Archive for October 30th, 2013
30
Oct
13
The Day in Photos and Videos
Cathey Park of Cambridge, Massachusetts wears a cast for her broken wrist with “I Love Obamacare” written upon it prior to President Obama’s arrival to speak about health insurance at Faneuil Hall in Boston
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Boston Mayor Thomas Menino gives President Obama a Boston Red Sox cap as he arrives at Boston Logan Airport
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President Obama leaves a tent with NBA basketball legend Bill Russell after being given a preview of a statue of Russell. At left is Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
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President Obama smiles after he said that environmental protesters who interrupted his speech were at the wrong event as he speaks at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law
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Cathey Park holds up her cast to show the signature of President Obama after he signed it
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Text of remarks here
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Text of remarks here
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With Sesame Street’s Elmo and Rosita looking on, First Lady Michelle Obama and White House Chef Sam Kass help school children in the annual fall harvest of the White House Kitchen Garden
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More later, or in the morning – depending on Danny’s destruction levels.
30
Oct
13
President Obama in Boston
3:55: President Obama delivers remarks on the Affordable Care Act, Faneuil Hall, Boston
30
Oct
13
Chat Away
Coming Up:
2:40: First Lady Michelle Obama – Announcement with Sesame Street and the Produce Marketing Association – WH Live
3:0: Vice President Biden delivers remarks at the Headquarter of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, Austin, Texas – Live Streaming
3:45: White House Kitchen Garden Harvest – WH Live
3:55: President Obama delivers remarks on health care, Faneuil Hall, Boston
30
Oct
13
Rise and Shine
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Today (all times Eastern):
12:55: President Obama departs the White House
2:40: Arrives in Boston
2:40: First Lady Michelle Obama – Announcement with Sesame Street and the Produce Marketing Association
3:0: Vice President Biden delivers remarks at the Headquarter of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, Austin, Texas
3:55: President Obama Delivers remarks on health care, Faneuil Hall, Boston
5:35: Delivers remarks at a DCCC event (private residence)
6:50: Departs Boston
8:45: Arrives at the White House
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@petesouza: Pres Obama and VP Biden return to the Oval following motorcade ride back from the Capitol
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Love this:
Planet POV: Obama Won’t Let Me Keep My Crappy Health Care
Whenever he has been promoting Obamacare, President Obama has always said, “If you like your current plan, you can keep it.” Under my current health care plan, I pay a premium that I can afford and now, because that plan doesn’t qualify for the minimum coverage required by Obamacare, my insurance company sent me a letter saying that they are ending that plan. That is not fair, it makes me sick to think I supported Obamacare… though unfortunately my current plan won’t cover that.
…. Some people have asked me, why would I want to keep a health insurance plan that provides little to no benefits to me and if ever needed, could evade covering me and bankrupt me and I explain to them, “It was a bargain!”
…. in this increasingly tyrannical government, I suppose I have no choice but to pay more for health insurance than I was paying just to get it to provide me with something in return.
Full post here
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I guess the president should have said: “if you like your current healthcare plan, you can keep it, unless it’s a shitty plan.” #obamacare
— techweenie (@techweenie) October 29, 2013
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Spandan (The People’s View): Why Losing Your Junk Insurance is a Good Thing
For the past week or so, the media has been replete with stories about people getting letters from their insurance companies that cancel their current coverage and replace it with a more expensive health insurance plan, providing the insured the option to look into their state’s exchange for coverage. Insurance companies are doing their damnest to blame the Affordable Care Act and President Obama for this, but the truth is that the policies that are being canceled are being canceled for one reason and one reason alone: they do not meet the minimum coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act.
So what are these minimum coverage requirements? They are simple and essential….
More here
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ThinkProgress: Democratic Congressman Blows Up At GOP During Obamacare Hearing: ‘Are You Really Serious?’
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) slammed Republicans for failing to support the Affordable Care Act once it became law, challenging them to go back to their districts and tell their constituents that they’ll be taking away their coverage.
“What are you going to do about the approximately 17 million children with preexisting conditions who can no longer be denied health insurance coverage,” Parscrell asked the GOP during a House hearing on Obamacare. Standing up and pointing his finger at the other side of the aisle, he continued, “We want to go back and want to say you are no longer covered any longer — are you going to tell the parents of those kids?”
More here
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ThinkProgress: Obamacare Is Radically Changing The Individual Insurance Market — And That’s A Very Good Thing
Reading and watching news coverage about individuals and families receiving notices that their current health care plans don’t meet the minimum requirements of the Affordable Care Act, you’d think that insurers have never before cancelled people’s health care coverage. It’s as if the individual health care market had offered substantive and comprehensive insurance before the law came along in 2010 and forced the good and trusted folks at Wellpoint, Aetna, Cigna, or United Health to suddenly undo your plan.
So it’s easy to forget in all the decontextualized reporting why the law’s minimum standards were written in the first place and what kind of policies they’re seeking to regulate.
More here
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Did your policy:get cancelled? Learn why: http://t.co/rKx6Qv7jM1 Then go checkout #ACA rates and compare http://t.co/9NptOLrisP
— Dudette (@Dudette9t9) October 29, 2013
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National Journal: The Fight of Obamacare’s ‘Navigators’ Against Republican Hurdles
As Republicans in Washington prepare to grill Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday over problems a broken website is creating for accessing Obamacare, their fellow party members in a dozen-and-a-half states have added complications for people trying to access those benefits through alternate means.
…. whether by fees, background checks, tests, extra training, certifications, threats of civil penalties, or delays, Republican legislatures and officials in at least 17 states across the country have thrown up all manner of bureaucratic roadblocks in front of the program.
… To pro-Obamacare advocates like Ethan Rome, the executive director of Health Care for America Now, attacking the administration over problems with HealthCare.gov while also obstructing the work of the navigators in the states is “jaw-dropping, turbo-charged hypocrisy.”…
More here
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ThinkProgress: The Republicans Grilling Sebelius Prevented Uninsured From Enrolling In Obamacare In Other Ways
As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies about the rocky implementation of Obamacare before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, she’ll be speaking to Republicans members who have sought to prevent uninsured Americans from obtaining coverage outside of the troubled HealthCare.gov.
…. last month, fifteen Republican members of the Committee, including Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), requested detailed responses and thousands of pages of documents from approximately 60 percent of the so-called “Navigator” organizations … The lawmakers gave the groups just two weeks to provide detailed written descriptions of their employees and activities, interactions with the Department of Health and Human Services, and “all documentation and communication related to your grant.”
More here
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One #POTUS lies for war & invades the wrong country, killing thousands. The other has a slow website. Guess who the #GOP want to impeach?
— Eric Wolfson (@ericwolfson) October 30, 2013
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Media Matters: The View Mainstreams Serial Misinformer Betsy McCaughey As A “Health Care Policy Expert”
ABC’s The View hosted Betsy McCaughey to attack the Affordable Care Act (ACA), praising her as a “health care policy expert” and ignoring her history of misinformation, including inventing the persistent lie that the health care law contains “death panels.”
On the October 29 edition of The View, co-host Barbara Walters introduced a segment with McCaughey by calling her a “health care policy expert” and asking if health care consumers “were not told the truth by the Obama administration,” saying, “they are about to lose their current medical plans and they don’t know what they are getting instead.” The View provided no background about McCaughey aside from naming her as the author of a book opposing the ACA.
McCaughey, who is by no means a “health care policy expert,” has no credibility to comment on the ACA….
More here
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Apparently @abc, @cbs & @msnbc not only believe they don’t have to point out GOP lies, but also that they don’t have to point out their own.
— john miller (@deaconmill) October 29, 2013
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Well, at least Chuck ‘Not My Job To Correct GOP Lies’ Todd isn’t pretending to be impartial anymore – @chucktodd —> pic.twitter.com/GyGsAlTlxD
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) October 29, 2013
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Steve Benen: John Boehner’s ‘wet blanket’
…. Speaker Boehner and his Republican colleagues, for example, recently shut down the government for reasons even they can’t explain, which clearly undermined the economy. They also threatened a sovereign debt crisis, which didn’t do the economy any favors, either. At the same time, they’re backing a sequestration policy that, we know with certainty, is severely holding the economy back. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that if Congress ended the sequester, it would add up to an additional 1 million new jobs in the United States in 2014.
Boehner wants to talk about economic wet blankets? I’m delighted. If he would agree, today, to end government-shutdown threats, permanently end debt-ceiling crises, and scrap the painful-by-design sequestration policy, the economy would see an immediate boost. That’s not conjecture; it’s just reality….
More here
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Greg Sargent: The implosion of the GOP brand, in one more chart:
More here
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Charles Pierce: The Brogressive Delusion
Remember all those liberal thinkers who clustered around Senator Aqua Buddha because he was the only person standing between them and being droned off to glory at Starbucks next Tuesday?
Yeah, they were hilarious. And he’s still as nutty as his old man, Crazy Uncle Liberty (!), ever was.
… Rand Paul – the Jenny McCarthy of genetic testing.
Full post here
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Libertarians: 94% are non-Hispanic whites, 62% are below age 50 and 68% are men. http://t.co/Y98v8YslPm In other news, water is wet.
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) October 30, 2013
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#BREAKING: #RandPaul Forced To Cancel Speech After #Wikipedia Crashes
— Eric Wolfson (@ericwolfson) October 30, 2013
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Kurt Eichenwald: How Big Corporations Are Stealing Your Tax Dollars (and Hurting Themselves) by Underpaying Their Employees
You are paying tax dollars to McDonald’s. And to Walmart. And to untold numbers of other major international corporate giants. And that money coming out of your pocket goes straight to the bottom line of those companies’ income statements.
This is not hyperbole. It is the twisted, truly sick outcome of a system that most Americans don’t understand but that many pump their fists and wave their flags in order to preserve. My bottom line: Americans are being lied to by some of the best prevaricators in the country—corporations, G.O.P. politicians, and economically obtuse pundits—turning many of them against their fellow citizens in order to pump up profits to levels that these corporate managers could not achieve through their own skill and acumen.
More here
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President Obama greets former President Clinton prior to a memorial service for former House Speaker Tom Foley at the U.S. Capitol, Oct. 29 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Benjy Sarlin (MSNBC): Widely mocked Heritage report returns
Conservative advocacy group Heritage Action is loading Republican lawmakers up with anti-immigration talking points ahead of a massive lobbying push by right-leaning supporters of reform.
Some of the talking points appear to reference a study that was co-authored by a Heritage scholar who resigned earlier this year after news broke that his Harvard thesis claimed Latinos are inherently less intelligent.
The report itself was widely mocked for its estimates on the cost of immigration reform.
Heritage may have distanced itself from its former scholar’s views on race, but not the study he did for their think tank.
More here
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A Year Ago Today:
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WH.gov: Sesame Street’s Elmo and Rosita to Join First Lady Michelle Obama for an Announcement about Marketing Healthier Foods to Children
Today, First Lady Michelle Obama will join Sesame Street’s Elmo and Rosita, the Produce Marketing Association and the Partnership for a Healthier America for an announcement about marketing healthier foods to children. The announcement comes on the heels of the first ever White House convening on food marketing to children, during which Mrs. Obama called on stakeholders to leverage the power of marketing to promote healthy products and decrease the marketing of unhealthy products to kids.
Following the announcement, Mrs. Obama, Elmo and Rosita will join school children for the annual fall harvest of the White House Kitchen Garden…
More here
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On This Day:
Reflected in a mirror, President Obama poses with customers at the Famous 4th Street Deli in Philadelphia, Pa., Oct. 30, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)
First Lady Michelle Obama visits the OFA call center at Chicago headquarters, October 30, 2012
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MoooOOOooorning!
30
Oct
13
Early Bird Chat
On This Day: President Obama plays peek-a-boo with Maeve Beliveau, the daughter of Director of Advance Emmett Beliveau, in the Outer Oval Office, Oct. 30, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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MoooOOOooorning Early Birds!
The Obama Diary 
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