Politics. On Point.

Event Includes Evening Performance and Daytime Student Workshop Honoring  the Men and Women Who Serve the United States As part of the “In Performance at the White House” series and the  Joining Forces  initiative, the President and First Lady will invite music legends, members of the U.S. military, military veterans, and their families to the White House on Thursday, November 6 for a celebration of the men and women who serve the United States. The program  on the South Lawn  will have a live audience that will include hundreds of military service members, veterans, and their families. The event will feature performances by Mary J.  Blige, Common, John Fogerty , Willie Nelson, Romeo Santos, as well as active duty military members Army SGT. Christiana R. Ball, Marine Corps Capt. Matt Smith and Capt. John Ed Auer, with Don Was as music director.  The rock band Daughtry will also perform via satellite from a USO concert at Yokota Air Base in...

When President Obama isn't wearing suits (that sometimes sag around his ankles) he likes to dress down.  Usually we see him in khakis (or dockers ), or in the male version of mom jeans . But yesterday, during the White House 4th of July celebration, we noticed something considerably different in his dress-down attire. The Commander-in-Chief was wearing a stylish, (hip, even) pair of jeans.  Different in style, different in color; new perhaps. (Then there's always the chance it could be the same pair as these ). Anyway, take a look.  We think he upped his swag with his 'new' jeans as he greeted the nearly 1,200 military personnel and their families.  The president told those in attendance, "There is no group we'd rather spend time with on this most American of holidays than you." President Obama wears new jeans at White House 4th of July cookout for military families.   The yearly cookout honoring military families hosted rapper Pitbull. ...

from Defense Media Activity ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- The United States Navy promoted Michelle Janine Howard to the rank of four-star admiral July 1 during a ceremony at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Adm. Howard is the first female four-star in the 238 year history of the United States Navy.   Photo/San Diego Times. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus presided over the ceremony and administered the oath of office. Adm. Howard is the first female four-star in the 238 year history of the United States Navy. "Michelle Howard's promotion to the rank of admiral is the result of a brilliant naval career, one I fully expect to continue when she assumes her new role as vice chief of naval operations, but also it is an historic first, an event to be celebrated as she becomes the first female to achieve this position," said Mabus. "Her accomplishment is a direct example of a Navy that now, more than ever, reflects the nat...

  On October 15, 2013 , President Barack Obama will award William Swenson, a former active duty Army Captain, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. Captain Swenson will receive the Medal of Honor for his courageous actions while serving as an Embedded Trainer and Mentor of the Afghan National Security Forces with Afghan Border Police Mentor Team, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, during combat operations in Kunar Province, Afghanistan on September 8, 2009.       Captain Swenson will be the sixth living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. He and his family will join the President at the White House to commemorate his example of selfless service. PERSONAL BACKGROUND: Captain William D. Swenson separated from the Army on February 1, 2011 and currently resides in Seattle, Washington. He is single. Captain Swenson was commissioned as an Arm...

" Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the  days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons." - Senior White House Officials During a White House conference call today with Senior Administration officials, media were given a U.S. government assessment of the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on August 21, 2013, with two very different accounts. Part of the Assessment indicates that US intelligence was unaware of the planned attacks on Syria. " Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the  days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons."   Another portion of the Assessment makes the claim that the US did have intelligence, indicating that Syrian forces were preparing chemical munitions prior to the August 21st attack. " We have intelligence that leads us to assess tha...

General Lloyd Austin made history, yet again, by becoming the first African American to lead the U.S. Central Command, breaking another barrier for African Americans in the U.S. military. Op Ed by Valerie Jarrett, Advisor to President Obama Today, General Lloyd Austin became the first African-American to lead the U.S. Central Command, which has a wide-ranging area of responsibility for 20 countries in the Middle East and southwest Asia. His appointment is effective immediately. During the change of command ceremony today, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, “General Austin brings to this position combat experience gained on the unforgiving battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He has commanded some of the Army’s most storied formations, including the 82nd Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions, as well as the 18th Airborne Corps...With his calm demeanor, strategic vision, regional experience and knowledge, and proven judgment – and with the love and support of Charlene and ...

On February 15, 2013 President Obama awarded average citizens, doing the extraordinary for country and community, with the highest honor that a president can bestow to a citizen. Among them was veteran Adam Burke .  Burke was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder after saving a comrade from a mortar blast in Iraq's Sunni Triangle - for which he received a Purple Heart. Said President Obama of Adam: " When Adam Burke returned from Iraq, he had more than earned the right to just focus on himself. He had served our nation with honor; a recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds he received while rescuing a comrade from enemy fire. Because of the shrapnel that tore through his head and his legs –- when Adam came home, he came home a wounded warrior, suffering from a traumatic brain injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But a few years later, Adam found himself back on the family farm, and he noticed that working the land was therapeutic. ...

"We're So Strong" As the US military prepares to lift the ban preventing women from serving on the front lines of military combat, we're inspired by the words of Ms. Violet Palmer, the first female NBA referee who had these words to say about being a female in her own male-dominated profession. "I didn't know if they'd talk differently, look at me differently, or if they'd touch me", said Palmer who has been an NBA ref since 1997 of her fellow male referees. While the NBA and military operations are quite different animals, both surely were met with oppositionary reactions initially, but said Palmer, "I knew if I did my job well, they cynics would be quiet." Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (who is slated to resign from his post this year) said in a statement yesterday, "The department's goal in rescinding the rule is to ensure that the mission is met with the best-qualified and most capable people, regardless of gen...

The Obama Administration awards “Vets to Cops” hiring grants as part of Veterans Job Corps initiative. The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) today announced funding awards to over 220 cities and counties, aimed at creating or saving approximately 800 law enforcement positions.  The grants will fund over 600 new law enforcement positions and save an additional 200 positions recently lost or in jeopardy of being cut due to local budget cuts.  All new law enforcement positions funded in the COPS 2012 Hiring Program must be filled by recent military veterans who have served at least 180 days since September 11, 2001.  In his State of the Union Address, President Obama called for a new Veterans Jobs Corps initiative to help put veterans back to work on a range of projects that leverage skills developed in the military, including first responder jobs. In February, the President announced that preference for this year’s COPS and S...

So, this is how The Secret Service gets down? This isn't the first time, nor is it a secret, that the U.S. Secret Service has been suspected of soliciting prostitutes.  In 2008, a prostitution sting in the area of 11th and K Streets, NW around 12:50 a.m. found a marked Secret Service Uniformed Division patrol car had stopped to speak with an undercover female officer who was posing as a prostitute. The patrol car was driven by a Uniformed Division sergeant.  The NSID officers assumed he was going to tell the undercover female officer to leave the area. Find out what happened next. Today we find that more than a dozen Secret Service personnel traveling with President Obama to Cartagena, Columbia, while he attends the Summit of the Americas , have been released amid allegations of 'sexual misconduct'. The Associate Press received an anonymous tip about the incident.  Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan has neither confirmed, nor denied, any wrong-doing.  Whi...

Making Healthy Sexy As we posted earlier , First Lady Michelle Obama is celebrating two years of her Let's Move! campaign! The celebratory tour started out in Iowa where the first lady is transitioning her message of healthy eating to U.S. military bases, focusing on the military's Food Transformation effort.    Here's a bit of her speech between the first lady and the military's 'top brass'. MRS. OBAMA : And have you seen changes since implementing the Food Transformation and how service members responded in terms of how they feel? COLONEL ROBINSON: I think they responded pretty well. We really tackled the physical fitness aspect first. And that I think manifested itself first and foremost because people would go to the AOR and Central Command in a very demanding environment, very hot, a lot of heavy lifting, very active, to get the mission done. And many people were exhausted and, frankly, couldn’t accomplish the mission or just couldn’t physicall...

When he wasn't predicting (to a group of wound-up San Francisco 49er fans --- in San Francisco) that the New York Giants were going to the Super Bowl, or fighting wild fires in Reno , the VP still made time to visit wounded warriors and their families at Camp Pendleton. Our pool report comes from Elaine Sanchez, American Forces Press Service who informs us that: Biden, along with the second lady, Dr. Jill Biden, visited the 30,000-square-foot center opened in October 2011 to provide counseling, reconditioning and transitioning services for wounded and ill Marines, sailors and their families. The vice president said he and his wife visit service members and their families at every chance they get for one reason: “to say thank you.” “We only have one sacred obligation in the government,” he said. “We have a lot of obligations to the old, to the young, to educate, but we have only one sacred obligation and that is to equip those we send to war and care for those we bring home ...

At Fort Bragg, President Obama and First Lady welcome home soldiers. The president remarked: "It’s harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq -– all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering -– all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. We’re building a new partnership between our nations. And we are ending a war not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home." The president visited with five enlisted servicemen, recently returned from deployments, and one Gold Star Family before making remarks.