President Obama and Commander in Chief

Apr 30, 2012 by     whitehouse

President Obama speaks at the Building and Construction Trades Department Conference about creating good jobs for American workers, who can help our economy grow by rebuilding our nation’s roads, bridges, train tracks, and airports. April 30, 2012

Apr 28, 2012 by     whitehouse

President Obama at the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C.

Apr 28, 2012 by     whitehouse

President Obama discusses a new Executive Order designed to crack down on the bad actors who prey on our veterans and service members considering higher education.

Apr 25, 2012 by     whitehouse

President Obama discusses the importance of a college education and why higher education should be affordable for all students willing to work hard, and calls on Congress to stop interest rates on federal Stafford loans from doubling in July. April 24, 2012

A message from Alan Grayson

Pulling No Punches

Our favorite Congressman, and yours, was on national TV again last Thursday.  The subject was Mitt Romney and George W. Bush – what do they have in common?

REV. AL SHARPTON: Congressman, let me start with you. The similarities are striking. How is he going to be able to run on this?

FORMER REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, first of all, I think America doesn’t need another President who’s simply trying to one-up his daddy. It seems like Romney’s main motivation is that he wants to be President because he father couldn’t make it. And I think that America has just had a bad experience with people who run for office because they want to be something, instead of people who run for office because they want to do something.

But there’s an additional problem here. The additional problem is that [Romney] was born with a silver spoon in some orifice, and he never was able to get it out. He acts like one of those out-of-touch rich people who has no way to relate to America’s suffering.

And there are a lot of people in America who are suffering.  If America consisted entirely of millionaires and billionaires, he might be the ideal president. But that’s not where America is today, and for the rest of us, he is a horror. . . .

SHARPTON:  It’s basically been a [Romney] campaign so far just attacking President Obama, and really not laying out a plan, and involving some of the same players that brought us into a foreign policy that was disastrous.  But it’s also on the economic side, Congressman, let me show you this. If you look at the facts, Romney is further right than George Bush. Let me show you on the economy side, Bush passed a huge tax cut. Romney is proposing a cut four times larger. Bush enacted Medicare expansion, Romney wants to end Medicare as we know it. Bush signed an increase to minimum wage, Romney opposes increasing minimum wage. Bush says global warming is caused by humans. Romney says we don’t know what causes global warming.

I mean, this guy is to the right of George Bush, which many of us thought was politically impossible.

GRAYSON: Well like George Bush, he thinks the only problem that’s facing America today is that rich people don’t have enough money. And he is bent on solving that problem with his tax cuts and tax giveaways for the rich, and for multinational corporations, at the expense of everyone else.

[Meanwhile,] the war against the poor continues, the war against the middle class continues, the war against women continues.   It’s like that old headlines in the New York Post. We are going to see it again. You remember the headline.  “Ford to New York: Drop Dead.”  Well, we’ll soon see the headline “Romney to America: Drop Dead.”  He’ll only be happy when he can strap us to the top of his car. . . .

SHARPTON: Now one of the things interesting, Congressman, is that . . . many prominent members of the Bush family, but not George W. Bush, have endorsed Mr. Romney.  George H. W. Bush has endorsed.  Barbara Bush has endorsed.  Jeb Bush has endorsed.  No George W. Bush yet.

But Rolling Stone uncovered this sound of Bush endorsing Romney for governor back in 2002, so George W. Bush has supported Romney. Let’s listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH: I strongly stand with Mitt Romney because I believe he is the best person for the job of governor of Massachusetts. He’s got a record. He’s done things in life. He started his own businesses. He’s an entrepreneur.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHARPTON: I wonder if we’re going to hear echoes of that soon, since [Romney] is using all of [Bush's] advisors and some of his policies.  Even though he is going to the right, maybe we will hear that voice resonating again, telling us about Mr. Romney’s record and how Willard knows what to do with government.

GRAYSON: I don’t know. But I will tell you this. According to polls that I have seen, George W. Bush is no more popular than venereal disease at this point. Maybe we will see him attack Romney because Bush attacking somebody would probably make him more popular than Bush endorsing him.

SHARPTON: Former Congressman Alan Grayson and David Corn. Thank you for coming on the show tonight.

Alan Grayson:  our fearless voice on national TV.  And come November, again in Washington – if all of us join together, and make it happen.

the Daily Share: 31 Republican senators who voted ‘NO’ on the Violence Against Women Act

The 31 Republican Senators Who Voted ‘NO’ On The Violence Against Women Act

HILARIOUS! The Barack Obama 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner Speech

21 Seconds Of WTF Coming Your Way Courtesy Of This Presidential Candidate

Media Matters for America

Fox Attacks Democrats For Attempting To Deal With Gender Wage Inequality Fox & Friends attacked the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation aimed at addressing the wage inequality between men and women, with Fox host Dan Perino claiming the legislation is just a “distraction.” In fact, wage inequality is real: Study after study has found that women are paid less than men. Read More

Right-Wing Media Stoke Islamophobia With Dubious Story About “Necrophilia Law” In Egypt  The right-wing media continued their pattern of encouraging people to fear Muslims by hyping a thinly sourced column in an Egyptian newspaper about a supposed proposal to legalize necrophilia. Al-Arabiya has reported that members of the Egyptian parliament are denying that any such law was ever proposed. Read More

the Progress Report: Osama bin Ladan

The Facts About The Death of Osama bin Laden

By         ThinkProgress War Room

Obama: “I Said That We’d Go After bin Laden if We Had a Clear Shot at Him and I Did.”

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden. The president’s campaign has taken the opportunity to remind the American people of one of his greatest achievements, as well as Mitt Romney’s very different record on the issue. As a result, the Romney campaign and some in the media like Arianna Huffington have accused the president of “politicizing” the occasion.

Here are the facts.

• FACT: President Bush turned his focus toward Iraq and the trail for Osama bin Laden went “stone cold.”

Just a few months after we were attacked on 9/11, President Bush remarked:

Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not. We haven’t heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He’s just a person who’s been marginalized. … I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.

The Bush administration, of course, blew a huge opportunity to capture bin Laden early in the War in Afghanistan when bin Laden was allowed to escape from Tora Bora after pleas from commanders and intelligence officials for more resources were rebuffed by top Bush national security officials. In 2005, Bush passed on a mission to capture “senior members of Al Qaeda” in 2005 because “it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan.” Later that year, the CIA shuttered its bin Laden unit entirely as part of a broader shift in resources toward Iraq. By 2006, Bush told Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard that capturing bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.” By late 2006, bin Laden’s trail had gone “stone cold.”

See the complete bin Laden timeline here.

• FACT: President Obama ordered the military to kill Osama bin Laden and Osama bin Laden is dead.

During the 2008 campaign, the president promised that “if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al Qaeda targets in Pakistan’s border region, we must act if Pakistan will not or cannot.” During an October 2008 debate with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the president stated:

We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

As he brought the Iraq War to a responsible end, the president refocused attention back toward the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 and those who still seek to do us harm. Making good on his promise, President Obama made the decision to order a daring raid into Pakistan and brave members of our military killed Osama bin Laden.

• FACT: In 2007, Mitt Romney publicly attacked Obama for proposing the very tactic that ultimately killed bin Laden.

In 2007, Mitt Romney injected himself into the Democratic primary campaign and criticized Barack Obama for vowing to go after “high-value intelligence targets” in Pakistan with or without permission. Romney said, “I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours.” Here was the August 4, 2007 headline from Reuters:

While Romney claimed today that “of course” he would have also ordered the raid to kill bin Laden, he attacked the president in 2007 for vowing to do just that.

• FACT: Mitt Romney called killing Osama bin Laden “insignificant” and said it wasn’t “worth moving Heaven and Earth.”

In April 2007, Romney said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” According to the Associated Press, Romney also said “the country would be safer by only ‘a small percentage’ and would see ‘a very insignificant increase in safety’ if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power.”

At a press conference earlier this afternoon, President Obama addressed the issue in response to a question from a reporter:

As far as my personal role and what other folks would do, I just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and take out bin Laden. I assumed that people meant what they said when they said it, that’s been at least my practice. I said that we’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggested they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.

Watch it:

IN ONE SENTENCE: President Obama ordered the raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden — the very same thing Mitt Romney once publicly denounced then-candidate Obama for saying he would do.

Other recent Progress Reports

Apr 27, 2012: The Latest GOP Assaults on Women

The Republican War on Women Is Only Getting Bigger While continuing to deny there is any such thing, the Republicans continue their all-out war on women, their health care, and their families. Here’s the latest. All of the Senators Voting Against the Violence Against Women Act Were Republican Men Yesterday, the Senate passed the Violence [...]

Apr 26, 2012: Did You Like George W. Bush’s Foreign Policy?

Mitt Romney’s Misguided, Mistaken, and Misbegotten Foreign Policy Today, Vice President Biden gave a speech at New York University laying out a broad attack on Mitt Romney — a candidate whose only foreign policy experience comes from shipping jobs overseas — and his approach to foreign policy.  Biden said that Romney was relying on the [...]

Apr 25, 2012: INFOGRAPHIC: What You Need To Know About The Violence Against Women Act

Will Republicans Really Oppose the Violence Against Women Act? As soon as the Senate finishes a massive postal reform bill, it is expected to take up a bill to reauthorize the landmark Violence Against Women Act. Shockingly, as we discussed last week, some Republicans are actually opposed to this vital legislation.  House Republicans already refused [...]

Apr 24, 2012: Will Republicans Stick It To Students? (Again.)

Will the GOP Force Students & Their Families to Take on Even More Debt? As it stands now, the interest rate on loans for many students will DOUBLE come July 1.  This change would impact more than 7.4 MILLION students, forcing them to pile on even more debt at time when student debt is already [...]

Congressional Budget Office: Govt Customer Service Act

H.R. 538, Government Customer Service Improvement Act

• H.R. 1818, Mt. Andrea Lawrence Designation Act of 2011
• H.R. 2668, an act to designate the station of the United States Border Patrol located at 2136 South Naco Highway in Bisbee, Arizona, as the “Brian A. Terry Border Patrol Station”
• H.R. 3283, Swap Jurisdiction Certainty Act
• H.R. 4235, SWAP Data Repository and Clearinghouse Indemnification Correction Act of 2012
• H.R. 3902, the District of Columbia Special Election Reform Act
• S. 925, Mt. Andrea Lawrence Designation Act of 2011

20 ways. 20 days. 20% less carbon.

You can still get cooler and smarter—20 ways, 20 days, 20% less carbon (and get your FREE sticker!) Don’t you want to be the coolest and smartest of all your friends? Our first 20 days are almost up! What are you waiting for? Join the first round of our 20/20/20 challenge—20 ways to get cooler and smarter, and in just 20 days you’ll be on the path to 20 percent fewer carbon emissions. Thousands of people have already committed to reducing their global warming-causing carbon emissions by making changes to their diets, their commutes, and their lightbulbs—and that adds up to a serious positive impact for the planet. Even if you already live a cooler smarter lifestyle than most Americans, you still have the power to make important changes—I know I did. Since I am lucky enough to live in a city with great public transportation and don’t use a car most days, I looked to my home for ways to save energy. I was able to reduce my carbon emissions 20 percent by updating my furnace (which quickly paid for itself), insulating the walls, installing a programmable thermostat, and making other small adjustments around the house. Choose which carbon-saving tips best fit your life by taking the 20/20/20 challenge today. Then imagine if 20 of your friends do it… or 20,000… or 200 million… we’re talking serious impact! Join the 20/20/20 challenge and get tips on how best to fight global warming in your life (plus a FREE sticker – while they last). One person can have an impact—and we’ve got the science to prove it. After two years of research and analysis, our scientists have discovered the most effective ways to reduce carbon emissions. And we’ve made it easy for you to get on the path to 20 percent less carbon in 20 days. Check out our infographic to see 20 percent less carbon by the numbers, and take the 20/20/20 challenge to do your part to save the planet. Thanks for being so cool and smart! Sincerely, Suzanne Shaw Co-author of Cooler Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living