Eight Ways Obamacare Helps You

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Thank You!

Holy smokes, what a very lovely thing the post below was to wake up to!

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge thank yous to the incredibly awesome UT, who now even speaks Irish, the one-of-a-kind poet that is VC, and the cake-maker supreme Meta – and to you all for the completely beautiful comments that made me go all blushy.

UT is doing today’s R&S while I have a cheesy puff birthday breakfast, but I’ll be in and out all day to make sure you’re behaving. Huh.

Love ya all!!!!

PS Seriously, I can’t believe I’m 21!

A Message from Lisa, Tyren’s Mom

President Barack Obama signs a photograph as he greets people on the tarmac upon arrival at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, La., July 25, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)

UT included the above photo in today’s R&S – the young man pictured is Tyren Edward Anthony Scott. Tyren’s mother Lisa contacted us at the time to let us know that Tyren was the same young man who asked the President “why do people hate you?’ at a town hall in New Orleans three years earlier:

“He was nine when he asked the President that question and in the latest picture he’s 12. President Obama stood there with us, talked for about three minutes, he remembered Tyren and signed an 11 x 14 picture of their first encounter.”

We sent our best wishes to Tyren, Lisa and all the Scott family this morning, so it was really lovely to receive this comment from Lisa:

Good Afternoon,

Thanks for the great comments on my son Tyren Edward Anthony Scott.

Tyren starts school on Aug. 6. He’s now 13 and in the 8th grade.

Tyren and I are doing great. I visit the website several times a day and was surprised to see Tyren. He’s growing up to be a fine young man. I am not saying that because he is my son, I say that because he has a great heart. He was upset with the verdict in the Zimmerman trial. As a matter of fact after President Obama spoke on Friday he emailed the President on Sunday.

I had to have that talk with him on how to be careful especially as a young black teen.

He’s still very respectful (yes sir/no sir). Tyren is still a good student and he’s involved in the community. He loves people and he does not see color until it slaps him in his face. I had to tell him he is not a thug.

Tyren loves fishing, deer hunting, plays in high school band (sax), football, baseball and he still helps his Uncle Tweed with the chickens LOL.

I tell people all the time you can not raise a child by yourself. So I ask The Obama Diary family to keep us in your prayers.

LISA SCOTT

DARKNESS CANNOT DRIVE OUT DARKNESS; ONLY LIGHT CAN DO THAT.

HATE CANNOT DRIVE OUT HATE, ONLY LOVE CAN DO THAT.

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“Yes, we will find you.”

 

A Whole Bunch of Thank Yous

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So, I wake up this morning and there’s a perfect post from Lovely Plains (@DaRiverZkind) ….. and then I come back after a bit and there’s another perfect one from Amk (@amk4obama), despite him being Amk …… and after that Liberal Librarian (@Lib_Librarian) pops up with his usual dollop of brilliance, despite him being a Chelsea supporter.

And then I check my email and there are a bunch more people saying ‘I’m ready to go!’

So, I’m thinking: you people – yes, YOU people! – are ridiculously lovely. And wonderful. And gorgeous. And magnificent. And ….  okay, okay, I’ll stop.

I’m not going to gush here, and publicly embarrass people, and get all mushy about what blissful human beings you are, and….

But you are all BLISSFUL human beings!

Lovely Plains, Amk and Liberal Librarian – thank you so much for today.

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I’ll be back, in, eh, full swing, on Sunday morning – and the timing has absolutely NOTHING to do with it being St Patrick’s Day and all that tacky, silly, stupid nonsense that you will never, ever, see here

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(Some day, when I’ve recovered, I will tell you about my ordeal with this song on the 2009 Inauguration Day)

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Until then, I’ll be asking our awesome noobies to do their very wonderful thing.

Meanwhile…..

Love ya.

Thank you!

Okay, just got back to my email after a few hours and found a bunch of very lovely people willing to help out with the site – I honestly cannot thank you enough. I will get around to replying to everyone and setting something up in the next day or two, we need to get this blog back to work!

Again, thank you to everyone for being so kind, I just needed a bit of a break to rinse the hate out of my hair and recharge!

Love ya all – chat away.

‘You Are The Reason’

Yet another WordPress blogger who is a member of the anti-reblogging campaign – Boycott rebloggers, they create nothing, only steal – thanks! Tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut

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13 is an unlucky number? Huh! It’s magical: Some of us were born on the 13th 😕

Okay, I’m not going to be sloppy about this ….. promise ….. well ….. ish …. except to say: thank you everyone for taking the blog to another very lovely landmark, 13 million hits, this journey with you all has been pretty damn delightful and amazing. Genuine and endless thanks to you all for keeping me company along the way, and for being forgiving about the occasional meltdown. 😳

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I think – hope – you know by now I hate mentioning the money word ….. but if you have a spare $13, it would be completely sweet if you could donate to any of these TOD fundraisers, just to mark the, ah, historic occasion:

a4alice * Alycee * BWD * CollegeKay * Cookemom * DonnaDem4Obama

Hgerhard * HZ * Judith Fardig * Mae Who Love Our CIC

Marlz * Meta * Pamela *prettyfoot58 * proudmemberofglobalzero * Rita * Theo67 * The Obama Diary

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And if you have anything left over, you could donate to some of the Democratic candidates trying to win back Congress …. which would make PBO’s second term even more perfect:

Like Elizabeth Warren

If there are any other candidates you’d like to promote, please link them in the comments. Thanks.

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Golden, Colorado, Sept 13

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Thanks again everyone.

Forward 😉

Rise and Shine

Yet another TOD post that has been reblogged by Jueseppi B, despite requests that he make his own effort to support PBO rather than copying others simply to drive up his reblog’s traffic. He doesn’t take kindly to being challenged, as another woman found out: explicit. Genuine bloggers are welcome to use anything they ever see at TOD. Thanks

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Charlie Crist (Tampa Bay Times): …. As America prepares to pick our president for the next four years — and as Florida prepares once again to play a decisive role — I’m confident that President Barack Obama is the right leader for our state and the nation. I applaud and share his vision of a future built by a strong and confident middle class in an economy that gives us the opportunity to reap prosperity through hard work and personal responsibility. It is a vision of the future proven right by our history.

…. Many have already forgotten how deep and daunting our shared crisis was in the winter of 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated. It was no ordinary challenge, and the president served as the nation’s calm through a historically turbulent storm.

…. President Obama has a strong record of doing what is best for America and Florida, and he built it by spending more time worrying about what his decisions would mean for the people than for his political fortunes. That’s what makes him the right leader for our times, and that’s why I’m proud to stand with him today.

Read it in all its glory here

Thanks Dotster

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Remember that boy from 2009 at the town hall meeting in New Orleans? I had no idea until last night that he’s the same boy in the third photo of the ‘If Kids could vote’ post: Tyren Edward Anthony Scott.

Huge thanks to his mother Lisa, a subscriber here, for letting me know.

“He was nine when he asked the President that question and in your latest picture he’s 12. President Obama stood there with us, talked for about three minutes, he remembered Tyren and signed an 11 x 14 picture of their first encounter.”

Thank you again Lisa, will email you later today – Tyren has grown in to a fine young man!

President Barack Obama signs a photograph as he greets people on the tarmac upon arrival at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, La., July 25, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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Cagle

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Morning everyone, it’s a bit of a busy day but I’ll drop in and out to update if anything happens. Meanwhile … chat away 😉

Rise and Shine

President Barack Obama steps off Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on July 25

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Alex MacGillis (The New Republic): …. cynicism has regained the upper hand this week, in a big way, with the Republicans’ out-of-context trumpeting of a single, infelicitous line from Obama’s recent riff, echoing Elizabeth Warren, about the need for public investment to sustain economic growth….

…. There is actually a pretty good argument to be had over this riff — an argument that gets to the heart of what the 2012 election is about …. But Republicans aren’t engaging in that argument. Instead, they have plucked out the single line — “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that” — which makes it sound like Obama’s ”that” refers to the business, not to the roads and bridges of the previous line…..

How has the press covered this? ….. Even Andrew Sullivan, this morning, essentially shrugged at the gambit, faulting Obama for having stumbled into the confused wording in the first place to produce his “biggest blunder yet”….

….. I’m genuinely perplexed that people who work with words for a living can be so blithe about the deliberate misuse of words to mislead. What are we in this business for if not to hold the people we cover to basic standards of context, rather than just scoring the marks left by the mistruths?

Full article here

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Charles P. Pierce: Senator McDreamy believes he’s found an acorn:

Sen. Scott Brown said Wednesday that President Barack Obama made his “you didn’t build that” comments after getting “bad advice from professor [Elizabeth] Warren.” “They’re almost verbatim,” Brown said on “Fox and Friends,” referring to a speech Warren gave last year. “And the president got bad advice from professor Warren, certainly. You’ll never hear me demonizing our job creators.”

…..  no, McDreamy, saying that the Romney campaign is lying their ass off about what he said is not the president “stepping back and correcting the record” — and undeniably true. For example, here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) we are blessed with a junior senator who benefitted early in life from the welfare benefits provided by other taxpayers that his family collected after his parents split, who attended a public high school financed by other taxpayers in Wakefield, who trained in the publicly financed Massachusetts National Guard, and who has been on the public payroll in one way or another since 1992.

You’re welcome, senator. Think nothing of it.

Full post here

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Ah, Willard is charming the British!

The UK Telegraph (right wing rag): Mitt Romney has questioned Britain’s preparedness to host the London 2012 Olympics and asked whether the country is genuinely willing to “celebrate” the Games.

….he told US television there were “disconcerting” signs about Britain’s readiness …. Romney questioned the enthusiasm of the British public. “Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment?” he asked. “That’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.”

…. The comments on the Olympics came after Mr Romney’s advisers told The Daily Telegraph that he would restore “Anglo-Saxon” understanding to the special relationship between the US and Britain…

…. However, Mr Romney will receive a lukewarm reception in London. He held brief talks with Ed Miliband, the Labour leader. In a gaffe of his own, Mr Romney referred to Mr Miliband as “Mr Leader”…..

…. Later on Thursday, Mr Romney is planning to hold a fundraiser at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Knightsbridge. One of the hosts of the fundraiser, former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, withdrew from the event after he resigned in the wake of the Libor scandal.

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Tony Blair very excited to meet Willard in London

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The UK Telegraph: Barclays told to stop fundraising for Mitt Romney

Barclays has been accused of fundraising for political candidates instead of working to rebuild the public’s trust in banks following the Libor-setting scandal.

Executives at Barclays have reportedly donated more than $1m (£645,000) to to US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s election campaign.

They are set to hand over more this evening at fundraising dinner in a secret Mayfair location, where tickets cost between $50,000 and $75,000, according to the Guardian.

An early-day motion (EDM) signed by 11 MPs last week demanded the bank and its directors stop working to bolster Mr Romney’s election campaign and concentrate on repairing confidence in the banking system.

More here

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Morning everyone 😉

Rise and Shine

LA Times: President Obama accused rival Mitt Romney of “knowingly twisting” his comments about American business, in what amounted to his most forceful response to more than a week of sustained attacks by Republicans over a sound bite the president’s campaign argued was taken out of context.

In remarks to a feisty audience at Oakland’s Fox Theater on Monday evening, Obama contended that Romney had misrepresented what he said this month when he spoke of the role government plays in supporting the growth of business. He said Romney’s response showed he fails to appreciate the best way to grow the economy in a balanced way.

…. “Earlier today Gov. Romney was at it again, knowingly twisting my words around to suggest that I don’t value small businesses,” he said …. “In politics we all tolerate a certain amount of spin. I understand these are the games that get played in political campaigns. But when folks omit entire sentences of what I said – they start splicing and dicing – you may have gone a little over the edge.”

More here

The Fox Theatre, Oakland

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Steve Benen: ….. Last September, Elizabeth Warren explained the role of public institutions in creating a society that allows American businesses to thrive. A video of the comments went viral, and soon after, President Obama echoed the sentiment.

Last week, Mitt Romney’s campaign, hoping that voters are fools, made the case that American businesses thrive on their own without public institutions, and to believe otherwise is to be “foreign” and hostile towards free enterprise…

….if Romney’s hysterical, right-wing argument had any merit at all, this should be fairly easy. Obama’s been in office for three-and-a-half years, and if the president were, in reality, actively opposed to the interests and needs of America’s private sector, the evidence should be overwhelming and undeniable.

And yet, it’s not. Romney – and now, Scott Brown – have to resort to garbage tactics that treat Americans voters like we’re idiots. Instead of presenting credible evidence to bolster absurd claims, Romney and Brown have to rely on out-of-context nonsense to make a case that their rivals believe in an agenda that’s pure fantasy.

If President Obama and Elizabeth Warren genuinely oppose the free market — they don’t, but if they did — why do Mitt Romney and Scott Brown have to lie?…

Full post here

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Boston Globe

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1:15: President Obama departs San Francisco en route Portland, Oregon

2:40: Arrives in Portland

4:50: Attends a campaign event at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland (Closed press)

** 7:10: Attends a campaign event at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland (Live coverage) **

8:05: Departs Portland en route Seattle, Washington

8:50: Arrives in Seattle

9:15: Attends a campaign event, private residence

11:15: Delivers remarks at a campaign event, private residence

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Morning everyone 😉