Hillary tweets President Obama on marriage equality
President Obama vs Mitt Romney on marriage rights
Campaign ad contrasting the differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney on the issue of same-sex marriage rights.
President Obama announces support for marriage equality
President Obama today announced that he now supports same-sex marriage, reversing his longstanding opposition amid growing pressure from the Democratic base and even his own vice president.
In an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, the president described his thought process as an “evolution” that led him to this place, based on conversations with his own staff members, openly gay and lesbian service members, and conversations with his wife and own daughters.
OBAMA: I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.
His endorsement comes less than a week after Vice President Joe Biden embraced the issue during an appearance on Meet The Press and a day after North Carolina banned marriage equality and civil unions in its state constitution.
Obama’s remarks today bring him full circle to his position in 1996, when he was running for the Illinois state Senate. In response to a questionnaire from Chicago’s Outlines gay newspaper, he proclaimed, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”
(via ThinkProgress)
President Bartlet on “cherry-picking” from the Bible
On this day after North Carolina voted to write discrimination into their state constitution based, in great part, on “cherry-picking” from the Bible, I felt a need to clear my palate.
Thanks to Martin Sheen’s brilliant delivery, and to Aaron Sorkin for the always “direct to the heart of the matter” language.
Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin: President Obama will complete his “evolution” today
On MSNBC today, in reference to the President’s upcoming interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, Mark Halperin of TIME Magazine said he expects the President to complete his “evolution” on gay marriage today.
“Every expectation that we will, within the next hour, be in a different world, where we will have a President of the United States who supports the legalization of gay marriage,” Mark Halperin said this afternoon during an appearance on MSNBC. “The Vice President, I think, forced his hand. But even before the Vice President spoke on Meet The Press in favor of gay marriage, the President was headed in this direction,” he added.
Halperin also dissected the many ways – obvious and not so obvious – this political course could help the President in the upcoming election: “If Republicans go after this hard — now, they’ll do it in a micro targeting way if the president changes his position. If Mitt Romney tries to make this a big issue, it takes them off the economy. If this election is fought not on the economy, that’s better for the President, and I think Republicans will see that. I don’t think this will be a huge issue in the election.”
Stay tuned to hear exactly what the President has to say..
NBC’s Chuck Todd: Obama will support marriage equality “before the convention”
NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd on Monday predicted that President Barack Obama would announce his support for marriage equality before the November election because LGBT donors had become more important to his campaign than Wall Street donors.
“They are so sensitive to Biden doing this because, number one, gay money in this election has replaced Wall Street money,” Todd explained. “What I keep being told is [President Barack Obama is] not ever going to announce his change in his position at a press conference. He’ll do it a more appropriate venue.”
NBC host David Gregory agreed: “I think they are moving this closer and closer to the edge, and things like this are going to happen, that they are going to find these opportunities where they are much more forward-leaning and it’s very difficult to walk back. So I don’t know how they ultimately choreograph this. But the expectation is if they get into a second term, that’s when it will be done.”
But Todd argued that support for marriage equality would come well before Obama’s second term.
“I think this forces the conversation,” the chief White House correspondent said. “I think they do it sooner. I think it will be before the convention.”
(source)
Gallup poll: President Obama leads Romney in swing states
In the first Gallup Swing States Poll since Romney became the presumptive GOP nominee, President Obama leads Romney 47%-45%.
Romney also seems to lag in the enthusiasm department: among who see themselves as “very” or “extremely” enthusiastic for their candidate, President Obama leads Romney 55%-46%.
The enthusiasm gap could be significant on election day in terms of “getting out the vote.”
We’ll see…
New from President Obama: “Go”
CNN: Why Obama can’t match the Reagan recovery
CNN has an excellent piece up today regarding the differences between what economic pressures President Reagan had to cope with versus President Obama today. Conservatives like to herald Reagan as a super-president, but comparing his situation at this point in his first term to President Obama’s is comparing apples to oranges.
From CNN:
Reagan had an advantage over Obama: The recession of the early 1980s was caused by runaway inflation, which the Federal Reserve countered by hiking interest rates. When inflation dropped, the Fed lowered rates and a massive economic boom resulted.
The major causes of the recent recession were a banking crisis and housing bubble that exploded during President George W. Bush’s final months in office.
Another difference: With comparatively small debt loads, Reagan was able to push through a 23% across-the-board cut of individual income tax rates. Obama, meanwhile, entered the presidency with substantial budget deficits and an economy contracting at a rate of 6.7%.
Something that doesn’t come up in the CNN article but I think bears noting: politics in 1984 were not nearly as partisan as they are today. Back in the 80s “compromise” was not a dirty word. Politicians were more statesman-like and put country first.
From the beginning of the Obama administration, the GOP in DC has stated their main goal for four years was to make President Obama a one term president. And they have done all they could to stop any progress in the US knowing that, even at the pain of the lower and middle classes, if they held progress to a minimum – while cashing their $170,000+ annual salaries – they would diminish President Obama’s chances at reelection.
Read the whole article at CNN.com
Obama campaign takes on the lies in the GOP’s latest attack ad
Stephanie Cutter, Deputy Campaign Manager, shares the facts about Big Oil’s latest attack.
“Hi I’m Stephanie Cutter I’m the Deputy Campaign Manager here at Obama for America and I wanted to arm you with the facts about the latest attach from Big Oil. You may have heard of the Koch brothers they’re secretive oil billionaires bankrolling Republican campaigns and now they’re backing Mitt Romney. Pretty simple reason for this, President Obama would take away billions of dollars in unnecessary oil tax breaks –Mitt Romney would protect them.
So now they’re spending six million dollars on an ad that is so blatantly false the Washington Post said that they have no shame.
Let’s get the facts out because it’s important that you guys know the truth. President Obama has helped create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs. Projects in all 50 states. And the way these oil billionaires and their front group completely ignore the truth is breathtaking.
Let’s take some crazy examples from their attack ad. They claim the administration gave money to build electric cars in Finland. No, the Department of Energy’s funding was specifically for U.S. jobs at U.S. facilities. Sure enough the company is employing 700 workers in California and their planning to build a plant in Delaware.
Okay another ridiculous claim: they said we sent money to China to build traffic lights. That’s wrong again. Those traffic lights were built here, in this country, and helped expand our light manufacturing industry in this country.
They said we gave money to a company building solar plants in Mexico. Nope. And again, our money is going to a solar plant here in America with American workers.
These guys are going to say whatever it takes to tear down the President. They will literally say anything. They oppose expanding clean energy. They oppose higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.
So we’re going to call their BS when we see it. And we need your help to call them on it too and to set the record straight.
So share this, Tweet it, Facebook it. I keep hearing about Tumblr and whatever that is please use that too. And thank you, for all of your help.”