Chat Away

President Obama boards Air Force One at Pulkovo International Airport in Saint Petersburg on September 6

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The President is scheduled to arrive at Andrews at 9:15 PM EDT

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Lots of great photos from this trip, but this one was hard to top:

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And the most beautiful?

@PeteSouza: Fireworks and laser lights frame the Grand Peterhof Palace last night at the G20 Summit in St Petersburg

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Chat away!

Rise and Shine

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President Obama puts his shoes back on after meeting wrestlers on the mat at the U.S. Olympic Training Facility in Colorado Springs, August 9

….President Obama, visiting the Olympic training center here, had slipped his shoes off to greet athletes on a wrestling mat.

When he went to retrieve them, he plunked right down to put them on, with a gaggle of cameras rolling and reporters standing in front of him.

One reporter, CBS’s Peter Maer, remarked, “Very presidential, sir,” according to a pool report.

“Thanks. No holes in my socks,” the president joked. “My grandmother would be proud.”

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Cagle

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Cagle

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The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, August 9

Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pa, Aug. 9

Montgomery County, Pa, August 9

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Grand Junction, Colorado, August 8 (Flickr)

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Morning everyone 😉

A Beautiful Day….

President Obama hugs introducer DeAnne Stanberry, a nurse, during an election campaign rally in Grand Junction

Grand Junction High School, Colorado

More photos at The Denver Post

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 Thursday:

12:45: President Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at the Colorado State Fairgrounds

2:50: Departs Pueblo

3:20: Arrives in Colorado Springs

4:45: Delivers remarks at a campaign event

6:25: Departs Colorado Springs

9:45: Arrives at the White House

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President Obama at Pueblo Memorial Airport, Colorado, August 8

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Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, Colorado

evening all

Irish TV, February 24

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President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark talk at the end of their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, Feb. 24, 2012. Pictured, from left, are: Christian Kettel Thomsen, Permanent Secretary of State; Peter Taksoe-Jensen, Ambassador of Denmark to the United States; Liz Sherwood-Randall, Senior Director for European Affairs; and Bill Moeller, Director for Central European Affairs. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Link

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The Guardian: Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney’s much-heralded economic speech flopped Friday, overshadowed by a gaffe over luxury Cadillacs and his choice of an over-ambitious venue….

Romney opened himself up to derision for choosing a 70,000-seat stadium which attracted just over 1,000 people, many of them school children bussed in to help fill out the crowd, tucked into a corner of the astro-turf pitch….

The speech too turned out to be a flop …. It will be the picture of the near-empty stadium, contrasting with a much fuller one when Barack Obama was campaigning in February 2008, that will be remembered.

…. his words echoed round the empty stadium seats. He was not helped by the near-silence, winning only an occasional round of applause. At one point, having made a joke about the reluctance of children to leave home, only a handful of people in the audience laughed, an embarrassing response that the empty stadium amplified.

… In an attempt to ingratiate himself in the motor capital of America and undo some of the damage caused by a call in 2008 to let the car industry go bankrupt rather than be bailed out by the federal government, he listed cars owned by himself and his wife Ann.

He would be a president who loves cars, he said. “I like the fact that most of the cars I see are Detroit-made automobiles. I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pick-up truck. Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually. And I used to have a Dodge truck, so I used to have all three covered.” …. It is a mistake on par with his $10,000 bet in a televised debate with Texas governor Rick Perry.

Full article here

Steve Benen

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Steve Benen: Paul Krugman argued today that Mitt Romney “is running a campaign of almost pathological dishonesty.” That need not be considered hyperbole.

Indeed, Greg Sargent added this morning that Romney’s “falsehoods and all around dissembling” may be designed to “simply wear reporters and commentators down by trafficking in them so heavily that they throw up their hands and give up on trying to track or debunk them.”

But I remain undeterred…..

Full post here

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The Week

Nick Anderson

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Thanks Linda

Front page ad on the Detroit Free Press website today

How smart is that? 😉

evening all

President Barack Obama is briefed by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon before a phone call with King Abdullah II of Jordan in the Oval Office, Jan. 6, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Chicago Tribune: Freddie Mac announced Friday that it was giving mortgage servicers the authority to offer up to 1 year of mortgage forbearance to unemployed homeowners who have Freddie Mac-backed mortgages.

The change, with takes effect Feb. 1, means loan servicers can offer six months of forbearance to jobless borrowers without Freddie’s approval and another six months with approval….

Fannie Mae is expected next week to announce guidelines that will align with the new ones at Freddie Mac. The expansions are the result of a directive from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

More here

Thanks forus50

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ThinkProgress: The Affordable Care Act has done very well in court so far; three of the four courts of appeals to consider it have upheld the law…..

….Today, DOJ filed its brief defending the Affordable Care Act’s insurance coverage requirement, and with one sentence the Justice Department takes the plaintiff’s silliest and most successful argument off the table ….

…. This statement, that federal efforts to directly regulate the family, general crimes or education stand on much weaker constitutional footing than the ACA, is a very big deal. It shows that DOJ recognizes the only thing that even vaguely resembles a hole in their previous legal arguments, and that they have now sewn that hole up. When one of the justices asks them “if Congress can do this, what can it not do?” they will now have a clear and well-articulated answer.

With just one sentence in its brief, DOJ took away the last few straws the ACA’s opponents were desperately grasping at.

Full post here

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ThinkProgress: 20-Year Ban On Uranium Mining Near The Grand Canyon | Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce a 20-year moratorium on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region on Monday. The ban has been under consideration for two years, with evidence showing the mining contaminates drinking water. Last year, the most anti-environment House of Representatives attempted to permit uranium mining to overrun the Grand Canyon region, after a 2009 suspension from the Department of Interior.

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Washington Post: Chrysler will add 1,250 jobs at two Detroit factories next year – another sign that the once struggling automaker appears to be making a comeback.

The Jefferson North Assembly Plant will get 1,100 new workers and a third shift to help build a Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel model for North America. Another 150 workers will be added when Chrysler reopens the Conner Avenue factory to make a Street Racing Team version of the Dodge Viper muscle car.

More here

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The Week

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Robert Shrum: How about that Romney landslide? It turned out that in Iowa, the Mitt did fit — by two hands worth of votes, minus the thumbs. On paid media alone, Romney spent approximately $113 per vote and Rick Santorum spent just $1.65. The Romney campaign dared, and lost while winning. If Mitt had racked up a convincing margin, he would have been on a glide path to the GOP nomination. Instead, he won by a mere eight votes…..

Full article here

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Em…..

Democratic presidential candidate Vermin Supreme, who is one of more than 40 candidates who are on the New Hampshire primary ballot for U.S. president in 2012, stands outside a campaign event for Senator Rick Santorum in Manchester, New Hampshire, January 6. New Hampshire, where candidates are required to do nothing more than fill out a form and pay $1,000 to sign up, typically attracts a wide range of candidates.

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Philly.com: ….. In 2005, Santorum made headlines – not all positive – for visiting the deathbed of Terri Schiavo, the woman at the center of a national right-to-die controversy.What my Philadelphia Daily News colleague John Baer later exposed was that the real reason he was in the Tampa, Fla., area was to collect money at a $250,000 fundraiser organized by executives of Outback Steakhouses, a company that shared Santorum’s passion for a low minimum wage for waitresses and other rank-and-file workers. Santorum’s efforts were also aided by his unusual mode of travel: Wal-Mart’s corporate jet. And he canceled a public meeting on Social Security reform “out of respect for the Schiavo family”  even as the closed fundraisers went on.

Full article here

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OFA: President Obama broke bread today with Scott, Valarie, Kathie, and Bill, the four winners of #DinnerWithBarack

night all

Thanks for a great day everyone, see you tomorrow 😉

And tomorrow …. the third anniversary:

holland, michigan

President Obama shakes hands as he arrives at Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan, August 11

President Obama holds a battery as talks with Amanda Spore during his tour of Johnson Controls

President Obama waves to an employee in a “clean” facility during a tour of Johnson Controls Inc. in Holland, Mich., Aug. 11. Elizabeth Rolinski, vice president of operations at Johnson Controls Inc., right, accompanied the President during the tour of the advanced battery facility

President Barack Obama arrives to speak at Johnson Controls Inc. in Holland, Mich

‘a grand old cult’

Richard Cohen (Washington Post): Someone ought to study the Republican Party. I am not referring to yet another political scientist but to a mental health professional, preferably a specialist in the power of fixations, obsessions and the like. The GOP needs an intervention. It has become a cult.

To become a Republican, one has to take a pledge. It is not enough to support the party or mouth banalities about Ronald Reagan; one has to promise not to give the government another nickel. This is called the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” issued by Americans for Tax Reform, an organization headed by the chirpy Grover Norquist. He once labeled the argument that an estate tax would affect only the very rich “the morality of the Holocaust.” Anyone can see how singling out the filthy rich and the immensely powerful and asking them to ante up is pretty much the same as Auschwitz and that sort of thing.

….. Something similar has happened with global warming. It has become a conviction of much of the GOP that you and I, with our cars and factories and leaf blowers and barbecue pits, are off the hook – innocent of cooking the atmosphere. That being the case, it therefore is not the case that anything has to be done about it. Only much of science, common sense and your average walrus differ, but the GOP soldiers on. This is a version of Nancy Reagan’s pledge: Just say no.

….the net effect is to establish an intellectual barrier for admittance to the presidential race: Independent thinkers, stop right here! If you believe in global warming, revenue enhancement, stimulus programs, the occasional need for abortion or even the fabulist theories of the late Charles Darwin, then either stay home – or lie.

This intellectual rigidity has produced a GOP presidential field that’s a virtual political Jonestown. The Grand Old Party, so named when it really did evoke America, has so narrowed its base that it has become a political cult…..

Full article here

Thank you Loriah

morning people

Random perfect photo: President Barack Obama looks at the Grand Canyon in Arizona on Aug. 16, 2009. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

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I’m slow getting started today, but catch you all soon 😉

grand entrance

President Barack Obama, President Hu Jintao of China, and First Lady Michelle Obama descend the Grand Staircase of the White House, Jan. 19, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)