"The following preview was begrudgingly approved by all audiences by the President of the United States. This film has been rated U: Unwatchable — No one should see this movie." 

That's the intro to the mock trailer for a presidential follow-up to The King's Speech that the White House posted on its YouTube channel (and announced on Twitter) after President Obama's remarks at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night.

Following SNL comic Seth Meyers' introduction, Obama zinged Donald Trump, who was in attendance, and other "birther" critics, at the celeb-studded affair — watch below.Continue reading...

In a move designed to quiet his critics and move the national conversation back to more pressing issues, President Obama this morning presented his longform birth certificate issued by the state of Hawaii at a press conference. It was a move that will-he-or-won't-he? political muckraker and potential presidential aspirant, billionaire/entertainer Donald Trump, took credit for.Continue reading...

US President Barack Obama officially announced his 2012 re-election bid with this video, which features supporters and images from the 2008 election, which was released Sunday.

The accompanying message on his website: "This campaign is just kicking off. We're opening up offices, unpacking boxes, and starting a conversation with supporters like you to help shape our path to victory. 2012 begins now, and this is where you say you're in."Continue reading...

Beyond concern about what Gaddafi is doing in Libya, Walker is doing in Wisconsin and Boehner is doing down the street, President Obama has to balance another problem these days: what he is doing in the White House, as his team starts to prepare his re-election campaign.

At this point, indicators are mixed at best about how the American people now are perceiving Obama and his performance only four months after voters delivered a “shellacking” to Democrats on Capitol Hill and across the country. Polls certainly can’t give him any solace right now.Continue reading...

The protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposed budget bill continue into day 17 in Madison. But now anger has shifted from politicians to include the billionaire Koch brothers, who many see as the patrons (and architects) of Walker's proposals. Much of the Koch empire consists of oil interests, but it also manufactures retail paper products (in part through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific in Wisconsin).

Now protesters are calling for a boycott of Koch Industries products. But in the confusion of identifying those linked to financing Walker, activists are mistakenly calling for the boycott of at least one brand name that really had nothing to do with the governor's campaign.Continue reading...

Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel — the next mayor of Chicago — acknowledges outgoing mayor Richard Daley in an acceptance speech. His victory at the polls, called "a remarkable victory" by the Chicago Sun-Times, will bring the first new mayor to the city in 22 years.

The centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth on February 6 will make this a memorable Super Bowl for fans of the Gipper.

What would have been his 100th birthday has sparked a media frenzy. It's being celebrated, of course, by the Ronald Reagan Library and Foundation; predictably by Fox News; civically by GE, which has a long history with Reagan and is funding scholarships with the Reagan Foundation; opportunistically by HBO and other networks; and broadly by the millions of Americans who remember him fondly as (depending on their politics) perhaps the greatest president of their generation. Even the Super Bowl telecast will make room for a Reagan tribute, above.

But leave it to TIME magazine to commemorate Reagan with a jaw-dropper.Continue reading...

It’s been brewing for a while now. Political observers noticed how Paul Ryan was one of the few in Congress to verbally take on President Obama during the initial debate over healthcare reform. He duly nabbed the powerful chairmanship of the House budget committee after last fall’s elections.

Resembling a young Ronald Reagan, with a near-pompadour and long ears, the 11-year congressman hails from Janesville, Wis. — just a relative stone’s throw from Reagan’s hometown of Dixon, Ill.

The budget hawk's place in the long-term future of the GOP was definitively fixed on Tuesday night when he followed the president with the Rebublican Party's official response to the State of the Union message.Continue reading...