Obama to Senate Dems: ‘I’m going to play offense’ - Manu Raju - POLITICO
The president said he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation, including an Iran sanctions package.
President Barack Obama made clear Thursday in a closed-door session with Senate Democrats that he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation from the GOP-controlled Congress, including an Iran sanctions package on the front-burner of Capitol Hill.
According to several sources at the Thursday summit in Baltimore, Obama vowed to defend his agenda against Republicans in Congress,
promised to stand firm against GOP efforts to dismantle his agenda and called on his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes.
The president also was explicit over his administration’s opposition to an Iran sanctions bill, promising to veto legislation with his administration in the midst of multilateral nuclear negotiations with the Middle Eastern regime.
Even though Obama’s position on Iran sanctions differs from a number of powerful Democrats, the session, several sources said, was more of a pep rally than confrontation.
Despite his lame-duck status, the president promised that he would not sit on the sidelines in the next two years.
He vowed more executive actions to implement his agenda, something bound to prompt anger from Republicans who have called the president’s unilateral moves, particularly on immigration, an unconstitutional power grab.
“I’m not going to spend the next two years on defense; I’m going to play offense,” Obama said, according to two attendees.
"The Oxford University Press has warned its writers not to mention pigs, sausages or pork-related words in children's books, in an apparent bid to avoid offending Jews and Muslims.
"They picked them up by their arms and legs and held them over the brick furnace until their clothes caught fire. And then they threw them [alive] inside the furnace." — Javeed Maseeh, family spokesman, concerning a Christian couple in Pakistan murdered on rumors they had burned verses from the Qur'an.
"Pulling out an 800- pound race card, “Huffpo” is accusing The Oscars of being racist. Yes, rather than follow MLK’s admonition to judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, the racial quota bean counters at Huffpo are broadcasting on their front page that, “This Will Be The Whitest Oscars Since 1998.”
"Microsoft wants to improve your shopping experience by placing facial recognition devices at key places around a store in order to, they say, improve your shopping experience making it more personalized."
"Sheikh Mohammed Saleh Al-Munajjid, an influential Saudi Arabian cleric, issued a surprising declaration following a rare major snowstorm that slammed northern Saudi Arabia this week (Maybe it was caused by “global warming,” but that’s another story). 
“[I want to] war game what could happen next, but I want to do so under the original premise that I laid out from the Fox days,” Beck remarked. “I said these things would come: that radicals would unite from all walks of life and begin to create chaos and destabilize the west, destabilize Europe, and then the rest of the world.”
"Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) took to the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday morning to block President Obama’s executive action overreach on immigration. Gowdy voted for H.R. 240 to fund the Department of Homeland Security through September 2015. Gowdy said that millions of immigrants will receive benefits under the president’s plan."
"Dozens of House Democrats on Wednesday voted against a legislative proposal aimed at ensuring that illegal immigrants convicted of domestic violence, sexual abuse or child abuse are a priority for deportation.
"We had tons of people who wanted the house," Bailey said. "We had to say 'no' to a lot of buyers."
