rise and shine

Bloomberg: From northern Michigan’s iron mines to Pennsylvania’s natural-gas fields, the industrial heartland of America is humming with jobs again as a region once left for dead recovers faster than the rest of the U.S. ….. The economies of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania have improved faster than that of the U.S. since the recession’s depth in April 2009 …. Michigan is expected to lead all 50 states during the next six months….

…. from Detroit and Pittsburgh to Peoria, Illinois, and the town of Mellen in Wisconsin’s Penokee Hills, employers plan to add jobs and facilities ….  Improvement in unemployment, which dropped 19% in Ohio and 29% in Michigan from April 2009 through the end of last year, is a key driver for the Midwest recovery …. The recovery isn’t just about autos and shale – it’s all sorts of related industries, said Steve Steinour, Huntington Bancshares Inc.’s chief executive officer. “We’re seeing now a revival that no one had expected in this sort of time frame”…

…. Michigan gained 66,000 jobs in 2011 ….. It was the first gain in the state since the turn of the century….. “We’ve always heard this Rust Belt thing about our region, even just a few years ago,” said Steinour, speaking of the disparaging image of closed factories and declining industry. “But you don’t hear it so much now, and we might not have to hear it much in the future.”

Full article here

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ABC: President Obama was expected to visit the Washington Auto Show on Tuesday, giving him another forum to talk about GM and Chrysler, along with the administration’s attention to manufacturers and efforts to boost fuel efficiency standards…..

More here

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Link

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Robert Shrum: …. lost in this year’s bloviating combat over the Reagan banner is another reality that will at first rile and finally infuriate Republicans as the opportunistic Romney runs and then stumbles toward a November showdown with Barack Obama. For on the evidence of history, it’s likely that Obama will be the Reagan of 2012.

The one is certainly not the ideological heir of the other. But this president is beginning to travel a path along an emerging political landscape that parallels Reagan’s in potentially decisive ways.

….. Obama, like Reagan before him, offers an overarching theme that resonates with the distinctive mood of his re-election year …. he has trumpeted his own overarching summons to an America “where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” …. the narrative can be summed up – and the president has done so – in the “Buffet Rule”…. It connects as well to Mitt Romney …..  Romney is the face of the Republican establishment – and he’s becoming the face of unfairness in America ….

….. in the politics of 2012, Gingrich isn’t the Gipper, and Romney isn’t Ronnie. It’s the other guy, the Democrat who in 2008 presciently – and controversially – praised President Reagan for “chang[ing] the trajectory of America.” He did so amid the winds of an economic storm that finally and slowly cleared. So, in his own landmark achievements, has Barack Obama – and this election year, the trajectory is turning for him as it once did for Ronald Reagan.

Full article here

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TPM (thanks Loriah)

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Thanks rikyrah

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Richard Cohen (Washington Post): On Saturday night, at precisely 9:19 and 30 seconds, my iPhone, my iPad, my computer and, for all I know, my toaster were informed that Herman Cain had endorsed Newt Gingrich ….. it was just additional evidence that the Republican Party has become a circus: One clown endorsed another.

…..  This has been an exceedingly silly political season … But it has also been a sad one. The Republican establishment acts as if this season’s goon squad of presidential candidates has come out of nowhere, an act of God …. it has only itself to blame. For too long it has been mute in the face of a belligerent anti-intellectualism, pretending that knowledge and experience do not matter and that Washington is a condition and not a mere city. The endorsement of Gingrich by Cain was not a bulletin. It was a feeble blip on a scope. The GOP is brain-dead.

Full article here

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That’s the person, not the continent 😕

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Morning everyone 😉

‘they’re asking me to sacrifice the health of women …. I won’t do it.’

Greg Sargent: Harry Reid, on the Senate floor moments ago, uncorked a blast at Republicans over Planned Parenthood that suggests Dems think they’ve got John Boehner boxed in big time:

“Republicans want to shut down the government because they think there is nothing more important than keeping women from getting cancer screenings? That is indefensible, and everyone should be outraged – women and men. Republican leaders in the House have only a few hours left to look in the mirror, snap out of it and realize how positively shameful that would be.”

“For months, this conversation has been about billions and trillions of dollars. It has been about weighty issues and difficult decisions. This debate used to be about saving money.

“No longer. We have an agreement on the cuts and savings. And that agreement includes a historic level of cuts…

“The consequences of letting our country’s funding expire would be devastating. It would be devastating to our troops, to our small businesses and to Americans’ everyday lives – people who just want to get a home loan or get their tax refund or get their paycheck. It would damage our image and credibility around the world.

“But Republicans are asking me to sacrifice my wife’s health, my daughter’s health and my nine granddaughters’ health. They’re asking me to sacrifice the health of women in Nevada and across America. I won’t do it.

“As a legislator, I’m frustrated. And as an American, I’m appalled. As a husband, a father and a grandfather, I’m personally offended.”

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Here’s another interview with Harry Reid today:

birthers & their photoshopping skills….

Media Matters: Jack Cashill, author of the charmingly insane book Deconstructing Obama, claims to have unearthed yet another shocking bombshell about Barack Obama’s past. According to Cashill’s WorldNetDaily column this morning, this photo of young Barack Obama and his grandparents in New York is a forgery into which Obama has been photoshopped:

Cashill writes: “The bench is real. The grandparents are real. The wall behind them is real. Barack Obama is not. He has been conspicuously photoshopped in. Who did this and why remains as much a mystery as Obama’s extended stay in New York.” He embeds a YouTube video that claims to have uncovered the “real” photo, seen below, in which Obama is nowhere to be seen:

Actually, to say Obama is “nowhere to be seen” isn’t quite accurate, given that the young future president’s right knee is still somehow visible in the “real” photo:

So yeah: Jack Cashill is a clownish buffoon. Be sure to tell that to the hosts of Fox & Friends the next time they have him on national television. Also, drop a line to Andrew Breitbart, who is quite enamored of Cashill’s “convincing work.”

Yep, that’s the new Huffy Post recruit.

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This is pure gold ‘LOL’, thank you!

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Loved this:

Alex Pareene (Salon): So, yes, this is actually just a picture of Barack Obama’s grandparents hanging out in New York, where they did not live and where Obama was attending college, without their grandson, who was I guess secretly in Pakistan, at the time. I think that’s what has been definitively proven here. Obama was being a Marxist Muslim in Pakistan.

But unmentioned by Cashill is the single most insidious part of this deception: While Barack Obama is nowhere to be found in the unretouched version of this photo, his knee is still in between in grandparents.

What was Barack Obama’s knee doing in New York, while the rest of him was in Pakistan, and Indonesia? Dealing drugs? Why are mainstream journalists afraid to ask tough questions about the president’s detachable knee? The people have a right to know!

so, do the teabaggers love huckabee now?

I held my nose and visited a site jammed with birthers tonight, just to see if they all now worship Mike Huckabee.

Err…..

“Do you think maybe that Huck is off his meds?”

“Maybe he’s trying to provide some balance here by currying favor with the “Birther” vote.”

“Huck said: “And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American.” If he MEANT to say: “…having grown up in Indonesia,” then the rest of his comment would have made no sense?”

“I think Huckabee blew it big time. You can’t say: He grew up in Kenya. Had a Kenyan father. Had a Kenyan grandfather. And there was Mau-Mau involvement. And that’s why he hates the British. Because of the Kenyan connection. Because he grew up in Kenya. And then try to recover with “Slip of the tongue. I meant Indonesia.” Huckabee clearly thinks that Obama grew up in Kenya. He’s a moron.”

“Not that Huckabee ever had a chance at being President, but his “misspeak” dooms him to a life as a FOX network employee.”

“Huckleberry needs to shut his pie-hole. I wish he’d go away.”

“Well, as Dante said in his poetry,
There ain’t nothing half so painful as having a
really ignorant cracker on your side in politics.
Hell, it’s tough enough in baseball.
That old Italian guy knew Huckabee, apparently.”

“This will be pretty damaging for Huckabee. It can’t be passed off as a simple misspeak because he elaborated with the comments about growing up in Kenya forming Obama’s attitudes toward the Brits. Definitely a significant negative for Huck.”

“There’s a sin worse than ignorance, and that’s not wanting to improve upon the situation.”

“Had he said “Indonesia” he’d be clear. If he said “Cambodia” he misspoke. But Kenya, he’s toast.”

“It will be interesting to watch the media reaction. What would happen if Gov. Palin had made such a mistake?”

😆

“This looks almost like an attempt to tar the whole GOP as stupid.”

And one guy posted this pic:

That worked well Mike, hey? Even the nutjobs think you’re a nutjob.

😕

job creation!

“Excuse me, Vice President. Can you tell some of the construction workers to build a Lego shop here?”
– Jack Isakson to Joe Biden at the ceremonial swearing-in for his grandfather Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

VP: “I’ll tell you what, I’ll work with grandpop to see if we can get that done. We need jobs, Jack. The kid’s thinking! He wants to build a LEGO shop here!”

Speaking of Lego …..

Here’s a pic from Flickr showing then Senator Obama kicking John McCain’s ass during the Presidential election. Very nice. But the President’s hair? It looks like a cat sleeping on his head.

And here’s the inauguration at LEGOLAND California:

And, eh, here’s the President and First Lady during the swearing-in. Am I being harsh, or could there have been a touch more detail in the faces?