headlines | The Obama Diary

President Obama will record an interview with Jay Leno this morning – it won’t be shown until late night but NBC will release some excerpts in the afternoon

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President Obama leaves Air Force One upon his arrival in Los Angeles on Monday

LA Times: President Obama opened an aggressive Western fundraising swing Monday, closing out the day in Los Angeles with an appeal to supporters to prepare for a grueling reelection effort.

At an intimate fundraising dinner in Hancock Park, Obama spoke softly to a few dozen supporters who had paid $35,800 each to greet him.

“I’ve said this before — this election will not be as sexy as the first one,” the president said. “Back then it was still fresh and new. I didn’t have any gray hair. Everybody loved the ‘Hope’ posters and all that. This time it’s — we’ve got to grind it out a little bit. We’ve got to grind it out. But the cause is the same. And my passion is the same. And my commitment is the same.”

The gathering, at the home of movie producer James Lassiter and his wife, Mai, was one of six events Obama had planned in three days of stops in Nevada, California and Colorado, as he kept up a torrid fundraising pace that is far surpassing that of the GOP presidential field.

Two Los Angeles gatherings Monday were celebrity-flecked, with the first including actor Will Smith and former Laker Magic Johnson. The second and larger event was at the home of actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, with per-seat tickets starting at $5,000.

Full article here

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Thanks Marlz

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The First Lady’s day:

12:55 Delivers remarks at a Democratic National Committee reception in Detroit

3:45 Discusses access to healthy food with mayors from around the country in Chicago

4:50 Delivers remarks at a Walgreens in Chicago and visits Iron Street Urban Farms with Mayor Rahm Emanuel

6:40 Delivers remarks at a Democratic National Committee reception in Chicago

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Today the administration will announce plans to create jobs for veterans continuing on President Barack Obama’s efforts to boost the economy through a series of executive actions.

“While we will continue to work with Congress to bring up the American Jobs Act piece-by-piece, we will increase our focus on taking executive actions that fight for the middle class because the American people simply can’t wait for the Republican Congress to act. … Today, we are announcing two new initiatives that will help create jobs for veterans at community health centers and expand opportunities for veterans to become physician assistants,” a White House official said.

The initiatives will be announced during a conference call with reporters at 10 a.m. today with Matt Flavin, director of the White House Veterans, Military Families and Wounded Warrior Task Force; HRSA administrator Mary Wakefield; and president of the National Association of Community Health Centers, Tom Van Coverden.

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Steve Benen: …. Yesterday, President Obama unveiled a new, and almost certainly better, initiative as part of the White House’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign. The point to provide assistance to 1 million households, helping them refinance at today’s strikingly-low interest rates and lowering their mortgage payments.

There are, of course, concerns about the scope of the effort. It’s a modest program that won’t directly affect most of those underwater…. Still, Brian Beutler reports there are some experts who see cause for cautious optimism:

“Under the restrung HARP, I expect an additional 1.05 million [refinancings] through the end of 2012 and 1.6 million [refinancings] through the end of 2013 when the program ends,” said Moody’s top economist Mark Zandi in an email. “While HARP won’t live up to the initial expectations of 4-5 million in refinancings, the program will ultimately provide a meaningful boost to the broader economy as financially stressed households will benefit from much lower mortgage payments. It will also provide a bit of help to the housing market by forestalling some mortgage defaults.”

…. It’s a modest step, but at least it’s in the right direction. Coupled with other steps, we might even start to see some larger progress. It certainly beats watching Congress implode into an obstructionist mess.

Full post here

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The first part of the video is about Condaleeza Rice’s new book, but if you forward to three minutes in there’s good stuff on the madness of Herman Cain.

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The GOP: Screwed

The Week

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Eugene Robinson: For the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming, it’s getting awfully cold out there.

The latest icy blast of reality comes from an eminent scientist whom the climate-change skeptics once lauded as one of their own. Richard Muller, a respected physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, used to dismiss alarmist climate research as being “polluted by political and activist frenzy.” Frustrated at what he considered shoddy science, Muller launched his own comprehensive study to set the record straight. Instead, the record set him straight.

“Global warming is real,” Muller wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal.

Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the neo-Luddites who are turning the GOP into the anti-science party should pay attention.

…… It is the know-nothing politicians – not scientists – who are committing an unforgivable fraud.

Full article here

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OMG! GG will on Maddow tonight! OMG!

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Greg Sargent: …. Yesterday in the Senate, Republicans – joined by two Dems – unanimously blocked passage of Obama’s jobs bill, even though a majority of the Senate wanted to act. While this was a defeat for Obama, it also gave the White House the positioning it wants for the next phase of this fight, in which Obama will now pressure Congress to take a stand on individual pieces of his plan. Which is to say, Obama will pressure Congress to reveal whether it’s willing to take any action at all at a time of nine percent unemployment and mass economic suffering and anxiety.

Meanwhile, the Republican candidates met for a debate last night, and they uniformly agreed on one thing: Government is the problem, and must be rolled back on multiple fronts if we are to have any hope of a recovery.

And so, the White House, facing certain defeat on the jobs bill, at least established a baseline for the 2012 fight, which will be all about a simple question: Can and should our public officials act to bring relief to the American people at a time of national crisis? Or should government simply move out of the way and let the private sector right itself of its own accord?

…. The media play the White House wanted: The AP headline tells the story just as the White House hoped: “Senate Republicans vote to kill Obama’s jobs bill.”

This is the positioning the White House was going for: Republicans blocked the will of the majority by killing Obama’s effort at action on unemployment, and now Obama will continue the campaign by demanding they take a stand on the bill’s individual provisions, which poll very well.

Full post here