take a bow, donna dem

You did great work today organizing that Boehner campaign – just the kind of activism the President asked for.

You’re a star 😉

A recording of a call made by a friend of Donna to Boehner for the I-Report on CNN:

CNN

ah yes, the texas miracle….

NBC: Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s efforts to tout his record on jobs and the economy as a centerpiece of his presidential campaign took a hit today with new figures from one of his own state agencies: They show the Texas unemployment rate increased to 8.5% in August – the highest level in more than 24 years and more than twice the rate when Perry took office in December 2000.

The new unemployment rate for Texas is still below the national average of 9.1%. But the new figures from the Texas Workforce Commission included some disturbing trends: There was a net jobs loss of 1,300 in Texas during the month of August, even worse than than the latest national figures showing zero job growth.

While the private sector did add 8,100 jobs in Texas during August, this was more than offset by a shrinking public sector resulting in the loss of 9,400 government jobs, state figures show.

…. Mark Lavergne, a spokesman for the Texas Workforce Commission, confirmed that the new unemployment rate of 8.5% is the highest unemployment rate for Texas since July, 1987. When Perry took office in December 2000 after George W. Bush resigned, the unemployment rate in Texas was 4.2%

At this week’s GOP presidential rate, Perry touted his record of “creating more than one million jobs” in Texas, but made no mention of the recent downward trends in the state’s economy.

patently smart

President Barack Obama talks with student Rebecca Hyndman before visiting classrooms at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., Sept. 16, 2011. Hyndman, a Senior at Thomas Jefferson, shows the President the patent she received in 2010 for her invention, Under-Floor Storage. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

solyndra

ThinkProgress: It’s often claimed that the Solyndra loan guarantee was “rushed through” by the Obama Administration for political reasons. In fact, the Solyndra loan guarantee was a multi-year process that the Bush Administration launched in 2007.

You’d never know from the media coverage that the Bush team tried to conditionally approve the Solyndra loan just before President Obama took office…..

Because one of the Solyndra investors is funded by George Kaiser – a man who donated money to the Obama campaign – the loan guarantee has been attacked as being political in nature.

What critics don’t mention is that one of the earliest and largest investors, Madrone Capital Partners, is funded by the family that started Wal-Mart, the Waltons. The Waltons have donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates over the years.

…. the media has decided on a narrative that matches right-wing talking points but not the facts….

… To set the record straight, Climate Progress is publishing this timeline – verified by Department of Energy officials – that shows how the loan guarantee came together under both administrations. In fact, rather than rushing the loan for Solyndra through, the Obama Administration restructured the original Bush-era deal to further protect the taxpayers’ investment (See timeline at the link)

What critics fail to mention is that the Solyndra deal is more than three years old, started under the Bush Administration, which tried to conditionally approve the loan right before Obama took office. Rather than “pushing funds out the door too quickly,” the Obama Administration restructured the original loan when it came into office to further protect the taxpayers’ investment.

Full post here

“i’ve a couple of cadillacs, two different houses…. and i’ve got my mustang”

CBS video description: In Tucson Thursday, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney spoke of his car collection – first boasting of his Cadillacs, then perhaps remembering he was at a Ford dealership, mentioning his Mustang.

name recognition. it’s very important, you know.

‘turning ideas into jobs’

Senator Patrick Leahy takes a picture as President Obama signs the American Invents Act at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, September 16

Read about the Act here

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President Obama speaks before signing the America Invents Act

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President Obama visits a classroom and watches students Meghan Clark and Nathan Hughes demonstrate the FIRST Robot, a robot created in the school’s prototyping and robotics senior research labs for last year’s FIRST Robotics Competition, at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. Later in the morning Obama signed the America Invents Act, which reforms patent law so to give a patent to the first applicant rather than the first inventor and allows the woefully underfunded U.S. Patent and Trade Office to set and potentially keep its own fees.

President Obama’s signature on the FIRST Robot

a word from donna dem

Donna Dem:

Well TOD family, today is a big Day of Action. I have set up an event on Facebook to contact Boehner’s office en mass starting from 9-6 EST.

In 24 houses over 450 people are ready to respond to the President’s Call To Action.

Please join us in flooding his phone lines, fax lines, email box and twitter account with requests to pass the President’s American Jobs Act.

Let’s keep his office busy answering our calls:

202-225-6205 (Office)

202- 225-0704 (Fax)

Email Boehner

Twitter: @SpeakerBoehner

‘the crybaby chorus’

Robert Shrum: It’s natural for the GOP to dismiss the facts in favor of misreading the entrails of a temporary congressional gain (in New York) which will be reversed in 2012. But it’s stupid, a sign of panic, and a pathetic and depressing picture to see Democrats joining in….

…. among the disaffected are elements of the labor movement …. Good luck to any union that sits out or sloughs off in 2012; if they end up with Romney or Perry, it could mark the end of organized labor in America.

…. too many members of his own party in Congress who pushed the president for a jobs bill, paid for by taxes on the wealthy, are now validating Will Rogers’s observation that they “don’t belong to any organized party. They’re Democrats”. Some of them are beginning to pick the bill apart, pursuing parochial interests …. Sen. Sherrod Brown warns that Democrats have to “compromise to get this bill up and running”; everybody can’t have all they want. He’s right, and so is Nancy Pelosi that Democrats can recapture the House – if they hold their nerve and stand with the president…..

Finally comes my friend James Carville to argue in a pyrotechnic CNN piece that yes, the White House should “panic” …. As Bill Clinton’s campaign chief in 1992, Carville didn’t panic – he certainly didn’t fire himself – in the early summer of that year, when Clinton was in last place, at 22 percent, in a three-way race with Ross Perot and the first George Bush.

…. Carville is on target about one thing: Obama has to “make a case like a Democrat”. But that’s what this president is doing now…..

…. the GOP is doing its best to block recovery as a conscious strategy to reclaim the White House: kill jobs to get the job. But there is grave risk for Republicans in this transparent cynicism; the president has the voice, and we’ve learned before that he has the strength of will to set the choice and win the big battle. Indeed, that’s what makes the comparison with Carter absurd; from health reform to financial reform to the salvation of the auto industry and the prevention of depression, Obama has a historic record of achievement.

…. Obama is a fourth quarter player. And the fourth quarter has come. It’s time for the crybaby chorus to leave the critic’s row and get in the game. The president will do his part. And then his victory in the 2012 election will be remembered long after his phony defeat in a peculiar special election fades into a footnote.

The panic isn’t justified — and Democrats can’t afford it. Grow up. As Carville might say, there’s too much at stake, stupid.

Full article here

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Thank you Jackie