night everyone

President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, meets with members of his national security team for a monthly meeting on Afghanistan in the Situation Room of the White House, June 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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WH: Dr. Austan D. Goolsbee, Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), announced his plans to return to his position as the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He will return to Chicago in time for the upcoming school year.  Prior to his time in the Obama Administration, he was a professor at the University of Chicago for fourteen years.

….Chairman Goolsbee said, “Working each day on behalf of the American people has been a rare privilege, particularly at such a historic time.  While I  am looking forward to returning home to Chicago, I will always be proud of the years I have spent working for this President.  I believe that his judgment, his courage in confronting the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, and his commitment to the American people have made a tremendous difference for the nation.”

More here

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The First Lady hugs a graduating senior during the commencement ceremony of Quantico Middle/High, June 3, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

monday’s interviews

newsnet5: President Barack Obama had an overall optimistic message for Northeast Ohioans Monday as NewsChannel5’s Leon Bibb sat down with him for an interview in Washington. The topics discussed included the auto industry, the economy, the future of NASA Glenn Research Center, Osama bin Laden death on the impact of American troop withdrawal and urban education….

…Bibb asked the president if the death of Osama bin Laden would mean the acceleration of withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan.

“What I’ve said is that this summer is going to be a summer of transition,” said Obama. He said it’s time for the Afghans to take responsibility for their own security, citing the training that American troops are providing to them.

“By killing bin Laden, by blunting the Taliban, we have now accomplished a lot of what we set out to accomplish 10 years ago,” said Obama.

The president said he will be making an announcement soon about the transition plan about the pace of the troop reduction.

More here

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Detroit

run paul, run!

😆

weiner

So, what do you all think after the presser?

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Steve Benen: On the Political Sex Scandal Richter Scale, I’m still not altogether sure why this even registers at all. Given what we know, Weiner shared adult content with women he met online. They were adults and the interactions were consensual. He didn’t commit adultery (Ensign), he didn’t hire prostitutes (Vitter, Spitzer), he didn’t solicit anyone in an airport bathroom (Craig), he didn’t pretend to be someone else in order to try to pick up women (Lee), he didn’t abandon his office for a rendezvous with his lover (Sanford), he didn’t leave his first two wives after they got sick (Gingrich), he didn’t have a child with his housekeeper (Schwarzenegger), there’s no sex tape (Edwards), and no interns were involved (Clinton). He’s not even a hypocrite — Weiner has never championed conservative “family values,” condemning others for their “moral failings.”

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not for the faint-hearted

Hey, there’s nothing funny about someone fainting …. I just liked the caption CNN put on this video:

“A member of the audience faints during Rick Santorum’s announcement that he’s running for president.”

I know how she felt 😕

ah, facts….

Steve Benen: ….Mitt Romney continues to argue that President Obama inherited an economic mess, but made matters “worse”. When that was fact-checked, and proven false, Romney said it again. I’m curious about how Republicans explain what transpired in 2009, immediately after the stimulus took effect. Here, for example, is a chart showing private-sector job losses per month in the year before President Obama took office:

…the month Obama was inaugurated, America’s private sector lost a remarkable 841,000 jobs. That was just in one month … So, take a look at what transpired over the first 14 months the president was in office:

This shows private-sector jobs only, so it’s not skewed by Census jobs. Obama took office, the stimulus took effect, and the job market quickly improved. What I’m curious about is how Republicans explain this … is it possible that all of that spending actually made things better?

Full post here

a ‘normal’ life

Newsweek: Michelle Obama refuses to be a political show pony or schmooze with Washington’s elite. She has her own sense of where her energies should be deployed and has constructed a fruitful life inside the bubble. All that will have to change in the heat of Election 2012.

The most recognizable woman in the world routinely ducks reporters to have what she calls a “normal” life. Hiding beneath a baseball cap, the first lady of the United States has picked through sale racks in the frenetic Tysons Corner, Va., mall with girlfriends, bought supplies for her dog at Petco using her own credit card, and dined at some of D.C.’s hippest eateries largely unrecognized….…she has figured out ways to navigate the bubble while channeling her own passions and holding on to her life.

…She must once again find her footing in the part of the job she hates the most – campaigning – but one she happens to excel at. “She has always been remarkably effective because no matter where you live or where you come from, you can relate to her,” says White House official Stephanie Cutter, who worked closely with Michelle in 2008. “She conveys the same set of values and experiences families all over the country live by.”

….on a personal note, her closest aides confide that there is one place in D.C. that she has been desperate to visit for another taste of life outside the White House – but so far it has not been possible. “She really wants to go to Target,” says one confidante. “We have to make that happen.”

Full article here

‘letting a diamond slip away’

Steve Benen: Last year, the Senate Banking Committee twice approved Peter Diamond’s nomination to the Federal Reserve. And twice, the Senate wasn’t allowed to vote on Diamond because Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and a handful of his far-right colleagues threw tantrums for unknown reasons. So, this year, President Obama resubmitted the Diamond nomination. And once again, the petulant Republican from Alabama led a small contingent that decided they’re entitled to veto power over the process.

After more than a year of waiting for a simple vote, Diamond has given up. In a New York Times op-ed, the respected Nobel laureate explained why he’s withdrawing:

Instead of going to the Fed, however, I will go about my congenial professional existence as a professor at M.I.T., where I have taught and researched since 1966, and I will take advantage of some of the many opportunities that come to a Nobel laureate. So don’t worry about me …  But we should all worry about how distorted the confirmation process has become, and how little understanding of monetary policy there is among some of those responsible for its Congressional oversight.

… Diamond is among the most accomplished economists of his generation, and last year, was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics. And yet, there was Richard Shelby & Co., insisting that Diamond lacked the qualifications to join the board of governors of the Federal Reserve ……The result of this fiasco isn’t just the loss of a qualified nominee to an important post; it’s also a lost opportunity to have the Fed take actions to bolster the economy. We can only hope that this wasn’t part of a larger campaign by Republicans to hurt the economy on purpose.

Full post here

‘is president obama intentionally raising gas prices?’

Stephen Stromberg (Washington Post): On Face the Nation Sunday, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour … made a series of assertions about President Obama’s record on energy that suggests he was confused about it, intentionally misleading, or both.

Barbour argued that the president is purposely raising the price of energy …. an incredulous Bob Schieffer pressed the governor – does he really think that he can blame the president for those figures, and claim that it was all intentional?

Barbour doubled down, saying that Obama once favored a cap-and-trade program that would have mainly raised electricity prices. Yes, electricity prices, not gas prices. Different goods, different markets. Also, the Democrats’ cap-and-trade program never passed. It’s not policy. So it couldn’t be pushing any energy prices up at all, on electricity or gas.

Barbour went on to cite some of the Obama administration’s regulatory efforts, presumably those at the Environmental Protection Agency, that might affect energy prices. But they, too, are mainly aimed at the electricity and industrial sectors, not oil, and many of the EPA’s most controversial regulatory efforts haven’t come into force yet, either….

…A savvy player such as Barbour sees that high gas prices are a political weakness for the president, even though they aren’t Obama’s doing. It’s not surprising he would try to exploit that opening, even if it means losing at the logical consistency game.

Full post here

‘ending medicare as we know it’

DontEndMedicare.com