Must Watch: President Obama’s Commencement Speech at Barnard College

Swagger, baby.

President Obama: ‘Gay marriage doesn’t weaken families, it strengthens families’

My man:

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Speaking at an event for the first time since announcing his support for same-sex marriage, President Obama said his position was part of his campaign philosophy, rooted, he said, in “the basic idea that I want everybody treated fairly in this country.”

“So much of this has to do with a belief that not only are we all in this together but all of us are equal in terms of dignity, in terms of respect,” the president said to the cheers of 200 people — including singer Ricky Martin and actress Eva Longoria — at the Rubin Museum of Art in downtown New York City.

Consistent with that belief, Obama continued, “the announcement I made last week about my views on marriage equality.”

“We have never gone wrong when we expanded rights and responsibilities to everybody,” he said. “That doesn’t weaken families, it strengthens families.”

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Ohhhh, love.

Health Insurers Required to Credit ObamaCare When Sending Out Rebate Checks

This is should have happen with the stimulus tax cuts too, but better late than ever. Via Mother Jones:

It’s rebate time! One of the geekier aspects of Obamacare is that it allows insurance companies to spend no more than a maximum of 20% on overhead costs (15% for large group plans). The rest of your premium dollars have to be spent on actual healthcare. This part of the law went into effect on January 1, which means that starting soon, any insurance company that spends more than 20% on overhead has to send out rebates to customers.

But here’s the election-year angle on this. Not only do insurance companies have to send out rebates to lots of people, they have to tell them exactly why they’re getting the rebates. Here are the first two sentences of the letter as mandated by HHS:

This letter is to inform you that you will receive a rebate of a portion of your health insurance premiums. This rebate is required by the Affordable Care Act — the health reform law.

 

Smile

Every Woman’s Dream

Romney Campaign Massively Downgrades The Number Of Jobs It Claims He Created From 100,000 To ‘Thousands’

Via Think Progress:

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In its effort to sell Mitt Romney as someone who understands the economy and knows how to create jobs, one of his campaign’s early talking points was that he helped create 100,000 jobs during his tenure at Bain Capital. The campaign repeated the claim throughout the primary, despite a glaring lack of evidence to support it (even Sarah Palin doubted it).

Romney eventually stopped repeating the talking point, which advisers had difficulty defending under pressure, and now it seems Boston has completely Etch A Sketched the number and severely lowered the number of jobs Romney is supposed to have created at Bain.

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Link of the day

Spread this like fire:

http://www.romneyeconomics.com

 

“Romney has spent the last year urging voters to focus on his business record. Team Obama appears eager to oblige”

Steve Benen:

Mitt Romney has spent the past couple of weeks arguing that the presidential campaign has drifted too far from the “issues that matter.” Two weeks ago, this meant downplaying the significance of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, and last week, it was marriage equality and his “youthful indiscretions” that were characterized as distractions.

The Republican said he wanted the focus to be on jobs and the economy. As of this morning, the “be careful what you wish for” adage comes to mind.

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