For two years in a row, Barack Obama has included tracks from By the Way, I Forgive You, “The Joke” and “Every Time I Hear That Song” on his Spotify playlists. The irony isn’t lost on me that “The Joke,” which was inspired by the fallout from the 2016 presidential election, was celebrated by a president very different from the one currently in the White House…
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Well, I certainly have a lot of respect for [Obama], and I think the irony of what you pointed out is certainly an interesting perspective too. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. And if you listen closely to “The Joke,” you can hear him in it. You can hear Obama’s influence on me in that song. He influenced me in big ways during his presidency. I saw my parents get health insurance for the first time. I proposed to my wife on the day that he became the first American president ever to come out in support of marriage equality — and it had always bothered me that he hadn’t up until that point. I had the ring for a long time, and I had been waiting for the opportunity to propose to Catherine [Shepherd, who is British], but we kept hitting roadblocks with DOMA. We kept hitting roadblocks with the airports and the borders, and getting to and from the U.S. together without having to lie about our relationship. We were very discouraged at the time. So when [Obama] came out [in support of gay marriage], it was like the sun came out.
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There are detractors out there who think artists should just “shut up and sing” and keep politics out of music…
Being told to “stop being political” is just hilarious to me. I wake up every day political: a gay mom raising a house full of women. There’s really nothing not political about that. So, I can write about my own personal experience and have it be wildly political. That just happens to be the life and the hand I was dealt.
Monday: The President will host a meeting at the White House with business leaders to discuss the importance of common-sense immigration reform, including the Congressional Budget Office analysis that concludes that immigration reform would promote economic growth and reduce the deficit.
Tuesday: President Obama will speak at Georgetown University on the growing threat of climate change
Wednesday morning: The President and the First Family will depart for their trip to Africa. The trip will continue through the weekend, and the President and the First Lady will return July 2nd.
USA Today: Members of Congress will be in recess in August, but President Obama wants to make sure they hear from his supporters.
A pro-Obama organization said Friday that Obama will address an “Action August” summit designed “to plan for and discuss the action we will be taking during the August congressional recess in order to ensure that the voice of the people is heard and that Members of Congress are held accountable by those they represent.”
Organizing for Action said Obama will speak July 22 at “a working dinner with grass-roots leaders, volunteers, OFA founding members, campaign alumni and OFA staff to thank them for everything they are doing, but also to reaffirm that there is still so much left to do.”
Among the issues that OFA and Obama are pushing: an immigration bill, gun-control legislation and a new budget deal with higher taxes on the wealthy.
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Washington Post: Vice President Joe Biden is not letting the gun-control issue rest. At a speech in Las Vegas Friday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual meeting, Biden said that “at least five senators” who initially opposed background checks have sought him out for an opportunity to change their votes.
“We’re in an effort to see how we can provide another opportunity for the people who voted no” on universal background checks, which failed in the Senate in April. “That’s the hardest thing for a politician and we need to provide them a rationale. We will get to this eventually.”
Bob Cesca: The NSA absolutely can not intentionally target U.S. citizens without an individual warrant. Even if you’re the most vocal Edward Snowden supporter in the universe, you have no choice but to acknowledge the truth and accuracy of this statement.
How can I say such a thing? On Thursday, Glenn Greenwald wrote it deep within his latest “bombshell” article for the Guardian: “To intentionally target either of those groups requires an individual warrant.” The “groups” Greenwald referred to here are U.S. persons or residents.
And there you go.
This is easily the biggest news to come out of Thursday’s dispatch …. not only does it totally decimate CNet’s journalistic blunder from last weekend …. it it also represents a striking clarification in Greenwald’s reporting, not to mention Snowden’s claims of being able to target any American including the president at his own discretion and without a warrant. The “requires an individual warrant” line isn’t the centerpiece of the article by any stretch. It’s tossed into the mix almost as a throwaway ….
Here we go again. Glenn Greenwald’s latest overheated, over-long, deliberately confusing piece claims to reveal: The Top Secret Rules That Allow NSA to Use US Data Without a Warrant.
….. keep digging through the turgid prose. Keep digging. Because eventually you get to this:
FAA warrants are issued by the Fisa court for up to 12 months at a time, and authorise the collection of bulk information – some of which can include communications of US citizens, or people inside the US. To intentionally target either of those groups requires an individual warrant.
Wait a minute — did Glenn Greenwald just debunk his own exaggerated claims? Why yes, he did…..
TPM: Yahoo! News issued a correction Friday evening after a reporter mistakenly referred to Kenya as President Barack Obama’s birthplace.
A piece on Obama’s upcoming trip to Africa by Rachel Rose Hartman included a lede that echoed sentiments heard among the “birther” movement.
“President Barack Obama makes the first extended trip to Africa of his presidency next week — but he won’t be stopping in the country of his birth,” Hartman originally wrote.
NYT: Paula Deen, the self-proclaimed queen of Southern cooking and a sugary mainstay of the Food Network, was dropped by the network on Friday, after a bewildering day in which she failed to show up for an interview on the “Today” show and then in two online videos begged her family and audience to forgive her for using racist language.
ThinkProgress: …. what was striking both about some of the accusations she faced, and her sworn testimony in the deposition, was that Deen seemed more afraid of getting caught out being racist or being accused of having caused offense than of the idea that she might have caused someone else pain…..
Deen’s desperate to be forgiven, which in this context means not facing a boycott or loss of business …. there’s no reason anyone should gratify her until she demonstrates that she’s making real efforts to become a different person and to establish a different environment in her businesses. Paula Deen isn’t entitled to our goodwill just because she wants it…..
Jon C. Hopwood (Yahoo): I received news that my mother had passed just after midnight on Friday. Despite her Alzheimer’s, she had been my biggest fan. She was the first to see the photos I took at campaign events; she had even accompanied me to several events….
…. One, a Romney-Ryan rally at Saint Anselm College, had been an ordeal for her and she had asked me to take her away, away from the hate and bombast.
…. The motto of the Romney-Ryan campaign seems to be “every man for himself,” a command given sailors on a sinking ship. They had given up on America. I wanted to see Obama and his message of hope.
He did not disappoint. The 6,000 supporters who thronged the central square at the Strawberry Banke living museum had to wait two hours, but it was worth it … he did give me hope and helped lift my despair.
Because he cares. Barack Obama cares …. I felt like part of a community. A community that cares.
Back home, the following day, I collected some of Mom’s snapshots for her memorial … As I removed the photos, I discovered she had also tucked into the mirror frame a photo of President Obama and his family.
….. It was nice to know the man I chose to see the day after she passed, seeking to be comforted, had been there to comfort her in her final days.
2:45 Michelle Obama visits Georgetown University in Washington
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President Barack Obama greets representatives from leading veterans’ service organizations in the Oval Office before delivering remarks on the American Jobs Act in the Rose Garden, Nov. 7, 2011. The President spoke about about tax credits included in the American Jobs Act and new executive actions that will help get veterans back to work. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Nate Berkus interviews the First Lady – original video here
Yahoo: …As an American citizen, I would think – or at least hope – that elected government representatives would … put the country’s interests firsts, even if those interests conflicted with their personal desire to gain more power or get re-elected.
My colleague Dan Gross, however, who has covered Washington for two decades, thinks that this principle – if it ever existed – has been thrown out the window. …Dan argues, Republicans are doing everything they can to ensure that the economy remains a mess when it comes time for the 2012 election…
…If this is actually what some Republicans are doing, Americans of both parties should be outraged. The first loyalty of any elected representative should be acting in the best interests of the country., and advocating policies that you know will hurt the country – or stonewalling ones that will help it – is a gross dereliction of professional and civic responsibility.
You know, when the media tries to set a narrative it’s comically stubborn in trying to back it up with evidence, even when the ‘evidence’ is a little shaky.
The headline? “Obama Shows Alarming Loss of Ground with Independents, Poll Indicates.”
Okay, that didn’t sound good.
“A new Reuters/Ipsos Poll shows President Barack Obama’s job approval rating among independents (37%) dropped sharply when compared to last month’s rating. According to the poll, the president’s approval rating fell a precipitous 10 percent. Could it spell trouble for his re-election?”
Uh oh.
But wait. Buried right at the bottom of the article were the findings of two other polls, by Gallup and Rasmussen, which put the President’s approval rating among independents at, respectively, 43% and 47%. Yes, 47% – a whole 10% higher than the Reuters/Ipsos poll. That’s just 4% lower than he got in the 2008 election.
“The numbers might be more worrisome for the president … if other polls corroborated the fall in approval ratings … Gallup, which daily tracks the president’s approval rating, showed Obama at 43 percent approval among independents during the same time frame, down only 2 percent from a month ago (and still up by a point over January).”
But it was the Reuters/Ipsos Poll that Yahoo chose to highlight, and feature in their headline.
I dunno, if you had three polls showing wildly different findings, wouldn’t you focus on the middle one?
Or mention that two of the three polls were rather positive for the President?
Then again, “Independent support for Obama down only 2 percent from a month ago (and still up by a point over January)” doesn’t quite fit that narrative, eh?
The Obama Diary 
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