there’s something in the air – four more years?

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President Obama arrives on a rainy and foggy night in Romulus, Michigan, January 26

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Friday:

9:45 ET  PBO delivers remarks at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor

11:00: Departs Michigan en route to Joint Base Andrews

12:25: Arrives at Joint Base Andrews

12:30: Departs Joint Base Andrews en route to Cambridge, Md.

PBO and VP Biden address House Democrats at their annual retreat

3:00: Arrives at the White House

3:30: PBO and VP Biden meet with Secretary of State Clinton

4:30: PBO delivers remarks at a campaign event

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A segment of the line of people waiting for tickets to see President Barack Obama speak on Friday starts near the Michigan Union, winds around the Fleming Administration Building, back toward the Literature, Science, and the Arts Building, and north down Maynard St

See the post below for more on the demand for tickets for tomorrow’s speech

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Freep.com: Two months ago, it appeared Michigan might well be prime real estate for Mitt Romney as he sought the Republican nomination for president.

In a Detroit Free Press/WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) poll then, native Michigander Romney led the Democratic president, Barack Obama, 46%-41%, in a head-to-head matchup.

But as Romney’s path to the nomination has gotten cloudy, his lead in the state over the Democratic incumbent also has evaporated. In a new Michigan poll, Obama has taken the head-to-head lead, 48%-40%.

More here

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MSNBC: Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney among Republicans, but he is the weakest of the Republican candidates tested against President Obama, according to an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday evening.

Gingrich leads Romney 37 percent to 28 percent nationally among registered Republicans likely to vote in the primaries; Rick Santorum is in third with 18 percent, and Ron Paul is fourth with 12 percent.

…. Romney fares best against the president, trailing Obama by six points among registered voters, 49 percent to 43 percent. That’s a four-point improvement for the president from a month ago.

Obama, however, beats Gingrich by a whopping 18 points, 55-37 percent, expanding the president’s 11-point lead a month ago.

More here

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Why do the military hate him?

Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora Colorado, January 26

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Original video here

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What can I say? You’re amazing people. Thank you Pamela – I completely missed the good news 😉

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Billboard

In case you missed this, I brought it over from the last post – thanks Lamh. 490%? Hilarious!

What? You want to hear it again? 😯

Oh, okay:

the latest

President Obama speaks about damage done by Hurricane Irene next to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate in the Rose Garden of the White House, August 28

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President Barack Obama meets to discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Irene with FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Chief of Staff Bill Daley in the Oval Office, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

axelrod

give ’em hell

Welcome to our world, Tweety 😉

Thank you Doris! (Original video here)

Bob Schieffer:

Thank you Sonjia

‘is president obama intentionally raising gas prices?’

Stephen Stromberg (Washington Post): On Face the Nation Sunday, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour … made a series of assertions about President Obama’s record on energy that suggests he was confused about it, intentionally misleading, or both.

Barbour argued that the president is purposely raising the price of energy …. an incredulous Bob Schieffer pressed the governor – does he really think that he can blame the president for those figures, and claim that it was all intentional?

Barbour doubled down, saying that Obama once favored a cap-and-trade program that would have mainly raised electricity prices. Yes, electricity prices, not gas prices. Different goods, different markets. Also, the Democrats’ cap-and-trade program never passed. It’s not policy. So it couldn’t be pushing any energy prices up at all, on electricity or gas.

Barbour went on to cite some of the Obama administration’s regulatory efforts, presumably those at the Environmental Protection Agency, that might affect energy prices. But they, too, are mainly aimed at the electricity and industrial sectors, not oil, and many of the EPA’s most controversial regulatory efforts haven’t come into force yet, either….

…A savvy player such as Barbour sees that high gas prices are a political weakness for the president, even though they aren’t Obama’s doing. It’s not surprising he would try to exploit that opening, even if it means losing at the logical consistency game.

Full post here

‘an ugly strain of racism’

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There’s a great post at The Atlantic here about the issue – thank you Hank.

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The day America took leave of its senses

Rupert Cornwell (UK Independent): Has there ever been a more absurdly surreal moment, even in US politics, that unchallengeable theatre of the absurd and the surreal? One moment, we were watching a property magnate, with one eye on the presidency, the other on his reality TV show ratings, and puffed up like a bullfrog, rejoicing on an airport tarmac in New Hampshire that America’s President of two years had finally made public his birth certificate.

The next, America’s TV networks interrupted their schedules to cut to the White House, where that self-same President appeared to confirm the momentous fact: not that Barack Obama had indeed been born, but that the happy event indeed took place, as no sane person has ever doubted, on the unimpeachably American soil of Hawaii, one August evening in 1961…..

…..Of late, however, America has seemed to be taking leave of its senses … At moments like yesterday, you could believe that everyone’s gone nutty.

Full article here