President Barack Obama speaks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House. President Obama met with Vice President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and spoke on the gunmen attack at the office of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France.
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President Barack Obama approaches Marine One on the snow covered South Lawn prior to his departure from the White House
President Barack Obama, accompanied by 89th Airlift Wing Commander Col. John Millard, smiles as they walk on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.
President Barack Obama, followed by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich and Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., as they arrive on Air Force One at Detroit Metro Wayne County Airport in Detroit
President Barack Obama speaks at Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., about the resurgent American automotive and manufacturing sector
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Ford plant manager, Phillip Calhoun, President Barack Obama, Mark Fields, president and CEO of Ford, and Bill Ford eye a new mustang at Ford Michigan Assembly Plant
Syracuse.com: At Tully Junior/Senior High in Tully, N.Y., the president talked to the kids about the end of summer vacation and his plans to help make college more affordable.
…. The girls chattered, squealed and cheered throughout the visit, especially when the president posed with the Black Knights for a photo.
…. The president talked to the girls’ team first, then the boys. He tried to start a little trouble: “Can you guys beat the boys?” Obama asked the girls, and one said. “Oh definitely.”
…. Obama singled out one girl: “You don’t look like you’re in junior high school,” he said to a young girl, Julia, who is 9. Meeting the president, she had said earlier today, was on her bucket list. “Here’s a general rule,” Obama said. “When you’re 9, you don’t need a bucket list,” and the girls laughed. “When you get to be 52, then you might want to draw one up.” With the boys, Obama took a soft pass from one of the players, caught up to it and played with the ball for a couple of seconds (to oohs) before passing it back to the team.
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…..
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.
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.
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.
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…..
2:15: Delivers remarks at a campaign rally at Elm Street Middle School, Nashua
4:30: Vice President Biden, Jill and Beau Biden campaign in Lynchburg, Virginia (live on C-Span)
5:05: President Obama departs Nashua
6:45: Arrives White House
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On Wednesday, the President will travel to Cincinnati, Ohio and Akron, Ohio for campaign events. In the evening, the President and the First Lady will welcome local children and children of military families to trick-or-treat at the North Portico of the White House.
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Col. Lawrence Wilkerson:
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Paul Krugman: For a few days there the Romney campaign was boasting a lot about having Big Mo — and the press corps actually fell for it, briefly. At this point, however, the reality seems to be sinking in: if Romney has Big Mo, it looks like this:
Despite the Denver Debacle and its aftermath, state polls are showing a clear Obama lead in the electoral college, which if anything is getting a bit stronger….
Why? Jonathan Cohn singles out the auto bailout, and rightly so. I’d add, however, that the killing of Osama bin Laden mattered too …. what the auto rescue and the bin Laden strike have in common is that they were both very courageous decisions — decisions that could easily have gone wrong, that faced lots of second-guessing. You can criticize Obama for many things (and I have, and will in future), but he showed true grit when it mattered, and now seems likely to reap the reward.
If you can bear to see Trump’s face, make sure you look at the clip of him on Letterman (at the very start of the video)
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Thank you Meta
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Charles Blow: The saying goes: A man is known by the company he keeps. If that is true, what does the company Mitt Romney keeps say about him?
….. Sununu has apologized, somewhat, for his racial attack on Powell’s motives. But what should we make of all this?
We have a very racially divided electorate …. I worry that Sununu’s statements intentionally go beyond recognizing racial disparities and seek to exploit them.
What does that say about Romney, and what does it say about his campaign’s tactics?
Mediaite: Bill Maher used his final New Rule of the night to warn voters unhappy with President Obama of the political and social consequences of the other guy winning. Maher argued that Mitt Romney winning the presidency would not just be a victory for him, but for every Republican extremist Romney has ever supported in his recent political career. Maher said Romney “may seem like a nice fella,” but he’s “a compulsive liar whose whole life is secret” and would bring too much unwanted baggage into a relationship with America.
…. Maher also warned about the “fresh can of nuts” in Congress with wildly anti-scientific beliefs that would have more free reign under a Republican administration. Maher said that a Republican in the White House would mean the return of “Bible-thumping bullshit” in government.
10:35: President Obama departs the White House en route Woodbridge, Va.
11:05: Arrives in Woodbridge, Va.
11:30: Delivers remarks via satellite at the AARP Life@50+ National Event & Expo at G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium in Woodbridge
12:45: Delivers remarks at a campaign event at G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium in Woodbridge (C-Span)
1:30: VP Biden and Jill Biden travel to Hanover, N.H., to deliver remarks at a campaign event at Dartmouth College
2:30: President Obama arrives at the White House
3:0 First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at Morgan State University, Baltimore (need to check the time on this)
5:15: VP Biden and Jill Biden travel to Concord, N.H., to deliver remarks at a campaign event at the New Hampshire State House
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Washington Post: The last of the 33,000 “surge” troops President Obama ordered to Afghanistan in December 2009 have left the country, the Pentagon announced Friday, just ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline.
The number of U.S. troops in the war zone now stands at 68,000, Secretary of State Leon E. Panetta told reporters traveling with him during a week-long visit to the Asia-Pacific region. The troop count is down from a peak of 101,000 U.S. forces last year and marks the end of a critical phase in Obama’s war strategy.
…. The drawdown of U.S. forces is in keeping with Obama’s timetable to pull out all conventional combat forces by the end of 2014…
USA Today: Medicare beneficiaries have saved a total of about $4.5 billion on prescription medications because of the 2010 health care law since January 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services plans to announce today.
“We’re seeing consistent, steady savings for seniors thanks to the health care law,” said Jon Blum, director of the Center for Medicare. “In just 21/2 half years, seniors have seen billions in savings, and those savings will continue to grow as the doughnut hole is fully closed.”
Washington Post: In 3 1/2 years in office, President Obama has set in motion a broad overhaul of public education from kindergarten through high school, largely bypassing Congress and inducing states to adopt landmark changes that none of his predecessors attempted.
He awarded billions of dollars in stimulus funding to states that agreed to promote charter schools, use student test scores to evaluate teachers and embrace other administration-backed policies. And he has effectively rewritten No Child Left Behind, the federal law passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, by excusing states from its requirements if they adopt his measures.
The Obama Diary 
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