Pete Souza: Pres Obama talks on phone w German Chanc. Merkel re situation in Ukraine
Archive for February 20th, 2014
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The Hollywood Reporter: Michelle Obama To Host Lifetime’s ‘Trip To Bountiful’ Screening
Officials announced Thursday that the First Lady Michelle Obama will host the special event on Monday, Feb. 24, at 4 p.m. ET, in the Eisenhower Office Building’s South Court Auditorium. The Eisenhower Office Building houses adjoins the White House’s West Wing and provides office space for most of the executive mansion’s staff. Obama will deliver personal remarks at the screening for the TV adaptation of the Broadway revival of Horton Foote‘s play. The Trip to Bountiful, which premieres Saturday, March 8, on the cabler, is set during the final years of the Jim Crow South. The Broadway production was nominated for four Tony Awards, winning best actress in a play for Cicely Tyson.
More here
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First Lady Michelle Obama is escorted by Rose Cameron, CEO and founder of WAT-AAH!, a line of bottled water targeted to kids and teens, as they view the “Taking Back the Streets” art exhibit at the New Museum, in New York
First Lady Michelle Obama talks with Sophia Rose Stewart-Chapman, of New York’s Little Red School House, in front of a color-by-numbers mural featuring the slogan for WAT-AAH!
Artist Trey Speegle, photographs First Lady Michelle Obama as she prepares to autograph his color-by-numbers mural featuring the slogan for WAT-AAH!, a line of bottled water targeted to kids and teens, at the New Museum, in New York
First Lady Michelle Obama meets Lola Picayo, of New York’s Little Red School House, before she autographed a color-by-numbers mural featuring the slogan for WAT-AAH!
First Lady Michelle Obama hugs teacher Sara Barlow of Little Red Schoolhouse and Elisabeth Irwin High School
First Lady Michelle Obama stands with artist Trey Speegle the 8th grade children of Little Red Schoolhouse and Elisabeth Irwin High School when she visits the New Museum’s “Taking Back the Streets” exhibit, sponsored by Let Water Be Water LLC’s youth bottled water brand WAT-AAH! to support the Partnership for a Healthier America’s “Drink Up” initiative in New York City
Use #LetsMove to show off those fabulous moves.
20
Feb
14
Rise and Shine
President Obama speaks while standing in front of a printed version of a stained glass window known as the Sun Man, from the Cosmovitral Botanical Garden, at a news conference at the state government palace in Toluca, Mexico
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Presidential Schedule (All Times Eastern):
5:35PM EST: President Obama delivers remarks and answers questions at the Democratic Governors Association dinner, Washington
12AM EST: First Lady Michelle Obama will be a guest on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon
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“In my eyes, Obamacare literally saved my life.” Meet Margaret: http://t.co/ONRiM2TNrt #ThisIsWhy pic.twitter.com/nR8sxwzUoS
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 19, 2014
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USA Today: California Exceeds 2014 Exchange Enrollment Goals
Well before the March 31 deadline to buy insurance, California announced Tuesday it has already exceeded its 2014 enrollment goals for its health care exchange.
By the end of January, 728,410 people had enrolled in private health plans through Covered California, and 100,000 more signed up in the first two weeks of February. About 26% are 34 and younger.
“These enrollment numbers mean that with six weeks to go, California has already exceeded its projected base enrollment for the 2014 open-enrollment period,” said Covered California executive director Peter Lee. “While this is a strong showing, our goal is not pinned to meeting projections, but to making sure every Californian gets covered.”
More here
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Let’s get it done. #RaiseTheWage pic.twitter.com/pkYZZsSsUR
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 19, 2014
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NYT: Gap To Raise Minimum Hourly Pay
In a surprising move, Gap Inc. informed its employees on Wednesday that it would set $9 as the minimum hourly rate for its United States work force this year and then establish a minimum of $10 next year. Gap said this move would ultimately raise pay for 65,000 of its 90,000 American employees, including those at Banana Republic, Old Navy and other stores.
Gap is making this move as many states consider raising their minimum wage, and as Republicans and Democrats debate a bill that includes a proposed increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016. President Obama has endorsed the increase, and has campaigned for it at stops around the country.
In explaining the wage increases, Mr. Murphy told employees: “We work for a company with a strong set of values, which can be directly linked to our founders, Doris and Don Fisher. They invented specialty apparel retail, but Don also challenged us to live up to our promise to ‘do more than sell clothes.’ ”
More here
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Greg Abbott’s embrace of Ted Nugent is an insult to every Texan. If this is his idea of values, it’s repulsive. pic.twitter.com/5H4wmulCgM
— Wendy Davis (@WendyDavisTexas) February 19, 2014
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Sun Times: Michelle Obama on “Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” Thursday
A year ago, First Lady Michelle Obama and Jimmy Fallon created a YouTube hit with their dance skit, “Evolution of Mom Dancing.” On Thursday, Mrs. Obama teams up again with Fallon, guesting during his inaugural week of hosting the “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”
Mrs. Obama marks this month the fourth anniversary of her signature “Let’s Move” anti-obesity, healthy eating drive and it would not be a surprise to see another high-energy sketch with Fallon.
Mrs. Obama hits New York for Fallon and a high-dollar Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the home of Obama “bundler” Maneesh Goyal. The funder is billed as a roundtable with the tab ranging from $10,000 to $15,000 per person. Mrs. Obama did a California swing for the DNC last month and more DNC events are in her pipeline.
More here
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Ta-Nehisi Coates: Black Boy Interrupted
I think of dying at 17, in my loudness, in my vanity, which is to say in my human youth, and I tremble. I was barely anything. I understood barely anything. When Michael Dunn killed Jordan Davis, he obliterated a time-stream, devastated an open range of changes. And somewhere on that American jury, someone thought this was justice, someone believed in the voodoo of shotguns and teleportation. Michael Dunn killed a boy, and too robbed a man of his chance to be.
And this will happen again, must happen again, because our policy is color-blind, but our heritage isn’t. An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind denies its rightful inheritance. An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind is a drug addict claiming he can walk away after just one more hit. Law and legacy are at war. Legacy is winning. Legacy will always win. And our legacy is to die in this land where time is unequal, and deeded days are unequal, and blessed is the black man who lives to learn other ways, who lives to see other worlds, who lives to bear witness before the changes.
More here
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Jenna Portnoy: Former Christie Staffer Under Subpoena Takes Job With Port Authority
A former aide to Gov. Chris Christie who has been subpoenaed in the George Washington Bridge scandal, recently took a high-level job at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, The Star-Ledger learned today.
Nicole Crifo, who served as the liaison from the governor’s office to the Port Authority for three years, was named chief of staff to Deb Gramiccioni, the deputy director of the bi-state agency, last month. Christie selected Gramiccioni to replace Bill Baroni, who has been implicated in the scandal over the closing of access lanes to the bridge in September.
More here
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White House: Statement by the President
In my State of the Union Address, I asked more businesses to do what they can to raise their employees’ wages. Today, I applaud Gap, Inc. for announcing that they intend to raise wages for their employees beginning this year – a decision that will benefit about 65,000 workers in the U.S. As a chief executive, I’ve required federal contractors to pay their employees a wage of at least $10.10 an hour, and more states are taking steps to raise their minimum wage as well. But only action from Congress can make a difference nationwide. Right now, there is a bill in front of both the House and the Senate that would boost America’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, and lift wages for more than 16 million workers – all without requiring a single dollar in new taxes or spending. It’s time to pass that bill and give America a raise.
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The Atlantic: A Question For Obama’s Syria Critics: What Are The Alternatives?
McCain and others like Anne-Marie Slaughter, formerly of Hillary Clinton’s State Department policy planning staff, have called for more boldness in America’s Syria policy. Slaughter has advocated establishing humanitarian zones, or corridors, inside Syria—but these zones could require U.S. or international forces to establish no-fly zones and use force to halt Syrian military incursions against those seeking refuge in such zones.
But most of those urging the U.S. to intervene more aggressively in Syria are woefully short on details and shrug off the risks of blowback and escalation. If a strategy existed that would tip the scales toward the rebels with little likelihood of blowback, then skeptics like me might be turned into supporters.
It’s emotionally wrenching to watch killing on the scale that the world is witnessing now in Syria. But the depressing likelihood is that the country will be convulsed with conflict for years to come. Obama is not to blame for that. In fact, he should be commended for the abundant caution he has shown during this tragedy.
More here
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https://twitter.com/orvtech/status/436298056179269632
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Frida Ghitis: Venezeulan Opposition Tries New Strategy Of Confrontation
The Venezuelan opposition has shifted gears and is steering down a new path, carrying a message that the country is crumbling and there is no time to wait for change. The decision to take a much more confrontational approach comes in an environment of growing popular discontent, with an accelerating downward economic spiral and increasingly harsh living conditions under the rule of the late Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor, President Nicolas Maduro. The move by the opposition is a calculated gamble. It could provoke a much harsher crackdown from the regime, creating an even deeper chasm between the two sides of Venezuela’s already profound political divide. It could trigger a wave of violence that would be difficult to control. And it could also lead to a splintering of the opposition. But it might just have a chance of bringing an end to Maduro’s presidency. The call to take the fight to the streets came from the charismatic and photogenic hard-liner Leopoldo Lopez, a Harvard-educated local mayor who is now under arrest after leading massive anti-government protests.
Economic mismanagement and ad hoc socialist policies are unraveling the economy of oil-rich Venezuela. Yearly inflation is approaching 60 percent. Foreign investment has dried up in the face of the government’s capricious confiscation of private businesses. Currency controls have stoked a red-hot black market for hard currency, with the illegal dollar rate now at 13 times the official exchange rate. Venezuelans who can afford it are buying dollars and taking them out of the country to preserve what they can of their assets. Hard currency shortages are destroying manufacturing by making it virtually impossible for businesses to buy raw materials. Newspapers are shutting down because they cannot find enough foreign exchange to buy newsprint. Car manufacturers are stopping assembly lines, and staples of daily life are disappearing from the shelves amid chronic shortages of basic consumer goods. The government’s response has been to blame the shortages on speculators and saboteurs.
More here
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Washington Post: Truce Fails, 22 More Die In New Kiev Clashes
Fearing that a call for a truce was a ruse, protesters tossed firebombs and advanced upon police lines Thursday in Ukraine’s embattled capital. Government snipers shot back and the almost-medieval melee left at least 22 people dead. Video footage on Ukrainian television showed shocking scenes Thursday of protesters being cut down by gunfire, lying on the pavement as comrades rushed to their aid, trying to protest themselves with shields. Protesters were seen leading apparently captured policemen around the sprawling protest camp in central Kiev, or carrying bodies away on sheets of plastic or planks of wood.
An AP cameraman saw snipers shooting at protesters in Kiev. Video footage showed that at least one sniper wearing the uniform of Ukraine’s riot police. President Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition protesters who demand his resignation are locked in an epic battle over the identity of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million that has divided loyalties between Russia and the West. Parts of the country— mostly in its western cities — are in open revolt against Yanukovych’s central government, while many in eastern Ukraine favor strong ties with Russia, their former Soviet ruler. At least 50 people have died this week in the clashes in Kiev, a sharp reversal in the three-month, mostly peaceful political crisis.
More here
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Steven Lee Myers: Violence In Ukraine Creates Deepening Clash Between East And West
Russian officials denouncing what they called a coup by right-wing extremists, even as the United States and Europe threatened to impose sanctions on those responsible for the violence that has erupted in the capital, Kiev, and spread to other cities. The starkly divergent reactions underscored the deepening confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine’s fate, with each side accusing the other of interference and disputing even the facts of what was happening. Expressing alarm at the escalating death toll, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France blamed the security forces of President Viktor F. Yanukovych and made it clear that they supported a political transition that would allow Ukrainians to elect a new government. Russia, by contrast, vowed to use all its influence to support Ukraine’s government and joined Mr. Yanukovych in accusing his opponents of trying to seize power in what amounted to a coup.
President Obama, on a visit to Mexico, interrupted his opening meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto to tell reporters that “the United States condemns in the strongest terms” the violence that has claimed lives in the last two days. He pointedly warned the Ukrainian military on Wednesday to stay out of the political crisis that has already ravaged the streets of Kiev and said the United States would hold the government responsible for further violence. The substance of that threat became clear on Wednesday evening, when the Obama administration said it had imposed a visa ban on 20 senior Ukrainian officials whom it accused of playing a role in the government’s crackdown on Tuesday. The State Department declined to say which officials were on the list, but a senior State Department official said it included “the full chain of command responsible for ordering the violence last night.”
More here
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NYT: The Clear Benefits Of A Higher Wage
What Republicans fail to mention is that Tuesday’s report from the budget office, a federal nonpartisan agency, was almost entirely positive about the benefits of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016, as President Obama and Congressional Democrats have proposed. More than 16 million low-wage workers, now making as little as $7.25 an hour, would directly benefit from the increase, the report said. Another eight million workers making slightly more than the minimum would probably also get raises, because of the upward “ripple effect” of an increase.
That would add $31 billion to the paychecks of families ranging from poverty level to the middle class, significantly increasing their spending power and raising the nation’s economic output and overall income. In fact, the report said, 900,000 people would be lifted from poverty with a wage increase. The income of those below the poverty line would increase by a total of $5 billion, or 3 percent, at no cost to the federal budget. The vast majority of those getting raises would not be teenagers with part-time jobs. Nearly 90 percent of them are adults 20 and older, and 53 percent of them work full time. Women represent 56 percent of them.
More here
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https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/436510543868735491
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On This Day:
Sen. Barack Obama speaks to supporters during a rally, February 20, 2008, at Reunion Arena in Dallas
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President Obama and Vice President Biden wait in the Green Room of the White House prior to a meeting with U.S. Mayors, Feb. 20, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
First Lady Michelle Obama arrives at the Department of Transportation February 20, 2009 in Washington to speak with employees about working with President Obama’s administration.
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First Lady Michelle Obama speaks about her campaign to end the childhood obesity called “Let’s Move” at the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in Washington February 20, 2010
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@ImAngelaBassett: Hail to OUR chief! @BarackObama @SheilaEdrummer @AlfreWoodard @SandraFluke. Feb 20, 2013
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20
Feb
14
Early Bird Chat
On This Day: Sen. Barack Obama speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Reunion Arena in Dallas on February 20, 2008. More than 17,000 people filled the building for a chance to see the Illinois senator on his first public appearance in Dallas since announcing his presidential candidacy.
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MoooOOOooorning Early Birds – Happy Thursday!
The Obama Diary 
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