In honor of the G8 summit being held on the Emerald Isle, some kick-ass Irish music.
Ok, I love the opening shot of this video – “Traditional Irish music, Brogan’s Bar, Ennis, Ireland”
Bringing back memories for Chips – “Traditional Irish Music from LiveTrad.com: Fleadh Cheoil”
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Sasha was already on board, panic not!
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Monday – Irish time (five hours ahead of EST):
8:40 AM: The President, the First Lady and their daughters arrive Belfast, Northern Ireland
9:30: The President delivers remarks, Belfast Waterfront
1:20: Meets with Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of the G8 Summit
2:15: Meets with EU Leaders on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, G-8 Summit Site, Lough Erne, Northern Ireland
2:30: Delivers a statement to the media
4:20: Greeted by Prime Minister Cameron as a part of the official leader arrivals
4:45: Attends the first plenary session
6:30: Holds a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia
8:30: Attends a leaders-only working dinner
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That very handy map:
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The First Lady’s Ireland schedule:
Monday: The First Lady and her daughters will visit Trinity College shortly after their arrival from Belfast in Dublin Monday, lunchtime where they will view the world-famous Book of Kells.
Later in the day, the First Lady will meet the staff and families of the US Embassy in Dublin and attend a special performance of Riverdance at the Gaiety Theatre.
Tuesday: Following an overnight stay in the Shelbourne Hotel, they will go walking in the Wicklow Hills on Tuesday morning and will visit the local lakes and Glendalough.
The First Lady and her daughters will then rejoin President Obama for their visit to Germany.
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More details in this post
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President Obama and his daughter Malia follow First Lady Michelle Obama (and her mother Marian Robinson) from the Strathmore Music Center after attending a dance performance that featured their daughter Sasha, June 16
Note where he wonders if President Obama’s supporters would be enthused enough in 2012 “to get out of bed” and vote …. oh boy.
…. and not once in the entire interview did the ‘king’ of civil liberties mention GOP voter suppression efforts.
But, hey, not an issue that concerns him, of course.
Barack Obama will urge Northern Ireland’s politicians to quicken the pace of progress in the peace process when he arrives in Belfast on Monday. He will use his visit to Northern Ireland for the G8 summit to urge locals to devote more effort to charting a course for a shared future for unionists and nationalists. Tomorrow morning he will address a large audience of young people in Belfast before travelling to Fermanagh for the G8. He is also to meet First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. He is expected to praise them and other political figures for their achievement in maintaining a cross-community administration. But he is also to urge them to consolidate gains by working harder on community relations.
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Sasha Obama holds a campaign sign during her father’s 2004 bid for the U.S. Senate
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A president is often referred to as the father of the country. He nurtures it, guides it in the right direction, lays down policies that will not only help the country in the interim, but also ten, twenty, thirty years down the line. When his term is done, (the formative years of a child’s life) the country has either regressed or grown in leaps and bounds. In that vein, let’s take a look at how far America has progressed under Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States.
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Economy
Passed the Stimulus: The Bush-led Great Recession was costing the economy nearly 800,000 jobs per month by the time President Obama took office. Signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid greatest recession since the Great Depression. Weeks after stimulus went into effect, unemployment claims began to subside. Twelve months later, the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing. The economy has now created over 6 million jobs.
He oversaw the completion of the massive TARP financial and banking rescue plan and also leaned on the banks and others, and recovered virtually all of the bail-out money.
Oversaw the creation of more jobs in 2010 alone than Bush did in eight years.
Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. The new law tightens capital requirements on large banks and other financial institutions, requires derivatives to be sold on clearinghouses and exchanges, mandates that large banks provide “living wills” to avoid chaotic bankruptcies, limits their ability to trade with customers’ money for their own profit, and creates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (now headed by Richard Cordray) to crack down on abusive lending products and companies.
He created the Making Home Affordable home refinancing plan.
Along with Democrats, and almost no Republicans, implemented an auto industry rescue plan that immediately saved as many as 1 million jobs. This resulted in GM returning to its place as the top car company in the world.
Signed the Democratic-sponsored Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act giving the federal government more tools to investigate and prosecute fraud in every corner of the financial system, and create a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the financial fraud that led to the economic meltdown.
Signed the Democratic-sponsored Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, which was designed to to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive credit card practices.
Through the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009, he and Congressional Democrats provided tax credits to first-time home buyers, which helped the U.S. housing market recovery.
Initiated a $15 billion plan designed to encourage increased lending to small businesses.
Played a lead role in getting the G-20 Summit to commit to a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the global financial crisis.
Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, saved at least 300,000 education jobs, such as teachers, principals, librarians, and counselors that would have otherwise been lost.
Women
Signed the Democratic-sponsored Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restored basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers; giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if that discrimination happened years ago. (The first bill he signed into law)
On the eve of dad’s day, daughter leaves home for her post graduate medicine study. So, ….
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