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“In what is becoming a Father's Day ritual for the Obama administration, the president on Monday will bring together children, famous dads and nonprofit groups that promote fatherhood to highlight the importance of fathers,” the Washington Post says. “The center of President Obama's day-long celebration will be a speech at the ARC, an arts and recreation campus in Southeast Washington, where he is set to announce the creation of the President's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative. It will build on a theme that has been central to his family policy and a core part of the White House's Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.”
The president’s speech is at 10:15 am ET.
Trouble for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar? The Sunday New York Times: “Mr. Salazar’s job is not in immediate jeopardy, and the president values the work he has done and will continue to do at the Interior Department, said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. But a senior administration official, who spoke of a delicate personnel matter only on the condition of anonymity said, ‘The president and the White House are watching very, very closely the pace of reform at Interior to see that progress is being made that truly cleans it up.’”
The Washington Post front-pages how BP is beefing up its lobbying team. “BP … has assembled a formidable team of Democrats for its Washington lobbying and public-relations offensive. There is Tony Podesta, who heads one of the District's leading lobbying firms; Jamie Gorelick, a top Justice Department official in the Clinton administration now at the law firm WilmerHale; Hilary Rosen, a former recording-industry lobbyist who heads the Washington office of the Brunswick Group, a public-relations consultancy; and Michael S. Berman of the Duberstein Group.”
More: “But BP has not ignored the GOP, which has been a crucial ally on Capitol Hill in tamping down calls from liberal Democrats to permanently ban drilling or lift liability limits for the company. The London-based energy conglomerate recently hired Anne Womack-Kolton, who was a press secretary for former vice president Richard B. Cheney, to head its U.S. public-relations shop. And Brunswick has contracted GOP consultants Alex Castellanos and John Feehery to work on behalf of BP.”
The New York Times: “Bowing to worldwide pressure and condemnation, Israel on Sunday formally announced an eased blockade of Gaza that could significantly expand the flow of goods overland into the impoverished coastal Palestinian enclave, isolated by the Israelis for three years. The announcement, made by the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, came three weeks after a deadly Israeli naval commando raid that thwarted a breach of the blockade by a flotilla of pro-Palestinian aid activists. That raid outraged much of the world and became a catalyst for a serious re-examination by Israel of its policy toward Gaza, which is governed by the militant anti-Israeli group Hamas and is home to 1.5 million Palestinians.”
Obama is set to meet at the White House with Netanyahu on July 6.
The AP: “Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday that President Obama could end up vetoing legislation that would lift the ban on gays serving openly in the military -- if the bill also contains money for defense projects he says are wasteful.”
“The Obama administration reaffirmed yesterday that it will begin pulling US troops out of Afghanistan next summer, despite reservations among top generals that absolute deadlines are a mistake,” AP reports.
“President Barack Obama hit the golf course Saturday with Vice President Joe Biden,” The Hill notes.
RNC Chair Michael Steele “criticized Obama for his activities this weekend, which included a trip to a Washington Nationals game on Friday versus his hometown Chicago White Sox, and a round of golf on Saturday. ‘While it is fitting and appropriate to look at the yachting activities of the BP CEO, with incredulity, it is equally incredible that President Obama finds himself on yet another golf course as oil continues to spew into the Gulf,’ Steele said in a statement. ‘Until this problem is fixed, no more golf outings, no more baseball games, no more Beatle concerts, Mr. President. The stakes are too high for President Obama's lackadaisical approach to both his responsibilities and the challenges we face.’”
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I got a kick out of Michael Steele criticizing the President for playing golf and watching a baseball game. Perhaps he is just upset that the President did not hang out in the lesbian strip club that Steele is so fond of.
Yeah, BP needs to beef up their lobbying efforts on both sides of the aisle. So, where are all the GOBP sympathizers now that are up in arms about the President "extorting" $20,000,000,000 out of BP? Do you still want to spout your nonsense about how BP promised to pay all costs and that we should take them at their word and leave them alone? What do they need all those lobbyists for is they are the great philanthropists you are all making them out to be? Yeah, they are going to hire all those lobbyists and spend all those millions more because they want to make sure government is aware of how much they care and are going to do to help the gulf areas so drastically affected by their negligence.
I wish all big corporations were as magnanimous as BP.
Wait a Minite Mr Steel,
I remember very clearly that when thousand of elderly were dying after kartina because of thirst and hunger, the former president Bush was at the WhiteHouse eating cake with John McCain for his birthday. Now i don't know what Steel wanted him to do, but come on it was fathers day and I'm sure his daughters and wife had something planned for him. Mr. Steele when have you made your way to the gulf, just because your not holding elected political office does not mean you don't do things like GO TO THE GULF TO SEE FOR YOUR SELF what happening so you will know everything. as the head of the Republicans party and all the crap talking they have been doing, you should go see your guys, Governors of Mississippi, Lousiana ,Alabama, Florida all republicans, but No what do you do, once again you make a fool of your self, i have said it before and i will say it again micheal Steele you are a dumb a@s
There's a difference between exercise and recreation. We all need to exercise more and I appreciate the fact that our President exercises regularly. He is setting a good example. For Mr. Steele to try to ridicule the President for exercising is just political opportunism in my opinion. For the amount of stress that the President has to deal with every day, I am glad to see him get outside. Plus, the VP was with him...with their time schedule, I'm certain that they weren't just having "small talk". Move on, Mr. Steele.
Ken Salazar had better get his act together and clean up his Interior Department and especially Minerals MisManagement Services. He moved too slowly because he's an old oil man and we know we can't trust oil men, Corrupt Oil Men Bush and Cheney taught us that lesson the hard way as their lessening of regulations and oversight helped cause theis massive Gulf oil spill.
Wailing Old Woeman Michelle Steele and the repugnant ones need to get over telling President Obama when he can or can't take a few days off, they sure as heck never dissed Vacation Boy George Wrong Bush for setting the record for vacation days taken by a president in an 8 year term. They even whine when Barack plays the white man game of golf. Sorry but President Obama isn't a slave who is supposed to work 24/7 and when he's not working has to go to church to mollify the morons at Fox and Freaks.
I don't think it's old men so much, Eric, as it is old ideas that are beholden to the oil industry. We should have demanded more visionary leadership from our visionary president. At the moment, however, I'd just settle for the vision. But you're right that republicans never cared about the days that George W. Bush took off. Democrats did that. Some things never seem to change.
"Drill, baby, drill! And drill now!" Steele memorably chanted at the Republican National Convention in 2008.
Is he serious? This guy's criticizing the President for not being more on top of the situation in the Gulf? Does he not get the built-in irony of this?
I personally consider Michael Steele to be useless. All he is capable of is criticizing the President and defending members of the GOP when they are caught with their pants down. I cannot understand how he can defend the Limbaugh's, Hannity's and others that are caught up in the dark ages and wanting to keep their feet on the necks of Americans so that the big corporations and oil companys can continue to get richer and the poor and middle class fall farther behind. I am sorry but I don't have any patience for people that have no concern for others. All they care about is keeping taxes low and drill baby drill so that they can keep their bank accounts full.
Some day they will know the real meaning of "the first shall be last and the last shall be first".
I have so much admiration for the President and how he and his family show all of us what "real family" looks like and should be.
The picture says it all.
Michael Steele has a lot of nerves to think the President is not suppose to be able to enjoy Father's Day weekend. And where have all the republican's dad and what were they doing besides stroking their ego. The republicans in Oklahoma haven't signed the extension for the Unemployment benefits just so their families could be able to enjoy themselves. I don't know about the other states, this proves the senators in Oklahoma don't care about the jobless fathers who depend on these benefits to pay bills and take care of their families. And about the oil spill, it was the republican who felt sorry for them and apologize for the way they have been treated; not to mention the other republicans wanted to bail BP out. The republicans know that BP contributes alot of money to their party, and they don't want to mess that up at all. It is remarkable how quite they are being during this oil spill, wonder why? And why isn't Steele and other republicans doing anything to help with this oil spill. Where is drill, baby, drill Sarah Palin hiding at? Michael Steele needs to be quite; if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all. President Obama is doing a great job, with everything going on; he still put his family first. I salute him for being a great father, and there are so many children's dad that don't give 2 hoots about them.
If there was no money, and we did not charge each other to live, there would be no problem with fathers missing from homes or kids growing up with no parents. Why? Because the majority of them leave because THEY CAN'T AFFORD TO RAISE THEM after they have them. If we didn't charge each other to live as HUMANS and charge PARENTS for having KIDS or making it so EXPENSIVE to have KIDS, then there would be NO PROBLEMS WITH HAVING THEM and you would watch as these PROBLEMS GO AWAY IMMEDIATELY. How do I know this? Because my father left when I was 5 for these exact reasons and while growing up I was very resentful towards him for it, I now understand very well WHY HE DID IT.
So what does this society do? Instead of helping these fathers and mothers that can't affords them, the court system and law makers fine and imprison them, making it even harder on the child and remaining parent. Or they turn to a life of crime to pay for child support. And still the government, law makers and courts profit via fines and prison terms. So instead of what you suggest, why not MAKE IT A FREE EXISTENCE SO THESE PROBLEMS GO AWAY ONCE AND FOR ALL!! Your band-aid solutions of providing "programs designed to improve job training, prevent domestic violence, and help struggling fathers make child support payments" will NOT WORK. They have NEVER worked and will just cause more problems when the fathers and mothers do not attend and get slapped with a prison term of fines, which is ALWAYS the END RESULT of your "band-aid" solutions!!
The ONLY TRUE SOLUTION that will WORK COMPLETELY is eliminating money and need to charge each other to live. Make human rights the number one priority and make this existence a free one. Let us each work 2 hours a day to make one good product we can all share and make it free to live. Eliminate the need to profit and compete with each other. Eliminate the need to waste our existence making, spending, chasing after and protecting money so we can live. There would be no reason for wars, murders, crime, child abuse, child labor, etc. PERIOD.
Yeah I know. I am repeating myself. Same thing over and over every day. But this is the ONLY solution that will SOLVE these problems completely and FOREVER. This is the only solution that will eliminate EVERY PROBLEM THAT WE FACE AS A CIVILIZATION!! So why should I try to re-word the SAME SOLUTION? Or should I just go back to my daily grind of trying to make enough money to SURVIVE and just forget about trying to solve the WORLDS PROBLEMS? Because it seems that our SOCIETY (or at least those that control our fate in it) don't want these problems to go away. They don't want a true solution to all of these problems. They want to continue profiting from our misery, and confronted with loosing their profits and control over our society, would rather see you all suffer through this misery that we call a CIVILIZATION BASED ON PROFIT AND GREED, then fix it.
If there was no money, and we did not charge each other to live, there would be no need for\reason to have an abortion. If the child was given a free existence and nurtured from birth to death, by the society it is spit into to, then the burden of having a child and paying for it to be able to live would be removed. Removing most of the reasons why women have abortions-->because they can't afford to have\take care of the child.
If there was no money, and we did not charge each other to live, we would have no need for courts, police, lawyers and insurance companies, banks, stock markets....no one suing anyone for anything..if everything is free....no egos...no one living any better then anyone else...
If there was no money, and we did not charge each other to live, there would be no rape.. How would rape be eliminated by eliminating money?
Without having the burden of teaching your children how to make, spend, protect and eventually die for, money, we are freed to teach them how to live...you don't want your children raping each other, yet you teach them to do so when it comes to money....profiting from another human being is basically killing them. When you profit (make money) from another human being, that money, which they need to live on, is taken away. So in theory, you are killing them by profiting from them. You remove their ability to continue their life after the money runs out...so you make a dollar, they loose a dollar...if they needed that dollar to live that extra day (15 minutes, whatever), you have taken it away...we profit from each other to kill each other....society\life takes away a human beings life by charging them for it...and slowly killing them by doing so..
This is what you teach your children to do...profit...compete...survival of the fittest...get what's theirs...so why would they not rape each other any other way...you tell them to share in the sandbox, then you put guns in their hands and tell them to go fight for you...for your country...so their confusion about the hypocrisy that is being fed to them, creates the avenue for their corruption...and in some cases, the non-caring it takes to rape another human being...or kill another human being...
yes, rape, as well as every other problem we face as a race, would be eliminated, if for no other reason then the fact that we would have enough time to nurture the child from birth to death....with a free existence and eliminate any reason for that child to be raped or to rape...to commit a crime...to kill...to take advantage of anyone....the teaching would be based on mutual respect for every other human being (the evolved race we should already be) ....not the best way to profit from another human being (what we are now..and have been for a long time).
This is what Dr.Martin Luther King fought for and died for....Listen to his speeches and you will hear it...this is what he would have eventually come up with...eliminating money as the root cause of every problem...instead he was murdered because he was targeting the ones that enslave us and control our fate...the humans that teach your children that money is more important then human life...and with his death, went any hope for a true evolution to a higher level of being that does not require a child to be branded with price tag...and our existence wasted on chasing green paper to our graves...because remember, we chase that green paper into the grave and then it jumps out of the grave, looks down at us and laughs while they shovel dirt over our bodies...and sits there and waits...for the next soul to enslave...
Double Standard!
The CEO of BP is attacked by our media for (STUPIDLY) going yachting during this crisis, but no one seems to care that Presidet Obama is playing golf and attending baseball games. In the 3 weeks since Mr. Obama told us that HE was in charge, what EXACTLY has changed? NOTHING! Obama fiddles while the Gulf burns!
Are we better-off today than 4 years ago? Not hardly!!
Rick-868962
MAN your on some of the same drugs former president Bush was on, only a crack head would say that we are not better off than 4 years ago,
4 years ago we were loosing men and women in iraq, because GWB invaded all over OIL.
Preach, Brotha Jeff!! Preach!!!
What I find extremely laughable is the fact that the Son of Fiddler (See Roots for comparison), "Step-N-Fetch It" Michael Steele has the mitigated gall to criticize President Obama on Father's Day IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! As an African American married father, I am extremely proud to see that he takes time for his children, that he and Michelle MAKE the time to be involved in their daughters lives DESPITE the full plate of Shi'ite that the Bush Administration had left for him to clean up. That shows the true measure of a man, and his one example puts to shame ALL of the "Family Values" that the Republican claim to extol to the rest of the nation, and would be HIGHLY ADVISED to look NO FURTHER for a better example of the word "FAMILY" than the Obamas'.
Even though I support President Obama, my ONLY criticism on this matter is that he goes to the inner cities of this nation and have a heart to heart talk with the people in them, and uplift black fathers that doing what they need to for their children. This is NOT to say that parents don't have a responsibility to raise their children; on the contrary, we do; but to see a figure holding a position of authority like BarrackObama, would help AID parents in telling African American children that there is NOTHING wrong in living your life as honorably as you can, that it's O.K to study hard and achieve all that the world has to offer and that you don't have to settle for being just a rapper, actor or sports athlete on the extravagant end, or a junkie/drug dealer, gang banger, "dead beat daddy" (There are some dead beat mommas out there, too.), coming up in the criminal system, or winding up in some funeral parlor on the worst end (I know I'm going to get some heat off of this post, but it must be said.). Whimsical, just a tad, but let's see what happens.
What I find extremely even MORE hypocritical is the fact that when Bush was in office, he took WAY MORE vacations than "THIS ONE", even during the times when this nation was in crisis, from 9/11 to Katrina, two of the worst tragedies in American History, and DID NOTHING!!! Obama has to deal with an environmental disaster that has wide spread economic consequences, and he's been back and forth to the Gulf States MORE TIMES than I can shake a stick at, so for the GOBP to say that the President doesn't care, for them to complain about the response, for them to be shocked at the size of the spill BUT still want to continue drilling off shore AS WELL as do on shore drilling ON TOP of a Republican Congressman APOLOGIZING for the BP's CEO treatment at the White House, is akin to the rape victim pleading not to be raped but yet wants the rapist's baby. The de-regulation of Wall Street and EPA happened while the Republicans held control of Washington, D.C, and what happened with coal and gas mines, oil rigs, and the subsequent crash of the nations' financial system, is a direct consequence of their incompetence.
Since word got out that President Obama is going to launch a lawsuit against the State of Arizona for their Anti-Immigration Law last friday, First Read was abuzz with comments about it. Those, like myself and a few others, have listed reasons upon reasons why this law is bad business for the nation as a whole; likewise, there were some toxic comments from Consevative Bloggers on here that were IN FAVOR of it. Only time will tell if we, as Americans, can survive this debacle.
A little over 3 months after the historic vote on Health Care Reform, it looks like people are starting to come around. Likewise, although we have a long way to go, unemployment numbers are starting to decrease, along with some upticks in the Wall Street Markets, cuffing and toe tagging TWO Al-Qeada Honchos, shows that President Obama's Policies are working, and the Republicans and Tea Party Movement are coming up with so many gaffes that, and I can't believe I'm saying this, Dan Quayle is starting to look like he has a Ph.D. Why the Democrats aren't seizing at the oportunity especially during this upcoming and highly contentious Mid-Term election is beyond me. If you are waiting for permission to go for the kill, then consider this as your "marching orders".
NOW IS THE TIME TO GO ON THE WARPATH!!!
I'd also like to thank those that have responded and added me to their friends list over the weekend, and although be-lated, Happy Father's Day to ALL FATHERS!!!