night everyone

President Obama speaks to a crowd gathered inside a hangar at Muniz Air National Guard Base, shortly after his arrival in San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 14

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Text of President’s remarks today here

Video at C-Span here – thanks Doris 😉

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If you have even 10 spare dollars please consider donating to Obama/Biden 2012. You can donate directly at the Organizing For America site (here) or through The Obama Diary page at OFA (here) – just $320 to go before this little blog reaches its $2,000 target. Thank you again to everyone who’s donated, hugely appreciated 😉

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Bonus pic …. an oldie but a goldie:

if it’s tuesday evening it must be …. dc?

President Obama pauses on the tarmac as he boards his limousine at Andrews Air Force Base after his returns from Puerto Rico, June 15

‘a day of awkwardness with mitt romney’

Dana Milbank (Washington Post): Mitt Romney had just finished working the room at Blake’s Creamery when he paused for a photo with the restaurant’s owner and decided to tell her a joke.

“I saw the young man over there with eggs Benedict, with hollandaise sauce,” he said. “And I was going to suggest to you that you serve your eggs with hollandaise sauce in hubcaps. Because there’s no place like chrome for the holidays.” The proprietor laughed weakly…. The hubcap joke must have killed in Michigan in the 1950s, when Romney was a boy. What’s odd is that he’s still making such jokes….

In formal settings Romney is confident and competent. But in casual moments … his weirdness comes through – equal parts Leave-It-to-Beaver corniness and social awkwardness …. He greets a man perusing shelves of a hardware store: “Shopping here today?”

…He talks about the weak economy with the proprietors of a feed shop, then abruptly pivots: “Okay, so what do you do about mosquito control? … This has been a mosquito-infested year with all the moisture. They flew away with my dog.”

….Posing for a photo with his arms around the waitresses, he suddenly jumps forward, pretending somebody pinched his bottom. “Oh my goodness gracious!” he exclaims, then, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” He later says the gag is “kind of fun to do.”

…. To two older women who just came from the gym: “Are your knees, hips doing okay?” To an old married couple: “You know each other?” Romney seemed to be auditing one man: “What’s happened to your financials the last couple of years?”

He departed Blake’s with a final plea for support in the New Hampshire primary, scheduled for Feb. 14. “Get out and vote,” he encouraged the diners. “It’s a while, though, I think. What is it, November? … It’s not November. It’s January. It’s February!”….

Full article here

“fight back harder”

Democrats.org

Thank you GGail 😉

‘the gop’s cia playbook: destabilize country to sweep back into power’

Robert Parry (Alternet): Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using almost any means available, from challenging the legitimacy of opponents to spreading lies and disinformation to sabotaging the economy …  almost as if they are following a CIA training manual….

…. When a Democrat somehow does manage to get into the White House, Republicans in Congress (and even in the Courts) are ready to do their part in the destabilization campaign…

…Immediately the Republicans and the Right set to work demonizing and destroying Obama’s presidency. Instead of allowing the Democrats to enact legislation aimed at addressing the financial and economic crisis, the Senate Republicans launched filibuster after filibuster.

….There were waves of propaganda pounding Obama’s legitimacy …. Soon, billionaires like oil man David Koch and media mogul Murdoch were promoting a “grassroots” rebellion against Obama called the Tea Party. Activists were showing up at presidential speeches with guns and brandishing weapons at rallies near Washington.

….The Republican propaganda machine will tell the American people that they must throw Obama and the Democrats out of office for stability to return….

Of course, the reality of a new Republican administration, especially with a GOP Congress, would be the return of the old right-wing nostrums: more tax cuts for the rich, less regulation of corporations, more military spending, and more privatization of social programs.

….The hard reality in the United States today is that the Republicans and the Right are now fully organized … they are well-positioned to roll the U.S. economy off the cliff and blame the catastrophe on Obama.

….that may be their best hope for winning Election 2012.

Full article here

Thank you Michelle and Jackie

president obama addresses council on jobs & competitiveness

Durham, NC. June 13

la isla del encanto

President Obama and Puerto Rico’s Congressional Representative Pedro Pierluisi arrive at Muniz Air National Guard Base

NYT: ….By the time Air Force One landed just before noon in the first “official” visit of a sitting American president since John F. Kennedy, the crowd gathered in a hot hangar at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport had swelled to more than 1,000.

…The president’s schedule included the speech at the airport hangar, a visit to La Fortaleza, the longest-serving governor’s mansion in the Western Hemisphere (the White House says), a tour of the Kennedy Suite, where President Kennedy stayed in 1961, and a concert by a youth orchestra.

Perhaps more important on Mr. Obama’s itinerary, though, was the interviews he scheduled with El Nuevo Dia and Univision of Puerto Rico, and a fund-raising event Tuesday afternoon meant to plump Democratic National Committee coffers.

…About half of Puerto Ricans here now advocate statehood. The other half, more or less, prefer that the island remain a commonwealth because they are concerned about keeping its cultural identity intact. A few would like independence.

Puerto Ricans hold American citizenship and can be drafted, but the territory has no voting representative in Congress. And while Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico can vote in a presidential primary, they cannot vote in general presidential elections. Only Puerto Ricans in the United States can.

….About that first official visit business: Other sitting American presidents have certainly been to Puerto Rico. President Gerald R. Ford came in 1976, but it was for a Group of Seven economic summit, so that apparently doesn’t count as official, since it wasn’t for official Puerto Rico business. Ditto for President Lyndon B. Johnson – he came in 1968, but it was just to visit a military base on the island, so that’s not being considered official either….

President Obama greets singer Marc Anthony at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport

From left, Musician Marc Antony, Puerto Rico Mayor Jorge Santini Padilla, President Obama, Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, Rep. Pedor Pierluisi, D-Puerto Rico, and Adjutant General of the Puerto Rico National Guard Antonio J. Vicens

…arriving to speak to a crowd at an airport hanger at Muniz Air National Guard Base

President Obama, Gov. Luis Fortuno and Rep. Pedor Pierluisi, D-Puerto Rico, tour La Fortaleza

….with Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno

….with Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, his wife Luce Vela and Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi

…. with Sen. Alejandro Garcia Padilla at Kasalta bakery

A woman holds an image of President Obama, dressed as Superman, as she waits for the presidential motorcade in San Juan

President Obama waves from Air Force One prior to departing Luis Munoz Marin International Airport

even newsbusters admits politico is right wing excrement

An interesting admission today from witless right wing nutjob Tom Blumer at the race-baiting steaming pile of internet excrement that is Newsbusters:

“Many people, including yours truly, believe that one of the primary reasons for Politico’s existence is to carry negative stories about Democrats and leftists …..”

Ha, ha: truth!

I had a look at GOPolitico today and hard as it might be to believe, it’s actually getting worse. I thought I’d somehow ended up on a Teabagger site. eg Julie Nelson’s take on Michelle Obama’s beautiful comments in Pasadena about her husband: “The audacity of mope”.

(Nelson is the woman who passes her time counting the number of black faces in the Obama administration (here) and remains obsessed with the President’s teleprompter (here), when even most other bigots have moved on …. not least since the realization that the half-termer can’t say hello without one).

  Any way, a new vow: I will never, ever, ever, ever link to a GOPolitico story here again – they are, to put it mildly, scum.

the today interview (part 2 added)

Original video and transcript here

lies, lies, lies….

Steve Benen: If one were to create a drinking game in which viewers of last night’s debate took a shot every time a candidate lied, the “winner” would be in the hospital this morning with alcohol poisoning. The Republican candidates treated reality as an inconvenience to be brushed aside in the name of political expediency.

It’d take too long to note all of the falsehoods, though there were some clear gems. Tim Pawlenty claimed Medicare is insolvent (that’s plainly false); Ron Paul said Iraq and Afghanistan share a border (has he not heard of Iran?), and Rick Santorum said President’s Obama refusal to drill for oil is causing pain at the pump (oil production is actually up under Obama, not down).

But my favorite lie came from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who had this to say about the Affordable Care Act: “This is the symbol and the signature issue of President Obama during his entire tenure. And this is a job-killer, Sylvia. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office has said that Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs. What could the president be thinking by passing a bill like this, knowing full well it will kill 800,000 jobs?”

If Bachmann had any idea what she was talking about, it would make sense to question why the president would do such a thing. But Bachmann’s is either lying or she lacks the ability to understand the phrase “reduction of labor.”….

Full post here