On This Day – Pete Souza: “The President shows off his dance moves as he and the First Lady waited backstage during an intermission of daughter Sasha’s dance recital at Strathmore Arts Center in North Bethesda, Maryland.” June 16, 2013
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Today
The President has no public events scheduled
See here for the First Lady’s schedule in England
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The Obama Diary 
Hello and Good Moooooooorning, Chips and TOD!
Good morning Nerdy. My message got eaten by WP. Could you try to find it? Thanks.
Found and freed Jackie, good morning to ya!
Our FLOTUS looks as beautiful in that dress as the bouquet of flowers she’s holding. She seems to have an inexhaustible source of great outfits for every occasion.
Mooooooooooooooorning Nerdy!!
Nerdy Wonka, thanks for the beautiful tweets. So excited to see and hear about the Obama women’s “LetGirlsLearn” trip.
Morning all. Two points these great photos illustrate about our wonderful President. First, he’s neat. How many men of his importance would clean up after themselves by picking up a fly? Second, he’s a wonderful father who doesn’t mind seeming silly in front of his children. How lucky Sasha and Malia are. And how fortunate we all are to have him for our President.
Morning, jackieg:) You and I are definitely on the same page this morning! I just thought the exact same things as I looked at these photos!! His family raised him well, that’s for sure! How are you feeling today?
DF, I’m feeling very nervous this morning because, in about two hours, I go in for a CT scan and then see the lung specialist. I have to have a four hour gap between the time I eat solid food and the CT scan.
Try to stay calm…listen to music if you can…that always helps. I love to listen to Liz Story play the piano when I need to feel calm. If you’ve never listened, you should:)
Some songs are more calming than others….no singing though….just piano for all of them
Thanks, Df.
We have that album.
Wish we could be there to hold your hand, JackieG! (Wouldn’t THAT be a sight, petite JackieG engulfed by loving TODville.)
Think only of things that give you pleasure: your children as toddlers, a swift stream in dappled sun on a summer’s day, fireflies 😉 and Barack and Michelle Obama, effortless ease and empathy shining with their every move.
We’re with you in spirit, JackieG, holding your hands.
I second these thoughts for you, jackieg!!
It will be over soon and you’ll have a new course of treatment to take care of everything that will make you feel much better soon. We are all keeping lots of positive energy for you and for your well-being. XOXO.
We’re pulling for you, Jackie! Hope you get news that will relieve your spirits.
Judith x 2, JackieG!
❤ }
Best wishes JackieG. (((HUGS)))
Sending good thoughts your way. Rooting for you.
Hi Chips, for reasons known only to the WP gods, my innocuous comment about today’s photo selection is awaiting moderation. Strange indeed are the ways of the those gods.
Found and freed Jackie, WP has lost its tiny mind!1!1!
Chips I’m sorry for whatever I did on Twitter to get blocked by you? I’ll try to change but I don’t know what I did. 😔
Yesterday, during our Hispanic Initiative meeting, a dear friend presented me with a huge Mexican mariachi sombrero. It’s dark green velvet with lots of gold trim and the width of it forces you to stand at least a foot away from other people. I have vowed to wear it to our Fiesta Latina in August. Hope nobody calls on me to do a Mexican hat dance.
Wow, jackieg, they must love you so dearly. You are an honored member of their community. I remember way back when as you were starting to do outreach to them. I encouraged you to just be yourself and pose your ideas and questions and hopes to them and they would respond in kind. And boy, they sure have. BRAVO to your determined spirit and the energy you bring to your work together. CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!!!
I like the sound of that – good for you and them, to recognize your contribution! /whisper – Lend it to PBO for the Congressional picnic. I like the part that while he has to be there the hat could keep the hypocrites ‘a foot apart from’ him. /
Good Morning Captain Chips and Crew! I wonder why I woke up with “Kangaroo” in my head!
Dudette, you’re so sweet to remember that. I was surprised to see Sandy Dennis in the opening. This must be before she made it big in movies and on stage. Lately I keep thinking of the opening to “It’s Howdy Doody Time” every time I see an image of Scott Walker. Take away Howdy’s red wooden hair and painted freckles and it’s creepy Walker.
Hiya jg! Holy smokes, yer right! He does kinda look like a puppet (in more ways than ya might think)!
Home today cleaning the flooded basement after last night’s torrential rains in Chicago.
Yuck! What a tough chore, 57. Hope you didn’t get too much damage. Don’t wear yourself out today.
Lots to do. I have to make sure 75 year old Mr. 57 doesn’t overdo. I will take advantage of running a few errands today – so much easier on a weekday. And it’s a beautiful day here in Chicago, although it looks like rain the rest of the week. Sigh. Hope all is well with you, jackie.
{{{{ 57andfemale }}}}}
Do the dogs swim?😉
Oh, Carol Mae, poor Pearl! She is terrified of thunder. We put the thundershirt on her and give her some doses of Rescue Remedy, but it’s still hard for her during a storm. We live in an almost 100 year old house, with steep, open stairs going down to the basement. The dogs never go down those stairs. Mr. 57 was working in the basement when the water was at its highest. There was a thunder clap, and Pearl tried to come down the stairs! She’s all of 8 pounds and could have fallen through the open area, into the water. Mr. 57 was able to catch her. My poor baby.
Oh no. I didn’t know there was thunder too. Dogs do get very scared. Poor Pearl, tiny little girl. Does the thundershirt help? We have a dog that’s afraid too Sam. He doesn’t even like the hard wind.
Oh dear, so sorry! Went through the same with my folks in Virginia two weeks before closing date to sell their house and move to Georgia. Felt like a nightmare! Luckily damage wasn’t too severe, insurance covered everything and, thankfully, the buyer still wanted the house. Hope your recovery goes smoothly as possible.
Oh no! I’ll bring a mop.
Can I send you my email address? I can do a private message on twitter, can’t I? If you ever need to talk……
Sure.
It’s kids, it’s always the kids. 💔
In so may ways CarolMae – they impact our lives from the first time we realise they exist. Take care of you.
Thank you 99t. It means a lot.
G’morning Chps & TOD! Congrats Nerdy on #1 and Happy Tuesday everyone!
two r&s today? are you ok?
hint, hint. #noexpensivetoys
What a cutie pie!!
😀 So cute!
I just finished chasing the blighter all over my workshop. My staff were laughing at me. I am gonna kill him.
No you are not – never ever.
well, if not me, it would be jtp. the blighter is testing her patience to the limit.
AND he brushes his own teeth!!! What’s not to love about that little bundle of cuteness?!
HAHAHAA! I see what you did there!
An Egyptian court has upheld the death sentence imposed on ousted ex-President Mohammed Morsi over a mass jailbreak.
The sentence was initially passed in May, but was confirmed after consultation with Egypt’s highest religious figure, the Grand Mufti.
The death sentences of five other leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its supreme guide Mohammed Badie, were also upheld.
Morsi’s supporters have described the sentence as “farcical”.
The verdict is subject to appeal. One hundred and one other defendants were also sentenced to death in absentia.
Morsi escaped from Wadi Natroun prison in January 2011 and was accused of colluding with foreign militants in a plot to free Islamists during mass prison breaks.
The 2011 uprising brought an end to Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule and Morsi was elected president a year later.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33147206
how many times they will sentence him to death? farcical indeed.
With the “beltway talk” about Orange Man aka the Crier of the House, threatening not to negotiate, i hope Dems who voted no on TAA don’t end up with something worse (courtesy of the gop”
Honestly, global, what did the Dems expect or do they even think two moves ahead on the chess board? Boehner is not going to be seen to publicly negotiate when all eyes are turned on the TAA vote. I think that’s why he asked that it be postponed until late July. The R’s don’t have enough votes to pass TAA and if it doesn’t get passed, TPP goes down, which Boehner doesn’t really want. So maybe there will be some quiet concessions and then a TAA passage in the middle of the night sometime. We can only wait and see and in the meantime endure all the infernal crowing by PBO’s critics.
Good West Coast morning Chipsticks & TOD family.
I see Chips posted FLOTUS video this morning east coast time. Bravo Chips!
❤
Good Morning TOD family and Chipsticks. Happy Tuesday to everyone have a fantastic day. So sorry to hear of flooding 57 take care and make sure Mr. 57 does not do too much. Continued prayers to all my TOD family and extended family.
Good morning everyone.
For no particular reason this song from the raucus rock band Green Day is going through my head this am:
“Don’t want to be an American Idiot
One nation ruled by The Media”
See you later
Yes american idiot applies to so much of what is going on today. the media becomes more worthless by the day, but people still lap it up.
Good Morning Chips and TOD.
GM JER.
Heard this on the radio this morning.
How tragic for everyone, so sorry to hear this happened to Irish visitors.
If this had happened on the east coast, my tweet timeline would be filled with this — however, this is the first online mention I’ve seen today. 😦
LIVE NOW: Berkeley, CA. balcony collapse – http://www.cbsnews.com/liveFeed/widget.shtml
How awful and shocking that a new-ish building would have a balcony collapse of this magnitude.
It’s high time all political parties stopped using animals as their logos and start using inanimate objects like stone, sand etc. It’s an insult to animals what is being done in their name.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Chips RT’d these a couple of days ago, makes me laugh:
The TED! one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!hahahahaha
Good morning, Super Chips and TODville.
NERDY, I heard that there is more rain and potential for flooding expected in your area today. I hope you are safe and this passes quickly. Please take good care and let us know how you are.
Thanks Meta, for checking in.
We’re under flash flood and storm warnings all week. Almost two months of this. It’s more than enough.
Take care.
Wow, I didn’t realize it was TWO months. OMG, how much can people endure? Hang in there. You are in my thoughts.
This guy right here, and what he represents, is EVERYTHING that Republicans stand for and believe. IGMFU. Selfish bastards.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2015/06/death-spiral.html
Yet people still vote for them? Just weird – or stupid – or both
They’ve been snookered and brainwashed for so long…..
I did see a tweet (I think on BJ) which said the only thing trending on twitter after JEB! made the big announcement was #nomorebushes – so there are some folks who understand.
If only I could…….Good day!
Hard to believe it’s taken 25 years for this dramatic SCOTUS confirmation hearing to become a movie.
Don’t have TV, but I think HBO now offers streaming service — Kerry Washington is such a beautiful and compelling actress.
Clarence bossy tea party wife is going to love this.
She’s going to drunk dial Anita Hill again!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102006782.html
Aaaaaand….she’s the executive producer of the film. Such a huge scoop for her.
I screamed in excitement when I found out about the project.
CAN’T. WAIT. TO. WATCH. She’ll be excellent as usual!
JEB’s!! Great Latino Outreach…
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/jeb-bushs-security-team-booted-latin-group-from-speech-leaders-claim-7687212
A band of five farm workers and their seven children from Polk County woke up before sunrise on Monday. They then drove over 200 miles to Miami Dade College, just in time to witness Jeb’s presidential announcement.
But that never happened, because an hour before Jeb went on, his security team informed the group they would have to leave the venue. Why? Because they “might be a threat to security.”
Keep going, JEB! You’re doing great!
Meanwhile…THANK YOU, President Obama!!!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-16/builders-started-most-u-s-homes-in-past-two-months-since-2007
U.S. Building Permits Soared to Their Highest Level in Nearly Eight Years
A huge upswing
this is a Big Deal! YaY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A good read…
“For those of you who don’t know, and clearly there are a lot of you, the term “transracial” is used in scholarly research, creative writing and cultural work to denote a particular “state of being” for people adopted across race. It also describes a kind of family unit / type of parenting. In other words, it IS a ‘thing’. It is disheartening and disconcerting to see this term used dismissively as if it does not encompass an entire population of Black, Brown, Native and Asian people across the globe…
Ultimately this is where I land with Ms. Dolezal. I don’t care what she has done for “the community”. I’m enraged at those of you (and I’m looking directly at you NAACP for not firing this woman) who are asking me to be “grateful” to a White woman who has “done lots of work for the black community”. This language is a line transracial adoptees have learned to obliterate and resist against years ago. We are constantly told we should be grateful we didn’t grow up in a orphanage or become a prostitute, because our own families weren’t good enough. Our Black or Brown or Third World mothers weren’t good enough. This discourse of gratefulness is part of white supremacist thinking, it is a kind of linguistic violence that asks us to silence our own experiences, to erase ourselves. It asks me to let a White person tell me how I should act, what I should feel, how I should behave and ultimately, what Blackness is. Another white woman telling me what diasporic Blackness is, what Black womanhood is? I think not.”
MY FEELING ABOUT THIS WHICH THEY HAVE MULTIPLIED BEYOND MEASURE AND SHE SHOULD HAVE STAYED WITH THE NAACP…I HAVE AN NAACP MEMBERSHIP AND I’M WHITE. IF I COULD CHANGE MY COLOR…I WOULD…I AM EMBARRASSED TO BE WHITE AND THAT IS PROBABLY HOW SHE FEELS!…SECOND…WHY THE HELL SHOULD THE OBAMAS HAVE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING AT THE WH…AM VERY TIRED OF THE LEECHES IN THIS COUNTRY…TRUE DAT!
Sue, I’m a life member of the NAACP; I cut my organizing teeth as a six year old, sitting in the corner, on the floor, at NAACP meetings. I have NO problem with white members or whites in leadership. Whites were among the founding members of the organization; an organization open to all. Rather than being permitted to resign, I believe that she should have been fired. Her actions not only compromised the integrity of the organization. In a defacto way, her actions give credence to the misimpression that the organization is only open to and works on behalf of Black folks.
Black, bi-racial, multi-racial, Hispanic, Asians, MEs, and others of color have a hard enough time navigating the waters in this country, so I DO have a problem with this individual appropriating Blackness when personally convenient. I have a problem with her purportedly adopting a “Blacker than thou” attitude and calling into question whether some Black and Hispanic students were sufficiently Black/Hispanic.
In her softball interview on the Today Show, she accepted not one iota of responsibility for her lie. Matt Lauer allowed her to get away with it; that’s known as “white privilege.”
I DIDN’T KNOW SHE ADOPTED A BLACKER THAN THOU ATTITUDE…ALL I SAW WAS NAACP REPS. ASKING HER TO STAY…I FEEL SORRY FOR HER….JUST LIKE THE PRESIDENT…THE MEDIA WILL BOUNCE YOU TO HELL AND TRY TO MAKE IT A ONE WAY TRIP.
I bet that was a beautiful performance. Thank you vc for posting these
You’re very welcome, Gx2. I admit I was awake but too lethargic to go boot up the laptop to follow FLOTUS live. Of course, that was partly because I knew I could access her round table later here. 😉 My languor is all due to being spoiled by Chips; well ….okay, not ‘all’.
From the BBC link Amk shared on the previous thread
Analysis
Ben Geoghegan, BBC News
This was a very personal – and at moments, emotional – speech, delivered directly to the girls at Mulberry School rather than for the ranks of cameras at the back of the room.
The school is in an area of high deprivation. Most of its students are from the Bangladeshi community and, for most, English is an “additional” language.
The First Lady compared her upbringing with theirs. As a black teenager on the south side of Chicago she remembered people telling her not to set her sights too high. She broke down the barriers to success.
She urged the schoolgirls in east London to do the same and to fulfil their dreams.
The “ambitious, confident and principled” students at the Mulberry School were inspired.
The question is whether Mrs Obama’s message will be heard in those parts of the world where girls don’t go to school at all.
Thanks again vc. I’ll view the video this evening at home. I too am spoiled by the convenience Chips affords us 🙂
The last sentence “The question is whether Mrs Obama’s message will be heard in those parts of the world where girls don’t go to school at all.” concerns me. Why would a reporter state such a defeatist comment? When he should have ended with “We will do all we can to support Mrs. Obama’s message and see that it is heard in those parts of the world where girls don’t go to school at all”.
We humans are becoming more negative as the years march on that it really won’t be long before we totally lose a quality that sets us apart from the other animals that roam this Earth.
Gx2, I no longer try to figure out why reporters do what they do – normally I simply pick out the part of their reports that I find informative and that I think others here will. In this instance this was one of several segments at the link so I brought the segment in its entirety.
Re humans becoming more negative, I am trying my best not to let myself be swallowed up in this ‘movement’. To that end, and particularly as the negativity applies to the Obamas, I have no intention of letting *anyone* rob me of my joy in their presence – singly or in combination – or in their accomplishments! I can’t even tell you the name of this reporter because I never gave it much attention – s/he is already forgotten; Mrs O…… not likely. 🙂
It was said that our First Lady Mrs. Michelle Obama was welcome like a rock star.
She was certainly welcomed, Annieb! I saw a video clip and heard the rousing welcome.
The biscuits, the First Lady and ginger boy , all look wonderful.
Someone tell Harry to close his legs.
No comment.
love this pic
My favorite word from this Trump rant that he used this morning:
“Bigly.”
Welcome to the clown car, Donald Trump.
Next.
So the Trumpster is running for the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha! 🙂
Ha! Ha! Ha! I’m still laughing.
Chat away
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/06/16/chat-away-610/
Yeah, so funny, stealing from the Public like this..yeah hilarious.
………………………..
Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally
June 16, 2015
excerpt:That’s the first paragraph of a story this month in the Akron Beacon Journalabout the newspaper’s review of 4,263 audits released last year by the state, which says that Ohio charter schools appear to have misspent public money “nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.” It says that “since 2001, state auditors have uncovered $27.3 million improperly spent by charter schools, many run by for-profit companies, enrolling thousands of children and producing academic results that rival the worst in the nation.” One more thing: The amount of misspending could be far higher, it says.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/06/12/troubled-ohio-charter-schools-have-become-a-joke-literally/
this is a feature, not a bug, of what the GOP is wanting to do with these charter schools. very insidious, like always with conservatives