Obama Team Takes Almost 3 Months to Contain Oil Spill

The BP oil leak could be completely contained as early as Monday if a new, tighter cap can be fitted over the blown-out well, the government official in charge of the crisis said Friday in some of the most encouraging news to come out of the Gulf in the 2½ months since the disaster struck.

If the project planned to begin this weekend is successful, it would simply mean no more oil would escape to foul the Gulf of Mexico. The well would still be busted and leaking — workers would just funnel what comes out of it to tankers at the surface. The hope for a permanent solution remains with two relief wells intended to plug it completely far beneath the seafloor.

"I use the word 'contained,'" said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen. "'Stop' is when we put the plug in down below."

Crews using remote-controlled submarines plan to swap out the cap over the weekend, taking advantage of a window of good weather following weeks of delays caused by choppy seas.

The cap now in use was installed June 4 to capture oil gushing from the bottom of sea, but because it had to be fitted over a jagged cut in the well pipe, it allows some crude to escape into the Gulf. The new cap — dubbed "Top Hat Number 10" — is designed to fit more snugly and help BP catch all the oil. - FOX News Story

Every one was all over George Bush for taking so long with Katrina. WOW!!!! What if Obama had been in Charge. We might still be waiting for help to reach some victims.

Obama Administration Deeply involved in Black Panther Case?

The White House is "thumbing its nose" at one of the most fundamental American rights by not investigating allegations that the Justice Department wrongly abandoned a 2008 voter intimidation case, former Bush adviser Karl Rove charged on Friday.

In an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly on 'America Live,' Rove accused White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs of "not telling the truth" when he said Thursday that he was not looking into allegations that the DOJ wrongly dismissed a case against the New Black Panther Party. He also accused the administration of "thumbing its nose at one of the most essential rights Americans have."

"Of course they're aware of this," Rove said. "I can't imagine that when the attorney general makes such a controversial decision, that they would have not discussed this with the White House."

Former Justice attorney J. Christian Adams testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Tuesday that his former employer not only abandoned the voter intimidation case for racial reasons last year, but had instructed attorneys

in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

Commissioner Ashley Taylor said the bipartisan panel investigating the allegations will send a letter as early as Wednesday calling for the Justice Department to open an investigation into Adams' charge. The letter will go to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who in May told the panel to bring any such claims "to our attention" if there's evidence.

"I think (the testimony) provided the evidence of the policy he said he was unaware of," Taylor said, calling Adams' allegations "serious" and "shocking."

Gibbs, however, appeared to dismiss the New Black Panther case on Thursday, telling a reporter who questioned him on the matter that "I haven't paid any attention to it." - FOX News Story

Black Panther Leader Calls Hype Right Wing Conspiracy

The chairman of the New Black Panther Party, in an interview Friday with Fox News, defended his group amid an uproar over a voter intimidation case dropped by the Obama administration, a move that an ex- Justice Department official alleges was for racial reasons.

Malik Zulu Shabazz distanced himself from the actions of Minister King Samir Shabazz, seen in an amateur video from November 2008 brandished a billy club at a Philadelphia polling station, an incident that led to charges of coercion, threats and intimidation. The Black Panther chairman told Fox News' Megyn Kelly that the actions caught on video "were outside of organizational policy."

"We still do not condone the carrying of nightsticks at polling places and we have been consistent on that since Day One," he said. "Any individual member that violates organizational policy cannot be attributed to the organization any more than any individual member of the Catholic Church, one of their acts can be charged to the Vatican."

Malik Shabazz's comments come after J. Christian Adams, who quit the Justice Department last month over the handling of the case against the Black Panthers and its members, accused his former superiors of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

Adams' allegations have led the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to plan a new round of subpoenas and call for a separate federal probe.

But Shabazz alleged that the story is being "overhyped and overblown" as "part of a right-wing Republican conspiracy to demonize President Obama, his administration, to demonize the New Black Panther Party and blacks in order to drum up white dissatisfied support for the midterm elections." - FOX News Story

American Citizens Donate to Fight Against Government

PHOENIX -- Retirees and other residents from all over the country were among those who donated nearly $500,000 to help Arizona defend its immigration enforcement law, with most chipping in $100 or less, according to an analysis of documents obtained Thusday by The Associated Press.

The donations, 88 percent of which came from through the defense fund's website, surged this week after the federal government sued Tuesday to challenge the law. A document from Gov. Jan Brewer's office showed that 7,008 of the 9,057 online contributions submitted by Thursday morning were made in the days following the government's filing.

Website contributions came from all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and nearly 2,000 came from within Arizona. Donations ranged from $5 to $2,000, with the vast majority between $10 and $100.

The Arizona law includes a requirement that police enforcing another law must investigate the immigration status of people if there is "reasonable suspicion" to believe the people are in the United States illegally. - FOX News Story

Pastor Removed from Leading Prayer for using Jesus?

A North Carolina pastor was relieved of his duties as an honorary chaplain of the state house of representatives after he closed a prayer by invoking the name of Jesus.

“I got fired,” said Ron Baity, pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. He had been invited to lead prayer for an entire week but his tenure was cut short when he refused to remove the name Jesus from his invocation.

Baity’s troubles began during the week of May 31. He said a House clerk asked to see his prayer. The invocation including prayers for our military, state lawmakers and a petition to God asking him to bless North Carolina.”

“When I handed it to the lady, I watched her eyes and they immediately went right to the bottom of the page and the word Jesus,” he told FOX News Radio. “She said ‘We would prefer that you not use the name Jesus. We have some people here that can be offended.’”

When Baity protested, she brought the matter to the attention of House Speaker Joe Hackney – a Democrat. - FOX News Story

I am not a brain surgeon, but if you are having prayer why couldn't you have Jesus? Go ahead and argue the "seperation of church and state"!!!! I'm waiting!!!! They are OK with having prayer!!!!!! Just not Jesus?????

Obama on Defense as Economy Struggles

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – President Barack Obama is trying to assure skeptics that his economic initiatives are working and are business-friendly even though 10 percent of the workforce remains unemployed.

“There are some people who argue that we should abandon these efforts, some people who have made the political calculation that it’s better to obstruct than lend a hand and clean up the mess that we’re in,” Obama said in remarks on the floor of an electric truck manufacturer. “But my answer is that they ought to come here to Kansas City. Come see what’s going on at Smith Electric. I think they’re going to be hard-pressed to tell you that you’re not better off than you would be if we hadn’t made this plan.”

Obama insisted that the way out of the economic slump is to move forward, not backward, even as he took his usual look back at the crisis he inherited when he took office.

“This recession was the culmination of a decade of irresponsibility — a decade that fell like a sledgehammer on middle class families,” Obama said. “And we had to make some difficult decisions at a moment of maximum peril. ... Some of the decisions we made were unpopular.”

Obama, who has traveled to Missouri more than any other swing state, began his visit with a tour of Smith Electric Vehicles, a company that received some $32 million in stimulus funds. The tour was perfunctory, and his speech, had the feel of a sidebar to a main event. The president walked out to the podium without being announced, finding more than a few empty chairs and a surprised audience that belatedly rose to its feet. - Politico Story

White House Hoping America ignores Blagojevich Trial

It's the trial the White House hopes you won’t watch.

The federal corruption saga of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been rattling along during the sweltering Chicago summer, offering a daily dose of low-grade theatrics, low-impact bombshells and low-brow humor.

The top White House officials — President Barack Obama, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett — haven't been too badly bruised so far, by Chicago standards at least, even as federal prosecutors air wiretaps of Blagojevich's ugliest private conversations about them.

But despite the trial's Jerry Springer start, the threat of political damage remains serious for all of them – and another Democrat as well, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). On Wednesday, prosecutors attached Jackson’s name to allegations of a $1 million pay-to-play scheme for Obama's Senate seat – though Jackson has categorically denied any wrongdoing since Blagojevich's December 2008 arrest and he has not been accused of any illegal activity.

Obama — who crusaded against government-by-crony — was dragged into the proceedings last week when a top Chicago labor official testified that Obama tapped him to talk to Blagojevich about the Senate seat.

That testimony – by Tom Balanoff of SEIU Local 1 – is the strongest challenge yet to a White House transition office timeline from December 2008 that lays out the Obama team’s discussions surrounding the efforts to fill the seat.

Balanoff told jurors that he answered Obama's call on the eve of the presidential election and told the soon-to-be president that he would pitch Jarrett to Blagojevich – but that call isn’t mentioned in the transition team report, prepared by then-incoming White House counsel Greg Craig.

Also in December 2008, Obama told reporters that "no representatives of mine" tried to cut a deal with Blagojevich over the Senate seat. - Politico Story

Obama Has no Plan to Save Coast from Oil

Jindal supports a plan to build artificial islands made of tons of rocks and boulders, which he says would slow the flow of oil into the bay, but federal officials have refused the state the necessary permissions to build, and that has triggered an increasingly heated political confrontation.

"We don't have time for meetings, we don't have time for red tape," Jindal has said. "Get in the game to win."

Jindal has used similar highly critical language to poke at the Obama administration for more than a month.

"No is not a plan," the governor said at a press conference today. - ABC News Story

Kagan Confirmation - More No Votes

Today Senator John McCain announced he would vote against Elena Kagan’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. In an op-ed that will appear in tomorrow’s USA Today, McCain bases his decision on the fact that while she was Dean of Harvard law school Kagan temporarily banned military recruiters from using the campus’s career services center. Kagan said she felt the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy that bars openly gay and lesbian service members from serving in the military violated the school’s antidiscrimination policy. Kagan reversed course when the government threatened to pull federal funding from the school.

In the op-ed McCain writes: “I take no issue in terms of her nomination with her opposition to President Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. She is free to have her own opinion. Kagan was not free, however, to ignore the Solomon Amendment's requirement to provide military recruiters equal access because she and many of her colleagues opposed "don't ask, don't tell." In short, she interpreted her duties as dean at Harvard to be consistent with what she wished the law to be, not with the law as written.”

Others voting against Kagan are Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, KY, Senator Johnny Isakson, R-GA, Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, Orrin Hatch, R-UT, Bob Bennett, R-UT, James Inhofe, R-OK, and Jim DeMint, R-SC.

Kagan received 31 “no” votes when she was nominated to be Solicitor General.

All eyes are on Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) who voted against Kagan when he was a Republican and was critical of her recent testimony. - Politico Story

DOJ - "ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims"

In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

J. Christian Adams, testifying Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said that "over and over and over again," the department showed "hostility" toward those cases. He described the Black Panther case as one example of that -- he defended the legitimacy of the suit and said his "blood boiled" when he heard a Justice official claim the case wasn't solid.

"It is false," Adams said of the claim.

"We abetted wrongdoing and abandoned law-abiding citizens," he later testified. - FOX News Story

Governor of Arizona Hits Back at Obama Administration

Accusing Arizona of trying to "second guess" the federal government, the Justice Department on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the state's immigration policy -- claiming the "invalid" law interferes with federal immigration responsibilities and "must be struck down."

The suit names the state of Arizona as well as Gov. Jan Brewer as defendants. In it, the Justice Department claims the federal government has "preeminent authority" on immigration enforcement and that the Arizona law "disrupts" that balance. It urges the U.S. District Court in Arizona to "preliminarily and permanently" prohibit the state from enforcing the law, which is scheduled to go into effect at the end of the month.

"Arizonans are understandably frustrated with illegal immigration, and the federal government has a responsibility to comprehensively address those concerns," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a written statement. "But diverting federal resources away from dangerous aliens such as terrorism suspects and aliens with criminal records will impact the entire country's safety."

Holder also warned of "a patchwork of state laws" that "will only create more problems than it solves."

Brewer responded by accusing the Obama administration of a "massive waste of taxpayer funds."

"It is wrong that our own federal government is suing the people of Arizona for helping to enforce federal immigration law. As a direct result of failed and inconsistent federal enforcement, Arizona is under attack from violent Mexican drug and immigrant smuggling cartels," she said in a written statement. "Now, Arizona is under attack in federal court from President Obama and his Department of Justice."

She went on to point out "the irony" of suing Arizona for its immigration enforcement law but ignoring cities and other local governments whose "patchwork local ‘sanctuary’ policies instruct the police not to cooperate with federal immigration officials." - FOX News Story

Obama Lawsuit Puts Democrats on Defensive

The Obama administration's lawsuit over the stringent Arizona border law might have just made the incline a little steeper for many Western Democrats, providing instant fodder to Republicans who are already optimistic about regaining ground lost over the last two election cycles.

The dust from the Department of Justice lawsuit filed Tuesday is just starting to settle, but the reflexive sense among strategists on both sides is that it will be a net negative for Democrats this fall.

The suit could, of course, help boost turnout among Hispanic voters in key areas across the West. And stridently anti-immigrant rhetoric could turn off independent voters. Yet many foresee a midterm electorate featuring an energized Republican base—for whom the immigration issue has emerged as a priority—prompting moderate white Western voters who are concerned about jobs to decamp to the GOP at least in the short term, political observers said.

“This is a tough issue for Democrats,” said former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, a Democrat who is co-director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies at the University of Denver. “Politically, I just can’t think of any place in the West where this is going to play well.”

"If you look like you're siding with illegal immigration, you're in trouble," said one national Republican strategist, adding that when it comes to the discussion of secured borders, "people think that's what should happen." - Politico Story

Feds File Lawsuit in Arizona

The federal government filed a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at blocking a controversial Arizona law that gives local police and sheriffs the authority to question and arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

The Justice Department lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, argues that the new state law violates the Constitution by usurping federal authority over immigration policy, traditionally the jurisdiction of the federal government.

The long-awaited legal salvo from federal authorities comes about three weeks before the Arizona legislation is set to go into effect, on July 28.

Latino groups have complained bitterly that the legislation will lead to racial profiling — specifically, the detention and arrest of Hispanics who are U.S. citizens or legal residents but who may not be able to quickly prove that to police. Gov. Jan Brewer (R-Ariz.), who signed the measure in April, said the law contains provisions to guard against racial profiling.

President Barack Obama echoed those concerns during a speech he gave on immigration last week.

“States like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands. Given the levels of frustration across the country, this is understandable. But it is also ill conceived,” Obama said. “Laws like Arizona’s put huge pressures on local law enforcement to enforce rules that ultimately are unenforceable...These laws also have the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents, making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound.”

Obama also warned that “a patchwork” of state and local laws on immigration would undermine the “national standard.” - Politico Story

What is this President talking about? Undermine the National Standard? We have a National Standard? I didn't think we had much of anything.

If this President and this Congress would get off their collective money spending ass's and do something, states wouldn't have to take matters into their own hands.

This President decided that we didn't need a border fence. We didn't need extra help on the border. That the border is safe.

Well guess what Mr. President, we need to secure our southern border and we need to do it now.

More Fallout after NASA's Muslim Mission Statement

The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as "deeply flawed" the idea that the space exploration agency's priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month.

"NASA ... represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity," Michael Griffin, who served as NASA administrator during the latter half of the Bush administration, told FoxNews.com.

Bolden created a firestorm after telling Al Jazeera last month that President Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships and "perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering."

Officials from the White House and NASA on Tuesday stood by Bolden's statement that part of his mission is to improve relations with Muslim countries -- though NASA backed off the claim that such international diplomacy is Bolden's "foremost" responsibility.

Griffin said Tuesday that collaboration with other countries, including Muslim nations, is welcome and should be encouraged -- but that it would be a mistake to prioritize that over NASA's "fundamental mission" of space exploration. - FOX News Story

Universitys that Took Stimulus Money find themselves in GOTCHA Moment

The $18.2 billion marked out in last year's federal stimulus package for research and development was hailed as a boon for universities, but many that received funds are finding their share of the costs burdensome.

The conundrum is apparent at the University of California. Since early 2009, the UC, which has the biggest research budget of any university system, has won $690 million in stimulus grants for research through the National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy and other agencies. The money has funded more than 1,600 projects in areas such as cancer and climate change, creating hundreds of jobs and continuing a decade-long trend of rising research funding from federal agencies and private foundations.

But the stimulus grants have also required the UC to spend about $69 million that wasn't reimbursed by federal agencies to support the new research projects. That helped push the UC's total unreimbursed research-related costs to an estimated $800 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, up around 11%from $720 million a year earlier, university

officials said. This came as the public university system grappled with a $1 billion budget shortfall amid reductions in state funding.

"This [stimulus funding for research] is not money that in any way makes up for the loss of state funds. It actually makes our financial problems worse," said Steve Beckwith, UC's vice president for research and graduate studies. In fact, the UC has discussed turning down some of the funds, he said.

The universities were aware of the indirect costs of research—for administrative staff, laboratories and other infrastructure—that they would have to bear when they applied for the stimulus funds. Still, amid diminished state funding and endowments, many universities are seeking a greater level of reimbursement from federal agencies in the future. - FOX News Story

Obama Administration Files Lawsuit against Arizona

The Justice Department could file a lawsuit challenging Arizona's immigration law as early as Tuesday, an official tells Fox News.

The potential court action comes just days after President Obama delivered a speech calling on Congress to tackle a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration system. In the speech, he criticized Arizona's law and warned that national legislation is needed to prevent other states from following suit.

The president did not mention the lawsuit, but one was widely expected. After the administration initially said it would take the law under review, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed last month in an interview with a foreign television network that the administration intended to challenge the Arizona policy. The Justice Department would do so on the grounds that federal responsibility for border enforcement preempts any state law on the issue.

The Arizona law, passed in April and set to go into effect at the end of July, makes illegal immigration a state crime and requires local law enforcement to question anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant on their residency status.

Obama and other top officials have criticized the law as misguided, while Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has slammed the administration for pursuing a lawsuit. She claims the administration has not done enough to secure the border -- a charge the administration denies. - FOX News Story

Imagine that, Obama and his team of Lawyers are going to spend our tax dollars to fight a law that a vast majority of Americans support. He says that we don't get it!!!!! Who truly is out of touch here?

What is the Cost of Illegal Immigrants?

The cost of harboring illegal immigrants in the United States is a staggering $113 billion a year -- an average of $1,117 for every “native-headed” household in America -- according to a study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The study, a copy of which was provided to FoxNews.com, “is the first and most detailed look at the costs of illegal immigration ever done,” says Bob Dane, director of communications at FAIR, a conservative organization that seeks to end almost all immigration to the U.S.

FAIR's opponents in the bitter immigration debate describe the organization as "extremist," though it is regularly called upon to testify before Congress.

Groups that support immigration reform immediately attacked FAIR's report and pointed out that it is the polar opposite of the Perryman Report, a 2008 study paid for by a liberal group now called the American Immigration Council. That study found that illegal immigration was actually a boon to the American economy. It estimated that illegal immigrants add $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product to the economy and account for 2.8 million jobs. - FOX News Story

I haven't read the Perryman Report from 2008, but I will say that it might very well tell a story in its self. 2.8 million jobs. If we took away 2.8 million jobs from illegals, put Legal Americans to work, what would the unemployment look like? How much could we save on unemployment costs? What would the impact be to the economy? hmmmmmmm

Obama's Hope and Change Has Died? More of the Same and Worse

The hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment. Americans are dispirited over how wrong things are and uncertain they can be made right again. Hope may have been a quick breakfast, but it has proved a poor supper. A year and a half ago Obama was walking on water. Today he is barely treading water. Then, his soaring rhetoric enraptured the nation. Today, his speeches cannot lift him past a 45 percent approval rating.

There is a widespread feeling that the government doesn't work, that it is incapable of solving America's problems. Americans are fed up with Washington, fed up with Wall Street, fed up with the necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program, fed up with the misdirected healthcare program, and with pretty much everything else. They are outraged and feel that the system is not a level playing field, but is tilted against them. The millions of unemployed feel abandoned by the president, by the Democratic Congress

, and by the Republicans.

The American people wanted change, and who could blame them? But now there is no change they can believe in. Sixty-two percent believe we are headed in the wrong direction­—a record during this administration. All the polls indicate that anti-Washington, anti-incumbent sentiment is greater than it has been in many years. For the first time, Obama's disapproval rating has topped his approval rating. In a recent CBS News poll, there is a meager 15 percent approval rating for Congress. In all polls, voters who call themselves independents have swung against the administration and against incumbents. - US News

Obama's DOJ Doesn't Prosecute based on Race

A former Justice official who claims the administration backed off a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party for racial reasons is set to testify Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The testimony from J. Christian Adams, who resigned from the Justice Department last month in protest of the administration's handling of the case, comes after he made a series of explosive allegations during an interview with Fox News last week. He said the administration abandoned an open-and-shut case of voter intimidation and that Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez gave false testimony before the commission in May.

Adams claims the administration has failed to prosecute non-whites when it comes to voting intimidation cases and that the New Black Panther incident demonstrates that.

"I don't think the department or the fine people who work there are corrupt, but in this particular instance, to abandon law-abiding citizens and abet wrongdoers constitutes corruption," Adams told Fox News.

The case stems from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the New Black Panther Party were videotaped in front of a polling place, dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick. - FOX News Story

NASA New Mission - Fix Muslim Relations? What?

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview. - FOX News Story

Am I the only one that is trying to figure out what the hell Obama is thinking?

Peggy West Showing the Intelligence of Milwaukee's County Board

MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee County Board spent part of the day debating a measure that would call for the county to boycott doing business with companies in Arizona.

Communities around the nation have passed similar measures in response to a law in Arizona that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

There was an odd moment during the debate when Supervisor Peggy West stood up and seemed to be confused about her geography. "If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border," West said during debate.

Her colleague, Joe Rice, quickly corrected her, "I just want to assure my colleague that Arizona does in fact share a border with the country of Mexico." - TMJ4 News Story

Majority of Americans Continue to Favor Repeal of Health Care Law

Sixty percent (60%) of voters nationwide favor repeal of the recently passed health care law, including 49% who Strongly Favor repeal.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 36% oppose repeal. That figure includes 24% who are Strongly Opposed.

Forty-three percent (43%) believe repeal would be good for the nation’s economy. Twenty-seven percent (27%) believe repeal would be bad for the economy, while 20% say it would have no impact. Political Class voters strongly believe repeal would be bad for the economy, while most Mainstream Americans think repeal would help the economy.

Despite the ongoing support for repeal, just 41% believe the law is even somewhat likely to be repealed. Forty-five percent (45%) say repeal is unlikely. In April, however, 51% considered repeal unlikely.

The current figures show 13% consider repeal Very Likely, while 10% say it is Not at all Likely. In April, those figures were 11% and 18% respectively. - Rasmussen Reports Poll

Obama Has no Commitment to Secure Mexican Border?

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is calling on President Obama to secure the border between Texas and Mexico, following a Tuesday incident where shots in Juarez, Mexico crossed the border into El Paso and struck City Hall. Speaking Sunday on Fox News, Abbott said the U.S. - Mexico border, two-thirds of which lies in Texas, is a “very violent place” and that he’s been “underwhelmed by the show of force” coming from the Obama administration.

Abbott was unimpressed by the President’s immigration speech at American University earlier this week, which called for a full review of illegal immigration, in addition to a review of legal immigration procedures in the United States. In that speech, President Obama said the U.S. "has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship. And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable." The strong rhetoric didn't impress Abbott, who remains “disappointed” in the President, adding Obama “doesn't get” or is “purposefully trying to mislead the American people” when it comes to the gravity of our national security along the border.

Abbott said Obama’s speech makes it “abundantly clear to all Americans that there is not [a] commitment to keep the border secure,” expressing doubt that bipartisan legislation in Congress would even be possible until a serious effort at securing the border is made. The Obama administration is expected to have 1,200 National Guard troops in place along the U.S.- Mexico border by the end of next month. - FOX News Story

Obama and Democrats Have Taken Their Best Shot at Leading, and Failing

President Barack Obama and the Democrats head into the summer campaign season with the economy slowing, unemployment flirting with double-digits — and few options for a quick fix.

Obama’s economic stimulus plan is winding down, right when Democrats need it most. And a big new jobs bill?

Forget it. House Democrats had to battle this week just to pass a bill to prevent teachers from being laid off, over the objections of 15 mostly conservative House Democrats and even Obama, who threatened a veto over how the House planned to pay for it.

The spending was so sensitive that the White House pleaded for the funding privately and through surrogates — and even ultimately in a public letter — but refused to make an official budget request, infuriating some in House leadership.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi even enlisted Mark Zandi — a former economic adviser to Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign — to make the case to her caucus for more spending. Zandi’s warning Tuesday: boost aid to the states or risk a “double-dip” recession — which House Democrats clearly understood could cross-check their chances of retaining the majority in November. - Politico Story

As Obama's Spending Has Failed to Help - Blames GOP says they "just don't get it"

In his weekly radio address, President Barack Obama slammed Republican opposition to Senate Democrats’ efforts to pass a jobs bill that would extend unemployment benefits and send billions to states in fiscal relief.

“Republican leaders in Washington just don’t get it,” Obama said Saturday morning. “While a majority of Senators support taking these steps to help the American people, some are playing the same old Washington games and using their power to hold this relief hostage — a move that only ends up holding back our recovery. It doesn’t make sense.”

The president also spoke about a troubling June jobs report that showed losses after what had been four straight months of modest job creation. Despite signs that the economic recovery is slowing, Obama struck a positive note, pointing to six months of private-sector job creation after 22 months of losses. - Politico Story