Posts Tagged ‘Reagan

23
Jan
15

A Tweet Or Two

By Nerdy Wonka 136 Comments
Categories: All Photos and All Videos
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This teacher is the GREATEST

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07
Sep
14

President Barack Obama: The Jobs Creating President

By Nerdy Wonka 115 Comments
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Obama GOP

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Adam Hartung: Obama Outperforms Reagan On Jobs, Growth And Investing

To put this week’s jobs report in economic perspective I reached out to Bob Deitrick, CEO of Polaris Financial Partners and author of “Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box” (which I profiled in October, 2012 just before the election) for some explanation. Since then Polaris’ investor newsletters have consistently been the best predictor of economic performance. Better than all the major investment houses. This is the best private sector jobs creation performance in American history

Unemployment-Reagan-v-Obama

As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan. President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his 6th year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year. So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration. We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015. A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.”

When President Obama took office America was gripped in an offshoring boom, started years earlier, pushing jobs to the developing world. Manufacturing was declining in America, and plants were closing across the nation. This week the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released its manufacturing report, and it surprised nearly everyone. The latest Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) scored 59, 2 points higher than July and about that much higher than prognosticators expected. This represents 63 straight months of economic expansion, and 25 consecutive months of manufacturing expansion.

Investment-Returns-Reagan-v-Obama

While most Americans think they are not involved with the stock market, truthfully they are. Via their 401K, pension plan and employer savings accounts 2/3 of Americans have a clear vested interest in stock performance. it is undeniable that President Obama has surpassed the previous president. Investors have gained a remarkable 220% over the last 5.5 years! This level of investor growth is unprecedented by any administration, and has proven quite beneficial for everyone.

More here

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07
Dec
13

Rise and Shine

By Chipsticks 158 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Articles
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

President Obama walks off the stage after speaking during the 2013 National Christmas Tree Lighting on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on December 6 (Photo by Molly Riley)

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Today:

1:0 EST The President participates in a conversation with Saban Forum Chairman Haim Saban at the Saban Forum

Brookings * CBS

Tomorrow: The President and First Lady will attend the Kennedy Center Honors

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Alex MacGillis: Those Media Hysterics Who Said Obama’s Presidency Was Dead Were Wrong. Again.

It’s been a pretty good week for the Obama administration. The bungled healthcare.gov Web site emerged vastly improved following an intensive fix-it push, allowing some 25,000 to sign up per day, as many as signed up in all of October. Paul Ryan and Patty Murray inched toward a modest budget agreement. This morning came a remarkably solid jobs report, showing 203,000 new positions created in November, the unemployment rate falling to 7 percent for the first time in five years, and the labor force participation rate ticking back upward. Meanwhile, the administration’s push for a historic nuclear settlement with Iran continued apace.

…. it seems safe to say that the Obama presidency is not, in fact, over and done with. What, you say, was there any question of that? Well, yes, there was – less than a month ago…..

…. with whiplash force, came the obituaries for the Obama presidency. The Washington press corps has been reduced to the state of the tennis-watching kittens in this video, with the generic congressional ballot surveys playing the part of the ball flitting back and forth.

Full post here

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Jonathan Cohn: The Obamacare Error Rate Has Fallen Dramatically Some perspective on the latest ACA freak-out

These days it seems like everybody following Obamacare is talking about the 834s. Those are the personal data files that healthcare.gov sends insurance companies, in order to notify them of new enrollees. The data has been prone to errors and that’s a real problem. …

But the 834 problem is fixable and, according to multiple sources in the public and private sectors, it is being fixed. In fact, one administration official tells The New Republic that preliminary estimates, just now becoming available, suggest the error rate has fallen from one in four during October to one in ten now….

More here

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National Journal: 3 Ways You Can Tell the Health Care Website Is Working

Just five days into the relaunch of the new and improved HealthCare.gov, it’s probably too soon to say if the website is working properly in terms of technology. The initial numbers look good. Although important back-end problems remain, the site has handled close to a million users some days, and more people signed up Tuesday than in all of October. But we don’t need the stats to know the website is working in at least one important way: politically.

Here’s how you can tell:

1) Republicans have mostly stopped attacking the website….

2) Democrats have calmed down….

3) The media has started to move on….

More here

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PoliticusUSA: A Nasty Anti-Obama Column Draws a Contributor’s Angry Response

This Newsday commentary by Lane Filler appeared in my local paper Thursday. I sent the author an email…

Mr. Filler:

I just read your 12/5/13 column in my local paper under the rubric of “Media are too easy on the emperor.” … you claim that the ‘mainstream’ reporters on health care restructuring “seem to have taken a dive for their beloved.”

Surely you jest if you propose that President Barack Obama is being given a pass on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)….

…. Allow me to do the research that apparently you eschewed. In the last year alone, there have been nearly 50 SHJ AP stories about ACA that could be considered anti-Obama. There has been an endless stream of ACA attacks from right-wing columnists carried by the paper. Fully 95% of editorial cartoons have been anti-ACA and anti-Obama….

As for your description of Obama as emperor or king, what is the origin of this insult? …. maybe [he is] a little too ‘uppity’ for your taste. Could that be the problem, Lane?

…. if Obama is king, Lane Filler is the Court Jester, heartily juggling propagandized “facts” for the entertainment of HIS corporate buddies.

Full post here

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Thank you President Obama:

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Charles Pierce: Conservatives can own Ronald Reagan and be welcome to him, but you don’t get Nelson Mandela.

It is possible, if we all think really hard, we can use the days between Nelson Mandela’s death and his journey to his final resting place deep in the hills of his boyhood to make quite plain to young people who may have joined us late what a thoroughgoing moral disaster was the Reagan Administration (1980-88)….

… now, of course, with the death of Mandela, there are a lot of proper retrospectives concerning how enthusiastically the Reagan Administration supported the white-supremacist government of South Africa, and how morally obtuse (at best) that administration was to the reality of apartheid….

It’s too late now to seek absolution at the bier of Nelson Mandela, who is dead and can’t speak for himself … You opposed Mandela when it really counted for the same reason you cheered on murderers in this hemisphere. Ronald Reagan was a dim hack who did horrible damage to almost everything he touched. You can own him and be welcome to him, but you don’t get Nelson Mandela.

Full post here

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ThinkProgress: The Right Wing’s Campaign To Discredit And Undermine Mandela, In One Timeline

The world is celebrating Nelson Mandela as a selfless visionary who led his country out of the grips of apartheid into democracy and freedom. But some of the very people lavishing praise on South Africa’s first black president worked tirelessly to undermine his cause and portray the African National Congress he lead as pawns of the Soviet Union.

In fact, American conservatives have long been willing to overlook South Africa’s racist apartheid government in service of fighting communism abroad. Below is a short history, and some explanation, of how conservatives approached Mandela with the hostility they did…

More here

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On This Day:

President Obama greets the family of Katie Stanton, a departing staff member, in the Outer Oval Office, Dec. 7, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama and Personal Secretary Anita Decker watch a video of former advisor David Axelrod shaving off his mustache, in the Outer Oval Office, Dec. 7, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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MoooOOOooorning! If anyone mentions soccer/football today, they’re going in to spam with the body-bits-enlarging-pills people.

03
Sep
13

Early Bird Chat

By Chipsticks 85 Comments
Categories: All Photos
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MooooOOOOoooorning Early Birds! It was fun catching a couple of worms to start this fine day:

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Speaking of worms, we can never ever see this enough:

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The Mighty UT will be your R&S hostess with the mostess a little later – happy Tuesday!

30
Mar
13

Rise and Shine

By Chipsticks 249 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Michelle Obama
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Text of the address here

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Saturday and Sunday: The President has no public events scheduled

See the post below for the schedule for the week ahead

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President Obama pinches the cheek of Aniyha Williams, 4, as he leaves PortMiami, Friday (Miami Herald)

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Completely random old video:

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All this Easter Egg business reminds me of the RWNJ meme from a couple of years ago about the Obamas being arrogant (ie uppity) because they handed out autographed commemorative Easter eggs as part of the White House Easter Egg Roll. From the original post:

Laura Ingraham kicked off Fox’s Easter attack on Barack and Michelle Obama by suggesting that Obama is full of ego for handing out autographed commemorative Easter eggs …. she claimed that Laura Bush never did this:

Well, okay. But Reagan certainly never did. Em…..

(Actually, he started the tradition)

All of which reminded us at the time of similar outrages:

‘Obama has no class – he puts his feet on the Oval Office desk! Can you EVER remember a Republican President doing that?!’

‘Obama has no class – he throws a ball around the Oval Office! Can you EVER remember a Republican President doing that?!’

‘Obama has no class – sometimes he doesn’t wear a jacket in the Oval Office! Can you EVER remember a Republican President doing that?!’

‘Obama has no class – he wore flip-flops in Hawaii! Next thing he’ll be wearing Crocs in the White House!”

‘You know, Obama is so classless it wouldn’t surprise me if he eats his meals off the sacred Oval desk!”

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Completely random old video:

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Completely random magazine covers:

Click to see the rest of the post

15
Jan
13

Rise and Shine

By Chipsticks 186 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Articles
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President Obama at an interfaith vigil, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Dec 16 (Photo: Olivier Douliery)

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NYT: President Obama this week will embrace a comprehensive plan to reduce gun violence that will call for major legislation to expand background checks for gun purchases and lay out 19 separate actions the president could take by invoking the power of his office, lawmakers who were briefed on the plan said Monday.

Lawmakers and other officials said that the president could use a public event as soon as Wednesday to signal his intention to engage in the biggest Congressional fight over guns in nearly two decades, focusing on the heightened background checks and including efforts to ban assault weapons and their high-capacity clips. But given the difficulty of pushing new rules through a bitterly divided Congress, Mr. Obama will also promise to act on his own to reduce gun violence wherever possible.

More here

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NYT: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers agreed on Monday to a broad package of changes to gun laws that would expand the state’s ban on assault weapons and would include new measures to keep guns away from the mentally ill.

The state Senate, controlled by a coalition of Republicans and a handful of Democrats, approved the legislative package just after 11 p.m. by a lopsided vote of 43 to 18. The Assembly, where Democrats who have been strongly supportive of gun control have an overwhelming majority, planned to vote on the measure Tuesday.

More here

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Steve Benen: The White House is set to release a series of recommendations from Vice President Biden’s task force on gun violence, which will no doubt face intense criticism from groups like the NRA and their allies. But two new polls suggest that a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, there’s a growing public appetite for meaningful gun reform.

More here

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Mediaite: On Monday night, CNN host Piers Morgan paid a visit to Stephen Colbert …. As the pair started chatting about how people in the UK just don’t have guns, Colbert asked whether Morgan hates America’s constitution (“Do you hate the United States constitution?… Do you speak English?”) — helpfully providing the CNN host with his own pocket-size copy of the document.

…. Morgan said he was simply pointing out that in his country, “where we have no guns,” there are few gun murders. “I think when 20 young children get blown to pieces, Americans should say something has to be done,” he added, prompting Colbert to call out his “cheap shot to bring up the subject that we’re talking about.”

Colbert offered a better approach: take some time, “reflect, and eventually forget.”

Video at link

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Salon

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LA Times: Obama appears to gain ground in spending battle – The president delivers a forceful defense of his position in a White House news conference, as Republicans increasingly appear divided over the debt ceiling.

With the government just weeks from running out of money to pay its bills, President Obama and prominent Republicans have started to act as if the White House has the upper hand in the current round of the battle over federal spending.

In recent days, Obama rebuffed suggestions that he consider ways to sidestep the need to raise the limit on the government’s debt, reinforcing his demand for a congressional vote. On Monday, he repeated that stand in a hastily announced news conference, criticizing Republicans for threatening to “blow up the economy” and insisting that “no simpler way” exists to deal with the debt ceiling.

Republicans for months have pointed to the moment the nation runs up against the debt ceiling as their point of maximum leverage to force spending cuts, but now seem increasingly divided. Some leaders appear to be looking for a way out of the confrontation, suggesting the party would be wiser to fight Obama over cuts when less is at stake for the economy. Influential GOP strategists are warning that a repeat of the fight they waged in summer 2011 could backfire.

More here

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Deaniac: Twilight of the Liberal Elite: Smearing Jack Lew and Barack Obama for Deregulation that Began with Jimmy Carter

….. I can understand the liberal elite’s problem with Jack Lew. You see, I don’t think it has much to do with policy. I think it has much more to do with him embarrassing them. When every liberal elite political rookie – including Paul Krugman – in the country was howling about the president’s “weak” negotiating performance during the 2011 debt limit deal, it turns out that the president and his team completely floored John Boehner, without Boehner even realizing it. A key member of that team that did it to them? Jack Lew. Not to mention how that deal shaped the complete Republican surrender in the recent fiscal cliff deal. If I didn’t know that the howling Left is incapable of feeling embarrassed, I would contend they are opposing Jack Lew because of that embarrassment.

Full post here

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USA Today: Q&A: Myrlie Evers-Williams on the inauguration

Q: Did you ever imagine as you worked with your husband Medgar Evers on civil rights that one day there would be a black president?

A: Of course, we all knew, we hoped, we worked, we prayed that one day there would be a man or a woman of African-American descent who would become the president of the United States of America. That has been a dream come true but if we look at the politics leading up to particularly his second term, there were blocks that came during this time of getting people to register and to vote that are reminiscent of some of those actions that took place 50 years ago to keep people of my race and others away from the polls.

More here

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Steve Benen: … Florida Gov Rick Scott has offered the political world a valuable lesson: if you need a campaign prop, don’t use a dog:

Shortly after winning the GOP nomination in 2010, Scott announced to the world through Facebook that his family had rescued a Labrador Retriever. And, with help from his Facebook friends, Scott gave it a name: Reagan.

It was just a few months before the gubernatorial election, and Scott seemed to think this was a smart idea. Adopting a dog – a rescue dog, at that – made the Republican look compassionate, and naming the dog “Reagan” helped him pander shamelessly to his base….

…. You can probably guess where this is headed…..

More here

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Mediaite: Jon Stewart took on the controversy surrounding President Obama‘s recent cabinet nominations in a segment he dubbed “Zero Dark Appointees,” and noted that the outrage might be somewhat misplaced because Obama is “somewhat diverse himself.”

Stewart examined why Obama may not have nominated Susan Rice for Secretary of State, which would have easily diversified his cabinet: “Lady and minority, triple word score!”

“Oh right,” he said. “McCain!”

…. He then aired the New York Times photo in which it was claimed Obama was standing with only white men and proceeded to point out a black man ….. “And there is another black guy who appears to be running the meeting.”

Video at link

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MooOOOOooOOOOoooOOoooorning!

05
Dec
12

The White House War on Christmas!

By Chipsticks 126 Comments
Categories: All Photos
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

This year’s official White House Christmas card (more at the Des Moines Register) – thank you Dotster!

Truly shocking, hey? A WH Christmas card that features a dog, snow and not a SINGLE reference to religion!

Heathens!

Um…..

And in 2002 Bush paid Christmas homage to, well, a piano:

And to a fireplace in 2004:

Ronald Reagan, bless him, always had WH Christmas cards featuring “family, faith, and freedom” – like, eh, this one:

See more at Business Insider about last year’s freak-out 🙄

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I’d love this to be next year’s card:

15
Oct
12

A Little Bit More of This and That

By Chipsticks 150 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos, Articles and Michelle Obama
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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NYT: A longtime aide to George W. Romney issued a harshly worded critique of Mitt Romney, accusing him of shifting political positions in “erratic and startling ways” and failing to live up to the distinguished record of his father, the former governor of Michigan.

Walter De Vries, who worked for the senior Mr. Romney throughout the 1960s, wrote that Mitt Romney’s bid for the White House was “a far cry from the kind of campaign and conduct, as a public servant, I saw during the seven years I worked in George Romney’s campaigns and served him as governor.”

“While it seems that Mitt would say and do anything to close a deal – or an election,” he wrote, “George Romney’s strength as a politician and public officeholder was his ability and determination to develop and hold consistent policy positions over his life.”

… “George would never have been seen with the likes of Sheldon Adelson or Donald Trump.”

… Mr. De Vries, who said he wished to the see the Republican Party return to its moderate roots, said he intended to vote for Mr. Obama on Election Day.

More here

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More at Business Insider

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Reuters: Retail sales rose in September as Americans stepped up purchases of everything from cars to electronics, a sign that consumer spending is driving faster economic growth.

…. expectations for third-quarter economic growth improved after the Commerce Department reported a 1.1 percent increase in retail sales during September.

The reading, which beat analysts’ forecasts, builds on other signs of growing economic momentum, including a drop in the jobless rate last month and a rise in consumer confidence.

“The news flow on the U.S. economy keeps getting better,” said Chris Williamson, an economist at Markit in London.

More here

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Click to see the rest of the post

11
Apr
12

evening all

By Chipsticks 292 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos, Articles and Michelle Obama
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Steve Benen: ….. the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein asked whether Romney supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and the campaign aides, after a painfully long delay, had no idea.

These weren’t trick questions. This was, after all, a call about women’s issues. It was organized by the Romney campaign, so it’s not as if these staffers could say they were caught off guard by extraneous and unrelated issues. Presumably, these folks prepared for their own telephone press conference.

Romney has cited a misleading statistic, and his aides couldn’t defend it. Romney has said current policies are keeping women from getting more jobs, and given three separate chances to say something coherent, his aides couldn’t explain what would change if the former governor is elected president. Were they not expecting these kinds of question?

…. Welcome to the general election, Mitt. I think you’ll find it’s a little more difficult than going up against Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

More here

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TPM: Mitt Romney’s having a terrible time turning the tables on Democrats. But his camp’s claim that President Obama is the one waging the “real war on women” is best debunked visually.

….. male employment and female employment have nearly returned to the levels they were at when Obama took office. And if Obama is waging a war on women, he’s doing a poor job of it. Despite these setbacks, female labor force participation remains near its historic high.

More here

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Greg Sargent: I’m glad to see that there’s been a moderately aggressive media response to Mitt Romney’s latest falsehood: The claim that 92 percent of the people who have lost jobs on Obama’s watch are women.

The argument, which his campaign is now making regularly, is central to Romney’s effort to win back women who were apparently alienated by the primary.

The assertion has now been debunked by Politifact, the Post’s Glenn Kessler, and NBC’s Domenico Montanaro.

More here

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ThinkProgress: As part of its bizarre strategy of blaming President Obama for the GOP’s “war on women,” the Romney campaign released statements today from two Republican Congresswomen, Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The statements correctly note that women have been hit particularly hard by job losses in recent years, but misleadingly lay the blame for those losses on Obama, just as Romney himself has been doing recently.

…… their concern for pay equity and women in the workplace must be a recent development. Both congresswomen voted against the landmark Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009…..

More here

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Buzzfeed

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Don’t miss Liberal Librarian’s latest post at The People’s View: The “Reagan Rule” and the GOP crackup

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Thanks Dotster

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PPP: Barack Obama’s opened up a 13 point lead on Mitt Romney in Colorado at 53-40. He’s gained 11 points in the state since December when he led just 47-45.

The formula for Obama’s gains is the same in Colorado as it is everywhere. He’s getting more popular and Romney’s getting less popular. In December only 45% of voters approved of the job Obama was doing to 50% who disapproved. Now he’s on positive ground with 50% giving him good marks to 47% who think he’s doing a poor job. The main thing that’s changed is Democrats really rallying around him. In December he was at 76/18 with them, but now it’s 89/8. The party is getting a lot more unified as the election comes closer.

Romney’s headed in the other direction. His net favorability has gone from -18 (35/53) to an even worse -29 (31/60) …. he’s extremely unpopular with independents at 25/65.

More here

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PPP: Mitt Romney may have effectively wrapped up the GOP nomination with Rick Santorum’s withdrawal yesterday, but PPP’s newest North Carolina poll really shows how much Romney was hurt by the process with Barack Obama as the ultimate beneficiary.

President Obama now leads Romney by 5 points in North Carolina, 49-44. That’s the largest lead we’ve found for him in monthly polling dating back to November of 2010. Obama has a 51-38 advantage with independents and is particularly strong with women (54-39), African Americans (90-7), voters under 30 (61-33), and folks in the Triangle (60-33).

The Republican nomination process has taken a huge toll on Romney’s image in North Carolina. In February of 2011 voters in the state were almost evenly divided on him with 37% rating him favorably to 39% who had a negative opinion of him. Now that spread is a dreadful 29/58….

He was actually popular with independents at 45/36 last winter, now he is incredibly unpopular at 25/62.

More here

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ThinkProgress

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ThinkProgress: According to several experts in Florida law, Sean Hannity could be compelled to testify about his conversations with George Zimmerman. Tamara Lave, a professor of criminal law at the Universtiy of Miami who also practiced as a public defender for 10 years, told ThinkProgress it’s a “no brainer.”

Under Florida Law, there is a “qualified privilege” for journalists that protects their conversations with sources. But this privilege can be overcome, per Florida Evidence Code 90.5015….

More here

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2008

Don’t forget Michelle Obama on The Colbert Report tonight

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Florida Atlantic University, April 10

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People look at their pictures with First Lady Michelle Obama as Mrs. Obama continues to greets guests at the Joining Forces Community Challenge event on the South Lawn of the White House, April 11. (Official White House Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)

11
Apr
12

‘the reagan rule’

By Chipsticks 99 Comments
Categories: All Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

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