For my final episode of The #MichelleObamaPodcast, I brought on my wonderful mother and brother @CraigMalRob to tal… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
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Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) September 16, 2020Posts Tagged ‘parenthood
07
Oct
20
The Robinsons
29
Mar
18
Chat Away
How Barack Obama Was The Epitome Of The Ideal Parental Figure blavity.com/how-barack-oba… via @blavity
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Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) March 28, 201801
Aug
13
Rise and Shine
President Obama talks with Coach Geno Auriemma in the Blue Room of the White House prior to an event to honor the NCAA Champion University of Connecticut Huskies and their 2013 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, July 31 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Today (All Times Eastern):
12:30: Jay Carney briefs the press
2:15: President Obama meets with a group of bipartisan members of Congress
3:45: President Obama holds a bilateral meeting with President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi of the Republic of Yemen
5:55: Hosts a reception for the 50th Anniversary of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law
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Jason Linkins: What If Ron Fournier Can’t Read (great response to Fournier’s BS)
Suffice it to say, Ron Fournier is wrong and I am right. Also, Greg Sargent is right,Brendan Nyhan is right, John Sides is right, Jonathan Bernstein is right, and historian George Edwards is right. If you are harboring a belief that former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used “fireside chats” to overcome political opposition, you are not remembering that correctly. It’s very pretty to think that, but you’re wrong. And that will just as true tomorrow as it is today, full stop.
Fournier, in his most recent attempt, titled “What If Obama Can’t Lead?,” seems to be rather upset at being accused of supporting what Sargent calls the “Green Lantern Theory” of presidential power. He simply believes that “great presidents overcome great hurdles,” and that’s that. Once you’ve established “greatness,” then all hurdles are defeated. If hurdles remain, then you’ve not established “greatness,” no matter how many hurdles you’ve previously overcome. (And to be sure, Obama has overcome quite a number of those.) I’m afraid that Fournier doesn’t have much of a clue as to the process by which these obstacles are surmounted. And he’s opted to simply pant with extreme impatience, rather than undertaking an exploration as to how this process works. He proceeds from the premise that at one point in history, there were presidents, and at other points in history, stuff happened that was possibly attributable to those presidents. Rather than taking a searching inventory of the relevant history or undertaking an effort to understand the political science, he attributes the fact that “Presidents did stuff” to a hazy concept called “leadership” and proceeds to conclude that if a president isn’t successfully “doing some stuff” then that president “can’t lead.”
More here
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Republican IRS Hearing Fails To Deliver On Claims Of White House Link
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Tara Culp-Ressler: The First State That Tried To Defund Planned Parenthood Is Officially Giving Up
After a legal battle that has stretched over the course of two years, the state of Indiana has agreed to put an end to its efforts to strip Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood clinics. Indiana was the first state that attempted to target the national women’s health organization by blocking it from receiving state-level Medicaid dollars for the services it provides to low-income women.
In 2011, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) signed a law to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving any Medicaid funding simply because it is an abortion provider — even though that money actually funds general health screenings for thousands of low-income women, not abortions. But those efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Multiple courts have determined that states aren’t allowed to discriminate against qualified Medicaid providers simply because of their stance on abortion rights, saying that low-income women deserve the freedom to choose their own doctors.
More here
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James Fallows: A False Equivalence Classic
The 44th president, like his 43 predecessors, believes that the United States should honor its sovereign debt, as part of maintaining the “full faith and credit of the United States.” He also believes that the policy on government spending first applied under George Washington and in force since then should still be the policy now: once Congress has voted programs or benefits into law, then the government is legally and morally obligated to carry out those programs, until and unless they are repealed.*
To which the other “side” to the dispute replies: Who cares! We don’t like you or your programs, and to prove it we’re willing to risk a default on the national debt. What’s going on now is more like the 1970s-era hijackers Brendan Koerner describes in his recent book, who would threaten to blow up the plane unless they got the ride to Cuba they wanted. Or, if you want a less violent analogy, it’s like me walking into a restaurant, ordering and enjoying a meal, and then when I finished just tearing up the check and saying that I was “digging in my heels” about whether I should pay.
More here
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The Amazon Kindle Singles interview with President Obama on #ABetterBargain is available now for free: OFA.BO/Nb7usv #ObamaNooga
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Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 31, 2013****
Greg Sargent: Ostrich Punditry Refuses To reckon With Reality Of Today’s GOP (another fantastic rebuttal to Fournier’s BS)
Now that President Obama has proposed tax reform that would lower corporate tax rates and provide for new stimulus spending — which Republicans have flatly rejected — it has renewed the seemingly endless, intractable debate over the causes of gridlock and failure to compromise in Washington. There is no prominent commentator who is more determined to blame both sides for what is happening than Ron Fournier, so his latest explanation for what ails us is worth a response.
I will never be able to think about an ostrich without picturing @Ron_Fournier. Great read by @ThePlumLineGS washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-lin…
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Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) August 01, 2013Advice such as this seems deliberately designed to be impossible to meet. Whatever Obama does, the pundit can simply respond with, “not enough; do more of it, or do it more effectively.” After all, Obama is already doing some of the things Fournier wants him to do: He is holding discussions with GOP lawmakers in hopes of enticing them to break away from the leadership/Tea Party alliance’s hostility to compromise on the budget, infrastructure spending, and other matters.
If anything, it’s punditry such as Fournier’s that constitutes a surrender of sorts. It’s not enough to claim Obama’s legacy will inevitably seen as a failure to overcome GOP intransigence (should that happen), because history isn’t fair. The question is, shouldthat be the case, and would blaming Obama for failing to overcome it be a reasonable and accurate assessment?
More here
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In one trillion years the universe will be reduced to a state of zero thermodynamic energy without light or heat. Nice job, Obama.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) July 30, 2013
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President Barack Obama disembarks Air Force One upon his arrival at Mansfield Air National Guard Base in Mansfield, Ohio, Aug. 1, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Barack Obama samples fudge offered by Squirrel’s Den fudge shop owner LaDonna Secrist, left, during a stop in Mansfield, Ohio, Aug. 1, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Have A Michelleriffic Day! 😀
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26
Apr
13
Chat Away
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Chicago, February 15:
“… we’ve got to rebuild ladders of opportunity for everybody willing to climb them.
Now, that starts at home. There’s no more important ingredient for success, nothing that would be more important for us reducing violence than strong, stable families – which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood. Don’t get me wrong – as the son of a single mom, who gave everything she had to raise me with the help of my grandparents, I turned out okay …. we’ve got single moms out here, they’re heroic in what they’re doing and we are so proud of them. But at the same time, I wish I had had a father who was around and involved. Loving, supportive parents – and, by the way, that’s all kinds of parents – that includes foster parents, and that includes grandparents, and extended families; it includes gay or straight parents.
Those parents supporting kids – that’s the single most important thing. Unconditional love for your child – that makes a difference. If a child grows up with parents who have work, and have some education, and can be role models, and can teach integrity and responsibility, and discipline and delayed gratification – all those things give a child the kind of foundation that allows them to say, my future, I can make it what I want. And we’ve got to make sure that every child has that, and in some cases, we may have to fill the gap and the void if children don’t have that.
So we should encourage marriage by removing the financial disincentives for couples who love one another but may find it financially disadvantageous if they get married. We should reform our child support laws to get more men working and engaged with their children. And my administration will continue to work with the faith community and the private sector this year on a campaign to encourage strong parenting and fatherhood.
Because what makes you a man is not the ability to make a child, it’s the courage to raise one.”
Full transcript here
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Video of speech:
16
Oct
12
Rise and Shine
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All times ET
11:50: President Obama departs Williamsburg, Va.
12:00: VP Biden travels to Penn Valley, Pa., to attend the funeral services for Senator Arlen Specter
12:55: President Obama arrives in New York
2:50: Michelle Obama speaks to grassroots supporters in Chapel Hill, N.C.
9:00: The Debate
11:05: President Obama departs New York
12:15: Arrives at the White House
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Greatest website ever:
Thank you Bill!
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Washington Post: Romney’s 12-million job promise has garnered a lot of attention. We became interested in this ad after a reader asked whether the campaign had provided much detail on how he would reach this total …
…. the candidate’s personal accounting for this figure in this campaign ad is based on different figures and long-range timelines stretching as long as a decade — which in two cases are based on studies that did not even evaluate Romney’s economic plan. The numbers may still add up to 12 million, but they aren’t the same thing — not by a long shot.
… Clearly, some clever campaign staffer thought it would be nice to match up poll-tested themes such as “energy independence,” “tax reform” and “cracking down on China” with actual job numbers. We just find it puzzling that Romney agreed to personally utter these words without asking more questions about the math behind them.
Read the full article here
Greg Sargent: …. Let’s recap what Kessler has discovered here. The plan that is central to Romney’s candidacy on the most important issue of this election — jobs — is a complete sham. This is every bit as bad — or worse — than Romney’s claim to have created 100,000 jobs at Bain, or his vow to cut spending by eliminating whole agencies without saying which ones, or his refusal to say how he’ll pay for his tax cuts.
This could not have come at a better time for Obama. Here is the evidence he needs to spell out as clearly as possible that Romney is peddling economic hokum to the American people. Any fair reading of the backup the Romney campaign itself supplied for his plan reveals that it is nothing but a bill of goods. Obama needs to seize on this in a big way. This should be a big story.
Oh, and by the way: Economists have evaluated Obama’s jobs plan. And they concluded it would create one to two million jobs. The bottom line is simple: One candidate has a jobs plan, and the other doesn’t.
More here
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10
Sep
12
More This and That
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CNN: A new survey indicates President Barack Obama moved up four points following the Democratic National Convention last week, and now has a six point advantage over his Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
According to a CNN/ORC International Poll released Monday, 52% of likely voters nationwide back the president, compared to 46% for Romney. Just before the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Obama was tied with Romney 48%-48%.
More here
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CNN: Manufacturing jobs boom is for real
President Obama last week promised a boom in manufacturing and 1 million new jobs if he is reelected.
But is the boom for real? For high-paying, skilled manufacturing jobs, it just might be.
The number of job openings for skilled factory workers has increased 38% since 2005, according to numbers from the Conference Board that measure labor demand across industries.
More strikingly, the sharpest increase in postings for skilled workers – 152% – has occurred in the last three or so years.
More here
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Steve Benen: “Obamacare” is working: “The share of young adults without health insurance fell by one-sixth in 2011 from the previous year, the largest annual decline for any age group since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began collecting the data in 1997.” (See NYT)
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WSJ: The Planned Parenthood Action Fund is making one of the largest ad buys in its history, buying $3.2 million TV time in the battleground states of Virginia and Ohio, saying Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is bad for women’s health.
More here
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Tuesday: To mark the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the President, the First Lady and White House staff will gather on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday morning to observe a moment of silence. Later that morning, they will travel to the Pentagon Memorial. In the afternoon, the President will travel to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and visit with wounded warriors who are being treated at the hospital and their families
Wednesday: The President will travel to Las Vegas and Denver for campaign events. He will remain overnight in Denver
Thursday: The President will travel to Arvada, Colorado. He will return to the White House in the evening
Friday: The President and First Lady will welcome the 2012 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams to the White House
30
May
12
Rise and Shine
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BuzzFeed: Romney Campaign Releases “With Mitt” iPhone App, Misspells “America”:
God Bless Amercia!
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Today: The President will sign the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank at the White House. This important step will help American businesses create jobs here at home and sell their products around the world – all at no cost to taxpayers. Last year marked the highest level of financing in the Bank’s 77-year history, as they supported thousands of U.S. companies, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and brought us closer to the goal the President set of doubling our nation’s exports by the end of 2014. Also today, the President will host a Jewish American Heritage Month reception at the White House.
10:30: PBO attends an annual hurricane preparedness briefing
11:40: Signs the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank
2:00: Jay Carney briefs the press
5:00: PBO hosts a Jewish American Heritage Month reception
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Morning everyone 😉
The Obama Diary 
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