Lost an hour of sleep. THANKS OBAMA!
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) March 09, 2014It still isn't Spring Break. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) March 06, 2014****
Fact: every planet that has spiders also has Barack Obamas. Coincidence? I think not.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) March 04, 2014If at first you don't succeed, blame Obama. #ThanksObama
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 28, 2014****
Weekends are only two days long. THANKS OBAMA.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) March 02, 2014Leo didn't win. THANKS OBAMA.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) March 03, 2014****
Netflix doesn't have what I wanted to watch. THANKS OBAMA.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 26, 2014I don't get tomorrow off. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 17, 2014****
#SingleBecause of Obama. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 14, 2014Still need to do my homework. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 10, 2014****
aaand it's Monday tomorrow. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 10, 2014Didn't win the Esurance 1.5 million dollar giveaway. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 06, 2014****
Chipotle doesn't deliver. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 06, 2014Still isn't Friday. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 04, 2014****
Football season is over.. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 03, 2014The groundhog predicted 6 more weeks of winter. THANKS OBAMA.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) February 02, 2014****
It isn't summer yet. THANKS OBAMA.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) January 24, 2014School has six letters. You know what else has six letters? Yup. Obama if you add one letter to it. Coincidence? I think not.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) January 21, 2014****
Taco Bell doesn't deliver. Thanks Obama.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) January 22, 2014I'm short. THANKS OBAMA.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) January 17, 2014****
It's 2014 and we still can't download food. Come on Obama, it's like you're not even trying anymore.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) January 16, 2014aaand another weekend is over. THANKS OBAMA.
—
Thanks Obama (@dangitobama) January 13, 2014
The Obama Diary 
Good Afternoon!
Congrats on 1st NCLB!!!!
Knock, knock? Am I?
By Zeus, two days in a row! Wow!
Nerdy Wonka, love the tweets.
Adding my own: Must do my laundry now; I blame Obama
😆 That’s the spirit!
Tutor today. Again. Thanks, Obama!
Must Read. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140307,0,3373375,full.column#axzz2vUGhZ8zM
Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study
Robert Proctor is one of the world’s leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance.
Robert Proctor doesn’t think ignorance is bliss. He thinks that what you don’t know can hurt you. And that there’s more ignorance around than there used to be, and that its purveyors have gotten much better at filling our heads with nonsense.
Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford, is one of the world’s leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance. It’s a rich field, especially today when whole industries devote themselves to sowing public misinformation and doubt about their products and activities.
The tobacco industry was a pioneer at this. Its goal was to erode public acceptance of the scientifically proven links between smoking and disease: In the words of an internal 1969 memo legal opponents extracted from Brown & Williamson’s files, “Doubt is our product.” Big Tobacco’s method should not be to debunk the evidence, the memo’s author wrote, but to establish a “controversy.”
When this sort of manipulation of information is done for profit, or to confound the development of beneficial public policy, it becomes a threat to health and to democratic society. Big Tobacco’s program has been carefully studied by the sugar industry, which has become a major target of public health advocates.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140307,0,1622098.column#ixzz2vUnkEQgx
And this…(NOTE THAT LAST STATEMENT!)
But then there’s ignorance custom-designed to manipulate the public. “The myth of the ‘information society’ is that we’re drowning in knowledge,” he says. “But it’s easier to propagate ignorance.”
That’s especially so when issues are so complicated that it’s easier to present them as the topics for discussion in which both sides are granted equal time.
Big Tobacco’s public relations campaign against the anti-smoking movement, for example, was aimed at “manufacturing a ‘debate,’ convincing the mass media that responsible journalists had an obligation to present ‘both sides’ of it,” reported Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their 2010 book, “Merchants of Doubt.”
The industry correctly perceived that no journalist would ever get fired for giving the two sides equal weight, even when that balance wasn’t warranted by the facts.
And yet, DF, the tobacco industry lost. Sure some people still smoke, but they don’t delude themselves that it’s anything but harmful. Millions more quit smoking and it has become declasse to do so in a lot of social circles that once accepted smoking as the norm. We don’t have to try to dine in smoky restaurants anymore or choke on smoke when we’re waiting in a train or airport terminal. So the message from the good guys did get through and that’s what we have to hope for with other addictions, like guns.
Raise your hand if you remember being stuck in the smoking section ON THE AIRPLANE, back when we were foolish enough to think it was okay to smoke in such a place. For crying out loud. (ps: if you don’t remember, in many ways it didn’t matter where you were seated, the smoke travelled throughout the cabin anyway.) 😦
Pamela, I remember when smoking was permitted everywhere–even movie theaters where there was a thin haze in the air while you watched the movie.
Yes, I remember sitting in the row IN FRONT of the smoking section on a long flight…..as if that made any difference! I also remember working for the Navy Department every summer during college, and the place was blue with smoke…..cigarettes, and nasty cigars too. When I worked in the Senate, people smoked in those small back offices; people at the tables next to us in restaurants smoked…nasty. That is one battle the good guys won, which gives me hope for the gun battle.
Hear, hear! (is there an extra ‘n’ in your screen name now?) (curious minds…)
No there’s not……sometimes my keyboard skips, and a letter goes astray. I assume that is what happened…..thanks for pointing that out, so I’ll check carefully next time.
Apropos ….
Df, I read the first two lines and decided that my brain couldn’t climb this hill today – too many
bignew words and not enough will to continue. 😉“This is our land. Our fathers and grandfathers have spilled their blood for this land,” Arseniy Yatseniuk told thousands of Ukrainians who had gathered at the monument to the nation’s most famous poet Taras Shevchenko on Sunday, commemorating the 200th anniversary of his birth.
“We will not give a centimeter of it. Russia and its president should know that.”
What a great message for the Ukrainians to send to the world and to dictator Vlad. If Putin thought intimidation and threats would lead to the defeat of the Ukrainian people, he did not know who he was dealing with.
I am loving Harry Reid for being relentless against the Kochs. Harry probably says, he has nothing to lose. 🙂
We all need to give him as much support as possible. Everyone in the TOD community should consider sending him a thank you tweet, a letter, an email, making a call to one of his offices. And, please spread that video!!!!
Yes We Can
I agree Bobfr. I’ll send Senator Reid a note of support.
Thank you, NCLB!
Thx Bobfr. I will send him an email or a letter.
Yes indeed, Bob! I just sen’t him an e-mail thanking him.
NW – Love ’em all. My first favorite (for some reason, this left a chuckle in my throat, maybe because I can use this one myself):
“School has six letters. You know what else has six letters? Yup. Obama if you add one letter to it. Coincidence? I think not.”
Important insights ….
McFaul: “These Things Can Move Very Quickly in Unintended Ways”
“Perhaps in a bid to shore up support from the existing members of the union, Putin held a snap summit with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus this week. In a conference call today, organized by the National Security Network, I asked McFaul whether Putin’s project to build an economic union of post-Soviet states to counterbalance the EU can survive the Ukraine crisis.
“I don’t think it’s a fait accompli that Crimea will be occupied forever,” he said. “It’s a big if. But if it happens, it destroys the project. There’s no doubt about it. Most importantly, if that tragic scenario plays out, you have made sure that the rest of Ukraine will never have any interest in joining a Eurasian Union. It just changes the electoral politics within Ukraine. The only mechanism he’ll have left is coercive power—he’ll coerce countries into joining. But the size of the Ukrainian economy and population just dwarfs everybody else in the former Soviet Union who could join. Ukraine was always the big prize, and he’s just guaranteed that it’s now over.”
clip
On the question of whether Putin views President Obama as “weak” and has taken advantage of an unwillingness to inflict serious consequences, McFaul argued that “On the contrary, [Putin] has a theory of American power that is quite paranoid about how powerful the United States is, allegedly fomenting revolution in the Middle East and now Ukraine.”
http://t.co/LNdkm1psSs
Oh, Bob, I wish we could shove this information in the face of every sniveling Republican who dares to suggest that our president is weak. The more we hear about Putin, the sicker he seems. He seems paranoid about everything and suffers from megalomania, just like the lunatic in North Korea. Nothing good has ever come from giving madmen too much power, as the Russian people should have learned from Stalin. It’s time for them to wake up and confront the fact that they’ve created a monster.
JackieG,
When I flipped on the TV this morning, there was a young blonde woman on Melissa Perry Harris’ show who compared the Ukrainian to Syria, saying something to effect that Obama is perceived as weak by Putin, making Ukraine even a worse “disaster” than Syria. Clicked over to CNN because I was intending to watch Fareed.
Infuriating that people with no qualifications are invited to spout irresponsible RWNJ assessments on a volatile and potentially deadly situation that is still unfolding.
I have no idea who this idiot was, but she is too young to have any personal recollections about Ukrainian/Crimean/Russian history and it helps absolutely no one to spout “Syria disaster” when the alternative might have meant another Mid-East invasion by the US. The situation in Syria is awful, and the residents and refugees are enduring unimaginable hardship and terror.
MHP should not have booked this idiot, whoever she is.
Thanks for posting, Dr. Bob.
Saw McFaul on @Lawrence on Thursday, and what caught my attention was when McFaul said, “Why did Yanukovich leave Kiev when he did? What prompted him to leave just after agreeing to the EU proposal (that Yanukovich step down)?” [paraphrased]
Kind of reminds me of the preparations that Snowden made with his Russian hosts while still in Hong Kong last year. How delusional is Yanukovich to think that he will remain Ukraine President?
Happy trails, POTUS and FLOTUS!
JOB, lately you seem to be channeling Roy and Dale with your “happy trails.” Do you miss those days?
Ha! Would ya believe me if I told ya I just happen to like the song? And, no, I don’t really miss those days and wouldn’t want to be young again for anything. Some people find that hard to believe. How about you, sugar?
Nope, JOB, have no desire to be young again, although I wouldn’t mind the wrinkle-free skin. I did love to watch the Roy Rogers show back in the day.
Yes, the younger look was quite appealing! Oh, well, character in our faces, and still feelin’ 35 inside, and all that! 🙂
Ha. New take on “an angel gets its wings.”
Yep and I bet a lot of them are women because that guy just oozes creepiness from every pore. Nightmare scenario would be to be stuck in a room with him. Yuch!!
If you’ve watched the UK “House of Cards” he so resembles Francis Urquhart” – played by Ian Richardson – your “oozes creepiness” reminded me
I did watch the UK version, 99ts. Ian Richardson was the master of creepiness. Fantastic actor.
Sorry Jackie – life interrupted my TOD again – sigh – Cruz creeps me in the same way!!
The UK version is on U tube where I have been watching it again – first saw it in the 1990s.
Good thing it’s hours before I sleep, because I’m with you on the nightmarish thought of that! Yuch!
I hope POTUS,FLOTUS, and the girls had a wonderful few days.
Week-end……Vacation.!!!!!!!!!!!
😆
Thanks for the speedy photos!
Melanie posted an article by Politico on Thursday (I think that was the day) with the headline “Will Putin Delay Obama’s Vacation?” or some such nonsense.
Since when is spending Saturday and Sunday with your family and friends considered a vacation?????
It’s the frigging weekend, it’s not like PBO is spending an entire month on vacation (as another President did, as the clocked ticked down to Sept. 11, 2001).
It’s a special weekend for everyone involved, but it’s one that many people with PBO’s wealth do often.
It’s petty, but really annoying that a simple family weekend getaway is portrayed by the media as a “vacation.”
Glad they got to enjoy the Florida warmth, after such a prolonged and miserable winter.
Hear, hear!
Friday evening to Sunday evening is not a vacation, it’s just the right wing haters B.S. You all know it’s the white right wing double standard, Bush and Laura and the twins could go on as many vacations or week-end stays and not a peep. But any little thing this POTUS and FLOTUS do, oh they are complaining about what it cost.
Well Howdy all you O’s! Yes indeedy, it’s a great getting up day in TODsville!!! #! arrived with grandson from No. Dakota, completely unannounced for a surprise spring break visit!! What a wonderful way to beat the cold and snowy doldrums.
Thanks Obama!!
That’s #1 not #!, even though she is !!!!! as well.
Congratulations Cookemon. Your days will be filled with lots of love and good stuff. Have a great time.
I love, admire and respect these two people so very much. Just sayin’. 🙂
Oh, yeah. They all wanna be him so bad!
According to Ms Patti LaBelle, Baby, you got swag!
There was a jingle to a Sun Glasses Commercial…..
Jeepers Creepers where did you get those eyes……
Well…..Those shades have NOTHING on Pres Obama’s GQ persona.
Well, I found the Song by Ethel Williams in 1933 or 1938……Not the Commercial…..oh well……
Oops…Ethel Waters. I don’t know where I picked up WILLIAMS…. 😦
Totally agree.
For getting up every single day of your life these past 5+ years, even when it’s supposed to be a ‘day off’, and working your Heart out to make life better for the rest of us. #ThanksObama. (I realize it’s more than 140 characters, but now trying to sell a 3 day weekend as a ‘vacation’, still pissing me off.)
1,000,000,000 times! How he keeps on working every day is just astounding! He never lets down, never stops, in the face of all we know about, and much I’m sure we don’t, he keeps going, going, going. He is the hardest working president in my long life.
I know why the press never talked about GWB’s stupid trips to his ranch as vacations: it is dirt ugly, dusty, boring…..so it couldn’t be a vacation. It was all a put up phony deal, bought on Rove’s advice to make him look like a “cowboy.” Pitiful.
Wow. Do better, America.
https://twitter.com/conradhackett/status/442766811625308161
Is it just me, or does this castle remind anyone else of the Evil Queen’s home in the original 1950s Disney “Sleeping Beauty” animated film?
(from Friday…)
That drop shouldn’t be a shock! Pictures I’ve seen show it to be beautiful.
I remember the 1970s film Nicholas and Alexandra very well. One of their favorite places was the Crimea. They would escape there from the St. Petersburg winters. Parts of the film were made in Crimea, and the scenery was absolutely stunning. I think Putin wants Crimea for vacations, and wants Ukraine so his path to Crimea will be free and easy.
This was where Peter the Great finally got his warm water port. The Russian fleet is still stationed there, as I’ve learned during this time. They have twelve month access to all waterways here.
I didn’t realize the Gridiron dinner was this evening. So I guess PBO didn’t attend this year? Hmm….Good for him if that’s the case.
They’re home. Yay!
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/abcs-karl-tells-ted-cruz-bizarre-you-think
He’s SUCH a lying nutbag POS. Make it stop!
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) dumbfounded ABC’s Jonathan Karl in a recent interview by sticking to his claim that President Barack Obama will be forced to repeal his signature health care reform law.
CrooksandLiars……well, Cruz sure fits the name like a glove.
Poster Child.
Patron saint of …
Hot Couple In DC City……..
That is my version…..
Nick Gilder ;)……had Hot Child In the City.
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=PBO
Hi TODers,
I just had to vent today. Up until now I have faithfully DVR’d The Late Show with David Letterman. Dave always seemed to have his heart in the right place and WAS a strong supporter of the President. However, I noticed that, ever since President Obama chose not to drop bombs on Syria or send in Seal Team Six to eliminate Bashar Al-Asaad, Dave has been rather hostile. He’s been making snide remarks about the ACA and now, the other night he and Tom Brokaw were promoting the “Putin is emboldened because… Syria” meme, with Brokaw calling our President’s masterful handling of the Syria crises “not his finest moment”
This frustrates me to no end. So… the President should have taken out Asaad just to show the world some nonsense about red lines? And then what? There are some pretty scary characters fighting Asaad; so then how do we prevent them from using the chemical weapons? So, we would have had to invade and occupy. Do these idiots even remember Iraq? They are SUPPOSED to be liberals, right?
I remember listening to the President’s speech about going to Congress for approval live on my car radio and I exclaimed to myself, “Masterful!” That’s how I found you wonderful folks here. I was so frustrated with the media memes at that time. I was so delighted that day to click on TOD and find the post titled “Masterful!” as if you all had read my mind 🙂
And anyone who thinks the whole negotiation to destroy the chemical weapons was Putin’s idea is so naive I can’t believe it.
Anyway, I have stopped recording Dave. I wish Mr. Brokaw a full and speedy recovery from Multiple Myeloma (my Dad died from that disease), but I won’t listen to another word he says about anything political.
Thank God, we have President Obama and Sec of State Kerry right now. Jan 2017 I’m moving to Italy!
So right, MadameSoph. I’ve now stopped watching and reading almost anything that has a political lean – except TOD. For the most part, anyone who’s getting paid to offer an opinion is a puppet of somebody with an agenda. My blood pressure can do without their input. My own eyes can see what President Obama is doing for this country and this world. That’s good enough for me.
Thanks theo67,
Couldn’t agree more!
“My own eyes can see what President Obama is doing for this country and this world. That’s good enough for me.”
Exactly my sentiments, Theo!
Hi MadameSoph,
I’m here much later, so you probably won’t see this, but I’ll leave my two cents in nonetheless : ) I too can’t take Letterman anymore, in fact I don’t watch any of the late-night opening monologues b/c they ALL have to slam Obama to show their nasty ‘neutrality’ despite, I believe (at least in Fallon’s case), their private support for PBO. Letterman, however, is fighting for his life. HIs ratings are way down and he’s looking increasingly old, unfunny and irrelevant. HIs only real option for survival is to somehow capture the older and more conservative viewers that faithfully watched Leno and would never ‘get’ those other young guys. Needless to say, it’s going to take a LOT of convincing (ala a nightly visit from Tom Selleck, Bill O’Reilly, Tom Brokaw- who has never been a liberal- and on…). So bring on their favorite red meat, Obama bashing. Letterman will never go gracefully like Leno. I find him much more interesting than the Lenos of the world, but at bottom he’s a fiercely competitive, bitter, insecure, raging alcoholic. I guarantee you, when he does go, we’ll never hear from him again, just like Carson.
don’t like the disrespectful tone I implied by not putting slam Obama and Obama bashing in quotes; they should be. I love my President!
Hi Kathleen,
I did see this! Came back to check since I had to leave soon after I posted yesterday.
You know, it also occurred to me that Dave might be trying to corner Jay’s old conservative viewers but I don’t actually think he’s that cynical (although definitely competitive! He’s an Aries! 🙂 He’s obsessively passionate about world hunger and also climate change, although in regards to the latter, nearly ineffective because he is so pessimistic on the subject.
Dave was bitter like this in the ’90’s, after he lost the tonight show, and I stopped watching him for years. Then, after 9/11, and the birth of his son, he shifted. He became a better man, tried to make it up when he would inevitably put his foot in it with some guest and the show became absolutely top notch. I think those years (about 2001 to 2012) were The Late Show’s best. I was very happy when he got the Kennedy Center honor. He was also very supportive of the President, even when others were not, for many years. I really do trace it back to Syria. I think he has a lot of old, conservative “so called” liberal friends (the ones that seemed to get more and more like the pre-Tea Party type of Republican as they aged and a liberal black man moved into the White House) and he’s so isolated and just started to believe the hype from those around him. I remember that when the President and Nancy Pelosi were first trying to pass the ACA, Dave was talking with Oprah about the subject and shared that he had no idea everyone in the country did not have access to the great healthcare that he did. He truly seemed surprised.
Although Dave, at times, has seemed to run a pretty good program for a non-program alcoholic, I think he has been thrown back into fear by Jimmy Fallon getting the tonight show so quickly. I think he realizes he is now officially the “Old Guy” and he hasn’t embraced it. That’s why “Bitter Dave” has returned.
I’ve switched to Conan. He’s never overly political and, when his politics do seep through a little bit, they seem left-friendly.
So, it’s Conan and Colbert for me in late night TV (boycotted Jon Stewart long ago for many of the same reasons that I’ve let go of my loyalty to Dave).
P.S. Don’t worry about the Obama phrases not in quotes, I confess that I sometimes leave out the “President” preface too, but I’m mindful about it, like you, since so many disrespect him.
By the way, I meant to mention that I was so surprised to see an interview with Jay on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show a few months back and he was speaking candidly and sincerely and was very supportive of the President. It kind of shifted how I thought of him.
New post:
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/03/09/looking-fine/
John Oliver
Sundays on HBO starting In April