President Obama's Weekly Address, May 22, 2010, BP SPILL (Video, Transcript)

The President announces that the independent commission he created for the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling will be chaired by former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham and former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly. He promises accountability not just for BP, but for those in government who bore responsibility.


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Many jobs will NOT return

While technically the recession is over, again technically, the reality is that many jobs that are gone will not be revived.

In other words, these jobs are deader than a doornail.

The jobless recovery, with millions out of work for a very long time.

This is what November will be about.

Fewer construction workers will be needed. Don't expect as many interior designers or advertising copywriters, either. Retailers will get by with leaner staffs.

The economy is strengthening. But millions of jobs lost in the recession could be gone for good.

And unlike in past recessions, jobs in the beleaguered manufacturing sector aren't the only ones likely lost forever. What sets the Great Recession apart is the variety of jobs that may not return.

That helps explain why economists think it will take at least five years for the economy to regain the 8.2 million jobs wiped out by the recession — longer than in any other recovery since World War II.

It means that even as the economy strengthens, more Americans could face years out of work. Already, the percentage of the labor force unemployed for six months or longer is 4.3 percent. That's the highest rate on records dating to 1948.

Behind the trend are the cutbacks businesses made in the recession to make up for a loss of customers. To sustain earnings, they became more productive: They found ways to produce the same level of goods or services with fewer workers. Automation, global competition and technological efficiencies helped solidify the trend.

Diminished home equity and investment accounts have made shoppers more cautious, too. And their frugality could endure well into the recovery. That's why fewer retail workers, among others, will likely be needed. read more here...

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Arlen Specter's new ad: Obama with other STUFF (Videos)

Obama for Specter



...but remember the same type of ad was USED for Specter in 2004 promoting former Senator Santorum and of course, President George W. Bush.



I don't know how this race will turn out, but it is obvious from recent polling that Joe Sestak has moved Democrats into his column and is in the lead. Arlen Specter needs heavy black vote to come out in Philadelphia and those Philly suburbs to over take Sestak.

But, I don't care what anyone says, the Joe Sestak ad reminding Democratic Voters who is a REAL DEMOCRAT, does reasonate. I don't care if you do have Barack Obama in your corner, people know who stands with them and who does not. Arlen Specter was a Democrat, before a Republican and is now a Democrat again, ONLY so he can get re-elected. Remember that.



...and of course, the mash up, which makes Specter and the Presidents look SILLY.....



and this from the Sestak Campaign on Arlen Specter's new ad with Obama....



OUCH!!!!

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President Obama nominates U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court (Video, Transcript)

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What if this happened to you?

What if you were on an oil rig that blew up in the gulf? What if you witnessed your colleagues die, burn to death but was sequestered for more than 24 hours, unable to let your family know you were alive because your company demands you sign a waiver that you not sue them? That you are not physically or mentally shattered? What if this happened to you?

Well, at this point in this country NOTHING should surprise anyone, but the stench of what happened to Transocean employees reminds me of the workings of a slimy, oily business man who won't let you go until you say, "Yes". In this instance, Transocean representatives with the Coast Guard kept survivors of the BP explosion on a boat for over 24 hours trying to get information and signatures.

The hold up was that the Coast Guard and Transocean representatives wanted full information of what happened. The survivors were told that no one leaves until forms are filled out. But one person did not fill out the Coast Guard form because he remembered one individual stating he was a lawyer from BP. The person's name is Christopher Choy.

But when Choy read the Coast Guard form, he didn't like what he saw. "At the bottom, it said something about, like, you know, this can be used as evidence in court and all that. I told them, I'm not signing it," Choy says. "Most of the people signed it and filled them out. I just didn't feel comfortable doing it." Choy shared his story at length with NPR and the PBS program NewsHour, in one of the most extensive interviews from a survivor of the April 20 rig blast.

The Coast Guard acknowledges it kept the men on the water in part so its investigators could get statements. But Choy says he thought the man who gave him the form said he was a lawyer with BP, the oil company. BP says it had no investigators or lawyers there.

Choy didn't sign the Coast Guard form. But he'd come to regret that he didn't refuse the next time he was asked to sign something.

The next time was after being up more than 24 hours, sequestered, only able to speak to his wife for a minute, when he got to a Louisiana hotel a Transocean representative was there for him to sign AGAIN.

But before they could go home, there was one more form and one more attempt to get the survivors to give information. At the hotel, there were representatives for Transocean who asked Choy to initial a line that said: I was not injured as a result of the incident or evacuation.

Choy had seen men with open wounds and burning flesh. He knew 11 of his friends were dead. He felt he was among the lucky ones.

Exhausted and just wanting to get home with Monica, he signed.

This is not surprising, all Transocean wanted was signatures to RELIEVE them of responsibility. Why? Because Mr. Choy is unable to go back to work, he has hired an attorney, he is having dreaded nightmares of friends dying, he is showing signs of possible post-traumatic symptoms, but his employer, Transocean reminds him that he signed off on their waiver and told them that, "I was not injured as a result of the incident or evacuation." Surprised? See what they do to you when you are sleep deprived? That is just how companies are and how they really feel about their employees. Sad, but true. Just as we see how really concerned BP is of the impact their irresponsibility will be on this region by trying to pay off residents on the cheap, like $5000.00 cheap.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King said Sunday night that he has told BP they should stop circulating settlement agreements among coastal Alabamians, the Mobile Press-Register reports. King reportedly said the agreements stipulate that residents will give up their right to sue the company in exchange for a payment of up to $5,000.

This from a company, BP, that is destroying the Gulf Region and afraid of what it may have to pay for their irresponsibility. So, to offer $5000.00 to desperate, poor individuals who makes their livelihood in these waters while masking that they really care is not much. Though BP has been told to stop trying to scam Gulf Coast residents, you better believe that if anyone signed a waiver, BP will fight it to the HILT, so their responsibility will remain minimal. Here is the wording from their waiver that is floating around the Gulf Coast:

The form reads: “I hearby agree on behalf of myself and my representatives, to hold harmless and indemnify, and to release, waive, and forever discharge BP Exploration and Production Inc., its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, regular employees and independent contractors …”

And to many dismay, the Obama Administration wavers over 27 oil and gas companies to continue offshore oil exploration studies. I don't know what studies mean in oil and gas talk, but if it is drilling like the Gulf Coast disaster, when will we learn anything?

Audio story from NPR, here. Read the full story, here.

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President Obama picks U.S. Solicitor General, Elena Kagan for Supreme Court Nominee

I saw this coming, a good pick.

It's Kagan!

Why is President Obama choosing his solicitor general, Elena Kagan, as his second nominee to the U.S Supreme Court? By all accounts, Obama wants someone who can serve as a counterweight to the intellectual heft of Chief Justice John Roberts. Regardless of how strong a liberal Kagan would prove to be, as a former dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan practically defines legal gravitas.

She's also a female, which adds to the court's gender diversity. She's young, at 50, which means she could be on the court for a quarter century. And she's never been a judge, which gives her a quality that Obama is known to have been seeking: someone to bring a different sensibility to a court that's currently dominated by judges.

That particular lack of experience also means she does not have a long record of controversial rulings that could provide fodder for the presidents political opponents. read more here....

Will there be a food fight? Of course there will be, but she will go through unless there are major skeletons in the closet and I don't expect there to be any. Remember, she was already vetted, as she was one of the top five for the court last year under President Obama.

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290K jobs added, unemployment rises to 9.9%

I am at a hold off stance.

First, I know the Census Bureau is hiring and hired 100K of these jobs. Word is that they are STILL hiring, so those numbers will help with job growth. TEMPORARY JOB GROWTH. Next, the unemployment numbers jump from 9.7% to 9.9%.

Let's be clear, I need to see these numbers fleshed out by late summer, early fall. Why? The census jobs will be over or coming to an end, then we can see what the REAL job numbers are. Are we talking temporary jobs, temp to perm jobs, permanent jobs? That is the real question out here because many people I know, some with mutliple degrees to high school diplomas are still not unemployed.

I am hoping for the best, not the worst, but unemployment number ticking up deflates the hurrah, somewhat.

U.S. employment grew at the fastest pace in four years in April as private sector businesses ramped up hiring, showing the labor market recovery gaining steam.

Employers added 290,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said Friday, far more than analysts had expected. The department also revised figures for February and March to show 121,000 more jobs were added than previously estimated.

"I think we are moving into this very reassuring range of strong employment growth. It is consistent with the way the economy is going," said Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist at Swiss Re in New York.

The unemployment rate, however, rose to 9.9 percent as discouraged workers started to look for work again.

Stubbornly high unemployment has been a political sore spot for President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats, even though the job market is showing increased vigor.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected nonfarm payrolls to rise 200,000 last month and the jobless rate to remain unchanged at 9.7 percent. The median forecast from the 20 most accurate forecasters was for a 188,000 increase in payrolls. read more here....

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Pennsylvania Democrats, if the Republicans don't want him, why should the Democrats? (Video)

Arlen Specter cares about ONE THING, keeping his damn job. He switched to the Democratic Party because he would not win in the Republican Primary. Let's not be fooled here by Specter. And the White House position? They support a non-Democrat, period. Vote Joe Sestak the REAL Democrat.

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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama acknowledges Cinco de Mayo (Video, Transcript)

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BP CEO states, " Oil rig leak 'wasn't our accident' "

The BLAME GAME begins.....



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"Drill, Baby, Drill" is retired.

We heard, "Drill, Baby, Drill" through the 2008 election, continuously. In fact when President Obama performed a bait and switch on March 31, 2010, stating he will allow off shore drilling, Senator John McCain tweeted, "Drill baby drill! Good move – where are Reid and Pelosi on this?"

Well, as the 2010 mid-term election is upon us, that is a statement you WON'T hear. Not from Republicans and anyone running for office on either side. Not after hearing and watching what the BP Explosion has done and is still doing to the Gulf Coast region. Not when 200K gallons of oil is still pumping into the waters of the Gulf Coast and BP don't know how to stop it. This is a catastrophe of epic proportion.

Right now, that region is holding its breath hoping BP will figure out how to stop the spill, people are praying that this oil will not spill into the Gulf Coast waterways, shores. (Which unfortunately, many are starting to smell this oil on coastal shores.)

All of this has me thinking about the Santa Barbara Oil Spill. This spill off Southern California helped found Earth Day.

Responding to widespread environmental degradation, Gaylord Nelson, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, called for an environmental teach-in, or Earth Day, to be held on April 22, 1970. Over 20 million people participated that year, and Earth Day is now observed on April 22 each year by more than 500 million people and several national governments in 175 countries.[citation needed]

Senator Nelson, an environmental activist, took a leading role in organizing the celebration, hoping to demonstrate popular political support for an environmental agenda. He modeled it on the highly effective Vietnam War teach-ins of the time.[6] The proposal for Earth Day was first proposed in a prospectus to JFK written by Fred Dutton.[7] However, Nelson decided against much of Dutton's top-down approach, favoring a decentralized, grassroots effort in which each community shaped their action around local concerns.

Nelson had conceived the idea for Earth Day following a trip he took to Santa Barbara right after the horrific oil spill off the coast in 1969. Outraged by the devastation and Washington political inertia, Nelson proposed a national teach-in on the environment to be observed by every university campus in the U.S.[8]

Environmentalists and many on the left did not want President Obama caving to the Republicans for any off-shore drilling. This was not Barack Obama's position during the election and caving for a principled point can lose you voters. But it was this statement said by President Obama that should change his mind, totally on off-shore drilling.

So today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources. Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration. We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.

The problem with this point is that when it comes to off-shore drilling, we give the whole ball of wax to the oil companies. As we are seeing everything unfold, BP not only lied to the Administration on the magnitude of this spill, but whatever tools they had has failed. There goes protecting the environment, tourism, that region's economy and potential health hazards for the people of that region.

BP said last week that it and its partners in the well, including Anadarko Petroleum (APC.N), were paying $6 million a day in clean-up efforts but admitted costs would rise sharply when the oil slick hit land, as would claims for damages.

Hayward said the technical options his company was working on to try to seal the ruptured well included an undersea containment system that would capture the leaking oil and channel it to a tanker on the surface.

"It's fabricated and will be on location next weekend," he said.

Another option, the drilling of a relief well to intersect and try to control the ruptured well, was also "now underway," Hayward added.

BP was also using undersea robotic vehicles to try to fix the well blowout preventer -- a mechanism that he said had failed to prevent the oil gushing from the ruptured well following the rig accident.

"No one understands why it's failed. We have assembled in Houston 160 companies from across the industry to focus on this task," Hayward said.

We have seen the oil-spilled show every few decades. The show itself does not change, just the key oil players and administrations. And the results have always been the same, that of apology and shame by the offenders, that of threatening rhetoric by the administrations, that of anger by the population, and that of FORGETFULNESS down the road.

I hope President Obama changes his position on off-shore drilling and take a bold path of leading this country off the dependence of oil, period. Pandering to the right to get a bill passed may work in some instances, but for this instance, a total loss.

Cross-posted @Daily Kos

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President Obama in Louisiana with update on oil spill (Video)

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President Obama's performance at White House Correspondents Dinner, May 1, 2010 (Video)

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President Obama's Weekly Address, May 1, 2010 (Video, Transcript)

As the President beats back lobbyists seeking to weaken Wall Street Reform, he talks about an even broader threat that would vastly expand the influence of massive industries and their lobbyists in Washington. A recent Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates for corporations, including foreign corporations, to spend endless money on political ads that would give them even more power at the expense of American families – the President pledges to fight for reforms to stem that influence.



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No one is chanting, "Drill, Baby, Drill", are they?

Well, Barack Obama has a full blown environmental disaster on his hands. And from this, I hope he has learned something from his pandering to drilling of the shores of America. I hope he has awaken to what a real disaster LOOKS LIKE off the shores of many Americans homes.

NO DRILLING OFF THE COAST. PERIOD. STOP WITH YOUR PANDERING. HALT OFF SHORE DRILLING.

Experts say it's not clear yet how much the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will harm the environment along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and other gulf states. But they say it is clear the harm will be great.

That stretch of coastline is full of marshlands, replete with reeds and piles of dead grass that could soak up oil like a sponge. Unlike fish, the area's famous populations of blue crabs and oysters won't be able to outrun the slick. And, precisely at this time of year, the region is host to vast numbers of migratory birds returning from their wintering grounds in South America.

Besides the damage to fish and wildlife, even the land itself could be a victim of the spill. One scientist said if the oil kills marsh grasses, it could eliminate a key natural barrier that keeps Louisiana's precious coastline from eroding.

Add all that up, and one environmental activist described the range of possibilities as "bad to very bad."

Drill, Baby, Drill? Shit, even the Republicans are quiet on that one. I mean, who wants to go vacation on an "oily beach"? Do you? The winds are blowing this oil to some of the most pristine beach areas in this country. Can you say, "catastrophe"? And don't worry, folks are going to be heated and hot on the reaction of the Obama Administration as the damage tolls continue to come in.

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President Obama's eulogy to West Virginia coal miners (Video)

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