Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

Obama warned BP officials Friday against “nickel-and-diming” the economic victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill even as the company spends billions of dollars to pay out dividends and millions for an ad campaign to burnish its image.








Barack Obama – United States – President – Oil spill – Gulf of Mexico

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) said Thursday that President Obama assured her that he would send White House staff members to her state to talk with officials about efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.








Barack Obama – United States – Immigration – Law – President

The Obama administration is hosting a high-level dialogue this week with India, part of an ongoing effort to convince the South Asian behemoth that Washington cares about more than counterterrorism in the region and supports India’s claim to global power.








India – United States – Barack Obama – President – Government

Three months ago, Jan Brewer was hardly known outside her home state of Arizona. Today, the Republican governor who signed the controversial immigration law will sit in the Oval Office across from President Obama.








Oval Office – Barack Obama – President – United States – History

President Obama tried Wednesday to channel public outrage about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill into support for a climate-change bill, seeking to redefine an issue that threatens to tarnish his presidency.











Oil spill – Barack Obama – Environment – Energy – United States

President Obama vowed a “full and vigorous accounting” of the causes of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, telling the leaders of a new commission that they should pursue the trail of blame without limits.








Barack Obama – Oil spill – President – Environment – United States

President Obama vowed a “full and vigorous accounting” of the causes of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, telling the leaders of a new commission that they should pursue the trail of blame without limits.








Barack Obama – Oil spill – President – Environment – United States

Struggling to convey command of the worsening Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Obama administration is taking steps to distance itself from BP and is dispatching Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to the Gulf Coast to meet with federal and state prosecutors. The Holder trip could signal that the en…








Oil spill – Barack Obama – United States – Environment – Energy

President Obama plans to use 1,500 pages of often arcane new financial regulations governing a highly complex industry in a populist Main Street message that could help boost his party’s political fortunes in November.








Barack Obama – President – United States – Government – Elections

YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO — Call it the new message discipline.

Remember when Barack Obama vowed to voters in the industrial Midwest that he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to make it more advantageous to U.S. workers? His promise, made to appeal to Democratic primary voters in his battle with Hillary Clinton, set off alarm bells amo…

The spreading environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to become a crisis of public confidence for President Obama, who stepped forward Friday to declare that “the system failed, and it failed badly,” and included the federal government among those who “share that responsibility.”








President of the United States – Barack Obama – Oil spill – Environment – Petroleum in the Environment

The Obama administration said Tuesday it would provide more information to Congress about the Fort Hood shootings but continued to defy a subpoena request for witness statements and other documents.

About two-thirds of Americans support stricter regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct their business, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

President Obama is declaring his stake in the November midterm elections, as his Democratic Party prepares to announce an ambitious strategy to appeal to independent voters in its quest to maintain control of Congress.

President Obama will declare his stake in the November midterm elections for the first time on Monday as his Democratic Party announces an ambitious strategy to appeal to independent voters in its quest to maintain control of Congress.

BECKLEY, W.VA. — President Obama eulogized the 29 miners who died in an explosion here this month, joining a community in mourning to say goodbye, to urge families to remember those who were lost, and to carry on.

BECKLEY, W.VA. — Coal has helped divide Barack Obama from the people of this heavily Democratic state. On Sunday, it will bring the president and West Virginians together, at least briefly.

NEW YORK — President Obama’s assertive stride into the debate on financial regulatory reform stands in marked contrast to the messy health-care battle that consumed most of the past year. It also represents a crucial part of a political strategy that — at least so far — appears to be moving a …

NASA’s administrator faced sharp and often hostile criticism and questioning from Republican senators Thursday as he defended President Obama’s plan to dramatically change the agency’s human space exploration program.

President Obama forcefully stated his desire to nominate a Supreme Court candidate who supports abortion rights, saying Wednesday that it is “very important” to have a justice who interprets the Constitution as protecting individual rights, including women’s.

A spending plan drafted by the Senate Budget Committee chairman would reduce deficits by slashing spending on programs unrelated to national security and forcing lawmakers to pay for popular tax policies, including provisions that protect middle-class families from the bite of the alternative…

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) issued the first congressional subpoenas of the Obama administration Monday after accusing the White House of stonewalling their requests for information about the Fort Hood shootings.

Senate Republicans will have a chance this week to directly confront President Obama on his vision for reshaping the nation’s courts.

CHARLOTTE — Even by President Obama’s loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.

CHARLOTTE — Welcoming news of a burst in March of job creation, President Obama said Friday that the country has turned a corner, and he expressed new optimism that his economic policies have taken hold.

President Obama’s decision, announced Wednesday, to approve new oil and gas drilling off U.S. coasts for the first time in decades reflects a high-stakes calculation by the White House: Splitting the difference on the most contentious energy issues could help secure a bipartisan climate deal this…

SAVANNAH, GA. — President Obama detailed Tuesday his plan to offer government rebates for home retrofitting, saying the measure would both create jobs and save energy.

President Obama signaled Tuesday that he will embrace four Republican ideas on health care, including a greater investment in medical malpractice tort reform, as he begins what an aide agreed was the “final act” in the administration’s effort to overhaul the health-care system.

The No. 2 official on the Federal Reserve Board said Monday that he will retire, opening a third seat on what may be the world’s most powerful economic body and giving President Obama a historic opportunity to reshape the central bank.

SAVANNAH, GA. — To hear President Obama tell it, his plans for reshaping the nation’s economy are aimed at helping people like Ray Gaster, whose small chain of lumberyards here has been walloped by the recession.

Raising the prospect of a “simple up-or-down vote” on health-care reform, White House adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle said on Sunday she thinks Democrats will secure enough ayes on the measure and signaled that the administration could be moving toward trying to pass it along party lines.

Declaring that it is “time for us to act” on health-care reform, President Obama said Saturday that he is willing to compromise with Republicans to strike a deal — but signaled again that he will support Democratic efforts to move forward on their own if necessary.

President Obama on Friday appointed the remaining members of a bipartisan commission tasked with reining in the nation’s soaring debt, choosing a Republican businessman, a union chief, a longtime Democratic budget guru and the former president of advertising giant Young and Rubicam Brands.

President Obama declared Thursday that the time for debate over health-care reform has come to an end, closing an unusual seven-hour summit with congressional leaders by sending a clear message that Democrats will move forward to pass major legislation with or without Republican support.

President Obama lamented the “erosion of civility” in the nation’s political debate, telling an audience Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast that there is a growing sense that “something is broken” in Washington.

President Obama will appoint a commission to tackle the nation’s budget problems with or without the cooperation of Republican congressional leaders, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday.

The Obama administration’s compensation czar said Wednesday that he will continue pushing for reductions to the hefty bonus payments being handed out by American International Group but acknowledged that he is constrained by guarantees the company made to employees years ago.

The Obama administration is aggressively pushing back against Republican criticism of its handling of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, sharpening a partisan debate about national security policy, which is likely to be a major issue throughout the midterm election year.

President Obama urged congressional Democrats on Wednesday “to finish the job on health care,” but amid tentative signs of bipartisan outreach on Capitol Hill, he suggested that Republicans could be enlisted to play at least some role in negotiating a final bill.

President Obama criticized senators Wednesday for using a legislative tactic he once practiced himself, saying that Republicans were delaying confirmation votes on several of his nominees for reasons unrelated to their qualifications.

NASHUA, N.H. — President Obama’s 165th flight on Air Force One required all the customary protocols of a presidential trip. He took a helicopter from the White House lawn to Andrews Air Force Base, where seven military officers waited at full attention. He entered his plane through a door decorated…

NASHUA, N.H. — President Obama’s 165th flight on Air Force One required all the customary protocols of a presidential trip. He took a helicopter from the White House lawn to Andrews Air Force Base, where seven military officers waited at full attention. He entered his plane through a door decorated…

President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget blueprint calls for an increase in funding of more than 13 percent for the agency that oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, a greater percentage increase than for any other government agency.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s stepped up demand for tougher restrictions and new taxes on big banks is complicating Senate efforts to write a bipartisan financial regulation overhaul, even drawing a sharp rebuke from a top presidential ally in the Senate.

The Obama administration Monday delivered to Congress the nation’s first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review , defining homeland security for the first time as including hazards beyond terrorism, in a strategic document intended to drive long-term budget decisions.

As President Obama announced his $3.8 trillion spending plan on Monday, Republicans savaged it as a recipe for fiscal disaster, while Democrats defended the call to drive record deficits even higher to finance measures aimed at putting people back to work.

The Obama administration is killing Constellation, NASA’s ambitious back-to-the moon program. The decision represents a thunderous demolition of the Bush-era strategy at the space agency, which had already poured $9 billion into a new rocket, the Ares 1, and a new crew capsule, Orion.

President Obama, who set out on the campaign trail three years ago to “transform a nation,” is increasingly doing all he can simply to keep his long-term vision in view amid the more urgent pressures bearing down on him.

As legions of schools nationwide fall short of academic targets, the Obama administration proposed Monday to toss out the pass-fail measure that for 15 years has been the bedrock of the school accountability system and replace it with an index that would reward educators who prepare students for …

President Obama, who set out on the campaign trail three years ago to “transform a nation,” is increasingly doing all he can simply to keep his long-term vision in view amid the more urgent pressures bearing down on him.

As President Obama announced his $3.8 trillion spending plan on Monday, Republicans savaged it as a recipe for fiscal disaster, while Democrats defended the call to drive record deficits even higher to finance measures aimed at putting people back to work.

The 2011 budget proposal for the Agriculture Department calls for the agency to receive $25.7 billion, a slight dip from last year’s proposed funding, for a variety of initiatives including increased food safety tests and conservation efforts, some of which are aimed at rescuing the Chesapeake Bay….

The Treasury Department reported a substantial change to its fiscal 2011 budget related to its bailout of Wall Street.

The Obama administration’s budget proposal provides a sizeable boost to two financial regulators — the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — after years when the agencies’ budgets didn’t keep pace with the growth and increasing complexity in the finan…

The Obama administration’s budget proposal provides a sizeable boost to two financial regulators — the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — after years when the agencies’ budgets didn’t keep pace with the growth and increasing complexity in the finan…

The Commerce Department would see a significant decline in its fiscal 2011 budget under President Obama’s request, as funds for several big programs, including the decennial census and the transition to digital television, disappear. The Obama administration has allocated $9.1 billion to the agen…

The Energy Department would get the ability to guarantee an additional $36 billion in loans for the construction of new nuclear plants under President Obama’s budget request, twice as much as the previous loan guarantee program. The loan guarantees would sharply reduce the financing cost of…

The Environmental Protection Agency’s budget — which ballooned an estimated 34 percent last year, as the Obama administration set out new ambitions for the agency — would receive slightly less funding in fiscal 2011, according to budget documents.

Among the 126 programs President Obama proposes to slash in the 2011 budget is a $1 million scholarship program created to honor the late son of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

In his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, President Obama will call for increasing federal spending in areas he deems crucial to the nation’s long-term economic growth by boosting education funding and raising spending on civilian research by 6.4 percent, White House aides said.

Friday’s encounter between President Obama and House Republicans proved to be riveting political theater. The question is whether it will be remembered as a moment that began to ease the tensions between the two parties — or an asterisk in this era of polarized politics.

President Obama set specific greenhouse-gas emissions targets for the federal government Friday, saying it would aim to reduce its emissions by 28 percent by 2020.

BALTIMORE — President Obama offered a muscular defense of his first year in office Friday in the most hostile of territories — a gathering of House Republicans, who engaged him in a pointed debate that had moments of both tense drama and bipartisan comity over the stark policy differences that …

President Obama proposed a $33 billion package of tax breaks Friday aimed at encouraging small businesses to hire new workers, the latest in a string of administration attempts to accelerate job creation.

President Obama set specific greenhouse-gas emissions targets for the federal government Friday, saying it would aim to reduce its emissions by 28 percent by 2020.

After addressing the GOP House Issues Conference in Baltimore on Friday, President Obama took a series of questions from the lawmakers. Here is a transcript of one of the questions posed to the president :

A day after President Obama called on them to renew efforts to pass his ambitious agenda, congressional Democrats remained in disarray Thursday about how to move forward, with at least some pointing at the White House as the cause of the legislative standstill gripping Capitol Hill.

The closure of the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is beginning to look like a protracted and uncertain project for the Obama administration as political, legal and security concerns limit the president’s options.

In an effort to spur job creation, President Obama plans Friday to unveil a $33 billion package of tax breaks aimed at encouraging businesses to hire workers and give employees raises.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews says President Barack Obama has done so much to heal racial divisions that he “forgot he was black” while watching his State of the Union address.

President Obama delivered an urgent plea for unity on Wednesday night during his first State of the Union address, seeking to recapture the energy that propelled him into office and to reverse his party’s trajectory after a series of recent setbacks.

President Obama used his first State of the Union address to reset his relationship with the American middle class. But it was the politics of Washington, rather than any specific policy, that the president spoke about with the most passion after a year when the change he pledged proved elusive.

In keeping with Washington ritual, nearly two dozen guests were invited to fill the first lady’s box during the State of the Union address Wednesday night — many of them as representatives of the president’s agenda, and several from important swing states.

President Obama will call for creation of a bipartisan task force to tackle the nation’s budget problems in Wednesday night’s State of the Union address, aides said, one day after the Senate narrowly rejected a plan to establish such a panel.

When President Obama appears before Congress and the nation on Wednesday night to deliver his State of the Union speech, his goals will be to reset his agenda, assure his demoralized party that he has not given up on key priorities and try to convince a skeptical public that he can still change W…

1. Expanding the child-care tax credit. The child-care tax credit now starts at 35 percent of child-care costs for the poorest families and drops to 20 percent of costs for families earning $43,000 or more. The proposal calls for a credit of 35 percent of child-care costs for all families earning as…

Promising repeatedly to “keep fighting” for average Americans, President Obama rolled out new proposals Monday to help struggling middle-class families, setting the stage for his first State of the Union address Wednesday night.

The populist drumbeat emanating from the White House is a predictable reaction to the shellacking Democrats took in Massachusetts last week and the drop that began some months ago in President Obama’s poll numbers. It is at best a partial answer to what ails the president and Democrats in Congress.

Bowing to the concerns of senators of both political parties, President Obama endorsed legislation Saturday that would create a bipartisan commission to develop a plan to address the nation’s soaring budget deficits.

David Plouffe, the political strategist who managed Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, is taking on an expanded role as an outside adviser to the White House, a move that comes amid legislative and electoral setbacks for the president and his party.

ELYRIA, OHIO — Offering both a passionate defense of his policies and a populist pitch, President Obama told audience members in this economically struggling region Friday that he will continue fighting for them even in the face of stiffening political opposition.

President Obama expanded his new offensive on Wall Street on Thursday, proposing rules that would impede the growth of the largest banks and bar them from making what he called “reckless” investments.

President Obama on Wednesday blamed the Democrats’ stunning loss of their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate on his administration’s failure to give voice to the economic frustrations of the middle class, a disconnect that White House aides vowed to quickly address as they continue to work t…

A quick start put President Obama on track to break George W. Bush’s modern-day record for getting his appointees in place. But with the first-year statistics now complete, the latter administration’s mark still stands.

Through a haze of grief, Dona Griffin watched President Obama turn toward her, opening his arms to offer a hug.

President Obama is slated to visit a Fairfax County school Tuesday to announce plans to seek $1.35 billion in his next budget to expand his signature education initiative to improve schools.

BOSTON — President Obama made a last-ditch effort Sunday to resurrect the candidacy of a struggling Democrat who could provide him a critical Senate vote, returning to the city that launched him onto the national stage in 2004, this time to preserve his ambitious agenda.

President Obama called on the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday in making what could be seen as a veiled plea for pragmatism on his health-care overhaul, saying that the civil rights leader never chose to forsake progress for a theoretical ideal that was out of reach at the time.

Soaring expectations about the effect of the first black president on U.S. race relations have collided with a more mundane reality, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

A month before he was inaugurated, Barack Obama pinpointed one of the biggest challenges he would face as president. Could he restore confidence in government, even as he was proposing the biggest federal intervention in the domestic economy in a generation?

President Obama sought on Monday evening to assuage organized labor’s misgivings about the health-care overhaul, even as several key union leaders warned that the bill’s final outlines could severely dampen their enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket in this year’s elections.

The budget that President Obama submits next month is likely to include new fees on financial firms as the White House seeks to recover the full costs of its $700 billion bailout of the banking industry, officials said.

In a scene from a recent HBO documentary about the Obama campaign, the candidate’s chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, looks exhausted after churning out a victory address following the last Democratic primary.