Photographer Annie Leibovitz captures President Barack Obama and America’s First Lady MIchelle Obama in the cover story for American Vogue’s April issue. Jonathan Van Meter sits down with the Obama to talk about their life as parents, their marriage and their vision for American families.
“He is a dad,” says the president’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, “and a husband, and he enjoys being with his children and his wife. He doesn’t have a father. He’s trying really hard to be a good dad.” Says former senior adviser David Axelrod, “This is conjecture on my part, but I have to believe that because of the rather tumultuous childhood that he had, family is even more important to him. It’s central to who he is. That’s why he’s home every night at 6:30 for dinner.”
Acknowledging that legislative passage of his proposals to ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, expand background checks, and toughen gun-trafficking laws, President Obama is taking immediate steps to curb gun violence in America with a series of executive orders.
Speaking on an issue that wasn’t on his to-do-list on Election Day when President Obama was elected to a second term, a reflective Obama surrounded by children and family members of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn. said “I will put everything I’ve got into this and so will Joe.”
Out of the gate, even the NRA is saying it might consider strengthening background check laws.
The 23 executive actions Mr. Obama signed on Wednesday were largely modest initiatives to toughen enforcement of existing laws and to encourage federal agencies and state governments to share more information. Mr. Obama lifted a ban on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence and directed that a letter be sent to health care providers saying doctors may ask patients about guns in their homes.
The current political battle over gun laws comes at a moment when American gun culture is more expansive than ever. Guns have gained a foothold among coastal elites that, just a couple decades ago, would have “dismissed the very idea of holding a rifle as obscene and offensive.”
New Jersey governor Christie chasticized the NRA for suggesting that President Obama cares about protecting his own daughters but not those of the nation’s parents’.
Saying that his four children had no choice about whether he intended to become governor of New Jersey, thereby subjecting them to a public status with security details, similarly the Obama daughters had no choice.
64 percent of Republicans believe that President Barack Obama might be hiding something, according to a new poll out of Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind survey. 33 percent of independents agree, with 14 percent of Democrats pushing the tally to one-third of Americans.
Higher levels of education and awareness of current events, however, are linked to a reduction in belief in such theories, the study reported. Democrats and independents with more political knowledge were found to be more likely to dismiss conspiracy theories, while Republicans with more political knowledge were more likely to believe the theories.
In 1996, the NRA successfully lobbied Congress to pass legislation preventing the Centers for Disease Control from investigating gun violence and its prevention in America.
Specifically, this restriction was placed on the CDC budget: “None of the funds made available … may be used to advocate or promote gun control”.
“These were shots fired across the bow,” said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who formerly oversaw research into gun violence at the nation’s health research center, “and they the terrorized people at the CDC. And they terrorized researchers who said, ‘Whoa, this is scary. I don’t want my funding jeopardized.’”
The NRA was furious, writes CBS, with a 1993 study that concluded that having a gun at home didn’t minimize danger or offer protection. Instead, having a gun in the house increased almost three-fold the risk of one family member shooting another.
“I don’t think it’s unconstitutional in the sense that I don’t think it’s something you could get a court to find unconstitutional,” Mukasey told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
In 2013 Anne’s jewelry collection GlamTribale will sponsor ‘Informed’, a series of quick info bits for Anne of Carversville readers. View our goddess Diana Collection (above) online.
1. XO Janewrites: FSD (female sexual dysfunction) is a serious disorder — part of a family of disorders. Let’s start talking about it.
Alex Nabaum illustration6. Both ancient philosophy and modern psychology suggest that darker thoughts can make us happier. Consider it the power of negative thinking — and it’s positively unAmerican. viaWSJ
2. Israel bans models with BMIs below 18.5 in ads. Also ads must reveal use of Photoshop. viaWSJ
7. Print book sales tumbled in America last year, declining from 72% who said they had read printed books in the previous 12 months to 67%. via Pew Research
8. Indian police have filed rape and murder charges against five men accused of a brutal gang rape of a New Delhi woman. The sixth suspect is a juvenile who will handled separately. Police say they will seek the death penalty. Read on at AOC
3. Saudi religious leader Muhammed al-Arifi, calls for gang rape of Syrian women over 14, specifying that “intercourse marriages” last only a few hours “in order to give each fighter a turn”. via Salon
The hard-line Wahhabi cleric said that the marriages between the foreign-backed militants and Syrian women will satisfy the militants’ sexual desires and boost their determination in killing Syrians.
4. President Barack Obama is the first president in more than 50 years to win at least 51% of the vote twice. The last president to do it was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. The last Democrat to win such solid support was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. viaBloomberg
9.Fragonard’s ‘The Swing’ is a model of French Beauty & Decadence, writes Anne.
The existing — or soon to be — mistress flies through the air in frivolous abandon, losing her shoe in an action powered by her husband.
5. Among tablet users, men are 11% more likely to say they get news on the devices than women. via Pew Research. Age, on the other hand, seems to be less of an indicator of mobile news consumption. This is particularly true on the tablet, where daily rates are similar across all four age groups studied (50- to 64-year-olds are a bit more likely than the youngest and oldest groups to get news). On the smartphone, owners under 50 get news at higher rates than those over 50. Read more at Pew Research
10. Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry in America, reaching more than $10 billion in sales in 2012. Energy drinks promise edge, writes theNYT, but experts say there’s little proof to the claim.
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