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President Barack Obama: President Obama’s Letter To The Editor
‘We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. …’’ It’s a cruel irony that the words that set our democracy in motion were used as part of the so-called literacy test designed to deny Rosanell and so many other African-Americans the right to vote. Yet more than 70 years ago, as she defiantly delivered the Preamble to our Constitution, Rosanell also reaffirmed its fundamental truth. What makes our country great is not that we are perfect, but that with time, courage and effort, we can become more perfect. What makes America special is our capacity to change. Nearly three decades after Rosanell testified to her unbroken faith in this country, that faith was vindicated.
The Voting Rights Act put an end to literacy tests and other forms of discrimination, helping to close the gap between our promise that all of us are created equal and our long history of denying some of us the right to vote. The impact was immediate, and profound — the percentage of African-Americans registered to vote skyrocketed in the years after the Voting Rights Act was passed. But as Rutenberg chronicles, from the moment the ink was dry on the Voting Rights Act, there has been a concentrated effort to undermine this historic law and turn back the clock on its progress. I am where I am today only because men and women like Rosanell Eaton refused to accept anything less than a full measure of equality. Their efforts made our country a better place. It is now up to us to continue those efforts. Congress must restore the Voting Rights Act.
More here
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The Obama Diary 
Love seeing our President!!
Good for you, Jackie4Obama!
Congrats on 1st Jackie 🙂
Thank you NW for featuring President Obama’s statements on the VRA!!
You’re welcome, Bob.
Congrats on the Gold Jackie 4 Obama. I am going to miss him. I hope to be able to see more of him when he is free to do more in the area of voting rights.
My little rant for the day:
When I was watching cable news earlier today, seeing all the roundups of the RWNJs and their little campaigns and foolish remarks and clueless plans, I seriously thought to myself, “I hate people.”
Had to go away from it, remember who the people in my personal life are, and get back on track. It’s obnoxious going through it, but we all must hang in there. Too much at stake, of course.
Hugs to you, dear one. #EndlessSupplyOfPaint
Ah, yes, that is what it feels like. It’s everywhere.
Hugs back to you and especially your family, too.
PAINTING.
❤ Painting!
President Obama wearing his casual gingham shirt.
Hillary Clinton wearing a gingham shirt – August 16, 2015.
Blech.
You are adorable – that’s food for the soul, all right! (Some of us could identify everything in his closet!)
Yum
Check your email, TODers. Note from David Plouffe asking for stories, mementos from PBO events.
Gave most of my stuff to Moneygall!
I received mine meta.
Doesn’t Plouffe work for Uber now? What does he want PBO stuff for?
He’s an Obama Foundation board member. Their @ObamaFoundation twitter timeline introduces the members and current involvement, etc.
Got it!
I got my email from Plouffe also.
I believe I recall you could stock the entire library, from your collection, COS! 🙂
Hi J’OB, hope all is well with you. I received my email from David Plouffe today as well. Yes, David will be with POB in this endeavor of setting up the Obama Foundation. David Plouffe is a hard working and dedicated friend forever to POB. I admire his commitment to continue to work hard for our beloved POTUS.
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ Keep well, J’OB}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}HZ
Hello there, our dear (and still feisty) HZ! Great to run into you tonight. All’s well here, as I hope it is with you! ❤
I rant with you, Meta!
Thanks!
Trump and his B.S. jury duty photo op. All other times he has ignored them.
Left you a response, bella, in the previous thread re: Israeli nukes. To repeat: conservative estimate is 70 nukes ready to roll plus they have multiple delivery platform options.
Thanks Bobfr.
FINALLY!!!!!!!!!
Actually, a decade (at least) way past time …..
“Years ago, in apartheid South Africa, Jews who loved their country and hated its policies, took courageous roles in defeating with non-violence a regime of racism and denial of human rights.
May we in Israel follow their example.”
Any notion of a democratic Jewish State will become a joke on everyone who believed in it and gave so much to support it, if Israelis, now, do not follow that example.
the Iran Nuclear Deal is like a pebble in a pond…that causes a ripple…
re:Israel becoming even more isolated in the world…being scrutinized for its Nuclear Program,,,and now is the accountability for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people that far off….
what concerns me how long will our government continue to prop up Israel…
while Israel…and organizations like AIPAC spit in our President’s face…
Could not agree with you more, pf58. It’s up to Israelis what type of society they want, but for now the world should treat them no differently than the way we treated apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia. Period.
Former Pres Carter wrote a whole book on this in either 2009/2010. C-SPAN had Mr. Carter on for over two hrs taking calls and answering questions from LIVE callers. In that book, Mr. Carter had the Map of what went on in 1948, 1967, Present with the Walls. It was nothing short of total oppression.
Yes, Nena!!!
Sadly, the GOPers who have come out in support are no longer in office, and while Benen suggests their position would offer cover, I’d be surprised if the GOPs currently in Congress value this kind of ‘cover’.
It’s further illustration on the radicalization of the GOP since Nov 2008 and their relentless obstructionism since Jan 20th, 2009.
It’s indeed sad that the US Media would cover the No vote……Schumer for days, yet they will ignore the many Supporters from the Military, Rabbis, Former Ambassadors, the many thousands who came out in form of Pro-IranDeal across the Globe over the weekend, etc.
Sad, highly unprofessional, disappointing yet not surprising!
“The alternative to this deal, as Obama said, is war. Why? Because sanctions on Iran will fall apart as Russia and China conclude the United States is not serious about a compromise with Tehran that increases the distance between Iran and a bomb, ring-fences its nuclear program, and subjects it to intense international inspection. Centrifuges, slashed in number by America’s diplomacy, will increase again, as will Iran’s uranium stockpile. The war drumbeat will resume. Folly will loom.
Rather than listen to Netanyahu, American Jews should listen to the longest-serving Jewish member of the House, Sander M. Levin, who supports the agreement because it is “the best way to achieve” the goal of preventing Iran from advancing toward a nuclear weapon, so making the Middle East and Israel “far more secure.” They should note that five Jewish senators have come out in favor.
In the real world, this is the best achievable deal for America and the ally, Israel, it would never forsake.”
Excellent tweets meta – thanks for bringing them here. Happily RT’d! 🙂
Thank you!
Your Tweets these days are Unbeatable.
🍸
^5
Thank very much, Nena.
Meta, your tweets make me want to sign up on Twitter just to retweet your amazing tweets!
I promise, if VP Joe throws his hat in the ring – I’ll join Twitter.
It’s a DEAL! And I’m going to hold you to you, buddy!
HA! I know you will too 😀
Thanks Meta,
These are great. And so easy to pass on to others as a reminder of all the many areas of life our President has influenced.
There’s so much, too numerous to mention. So many grand achievements.
THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS PBO HAS DONE FOR THIS COUNTRY…FRANKLY..HE IS GOING TO NEED SEVERAL MUSEUM BUILDINGS……………..:)
I REALLY DON’T LIKE TO THINK ABOUT HIS LEAVING…IT RUINS MY DAY AND DARKENS MY SUNSHINE!
Meta – you are on such a roll with your tweets! The only thing I remember from the Bush White House was Bush standing in the garden behind a lectern having trouble with putting a sentence together. PBO introduced me to a whole new world.
A Cartoon worthy of Hope & Change in the Age/Era of Pres Obama.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/08/17/you-break-it-you-buy-it/
Here’s the question that every wavering Democrat and every Republican: “If you choose to reject the deal and go against the rest of the world, how much will you raise taxes and how many kids from your district are you willing to sacrifice to go to war with Iran at the behest of AIPAC, the Likud party, Netanyahu?”
One estimate (on the low side, IMHO) suggests 15,000 American deaths and 90,000 seriously injured. So what’s that, 35 dead per district? How many trillions will the VA need to service all these seriously wounded. That’s a pretty big bill in both blood and gold. So how ’bout it, Senator Schumer? How much are you willing to raise taxes to pay for this? What High School senior class of kids are you willing to look in the eye and say “Sorry, but three dozen of you need to die.”
‘Two female soldiers will graduate from the Army’s grueling Ranger School on Friday, becoming the first women to ever complete what is considered one of the U.S. military’s most difficult and premier courses to develop elite fighters and leaders, a senior Army official said. The accomplishment marks a major breakthrough for women in the armed services at a time when each of the military branches is required to examine how to integrate women into jobs like infantryman in which they have never been allowed to serve…The women will receive the Ranger Tab alongside dozens of male service members in a ceremony at Fort Benning, Ga., the home of Ranger School’s headquarters, a senior Army official said Monday night.
…The event is expected to draw not only family and friends, but hundreds of well-wishers and media from across the country. The female graduates are expected to speak to the media for the first time Thursday alongside instructors and other soldiers at Ranger School. The women have not been identified by the Army, but both are officers and graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Army officials said. The female graduates started Ranger School on April 20 alongside 380 men and 17 other female soldiers in the first class to ever include women…continued’
hmmmph
……………….
Could black people in the U.S. qualify as refugees?
By Raha Jorjani August 14Raha Jorjani is an immigration defense lawyer with the Office of the Alameda County Public Defender. She has also served as a professor at UC Davis Law.
Suppose a client walked into my office and told me that police officers in his country had choked a man to death over a petty crime. Suppose he said police fatally shot another man in the back as he ran away. That they arrested a woman during a traffic stop and placed her in jail, where she died three days later. That a 12-year-old boy in his country was shot and killed by the police as he played in the park.
Suppose he told me that all of those victims were from the same ethnic community — a community whose members fear being harmed, tortured or killed by police or prison guards. And that this is true in cities and towns across his nation. At that point, as an immigration lawyer, I’d tell him he had a strong claim for asylum protection under U.S. law.
What if, next, he told me he was from America? Black people in the United States face such racial violence that they could qualify as refugees if they lived in this country.
Over the past decade, I’ve represented and advised hundreds of noncitizens facing deportation. Many feared persecution in their home countries and sought protection in the United States. To win them asylum status and the right to stay, I showed that my clients had a well-founded fear of future persecution by the government or by groups that the government was unable or unwilling to control. In one case, I successfully argued that if my client returned to his home country, he could be unjustly imprisoned and physically harmed on the basis of his religious beliefs. Black Americans know the risk of unjust imprisonment and physical harm all too well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/could-black-people-in-the-us-qualify-as-refugees/2015/08/14/b97a628a-406c-11e5-bfe3-ff1d8549bfd2_story.html
I saw ol’ Bill talking to some woman while dancing with Hill……can’t keep his eyes on his own wife while dancing.
GE TOD.
I wonder if this was taken by the Google Glass?
People can’t be honest enough and honor the Privacy of those involved at the 80th celebratory party of Mr. Vernon Jordan.
For a 67(HRC) and 68(WJC), the beat goes on even if off a tad 😉
OMG! This is so bad; no rhythm, no timing. Everyone there looks like they are sleep-walking.
I would be more interested in seeing a dance party at the Obama compound.
The party is for an 80 year old. The average age of the guests were over 60. They were doing the natural 2-step that one does at that age. 😊
“As we move closer to next month’s vote on the Iran nuclear deal, I wanted to note some parts of the story that are not getting sufficient attention in the mainstream press. Even in Israel, where the the P5+1 deal is quite unpopular, there is increasing concern, at least among elites, at just how far Benjamin Netanyahu is willing to go in damaging US-Israel ties in his war against the Obama administration over the Iran deal. As JJ Goldberg aptly puts it, the campaign of incitement and maliciously phony charges of anti-Semitism against the White House are “effectively turning American Jews into Netanyahu’s cannon fodder” in war against Obama.
Too true.”
“But the real world is different.
If Congress votes against the deal and overrides an Obama veto, the entire agreement collapses. In the aftermath, there is real doubt that all the countries participating in sanctions against Iran would continue, especially China and Russia. If the deal is implemented and current nuclear-related sanctions are suspended, it is even more questionable that countries would reinstate them at the request of a new Republican president if Iran is not violating the agreement.
“Foreign governments will not continue to make costly sacrifices at our demand,” was the way Treasury Secretary Jack Lew put it last week in a New York Times op-ed. Americans seem to ignore that other nations do far more trade with Iran and endure more economic pain themselves while imposing sanctions. As Lew pointed out, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey made “costly sacrifices [to] curtail their purchases of Iran’s oil.””
AAAAND…the MSM’s bull shit has begun….didn’t take them long, did it?
“From inside the WH” where? Who? And putting PBO’s pic as if it’s he who is “concerned” is just total crap on CNN’s part.
It’s Clinton operatives doing oppo. Politico also did a hit on Joe this morning using interviews at a Clinton fundraiser as bait. Too funny for words.
YUP!
I do strongly believe all this stuff is Clinton supporters at work. Turns out to be kind of encouraging, really. They must be hearing feelers that VP Joe is viable and ready!
egg.zack.lee meta … to quote our buddy amk!!!
Wouldn’t be surprised…
I was having a quick lunch when this aired. DanP, a former Pres Obama’s aide, he didn’t agree with this story. He maintained that VP Biden has earned the right to run or not to run. He said POTUS would support whatever the decision VP makes, but would not issue a public support as head of DNC until a nominee emerges.
I appreciate Dan standing up for VP Biden amidst this nonsense. Why on earth would PBO have Joe Biden as his VP if he didn’t have every faith in him as a leader? Just ugly oppo BS.
Exactly – when PBO first stated his criteria for VP selection back in 2008 (before actually saying who his selection was)- his first criterion was: “Must be qualified to be US President.”
Yes, bottom line from a smart man.
Thank you meta and hopefruit2. These people just do not know PBO. Shame on them.HZ
Friends, please take the 2-3 minutes it will take to read this. It was the lead in our Opinion page yesterday. It is ‘spot on’ and to say I was blown away when I saw who wrote it would be an understatement. Would appreciate knowing your thoughts after reading.
Trump taps into ‘angry patriotism’
http://www.knoxnews.com/opinion/columnists/dean-rice-trump-taps-into-angry-patriotism_61785671
The reason the conservative power structure has been so dangerous, and is especially dangerous in opposition, is that it can operate almost entirely on bad faith. It thrives on protest, complaint, fear…One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that’s not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists — it’s a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict.
The scenario that played out over and over again on everything from health care reform to budgets was that President Obama would put his ideas on the table and then ask Republicans to do the same. Most of the time, they simply refused. As the President demonstrated that he was willing to meet them more than halfway, the demands they did articulate became more and more extreme – leading to things like a possible default over raising the debt limit.
Knowing that the Republican position was simply to obstruct, President Obama offered pragmatic conciliations recognizing that the closer he moved to what had traditionally been “sensible” Republican policies, the more difficult that would become. When the group of Republican leaders met in January 2009 to plan their strategy for dealing with the new president (as described by Grunwald), they decided to obstruct everything he attempted to do. But I would suggest that what they probably didn’t count on was the extent to which that total obstruction would drive them to embrace ever more extremist positions.
Since POTUS and Family are still enjoying their 17 days off…….AP is already on how the vacation was spent?
When last time Crude Oil was the low, I was paying $1.79
Today, $2.79.$2.89………in MN and not any better in the Midwest.
POTUS is trying to get Congress to vocalize their support ASAP. The Orthodox Union and AIPAC are planning large demonstration when Congress reconvenes in Sept.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/world/middleeast/lobbying-fight-over-iran-nuclear-deal-centers-on-democrats.html
The News Media has failed time after time to make the corrections before their viewers.
And on this note…..G’Nite TOD
Oh my goodness, what a photo.
Indeed it is meta. A lot of history and intellect, and souls of great men of honor with grace. HZ
WOW!!!! Thank you Nena!!!
Seriously, how much sense does denying birthright citizenship make?
New post.
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/08/17/the-monday-chuckles/