Connect with us

Watch: Obama Voices Anger And Frustration With Congress, NRA Over Shooting Deaths

Published

on

“When you decide to vote, this cause of continuing death for innocent people should be a relevant factor in your decision.”
– President Barack Obama

“There’s been another mass shooting in America,” President Barack Obama, in what likely was the most angered, angst-ridden, and unreserved press conference he has held to date, said in response to today’s Umpqua Community College shooting that left ten dead and another seven wounded. 

“That means there are more American families, moms, dads, children, whose lives have been changed forever. That means there’s another community stunned with grief and communities across the country forced to relieve their own anguish, and parents across the country who are scared because they know it might have been their families or their children.”

Speaking just hours after this latest, the 15th, mass shooting of his presidency, President Obama, as he has numerous times before during his tenure, expressed, unscripted his grief.

“So we know there are ways to prevent it. And of course, what’s also routine is somebody somewhere will comment and say, ‘Obama will politicize this issue.’ Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to our body politic.”

“This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America,” the President told reporters. “We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones.”

“Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine,” a clearly frustrated president said. “We’ve become numb to this.”

“We’ve talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Newtown, after Aurora, after Charleston,” he continued, rattling off the names of cities forever changed by mass shootings. “It cannot be this easy for someone who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun,” he pleaded.

Challenging the NRA’s claim, the president said, “more guns” and “fewer safety laws” won’t make Americans safer.

“There is a gun for roughly every man woman and child in America…How can you with a straight face make an argument that more guns make us safer?”

President Obama urged all Americans to “think about” whether their “views are properly represented” by elected officials and to gun owners asked them to think if “the organization that suggests it’s speaking for you” – the NRA – actually is.

“I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again during my tenure as president to offer my condolences to families in these circumstances,” the President said. “But based on my experience as president, I can’t guarantee that. And that’s terrible to say. And it can change.”

“Tonight as those of us who are lucky enough to hug our kids a little closer are thinking about the families who aren’t so fortunate, I’d ask the American people to think about how they can get our government to change these laws to save lives and let our young people grow up,” he urged.

In what appeared to be his only scripted remarks, the President asked God to “bless the memories of those who were killed today, may he bring comfort to their families, and courage to the injured as they fight their way back, and may he give us the strength to come together and find the courage to change.”

 

Editor’s note:
At 7:54 PM ET the New York Times reports “Sheriff John Hanlin of Douglas County said that the gunman killed 10 people and wounded seven, adjusting initial reports from law enforcement officials, which counted 13 dead and 20 injured.” 

 

EARLIER:

Live Video: 13 Confirmed Dead In Umpqua Community College Shooting – Gunman Was 20 Year Old Male

BREAKING: At Least 10 Dead, 20 Injured In Shooting At Oregon Community College

Video and screenshot via MSNBC

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘If It Is the Last Thing I Do’: Musk Vows to Unseat Lawmakers Voting for Budget Bill

Published

3 hours ago

on

June 30, 2025

By

Billionaire Elon Musk is threatening to target members of Congress for defeat if they support President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” after campaigning on promises to cut government spending. Although Musk did not specifically name a party, no Democrat is expected to back the budget measure.

“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!” Musk wrote late Monday afternoon, as the Senate began voting on the legislation. “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

Musk’s threat comes after his numerous attacks on the bill—which is critical to Trump’s agenda—based largely on its massive increases to the federal debt.

READ MORE: ‘Stunning Incoherence’: Fox Host Mocked for Spinning Trump’s Work Visa Flip-Flop

“It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” Musk declared one hour earlier. “Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people.”

New York magazine’s Intelligencer reported on Monday that Musk is “not done” fighting Trump.

“How can you call yourself the Freedom Caucus if you vote for a DEBT SLAVERY bill with the biggest debt ceiling increase in history?” Musk also wrote, lashing out at the far-right caucus, and mentioning two Members by name: U.S. Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland, the group’s chairman, and Chip Roy of Texas.

On Saturday, Musk had warned, “The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”

“Polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican Party,” he also warned.

New York magazine noted that “Trump, presumably, isn’t thrilled about Musk’s last-minute attempt to sink his signature legislative package. But so far he’s refrained from hitting back.”

READ MORE: Despite Bill’s $1T Cut Trump Official Insists ‘We’re Not Taking Away Anybody’s Medicaid’

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

‘Stunning Incoherence’: Fox Host Mocked for Spinning Trump’s Work Visa Flip-Flop

Published

4 hours ago

on

June 30, 2025

By

Fox News host Maria Bartiromo is facing criticism for calling President Donald Trump’s latest reversal on undocumented immigrant workers “big news,” after the President floated creating “temporary passes.”

Earlier this month, Trump announced ICE would back off from detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants working on farms and in hotels, only to announce just days later an apparent reversal to that policy, by declaring he would enact “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”

Bartiromo, in a White House interview on Sunday (video below), told Trump that he had “said, let’s ease up on, you know, taking in people that are working hardworking, like, in farms and hotels,” while ignoring his statement from days later.

“I don’t back away,” Trump insisted. “What I do, I cherish our farmers, and when we go into a farm and we take away people that have been working there for 15 and 20 years who who are good, who possibly came in incorrectly, and what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do something for farmers where we can let the farmers sort of be in charge.”

READ MORE: Despite Bill’s $1T Cut Trump Official Insists ‘We’re Not Taking Away Anybody’s Medicaid’

“The farmer knows, he’s not gonna hire a murderer, but, you know, when you go into a farmer and he’s had somebody working with him for nine years doing this kind of work, which is hard work to do, and a lot of people aren’t gonna do it, and you end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away,” Trump explained. “It’s a problem.”

Trump announced the White House is “gonna work it so that,” there is “some kind of a temporary pass, where people pay taxes, with a farmer can have a little control as opposed to you walk in and take everybody away.”

On social media, Bartiromo trumpeted: “Big news on the border from my interview @realDonaldTrump is working on a ‘temporary pass’ for workers on farms and in hotels where they pay taxes but it’s up to the farmer for a temporary pass even if they came into the country ‘incorrectly.'”

What Trump described sounds similar to the existing H-2A temporary visa program for agricultural workers.

“The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

READ MORE: American Pride Plunges to New Low, Again, Again Under Trump

Critics mocked the Fox News host.

“So a work permit?” snarked U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

“They just invented the work visa,” mocked retired intelligence officer Travis Akers.

“But wait,” urged former Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky, “we were told Americans would be doing these jobs and that everyone who came into this country illegally would be deported. What could have possibly changed?”

“Donald Trump has no idea what his immigration policy is,” noted Democratic strategist Max Burns.

“Stunning incoherence on his signature policy issue,” observed Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Democratic Reps Say FEMA Cuts Are Leading to Hurricane Katrina-Level Disaster

Continue Reading

News

Despite Bill’s $1T Cut Trump Official Insists ‘We’re Not Taking Away Anybody’s Medicaid’

Published

8 hours ago

on

June 30, 2025

By

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that the Senate Republicans’ budget bill will slash $1 trillion from Medicaid, but according to Kevin Hassett, the White House Director of the National Economic Council, no one’s Medicaid is being taken away.

The CBO projects the current Republican Senate budget bill will cut $930 billion from Medicaid, but an amendment from Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott would make additional cuts of $313 billion, for a total of $1.24 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, according to The Hill.

But according to the White House’s Kevin Hassett, “we’re not taking away anybody’s Medicaid.”

After Fox News host Bill Hemmer told Hassett on Monday that the White House is “getting hammered on these Medicaid cuts,” Hassett, chuckling, said: “The bottom line is that we’re just, we’re not taking away anybody’s Medicaid. We’re definitely not taking away anybody’s Medicare.”

READ MORE: American Pride Plunges to New Low, Again, Again Under Trump

Hassett insisted that Republicans are merely “going after waste, fraud, and abuse,” and claimed “there’s a heck of a lot of it out there.”

Some experts put the waste, fraud, and abuse numbers—which can include improper payments and errors—at about five percent of Medicaid spending.

Hassett appears to disagree.

“A lot of budget savings have been found by people really in the House, in the Senate—not just conservatives—moderates agree that there’s a lot of money that can be saved. And the bottom line is that we’re, in the end going to balance this budget, and we’ve got to balance this budget by getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, and we’re going to do it.”

The Congressional Budget Office, according to KFF, has also estimated that by 2034 there will be an additional 16 million more uninsured people if the bill is signed into law.

READ MORE: Democratic Reps Say FEMA Cuts Are Leading to Hurricane Katrina-Level Disaster

“The scale of the proposed reductions in Medicaid is unprecedented in the history of the program, which has tended to expand coverage over time since its creation in 1965,” The New York Times reports.

Calling the cuts “savings,” the Times reports the bill in part “would establish a new, strict national work requirement for some people on the program, who would need to demonstrate they had worked at least 80 hours the month before they sign up, or qualified for an exemption.”

More cuts to Medicaid in the bill could be coming. The Times also reports that U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Sunday “told reporters that he would propose an amendment that would cut Medicaid even further.”

Watch the video below or at this link.


READ MORE: Ketanji Brown Jackson Compares SCOTUS Planned Parenthood Ruling to Jim Crow in Dissent

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.