Rise and Shine

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Today:

2:05: The President makes a personnel announcement

12:45: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney

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USA Today: President Obama will announce Friday that he’s picked James Comey, a former Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to be his next FBI director……

…. Comey, who previously served as deputy attorney general and supervised operations for the Justice Department, was a key player in one of the most dramatic moments of the Bush administration. In 2004, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card tried to persuade Attorney General John Ashcroft – who was ill with acute pancreatitis – to reauthorize a warrantless eavesdropping program while in his hospital bed.

Comey learned of Gonzales and Card’s plan and rushed to Ashcroft’s hospital room, along with Mueller. Both threatened to resign if the White House renewed the program. As a result, it was not reauthorized.

More here

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USA Today: …. The President holds his first meeting today with the newly constituted Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, in part to discuss criticism of National Security Agency programs that gather phone and Internet records.

Obama will discuss his recent direction to the Director of National Intelligence to de-classify certain information “to better contextualize these programs, correct misrepresentations, and provide an opportunity for the dialogue he welcomes about the right balance between national security and privacy,” the White House said.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was actually created in 2004 as part of the executive branch, and made an independent agency in 2007, but it has never met amid disputes over its duties.

More here

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Where is the media? Nearly 800 ppl have taken over the #TXLege in Austin opposing the omnibus abortion bill. Police have been called. #HB60

— RH Reality Check (@rhrealitycheck) June 21, 2013

Here is a photo of the overflow room of #HB60 protest… We’ve got your backs! pic.twitter.com/F8OEyZGMq3

— Jodi Jacobson (@jljacobson) June 21, 2013

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AP: The Republican chairman of a House committee considering new abortion regulations in Texas has told more than 300 women that they would not be allowed to testify against the bill because it had become too repetitive.

The predominantly-female audience roared in disapproval when Corsicana Rep. Byron Cook made the announcement. State troopers flooded the room as he and other Republicans left.

The new bills would limit how, when and where women could get abortions in Texas and shut down 38 out or 42 clinics in the state.

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Bravo to the hundreds of TX men and women who made sure their disdain against #HB60 #HB16 anti-women bills were heard loud and clear #TXLege

— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) June 21, 2013

Here’s everything you need to know about #HB60 and the #txlege special session: http://t.co/3YsKdiRkJR via @scATX #prochoice #abortion

— Mary (@OHTheMaryD) June 21, 2013

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UT/NerdyWonka: I am so proud of the hundreds of Texas men and women who showed up to make their voices heard.

I am proud of us standing up and keeping the debate going for over 14 hours so that the anti-women bills would not just have a smooth sailing through committee.

I am proud of Texans for making sure the world knew that these destructive bills had died in a regular session and the GOP is trying to sneak them past in shoddy special sessions.

I am so proud of everyone who made sure the draconian bill #HB60 trended worldwide on Twitter and made people from other states and countries tune into the fight and realize what damage and destruction really is.

I am proud of the Democratic State Reps who made sure voices were heard even when the GOP Chair Byron Cook tried to shutdown debate.

People forget that California used to be red until the GOP tried to ram down Prop 187 and then California became blue and has stayed blue since then. That is is Texas right now.

What I saw yesterday and into the morning shows that the groundwork for Texas turning purple and eventually blue has been laid. People in states who vote Blue in presidential elections and those who don’t but are controlled by GOP state legislatures and Governors need to be vigilant because these laws have and will spread to your states too. See Ohio for example. These laws have also come to the U.S. House of Rep so be on the lookout. States are a blueprint for what can and will become national anti-women bills and laws.

The war on women is real but the Texas Legislature found out that you don’t mess with Texas women.

We might be controlled by majority republicans but our voices will not be silenced. 2014 is no joke.

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@B_Twe5_G Here you go. http://t.co/sGClR2zHdI http://t.co/ZmR3S9CEiU #HB60 #HB16 #TXLege

— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) June 21, 2013

I hope TX republicans are watching this. You have pushed women too far. U should be worried in 2014. This is just beginning. #hb60

— Laura Allen (@truebluebell) June 21, 2013

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Reuters: It takes an army: Tens of thousands of workers roll out Obamacare

From the chief actuary at the California health insurance exchange that President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law established to the legions of call center staffers who will help people trying to buy insurance through such state exchanges, the number of people working to implement “Obamacare” has reached the tens of thousands, a Reuters analysis has found.

No one said that overhauling healthcare, which accounts for 17 percent of all national spending, was going to happen with a skeleton crew.

State offices that will run insurance exchanges are hiring tens of thousands, either on staff or through outsourcing firms. Federal agencies that are key to implementing the law, such as the Internal Revenue Service, plan to hire thousands more, and private non-profit groups backed by the White House are dispatching thousands of newly hired staffers and volunteers into the field.

More here

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Good for Joe Manchin for declaring all out war on the NRA; really great stuff from him here: http://t.co/fWGDY2hKRc

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 20, 2013

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Greg Sargent: In another embarrassment for House Speaker John Boehner, the farm bill went down to a surprise defeat in the House, 195-234. Most Democrats voted against it, because of its deep cuts to food stamps, but what really sealed its fate is that in spite of those cuts, 62 Republicans voted against it, too, apparently because it didn’t cut spending enough.

….. “This underscores that Boehner cannot pass bills on his own,” Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein told me in a quick interview today. “He can’t do anything with only Republicans. The real power center in the House is not Boehner. It’s not Cantor. It’s not Ryan. It’s not McCarthy. It’s the extreme right. This shows the real dilemma ahead for a Speaker who is very weak and very conscious of his weakness within the party.”

….. Ornstein’s final verdict on today’s display from House Republicans: “They’re pathetic.”

Full post here

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Steve Benen: …. From a progressive perspective, it’s hard to shed tears over the bill’s demise – this was an awful, needlessly punitive piece of legislation. Its GOP proponents, without so much as a hint of shame, were a little too eager to redistribute wealth in the wrong direction – punishing poor families and rewarding wealthy agricultural interests – and their efforts to slash funds for food stamps bordered on cruel.

To be sure, even if the House had passed its bill, it wasn’t going far given the scope of the opposition from Senate Democrats and an unambiguous veto threat from the Obama White House.

But the real takeaway here is that the House Republican leadership, once again, failed miserably….

More here

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rise and shine

GivenEyesToSee – Say hi to Miss M Turner, the woman in the photo, in the comments

Thank you BWD

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Love it! Thanks isonprize 😉

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10:30 AM President Obama pardons the National Thanksgiving Turkey (Woot!)

4:20 The President, First Lady and their daughters participate in a service event

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Andrew Sullivan: How to beat Romney – run ads like this:

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Deaniac (The People’s View): … I have always known that Glenn Greenwald is a opportunistic, dishonest, fact-ignorning blowhard. But today we get to add ironic to that … Greenwald wrote a column accusing the SEIU, a union that has endorsed President Obama for re-election, of attempting to “co-opt” the Occupy Wall Street movement. Why? Well because apparently …. they have trademarked and copyrighted the phrase “99 percent.”

…. The very same Glenn Greenwald who is accusing the SEIU of trying to use OWS’ language (heaven forbid!) for their own purposes …. (is) trying to sell (and promote) winter gear for the OWS protesters being disbursed by the notorious Firedoglake. But of course, Greenwald fails to mention that he stands to financially gain from donations to FDL, as the treasurer of FDL’s PAC, Accountability Now, and his company, DMDM Enterprises, is used to taking money for “administrative expenses” from Accountability Now.

An examination of FEC reports shows that Greenwald’s DMDM Enterprises received more than $40,000 from FDL’s Accountability Now from 2008-2010, and of course, we have no idea how much more he has received as salary as Treasurer…..

Full post here

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New Hampshire yesterday:

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Morning everyone

champs

President Obama greets the audience in the Rose Garden during an event to honor the Texas A&M, the 2011 NCAA Women’s Championship basketball team

five?!

Politicususa: Tea Party darling Christine O’Donnell’s book signing in Republican Naples, Florida drew a total of five people. Five. Five people. That’s it. Just like a Sarah Palin event, the media outnumbered the actual attendees.

More here

And notice the ‘20% off’ tag on the book 😳

night everyone

The leading Catholic on planet earth …. meets the Pope.

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‘When we grow up we’re going to live in a big house with a dog’ – Happy Birthday Sasha Obama

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You want comedy? No problem:

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See you tomorrow 😉

just sayin’

Michael Shear (NYT): In a speech almost 18 months before he assumed the presidency, Barack Obama issued a blunt warning to President Pervez Musharaff of Pakistan: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

The line was eerily prescient, as it turned out. In his late-night statement on Sunday announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama said that the United States had acted inside Pakistan to capture or kill the Al Qaeda leader on just that kind of actionable intelligence.

…But in the middle of 2007, when Mr. Obama gave the speech it instantly provided his Democratic rivals an opportunity, which they seized aggressively … The criticism was part of an effort by Mr. Obama’s rivals to cast the young senator as naïve and inexperienced when it came to national security and foreign policy. Months later, Mrs. Clinton ran a hard-hitting campaign ad that asked whether people would feel comfortable with Mr. Obama in the White House when the phone rings at 3 a.m.

Senator John McCain picked up the criticism. On several occasions, Mr. McCain paraphrased Mr. Obama incorrectly, saying that the Democrat had promised to bomb Pakistan. “Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan?” Mr. McCain asked during his victory speech in the Wisconsin Republican primary in February 2008.

…Now, however, it may be more difficult for the Republicans to make that case stick. Not only did Mr. Obama achieve what his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, fail to accomplish for nearly seven years, but he did so by following his own advice from long before he was in office.

In a statement late Sunday night, Mr. McCain praised the man he once called “confused” and “inexperienced.”

Full article here

yes, we can. again

See BWD’s new post here at The Only Adult In The Room – get your thinking caps on!

poor steve

Greg Sargent (Washington Post): The other day, the Associated Press reported that House Republicans were going easy on their own budgets for staff and salaries even as they hack away at the budgets of many federal agencies.

Along these lines, constituents in Arkansas’ third district recently had a question for their new Congressman, freshman GOP Rep. Steve Womack. If Republicans are cutting the budget, why not cut proportionally into their own salaries and benefits, too? A local Arkansas paper reports that Womack gave his constituents an interesting answer:

More than one person asked Womack, during and right after the public meeting at the Northwest Arkansas Convention Center in Springdale, why members of Congress couldn’t trim their own salary and health benefits as part of the many other domestic programs facing cuts.

Womack responded … “My income is $174,000 a year. I do make a sizable amount, more than many people in this room, but I am not a wealthy person.”

Full article here