another day, another crisis

President Barack Obama listens as he is updated on the latest events in Egypt during the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office, Jan. 31, 2011. From left are: Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and Chief of Staff Bill Daley. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

flashback … “i’m not going to the back anymore”

Thank you Sue in Minnesota 😉

Virginia Shelton, 105, of Ashland, a retired nurse, was surprised to learn that she would not be going to a senior center today. Instead, she is among the guests attending the president’s appearance at a South Richmond recreation association.

Shelton turned 105 on Sept. 8. She said that on her birthday she received a “wonderful” letter from First Lady Michelle Obama.

Shelton believes the mayor of Ashland arranged for her invitation to Obama’s event … Asked what advice she might have for Obama, Shelton said: “As long as he tells the truth, keeps looking up and keeps Christ in his life,” he will be fine. “Take the JC pill and you’ll get to 105,” she said.

you want a fight? you got it ;-)

President Barack Obama’s signature on the health insurance reform bill at the White House, March 23, 2010

WH: Today, a judge in Florida issued a decision in a case filed by 25 Republican Attorneys General and Governors striking down the Affordable Care Act. This ruling is well out of the mainstream of judicial opinion. Twelve federal judges have already dismissed challenges to the constitutionality of the health reform law, and two judges – in the Eastern District of Michigan and Western District of Virginia – have upheld the law. In one other case, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia issued a very narrow ruling on the constitutionality of the health reform law’s “individual responsibility” provision and upheld the rest of the law.

Full statement here

Salon: A Reagan appointee rules the entire healthcare reform act unconstitutional — and praises the Boston Tea Party……That sound you hear is the flutter of million ecstatic tweets of joy from conservatives, even if, in the short term, nothing substantive changes today. The legal status of the Affordable Care Act won’t be decided until the Supreme Court makes its own determination, a point that is at least a year or two away.

….a paragraph in Judge Vinson’s opinion seems more than a little resonant of current political fashions:

“It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place:

A Tea Party shout-out in a legal opinion on healthcare reform? Seems just a little bit obvious. Not to mention activist.

ah, yet more lies

Greg Sargent (Washington Post): A lot of people have already jumped on Kathleen Parker for her column yesterday faulting Obama for not using the actual phrase “American exceptionalism” in his State of the Union speech. But to me the funniest part of her column is that way down in the seventeenth paragraph, she actually admitted that one of the primary pieces of evidence allegedly proving that Obama doesn’t believe in “American exceptionalism” is total nonsense.

Conservatives often deride Obama over remarks he made at a presser in April of 2009, in which he said that he believes in American exceptionalism “just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” But as Parker apparently felt compelled to acknowledge, that’s not all he said:

…”What Obama added was that “we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.”

…Obama also said at that presser that he is “enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world.” And he hailed America’s “continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity.” Parker didn’t tell you about those two quotes.

…That this admission comes in a column faulting Obama for not using the phrase in his speech last week, of course, tells you all you need to know about how absurd and self-parodic this ongoing attack has become.

Full article here

‘us consumer spending best in three years’

BBC: Consumer spending in the US grew at its fastest pace in three years during 2010, official figures have shown.

Spending grew by 3.5% from 2009 the Commerce Department said, the best showing since a 5.2% rise in 2007 – before the country went into recession.

The 2010 levels were helped by a strong December, where spending grew by 0.7%, the sixth consecutive month of growth.

Consumer spending makes up more than two-thirds of activity in the US, the world’s largest economy.

….Economists expect that spending and savings will be boosted further in 2011, if the job market continues to slowly improve and with a cut in payroll tax.

…Last week, figures showed that US economic growth accelerated in the last three months of 2010 to an annualised rate of 3.2%, up from a rate of 2.6% in the previous quarter.

More here