ITB - Why is Obama returning to Washington? -- The Hill, Justin Sink

[bsteadman1]

Why is Obama returning to Washington?

The Hill
Justin Sink
8/13/2014

Excerpt:

The president is expected to return to the White House on Sunday, but officials won't say why Obama is taking the unusual, and costly, trip back to Washington. He's expected to return to Martha's Vineyard, where he's been vacationing, on Tuesday.

Speculation has circled around whether Obama might make an announcement of executive actions he's taking on immigration reform, or a surprise visit from a foreign leader.

But the White House is "not anticipating a major announcement on immigration when the president is in Washington," spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters traveling with Obama in Massachusetts.

Schultz did say that Obama will be meeting with Vice President Biden while he's back in Washington. And Obama will be without both press secretary Josh Earnest, who is out on paternity leave, and Schultz, Earnest's top deputy, while in the nation's capital.

"Eric Schultz is staying," the spokesman quipped, dipping into the third person.

Adding more mystery to the topic, Schultz said the administration did not "anticipate any major significant news developments out of Washington those few days."

But if the president is only coming back to meet with staff face-to-face, it could invite questions about wasting taxpayer dollars.

According to Air Force documents obtained Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, the roundtrip travel expenses for the president's 2013 vacation to Martha's Vineyard totaled $1,164,268.
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View the complete article, including photo, at:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...-to-washington

[bsteadman]

Obama’s mysterious mid-vacation return to D.C.: He should have danced all night

Canada Free Press
Judi McLeod
8/15/2014

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama comes off like Cleopatra. If that is, you buy into the latest mainstream media hype that communications and war apparatus go wherever the commander-in-chief goes.

“Since the communications and war apparatus of the commander-in-chief travels wherever the president goes, Obama can conduct matters of state from a Masachusetts (sic) vacation island almost as easier (sic) as he can from the Oval Office”-The Daily Mail quoting Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank.

Or given, the abuse of the proverbial Queen’s own English, should that be trying to quote Milbank?

As for Milbank’s contention that Obama can conduct matters of state from a Massachusetts vacation island almost as easy as he can from the Oval Office?

Apparently not. The vacation-loving Obama is returning to the White House on Sunday and not going back to Martha’s Vineyard until Tuesday.

The Daily Mail also gets the timing of Obama’s mid-vacation return to Washington wrong: “So reasons for his planned return to Washington on Tuesday, while it may please the French, remain a mystery.” (Daily Mail, Aug. 14, 2014) Pleasing the French is a reference to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius who has a message about Iraq for Barack Obama: Get back to the White House and do something.

‘I know it is the holiday period in our Western countries,’ Fabius told a radio interviewer Tuesday in France,’ but when people are dying, you must come back from vacation.’

The Daily Mail story on Obama’s mid-vacation return to the White House story is directly at odds with one by The Hill reposted on yesterday’s Drudge Report, which states he will be in the White House on Sunday and returning to Martha’s Vineyard on Tuesday:

“The president is expected to return to the White House on Sunday, but officials won’t say why Obama is taking the unusual, and costly, trip back to Washington. He’s expected to return to Martha’s Vineyard, where he’s been vacationing, on Tuesday.” (The Hill, Aug. 14, 2014)

For any of those worrying about Obama’s suspected major end-of-summer announcement on immigration reform, The Hill cites the White House saying there will be no major announcement during his mid-vacation whistle stop return to Washington:

“President Obama won’t make any major announcements on immigration reform during his secretive mid-vacation trip back to Washington next week, the White House said Wednesday.

“Speculation has circled around whether Obama might make an announcement of executive actions he’s taking on immigration reform, or a surprise visit from a foreign leader.

“But the White House is “not anticipating a major announcement on immigration when the president is in Washington,” spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters traveling with Obama in Massachusetts.

“Schultz did say that Obama will be meeting with Vice President Biden while he’s back in Washington. And Obama will be without both press secretary Josh Earnest, who is out on paternity leave, and Schultz, Earnest’s top deputy, while in the nation’s capital.

Obama can, and does meet with Pal Joey, any old time, lunches with him on a frequent basis and has even co-starred with Biden absurdly jogging the White House.

““Adding more mystery to the topic, Schultz said the administration did not “anticipate any major significant news developments out of Washington those few days.” (The Hill)

Could that be because Obama, as talk show radio host Mark Levin so aptly described it, “jumped off his golf cart” to do a televised media conference taking full credit for saving the Sinjar Mountain Yazidi from the Islamic State, and claimed absentee control of the race riots in Ferguson, Mo?
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View the complete article, including video, at:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/65311