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Today:
10:0: President Obama delivers a statement on the Oklahoma tornados
Not sure if this is going ahead:
11:0: President Obama and VP Biden meet with DREAMers whose parents are in the country illegally and “who are directly affected by our broken immigration system”.
12:30: Jay Carney briefs the press
5:30: VP Biden delivers remarks at a reception hosted by the DNC in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month at the American Institute of Architects
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Best way to help tornado victims is to donate to the Red Cross at redcross.org or text REDCROSS to 90999. #okwx
— Red Cross Oklahoma (@redcrossokc) May 20, 2013
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Wh Official: Damage assessment teams have I-pads at the ready so that Oklahoma victims can sign up for federal assistance/grants on site.
— Kristen Welker (@kwelkernbc) May 21, 2013
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White House statement: “…. Overnight, the President approved a Major Disaster Deceleration for Oklahoma, making federal funding available to support affected individuals, as well as additional federal assistance to support immediate response and recovery efforts.
“This morning the President will receive a briefing in the Oval Office on the response by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco and other senior members of the President’s response team. …
“At the President’s direction, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate is traveling to Oklahoma this morning to ensure all Federal resources are supporting our state, local, and tribal partners in life saving and safety operations including search and rescue.
“FEMA has been supporting the state’s response since Sunday. At the request of the state, FEMA deployed a liaison to the state emergency operations center Sunday night.”
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Wanting to offset costs of relief to Oklahoma with budget offsets is heinous. It is literally sick.
— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) May 21, 2013
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Steve Benen: …. Ordinarily, so soon after a disaster of this magnitude, discussions about political agendas and ideologies are put on hold, which is why it came as a surprise when one of Oklahoma’s U.S. senators staked out a far-right position on federal disaster relief just five hours after the storm hit…..
I’ve seen many note overnight that Coburn is at least consistent ….. but while consistently is welcome, it doesn’t change the questions about unnecessary callousness…..
More here
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Oklahoma Senator won’t support tornado relief w/o budget cuts.He voted for billions in Iraq War funding w/o cuts.thkpr.gs/13EyOp7
— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) May 21, 2013
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Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s resident Fact Denier (who so brilliantly agreed with Darrell Issa when he said an “act of terror” is not a “terrorist attack”) excelled himself today – he gave ‘Three Pinocchios’ to White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer for stating the facts: that the Benghazi emails were doctored in an attempt to smear the President.
Seriously.
So, his problem is with Pfeiffer, not with those who doctored the emails or the reporters who used them for their ‘exclusives’.
There are too many ‘highlights’ to choose from, here are two:
“….. the reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes of e-mails that could not be kept.”
So, why did Jon Karl repeatedly imply that he had seen the original emails?
“Despite Pfeiffer’s claim of political skullduggery, we see little evidence that much was at play here besides imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors by journalists.”
“… imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors.”
Oh boy, nooooooooo words.
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