ezra | The Obama Diary

Posts Tagged ‘ezra

Mar

Catching Up

Categories: All Photos, All Videos, Articles and Michelle Obama
Tags: chuck, dances, dancing, echa, ezra, hagel, klein, links, Lla, Michelle, Obama, Pa, photos, Univision

President Barack Obama talks with Council of Economic Advisers Chair Alan Krueger following a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, March 4 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Steve Benen shreds Bill Keller’s column here

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John Boehner: ‘There’s no plan from Senate Democrats or the White House to replace the sequester’ …. Pants on fire

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Ezra Klein: This is why Obama can’t make a deal with Republicans – File this under “Jonathan Chait is right”

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President Obama speaks alongside Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during a Cabinet meeting in the White House on March 4

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Senate poised to move first bill to curb gun violence since Newtown, will be named in honor of Hadiya Pendleton – see here

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Only 6 Of Obama’s 35 Pending Judicial Nominees Are Straight White Men – ThinkProgress

(I love the fact that this could just as easily be a headline on a RWNJ site, in a ‘SHOCKER” kind of way)

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GOP Congresswoman: I Opposed Domestic Violence Bill Because It Protected Too Many Groups – ThinkProgress

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A few reasons to be optimistic about the U.S. economy – Ezra Klein

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Look Who’s Feuding Now – A Map of Conservative Fingerpointing:

See more at The Atlantic

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Watch the First Lady dance to Pitbull’s “Echa Pa’ Lla”:

The First Lady’s interview can be seen on Univision’s “Primer Impacto” on Wednesday, March 6

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@ks44: Here’s a pic from the First Lady’s @letsmove Google+ Hangout in the Blue Room today

Thank you LovelyPlains!

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Normal service resumed tomorrow. Hopefully

Feb

David Brooks: Lying = “Over-the-top lampooning”? Good grief.

By Chipsticks 189 Comments

Categories: Articles
Tags: Barack, Brooks, column, David, ezra, klein, lied, lies, new, Obama, President, sequester, times, york

Ezra Klein (Washington Post): I had some issues with David Brooks’s column Friday on the two parties’ sequester positions …. A transcript of our conversation follows.

Ezra Klein: In the column, you said that the Obama administration doesn’t have a plan to replace the sequester. I feel like I’ve had to spend a substantial portion of my life reading their various budgets and plans to replace the sequester, and my sense is that you’ve had to do this, too. So, what am I missing?

David Brooks: First, the column was a bit of an over-the-top lampooning column about dance moves. I probably went a bit too far when saying the president didn’t have a response to the sequester save to raise taxes on the rich. In the cool light of day, I can say that’s over the top. There’s chained CPI and $400 billion in health proposals. So I should say I was unfair. I’m going to attach a note to the column, if it’s not up already.

More here

As David Roberts ‏(@drgrist) put it on Twitter: “Seriously, David Brooks’ answer to this first question is remarkable. Why wouldn’t you fire him for this?”

Feb

catching up

By Chipsticks 279 Comments

Categories: All Photos, All Videos, Articles and Michelle Obama
Tags: Barack, chart, DeGeneres, Ellen, ezra, graph, graphic, jobs, klein, Michelle, Obama, President, private, sector, statement, superbowl, syria, video

Demonstrators gather in front of the White House, Feb. 4

Statement by the President on Syria

Thirty years after his father massacred tens of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women, and children in Hama, Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated a similar disdain for human life and dignity. Yesterday the Syrian government murdered hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children, in Homs through shelling and other indiscriminate violence, and Syrian forces continue to prevent hundreds of injured civilians from seeking medical help. These brutal killings take place at a time when so many Syrians are also marking a deeply meaningful day for their faith. I strongly condemn the Syrian government’s unspeakable assault against the people of Homs and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones. Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately……

More here

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Ezra Klein: The strangest thing about January’s jobs report is that it’s pretty much all good. The headline numbers are great, of course: payrolls are up by 243,000 jobs. Unemployment is down to 8.3 percent. But the inside numbers are good, too.

…. The report also deals at least a slight blow to the case for economic pessimism. For months, forecasters have been telling us that though the end of 2011 was strong for the economy, the data showed the beginning of 2012 would be weak. That could still prove true. But we’re not seeing a slowdown in January’s payrolls. Just the opposite, actually.

Which isn’t to say there aren’t some areas of concern…..

The bottom line is that this isn’t just a good jobs report. It’s a recovery jobs report. It’s showing the sort of numbers that win elections. As my colleague Neil Irwin tweeted, “That sound you hear is champagne corks in the West Wing.”

More here

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Vote!

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Aug

‘if it’s a miracle i’d hate to see what a catastrophe is like’

By Chipsticks 22 Comments

Categories: All Videos
Tags: Barack, bell, chris, ezra, klein, miracle, msnbc, Obama, perry, President, Reagan, rick, Ron, texas, video

Jul

embarrassing…..

By Chipsticks 38 Comments

Categories: All Videos
Tags: adam, Barack, ceiling, debt, ezra, firebaggers, green, hamsher, hodge, jane, klein, Lawrence, left, limit, msnbc, o'donnell, Obama, President, professional, roger

Extreme Liberal: This is a must see, vintage smackdown of the “firebaggers.” Lawrence O’Donnell and Ezra Klein educate the foaming at the mouth “progressives” Jane Hamsher, Adam Green and some other firebagger wanna-be named ~~Mike~~ Roger Hodge. Watch and enjoy!

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Good grief, these Firebaggers truly are clueless

Jun

oh dear….

By Chipsticks 35 Comments

Categories: Articles
Tags: Barack, benen, economy, ezra, florida, idiot, jobs, klein, lies, mitt, Obama, President, romney, steve, tampa, unemployed

Steve Benen: For a guy whose awkward sense of humor keeps raising eyebrows, this incident in Florida this morning probably won’t help Mitt Romney’s reputation:

Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop … listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own.

“I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.”

……comments like these may very well be a deliberate self-deprecating strategy because Romney strutted around New Hampshire on Tuesday as if he’d already won the presidency, and no one likes an overconfident jerk.

But when an extremely wealthy person jokes to people who are actually struggling about being “unemployed,” it rankles. Indeed, Mitt Romney became extremely wealthy in a way that seems relevant to this discussion. (See here)

To be fair, there’s at least a kernel of truth to it. Mitt Romney hasn’t worked a day in over five years …. but if memory serves, Romney had a job. During his brief tenure, he struggled with his duties, received poor performance evaluations, and his employers were ultimately relieved to see him quit.

Maybe Romney should mention this at his next diner stop.

Full post here

Ezra Klein disagrees with Benen about the ‘joke’ (“It’s pretty clear from the context that he was making a joke”) but picks up on something else Romney said today:

I’d focus instead on Romney’s comment that “We have seen the most anti-investment, antigrowth, antijob strategy in America since Jimmy Carter. The result has been it’s harder and harder for people to find work.” By any measure, this is absurd. Taxes are at a 50-year low. The Dow has staged a roaring recovery. Business profits are near record levels. And the economy has gone from losing 780,000 jobs a month to gaining about 160,000 jobs a month. That is to say, it’s getting easier and easier for people to find work, even if it’s not nearly easy enough.

I don’t mind bad jokes. What I mind is bad economic analysis.

Apr

oh, facts are pesky things….

By Chipsticks 21 Comments

Categories: All Photos and Articles
Tags: Barack, ezra, klein, liberal, moderate, nate, new, Obama, post, President, republican, silver, times, washington, york

Nate Silver (NYT): Earlier this week, Ezra Klein of The Washington Post published a column titled “Obama Revealed: A Moderate Republican”….he argued that the president’s policy preferences in some key areas, including health care, resemble those of a Republican from the early 1990s….

….I’m a big fan of Mr. Klein’s work, but I don’t find his thesis persuasive in this case … It’s fairly easy to demonstrate that Mr. Obama’s policy preferences resemble those of a typical Democrat in today’s Congress … A system called DW-Nominate rates each member of Congress on a scale from negative 1 (very liberal on economic issues) to positive 1 (very conservative) based on their roll-call votes. The system also creates a score for each president based on cases in which the outcome he desired from a vote in Congress was clearly articulated.

According to the system, the score for the average Democrat in the 111th Congress was -0.382, although there was a fairly significant range, from very liberal Democrats like Dennis J. Kucinich (-0.612) and Barbara Lee (-0.743) to moderates like Heath Shuler (-0.100) and Ben Nelson (-0.030).

Mr. Obama’s score of -0.399 was very close to the average, splitting the difference between his party’s liberal and moderate wings….

Mr. Obama’s positions are also broadly in line with the median Democratic voter. According to polling conducted by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm, 70 percent of Democrats think Mr. Obama’s positions are “about right”, and those who disagreed were about as likely to say he was too conservative (12 percent) as too liberal (14 percent).

Read full article here – and more here at The People’s View

Thank you Dorothy

Mar

put up, or shut up

By Chipsticks 9 Comments

Categories: All Photos and Articles
Tags: Barack, care, ezra, frank, health, healthcare, klein, luntz, Obama, post, President, republicans, washington

Ezra Klein (Washington Post): It’s put-up-or-shut-up time for Republicans. They managed to make it through the health-care debate without offering serious solutions of their own, and – perhaps more impressive – through the election by promising to tell us their solutions after they’d won. But the jig is up. They need a health-care plan – and quickly.

The GOP knew this day would come. In May 2009, Republican message-maestro Frank Luntz released a polling memo warning that “if the dynamic becomes ‘President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,’ then the battle is lost.” Repeal, Luntz argued, wouldn’t be good enough. It would have to be “repeal and replace.” And so it was. That, however, is easier said than done.

To understand the trouble the Republicans find themselves in, you need to understand the party’s history with health-care reform…. (see here) …Conservatives once offered solutions competitive with what the Democrats were proposing, but over the past 30 years, they’ve abandoned each and every one of them to stymie Democratic presidents. Confronted with a challenge to provide broader access to better health care at a lower cost, they’re reduced to complaining that those aren’t the right goals for health-care reform…..

…..For decades, Republicans have chosen stopping Democratic presidents over reforming the American health-care system. Now that reform has passed, the solution for members of the GOP is to press the rewind button. They’re about to find out that it’s not enough.

On that much, Luntz and I agree: If the public comes to see the GOP as opposed to reform, “the battle is lost” – at least if you believe “the battle” is to beat the Democrats rather than provide quality health insurance to every American.

Full article here

The Last 10 Posts

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Weekly Address: A rising, thriving middle class is the true engine of economic growth. OFA.BO/bCkeZm 1 day ago
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Weekly Address: The President Talks About How to Build a Rising, Thriving Middle Class. Watch: youtu.be/-ZJvRzOdSCw 1 day ago
New #WestWingWeek: The President honored Top Cops, spoke on #ACA & we kicked off a hangout series, #WeTheGeeks: youtu.be/q2mw-lob2uA 2 days ago
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