We have great news in Moneygall! A visitor centre named after President Obama, which will focus on his ancestry, will open in two weeks’ time.
It will serve as a welcoming point into the ancestral home of the President and will tell the story of his Irish Ancestry and of that historic trip to Moneygall on 05/23/11 (3 years this Friday).
We will also highlight the other 21 American Presidents with Irish ancestry and many more famous Irish Americans. It will be an Oasis on the M7 Motorway, only 1.5 hours from Dublin.
This centre will be free to visit and I have been tasked with getting memorabilia for the area.
I was wondering if any of The Obama Diary’s followers would like to send us anything connected with President Obama, his 1st election, inauguration and the subsequent election and inauguration, that we could put on display in the centre?
If people are willing to share badges, bumper stickers, newspapers, election posters, etc, we would be delighted.
We understand people would like to keep these items, but maybe if they had duplicates – eg two copies of the same newspaper or magazine – they might consider sending them to me.
(Note from Chips: Anyone who would like to send items to Henry, just email me at TheObamaDiary@gmail.com and I will give you his address)
We want this to be an exciting location with lots for people to see, so hopefully the dedicated The Obama Diary contributors and followers can send something to us for our exhibitions – and when you visit Moneygall, we will ensure you all receive the warmest of welcomes!
Kind Regards to everyone at The Obama Diary, and many thanks,
Henry
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President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet Henry Healy, the President’s distant cousin, after arriving in Moneygall, Ireland, May 23, 2011 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama greets the family of Make-a-Wish child Diego Diaz, not pictured, before their visit to the Oval Office, June 23, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Washington Post: President Obama will announce Tuesday in a speech at Georgetown University that he plans to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, according to individuals who have been briefed on the plan but asked not to be identified.
According to individuals familiar with the White House plan, who asked not to be identified since the president has yet to deliver his speech, Obama will couch the effort not only in terms of the nation’s domestic priorities, but as a way to meet the administration’s international pledge to reduce the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels.
What has Attorney General Eric Holder done lately? Oh…just this huge big freaking deal
US DOJ: The former chief executive officer of a Virginia-based security contracting firm was sentenced in the Eastern District of Virginia to 72 months in prison for creating a front company to obtain more than $31 million intended for disadvantaged small businesses and for bribing the former regional director for the National Capital Region of the Federal Protective Service (FPS) as part of the scheme. The front company obtained the contracts through the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Section 8(a) program, which allows qualified small businesses to receive sole-source and competitive-bid contracts set aside for minority-owned and disadvantaged small businesses. Keith Hedman used his expertise gleaned from decades as a government contractor to cheat the system and steal tens of millions from minority-owned small business owners,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Raman. “Today’s sentence shows that those who resort to deceit and bribery to secure federal contracts will be caught and held accountable.”
“Keith Hedman tried to game the system and take advantage of a government program designed to help minority-owned small businesses,” said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride. “He committed fraud, he undermined the trust of the U.S. government and this type of conduct will not be tolerated. My office is committed to prosecuting those who cheat the government to the fullest extent of the law.” Keith Hedman, 53, of Arlington, Va., was sentenced today after pleading guilty to major government fraud and conspiracy to commit bribery on March 13, 2013. Hedman was also ordered to forfeit approximately $6.1 million.
First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Cape Town Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa, June 23, 2011. Joining the First Lady are, from left: the First Lady’s niece Leslie Robinson, Malia Obama, Marian Robinson, the First Lady’s nephew Avery Robinson, and Sasha Obama. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
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It’s the weekend, so let the wonderful Henry Healy aka “Henry The Eighth” give you behind the scenes details of the week that was
First Lady Michelle Obama talks with young people at the U.S. Consulate meet and greet at the Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, June 23, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
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SmartyPants: There are those who are trying to cast Edward Snowden’s actions as civil disobedience. I suspect that this argument will be intensified now that he has been charged under the Espionage Act by the DOJ. There is some acceptance among his supporters that he has broken the law. But they want to claim the mantle of it being an “unjust law” that requires civil disobedience.
I’m sure there are legal cases to be made on both sides of this claim. But the fact that Snowden fled to Hong Kong to avoid the consequences of his law breaking – more than anything else – disqualifies him from claiming that mantle.
First Lady Michelle Obama, joined by Marian Robinson, Sasha Obama and Malia Obama, tours the District 6 Museum in Cape Town, South Africa, June 23, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
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Jennifer Medina: Granting any kind of access to health care for immigrants is becoming a focal point in the current Congressional debate, as many Republicans have said they would refuse to support change if it included providing care for immigrants who have been living in the country illegally. Representative Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, for instance, walked out of bipartisan negotiations in the House, arguing that illegal immigrants should be denied emergency room care and that unpaid medical bills should become a deportable offense.
But not in California, where there are an estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants. Here, public health officials, elected representatives and advocacy groups are going in the opposite direction, trying to cobble together ways to provide preventive care for such immigrants, who are expected to make up the largest share of the remaining uninsured once the state’s expanded Medicaid program takes full effect.
President Barack Obama listens as Vice President Joe Biden makes a point during a meeting with the Democratic leadership in the Oval Office, June 23, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Welcome to delusional grandeur, Mitt Romney style. Still shaking my head in disgust that he didn’t prepare a concession speech; only a victory speech. That’s hubris.
Rick Klein et al.,: Though Mitt Romney’s candidacy never turned into a presidency, there was a temporary Romney White House complete with a fully operational staff who were building the blueprints for the early days of a Romney administration months before the election that decided his defeat. In this special edition of Top Line, the chair of the Romney transition efforts, Gov. Mike Leavitt, R-Utah, takes us on a tour of the White House that never was—where he says the Romney transition team built “a federal government in miniature.”
“If you had walked down these halls in the day before the election, you would see the State Department, the Treasury Department, the Department of Defense,” Leavitt says, standing inside what was the former transition headquarters in Washington, D.C. “A whole series of executive orders had been written,” he says. “There were regulations that were being developed. There was a list of things we wanted to change. There was a checklist. It was a tick-tock, if you will, of things we wanted to see unfold in a very orderly way.”
President Barack Obama speaks to soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division during a visit to Fort Drum in New York, June 23, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Obama’s America, is wonderful indeed
Trudy Ring: Eric Fanning, undersecretary of the Air Force, became acting secretary of the branch Friday with the retirement of Michael Donley, making Fanning the highest-ranking LGBT person in the Department of Defense. “President Obama is yet to nominate Donley’s replacement, so Fanning should be serving in the dual roles for a while,” notes BuzzFeed.
The interim assignment makes Fanning the civilian head of the Air Force. The Senate confirmed him as undersecretary in April. Before that, he had been deputy undersecretary and deputy chief management officer for the Navy since 2009. His résumé also includes stints with communications firms, think tanks, and broadcast media, along with several political posts. He is a former Victory Fund board member and a donor to various LGBT causes.
“I left the Pentagon before the reelection [of President Clinton] and then didn’t come back until this administration when we had a president who said he was going to end it,” he told the Blade. “It was very difficult when we were getting to the end of the first two years and it wasn’t clear if we were going to be able to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ I didn’t know what I was going to do if we didn’t get the repeal through because some people couldn’t work because they were openly gay or lesbian.”
First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Dr. Mamphela Ramphele at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa, June 23, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
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President Barack Obama fist-bumps Make-a-Wish child Diego Diaz after reading a letter he wrote, during his visit in the Oval Office, June 23, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
I got to meet with the President yesterday and I wanted to share with you this drawing that I presented him with. It’s a pencil drawing of the president in front of his ancestral home and the White House. It was by Brian Fogarty a school teacher from Co Tipperary now living in Galway.
Kind Regards,
Henry Healy
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Henry with Brian
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This morning’s email:
Hi TOD,
I hope you are well. Remember the picture I sent you that I gave to the President in March? Well, the artist got a letter from the President thanking him for the portrait! I attach a copy of it for you and also a link to Brian’s Facebook page.
I got to meet with the President yesterday and I wanted to share with you this drawing that I presented him with. It’s a pencil drawing of the president in front of his ancestral home and the White House. It was by Brian Fogarty a school teacher from Co Tipperary now living in Galway.
Kind Regards,
Henry Healy
Thank you Henry – love that drawing, it’s beautiful.
(I asked Henry if his head hurt today, he said “it’s coming ’round” – so, good news!)
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Next up:
2:05 PM EDT President Obama and PM Netanyahu Hold a Press Conference
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CNN and CBS are showing a lot of live streaming from Israel today, so keep checking in
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ENORMOUS thanks to LovelyPlains for this morning’s Rise and Shine – it was just ** magnificent **
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Will be back a little later with photos and videos from Israel, just getting some work done – see ya then.
Henry Healy greets his eighth cousin, President Barack Obama, and First Lady Michelle Obama, after their arrival in Moneygall, Ireland, May 23, 2011 (Photo: Pete Souza)
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Whaddya mean it’s too early for a Rise and Shine?! It’s already St Patrick’s Day in Ireland! Catch up!
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A St Patrick’s Day word from Henry Healy:
Happy St Patrick’s Day from the Ancestral Home of President Obama.
Hi everyone, I wanted to share my St Patrick’s Day greetings with you all.
When I think back to the visit of the president to Moneygall and the amazing journey I have had from visiting last St Patrick’s Day and attending the inauguration this year I am eternally grateful.
As I go to the White House on Tuesday I will be thinking of the great people and experiences I have had and all of you here at TOD have been part of it.
I hope that those of you with Irish Heritage have a fantastic St Patrick’s Day and those of you without Irish Heritage put on the green and join in and celebrate with us.
At The Dubliner bar, Washington DC, March 17, 2012
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A St Patrick’s Day word from Canon Stephen Neill, the man who discovered President Obama’s Irish roots:
To all my friends at The Obama Diary, I want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy St. Patrick’s Day. We in Ireland are constantly amazed and encouraged by the warmth and hospitality extended to us as a nation by the people of the United States. President Obama has embraced this important relationship and the ongoing hospitality he affords to his Moneygall friends and relations is hugely appreciated. I had the privilege of a visit to the White House myself last month and was very grateful to members of the Obama administration who facilitated this for me at very short notice.
We in Moneygall are delighted that Henry Healy will once again be meeting the President at the official reception for St. Patrick’s day and look forward to perhaps another presidential visit to Moneygall during this second term of office. The visit in 2011 was a transformative experience for the people in this area and the fruits of that are still to be seen. It is a community that was energized and inspired by your President and the First Lady.
On this St. Patrick’s Day when people of all creeds and backgrounds in this land are united by a love of their country we pray that President Obama will find his Irish roots a source of blessing and inspiration as he too seeks to unite the people of the United States in that most important quest for the good and prosperity of all people. May God bless you all.
Reverend Canon Stephen Neill shows President Barack Obama his Irish ancestral records at Ollie Hayes’s Pub in Moneygall, County Offaly, Ireland, May 23, 2011 (Photo: Pete Souza)
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Endless thanks to Henry and Stephen for passing on their good wishes to everyone at TOD, they are two completely lovely gentlemen.
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Some day soon, I hope, I’ll find sufficient words to thank LovelyPlains, UTAustinLiberal, Amk and LiberalLibrarian for all they’ve done this week, but for now I’m struggling. Seriously, I don’t even know where to begin. All I can say to them is, thank you so much – you’re just amazingly kind people, and between you, you’ve kept this place going in my absence. And a couple of them had never posted on a blog before, but set about teaching themselves how do it while I disappeared. Needless to say, they are all welcome to post here any time they wish, I’m honored to have them contribute here and it’s a way better place for it.
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Embarrassingly, I still haven’t replied to a whole bunch of people who offered the kindest of words and/or offers to help with the blog – I am truly sorry, but I will try VERY hard to reply in the next day or two. Thank you, sincerely, for your support, it meant everything.
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Will catch up with you all in the next day or two, love ya.
I somehow missed this video from May 2012, but thanks to Meta saw it today – that’s our Ireland video (from 1:38), in President Obama’s Moneygall ancestral hooooooooooome!!!!!
…… looking out the window of Marine One as he departs the White House South Lawn en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., for a trip to Vermont, March 30
…… working on his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) with Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, in the Oval Office, Saturday, March 3
….. signing the prosthetic arm of Sgt. Carlos Evans, USMC, after greeting wounded warriors in the East Room during their tour of the White House, March 6
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host a Passover Seder Dinner for family, staff and friends, in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, April 6
….. visiting the Dubliner bar with Henry Healy and Ollie Hayes from Moneygall on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17
….. meeting with, from left: John Prendergast, activist and Enough Project co-founder; Ambassador Princeton N. Lyman, the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan; and George Clooney, in the Oval Office, March 15
….. with Prime Minister David Cameron and Samantha Cameron during a State Dinner reception on the Truman Balcony of the White House, March 14
….. listening as PM David Cameron offers a toast during the State Dinner on the South Lawn of the White House, March 14. Samantha Cameron is seated at right
…… with Clark Kellogg before an interview for the CBS “Final Four Show”, March 29
…… reflected in sunglasses as he greets people on the tarmac following his arrival at Portland International Jetport in Portland, Maine, March 30
….. boarding Air Force One in Roswell, N.M., March 21
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny came to Washington bearing a few special gifts for President Barack Obama.
Among them, an official certificate of Irish heritage. “These are rare, as rare as the man himself,” Kenny said, presenting the document to Obama at a White House reception.
The president, without missing a beat, said: “This will have a special place of honor, alongside my birth certificate.”
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First Lady Michelle Obama gestures as she pretends to pour a pint of beer alongside Fionnuala Kenny
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Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley performs with his Celtic rock band O’Malley’s March during a St. Patrick’s Day Reception at the White House
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President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, and others applaud as Enda Kenny, Taoiseach of Ireland, is introduced during a St. Patrick’s Day lunch at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., March 20, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama visits the Dubliner, an Irish pub in Washington, D.C., with his Irish cousin, Henry Healy, center, and Ollie Hayes, a pub owner in Moneygall, Ireland, on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama celebrates St. Patrick’s Day at the Dubliner Irish pub in Washington, March 17
Robert Shrum (The Week): The GOP’s desperate hunt for anyone but Mitt Romney – Herman Cain unravels. Rick Perry stumbles. And Republicans keep praying that someone will rescue them from the flip-flopping Romney.
… Maybe tea is a hallucinogen; maybe the GOP is demented – and it will nominate him (Cain) anyway. If that happened, it’s certain that President Obama would win by even more then he did in 2008.
….. He’s the latest in a procession of preposterous Republican candidates who have soared across the party’s firmament … The GOP’s primary voters have been relentlessly looking for Mr. Un-Romney…..
Alan Krueger (White House): Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to recover from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but the pace of improvement is not fast enough.
Private sector payrolls increased by 104,000, and overall payroll employment rose by 80,000 in October. The unemployment rate edged down 0.1 percentage point to 9.0 percent, a level that remains unacceptably high.
Despite adverse shocks that have created headwinds for economic growth, the economy has added private sector jobs for 20 straight months, for a total of 2.8 million jobs over that period. We need faster economic growth to put more Americans back to work. Today’s report provides further evidence for why it is so important that Congress pass the President’s American Jobs Act ….
Timothy Egan (NYT): For a Republican Party that has spent the better part of its presidential campaign proving that most of its candidates are not smarter than a fifth grader, the real scandal around frontrunner-of-the-moment Herman Cain is not what he knows. It’s what he doesn’t know.
…. China, said Cain with his clueless urgency, is “trying to develop nuclear capability.” Anyone who is gobsmacked by this category five level of ignorance concerning a country that has had nuclear weapons for more than 45 years has not been paying attention. Cain makes Sarah Palin, with her eagle-eyed view of Russia from Alaska, sound like a Council of Foreign Relations scholar on a gasbag high.
The clowns have finally taken over the circus, and I mean this with all due respect to those who labor with painted faces and oversized shoes…..
Steve Benen: On the Senate floor yesterday afternoon, Senate Republicans killed a popular jobs bill, despite the fact that a majority of senators supported the legislation. But the public’s understanding of what transpired will be shaped by the media’s coverage…..
…. CNN’s headline, at least online, read, “Competing infrastructure spending measures fail in Senate.” Here’s the lede: “In a pair of votes aimed more at making political points than law, the Senate rejected competing Democratic and Republican proposals to boost construction of roadways and other infrastructure projects.”….
Politico’s report was even worse. The headline read, “Senate gridlock: Both parties block jobs bills.” And check out the lede: “Rival Democratic and Republican jobs bills failed in the Senate on Thursday, the latest sign of the partisan gridlock gripping Washington…..”.
No, no, a thousand times, no. This just isn’t what happened…..
The Obama Diary 
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