That wonderful moment Aretha Franklin the Queen of Soul serenades and praises you
****
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President Barack Obama delivers remarks as he plays host to a tribute to gospel music for an “In Performance at the White House.” Also included on the program were Bishop Rance Allen, Aretha Franklin, Rodney Crowell, Rhiannon Giddens, Emmylou Harris, Darlene Love, Lyle Lovett, Tamela Mann, the Morgan State University Choir and Michelle Williams
Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul
Shirley Caeser and the Morgan State University Choir perform in the East Room of the White House
The legendary Darlene Love
Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child
Tamela Mann
Rhiannon Giddens
President Barack Obama is applauded by T. Bone Burnett and audience members as he arrives
@TheObamaDiary: President, First Lady and Mother-in-Law-in-Chief at Gospel Night in the White House.
White House.gov
C’est moi, encore! :cool:
Thanks for the highlights, Ms NerdyW.
Oui! C’est tu, mon cher! :-)
:D Pretty soon Chips-a-doodle will be starting a learn-a-language TOD branch - to go with the Chips-Obama Travel Co.
Hey, ya gotta diversify and innovate! :-)
Y’all doing a fine diversification job! :D Don’t think I’d forgotten the Dudette-TOD DJ Duo [+ now Chips is also working on a Spring cleaning outfit].
:-D
Belatedly congratulating you, VC!
^5, Judith! TY
Alrighty! Congrats VC! :-)
Merci, D-ette. :)
Wow! This thread is definitely a keeper! Thank you so much Nerdy! Beautiful (and freakishly speedy job) putting this together! You are a wonder!
You’re awesome!
Thanks, Dudette.
Thanks, Nerdy, from “those of us” who forgot (can ya believe it!!) about tonight’s gospel celebration! Dang. Can’t wait to see this. <3
:)
Nuh-unh, you da one! :-D
Still on a high after that AMAZING concert at the White House. So thankful for the deep felt appreciation of the arts President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have and how we all get to enjoy it.
Well done, NerdyW! Well done! THANKS!
:)
Thanks so much, Nerdy!! I’m blissed out!
Some people bliss; some people miss. I got some catching up to do!!!!
:)
Spectacular! Going Thru your tweets is like experiencing it all over again! What a great program!
:)
“Reality TV stars Kim and Khloe Kardashian picked possibly the most controversial time of year to visit their ancestral homeland of Armenia: just before the April 24 centennial of the 1915 mass killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by Ottomans in present-day Turkey, which the Armenians call genocide — a term Turkey vehemently rejects. The junket also came as Pope Francis called the killings “the first genocide of the 20th century.” That comment angered the Turks so much that they recalled their ambassador to the Vatican, with the Turkish foreign ministry issuing a statement that the comment was “based on prejudice” and “distorts history.”
…Armenians both in Armenia and abroad said they hoped the pop culture icons’ trip would bring further awareness to the issue. “The Kardashian family trip to Armenia has helped shine a global spotlight on Armenia and the Armenian Genocide — sharing the historical facts and the need for justice for that crime with millions,” said Elizabeth Chouldjian, communications director of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). “The Kardashians have helped strike a powerful blow at Turkey’s campaign of genocide denial,” she added…continued
Kanye starts doing his thing at around the 45:50 minute mark:
Thank you soooooooooooooooooooo much Nerdy!
You’re weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelcome, Chiparooooooooo!
Thank yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Ms Awesome!!
Get a room you two :grin:
I remember this rally and their reunion after being separated for a few days. SWEET!!
O/T Meta… my attempt to make cheddar bay biscuits ended up looking like Chips’s kitchen after baking a cake :D ….I it seems like using buttermilk milk instead of 2% like the Red Lobster mix at Sams Club is causing dryness and a shitty taste :(
OH NO! Sorry to hear that. Don’t give up! The main thing to remember is not to overwork the dough, which can turn out tough and dry biscuits. You want the whole thing to barely come together with just a little bit of mixing, then pat the dough into a round about 1″ thick, cut them out and bake. Keep going!
But do I still use Buttermilk?
I don’t see why buttermilk should be a liability. It actually is a tenderizer.
At this point everything is a liability :mrgreen: I will watch the video and make a feeble attempt agiain :lol:
Also, if you don’t have a food processor, just work the butter in with your hands by pinching it flat with your fingers in the flour.
Here’s a video that shows what I mean:
But unlike her, I take the butter down to just a bit small pieces and I don’t got beyond patting the dough together and don’t use a rolling pin. Hope this helps!
This is another reason I love TOD. It’s such a family, we exchange recipes here. Luckily, I don’t have to be the one to cook or bake. :)
“In the 1980s, Ollie North and Fawn Hall gave us the Iran-contra affair. Now we’re experiencing the Iran-contradiction affair. A week ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) went on television and proposed abandoning the nuclear deal just reached with Iran and returning to the 2013 interim agreement that started the talks. “What I would suggest is, if you can’t get there with this deal, is to keep the interim deal in place,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He repeated his idea of “keeping the interim deal in place that’s been fairly successful and have a new crack at it with a new president that doesn’t have the baggage of Obama.” It’s a reasonable argument, but it was roundly refuted by . . . Lindsey Graham. In November 2013, he panned the interim deal he now praises as successful….
…Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s defense minister, wrote in The Post last week: “The choice is not between this bad deal and war. The alternative is a better deal.” This is the same Yaalon who said in February that “every deal that will be signed between the West and this messianic and apocalyptic regime will strike a severe blow to Western and Israeli interests and will allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state and continue its terror activities.” Perhaps Yaalon, in dropping his recently held belief that “every deal” would be bad, is just reflecting the prime minister’s confusion. Back in 2012, Netanyahu said the international sanctions regime had been “ineffective” and “hasn’t worked” and had failed to deter Iran’s nuclear progress. Even after the United States and Europe toughened sanctions early in 2012, Netanyahu said that year that there hadn’t been “any impact on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” He had earlier predicted that sanctions “probably” wouldn’t work at all. But in criticizing Obama’s agreement last week, Netanyahu said sanctions — sanctions he had said weren’t working — had “proven effective” against Iran..cont”
Thanks NW for this thrilling post. Missed the live concert, but could just feel the joy through your pictures, tweets, etc.
Judith did you see that the OFA twitter account retweeted one of your tweets yesterday?
Thanks for noticing! GGail told me yesterday. Was in the state Capitol today to watch the Senate vote YES on universal background checks for gun sales. Still has to pass the House, but today was a sweet victory!
YES, that’s a great victory and first step! Very best wishes for further passage in the House.
:)
Did the air condition back down. I keep seeing FLOTUS fanning.
Did the Obama Administration Just Defang the War Hawks on the #IranDeal?
Spandan Chakrabarti April 14, 2025
Today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a bill allowing for Congressional review of the Iran Deal the details of which are being hashed out in the United Nations this very moment. The breakthrough development came earlier this morning, however, when the White House signaled that President Obama would sign (albeit unenthusiastically) a compromise proposal that shortened the Congressional review period and made it more difficult for Congress to scuttle the deal. That contrasts with the President’s veto threat of an earlier version of the bill.
I didn’t quite grasp what was going on until I read the original version of the bill, sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-TN) and compared it with the reported changes which resulted from the Administration’s relentless lobbying of Congress. Let me lay out the originals and significant changes in a comparative fashion first: ……………………
…………………………………………..//
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/4/14/obama-administration-defang-iran-war-caucus
I spent yesterday morning anxiously tweeting to Senate Democrats not to sabotage President Obama on the Iran Deal. This article by Spandan made me feel slightly better, but I still don’t trust Congress not to screw this up!
Judith, I do not trust this Congress at all, including some of the Dems. What keeps me hopeful is the fact that they are, combined, not as smart as the President who seems to always be a step or two ahead of them with alternatives routes. Was it in Sound of Music that Fraulein Maria said ‘When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window’? Pres O keeps his eye on these windows! :)
ICYMI: I wish there were more socially conscious CEO’s like this one from Seattle:
“The idea began percolating, said Dan Price, the founder of Gravity Payments, after he read an article on happiness. It showed that, for people who earn less than about $70,000, extra money makes a big difference in their lives. His idea bubbled into reality on Monday afternoon, when Mr. Price surprised his 120-person staff by announcing that he planned over the next three years to raise the salary of even the lowest-paid clerk, customer service representative and salesman to a minimum of $70,000. “Is anyone else freaking out right now?” Mr. Price asked after the clapping and whooping died down into a few moments of stunned silence. “I’m kind of freaking out.”…If it’s a publicity stunt, it’s a costly one. Mr. Price, who started the Seattle-based credit-card payment processing firm in 2004 at the age of 19, said he would pay for the wage increases by cutting his own salary from nearly $1 million to $70,000 and using 75 to 80 percent of the company’s anticipated $2.2 million in profit this year. The paychecks of about 70 employees will grow, with 30 ultimately doubling their salaries, according to Ryan Pirkle, a company spokesman. The average salary at Gravity is $48,000 year….
…..The market rate for me as a C.E.O. compared to a regular person is ridiculous, it’s absurd,” said Mr. Price, who said his main extravagances were snowboarding and picking up the bar bill. He drives a 12-year-old Audi, which he received in a barter for service from the local dealer. “As much as I’m a capitalist, there is nothing in the market that is making me do it,” he said, referring to paying wages that make it possible for his employees to go after the American dream, buy a house and pay for their children’s education…..Mr. Price said he wasn’t seeking to score political points with his plan. From his friends, he heard stories of how tough it was to make ends meet even on salaries that were still well-above the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. “They were walking me through the math of making 40 grand a year,” he said, then describing a surprise rent increase or nagging credit card debt.“I hear that every single week,” he added. “That just eats at me inside.”…Phillip Akhavan, 29, earns $43,000 working on the company’s merchant relations team. “My jaw just dropped,” he said. “This is going to make a difference to everyone around me.” At that moment, no Princeton researchers were needed to figure out he was feeling very happy.”
WOW - hope others will follow suit!
What a novel idea…universal background checks….I hope it passes through the legislative process and hits the Govs desk!
Will POTUS will be in North Carolina tomorrow?
I am now a fan of Rhiannon Giddens…… What a voice!
During the workshop earlier today she mentioned singing with her sister, so I looked it up just now and found this one (the internet is a great tool)!
Angelic voice, angelic face…
Yeh, I never heard of her before tonight. She’s terrific!
11:10pm and I picked up 51 pieces of mail !!!! Yipeee! Woot-woot! :D :D I have every intention of stopping on this super accomplishment. I am SO proud of me!
Congratulations!!!
/bowing… like those German (?) grandmothers on that talent show Chips loved/ Thank you, thank you!
I remember those grannies - I can see the resemblance… ;)
:shock: Whadya mean you ‘can see the resemblance’? Them there are fighting words!
I’m jealous that you got more than six, like my pathetic score… I couldn’t help but lash out… :(
:grin: But did you make more than a handful of attempts? I’m not kidding that I spent virtually the entire day trying. :/ Offspring would have been proud of me! :grin:
I tried twice and realized I didn’t have enough capacity left in the day to do more than live vicariously in your attempts… :)
:grin: :grin: next time
Wow, that’s crazy!! CONGRATULATIONS!!
:D ForUS, thank you so much for acknowledging my all-day effort. :D :D Persistence does eventually bring rewards - I’ll have to thank FLOTUS for her continued encouragement. :D
I had to see what all the fuss was about….I will never get those 2 minutes of my life back :(
Pshaw, you waste far more time watching those silly football games! /runs/
Huh?
I missed something. What’s with the mail thing? Ich verstehe nicht!
You missed yesterday’s Google doodle which was a pony express video-type game thingy. We were picking up envelopes along the way while trying to avoid varying obstacles. There were 100 envelopes and tons of obstacles. Now I really am heading out. Good nicht, ole girl!
Oh! I saw the doodle but I didn’t watch the video. Sounds like it was fun! :-)
Milt makes a salient point so long as he’s really talking about personal attacks and not just people voicing legitimate concern.
Voters get discouraged when they feel their concerns aren’t heard/met. The candidate who addresses them head on with sincerity (especially when it’s tough*) will see enthusiasm soar and we’ll all be stronger for it. The candidate who evades or is murky about their intentions will likely get the cold shoulder come election day. [Witness the 2014 mid-terms]
Questioning a candidate about their principles, what they stand for, and what their priorities and plans are, is by no means an attack.That’s the corerstone of the democratic process. It’s what our political system is supposed to be about. I, for one, am not interested in crowning a King or Queen over the people. I want My President to be a Champion Of The People.. If you feel you’re too entitled to bother addressing my or any other Democrat’s concerns about what kind of President you’ll be, well, fuck it. I don’t even want you on the ballot, cuz you sure don’t deserve my vote.
[*See 2008 Barack Obama speech on race in response to the Jeremiah Wright controversy.I think that speech won the primary for him, and quite possibly the election. His nomination acceptance speech in Denver just sealed the deal, IMHO.]
I was thinking similar Dudette - it must be very hard to support dems when they partner the GOP to vote against the President.
Good Wednesday morning, Dudette!
I was remiss in not including a couple more of Milt’s tweets that would have addressed your first concern. He did state somewhere that he wasn’t talking policy concerns. He mentioned that again this morning.
(Chef) is one of the more enjoyable movies I’ve seen in the past year btw :)
Pretty funny - I’ve always wondered if they knew each other in “real life”. Pretty cool.
I love the first line in PBO Favs twitter bio….”The other one” :lol:
It’s funny that they spell their first names the same, too.
Me too! So cute to see they finally met and had such a good time together.
Oops, it’s after midnight. I’m off to do a bit of calm reading. Good Night and Sweet Dreams, one and all!
#nightamk wherever you are in your travels!
Nightie-night, Miss Champion!
If you are one of these “reporters” chasing HRC’s van….quit life!
They are so ridiculous! And after all that effort to get the BREAKING news they will end by writing something simplistic, and very likely stupid.
LOL! Look at ’em go! Nutballs!
Young girl dropping some knowledge. Love this!
Just hearing of this …
http://thedailysouth.southernliving.com/2015/04/14/remembering-southern-icon-percy-sledge/
Oh, his voice and that song are so evocative of my youth.
That song! Ahhh …
Good Morning TODVille!
Morning!
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/04/15/early-bird-chat-510/