The Obama Diary

Random Texas-ish pic

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Today – all times Eastern:

9:55 AM: President Obama departs the White House

1:15: Arrives Austin, Texas

1:45: Tours classrooms at Manor New Technology High School

2:05: Delivers remarks

4:15: The First Lady Hosts Mother’s Day Tea

6:0: The President tours Applied Materials Inc.

5.40: Delivers remarks

6:35: Departs Austin, Texas

9:45: Arrives the White House

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Steve Benen: For the fourth consecutive week, the figures on initial unemployment claims from the Department of Labor offered unexpectedly good news:

    The number of people who applied for regular state unemployment-insurance benefits ticked down 4,000 to 323,000 in the week ending May 4, hitting the lowest level since January 2008 ….. Economists had expected initial claims to rise slightly …. The four-week average of new jobless claims fell 6,250 to 336,750, hitting the lowest level since November 2007, near the start of the recession.

More here

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Second term rules: The better the jobs news, the harder the GOP tries to impeach you. fb.me/TjD4x8tf

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) May 9, 2013

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Greg Sargent: One party is threatening the recovery far more than the other is – It’s been widely pointed out by liberals that much of the discussion of fiscal issues conducted by supposedly “neutral” reporters actually does take sides in a pernicious way. It often treats it as a given that near term deficit reduction is a good thing — sometimes even cheerleading for that outcome – when in fact there is an actual policy dispute over this point, with many arguing that immediate deficit reduction is destructive to the recovery, and that dealing with the deficit should be deferred until the economy is stronger.

And that’s why today’s big New York Times piece quoting a range of economists arguing that Washington’s deficit obsession has proven a drag on the recovery is so important and welcome….

More here

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USA Today: Starting a series of “Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tours,” Obama travels to Austin to visit high-tech facilities and promote his plans for education and basic research funding.

…. Among his announcements: A competition to create three “Manufacturing Innovation Institutes,” partnerships among businesses, colleges, and government to help create new manufacturing jobs. The president has asked Congress for $1 billion to create a total of 15 such institutes.

Obama will also discuss plans to require the government to make its data more easily available to business people, researchers and others.

More here

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This is big: @ofa volunteers are about to deliver 1.4 million signatures to Congress demanding expanded background checks for gun sales.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 9, 2013

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Wow –> Gabrielle Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions raised more than $11m in first 4 months huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/gab…

— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) May 9, 2013

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BlueStreetJournal.com

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Bob Cesca: 13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush’s Watch Without a Peep from Fox News

The Republican inquisition over the attacks against Americans in Benghazi has never really gone away, but it appears as though in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the House Oversight Committee’s Benghazi hearings this week there’s renewed psycho-histrionics over Benghazi…..

More here

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Rachel at her epic best:

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