In weekly address, Senator Corker says Obama "punts" on major issues - CBS News

By Leigh Ann Caldwell Topics Domestic Issues Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.,

(Credit: CBS) (CBS News) On the same day President Obama officially takes his reelection campaign to the public, the Republicans said in their weekly address that President Obama "punts" on major issues.

"The President punts on almost every tough decision," Tennessee Senator Bob Corker said in the video address. "His Administration is robbing ... young people of their American inheritance, spending their money on my generation and engaging in nothing short of generational theft."

In the video address, Corker called for "pro-growth" policies that includes tax reform and changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. He said reforming those two areas of the economy would "cause our economy to just take off."

Corker offered no details on how to ensure the entitlement programs are financially sustainable for the long-term. As for the tax code, which has also proven a difficult issue to tackle in Washington, Corker proposed general changes that include closing loopholes and tax expenditures.

"At present, our inability to deal with these issues is our greatest enemy. In other words, we are our greatest enemy. But I also believe it can be our greatest opportunity," Corker said.

The Tennessee senator also criticized the Democratic-controlled Senate for not introducing a budget for the third consecutive year.

"Failing to accomplish even the most basic responsibility of government is a total failure of leadership and represents everything the American people hate about Washington," Corker said.

Latest CBS News Headlines Popular CBS News Stories
on Facebook Most Discussed Stories
on CBS News

View the original article here

Obama campaign defends bin Laden ad, as Romney adviser slams 'divisive' video - Fox News

President Obama's reelection campaign on Sunday stood by its controversial web video which questioned whether Mitt Romney would have approved the Usama bin Laden raid -- as a top Romney adviser accused the president of twisting a unifying moment into a "divisive, partisan, political attack." 

That video, released Friday, featured Bill Clinton touting Obama's role in directing the raid that resulted in bin Laden's death last May. But it went a step further, and suggested Romney would not have made the same call. 

Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary, said Sunday the ad was "fair game." 

"I don't think it's clear that (Romney) would," Gibbs said, when asked whether Romney would have green-lighted the mission. 

"Usama bin Laden no longer walks on this planet today because of that brave decision (by Obama) and the brave actions by the men and women in our military -- and quite frankly Mitt Romney said it was a foolish thing to do a few years ago," Gibbs said, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." 

"Maybe the comments he made a few years ago he admits are wrong, or he's flip-flopped on yet another issue," Gibbs added. 

The Obama campaign is referring to a quote from Romney who once said, "it's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person." 

But Republicans describe the new web video as preposterous. 

"I think most Americans will see it as a sign of a desperate campaign," Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said, speaking on the same program as Gibbs. 

Gillespie said it's legitimate for Obama to say he's "proud" of the bin Laden raid -- with the one-year anniversary of that raid approaching this week. But Gillespie objected to the implication that Romney would not have made the same decision, calling the move "divisive." 

"I can't envision, having served in the White House, any president having been told 'we have him, he's here, you know, should we go in,' saying, 'no we shouldn't'," Gillespie said. "This is an attack on something that might have not happened." 

The campaign video was no outlier in the Obama campaign's emerging reelection message. 

Vice President Biden, in a speech Thursday, suggested a new bumper sticker read: "Usama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive." 

He went on to question Romney's strength as a leader in that context, a day before the campaign released the web video. 

"You have to ask yourself, if Gov. Romney had been president, could he have used the same slogan -- in reverse? People are going to make that judgment. It's a legitimate thing to speculate on," Biden said. 

Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene told Fox News on Sunday that the question "highlights" what she described as Romney's shortcomings on decisive leadership. 

"This proves President Obama does have a lot more weight and carries a lot more weight in this area," she said. 

But GOP strategist Nancy Pfotenhauer told Fox News the video "politicizes something that shouldn't have been politicized" and signals how "nasty" the 2012 campaign will become.

View the original article here

Obama Slow-Jams the News With Jimmy Fallon - TIME

The “POTUS with the most-est" croons some policy during a live appearance at UNC.

This whole music thing is really working out for President Barack Obama. The President got all Justin Timberlake on us by joining “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” on Tuesday on the campus of the University of North Carolina to “slow-jam the news” in front of the live audience with the Roots playing some soulful R&B in the background.

As you see from the clip, Obama doesn’t pull out the lyrical genius we’ve seen previously, instead basically reading a stump speech to back up his proposal for lower-rate student loans with some background tunes (talk about playing to the crowd), but Fallon offers the most musical intrigue with his jokes sprinkled into the bit, including calling Obama “the Preezy of the United Steezy.”

(VIDEO: Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon Give a Double Dose of Rap History)

After introducing the regular Fallon feature by saying, “I want to slow jam the news and I’m not the only one,” the stage curtains opened to reveal Obama, who says, “I am President Barack Obama, and I too want to slow jam the news.”

Obama then jumps into his musically-enhanced speech, but Fallon takes over lyrically with such hard-hitting lines as, “The Pell Grant is a beautiful thing, but is it enough by itself to satisfy all your collegiate needs? Ah, Pell No.”

Obama, sitting on a stool, calls out Congress for failing to tax billionaires, which prompts Fallon to dub him The Barackness Monster.

UNC students ate up the bit and Roots lead singer Tariq Trotter delivered some memorable pop culture lines and labeled Obama the “POTUS with the most-est.” Maybe Fallon can convince Obama to sing all his speeches from now on.

PHOTOS: Inside Barack Obama’s World

View the original article here

Obama Presses on College Costs as Romney Vies for Youth Vote - San Francisco Chronicle

View the original article here

The other primary: Obama on brink of clinching Democratic nomination - Fox News

WASHINGTON –  It's official: President Obama will clinch the Democratic nomination for president Tuesday, ending a low-key primary race that many Americans probably didn't realize was happening. 

Obama is certain to reach the 2,778 delegates he needs to secure his party nod for a second time when five states vote on Tuesday. He has won almost every delegate so far, with a few exceptions in some Southern states that won't vote Democratic in the fall anyway. 

But don't expect a big party, or any party. Campaign officials say they are focused on the general election, as they have been for months, and the all-but-certain Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. 

All this is a stark difference from four years ago. 

At this time in 2008, Obama was still in an epic primary battle against Hillary Rodham Clinton. The fight for the nomination didn't end until June, on the last day of the primary calendar, when Obama inched across the finish line on his way to the general election and eventually the White House. 

There was a party that night, and why not? Obama was a big underdog heading into the 2008 primaries. Facing the well-financed former first lady, Obama was the junior senator from Illinois, a black man with a funny sounding name. No foreign policy experience. No military experience. 

Obama's resume may have been a bit thin, but he parlayed his compelling life story and an inspiring message of hope and change into an unlikely run for the Democratic nomination and victory over Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. 

The partying was intense that night in 2008 when Obama became the first black to win a major party nomination to run for president. Obama's top campaign aides were in a Chicago bar near campaign headquarters. The candidate wasn't there, but the bar tab was open. 

"There are red shots, blue shots and green ones. I have no idea what I'm drinking, and don't give a damn," Jeff Berman, Obama's 2008 delegate expert, wrote in his new book about the 2008 campaign, "The Magic Number." 

"Time after time, we lock arms, let out a yell, and send it down the hatch." 

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt was succinct when asked if the campaign was planning a similar celebration Tuesday night, after the primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and Rhode Island. 

"No sir." 

This year, Obama's march to the nomination has generated little interest because he has no major primary challenger, no one who made the ballot in more than a handful of states. 

In Iowa, which gave Obama his first victory in January 2008, Democratic caucus-goers didn't even vote for president this year. Instead, they held rallies to fire up supporters for the general election. 

Democratic voters, however, are not unanimously behind the president. 

In Oklahoma, anti-abortion protestor Randall Terry, who founded Operation Rescue, got 18 percent of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary March 6. That should have been good enough to win eight delegates, but state party officials said Terry didn't follow party rules and was not a "bona fide Democrat." 

The delegates were awarded to Obama; Terry complained he was the victim of "political insider trading." 

In Alabama, 18 percent of Democratic voters voted for "uncommitted" in the March 13 primary, so the state party will send eight uncommitted delegates to the Democratic national convention. 

Obama is unlikely to win Oklahoma or Alabama in the general election. Regardless, LaBolt said Obama's campaign is busy building the largest grassroots operation ever. 

"Now that we are on the doorstep of the general election, the choice Americans will have in November has already come into view: between a president who has fought every day to create jobs and restore economic security for the middle class, and a Republican nominee that would return to the same policies that led to the economic crisis," LaBolt said. 

Republicans have a different view, now that Obama has a record to run on. 

"He was a blank slate four years ago, and people projected onto that blank slate their hopes for the future," said John Ryder, a member of the Republican National Committee from Tennessee. "Now we've got a record. How'd that work out for you?" 

Berman, who is not with the Obama campaign this year, said Obama may not be able to recapture the same magic he had in 2008, but he still has plenty of advantages. 

"He can't have what he had the first time," Berman said in an interview. "But it's not like he lost everything. They know where their people are, they just have to figure out how to motivate them."

View the original article here