First lady Michelle Obama signs a cap for veteran Helen Horn, while meeting wounded veterans and their families, as part of Major League Baseball’s Welcome Back Veterans program and the First Lady’s Joining Forces initiative at the St. Louis Veterans Center
Dr Jill Biden, army veteran Red Schoendienst and first lady Michelle Obama stand on the mound prior to the start of Game One of the MLB World Series between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on October 19
TPM: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will tee up a Friday test vote on a piece of President Obama’s jobs bill that would provide states money to retain or rehire teachers and emergency first responders.
“We are going to make sure there is a vote on our bill this week,” Reid told a crowd of fire fighters and teachers at a rally on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
The $35 billion legislation would be paid for with a 0.5 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year – a tiny new marginal bump that Republicans unanimously oppose. Some analyses suggest the legislation would save or create 400,000 jobs.
“The Republicans who work in the Senate suit up every day and come down and play their game in the Senate by following the lead of their leader – and that is, whatever they do, to make sure they do everything they can to make Barack Obama lose,” Reid said.
He’ll face some resistance from his own caucus as well. Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) bucked Reid last week and opposed debate on Obama’s entire jobs bill and have signaled they’ll do the same this time around.
They may be joined by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) who took to Twitter during Reid’s speech to oppose the legislation:
…. remember, this is a test vote about whether to debate the jobs bill – not a vote to end debate, or to pass the legislation itself.
Keith Humphreys (Washington Monthly): …. the Obamas have a magic about them as a couple to which most people respond positively. If you go to any event where the Obamas are standing next to each other, turn around and look at the crowd and you will see many people – especially women – smiling.
…. Last week a friend and I were reminiscing about a White House holiday party that we both attended. My friend jumped up from his chair and asked “Did you notice how differently he stands when Michelle is next to him? He then mimicked the President perfectly, standing stiffly and intoning “Here I am the boring, aloof, professor alone at the lectern”. Then, shifting his feet as if he were mid-strut, throwing back his shoulders and smiling broadly he said “And here I am with this incredibly fabulous babe that I got to marry me – oh yeah!”.
That’s the truth of it. When the President is with his wife, his humanity comes out in a way that it often does not in other circumstances. The facade of the distant academic cracks open, revealing that skinny, accessible and idealistic young man who is still happily ensorcelled by his brilliant companion. And at that moment, many people in our cynical, brutal and heartless electoral process pause for a moment and remember that Barack Obama is a human being, and they like him.
The Hill: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he will schedule a vote to proceed to a $35 billion jobs bill on Friday. “We’re going to make sure there’s a vote on our bill this week,” Reid said.
The $35 billion measure would direct federal funds to states to prevent layoffs of teachers, police officers and firefighters.
Democrats estimate the legislation will save or create 400,000 jobs. Most of the funding, $30 billion, would go to teachers. First responders would get $5 billion.
It would be paid for by a 0.5 percent tax increase on income over $1 million.
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A photo and poster of President Barack Obama hang on a door as Obama 2012 campaign volunteer Daniel Hertlein exits following the grand opening of the Georgia Democratic Party’s new headquarters, Oct. 19, in Atlanta. Democratic National Committee chairwoman and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz says her party isn’t conceding any corner of the country in the 2012 presidential election. She says there is a growing groundswell of Democratic momentum in the state and region, bolstered by the area’s changing demographics.
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Was ‘Dick’ Halperin’s Time Page hacked today by an impartial reporter – or does even he realize his relentless negative reporting on the President has become a little embarrassing?
Presumably he’ll be back to normal soon.
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President Obama, on his return to the White House from his tour of North Carolina and Virginia, tells members of the media that the pumpkins he bought will be driven to Washington
President Obama opens a door to the West Wing for National Security Council Senior Director for Europe Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall after returning to the White House
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Here’s the woot!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, you very, very kind people – that figure is, well, crazy!
I know these are seriously tough times for so many of you, so I honestly do hate asking, but if you’re able, could you help me celebrate by contributing $5, or whatever you can, to The Obama Diary Obama/Biden 2012 fundraising page at OFA (here)? Whenever you can. Thanks everyone.
The Drive for Five!
The incomparable Donna Dem will always be TOD’s fundraising Queen, and in future I’ll use her OFA page for our fundraising drives, this is just to celebrate that 5 million.
Thanks again everyone for your support and company, love ya.
Washington Post: ….. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, pulled up to a roadside farmer’s market in their imposing Ground Force One presidential bus for a little pumpkin shopping.
…. As Obama talked to the shopkeepers, the first lady was busy inspecting pumpkins. She seemed very interested in oversized white-colored ones, which Betty Wood later explained were called “full moon pumpkins.” Michelle Obama picked one up by wrapping both arms around it to load it into a metal rolling cart with a long metal handle. Betty Wood later estimated the pumpkin could weigh 70 pounds.
The president quipped: “Don’t hurt yourself now.” He yelled out to an aide: “Where are we going to put it? In the back of the bus?”
Michelle Obama loaded more into the cart. “How many are you going to buy?” her husband asked. “You want anything else?”
“No, we’ll have enough trouble getting these back,” she said.
President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stop to buy pumpkins at Wood’s Orchard in Hampton, Va
Washington Post: President Obama will use an appearance at a military base Wednesday to announce a partnership with the private sector to employ 25,000 veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars over the next two years, White House officials said.
… Obama has called on the private sector to help reduce an unemployment rate of 11.7 percent among veterans, above the national average of 9.1 percent.
In a speech at the Washington Navy Yard in August, Obama challenged businesses to hire 100,000 veterans by the end of 2013. The first step toward that goal comes Wednesday when the administration will announce a commitment from the American Logistics Association to hire a quarter of that number, officials said Tuesday.
The president will be joined by first lady Michelle Obama for the announcement at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. Mrs. Obama and Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, are leading the White House’s Joining Forces initiative to assist veterans.
Also today, the First Lady and Dr Jill Biden travel to Game One of the World Series in St. Louis, Missouri where they will promote Joining Forces and MLB’s Welcome Back Veterans program. They will participate in a special pre-game ceremony with veterans and military families at Busch Stadium. Game One of the World Series will be broadcast live on FOX starting at 7:30.
Prior to the game, Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden will answer questions on the Joining Forces initiative submitted by MLB fans through Facebook and Twitter. People around the country can submit questions for Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden through MLB’s Facebook page or on Twitter with the hashtag #AskMichelle.
Steve Benen: ….. as controversies go, this isn’t terribly interesting. What matters, though, is how Romney explained himself: he told his lawn company not to use undocumented workers because he’s “running for office”.
Romney, in other words, offered some accidental candor last night – he doesn’t care about breaking the law or paying undocumented workers; he cares about his political ambitions.
None of the other candidates seized on this last night – though they may very well pounce today – but Romney made it quite clear that he puts political ambitions over principles. Suspicions that Romney is a shallow, calculating politician, who cares more about electoral objectives than anything else, were confirmed when he accidentally spoke the truth.
Greg Sargent: …. There are plenty of fact-checkers around, and I don’t really consider it part of my job here to think about where candidates messed up, especially since a lot of their factually incorrect statements are just playing to their audience, and you sort of have to expect a lot of that. But Anderson Cooper, the CNN moderator, has no excuse: his claim that 47% of American pay no taxes was inexcusable. Just terrible. The correct stat is that 47% of US households don’t pay federal income taxes, which is very different. It’s bad when politicians get basic factual stuff wrong; it’s terrible when CNN does. To me at least, the debate had a clear loser, and it was Anderson Cooper and CNN for that question.
The Obama Diary 
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