Archive for April 28th, 2013

28
Apr
13

On the road w/ SecDef Hagel…

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En route to Israel..

18 19 20 21 22 23

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Heading to meetings

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Arriving in Jordan

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19  18 22  23

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Off to Saudi Arabia

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18 19 20 21 22 23

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Arriving in Egypt

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18 19 20 21 22 23

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Arriving at tomb of unknown soldier

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18 19 20 21 22 23

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Meeting President Morsi

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18 19 20 21 22 23

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SecDef Hagel visits an undisclosed location in SW Asia

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18 19 20 21 22 23

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18 19 20 21 22 23

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SecDef Chuck Hagel walks with U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Michael Corbiun

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20 18 19  23 26

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Heading stateside

21 22

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Evening everyone, hope everyone has been doing well….My dad came home Saturday morning and is recovering well at home. I want to thank everyone for all their well wishes. Hope you have a wonderful week. LovelyPlains!

28
Apr
13

Chat Away

Text of remarks here

Hey, we can never see it enough

28
Apr
13

Join the team: The Sunday Lynx

Sunday lynx 2

Dear TODers,

Remember how many wanted to help Chipsticks but felt too technically challenged to become a full-fledged mini-tyrant? This new feature is for you!

One of the many things I love about our community is the sharing of links to articles, photos, tweets, interviews, reviews. So the Sunday Lynx (meet our mascot!) will be a weekend reading feast, prepared by anyone who has a moment to post a link and a one line intro to it. You don’t have to go out of your way — if you regularly follow a favorite blog, newspaper, magazine, TV show, that can be your beat.

Unless it bears repeating, we won’t include links already posted on the front page, but you are welcome to include links you’ve posted in the comments during the week. Just put a sticky on your desktop and keep a copy of the links you post, then add them here on Sunday. That way people who don’t get to read all the comments during the week get a chance to see the links they’ve missed. We’re looking for connections to writers and thinkers who are both our frequent friends and also outside our usual resources. In the past couple of months I’ve followed TOD links to an article by a conservative writer bemoaning President Obama’s success in implementing his agenda (how often do we get to read that!), Melissa Harris Perry’s beautiful letter to a rape victim, a mother’s letter to her sons about how a real man treats women, one of the great scathing critiques from Jim at Stonekettle Station, and another from PM Carpenter. Though of course schadenfreude is wrong, it’s of course irresistible, so I always follow links to the few remaining sane Republicans writing about how far off the rails the party is going.

Everyone can join in, but it would be great to know that a certain number of you are on the beat and will be posting links regularly. Let us know in the comments and claim a beat! You can write your own intro sentence or bring out a tempting quote from the article. That way people know if it’s something they want to pursue.

Here’s an example from this week, using one of Charlie Pierce’s many wondrous zingers:

It seems that Max Baucus, the pestilential trout-mask replica from Montana, will be hanging them up at the end of this term….http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/max-baucus-retiring-042313

We might even go for the Zinger of the Week, though Pierce would dominate that category.

If your link has an endless string of letters and numbers for a URL, you can shorten it here: http://tinyurl.com or https://bitly.com. You paste the endless one in the box (right in the center on tiny; upper right on bitly) and it gets shortened for you. Copy that, and paste here. If that’s more than you want to do, just paste the endless one!

28
Apr
13

Rise and Shine… (the after-party)

WHCA-DINNER

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Barack Obama Killed It In His White House Correspondents’ Dinner Speech

Business Insider: President Barack Obama started off his White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner speech by walking up to the podium to DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win.”

How do you like my new entrance music?” Obama said. “Rush Limbaugh warned you about this — second term, baby! We’re changing things around here a little bit.”

It was the start of a speech that kept his audience entertained throughout, and one that ended on a serious note by paying respect to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

More here

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Obamacare makes insurance more affordable for families headed by same-sex couples

Center For American Progress: The widespread nature of inclusive coverage is well demonstrated in the practices of employers: Fifty-one percent of small business offer coverage to same-sex partners of employees, and more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies do the same. Federal policy under the Affordable Care Act promotes the expansion of these positive market practices and authorizes the marketplaces to offer coverage that includes same-sex couples and their children in family policies available in 2014.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released final regulations implementing provisions of the Affordable Care Act that reform health insurance markets across the country. These regulations address the types of coverage that insurers offer to families. In explaining the rules, the agency clearly indicated that all families need access to health coverage and that adopting a narrow definition of “family” could adversely impact the ability of diverse families such as LGBT families to access the coverage and care that they need. Accordingly, the agency explicitly gave states the flexibility to require issuers to include specific types of individuals on a family policy. Current market practices that have promoted expanding coverage for LGBT Americans and their families will thus continue to advance under the Affordable Care Act.

despite all of the sometimes confusing news and misinformation surrounding the Affordable Care Act, LGBT Americans and their families should take heart: Many of the law’s reforms are already making a difference, with even more benefits still to come.

More here

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SmartyPants: Over the last few years the Washington DC villagers have developed a myth that President Obama is cold, aloof and detached. That myth is directly contradicted by those who actually know him and people he interacts with outside the beltway bubble. So you have to wonder what all those folks will do with this storyline once Mark Leibovich’s book This Town about the incestuous and manipulative nature of those inside that bubble is finally published. We already know that Politico reporters Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei are pretty nervous because they wrote what is clearly a pre-emptive strike on the book before its even published. But Jim Newell at The New Republic wrote that their reaction demonstrates exactly the point Leibovich is likely to make.

But as a justification for why President Obama keeps his distance from all of that insider obsession, its a pretty powerful statement. Its clear the culture is sick and dysfunctional. That the President choses to remain cold, aloof and detached from it all speaks boldly to his own wisdom. That none of them seem to notice speaks only to their own obsession with it.

More here

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***You can enjoy the White House Correspondents Dinner from the red carpet arrivals, POTUS’s and FLOTUS’s arrival, POTUS’s remarks, Conan’s remarks, red carpet pictures on CSPANGOPolitico, GOPolitico2TooFab, More TooFab,***

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Barack+Obama+White+House+Correspondents+Association+DdDHoNuv8vpx

WHCA-DINNER

kerry-washington-white-house-correspondents-dinner-2013-wes-gordon-black-and-white-halter-print-dress-christian-louboutin-pigalle-pumps-vhernier-jewelry-jill-milan-bag-movado-watch-2

Actress and Activist Kerry Washington

obama whca dinner

Click to see the rest of the post

28
Apr
13

Night owl chat for salseros!

So, I’m Cuban, and I grew up in New York and L.A., which means that salsa music was and is a large part of my musical landscape. Nothing can have me so down that a little Celia Cruz won’t get me shimmying. So, after Barack Obama’s masterful performance at the WHCD, a little tour of the salsa world.

The ultimate Nuyorican, Marc Anthony:

Continue reading ‘Night owl chat for salseros!’




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