President Obama Full Press Conference – 8/1/14

Prior to the House of Representatives successfully ramming new bills through their own body, the President spoke openly for 40 minutes, to include an already foregone conclusion that whatever the House Republicans were trying to pass, it would be too little, too late, as the U.S. Senate had already left for their summer recess. Because of the House Republican obstructionism and their lack of leadership to pass bills in their own caucus, the President highlighted that he most likely will have no choice with acting on their in-action regarding the people crossing the Southern border, mainly into South Texas.

 The highlighted points of his speech which can be watched immediately below the highlighted points in his speech are as follows:

 1) The economy created over 200,000 new jobs in July after creating 300,000 new jobs in the prior month of June, a streak that has been happening for at least 6 months in a row. A total of 9.9 million new jobs have been created during the past 53 months. According to the President, it is the largest streak of job creation in U.S. history.

2) The President highlighted on what he believes that Congress seems to throttle down that would help the economy, but has failed to do so, that includes:

    a) Rebuilding the U.S. infrastructure in ways that are sustained over many years.
    b) Advocating to raise the minimum wage
    c) Making it easier for people to pay off their student loans
 
Bills associated to what has been mentioned above has been blocked by members of Congress. It is the reason why President Obama is taking action on his own to help working families. All of these facts are stated in his video below.

3) Congress did pass legislation to strengthen the VA.

3) Congress decided to continue to fund transportation project for the next few months, but it is not the long term solution that the President is looking for. The Congress is not doing a thing in this regard to accellerate the economy by not providing funds to cover for the long term.

4) Things that affect middle class families are not getting done in Congress.

Examples:

    a) Child migrants on the border of Texas, as the Republicans passed the most extreme and unworkable bill that they already know that is going nowhere, even after they have been setting an a bi-partisan immigration bill for over a year. It is just a message bill that they can take back to their constituents when they go back home on vacation to show them that they are doing something and the President will do nothing.  Because the Congress will be out on vacation, the President says that he will have to make some tuff choices to meet the challenge. Immigration has not been addressed.

  b) A student loan bill where people have debt that could be re-financed at lower rates did not pass.

  c) The transportation bill just gets the country through the spring instead of planning years in advance, according to the President.

  d) States and businesses are raising the minimum wage for their workers, because the U.S. Congress fails to act on the minimum wage bill already passed in the U.S. Senate. The Speaker of the House John Boehner will not even bring the bill to the floor. Why? Because he knows it will pass, and that is against his agenda while President Obama is in office, and that is to 'do-nothing' to give ANY credit to the President.

4) Approving career diplomats with bi-partisan support for posts throughout the world are not getting done, and for a brief time during the voting, the Republicans were trying to block the new ambassador to Russia, even in a time when the Ukraine has become a world issue involving President Putin of Russia, who has received some of the stiffest sanctions to his country since the cold war. The Congress is blocking ambassadors from serving in countries where we need  to have a presence there. It now involves over 40 diplomats waiting for confirmation, but the House just will not act.

5) Congress is still blocking the Ambassador to Sierra Leon where there is an EBOLA outbreak.

6) Congress is blocking the Ambassador to Guatemala as the Republicans demand that the U.S. do more in stopping unaccompanied children from Guatemala.

The President wants Congress to focus on people's concerns, and they are just not doing that in Congress at this time. The economy could be allot better and the country could be much further along if Congress would just do their job, which is to create and pass laws, not to stop them from being created.

7) The President claims that he will not stop trying to help middle class families, and will continue his fight with Congress when they get back from their vacation. Broad agreement must be made in key areas of issue between both the Democrats and Republicans need to take hold. The President mentions this and and also claims that Congress is standing in the way of our country's success.

The President's comments didn't originally include the problem in the middle east, but reporters were sure to immediately bring the topic up in the first question after his prepared speech.

1) The President says that he condemns Hamas, the Palestinian factions responsible for killing even right after a stated cease-fire was announced. Another soldier was abducted, but most likely would be killed.

2) The President says that Israel has the right to defend itself, including the right to destroy tunnels being built under their land for use in terrorist attacks.

3) The President continues to support Israel in what is known as 'the Iron Dome Program', which is a missile system designed to intercept rockets being fired by Hamas into Israel before they hit their targets.

4) The President stated that at the same time that innocent civilians in Gaza that get caught in the cross-fire coming from Israel needed to be protected.

    a) A cease-fire was the first way that killings of innocent civilians could be at least temporarily stopped so that both sides could step back and try to resolve some issues diplomatically without further bloodshed.
It was a 72-hour cease fire that Israel committed to, but was violated in less than an hour into the cease fire by Hamas.

    b) The President gave John Kerry credit for his persistence and for enduring unfair criticizm by the people in Israel. John Kerry will be continually committed in this objective to aim for peace in the region, according to the President.

    c) The President wants to see everything that is possible that can be done so that Palestinians would not be killed.

The President says that a dilemma exists.

  1) Israel has the right to defend itself, and to go after the rockets and destroy the tunnel network.
   2) On the other hand, because of the incredibly irresponsible reactions of Hamas to include rocket launchers located right in the middle of civilian neighborhoods, innocent Palestinians are getting hurt.
   3) The President has been pushing hard for a cease fire because of the innocent civilians that have been either maimed or killed during the Israel attacks.

The second question was regarding the U.S influence in the world, or the loss of it according the the reporter asking the second question.

    1) The President says that the people have forgotten that even America, the most powerful nation on earth still does not control everything around the world.  He claimed that diplomatic efforts take time. He claimed that diplomacy does not always include steps forward, but also will include steps backward that need to be re-addressed.   Proof of this has been the middle-east crisis, in Europe and Asia, which is the nature of world affairs.

   2) The President claims that we have delivered necessary sanctions to Russia,  actions that the U.S. said that it would do, now to include European Nations siding with the United States, especially now if  Russian President Putin continues to arm separatists with heavy armaments, as evidence shows were responsible for 300 innocent people dying on a Malaysian flight over Ukraine. The President claims that Russia continues to break international law and disregards the sovereignty of Ukraine.  The President has attacked Russian energy, Russian defense and their financial systems with the sanctions to date. Further sanctions are possible, but careful sanctions that would backfire onto Europe and the U.S. are weighed in the President's decision with sanctions he imposes to Russia.  Still, the President talked to President Putin prior to his speech and is willing to resolve issues with Russia diplomatically if Putin respects and honors the right of Ukraine to determine their own destiny.

Just because we cannot finalize solutions to issues between countries does not prove the fact that U.S. influence around the world is diminishing.

The President mentions the issues of Kosovo and Bosnia, that raged for some time but ultimately the problems there were resolved.

The third question concerned 'Executive Orders' and does the President take any blame for not reaching agreement with the Republican led House of Representatives.

   1) The President brings up immigration as a bi-partisan bill passed in the Senate cosponsored by Democrats and some very conservative Republicans to include labor, the Evangelical community to law enforcement. He claims that the real disagreement is between House Republicans and Senate Republicans and the House Republicans and the business community, the House Republicans and the Evangelical community. He claims that he is just one of the people that they seem to disagree with on this issue regarding immigration.

  2) Regarding the short term crisis involving the Rio Grande valley, the President claims that the Republican House states that Texas needs more resources, tougher border security in the area where unaccompanied children are showing up.   The President agreed, so the President offered a supplemental amount of funds needed to succeed in what the Republican House claims that the U.S. should be doing, and Congress could not pass the bill. The President claims that the Republicans cannot even pass their own version of the bill, even though after the statements of the President, the House did finally pass their own radical version of the bill, even though they know that it cannot pass in the Senate. The Senate now vows not to even take it up on the floor. So their bill, the Republican bill that the House spent during their so called first day of vacation, is dead on arrival in the Senate.  The President will not even see their bill to sign.

The President claims that he is taking Executive actions because of the failure of Congress to pass bills that the American people care about. Regarding the border supplemental, the President stated that he will have to act alone, because presently the U.S. does not have enough resources, as an example, the resources will have to be re-allocated in order to make sure that some of the basic functions that must take place are in force.
For example, the unaccompanied children need to be properly housed. Enough immigration judges need to be available to process their cases. So the President will now have to act alone. The President claimed that all that would have to be done for him not to act on Executive Orders is for Congress just to pass legislation, then there would be no need for such actions by the President.

The President claims that the Republicans cannot even act on what they say their priorities are. They will not compromise even with Senate Republicans on certain issues.

Again, all of these facts are reiterated in the speech by President Obama in his Press Conference on August 1, 2014.


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