‘Hitler Finds Out About Romney’s Secret Video’

I had to front-page this

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Not sure of the time yet, but PBO will be holding a rally at the Summerfest grounds in Milwaukee (Saturday)

today at gallup

evening all

President Barack Obama waves to people gathered along the motorcade route from Osawatomie High School to Osawatomie-Paola Municipal Airport in Osawatomie, Kan., Dec. 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Paul Krugman: One crucial thing you need to understand about political journalists is that with some honorable exceptions, they don’t know or care about actual policy …

…. Hence, the awful decision of Politico to give Paul Ryan an award as healthcare policymaker of the year.

…. what became painfully, embarrassingly clear during the debate over the Ryan plan was that Ryan is, well, incompetent …. it’s true that the plan “got everyone talking”, as Politico says – but mostly it got people talking about what a mess Ryan’s effort was.

Oh, and it was pretty clear that Ryan wasn’t being honest about his own numbers.

What’s going on here, I suppose, is that Politico is mistaking theater for policy. Ryan isn’t an important health care reformer, or even minimally competent in his attempted wonkery, but he plays a deep thinker on TV. And the people at Politico either don’t understand the difference, or they don’t care.

More here

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President Obama returns to the White House after a visit to Kansas

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Steve Benen: President Obama has decided that, from now on, foreign aid decisions will take into consideration how countries treat their LGBT citizens, and he directed U.S. agencies abroad to ensure our humanitarian and diplomatic efforts “promote and protect” the rights of gays and lesbians.

…. today’s announcement marks a historic first …. It also adds to a rather extraordinary record for Obama in this area in his first three years….

…. I realize there are still a sizable number of people in the LGBT community who are unsatisfied with the pace of change, and consider President Obama someone who has ignored, and even betrayed, their interests. Some have even vowed not to lift a finger to help with the president’s re-election effort.

I suspect many social-conservative activists find this inexplicable.

Full post here

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Oh Willard…..

tomorrow’s headlines today

exclusive: gopolitico’s front page tomorrow

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Oh. God.

rise and shine

President Obama will record an interview with Jay Leno this morning – it won’t be shown until late night but NBC will release some excerpts in the afternoon

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President Obama leaves Air Force One upon his arrival in Los Angeles on Monday

LA Times: President Obama opened an aggressive Western fundraising swing Monday, closing out the day in Los Angeles with an appeal to supporters to prepare for a grueling reelection effort.

At an intimate fundraising dinner in Hancock Park, Obama spoke softly to a few dozen supporters who had paid $35,800 each to greet him.

“I’ve said this before — this election will not be as sexy as the first one,” the president said. “Back then it was still fresh and new. I didn’t have any gray hair. Everybody loved the ‘Hope’ posters and all that. This time it’s — we’ve got to grind it out a little bit. We’ve got to grind it out. But the cause is the same. And my passion is the same. And my commitment is the same.”

The gathering, at the home of movie producer James Lassiter and his wife, Mai, was one of six events Obama had planned in three days of stops in Nevada, California and Colorado, as he kept up a torrid fundraising pace that is far surpassing that of the GOP presidential field.

Two Los Angeles gatherings Monday were celebrity-flecked, with the first including actor Will Smith and former Laker Magic Johnson. The second and larger event was at the home of actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, with per-seat tickets starting at $5,000.

Full article here

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Thanks Marlz

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The First Lady’s day:

12:55 Delivers remarks at a Democratic National Committee reception in Detroit

3:45 Discusses access to healthy food with mayors from around the country in Chicago

4:50 Delivers remarks at a Walgreens in Chicago and visits Iron Street Urban Farms with Mayor Rahm Emanuel

6:40 Delivers remarks at a Democratic National Committee reception in Chicago

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Today the administration will announce plans to create jobs for veterans continuing on President Barack Obama’s efforts to boost the economy through a series of executive actions.

“While we will continue to work with Congress to bring up the American Jobs Act piece-by-piece, we will increase our focus on taking executive actions that fight for the middle class because the American people simply can’t wait for the Republican Congress to act. … Today, we are announcing two new initiatives that will help create jobs for veterans at community health centers and expand opportunities for veterans to become physician assistants,” a White House official said.

The initiatives will be announced during a conference call with reporters at 10 a.m. today with Matt Flavin, director of the White House Veterans, Military Families and Wounded Warrior Task Force; HRSA administrator Mary Wakefield; and president of the National Association of Community Health Centers, Tom Van Coverden.

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Steve Benen: …. Yesterday, President Obama unveiled a new, and almost certainly better, initiative as part of the White House’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign. The point to provide assistance to 1 million households, helping them refinance at today’s strikingly-low interest rates and lowering their mortgage payments.

There are, of course, concerns about the scope of the effort. It’s a modest program that won’t directly affect most of those underwater…. Still, Brian Beutler reports there are some experts who see cause for cautious optimism:

“Under the restrung HARP, I expect an additional 1.05 million [refinancings] through the end of 2012 and 1.6 million [refinancings] through the end of 2013 when the program ends,” said Moody’s top economist Mark Zandi in an email. “While HARP won’t live up to the initial expectations of 4-5 million in refinancings, the program will ultimately provide a meaningful boost to the broader economy as financially stressed households will benefit from much lower mortgage payments. It will also provide a bit of help to the housing market by forestalling some mortgage defaults.”

…. It’s a modest step, but at least it’s in the right direction. Coupled with other steps, we might even start to see some larger progress. It certainly beats watching Congress implode into an obstructionist mess.

Full post here

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The first part of the video is about Condaleeza Rice’s new book, but if you forward to three minutes in there’s good stuff on the madness of Herman Cain.

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The GOP: Screwed

The Week

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Eugene Robinson: For the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming, it’s getting awfully cold out there.

The latest icy blast of reality comes from an eminent scientist whom the climate-change skeptics once lauded as one of their own. Richard Muller, a respected physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, used to dismiss alarmist climate research as being “polluted by political and activist frenzy.” Frustrated at what he considered shoddy science, Muller launched his own comprehensive study to set the record straight. Instead, the record set him straight.

“Global warming is real,” Muller wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal.

Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the neo-Luddites who are turning the GOP into the anti-science party should pay attention.

…… It is the know-nothing politicians – not scientists – who are committing an unforgivable fraud.

Full article here

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OMG! GG will on Maddow tonight! OMG!

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wrap-up

President Barack Obama greets neighbors near the Bonilla residence in Las Vegas, Nev., where he spoke about the mortgage refinancing proposal and ‘Project Rebuild’, a piece of the American Jobs Act, Oct. 24. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Tomorrow’s news today:

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Link

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😯

LittleGreenFootballs

Thanks Marlz

bits ‘n’ pieces

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NYT

Thanks ChristiMtl – I suspect Krugman will be deeply disappointed if Joe Gagnon is right 😉

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Thanks Donna Dem

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Tuesday: The President will tape an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” before departing for San Francisco. In San Francisco, he will participate in a campaign event. In the afternoon the President will travel to Denver and participate in campaign events. He will spend Tuesday night in Denver.

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Text of the President’s remarks at today’s campaign event at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas here

“Their leader, Mitch McConnell said that – and I’m going to make sure I quote this properly – saving jobs of teachers and firefighters was just, and I quote, a bailout. A bailout! These aren’t bad actors who somehow screwed up the economy. They didn’t act irresponsibly. These are the men and women who teach our children and patrol our streets and run into burning buildings and save people. They deserve our support.”

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This is great:

Eclectablog

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Gallup: U.S. Unemployment Down Sharply in Early October

What is Working

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Move On

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Worth seeing again:

Visit thanksobamacare.org

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I don’t read HuffyPo any more, but I’m guessing it’s looking something like this these days …..

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It’s Pete!

Chief Official White House photographer for President Barack Obama Pete Souza photographs Obama speaking on the American Jobs Act in Las Vegas, Nevada

a demoralizing day

Here’s a world exclusive preview of what Mark Landler will (probably) write in the New York Times tomorrow:

“It was a demoralizing day for President Obama on his bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia, some of his lowest points, captured by our photographers, demonstrating just how much distance there now is between him and the people who once supported him.

From the moment he took to the stage in the morning to speak at the Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, it was evident how jaded and down he is, no spring in his step, no sign of the energy that he once displayed at these events:

Grim-faced and unsmiling….

….. his speech was so uninspiring it even prompted one member of the audience to start reading the book he’d brought with him just in case he was bored:

After the speech, the President displayed yet more of his professorial aloofness, failing to connect with his audience or show any human warmth:

It got worse later in the day when the President visited Bluestone High School in Skipwith, a group of teenagers (Jon Huntsman supporters, according to Mark Halperin) giving him an angry and hostile reception when he arrived:

There was a particularly ugly exchange with a student in pink:

…. which resulted in Secret Service having to step in:

On to Reidsville, N.C. and Brodnax, Virginia, where the President was confronted by several enraged women, two of them actually attempting to strangle him:

Stunned, the President ran for shelter in a Reidsville restaurant, where he hoped to find a warm and fuzzy reception, but there was to be no respite from the hostility, two enraged seniors confronting him, rather venomously:

The President, by now a broken man, left for Emporia, Virginia, where he gave another speech to a half-empty hall of largely unenthusiastic one-time supporters at Greensville County High School:

Once again, he ignored the issue that is, clearly, the most important to Americans – unemployment:

…. which might have explained the ugly incident that completed his day, when a young black man – possibly a Tavis Smiley and Cornel West fan – attempted to assault him by hitting his hand really hard:

Frankly, it’s hard to know how the President can recover from such a demoralizing day (#VoteMitt).”

rise and shine

President Barack Obama waves to people gathered along a road in Boone, N.C., during his three-day American Jobs Act bus tour, Oct. 17. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Yesterday’s speeches:

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White House live

CNN live streaming

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Steve Benen: At an event in North Carolina yesterday, President Obama talked up the next phase in the fight over job creation. We knew Dems would start to move on individual provisions within the American Jobs Act, and yesterday, we learned which component would go first.

…. “So this week I’m going to ask members of Congress to vote on one component of the plan, which is whether we should put hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classroom, and cops back on the street, and firefighters back to work….”

…. Why are Dems pursuing this first? It may have something to do with the idea’s overwhelming popularity – A whopping 75% supported the measure in a CNN poll …. even 63% of Republicans approve of the spending.

…. the total number of Republican lawmakers in either chamber willing to support the teachers/first responders jobs bill – or even allow a vote on the bill – is currently zero, despite overwhelming support from the American mainstream.

Full post here

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Greg Sargent: ‘Moderate’ Dems may break with Obama on pieces of jobs bill: With the Senate set to vote on pieces of the jobs bill, Senators Ben Nelson and Jon Tester, both of whom voted against the overall proposal, may actually vote against the $35 billion in state aid to avert teacher and first-responder layoffs.

Their objection: The tax hikes on the rich that are supported by big majorities, including among independents and moderates. As always, these “moderates” and “centrists” are not willing to support economic solutions that actually are moderate and centrist – and as a result, they may give more ammo to Republicans to claim that opposition to Obama’s proposals is “bipartisan.”

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I ♥ Barney:

Original (and much better quality!) video here

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McClatchy: Even as protests over its political influence grow louder, Wall Street is one of the leading sources of money so far in the 2012 race for the White House. Not surprisingly, the biggest beneficiary has been Republican hopeful Mitt Romney…

…. Romney has attracted $7.5 million from the financial community … That’s nearly twice as much as President Barack Obama has received from it, and almost a quarter of the $32 million that Romney’s campaign has taken in overall.

…. Romney is the top recipient of campaign cash from employees of the five biggest Wall Street banks. Goldman Sachs gave the most — $352,200…. The other banks were Morgan Stanley ($184,800), Bank of America ($112,500), JP Morgan Chase & Co. ($107,250) and Citigroup Inc. ($56,550).

A spokesman for the Romney campaign could not be reached for comment.

… Obama had raised about $3.9 million in Wall Street contributions as of the end of September (just over 4 percent of his overall haul so far of $89 million, which dwarfs the GOP field).

Full post here

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Caption: A waxwork figure of George Clooney on display at Madame Tussauds in London is posed alongside a waxwork of US president Barack Obama….

Jeez, looks like the real George to me. The President? Not so much. 😕

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Thank You Loriah!