This and That

****
1:40: President Obama delivers remarks at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials’ Annual Conference, Orlando (coverage of the conference has started – CNN live streaming)

4:15: Delivers remarks at a campaign event, Tampa

****

Thank you Desertflower!

****

Actress Jane Lynch (2nd L) at the White House from where President Obama was departing for a trip to Florida

…. leaving for Florida

****

I’m sure most of you have read it by now, but for anyone who didn’t – don’t miss:

Washington Post

****

Charles Pierce: This vast new Washington Post report about how Willard Romney and his money-chewing friends got really wealthy by investing in companies dedicated to shipping American jobs overseas is yet one more reason why the Obama campaign really shouldn’t have slacked off from tearing into Romney’s career at Bain Capital just because Cory Booker, and Ed Rendell, and Bill Clinton got nervous about it. It also should set off another spate of really remarkable lying from the Republican candidate over the next few days…..

…. Willard Romney: friend of the working man. In Shanghai.

Of course, the Post felt itself obligated to include the now-mandatory non sequitur disclaimer about the magic of the global economy……. American business stopped caring about the political entity that is the United States of America a very long time ago … Now, we have a presidential candidate who is a perfect product of that new transnational economic system. Willard Romney could be — hell, should be — the vehicle through whom we pass judgment on all of it.

Full post here

****

Cagle

****

Cagle

She’s in….

****

****

****

At least Willard was honest today …. about what advice voters are giving him:

…. and look how the voters packed the beach and parking lot for his appearance in Holland, Michigan today:

“I think this is one of his Etch-a-Sketch moments”

****

coming up…..

6:0 CNN live streaming

6:30 C-Span

****

Chat away 😉

rain or shine….

😉

okay, this cracked me up….

Link

What? You want to see it again? Okay:

****

This is hilarious, over 500,000 hits in 15 hours!

****

This left me weepin’! Thanks Halo:

****

PS Crooner-in-Chief:

And, err…….

let’s stay together …. in 2012 ;-)

Apollo Theatre, New York, January 19

gold

Let’s do it again 😉

****

Memory Lane….

****

Win With Women

Thanks GGail

****

Not an actual Huffy Post headline ….. but give them another day 😉

so, they’re saying christie will (possibly maybe) run?

First ad of the 2012 campaign?

oh boy….

Washington Post: …. Rick Perry, whose bid for the White House depends heavily on support from religious conservatives, finds himself confronting an issue that is a flash point for that part of his base: his attempt to order schoolgirls to take a vaccine that would protect them against a sexually transmitted virus.

The uproar over the Gardasil vaccine – manufactured by Merck, a major Perry campaign donor – knocked the candidate off-stride during a Republican debate Monday night ….

Perry bristled at accusations from Michele Bachmann that he had pushed the vaccine in 2007 at the bidding of Merck, a Perry donor that also employed a former aide to the governor as a lobbyist.

“It was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them,” Perry said. “I raise about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

But campaign disclosure records portray a much deeper financial connection with Merck than Perry’s remarks suggest.

His gubernatorial campaigns, for example, have received nearly $30,000 from the drugmaker since 2000, most of that before he issued his vaccine mandate, which was overturned by the Texas legislature.

Merck and its subsidiaries have also given more than $380,000 to the Republican Governors Association (RGA) since 2006, the year that Perry began to play a prominent role in the Washington-based group…

Perry served as chairman of the RGA in 2008 and again this year, until he decided to run for president. The group also ranks among the governor’s biggest donors, giving his campaign at least $4 million over the past five years….

…. One of Perry’s closest confidantes, his former chief of staff Mike Toomey, was then working as an Austin-based lobbyist for Merck, which was in the midst of a multimillion-dollar campaign to persuade states to make the vaccine mandatory.

Toomey, who has declined requests for comment, has since helped found Make Us Great Again, a pro-Perry super PAC that can accept unlimited donations from corporations and wealthy donors. The group plans to raise as much as $55 million to help Perry compete for the GOP nomination, according to media reports.

Full article here