wrapping up his first term in office with a tradition that goes back decades, hosting the previous president for the unveiling of his official presidential portrait. on that day, in may of 2012. obama made this statement about the point of these portraits, as an enduring member of the presidents temporary time in office serving the people. now the white house is many things at once. it is a working office. it is a living museum. it is an enduring symbol of our democracy. but at the end of the day, when the visitors go home and the lights go down, a few of us are blessed with the tremendous honor to actually live here. i think it is fair to say that every president is acutely aware that we are just temporary residence. we are renters here. we are charged with the upkeep and tell our lease runs out. but we also leave a police of ourself in this place. we are renters here. charged with the upkeep until our lease runs out. in 2012, we did not know how precious those remarks wer
things at once. it is a working office. it is a living museum. it is an enduring symbol of our democracy. but at the end of the day, when the visitors go home and the lights go down, a few of us are blessed with the tremendous honor to actually live here. i think it is fair to say that every president is acutely aware that we are just temporary residence. we are renters here. we are charged with the upkeep and tell our lease runs out. but we also leave a police of ourself in this place. we are renters here. charged with the upkeep until our lease runs out. in 2012, we did not know how precious those remarks were. there was no president biden fighting for the soul of this nation. there was no president trump fighting to stay in office, no insurrectionists storming the capitol. no top secret classified records taken from the white house and stored in a florida closet. none of that had happened yet. in fact, we wouldn t see an official white house portrait unveiling again for an
issued statements after the dobbs ruling, saying abortion should be left up to the states. the post reach out to 28 of them, all of them. only six of them responded to defend their position. the republican line about abortion being an issue that should be left up to the states has always been a red herring. an attempt to distract from the real agenda of blocking access to abortion by any means necessary. and nowhere is that we re clear right now than in the state of michigan. earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of michigan citizen signed a petition to put abortion rights up for a vote. more than 750,000 signatures were gathered, almost twice the