Posts Tagged ‘comey

04
Jan
16

The President’s Day

By Nerdy Wonka 77 Comments
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U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Attorney General Loretta Lynch (2nd L), Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Thomas Brandon (L) and FBI Director James Comey (R) to discuss what executive actions he can take to curb gun violence, at the White House in Washington January 4, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Barack Obama meets with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Thomas Brandon, and FBI Director James Comey to discuss what executive actions he can take to curb gun violence

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch (L) looks toward U.S. President Barack Obama during a meeting with other top law enforcement officials to discuss what executive actions he can take to curb gun violence, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington January 4, 2016. Behind Obama is a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

30
Oct
15

A Tweet Or Two

By Nerdy Wonka 56 Comments
Categories: All Photos
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*SNORT*

13
Feb
15

A Tweet Or Two

By Nerdy Wonka 144 Comments
Categories: All Photos
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Continue reading ‘A Tweet Or Two’

12
Feb
15

A Tweet Or Two

By Nerdy Wonka 98 Comments
Categories: All Photos
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29
Oct
13

Rise and Shine

By Nerdy Wonka 90 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos, Articles and Joe 'Big Deal' Biden
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On This Day: Sen. Obama and his vice presidential running mate Sen. Biden at a rally in Sunrise, Fla., Oct. 29, 2008

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Today (All Times Eastern):

11:45: President Obama meets with CEOs on Cybersecurity Framework

12:30: Jay Carney briefs the press

3:0: President Obama delivers remarks at a memorial service for former Speaker Tom Foley

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Note: The interviewer is a jack a**

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USA Today: It’s A Day Of Security And Remembrance For President Obama

On Tuesday morning, Obama meets with a group of CEOs to talk about a new kind of national security challenge: Cybersecurity….

In the afternoon, Obama travels to Capitol Hill to attend a memorial service for the late House Speaker Tom Foley, who passed away last week.

In addition, Obama has meetings today with Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

More here

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A Must Read

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Detroit Free Press: Auto Sales Forecast: Buyers Back After Government Shutdown

With four days left in the month, auto dealers apparently can let out a few sighs of relief.

Auto buyers seemed to have shrugged off the government shutdown and gone back to helping to make 2013 a banner year for the auto industry, two forecasts of October auto sales suggest.

Kelley Blue Book predicts an 8% rise in auto sales in October compared to the same month last year. Edmunds.com is even more optimistic, predicting an increase of 12.7% over the same period.

More here

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Sun Times: Durbin “Stand Your Ground” Hearing Tuesday: Trayvon Martin’s Mother To Testify

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will chair a hearing Tuesday on the controversial “stand your ground” laws that played a role in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman. Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, will be testifying.

Durbin is holding the hearing in his role as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. The hearing was originally scheduled for September…..

More here

The 10 a.m. ET hearing will be shown live on C-Span

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Syracuse.com: Obama To Campaign For Terry McAuliffe

President Barack Obama plans to campaign for Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, on Sunday.

A spokesman for McAuliffe’s campaign said Obama will join McAuliffe at a rally in northern Virginia. No additional details were available.

Polls show McAuliffe, a native of Syracuse, is ahead of Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia race, one of two gubernatorial contests being held this year…

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TIME: Password-Reset Security Glitch Fixed On Healthcare.gov

A security flaw in the original design of HealthCare.gov that could have disclosed e-mail and other account information to hackers was eliminated Monday during an overnight fix, a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokesman has told TIME.

“We are eliminating this theoretical vulnerability by preventing users from seeing the specific reset functionality when trying to reset their password,” said Brian Cook, who works for the agency that oversees the troubled website portal for federal health-insurance exchanges. There is no public evidence that these design flaws were ever exploited to compromise user accounts.

More here

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USA Today: Insurance For The Young Could Be Less Than $50 A Month

Almost half of young, single, uninsured adults in 34 states could pay $50 or less a month for insurance through the online exchanges after receiving subsidies, according to a study released by the Department of Health and Human Services Monday. The HHS study said there are 7.2 million uninsured Americans 18 to 34 in single-person households in the 34 states. Of that total, there are 2.9 million who are eligible to buy insurance on either federal or state partnership insurance marketplaces.

Of those 2.9 million young people, HHS found that 1.3 million, or 46%, could pay less than $50 a month for a bronze plan. The exchanges offer coverage from the bronze to platinum level. Bronze is the cheapest. About 1.9 million of uninsured young people in those 34 states, the study showed, could pay $100 a month or less for health insurance with the tax credits.

More here

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20 Committee: Merkel’s “Real” Cellphone Is Secure

As Germany’s “Handygate” has become a mass phenomenon bordering on hysteria, one of the strangest aspects has been the fact, which I’ve noted previously, that Chancellor Angela Merkel was using a quite insecure cellphone to conduct government business. According to numerous media reports, the cellphone in question, said to have been intercepted by NSA for years, was used by Merkel for political party affairs, and was supposed to be used only to the classification level of VS-NfD, which is roughly equivalent to the U.S. category of For Official Use Only (FOUO), in other words, not actually classified at all.

Except the actual story is coming into focus now and it’s a rather different one than what Berlin’s been complaining so loudly about. While Merkel has indeed had a quite vulnerable cellphone, her “real” Chancellor-Phone, as the Germans call it, is quite secure from interception.

More here

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Bloomberg: Obama Tells FBI Leaders He’ll Press Congress To Lift Budget Cuts

President Barack Obama said he will keep pressing Congress to lift across-the-board budget cuts to ease the limits they have placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other critical agencies.

At the formal installation ceremony for James Comey as the seventh director of the FBI, Obama said resources for the agency have been trimmed by the automatic cuts known as sequestration even as the the FBI’s mission has been expanding to confront the threat of terrorism.

A congressional committee will meet this week to come up with a plan for taxes and spending to replace the automatic spending cuts approved in 2011. Comey said in a speech in Philadelphia last week that the budget limits mean that as many as 3,500 positions will be cut and agents will be furloughed, radio station KYW reported.

More here

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President Obama talks on the phone with Israel PM Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, Oct. 28, 2013 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Rollling Stone, November 2012 (Photo released Oct 29, 2025)

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Oct. 29, 2009 - Pete Souza: “This photo was taken about 4AM after the President made an unannounced trip to Dover Air Force Base to pay respects to fallen troops coming back from Afghanistan. After meeting privately with the families, the President walked alone up the ramp of the cargo plane carrying the 18 caskets, all draped in American flags. I could see the emotion on his face as he walked from casket to casket, leaving a Presidential coin on each. When he was done, he paused for a few minutes, head bowed in prayer. I heard him tell others later how that was the most difficult moment of his Presidency thus far. Out of respect for the families, not all of who wanted their ceremony photographed, we can’t show those pictures (but they will become part of Presidential archive).”

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On This Day:

President Obama rests his foot on a desk as he talks with Phil Schiliro, assistant to the President for legislative affairs, in the Outer Oval Office, Oct. 29, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama greets Girl Scouts prior to a signing ceremony for the Girl Scouts USA Centennial Commemorative Coin Act in the Oval Office, Oct. 29, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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28
Oct
13

James Comey: FBI Director

By Nerdy Wonka 118 Comments
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President Barack Obama makes remarks during a ceremonial swearing-in of FBI Director James Comey at the FBI Headquarters in Washington

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C-SPAN has the full coverage of the event and James Comey’s speech was great. You can watch it here

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President Barack Obama pats new FBI Director James Comey on the back as they arrive for Comey’s installation ceremony at the FBI Headquarters

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FBI Director James Comey is sworn in at a ceremony at the FBI Headquarters. Comey was officially sworn in as director of FBI on September 4 to succeed Robert Mueller, who had served as director for 12 years.

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FBI Director James Comey speaks during a swearing in ceremony at the FBI Headquarters

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President Barack Obama talks with FBI Director James Comey during the installation ceremony for Comey as FBI director

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President Barack Obama attends the swearing-in of FBI Director James Comey at the FBI headquarters

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21
Jun
13

PBO nominates J. Comey to head F.B.I.

By lovelyplains 91 Comments
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President Obama nominated Robert Muller’s successor to the F.B.I. this afternoon

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21
Jun
13

Rise and Shine

By Chipsticks 198 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos, Articles and Michelle Obama
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Today:

2:05: The President makes a personnel announcement

12:45: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney

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USA Today: President Obama will announce Friday that he’s picked James Comey, a former Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to be his next FBI director……

…. Comey, who previously served as deputy attorney general and supervised operations for the Justice Department, was a key player in one of the most dramatic moments of the Bush administration. In 2004, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card tried to persuade Attorney General John Ashcroft - who was ill with acute pancreatitis - to reauthorize a warrantless eavesdropping program while in his hospital bed.

Comey learned of Gonzales and Card’s plan and rushed to Ashcroft’s hospital room, along with Mueller. Both threatened to resign if the White House renewed the program. As a result, it was not reauthorized.

More here

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USA Today: …. The President holds his first meeting today with the newly constituted Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, in part to discuss criticism of National Security Agency programs that gather phone and Internet records.

Obama will discuss his recent direction to the Director of National Intelligence to de-classify certain information “to better contextualize these programs, correct misrepresentations, and provide an opportunity for the dialogue he welcomes about the right balance between national security and privacy,” the White House said.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was actually created in 2004 as part of the executive branch, and made an independent agency in 2007, but it has never met amid disputes over its duties.

More here

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AP: The Republican chairman of a House committee considering new abortion regulations in Texas has told more than 300 women that they would not be allowed to testify against the bill because it had become too repetitive.

The predominantly-female audience roared in disapproval when Corsicana Rep. Byron Cook made the announcement. State troopers flooded the room as he and other Republicans left.

The new bills would limit how, when and where women could get abortions in Texas and shut down 38 out or 42 clinics in the state.

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UT/NerdyWonka: I am so proud of the hundreds of Texas men and women who showed up to make their voices heard.

I am proud of us standing up and keeping the debate going for over 14 hours so that the anti-women bills would not just have a smooth sailing through committee.

I am proud of Texans for making sure the world knew that these destructive bills had died in a regular session and the GOP is trying to sneak them past in shoddy special sessions.

I am so proud of everyone who made sure the draconian bill #HB60 trended worldwide on Twitter and made people from other states and countries tune into the fight and realize what damage and destruction really is.

I am proud of the Democratic State Reps who made sure voices were heard even when the GOP Chair Byron Cook tried to shutdown debate.

People forget that California used to be red until the GOP tried to ram down Prop 187 and then California became blue and has stayed blue since then. That is is Texas right now.

What I saw yesterday and into the morning shows that the groundwork for Texas turning purple and eventually blue has been laid. People in states who vote Blue in presidential elections and those who don’t but are controlled by GOP state legislatures and Governors need to be vigilant because these laws have and will spread to your states too. See Ohio for example. These laws have also come to the U.S. House of Rep so be on the lookout. States are a blueprint for what can and will become national anti-women bills and laws.

The war on women is real but the Texas Legislature found out that you don’t mess with Texas women.

We might be controlled by majority republicans but our voices will not be silenced. 2014 is no joke.

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Reuters: It takes an army: Tens of thousands of workers roll out Obamacare

From the chief actuary at the California health insurance exchange that President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law established to the legions of call center staffers who will help people trying to buy insurance through such state exchanges, the number of people working to implement “Obamacare” has reached the tens of thousands, a Reuters analysis has found.

No one said that overhauling healthcare, which accounts for 17 percent of all national spending, was going to happen with a skeleton crew.

State offices that will run insurance exchanges are hiring tens of thousands, either on staff or through outsourcing firms. Federal agencies that are key to implementing the law, such as the Internal Revenue Service, plan to hire thousands more, and private non-profit groups backed by the White House are dispatching thousands of newly hired staffers and volunteers into the field.

More here

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Greg Sargent: In another embarrassment for House Speaker John Boehner, the farm bill went down to a surprise defeat in the House, 195-234. Most Democrats voted against it, because of its deep cuts to food stamps, but what really sealed its fate is that in spite of those cuts, 62 Republicans voted against it, too, apparently because it didn’t cut spending enough.

….. “This underscores that Boehner cannot pass bills on his own,” Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein told me in a quick interview today. “He can’t do anything with only Republicans. The real power center in the House is not Boehner. It’s not Cantor. It’s not Ryan. It’s not McCarthy. It’s the extreme right. This shows the real dilemma ahead for a Speaker who is very weak and very conscious of his weakness within the party.”

….. Ornstein’s final verdict on today’s display from House Republicans: “They’re pathetic.”

Full post here

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Steve Benen: …. From a progressive perspective, it’s hard to shed tears over the bill’s demise - this was an awful, needlessly punitive piece of legislation. Its GOP proponents, without so much as a hint of shame, were a little too eager to redistribute wealth in the wrong direction - punishing poor families and rewarding wealthy agricultural interests - and their efforts to slash funds for food stamps bordered on cruel.

To be sure, even if the House had passed its bill, it wasn’t going far given the scope of the opposition from Senate Democrats and an unambiguous veto threat from the Obama White House.

But the real takeaway here is that the House Republican leadership, once again, failed miserably….

More here

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30
May
13

James B. Comey….a man of integrity

By lovelyplains 125 Comments
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President Obama is planning to nominate for Dept. A.G. Comey to become FBI director

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WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former hedge fund executive who served as a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to two people with knowledge of theBy choosing Mr. Comey, a Republican, Mr. Obama made a strong statement about bipartisanship at a time when he faces renewed criticism from Republicans in Congress and has had difficulty winning confirmation of some important nominees. At the same time, Mr. Comey’s role in one of the most dramatic episodes of the Bush administration — in which he refused to acquiesce to White House aides and reauthorize a program for eavesdropping without warrants when he was serving as acting attorney general — should make him an acceptable choice to Democrats.

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On the night of March 10, 2025, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call.

White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush’s domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.

In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey’s presence in the room, turned and left.

The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said.

“I was angry,” Comey testified. “I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.”

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After that episode the acting A.G. prepared a resignation letter to be delivered to President Bush:

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30
May
13

Rise and Shine

By Nerdy Wonka 146 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Articles
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President Barack Obama greets Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and ceremony participants backstage before the signing of the Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act of 2012 in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, May 30, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Tom Kludt: An overwhelming majority of Americans said that the economy and unemployment should take precedence over the Congressional investigations into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, the Justice Department’s subpoena of Associated Press phone records and last year’s deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University released Thursday.

The poll found that 73 percent of American voters nationwide believe that dealing with the economy and unemployment should be a higher priority than the investigations. Fewer than a quarter of Americans — 22 percent — believe that the investigations should be the higher priority.

More here

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Washington Post: President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former senior Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as FBI director, according to two people with knowledge of the selection process. Comey was famously involved in a 2004 hospital-room confrontation with White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and the president’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. The two White House officials were attempting to persuade Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who was recovering from emergency surgery to remove his gallbladder, to reauthorize a controversial warrantless domestic eavesdropping program.

Comey, who was acting attorney general in Ashcroft’s absence, had refused to agree to extend the program. When he learned that the White House was attempting to go around him and get the ill Ashcroft to sign off on an extension, Comey rushed to George Washington University Medical Center, arriving just before Gonzales and Card. Comey explained to Ashcroft what was happening and, when the White House officials arrived, the attorney general raised himself up and said he never should have authorized the program. He gestured at Comey and said, “There is the attorney general,” according to an account by former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman.

More here

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James Comey

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Steve Benen: Comey isn’t exactly your typical Republican. We are, after all, talking about a Republican attorney who balked at the legality of the Bush/Cheney warrantless wiretap program, signed a legal brief endorsing marriage equality, believes terrorist suspects should be tried in America’s criminal-justice system, and even endorsed Eric Holder’s Attorney General nomination in 2009. For some of the rabid partisans on Capitol Hill, I suspect Comey will be seen as a RINO (Republican In Name Only).

But there’s one other angle that’s worth thinking about as the process unfolds: if Obama had any reason to worry about ongoing investigations casting the White House in a negative light, the president would not have chosen a Republican with a history of independence to lead the FBI. On the contrary, if Obama were the least bit concerned about the so-called “scandals,” he’d be eager to do the opposite — choosing a Democratic ally for the FBI. With this in mind, by selecting Comey, the president not only sends a bipartisan signal, but also one of great confidence.

More here

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