What It Really Means To Woo White Voters

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AppId is over the quota
COLUMBIA, SC - JUNE 28: Senator Rand Paul speaks to supporters during a Republican Party BBQ on June 28, 2013 in Columbia, South Carolina. Paul is attending fundraisers and meetings with local tea party groups. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images)

Salon:

I have a visceral reaction to conservatives arguing that Republicans should forget about trying to lure Latinos by passing immigration reform, and focus on turning out white voters instead.

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George H.W. Bush attend event Obama White House

WASHINGTON--President George H.W. Bush returns to the White House for an event in honor of the granting of voluntary service which created 24 years ago.

President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, are organizing the event on Monday in recognition of the daily point of light award number.

The first President Bush established the prize in 1990 to honor Americans for voluntary service. The name comes from her description of the inaugural speech of 1989 of Americans citizens to serve as "1 thousand points of light".

Bush plans to attend to his wife, Barbara; son of Neil and other members of his family, although his son, former President George W. Bush, is not scheduled to come. Also scheduled to attend is the CEO points of light, Michelle Nunn, whereas a democratic campaign for the United States Senate in Georgia.

Earlier the HuffPost:

Direct sales of Tesla model runs out to dealers of automobiles, alerts White House request

Car dealers are upset with a car manufacturer willing to do whatever it takes to sell cars. Your problem? Cars do not go through local dealers, which is against the law in some States.

That company, a true manufacturer of electric vehicle with the name of Tesla, without allies and has been known to put up a fight.

A request from the White House, express their support for direct sales to the consumer of Tesla, seeks to end with what says "legislators are trying... to unfairly protect in the States of the competition car dealers."

Started by "Ken", a fan of Tesla, the request supports the model of the company's sales, cutting dealers completely out of the process. According to the request, "Tesla's offering competition, which is good for consumers." Reached for comment by CNet, Ken, who requested to remain anonymous, said that it has some action in Tesla, but it does not work for the company.

This writing, the petition had over 35,000 signatures of the 100,000 required by July 5 to qualify for a response from the White House.

Signatures or not, with regulations in 48 States prohibit or restrict the direct sale of automobiles, a quick fix can be difficult to obtain.

According to CNBC, local car dealers constantly are among the biggest contributors to state legislators and often generate a lot of tax revenue. So the incentive for the change of State-wide, at least on the legislative level is low at best. Adds contributor to Forbes Steve Blank, "appears in these States innovation be condemned if it gets in the way of a rental search engine with a good lobbyist."

Of course, car dealers have a very different perspective. Bob Glaser, President of the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, told The Associated Press local dealers have much interest in improving their communities, while large car manufacturers do not.

"It's a consumer protection," said Glaser, "and that is why we say that is a distributor who has invested a considerable amount of capital in a community is more committed to taking care of customers in the area".

The battle between Tesla and auto dealers inevitably heats up, the issue may be better distillation by an unidentified officer of Tesla, who asks: "how to sell the future if your business depends on the present?"

Washington Post Slaps Back White House Over NSA Privacy Quotes

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AppId is over the quota

The Washington Post gave a peek on Thursday night into the ways in which it brushed back the White House during contentious negotiations over its bombshell story about the National Security Agency's repeated privacy violations.

The story, which was written by former Post reporter Barton Gellman based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, revealed that the NSA had admitted to breaking privacy rules thousands of times since 2008. Gellman's article detailed internal audits which showed how the vast surveillance capabilities of the NSA had been abused.

The Post went to the NSA and the White House for comment before the article's publication, as it does with almost any sensitive national security story. "The government was made aware of The Post's intention to publish the documents that accompany this article online," the article stated.

But, in a separate post, the paper revealed that, after the Post refused to let the White House edit quotes from an on-the-record conversation Gellman had conducted with John DeLong, the NSA's director of compliance, the administration tried to substitute the quotes with a prepared statement. The Post tersely told readers that it had declined:

An NSA interview, rewritten

The Obama administration referred all questions for this article to John DeLong, the NSA's director of compliance, who answered questions freely in a 90-minute interview. DeLong and members of the NSA communications staff said he could be quoted "by name and title" on some of his answers after an unspecified internal review. The Post said it would not permit the editing of quotes. Two days later, White House and NSA spokesmen said that none of DeLong's comments could be quoted on the record and sent instead a prepared statement in his name. The Post declines to accept the substitute language as quotations from DeLong. The statement is below.

The Post also sent out a tweet about the back-and-forth:

This NSA official told us he could be quoted here, then the White House asked us to edit his quotes. We declined. http://t.co/hIsvbd3R4W

-- Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 16, 2013

Gellman also tweeted about what had happened:

(1/3) NSA guy agreed there could be unspecified on-record quotes but asked to review them first. I seldom do that but.... @ioerror

— Barton Gellman (@bartongellman) August 16, 2013

(2/3) entire subject was classified so I reluctantly agreed. Obviously it was a mistake. I warned his spox I wouldn't let them … @ioerror

— Barton Gellman (@bartongellman) August 16, 2013

(3/3) choose or edit quotes. When they tried to replace the quotes I disclosed the whole sequence here. http://t.co/9GSFZkPcNI @ioerror

— Barton Gellman (@bartongellman) August 16, 2013

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White House Pushes Immigration Reform By Highlighting Own Staffers (VIDEO)

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A day after the immigration reform bill passed its first crucial hurdle, the White House released a video highlighting the personal stories of some of its own staff members and their path to immigration.

The video, titled "White House Staff: Our American Stories," opens with text reading, "The White House, like all offices, is full of stories that started abroad."

President Barack Obama endorsed the bipartisan push for the immigration reform bill on Tuesday before it reached the Senate floor.

"If you're serious about actually fixing the system, then this is the vehicle to do it," Obama said.

With a vote of 82 to 15, the bill advanced into debate.

Watch the video above.

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White House Seeks Federal Contractors Pay Limit

WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - The White House proposed legislation on Thursday to cap the pay of federal government contractors at no more than the U.S. president's annual salary, saying it wanted to stop "wasteful expenditure."

The president makes $400,000 a year and the current cap on pay for executives at federal contractors is due to be raised in the coming weeks to about $950,000 from $763,000, the White House Office of Management and Budget said.

"This wasteful expenditure of taxpayer resources must stop," OMB official Joe Jordan said.

Jordan said the cap on contractor pay has climbed so steeply because it is pegged to private sector executive pay increases. The administration's proposal would allow exceptions in situations where recruitment is difficult.

The change would apply to thousands of employees and save hundreds of millions of dollars annually, Jordan said. But he said he was unable to provide more detailed information.

The caps apply to what contractors can pay their top five executives.

Past efforts to get Congress to agree to lower caps have gone nowhere. Senators Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, and Chuck Grassley, a Republican, introduced legislation last year to limit payments to the level of the president's salary.

The White House proposal could be a small bargaining chip as it spars with congressional Republicans over the best ways to cut federal spending and trim a massive budget deficit that both political parties say they want to tame.

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