Rise and Shine

Three years ago today – Pete Souza: “Another snowstorm blanketed Washington for the second time in a few days. Because it was a Saturday, I hung around the White House thinking that the President might venture out in the snow with his daughters. Here they are playing in the Rose Garden in the midst of the storm.” Feb. 6, 2010

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Today:

9:50: President Obama departs the White House

10:10: Arrives in Annapolis, Md.

10:30: Attends the Senate Democratic Issues Conference

11:30: Jay Carney briefs the press

12:25: President Obama departs Annapolis

12:45: Arrives at the White House

2:0 Will announce nomination of Sally Jewell to head the Interior Department

4:0: Secretary of State John Kerry is ceremonially sworn in by Vice President Biden in Washington

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Washington Post: President Obama on Wednesday will nominate Recreational Equipment (REI) chief executive Sally Jewell to head the Interior Department….

The choice of Jewell, who began her career as an engineer for Mobil Oil and worked as a commercial banker before heading a nearly $2 billion outdoors equipment company, represents an unconventional choice for a post usually reserved for career politicians from the West.

But while she boasts less public policy experience than other candidates who had been under consideration, Jewell, who will have to be confirmed by the Senate, has earned national recognition for her management skills and support for outdoor recreation and habitat conservation.

More here

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OFA

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ThinkProgress: Endorsements from the National Rifle Association might be doing political candidates more harm than good, according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling.

In a national survey, 39 percent of voters said that they are less likely to vote for a politician whose candidacy has garnered NRA backing. Only 26 percent believe they’re more likely to support such a candidate.

But more importantly, the number of independent voters are far less likely to see the NRA nod as a good thing: 41 percent say they’re inclined not to support a candidate who’s backed by the NRA…..

More here

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USA Today: President Obama will visit Israel this spring, though specific dates haven’t been nailed down.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama discussed the visit in a Jan. 28 phone call with newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As part of the trip, Obama will also travel to the West Bank and Jordan.

More here

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Reuters: Home Depot Inc said it will hire 10,000 additional seasonal workers for its key spring selling season as it sees higher sales growth during the period.

The home-improvement retailer said it will hire 80,000 seasonal workers this year, 14 percent more than it hired last year.

More here

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Steve Benen – see here

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NYT: The flaws in the American election system are deep and widespread, extending beyond isolated voting issues in a few locations and flaring up in states rich and poor, according to a major new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The group ranked all 50 states based on more than 15 criteria, including wait times, lost votes and problems with absentee and provisional ballots, and the order often confounds the conventional wisdom.

In 2010, for instance, Mississippi ranked last over all. But it was preceded by two surprises: New York and California.

More here

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ThinkProgress: During the November 2012 election, Black and Hispanic voters waited nearly twice as long to vote as whites, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis. New York Times graphs summarizing the analysis show that white voters waited an average of 12.7 minutes, while Black and Hispanic voters waited an average of 20.2 minutes

More here

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TPM: When President Obama won in November the electorate also rendered a verdict on the priorities of the two major political parties. Democrats, most voters believe, are more concerned with the plight of the middle class than Republicans, who ran on a platform of actually lowering income taxes on wealthy Americans.

In the intervening months, Republican operatives have become practitioners of a new kind of alchemy, attempting with little success to convince voters that the right’s long-standing agenda is actually an array of policies that coincidentally meets the needs of the middle class.

Enter House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who’s hit upon a new plan. If you can’t turn lead into gold, go out and buy some gold paint.

More here

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Thank you LovelyPlains!

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NYT: Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who lived for decades with a stunning secret — that she was the interracial daughter of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a former segregationist who never acknowledged her publicly as his child — died Monday in a nursing home near Columbia, S.C. She was 87.

Strom Thurmond never publicly acknowledged that he was Ms. Washington-Williams’s father.

Six months after her father died at age 100 as the longest-serving senator in history, Ms. Washington-Williams broke her silence.

“My father’s name was James Strom Thurmond,” she said at a news conference in a hotel ballroom in Columbia on Dec. 17, 2003

More here

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I hooted, in a loud snorty kind of way:

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And now that Dick Morris is leaving Fox, it’s a good time to recall what a brilliant political-predicting-pundit he was:

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MooOOOOooOOOOooorning!

Rise and Shine

Three years ago today: A bronze bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is visible in the foreground as President Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office, Feb. 4, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Today (All times EST):

10:15: President Obama departs the White House

11:15: VP Biden and Dr Jill Biden arrive in London

1:00: President Obama arrives in Minneapolis

1:30 Participates in a discussion with local leaders and law enforcement officials (Pool spray at the top)

2:30 Delivers remarks on a comprehensive set of ideas to reduce gun violence (Live coverage)

3:35 Departs Minneapolis, Minnesota

5:45 Arrives Joint Base Andrews

6:0 Arrives the White House

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The week ahead:

Tuesday: The President will attend meetings at the White House

Wednesday: Attends the Democratic Senate Caucus Retreat in Annapolis, Maryland

Thursday: Delivers remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. In the afternoon, the President will travel to Leesburg, VA to deliver remarks at the House Democratic Issues Conference

Friday: Attends meetings at the White House

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Steve Benen: Last night, if you were watching the Super Bowl you saw a rather powerful ad on gun policy  …. The spot, sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, urges policymakers to approve a universal background check, and features “America, the Beautiful” against the backdrop of young children.

About 12 hours earlier, Americans could see theNRA’s Wayne LaPierre on “Fox News Sunday,” making a very different kind of argument: “I make the same thing during the campaign, when he said to people I will not take away your rifle, shotgun, handgun. They leafletted the country with flyers like this, ‘Obama is not going to take your gun, Obama is going to protect gun rights.’ And, now, he’s trying to take away all three.”

…..  therein lies the problem: the policy debate has become increasingly strained because one of the most influential lobbying groups in Washington relies on arguments based on evidence the organization has simply made up…..

Full post here

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Josh Marshall (TPM): I just found out that last September the NRA published an official list of gun enemies including the ADA, AMA, ADL, Mel Brooks, Chaka Khan and hundreds of other domestic gun enemies…..

The following organizations have lent monetary, grassroots or some other type of direct support to anti-gun organizations. In many instances, these organizations lent their name in support of specific campaigns to pass anti-gun legislation such as the March 1995 HCI “Campaign to Protect Sane Gun Laws.” Many of these organizations were listed as “Campaign Partners,” for having pledged to fight any efforts to repeal the Brady Act and the Clinton “assault weapons” ban. All have officially endorsed anti-gun positions.

More here

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Michael Tomasky: The Strangest NRA Story Yet – The fact that the NRA was keeping a list of its foes isn’t all that bizarre. But the list itself is positively loony — yet more evidence of just how nuts the NRA is

One of the sure markers of the paranoid mind is the urge to keep lists. In particular, lists of enemies, subversives, no-goodniks ….  It virtually goes without saying that the keepers of such lists are always the bullies who survive by fomenting hatred and making sure that their constituents stay in a state of constant agitation. And so it was no surprise to learn over the weekend that the NRA has a little list of 497 people and organizations who are in some way, shape, or form anti-gun. It makes for hilarious reading, although it’s sort of frightening to think about the demented minds of the people who assembled it.

More here

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Paul Krugman: ….. There was, however, one piece of the reform that was a shining example of how to do it right: the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a stand-alone agency with its own funding, charged with protecting consumers against financial fraud and abuse. And sure enough, Senate Republicans are going all out in an attempt to kill that bureau.

….. Right now, all the media focus is on the obvious hot issues — immigration, guns, the sequester, and so on. But let’s try not to let this one fall through the cracks: just four years after runaway bankers brought the world economy to its knees, Senate Republicans are using every means at their disposal, violating all the usual norms of politics in the process, in an attempt to give the bankers a chance to do it all over again.

Full article here

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Steve Benen: Long-time viewers of The Rachel Maddow Show may recall the “Geek Week” segments aired in May 2010, which included an interview with Energy Secretary Steven Chu. (The segment also noted why At Least I Am A Nerd.com still redirects to the show’s video player.)

Nearly three years later, we’ve learned that Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, will leave his post in President Obama’s second term, stepping down from the Department of Energy later this month. With this in mind, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the significance of Chu’s first-term efforts, which haven’t generated front-page news, but which carry extraordinary significance…..

More here

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Morning!

Keep (Super Bowl) Chattin’

Beyonce performs during the Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show, February 3

President Obama’s Super Bowl Interview

Thank you LovelyPlains (@DaRiverZkind)

Keep Chattin’

@samir: “Best. Typo. Ever.”

What? There’s a big football game this weekend?

June 24, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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President Obama strikes the Heisman pose after accepting a football from quarterback Tim Jefferson, left, during the Commander-in-Chief Trophy presentation to the United States Air Force Academy football team in the East Room of the White House, April 23, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Barack Obama striking a “Heisman” pose while holding Earl Campbell’s Heisman trophy during a tour of the University of Texas in Austin, Feb 2008

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First Lady Michelle Obama strikes the Heisman pose while greeting Dallas Cowboys football players, from left, Miles Austin, DeMarcus Ware, and Felix Jones at the Kleberg Rylie Recreation Center in Dallas, Texas, Feb. 10, 2012 (Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

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President Obama throws a football on the field at Soldier Field following the NATO working dinner in Chicago, Illinois, May 20, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)

rise and shine

President Barack Obama signs the prosthetic arm of Sgt. Carlos Evans, USMC, after greeting wounded warriors in the East Room during their tour of the White House, March 6, 2012. First Lady Michelle Obama first met Evans, who was injured in Afghanistan while on his fourth combat deployment, during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Supporters of Mitt Romney wait for his “Super Tuesday” primary election night rally to begin in Boston, Massachusetts, March 6

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Washington Post

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Washington Post: Super Tuesday confirmed anew that Mitt Romney remains the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination, but his slow, unsteady march is coming at a steep price. As he advances toward victory in the primaries, he is losing ground in the general election.

…. Romney is in worse shape at this point in the campaign than virtually all recent previous nominees …. Demographically, his image among independent voters, the most critical swing group, is more negative now than it was when the primary battle began. He could be hurt among women. He is in trouble with Latinos, a growing part of the electorate that is tilting even more Democratic than it was four years ago….

Geographically, the numbers from several key states have been discouraging for the former Massachusetts governor. Pre-primary polls in Ohio, Virginia and Michigan showed him running behind Obama by low double digits. Ohio is a must-win for the Republican nominee in the fall, and Virginia is a state the GOP is determined to take back from the president. Republicans once thought Michigan would be a possible battleground, but at this point it isn’t.

More here

The Week

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NYT Editorial: Long before Super Tuesday, the Republican Party had cemented itself on the distant right of American politics, with a primary campaign that has been relentlessly nasty, divisive and vapid. Barbara Bush, the former first lady, was so repelled that on Tuesday she called it the worst she’d ever seen. We feel the same way ….. the Republican candidates are so deep in the trenches of cultural and religious warfare that they aren’t offering any solutions.

The results Tuesday night did not settle the race. Republican voters will have to go on for some time choosing between a candidate, Mitt Romney, who stands for nothing except country-club capitalism, and a candidate, Rick Santorum, so blinkered by his ideology that it’s hard to imagine him considering any alternative ideas or listening to any dissenting voice.

….. There is also no space between Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum in the way they distort reality to attack Mr. Obama for everything he says, no matter how sensible, and oppose everything he wants, no matter how necessary…..

More here

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Cagle

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Washington Post: Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), the two-time presidential candidate and icon of the antiwar left, suffered a bruising primary defeat Tuesday as a new Republican-drawn congressional map threatened to end the career of one of the most colorful figures in Congress.

With most attention focused on the state’s GOP presidential primary battle, and no Democratic primary for president, Kucinich was left in a low-turnout race in a newly drawn district against his once-close ally, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio). With about 90 percent of the vote in, Kaptur led 60 to 36 percent….

More here

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Charles Pierce: ….. there remains a substantial amount of Republican voters who would rather remove their spleens with a melon baller than vote for Willard Romney for anything.

…. Is there anything else he can do to pander sufficiently to the crazoid elements in his party’s base short of immolating himself on Sarah Palin’s lawn? ….. And when, oh, when will they finally see that, even though Willard is struggling to beat the colossal dick Rick Santorum, he is still The Only Man Who Can Beat Obama? ‘Ees a puzzlement, no question.

…. As he spoke, you could see the people stealing away, huddling around the TV sets. It will go on. This time next week, Romney will be telling voters in Alabama and Mississippi what a hellhole that state was where he used to be the governor. The rubes will find this very funny. And he will know in the unsold part of his soul that he’s going to be running for president for a very long time.

Full post here

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TPM: Rush Limbaugh may be steering the GOP into another Democratic-friendly trap with his consistent bashing of the Chevy Volt.

America’s attempt to to one-up the Prius …became an important symbol for the administration, and thus an immediate whipping boy for Limbaugh. Right-wing pundits and Republicans have followed suit, putting them in the bewildering position of rooting against a product of American engineering and manufacturing.

….. “As for the Volt, it is emblematic of a larger problem the GOP has: the sense that they are rooting for America to fail,” Paul Begala, Democratic strategist and adviser to President Obama’s super PAC told TPM. “When a good jobs report comes out, Mitt Romney looks sad. When Clint Eastwood makes an unapologetic, patriotic Super Bowl ad for Chrysler, Karl Rove says it makes him sick. They booed a gay soldier at a GOP debate, and didn’t even want to give the President his due for ordering the mission that killed bin Laden. One wonders if they will be rooting for communist China during the summer Olympics.”

More here

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Boston.com: First Lady Michelle Obama will headline two Democratic National Committee events in Boston on Friday evening, the White House has announced …. Earlier Friday she will be in Concord, N.H., as part of her “Let’s Move!” initiative to foster healthy eating and active living. She will visit the Penacook Community Center to highlight an example of a collaborative community effort to promote health and wellness, good nutrition, and physical activity.

More here

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Morning everyone 😉

half-time? four more years.

Hey, don’t miss the last 10 seconds 😉

half-time in america

super bowl interview