10:55 ET (estimated time): President Obama delivers remarks at St. Petersburg College-Seminole Campus
C-Span * CNN * CBS 1 * CBS 2
Later:
4:30 ET: Delivers remarks at Kissimmee Civic Center
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SeaCoastOnline: Folks were as optimistic as the sunny day as they left Strawbery Banke Museum after President Barack Obama’s remarks to a crowd of an estimated 6,000 people.
“You really got the feeling that this was about you,” said Jude Flynn of Kittery, Maine. …. “He needs to finish the job he began on turning around the economy,” he said. “I also agree on his principles of allowing people to make choices on marriage and other things. I feel safe with him. The other side is scary to me.”
“We definitely need to go forward with the president’s plans,” said Pat Dunnell of Manchester, who was accompanied by her husband, Bud. “I don’t want Medicare vouchers,” she said.
….. “I’m also for women’s choice,” Corinne Baker of Hampton said. “If you’re a woman, you have to vote for him.”
Lilly Ramos-Spooner of Manchester was with two friends and her 9-year-old granddaughter, Sophia Victoria Spooner. “I am so motivated right now,” she said. “There were a lot of young people surrounding us and they all said they were signing up to vote after today.”
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Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Sept 7
ABC: Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign toasted its top donors Wednesday aboard a 150-foot yacht flying the flag of the Cayman Islands.
The exclusive event, hosted by a Florida developer on his yacht “Cracker Bay,” was one of a dozen exclusive events meant to nurture those who have raised more than $1 million for Romney’s bid.
“I think it’s ironic they do this aboard a yacht that doesn’t even pay its taxes,” said a woman who lives aboard a much smaller boat moored at the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina.
AP: With Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas back in the nation’s capital, Washington Capitals fans weren’t going to let him forget his skipped trip to the White House.
At Game 3 of the Bruins-Capitals playoff series Monday night, several spectators showed up with pictures of President Barack Obama and signs taunting Thomas. In January, he didn’t show up when the rest of the Bruins were invited to the Stanley Cup champions’ traditional visit to the president’s office.
Thomas, born in Michigan, said at the time he believes the federal government “has grown out of control.”
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Morning everyone - I’ll be back in a while with Rise and Shine
Steve Benen: …. The U.S. economy added 120,000 jobs last month, while the overall unemployment rate dipped slightly to 8.2%. For the first time in a very long while, public-sector layoffs were less of a drag on the overall totals: the private sector added 121,000 jobs in March, while government lost only 1,000.
By any measure, today’s disappointing totals are a real setback. While it’s never wise to overreact to one report, March’s job totals were the weakest since October, and reverse a three-month trend in which over 200,000 jobs were being created each month….
While 120,000 new jobs would have been considered great in, say, late 2009, it’s not even close to good enough now …. Ideally, policymakers would see data like this and take steps to boost job creation, but given Republican efforts in Congress, that’s no longer an option.
More here
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WSJ: …. Job growth came from a variety of sectors. Manufacturing employment rose by 37,000, led by gains in the auto industry. Health care, financial services and professional and business services saw big gains.
….. In a promising sign, workers’ wage growth picked up. Average hourly earnings rose by five cents to $23.39. Wages were up 2.1% year over year - a faster pace than previous months. Also, a broader measure of unemployment, which includes job seekers as well as those in part-time jobs, clicked down to 14.5% from 14.9%.
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The Fix (Washington Post): The tea party may have won Republicans the House of Representatives in 2010. In 2012, it’s looking like it could help Democrats retain the White House …. it has fallen out of favor with Americans. And Democrats are prepared to use it against Republicans in the 2012 election…..
“I’m Bill Pascrell, and this is why I’m running: To stop the tea party,” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) says in a new ad. Pascrell faces a primary with fellow Democratic Rep. Steve Rothman after their districts were merged by redistricting. The tea party is also being used against in a major way against Reps. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) and Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.)….
….. “It’s no longer viewed as a populist, grassroots organization, but a dangerous group with extremist views that don’t reflect the mainstream values of America’s middle class,” said Democratic media strategist John Lapp. “The Republican establishment allowed the inmates to run the asylum in 2010. And now they’re paying the price electorally.”
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Washington Post: Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, whose wealth has become a central issue in the 2012 campaign, has taken advantage of an obscure exception in federal ethics laws to avoid disclosing the nature and extent of his holdings.
By offering a limited description of his assets, Romney has made it difficult to know precisely where his money is invested, whether it is offshore or in controversial companies, or whether those holdings could affect his policies or present any conflicts of interest.
In 48 accounts from Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded in Boston, Romney declined on his financial disclosure forms to identify the underlying assets, including his holdings in a company that moved U.S. jobs to China and a California firm once owned by Bain that filed for bankruptcy years ago and laid off more than 1,000 workers.
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Jonathan Alter (Bloomberg): …. Romney has so lashed himself to Ryan, an Ayn Rand libertarian, that there’s talk of Ryan going on the ticket. The Ryan-Romney plan - from slashing federally funded scientific research to forcing seniors from nursing homes because of draconian Medicaid cuts - will be wildly unpopular if Obama and his team find the resonant language to exploit it.
…. on two other critical issues - women’s health and immigration - Romney clearly went further than was necessary to claim the nomination. These issues happen to be of great concern to the two constituencies that account for his lagging behind Obama in the polls. If Romney can’t break 40 percent with women and Latinos, it’s hard to see how he wins.
….. does his attendance at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in 1994 and previous support of abortion rights really compel him to race to the other extreme and proclaim that he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood? Over the last 40 years, this organization provided the first birth control to millions of middle-class swing-vote suburban women. They haven’t forgotten.
…. What Romney thought was de rigueur in the primaries may bring rigor mortis in the general. He seems to have forgotten that everything he said to win the nomination is now etch-a- sketched in stone.
More here
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ThinkProgress
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TPM: If the week of April 2, 2012, goes down in political history, it’ll be for the fact that Republicans suddenly rediscovered their reverence for the third branch of government. What brought about the change of heart? President Obama’s comments on Monday and Tuesday in which he opined that an adverse Supreme Court ruling on his health care law would represent an extraordinary act of judicial overreach.
On Tuesday, in an extraordinarily unusual step, three Republican appointees to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals went toe-to-toe with the president in the political sphere. On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell advised Obama to “back off.” The courts’ authority is to be respected, regardless of outcome, he said.
This is a rich new twist for the GOP, which has made decades of sport out of attacking an out-of-control judiciary for legislating from the bench. You literally only have to look back to this GOP presidential primary to find examples of Republicans questioning the courts’ legitimacy and even threatening to neuter them using powers reserved for the other two branches of government. Here’s a brief digest:
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Cagle
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Cagle
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I just heard a guy on the TV say “it’s Good Friday” …. it was a moment - it helped me remember ‘Friday’s Good’
Workers listen as Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at Gregory Industries in Canton, Ohio, March 5
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Latino Fox News (!!!): …. Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, showed a Fox News Latino poll released Monday.
…… 73% of Latino voters approved of Obama’s performance in office, with over half those questioned looking favorably upon his handling of the healthcare debate and the economy, at 66% and 58% respectively.
…. the poll shows Mitt Romney with 35% of Latino voter support, to Ron Paul’s 13%, Newt Gingrich’s 12%, and fRick Santorum’s 9%.
….. In head-to-head match-ups none of the GOP candidates would garner more than 14% of the Latino vote come November…
“This is what we’re seeing across the country,” said Gabriela Domenzain, Obama campaign spokesperson. “The more Latinos learn about the candidates, the more they reject them.”
More here
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TPM: On a day when the number of companies fleeing from Rush Limbaugh has snowballed, the conservative talk radio personality’s program is being immediately discontinued by a Hawaii-based station. Chris Leonard, the President and General Manager of New West Broadcasting, announced today that Limbaugh’s program will no longer be broadcast on KPUA AM 670 in Hilo, HI.
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Thanks OZFan
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ThinkProgress
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Media Matters
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Energy.gov: Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced that four new corporate partners – Best Buy, Johnson Controls, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Veolia – are joining the Energy Department’s National Clean Fleets Partnership, a broad public-private partnership that assists the nation’s largest fleet operators in reducing the amount of gasoline and diesel they use nationwide. The new partners announced today join with 14 other major national companies in committing to improve the fuel economy of the commercial fleets, integrate alternative technology vehicles like natural gas trucks and electric vehicles into their fleets, and reduce their overall fuel use. Collectively, the National Clean Fleets Partners operate more than a million commercial vehicles nationwide, accounting for more than 12 percent of all commercial vehicles on American roads.
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Thanks Jovie
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The Hill: President Obama’s health law has eliminated lifetime coverage limits for 105 million Americans, the administration says in a new report released Monday.
The state-by-state report is part of the White House’s push to highlight popular provisions of the law ahead of its second anniversary later this month. Public opinion about the law remains split, but the administration hopes that its strategy will turn voters against Republicans’ plans to scrap the whole thing.
…. According to the report, 59 percent of workers covered by their employers and 89 percent of people with individual market plans had lifetime limits on their coverage in 2009. That translates to 70 million people in large employer plans, 25 million people in small employer plans and 10 million people with individually purchased health insurance.
More here
More at WhiteHouse.gov
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CNN: Republican party leaders may be surprised by the results of a new poll of institutional investors: A majority of them want Washington to fix the deficit the Obama way, with both spending cuts and tax hikes.
“They tend to be as a population more fiscally conservative than the general public, but they’re not as fiscally conservative as the most conservative elements of the Republican party,” said Brent McGoldrick, who coordinated the poll. “You see the pragmatism of investors coming through here.”
In fact, on this issue at least, the 56% who favor a mixed approach are largely aligned with President Obama.
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Editorialcartoonists
The Week
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Steve Benen: A few months ago, Mitt Romney sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier, who asked the former governor about his support for a health care mandate. Romney, visibly agitated, repeatedly denied ever advocating a national mandate policy.
When Baier reminded Romney, “Governor you did say on camera and other places that, at times, you thought it would be a model for the nation,” the Republican presidential hopeful got even angrier, snapping back, “You’re wrong, Bret.”
Actually, you’re right, Bret:
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Editorialcartoonists
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From White House press secretary Jay Carney: “In May, the United States looks forward to hosting the G-8 and NATO Summits. To facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G-8 partners, the President is inviting his fellow G-8 leaders to Camp David on May 18-19 for the G-8 Summit, which will address a broad range of economic, political and security issues.”
“The President will then welcome NATO allies and partners to his hometown of Chicago for the NATO Summit on May 20-21, which will be the premier opportunity this year for the President to continue his efforts to strengthen NATO in order to ensure that the Atlantic Alliance remains the most successful alliance in history, while charting the way forward in Afghanistan.”
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Fox4KC
kctv5
Thanks CTGirl
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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will host the 2012 International Women of Courage Awards Ceremony with special guest First Lady Michelle Obama on Thursday, March 8. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer and other U.S. and foreign dignitaries will also participate. Special guests this year include Ms. Leymah Gbowee and Ms. Tawakkol Karman, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. The event will be held at approximately 11:00 a.m. in the Dean Acheson Auditorium of the U.S. Department of State.
More here
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Coming up:
Tuesday:
1:15: PBO holds a news conference
5:30: PBO attends a campaign event at The Jefferson Hotel in Washington
7:10: PBO meets with members of the Business Roundtable at the Newseum
Wednesday: PBO will travel to Daimler Trucks Manufacturing Plant in Mt. Holly, North Carolina, to deliver remarks on the economy
Thursday: PBO will host President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana for a meeting in the Oval Office
Friday: PBO will travel to Prince George County, Virginia, to deliver remarks on the economy. Later, the President will travel to Houston, Texas to attend campaign events
RT @ArthurA_P: Today a Norman Rockwell painting came back to life but represented Obama's girls this time. Anothe… wp.me/p1uVbR-5Pv ... 6 hours ago
RT @wolfiemouse: @TheObamaDiary @MenFisherof How about the freedom to live in a community without guns? Or the freedom to go about one's ... 6 hours ago
When asked about 20 children who died at Sandy Hook, NRA nut @MenFisherof says "with freedom comes risks". No words. THE TIME IS NOW. 6 hours ago
moment - it helped me remember ‘Friday’s Good’ 
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