Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–BP’s containment cap made some progress over the weekend.
–The administration’s not slapping any backs quite yet. They expect clean-up efforts to last at least through the fall. Thad Allen is on deck for today’s White House press briefing.
—Underestimating risk might be the theme …
(AP photo)
–President Obama will be in the Gulf again today – his second trip in a week. BP, meanwhile, says its latest attempt to contain the spill may be working, but will be a while until we know if this is really the beginning of the end of the disaster. Any oil that is collected with the cap now in place will be more than a …
Congressman Artur Davis, the man who hopes to become Alabama’s first black governor, is used to getting guff from other black leaders. First he was lambasted for being the only black member of Congress to vote against the President’s health care bill. Then he failed to get the endorsements of
Oil:
-Top Kill is dead and the Administration’s now thinking about sicking the lawyers on BP. BP shares are down 15% in London trading. This morning President Obama meets with BP Oil Spill Commission Co-Chairs, former Florida senator Bob Graham and former EPA administrator William K. Reilly.
-Other oil spill news: MMS …
—No hard assurances yet that “top kill” will work, but man-in-charge Thad Allen sounds cautiously optimistic this latest method may work to stop the flood of BP oil into the Gulf of Mexico. For President Obama, taking heavy criticism for not being involved enough in the situation, a political disaster could be averted by a quick …
Sure, he’s a loooooooong way from, um, winning — or even being in a position to win. But he’s had a good month and his poll numbers are finally going slightly north. On the other hand, they could’ve hardly gotten worse. A webstory today from me.
Jobless claims rise by largest amount in 3 months.
“Although no one expects this volatile series to go in one direction every single week, this is clearly a disappointment,” said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
Paul Krugman speculates that America is becoming “lost decade” Japan.
Will the worst happen? Not
…
The Senate tonight passed a sweeping overhaul of the rules that govern Wall Street with the aim of better protecting Main Street if the markets were ever to meltdown again. The legislation would greatly empower the Federal Reserve Bank to monitor and oversee financial flows in order to predict and prevent a massive pooling of risk – …
Jonathan Cohn may be the smartest, most well-sourced health care writer in the country. When I was first assigned to the health care beat in early 2009, his book Sick was among my required reading.
Today, he unveils the first in a series of five pieces that explain how the White House and congressional Democrats passed health care …
Updated below with Department of Homeland Security Response
Michelle Obama joined Mexico’s first lady, Margarita Zavala, at a school in suburban Washington DC today, where everyone ran around, bounced balls and talked about sports. But during the Q&A that followed, a second grade student asked a question that was more piercing than …
REUTERS/Jake Stevens
–Mexican President Felipe Calderon is in Washington today for a slew of public meetings and a state dinner with President Obama. Drug violence and immigration will be the issues to get top billing; our colleague Tim Padgett explains why Calderon needs a talking to on police reform and anti-poverty …
Arlen Specter has survived a lot of things: a brain tumor, two bouts with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and five squeaker elections for the U.S. Senate. But in an anti-establishment year where the far right hates the moderates and the far left hates the moderates, Specter – whose voting record over the past 30 years is almost perfectly down the …
The state’s new immigration law is now so pervasive in the political landscape, it’s being used as a campaign platform in faraway, borderless South Carolina. Republican Rep. Gresham Barrett, who’s running for governor, is up with this ad stating, “Gresham Barrett’s immigration plan: pass a common-sense Arizona law,” complete with images …
