Rise and Shine

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Today:

10:45 President Obama will call on Congress to avert the automatic spending cuts coming next week

3:30: VP Biden participates in a Facebook Town Hall on gun violence

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President Obama returning to the White House, Feb 18

USA Today: President Obama will urge congressional Republicans to avoid automatic budget cuts next month by appearing Tuesday with a group of emergency responders who might have to absorb some of those cuts.

The group of emergency responders who will stand beside Obama at 10:45 a.m. are “the kinds of working Americans whose jobs are on the line if Congressional Republicans fail to compromise on a balanced solution,” said an addition to the White House schedule.

More here

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Michael Tomasky: Whose “idea” was the sequester, and why should it matter? My Twitter feed these last couple of weeks has been overflowing with people going beyond the usual “communist” and “idiot” name-calling that I get every day and throwing the occasional “liar” in there because I “withhold” the information that the sequester was the Obama administration’s idea. Very well, consider that nugget hereby unwithheld. Let’s grant that this is true. But it’s true only because the Republicans were holding a gun to the administration’s head—and besides, the Republicans immediately voted for it. In any case the important thing now is that outside of Fox News land, it’s an unimportant fact whose “idea” it was. The Republicans are partial owners of this idea, and as the party that now wants the cuts to kick in, they deserve to – and will – bear more responsibility for the negative impacts.

Full post here

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Steve Benen: Over the weekend, USA Today published the leaked blueprint of the White House’s comprehensive immigration reform plan, built around an eight-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), demonstrating the kind of devotion to serious policymaking we’ve come to expect over his brief career, immediately condemned the unfinished plan he had not yet seen.

Full post here

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Deaniac (The People’s View): So, after USA Today reported on a White House draft legislation on immigration reform – something the president has always said he would do in the event Congress follows its usual path of doing nothing – Republicans began melting down faster than wax in a lit candle. Suddenly after months of complaining that the president won’t put his own plan out to deal with the debt, Republicans are seething that the president has his own plan on immigration.

Sen. Hydration, I mean Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida accused the White House proposal of following some sort of failed path even though he wouldn’t say just what in the White House draft he disagreed with……

Full post here

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Comment on YouTube by ‘Jack194343’: Before Mississippi could ratify the amendment, they had to learn how to read the amendment. That only took 147 years. Wait until they discover addition. That will knock their socks off. Imagine, not having to count by their fingers. What a leap forward that will be. But first, they have to learn to count to ten, so they know how many fingers they have. First things first, you know.

😯

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Join Organizing for Action’s Stephanie Cutter and other supporters online at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time this Wednesday for a policy briefing on gun violence prevention – see here

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The First Lady will be on the Rachael Ray Show tomorrow

Rev Al cracked me up at the end!

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MoooOOoooOOOoorning!

“the poor need to share some of the responsibility”

The Hill: Democrats seized Thursday on remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in which he appeared to suggest the poor should have a greater responsibility to contribute to government coffers.

Hatch, during a speech Wednesday on the Senate floor, seemed to say that the poor could do more to address the deficit.

….The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) pounced on Hatch, who faces a potentially difficult reelection next fall, as well as a possibly difficult primary challenge.

“Republican priorities are completely out of whack, and Orrin Hatch’s comments prove that point,” DSCC spokesman Shripal Shah said. “It’s bad enough that Republicans are doing everything they can to protect tax breaks for millionaires and special interests, but the fact that the Republican idea of shared sacrifice means going after the those who are struggling the most is completely reprehensible.”

DSCC

meet mr bachmann

Think Progress: When trying to figure out where presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gets her stringent, anti-gay views, you only have to look as far as her husband. Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who has described himself as his wife’s “strategist,” runs a Christian-based counseling center in Minnesota that has been rumored to offer reparative treatment for those looking to “ungay” themselves….

….After seeing her husband’s virulent remarks, it’s no surprise then that Michele Bachmann has fiercely disparaged the gay community and has announced she’s in favor of an anti-gay marriage amendment on the campaign trail. What’s the most terrifying isn’t what Dr. Bachmann said, but the threat that the United States could elect a president who believes that homosexuality can be disciplined out of someone.

More here and more at Raw Story

Thank you Claire and Loriah