Mary Foxx, grandmother of Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, is seen seated in the East Room of the White House where President Barack Obama announced that he nominated her grandson as transportation secretary. Mary Foxx worked at the White House in the Truman Administration
Two years ago: President Obama shakes hands with a young girl after arriving at Miami International Airport, April 29, 2011 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Today:
10:30: The First Lady speaks at a White House Forum on Military Credentialing and Licensing (White House live)
10:50: The President delivers remarks at the National Academy of Sciences 150th Anniversary (White House live)
12:30: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney
2:10: The President makes a personnel announcement
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Tuesday: As part of the Joining Forces initiative, President Obama, Vice President Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden will make a significant employment announcement for veterans and military spouses. This event will take place at the White House
Wednesday: The President will attend meetings at the White House
Thursday: In the morning, the President will depart Washington, DC for his visit to Mexico and Costa Rica
Friday: In the afternoon, the President will depart Mexico for Costa Rica
Saturday: In the afternoon, the President will depart Costa Rica and return to Washington, DC
Sunday: The President will deliver the commencement address at Ohio State University. He will return to Washington, DC, later that day
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ABC: President Obama will nominate Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx as the new Transportation secretary on Monday, a White House official said.
Foxx, who has served as mayor of Charlotte since 2009, has overseen several major infrastructure initiatives in the city and rose to prominence after bringing the Democratic National Convention to Charlotte last year.
Anthony Foxx holds up his son Zachary to the microphone after being sworn in as Charlotte’s new mayor
…. with his grandmother Mary Foxx after mid-morning services at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church on August 5, 2012. Anthony was raised by his grandparents, Mary and James Foxx, Sr., who led him into politics, and his mother Laura
Mayor Foxx at the 2012 Democratic National Convention:
AP: One of the architects of failed gun control legislation says he’s bringing it back.
Sen. Joe Manchin on Sunday said he would re-introduce a measure that would require criminal and mental health background checks for gun buyers at shows and online. The West Virginia Democrat says that if lawmakers read the bill, they will support it.
2:15: Delivers remarks at a campaign rally at Elm Street Middle School, Nashua
4:30: Vice President Biden, Jill and Beau Biden campaign in Lynchburg, Virginia (live on C-Span)
5:05: President Obama departs Nashua
6:45: Arrives White House
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On Wednesday, the President will travel to Cincinnati, Ohio and Akron, Ohio for campaign events. In the evening, the President and the First Lady will welcome local children and children of military families to trick-or-treat at the North Portico of the White House.
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Col. Lawrence Wilkerson:
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Paul Krugman: For a few days there the Romney campaign was boasting a lot about having Big Mo — and the press corps actually fell for it, briefly. At this point, however, the reality seems to be sinking in: if Romney has Big Mo, it looks like this:
Despite the Denver Debacle and its aftermath, state polls are showing a clear Obama lead in the electoral college, which if anything is getting a bit stronger….
Why? Jonathan Cohn singles out the auto bailout, and rightly so. I’d add, however, that the killing of Osama bin Laden mattered too …. what the auto rescue and the bin Laden strike have in common is that they were both very courageous decisions — decisions that could easily have gone wrong, that faced lots of second-guessing. You can criticize Obama for many things (and I have, and will in future), but he showed true grit when it mattered, and now seems likely to reap the reward.
If you can bear to see Trump’s face, make sure you look at the clip of him on Letterman (at the very start of the video)
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Thank you Meta
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Charles Blow: The saying goes: A man is known by the company he keeps. If that is true, what does the company Mitt Romney keeps say about him?
….. Sununu has apologized, somewhat, for his racial attack on Powell’s motives. But what should we make of all this?
We have a very racially divided electorate …. I worry that Sununu’s statements intentionally go beyond recognizing racial disparities and seek to exploit them.
What does that say about Romney, and what does it say about his campaign’s tactics?
Mediaite: Bill Maher used his final New Rule of the night to warn voters unhappy with President Obama of the political and social consequences of the other guy winning. Maher argued that Mitt Romney winning the presidency would not just be a victory for him, but for every Republican extremist Romney has ever supported in his recent political career. Maher said Romney “may seem like a nice fella,” but he’s “a compulsive liar whose whole life is secret” and would bring too much unwanted baggage into a relationship with America.
…. Maher also warned about the “fresh can of nuts” in Congress with wildly anti-scientific beliefs that would have more free reign under a Republican administration. Maher said that a Republican in the White House would mean the return of “Bible-thumping bullshit” in government.
4:30 – 6:0: Kay Hagan * Walter Dalton * G.K. Butterfield * David Price * Mel L. Watt * James Rogers * Live Performance: James Taylor * Antonio R. Villaraigosa * Reverend Gabriel Salguero * Presentation of Colors * Pledge of Allegiance * National Anthem: Marc Anthony * Progress for People Video: Seniors * Carol Berman * Donna F. Edwards * Barney Frank * Harvey Gantt
6:0 – 7:0: John Lewis * Stronger Together Video: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell * Jason Crow * Live Performance: Mary J. Blige * Debbie Wasserman Schultz * Antonio R. Villaraigosa * Tammy Baldwin * Michael Nutter * Stay Stronger Together Video: Marriage Equality * Zach Wahls
7:0 – 8:0: Jim Messina * American Heroes Video: Auto Workers * Kenyetta Jones, Ryan Case, Ed Meagher, Martha Figueroa, Lucas Beenken, Rob Hach * Vice Presidential Nomination Intro * Antonio R. Villaraigosa * Beau Biden * Vote by Acclamation * Live Performance: Foo Fighters * James E. Clyburn * Scarlett Johansson and Kerry Washington
Steve Kornacki: Maybe you remember the much-discussed map that the New York Times ran in November 2008, just after Barack Obama racked up a bigger share of the national popular vote than any Democrat had in 44 years. It really was the perfect election for Democrats, with just about everything breaking their way, and yet the Times showed that in a few pockets of America, Obama had somehow fared worse than his party’s previous (losing) nominee.
This phenomenon was mostly centered in Appalachia, but there were exceptions – like the Brooklyn/Queens-based 9th District of New York, where Obama performed one point worse than John Kerry had in 2004 and 12 points worse than Al Gore had in 2000.
This may be the most important piece of information to keep in mind now that the voters of that same 9th District have just handed national Republicans a dream talking point… there really isn’t much that’s remarkable about the victory that Republican Bob Turner achieved on Tuesday night.
Mainly, it tells us what a simple look at President Obama’s job approval numbers (or the economic indicators that are largely responsible for them) would tell us: Voters are frustrated and eager to register their displeasure with him and his party. This is true everywhere, but particularly in areas like the 9th District, where voters already had clear reservations about Obama even before he did anything as president – back when his approval ratings were still stratospheric.
…. None of this is to say that Turner’s win is a non-story … President Obama is in serious political trouble and is faced with an electorate that could easily deny him a second term next year. But then, that would have been true even if the Democrats had pulled an upset or two on Tuesday night.
Nate Silver: …. New York’s Ninth Congressional District has highly unusual demographics, with a set of local issues that are unlikely to extrapolate well to the rest of the country.
… First, there are the local issues – Barack Obama’s positioning toward Israel, Mr. Weprin’s endorsement of a plan to build a mosque and Muslim cultural center in Lower Manhattan, and possibly gay marriage – that will resonate more in Queens than they will in the rest of the country.
Roughly 40 percent of voters in the Ninth District are Jewish, 20 times the rate in the country as a whole. Moreover, and perhaps more important, many of those voters are Orthodox Jews, who often have starkly different political viewpoints than Reform or secular Jews, and who are extremely rare in the United States outside a few spots in the New York region.
There’s also the fact that the district was already behaving unusually in 2008. Despite having a 37-point edge in party registration, Mr. Obama won the election by only 11 points there – barely better than the seven-point edge he had nationwide.
I doubt that there was any district in the country (in 2008), perhaps outside a few remnants of the “Solid South,” where so many enrolled Democrats voted against Mr. Obama.
