First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama hugging Kitty Casey
President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. The National Prayer Breakfast is in it’s 63rd year
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President Barack Obama strikes the Heisman pose with Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry
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President Barack Obama meets with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in the Oval Office. President Obama and President Santos are expected to make a bid for increased aid for Colombia and talk about “Plan Colombia,” a U.S. aid initiative started in 2000 to help combat Colombian drug cartels
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President Barack Obama holds a Golden State Warriors basketball jersey presented to him during an event with the 2015 NBA Champion Golden State Warriors
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President Barack Obama jokes while demonstrating “clowning” when talking about Stephen Curry
USA Today: Obama Breakfasts At Old Chicago Favorite
It was an old home kind of Friday for President Obama. The president — and former Chicago resident — had breakfast at a favored old stomping ground, Valois Restaurant in Hyde Park. Obama, who dined with Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, ordered two eggs over medium with bacon and hash browns, and then plopped down a pair of $20 bills. “I don’t take free food,” Obama said.
It was a familiar place for Obama. A glass cabinet featured Valois coffee mugs adorned with Obama’s face, while assorted Obama clippings and photos hung on a wall. A separate menu board featured “President Obama’s favorites,” including “N.Y. steak and eggs”; two eggs with bacon or sausage; two pancakes; steak omelet; Mediterranean omelet; and an “all-vegi” egg white omelet.
President Barack Obama waves while boarding Air Force One before leaving O’Hare International Airport in Chicago
President Barack Obama salutes as he steps from Air Force One in Andrews Air Force Base
President Barack Obama is escorted to Marine One helicopter from the steps of Air Force One
President Barack Obama waves as he walks across the South Lawn of the White House following his arrival on Marine One
President Barack Obama carries his jacket over his shoulder and whistles as he walks towards the Oval Office
President Barack Obama signs H.R. 685 in the Oval Office. H.R. 685 is the American Fighter Aces Congressional Gold Medal Act with the presentation of a single congressional gold medal in recognition of the Aces military service. From back left are Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash., Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Va., Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Fred Dungan, American Fighter Ace, of San Clemente, Calif., Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and Clayton Gross, of Portland, Ore., American Fighter Ace.
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White House: Statement by the Press Secretary on H.R. 685 and H.R. 1209
On Friday, May 23, 2014, the President signed into law: H.R. 685, the “American Fighter Aces Congressional Gold Medal Act,” which provides for the award of a single congressional gold medal to the American Fighter Aces, collectively, in recognition of their heroic military service and defense of the Nation’s freedom throughout the history of aviation warfare; and
H.R. 1209, which provides for the award of a single congressional gold medal to the World War II members of the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders, for outstanding heroism, valor, skill, and service to the United States in conducting the bombings of Tokyo.
President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, announces the nomination of San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to replace current Secretary Shaun Donovan who was nominated to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
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White House: President Obama Nominates Julián Castro As Next HUD Secretary And Shaun Donovan As OMB Director
Today, in the White House State Dining Room, President Obama nominated San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro as the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and current HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan to serve as the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Mayor Castro will be an invaluable member of the Obama Administration. In five short years, Mayor Castro has made significant progress in San Antonio and put the city and its citizens on a new trajectory. He has been a leader among mayors in implementing housing and economic development programs that have tremendously benefitted the people of San Antonio. He has also built good relationships with other mayors and key partners in the Administration’s Promise Zones initiative, which spotlights San Antonio as a shining example of a city that has been revitalized over the past few years due in large part to Mayor Castro’s leadership.
"I hope that the Senate confirms them both without games or delay." —President Obama on the nominations of @ShaunHUD & Julián Castro
President Obama also believes that Secretary Donovan will make an excellent choice as the new Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Donovan has committed his life to public service, focused on good government and smart investment. Under Donovan’s leadership, HUD helped stabilize the housing market and worked to keep responsible families in their homes. In the wake of the foreclosure crisis, Donovan reaffirmed HUD’s commitment to building strong, sustainable, inclusive neighborhoods that are connected to education and jobs and provide access to opportunity for all Americans. While at HUD, Donovan made critical investments to speed economic growth, while also offering new savings proposals and ensuring fiscal responsibility. Donovan also chaired the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, which developed a comprehensive regional plan, based on local vision for redevelopment, to guide long-term disaster recovery efforts. Donovan has a track record of using data to make good decisions and drive results. In the role, he has become a trusted advisor to the President and partner to other members of the Cabinet.
A year ago: Lauren Fleming, the 2011 March of Dimes National Ambassador, looks up as her brother Corbin touches President Barack Obama’s face during a visit to the Oval Office, Feb. 7, 2012. Lauren is also accompanied by her parents Densel and Nikki Fleming, and her sister Erin (Photo by Pete Souza)
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This morning:
8:05 AM: President Obama, VP Biden and Michelle Obama attend the National Prayer Breakfast; President Obama delivers remarks
10:0: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey testify on what happened in Benghazi before the Senate Armed Services Committee
11:15: President Obama departs the White House en route Leesburg, Va.
11:40: Arrives in Leesburg, Va.
12:30: President Obama delivers remarks at the House Democratic Issues Conference
1:45: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force will roll out their proposed gun control initiatives in Leesburg
1:55: President Obama departs Leesburg
2:20: Arrives at the White House
2:30: John Brennan testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on his nomination to become the next CIA director
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TPM: Despite the increasingly dim prospects for an assault weapons ban to earn congressional approval, a poll released Thursday showed that a wide majority of American voters is in favor of such a prohibition.
The latest poll from Quinnipiac University found that 56 percent of registered voters nationwide support a ban on the sale of assault weapons, compared with just 39 percent who are opposed.
I was brought to this country from Mexico when I was 2 years old.
I am an undocumented immigrant — and I am living proof that our immigration system is broken.
….. Just telling our stories would change people’s minds.
This is exactly how we’re going to persuade people across the country to get behind President Obama’s plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
…. Through this grassroots movement, we can raise our voices, tell our stories, and make sure Congress and all Americans better understand the ties that bind us. Our stories can drive our organizing. Share your own story today, and help Organizing for Action get the word out on why this matters …
Mooooooorning everyone, this is a decidedly short Rise and Shine, but I wanted to give a Heads Up for the Prayer Breakfast – that’s my excuse any way. More in a while.
National Journal: President Obama’s ad-makers may have to pay royalties to Clint Eastwood after a remarkable two-minute Chrysler commercial that aired on the biggest of all stages – the Super Bowl – and gave a pretty good preview of what the president’s reelection commercials might look like. At the very least, the ad and Eastwood’s powerful narration make it much, much more difficult for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney to keep pushing his line that Washington should have let the automakers go into bankruptcy.
And don’t think that Team Obama wasn’t watching the Super Bowl along with millions of other Americans and immediately grasped the boost they could get from the commercial. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer quickly tweeted “Saving the America auto industry: something Eminem and Clint Eastwood can agree on.” Senior strategist David Axelrod tweeted “Powerful spot. Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?” Former White House aide Bill Burton tweeted, “Clinton Eastwood #winning.”
ABC: ….. Fifty percent of Americans in this new ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of Obama’s job performance, the most since spring. Fifty percent say he deserves re-election, better than Bill Clinton at the start of his re-election year and as good as George W. Bush a month before he won a second term. And Obama now leads Romney among registered voters by a slight 51-45 percent, the first time either has cracked 50 percent in a series of matchups since spring.
Two chief factors are at play. One is the economy’s gradual but unmistakable improvement, marked by the newly reported January unemployment rate of 8.3 percent, the lowest since a month after Obama took office. The president’s approval rating on handling the economy, while just 44 percent, is its best in 13 months.
Monday: PBO will attend meetings at the White House.
Tuesday: PBO will host the second White House Science Fair celebrating the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country. The President will also announce key steps that the Administration and its partners are taking to help more students excel in math and science, and earn degrees in these subjects. At the fair, the President will view exhibits of student work, ranging from breakthrough research to new inventions, followed by remarks to an audience of students, science educators and business leaders on the importance of STEM education to the country’s economic future.
Wednesday: PBO will attend meetings at the White House.
Thursday: PBO will host Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy at the White House.
Friday: PBO will attend meetings at the White House.
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Michael Tomasky (Daily Beast): It was somewhere between hilarious and pathetic to watch Republicans respond to the positive jobs report last Friday. Some friends and I were counting the minutes until some Republican started casting aspersions on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which compiles and releases the data. Sure enough, by early Friday afternoon, Tea Party Congressman Allen West was saying (on the basis of no evidence of course) that “Americans need truth, not these number games.” West’s comment suggests a desperation that will spread if future reports are as good as last week’s, which raises the question of what the Republicans will do next to try to wreck the economy.
…. There are decent and honorable individual Republicans. Probably many of them. I even know some. But as a collective entity – as a party and a movement that includes the media wing and the base that boos a gay soldier at a debate and cheers executions – they are toxic destroyers, their minds infected by the idea that any cooperation with the president for the sake of the country is the moral equivalent of Munich (yes, with all that analogy implies). They will do anything. Nothing could be more just than to see a surprisingly low unemployment rate come November, with Republicans still insisting that black is white and that governance equals capitulation, and the public rewarding them accordingly.
USA Today: With U.S. forces still fighting in Afghanistan, the Obama administration has chosen to mark the end of the Iraq War with something more modest than a ticker-tape parade – a state-dinner-like event at the White House later this month feting a select group of combat veterans and their spouses or guests.
The core theme is the common fighting man or woman, said Douglas Wilson, Pentagon public affairs chief. The intent is for those invited – with guests, numbering more than 200 – to represent the 1.5 million who fought in a nine-year-war that left nearly 4,500 dead and 32,000 wounded, he said.
“The dining room that night will look like the America that served in Iraq,” Wilson said. “State dinners honor heads of state and I think the feeling was that this type of dinner is an appropriate way to honor men and women who … merit the same degree of respect as a head of state,” he said. The black-tie White House event to be called “A Nation’s Gratitude” may be unprecedented, Wilson said.
President Barack Obama holds Arianna Holmes, 3, before taking a departure photo with members of her family in the Oval Office, Feb. 1, 2012. Arianna’s mother, Angela Holmes, is a departing Special Assistant in the International Economic Affairs office of the National Security Staff. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
President Obama holds up a book that he was given by author and keynote speaker Eric Metaxas at the National Prayer Breakfast
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Steve Benen: The general trend on initial unemployment claims over the last few months has been largely encouraging, though there have been setbacks. Last week, for example, was a step in the wrong direction. This week’s report, however, was a little more heartening:
U.S. jobless claims dropped by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 367,000 in the week ended Jan. 28, the Labor Department said Thursday….
…. when these jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it’s considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape. When the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are actually being created rather quickly.
Washington Post (editorial): Higher education is both crucial to America’s economic competitiveness and hard for many students and their families to afford … As President Obama quite rightly insisted in his State of the Union address, institutions of higher learning must do more to hold down their costs if college education is to remain affordable for the next generation of young people. What’s more, he’s talking about using the federal government’s financial clout to encourage cost containment.
…. he is proposing long-overdue reforms to existing formulas for distributing hundreds of millions of dollars in campus-based aid, such as Perkins loans and work-study funds. Current policy skews in favor of better-off students at relatively pricier colleges. The president wants to shift dollars in favor of schools that restrain tuition and graduate more low-income students. Meanwhile, he would establish a $1 billion fund to encourage cost-saving innovations, complemented by $55 million for research, evaluation and dissemination of the best practices….
Needless to say, a lot depends on how the president and Congress would end up defining what constitutes a good value in higher education … what’s important is that the president has put the prestige and power of his office behind this effort.
Jonathan Cohn: Romney’s political strategy here seems clear to me: He’s trying to drive a wedge between the poor and the middle class, convincing the latter that they lose out to the former when Democrats are in charge. And the strategy may work. It’s certainly helped Republicans before. But the big beneficiary of Romney’s plan to reorder fiscal priorities is not the middle class. It’s the very wealthy, who would get substantial tax benefits and who will usually be fine with weakened public services.
MSNBC: ….. presidential hopeful Rick Santorum took a hard line on Wednesday against government getting involved in offsetting the cost of drug prices. Before exiting the stage, Santorum was prodded by members of the 300-person crowd to take one last question from a young boy standing in the front row. The child asked what the candidate would do to lower the cost of medicine. But the former Pennsylvania senator said it was the cost of drugs that allowed for the innovation that keeps Americans with life-threatening illnesses alive.
“People have no problem going out and buying an iPad for $900. But paying $200 for a drug they have a problem with – that keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned in thinking health care is something you should get and not have to pay for. Drug companies, health care companies need to have a profitability, because if they don’t, then how are we going to regulate costs?…..”
While some of in the audience applauded Santorum’s tough stance against government involvement in drug prices, others protested. The mother of the child yelled out that she was going bankrupt just to pay for her child to keep breathing.
Charles P. Pierce (Esquire) read a a swooning piece about Fox ‘News’ in Politico…. he didn’t like it very much:
“Stuff in Politico That Makes Me Want to Guzzle Antifreeze…. I say only that, in my own, personal, constitutionally protected opinion, this may very well be the worst bag of pulverized, unexpurgated, beat-sweetening chickenshit in the history of American political journalism. It makes Peggy Noonan read like Thuycidides….
Charles P. Pierce (Esquire): No matter what Willard Romney said on Tuesday night, a tough primary can really damage you. If these latest PPP numbers are in any way accurate, the rockfight between Romney and N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer of Civilization’s Rules and Leader (Perhaps) of the Civilizing Forces, has pushed Romney’s unfavorability ratings in Ohio northward toward 60 percent……
….. Eighty-four percent of the respondents are white and, even with that, Romney is six points down with a 57 percent disapproval rating. He better tack like hell, is all I’m saying.
The Obama Diary 
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