Forward to 1 hr 59 for the President’s remarks – text of remarks here
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Caskets and pictures of firefighters are seen as President Obama speaks during a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for the firefighters who were killed in a huge blast at a Texas fertilizer plant last week
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The Texas fertilizer facility did not have sprinklers, shut-off valves, fire alarms or legally required blast walls wapo.st/14f7p36
A year ago: President Obama tours the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with Sara Bloomfield, museum director, and Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor, April 23, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Today:
12:30: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney
2:15: The President honors the 2013 National Teacher of the Year
2:45: Meets with the Amir of Qatar, His Highness Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani
6:30: Meets with a bipartisan group of women Senators for dinner
8:30: Vice President Biden Speaks at the Time 100 Dinner
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Peter Beinart: The rap against Barack Obama, at least on the left, has long been that he’s too cautious, too calculating, too conciliatory. Not a guy willing to take risks.
We can apologize now.
What Obama did in the four months between December’s Newtown shooting and this Wednesday’s Senate capitulation was one of the great displays of presidential guts in American history…..
…. [he] pursued gun control with a force of mind and soul that was astonishing to behold. “I never saw a president fight so hard,” remarked Sen. Barbara Boxer, “never on any issue.”
Why did he do it? In part because the Obama-as-timid meme was always a lie …. but beyond that, I suspect that once Obama saw an opportunity, he pushed gun control so hard because he simply cares more. As a community organizer, he worked and lived in the kind of communities where Americans are most often shot…
…. The gun control struggle will likely continue for decades. And this week its arc feels particularly long. But one day, a future president will look back at the last four months as the moment when Barack Obama began to make it bend.
Steve Benen: As the debate over new measures to prevent gun violence reached its apex, Republican lawmakers and conservative activists became surprisingly hostile towards the family members of those slain in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. If there’s one group of people who would appear to be off-limits when it comes to political pushback, one might think it’d be Newtown families, but apparently not.
What’s next, cheap shots at Gabrielle Giffords? Actually, yes…..
President Obama reacts as Joey Hudy of Phoenix, Arizona, launches a marshmallow from his Extreme Marshmallow Cannon during the second White House Science Fair, February 7, 2012
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Today:
12:0: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney
1:35: President Obama views science fair projects, East Garden and State Dining Room
The President will host the White House Science Fair and celebrate the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country. The President hosted the first-ever White House Science Fair in late 2010, fulfilling a commitment he made at the launch of his Educate to Innovate campaign to inspire students to excel in math and science. As the President noted then, “If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too.”
2:25: Delivers remarks at the White House Science Fair
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Happy Earth Day to you.Happy Earth Day to you. Happy Earth Day, dear planet we’re destroying.Happy Earth Day to you.
Steve Benen: The latest reports suggest Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is still unable to speak, due to a gunshot wound to the neck, but he’s begun to respond to questions…. while everyone involved certainly hopes these discussions produce answers, they coincide with a growing political debate, spurred on by conservative Republicans, about Tsarnaev’s legal fate….
…. It’s worth emphasizing that [Sen. Lindsey] Graham, a longtime lawyer and a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, appears to be simply be making up legal standards as he goes along.
The Obama administration has already invoked the public-safety exception to the Miranda law, though Graham is arguing this isn’t enough …. he’s saying officials should look for al Qaeda connections for a month, in the hopes that evidence might justify the move retroactively. That Tsarnaev is an American citizen, captured on American soil, apparently doesn’t matter to Graham and his allies…..
