chat away …. (anyone watching the freak show?)

tod paces up and down …. no hurry donna :-)

evening all

ABC

Excerpts of the interview will air tonight (Dec 15) on “World News with Diane Sawyer.” The full interview can be seen during a “20/20” holiday special on Friday, Dec. 23, 10 p.m. ET on ABC stations.

Thanks UT

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Pew: Public discontent with Congress has reached record levels, and the implications for incumbents in next year’s elections could be stark, according to the the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Dec. 7-11. Two-in-three voters say most members of Congress should be voted out of office in 2012 – the highest on record. And the number who say their own member should be replaced matches the all-time high recorded in 2010, when fully 58 members of Congress lost reelection bids – the most in any election since 1948.

The Republican Party is taking more of the blame than the Democrats for a do-nothing Congress. A record-high 50% say that the current Congress has accomplished less than other recent Congresses, and by nearly two-to-one (40% to 23%) more blame Republican leaders than Democratic leaders for this.

More here

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Andrew Sullivan: The Telegraph has looked into Romney’s claims that he subsisted as a missionary in France, taking dumps in holes and using showers from hoses. His fellow missionaries remember a different experience:

The Republican presidential hopeful spent a significant portion of his 30-month mission in a Paris mansion … It was staffed by two servants – a Spanish chef and a houseboy … for most of 1968, Mr Romney lived in the Mission Home, a 19th century neoclassical building in the French capital’s chic 16th arrondissement. “It was a house built by and for rich people,” said Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president at the time of Mr Romney’s stay. “I would describe it as a palace”.

…. Why would Romney go out on a limb like that – when it could easily be disproven by an enterprising reporter? Maybe this has something to do with it:

Tearful as he described the house, Mr Anderson, 70, of Kaysville, Utah, said Romney aides had asked him not to speak publicly about their time together there.

More here

Thanks anotherslyfox

press briefing

portrait

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, sit for a family portrait in the Oval Office, Dec. 11, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Flickr

‘walk a day in my shoes’

Today Pauline Beck will be at the White House to watch as President Obama announces proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that will affect home healthcare workers like herself. Today’s event has special significance for Pauline, because it was the day then-Senator Obama spent “in her shoes” that informed him of the important work these Americans do and the need to level the playing field so they are fairly compensated for their efforts. Take a minute to watch the video and learn her story..

The original video:

Today:

rise and shine

Full segment here

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MarketWatch: The number of Americans who filed requests for jobless benefits fell by 19,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 366,000, putting claims at the lowest level since May 2008.

…. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had projected that claims would rise to 390,000 in the week ended Dec. 10.

Jobless claims have fallen below 400,000 – a level historically associated with an improving labor market – in five of the past six weeks.

More here

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USA Today: Nearly 2 million home care workers could qualify for federal wage and overtime protections under a rule being proposed today by the Obama administration.

The effort – the 18th initiative in Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign against Congress – would overcome legislative inertia and a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that upheld home care workers’ exclusion from wage-and-hour standards.

More here

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TPM: … the chart Democrats really, really, really don’t want Republican primary voters to see.

More here

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Morning everyone, more soon 😉