Obama: Colo. fire uniting "one American family"

President Barack Obama talks with media as he tours the Mountain Shadow neighborhood devastated by raging wildfires Friday in Colorado Springs, Colo.

/ AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

(CBS News) Following one of the most politically controversial weeks in recent history, President Obama in his weekly address chose to steer clear from talking about his health care law, opting instead to discuss American responsibility at the scene of the Colorado wildfires.

"I know this is a little bit unusual - we don't usually do weekly addresses like this," the President acknowledged from in front of several fire trucks just south of Denver. "But I thought it was a good opportunity for us to actually focus attention on a problem that's going on here in Colorado Springs.

"We never know when it might be our community that's threatened and it's important that we're there for them."

At least two people have died and more than 350 homes have been destroyed in the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs, which was 30 percent contained Saturday morning. Mr. Obama encouraged Americans to make donations online to the American Red Cross, "to make sure that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Forest Service, our military and National Guard and all the resources that we have available at the federal level are brought to bear in fighting this fire."

Watch the President's remarks in the video to the left.

The President reiterated the importance of showing that Americans "have each others' backs" in times of devastation - a point he emphasized from the scene Friday, when he toured some of the damage and thanked firefighters, government officials and local residents.

"One of the things that happens," he said in his address, "whether it's a fire here in Colorado, or a tornado in Alabama or Missouri, or a flood or a hurricane in Florida, one of the things that happens here in America is when we see our fellow citizens in trouble and having difficulty, we come together as one American family, as one community. And you see that spirit and you see that strength here in Colorado Springs."

Meanwhile, delivering this week's Republican address, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., continued to air the GOP's grievances with the President's health care law, which was ruled largely constitutional by the Supreme Court on Thursday. Barrasso, a doctor, took issue with the law itself, but moreover the court's decision to uphold the individual mandate as a tax.

Watch Barrasso's remarks in the video to the left.

"On Thursday," Barrasso said, "I was in the courtroom as the Supreme Court ruled that the President's health care law is what the President claimed it was not: a new tax. President Obama has repeatedly promised, and I quote, 'If you're a family making less than $250,000 a year, my plan,' he said, 'won't raise your taxes one penny.'"

"There should be no doubt," the senator continued. "Republicans in Congress will fight to repeal the President's failed health care law."

84 Photos

Western wildfires

[sharkboy234]

OBAMA IS IN IT TO WIN IT NEVADA, COLORADO, FLORIDA ,IOWA & NEW HAMPSIRE OBAMA SEAL THE DEAL!!!!

[Ulgnud]

He got his tax increases. So much for his promises.

[aintfakin]

y -TeaPartyNation-- June 30, 2012 2:37 PM EDT


Please work tirelessly to finish the job started by the Tea Party in 2010 to TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Its my country too......and you cant have it

[mary-miami]

Romney and the GOP want to create a two class society of rich and poor with no middle class. GOP wants slave labor. Romney and his GOP cronies want only the very wealthy to have rights and freedoms and the working class to become silent slaves with no voting rights. Rich rightwing CEOs don't create jobs in the US, they create them in China. Thats where they got the idea of slave labor practices. GOP doesnt want to do anything that brings relief to the working class, Thats why GOP is against raising the minimum wage to a living wage or having equal rights or having environmental regulations or any government oversight...because GOP and Romney want to abuse power and create a society much like the one in feudal times where the rich and powerful "lords" would dictate the lives of their "serfs". Unless you are rich now, you would become poor and enslaved under a Romney GOP administration. Bush caused the economic crash, but Romney would be worse because the GOP now has become extremist and wants to censor speech, press and force religious beliefs on everyone. The rightwing want to crush voting rights because they think that the rich are superior to the working class. GOP and Romney have forgotten that the USA is a free country and "we the people" are not a corporation that a CEO can just bark orders at. Romney can't just dictate what he wants, the Congress must approve it. GOP have become very dangerous and Romney wants to establish a rightwing dictatorship. The only party that defends and respects equal rights and the working class is the Democratic Party. I will vote to Re-Elect President Obama.

[Thinkbeforeyouwrite]

Mary, I am no Romney or GOP fan but your diatribe almost sounds as far out as TeaPartyNation a few lines below. Of course, it is to the left as opposed to the right but, if we are to work together to help our country, we have got to stop seeing all of the opposing political philosophy as "pure evil". I've been through elections since 1952 and it has never been like this.

[melpol12]

Over fifty thousand Egyptians were maimed by the dreaded Mukhabarat secret police; their only crime was being a member of the outlawed Brotherhood. A person who has lost an eye or limb because of being tortured will not forget the face of their interrogator. Now that Morsi has become the president, the injured Brother will hop on his one leg and look with his one eye until he finds the cop who maimed him.

[-TeaPartyNation--]

In everything he says and does, radical alinsky nihilist OBOZO is simply following alinsky's Rules for Radicals plan to destroy ALL existing societal, governmental and economic structures under the phony guise of "social justice." Machiavellian OBOZO is a cutthroat, immoral, unprincipled, unconscionable, unethical, unscrupulous power-seeker for whom the end always justifies the means.

Understand that and you understand the evil that is OBOZO.

Please work tirelessly to finish the job started by the Tea Party in 2010 to TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY.

[hypnotoad72]

Where were you between 2001 and 2009, then? Rooting for the guys in this article:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/14/158424/republican-leaders-debt-limit-hypocrisy/

Or this one:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/27/eric_cantor_conflict_of_interest/index.html

Lastly, your other 'free market' friends:



http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Rick_Santorum.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/mitch_mcconnell.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/john_mccain.htm#Corporations
http://www.issues2000.org/senate/Judd_Gregg.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/jim_demint.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Orrin_Hatch.htm#Corporations
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Chuck_Grassley.htm#Corporations

"Voted NO on repealing tax subsidy for companies which move US jobs offshore. (Mar 2005)"

Obama voted YES, and handouts to corporations gutting this country are NOT any form of free market.

Why don't you try to understand that and real evil...


P.S. Shove your namecalling where it belongs. Start with your spiked tea bag.

[Thinkbeforeyouwrite]

Tea: You are portraying Alinsky as akin to Stalin or Hitler. Was he perfect or without fault - probably not- but certainly not the evil person you make him out to be. He won the Pacum in Terris Peace and Freedom Award along with other notables such as Mother Teresa (1976), Cardinal Bernardin (1985), and Lech Walesa (2001). The Tea Party itself follows much of what Alinsky thought was important in order to organize public opinion. I fear for our country with what I see in your diatribe as a sort of hatred without sound reasoning.

[Bojax39]

Love the top photo: "No, that's smoke.... That red stuff right over there is fire, Mr. President."

[philnk]

What a joke. Obama looking concerned is like Michelle loving our country, finally. Hahaha.

[hypnotoad72]

What's to laugh about? If you think what's going on is funny, you're either mentally ill or have zero disregard toward what's going on.

[hypnotoad72]

Does the GOP not know that Obama used Romney's own advisers to craft that reform with?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/10/11/how-mitt-romneys-health-care-experts-helped-design-obamacare/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/11/romneys-advisers-met-with-obama-to-help-craft-obama-care/

And as a nation, we're one big family. Too bad some of us are offshoring jobs and demanding taxpayer-funded subsidy in return so they can remain propped up in our so-called "free market"...