the land, for one thing. It would give content owners the ability to actually shut down websites that they believe violate their copyright.

The more troubling error in John’s statement, however, is that Obama’s statement “killed SOPA.” This is simply not the case, even if it is some nice wishful thinking.

SOPA is very much alive, though it has been drastically slowed down. Minority Whip, Eric Cantor, has assured SOPA-opponent Rep. Darrell Issa that the bill won’t move forward without consensus. Whatever that means, it surely does not mean that SOPA is dead.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

WASHINGTON-President Barack Obama has said that we would not support the controversial SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) that would allow the justice department to force search engines from linking to sites that were accused of copyright infringement and require Internet providers to block those sites as well.

The bill was sponsored by the The Motion Picture Association of America due to the large amount of movies that have been pirated on the Internet.

Forbes reports:

The growing anti-SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) support that has swept through the gaming and Internet community found a very big ally today. With websites like Reddit and Wikipedia and gaming organizations like Major League Gaming prepared for a blackout on January 18th – the same day that the House Judiciary Committee hearing on HR 3261was scheduled in Washington, DC – President Barack Obama has stepped in and said he would not support the bill.

SOPA has been delayed, for now. The House has agreed to revisit the issue next month, but they now know the White House will veto any bill that’s not more narrowly focused.

Read More At Forbes

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Sitting in the Oval Office, President Obama writes a congratulatory note to White:

Dear Betty,
You look so fantastic and full of energy, I can’t believe you’re 90 years old. In fact, I don’t believe it. That’s why I’m writing to ask if you will be willing to produce a copy of your long-form birth certificate. Thanks. Happy birthday, no matter how old you are.

Shortly afterward, “Golden Girls” music cuts on and the President is seen putting a framed picture of White on his desk and then gently rocking out to the theme music. Check out the hilarious video here:

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The president, along with wife Michelle Obama and daughter Malia, joined other volunteers at Browne Education Center in Washington.

During brief remarks, the president said there was no better way to honor King than to do something on behalf of others. He also acknowledged the controversy surrounding a quote on the new MLK memorial in Washington, which is being changed amid criticism that it did not accurately reflect King’s words.

“What he really said was all of us can be a drum major for service, all of us can be a drum major for justice,” Obama said. “There is nobody who can’t serve, nobody who can’t help somebody else.”

The inscription on the King memorial, located on the National Mall, currently reads: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” The phrase is modified from a sermon known as the “Drum Major Instinct“, which King delivered just two months before he was assassinated in 1968.

In the speech, King’s words seem more modest than the paraphrased inscription: “Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

After meeting with volunteers, the Obamas headed to the school library to help build bookshelves and a reading corner for students. The president and first lady were then put to work painting two King quotes on the library walls.

The president stood on a chair and carefully used blue paint to write the phrase “The time is always right to do what is right.” Mrs. Obama painted the words “I have a dream.”

This was the third year in a row the Obamas have participated in a service project on the King holiday.

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“I’m incredibly optimistic about our prospects,” Obama said about the economy after meeting with more than a dozen corporate and small business leaders whose firms have succeeded, to one degree or another, in bringing jobs back to the United States.

A day after his Republican adversaries competed in the New Hampshire primary, Obama sought to grab back the spotlight and underscore his focus on the economy by convening a high-profile White House forum on how to increase employment and stem the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been sent overseas.

Obama did not mention any of his potential Republican challengers during his public remarks. But two participants in the forum, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, compared Obama favorably to Mitt Romney, who on Tuesday won the New Hampshire Republican primary and solidified his lead over the GOP presidential field.

Gerard said his union represented workers in companies that had been acquired by Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital, and that eventually shut down. “From our point of view, this president from day one has tried to create jobs not cut jobs,” he said.

As a result, the day had all the feel of a presidential counterpunch to the Republican candidates, and particularly to Romney, who has sought to portray Obama as a foe of free enterprise.

Obama highlighted big and small firms ranging from Ford to a North Carolina specialty furniture company as examples of enterprises that have invested in the U.S. rather than abroad. He called on other companies to do the same with the help of government incentives.

The White House says the president will propose $12 million in his 2013 budget to promote business investment from overseas in the United States. Obama has already proposed tax incentives, including a cut in employers’ Social Security taxes, to encourage more hiring. Congress has not acted on those measures.

As if to underscore the political stakes, Obama called for new jobs to take root, not in China or Germany, but “in places like Michigan and Ohio and Virginia and North Carolina,” all crucial states in his bid for re-election.

“Right now, we’re at a unique moment, an inflection point, a period where we’ve got the opportunity for those jobs to come back,” Obama said. “And the business leaders in this room, they’re ahead of the curve, they recognize it.”

But among the causes behind the new spate of hiring is the lack of wage growth in the United States over several years — a fact that Obama often cites as an impediment for those wishing to rise to the middle class.

Indeed, Hal Sirkin of Boston Consulting Group, a participant in the forum, told reporters that not only are U.S. workers more productive than Chinese workers, wages in countries such as China are rising at rapid rates.

“It’s a simple mathematical equation. It’s changing,” he said. “And it will mean that it is a lot easier to retain jobs in the U.S. and it will be a lot easier to attract jobs back to the U.S. It’s not about the patriotism — although I know everybody on stage with me here is just as patriotic. But it is about the underlying economics. And the economics are favoring the U.S. at this point at this time. And by 2015, we expect to see the beginning — and these people are the absolute beginning — of the wave of ‘reshoring’ back to the U.S.”

But any move towards insourcing is fighting a powerful trend: U.S. multinational corporations have been adding jobs overseas partly because that’s where an increasingly large share of their sales are. Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index now earn more than half of their revenue from overseas.

That has fueled a shift in jobs, with large U.S. multinational corporations reducing their U.S. employment while adding jobs in other countries. U.S. multinationals cut more than 800,000 jobs in the United States in 2000-2009, according to the Commerce Department. They added 2.9 million overseas in the same period, the most recent data available.

The Great Recession and the sluggish recovery may have blunted that trend. Labor costs have fallen, particularly in manufacturing, as unions in many industries have accepted lower pay to preserve jobs. At the same time, businesses have cut costs and boosted efficiency. Productivity grew at the fastest pace in 18 months in last year’s third quarter.

“The U.S. is becoming a pretty reasonable place to manufacture,” said Gary Clyde Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “We are more competitive.”

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The criticism was based on a Halloween party the Obama family had in 2009 that was designed by director, Tim Burton. Limbaugh attacked the Obama family for living lavishly in the White House because they believed theywere  owed the lifestyle because of what was done to their ancestors (slavery).

The Huffington Post reports:

“No way the press didn’t know about this,” he said. “If we didn’t know about this, what else is going on in there that we didn’t know about… that the press knows about but is choosing not to report?”

Limbaugh also raised the subject of slavery and Jim Crow when he analyzed the Obamas’ behavior in office. He said that the couple viewed their tenure as an opportunity to “live high on the hog,” and that the idea that they were “owed this because of what’s been done to us and our ancestors” was “part of” their thinking.

Read More At The Huffington Post

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One of Obama’s most consistent critics, Smiley has often accused the President of not doing enough for the poor and the millions of African-Americans who helped elect him into the Oval Office. Smiley had this to say about his ouster as the MLK keynote speaker:

Tavis Smiley, the PBS talk show host who has criticized President Barack Obama for not doing enough for the African-American community, says he was ousted as the speaker at a Martin Luther King luncheon because he was trying to hold the president accountable.

“I don’t see my role as one of criticizing the president. I see my role as one of holding the president – this and every other president—accountable,” Smiley said on Fox News on Monday.

“Something is wrong with this country … that so often the political right, and I am no defender of the political right … gets accused of playing the game of political correctness. What this underscores is that those on the left, the Democrats can play that game of political correctness as well,” he added.

Smiley’s replacement will be Hip-Hop intellectual and Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson. Smiley was set to earn $37,000, but will be given a smaller cancellation fee instead.

Should officials at the Peoria Civic Center have buckled to the pressure of a few Obama supporters? And do you feel Tavis Smiley has been treated unfairly because he is a black public figure who criticizes the President? Give us your thoughts!

Read the rest of the story here.

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New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, in a book to be published Tuesday, portrays a White House where tensions developed between Mrs. Obama and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book, “The Obamas,” Friday evening and The New York Times posted a 3,300-word adaption on its website that appeared to capture its most revealing accounts. The book is based on interviews with 30 current and former aides, though President Barack Obama and the first lady declined to be interviewed for the book.

The book portrays Mrs. Obama as having gone through an evolution from struggle to fulfillment in her role at the White House but all the while an “unrecognized force” in pursuing the president’s goals.

She is seen publicly as the friendly and popular face of the softer side of the White House, the one reading to school kids or promoting exercise as a means to reduce child obesity.

According to Kantor, early in 2010 as the president’s health care agenda seemed in danger of collapsing, Mrs. Obama let it be known she was annoyed by how the White House was handling the strategy. After media reports indicated Emanuel was unhappy pursuing the health care overhaul, Emanuel offered to resign, Kantor wrote. The president declined the offer.

By that spring, however, Kantor writes that Mrs. Obama “made it clear that she thought her husband needed a new team, according to her aides.”

Among the book’s most provocative anecdotes, Kantor recounts a scene in which Gibbs, frustrated after tamping down a potential public relations crisis involving the first lady, exploded when presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett told him the first lady had concerns about the White House response to the flap. The initial commotion had been over an alleged remark by Michelle Obama to French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy that living in the White House was “hell.”

Gibbs cursed the first lady, who was absent. Kantor writes that Gibbs later said his anger was misplaced and that he blamed Jarrett for creating the confrontation. Kantor writes that Jarrett appeared to have been too quick with her criticism of Gibbs and that two aides to the first lady later said Jarrett had misspoken.

The White House had a cold reaction to the book, calling it an “over-dramatization of old news” and emphasizing that the first couple did not speak to the author, who last interviewed them for a magazine piece in 2009.

“The emotions, thoughts and private moments described in the book, though often seemingly ascribed to the president and first lady, reflect little more than the author’s own thoughts,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. “These secondhand accounts are staples of every administration in modern political history and often exaggerated.”

The book, in an array of reconstructed anecdotes, depicts a first couple often wishing they could escape the confining White House life more freely; a president who at times gets deeply frustrated by how the press covers him; and a former chief of staff, Emanuel, who let loose with profane outbursts on staff members. All of those themes have been presented in some form in other publications.

One incident recalled that Jarrett used a phone aboard Air Force One to call a New York Times reporter. The New York Times was pursuing a story about how Obama’s West Wing was essentially a big boys’ club, and Jarrett was calling to argue that the premise of a male-dominated operation was overblown. The book says even though Jarrett was the one making the call, it was Obama himself who was managing the response to The New York Times’ story even before it came out by “personally dictating talking points to the aides who would speak to the writer.”

In another, the book describes how Obama, after winning a U.S. Senate seat and writing a best-selling book, “The Audacity of Hope,” sought self-protection and privacy as he came to terms with his new fame. Some staffers came up with a word to describe times when the senator couldn’t connect with people: “Barackward,” a combination of “Barack” and “awkward.”

But despite the White House pushback to the book, Kantor also includes many positive portrayals of both Obamas as committed parents and a down to earth power couple who have not lost their perspective.

Other revelations in the book:

- Mrs. Obama initially chafed at life in the White House and for a short period before the inauguration had even mulled staying in Chicago in 2009 at least until the two Obama daughters completed their school session.

- During the struggle to pass health care reform, Obama was committed to tackling the massive problem of rising health care costs despite the political costs. “Michelle and I are perfectly comfortable if we’re only here one term if we feel like we really accomplished something,” the book quotes the president as telling aides.

- Despite her reticence in 2010 to campaign during the midterm elections, the book says Mrs. Obama now has no qualms about 2012. “Michelle had been playing it safe, storing up political capital, and now she wanted to spend it all on her husband’s re-election campaign.”

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Air Force One landed just before daybreak in Washington on Tuesday morning after an overnight flight from the island of Oahu. The president is returning from vacation the same day Republican presidential candidates square off in the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest of the 2012 campaign.

Obama plans to make his presence in the campaign known quickly.

The president will host a live web chat with supporters in Iowa on Tuesday night as the caucuses are unfolding. The following day, Obama will travel to Cleveland for an event focused on the economy.

Obama aides said the president will seek to draw a contrast with his GOP challengers during Wednesday’s trip to Ohio, a state sure to figure prominently in the presidential campaign.

Obama returns to Washington facing further debate on extending payroll tax cuts, the same issue that consumed Washington during the final days of December.

Congress broke through a stalemate just days before Christmas, agreeing to extend the cuts for two months. Lawmakers will get back to work later this month to negotiate a full-year extension of the cuts, which Obama supports.

White House officials say the tax cut extension is the last “must-do” legislative item on Obama’s agenda this year. His strategy for his fourth year in office will focus largely on taking executive actions that do not need approval from lawmakers as he seeks to break away from a deeply unpopular Congress.

The payroll tax cut debate almost prevented Obama from taking his annual Christmas trip to Hawaii. He delayed the trip nearly a week, finally departing on Dec. 23, just hours after Congress finalized the two-month extension.

The president, wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha stayed largely out of the public eye during their trip to Oahu, the island where Obama was born and mostly raised.

The Obamas stayed in a multimillion-dollar oceanfront rental on Kailua Beach, near Honolulu, and surrounded themselves with a close-knit group of family and friends. That included Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who lives on Oahu, and several of the president’s childhood friends.

Obama’s outing consisted largely of trips to the gym and golf course at Marine Corps Base Hawaii near his vacation rental. The first family also made a few outings around the island, including a snorkeling trip to popular Hanauma Bay and a stop for shave ice, a Hawaiian snow cone.

The president also took his family to the East-West Center, a research and exhibition center that is displaying the anthropological work of his late mother.

Aides say Obama spent a bit of time on vacation brainstorming ideas for his Jan. 24 State of the Union address, where he will lay out an agenda that also will serve as the basis for his campaign message. He also was briefed by a small cadre of traveling advisers on some of the international issues looming in 2012, including renewed threats from Iran and a request from Yemen’s outgoing, autocratic president to come to the U.S. for medical treatment.

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Unfortunately, that was the approach taken by Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald over the weekend, while expressing his outrage over President Obama signing the National Defense Authorization Act.

The annual NDAA is the essential piece of legislation that pays U.S. soldiers’ salaries, funds equipment for troops overseas, buys ammunition, and also pays our military contractors abroad.

In the current NDAA, there is an objectionable provision which allows for the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, which civil liberties advocates fear could apply to American citizens. The potential encroachment on civil liberties justifiably wrangled many, and President Obama even signaled his discontent with the provisions in a signing statement attached to the legislation, insisting that the detention provisions would not apply to Americans.

There is the added possibility that the potentially unconstitutional provisions related to detention will be challenged in court where they could even be struck down by Chief Justice John Roberts and company.

Greenwald has been one of the loudest and harshest critics of the Obama administration, and while not actually a liberal or an Obama supporter, he is frequently identified as a blogger who is “disappointed with President Obama” over what he sees as serious violations of civil liberties. The debate over the NDAA (and U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan) has been ongoing and frequently gets lively between Greenwald and his supporters, and pro-Obama bloggers like Imani Gandy, of AngryBlackLady.com and Balloon Juice (Gandy also contributes to theGrio.)

In a particularly heated exchange on Twitter Saturday night, a blogger named “DrDawg” tweeted about Gandy: “Obama could rape a nun live on NBC and you’d say we weren’t seeing what we were seeing.” In response, Greenwald chimed in, “No – she’d say it was justified [and] noble – that he only did it to teach us about the evils of rape.”

When twitter exploded in attacks on Greenwald for making a “rape joke,” instead of apologizing for the comment, Greenwald doubled down, tweeting that the reference to rape was not a metaphor and in fact Obama supporters would defend the president in the face of “ANY evil: assassinations, child-killings: EVEN rape violent crime like rape.”

“Leveraging rape in that manner is unconscionable,” Gandy told theGrio. And there are certainly racial overtones to the comment, considering the historic narrative of black men being sexually aggressive and even accused rapists in the Jim Crow south. For the first black president to be disparaged in this way is wholly unacceptable.

“All [Greenwald] had to do was apologize,” said Gandy.

Disagreements with the administration for drone attacks that kill innocent civilians, the detainment of terror suspects, and the prison at Guantanamo Bay remaining open are par for the course. Healthy debate on substance is always important. What is not par for the course is a prominent blogger not only condoning a disparaging comment about the president and rape, but reiterating that it is a valid point to make.

Rape should never be employed to make a point — any point — no matter how noble the intent. It is not a tool to be leveraged as a metaphor. Rape is a vicious crime, and the casual nature in which Greenwald condoned the use of rape to attack those who have a different opinion from his own is deeply disturbing.

Rape analogy in NDAA debate is ironic

Meanwhile, an irony of the infusion of rape into a debate in which it doesn’t belong, is that the NDAA that Greenwald finds so offensive, also includes a provision which finally addresses the serious problem of rape, abuse and sexual harassment in the military.

Before this version of the NDAA, servicewomen who are raped were not allowed to transfer to another base or had a very difficult time doing so. Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), who along with Democratic Rep. Niki Tsongas fought to get these provisions into the bill has said that, “in civilian life, you have complete control of your movements, and if you’re in an unsafe situation, you can remove yourself. In military life, the victim needs permission to take even basic self-preservation actions.”

The NDAA was also a “must pass” bill — a term for spending bills of vital importance that often attract unwanted policy riders. The president threatened to veto the bill if the objectionable language related to detention was included, but Republicans put it in anyway, putting Obama in a lose-lose situation: veto a bill that needs to be passed and signed into law in order for service members to get their paychecks, or sign the bill with the objectionable provisions and issue a signing statement which addresses those specific portions. President Obama chose the latter.

And for that, even if you disagree with provisions in this bill or if you think predator drone strikes should be stopped immediately — which is a very reasonable position to take — no one should ever employ rape to make that argument.

To argue that defenders of the administration would defend Obama committing rape, simply because they disagree with you on the NDAA, or don’t believe that drone strikes are the most pressing issue of the day, means you have lost the argument.

Greenwald should have debated the NDAA on the merits and apologized for amplifying the rape comment. Sexual assault survivors were certainly offended by trivialization of a trauma to make a debating point, and this incident proves that there are bloggers on the “left” — just as on the right — who have jumped the proverbial shark, and should lose any credibility or respectability they had left.

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And while political prognosticators are calling him a wildcard in the GOP primary contests, his remarks on the issues — particularly race — are just wild.

On Meet the Press yesterday, Santorum — who didn’t have an easy time of it with David Gregory — asserted that Obama is the most divisive president ever.

When Gregory asked Santorum if he faulted Republicans in Congress for not compromising with the president to make government work better, Santorum said the following: “Well, you, you have to have someone you can work with, and this president has done more to divide than any other president that I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime. This president goes out and gives speech after speech after speech trying to divide America between class, between income group, between racial and ethnic groups.”

Santorum added, “This is, this is the great divider in chief. And it’s very difficult when you’re being lampooned by the president on a regular basis, not just as a party but individually, to then — and the president, who I don’t believe has met with Boehner or any of the Republican leadership in now six months, hard to compromise and work with someone who won’t meet with you, who won’t sit down and try to, try to negotiate things and try to talk. And so I’m not, I’m not surprised at all the Republicans are having a difficult time with someone who has no interest.”

The candidate gave no specific examples to support his claims that the president is divisive, while ignoring the countless examples of White House outreach to Republicans in Congress over the past few three years. These efforts on the part of the White House often proved futile, as GOP lawmakers were focused on the single goal of dividing the country to win the election. “Rich versus poor,” he said. “It is classic class warfare. It’s dividing. It’s a very divisive message.”

And in an interview with CNS in January 2011, Santorum suggested that President Obama should be anti-abortion because he’s black.

“The question is…is that human life a person under the constitution? And Barack Obama says no,” Santorum said. “Well if that human life is not a person then…I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people,’” he added.

What Santorum implies, as have anti-abortion billboards posted in inner cities, is that African-Americans such as Obama should oppose abortion because they were once considered three-fifths of a person by law and not completely human. And in saying this, Santorum succeeds in belittling women’s reproductive rights and the civil rights movement.

For the former Senator, disrespecting the civil rights movement is nothing new.

Last year, at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, DC, Santorum proclaimed that “America was a great country before 1965″ — before the creation of the welfare state, and the time in which President Johnson signed historic civil rights legislation. Further, he accused Obama of not believing in American exceptionalism.

“Social conservatives understand that America was a great country because it was founded great,” Santorum told the audience. “Our founders, calling upon in the Declaration of Independence, the supreme judge, calling upon divine providence, said what was at the heart of American exceptionalism…’We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.’”

“He was talking about Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance, and it was in response to the Ryan budget,” Santorum said, referring to Obama. “And he said this, talking about these three programs: He said ‘America is a better country because of these programs. I will go a one step further: America is a great country because of these programs.”

On the issue of Iran, Santorum’s solution is to bomb the nation’s nuclear facilities, an action which would seem perilous at the least. “This president, for every thug and hooligan, for every radical Islamist, he has had nothing but appeasement. We saw that during the lead-up to World War II, appeasement,” he said recently of Obama’s Mideast policy.

Rick Santorum has a problem with Islam and Muslims. He claims America is at war with Islamic fascism, and once referred to the “fight against Islamic fascism” as “the great test of our generation” in a 2006 op-ed.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February 2011, Santorum argued, “[Obama] doesn’t say that Jihadism is evil. He doesn’t say that sharia law is incompatible with western civilization and the United States, which they are.” And he claimed that Christianity has not shown any aggression towards the Muslim world, blaming the “leftists” for corrupting the historical understanding of the Crusades: “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American left who hates Christendom,” he said a few months later in South Carolina.

Senator Santorum chose to employ an anti-Islam strategy in his 2006 reelection bid, and it failed miserably. Pennsylvania voters sent him packing. He lost to his challenger Democrat Bob Casey by 18 points, the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent senator since 1980. 2006 was a bad year for many Republicans, but it was an exceptionally bad year for Rick Santorum.

A diehard values conservative, Santorum has taken a number of stands to place himself in the middle of the radical rightward fringe. He is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, comparing homosexuality to polygamy, sodomy and adultery, and concluding that equal rights for gays and lesbians “destabilize the family.”

Santorum blamed the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal on liberalism, and characterized the abuse of children by priests as “a basic homosexual relationship.” And he wants to ban abortion through a constitutional amendment, and would mandate the teaching of intelligent design in the public schools.

So, is Rick Santorum a winner? We’ll see, but he might also be a used car salesman and no one is buying his clunker of a product. Remember that the political graveyard of this season’s GOP primaries is already strewn with the careers of such would-be superstars as Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry. Santorum just might be another mediocre GOP candidate with a questionable history, crazy ideas, and little to no chance against Obama.

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The bill also applies penalties against Iran’s central bank in an effort to hamper Tehran’s ability to fund its nuclear enrichment program. The Obama administration is looking to soften the impact of those penalties because of concerns that they could lead to a spike in global oil prices or cause economic hardship on U.S. allies that import petroleum from Iran.

In a statement accompanying his signature, the president chastised some lawmakers for what he contended was their attempts to use the bill to restrict the ability of counterterrorism officials to protect the country.

Administration officials said Obama was only signing the measure because Congress made minimally acceptable changes that no longer challenged the president’s terrorism-fighting ability.

“Moving forward, my administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded,” Obama said in the signing statement.

The administration also pushed Congress to change a provision that would have denied U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism the right to trial and could have subjected them to indefinite detention. Lawmakers eventually dropped the military custody requirement for U.S. citizens or lawful U.S. residents.

“My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens,” Obama said in the signing statement. “Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”

Signing statements allow presidents to raise constitutional objections to circumvent Congress’ intent. During his campaign for the White House, Obama criticized President George W. Bush’s use of signing statements and promised to make his application of the tool more transparent.

Obama’s signature caps months of wrangling over how to handle captured terrorist suspects without violating Americans’ constitutional rights. The White House initially threatened to veto the legislation but dropped the warning after Congress made last-minute changes.

Among the changes the administration secured was striking a provision that would have eliminated executive branch authority to use civilian courts for trying terrorism cases against foreign nationals.

The new law now requires military custody for any suspect who is a member of al-Qaida or “associated forces” and involved in planning or attempting to carry out an attack on the United States or its coalition partners. The president or a designated subordinate may waive the military custody requirement by certifying to Congress that such a move is in the interest of national security.

Despite the changes, officials cited serious concerns that the law will complicate and could harm the investigation of terrorism cases.

For example, FBI Director Robert Mueller has said the measure would inhibit his bureau’s ability to persuade suspected terrorists to cooperate immediately and provide critical intelligence. He told Congress it wasn’t clear how agents should operate if they arrest someone covered by the military custody requirement but the nearest military facility is hundreds of miles away.

Other officials have said agents and prosecutors should not have to spend their time worrying about citizenship status and whether get a waiver while trying to thwart a terror attack.

The administration also raised concerns about an amendment in the bill that goes after foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran’s central bank, barring them from opening or maintaining correspondent operations in the United States. It would apply to foreign central banks only for transactions that involve the sale or purchase of petroleum or petroleum products.

Officials worry that the penalties could lead to higher oil prices, damaging the U.S. economic recovery and hurting allies in Europe and Asia that purchase petroleum from Iran.

The penalties do not go into effect for six months. The president can waive them for national security reasons or if the country with jurisdiction over the foreign financial institution has significantly reduced its purchases of Iran oil.

The State Department has said the U.S. was looking at how to put them in place in a way that maximized the pressure on Iran, but meant minimal disruption to the U.S. and its allies.

This week, Iran warned that it may disrupt traffic in the Strait of Hormuz – a vital Persian Gulf waterway. But on Saturday, Tehran seemed to back off that threat when a commander of its Revolutionary Guard said such discussion is a thing of the past and “belongs to five years ago.”

Iran also said Saturday that it had proposed a new round of talks on its nuclear program with the U.S. and other world powers. The invitation would come after the U.N. has imposed four rounds of sanctions. Separately, the U.S. and the European Union have imposed their own tough economic and financial penalties.

The $662 billion bill authorizes money for military personnel, weapons systems, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and national security programs in the Energy Department for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The measure also freezes some $700 million in assistance until Pakistan comes up with a strategy to deal with improvised explosive devices.

Obama signed the bill in Hawaii, where he is vacationing with his family.

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His Republican rivals, in the face of late-arriving economic good news, are making slight adjustments themselves, arguing that Obama’s policies have been a drag on a recovery that could have taken hold sooner.

The competing rhetoric reflects the positive indicators in areas ranging from retail sales and housing to unemployment and falling gas prices. All this has pushed up consumer confidence, a potential barometer of political attitudes. Even Congress and Obama managed to agree on a two-month payroll tax cut extension before leaving Washington for the holidays.

But the economic signs could prove fleeting, as they were in the early spring when economist also detected upticks in activity only to watch them tumble. These new indicators may hold more promise. But a looming European debt crisis is casting a pall.

No one is more aware of that risk than Obama.

“We’ve got an economy that is showing some positive signs; we’ve seen many consecutive months of private sector job growth,” Obama said last week before departing for Christmas in Hawaii. “But it’s not happening as fast as it needs to.”

For Obama, the danger is in promoting an economy that while, slowly recovering, has yet to reflect reality for millions of Americans, or in highlighting positive signs only to see them falter in 2012.

For David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s top political adviser, visions of a European financial meltdown are what keep him awake at night.

“I think the American economy is gaining strength, I don’t think many would argue that point,” he said. “The imponderable is not about that, it’s really about these externalities and particularly Europe. Especially now that we’ve passed this threshold on the payroll tax cut and assuming that the Republicans in Congress don’t want to rerun that battle, the one big thing on the horizon is Europe.”

Indeed, as the year ends on an up note, leading economists surveyed by The Associated Press expect the economy will grow slightly faster in 2012 – about 2.4 percent compared with the less than 2 percent annual growth that the economy is expected to register by the end of this year.

But underscoring the political challenges facing Obama, these same economists don’t expect unemployment to drop much in a year from November’s 8.6 percent rate.

The public’s economic outlook is improving. An Associated Press-GfK poll in December found that 37 percent of those questioned expect improvement in the economy in the coming year. It was the first time since May that the sentiment significantly outweighed the share saying the economy would get worse in the next year.

This modestly rosy scenario is contingent on keeping any financial disruptions in Europe contained to the other side of the Atlantic. Obama has pressing European leaders, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to act swiftly to avoid a wholesale debt crisis from taking hold. But Obama has few tools other than persuasion with which to influence an outcome.

In a trend the Obama camp is sure to watch, the public is holding Obama more accountable for the economy. The AP-GfK poll found that the percentage who says Obama deserves little or no blame for the economy’s sluggishness has declined from 43 percent in October to 36 percent now.

Republicans are watching, too.

After months of asserting that conditions under Obama have worsened, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney this past acknowledged signs of improvement, but gave Obama no credit.

“I think the economy’s getting better. I sure hope so,” Romney told CNN on Wednesday. “There’s never been a time when our economy has not recovered from recession. We will recover, but it will not be thanks to the president’s policies. It will be in spite of the president’s policies.”

Republican pollster Wes Anderson, a veteran of congressional and presidential contests, says the first quarter of 2012 could lay down crucial markers that could affect the election results.

“If the uptick in economic indicators that we’ve seen here this month continues into the next month at the same general pace, it will be an interesting race and it will be very close, and there will be an opportunity for Obama to win,” he said. “If economic conditions deteriorate at all, I think he’s done.

“If they pick up significantly in the first quarter – I don’t know what that is, but something that is tangible for middle-class America – he probably gets re-elected,” Anderson said.

The White House is ready to have the president maintain a high economic profile, showcasing his bailout of the auto industry as a concrete example of an administration policy that saved job. Beyond that, Obama’s team wants to portray the president as a champion of the middle class.

“The battle is really over the long term because the Republicans have a fundamental theory that we can cut our way to prosperity – cut taxes for the wealthy, cut regulations, especially for Wall Street, and the economy will flourish,” Axelrod said. “We’ve tested that theory and it failed. Badly.”

“This notion that he’s been there, we should fire him and we should go back to what we were doing before the crisis is not a very strong argument,” Axelrod said. “And obviously to the degree that the economy improves it becomes less of an argument.”

Still, even economists friendly to the administration see contradictory signals in the end-of-year upswing.

On the positive side, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits has dropped to the lowest level since April 2008. At the same time, November’s dip in unemployment from 9 percent to 8.6 percent was partly the result of frustrated workers leaving the labor force and no longer looking to be hired. The private sector is hiring, but states, school districts and local municipalities are shedding jobs. Also, despite an increase in consumer spending, Americans are not seeing real income growth.

“For every positive indicator, there is an indicator on the other side that’s worrisome,” said Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden who’s now with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics whose data is often cited by Democrats and Republicans, said that for all the encouraging signs, the economy still faces drags. That includes deficit reduction measures that helped reduce the debt in the long term but could cost the economy 1 percentage point in growth next year.

Washington politics poses its own challenges.