President Obama's Speech on the upcoming cuts to the Defense Dept. (VIDEO)

More of the Richard Cordray rollout (featuring guest star Barack Obama) (VIDEO)

And on Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell:

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Jonathan Chait: The Economy Might Save Obama After All

A wholehearted recommend. If you're an Obama fan, nothing will make you feel better than reading this.

Well, almost nothing.

Also, Andrew Sullivan highlighted this bit of the piece first:

Defeating an incumbent president, historically, seems to require either a major scandal, a failed war, or a terrible economy. We have a terrible economy. But the direction seems to matter more than the level — Ronald Reagan famously cruised to reelection with a high unemployment rate because the economy bounced back from the deep but quick 1982 recession. Mitt Romney has made the state of the economy his central theme against Obama. The entire premise of his campaign is that the economy is bad because Obama's economic program has failed.

If voters think the economy is improving, Romney has no ammunition left. That is still the smart play for Romney, because if the economy feels strong, he probably can't win anyway, so he needs to plan for the scenario that gives him a chance to win. A few months ago, that scenario was looking almost certain. Now it's looking far less likely.

Best...headline...ever. (Suck on this, Iran Edition)

Thanks to @symmetry11 on Twitter for catching this first.

Oh, and by the way, you're welcome Iran!:

U.S. Navy rescues Iranian hostages held by pirates

A member of the same U.S. aircraft carrier group that Iran has warned not to return to the Strait of Hormuz has rescued 13 Iranians held hostage by pirates in the Arabian Sea, the Pentagon said on Friday.

POTUS is going to make Romney spend money...in Arizona (VIDEO).

Released just before New Years...



You see what the interesting thing is about those maps?

Only one of them contains Ohio.

Now, that's not to say that the President isn't interested in carrying Ohio (he is), or that he's not going to win Ohio (what, you think Romney's going to win Ohio.  Child, please), but it's interesting so see that there are still paths victory without Ohio.

And more to the point, I think in the end, no matter who the nominee is, you're going to see the President win on a combination of these paths, just like Jim says in the video.

And on top of all that, the President is going to make Romney spend money...in Arizona.

Ooohh, it lookin' good...

Oh, and by the way, make sure you give money to the campaign. The more we have on hand, the better.

Why it was worth getting Cordary into his job, and getting him working... (VIDEO)

If you want to know why Mitt Romney would be a horrible President, look no further than Seamus...his Dog.

Great catch by Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere:

A Vanity Fair excerpt from "The Real Romney", a forthcoming book by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, contains an intriguing story about likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. It happened during a family road trip 28 and 1/2 years ago, when Romney was 36.

"The destination of this journey, in the summer of 1983, was [Romney's] parents' cottage, on the Canadian shores of Lake Huron. The white Chevy station wagon with the wood paneling was overstuffed with suitcases, supplies, and sons when Mitt climbed behind the wheel to begin the 12-hour family trek from Boston to Ontario.

"As with most ventures in his life, he had left little to chance, mapping out the route and planning each stop. Before beginning the drive, Mitt put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He had improvised a windshield for the carrier to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.

"Then Mitt put his sons on notice: there would be pre-determined stops for gas, and that was it. Tagg was commandeering the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, when he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. 'Dad!' he yelled. 'Gross!' A brown liquid was dripping down the rear window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

"As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Mitt coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the road with the dog still on the roof.

"It was a preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management. But the story would trail him years later on the national political stage, where the name Seamus would become shorthand for Romney's coldly clinical approach to problem solving."

Problem solving...or problem creation.

Let us not forget that this little "crisis" was entirely of Mitt's own making.

Let us also not forget that this crisis of Mitt's making was because his belief in the superiority of his planning turned out to be bullshit. (Pun only partially intended).

And also let us not forget that after cleaning up the mess of his own creation, he went right back to doing what he'd done in the first place.

I think this story is highly illustrative of what kind of President he would be. Out of touch, non-responsively, not pliant, and tone deaf.

Fortunately, these very same qualities are going to sink him as a Candidate.

The President's somewhat confrontational speech in Cleveland, OH (and we LIKE the confrontation!) (VIDEO)

Oh, and while I remember, there's this, too:

It isn’t just Richard Cordray. Obama is also set to use recess appointments to install his picks to the National Labor Relations Board, according to White House officials and others familiar with ongoing discussions.

The move, which is arguably as important as the Cordray appointment, will ratchet up opposition from Republicans and make this an even bigger fight, since they have been attacking the NLRB regularly for its moves to streamline union elections and inform workers of their rights.

Obama is set to appoint Sharon Block, Terence Flynn, and Richard Griffin to the board — something unions have made a big priority for them in the new year. Senate Republicans have opposed the recess appointments to the NLRB on constitutional grounds, but unions charge that Republicans are only interested in rendering the agency inoperative.

Obama’s move, which will help energize unions in advance of the 2012 election, is yet another sign that he is determined to circumvent GOP opposition and make government functional again by any means necessary. It’s another sign that the White House and Dems have abandoned the illusion that anything can be done to secure bipartisan compromise with Republicans on the major items on Obama’s agenda.

And why is this important Talking Point Memo's Brian Beutler??

Republicans were threatening to block Obama’s NLRB nominees in a bid to extinguish the board’s power. So just as with Obama’s decision to recess appoint Richard Cordray to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, this move does more than fill vacancies. It actually restores the power the agency was given under the law — power Republicans were hoping to strip without passing new legislation.

Who's going around the Constitution again.

"So I hear you think you know something about Iowa..." (VIDEO)

Made me laugh my ass off it was so good.

I like Ron Wyden, I respect Ron Wyden, but he needs to get his ass kicked for this...

But the President and Democrats should kick his ass for this. No Privatization of Medicare, ever.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who has been castigated by Democrats and hailed by Republicans for his plan to privatize Medicare, will on Thursday unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program.

Working with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the Wisconsin Republican is developing a framework that would keep government-run Medicare as an option for new retirees starting in 2022, along with a variety of private plans.

Seniors would still receive a set amount of money from the government to buy insurance, as they would under the Medicare proposal Ryan included in the budget blueprint that passed the House last year. But the new approach would let that subsidy, known as premium support, rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies — creating more protection for seniors and saving potentially far less in the budget.

The unusual alliance between Ryan and Wyden could complicate election-year politics for both parties on an explosive issue. In recent days, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has embraced the Ryan privatization plan, and GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich has offered qualified support. Democrats, meanwhile, have been gearing up to challenge the GOP across the board on the issue, accusing Republicans of pushing to “end the Medicare guarantee.”

Ryan and Wyden said in an interview Tuesday that they joined forces in hopes of lifting the Medicare debate above the divisive political rhetoric and forging a genuine compromise that could save the program along with the government’s solvency.

I think we're going to enjoy hearing from American LP (VIDEO)

The complete 60 Minutes interview with President Obama... (VIDEO)

Sen. Lautenberg and Rep. McCarthy write a really dumb-ass column together...

Here is the actual headline in the piece o' crap Huffington Post today. Mind you, not the headline that makes you click on the story, but the actual headline:

Tell President Obama: Stop the NRA From Making Our Laws.

And the gist of the piece is?

The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 822) would allow gun owners to carry a concealed firearm across state lines even if they weren't issued a permit by that state. That means Texas Governor Rick Perry could decide who can carry a concealed weapon in your state -- even if they have a criminal record that your state would consider a barrier to owning a gun.

This gun industry bill recently passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with a little bit of Democratic help as well.

Americans of conscience who believe in protecting public safety should join us in asking President Obama to issue a veto threat to this ridiculous bill now, before it goes even further in Congress.

We have a petition, at www.StopHR822.com, to send President Obama a strong message from regular Americans across the nation that we will not let the gun manufacturers make laws that benefit them at the risk of public safety.

Click here immediately to call on President Obama to veto H.R. 822 -- we can't let this bill go any further.

Uhhh, excuse me Senator Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey...and Congresswoman McCarthy, Democrat of New York.

It strikes me you really should be going after to the people who would actually helped pass (and thus stop) said legislation.

Oh yeah...THEY WOULD BE CALLED SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES!!!

Look, these are two of the good guys when it comes to Gun Control. But it strikes me that people who are in a position to actually do something about bad legislation in its tracks have real nerve demanding President Obama do their damn job for them.


McCarthy is outnumbered.  She's got an excuse.  But in case you've forgotten, Senator...this hasn't passed the Senate yet, and there are things you yourself can do to stop this thing from happening.  You work within the single most dysfunctional branch of Government.  A Single Senator has the ability to grind any piece of legislation to a halt.  So how about putting a hold on the legislation?  How about organizing a filibuster?


How about you do your damn job before you go bitching to President Obama.

The bizarre alternate Universe where Insurance Companies have ASKED for more Federal Regulation is this one!

Uhh...say that again Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post??

A lot of coverage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law focuses on what isn’t happening: How the White House can’t get a head for its Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through Congress in the face of Republican opposition, how the law could become more vulnerable with the retirement of one of its architects, Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. Just this morning, as Suzy reports, former FDIC chair Shelia Bair called for part of the law to be scrapped altogether.

But, quietly, parts of the law are indeed moving forward, albeit with few headlines and little fanfare. This very morning, a new Dodd-Frank office got underway with work to reform one of the country’s most complex regulatory systems: insurance regulation.

The Federal Insurance Office was created by Dodd-Frank to bring a more national voice to how we oversee insurance. Until now, a federal agency to focus on insurance regulation just didn’t exist.

“Despite the sector’s size and important,” said deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, “the federal government had no central repository for comprehensive insurance expertise.”

The new office doesn’t make many headlines; you won’t see many mentions outside of some trade journals. But industries understand its important: The FIO drew a standing-room-only crowd to its first ever meeting at Treasury this morning. And at that meeting, insurance executives asked the Dodd-Frank agency to bring more federal regulation into their industry — not exactly an everyday affair in Washington.

It’s not a normal request, but insurance isn’t exactly a normal industry when it comes to regulation. States tend to oversee all insurance products, from health to life to homeowners. And that worked fine decades ago, when insurance companies tended to be more localized. But for any national company operating now, having 50 state regulators set 50 different standards has made it a complex system.

“The current system is highly inefficient,” says John Johns, chairman of the Protective Life Corp., which sells life insurance policies. Or, as Consumer Federation of America’s J. Robert Hunter put it, “If Nebraska is regulating hurricane insurance in Florida and flood insurance in Georgia, we have a problem.”

The President's Barnburner of a Speech in Osawatomie, KS (VIDEO)

What else can I say, but...whoa.

The Fireside Chat for December 3rd, 2011 (VIDEO)

I'm sorry, but did that Obama Black Friday Email "annoy" or "exasperate" any of you??

Damn villagers, again.

Look, I love Erza. Read him all the time. But like the rest of us, he can occasionally be full of shit:

Guess who tweeted this: “This Black Friday, take 10% off all purchases of...gear with code 10%TURKEYDAY”

Wal-Mart? Best Buy? A hedge fund trying to unload Greek bonds?

Nope. That was the official Twitter account of President Barack Obama — excuse me, President @BarackObama. And it’s not the first time Obama’s 2012 campaign has sounded more like a commercial for Al’s Used Car Lot.

Last month, “Barack Obama” e-mailed me with the subject line “Last chance at dinner.” “Because you and I don’t have a lot of chances to have dinner together,” he — or, more accurately, a campaign staffer claiming to be him — wrote, “I hope you’ll take advantage of the one that’s coming up this fall.” Then he asked me to donate some money so I could be entered into a raffle to have dinner with him.

Another e-mail, again from Obama, carried the subject line, “If I don’t call you.” Again, the upshot was you could donate money to be entered into a dinner raffle. But as Garance Franke-Ruta noted at the Atlantic, the e-mail writers at the Obama campaign had taken one of the most distinctive voices in American politics and left him sounding like a plaintive boyfriend.

All of this is, of course, a fundraising effort. And it’s working. The Obama campaign has received donations from more than 1,000,000 individuals, and 98 percent of those donations were for $250 or less. Some of those donations, to be sure, are Obama schwag. When you buy a hat or a shirt, technically, you’re donating to the campaign, and the campaign is sending you a token of its thanks. But it’s hard to argue with the results: at this point in the 2008 race, the Obama campaign had fewer than 400,000 donors. “This is what a grassroots campaign looks like,” the campaign brags in an infographic celebrating the million-donor mark.

But there’s something tawdry about it. This isn’t transformational politics. This is, almost definitionally, transactional politics. You give me money for my campaign, I give you a beer koozie with Vice President Joe Biden’s face on it.

I asked the Obama campaign about that seeming disconnect, but didn’t get much back. “We don’t talk specifics about merchandise because we don’t talk specifics about fundraising in general,” Katie Hogan, the campaign’s deputy press secretary, told me.

In a sense, these e-mails and tweets — and the annoyed, exasperated reactions many of their supporters have had to them — perfectly encapsulate one of their biggest challenges going into 2012: resolving the yawning chasm between the sort of politics America wanted from the Obama campaign and the sort of politics, the Obama administration has found, work in Washington.

All this was a preamble to a moderately decent piece highlighting the President's accomplishments while in Office, and the difficulties of changing the culture in Washington. (File under No shit, Sherlock).

But I want to ask, were any of you annoyed or exasperated by that Obama Email? Or were you like me, swimming around the site seeing if there was anything you'd like to buy.

This is what concerns me about my Hometown. This is another instance of the damn bubble again, and it confirms what we all know. It's not just the Presidents who live in it. Nine times out of ten, its the people in the Washington cocktail circuit who live in it. These are the people writing the columns, making the policy and talking to each other about the rest of us...all without the benefit of the rest of us being a part of the conversation.

Simply put, Ezra. I know of exactly ZERO people who were annoyed or exasperated by the President's fundraising efforts, and I'm betting I talk to a lot more actual Obama Supporters than you do. I know of exactly ZERO people from among the Liberal "disappointed" set who were annoyed or exasperated.

Now, I don't know of any one who bought anything either.  My guess is they looked, they shopped around a little, then trashed the email, and went back for a nap during the Frisco-Baltimore game.

And "tawdry" who the hell said anything about tawdry??

This is not something actual Obama Supporters are talking about, sorry Ezra.  This is all in your head.

Who exactly are these people Ezra is talking about--...

...ooooh, that's right. A bunch of Washington DBs talking to other Washington DBs.

Sorry, this one got on my nerves.

"Hello, Scranton..." (aka the President's Speech in Scranton, PA) (VIDEO)

And Lawrence's commentary, complete with an interview with Jay Carney, the President's Press Secretary:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Fireside Chat for November 24th, 2011 (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for November 19th, 2011 (VIDEO)