a ghoulishly good evening

Original video here

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First Lady Michelle Obama waits with Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg in the Green Room of the White House before making remarks to the White House Historical Association, Oct. 31. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

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This is excellent:

GOPolitico: Anchors from nine local television affiliates will spend a day behind the scenes at the White House on Tuesday, meeting with top officials and getting brief individual interviews with President Obama before broadcasting evening newscasts from the South Lawn.

“Live from the White House” is a 21st-century update to the “radio row” tradition, which brought talk-show hosts to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to interview West Wing officials going from microphone to microphone during their drive-time shows.

The White House is building risers on the South Lawn for the evening newscasts, which are being spread out by time zones – three from the East, two from Central, one from Mountain and two from Pacific.

The anchors will get to ask White House press secretary Jay Carney a question during the daily press briefing; have lunch with senior adviser David Plouffe; interview a White House staffer from each station’s home market; get an on-camera tour with a White House curator; and tour the White House kitchen garden with Sam Kass, White House assistant chef and policy adviser.

The ringmaster is Josh Earnest, principal deputy White House press secretary, who said the mission is “to increase interest and raise the profile of the president’s efforts to strengthen the economy and create jobs in local communities across the country, and explain to Americans how their communities will benefit from the president’s agenda.”

The stations and their anchors will be from Portland, Ore. (KGW, NBC, Tracy Barr); Phoenix (KSAZ, Fox, John Hook); Denver (KUSA, NBC, Adele Arakawa); Minneapolis (WCCO, CBS, Amelia Santaniello); Houston (KTRK, ABC, Dave Ward); Omaha (KETV, ABC, Rob McCartney); Tampa (WTVT, Fox, Mark Wilson); Hampton Roads (WAVY, NBC, Tom Schaad); and Philadelphia (WPVI, ABC, Brian Taff). A 10th participant will be Nikole Killion, representing Hearst stations.

“The highlight of the day will be an opportunity to briefly interview the President from the Cabinet Room about the American Jobs Act,” Earnest said. “The anchors will also interview Cabinet secretaries … about how the bipartisan proposals included in the president’s American Jobs Act would create jobs in their community and put money in the pocket of every single American worker and small business owner.”

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Also tomorrow: The President has a ceremony at which he’ll sign a proclamation – which the White House will identify later tonight …  discusses legislative strategy with House Democratic Leaders ….. welcomes the crew of the final space shuttle mission to the Oval Office ….. The First Lady holds a Let’s Move event for children In New Orleans and does fundraisers in New Orleans and Houston ….  On Wednesday the President will push for $60 billion in new spending in an 11:25 am ET speech in front of the Key Bridge at Georgetown’s Waterfront Park in Washington, DC.

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AP: President Barack Obama is in excellent health and tobacco free, his doctor said Monday in the results of the president’s second physical exam since taking office.

In the two-page report released by the White House, Dr. Jeffrey C. Kuhlman also said Obama is physically active, eats a healthy diet, stays at a healthy weight, and on occasion drinks alcohol in moderation.

“The president is in excellent health and ‘fit for duty’,” Kuhlman wrote. “All clinical data indicate he will remain so for the duration of his presidency.”

….. The president is 6-foot-1 and weighs 181.3 pounds, according to the report. His blood pressure was recorded at 107 over 71, up from 105 over 62 in February 2010, but still well within the normal range.

…. The president also has “periodic physical therapy” to deal with recurrent upper right back pain, and he had benign skin tags removed from his neck.

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Eugene Robinson: Responding to his insurgent campaign’s first crisis, Herman Cain was upbeat and defiant. “To quote my chief of staff and all the people around this country, ‘Let Herman be Herman,’ ” he said Monday. “And Herman is gonna stay Herman.”

I was afraid of that.

Cain’s policy positions range from the ignorant to the unworkable to the just plain goofy – and yet he is running first or second in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination. He trumpets his utter lack of government experience as a selling point and boasts of not knowing foreign leaders’ names. If through some bizarre series of events he were actually elected president, the result would surely be an unmitigated disaster.

It’s not yet clear whether this remote possibility has been made even more unlikely by reports that Cain faced allegations of sexual harassment from two female employees when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

…. He needs to answer more questions about the alleged harassment …. I hope he does, because we’re running out of bandwidth. Cain’s famous “9-9-9” tax plan would be ruinous. He wants to privatize Social Security. He believes that “extensive foreign policy experience” is not something a president needs, since when he was named chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, “I had never made a pizza – but I learned.”

So many reasons to oppose this loopy candidacy, so little time.

Full article here

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😆 – thank you Marlz

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Nothing more to say

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“we need a big hurray and lots of applause (of course)”

Justin Elliott (Salon): If the release of President Obama’s birth certificate last month was the denouement of the birther saga, the release of Terrence Lakin from prison will be its bizarre coda. Lakin is the veteran Army doctor who refused orders to redeploy to Afghanistan because he believed Obama was born abroad, not a legitimate president, and therefore that military orders were invalid.

Last December, Lakin … was dismissed from the Army and sentenced to six months in prison … In what promises to be one of the stranger political spectacles of the year, a homecoming event is planned Saturday at the Southwest Airlines baggage claim area of Baltimore Washington International Airport. The website set up to support Lakin … suggests:

All we ask you to do is bring a home-made poster that says, “Welcome Home Terry.” or “Thank You Terry” or any appropriate messages about the issue. Bring a small US flag if you have one. We will text the coordinators when we deplane so you can all get ready to greet Terry as he descends on the escalator to baggage claim. We need a big hurray and lots of applause (of course). He may say a few words…

Unlike the folks over at WorldNetDaily, who have been enriched by years of pumping up birtherism, Lakin’s commitment to the conspiracy both torpedoed his career and put his family in financial peril. His website notes: “Please consider making a special gift at this critical time. We have been able to provide for the family’s monthly expenses, but contributions have dropped off since the release of the proposed birth document by the Obama administration.”

Can anyone imagine a more tragic story emerging from the birther carnival?

Full article here

wow, you look sooooo like michelle obama!

First Lady Michelle Obama leans over the trays to talk with a little girl as she helps serve food to U.S. airmen and their families at Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, Nov. 11, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

More photos from Germany here

"try that again"

The President and First Lady joined Congressional family members and five national nonprofit organizations at Fort McNair to pack 15,000 backpacks for the children of our servicemen and women. June 25, 2009.