This and That

President Barack Obama meets with the White House Rural Council to discuss ongoing efforts in response to the drought, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Aug. 7, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Wednesday:

10:35: President Obama departs the White House

2:10: Arrives in Denver, Colorado

3:20: Delivers remarks at a campaign event

5:10: Departs Denver

6:00: Arrives in Grand Junction, Colorado

7:25: Delivers remarks at a campaign event

8:30: Departs Grand Junction

9:15: Arrives in Pueblo, Colorado

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People trying to comment here for the first time, thank you – but please read ‘How Do I Comment Here’ in the sidebar on the right. Reminder: Trolls of the Fire/Teabagger variety are never welcome here.

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You’ll be bored silly hearing me say this …. but a gazillion apologies for not replying yet to all your emails, things have been a bit bonkers busy, so I just haven’t had the time.

Just to make one thing clear, though: the only fundraiser this little blog supports and endorses – and will ever support and endorse from now on – is Obama/Biden 2012, absolutely no other, personal or otherwise. I’ll reply to you all asap, but I just wanted to make that 100% clear.

You can donate through one of the fundraisers set up by the highly lovely people who inhabit this blog:

a4alice * Alycee * BWD * CollegeKay * Cookemom * DonnaDem4Obama

Hgerhard * HZ * Judith Fardig * Mae Who Love Our CIC

Marlz * Meta * Pamela *prettyfoot58 * proudmemberofglobalzero * Rita * Theo67 * The Obama Diary

Please do what you can, especially in light of today’s NYT story:

Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party organization backed by the Koch brothers, is set to begin a $25 million advertising assault aimed at President Obama, its largest effort to date….

More here

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Formidable

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will hit the trail together in Iowa next week, the campaign announced.

They’re set to make stops together on Wednesday, Aug. 15, in Dubuque and Davenport – the last two stops on the president’s three-day, seven-town tour of the Hawkeye State.

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The Grio

Hope

A resident wearing a shirt with a picture of President Barack Obama carries a chair as he wades along a flooded area in Quezon City, north of Manila, Philippines, on Tuesday Aug. 7, 2012. Relentless rains submerged half of the sprawling Philippine capital, triggered a landslide that killed eight people and sent emergency crews scrambling Tuesday to rescue and evacuate tens of thousands of residents.

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Chat away.

Rise and Shine

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Tuesday: The President will attend meetings at the White House and two campaign events at the W Hotel in Washington DC.

Wednesday: Will travel to Denver and Grand Junction, Colorado for campaign events.

Thursday: Will travel to Pueblo and Colorado Springs, Colorado for campaign events.

Friday: Will attend meetings at the White House.

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Eugene Robinson: Mitt Romney’s defiant secrecy about his personal finances looks like a cross Republicans will have to bear all the way to Election Day. To put it mildly, the burden seems to chafe.

Apoplexy is not the tone politicians generally seek to project. Yet there was GOP chief Reince Priebus on ABC’s “This Week,” calling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a “dirty liar” for his claim about how little Romney may have paid in taxes….

It was a coordinated Sunday morning display of righteous indignation …. But in making such a show of denouncing Dirty Harry’s foul calumny, all Republicans succeeded in doing was draw attention to Romney’s stubborn refusal to release more than a year’s worth of tax returns ….

Reid was a boxer in his youth, and what he did to Romney was the equivalent of a head butt. ….If he is being as cynical and mendacious as Republicans charge, Romney could demolish the majority leader’s credibility — and put the whole issue to rest — with a single phone call instructing his accountant to release the returns….

…. The fact that he won’t — even when continued secrecy clearly hurts the campaign, if only by diverting attention from other issues Romney would rather be talking about — clearly means there’s something embarrassing, inappropriate or just plain ugly in there.

You don’t need a secret source to tell you that. Common sense will do.

Full article here

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David Firestone (NYT): For the last four years, Republican lawmakers around the country have diligently tried to eliminate early-voting periods, which give people a chance to vote at their convenience. The reason is simple: early voting was wildly popular in 2008 – comprising a third of the vote – and many of the people who took advantage of it voted for Barack Obama.

More than half of Florida’s early voters in 2008 were Democrats, and many black voters went right from their church pews to the ballot box on the Sunday before Election Day. That’s why the state’s Republicans severely restricted the practice last year, and specifically banned voting on that final Sunday. Similar restrictions were also passed in Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Ohio, part of a movement to restrict voting that includes tough voter ID requirements.

Now, the Obama campaign’s attempt to fight the measure in Ohio has led to one of the lower moments of this year’s presidential campaign. The state legislature cut back on the early voting period, and banned it in the three days prior to Election Day. (Even though 93,000 Ohioans voted in those three days in 2008.) An exception, however, was made for military personnel, who tend to lean Republican.

The Obama campaign and the Ohio Democratic Party filed a lawsuit last month in federal court, saying the practice violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The lawsuit asked the court to restore to everyone the right to vote in the last three days.

Then, in an extraordinary lie, Mr. Romney issued a statement Saturday turning the lawsuit around to accuse Democrats of trying to end early voting for the military….The lawsuit does nothing of the kind…..

Full post here

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Morning everyone