ASHTON KUTCHER TWEETS FOR OBAMA

If you’re a regular reader of Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter feed (and you very well may be, as the actor and prankster has over 2.5 million followers), you may have done a double take when he tweeted on Sunday that the White House had asked him to help get the word out about National HIV Testing Day.”I’ve been asked by the white house to twet this” wrote Kutcher, who provided a link to a White House blog post and accompanying video noting the 14th commemoration of National HIV Testing Day. But did the White House really reach out to Kutcher and ask him to promote their initiative? Or was Kutcher just trying to “punk” us and make us think he’s oh-so-cool because he’s in touch with the White House?

Turns out: Kutcher wasn’t lying. The White House confirmed that it did, in fact, seek Kutcher’s help in promoting the blog post.

“As technology impacts how and where people are communicating online, we are constantly looking for new ways to engage with the public,” said White House assistant press secretary Reid Cherlin. “Our efforts to promote National HIV Testing Day included participation from popular users of Twitter, as well as broad social media engagement by agencies across the government.”

Kutcher was one part of the strategy: The White House has also provided online and text message resources to help people find a local testing site, launched a Twitter hashtag on the subject (#NHTD09) and set up e-cards that individuals can use to encourage others to get tested for HIV/AIDS.

And this isn’t the first time the Obama administration has gotten involved with Twitter. Earlier this month, the State Department asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled shutdown in order to aid anti-government protesters in Iran

OBAMA PUSHING HEALTHCARE REFORM….BUT WILL IT WORK?

Along with many others, last night I flagged the New York Times article in which opponents of a ‘public option’ in the health care reform bill are saying that the ‘public option’ (which is essentially the federal government entering the field with its own health insurance plan) would be so efficient and inexpensive that it might drive for-profit health insurance companies out of business.

Why this is a problem for anyone else beside the for-profit health insurance companies, whose lobbying muscle in Washington kept them out of Dante’s third cirlce of hell, is not clear.

But a few readers written in to say, Look, Medicare (which is probably the closest analogue to what a public option might look like) isn’t perfect. Many doctors won’t accept Medicare, it doesn’t cover enough, etc. etc. etc.

I don’t think anyone who seriously follows health care policy debates honestly disputes that Medicare insures a ton of people with very low overhead. But you only need relatives in their sixties to know that people have problems finding doctors who will accept Medicare or who feel that Medicare doesn’t cover enough and so forth.

But this seems to me to be the heart of the case — and the real tell about the opposition to the public options within the insurance industry. If it’s really true that lots of the best doctors aren’t going to accept the ‘public option’ subscribers, then I have to imagine that’s going to put a big brake on migration out of for-profit health insurance and into the public option. In other words, the problem — to the extent there are ones — should be self-correcting. Assuming the ‘public option’ has to exist on something like the same basis as the private carriers, the private carriers only have something to worry about if the ‘public option’ is just demonstrably better insurance.

OBAMA’S SPEECH IN CAIRO

In a speech today at Cairo University in Egypt, President Obama pledged to “seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” Obama “was forceful and at times scolding as he promoted democracy in Egypt, sent a warning to Israelis against building new settlements, and acknowledged that the United States had fallen short of its ideals, particularly in the Iraq war.”

Some Highlights:

•    More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

•    Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words – within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”

•    And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.

Obama in Saudi Arabia to discuss Middle East Issues

President Barack Obama is in Saudi Arabia after an overnight flight from Washington. Obama is planning to meet with Saudi King Abdullah to discuss a host of thorny problems, from Arab-Israeli peace efforts to Iran’s nuclear program. The surge in oil prices also was on the agenda.

The president was to stay overnight at the king’s horse farm in the desert outside Riyadh before heading to Egypt.

The talks with the monarch come a day before the president is to deliver a highly anticipated speech in Cairo on the U.S. relationship with the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims.

We don’t even get to see the pictures?

The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.

“We have no plans to release them,” an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.

The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.

“The photos . . . are classified — that’s ridiculous,” Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.

Obama didn’t know?! Right

A “furious” President Obama has ordered a review of the decision to fly a Boeing 747 frighteningly close to the lower Manhattan skyline, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

The review will focus on “why that decision was made and to ensure that it never happens again,” Gibbs said. Jim Messina, a deputy chief of staff, will lead the effort.

On Tuesday, Obama told reporters, “It was a mistake. It was something we found out about along with all of you. And it will not happen again.”

Officials said that when Obama first found out about the incident, he was “furious.”

The incident has led to a large amount of criticism from New Yorkers and politicians.

After a YouTube video showed panicked New Yorkers scrambling as the plane flew frighteningly close to the lower Manhattan skyline, a former Homeland Security adviser questioned whether the man who approved the flyby should remain in his White House office.

Fran Townsend, who advised President George W. Bush for more than three years, called the move “crass insensitivity” in the wake of 9/11

Obama makes us happy

Amid all the apocalyptic swine flu and economic news, a bright spot: The percentage of black Americans who say race relations in the country are generally good has more than doubled since last July, according to a CBS/New York Times poll. Still, half of blacks surveyed said they thought whites have a better chance of getting ahead in society. About two-thirds of all respondents agreed that race relations are good, suggesting that the president’s election has shifted public perception on race. The poll’s other findings: The American people are supportive of Obama: 72 percent say they are optimistic about the next four years. Another 62 percent support the president’s decision not to hold hearings about the CIA’s harsh interrogation methods.

Fox sticking with schedule instead of Fox sticking with schedule instead of Obama

Fox became the first broadcast network to turn down a request by President Barack Obama for time, opting to show its drama “Lie to Me” on Wednesday instead of the president’s prime-time news conference.

Fox will direct viewers interested in the news conference to Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network, which will both carry it. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and CNBC are all carrying the 8 p.m. EDT event, on Obama’s 100th day in office.

This will be Obama’s third prime-time news conference as president, a schedule that has caused some private grumbling among network executives. Carrying a news conference costs the four broadcast networks an estimated $10 million-plus in lost advertising revenue.

Yet with an economy in distress, two wars and now a swine flu outbreak, the pressure on networks to agree to Obama’s request as a public service is enormous.

Executives at Fox, owned by News Corp., would not comment on the decision Monday. It’s not without precedent for the network; Fox didn’t carry a prime-time speech by President George W. Bush in November 2001 despite a request from the White House.

“I can’t imagine it was politically motivated,” said Shelly Palmer, industry analyst and host of “MediaBytes,” a daily show about technology and the media. “I’m assuming it was financially motivated.”

The Torture Memos

Cassie, Tim & Brent get into a heated discussion about the torture memos that were released on Tuesday. Listen to the show today to check it out….www.theblockfm.com.

A newly declassified Congressional report released Tuesday outlined the most detailed evidence yet that the military’s use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects was approved at high levels of the Bush administration.

The report focused solely on interrogations carried out by the military, not those conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency at its secret prisons overseas. It rejected claims by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others that Pentagon policies played no role in harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or other military facilities.

Late last night, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released its full report on the Department of Defense’s (DOD) role in the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody (PDF). (A summary of the report was released last December, but it was only until last night that the full report was released after the government declassified it.)

This report makes frighteningly clear that some of the darkest moments in our country’s recent past were choreographed at the highest levels of government… The people who were at the very top of the Bush administration and those at the top of the chain of command must be held accountable. Just as any other American would be investigated by a prosecutor for crimes committed, so must our government officials. We must ensure that our laws are impartially enforced against everyone.

Obama Budget Cuts: Will Order Cabinet to Quickly Cut $100 Million From Department Budgets

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama convened his first formal Cabinet meeting, and the White House said he would challenge department and agency chiefs to look for ways to cut $100 million out of the federal budget.

Back from his fence-mending trip to Latin America and the Caribbean, Obama planned to remind the panel that American families are having to make tough financial decisions and need to know the government is spending their money wisely, too, a senior administration official said. The official discussed Topic A for the session on grounds of anonymity because it was to be behind closed doors.

A second senior official, also speaking anonymously, said Obama would point to cuts already being proposed.

The Veterans Affairs Department has canceled or delayed 26 conferences, saving nearly $17.8 million, he noted, and will be using less expensive alternatives, like video conferencing. The Agriculture Department is working to combine 1,500 employees from seven office locations into a single facility in 2011 – saving $62 million over a 15-year lease term. And the Homeland Security Department has estimated it can save up to $52 million over five years by purchasing office supplies in bulk.

The federal deficit for March alone was $192.3 billion, and $100 million would represent about one-twentieth of 1 percent of that. Obama has brought forward a $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1, a proposal that would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade.

Earlier this month, both the House and Senate passed companion budget plans giving Obama and his Capitol Hill allies a key victory, but 20 House Democrats from GOP-leaning areas abandoned him on the final vote because of unhappiness over deficits.

The Cabinet meeting is being held just days after a series of “Tea Party” demonstrations across the country in which protesters challenged the administration over it’s massive spending to help pull the country and its financial system out of an economic nose dive unseen in decades.

Obama’s nominee to be health secretary, Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, still has not been confirmed by the Senate and will not be present, nor will there be a designee.

Alright Fine, We’ll Talk About the Tea Parties

I didn’t want to give these idiots any relevancy, but since the nutjobs are sprouting up all over the place, I guess I’ll take some time to respond, however inane their arguments are.

Ok so I think the best way to do this is to just rattle off some facts (and some opinions) in list format for ease of reading:

Here’s are 10 questions for all you people at these so-called T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already…cute isn’t it?) Parties ranting and raving about wasteful spending and deficits–

1. Why all of a sudden are  you upset about paying taxes?
2. Why all of a sudden are you upset about government spending?
3. Why all of a sudden are you upset about the bailout and the stimulus package?
4. Where have you been over the past eight years?
5. Where have you been while GWB and his Republican administration racked up the largest deficit in our country’s history?
6. Where were you when GWB and his administration would not include Iraq in the normal budget and would only pay for it with “emergency spending money” so he could hide the billions that were being funneled to private contractors (aka his friends) over in the Gulf to rebuild and secure a nation that we had just irresponsibly attacked for no good reason?
7. Where were  you when GWB passed the first stimulus package?
8. Where were you when Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt (i.e. more than equaled the entire debt burden produced by the previous 200 years of American history?
9. Where were you when GWB doubled it after Clinton eliminated it?
10. Where were you when Reagan (because of his insane cut taxes/raise spending economics) was forced to raise taxes TWICE to avert a fiscal catastrophe?!

I don’t mind if  you are worried about government spending. I will respect your views as much as their are LOGICAL and VIABLE with facts, history, and reality. But you Republicans and Libertarians and Fox News nuts at these tea parties don’t have facts, history, or reality on your side.

You protest when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office and a Democratic Congress. But you’re silent when there is a Republican President and/or Congress. You are currently a party that is living in a heaping pile of lies, revisionist history, and alternate reality.

You’re not protesting spending. You have rallied behind deficit spending for the past 30 years. You are protesting the fact that you lost the election in embarassing form. You are protesting because you are sore losers and you’re not willing to allow the “other side” even 100 days to try to right this enormous ship that has been diverted off track by your leaders.

Rather than taking to the streets to allegedly protest wasteful spending (by, ironically, wastefully spending on millions of tea bags), why don’t you all take some time to READ FACTS and LEARN HISTORY and deal with REALITY. Just for a change. Just to see where it leads you. You might upset your other ignorant, fire-breathing friends and family members, but you might just feel a little better inside yourselves.

ASU Feels Alumni Wrath

So ASU has been strongly affected by the noise created by The Block FM. Our loyal listerners who also happen to be ASU alumni donors have courageously made a bold stand against ASU’s decision not to award Barack Obama an honorary degree at the commencement this  year by pulling their donations.

So nowwwwwww ASU is backpeddling. See, when you make stupid, illogical decisions, all of a sudden the money fountain stops flowin’. $ talks folks, so keep up the good work.

Obama in Turkey

At a press conference in Turkey, President Obama casually rebuked the old chestnut that the United States is a Judeo-Christian nation.

“One of the great strengths of the United States,” the President said, “is … we have a very large Christian population — we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

Kumar to the White House

KAL PENN (AKA DR. CUTNER) : I was incredibly honored a couple of months ago to get the opportunity to go work in the White House. I got to know the President and some of the staff during the campaign and had expressed interest in working there, so I’m going to be the associate director in the White House office of public liaison. They do outreach with the American public and with different organizations. They’re basically the front door of the White House. They take out all of the red tape that falls between the general public and the White House. It’s similar to what I was doing on the campaign.

Hangin’ wit the Royals!!!!

Barack gives the Queen an iPod/she gives him a pic of herself
Michelle and Queen touch
Michelle fashion – rocks JCrew
Warhead cuts with Russia
Collaboration v. N.Korea
The art of protesting – 86 arrested, 1 dead

I want an iPod

President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod during their private meeting at Buckingham Palace, the BBC reports. “It contains footage of her state visit to the US in May 2007. The Queen has given the president a silver framed photograph of herself and her husband. The official picture is what she gives all visiting dignitaries.”

The gift exchange was closely watched, the Wall Street Journal reports, “ever since the British press took high exception to the modest presents the Obamas gave Gordon Brown and wife on their visit to the White House last month: a box set of DVDs, allegedly in the wrong format, and a couple of models of Marine One for the Brown boys.”

Source

What is Michelle Doing Tonight in London Town?

Tonight, Michelle Obama will attend a “girls night” at 10 Downing St. with Brown’s wife, Sarah, JK Rowling (I wonder if she’ll do a Harry Potter reading), and Naomi Campbell (dang, how the HELL did she get that invitation?!), among others.

According to the Daily News, meanwhile, the Obamas spent their flight from Washington reviewing the protocols of royal etiquette for their meeting with Queen Elizabeth, such as “you may touch the queen’s hand but not shake it,” and, if the Queen stops eating, then everyone else must too. President Bush offended the Queen by winking at her and joking that she’s been around since 1776. OMG this made my day. Remember the past eight years watching with great anticipation to see what Bushy would do next…he made for great reality TV.

The Obamas Go Euro

President Barack Obama left for Europe Tuesday, packing a weighty agenda as he heads for critical economic and political talks in his first journey across the Atlantic since taking office two months ago.

Obama’s focus: a G-20 meeting of the world’s major economic powers and a NATO summit marking the 60 years since the alliance was founded to blunt Soviet aggression in Europe.

First up: a summit of the world’s economic powers in London to address the global financial meltdown that has defined the first two months of Obama’s administration.

The main event in London is Thursday’s summit on the global financial crisis among the Group of 20 wealthy and developing nations. Together, they represent 85 percent of the world’s economy. But it appears that the biggest winners of the G-20 are going to be the developing countries, seeming that we are spending all our GDP on bridges for Microsoft.

And everyone is all Lady GaGa over BHO going to Turkey. “First trip to a Muslim country.” Wow, get over it.

Home Decorating with the Obamas

Home Decorating With the Obamas

At a time when people are having trouble holding on to their houses, Barack and Michelle Obama have sensibly decided not to use taxpayers’ money to renovate theirs. New presidents are allotted $100,000 to overhaul the White House residence and the Oval Office, and the Obamas hired Hollywood decorator Michael S. Smith (known, per his site, for mixing “Old World classicism with very contemporary settings”). But the First Couple isn’t spending that money. They “are not using public funds or accepting donations of goods for redecorating their private quarters,” says Camille Johnston, director of communications for the First Lady. Nor is the couple, who reported $4.2 million in household income in 2007 tax returns, using money from the White House Historical Association, a privately funded foundation that paid for a $74,000 set of china shortly before Laura Bush left town.

But does this mean they’re going to spend more than $100,000 or less? Though Michelle Obama has talked up Pottery Barn, Smith’s client list includes cost-is-no-object types like Rupert Murdoch, Steven Spielberg, and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain—for whom he procured that $87,783 rug. “There’s no question that he’ll get it done in the way that it’s supposed to be done,” says Smith client and Democratic donor Katherine Chez. “But how, I don’t know.” The White House declined to disclose the budget, saying that all expenses would remain private as a result of the Obamas’ decision to absorb the cost.

Barack Obama Holds White House Open For Questions

Call it Round Two of the news conference, with a big Internet twist.

President Barack Obama took questions from the White House press corps on Tuesday in a prime-time, East Room session that represented the most formal and time-honored of president-and-reporter interactions. On Thursday, he is taking to that same room for another public grilling _ this time by regular folks armed with questions submitted via the Internet and in person, as part of a political strategy to engage Americans directly.