I’ll be reporting live from the White House — and you can be there virtually, too. There aren’t many things more exciting than being invited to the White House. At least not to me. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to learn I’d been selected as one of the lucky social media users who will attend the #SOTUSocial […]

Aye, aye, aye… Photo by Chris Savage | Eclectablog Remember Samuel Wurzelbacher? Let me refresh your memory: he was the stooge the Palin/McCain campaign trotted around the country under the name Joe the Plumber. He was neither a “Joe” nor a “plumber”, typical of the blatant lying that took place in 2008. Well, (not) Joe is back and hoo-boy is […]

He’s reinforcing his vision for our country — the reason he was elected twice — and calling on Republicans to get to work. It’s unusual for the White House to start promoting a series of speeches days before they begin. But there’s a good reason they’re doing it now. They want to make sure people are paying attention. I feel […]

“Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere”

President Obama delivered remarks to the national Planned Parenthood conference today. He had been scheduled to deliver them earlier in the week but, instead, delayed his speech to spend more time with the victims of the explosion in West, Texas. When it was announced that his original speech was cancelled, the anti-Choice group Susan B. Anthony List declared victory (as did others).

They were, of course, quite wrong.

Details and a full transcript of his speech after the jump.

Faux poutrage is SO unbecoming…

Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley is outraged that President Obama has the audacity to invite musicians to the White House. Though he was silent when previous presidents did this, it was enough to prompt a stupiditorial column in the paper this week.

More on this utter stupidity after the jump.

Aw geez…

Michigan Republican Tom Casperson opened his mouth and removed all doubt about his status as a tea party fool this week when he answered “don’t know” when asked by radio show host Michael Patrick Shiels if President Obama was born in the USA. Casperson joins the ranks of the 37% of Michigan Republican Party delegates that believe President Obama was not born a US citizen, an astonishing figure given that he has released both the long-form and the short-form versions of his birth certificate. There’s also the fact that a birth announcement appeared in a Hawaiian newspaper the day he was born.

Much more with audio after the jump.

Big Oil subsidies are, simply put, indefensible

Conservatives who are dead set against making any investments in new technologies that can help propel our country and its economy forward are famous for using the argument that this is “picking winners and losers”. The irony is that, in order to even be considered for federal government subsidies, new technologies — like renewable energy projects, for example — must have already proven themselves as winners that are simply in need of a kickstart to make them affordable and profitable.

With negotiations over the upcoming sequester — automatic, across the board budget cuts — ready to dominate the headlines, both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Obama administration are suggesting that it’s time to end one the most glaring examples “picking winners” that we have in this country today: $4 billion in subsidies to Big Oil companies.

More after the jump.

Click through for a second photoblog from the second inauguration of Barack Obama and Joe Biden including two exclusive interactive panoramic images.

OK, that’s Time magazine’s thing. But we totally agree. I’m no Pete Souza and I didn’t have 48 hours with the President, but I do have a few photos and a story to share. Over the last four years I have had the privilege of photographing Barack Obama many times and, as I tell my story, I will include a […]

John Boehner: between a tea bag and a hard place

John Boehner has been negotiating all week with President Obama and his staff to resolve the “fiscal speedbump” issue. President Obama took a step toward Speaker Boehner in the negotiations by allowing the Bush tax cuts to remain in place for incomes over $400,000/year (up from $250,000), making some cuts to entitlements to be named later and agreeing to a different way to calculate Social Security cost of living increases that would lower how much our seniors get in their monthly allocation by a smidgen — the so-called “chained CPI”.

In return, Boehner offered to extend the debt ceiling for two years and allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for income over $400,000.

This was, however, a bridge to far for his tea party leadership team, according to Ezra Klein at the Washington Post. So, he offered what he’s calling “Plan B” and the response from the White House was a resounding “screw you”.

Check it all out after the jump.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.

In his visit to the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant in Redford, Michigan today, Presdient Obama amplified and gave full-throated endorsement of the battle being fought to stop Michigan from becoming the nation’s 24th “Right to Work for Less” state:

“[B]y the way, what we shouldn’t do — I just got to say this — what we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions. We shouldn’t be doing that. These so-called “right to work” laws, they don’t have anything to do with economics; they have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”

PHOTOS and much more after the jump.