Multiple news agencies reporting that President Obama will momentarily announce that Osama bin Laden is dead. Presumably, based on earlier reports, in a CIA raid.
Late Update: Two US government officials confirm to TPM that Osama bin Laden is dead.
11:08 PM: CNN is reporting that bin Laden was killed in a mansion outside Islamabad.
11:18 PM: Latest reports suggest a human rather than a drone operation behind bin Laden’s death. Continue to treat these reports as tentative, unconfirmed. We’re working our sources and presumably the president will cover these details.
Statement coming shortly.
So we’re getting a pretty fair read on what’s coming here. The President to speak on ‘developments’ regarding Osama bin Laden. There’s word of a “grave and serious CIA operation” overseas. Lots of chatter. We’ll know the details shortly.
The White House has announced that President Obama is going to release a statement at 10:30 PM Eastern tonight (or round about there). But there’s no word on what it’s about — and a Sunday evening statement is not run of the mill. The White House appears to be signaling that it’s something on some consequence. And that’s spawning a lot of chatter and mystery about what it might be.
Only thing that White House seems willing to confirm is that the announcement is not related to Libya.
10:38 PM: MSNBC is quoting administration officials saying that the President will discuss a “very grave and serious CIA operation” overseas.
After the fold is video feed where President will make his statement. Read More
Reports from the White House Correspondents Association dinner say Donald Trump was pretty upset about the jokes at his expense coming from President Obama and SNL’s Seth Meyers.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) announces he will sign a bill defunding Planned Parenthood in his state.
This weekend is the biggest socio-political event of the year in DC. Socializing and politics always go hand in hand here, but this weekend is different. The White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner Saturday night has morphed into a creature all its own, an amalgam of DC, NY and Hollywood elites that has come to dominate the calendar of the Federal City (as distinguished from the non-governmental and more down-to-earth Washington). I’m not sure there’s anything else that captures so completely the way the modern DC operates and conceives of itself as this weekend does. A glimpse of WHCA dinners past:
As part of TPM’s ongoing events series, we co-hosted a roundtable discussion Thursday with the New America Foundation in Washington featuring Michael Corbin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs for Iraq issues.
With an end-of-the-year deadline for withdrawal of American troops looming — and talks underway between the U.S. and Iraqi governments to negotiate a new security agreement that could very well see U.S. troops remaining beyond the deadline in some capacity — Corbin addressed a small gathering of journalists and policy experts brought together by TPM. Read More
Don’t look now but the politics of our northern neighbor Canada is about to be completely turned on its head. And the head of the left-wing NDP could even become the next Prime Minister.