These Five People Just Saved Millions Of Americans By Protecting Health Care

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Two Choices: President Obama Sets Out His Vision for the Economy (VIDEO)

Uploaded by     BarackObamadotcom on Jun 14, 2012

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President Obama was in Ohio today to deliver the first in a series of speeches that lay out the clear choice in this election between a vision that moves us forward and creates an economy built to last, and one that would send us backward to the failed policies of the past decade.

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Obama Backs Gay Marriage

Huff Post

Sam Stein

Posted: 05/09/2012 2:55 pm Updated: 05/09/2012 7:34 pm

WASHINGTON — In a nod to a dramatic shift in public opinion, Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first sitting president to announce his support for same-sex marriage.

In a sit-down interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, Obama completed what has been a markedly long and oft-mocked evolution on the matter.

“I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” Obama told Roberts, in an interview that will air in full on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.

(Watch ABC’s entire clip below)

“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,” he said.

The statement constitutes an act of political bravery on the president’s behalf, as well as a major victory for the gay rights community, which has been pushing him to declare his support for marriage equality for several years. With the issue back in the news this week, the pressure intensified.

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Gas Prices: Obama Strikes Back At GOP Critics On Fuel Costs

By ANNE GEARAN  03/10/12 06:03 AM ET

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is hitting back at Republican criticism of his energy policies and his role in controlling gasoline prices.

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to underscore his administration’s work to develop alternative energy sources and increase fuel efficiency.

“I’m going to keep doing everything I can to help you save money on gas, both right now and in the future,” Obama said. “I hope politicians from both sides of the aisle join me.”

He accused Republicans of a “bumper sticker” approach to solving the nation’s energy problems.

It’s a familiar theme _Obama stuck many of the same chords during two out-of-town trips this week and during a White House news conference on Wednesday.

“We can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices – not when we consume 20 percent of the world’s oil,” Obama said in the address, recorded during a visit Friday to a Virginia jet engine component plant.

In the Republican weekly address, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple accused the Obama administration of blocking projects and technology that would allow greater energy production. He singled out the Keystone XL pipeline project, which Obama deferred.

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Obama Campaign Slams Koch Brothers: Americans For Prosperity Should Reveal Donors

The Huffington Post | By Leigh Owens
Posted: 03/02/12 02:56 PM ET

The Obama campaign has started a petition aimed at forcing Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group backed by billionaires Charles and David Koch, to release its donor lists to the public, proving the group’s claim of running a grassroots-supported organization.

This latest move by the campaign is part of an ongoing battle between the Obama team and the Koch brothers.

In late February an email to Obama supporters described Americans for Prosperity as a “front group” and accused the Koch brothers of making millions by “jacking up prices at the pump.” The email also claimed the Koch brothers have committed $200 million to destroying Obama before the November election.

Phillip Ellender, president of government and public affairs for Koch Industries, responded to the email with a letter addressed to Jim Messina, campaign manager for Obama’s re-election efforts, disputing the accusations.

“We own no gasoline stations and the part of our business you allude to, oil and gas refining, actually lowers the price of gasoline by increasing supply. Either you simply misunderstand the way commodities markets work or you are misleading your supporters and the rest of the American people,” Ellender wrote.

The letter goes on to defend the organization as not being funded exclusively by the Koch brothers. “Rather it has tens of thousands of members and contributors from across the country and from all walks of life,” the letter stated.

As the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, Messina responded directly to Ellender’s letter, in which he scolded the Koch brothers’ companies and organizations.

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Obama Holds Lead Against Republican Opponents, Santorum Rises In GOP Primary: AP Poll

By LAURIE KELLMAN and JENNIFER AGIESTA 02/22/12 08:03 AM ET

Associated Press  via:  Huff  Post

WASHINGTON — A surging Rick Santorum is running even with Mitt Romney atop the Republican presidential field, but neither candidate is faring well against President Barack Obama eight months before Americans vote, a new survey shows.

Obama tops 50 percent support when matched against each of the four GOP candidates and holds a significant lead over each of them, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll. Republicans, meanwhile, are divided on whether they’d rather see Romney or Santorum capture the nomination, with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul lagging behind. It’s a troubling sign for the better-funded Romney as the GOP race heads toward crucial votes in his home state of Michigan, in Arizona and in an array of states on Super Tuesday, March 6.

“I’d pick Santorum, because it seems Romney may be waffling on a few issues and I’m not sure I trust him,” said Thomas Stehlin, 66, of St. Clair Shores, Mich. He thinks the Detroit-born son of a Michigan governor is facing a strong challenge from Santorum in his home state because of his tangled answers on the auto industry bailout.

Also, he says, there’s this: Romney, the self-described can-do turnaround artist of the corporate world and the troubled Salt Lake City Olympics, with his millions of dollars, has been unable to vanquish his political opponents.

“That may be the reason right there,” said Stehlin, a retired government worker and a Republican. “He spends lots of money and he doesn’t get anywhere.”

Nationally, Republicans are evenly split between Romney and Santorum. The poll found 33 percent would most like to see Santorum get the nomination, while 32 percent prefer Romney. Gingrich and Paul each had 15 percent support.

Romney’s fall from presumed front-runner to struggling establishment favorite has given his opponents an opening as he tries to expand his support. His Republican rivals have stepped in claiming to be a more consistent conservative and viable opponent against Obama, and each of the last three AP-GfK polls has found a different contender battling Romney for the top spot. But Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator and abortion foe, has hit his stride at a key moment in the nomination contest.

Santorum’s spike comes as satisfaction with the field of candidates remains tepid and interest in the contest is cools. About 6 in 10 Republicans in the poll say they are satisfied with the people running for the nomination, stagnant since December and below the 66 percent that felt that way in October. Only 23 percent are strongly satisfied with the field and 4 in 10 said they are dissatisfied with the candidates running, the poll found. And deep interest in the race is slipping: Just 40 percent of Republicans say they have a great deal of interest in following the contest, compared with 48 percent in December.

“It seems like in the last month or so everything’s just chilled out,” said James Jackson of Fort Worth, Texas, a 40-year-old independent who leans Republican. “I just haven’t been following it lately.”

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Obama Invokes His Christian Faith In His Call To Raise Taxes On The Very Wealthy (VIDEO)

Addicting Info- February 3, 2012

By Michael Hayne

A day after Mitt “Moneybags” Romney stated his lack of concern for the economically disadvantaged (an old school Republican touchstone), President Obama shot back by finally using the right-wing’s bullets against them.  Despite constantly being smeared as a secret Muslim, Barack Obama in fact subscribes to Christianity.  Today’s perverse version of Christianity typically refers to super rich, white proselytizers who flagrantly manipulate the pure teachings of Jesus and spew bilious hatred towards gays, women, single moms, blacks, and the poor and middle-class. It also tends to refer to making a bunch of bombs to kill a bunch of Middle Easterners so that some  defense contactor can continue to eat caviar.  So it’s only natural for thinking people to stay within 100 yards of it. But, much like everything else under the sun, the Republicans love co-opting it blatantly injecting it into politics in order to claim higher ground.

Former president Bush, a simple-minded lummox with virtually nothing to offer other than his ability to relate to even dumber people, understood that invoking Jesus’ name would guarantee universal support of his hawkish foreign policy no matter how severely flawed and unreasonable it may have been.  For that reason, I have been constantly saying that President Obama should put on his best decider face, hold a press conference on the white house lawn, and state that his good homeboy JC told him that he should return taxes on the highest earners to the levels during the Clinton era. But that’s not the style of the guy of the president who sings Al Green.

During the National Prayer Breakfast in D.C. that took place yesterday, the president revealed that his Christian (or Christ-like) faith heavily influenced his economic policies– including calling for the wealthy to pay more taxes and overhauling the healthcare system. He explained to the attendees that the nation’s challenges require smart policies coupled with a strong values system, and not of the philandering on your dying wife, or subscribing to anti-gay policies and making anti-gay rhetoric only to have secret gay sex variety.

‘It’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income or young people with student loans or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone,’President Obama said.

“For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that, for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,’ he added, referencing verse 48 of chapter 12 in the Gospel of Luke. “To answer the responsibility we’re given in Proverbs to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute,” added Obama.

VIDEO & MORE HERE

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Koch Brothers, Allies Pledge $100 Million At Private Meeting To Beat Obama

David Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries, attends a meeting of the Economic Club of New York, Monday, April 11, 2011. (AP)

Huff Post- First Posted: 02/ 3/2012  3:43 pm Updated: 02/ 3/2012  9:05 pm

By- Ryan Grim

WASHINGTON — At a private three-day retreat in California last weekend, conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and about 250 to 300 other individuals pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections.

A source who was in the room when the pledges were made told The Huffington Post that, specifically, Charles Koch pledged $40 million and David pledged $20 million.

The semi-annual, invitation-only meeting attracts wealthy donors, Republican politicians and conservative activists. Last year, hundreds of activists gathered outside the walled-off resort to protest the meeting. This year, however, the conference went off quietly.

“Conference organizers and their guests successfully slipped in and out of the Coachella Valley without being detected, by buying out nearly all of the 500-plus rooms at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort in Indian Wells,” reported The Desert Sun. “The resort closed its restaurants, locked down the grounds with private security guards and sent many workers home.”

This is the ninth straight year the Kochs have hosted the conference. As Politico reported last year, the meetings often adjourn “after soliciting pledges of support from the donors — sometimes totaling as much as $50 million — to nonprofit groups favored by the Kochs.”

The fact that the wealthy conservative donors pledged $100 million for the 2012 elections shows how intent they are on trying to get Obama out of office — and previews how intense, and likely nasty, the general election will be.

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Howard Fineman: 2012 Presidential Race On Chris Matthews Show (VIDEO)

Howard Fineman Talks 2012 Presidential Race On ‘The Chris Matthews Show’ (VIDEO)

HuffPost TV

Posted: March 6, 2011 11:21 AM

The Huffington Post’s Senior Political Editor Howard Fineman appeared on “The Chris Matthews Show” on Sunday, along with the BBC’s Katty Kay, NBC News’ Norah O’Donnell and Time Magazine’s Richard Stengel, to discuss America’s declining position in the world, and what it means for President Obama in 2012.

“The trick is to be honest and inspirational at the same time,” Howard said.

“50-year-old factory worker, 50-year-old man or woman in Western Pennsylvanian, Indiana, the states that are going to decide this next election…. Are they thinking ‘The president’s got this all figured out?'” Matthews asked.

“If you look a the statistics and the polling, and you talk to people in those places, as I do,” Howard replied, “They don’t think that. They’re highly skeptical. And I think they’re open to another message from somebody who, if he or she can find it, mixes honesty with inspiration. If you’re just going to tell people, ‘Look, here are the cold, hard facts,’ that’s not going to work.”

WATCH VIDEO HERE

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