This Blog Needs You!

Morning/afternoon/evening everyone.

I keep meaning to say that if any of the regulars here ever want something posted on the blog (ie on the ‘front page’, not just in the comments), please let me know – I’m always completely thrilled to get your contributions (and it gives me a delightful break from hearing the sound of my own voice….. zzzzzzz).

The only rule – needless to say – is that it has to be PBO-related. It can’t, for example, be 500 words on how majestic cheesy puffs are….

…. which they are …

….. or are how glorious a sporty legend Wayne Rooney is……

…. which he is – especially after his hair started magically re-growing:

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… and it can’t be libelous – eg you can’t say that Cenk Uygur is a fraudulent piece of shit making a living from being a ‘progressive’ fake, when he’s never actually strayed from his extreme right-wing Republican roots and remains the loathsome turd that he always was and continues to do his damndest to persuade liberals not to support PBO.

We can’t have that class of defamation here.

So, if you have something PBO-related that you want to say, contact me – immediately.

Oh, another thing!

If any of you are up for getting involved in helping run the blog between now and November, I will welcome your assistance with a hug so tight you’ll most probably pass out.

I’ll be able to look after things most days, but there’ll be a few days here and there – due to work or traveling – when it will be tricky, so if you have any interest in helping out please email me at:

theobamadiary@gmail.com

This request is not, alas, open to Willard supporters – I don’t want the blog supporting the individual mandate one day, and opposing it the next. Supporting a woman’s right to choose one day, and opposing it the next. Supporting immigration reform one day, and opposing it the next. Supporting gun control one day, and opposing it the next…….. You get the drift.

Thanks everyone 😉

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Coming up:

Tuesday: The President will be at Camp David.

Wednesday: The President returns to Washington and, with the First Lady, will celebrate the Fourth of July by hosting members of the military and their families for an Independence Day celebration with a barbeque, concert and a view of fireworks on the South Lawn. Staff and their families from throughout the Administration will also attend this event for the concert and fireworks viewing.

Thursday and Friday: The President will travel to Ohio and Pennsylvania for a campaign bus tour.

Romney Invested In Firm That Disposes of Aborted Fetuses … Bain Lies

David Corn (Mother Jones): Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics. Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate’s reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.

But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy. The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to with the deal. The matter never became a campaign issue. But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission — and obtained by Mother Jones — list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners. The documents — one of which was signed by Romney — also contradict the official account of Romney’s exit from Bain.

Full post here

Thanks Pamela Brown

‘The Personal Responsibility Principle’ (good job Willard!)

Mitt Romney first introducing the Individual Mandate at Heritage in Jan. 2006

Great comment on YouTube:

“So essentially a conservative idea coming from a right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is an innovative free-market solution to health care. But if a Democrat introduces the idea, it’s a “socialist government power grab”, haha. Man, I can’t wait until the debates with Obama and Romney on healthcare!”

So he agrees with the President?

Rise and Shine

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Monday and Tuesday: The President will be at Camp David, he returns to Washington on Tuesday.

Wednesday: The President and the First Lady will celebrate the Fourth of July by hosting military heroes and their families for an Independence Day celebration with a barbeque, concert and a view of fireworks on the South Lawn. Staff and their families from throughout the Administration will also attend this event for the concert and fireworks viewing.

Thursday and Friday: The President will travel to Ohio and Pennsylvania for a campaign bus tour.

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Cagle

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E.J. Dionne: …. polling in swing states suggesting that Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital is hurting him could have larger implications for where this campaign will move.

…. As Democrats, mostly from Washington and New York, debated the efficacy of attacks on Romney’s role in Bain, an entirely different conversation was being driven in the swing states, courtesy of ads broadcast by the Obama campaign and especially by Priorities USA Action, the pro-Obama super PAC. The ads portray highly sympathetic workers who lost their jobs and companies that collapsed even as Bain’s principals made substantial profits.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last week provided surprisingly dramatic evidence of how much these commercials are wounding Romney.

In the country as a whole, 23 percent said they viewed Romney more positively because of his experience “managing a firm that specializes in buying, restructuring and selling companies,” while 28 percent said this made them view Romney more negatively. But in this year’s 12 battleground states, many of which have gotten a heavy run of the anti-Bain ads, only 18 percent viewed Romney’s business experience positively; 33 percent viewed it negatively. Obama led Romney by three points nationally but by eight in the battlegrounds.

This is disturbing news for Romney….

More here

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Morning everyone 😉