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Tag: jay carney

  • Jay Carney Is Amazon’s New VP of Corporate Affairs

    Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has spent the last year as a contributor to CNN, but now he’s stepping back into the realm of PR.

    Politico reports that Amazon has tapped Carney to be the new Senior Vice President for Worldwide Corporate Affairs. It’s a new position – one that will put the company’s public relations and public policy divisions under one umbrella.

    From Politico:

    [Current VP of Public Policy] Paul Misener and PR chief Craig Berman will now report to Carney, who in turn will report directly to CEO Jeff Bezos. Carney will give up his post-White House perch as a senior political analyst on CNN to focus full time on Amazon.

    Carney served as Press Secretary for the Obama administration from February 11, 2011, to June 20, 2014. He replaced Robert Gibbs and was succeeded by Josh Earnest. Before heading to the White House, Carney was the Washington Bureau Chief for Time magazine.

    Image via Jay Carney, Twitter

  • Jay Carney Battles With Reporter On Benghazi Emails

    Jay Carney tried to hold his ground for eight full minutes after being confronted by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on the implications of newly released emails. These emails containined specific instruction on how to handle the Benghazi attack report. He insinuated that the strategy of such emails and story-weaving was to protect Obama, as the country was only weeks away from election day.

    The emails, which were released only after the government was petitioned under the Freedom of Information Act, contain most notably instruction from deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes to then-U.N. ambassador Susan Rise.

    The emails urge her to emphasize the now infamous offensive Muhammed video as the source of the demonstrations, not “a failure of policy,” in a series of impending Sunday show appearances after the attack. The exact words were “underscore these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”

    Carney said on Wednesday during his sparring round with Karl that the emails reflected the truth even though it later came out that the attacks on the Embassy at Benghazi, Libya that killed four people were orchestrated and planned by al-Qaeda to happen on the anniversary of September 11th in 2012. He also claimed that guidance in the emails was directed more to the widespread demonstrations that were taking place at the time, not so much on the attacks at Benghazi.

    There is also the fact that the email from Ben Rhodes to Susan Rice was suspiciously withheld from the emails that were released in May 2013 that showed the correspondence amongst the Obama administration about talking points after the attack. Also, in the previously released documents, there is an email from State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland which was sent to Rhodes and others expressing worry that her agency appeared to be taking the blame for failing to listen to and consider CIA warnings of a possible attack on the anniversary of September 11th.

    Will the truth ever be clear and those responsible held accountable on this matter? I guess time only will tell.

    Image Via YouTube

  • Obamacare Delayed: 2015 Enrollment Will Now Start After 2014 Elections

    Obamacare Delayed: 2015 Enrollment Will Now Start After 2014 Elections

    After a slow start to the enrollment of Obamacare, the Obama administration is set to delay enrollment for 2015 by one month from October 15 to November 15. This means that while the 2015 enrollment period had been set to begin Oct. 15, 2014 and end Dec. 7, it will now begin Nov. 15, 2014, and end Jan. 15, 2015.

    White House spokesman Jay Carney said pushing back the start date will give insurers more time to get an idea of their new pool of customers before they set their 2015 premiums accordingly. “What was already going to be a back-loaded process is going to be more back-loaded, and that’s going to leave insurers a lot of data to sort through in a short period of time,” Carney said in a statement.

    This latest Obamacare adjustment will definitely add more political controversy over the embattled new healthcare law. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican has already described the move as “a cynical political move” and added that any changes to healthcare plans such as premium increase should be made public before the 2014 election.

    Carney has also denied that next year’s elections are the reason for the postponement but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has a different view.  Cantor said that the move is meant to hide some weaknesses in the health care act before the election. “Clearly, President Obama does not want voters to see increased prices, more cancellations and decreased options under Obamacare before they go to the ballot box” Cantor said in a statement “If Obamacare is so great, why are Democrats so scared of voters knowing its consequences?”

    But there are others who have welcomed the move saying the postponement will give consumers more time to learn about plans before enrolling. Carney has said that the administration expects more people to sign up for the health care insurance at the end of the current open enrollment period ending 31st march 2014.

    However, this means that the Americans will have to wait until after election before hearing about any potential premium increase rather than in the weeks before.

    (main photo via whitehouse.org)

  • ObamaCare: White House Says Delay Helps Insurers

    The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, will see a delay in its second enrollment next year. Formerly slated to begin on October 15, 2014, it will now begin a month later on November 15th instead.

    White House spokesman Jay Carney denies that the push is for tactical purposes, although it causes one to notice that the administration pushed the enrollment to a date a little past the November 4th elections. According to CNN, Carney states that the enrollment delay benefits insurers as well as citizens- it gives insurers more time to process and analyze the backload of information that they have had to deal with from the major website sign up issues, and that this proper analyzation should allow insurers to properly set fine-tuned rates for their new customer’s needs.

    Signup for the first enrollment has been slow; people are still figuring out what the Affordable Care Act is all about, and there is a good chance that the website gave them trouble once they decided to sign up. As the snags are being worked out and more people are learning about ObamaCare, Carney believes that many more people will have signed up by the time the March 31, 2014 first enrollment deadline rolls around.

    It is likely that launching a new healthcare program to an entire country will have a few kinks. I personally think that a one-month delay, if applied for the right reasons, is understandable and should not cause much of an uproar.

    Image: Twitter