Rise and Shine

@BarackObama

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All times ET

11:50: President Obama departs Williamsburg, Va.

12:00: VP Biden travels to Penn Valley, Pa., to attend the funeral services for Senator Arlen Specter

12:55: President Obama arrives in New York

2:50: Michelle Obama speaks to grassroots supporters in Chapel Hill, N.C.

9:00: The Debate

11:05: President Obama departs New York

12:15: Arrives at the White House

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Greatest website ever:

RomneyTaxPlan

Thank you Bill!

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Washington Post: Romney’s 12-million job promise has garnered a lot of attention. We became interested in this ad after a reader asked whether the campaign had provided much detail on how he would reach this total …

…. the candidate’s personal accounting for this figure in this campaign ad is based on different figures and long-range timelines stretching as long as a decade — which in two cases are based on studies that did not even evaluate Romney’s economic plan. The numbers may still add up to 12 million, but they aren’t the same thing — not by a long shot.

… Clearly, some clever campaign staffer thought it would be nice to match up poll-tested themes such as “energy independence,” “tax reform” and “cracking down on China” with actual job numbers. We just find it puzzling that Romney agreed to personally utter these words without asking more questions about the math behind them.

Read the full article here

Greg Sargent: …. Let’s recap what Kessler has discovered here. The plan that is central to Romney’s candidacy on the most important issue of this election — jobs — is a complete sham. This is every bit as bad — or worse — than Romney’s claim to have created 100,000 jobs at Bain, or his vow to cut spending by eliminating whole agencies without saying which ones, or his refusal to say how he’ll pay for his tax cuts.

This could not have come at a better time for Obama. Here is the evidence he needs to spell out as clearly as possible that Romney is peddling economic hokum to the American people. Any fair reading of the backup the Romney campaign itself supplied for his plan reveals that it is nothing but a bill of goods. Obama needs to seize on this in a big way. This should be a big story.

Oh, and by the way: Economists have evaluated Obama’s jobs plan. And they concluded it would create one to two million jobs. The bottom line is simple: One candidate has a jobs plan, and the other doesn’t.

More here

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morning!

Random old photo to make you smile! President Barack Obama stands by a cut-out picture of First Lady Michelle Obama during a visit to Miami Central High School in Miami, Fla., March 4, 2011. (Pete Souza)

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Morning everyone – I’m late getting started today, still catching up with the news. Will post more and will reply to your emails and comments asap!

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BWD has a brilliant post on the reaction to last night’s 60 Minutes interview – don’t miss it, see here

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Huge apologies to any one who tried to donate to Obama/Biden 2012 on The Obama Diary page of the OFA site – some of you had problems with the link (here) so I’m going to try to get that sorted out now. Also, I can’t find ‘The Obama Diary’ when I search the site, so I need to find out why. If anyone has any ideas about what the problem is, please let me know!

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President Obama drives a new Chevy Volt during his tour of the General Motors Auto Plant in Hamtramck, Mich., July 30, 2010. (Pete Souza)

This is a great read from EJ Dionne about how the success of the bailout of the car industry has been almost completely ignored by the media, and how its critics (“Socialism!”) have not been called to account:

E.J. Dionne: Rescuing Detroit: No news about government’s good news … Don’t expect to see a lot of newspapers and Web sites with this headline: “Big Government Bailout Worked.” But it would be entirely accurate.

The actual headlines make the point. “Demand for fuel-efficient cars helps GM to $3.2 billion profit,” declared The Post. “GM Reports Earnings Tripled in First Quarter, as Revenue Jumped 15%,” reported the New York Times.

Far too little attention has been paid to the success of the government’s rescue of the Detroit-based auto companies, and almost no attention has been paid to how completely and utterly wrong bailout opponents were when they insisted it was doomed to failure … you won’t see a news conference where the bailout’s foes candidly acknowledge how mistaken they were.

The lack of accountability is stunning but not surprising. It reflects a deep bias in the way our political debate is carried out. The unexamined assumption of so much political reporting is that attacks on government’s capacity to do anything right make intuitive sense because “everybody knows” that government is basically inefficient and incompetent, especially when compared with the private sector.

Government failure gets a lot of coverage. That’s useful because government should be held accountable for its mistakes. What’s not okay is that we hear very little when government acts competently and even creatively….

Full article here

Steve Benen has posted about this too – see here

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MSNBC: The latest NBC News poll finds that nearly two-thirds of Americans back President Obama’s decision not to release the photos taken after Osama bin Laden’s death. Fifty-two percent said they strongly believe the Obama administration should not release the photos, and an additional 12 percent agreed, although not as strongly…..

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Okay, this has nothing to do with President Obama, but I just wanted to share my pain: I spend my life trying to convince cat-lovers that dogs are waaaaaaay more intelligent … and then along comes a video like this. Yes, this dog is trying to get a statue to play fetch with him. I can only assume he’s a Republican?

😕

march…

President Obama stands by a cut-out picture of First Lady Michelle Obama during a visit to Miami Central High School, Fla., March 4 (Pete Souza)

…greeting Miss Florida Memorial University Morisa Jagrup at Miami Central High School, March 4 (Pete Souza)

…in the Blue Room before greeting recipients of the 2010 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal, March 2 (Pete Souza)

…. greeting guests during the International Women’s Day reception, March 8 (Samantha Appleton)

….holding up four-month-old Alia Jawando as her father, William Jawando, Deputy Associate Director of Public Engagement, and her mother Michele look on in the Oval Office, March 9 (Pete Souza)

…. welcoming Make-A-Wish child Kennedy Alexander to the Oval Office, March 15 (Pete Souza)

…. greeting Halle Major during a Make-A-Wish visit in the Oval Office, March 29 (Pete Souza)

….greeting the daughter of a United States Secret Service agent before a departure picture in the Oval Office, March 1 (Samantha Appleton)

…. passing staff from the White House Military Office as he jogs along the Colonnade following an event that ran late, March 1. The military personnel and their families were lined up to take departure pictures with the President in the Oval Office. (Pete Souza)

…reading from his book, “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters,” during a visit by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and his family to the Oval Office, March 2. Joining them, from left, are Justice Breyer’s wife Joanna Breyer, grandson Eli Essiam Breyer and daughter Nell Breyer (Pete Souza)

President Obama, Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia, and members of the Australian and American delegations look up at the presidential seal in the Oval Office ceiling following their bilateral meeting, March 7 (Pete Souza)

…. talking with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and his wife, Fionnuala Kenny, in the Green Room before a St. Patrick’s Day reception, March 17 (Pete Souza)

…. with President Sebastián Piñera of Chile, wife Cecilia Morel, and their family for a photograph during a dinner at La Moneda Palace in Santiago, March 21 (Pete Souza)

….greeting children during the U.S. Embassy meet and greet in Santiago, Chile, March 21 (Pete Souza)

Chilean First Lady Cecilia Morel, right, talks with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia during a cultural event at the Museo Interactivo Mirador in Santiago, Chile, March 21 (Samantha Appleton)

…. at an official dinner hosted by Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes at the National Palace in San Salvador, March 22 (Pete Souza)

Lots more photos here

fan-in-chief

A U.S. fan poses with a cutout of President Barack Obama as he waits for the start of the 2010 World Cup second round match between United States and Ghana at Royal Bafokeng stadium in Rustenburg June 26, 2010.

yes. they. did.

A USA fan with a cardboard cutout of President Obama enjoys the atmosphere ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Group C match between USA and Algeria at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium on June 23, 2010 in Tshwane/Pretoria, South Africa