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