Charles Pierce: Well, we seem to have a real rage-gasm on our hands now. The president has gone and said the conjuring words, “executive privilege,” thereby presuming to do something once that the previous president did four times in a month back in 2007. And, as we know, for some odd reason – Ooh, ooh, I know! Ask me! – whenever this president does something that other presidents have done, it is a constitutional outrage of biblical proportions.
…. Expect to hear a lot of this, but do not expect to hear much about how horrified they all were when the previous administration invoked the same privilege to monkey-wrench an investigation into how thoroughly they’d politicized the DOJ.
(Please, someone explain to me that whatever is in those documents that the Congress so desperately wants could possibly be anything more than how this administration made the mistake of signing onto a policy idea promoted by the previous gang of idiots….)
….If this is more evidence that the president has tumbled to the fact that his political enemies are completely unappeasable, well, that penny took god’s own time to drop, but I’m glad it did. They want Eric Holder’s head on a stick. They should be told, repeatedly, where that stick should be stored.
Denver Post: First lady Michelle Obama roused a crowd of an estimated 2,800 supporters and members of the public Wednesday morning at Arapahoe High School, ticking off her husband’s first-term accomplishments and urging attendees to work hard to get out the vote for a second.
“This feels like four more years,” Michelle Obama said as she neared the podium, rallying the the crowd who erupted into applause and bounced their Obama-Biden signs.
…. The first lady touched on key issues like the repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the Affordable Care Act – encouraging the crowd to bring the issues to their friends and neighbors.
…. The day began early for many attendees, like Carol Short, 57, left her home in southwest Denver to stand in line at 6:30 a.m. Her early planning proved beneficial as the snake of audience members wound around Arapahoe High School.
“We’re one of the swing states,” Short said. “So we just have to push.”
Short and her friend Jeannie Raiola, 62, are both with the Communications Workers for America and volunteer for the Obama campaign through phone banking and door drops.
President Barack Obama returns to the White House from the Los Cabos G-20 Summit, June 20
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Sensible people, of course, ignore polls at this point ….. so, I’m sure most of the media will ignore this one:
Bloomberg: Barack Obama has opened a significant lead over Mitt Romney in a Bloomberg National Poll … Obama leads Romney 53% to 40% among likely voters …
The survey shows Romney has yet to repair the damage done to his image during the Republican primary. Thirty-nine percent of Americans view him favorably, about the same as when he announced his presidential candidacy last June, while 48% see him unfavorably – a 17% point jump during a nomination fight dominated by attacks ads. A majority of likely voters, 55%, view him as more out of touch with average Americans compared with 36% who say the president is more out of touch….
……. Beyond Romney’s low favorability ratings, the poll reflects perceived weaknesses for the Republican challenger both in style and substance. Only 31 percent of likely voters say they’d want to sit next to Romney on a long airplane flight, compared with 57 percent who prefer Obama as a seat mate.
Washington Post: The seven Bain Capital founders believed they were so destined to make millions that the young men posed for a photo on the grand marble staircase of Boston’s Copley Place with $10 and $20 bills popping out of their shirt collars, tucked behind their eyeglasses and clutched in their teeth.
… At the 1984 photo shoot, Romney and his partners were celebrating not only their new company but also the ethos of their era …. years later, as Romney pursued the presidency, the photo surfaced on the front page of the Boston Globe, part of the newspaper’s 2007 biographical series about Romney…
“I was stunned when I saw it,” said Graham, who was not in the picture. “I was upset. I thought it was tacky. I thought it was inappropriate. They must’ve done it in a moment of giddiness.”
…. Robert Shrum, a longtime Democratic strategist … called it “an iconic image of what could be perceived of greed or a total focus only on the bottom line and making a buck. That’s why it’s so powerful. It’s iconic.”
… The founders came to Bain from different backgrounds, yet they were a homogenous group. Each was white and male, and by 1994, a decade after the company started, there were still no black or Hispanic employees among the 40 professionals and eight support staff members, the Boston Globe reported at the time.
Washington Post: Republicans’ emerging problem with Latino voters looks even worse when you factor in the electoral college.
A look at Latino population trends in swing and key red states shows just how ominous the GOP’s future could be if it doesn’t do something about its current struggles with Latino voters.
We noted yesterday that nationwide population and minority voting trends paint a haunting picture for the GOP. But the problem is particularly acute because of the states where Latino growth has been strongest — particularly several key swing states and red states that Democrats are hoping to put in play in the coming elections…..
Washington Post: The tax reform plan that House Republicans have advanced would sharply cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and could leave middle-class households facing much larger tax bills, according to a new analysis set to be released Wednesday.
The report, prepared by Senate Democrats and reviewed by nonpartisan tax experts, marks the first attempt to quantify the trade-offs inherent in the GOP tax package, which would replace the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.
…. The net result: Married couples in that income range would pay an additional $2,700 annually to the Internal Revenue Service, on top of the tax increases that are scheduled to hit every American household when the George W. Bush-era cuts expire at the end of the year.
Households earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.
Denver Post: First lady Michelle Obama will speak in Colorado today as part of an outreach campaign aimed at grassroots supporters.
…. she will start the two-stop state tour at Arapahoe High School in Centennial at 10:30 a.m. and will then travel to the Creative Arts Building at the Colorado State Fairgrounds in Pueblo around 1:40 p.m.
The Obama Diary 
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