Joining Forces: A Year Ahead Of Target….

Read more here

happy new year tod world!

Where TOD’s 2011 visitors came from.

From ‘The Obama Diary Annual Report’ WordPress emailed me tonight …. jeez, they make the blog sound like Bain Capital 😕

In order of visitors: 1 USA, 2 Canada, 3 UK

And the most popular post: so, you love the first lady? hey, you’re not the only one….. (link)

Thank you everyone for your support, I’d still be talking to myself if it wasn’t for you (although, I do that quite a bit any way).

*****

Wooooooooooot! What a way to end 2011 and start 2012 ….. you ridiculously good people pushed us past our $10,000 target.

Love ya!!!!!!

Happy New Year everyone, thank you for your company on this beautiful journey.

See you next year – ie tomorrow 😉

rise and (sunday) shine

This cover is five years old today 😯

****

TampaBay.com: President Barack Obama’s campaign last week announced that more than 1 million people had contributed to his re-election effort, a milestone that it said was well ahead of four years ago.

All told, the campaign has raised more than $90 million (not including what he has raised for the Democratic Party) and officials stress the number of grass roots, low-dollar donors, noting that the average donation is less than $60.

…. Florida bundlers have raised at least $4.5 million for the Obama campaign directly and for the Democratic National Committee….

“Basically since we announced the re-election campaign in April, we’ve gotten the old band back together, along with some new players who helped out a little four years ago and want to do more, or new people who want to get involved,” said Florida finance chairman Kirk Wagar, a lawyer in Coconut Grove.

…. “They’re saying, ‘I’m getting sick and tired of listening to the tea party when this president has done what he said he was going to do, and he’s done a lot,’ ” Wagar said.

Unlike the Republican presidential contenders, who have raised more than $80 million, Obama’s campaign releases the names of its top bundlers and ranges of what each brought in.

Full article here

Thanks Jovie

****

Before:

After:

Rubio’s website

Alan Colmes: After the Washington Post story that Florida Senator Marco Rubio had some facts wrong in his retelling of his family’s history, he has updated his Senate web page biography.

“Rubio frequently repeated a compelling version of his family’s history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the “son of exiles,” he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after “a thug,” Fidel Castro, took power.

But a review of documents reveals that the Florida Republican’s account embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than two-and-a-half years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959.”

Rubio aggressively challenged the Post story, but changed his bio, nevertheless.

****

Link

****

You people are beyond great – thank you so much for helping reach the target (link), appreciate it endlessly.

****

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on ‘Meet the Press’:

“Let me begin by saying that President Obama has passed with flying colors every leadership challenge. I mean, look at what he has done. I mean, just to name a few things …. we were looking for bin Laden for 10 years. It was under President Obama’s leadership that he was finally eliminated.

“Libya … with the kind of smart leadership that the president showed, demonstrating that American leadership was essential, but it was important to try to bring others into a coalition of efforts. And the objective was achieved keeping the promise to withdraw from Iraq, but not leave Iraq – by having a robust security and training mission accompanied by a very large diplomatic presence. I could go on and on. I think this president has demonstrated that …. it’s important to have someone at the helm of our country who understands how to manage what is an incredibly complex world now.”

“Yes, we have a lot of threats, but we also have opportunities. And I think President Obama has grasped that and has performed extraordinarily well. I think Americans are going to want to know that they have a steady, experienced, smart hand on the tiller of the ship of state, and there’s no doubt that that’s Barack Obama.”

Link

****

For old time’s sake 😉

****

The President’s statement in response to the latest developments in Libya:

“On behalf of the American people, I congratulate the people of Libya on today’s historic declaration of liberation. After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise.

Now that the fighting in Libya has reached an end, the Transitional National Council (TNC) must turn its attention to the political transition ahead. We look forward to working with the TNC and an empowered transitional government as they prepare for the country’s first free and fair elections.

The Libyan authorities should also continue living up to their commitments to respect human rights, begin a national reconciliation process, secure weapons and dangerous materials, and bring together armed groups under a unified civilian leadership. As they take these steps, the United States will continue our close cooperation with our international partners and the UN Support Mission in Libya to help advance a stable, democratic transition.”

****

People wait in line outside a polling station in Tunis. President Barack Obama congratulated Tunisians Sunday on casting ballots in their country’s first election since the revolt that started the Arab Spring, calling it “an important step forward.”

****

Thanks Kasai 😆

secret shopper

MSNBC

thank you!

Hey you lovely people – thank you so much for helping the blog reach its Obama/Biden 2012 fundraising target at barackobama.com – massively MASSIVELY appreciated! There are so many grassroots fundraising pages over there, just imagine what they’re raising when you combine the totals. It’s completely fantastic.

Rather than upping the target again, I’ve decided just to simplify things and direct anyone who wants to donate to Obama/Biden 2012 to the main donation page at barackobama.com (here) – I’ve update the link in the right sidebar, click the logo and it’ll take you there.

Thank you again everyone – sounds to me like you’re fired up and ready to go 😉

target: reached!

****** If you have $10 to spare, click here ******

night everyone

President Obama hosts military fathers and children for a screening of Cars 2 in advance of Father’s Day in the South Court Auditorium June 15. The event is part of the President’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative.

More here

****

Never forget:

“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” (Coretta Scott King)

****

I completely failed in my promise to reply to emails and check out all the comments today, or to try again to find out why lots of you are having trouble with the new WordPress comment box. Another promise: I’ll try to get it done tomorrow 😕

****

First Lady Michelle Obama and a young volunteer mix cement as they help build a playground during the KaBOOM! and Congressional Family Service Project at Imagine Southeast Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., June 15, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

*****

From the comments I got a chance to read today, I saw that a lot of you were down about the renewed attacks on the President from the professional left.

Just a couple of things:

The vast majority of the professional left didn’t campaign or vote for Barack Obama in 2008 – this is the simple truth, as any of you who visited the better known liberal (ha!) sites would have seen in 2007/08. These people’s hatred for BHO was a sight to behold – even before he took office. I witnessed it myself time and time again – that’s why I started this blog, to get away from these ****ed up hate-mongers.

But he got elected without them, and he will get elected without them again in 2012.

Check all the recent polls – his support from genuine progressives usually tops 80 per cent. The professional left are in a tiny minority, they just make a lot of noise. They are irrelevant, just a bunch of self-promoting, bitter keyboard warriors with seriously troubled agendas.

Always remember, so many of the professional left divas – like Arianna Huffington and Cenk Uygur – were hardcore right-wingers until not too long ago. Miraculous conversions that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they found it easier to forge media careers as ‘progressives’. And then there’s the PL’s beloved Glenn Greenwald, his hatred of the President leaving the chap foaming at the mouth as he pounds his keyboard and spews his daily bile. This, incidentally, the guy who’s still pushing the candidacy of Republican/Libertarian Gary Johnson – the racist scumbag who wants to end child labor laws. How progressive of you, Glenn 🙄

These people aren’t progressives, they’re attention-seeking opportunists who haven’t a genuine liberal bone in their bodies. Uygur, the self-appointed voice of the Professional Left, and self-confessed Ronald Reagan devotee, is the guy who sneered at the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, describing equal pay for women as a “minor” achievement by the President (see here).

See?

These people are just not worth your energy or worry – they are nothing, they represent no one but themselves, a tiny hate-filled clique whose biggest fear is progress. **** them, preserve your energy and passion for getting President Obama re-elected 😉

****

2008 ….. “Them”

Do you think she voted for President Obama in 2008? Me neither. And she probably won’t vote for him either in 2012.

Net loss? Zero.

😉

morning

So, what were you lovely people up to when I went off to sleep last night? Helping The Obama Diary reach its fundraising target at the Organizing for America site – whooooo hoooooo! Cannot thank you enough, I’m just chuffed that you chose to help this blog do its little bit for Obama/Biden 2012. Thank you again, you’re great 😉

(PS I’ve raised the target to $3,000 – I can’t keep up with you!)

****

The White House has uploaded the President’s speech in Puerto Rico yesterday:

****

****

I’ve fallen way behind again answering emails, huge apologies to everyone. I’ll definitely catch up later today – thank you all for your links and comments, always appreciated.

a ‘normal’ life

Newsweek: Michelle Obama refuses to be a political show pony or schmooze with Washington’s elite. She has her own sense of where her energies should be deployed and has constructed a fruitful life inside the bubble. All that will have to change in the heat of Election 2012.

The most recognizable woman in the world routinely ducks reporters to have what she calls a “normal” life. Hiding beneath a baseball cap, the first lady of the United States has picked through sale racks in the frenetic Tysons Corner, Va., mall with girlfriends, bought supplies for her dog at Petco using her own credit card, and dined at some of D.C.’s hippest eateries largely unrecognized….…she has figured out ways to navigate the bubble while channeling her own passions and holding on to her life.

…She must once again find her footing in the part of the job she hates the most – campaigning – but one she happens to excel at. “She has always been remarkably effective because no matter where you live or where you come from, you can relate to her,” says White House official Stephanie Cutter, who worked closely with Michelle in 2008. “She conveys the same set of values and experiences families all over the country live by.”

….on a personal note, her closest aides confide that there is one place in D.C. that she has been desperate to visit for another taste of life outside the White House – but so far it has not been possible. “She really wants to go to Target,” says one confidante. “We have to make that happen.”

Full article here

one last thing….

So, before I called it a night I was practicing that quadruple forward flip I did at the White House the other day….

….and just having one last look at that completely random photo…

….and then my email went “Ding!” and I saw this……

You know who you are, you bundle of loveliness 😉

Thank you so much!