no, no, i won’t laugh……….

😆

Few reporters attended Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann’s response to the economic speech given by President Barack Obama at the U.S. Captiol September 8, 2011

next in the schedule….

President Obama talks with Rep. Chris VanHollen, D-Md., before addressing a Joint Session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Sept.

Pictured, from left, are: Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.; Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

fight for him….

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Save America and the world from Romney/Perry 😉

the speech – magnificent or just brilliant?

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the speech

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Every dollar counts 😉

Transcript of speech here

First lady Michelle Obama greets Kelcie Fisher, a senior at Open High in Richmond, Virginia

…. with Rep. Eliot Engle, D-NY

Eric Cantor takes notes during President Barack Obama’s speech

Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La

tonight

More here

Thanks Meta 😉

supressing the vote

Mother Jones: On Thursday, Senator Dick Durbin held a hearing on the rash of restrictive voter ID laws being pushed by Republicans all over the country. Voting rights activists have argued the laws will reduce turnout among minorities and the poor.

Republicans’ huge midterm victory last November translated into increased control of state legislatures, which they’ve used to pass new, more onerous restrictions on voting, sometimes explicitly for the purpose of suppressing votes from Democratic-leaning constituencies. Judith Brown Dianis of the Advancement Project called the wave of restrictions the largest effort to suppress the vote “since Reconstruction”.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights has produced a map showing how many states are in the process of passing such laws (see above).

What the map doesn’t show is that five states, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, and West Virginia, have actually curtailed early voting as well. As Ari Berman reported, some of these ban voting on “the Sunday before the election — a day when black churches historically mobilize their constituents.”

Full post here

guest list

First Lady Michelle Obama hugs Roxanna Green as she enters the House Chamber prior the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 25, 2011. John and Roxanna Green are the parents of eleven-year-old Dallas and the late Christina Taylor, the nine-year-old girl killed when a gunman opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson earlier this month. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Who’s sitting with the first lady at President Obama’s jobs speech to Congress:

Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE who heads Obama’s jobs council
Steve Case, the founder of AOL
Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO president
Kenneth Chenault, the CEO of American Express
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley
Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Darlene Miller, a small business owner
Albert Green, the CEO of a small business
Jan Heister, the president of a small business
Philip Maung, a small business owner
Gracey Ibarra, a mother of two children
Joseph Kidd, a 30-year-old father who served in Iraq
John Raftery, a Marine who is the CEO of a construction firm
Nicole Gentile, a third-grade teacher
Kelcie Fisher, a high school senior
Hector Sealey, a director of safety at a construction company
Kirk Bergstrom, a project engineer
David Catalano, the founder of a digital advertising agency
Dannie Mangrum, a corrections officer, and Sabrina Mangrum, who is getting a teaching degree
Jessica Pickett, a technician who works with a fire department
Marlena Clark, a community college graduate
Tamara Washington, a single mother

whisper it…..

I know, I know, don’t give out to me – poll-watching at this stage is as pointless as Rick Perry or Mitt Romney’s existence on earth. But, still, I thought this might be worth mentioning:

Remember when the President’s Gallup approval dropped to 38 two weeks ago? It was reported more widely than the landing on the moon. Well, almost. That was that, he was finished, a one-termer, we were reliably informed. And that’s been the narrative ever since, right?

Whisper it …. despite all the crappy jobs news, he’s risen 6 points in just two weeks, up to 44 today.

It’s still insanely low, no arguments at all. And his disapproval is way too high (50) – although that’s gone down 5 points in two weeks.

So, that’s an 11 point turnaround, from -17 to -6 in just 14 days.

Hey, I’m not suggesting we crack open the champagne, and I know these figures will continue to be a rollercoaster, depending on which way the wind is blowing. But an 11 point turnaround in two weeks is hardly insignificant – and puts more than a little dent in that narrative.

Not that it will change the narrative. “Oh, well, you can’t trust Gallup,” they’d probably say. Funny, they trusted them two weeks ago.

‘us exports hit record high’

BBC: US exports hit a record high in July, pushing the country’s trade deficit down to its lowest level in three months, official figures have shown. Led by strong overseas sales of manufactured goods, US exports rose 3.8% to $178bn (£111bn), said the Commerce Department.

At the same time, imports fell 0.2% to $222.8bn, helped by a fall in the price of oil reducing the cost of the US’s crude imports. The trade gap fell 13.1% to $44.8bn.

The figures will be welcome news for President Barack Obama, who is set to give a speech on job creation later today.