Obama blasts ‘Republican shutdown,’ defends Obamacare
Source: New York Times 
President Barack Obama on Tuesday defiantly declared that “this Republican shutdown” risks hurting the fragile economy and pressed the House GOP to abandon its “ideological crusade” against Obamacare. “This Republican shutdown did not have to happen,” Obama said in the Rose Garden, surrounded by a dozen Americans who stand to benefit from his landmark health care overhaul.
“They’ve shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans,” he charged. "This, more than anything else, seems to be what the Republican Party stands for these days. I know it's strange that one party would make keeping people uninsured the centerpiece of their agenda, but that apparently is what it is." Obama pointed to the last partial government shutdown, in 1996, and warned that a closure will hurt the economy.
“And we know that the longer this shutdown continues, the worse the effects will be — more families will be hurt, more businesses will be harmed,” he said. “So once again, I urge House Republicans to reopen the government, restart the services Americans depend on and allow the public servants who have been sent home to return to work.” Obama directed those listening to www.healthcare.gov if they want to apply for health care exchanges where they can buy insurance, saying it’s time to “get America covered, once and for all.”
The president allowed that the site had suffered glitches — but portrayed it as victim of its own success, saying more than 1 million people visited the site before 7 a.m. “We're going to be speeding things up in the next few hours to handle all of this demand that exceeds anything that we had expected,” Obama said. “Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it. I don't remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn't. That's not how we do things in America. We don't actively root for failure.”
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-to-make-12-25-p-m--statement-134130294.html
Heh. Obama loves talking about Apple.
President Obama with the iPad given to him personally by Steve Jobs:
= new reply since forum marked as read
