.@JoeBiden is a man who learned to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: “No one’s better than you, Joe, but you’re better than nobody.” That empathy, that decency, the belief that everybody counts—that’s who Joe is. pic.twitter.com/RW8o39zQJL
Joe and Kamala have what it takes to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better. Join me in helping them get elected: https://t.co/Kboaxi3MVL
On This Day: President Barack Obama greets baseball fans during a Washington Nationals vs. Chicago White Sox baseball game at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., June 18, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Today (All Times Eastern)
10:0: Live from the First White House Makers Faire
10:45: President Obama views “Maker Faire” projects devoted to using science and technology to advance business, South Lawn
11:30: Delivers remarks at the White House Maker Faire, East Room
12:15: Meets with economists for lunch, Roosevelt Room
12:45: Jay Carney briefs the press
3:0: The President meets with members of the Congressional Leadership
5:10: Meets with Secretary of State Kerry
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President Barack Obama and Press Secretary Jay Carney disembark from Air Force One upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Wednesday night, June 17, 2014. It was Carney’s last flight on Air Force One as White House Press Secretary. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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The Week Ahead
Thursday: The President will award Corporal William “Kyle” Carpenter, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry.
Friday: The President will meet with Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand.
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President Obama speaks at the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) fundraiser gala in Gotham Hall, Tuesday, June 17
You can see a video of the President’s remarks here
NYT: Obama Is Said To Consider Selective Airstrikes On Sunni Militants
President Obama is considering a targeted, highly selective campaign of airstrikes against Sunni militants in Iraq similar to counterterrorism operations in Yemen, rather than the widespread bombardment of an air war, a senior administration official said on Tuesday. Such a campaign, most likely using drones, could last for a prolonged period, the official said. But it is not likely to begin for days or longer, and would hinge on the United States’ gathering adequate intelligence about the location of the militants, who are intermingled with the civilian population in Mosul, Tikrit and other cities north of Baghdad. Even if the president were to order strikes, they would be far more limited in scope than the air campaign conducted during the Iraq war, this official said, because of the relatively small number of militants involved, the degree to which they are
dispersed throughout militant-controlled parts of Iraq and fears that using bigger bombs would kill Sunni civilians. At a meeting with his national security advisers at the White House on Monday evening, the official said, Mr. Obama was presented with a “sliding scale” of military options, which range from supplying the beleaguered Iraqi Army with additional advisers, intelligence and equipment to conducting strikes targeting members of the militant group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Much of the emphasis at the meeting, the official said, was on how to gather useful intelligence about the militants. They are not wearing uniforms or sleeping in barracks; and while there may be periodic convoys to strike, there are no columns of troops or vehicles.
Ahmed Abu Khattala was always open about his animosity toward the United States, and even about his conviction that Muslims and Christians were locked in an intractable religious war. During the assault on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, Mr. Abu Khattala was a vivid presence. Witnesses saw him directing the swarming attackers who ultimately killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Afterward, he offered contradictory denials of his role, sometimes trying to say that he did not do it but strongly approved. He appeared to enjoy his notoriety. Captured by military commandos and law enforcement agents early on Monday, Mr. Abu Khattala may now help address some of the persistent questions about the identity and motives of the attackers.
The thriving industry of conspiracy theories, political scandals, talk show chatter and congressional hearings may now confront the man federal investigators say played the central role in the attack. On the day of the attack, Islamists in Cairo had staged a demonstration outside the United States Embassy there to protest an American-made online video mocking Islam, and the protest culminated in a breach of the embassy’s walls — images that flashed through news coverage around the Arab world. As the attack in Benghazi was unfolding a few hours later, Mr. Abu Khattala told fellow Islamist fighters and others that the assault was retaliation for the same insulting video, according to people who heard him.
President Obama’s climate speech Saturday got plenty of press for its lengthy assault on global-warming denial. But what excited an aggressive wing of the climate movement were just a few cryptic words elsewhere in the commencement address at the University of California (Irvine): “You need to invest in what helps, and divest from what harms.” Activists pushing universities and other institutions to dump their financial holdings in coal and oil-and-gas companies believe they heard an unmistakable White House endorsement.
“People are thrilled about it,” Jamie Henn of 350.org, one of the groups leading the divestment movement, said of Obama’s comments Saturday. “Students will be taking the president’s message to their college presidents and boards of trustees,” he said of the fossil-fuel-divestment campaign, which also includes the Energy Action Coalition, the Responsible Endowments Coalition, the Sierra Student Coalition, and groups on specific campuses. The founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, a high-profile climate activist, has been a major divestment advocate.
NYT: U.S. Defends Prosecuting Benghazi Suspect In Civilian Rather Than Military Court
Conservative lawmakers on Tuesday sharply criticized the Obama administration’s decision to prosecute the suspected leader of the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, in the civilian criminal justice system, arguing that he should be questioned and tried by the military. The White House quickly pushed back. “Some have suggested that he should go to Gitmo,” said Caitlin Hayden, a White House spokeswoman. “Let me rule that out from the start.” “We have had substantial success delivering swift justice to terrorists through our federal court system,” she added. Greg Doherty, the brother of one of the attack’s victims, Glen A. Doherty, said he supported the decision to try Mr. Abu Khattala in a civilian court. “I think that’s what we should do with criminals, which is try them,” he said.
The Obama administration has sought to close the Guantánamo prison and refused to send newly captured prisoners there, instead using federal courts to prosecute terrorism cases that arose after Mr. Obama took office. The military commissions system, which the Bush administration established and Congress revised in 2009, has struggled. Appeals courts have vacated the convictions of the only two Guantánamo detainees who were tried for war crimes before a military commission — as opposed to pleading guilty without a trial and giving up a right to appeal — because of flaws that would likely not have been a problem in civilian court.
Daily Beast: Why Delta Force Waited So Long To Grab A Benghazi Ringleader
The mission to capture Ahmed abu Khatallah, one of the ringleaders of the September 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya was more than a year in the making. In the months leading up to the raid, teams from the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or Delta Force, practiced the extradition on a mock-up of abu Khatallah’s compound at Fort Bragg, according to a U.S. military contractor familiar with the planning for the mission. Eventually, it was a Delta Team with embedded FBI agents on Sunday that snagged the man wanted for the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department officer Sean Smith and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. The Obama administration has come under withering criticism because the whereabouts of abu Khatallah have been generally known.
But other U.S. officials, who spoke to The Daily Beast anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the press, said the mission to grab abu Khatallah had been planned for more than a year. Indeed, the Benghazi ringleader had been in the sights of Delta Force operators at the end of August, according to these sources, but no order was given at the time. A senior administration official told The Daily Beast that the delay in apprehending the suspect was due in part to requests from the Justice Department to gather appropriate evidence to prosecute him in criminal court. The practice and patience paid off, apparently. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday’s raid resulted in no casualties. “Khatallah currently faces criminal charges on three counts, and we retain the option of adding additional charges in the coming days,” said Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement Tuesday.
CBS Local: New York, Chicago, Hawaii Bid For Obama Presidential Library
At least six locations in three different states, including New York, entered official bids by Monday’s deadline in an effort to house Barack Obama’s presidential library. Columbia University, where Obama got his undergraduate degree, pitched a West Harlem site.
Four of the confirmed bidders are from Chicago, the president’s hometown, and a fifth was expected. Obama’s birth state of Hawaii also offered an oceanfront location in Honolulu.
While the Obama Foundation, which is planning the library, declined to confirm the bids it has received, planners for the six widely reported potential locations all confirmed they had submitted proposals. All see the library and museum as a potential driver of economic development. The University of Chicago cited a study it commissioned that concluded the library would draw 800,000 visitors a year and create 1,900 permanent jobs.
Simon Maloy: Stop Treating War-Crazy Buffoons As Experts! They Got It Wrong, Remember?
If you were asked to identify a single moment that best captures the failure of elite media outlets to act as agents of accountability, you could do worse than David Gregory asking Paul Wolfowitz on “Meet the Press” this weekend what we should do, “as a policy matter,” to deal with the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Wolfowitz, as deputy secretary of defense from 2001 to 2005, was one of the chief visionaries and supporters of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And he got just about everything wrong, from the cost of the war to the presence of WMD. And he doesn’t particularly care. In an interview with the Sunday Times last March, Wolfowitz made the argument that even though they got it wrong on WMD in 2003,
everything they said was happening (but wasn’t) would likely have happened later. “We would very likely either have had to go through this whole scenario all over but probably with higher costs for having delayed, or we’d be in a situation today where not only Iran was edging towards nuclear weapons but so was Iraq and also Libya.” What price did Wolfowitz pay for his part in the biggest American foreign policy disaster of that last generation? George Bush nominated him to the presidency of the World Bank. While at the World Bank he violated ethics rules and caused a scandal that paralyzed the institution. He was forced to resign after governments around the world called for him to be fired.
Travis Waldron: In Landmark Decision, U.S. Patent Office Cancels Trademark For Redskins Football Team
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled six federal trademark registrations for the name of the Washington Redskins, ruling that the name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and thus cannot be trademarked under federal law that prohibits the protection of offensive or disparaging language. The U.S. PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board issued a ruling in the case, brought against the team by plaintiff Amanda Blackhorse, Wednesday morning. “We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,” the board wrote in its opinion.
“The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed with our clients that the team’s name and trademarks disparage Native Americans. The Board ruled that the Trademark Office should never have registered these trademarks in the first place,” Jesse Witten, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, said in a press release. “We presented a wide variety of evidence – including dictionary definitions and other reference works, newspaper clippings, movie clips, scholarly articles, expert linguist testimony, and evidence of the historic opposition by Native American groups – to demonstrate that the word ‘redskin’ is an ethnic slur.”
President Obama walks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi backstage at a Democratic fundraiser in Washington, D.C., June 18, 2009 (Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
President Obama meets with Senior Advisors in the Oval Office in the White House, June 18, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama (background in Oval Office) chats before a lunch with members of the press in his private dining room, on June 18, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama listens to Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office for Health Reform, in a meeting on health care reform in the Roosevelt Room in the White House, June 18, 2009. From left: OMB Director Peter Orszag, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, DeParle, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Photo by Pete Souza)
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After playing a round of golf, President Obama has a drink with Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, at Joint Base Andrews, June 18, 2011 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Obama walks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton following a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the Esperanza Resort in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico, June 18, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama talks with Chief of Staff Jack Lew at the Esperanza Resort in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico, before the start of a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, June 18, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Obama waits with advisors before a bilateral meeting during the G8 Summit at the Lough Erne Resort in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, June 18, 2013. Pictured, from left, are: Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; National Security Advisor Tom Donilon; President Obama; Rob Nabors, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy; and Caroline Atkinson, Special Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs (Photo by Pete Souza)
First Lady Michelle Obama with Sasha and Malia during a visit to Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains National Park in Ireland, on June 18, 2013.
President Obama walks with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada on the grounds of Lough Erne Resort during the G8 Summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, June 18, 2013 (Photo by Pete Souza)
No, these are not my reactions to the Kim and Kanye wedding. These are the subject lines of some recent emails in my inbox from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee soliciting donations. (Okay, the exclamation points were my additions, but I was just taking poetic license to make clearer the emails’ emotional fervor.)
And the bodies of the emails are no less dire:
We’re beginning to think we should just throw in the towel.
The Koch brother’s shady $125 million is beginning to show up on televisions around the country in the form of dirty, lying attack ads. If we don’t act immediately, people will believe their lies and our hopes for a Democratic House will be dead in the water.
And:
This is horrifying:
Republicans have spent nearly HALF A BILLION DOLLARS on anti-Obamacare TV ads — and they keep piling on.
That means the Koch brothers and other Obamacare haters are officially outspending us on the Affordable Care Act 15-to-1. That’s staggering.
This isn’t just bad news for President Obama’s agenda. It’s bad for Democrats across the country who are getting targeted with these deceptive TV ads.
If we don’t hit our $90,000 goal today, then consider all hope of winning a Democratic majority in November lost.
USA Today: President Obama’s campaign raised $114 million in August, edging Mitt Romney’s haul of $111.6 million and ending the Republican’s three month winning streak in the money race.
“The key to fighting back against the special interests writing limitless checks to support Mitt Romney is growing our donor base, and we did that substantially in the month of August,” said Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign spokesman.
The $114 million in August is a big spike for Obama, who had raised only $75 million in July.
….. The new fundraising totals come right after the Republican and Democratic conventions, and at a time when Obama is taking a lead over Romney in daily tracking polls.
President Barack Obama greets people in the audience at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service, an annual ceremony honoring law enforcement who were killed in the line of duty, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., May 15. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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NYT: President Obama and the Democrats raised $43.6 million in April, adding to the president’s edge over his rival, Mitt Romney, even as money continues to pour in to outside groups ahead of the fall campaign.
The $43.6 million is a slight dip from March, when Mr. Obama’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised a combined $53 million. But it does not count several large fund-raisers — including one in Hollywood that reportedly raised $15 million — that took place in early May.
USA Today: Vice President Biden will deliver a blistering attack on Mitt Romney’s business career in a speech to be delivered later today in Youngstown, Ohio.
…. “He thinks that because he spent his career as a ‘businessman,’ he has the experience to run the economy,” Biden plans to say. “In the 1990s, there was a steel mill in Kansas City, Missouri. It had been in business since 1888. Then Romney and his partners bought the company. Eight years later it went bankrupt.”
The vice president goes on to tell the story of GST Steel, one of the companies taken over by Bain Capital that didn’t fare as well as, say, Staples or Sports Authority.
It’s the same company the Obama campaign will feature tonight in a two-minute campaign ad airing briefly in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado and Iowa.
TPM: A new Quinnipiac poll shows that President Barack Obama is a strong favorite to win New Jersey in November — even when he is matched up against the Garden State’s popular governor.
In the statewide poll of registered voters, Obama bests presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, 49 percent to 39 percent. For a state that has voted Democratic in the past five presidential elections, that is not necessarily surprising. But the poll gets intriguing when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie enters the equation. When Quinnipiac asked voters to decide between the incumbent ticket of Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and a Republican ticket of Romney and Christie, the president’s team still comes out on top — 50 percent to 42 percent.
ThinkProgress: The White House has issued a veto threat should the House version of the Violence Against Women Act reach the President’s desk.
In a statement, the administration said that the House version of the bill is unacceptable. Sponsored Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL), the House version removes the protections for marginalized communities, stripping out provisions that were passed in the Senate version of the bill.
Monday: President Obama will deliver remarks at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The President will also tour the museum with and be introduced by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Also on Monday, the President will present the Commander-in-Chief Trophy to the Air Force Academy football team at the White House.
Tuesdaymorning: PBO will honor the 2012 National Teacher of the Year and finalists at the White House.
Tuesdayafternoon: PBO visits the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Colorado at Boulder to launch an effort to get Congress to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. PBO will also host an on-the-record conference call with college and university student journalists. He will spend the night in Denver, Colorado.
Wednesday: PBO will visit the University of Iowa. At the event, he will speak with students about the critical need for Congress to act. The President will return to Washington in the evening.
Thursday: PBO will attend meetings at the White House.
Friday: PBO and the First Lady will meet with troops, veterans and military families at Ft. Stewart in Hinesville, Georgia.
Washington Post: President Obama’s reelection campaign has been rapidly increasing the number of big money “bundlers” collecting checks for his reelection, doubling the number of financiers who have brought in at least $500,000.
The influx during the first quarter of the year shows the president is getting an especially warm embrace from Hollywood and the broader entertainment industry, partly making up for a drop in support from Wall Street after Democrats passed broad new regulations for the financial sector, according to a list of fundraisers released by the campaign on Friday.
…. The Obama campaign has 533 people who have each raised at least $50,000 for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee, including 90 who joined the campaign in the last quarter. The total nearly matches the 558 people who were listed as volunteer fundraisers for the 2008 campaign.
…. The lengthening list of top fundraisers is a sign that bigger donors are coming off the sidelines as the outlines of the race against Romney become clear….
“We’ve had to raise without the same sense of early urgency,” said Andy Spahn, a top fundraiser for Obama in Hollywood. “But the race is coming into focus and the donor community is really starting to step up.”
Washington Post: President Obama raised $53 million last month for his reelection, a substantial increase from the month before.
In February, Obama raised $45 million from 348,000 donors. This month he upped his total by $8 million, and increased his donor pool to 567,000.
…. Ninety-seven percent of donations to Obama’s re-election effort were for $250 or less, the Obama campaign said. The average contribution was $50.78.
As of mid-March the president’s campaign had close to $85 million in cash on hand, according to FEC filings.
President Obama arrives at the White House from a summit with leaders from the Americas in Colombia, early Monday, April 16
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Buzzfeed: Former Governor Mitt Romney is already offering top donors access to a special “Presidential Inaugural retreat,” planned on the assumption that he will be elected president this November.
The offer, in a fundraising email circulated by a top Georgia supporter to fellow Republicans and obtained by BuzzFeed, is one of several goodies offered to those who contribute more than $50,000 to the joint fundraising committee known as “Romney Victory”….
Those donors will be named “Founding Members” of Romney Victory and invited to a California retreat with Romney and offered “yet to be determined access at the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August.”
They will also “have preferred status at the first Presidential Inaugural retreat,” the email says.
A visitor pretends to talk on a phone alongside a wax figure of US President Barack Obama on the opening day of the new Madame Tussauds exhibition in Sydney on April 16
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ET: The rivalry continues! First Lady Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres continued their playful trash talking after their highly publicized push-up contest.
….. Their lighthearted back-and-forth took place via satellite, as the First Lady sat in an audience of 600 military families and their daughters in Jacksonville, Florida while Ellen reached them from her studio in Burbank, California.
…. You can see their entire exchange on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Monday, April 16. Check your local listings.
The Obama Diary 
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