here we go again….

I posted this (here) the other day (see more at osborneink):

HistoryByDay (March 2010)

That’s right, ‘progressive’ OUTRAGE! peddlers Miss BP (aka the Hamsher creature, Tea Party and Grover Norquist buddy) and Republican/Libertarian Gary Johnson’s Number One fan (aka Greenwald) paid themselves $24,000 each for “strategic consulting” from Accountability Now donations – precisely $24,000 more than they donated in 2008 and 2010 to candidates challenging “corporate-controlled incumbents”, as they promised Accountability Now would do.

And how was most of their money raised? By sending out hysterical emails to their sheeple distorting the words of President Obama, firing up the hate …. and then pleading for donations to fight this dastardly traitor.

Well, well, well …. here we go again:

The Reid Report: Adam Green runs the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, an entity designed to automatically disgorge mass solicitation emails attacking President Obama every time the president speaks, thereby raising copious amounts of cash to … um … what do they do, exactly? Oh, right… to buy a few ads attacking President Obama and the occasional Republican.

Green and his fellow travelers on the anti-Obama left have been spoiling for a fight with the White House on entitlements, which these folks are apparently convinced Barack Obama is about to feed into a giant shredding machine …. but Green’s latest fundraising email, which landed in my in-box just after 7 p.m. on Monday (and was headlined BREAKING, even though the news it refers to happened hours earlier, at 11 a.m.) opens on an exquisitely dishonest note:

BREAKING: Obama outrage.

Joy-Ann,

BREAKING: Today, in a press conference, President Obama came right out and said it: He’s pushing for benefit cuts in important programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

You and 175,000 others boldly pledged that if Obama actually cuts Medicare/Medicaid benefits, you’ll take your money and volunteering elsewhere in 2012.

Green then urges recipients to sign a pledge not to give money to the Obama campaign if he cuts Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security ….. presumably, they should give money to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee instead…

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Ah yes, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee:

Wow, $725.2k of funds raised in 2010 went on “administrative costs”, $503,788 of that on “salaries and benefits” ….. oh, look:

OpenSecrets

Good. Grief.

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Read ExtremeLiberal on this very issue here

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Very interesting post from last year:

Workbench (2010): …. PACs have different policies regarding whether they compensate the people who run the committees. Some don’t accept one cent of donor money and devote it all to their cause, while others pay themselves salaries, travel expenses and office rent. I interviewed Darcy Burner, a former Democratic Congressional candidate from Washington state who runs the not-for-profit Progressive Congress Action Fund, to learn whether it’s common for left-wing PACs to pay themselves. “The bigger PACs require full-time staff to operate — to raise money, to vet candidates [and] to file reports,” she said. “I think the key question would be more one of whether people giving the money understand what it will be used for. … There’s a trust relationship with donors that requires some truth and transparency about how money is going to be used.”

Read the full post here

47th

ruby

President Barack Obama, Ruby Bridges, and representatives of the Norman Rockwell Museum view Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With,” hanging in a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office, July 15, 2011. Bridges is the girl portrayed in the painting. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

AOL (2010): When Ruby Bridges arrived for her first day at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans 50 years ago, she thought it was Mardi Gras. People lined the streets, shouting and throwing things – just like a Carnival parade. But these people weren’t celebrating.

At 6 years old, Bridges had been unwittingly thrust onto the grand stage of American history. Her parents had volunteered her to be the first black child to attend an all-white school in the South. Local law enforcement refused to protect her from the unruly mobs that surrounded her school, so every day she was escorted by four federal marshals – the scene immortalized by Norman Rockwell’s painting “The Problem We All Live With.”

That first day, all the parents had rushed into the building and taken their kids out — effectively boycotting the school. The school didn’t quite know what to do; Ruby was told to just sit in the principal’s office until it was time to go home.

“I remember thinking, ‘This school is easy,'” Bridges told AOL News.

Since then, Bridges grew up, raised four sons and worked as a travel agent before returning to a career as an educational activist that she had started at such a young age. But while her educational career eventually subsided into a normal New Orleans childhood – albeit one charged by forced integration – those exceptional first days in school had shaped her for life.

Full article here

‘what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is negotiable’

Charlie Cook (National Journal): Remember the old joke that ended with the punch line, “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable?” That seems to be the Republican position in the debt-ceiling debate now that House Speaker John Boehner has been forced to renounce any tax increases and, for that matter, any net revenue increases….

…Republicans don’t seem to understand the symbiotic relationships in this negotiation. Democrats hate entitlement cuts just as much as Republicans despise tax hikes. Likewise, just as Republicans dislike defense cuts, Democrats dislike domestic spending cuts. Yet, both are necessary. If Republicans expect Democrats to go along with entitlement cuts, the GOP has to be willing to go along with some revenue increases. If Republicans expect Democrats to swallow deep hits to domestic spending, the GOP has to swallow deep hits to defense. Instead, the Republicans’ position seems to be that they should be allowed to stand on their principles while Democrats are required to compromise theirs.

A deal to raise the debt limit will surely pass, and the United States will probably avoid default …. Republicans will be able to smugly walk away from the table knowing that they didn’t give an inch, but President Obama may well come out the winner. The public will see the president as having tried to negotiate a balanced approach whereby each side allowed its own ox to be gored and made sacrifices for the broader national good.

… What has happened is that the New Republican Party has come to hate taxes a lot more than it hates deficits and the country’s growing indebtedness. It has rewritten history to omit any acknowledgment that President Reagan, when it was necessary, went along with tax increases….

… To be sure, Obama would have had a very hard time selling real entitlement cuts and deep domestic spending cuts to the House and Senate Democratic caucuses that have grown more liberal by attrition and election losses over the past decade. Maybe he wouldn’t have succeeded. But we will never know, and the blame for Washington not stepping up to the plate will fall not on the Democrats but on the Republicans who flinched first….

Full article here

Thank you kinona

‘obama fundraising report signals juggernaut campaign’

Washington Post: Nearly 250 bundlers have raised $50,000 or more for President Obama just three months into the 2012 campaign, including more than two dozen who have each raised $500,000 or more.

The bundler list and other data released Friday provide further evidence of an astonishingly successful fundraising effort by Obama…

Obama’s official campaign raised $46.3 million and spent $11 million from April to June of this year, according to new documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. That left it with a whopping $37 million in case, including money left over from the first quarter. Obama also brought in $39.3 million in a joint fundraising effort with the Democratic National Committee, filings show.

The numbers put Obama far ahead of his GOP rivals, who are led by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney with about $18 million raised. The rest of the Republican field lags well behind with $5 million or less raised by each of them in the second quarter.

Obama’s biggest fundraisers include longtime supporters such as Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine and fashion editor Anna Wintour, all of whom have raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s re-election effort …. but there are new names on the list as well, such as Marc Benioff, a tech CEO who runs salesforce.com.

Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel, the brother of former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, helped raise between $50,000 and $100,000, the campaign said.

The sheer number of bundlers – and the volume of donations they represent – signals another potential juggernaut campaign for Obama, who shattered all records in 2008 by raising $745 million. Obama had 47 bundlers during the entire 2008 campaign who raised $500,000 or more – a number he is already more than halfway to matching.

…. Campaign officials said previously that more than 550,000 individual donors had contributed to Obama’s re-election effort in the second quarter – including 260,000 new donors – with an average contribution amount less than $70…..

Full article here

‘hailed by the chief’

MSNBC: President Barack Obama told the crew of the space shuttle program’s last mission that he’s proud of them and the “amazing feats” they are accomplishing in space.

… When the astronauts came on the line, the president feigned surprise, saying, “I was just dialing out for pizza and I didn’t expect to end up in space.”

Later in the call, he referred to the fact that 10 people had to share the space station’s two toilets and Atlantis’ sole bathroom. “My wife and my daughters are always crowding me out – hopefully you guys have a more organized arrangement than we do.”

More here

press conference

President Obama speaks at a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, July 15

‘lincoln sells out slaves!’

On March 8th 2011 President Obama took questions from a group of Boston Area College Democrats, Republicans and Independents after his speech at Tech Boston Academy in Dorchester, MA.

Thanks Meta

clueless

Boston Herald: Mitt Romney’s on red-faced run …. He’s admired for his perfect hair and polished style. It’s when Mitt Romney tries to be a regular guy that he runs into trouble.

…. he has made a string of quirky campaign missteps that have pundits questioning his ability to relate to the common voter. Some have even dubbed him an “awkward” candidate struggling with an identity crisis….

From pretending a waitress pinched his behind in New Hampshire, to cracking jokes about being “unemployed,” to pulling out a $100 bill in a Colorado restaurant, Romney has raised eyebrows with a series of stumbles as he stumps in the harsh glare of the national spotlight.

… The media hasn’t been kind. The Wall Street Journal recently referred to his “aw shucks, cornball humor,” and the Washington Post wrote of his “weirdness,” describing his demeanor as “equal parts ‘Leave It to Beaver’ corniness and social awkwardness.”….

Full article here

more pete souza genius…..

First Lady Michelle Obama reacts as President Obama soothes a crying baby at the Congressional Picnic, June 15

President Obama greets the family of Make-a-Wish child Diego Diaz, not pictured, before their visit to the Oval Office, June 23

President Obama fist-bumps Make-a-Wish child Diego Diaz after reading a letter he wrote, June 23

President Obama talks backstage with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett before a reception at the Hyatt at the Bellevue in Philadelphia, June 30

President Obama listens to Vice President Biden during a meeting with the Democratic leadership in the Oval Office, June 23

President Obama greets hospital workers while visiting wounded service members at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., June 17

President Obama talks with Puerto Rican Senator Alejandro Garcia Padilla during a lunch stop at Kasalta, a restaurant in the Ocean Park neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 14

President Obama greets patrons at Thomas Sweet Ice Cream and Chocolate in Washington, D.C., during a family outing on Father’s Day, June 19

All the photos above are by Pete Souza – here’s some Samantha Appleton and Lawrence Jackson genius:

First Lady Michelle Obama meets with former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa at Mandela’s home in Houghton, South Africa, June 21

First Lady Michelle Obama waits to be introduced during an event at the Claremont Hotel Club & Spa in Berkeley, Calif., June 14

First Lady Michelle Obama greets children at the Zandspruit Township Daycare Center at the Emthonjeni Community Center in Johannesburg, South Africa, June 21

First Lady Michelle Obama talks with young people at the U.S. Consulate meet and greet at the Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, June 23

First Lady Michelle Obama receives a hug while meeting with Young African Women Leaders Forum members at the Rosa Parks Library in Soweto, South Africa, June 22

More new photos here