Rise and Shine

President Obama waves to his family, standing on the Truman balcony of the White House, as he walks from Marine One on the South Lawn after returning to Washington from California, June 9

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Today:

11:30: The President delivers remarks on the Equal Pay Act

1:0: Press Briefing by Jay Carney

2:10 The President makes a personnel announcement (see below)

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News that actually, you know, impacts people’s lives:

USA Today: The auto industry is about to go on a hiring spree as car makers and parts suppliers race to find engineers, technicians and factory workers to build the next generation of vehicles.

The new employees will be part of a larger, busier workforce. From coast to coast, the industry is in top gear. Factories are operating at about 95% of capacity, and many are already running three shifts. As a result, some auto and parts companies are doing something they’ve been reluctant to consider since the recession: Adding floor space and spending millions of dollars on new equipment.

…. The auto industry’s stepped-up hiring will help sustain the nation’s job growth and help fuel consumer spending. On Friday, the government said U.S. employers added 175,000 jobs in May, roughly the monthly average for the past year and a sign of the economy’s resilience.

More here

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Steve Benen: Proponents of comprehensive immigration reform were in need of some good news. Whereas it looked like the “Gang of Eight” bill was on track for 70 votes in the Senate two weeks ago, the prospects deteriorated quickly last week — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) threatened to oppose his own legislation; bipartisan House talks crumbled; senators questioned whether the bill could overcome a GOP filibuster; and a House Republican vote on Dreamers offered a reminder of just how right-wing the caucus is on the issue.

So, are reform hopes slipping away? Not just yet. In fact, the effort got a bit of a boost over the weekend….

Full post here

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TPM: President Barack Obama will announce Monday that he intends to nominate Jason Furman as the new Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, a White House official said.

Obama will make the personnel announcement at 2:10 p.m. ET at the White House. Furman will succeed Alan Krueger, who is stepping down from the post to return to Princeton University in the fall.

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ThinkProgress: Rep. Elijah Cummings pledged to release transcripts of interviews with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials that Republicans insist demonstrate that the agency’s targeting of conservative groups applying for 501(c)(4) status was directed by the Obama administration.

Cummings made the remarks on CNN’s State of the Union, a week after Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) appeared on the program and insinuated that the White House directed IRS agents to single out tea party and patriot groups for additional scrutiny. Issa has refused to provide evidence that substantiate that claim.

“I wrote Chairman Issa on Thursday and I wrote to him this morning. I want those transcripts to be released,” Cummings said. “I’m willing to come on your show next week with the chairman with the transcripts if he agrees to do that. If he doesn’t, I’ll release them by the end of the week.”

Cummings insisted that the interviews will prove that “the White House was not involved in this,” pointing out that the Cincinnati IRS manager of the screening group, a career veteran at the agency who identified himself as Republican, told investigators that Washington did not direct the targeting….

More here

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Kinda reckon this is all we need to know about Edward Snowden….

…. but soooo many questions, like the ones Goldie Taylor was asking this morning:

‘my apologies, mr president…’

Bluffton Today: President Obama. Greetings, sir. I come to you with a humble heart and mind….

I come to you now with an apology, because I have, like so many others in our nation, taken the last 30 months off from a civil discourse while waiting for you to deliver the message of hope on your own. Yes sir, so many of us have stood by and watched the GOP resist everything you promised to try and deliver, while your own party did little to publicly fight for the same agenda. I think most of us were hanging on to nothing more than the hope, sir. We forgot that we all must work together to achieve the ends.

…. We watched, or ignored, a vitriolic rhetoric, now fueled by million-dollar special interest groups and those still in denial of our natural process of working to form a more perfect union, that had begun well before you won the election….

I cannot answer for anyone but me, Mr. President. I can pledge however, that from this moment going forward, I will not just stand and wait for orders or results before I make a contribution that I already know is mine to make …. Yes, Mr. President. You’ve done what you promised. Now, it’s time for the American people to deliver. I am ready, and I am in.

Semper,

Kent Fletcher

Full ‘letter’ here

Thank you GoBrooklyn