47 The President Making New Friends Around The World
āWelcome Mr. President ā PS In Netherlands, we give three kissesā
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46 Genius Gifs
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45 Babies
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44 Joy
President Obama greets patrons at Canterās Delicatessen in Los Angeles, Calif., July 24, 2014 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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43 Beauty
Carolina Garcia Delfin, 94, a Filipina nurse who fought in the resistance against Japanese forces during World War II, kisses President Obama after he mentioned her in his remarks to American and Philippine troops at Fort Bonifacio in Manila, Philippines (Photo by Pete Souza)
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42 ‘Gov. Christie Traffic Jam’
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41 OMG! It’s him!1!1!
First Lady Michelle Obama and student performers react to seeing President Obama as he drops by the White House Talent Show (Photo by Pete Souza)
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40 The New White House Videographer
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39 Danny Hating On His Attention-Rival: TOD
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38 Funniest. Vine. Ever.
I was so excited about the President's visit, I took this crowd video sideways. But it's still cool. https://t.co/v3ihdgxTjg
The most important thing Obama has done for women in terms of fashion is give them a sense of liberation to explore and experiment. Even when she is doing a sack race in the White House with Jimmy Fallon, her exercise clothes are original. āFirst Lady Michelle Obama has freed America from the old rules of style, from the idea that fashion has to be exclusive, that thereās one right way to dress and one group of arbiters to set the standard. She projects a new kind of glamour that is relaxed, fun, and deeply democratic,ā says author Gioia Diliberto. āIn subtle but fundamental ways, Michelle has transformed how we dress.
āI have always said I design for the thinking manās sex symbol, and she defines it in every way,ā says Prabal Gurung. āEvery time she wears something of mine, it has given my seamstresses and tailors, my factories here in the Garment District a new zeal. They have felt a sense of pride, a renewed sense of purpose and hope. More important, what she has done is give millions of people back home in Nepal and around the world a message, a hope that with perseverance, hard work, and integrity, the dream that came true for me could also be theirs.ā
She is never out of fashion for a simple reason that has nothing to do with the runway seasons: āEveryone talks about Michelle Obamaās sense of style and the firmness of her arms. It is true she loves clothes and looks amazing, and I love to see her wear vibrant colors and interesting bias cuts and show her fit and strong body,ā says von Furstenberg. āBut what comes across is her incredible intelligence, her caring being, her true substance. That fabric is indestructible and very colorful. It is called character.ā
50 Thank Yous to our President on this Thanksgiving
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1. Thank you for never giving up the fight for the Affordable Care Act – ‘ObamaCare’ – and bringing comprehensive health insurance to 30 million people.
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2. Thank you for expanding health coverage for over 4 million more children with the Children’s Health Insurance Authorization Act.
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3. Thank you for putting two qualified and outstanding women on the Supreme Court.
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4. Thank you for refusing to hide the cost of war, unlike your predecessor.
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5. Thank you for bringing the Iraq war to an end and bringing troops home to their families.
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6. Thank you for your courage in bringing OBL to justice when the naysayers derided and mocked you for your promise to the American people.
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7. Thank you for choosing diplomacy first with Syria and securing a deal that began the removal and destruction of chemical weapons.
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I’M IN TEARS…. Is the message I’m getting from young Iranians across the world, from Tokyo to Tehran to Geneva to Seattle. #IranTalks
8. Thank you for pursuing diplomacy with Iran through sanctions not war and pushing for an interim deal that came to fruition after 34 years of failures.
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9. Thank you for the drawdown of the war in Afghanistan and putting an end date to combat involvement by troops.
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10. Thank you for improving America’s image abroad by stretching your hand out to allies and non-allies alike, beginning with your 2009 inaugural address and your historic Cairo speech.
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11. Thank you for the New START Treaty that reduces the overwhelming number of warheads in the world.
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12. Thank you for the Executive Order that banned torture, reversed GWB torture practices, and restored the United States in accord with the Geneva Convention.
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13. Thank you for increasing funding annually for the Veteran Affairs Department and for the new G.I. Bill which helps veterans achieve the dream of an education.
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14. Thank you for providing $4.3B in funding for 9/11 responders proving that this nation is behind them not just with words but with deeds.
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15. Thank you for having a Department of Justice that takes seriously any effort to suppress people’s right to vote.
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16. Thank you for having a diverse cabinet and administration that looks like the America of 2013 and not the 1800s.
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17. Thank you for the Claims Resolution Act which made sure African-American and Native American farmers received $4.6B for being cheated out of government loans.
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18. Thank you for doing your part to reduce the horror of gun violence by issuing regulations and rules that will, hopefully, save lives.
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19. Thank you for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aka ‘Stimulus’ that drastically reduced unemployment and prevented the lay off of teachers, cops, firefighters, etc.
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20. Thank you for rescuing the auto industry and saving over one million jobs when everyone on all sides of the issue said it was a foolish idea.
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21. Thank you for 44 months of economic productivity and 7.8 million private sector jobs.
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22. Thank you for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which has protected and helped millions of people recover money from corrupt financial institutions.
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23. Thank you for Wall Street Reform and Credit Card Reform that put regulations in place to prevent another Great Depression and protect consumers from predatory credit card companies.
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24. Thank you for cutting taxes for hardworking middle and working class Americans through the American Recovery and Investment Act – and not the 1%.
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25. Thank you for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which helps women fight discrimination in wages and salary.
1:45: Delivers remarks at an event for Ed Markey, Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center, Roxbury Crossing, MA
2:45: Departs Boston
5:40: Arrives Miami
7:05: Delivers remarks at a DNC event (Private Residence)
8:55: Delivers remarks at a DNC event (Private Residence)
9:55: Departs Miami
12:20: Arrives the White House
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AP: Myrlie Evers-Williams acknowledges it would be easy to remain mired in bitterness and anger, 50 years after a sniper’s bullet made her a widow.
Instead, she’s determined to celebrate the legacy of her first husband, Medgar Evers ā a civil rights figure often overshadowed by peers such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Events including a black-tie gala are being held this week to remember Evers, the first Mississippi field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was 37 when he was assassinated on June 12, 1963.
“We are cursed as human beings with this element that’s called hatred, prejudice and racism,” said Evers-Williams, now 80. “But it is my belief that, as it was Medgar’s, that there is something good and decent in each and every one of us, and we have to call on that, and we have to find a way to work together.”
In this June 15, 1963, file photo, mourners march to the Jackson, Miss., funeral home following services for slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
ABC: It has been 50 years since the shocking slaying of Medgar Evers. The civil rights activist and NAACP field secretary fought for equality on many levels, from organizing voter drives and protests against discrimination, to calling for legal investigations into school segregation and the lynching of Emmett Till.
Evers was returning from a meeting when he was gunned down by a white supremacist in the driveway of his Mississippi home. His death, coming just hours after a speech on civil rights by President John F. Kennedy, sparked a national outpouring of mourning and outrage.
Francis Wilkinson (Bloomberg): The immigration crucible begins this week in the Senate, where conservatives opposed to legalizing undocumented immigrants will begin a summer siege.
The legislation will both expose and challenge the core pathology of the Republican Party – that recurring tic by which the least constructive faction on any particular issue calls the ideological tune. (A budget compromise to put the nation’s fiscal policy on track? Nah. Let’s hold the global economy hostage over the debt ceiling instead. Negotiate improvements to Obamacare? No way: Better to cast toy repeal votes by the dozens.)
Immigration is different from other issues in a powerful way.
After five decades of using race as a political wedge to win elections, a process that transferred Dixie from Democratic to Republican control, Republicans can draw upon little goodwill from racial minorities. The party’s undisguised efforts to destroy the first black president will cement black allegiance to the Democratic Party for decades to come…..
Brad Plumer (Washington Post): Thereās quite a bit of good news – and very little bad – in Februaryās jobs report ā¦. The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs last month ā¦. And there were even more encouraging signs in the data revisions for previous monthsā¦..
Some of the broader indicators are encouraging, too ā¦. There are also some reasons to think this recovery can sustain itself through 2012. Ever since the recession ended in mid-2009, the U.S. private sector has been consistently hiring workers. Itās just that the public sector has been hemorrhaging employees – around 500,000 government layoffs since Obama took office. But that trend finally appears to be winding downā¦..
The U.S. economy is still in a large hole. Right now, weāre adding around 250,000 jobs per month. If that trend keeps up, itās enough to get us to 8 percent unemployment by election day. That would bode well for President Obamaās reelection chances. But 8 percent unemployment is still unnervingly high ….Ā but, for now, the economy looks to be in decent shape. As Justin Wolfers sums it up, āLetās call it a recovery.ā
WSJ: New York City employers in January added the highest number of jobs in a single month in 23 years, according to new figures released Thursday.
Some 31,200 jobs were added in the month, according to a seasonally adjusted analysis of new state Labor Department figures.
“It is an understatement to say that these gains exceeded all expectations,” said Barbara Byrne Denham, chief economist with the real-estate services firm Eastern Consolidated, who conducted the analysis.
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Paul Krugman never fails to amuse. Here he is today, trying – through gritted teeth – to sound pleased about the jobs’ news:
“OK, definitely a better jobs report than we have become used to. And terrific news for Obama; another six months of news like this and heāll be in very good shape for reelection.
But still, this was just equivalent to an average month during the Clinton years. And weāre still a long way from full employment.”
(1) Full employment is, usually, defined as 3% unemployment ā¦. so, you have to go back to Eisenhower in 1956 for ‘full employment’ in America. That, then, is the shiny new standard Krugman is holding PBO to. Seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
(2) Does Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, truly forget the state of the economy when PBO came to power? Or is he just, eh, forgetful about the facts?
(3) Will Krugman ever find it in his heart to forgive PBO for beating Hillary Clinton to the nomination?
Hillary has. Maybe it’s time for Krugman to move on?
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President Barack Obama talks on the phone with President-elect Vladimir Putin of Russia while aboard Air Force One en route to Richmond, Va., March 9, 2012. Alice Wells, Senior Director for Russian Affairs, is seated at right. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama speaks at a campaign event at Minute Maid Park, Houston, March 9:
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First lady Michelle Obama gets hugs from a pre-schooler at the Penacook Community Center, March 9, in Concord, N.H.
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NYT: The fragile gains Republicans had been making among female voters have been erased, a shift that has coincided with what has become a national shouting match over reproductive issues, potentially handing President Obama and the Democrats an enormous advantage this fall.
In the 2010 congressional midterm elections, Republican candidates ran evenly with Democrats among women, a break with long-established trends. That was a major reason the GOP regained control of the House.
Now, female voters appear to be swinging back to Democrats ā¦. When the Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey asked last summer which party should control Congress, a slim 46-42 percent plurality of women said it should be the Democrats.
But in a survey released Monday, compiling polling since the beginning of the year, that figure had widened considerably to a 15-point advantage for the Democrats
Today: The President will meet with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Tomorrow: The President will travel to Philadelphia
Wednesday: The President will deliver remarks at the National Womenās Law Centerās Annual Awards dinner.
Thursday: The President will attend meetings at the White House.
Friday: The President and the First Lady will host a breakfast with veterans at the White House.
After, the President will visit Arlington National Cemetery to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony and deliver remarks; the First Lady will also attend.
Later, the President and the First Lady will travel to San Diego, California for the Carrier Classic and Honolulu, Hawaii for the start of the APEC Summit. The President and the First Lady will spend the weekend in Honolulu, Hawaii at the APEC Summit.
(Thanks Jovie)
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ABC: ā¦. Over the past six months, the Obama campaignās state-level operations have blossomed, re-commissioning offices and volunteer networks kept warm by Organizing for America since 2008 while adding new outreach centers to help raise the presidentās profile on the ground.
Obama now has campaign offices in all 50 states, opening on average three new field offices each week, said campaign manager Jim Messina.Ā State volunteers threw open the doors to dozens more over the weekend, from Michigan to New Hampshire, in a coordinated push exactly one year to Election Day.
ā¦ Filling the new offices around the country is an army of paid staff and strategists, including social media experts to corral what have become an army of volunteers ā more than 1 million nationwide.
Obama for America nearly doubled the size of its staff on payroll over the summer, growing from 168 employees in July to 327 as of Sept. 30, according to the campaignās third quarter financial report.
But perhaps more important than boots on the ground will be campaign cash Obama will use to put ads on the air. The president has raised more than $88 million for his re-election through September, slightly ahead of the record-setting pace he set four years ago and quadruple the cash-on-hand of Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney.
On Sunday, Obamaās surrogates fanned out across the states to keep that fundraising apace, holding events in eight major cities to gather cash on the one-year milestone before the election.
Touring the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C., Oct. 14
Detroit Wayne Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Mich., Oct. 14
Backstage before an event at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colo., Oct. 25
Guinness Book of World Records holder John Cassidy performs a balloon act for First Lady Michelle Obama in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Oct. 11
The Obama Diary 
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