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When it comes to curbing unemployment, President Obama "will not rest" until everyone looking for a job can find one, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday. A couple of hours later, the White House put out an announcement that the president will soon begin a nine-day vacation in Martha's Vineyard. No one can credibly make the argument that Obama is loafing. He puts in the hours. But the trip is coming at a queasy moment for the economy and the markets. Stocks recorded another huge drop Wednesday, the third straight day of convulsive swings following Standard & Poor's announcement...

I know what you’re thinking. “It seems like just yesterday that he was talking about a ‘new sense of urgency’ on deficits and job growth.” You’re wrong, though. It was two days ago. Maybe the mood passed? Over to you, Zero Hedge guy: We bring you this special announcement courtesy of the White House which has informed that American plebs that following a fantastic job well done, in which the market is now back to pre-QE2 levels, unemployment is near record highs, delays for presidential press meetings compare with Newark airplane take offs, pessimism is at record highs, America’s credit...

Joe Biden and his wife have escaped the heat and political squabbling of Washington to spend the rest of the week vacationing in the Hamptons. Although the VP’s official schedule says only that the Bidens are set to “visit Long Island,” they traveled to their annual vacation spot in Southampton earlier today and plan to stay through Monday. President Obama will follow his number two’s lead later this month when he and his family travel to Martha’s Vineyard for a little R&R. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed today that, despite the staggering economy, the president still plans to...

President Barack Obama and his family will spend their summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard again this summer. He was here last summer, too. He was here in 2009, but the weather blew. The First Fam keep their vacation plans pretty close to the vest for security reasons, but people in the Know tell me it's coughcoughAugustcough. Those same people tell me that he'll be in Chilmark, again enjoying the 28 acre Blue Heron Farm. The farm overlooks Tisbury Great Pond, and has a pool and a boat house. They also have a basketball hoop at their disposal, so I might...

Under sunny skies this afternoon, it was back to the golf course for President Barack Obama - this time a round at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs. Today's game is the first on his 10-day Martha's Vineyard vacation at the semi-private Farm Neck course. Obama golfed twice at the Vineyard Golf Club and late yesterday at the nine-hole Mink Meadows Golf Club in Vineyard Haven.

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. (AP) -- Seizing on a day of bright summer sunshine, President Barack Obama hit the links on Thursday for another vacation round of golf. The visit to the Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs was Obama's fourth golf outing since he arrived on Martha's Vineyard last week for a 10-day vacation. It came a day after skies over the island off Cape Cod finally cleared following four straight days of drenching rain....

After her sterling public image took on some tarnish from her recent vacation to Spain, the White House announced that first lady Michelle Obama will appear with Laura Bush for Sept. 11 observances in Pennsylvania. The deft public relations move by the administration will place the two popular first ladies side-by-side for the first time since the 2008 inauguration. (Snip) An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll after the Spain trip found just 50 percent of Americans had a positive opinion of the first lady, down 14 percent from the same poll in April.

An end of the season tribute to summer....the fireworks at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs. Excited for the bright lights, Sally Caron said she'd like to picnic with Barack Obama, because he's popular. "Soooo?" I asked. "I'd like to be popular, too," she answered. Islander Joanne Connolly already has her story to tell. She said, "It's the first time I've met a president. I've met a Pope and it's right up there with that!" Connolly works at Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard -- and had about 5 minutes to prep before the President and first...

The WH and Dems are obviously stunned by the recent Pew Poll showing that about 1 in 4 Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim. Pundits, for the last few days, have been saying that we'll soon see him publicly attending church far more often. So, Freepers, does he or doesn't he attend tomorrow? Is it too soon..would it look too obvious? What say you all??

VINEYARD HAVEN — The first family had an answer yesterday to those who said they were perhaps a little too reclusive while on the island. On the first full day of their Martha's Vineyard vacation, the Obamas were almost Clintonesque, first traveling to a Vineyard Haven bookstore before the president took in a round of golf in the early afternoon, followed by the first appearance of first lady Michelle Obama, who took the girls for ice cream in Oak Bluffs. At a press conference yesterday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said President Barack Obama has a relatively spontaneous...

No vacation from attacks on Michelle By: Kendra Marr and Amie Parnes August 16, 2010 02:37 PM EDT It’s been a long time since Michelle Obama has been attacked like this. The first lady’s lavish Spanish vacation was the lead story in the Drudge Report for days. Political columnists and commentators lampooned her as a 21st-century Marie Antoinette, unwinding at a luxury resort while unemployment lingers near 10 percent and President Barack Obama’s poll numbers fade. And headlines set off political sirens: Scandal! Tone deaf! Elitist! The attacks from right-wing commentators — and a handful of left-leaning pundits — produced...

While Newsweek's David Graham is hard at work defending President Obama's summertime leisure -- "A Short History of Presidential Vacation Outrage" -- by insisting that the press corps always complains about any president's vacation habits, it's instructive that he failed to indict his own magazine. "War on terrorism stalled, economy on precipice, time for a month on the Crawford ranch." Accompanied by a disapproving down arrow, that's how the August 5, 2002 Newsweek feature "Conventional Wisdom" derided President Bush's working vacation a mere three months before midterm elections in his first term.

As President Obama headed to the Florida Panhandle for a vacation with the family, he felt the need to drag his teleprompter along.

The White House today confirmed what many islanders have been anticipating for weeks: The first family will return to Martha's Vineyard for vacation next month. President Obama and his family are scheduled to vacation on the island from Aug. 19 to Aug. 29.

There’s a lot of talk about Michelle and Sasha Obama’s mother-daughter trip with 40 friends to a ritzy resort on the coast of Spain, and some of the commentary is a little harsh. Andrea Tantaros of the New York Daily News calls the first lady a “material girl” and a “modern-day Marie Antoinette”--but she also brings up a valid point about the cost to taxpayers of taking an estimated 70 Secret Service agents and Air Force Two on an overseas vacation. Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post writes that the attacks are unfair and that it’s not reasonable to expect...

This guy Obama is so out of touch -- he is so devoid of reality, living in such a self created fantasy world, so full of himself and his own lies -- that he's starting to believe all of his own BS. To go out and campaign at a Ford plant and take credit for their jobs? They didn't get any bailout money. Ford is surviving in spite of Obama, as is everybody else in this country who is succeeding. Whoever is enjoying success, whoever is making a go of it is doing so in spite of Obama. He's jetting...

Michelle Obama today faced a fresh wave of attacks over her lavish break in Spain with 40 friends which has cost U.S. taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds. The First Lady has been lambasted for her extravagance at a time when the economy is still struggling. One blogger went so far as to brand her a modern-day Marie Antoinette. The exact cost of the trip is unclear as Mrs Obama, 46, and her friends are footing personal expenses - including accommodation at Marbella's five-star Hotel Villa Padierna - themselves. But the taxpayer will have to pick up the tab for...

The First Lady is in Spain - and they adore her. It's a huge trip, at huge expense, but it's paying off in goodwill - at least over there. Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha, 9, were greeted by smiling crowds chanting "Obama" and "guapa," which means beautiful, as they spent the first full day of their adventure touring a cathedral in the city of Granada. They were cheered again when they tried to beat the Andalusian heat by hitting one of Granada's popular ice cream parlors. Mother and daughter - and their entourage of pals, aides and Secret Service...

ESTEPONA, Spain — Spanish police have cleared off a stretch of beach for U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha to relax by the Mediterranean after a busy day of sightseeing. Police used palm trees Friday to mark off the boundaries of a 100-meter (100-yard) expanse for the American delegation. On either side, onlookers gawked. As the first lady rested inside a canvas hut ...

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters yesterday, in answer to a query about First Lady Michelle Obama's Spanish vacation where she is protected by 70 Secret Service agents, 250 Spanish law enforcement officers, will meet with Spain's king and queen and is staying at a luxury hotel where she has reserved 60 rooms, that it is none of the American people's business because she is a "private citizen."Lynn Sweet reported at the Chicago Sun-Times that Gibbs was asked about "the appearance" of Obama's vacation and that Gibbs blew it off by asserting Michelle Obama is a "private citizen":"The...