Forward to 1 hr 59 for the President’s remarks – text of remarks here
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Caskets and pictures of firefighters are seen as President Obama speaks during a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for the firefighters who were killed in a huge blast at a Texas fertilizer plant last week
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The Texas fertilizer facility did not have sprinklers, shut-off valves, fire alarms or legally required blast walls wapo.st/14f7p36
2:20: Delivers remarks at a campaign event at Living History Farms, Urbandale, Iowa
4:25: Departs Des Moines
5:10: Arrives Sioux City, Iowa
7:30: Delivers remarks at a campaign event at Morningside College, Sioux City
9:20: Departs Sioux City
10:40: Arrives Denver
(Will double-check the schedule, not 100% sure about the times)
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Des Moines Register: Barack Obama’s election-year effort to rock the vote in Iowa continues this afternoon in Urbandale, where he’ll literally be rockin’ the suburbs.
The president’s second visit to the state this week will resemble a summer music festival, treating an outdoor crowd at Living History Farms not only to a political speech but also performances by indie band the National and alternative-rock hero Chris Cornell.
NYT: Republicans in Texas and Florida have been in the vanguard of the pernicious, widespread efforts to suppress voting by Hispanics and blacks. Fortunately, federal courts are seeing these efforts for what they are: a variation on the racist laws that disenfranchised millions before those tactics were outlawed by the Voting Rights Act.
A three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday unanimously rejected Texas’s voter ID law, which required court approval to take effect. The court described the law, known as SB 14, as “the most stringent in the country.”
Msg from The Obama Diary: Genuine bloggers who create their own posts in support of PBO are welcome to use anything from TOD – rebloggers, who only copy others in an attempt to up their traffic, are not. eg the reblogger who treats women like this – explicit – while copying TOD posts on women’s rights. He belongs in the GOP.