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The president’s proposal is laden with election-year politics and faces a difficult path in Congress. Obama wants to pay for the estimated $5 billion to $10 billion cost with a fee on the nation’s largest banks, a proposal that has failed to win support even when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate.

In addition, its potential impact could be limited by the fact that it would not apply to borrowers who are behind on their home loan payments, those most threatened by foreclosure.

The housing issue, while national in scope, particularly resonates in election battlegrounds such as Nevada and Florida that have faced record foreclosures. Obama himself drew attention to the politics surrounding the issue with a jab at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, now the front-runner in the Republican presidential contest. Romney in October suggested the foreclosure process should be allowed to “run its course and hit the bottom.”

Without naming Romney, Obama said: “It is wrong for anyone to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom. I refuse to accept that, and so do the American people.”

Obama is asking Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier for more borrowers to refinance their loans, creating a new program through the Federal Housing Administration that would have the government assume the risk for the new mortgages.

Obama cast the effort as not only a needed step to spur the economy but as a necessary boost to America’s sense of identity.

“This housing crisis struck right at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America: our homes, the place where we invest our nest egg, place where we raise our family, the place where we plant roots in a community, the place where we build memories,” Obama said. He spoke at a community center in northern Virginia, outside Washington.

Obama’s proposal is the latest administration effort to help homeowners in the face of a massive number of foreclosures and plunging house values that have left millions owing more than their homes are worth.

Banks have been reluctant to refinance loans of such “underwater” homeowners. Under Obama’s plan, an eligible homeowner would be able to refinance a loan through the FHA, which would guarantee the new loan, assuming the risk if the borrower should default. The fee on large banks that Obama is proposing would finance the FHA’s insurance fund.

The plan faces long odds in Congress. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the refinancing plan proposes “to get out of the hole we’re in by digging deeper.”

“He wants lenders to make more of the same risky loans without documentation of income or ability to repay that got us into this mess in the first place,” Bachus said.

Seeking to reassure such skeptics, Obama emphasized that the program would apply only borrowers who have been current on their payments for at least six months and not missed more than one payment in the six months preceding that. Their loans would have to fall within the mortgage limits set by the FHA in their home counties – a range from $271,050 in lowest cost areas to $729,750 in the highest cost areas.

The plan, Obama said, would “not help the neighbors down the street who bought a house they couldn’t afford and then walked away and left a foreclosed home behind.”

The administration estimates that 3.5 million borrowers with privately held mortgages have high enough interest rates that they would have incentive to refinance their mortgages through the FHA.

That’s in addition to 11 million borrowers who have loans guaranteed by the government-affiliated mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who could be eligible for refinancing under the administration’s proposed changes.

Still, economists say that without reducing the burden on homeowners who are late on their payments, any new housing program will achieve little.

“Anyone who is already behind on their mortgage payments, and is therefore much closer to actually losing their home, won’t benefit,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “As such, the policy won’t do anything to reduce the mountain of 3 million homes that are still at risk of foreclosure.”

Bankers oppose Obama’s proposal to impose a fee on large banks to pay for the program and Obama has been unable to win support for such a fee in Congress.

Frank Keating, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, said such a fee would “directly reduce lending capacity.” And Brian Gardner, a senior vice president at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods, a Washington investment bank, called the proposed bank tax a “poison pill” for the legislation.

Keating also referred to the refinancing plan as “uncoordinated” and part of a collection of ever-changing government programs that “create uncertainty in the market, increase the cost of homeownership and reduce credit availability needed to support homeownership and the economic recovery.”

Administration officials said Obama was open to other means of paying for the program if the bank fee becomes too much of an obstacle.

About 11 million Americans – roughly one in four with mortgages – are underwater, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data firm. Half of all U.S. mortgages – about 30 million home loans – are owned by nongovernment lenders.

Past administration initiatives have fallen short of expectations. For instance, an earlier plan, the Home Affordable Refinance Program, which allows borrowers with loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance at lower rates, has helped about 1 million homeowners, well short of the 4 million to 5 million the administration had expected.

“I’ll be honest, the programs we’ve put forward didn’t work at the scale we’d hoped,” Obama said. “Not as many people have taken advantage of it as we wanted.”

Obama also announced new industry standards for mortgage servicers, a sort of “bill of rights” for borrowers that would protect them in their transactions. During his remarks, Obama brandished a simpler, three-page loan document to illustrate the new standards.

The administration will also undertake a program that would allow the sale of foreclosed homes by Fannie Mae to investors who would then offer the properties for rental.

“As we know and a lot of families know,” Obama said, “that empty house or `for sale’ sign down the block can bring down the price of homes across the neighborhood.”

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Source: The Huffington Post

2) Expanded Funding For HBCUs

In February of this year, President Obama signed an executive order increasing funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to $850 million over the next 10 years. The funding is being administered through the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities that was, ironically, started by the late Ronald Reagan.

Source: theGrio.

3) Signed The Crack Cocaine Bill (Fair Sentencing Act)

Crack users are disproportionately sentenced to longer jail terms than those who use powder. This unfair sentencing practice punished African Americans more severely than their white counterparts. With the signing of the Fair Sentencing Act, though, President Obama narrowed that disparity significantly.

President Obama signed into law Tuesday the Fair Sentencing Act, which narrows the huge disparity in punishment given to those convicted of possessing crack cocaine versus those found with the drug in powder form.

The gap has been of particular concern to the African-American community. Crack users tend to be poorer than those who use powder – and disproportionately African-American.

Under the old law, someone convicted of possessing five grams of crack cocaine received a mandatory five years in prison. Those convicted of possessing powder cocaine had to be holding 100 times that amount to get the same mandatory sentence.

Source: The Washington Post

4) Passed Health Care Reform (Affordable Care Act)

More than 19 percent of African Americans do not have health care, according to TheRoot. When the highly debated health care reform bill was signed into law in March of 2010, millions of African Americans benefited.

As reported by the blog “Jack and Jill Politics,” Blacks will enjoy a number of benefits that the bill provides:

The Affordable Care Act expands insurance coverage by a number of mechanisms the some examples include establishing the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, which is working to  make health insurance coverage available to individuals who have been uninsured for at least six months and have been denied health insurance because they have a pre-existing condition. By 2014, this program will end and will be replaced by new health insurance exchanges.

Also by 2014 Medicaid will be expanded  to cover  individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level. In 2014, using 2010 federal poverty guidelines, 4.1 million African Americans making less than $14,403.90 and a family of four making less than $29,326.50 will be eligible for Medicaid. In addition, individuals without dependent children or who are not pregnant will now be eligible for Medicaid once this provision is enforced beginning in 2014.

Coverage for preventative conditions many of which disproportion ally impact African Americans.  As of September 23, 2010, requires health plans to cover certain preventive and immunization services without charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance. This applies only to care delivered by in network health professionals. Specifically, new health plans will have to offer consumers 45 free screenings and other preventive services, similar changes will affect Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries Seniors enrolled in Medicare will no longer have to pay for preventive services starting January 1, 2011.

Additionally, the health reform law provides new funding to state Medicaid programs that choose to cover preventive services for patients at little or no cost starting January 1, 2013. These include (note from Jill, I’ve bolded the ones that impact African-Americans especially):

• Blood pressure testing

• Cardiovascular screening

• Cervical cancer screening

• Cholesterol measurement

• Colorectal cancer screening

• Depression

• Diabetes screening

• HIV testing

• Immunizations and vaccines

• Mammograms

• Obesity screening and counseling

• Screening newborns for sickle cell disease

Already in 2010, adults enrolled in Medicare Part D received a tax-free, one-time rebate check of $250 when they reached the Medicare drug coverage gap or “donut hole.” The donut hole refers to the gap in coverage enrollees face between the initial coverage limit and the yearly, out-of-pocket limit known as the catastrophic coverage threshold during which beneficiaries have to pay for the entire cost of their prescription drugs.

Beginning in 2011, enrollees with high prescription drug costs that put them in the donut hole will get a 50% discount on covered brand-name drugs and reductions in the cost of generic drugs while they are in the hole. Between 2010 and 2020, Part D enrollees will get increasing, continuous Medicare coverage for their prescription drugs; by 2020, they will pay only 25% out of pocket for the total cost of their drugs and the donut hole will be eliminated.

Sources: cbsnews, Jack and Jill Politics and TheRoot

5) Created The Civil Rights Division Of The Justice Department

The U.S. Justice Department is leading one of the most aggressive defenses of civil rights in recent memory. Whether it is clamping down on Arizona for its bias against Latinos or fighting unjust state voter ID laws, this Justice Department has been fully engaged in fighting for the rights of all minorities. When President Obama chose Eric Holder to lead the department, he picked a true champion of civil rights. For a rundown of how powerful the Civil Rights Division has become, check out this article by TheRoot.

Sources: The New York Times, cbsnews

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Four days after President Obama laid out the American Jobs Act for Congress, he took his message to a public forum attended by over 100 African Americans at the White House and live-streamed over the Internet, imploring them to help get the bill passed.

“We are at a critical juncture in our country and this Jobs Act can deliver,” said Obama. “I need people to get out there and support this. If Congress doesn’t get it done, we know exactly who is holding this up.”

With Black unemployment at a 27-year-high of 16.7 percent, the President laid out specifics of his plan and how it would help to get the African-American community back to work.

The plan would provide summer jobs for youth (45 percent unemployment for Black youth) and boost the paychecks of 20 million Black workers through an extension and expansion of the payroll tax. It would also extend unemployment insurance for nearly 1.4 million African Americans who have been unemployed six months or longer.

The forum, titled “Open for Questions with InteractiveOne,” featured various administration officials discussing how the administration’s polices have affected and will affect the Black community, taking questions from NewsOne.com and its sister sites in the InteractiveOne network, TheGrio.com, TheUrbanDaily.com, HelloBeautiful.com, and BlackPlanet.com.

The featured speakers included Director of Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes, US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, Deputy Administrator of the US Small Business Administration Marie Johns, Ambassador and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

For over two hours, panelists and audience members peppered administration officials such as Valerie Jarrett with comments and questions from Twitter and social networking site, BlackPlanet.com.

The president urged the panelists and audience members to knock on doors to help educate the American public about the benefits of this bill.

“We must pump it up to pass this Jobs Act,” said Obama.

Below is a video of the event:

The number of liberal Democrats who strongly support Obama’s record has plummeted from 53 percent to 31 percent. The number of African-Americans who support Obama’s performance on the economy once stood at 77 percent — that number now sits at just over half of those surveyed.

Obama’s shrinking approval comes on the heels of a recent study which showed a surge in the wealth gap between Whites and minorities, an unprecedented Black unemployment rate of 16.2 percent, and a collective attitude from the Black community that the Obama Administration’s policies do little to nothing to aid the compounded scarcities that plague Black Americans.

Read more at Huffington Post

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Fitzgerald is the fourth openly gay person to be nominated as a judicial candidate.

Huffington Post:

“I am honored to nominate Michael Walter Fitzgerald to the United States District Court,” Obama said in a statement. “His impressive career stands as a testament to his formidable intellect and integrity. I am confident he will serve the people of California with distinction on the District Court bench.”

On Monday, Paul Oetken became the first openly gay man to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as a federal judge.

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Walter Bagdasarian was convicted in 2009 of two felony counts of threatening a major presidential candidate. Bagdasarian posted several messages to a Yahoo Finance message board, including one that called Obama a racial epithet and another that said “he will have a 50 cal in the head soon”–a reference to a .50 caliber gun.

Your Black World Reports:

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that violent and racist creeds against Obama were “repugnant” but not criminal. The court also said it was obvious the San Diego man wasn’t planning to attack the candidate and that the postings were protected by Bagdasarian’s free speech rights.

Read More At YourBlackWorld.com

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This is Mr. Obama’s sixth straight quarter below the 50 percent mark, however it is virtually unchanged from his 9th quarter rating of 46.7.

Obama joins a cluster of former presidents who experienced sub-50 percent, and later won re-election–Bill Clinton (49.3), Richard Nixon (49.2) and Ronald Reagan (44.4). Former President George W. Bush’s 10th quarter approval rating was an exceptional 73.6 percent.

According to Gallup, it is too early forecast what these numbers will mean for Obama during the 2012 president election, considering there’s no consistent pattern in the quarterly approval averages of previous presidents to say whether 46.8 percent pinpoints a re-election or defeat.

SOURCE

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But based on the congressional gridlock surrounding the country’s deficit, it’s clear Republicans and Democrats are oblivious to what the American people really want, or need for that matter.

Republicans and Tea Party members say “The American people want spending cuts” and “The American people don’t want tax hikes.”

Democrats and President Obama say “The American people want the rich to be taxed,” “The American people don’t want Social Security and Medicare to be cut.”

“The American people want jobs,” “The American people want a balanced budget,” and so on.

Annoying, huh?

The hackneyed catchphrase is nothing more than an exploitative ploy to sway political debate, and undermine the American people.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said on MSNBC, “Why in the world is there not a balanced budget amendment in the U.S. Senate? That’s the question the American people should be asking…I think the American people would like to see us do that.”

View Sen. Coburn’s comments below:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Coburn and nearly all politicians do more harm than good when they invoke their personal views onto the American people. Policy, especially those that pertain to the nation’s economy, should literally come from the people — if you’re going to put words in their mouth, that is.

Rather than speculating what the American people want, politicians should flat out say what it is they personally believe congress should do. A congressman, or senator expressing his or her personal views does not imply that he or she is somehow disingenuous — it implies quite the opposite. What is disingenuous, however, is implicating “the American people” for the sake of political squabble, or persuasion as opposed to actually carrying out the will of the people — which is very skewed at best.

President Obama, too, succumbed to “the American people” mantra. During a press conference, Mr. Obama told reporters that the American people were “sold” on a balanced approach to reaching a debt deal.

Video of President’s statement below:

The difference between Obama and Coburn, and other Republicans, is that Obama (although he exaggerated the numbers) was somewhat accurate in his statements. A majority of the people are sold.

Polls from Gallup and the Washington Post revealed that a majority of Americans do support a mixed approach of spending cuts and tax increases. However, the slippery slope of polls is that a percentage of the people (the minority and undecided) are always ignored, forlornly pushed aside for the accommodation of the “majority.”

Politicians need to be honest with the public, and most importantly honest with themselves. It is understood that congress is elected by the people to serve the people, which implicitly gives them the authority to use their discretion, opinions, etc.

The truth of the matter is that no politician can go before a camera and declare what the American people want, because the American people, and politicians for that matter, will never stand on one solid platform. There is no one, monolithic way of dealing with the economy, nor will there ever be one general opinion from the American public.

So please politicians, I beg you, kill it with the speeches, and get down to compromising for the ones you claim to serve: the people.

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White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president “long called for a legislative appeal for the so-called Defense of Marriage Act which continues to have a real impact on families.”

The president is “proud to support” the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, Carney said.

Huffington Post Reports:

The Obama administration announced in February that it believes the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and would no longer defend it in court.

At the time, Carney said that Obama was still “grappling” with his personal view of gay marriage but has always personally opposed the Defense of Marriage Act as “unnecessary and unfair.”

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

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House Republicans zeroed out all three parts of the president’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiatives: the school-centered Promise Neighborhoods, the housing-focused Choice Neighborhoods and the law enforcement-oriented Byrne Criminal Justice Initiative.

City Limits Reports:

All three programs reflect the administration’s belief in place-based strategies that coordinate multiple agencies and programs to improve a particular neighborhood, city or region. This approach undergirds not only anti-poverty funding but also Obama’s urban-planning strategy, where the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is pooling funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation to address interlinked housing, transit and environmental challenges that particular places face. In 2009, the White House ordered all federal agencies to conduct a place-based review of their policies to see where arbitrary borders between departments might be adjusted to make programs work better and cheaper.

Read More At CityLimits.org

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According to A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother, a biography written by Times reporter Janny Scott, Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, had health insurance during her 1995 battle with cancer. Such a claim disputes the narrative told by Mr. Obama.

The significant line that questions Obama’s account reads:

“Ann’s compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment. Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month.”

However, the president referenced a rather different story:

“For my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.”

The White House did not dispute Scott’s claim, however, spokesman Nicholas Papas told the Times, “The president has told this story based on his recollection of events that took place more than 15 years ago.”

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Republicans said that after a heated disagreement with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the president “abruptly” walked out of the meeting.

Democratic lawmakers, however, said that Obama gave a lecture to Cantor and Republicans and left the meeting because it had ended, not because of anger.

Mr. Obama did have ardent words for Republican lawmakers, however.

“Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here? I’ve reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this,” the president said just shortly before concluding the two-hour meeting.

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Wednesday of a “huge financial calamity” if President Obama and the Republicans cannot agree on a budget deal that allows the federal debt ceiling to be increased.

The NYTimes Reports:

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said he raised the idea of taking what savings could be achieved now — roughly $1.4 trillion — and then having additional votes to raise the debt limit again before the elections in November 2012, with Republicans ultimately seeking a total of at least $2.4 trillion in cuts with no tax increases.

At this, Mr. Cantor said, the president “got very agitated, seemingly.” Mr. Cantor quoted the president as saying: “Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people with this.”

Then, Mr. Cantor said, “He shoved back and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and walked out.”

Read More At NYTimes.com

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McConnell’s proposal suggests a lack of confidence in Congress’ ability to reach a bipartisan agreement on spending cuts.

Republican lawmakers adamantly refused to approve any deal that would include tax hikes, while Democrats rejected the idea of possible cuts on Social Security and Medicare.

President Obama urged lawmakers to come to an agreement, calling daily meetings to reach a deal before the Government is obliged to default on its loans on August 2.

The NY Times Reports:

Mr. McConnell’s proposal would give Mr. Obama sweeping power to increase the government’s borrowing authority, in increments, by up to $2.4 trillion — enough, it is estimated, to cover federal obligations through next year — only if Mr. Obama specified spending cuts of equal amounts. But Congress would not have to approve the spending cuts prior to the debt-limit increase.

Read More At NYTimes.com

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House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Ca.), who has the power to issue subpoenas, accused Mr. Obama of mixing official and political activities.

The probe mainly highlights the president’s DNC meeting with Wall Street executives (who are known donors), and a campaign video allegedly filmed in the White House, promoting a raffle to win a dinner with the president and Vice President Joe Biden.

Salon Reports:

To this, Painter responded by saying that social events are different from meetings — a distinction that may well come under further scrutiny in Issa’s probe. However, Politico’s Sherman notes:

The Obama activities targeted by Issa are hardly new. Top aides in previous White Houses were involved with reelection efforts in their spare time. Experts and lawyers have said publicly that all of what the Obama team is doing is above board, and a White House aide provided Politico with more than a dozen news clips and videos showing previous presidents using the trappings of the presidency in similar ways.

Read More At Salon.com

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The Daily Beast Reports:

Republican presidential candidates are still vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, of course, but they are mainly going after President Obama’s economic record. That makes sense because the lagging economy is by far the top concern of voters. It also makes sense because with each passing month, the health-care law is woven more tightly into the fabric of American life and becomes more difficult to unravel.

David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser, says Republicans will make a mistake if they dwell next year on repealing the law. “The American people want to move forward. If there are problems with reform, fix it. They don’t want to start all over again,” he told me.

The article also reports that Republican candidates would have to not only repeal the bill, but formulate an alternative, which could be difficult.

Read More At TheDailyBeast.com

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The New York Times reports:

Mr. Obama said he will not consider a short-term, stop-gap solution to raise the debt ceiling. “This is the United States of America. We don’t manage our affairs in three month increments.”

Obama’s news conference happened just hours before his scheduled meeting with Congressional leaders on a third gathering to reach a deal to reach the nation’s debt ceiling.

The president challenged Republicans to eagerly work alongside Democrats to reach a deal stating, “let’s go.”

Mr. Obama said he will not consider a short-term, stop-and-go solutions to raise the debt ceiling. “This is the United States of America. We don’t manage our affairs in three month increments.”

“It’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder,” Mr. Obama said

“So we might as well do it now. Pull off the Band-Aid. Eat our peas. Now is the time to do it.”

Read More At NYTimes.com

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In what seems to be a race to find the best means to an end on a drawn-out battle between Democrats and Republicans, debt-ceiling negotiations must come to a consensus before the government is forced to default its loans in August.

But if Obama cuts spending on Social Security, what kind of lasting affect would it have on African-Americans?

Though the Social Security program benefits many Americans, African-American beneficiaries will suffer the most if the program is reduced, considering they face the highest poverty rate in the country.

Dr. Fredrick Harris, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University says such spending cuts could dramatically impact African-Americans.

“[Social Security cuts] would have a devastating impact on Black communities since the Black elderly disproportionately depend on Social Security more than other communities,” Harris said.

“The so-called ‘new austerity’ will have long-term consequences for the poor and, in turn, the most vulnerable in Black communities.”

Elderly African-Americans rely on Social Security for more than 90 percent of their income—not to mention disabled persons and children of the deceased, who also significantly rely on Social Security funding.

Harris believes such a political move could also have lasting affects on the Black community’s backing of the president.

“While [he] has become a symbol of pride in Black communities, these cut backs in Social Security and other programs to address inequality raises questions about whether his presidency is becoming a ‘hollow prize’ for the Black community.”

Obama may want to shop his options before conceding to Republicans on the battle for Social Security and Medicare.

It appears the president is acting out of mere desperation rather than keen executive authority. While the Republicans are wayward on their stance on the economy, Democrats, and the president especially, must retreat from walking on eggshells and assume a more take-no-nonsense role in government.

Will Obama show the Republicans who’s boss? Or will we see yet another strain tear down the African-American community, while the rich get richer and the poor get radically poorer?

Only time will tell.

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The Complexity Of Being Black And Critical Of Obama

The poll reveals that 60 percent of Jewish voters approve of the president’s job performance, while 85 percent of Jewish Democrats approved.

Such numbers refute many predictions that Jewish supporters would abandon Obama because of comments made at a May 19 speech instructing Palestinians and Israelis to use 1967 boundaries as the starting point for peace talks.

The NY Daily News Reports:

Former New York mayor Ed Koch and the Republican presidential candidates took turns accusing Obama of abandoning a trusted ally.

Obama insisted his support of Israel was unwavering and that what he was calling for was essentially the same thing that every President since the first President Bush have backed – just not publicly.

Read More At NYDailyNews.com

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The president will be answering questions on the economy and jobs via a live web cast. Previously, he held town halls hosted by and broadcasted on Facebook and YouTube.

Obama has promised to begin to personally tweet from his account leading up to the 2012 Presidential Election.

Submit a question for Obama’s upcoming Twitter town hall by tweeting a question that includes the hashtag #AskObama. The president’s answers will be live streamed on AskObama.Twitter.com next week.

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

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The initiative will serve as another attempt by the president to promote job-creation during the country’s current economic downturn.

The Huffington Post Reports:

Obama will be touring the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, which is building machines that can help with bomb disposal, brain surgery, lawn mowing and paint scraping. Ultimately, some scientists at the institute are trying to figure out whether robots and humans can “treat each other as equal partners or teammates.”

The administration’s plan includes $70 million for a robotics initiative. It also is aiming $300 million toward national security industries and $100 million for research and training to more quickly develop advanced materials at lower costs. Some of the $500 million would come from existing allocations to government agencies, but other money is only reflected in Obama’s 2012 budget request and would require approval by Congress.

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

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As I kicked out what had to be nearly $150 in gas money round-trip from New York to Danville, Virginia this weekend, I started thinking that there had to be a better way.

And now as I hear predictions from some circles that we should expect to see prices as high as $6 a gallon this summer, I figure there’s gotta be something the president can do—should he ever get around getting this Qaddafi thing squared away.

But wait… has the president beat me to it? Could he be considering…? No, that would be insane! But wait, I have heard a rumor… Is it true that President Obama is actually considering opening up the oil reserves?

The oil reserve, for the uninitiated, is the total amount of producible oil less the amount that is held in “reserve” for reasons of national security.

In other words, a certain amount of oil is always held in place in case the country goes to war and to avoid being beholden to a foreign nation to mobilize our military.

Given America’s currently paranoid nature, it makes perfect sense that politicians on both sides of the spectrum have taken adamant though often conflicting positions on the issue.

What’s to stop Canada or Mexico from trying to “set it” on us after we pulled such a move?

More seriously however, under the assumption that such a security breach were to take place,

1)      The oil reserves would only be of genuine value in the supremely unlikely event that another country actually invades the United States,

2)      As a Black man—Black Commander-in-Chief at that—I could only hope that President Obama would be familiar some important military history.

North Africa’s own Hannibal Barca laid siege to Italy for 15 years without a single defeat. He did this by turning all the possessions of his conquered into spoils, including the conquered Italian armies themselves.

We could only hope that President Obama, should we be forced to fight some foreign nation, would have the good sense to take on an oil-rich one (is Libya suddenly starting to make more sense?).

Also, the timing would have to be perfect.

Lest we forget that Obama is a politician, it wouldn’t be prudent to lower them gas prices too far in advance of the next election, now would it?

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Is Hillary stabbing Obama in the back?

The reporter, Brad Watson, was repeatedly peppering Obama with questions and not allowing him to finish.

He asked him one question which got a reaction out of the president  -  “Why are you so unpopular in Texas?”
(Jump to -.19 seconds to see the confrontation)

VIDEO:

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The population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, a trend the Census Bureau will detail in its once-a-decade report to the president. Political clout shifts, too, because the nation must reapportion the 435 House districts to make them roughly equal in population, based on the latest census figures.

The biggest gainer will be Texas, a GOP-dominated state expected to gain up to four new House seats, for a total of 36. The chief losers – New York and Ohio, each projected by nongovernment analysts to lose two seats – were carried by Obama in 2008 and are typical of states in the Northeast and Midwest that are declining in political influence.

Democrats’ problems don’t end there.

November’s elections put Republicans in control of dozens of state legislatures and governorships, just as states prepare to redraw their congressional and legislative district maps. It’s often a brutally partisan process, and Republicans’ control in those states will enable them to create new districts to their liking.

The combination of population shifts and the recent election results could make Obama’s re-election campaign more difficult. Each House seat represents an electoral vote in the presidential election process, giving more weight to states Obama probably will lose in 2012. The states he carried in 2008 are projected to lose, on balance, six electoral votes to states that his GOP challenger, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, won. That sets a higher bar for Obama before his re-election campaign even starts.

“The way the maps have shifted have made Obama’s route to success much more difficult,” said Republican Party spokesman Doug Heye. He said the GOP takeover of several state governments on the eve of redistricting efforts was “a dramatic shift.”

Republicans now control the governor’s offices and both legislative chambers in competitive presidential states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Maine and Wisconsin. They hold the governors’ chairs in other crucial states, including Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Iowa.

When Obama carried those states in 2008, most had Democratic governors happy to lend their political operations to his cause. Now he will run where governors can bend their powers against his administration’s policies and his campaign’s strategies.
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Democratic Party spokesman Brad Woodhouse said his colleagues are aware of the challenges they face, “but we are putting a plan in place to maximize our opportunities, minimize potential setbacks and ensure that the process in each state is fair and done in accordance with the law.”

The Democrats’ few bright spots include California and Illinois, where they control the legislatures and won hard-fought races for governor last month.

Of course, any number of things can happen before the 2012 elections, and Obama and other Democrats may come roaring back. Republicans might help them by pushing their luck and trying to draw more GOP-leaning House districts than the elections of 2012, 2014 and beyond will support.

State politicians use detailed, computer-generated data on voting patterns to carve neighborhoods in or out of newly drawn districts, tilting them more to the left or right. Sometimes they play it safe, quietly agreeing to protect Republican and Democratic incumbents alike. But sometimes the party in control will gamble and aggressively try to reconfigure the map to dump as many opponents as possible.

“The danger you run is trying to be too clever and cutting those margins too thin,” said Tim Storey, a redistricting authority for the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.

That’s what Pennsylvania Republicans did 10 years ago, when they controlled the redistricting process after the 2000 census. Determined to turn the Democrats’ 11-10 House delegation advantage into a 13-6 GOP edge (after the state lost two seats due to sluggish population growth), Republicans created new districts that forced several Democratic incumbents to run against each other. Democratic lawsuits in state and federal courts failed to overturn the “grotesque district boundaries,” as the Almanac of American Politics called them.

Republicans initially won 12 of the state’s newly drawn House districts. But when Pennsylvania voters shifted more toward Democrats in the next few years, thinly protected GOP lawmakers lost their seats. By 2009, Democrats had a 12-7 advantage.

Pennsylvania’s partisan warfare was mild compared with the Texas redistricting imbroglio of 2003. Republicans, who had just taken over the state government, refused to live eight more years with a political map that had given 17 U.S. House seats to Democrats, and 15 to the GOP.

Prodded by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republicans took the rare step of drawing a second statewide political map only three years after the census – with boundaries certain to send more Republicans to Washington.

More than 50 angry Texas House Democrats fled to an Oklahoma Holiday Inn to keep the Legislature from having the quorum needed to pass the Republicans’ plan. The “Killer Ds” eventually returned to Texas capital in Austin, and Republicans adopted their new congressional district map. It helped them win 21 House contests, compared with the Democrats’ 11, in the next election.

The Texas plan survived a legal challenge filed under the U.S. Voting Rights Act, a law meant to protect the rights of ethnic minorities. Although critics say the law has outlived its purpose, it still covers virtually all of nine states, mostly in the South, and portions of another half dozen states.

The Voting Rights Act, plus a hodgepodge of court rulings on issues such as one-person, one-vote guidelines, complicate the task of state officials who draw district lines.

“There are so many competing criteria that it’s a massive balancing act,” Storey said. Partisan goals certainly play a role, he said, “but it’s not all about gerrymandering.”

“I’ve decided I cannot support the treaty,” said McConnell on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “I think the verification provisions are inadequate, and I do worry about missile defense implications.”

On Saturday, the Senate defeated an amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another opponent of the agreement, to amend the treaty’s preamble by separating the issue of missile defense from efforts to reduce American and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Ma.) strongly objected to McCain’s move, pointing out that the preamble is not a binding part of the document and such changes would slow down the approval process by months.

The amendment “requires us to go back to the Russians and renegotiate,” said Kerry. “That’s a treaty-killer.”

On Saturday, President Obama issued a letter clarifying the treaty’s stance on missile defense, saying it “places no limitations on the development or deployment of our missile defense programs.” He promised to “take every action available to me to support the deployment of all four phases” of a missile defense system in Europe.

On CNN, McConnell said the letter wasn’t adequate, because “an equally important question is how do the Russians view missile defense and how do our European allies view missile defense, and I’m concerned about it.”

Read entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama gained ground in his push for Senate ratification of a stalled nuclear treaty as once-reluctant Republicans signaled a willingness to back the pact with Russia.

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said Thursday that he is “wide open” to supporting the treaty if his concerns about modernization of the remaining U.S. nuclear arsenal are addressed. He praised the White House for working with lawmakers.

Alexander told MSNBC that the administration is “making important steps in the right direction.”

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a Senate speech that he was encouraged by the discussions involving GOP lawmakers and the administration. Kerry says he expects a “positive outcome” in the next few days.

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Washington — President Obama declared the nearly two-hour bipartisan meeting at the White House today “a good start,” to a “new dialogue” that he said he hopes will “break though the noise and produce real gains.”

“I thought it was a productive meeting,” Obama said from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as Republicans were still speaking back on the Hill. “I thought that people came to it with a spirit of trying to work together, and I think it’s a good start as we move forward.”

The meeting today in the Roosevelt Room of the White House was the first chance the president and leaders from both parties have gathered formally since the midterm elections. The discussion today surrounded on the agenda items that need to get done in the weeks before Congress leaves town before the holiday.

First – on the Bush tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, the president said that there was “broad agreement” that they need to work to get this resolved before the end of the year.

“Now there are still differences about how to get there,” Obama admitted. “I believe and the other Democrats who – in the room believe that this would add an additional $700 billion to our debt in the next 10 years. And I continue to believe that it would be unwise and unfair, particularly at a time when we’re contemplating deep budget cuts that require broad sacrifice.”

The president announced that he has appointed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and OMB Director Jack Lew to work with representatives from both parties to break what he called a “logjam” on this issue in the days ahead.

“I’ve asked the leaders to appoint members to help in this negotiation process. They agreed to do that. Now that process is beginning right away, and we expect to get some answers back over the next couple of days about how we can accomplish our key goal, which is to make sure the economy continues to grow and we are putting people back to work.”

Read entire article at ABCnews.com

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The problem for Obama is that GOP leaders have little incentive to cut any deals in the lame-duck congressional session — the better to capitalize on their new House majority in January — and have no appetite for major compromise on the extension of Bush-era tax cuts or their deficit-cutting platform.

“I’m hopeful that we’re going to hear from the president a willingness to reflect what the people spoke on Nov. 2, and that is, ‘Stop it,’” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who is counting the days until he takes over as majority leader, told POLITICO.

“Stop the policy agenda you’ve been about over the last 20 months, and let’s go about seeing if we can return to a situation where we can see some [economic] growth prospects again,” he warned Obama.

“The hope is that all sides can agree that we need to focus on the have-to-do items, like funding the government while reducing spending and preventing a tax hike on every American taxpayer,” said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “Maybe we can have a discussion later on the ‘wanna-do’ items, but it’s now been a month since the election, and it’s time to focus.”

But the president’s agenda boils down to a pair of starkly different, far more ambitious priorities: a temporary tax cut, preferably for middle-income families only, and rapid Senate ratification of the stalled Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Read entire article at Politico.com

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“I still believe it is better” to be a good one-term president than a “mediocre” two-term leader, Obama said in the interview.

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Billed as a bipartisan move, the news of the award should shock progressives already reeling from the defeats of the mid-term elections.

Read about the awards here, and the reaction here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have already made it clear to Obama – in a conference call Monday – that they want him to establish a coherent and tough bargaining position to deal with the GOP’s united support for an extension of all tax cuts, according to House and Senate sources familiar with the call.

But on the call the president brushed aside the suggestion that his position has wavered, sources said. And his aides continue to insist that they are deftly toeing a fine political line between caving to GOP demands that all cuts be extended indefinitely and adopting such an inflexible bargaining posture that Republicans are discouraged from reasonable compromises. (See: Top governors turn against Steele)

“We are confident that Congress will act so that taxes for middle-class families will not go up at the end of the year,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Wednesday.

Still, Obama’s repeated insistence that he would drive the hardest possible bargain – while signaling his openness to a compromise that includes a temporary extension for high-income taxpayers — has angered some in his party who claim he’s weakening Democrats’ efforts to force concessions from Republicans. (See: Shaken senators start prep for 2012)

“Give us the playbook – or even an inkling of what you want to do and how you want to do it,” said one congressional Democrat involved in crafting the tax-cut strategy.

Other Democrats were equally outspoken on Wednesday.

“The White House needs to stand firm and say we’re not giving tax breaks to billionaires in this country,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said. “Every day we hear a little differently.”

Read entire article at Politico.com

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“It is wonderful to return to this great treasure of Japanese culture,” Obama wrote in a guest book at the temple. “Its beauty has stayed with me for many years.”

The sacred statue of Amida Buddha is nestled in the hills around the Buddhist temple of K?tokuin. Dating to the 1200s, it’s roughly 40 feet tall and weighs about 100 tons.

Obama’s return to the site capped an overseas trip that was both business and personal.

From India to Indonesia to Japan, the president folded in stops that went beyond the state visits and global economic summits that brought him.

In Mumbai he visited a house where Mahatma Gandhi lived. Martin Luther King, Jr. had toured the home in 1959, signing the guest book just as Obama did last weekend. King and Gandhi are two of the president’s biggest heroes.

In New Delhi, Obama walked the grounds of Humayun’s Tomb. “Spectacular,” he remarked as he left.

While he didn’t stop at any of his childhood haunts in Jakarta, where he lived for four years, Obama said he found it “a little disorienting” to return to a modernized city he remembered for streets crowded with becaks and bemos when he moved there with his mother in 1967.

“I feel great affection for the people here,” he said at a news conference shortly after arriving. “The sights and the sounds and the memories all feel very familiar.”

Read entire article at Politico.com

Washington (NPR)– The Democrats’ performance in the midterm election may give President Obama reason to pause, but centrists in the party say he now has an opportunity to reclaim the post-partisan identity that got lost in his first two years of governing.

Just as Democrats were absorbing their election defeats, they heard of a plan by the leaders of a presidential commission on the deficit. Their proposal involves cuts to many government services — and it has reopened the perennial Democratic debate.

“The question is whether — for the future of the Democratic Party, to win back Congress, to make sure that the president gets elected — do you appeal to the left of the party … and say, ‘Hell, no! We’re not going to touch Social Security,’ or ‘We’re not going to try to cut spending at all’? Or do you try to reach for the center and win an election that way?” says Jim Kessler, the founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank.

The deficit commission’s proposals to cut spending, trim Social Security benefits and raise some taxes came just as Democrats on either end of their ideological spectrum were arguing over who was to blame for last week’s shellacking. But liberals and moderates sounded as if they were talking about two different elections.

Read entire article at NPR.com

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Washington (MSNBC.Com)– The creators of ‘What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far,’ a web site that displays various Obama administration accomplishments, stopped by “The Last Word” to talk about their site on Monday night. The web site, which resembles the format of the 2008 hit site — and later book — ‘Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle,’ was launched last week and has already been viewed by more than four million people, according to Lawrence O’Donnell.

Shavanna Miller, who came up with the idea, says it only took approximately three hours for her and her two friends to put the site together on a Sunday night.

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Read entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

“As we look to India today, the United States sees the opportunity to sell our exports in one of the fastest growing markets in the world. For America, this is a jobs strategy,” the president said in a speech to the U.S.-India Business Council. The remarks also were aimed at U.S. voters who punished Democrats in the midterm elections in part over continued high unemployment.

Obama said it should be a “win-win” relationship with India, but in a nod to U.S. sensibilities he also acknowledged concerns in the U.S. about outsourcing.

“There still exists a caricature of India as a land of call centers,” the president said.

He said people in India also are concerned about the impact of U.S. goods coming into their country, but contended that growing trade could only benefit both sides in the long run. He said he sees huge untapped potential in the relationship, noting that India doesn’t even rank among America’s top 10 trading partners.

“There is no reason this nation can’t be one of our top trading partners,” the president said.

To that end he said the U.S. would seek to reform export controls that resulted from past administrations’ concerns about India’s nuclear industry. The changes, which have been much sought-after in the business community, include relaxing controls on India’s purchase of so-called “dual use” technologies that could be used for civilian or military purposes, and removing a few of the last remaining Indian companies on a so-called “entities list” of groups that face restrictions on doing business in the U.S.

The commercial deals he announced include the purchase of 33 737s from Boeing by India’s SpiceJet Airlines; the Indian military’s plans to buy aircraft engines from General Electric; and preliminary agreement between Boeing and the Indian Air Force on the purchase of 10 C17s.
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For the most part, the deals were already pending, but the White House contends Obama’s visit to India helped finalize them. Officials said the deals would support 53,670 U.S. jobs, but it was not clear how many, if any, new jobs would be created as a result.

Obama addressed the business leaders shortly after arriving in Mumbai, where his first stop was at the Taj Mahal hotel to commemorate the 2008 terror attacks that killed 166 people across the city. The president said he intended to send a signal by making Mumbai the first stop of the trip and by staying at the Taj, which was a target during the terror siege.

“The United States and India stand united,” he said.

“We’ll never forget.

But illustrating the difficulties of the U.S.-India relationship, Indian commentators quickly seized on the president’s failure to mention Pakistan. Pakistan was the home of the 10 assailants, the place where they trained and the base they used to launch the attack.

Pakistan is also India’s archrival – but a linchpin for Washington and its allies in the war in Afghanistan.

After his remarks on the terror attacks, Obama visited a museum in a home where Mohandas Gandhi once lived.

The president is aware of sometimes being perceived as antibusiness in corporate America, and said after the elections that he wanted to change that perception. Much of Obama’s day Saturday appeared geared toward that goal.

Before speaking to business leaders, he met separately with some of them, letting reporters look on as he tied his mission to U.S. job creation and proclaimed the importance of working with fast-growing economies.

The White House also arranged for four American chief executives who are in India for the occasion to brief reporters traveling with the president. They talked up the importance of India as a trading partner and praised Obama’s decision to come to the country to underscore that point in person.

Obama was spending three days in India, his longest stretch yet in one country, a point U.S. officials have been careful to emphasize as they play up the administration’s interest in nurturing the relationship. On Sunday he heads to New Delhi, the capital, where he will address the parliament.

After India, Obama is scheduled to travel to Indonesia, where he lived for four years as a youth. From there he goes to South Korea for a meeting of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations and then to Japan for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, before returning to Washington on Nov. 14, a day before the start of Congress’ lame-duck session.

Nobody protests louder than the hypocrite.

Second however, in vocal decibel level, has to be the man that’s been lied on.

Only short of having someone tell an inconvenient truth, the most enraging thing in the world is having someone tell outright, blatant lies, especially when they know the truth and are telling those lies deliberately.

So far, President Obama’s been cool. He’s had to. The minute he loses his temper, he’s Tupac.

Still, I can’t imagine that it’s been easy for him to sit around and listen to what’s being said about him—particularly the lies—and not feel like spitting at least a few bars of Against All Odds.

Timothy Egan wrote an absolutely brilliant piece called “How Obama Saved Capitalism and Lost the Midterms” and in it, he makes the following points:

• Since Obama’s election, the stock market’s Big Board is up 77% while the NASDAQ is up 48%.
• By saving America’s auto industry with the 86 billion dollar bailout, Obama also saved 1 million jobs with new plants scheduled to open.
• Interest rates are at record lows, corporate profits are sky high and even the 700 billion dollar bank bailout looks to be a success as the government now expects a complete return in it’s investment.

These, and I haven’t even mentioned my two favorite Obama accomplishments as President: he passed his health care initiative (as promised) and he ended the war in Iraq (as promised).

One of my favorite scenes in the 1978 miniseries King was rumored to be based on a real incident when Paul Winfield, as Dr. King, finally lost it and tried to step to some dude before being pulled away by some of his aids.

Everybody knows what happened to the moneychangers that day when they ran into Jesus at the temple.

Even Gandhi argued; “It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.”

For my money, the only “fair” criticism that can be leveled at the Obama administration is that during his time as president, unemployment has grown from 7.6% to 9.6%.

Every other criticism is an outright lie.

And I’m just hoping that my true mother(friends) know, this be the realist (stuff) I ever wrote.

“I think that’s a fair argument. I think that, over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that, we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation. That it’s a matter of persuading people. And giving them confidence and bringing them together. And setting a tone,” Mr. Obama told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft in an exclusive interview set to air Sunday. (See clip below)

VIDEO:

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At his post-election news conference on Wednesday, Obama offered more lip service to the notion of compromise. But the fact remains that the next Congress looks to be hopelessly gridlocked. The opposition party is more radicalized than ever. And the only thing the resurgent GOP seems prepared to even discuss with Obama is cutting taxes.

So the big question will be what lesson Obama takes from Tuesday’s election results. If he and his advisors are finally ready to acknowledge that the source of voter unhappiness was government ineffectiveness — rather than government overreach, or a general economic malaise — then there’s plenty of room for him to maneuver on his own.

Indeed, progressives are urging him to seize the opportunity to take a more muscular approach with his executive powers, starting by getting much tougher on banks. They also hope Obama will use his regulatory authority, his enforcement powers, and his prerogatives as commander in chief to make decisive moves that can’t be sabotaged by Congressional Republicans.

Read entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

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But the widespread speculation that what Obama needs to do now is simply “pull a Clinton”—replicating Bill Clinton’s comeback after being trounced by Newt Gingrich in 1994—grossly underestimates the challenge that Obama faces, even if he chooses to draw on a Clinton example he once disdained.

Clinton’s revival was hardly an easy process. It was a searing experience for him and his inner circle at both the personal and political levels. It came only after a stark—and intensely humbling—effort by Clinton to overhaul his White House team, recalibrate his ideological ambitions, and rethink his basic assumptions of how to be an effective president.

And even then the outcome was a tenuous thing. Clinton caught a series of lucky breaks from events and from his own enemies. And the comeback only won him 49 percent of the vote: The man widely regarded as one of the most talented Democratic politicians of modern history never command.

Read entire article at Politico.com

“I think it makes sense for us to extend unemployment insurance because there’s still a lot of folks out there hurting,” Obama said during a press conference following a Democratic wipeout in the midterm elections on Tuesday.

Federally-funded extended benefits, which in some states give the unemployed 73 weeks of aid on top of the 26 weeks traditionally provided by state governments, will expire at the end of November if Congress takes no action. That means the House and Senate will have less than two weeks from when they reconvene on Nov. 15 to reach an agreement that took nearly two months this summer.

Obama said extending the benefits would be among the things “that we can do right now that will help sustain the recovery and advance it, even as we’re sitting down and figuring out, okay, over the next several years, what kind of a budget cut can we make that are intelligent, smart, and won’t be undermining our recovery and won’t be encouraging job growth.”

Congressional Republicans stood in near-unanimous opposition to reauthorizing the jobless aid this summer, citing the deficit impact of the benefits. Congress routinely provides the long-term unemployed with extra weeks of unemployment insurance during times of recession and usually the deficit impact of the spending is not offset with spending cuts as Republicans have demanded this year.

Read entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

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