I am at a loss to decide which is the more depressing response to today's miserable jobs report: Democratic or Republican. First we have Austan Goolsbee, chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, who interprets the numbers as "reflecting the recent slowdown of economic growth due to headwinds faced in the first half of this year." "Headwinds"? While it is still theoretically possible that temporary factors -- the Japan earthquake, gas prices, etc -- are responsible for the current slowdown, the reality of the current situation calls for much stronger rhetoric from the administration, at the very least. The jobs report is a disaster, both for millions of Americans and for Obama's political prospects. The White House should be making it clear, every single day, that job creation must be the No. 1 priority. But when you hear what Goolsbee's got in his job-creation toolbox: "measures to extend the payroll tax cut, pass the pending free trade agreements, and create an infrastructure bank to help put Americans back to work" maybe it's not so hard to understand why Obama hasn't got more to say. That's some thin gruel, there, folks. Yeah, sure, House Republicans pose a formidable, perhaps even impossible-to-overcome, obstacle to passing any kind of effective job-creation legistlation, but is that all you've got, Austan? Come on. Salon
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

The first six months of this year were the driest six-month period on record for Louisiana, causing most of the state to have either extreme or exceptional drought conditions. From January to June, an average of 17.7 inches of rain fell in Louisiana. The average rainfall for that six-month period is 30.4 inches, said Barry Keim, state climatologist. The Advocate
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

Federal energy regulators cleared a key hurdle last week in Entergy Corp.'s proposal to turn over control of its power grid to a regional operator, ruling that its top choice, the Midwest ISO, could use power lines controlled by another nearby operator to integrate the utility giant's systems in Arkansas. Midwest ISO, a regional transmission operator known as MISO, asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in April to rule on a joint operating agreement that governs how it shares and manages its transmission capacity with the Southwest Power Pool, a separate group known in the industry as SPP. Times-Picayune
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

In need of a break from discussing the woes at APS, I want to share another set of woes — escalating costs facing college students in Georgia as a result of the reductions in the HOPE Scholarship this year by the Legislature and ongoing higher education cuts by lawmakers over the last several years. Atlanta Journal Constitution
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

Herman Cain’s still trailing in the polls, but more and more people are starting to realize he’s running. A Gallup poll released Friday found that 48 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents know the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, a 27 percentage-point jump in name recognition from late March. Cain showed the biggest improvement in the Republican primary field. Politico
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

Charging that Alabama’s tough new illegal immigration law “revisits the state’s painful racial past,” two civil rights groups filed a lawsuit on Friday in federal court to block Alabama’s restrictive new illegal immigration law. The expected lawsuit, brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, argues that Alabama’s law unlawfully claims federal immigration authority for the state, violates the Fourth Amendment’s search-and-seizure provisions, deters immigrants from enrolling their children in public schools, and unlawfully forbids legal immigrants from attending state colleges and universities. Politico
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

Senate Republicans on Thursday introduced a resolution that flatly rejects the idea that President Obama is able to raise the debt ceiling on his own, without approval from Congress, under the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has argued that this language effectively authorizes the president to raise the debt ceiling by himself, since debt issued by the U.S. "shall not be questioned." This idea has been floated as one way around the debt-ceiling crisis if Republicans and Democrats can't reach an agreement to raise the ceiling by Aug. 2. But the GOP resolution, S.Res. 226, attempts to close the door on this option. The Hill
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday's jobs report is a strong argument against raising taxes as part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending. " 'Disappointing' is an understatement," Cantor said on the floor in a colloquy with House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Cantor was citing the jobs report for June that said only 18,000 private-sector jobs were created in that month, and that the unemployment rate increased to 9.2 percent. "Just look at the jobs report today," Cantor added. "I cannot fathom how anybody, how anyone thinks right now is a good time to raise taxes. Who thinks that raising taxes on individuals and small businesses can help create jobs?" The Hill
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

The end of NASA’s space shuttle program will limit U.S. manned flight in the short term but is unlikely to threaten the country's long-term competitiveness in the space sector. Washington is actively promoting the privatization of lower orbital space flight as it redirects billions of dollars on next generation projects to explore deep, or outer, space, while counting on a continuation of international cooperation on big-budget, R&D projects as the International Space Station, or ISS. CNBC
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago

Mortgage servicing will be one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's top priorities when it opens for business on July 21, an agency official told Congress today. Raj Date, associate CFPB director for markets and regulation, said the agency "will use its authorities to help ensure that all mortgage servicers have adequate systems and procedures to ensure compliance with federal law." The bureau will work with HUD, banking regulators and the Treasury Department to prepare national mortgage servicing standards, he told a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing. iWatch News
Submitted 1 years 322 days ago