On This Day: President Barack Obama and Senior Advisor David Axelrod depart an event at the Costa Mesa Town Hall at OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa, Calif., March 18, 2025 (Photo by Pete Souza)
****
Today
The President has no public events scheduled (although some speculation that he might hold a press conference re Merrick Garland/pre-Cuba trip - we shall see!)
Beautiful. I lived in the DC area for over almost 30 years and Spring always comes early and the cherry blossoms and magnolia trees are just magnificent. In this area of PA, we’re barely seeing buds yet on the trees and very few Spring perennials are poking their heads up.
Pf, parts of it were truly insufferable, as I describe in a reply below. But I did learn that the Hillary folks are energized and ready to go and that we can never make the mistake of underestimating Trump.
I agree.esp with the part about not underestimating Trump…and if he wins the nomination…all bets are off…not sure what will happen at the convention…either it will be brokered…or they will fall in line behind him
This is very good news, Pf. Have you signed the PA Dems petition re Toomey? I really hope this bone-headed attitude on Toomey’s part gives Sestak an edge in November. That and a huge turnout from Dem voters. By the way, we have a Hillary staffer already working in our small county.
Don, apparently it only aired in Britain and my husband was somehow able to find it on the internet. Don’t know how he did it. I imagine at it will eventually show here. There are some great interviews with PBO.
Last night I saw the first part of “Inside the Obama White House,” which everybody has probably seen already. Was amazed at the avalanche of woes that beset our President when he was still just President-Elect. My first thought was that McCain would never have known what to do and would have allowed us to slip into a Depression. The thought of complex problems like these being handled by Donald Trump made my blood run cold. PBO was brilliant, forceful, incredibly dedicated to finding solutions for workers and utterly relentless in pushing his staff for the right decisions. The damned Republicans once again put party over loyalty to the US and did everything they could to defeat him. Thank God for Nancy Pelosi.
This first of four documentaries looking back on Obama’s presidency recapped a heady time when US politics felt like the Academy Awards and everyone was a Democrat. Obama the “hope-monger” rock star stormed into the White House, making history as the first African-American to do so…
But hope soon faded. Inside Obama’s White House rattled along like a thriller as the documentary unravelled the various threads that meant Obama could not deliver all he had promised on the campaign trail in his first 100 days as President…It’s easy to forget that as President-elect, Obama had to deal with the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It hit so hard even the Republicans wanted to nationalise the banks. But throughout the documentary, Obama stood out like a towering hero.
Here’s what I learned from Bernie supporters at a meeting yesterday: 1) they still believe he will win the nomination, despite overwhelming mathematical odds against it; 2) they think Hillary supporters should stop criticizing Bernie (although it’s okay if they criticize Hilary); 3) they’re convinced Hillary’s going to be indicted on the e-mail nonsense and nothing anyone says can convince them otherwise; 4) they think that IF Hillary gets the nomination, Bernie should be VP because that’s the only way young people will come out and vote; and 5) they continue to insist that Bernie pushed Hillary to the left, even though it was she who pushed him left on racial injustice, women’s issues, gun control and a lot of other concerns for real people that he routinely ignores. Meantime, Hillary supporters are actively organizing on the ground in PA.
As far as #5 goes that is the only one I can say I understand why the Sanders supporters say he pushed Hillary to the left. The reason I say that is because they keep hearing that over and over by the reporters regardless of the evidence. It is lazy reporting based on past theories.
Yup. The current donald dreck movement is all about 40 to 45% white butthurt. The balance sane majority should just effing turn up in nov every effing 2 years, instead of every 4 years, to turn around the situation.
Good Morning everyone. Congrats on 1st amk. I have been really busy the last few days and am trying to catch up before my eyes cross. Excellent round up yester by LP. Those statements from people were awesome. So where did the “Inside the White House get aired?(I am so far behind). Wonderful pic of our POTUS. was he ever young when he went into the office of the WH. Thank GOD he was elected twice. Love you all. BBL. going to catch up on reading. LOL
OOOPS :-) Good Morning Chips & Danny.
Good Friday, Chipsticks..TOD Family! Ready for the weekend!!!
Plan to limit exposure of the Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episodes that the GOP primary has been/is. I’ll primarily look to TOD for any worthwhile news.
Everyone, enjoy your day and the start of your weekend. :-D
Night, Petal! I know you say you live in the US of India but it is still unfair that you can access Noah and Colbert without sweat, while I have to jump through hoops and do not always land successfully. smh I did get a piece of this one this time, thankfully.
HAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPY FRIDAY GGAIL……………….I BE SLOW THIS MORNIN…AND IT IS COLD OUTSIDE…HOWEVER…I WILL BE A CAMEL LATER ON!…..HOPING THE SUN WILL COME OUT AND PLAY! WILL CHECK BACK LATER..PBO NEEDS TO BUY SOME FUN SHIRTS IN CUBA AND ADD A LITTLE COLOR TO HIS WARDROBE…:)..WE WANT PIX!.. I HAVE ALSO HAD CUBAN COFFEE..PREPARE YOURSELF..IT’S DIFFERENT!
Like I said….they don’t disagree with what Trump says…they disagree with how he says it. Maybe if Trump had spoken in Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles, they might have gone over the this guy’s head, and he’d be a Republican.
The great unsettling
…………………….
At midday on the eve of the [Iowa] caucuses, into the Hockenberry house walked two men who had driven to Dubuque from Milwaukee in a white Mercedes SUV. One of them was Ismail Fersat, who was from Turkey, and Muslim, and a successful entrepreneur who ran his own granite-countertop business. Once, back in Turkey, he was the national boxing champ. He came to America from Istanbul 16 years ago in hopes of becoming a professional boxer.
What did America mean to him? “For me, the key is democracy,” said Fersat, still two years away from citizenship. “I feel that if the people can tell honestly and confidently what they think without any fear, no matter what religion they belong to, what culture they belong to — that, to me, is democracy.” He had more than anything admired this about America — until he started to worry about it during this campaign.
For years in Wisconsin, he had thought that he should support the Republicans, because they would be best for business. Then along came Trump. “When Trump came out, I felt offended by the comment he made. The Muslim is blah, blah. That hurt me in a big way. I see democracy as something else. When Trump came out, boom, no more. I’m done with the Republicans. I said, ‘I’m on the wrong side!’”
The UN human rights chief has accused the Saudi-led coalition of causing twice as many civilian casualties as all the other forces fighting in Yemen.
Zeid Raad Al Hussein condemned “the repeated failure” of the coalition to prevent repeated deadly incidents.
He said air strikes had caused almost the coalition’s civilian casualties.
More than 6,000 people, about half of them civilians, have been killed since Saudi Arabia launched a multi-national campaign against rebels in March 2015.
GOOD MORNING TOD FAMILY….CAN THE POLITICAL CIRCUS PROVE TO BE ANYMORE INSANE???…I THINK TRUMP AND THE REPUGNANT EMBARRASSMENTS IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD BEGIN PASSING OUT SYMBOLIC STRAIGHT JACKETS TO GO WITH THE RED HATS AND MR. TORNADO TURF! SORRY I HAVE MISSED SO MUCH..I LOVE MY ENERGIZER PRESIDENT…PLEASE KEEP HIM AND HIS FAMILY SAFE…………………PAUL RYAN AND CRONIES HAVE A PLAN!
As Hillary Clinton Sweeps States, One Group Resists: White Men
March 17, 2025
excerpt:
“She’s talking to minorities now, not really to white people, and that’s a mistake,” said Dennis Bertko, 66, a construction project manager in Youngstown, Ohio, as he sipped a draft beer at the Golden Dawn Restaurant in a downtrodden part of town. “She could have a broader message. We would have listened.”
“Instead, she’s talking a lot about continuing Obama’s policies,” he said. “I just don’t necessarily agree with all of the liberal ideas of Obama.”
Mr. Bertko said that he rarely crossed party lines but that he voted for Donald J. Trump, who is making a strong pitch to disaffected white men by assailing free-trade agreements that Mrs. Clinton once supported. “I know a lot of guys who are open to Trump,” he said.
The fading of white men as a Democratic bloc is hardly new: The last nominee to carry them was Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and many blue-collar “Reagan Democrats” now steadily vote Republican. But Democrats have won about 35 to 40 percent of white men in nearly every presidential election since 1988. And some Democratic leaders say the party needs white male voters to win the presidency, raise large sums of money and, like it or not, maintain credibility as a broad-based national coalition.
Morning everyone! Happy Friday:) So. Just wondering if this guy has been living in a damn cave for the last 30 years! Did he NOT realize that Joe wouldn’t answer questions, twist things around and bluster and chest beat his way through this “interview”? If he didn’t know THIS simple fact, it rules him out for anything other than dog catcher. EVERYONE knows what this nasty sheriff does!! Not Bernie! Since Arpiao is running for re election, I certainly expect we’ll be seeing Jane in his commercials endorsing him in some fashion….
shamelessly stolen from meta.
Figures!
:lol: That sure beats your usual withered flower! Moooooooorning Petal(s)!
Beautiful. I lived in the DC area for over almost 30 years and Spring always comes early and the cherry blossoms and magnolia trees are just magnificent. In this area of PA, we’re barely seeing buds yet on the trees and very few Spring perennials are poking their heads up.
GM Jackie….how did your meeting go…
Pf, parts of it were truly insufferable, as I describe in a reply below. But I did learn that the Hillary folks are energized and ready to go and that we can never make the mistake of underestimating Trump.
I agree.esp with the part about not underestimating Trump…and if he wins the nomination…all bets are off…not sure what will happen at the convention…either it will be brokered…or they will fall in line behind him
LOL. Thx nclb.
Happy Friday TODers!!
Heeeeeeya Chips!!
Heyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Africaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
This is a MUST-Read for everyone.
I could not make this call….did anyone here listen in
This is very good news, Pf. Have you signed the PA Dems petition re Toomey? I really hope this bone-headed attitude on Toomey’s part gives Sestak an edge in November. That and a huge turnout from Dem voters. By the way, we have a Hillary staffer already working in our small county.
great…there must be an office in Philadelphia…going to check again…by the way how did your meeting go…
I learned a lot in my meeting about Bernie supporter attitudes. See below.
This is for you guys:
and
Good morning TOD, I certainly hope that President Obama holds a press conference. If he does it will probably be the highlight of my day.
Don, apparently it only aired in Britain and my husband was somehow able to find it on the internet. Don’t know how he did it. I imagine at it will eventually show here. There are some great interviews with PBO.
Last night I saw the first part of “Inside the Obama White House,” which everybody has probably seen already. Was amazed at the avalanche of woes that beset our President when he was still just President-Elect. My first thought was that McCain would never have known what to do and would have allowed us to slip into a Depression. The thought of complex problems like these being handled by Donald Trump made my blood run cold. PBO was brilliant, forceful, incredibly dedicated to finding solutions for workers and utterly relentless in pushing his staff for the right decisions. The damned Republicans once again put party over loyalty to the US and did everything they could to defeat him. Thank God for Nancy Pelosi.
This is the first time I’m hearing about “Inside the Obama White House.” hopefully it will re-air at some point in time.
if this is the program w/Brain Williams…it occurred in the first term….and you can find it on youtube
It’s not Brian Williams, Pf. It’s a BBC production. My husband got it off the internet.
ok…never saw this one
My first hearing about it too, Don, but found this BBC video on youtube:
I’VE DECIDED TO PADLOCK ALL THE DOORS SO THEY CAN’T LEAVE!
I’ll help you Sue 😃
is this the program w/Brian Williams…
BBC Documentary…(but I think there is another one with Brian Williams):
“Inside Obama’s White House,BBC2 - TV review: After an hour with Obama, the words President Trump sound even more chilling”
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/inside-obamas-white-housebbc2-tv-review-after-an-hour-with-obama-the-words-president-trump-sound-a6932816.html
—-
This first of four documentaries looking back on Obama’s presidency recapped a heady time when US politics felt like the Academy Awards and everyone was a Democrat. Obama the “hope-monger” rock star stormed into the White House, making history as the first African-American to do so…
But hope soon faded. Inside Obama’s White House rattled along like a thriller as the documentary unravelled the various threads that meant Obama could not deliver all he had promised on the campaign trail in his first 100 days as President…It’s easy to forget that as President-elect, Obama had to deal with the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It hit so hard even the Republicans wanted to nationalise the banks. But throughout the documentary, Obama stood out like a towering hero.
I mean haven’t we all had to make that choice. Just kidding, I’ll see myself out now, have a nice day.
Here’s what I learned from Bernie supporters at a meeting yesterday: 1) they still believe he will win the nomination, despite overwhelming mathematical odds against it; 2) they think Hillary supporters should stop criticizing Bernie (although it’s okay if they criticize Hilary); 3) they’re convinced Hillary’s going to be indicted on the e-mail nonsense and nothing anyone says can convince them otherwise; 4) they think that IF Hillary gets the nomination, Bernie should be VP because that’s the only way young people will come out and vote; and 5) they continue to insist that Bernie pushed Hillary to the left, even though it was she who pushed him left on racial injustice, women’s issues, gun control and a lot of other concerns for real people that he routinely ignores. Meantime, Hillary supporters are actively organizing on the ground in PA.
Fuck Sanders and the horse he rode in on. This fucking guy is a piece of work, he’s a goddamn whiner.
Yup, Don. That’s it.
thanks for the report….esp the part about the grass roots organizing..
As far as #5 goes that is the only one I can say I understand why the Sanders supporters say he pushed Hillary to the left. The reason I say that is because they keep hearing that over and over by the reporters regardless of the evidence. It is lazy reporting based on past theories.
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Amen to that.
I AM VERY EXCITED TO SEE PHOTOS FROM THIS TRIP..IT WILL BE SO JOYFUL AND AMAZING!
tee hee hee
And every Democrat in the country, along with non Dems with common sense, need to be leaders of the “Stop them All” movement.
Yup. The current donald dreck movement is all about 40 to 45% white butthurt. The balance sane majority should just effing turn up in nov every effing 2 years, instead of every 4 years, to turn around the situation.
I guess now that some of the higer-ratings-draws have dropped out, Kasich is starting to get a second look…for many probably a first look.
Good Morning everyone. Congrats on 1st amk. I have been really busy the last few days and am trying to catch up before my eyes cross. Excellent round up yester by LP. Those statements from people were awesome. So where did the “Inside the White House get aired?(I am so far behind). Wonderful pic of our POTUS. was he ever young when he went into the office of the WH. Thank GOD he was elected twice. Love you all. BBL. going to catch up on reading. LOL
OOOPS :-) Good Morning Chips & Danny.
Good Morning, Roberta! I posted a link to the BBC documentary a few comments up (response to Don). It looks like it is the first of four parts.
Thank you just watched it and passed it on to my FB page. Will you post each episode? I don’t BBC on my cable. Thank you in advance.
I’ll be on the lookout for them.
Good Friday, Chipsticks..TOD Family! Ready for the weekend!!!
Plan to limit exposure of the Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episodes that the GOP primary has been/is. I’ll primarily look to TOD for any worthwhile news.
Everyone, enjoy your day and the start of your weekend. :-D
trevor noah
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/noah-rips-mitch-mcconnell-for-being-a-bit-of-a-dck-over-merrick-garland-nomination/
Night, Petal! I know you say you live in the US of India but it is still unfair that you can access Noah and Colbert without sweat, while I have to jump through hoops and do not always land successfully. smh I did get a piece of this one this time, thankfully.
Good West Coast morning Chipsticks & TOD family.
Happy Friday - YAY!!!
HAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPY FRIDAY GGAIL……………….I BE SLOW THIS MORNIN…AND IT IS COLD OUTSIDE…HOWEVER…I WILL BE A CAMEL LATER ON!…..HOPING THE SUN WILL COME OUT AND PLAY! WILL CHECK BACK LATER..PBO NEEDS TO BUY SOME FUN SHIRTS IN CUBA AND ADD A LITTLE COLOR TO HIS WARDROBE…:)..WE WANT PIX!.. I HAVE ALSO HAD CUBAN COFFEE..PREPARE YOURSELF..IT’S DIFFERENT!
hat tip-Booman
Like I said….they don’t disagree with what Trump says…they disagree with how he says it. Maybe if Trump had spoken in Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles, they might have gone over the this guy’s head, and he’d be a Republican.
The great unsettling
…………………….
At midday on the eve of the [Iowa] caucuses, into the Hockenberry house walked two men who had driven to Dubuque from Milwaukee in a white Mercedes SUV. One of them was Ismail Fersat, who was from Turkey, and Muslim, and a successful entrepreneur who ran his own granite-countertop business. Once, back in Turkey, he was the national boxing champ. He came to America from Istanbul 16 years ago in hopes of becoming a professional boxer.
What did America mean to him? “For me, the key is democracy,” said Fersat, still two years away from citizenship. “I feel that if the people can tell honestly and confidently what they think without any fear, no matter what religion they belong to, what culture they belong to — that, to me, is democracy.” He had more than anything admired this about America — until he started to worry about it during this campaign.
For years in Wisconsin, he had thought that he should support the Republicans, because they would be best for business. Then along came Trump. “When Trump came out, I felt offended by the comment he made. The Muslim is blah, blah. That hurt me in a big way. I see democracy as something else. When Trump came out, boom, no more. I’m done with the Republicans. I said, ‘I’m on the wrong side!’”
The UN human rights chief has accused the Saudi-led coalition of causing twice as many civilian casualties as all the other forces fighting in Yemen.
Zeid Raad Al Hussein condemned “the repeated failure” of the coalition to prevent repeated deadly incidents.
He said air strikes had caused almost the coalition’s civilian casualties.
More than 6,000 people, about half of them civilians, have been killed since Saudi Arabia launched a multi-national campaign against rebels in March 2015.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35842708
GOOD MORNING TOD FAMILY….CAN THE POLITICAL CIRCUS PROVE TO BE ANYMORE INSANE???…I THINK TRUMP AND THE REPUGNANT EMBARRASSMENTS IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD BEGIN PASSING OUT SYMBOLIC STRAIGHT JACKETS TO GO WITH THE RED HATS AND MR. TORNADO TURF! SORRY I HAVE MISSED SO MUCH..I LOVE MY ENERGIZER PRESIDENT…PLEASE KEEP HIM AND HIS FAMILY SAFE…………………PAUL RYAN AND CRONIES HAVE A PLAN!
Good Morning TODVille.
Someone is having a reckoning moment.
Senator Collins why aren’t the Republicans doing their job?.
GOOD NAME FOR HIM…LIZZZZZARD LIPS!
<3
hat tip-POU
As Hillary Clinton Sweeps States, One Group Resists: White Men
March 17, 2025
excerpt:
“She’s talking to minorities now, not really to white people, and that’s a mistake,” said Dennis Bertko, 66, a construction project manager in Youngstown, Ohio, as he sipped a draft beer at the Golden Dawn Restaurant in a downtrodden part of town. “She could have a broader message. We would have listened.”
“Instead, she’s talking a lot about continuing Obama’s policies,” he said. “I just don’t necessarily agree with all of the liberal ideas of Obama.”
Mr. Bertko said that he rarely crossed party lines but that he voted for Donald J. Trump, who is making a strong pitch to disaffected white men by assailing free-trade agreements that Mrs. Clinton once supported. “I know a lot of guys who are open to Trump,” he said.
The fading of white men as a Democratic bloc is hardly new: The last nominee to carry them was Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and many blue-collar “Reagan Democrats” now steadily vote Republican. But Democrats have won about 35 to 40 percent of white men in nearly every presidential election since 1988. And some Democratic leaders say the party needs white male voters to win the presidency, raise large sums of money and, like it or not, maintain credibility as a broad-based national coalition.
Morning everyone! Happy Friday:) So. Just wondering if this guy has been living in a damn cave for the last 30 years! Did he NOT realize that Joe wouldn’t answer questions, twist things around and bluster and chest beat his way through this “interview”? If he didn’t know THIS simple fact, it rules him out for anything other than dog catcher. EVERYONE knows what this nasty sheriff does!! Not Bernie! Since Arpiao is running for re election, I certainly expect we’ll be seeing Jane in his commercials endorsing him in some fashion….
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bernie-jane-sanders-joe-arpaio
Chat away
http://theobamadiary.com/2016/03/18/chat-away-796/