beep beep beep

President Barack Obama talks to Secret Service Uniformed Division officers as he walks through the magnetometer in the Northwest Gatehouse at the White House, following his visit to Blair House, Dec. 9. The President told a reporter as he exited the gatehouse, “I just wanted to see what it was like getting in here.” (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Pool report: Pool was out of earshot during the president’s two or three minute visit to the gate house but (radio talk show host) Bill Press was at the stakeout spot and generously passes along some color.

Obama: “I just wanted to see what it was like getting in here.”

Bill Press: “Not so easy, is it?”

Obama, patting his pockets, as if for keys or phone: “I think I beeped a couple of times.”

Afterward, Bill talked to agents:

Potus shook hands all around. Talked football, said he was Chicago Bears fan. Wanted to know how entry worked. Went through metal detector. Set it off. Guard told him he’d probably left cellphone in pocket.

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Tomorrow:

2:05 The President departs the White House en route to Landover, Md.

2:15 Arrives Landover

2:30 Attends Army v Navy game with VP Biden and Jill Biden

5:25 Departs Landover

5:35 Arrives White House

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A Statement by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

Plan B One-Step is an emergency contraceptive, sometimes referred to as the “morning after pill.” Plan B One-Step is currently labeled over the counter to women ages 17 years and older, but is sold behind the pharmacy counter. It is available by prescription only to women 16 years and younger. My decision does not change any current availability of the drug for all women.

In February 2011, Teva Women’s Health Inc. submitted to the FDA a supplemental new drug application for Plan B One-Step. This application sought to make Plan B One-Step available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age. The science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use. However, the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use.

Full statement here

Thanks Meta

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Keith Humphreys (Washington Monthly): African-American Liberals Know How to Love Their President

Jonathan Chait’s much-discussed essay in New York magazine indicted the left for being perennially, loudly and unrealistically disappointed in Democratic Presidents. In Chait’s view, much of the left ignores the constraints on Presidential power (e.g., Congress, of which Drew Westen et al seem to be in ignorance) and doesn’t have the stomach or attention span for the slow, daily grind of governance. He also charges the left with crippling their own leaders with faithlessness and then blaming them when they are thereby forced to compromise with the other side. Chait sees these patterns as almost entirely independent of Obama, being instead a style, outlook and set of norms among liberals that goes back for decades….

All of this is true of a certain type of liberal in the U.S., but I wish Chait and Kristof had taken the time to exempt from criticism the most stalwart segment of liberal America: African-Americans. Perpetually indignant white liberals could learn a lot from them.

…. I cringe at the white, alleged liberals who call on Obama to acknowledge that his is a failed presidency. They want the first Black President in history to, effectively, announce that he is a bumbling affirmative action baby, apologize for being so uppity as to have ever assumed otherwise and resign in disgrace so that Hillary Clinton or some other qualified (i.e. white) person can lead the party…..

But all that said, my own question of why Blacks so love Obama elides the broader reality evidenced by their very high approval ratings of a white Democratic President, Bill Clinton. Blacks have a special place in the hearts for Barack Obama, but fundamentally, if you are a Democratic President, Black people in this country have your back…..

Read full post here

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Business Insider: When President Obama makes his pitch to voters next year on why they should elect him to a second term, he’ll likely point to some version of this chart.

What the chart shows is that Obama inherited a bum economy but that, under his watch, things have begun to turn around. In the past year, the unemployment rate has dropped a full percentage point amid improving job growth….

More here

Thank you eveingeorgia

woot! (and other news)

Keith Humphreys (Washington Monthly): …. the Obamas have a magic about them as a couple to which most people respond positively. If you go to any event where the Obamas are standing next to each other, turn around and look at the crowd and you will see many people – especially women – smiling.

…. Last week a friend and I were reminiscing about a White House holiday party that we both attended. My friend jumped up from his chair and asked “Did you notice how differently he stands when Michelle is next to him? He then mimicked the President perfectly, standing stiffly and intoning “Here I am the boring, aloof, professor alone at the lectern”. Then, shifting his feet as if he were mid-strut, throwing back his shoulders and smiling broadly he said “And here I am with this incredibly fabulous babe that I got to marry me – oh yeah!”.

That’s the truth of it. When the President is with his wife, his humanity comes out in a way that it often does not in other circumstances. The facade of the distant academic cracks open, revealing that skinny, accessible and idealistic young man who is still happily ensorcelled by his brilliant companion. And at that moment, many people in our cynical, brutal and heartless electoral process pause for a moment and remember that Barack Obama is a human being, and they like him.

Full post here

More photos in post from earlier today – here

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The Hill: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he will schedule a vote to proceed to a $35 billion jobs bill on Friday. “We’re going to make sure there’s a vote on our bill this week,” Reid said.

The $35 billion measure would direct federal funds to states to prevent layoffs of teachers, police officers and firefighters.

Democrats estimate the legislation will save or create 400,000 jobs. Most of the funding, $30 billion, would go to teachers. First responders would get $5 billion.

It would be paid for by a 0.5 percent tax increase on income over $1 million.

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A photo and poster of President Barack Obama hang on a door as Obama 2012 campaign volunteer Daniel Hertlein exits following the grand opening of the Georgia Democratic Party’s new headquarters, Oct. 19, in Atlanta. Democratic National Committee chairwoman and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz says her party isn’t conceding any corner of the country in the 2012 presidential election. She says there is a growing groundswell of Democratic momentum in the state and region, bolstered by the area’s changing demographics.

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Was ‘Dick’ Halperin’s Time Page hacked today by an impartial reporter – or does even he realize his relentless negative reporting on the President has become a little embarrassing?

Presumably he’ll be back to normal soon.

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President Obama, on his return to the White House from his tour of North Carolina and Virginia, tells members of the media that the pumpkins he bought will be driven to Washington

President Obama opens a door to the West Wing for National Security Council Senior Director for Europe Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall after returning to the White House

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Here’s the woot!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, you very, very kind people – that figure is, well, crazy!

I know these are seriously tough times for so many of you, so I honestly do hate asking, but if you’re able, could you help me celebrate by contributing $5, or whatever you can, to The Obama Diary Obama/Biden 2012 fundraising page at OFA (here)? Whenever you can. Thanks everyone.

The Drive for Five!

The incomparable Donna Dem will always be TOD’s fundraising Queen, and in future I’ll use her OFA page for our fundraising drives, this is just to celebrate that 5 million.

Thanks again everyone for your support and company, love ya.

‘the professional left and the big sam president’

Blue Virginia: …. Keith Olbermann …. whose resurrected show Countdown is an echo chamber of one-sided thought with no room for debate and no tolerance for any divergence of opinion ….. ended his first program on the Current TV network with some singularly unsolicited instructions (not advice, but instructions, mind you) of what exactly the President should do regarding Afghanistan.

…I was born during Eisenhower’s first Administration. I barely remember Kennedy, and came of age during Nixon and Watergate. In all that time, I can never remember any President previously getting so much unsolicited advice from all quarters, nor can I ever remember any President receiving such hateful and spiteful gratuitous criticism and petulant behaviour from people who are supposed to be from his side of the political equation.

Before every major statement or speech, up pop various and sundry professionally Leftish talking heads, first, to tell us all what the President SHOULD say in his address; then after the speech, itself, they inhabit our screens, the very embodiment of moral and righteous consternation, to tell us why and how the President is wrong, what he should have said and, just basically, what a very bad, weak and naughty boy he has been. The boy bit is never openly stated, but it is just as much implied as if Joe Wilson, himself, had been issuing the criticism.

….From Olbermann and his crony, Michael Moore, on down, we’re presented with a series of armchair quarterbacks, who would always do a better job than this President…

… what’s so infuriating to Keith (and to Miss Jane and Marse Cenk and Miss Joan and all the rest) is the fact that, damn it, this President SHOULD be awfully sorry that he hasn’t done anything they reckon he’s said he’d do but carries on doing what he thinks is best and isn’t sorry at all. In fact, on occasion, he’s been damned uppity towards them …

Read the full post here

Thank you Tracy

:-)

commie denies waterboarding worked! oh, wait….

Keith Olbermann: The GOP spin machine, caught with its Abu Ghraib pants down, has come up with only two rickety memes with which to pull itself out of the deep end of the political pool. The first was the simplest: “Obama merely finished what Bush began.”

But the second was a little more robust: The Peter King (R-Stupidity) claim mirrored by a tweeter who asked me: “how does it feel knowing Bin Laden courier was discovered under Bush admin & info was obtained in Gitmo?”

King: “We obtained that information through waterboarding. So for those who say that waterboarding doesn’t work, who say it should be stopped and never used again, we got vital information, which directly led us to Bin Laden.”

Two problems with that. There is the unfortunate realization that if this information truly germinated during the Bush Administration, and truly came from waterboarding, that means The Bush Administration Had A Direct Link To Bin Laden Eight Years Ago And Either Didn’t Know It Or Didn’t Bother To Figure It Out.

Oops.

Wait, it gets worse. Guess who’s out tonight denying that waterboarding, or even “harsh treatment” led to the info that led to Bin Laden?

“It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”

That was said by Don Rumsfeld.

I’ll stop writing now so you can spend a few minutes laughing through your mouth, nose, ears, feet, and eyeballs.

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I don’t often (ever?) quote Olbermann, but this was utterly irresistible 😉

flashback …. 1991

October, 2008

Thank you ‘theboysisters’ 😉

damn you, peter king

Full video here:

Rep. Keith Ellison’s emotional ending at Peter King’s Committee Hearings on Radicalization Among American Muslims.

wow, what happened?

The Guardian: Keith Olbermann, the liberal, outspoken anchor of MSNBC’s Countdown show, had his contract dramatically terminated by the US cable new network’s parent company NBC on Friday night.

Abruptly announcing that the current show would be his last, Olbermann calmly read aloud an extract by James Thurber before signing off with the words: “Good night and good luck.”

While Olbermann was live on-air, NBC issued a statement reading:

MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of Countdown with Keith Olbermann will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.
Bizarrely, nearly half an hour later during an ad break in the following programme, MSNBC showed a station promo featuring Olbermann. But the promo was interrupted halfway through by a mattress advertisment.

‘climate of hate’

Paul Krugman: ….I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008 campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again….

…It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate….

…Where’s the toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

….efforts by mildly liberal presidents to expand health coverage are met with cries of tyranny and talk of armed resistance. Still, that’s what happens whenever a Democrat occupies the White House, and there’s a market for anyone willing to stoke that anger … but even if hate is what many want to hear, that doesn’t excuse those who pander to that desire. They should be shunned by all decent people…..

Full article here

‘gabrielle giffords is the victim of a debased political culture’

Jonathan Raban (UK Independent): One could be shocked, but hardly surprised, by the news on Saturday … it was an event that seemed to grow out of America’s present disturbed and angry climate, like a killer-tornado or hurricane: awful, yes, but part of the weather, and, in some sense, only to be expected.

….an ad published last March by Sarah Palin’s political action committee … showed a map of the United States, dotted with 20 vulnerable Democratic seats in Congress, each identified by cross-hairs in a gunsight. Giffords’ seat was one of these. The legend above the map read: “We’ve diagnosed the problem… Help us prescribe the solution.”

….it would be absurd now to claim that the proposed “solution” was death by assassination … but Gabrielle Giffords made great sense when, in March 2010, she discussed the Palin map with a TV interviewer, saying: “Sarah Palin has the cross-hairs of a gunsight over our district – and when people do that, they’ve got to realise there are consequences to that action.”

In the martial atmosphere of an election year (and in a country where four sitting presidents have been assassinated, and many more have survived serious attempts on their lives), extravagant figures of speech can all too easily become literal, and rhetorical guns turn into real ones.

In November last year, Giffords was narrowly re-elected against a Tea Party Republican named Jesse Kelly who… conducted his political campaign in the language of warfare. …. “Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automated M-16 with Jesse Kelly.”

Kelly’s campaign website closed down some time after noon on Saturday, and was replaced with a message of sympathy for Gabrielle Giffords … before the site closed, I caught his November thanks to the “thousands of warriors who fought with me in this campaign”.

….voters became “warriors” … but the word also exactly reflects the Tea Party mindset: this is war. Or, as Sarah Palin put it in a Tweet last year: “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: ‘Don’t retreat – instead RELOAD!’…..

….The Tucson shootings can’t be blamed on Palin, Kelly, or the Tea Party: all three are more or less typical inhabitants of the debased, exaggerated and vitriolic language that now dominates American public discourse. Keith Olbermann, on the liberal left, speaks it as fluently as do Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right….

….There is a chance, if rather a slim one, that the Tucson massacre will make both politicians and commentators draw back and reconsider their terms. Politics is not warfare. The Democratic party is not a colonialist tyranny. Obama is not George III. To live in a slew of overheated metaphors, in language vastly disproportionate to the occasion, is to invite and license the kind of atrocity that happened the day before yesterday.

Read the full article here

(Is it fair for the writer to lump Olbermann in with Limbaugh and Beck? Yes, he is of course hugely partisan, but does he use hate speech??)