Inspire Political Discourse

TRANSCRIPT: President Obama on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill – May 27, 2010

An excellent conference with the President taking full responsibility for the response to, and clean up of, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

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THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

12:50 P.M. EDT, THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2010

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon, everybody.

Before I take your questions, I want to update the American people on the status of the BP oil spill, a catastrophe that is causing tremendous hardship in the Gulf Coast, damaging a precious ecosystem, and one that led to the death of 11 workers who lost their lives in the initial explosion.

Yesterday the federal government gave BP approval to move forward with a procedure known as a top kill, to try to stop the leak. This involves plugging the well with densely packed mud to prevent any more oil from escaping. And given the complexity of this procedure and the depth of the leak, this procedure offers no guarantee of success; but we're exploring any reasonable strategies to try and save the Gulf from a spill that may otherwise last until the relief wells are finished, and that's a process that could take months.

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DOJ Conducting Criminal Probes of Goldman Sachs and Massey Energy Co.

Two weeks ago, the SEC filed a securities fraud case against Goldman Sachs.

Yesterday, it was revealed that the DOJ is investigating allegations of criminal wrongdoing at Goldman Sachs.

The Justice Department

launched its probe of Goldman Sachs (GS) before the SEC filed its civil fraud charge, and the probe casts a far wider net than the SEC did, Zachary A. Goldfarb and Jerry Markon of the Washington Post report.

The criminal probe is being conducted by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, and the FBI. No charges have yet been filed.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has also launched a criminal investigation of the massive explosion at the Big Branch mine in West Virginia where 29 miners died, 

Massey has a past history of egregious violations of mine safety:

After the worst coal mining disaster in at least 25 years, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship is facing long-overdue scrutiny for his record of putting coal profits over fundamental safety and health concerns. Blankenship, a right-wing activist millionaire who sits on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association, used his company’s ties to the industry-dominated Bush administration to paper over Massey’s egregious environmental and health violations. Massey rewarded Republicans with massive donations after the company avoided paying billions in fines for a 2000 coal slurry disaster in Martin County, three times bigger than the Exxon Valdez. After both mine inspectors and Massey employees got the same message that it was more important to “run coal” than to follow safety rules, a deadly fire broke out in the Aracoma Alma mine in 2006, burning two men alive.

Not being a Conservative, I have to say that it makes me happy to see these big and uncaring corporations get some of their just deserts.

Nuclear Power Making a Comeback

Carbon-free nuclear power set to go large scale. The image is of the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, located near Monroe, Michigan. Via The New York Times:

With 17 applications in hand from companies that want to build 26 reactors, the agency is likely to name a lot more inspectors; it also expects five more applicants in the next few years.

Is this the long-awaited renaissance of the nuclear construction business, after years of being moribund?

Certainly, some crucial ingredients are falling into place. Nuclear power provides 70 percent of the nation’s carbon-free electricity, important at a time when environmentalists track carbon in the atmosphere the way baby boomers check their cholesterol levels.

Stock Market Indicates Confidence in the President

A healthy stock market has long been considered a sign of confidence in a President.

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NO to "Drill, Baby, Drill"!

A major disagreement is brewing in the Democratic Party, with both Democrats and Progressives at odds  with President Obama over his proposal to allow drilling along the East Coast of the US, and parts of Alaska.  

Is this another attempt at more fruitless bipartisanship? We disagree, Mr. President. Strongly.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

Via The New York Times

Insurance cartel agrees to close child coverage loophole

President Obama, a winner again. Bolding mine:

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the industry's top lobbyist said insurers will accept new regulations to dispel uncertainty over a much-publicized guarantee that children with medical problems can get coverage starting this year.

Quick resolution of the doubts was a win for Obama – and a sign that the industry has no stomach for another war of words with a president who deftly used double-digit rate hikes by the companies to revive his sweeping health care legislation from near collapse in Congress.

Now, anyone taking odds on how long it might be until the American people have a public option or single payer?

The health insurance cartel has been, very effectively, boxed. Further struggle will only hasten their demise.

Via HuffPost

Obama: Our Capitalist President

Obama is about to rake in the big money for U.S. taxpayers. [begin sarcasm] He's such a communist. [/sarcasm]  Via The Washington Post, bolding is mine.

The Obama administration is making final preparations to sell its stake in the New York bank¹, according to industry and federal sources. At today's prices, the sale would net more than $8 billion, by far the largest profit returned from any firm that accepted bailout funds, and the transaction would be the second-largest stock sale in history.

On paper, the government's 27 percent stake has grown in value to $33 billion. The size of the deal in the works has Wall Street buzzing. Only the stock offering by Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, which raised $36.8 billion in 1987, was larger, according to Thomson Reuters.

¹ One of the largest Citigroup shareholders is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal².

² Prince Alwaleed is the second largest shareholder in News Corp.

Noting Republican Hypocrisy

The story, via Talking Points Memo:

The White House has just announced that President Obama has made fifteen recess appointments, including several for hot-button nominees. These are appointees Republicans refused to allow votes on and for which the president's supporters have been pressing for recess appointees.

Notable on the list are Craig Becker to NLRB and Chai Feldblum to EEOC.

The Republican rage and hypocrisy, via HuffPost:

President Obama's decision to bypass the vacationing Senate and directly appoint 15 nominees has produced some expected cries of outrage from Republicans.

An overview of GOP obstruction of Obama administration appointments via Think Progress:

Senate Republicans have used parliamentary tactics to hold up the confirmation of critical administration nominees to an unprecedented degree. Yesterday, Obama warned that “if the Senate does not act,” he would be forced to make recess appointments to fill critical jobs, because “we cannot allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government.”

Sweet.

A hug between the two former rivals after President Obama signs the health care reform bill. I love it.

Maddow Outs the GOP on Their Overwhelming Hypocrisy

An excellent piece in which Maddow is able to factually demonstrate the complete and utter hypocrisy of the GOP.

Will the Republicans Attempt to Impeach President Obama? Yes.

From Bob Cesca, on the Huffington Post:

If the Republicans ever manage to retake Congress, they will absolutely try to impeach President Obama. And it'll be based upon a supremely ridiculous charge such as, say, the president refusing to nourish our crops with a sports drink instead of water.

Okay, so maybe the Idiocracy example is over-the-top, but if we follow the current trajectory of far-right attacks to their logical yet insane conclusion, it makes sense in a very eerie way. Have you seen the television commercials solemnly defending our right to poison our kids with "juice drinks and soda?" There you go.

I've been following the Republican descent into the realms of the bizarre for some time now, and it wasn't until the "czars" thing broke that I became convinced that if they retook Congress the Republicans might try to impeach the president. The grounds for both the impeachment and the language used to sell it will likely be fabricated by either Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

I mean, 100 Republican members of Congress have signed onto Rep. Jack Kingston's cartoonish czar bill. 100 House Republicans out of 177 have attached their names to a bill that was essentially invented as a television bit by Glenn Beck without any regard for the fact that "czar" is a nickname invented by the press, and that every president -- all of them! -- has employed policy and political advisers within their administrations. But it functions as an effective Beck attack because he knows his audience isn't bright enough to distinguish "czars" from "communists." By the way, not to be out-crazied by his House colleagues, Senator Ensign introduced an amendment to the Finance Committee health care reform bill called "Transparency in Czars." This might as well be "Transparency in Hobbits" because it's just that ludicrous.

Nevertheless, there's a growing conventional wisdom in the press alleging that both sides of the political spectrum are equally guilty of wackaloon attacks and conspiracy theories.

Granted there might be one or two very fringe exceptions but this is otherwise a false equivalency written by the establishment media as part of their self-conscious effort to seem balanced. The distinction is that any "fringe" attacks from the left during the Bush years weren't mainstreamed and legitimized the way the wingnut attacks are today, even though the fringe attacks from the left turned out to be mostly accurate.

Continue reading http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-impeachment-of-presid_b_297330.html

Sarah Palin: the Utterly Predictable LIAR

The woman never ceases to amaze. Her complete audacity, her attempts to manipulate the public with outright lies, is enough to make one want to gag. Or better still, send her to a gulag (only partly joking).

Horrid, unintelligent woman that she is, she is inciting public fear yet again, via her publication of the following statement on her Facebook account:

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

A complete fabrication by Palin, it is a quite horrific lie, it's intention being to fear monger in the short term, and defeat Obama in the long term, which to Palin, is 2012.

Rated "Pants on Fire" by Politifact.com, they had this to say:

“We agree with Palin that such a system would be evil. But it's definitely not what President Barack Obama or any other Democrat has proposed.

We have read all 1,000-plus pages of the Democratic bill and examined versions in various committees. There is no panel in any version of the health care bills in Congress that judges a person's "level of productivity in society" to determine whether they are "worthy" of health care.

Palin's claim sounds a little like another statement making the rounds, which says that health care reform would mandate counseling for seniors on how to end their lives sooner. We rated this claim Pants on Fire! The truth is that the health bill allows Medicare, for the first time, to pay for doctors' appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues with their physicians. These types of appointments are completely optional, and AARP supports the measure.”

Sarah Palin is a fear-mongering, self-centered politician, and we really would benefit immensely if we could ban her lying derriere from the national political debate. For the truth about the healthcare related distortions currently making the rounds, check out Politifact's Guide.

Obama Reverses Bush Policy and Announces Overhaul of How Federal Contracts Are Awarded

:: Fulfilling another campaign promise, Obama announced the reform of government contracting procedures, and signed an executive memorandum to begin the process. From the AP:

Obama joined lawmakers to announce an executive memorandum that commits his administration to a new set of marching orders for awarding contracts. Obama said "the days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over" and said changes could save up to $40 billion a year.

Obama's presidential memo changes government contracting procedures. It directs Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, to work with Cabinet and agency officials to draft new contracting rules by the end of September. Those new rules, White House aides say, will make it more difficult for contractors to bilk taxpayers and make some half-trillion dollars in federal contracts each year more accessible to independent contractors.

AP photo.
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Craig Fugate Nominated as FEMA Director

:: Fugate is a Republican who has been in charge of Florida's disaster management since 2001, when he was first appointed by Jeb Bush, and remained in his position when Charlie Crist became the governor. According to Janet Napolitano, Fugate is one of the most experienced emergency managers in the country. From HUFFPOST:

In a statement issued by the White House, Obama said he plans to nominate Fugate who will help the administration "improve our preparedness, response and recovery efforts."

Fugate has been praised for helping guide Florida through several devastating hurricanes in the past decade. He was criticized in 2005 for not distributing enough ice, water and other supplies immediately after Hurricane Wilma. Fugate had warned residents before the storm that they should have enough supplies for three days after it passed, but many did not and that overstressed the system.

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McCain to Help Obama Get a Line-Item Veto

:: McCain, angry at all the pork in the omnibus budget (from the last/110th Congress), blasted President Obama for deciding to sign the spending bill.

"The measure has over 9,000 unnecessarily and wasteful earmarks. So much for the promise of change," McCain said. "What are we doing here? Not only business as usual; an outrageous insult to the American people."

Within a few hours, McCain did an about face, and said that he would reintroduce legislation to give the president a line-item veto right, in order to enable him to go after wasteful spending.

On Tuesday, McCain, along with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), announced that he would reintroduce legislation to provide the president with a line-item veto to target wasteful spending. This came just one week after the president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters that Obama would "love to take [a line-item veto] for a test drive."

Had McCain deliberately greased the legislative wheels to give the president the tool he desired? Or was he simply acting on a long-held view about how best to combat wasteful spending? The Senator's office did not immediately say whether they had talked to the White House about the measure.

READ MORE HERE.
AP photo.
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The Party of NO Admits They Will Not be Able to Block Obama's Budget

:: The GOP, while really hating on Obama's budget (keep in mind, that they only like spending when it comes from their party and the $ land in the hands of the wealthiest 5%), concedes that, ALAS, they are unlikely to be able to block it. Cry me a freaking river. From The Wall Street Journal:

 

WASHINGTON -- Republican congressional leaders ramped up criticism of President Barack Obama's budget proposal, even as they conceded that they likely won't be able to block it.

Graphic Copyright © Inspire Political Disourse 2009.
Original image courtesy of Reuters.
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Sebelius Faces Strong Oppostion From Anti-Abortion Groups

:: President Obama's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), faces tough opposition from anti-abortion forces. 

From The Hill:

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called Sebelius an "extremely pro-abortion" pick to head HHS.

Patrick Mahoney, executive director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said within an hour of the news of Sebelius' nomination on Saturday night, he had been in touch with many social conservatives about formulating a strategy to oppose the nomination. One facet of that strategy will be to hold a news conference this week, he said.

Like several other Catholic Democratic politicians, Sebelius has come under fire from Church officials who say she should repudiate her pro-abortion rights positions. In 2006, Joseph Neumann, the archbishop of Kansas City, said Sebelius should refrain from receiving communion until she changed her views.

AP photo.
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US Abandons UN Conference on Racism

:: The US is boycotting the conference over language in the documents that is very hostile to Israel. From POLITICO:

White House aides told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the United States will boycott the United Nations' World Conference on Racism over hostility to Israel in draft documents prepared for the April conference.

The aides, including an advisor to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Jennifer Simon, and longtime Obama advisor Samantha Power, said the administration will not participate in further negotiations on the current text or participate in a conference based on the text, sources on the call said.

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Anger of Unemployed at Governors Talking About Rejecting Stimulus

:: Most of these governors are in the southern states, all are Republicans except Bredesen of Tennessee, and Palin, Sanford, and Jindal, are ringleaders. From the New York Times:

As governors in nine states, mostly in the South, consider rejecting millions of dollars in federal stimulus money for increased unemployment insurance, there is growing anger among the ranks of the jobless in those states that they could be left out of a significant government benefit.

Related posts on IPD:
| Governor Sanford Offers His Unemployed Constituent Prayers Rather Than Stimulus Money
| Bobby Jindal, the Republican Governor of Louisiana, Deprives Citizens of Louisiana of $90+ Million in Additional Unemployment Benefits
| GOP Governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho Consider Rejecting Stimulus Money
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Gregg Conflict of Interest With Commerce

:: The AP reports that Gregg may have had a conflict of interest which caused his resignation from the commerce post.
Too bad that he wasn't honest with the American people.
From HUFFPOST:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's former nominee to become commerce secretary, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, steered taxpayer money to his home state's redevelopment of a former Air Force base even as he and his brother engaged in real estate deals there, an Associated Press investigation found.

Gregg, R-N.H., has personally invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Cyrus Gregg's office projects at the Pease International Tradeport, a Portsmouth business park built at the defunct Pease Air Force Base, once home to nuclear bombers. Judd Gregg has collected at least $240,017 to $651,801 from his investments there, Senate records show, while helping to arrange at least $66 million in federal aid for the former base.

Image courtesy of Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images. .
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