Random old photo to make you smile! President Barack Obama stands by a cut-out picture of First Lady Michelle Obama during a visit to Miami Central High School in Miami, Fla., March 4, 2011. (Pete Souza)
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Morning everyone – I’m late getting started today, still catching up with the news. Will post more and will reply to your emails and comments asap!
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BWD has a brilliant post on the reaction to last night’s 60 Minutes interview – don’t miss it, see here
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Huge apologies to any one who tried to donate to Obama/Biden 2012 on The Obama Diary page of the OFA site – some of you had problems with the link (here) so I’m going to try to get that sorted out now. Also, I can’t find ‘The Obama Diary’ when I search the site, so I need to find out why. If anyone has any ideas about what the problem is, please let me know!
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President Obama drives a new Chevy Volt during his tour of the General Motors Auto Plant in Hamtramck, Mich., July 30, 2010. (Pete Souza)
This is a great read from EJ Dionne about how the success of the bailout of the car industry has been almost completely ignored by the media, and how its critics (“Socialism!”) have not been called to account:
E.J. Dionne: Rescuing Detroit: No news about government’s good news … Don’t expect to see a lot of newspapers and Web sites with this headline: “Big Government Bailout Worked.” But it would be entirely accurate.
The actual headlines make the point. “Demand for fuel-efficient cars helps GM to $3.2 billion profit,” declared The Post. “GM Reports Earnings Tripled in First Quarter, as Revenue Jumped 15%,” reported the New York Times.
Far too little attention has been paid to the success of the government’s rescue of the Detroit-based auto companies, and almost no attention has been paid to how completely and utterly wrong bailout opponents were when they insisted it was doomed to failure … you won’t see a news conference where the bailout’s foes candidly acknowledge how mistaken they were.
The lack of accountability is stunning but not surprising. It reflects a deep bias in the way our political debate is carried out. The unexamined assumption of so much political reporting is that attacks on government’s capacity to do anything right make intuitive sense because “everybody knows” that government is basically inefficient and incompetent, especially when compared with the private sector.
Government failure gets a lot of coverage. That’s useful because government should be held accountable for its mistakes. What’s not okay is that we hear very little when government acts competently and even creatively….
Full article here
Steve Benen has posted about this too – see here
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MSNBC: The latest NBC News poll finds that nearly two-thirds of Americans back President Obama’s decision not to release the photos taken after Osama bin Laden’s death. Fifty-two percent said they strongly believe the Obama administration should not release the photos, and an additional 12 percent agreed, although not as strongly…..
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Okay, this has nothing to do with President Obama, but I just wanted to share my pain: I spend my life trying to convince cat-lovers that dogs are waaaaaaay more intelligent … and then along comes a video like this. Yes, this dog is trying to get a statue to play fetch with him. I can only assume he’s a Republican?
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The Obama Diary 
Good Morning, Chipsticks and TOD Family! Another good day is unfolding!
Good morning VC!! 😉
Good morning, Chipsticks and TOD family. What a marvelous, brilliant, whipsmart President we have. His 60 Minutes interview was masterful. Chuck Todd on MSNBC says their new poll will be unveiled on Brian Williams’ show this evening. Should be interesting. Anyone who does not approve of this President “should have their head examined.”
I enjoyed the “should have their head examined” line too!
morning Chip and TOD family 😉
May GOD bless;guide and protect the President;Vice President and every members of the Administration and may He show them what to do
Good morning guys and congrats on the funds raised so far. What can foreigners do to help, seeing that we cannot contribute to the campaign?
GOOD MORNING ‘O’ KIDS…THE DOG WITH THE GUY WITH THE HARDENED ARTERIES ON THE BENCH IS TOO FUNNY. I’D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT ‘BO’ WOULD HAVE DONE WITH THAT ONE!
I LOVE THAT PIC OF THE PRESIDENT WITH THE CUT-OUT OF THE FIRST LADY…WISH I HAD CUT-OUTS OF THE FIRST COUPLE…I’D PUT THEM IN MY FRONT WINDOW SO THEY COULD WAVE AT ALL THE REPUBLICANS THAT LIVE HERE!LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!! WOULDN’T THAT BE AN EYE CATCHER?
Sue,
I actually had a neighbor who did have cut-outs of both! He’s since moved away. I would have LOVED for him to leave them behind!
Too funny Sue. Send your suggestion of the cut-outs to OFA. Maybe they can add it to the items in their Gift Shop!
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
“I’D PUT THEM IN MY FRONT WINDOW SO THEY COULD WAVE AT ALL THE REPUBLICANS THAT LIVE HERE!”
LOL, you are so bad 😀
How are Reps going to run against him? Oh yeah – “Vote for us, we’ll take your Social Security away!” That’ll work.
Congratulations Chipsticks, you began your fundraiser – what – yesterday afternoon and already it’s over $600!
I posted this morning at 11:39am that it was a little over $600. I just finally was able to scroll down again to this site and lo and behold it’s $830. What chu gonna do when it hits your goal Chip?????? What’s your next Hat Trick? I’m so proud of us! Way to go! YES.WE.CAN!
Good Morning everyone! What a great day yesterday was. Ending with the 60 minute interview. It is great finally seeing other people seeing the President as we always knew he was. I knew that he was able to see the big picture from all angles, but this really shows that he can. I am so proud.
I haven’t contributed yet but I will. I am so glad you have started this. I want to give credit to both you and BWD.
Good morning, everyone!
Chips, in early April the OFA site changed platforms and it’s been a nightmare ever since. I can’t for the life of me figure out why they made such a dramatic and unannounced change when 1) the old OFA site was functioning perfectly well with lots of tools and networks long established; 2) they didn’t work out any of the kinks before launching and there are new ones that pop up even now; 3) they are losing supporters every day on the blog because of all the glitches. It’s the furthest thing from an improvement. Among the most frustrating glitches are the personal fundraising pages. Some don’t have submit buttons and others have formatting issues that prevent people from donating. And now it seems that you can’t search for anyone’s fundraising page? We also lost the ability to retrieve the network of donors we had in 2008, which is just mind-boggling to me. ARGH, I’ve tried to be patient but it’s very upsetting. The old team can’t possibly be in charge.
But Chips, it’s great that you’ve raised so much money in spite of all the problems. It’s a testament to how much love and respect you have from everyone. Go OTeam!!
Meta, thank you so much for that, it explains a lot! I’m even having trouble logging in to my own fundraising page there (under ‘Grassroots fundraising’) – sometimes it works, other times a pop-up window appears but I can’t make it bigger, so you’re stuck there, unable to click on anything. The link I provided here works for some people and not for others, and, as I mentioned, when I search for ‘The Obama Diary’ page on the site nothing shows up. Arrrrgggghhh! I tried to contact them through the site today to ask for help, but I’m not even sure if my message went through. This is just crazy, they are losing invaluable donations through all these glitches, they seriously need to sort this out. Thanks again Meta.
You’re so welcome. This is the page they gave us to submit technical issues:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/o2012-about-technical-issues
David Plouffe would never put up with this mess!!
You’re a star Meta, I just used your link to let them know about the problems, hopefully they’ll come back with a fix! Thanks again Meta, appreciate the help 😉
Update – just got this automated reply:
Thank you for contacting us about barackobama.com.
We’re just getting set up, and it may be a few weeks until we’re able to respond to every comment.
If you’re experiencing technical issues with the site, we’re sorry — and we’ll get back to you individually as fast as we can.
It’s the ideas and support of folks on the ground that keep this movement strong.
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A few weeks!!
Argh. It really does require the patience of a saint.
A few weeks?!?!!!! It seems like they were not prepared for the enormous interest. I suggest you send an email through Whitehouse.gov and see if you can’t light a fire somewhere about your desire to contribute and the resulting difficulties. If a 14 year old can get the President’s attention – just think what an email from Chipsticks will garner!
TOD you have got to watch this IMO!! (I wasn’t even finished, but I had to share. See you later)
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/05/09/video-mid-day-distraction-kids-react-to-osama-bin-ladens-death/
I saw that video it was cute, innocent and funny.
Oops! I am just trying to catch up here and noticed that Miss Chips already had th ‘Kids React..’ video posted. Apologies – she is way ahead, as usual! Kudos, Chipsticks!
Oh dear, I’m thoroughly confused. I’ll just shut up and read! Well, I will, at least for a while. 😉
Almost 14 million people watched 60 minutes last night on CBS. Someone last might wanted to know.
I loved the video of the dog trying to get the seated-man statue to play fetch, watched it a number of time. The only distracting thing was the harr-harring behind the camera!
Can’t turn off the sound without losing the dog’s frustrated whining of encouragement — to pick up the stick already!
Was great, though, and thanks for posting it.
LOL…..@ the dog playing fetch. Thanks, Chips for my first good laugh of the day….other than anything about rethugs 😀
Listening to NPR, hearing this guy say, “I’m a die-hard republican, but I’m damn proud of this President. Never thought I’d say this, but he has changed my mind in the last week or so”…Just wow!
As the mom of a border collie, I totally understand that dog in the video. LOL
President Obama looks SOOOO HAPPY to finally DRIVE AGAIN!! Even if it was for just a few feet….
Firefly, I thought the same thing! When I first quickly scrolled down and saw this I had to do a double take because at first I thought the President was driving Michelle on their dinner date a few nights ago. I know that is not a possibility!