[poochee]

Rahm Emanuel, Tim Kaine, among convention speakers
By Nia-Malika Henderson, Published: August 19The Washington Post

The Democratic convention will feature a slate of familiar faces and up-and-comers who will frame the race for the White House as a choice between two economic visions, offering insider views of President Obama making tough decisions, assessments of how his policies have played in swing states and an examination of Mitt Romney’s record in Massachusetts.

The schedule will highlight leaders who can speak to Obama's decisions on health care, the auto bailout, foreign policy, and pick apart Romney’s tenure.

The slate of speaker’s will also showcase the party’s emerging bench of leaders across the country, in statewide offices and in local government.

Already, the Democratic National Convention announced that San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will deliver the keynote address on Tuesday, the first day of the convention.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...=rss_campaigns

[poochee]

Michelle Obama Hosts 'Kids State Dinner' At The White House
54 winners, ages 8 through 12
By STACY A. ANDERSON 08/20/12 01:12 PM ET AP

WASHINGTON -- At the first ever White House "kids state dinner," first lady Michelle Obama told America's top junior chefs Monday that the dishes they cooked up are proving that fun eating can be "healthy and tasty at the same time."

The event was the latest effort in Mrs. Obama's "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity with more exercise and a better diet.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1811830.html

[poochee]

Paul Krugman Bashes Niall Ferguson's Newsweek Cover Story As 'Unethical' [UPDATE]
Says Newsweek should issue a correction
The Huffington Post | By Bonnie Kavoussi Posted: 08/20/2012 10:17 am Updated: 08/20/2012 1:25 pm

There are multiple errors and misrepresentations in Niall Ferguson’s cover story in Newsweek — I guess they don’t do fact-checking — but this is the one that jumped out at me. Ferguson says:

"The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period."

Readers are no doubt meant to interpret this as saying that CBO found that the Act will increase the deficit. But anyone who actually read, or even skimmed, the CBO report (pdf) knows that it found that the ACA would reduce, not increase, the deficit — because the insurance subsidies were fully paid for.

UPDATE: 12:56 p.m. -- Newsweek did not fact-check Ferguson's cover story, according to Dylan Byers, a media reporter at Politico. Byers wrote on Twitter that a Newsweek spokesman said the magazine does not have a fact-checking department, and that "we, like other news organisations today, rely on our writers to submit factually accurate material."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1810136.html

[poochee]

Democrats target Paul Ryan on women's issues
NICHOLAS RICCARDI | August 20, 2012 01:14 PM EST | AP

LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Since Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, the presidential campaign's focus has largely centered on the Wisconsin congressman's ambitious plan to transform Medicare and slash government spending.

But President Barack Obama's re-election team and its allies have also been highlighting the congressman's staunchly anti-abortion stance, hoping to buttress its argument that the Republican ticket is hostile to women's rights.

Shortly after the formal announcement of Ryan's selection on Aug. 11, Obama's team tweeted that Ryan would ban abortions even in cases of rape and incest and had sponsored a bill that would outlaw some forms of birth control. The Democratic campaign emailed female supporters to stress Ryan's record on women's issues, including his vote against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first bill Obama signed when he took office.

Ryan was also one of several dozen Republican co-sponsors last year of a bill called the Sanctity of Human Life Act. The measure, which never made it to the House floor, would give a fertilized egg the same legal rights as a person. Abortion rights groups say that would effectively outlaw all abortions, as well as some types of contraception and in-vitro fertilization. The measure's supporters say it would simply give states the option to take steps to protect unborn life.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...ul-ryan-women/

[poochee]

President Obama: ‘Rape is rape’
By Jonathan Easley and Amie Parnes - 08/20/12 01:50 PM ET

“Rape is rape,” Obama said at a White House press briefing. He called Akin's comments “way out there.”

Defining rape, he said, “doesn't make sense to the American people and doesn't make sense to me.”

“What I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, the majority of which are men, making decisions that affect health of women,” Obama said.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...a-rape-is-rape

[poochee]

August 20th, 2012

03:42 PM ET
Obama pushes back on welfare attacks, addresses controversial Priorities ad
Posted by
CNN's Dana Davidsen
-CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

"Keep in mind, this is an ad that I didn't approve, and I did not produce and as far as I can tell, has barely run. I think it ran once," said Obama.

The president continued: "What (Romney) is arguing is that we have somehow changed the work requirement in our welfare laws. And, in fact, what has happened was that my administration responding to the requests of five governors, including two Republican governors, agreed to approve giving them, those states, some flexibility in how they manage the welfare rolls as long as it produced 20% increases in the number of people who are getting work."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...priorities-ad/

[poochee]

August 20th, 2012

02:58 PM ET
Obama says tax return fight 'isn't overly personal'
Posted by
CNN Political Unit

"When it comes to releasing taxes, that's a precedent that was set decades ago, including by Gov. Romney's father," Obama said. "And for us to say that it makes sense to release your tax returns as I did, as John McCain did, as Bill Clinton did, as the two President Bushes did, I don't think it's anyway out of bounds."

"I think people want to know that everybody's been playing by the same rules including those who are seeking the highest office of the land. This is not an entitlement being president of the United States. This a privilege and we've got to put ourselves before the American people to make our case," Obama said.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...erly-personal/

[poochee]

August 20th, 2012

11:00 AM ET
Obama radio ads to hit battleground states
Posted by
CNN Political Unit

(CNN) – A series of radio ads from President Barack Obama's re-election campaign are set to hit battleground states Monday, with each spot tied to local concerns facing voters in each state

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...ground-states/

[poochee]

Obama On Romney Welfare Accusations: 'You Can't Just Make Stuff Up'
The Huffington Post | By Arthur Delaney Posted: 08/20/2012 2:27 pm Updated: 08/20/2012 4:40 pm

WASHINGTON -- During a surprise appearance in the White House Briefing Room on Monday, President Barack Obama responded to Republican challenger Mitt Romney's claim that Obama has "gutted" work requirements for welfare recipients. Obama called the charge "absolutely wrong."

"Everybody who's looked at this says what Gov. Romney's saying is absolutely wrong," Obama continued. "Not only are his super PACs running millions of dollars worth of ads making this claim, Gov. Romney himself is approving this and saying it on the stump. So the contrast, I think, is pretty stark. They can run the campaign that they want, but the truth of the matter is you can't just make stuff up."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1812171.html

[poochee]

Obama issues Syria a ‘red line’ warning on chemical weapons
By James Ball, Monday, August 20, 12:36 PMThe Washington Post
Karen DeYoung and Craig Whitlock contributed to this report.

Speaking at an impromptu news conference at the White House, Obama noted that he has not authorized military operations against Syria. But he said that any effort by President Bashar al-Assad to use chemical weapons would have significant consequences.

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus,” Obama said. “That would change my equation. . . . We’re monitoring that situation very carefully. We have put together a range of contingency plans.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z3

[poochee]

Sam Stein
David Axelrod: Todd Akin's Comments Are 'Inconvenient' For Romney-Ryan, 'Not Inconsistent'
Posted: 08/20/2012 1:08 pm Updated: 08/20/2012 6:52 pm

WASHINGTON -- The Obama campaign is, not surprisingly, unwilling to accept Mitt Romney's condemnation of Rep. Todd Akin's controversial remarks and move on.

"When you look at who Akin's partner was on all the anti-choice legislation, it was Paul Ryan," said Axelrod. "When you look at the legislation that would limit a women's right to choose, even for victims of rape and incest, that is the Akin-Ryan position. And frankly, by endorsing personhood amendments ... Romney has gone there too. This is the prevailing position of the Republican Party."

"I think they find Todd Akin's comment terribly inconvenient," Axelrod said. "It is very inopportune. But they are certainly not inconsistent, when Ryan joined with him and tried to limit the definition of rape to forcible rape. What does that mean? They are trying to run away from what has been their own position and yet, while Akin's proposition was particularly egregious and outrageous, on the underlining principle of whether you are going to limit a woman's right to choose, and how rape victims are dealt with and how they would approach this issue, they are very much in line with him."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1811693.html

[poochee]

Obama not worried about criticism by political action committee led by ex-special ops officers
By Daniel Strauss - 08/20/12 06:19 PM ET

President Obama isn't worried about a conservative political action committee's attacks on him alleging that he leaked intelligence information for political gain.

"I don’t take these folks too seriously. One of their members is a birther who denies I was born here, despite evidence to the contrary. You’ve got another who was a Tea Party candidate in a recent election," Obama said Monday to The Virginian-Pilot. "This kind of stuff springs up before election time."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...avy-seal-group

[poochee]

Sam Stein
Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
Posted: 08/21/2012 12:00 am Updated: 08/21/2012 11:16 am

MoveOn.org Political Action, the 7 million-member liberal advocacy group, and Workers' Voice, the super PAC arm of the 12 million-member labor union AFL-CIO, will announce on Tuesday morning a joint get-out-the-vote venture for this and future campaigns.

"This is a major partnership," said Michael Podhorzer, executive director of Workers’ Voice. "Our goal was to make this as broad a movement as possible and go well beyond the traditional union universe. This is a major step in that direction. ... We are going to be contacting millions of people and we will see as this develops how potent this is. It hasn't been done on this scale before by independent groups."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1814892.html

[poochee]

August 20th, 2012
10:41 PM ET

TRENDING: First on CNN: GOP prepares tough anti-abortion platform
Posted by
CNN Political Reporter Peter Hamby

Tampa, Florida (CNN) - The Republican Party is once again set to enshrine into its official platform support for "a human life amendment" to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion without making explicit exemptions for rape or incest, according to draft language of the platform obtained exclusively by CNN late Monday.

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...tion-platform/

[nittiley]

Originally Posted by poochee

Tampa, Florida (CNN) - The Republican Party is once again set to enshrine into its official platform support for "a human life amendment" to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion without making explicit exemptions for rape or incest, according to draft language of the platform obtained exclusively by CNN late Monday.

hmmm.. we need some legislation drafted that a certain number of those affected by various laws have first hand experience in them.
meaning you don't command the military into war if you haven't served in one (& not sitting at a desk or control center!). & you don't outlaw abortion for rape & incest unless you've been impregnated by a rapist or relative. where is a petition to get a bill like that into law..? i'll sign.

from poochee's same post:

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

let's see...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/cha...ranscript.html

well, i don't see anything there that says, "due to the new puritanism, & religious over-reach movement, women's reproductive rights shall be removed and completely transferred to embryonic cells." i would argue that carrying a rapists' or incestuously derived child could very well interfere with liberty and the pursuit of happiness though!

i would say, "god help us!" except those prospects aren't looking so hot either.. :s