The First Family Of Cool

Legendary Fist Bumps

A look back at President Obama's countless fist bumps. pic.twitter.com/B7CU7UjiNZ

— CNN (@CNN) November 29, 2016

Early Bird Chat

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All Times Eastern

10:35AM: President Obama departs the White House

1:10PM: President Obama arrives in Miami

1:55PM: President Obama delivers remarks about the Affordable Care Act at Miami Dade College

4:05PM: President Obama delivers remarks at a Hillary for America campaign event at Florida Memorial University

5:30PM: President Obama participates in a fundraiser for Democratic governors

6:40PM: President Obama departs  Miami

9:10PM: President Obama arrives at the White House

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Early Bird Chat

Completely Random Recent Pic

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MoooOOOooorning Early Birds! Thank you all for the suggestions for the blog list, added a couple to the previous post and will update the blogroll today. You’re fabulous!

Dude

GQ

Back later, chat away.

More Complete Randomness

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Wait. Never mind PBO on the cover – “15 Flat-Belly Powerfoods”?? Anyone got a copy of this edition they can lend me? Quite quickly?

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Original post: Stephon stood just a few feet away from Barack Obama. The president, busy shaking hands, looked right at him. “It was like he was waiting for me to say something,” he said later.

So the 26-year-old Prince George’s Community College student took his cue and spoke to President Obama in his first language: American Sign Language. “I am proud of you,” Stephon signed. The president, almost involuntary, instinctively, immediately signed back.

“Thank you,” Obama replied.

This is one of those moments that humanize the office of the presidency…..

More here

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Rise and Shine

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend the Kennedy Center Honors, Dec. 5, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Today:

5:20: The President delivers remarks at the Kennedy Center Honors Reception in the White House

7:30: The President and First Lady attend the Kennedy Center Honors

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Monday: The President will host Prime Minister Boyko Borissov of Bulgaria at the White House

Tuesday: Meets with governors at the White House

Wednesday: Delivers remarks to members of the Business Roundtable and, later, delivers remarks at the 2012 Tribal Nations Conference

Thursday: The President and the First Family will attend the National Christmas Tree Lighting on the Ellipse (more here)

Friday: The President will attend meetings at the White House

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The Sunday shows:

NBC’s Meet the Press: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO); Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN); Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform; Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); Jim Cramer, CNBC; Maria Bartiromo, CNBC

CBS’ Face the Nation: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (R-CA); Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI); Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics; Maya MacGuineas, Campaign to Fix the Debt; Rana Foroohar, Time; John Dickerson, CBS and Slate

ABC’s This Week: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Rep. Tom Cole, (R-OK); Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN); Dan Senor, Council on Foreign Relations; Steven Rattner, former Lead Auto Adviser; Cokie Roberts, ABC

CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner;  Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA); Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH); Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT); Susan Page, USA Today; A.B. Stoddard, The Hill

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Nope, still no enthusiasm

St. Petersburg, Sept 8 (Oliver Knox)

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An oldie ….. but hey, we’re all feeling like this today:

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President Obama shakes hands with former Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist prior to speaking during a campaign event at St. Petersburg Seminole Campus

Decisions, Decisions

rise and shine

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10:45: VP Biden delivers remarks at American Seating Company’s factory in Grand Rapids, Mich.

11:00: PBO delivers remarks on the economy at the James Lee Community Center in Falls Church, Va.

5:00: Michelle Obama delivers remarks at a Democratic National Committee luncheon in Los Angeles.

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Gallup

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WSJ: The private sector added 170,000 jobs in January, in line with expectations, as small-business hiring fueled the increase …. The latest ADP report showed large businesses with 500 employees or more added just 3,000 employees in January, while medium-size businesses added 72,000 workers and small businesses, those that employ fewer than 50 workers, hired 95,000 new employees. Service-sector jobs increased by 152,000 last month, and factory jobs rose by 10,000.

More here

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The Week

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USA Today: The closer we get to the fall campaign, the more President Obama sharpens his stump speech. At a fundraiser last night in Washington ….Obama argued that the Republicans will take the economy back to where it was before the 2008 crisis, and have “the wrong vision for America.”

“Their basic argument is that if we strip out regulations, if we disregard environmental concerns, if we take away protections for consumers, if we lower taxes even further for the kind of folks who are in this room, that somehow growth and the American Dream will be restored,” Obama said.

That said, Obama warned supporters that this will be a tough election, and they can’t take anything for granted.

“We’re all going to have to be focused on making sure that every single day the American people understand not only where we want to take the country but also that we’re willing to fight for them,” Obama said.

More here

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Charles Pierce (Esquire): …. I’m not going to sit there and listen to (Willard Romney) …. the cosseted plutocrat son of a millionnaire auto dealer – one who is running on a platform that will make himself and everyone like him richer while warning the rest of us, as he did in his victory speech in Tampa, that “If you’re looking for cradle-to-grave help from the government, I’m not your candidate” – go and dragoon into that effort Tom Paine, who would have spat in Willard Romney’s face if he’d ever met him.

Mitt Romney is someone whose children have a trust fund totaling $100 million. His great-great-grandchildren are not ever going to have to worry about money from their cradles to their graves. Thomas Paine? I’m sorry, but there are levels of bullshit to which I will not agree to descend.

Romney won because he had the most money. And because he had the most money, enough of the Tea Party “base,” which was supposed to hate him like gum disease, decided thusly: What the hell? The important thing is to get the Muslim Kenyan Usurper Negro out of the White House, so this is the horse we have to ride…..

…. it was how Romney delivered the speech that was so revelatory. This is a rich kid who likes flogging The Help. There were just enough shit-eating, country-club grins as he delivered his rancid material to show you what the guy must have been like in those golden moments when he realized that there was more dough in wrecking a company than in investing in it.

Full article here

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David Firestone (NYT): ….. nearly half the nation now holds an unfavorable view of Mr. Romney, much higher than last year. The number is even higher among independents. If Mr. Gingrich can raise enough money to stay in the race, Mr. Romney will have to spend valuable time, resources and good will to keep countering him.

All of that subtracts from his ability to pivot to Mr. Obama, and makes his criticism of the president seem like more of the same endless negativity. Mr. Romney’s victory speech tonight was less than uplifting, suggesting the United States had sunk to “the worst of what Europe has become.” If he means the Euro crisis, it’s not even close, and he will not get very far persuading voters that Washington is turning into Athens.

He even made a crack about Mr. Obama and his “faculty lounge” colleagues who think they know better than everyone else. That sounds hollow, coming from one of the country’s best-educated elitists, and it’s precisely the wrong message for a country that knows it must improve education at all levels.

It was left to Rick Santorum, who barely competed in Florida, to express the real lesson of Florida’s knife fight, and the dangers of letting it continue. “What we’ve seen the last few weeks in Florida,” he said tonight, “is not something that is going to help us win this election.”

Full post here

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The Week

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CBS

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Morning everyone 😉