What we’ve said to the girls is, ‘If you guys ever decided you’re going to get a tattoo, then mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we’ll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo.’ And our thinking is that might dissuade them from thinking that somehow that’s a good way to rebel.President Obama • Kiboshing his daughters’ future attempts to rebel against him and Michelle.
The public, stated reason for this is to show solidarity with federal workers who were furloughed due to the sequester. An alternate explanation: The President warned for weeks that the sequester would have a disastrous effect on the country, but its effects since hitting haven’t been acutely felt by the citizenry at large. These pledges by the president and his allies serve as a public reminder that yes, the sequester did have tangible, measurable effects—at least for the workers who’ve been furloughed—and thus retroactively lend credence to the president’s warnings. source
A spokesman says former President George H.W. Bush is in the intensive care unit at a Houston hospital.
Bush’s spokesman, Jim McGrath, said late Wednesday that the former president was admitted to the ICU on Sunday at Methodist Hospital, “following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever.”
McGrath says Bush is alert and conversing with medical staff, and that doctors are cautiously optimistic about his treatment.
That’s all they details they’re offering for now. Good luck as far as getting better, George.
“Hon A B Lincoln…
Dear Sir
My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin’s. I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you direct your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westfield Chautauqua County New York.
I must not write any more answer this letter right off Good bye
Grace Bedell”
Lincoln responded a few days later:
“Miss Grace Bedell
My dear little Miss
Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received — I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughters — I have three sons — one seventeen, one nine, and one seven years of age — They, with their mother, constitute my whole family — As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?
Your very sincere well wisher,
A. Lincoln”
While he made no promises about the beard to Bedell, he stopped shaving and allowed the beard to grow not long after their exchange and was elected as the 16th president of the United States a few weeks later. On his inaugural train ride from Illinois to Washington, D.C., the president-elect stopped in Bedell’s hometown of Westfield, N.Y., and asked to meet her.
This line goes against all modern logic regarding political grooming: “All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.” But you know what? If a presidential candidate grew a beard, I would vote for him.
(Source: theweek.com)
So, how about you: Which former president would you most like to have a burger with?
Never mind the fact that burgers weren’t around when Abe Lincoln was alive, but we’d totally pick him.
In a memo about the debates distributed to campaign surrogates and provided to CNN on Thursday, longtime Romney adviser Beth Myers outlines a series of reasons why the president is likely to emerge as the winner of the first debate.
Among them:
– President Obama is “widely regarded as one of the most talented political communicators in modern history.”
– “This will be the eighth one-on-one presidential debate of his political career. For Mitt Romney, it will be his first.”
– “Four years ago, Barack Obama faced John McCain on the debate stage. According to Gallup, voters judged him the winner of each debate by double-digit margins, and their polling showed he won one debate by an astounding 33-point margin.”
Myers argues that Obama will “use his ample rhetorical gifts and debating experience to one end: attacking Mitt Romney.”
“We fully expect a 90-minute attack ad aimed at tearing down his opponent,” she writes in the memo.
Pushing back against emerging conventional wisdom, Myers concludes that the debates will not, in fact, decide the election: “It will be decided by the American people,” she says.
That’s optimism for ya.
Missing school to see the president? Be sure you get one of these. Ryan Sullivan, an employee at a Honeywell plant in Minnesota, got the chance to introduce Barack Obama Friday, which led to his fifth-grade son, Tyler, missing school. Fortunately, Barack came though with this. Awesome. (thanks HyperVocal, which is also on Tumblr)
The Washington Post has a searchable database of people that have visited the White House. Do a search and see what you can find. (Above: Beyonce has met with the president at the White House once, one less time than Jay-Z has.)
Obama too cool for Karl Rove? American Crossroads, Karl Rove’s Super PAC, just released this ad mocking the president’s rep for doing cool things, such as slow-jamming with Jimmy Fallon, by dropping in a bit of reality towards the end of this clip. Thoughts? (ht Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed)
I can’t add much to what’s already been (and will be) ...
One of the perks of being an early employee...
Over the last 90 days, the Digg...
#FMMDI (at 30 Rockefeller Plaza)
Thanks. I guess my thoughts are as follows:
1. I think...
» A key house figure also wants an investigation: California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, the head of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, thinks that more agents than the 11 implicated were involved. “We think the number might be higher, and we’re asking for the exact amount of all the people who, quote, were involved,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Issa says he want to ensure that systems are in place to prevent situations like this in the future, which he suggested he could lead to blackmail.
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ivixxciii says: that does not qualify him to be a president. only a fireman, a courage award recipient, a nice guy.
» SFB says: We weren’t saying that this incident qualified him to be president. Rather, everything else he’s done would. He’s had an air of presidential speculation about him for years. In fact, Time Magazine wrote an article with just this premise back in 2009, before he saved any women from burning buildings. But, thus far, he’s been content with being mayor of Newark. Just because he saved a woman from a burning building doesn’t mean that this speculation is null and void. Either way, Cory Booker is awesome. — Ernie @ SFB
(Source: joshsternberg)
John Hanson didn’t get the props his successor did. But for eight years, Hanson led the Continental Congress — the organization that led the United States in the days before the Constitution was hashed out. Hanson didn’t have the executive powers of the leaders who followed him, but he took his job quite seriously. “The load of business which I have very unwillingly and very imprudently taken on me I am afraid will be more than my constitution will be able to bear,” he wrote to his son-in-law days before he took power. Ultimately, the Articles of Confederation, which gave him his position, proved to be too weak for the job, so the founding documents got rebooted — and Hanson didn’t receive much more than a footnote in the history books. It’s such a small footnote, however, that there have been rumors on the Interwebs that he was actually the first black president (he wasn’t, it was a case of mistaken identity). But for one day, let’s honor this guy and remember him as the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo Entertainment System that eventually became the engine for this country.
I guess it’s more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman and — you know? But that’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced, that I’m some angry black woman.Michelle Obama • Defending herself from claims that she fostered tension with the president’s top deputies — Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs — leading to the claims getting into New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s book “The Obamas.” We can certainly agree with the basic thrust of what she’s saying — even if Kantor’s book is accurate, just look at how much crap she gets over the stupidest things from the right. That is clearly the result of others trying to typecast her in a certain image. Let’s cut the image politics here. source (via • follow)
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