Great explanation, thanks Willard!

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Cagle

‘The Personal Responsibility Principle’ (good job Willard!)

Mitt Romney first introducing the Individual Mandate at Heritage in Jan. 2006

Great comment on YouTube:

“So essentially a conservative idea coming from a right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is an innovative free-market solution to health care. But if a Democrat introduces the idea, it’s a “socialist government power grab”, haha. Man, I can’t wait until the debates with Obama and Romney on healthcare!”

So he agrees with the President?

evening all

At a campaign event at the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Fla

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Westin Diplomat Hotel, Hollywood, Florida

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Christopher Charles Tuck II, 7 years old of Westchester, New York, at at campaign event attended by President Obama in Hollywood, Florida

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People watch from the Westin Diplomat Hotel for President Obama to leave after a campaign event

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Members of the Secret Service keep watch along the beach front where President Obama was holding a campaign fundraising event in Golden Beach, Florida

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rise and shine

Marketwatch: The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs in February while hiring in January and December was revised up by a combined 61,000, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The unemployment rate remained at 8.3%, largely because more people entered the workforce in search of jobs.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast the U.S. would add 213,000 jobs last month, with the jobless rate holding steady at 8.3%.

Subtracting another decline in government jobs, the private sector boosted payrolls by 233,000.

….job gains for January were revised up to 284,000 from 243,000 – the biggest monthly increase since the recession ended – and December’s employment gains were revised up to 223,000 from 203,000. The past three months of full-time job growth is the fastest since early 2006

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Thanks desertflower

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First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Ernestina Mills, First Lady of Ghana, at the State Department in Washington, D.C., March 8. (Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)

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10:40: PBO departs the White House en route Joint Base Andrews

11:35: Arrives Richmond, Virginia

12:15: Tours Rolls-Royce Crosspointe

12:30: Delivers remarks at Rolls-Royce Crosspointe

2:40: Departs Richmond, Virginia en route Houston, Texas

3:40: Arrives Houston

4:50: Delivers remarks at a campaign event

6:50: Delivers remarks at a campaign event

8:10: Departs Houston

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ThinkProgress: Rush Limbaugh’s advertising exodus is deep into its second week, and despite the radio host’s claim that the impact of 50 companies pulling their business has been negligible, listeners in the nation’s largest media market were treated to over five minutes of radio silence where Limbaugh’s advertisers once stood today.

There were four separate instances during this afternoon’s broadcast on WABC 770 AM in New York City where the network fell silent. During the lead in to the show, two and a half minutes of silence was broken up by a single, solitary ad before Limbaugh hit the air.

More here

Thanks Loriah

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Thanks Tien Le!

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The Week

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Morning everyone – will catch up with the news a bit later.

evening all

Workers listen as Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at Gregory Industries in Canton, Ohio, March 5

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Latino Fox News (!!!): …. Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, showed a Fox News Latino poll released Monday.

…… 73% of Latino voters approved of Obama’s performance in office, with over half those questioned looking favorably upon his handling of the healthcare debate and the economy, at 66% and 58% respectively.

…. the poll shows Mitt Romney with 35% of Latino voter support, to Ron Paul’s 13%, Newt Gingrich’s 12%, and fRick Santorum’s 9%.

….. In head-to-head match-ups none of the GOP candidates would garner more than 14% of the Latino vote come November…

“This is what we’re seeing across the country,” said Gabriela Domenzain, Obama campaign spokesperson. “The more Latinos learn about the candidates, the more they reject them.”

More here

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TPM: On a day when the number of companies fleeing from Rush Limbaugh has snowballed, the conservative talk radio personality’s program is being immediately discontinued by a Hawaii-based station.  Chris Leonard, the President and General Manager of New West Broadcasting, announced today that Limbaugh’s program will no longer be broadcast on KPUA AM 670 in Hilo, HI.

More here

Thanks OZFan

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ThinkProgress

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Sign the petition here

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Media Matters

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Energy.gov: Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced that four new corporate partners – Best Buy, Johnson Controls, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Veolia – are joining the Energy Department’s National Clean Fleets Partnership, a broad public-private partnership that assists the nation’s largest fleet operators in reducing the amount of gasoline and diesel they use nationwide. The new partners announced today join with 14 other major national companies in committing to improve the fuel economy of the commercial fleets, integrate alternative technology vehicles like natural gas trucks and electric vehicles into their fleets, and reduce their overall fuel use.  Collectively, the National Clean Fleets Partners operate more than a million commercial vehicles nationwide, accounting for more than 12 percent of all commercial vehicles on American roads.

More here

Thanks Jovie

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The Hill: President Obama’s health law has eliminated lifetime coverage limits for 105 million Americans, the administration says in a new report released Monday.

The state-by-state report is part of the White House’s push to highlight popular provisions of the law ahead of its second anniversary later this month. Public opinion about the law remains split, but the administration hopes that its strategy will turn voters against Republicans’ plans to scrap the whole thing.

…. According to the report, 59 percent of workers covered by their employers and 89 percent of people with individual market plans had lifetime limits on their coverage in 2009. That translates to 70 million people in large employer plans, 25 million people in small employer plans and 10 million people with individually purchased health insurance.

More here

More at WhiteHouse.gov

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CNN: Republican party leaders may be surprised by the results of a new poll of institutional investors: A majority of them want Washington to fix the deficit the Obama way, with both spending cuts and tax hikes.

“They tend to be as a population more fiscally conservative than the general public, but they’re not as fiscally conservative as the most conservative elements of the Republican party,” said Brent McGoldrick, who coordinated the poll. “You see the pragmatism of investors coming through here.”

In fact, on this issue at least, the 56% who favor a mixed approach are largely aligned with President Obama.

More here

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Editorialcartoonists

The Week

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Steve Benen: A few months ago, Mitt Romney sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier, who asked the former governor about his support for a health care mandate. Romney, visibly agitated, repeatedly denied ever advocating a national mandate policy.

When Baier reminded Romney, “Governor you did say on camera and other places that, at times, you thought it would be a model for the nation,” the Republican presidential hopeful got even angrier, snapping back, “You’re wrong, Bret.”

Actually, you’re right, Bret:

More here

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Editorialcartoonists

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From White House press secretary Jay Carney: “In May, the United States looks forward to hosting the G-8 and NATO Summits. To facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G-8 partners, the President is inviting his fellow G-8 leaders to Camp David on May 18-19 for the G-8 Summit, which will address a broad range of economic, political and security issues.”

“The President will then welcome NATO allies and partners to his hometown of Chicago for the NATO Summit on May 20-21, which will be the premier opportunity this year for the President to continue his efforts to strengthen NATO in order to ensure that the Atlantic Alliance remains the most successful alliance in history, while charting the way forward in Afghanistan.”

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Fox4KC

kctv5

Thanks CTGirl

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will host the 2012 International Women of Courage Awards Ceremony with special guest First Lady Michelle Obama on Thursday, March 8. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer and other U.S. and foreign dignitaries will also participate. Special guests this year include Ms. Leymah Gbowee and Ms. Tawakkol Karman, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. The event will be held at approximately 11:00 a.m. in the Dean Acheson Auditorium of the U.S. Department of State.

More here

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Coming up:

Tuesday:

1:15: PBO holds a news conference

5:30: PBO attends a campaign event at The Jefferson Hotel in Washington

7:10: PBO meets with members of the Business Roundtable at the Newseum

Wednesday: PBO will travel to Daimler Trucks Manufacturing Plant in Mt. Holly, North Carolina, to deliver remarks on the economy

Thursday: PBO will host President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana for a meeting in the Oval Office

Friday: PBO will travel to Prince George County, Virginia, to deliver remarks on the economy. Later, the President will travel to Houston, Texas to attend campaign events

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support

CBS: The nation’s largest physician’s group has affirmed its support for a key part of President Obama’s health care overhaul.

At its annual meeting in Chicago, the American Medical Association (AMA) voted to maintain its official position in favor of the “individual mandate,” which requires nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance. The AMA prefers the term “individual responsibility.”

“The AMA has strong policy in support of covering the uninsured, and we have renewed our commitment to achieving this through individual responsibility for health insurance with assistance for those who need it,” Dr. Cecil Wilson, president of the AMA, said in a statement. “The AMA’s policy supporting individual responsibility has bipartisan roots, helps Americans get the care they need when they need it and ends cost shifting from those who are uninsured to those who are insured.”

The decision was made by some 500 members of the House of Delegates, which sets policy for the AMA. The vote followed intense discussions, according to delegates who took part.

More here

Thank you Proud

oh dear, oh dear….

Steve Benen: Jon Huntsman certainly isn’t the only Republican presidential candidate who supported an individual health care mandate. He is, apparently, the only one who persists in fudging the truth about it.

Two weeks ago, Huntsman and his team assured reporters that the former governor did not back a mandate as part of his reform package in Utah, adding that Huntsman’s record on health care reform stands in stark contrast to the measures backed by President Obama and Mitt Romney.

There’s ample evidence that Huntsman just wasn’t telling the truth, and that as governor, he threw his support to a reform package that included a mandate. Today, a conservative blog moves the ball forward with a video clip from 2007.

Full post here

Verum Serum: In light of this clip, you have to love the headline from the Salt Lake Tribune piece (May 23): “Huntsman considered health care mandate for Utah, some say”. Some? I have to say it really was not that difficult to dig up this clip and there was even a reporter from the Tribune at the press conference. Is it really too much to expect local media to look through their own archives and report accurately on questions of national significance like this? It seems to me that Huntsman’s support for the mandate would have been common knowledge amongst the reporters assigned to cover the governor in this timeframe, and I suspect this wasn’t the only time he was questioned about this.

Full post here

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I see Huntsman has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (where else?) and he’s worried about America becoming a “declining power”. He doesn’t mention the President once, though – but then, he’s a “remarkable leader”, isn’t he? 😉

MSNBC (April 2011)

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PM Carpenter: For Huntsman, a new low – This is pathetic. Just pathetic. More evidence that no low is too unthinkably low when it comes to “getting right” with 2012’s increasingly isolated pseudoconservatives.

….”the two living Republicans” the congenitally moderate Jon Huntsman says he “most admires” are – ready ? – Paul Ryan and Mike Huckabee….

Mr. Ambassador, by selling your soul now you’re only creating your own demons for 2016; they’ll come back to haunt you at the most inopportune time – that is, when the GOP has rendered the likes of Ryan-Huckabee scurrility to the flaky, untouchable margins of third-party Tea Partyism.

Full post here

Thanks Betsey

thanks mitt!

CBS: … Mitt Romney jumped into the 2012 presidential race today with a video that reminds voters of one of his greatest strengths as a candidate: his economic credentials. Democrats, meanwhile, are busy reminding voters of one of his biggest weaknesses as a candidate in the Republican presidential primary: his association with health care reform.

Democratic officials in key primary states are holding “celebrations” this week to mark the fifth-year anniversary of the health care plan Romney implemented in Massachusetts.

The White House has said the nation has Romney to thank for inspiring the president’s health care overhaul…so it was clearly tongue-in-cheek when the New Hampshire Democratic Party announced that tomorrow, politicians and health care advocates will hold an event to “thank Romney for providing the critical momentum necessary to get President Obama’s vision of health reform through Congress and signed into law”.

“Mitt Romney is nothing short of a founding father of modern health reform,” reads a press release from the state party, “a person who has left an indelible mark on Massachusetts’ health care reform as well as the national health reform law and its major elements, including the individual responsibility provision which is critical to making the law work and lowering costs for all who enter the system.”

…The Tuesday event in Concord will feature over-sized thank you card as well a birthday cake to mark the anniversary of Romney’s plan… Democrats in Iowa are holding a similar event at a children’s furniture and accessories shop called Simply for Giggles….

…The DNC says on its blog that other states are holding their own events to mark the anniversary of Romney’s plan. It says the Massachusetts reforms “helped blaze a trail for progressive reform” and points out that Romney stood by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, a liberal icon, as he signed the state reforms into law.

The DNC is encouraging its supporters to tweet, “Thanks @mittromney, founding father of health care reform, on its 5th bday! B/c of you, nat’l health care reform is a reality! #fitn #TYMitt.”