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Barack Obama Killed It In His White House Correspondents’ Dinner Speech
Business Insider: President Barack Obama started off his White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner speech by walking up to the podium to DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win.”
How do you like my new entrance music?” Obama said. “Rush Limbaugh warned you about this — second term, baby! We’re changing things around here a little bit.”
It was the start of a speech that kept his audience entertained throughout, and one that ended on a serious note by paying respect to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.
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RT It’s not often a news org gets a shout out from a President. @BostonGlobe says thanks President Obama for last nights’ at #whcd.
The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) April 28, 2013
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Obamacare makes insurance more affordable for families headed by same-sex couples
Center For American Progress: The widespread nature of inclusive coverage is well demonstrated in the practices of employers: Fifty-one percent of small business offer coverage to same-sex partners of employees, and more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies do the same. Federal policy under the Affordable Care Act promotes the expansion of these positive market practices and authorizes the marketplaces to offer coverage that includes same-sex couples and their children in family policies available in 2014.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released final regulations implementing provisions of the Affordable Care Act that reform health insurance markets across the country. These regulations address the types of coverage that insurers offer to families. In explaining the rules, the agency clearly indicated that all families need access to health coverage and that adopting a narrow definition of “family” could adversely impact the ability of diverse families such as LGBT families to access the coverage and care that they need. Accordingly, the agency explicitly gave states the flexibility to require issuers to include specific types of individuals on a family policy. Current market practices that have promoted expanding coverage for LGBT Americans and their families will thus continue to advance under the Affordable Care Act.
despite all of the sometimes confusing news and misinformation surrounding the Affordable Care Act, LGBT Americans and their families should take heart: Many of the law’s reforms are already making a difference, with even more benefits still to come.
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SmartyPants: Over the last few years the Washington DC villagers have developed a myth that President Obama is cold, aloof and detached. That myth is directly contradicted by those who actually know him and people he interacts with outside the beltway bubble. So you have to wonder what all those folks will do with this storyline once Mark Leibovich’s book This Town about the incestuous and manipulative nature of those inside that bubble is finally published. We already know that Politico reporters Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei are pretty nervous because they wrote what is clearly a pre-emptive strike on the book before its even published. But Jim Newell at The New Republic wrote that their reaction demonstrates exactly the point Leibovich is likely to make.
But as a justification for why President Obama keeps his distance from all of that insider obsession, its a pretty powerful statement. Its clear the culture is sick and dysfunctional. That the President choses to remain cold, aloof and detached from it all speaks boldly to his own wisdom. That none of them seem to notice speaks only to their own obsession with it.
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***You can enjoy the White House Correspondents Dinner from the red carpet arrivals, POTUS’s and FLOTUS’s arrival, POTUS’s remarks, Conan’s remarks, red carpet pictures on CSPAN, GOPolitico, GOPolitico2, TooFab, More TooFab,***
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Actress and Activist Kerry Washington
