Obama stays silent on Chelsea explosion but talks election

[The Bobster]

Obama stays silent on Chelsea explosion but talks election
By Daniel Halper
September 19, 2016 | 7:03am

President Obama’s motorcade passed through 23rd Street, the location of Saturday night’s bombing, and slept in Manhattan Sunday night — but he still hasn’t made any public remarks on the attack in Chelsea.

Instead, Obama’s first stop in New York City Sunday night was at the Gramercy Park home of restaurateur Danny Meyer and actress Audrey Meyer to attend a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Obama talked about the importance of this election — “the most important election of our lifetime” — and discussed why he believes Clinton is failing to run away with it.

“[T]his should not be a close election, but it will be,” Obama claimed. “And the reason it will be is not because of Hillary’s flaws, but rather because, structurally, we’ve become a very polarized society. And if all you’re doing is watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh and reading some of the blogs that are churning out a lot of misinformation on a regular basis , then it’s very hard for you to think that you’re going to vote for somebody who you’ve been told is taking the country in the wrong direction. And so, structurally, we already have these divisions and it’s going to be hard to overcome those.”

Obama also raised the possibility that sexism has been holding Clinton back.

“I will also say that there’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president; that we as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women. And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly, and that expresses itself in all sorts of ways,” Obama claimed.

Obama has not publicly mentioned the Chelsea blast, the St. Cloud, Minnesota, mall attack Saturday night or the New Jersey bombings during a Marine Corps charity run Saturday.

After about an hour at the Meyers’ home, Obama headed to the Lotte New York Palace hotel, where he’s staying while attending this year’s United Nations General Assembly.

Obama has a Democratic fundraiser Monday morning, followed by afternoon meetings with Premier Li Keqiang of China and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq.

Obama is scheduled to return to Washington, DC, on Wednesday.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2016/09/19/obama-doesnt-mention-terror-in-remarks-on-bombings/

Obama doesn’t mention terror in remarks on bombings
By Daniel Halper
September 19, 2016 | 12:45pm

“We’ve seen what was apparently a pipe bomb go off in New Jersey, in Seaside Park, where it could have seriously injured our US Marines and spectators who were there for a race. The bombing in the Chelsea neighborhood here in New York injured more than two dozen people,” Obama said, recounting attacks believed to have been carried by Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was captured Monday morning.

Obama offered prayers for those who have been injured and praised police in New York City and New Jersey.

The president said “the investigation is moving rapidly” but didn’t offer more details — and refrained from commenting on the wannabe killer’s motivations.

In a brief statement to the press, Obama did mention another attack — the stabbings over the weekend in St. Cloud, Minnesota — and this time he did comment on the motivation for that incident.

“At this point we see no connection between [the Minnesota] incident and what happened here in New York and New Jersey,” Obama said, speaking in New York.

“The FBI is investigating the Minnesota incident as a potential act of terrorism. We will direct the full resources of the federal government to make sure that the investigation goes forward aggressively,” he added.

The president reassured the nation that “our counter-terrorism and law enforcement professionals at every level, federal, state and local, are working together, around the clock to prevent attacks and to keep us safe.”

Then, without directly connecting the weekend attacks to ISIS, Obama made some general remarks about defeating the growing terror group.

“We will continue to lead the global coalition in the fight that ISIL, which is instigating a lot of people over the internet to carry out attacks, we are going to continue to go after them, we’re going to take out their leaders, we’re going to take out their infrastructure. They are continuing to lose ground in Iraq and in Syria,” he said.

“As we take away more of their territory, it exposes ISIL as the failed cause that it is and it helps to undermine their ideology which over time will make it harder for them to recruit and inspire people to violence.”