Obama votes truant

President Obama filled out his absentee vote for the midterm election in Illinois from the White House West Wing, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs said he voted for Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias, who is in a tough race against Republican Mark Kirk for the president's former Senate seat. He said the president also voted for Illinois Gov.

"I know who he voted for for Governor and council in Illinois – the two Democratic candidates who I believe will win," Gibbs said. Obama made two trips to Chicago this year to increase money for Giannoulias, and first lady Michelle Obama recently campaigned for him. On Saturday, the president will headline a public meeting in Chicago as part of a multi-state push for Democrats leading up to the Nov. 2 election. The first lady took advantage of her home state's early voting and cast her vote when she stopped in Chicago during a Midwestern campaign swing two weeks ago.

Republican Carly Fiorina Says White House Economic statement on Women and Jobs is 'All About Election Year Politics'

President Obama pushed the argument that his administration and Democrats normally are better for women and the economy. Women have made such enormous strides that they now constitute half of the workforce, Women voters normally vote in greater numbers for Democrats, but the latest ABC News-Washington Post poll shows women separated almost evenly in the generic ballot, with 47% favoring the Democrat, 44% for the Republican.

Four years ago, women favored Democrats by 12 percentage points in the midterm elections. Earlier today White House economists issued a report on "Jobs and Economic Security for America's women"Coming the same day the president makes a movement swing to help two embattled Democratic women senators with their job security, I have no doubt that this is all about election year politics,” Fiorina told ABC News of the National Economic Council report. The president will meeting for Boxer tomorrow in Los Angeles; today was all about Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who won as the so-called "mother in tennis shoes" in the year of the woman, 1992.

Obama Administration to Focus More on Hispanic success

President Barack Obama has expressed his wish to have his government focus more on the welfare and improvement of Hispanic education. The President said this on Tuesday in the White House as he signed a crucial executive order that would do exactly that. Obama was quoted as saying that an improvement on education would aid the United States in competing in the global economy that is growing everyday.

Through the order, communities will be distribution their best practices while strengthening public-private types of partnerships while ensuring federal programs would meet the requirements of adult Latinos and youths. The order was also setting to establish a working group for the whole government as well as a separated presidential advisory type of commission. The executive order signing however was seen as very crucial as the midterm elections draws near, with the president counting heavily on the Hispanic vote for Democrats come Nov 2

6 months after oil spill, scientists say Gulf is ill but not dying

Six months after the rig blast that led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, damage to the Gulf of Mexico can be measured more in increments than extinctions, say scientists polled by The Associated PressIn an informal survey, 35 researchers who study the Gulf lowered their rating of its natural health by several points, compared to their assessment before the BP well gushed millions of gallons of oil. 

But the drop in position wasn't dramatic. On a scale of 0 to 100, the overall average grade for the oiled Gulf was 65 -- down from 71 before the spill. This reflects scientists' views that the spilled 172 million gallons of oil further eroded what was already a beleaguered body of water -- tainted for years by farm runoff from the Mississippi River, overfishing, and oil from smaller spills and natural seepage. The spill wasn't the near-death blow initially feared. Nor is it the glancing strike that some relieved experts and officials said it was in midsummer.

Obama, Condleezza Rice to assemble at White House

President Obama is meeting with former Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss an weapons treaty with Russia and other issues, reports said Friday. White House officials said the relationship between Obama and Rice was "cordial," and the president was looking forward to the meeting Friday to discuss "a range of foreign policy topics," The Associated Press reported, quoting an official who was not official to talk about the meeting publicly.

A new START agreement with Russia was signed in April, cutting the amount of nuclear warheads by about one-third. The agreement has been approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but ratification by the full Senate has not happened yet and is uncertain. Republicans generally oppose the treaty and have pressured Obama to upgrade the current U.S. arsenal of weapons out of fear they could grow ineffective without proper maintenance

White House rubbish foreclosure moratorium

The White House says it does not maintain a nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures because of possible unintended consequences."If there's an empty house in the neighborhood that somebody has a deal on and they're closing date is next week and there is a moratorium ... that sale doesn't happen. That recovery doesn't take place," press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

"Certain banks have identified process -- parts in their process that are insufficient. We should certainly get to the bottom of that without doing broader damage to the housing market and threatening the recovery in housing."Gibbs said the current foreclosure controversy wasn't a distraction to the Obama administration's participation in re-election campaigns for Democratic candidates because they've been dealing with the housing crisis every day.

White House lifts 6-month oil drilling chill

The Obama administration, under heavy demands from the oil industry and others in the Gulf Coast, today lifted the moratorium on deep water drilling that it imposed in the wake of the disastrous BP oil spill. The six-month ban had been scheduled to expire Nov. 30, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was moving up that deadline because new rules forced after the spill have strengthened safety measures and reduced the risk of another catastrophic blowout.
"The policy position that we are articulating today is that we are open for business," Salazar told a news conference. The action comes as a federal judge weighed a drilling company's bid to overturn the moratorium. It also comes less than a month before midterm elections in which Democrats face widespread criticism for overextending government actions on the economy, including the health care overhaul, the economic stimulus plan and the drilling moratorium.

A federal report said the moratorium likely caused a temporary loss of 8,000 to 12,000 jobs in the Gulf region. Drilling companies must meet a host of new safety regulations before they can resume operations including a requirement that the CEO of the company responsible for the well certifies it has complied with all regulations. That could make the person at the top of the company liable for any future accidents.

The White House's all-American hi-fi

The U.S. may be the world's leading consumer state; we just don't make the very best crop here anymore. It would be the sort of hi-fi the President could, after a hard day's work solving the world's problems, use to kick out the jams. I'd start with an Ayre DX-5universal Blu-ray, SACD, DVD, CD, MP3 player; built in Boulder, Colorado. And when the President wants to spin vinyl, he'd use a VPI Classic phonograph from Cliffwood, New Jersey.

The VPI turntable would be fitted with a Grado Statement 1 phono cartridge; and for late-night listening, the President could don a set of Grado PS1000 headphones. The White House system would feature McIntosh's stellar C-22 preamp and the MC75 power amplifier, which was introduced in 1961.The Klipsch Palladium P-39F Tower as the White House speaker system would be just as special. Years in development, Klipsch's project engineers working in the company's technology center in Indianapolis, Indiana, collaborated on the project with engineers in Hope, Arkansas; Munich, Germany; and Guangzhou and Shenzhen, China.

Educate to Innovate

President Obama has launched an “Educate to Innovate” movement to improve the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). 

This campaign will include efforts not only from the Federal Government but also from leading companies, foundations, non-profits, and science and engineering societies to work with young people across America to excel in science and math.As part of the campaign, this Administration hopes to do a series of events, announcements and other activities that build upon the President’s “call to action” and address the key components of national precedence

Trudeau, Clark remembered warmly by Carter in White House Diary

When then U.S. president Jimmy Carter struggled with skyrocketing expenses of health-care, he and his cabinet looked north to Canada during their first year in office.
When Carter went looking for friends and allies about the summit table in the 1970s, he found one first in Pierre Trudeau and then in Joe Clark.
"White House Diary" is considered particularly timely given current U.S. President Barack Obama's struggles in his first term and the comparisons strained between the 39th and 44th occupants of the White House.
 

But where Obama has achieved modest success on health-care reform, Carter's administration tried to come to terms with cost disparities between Canada and the United States.

" President Jimmy Carter noted in his private diary on September 26, 1977, "our figure is 10 per cent."
"White House Diary," then updates readers to the present-day situation in the United States. "U.S. spending on health care was more than 17 per cent of its GNP in 2009."
"White House Diary" is a must-read for any student of the US Presidency. It is also part of a refreshing re-examination of the Carter Presidency that has been going on for many years now.

Obama plays the veto tag

President Obama announced his first veto on Thursday. He will not sign the "Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010." In case you haven't been following the progress of this obscure bill, its main purpose is to remove impediments to interstate commerce by requiring states and federal courts to accept notarizations by notary publics from any state. Currently many states only recognize notarizations by notary publics who are residents of the state in question.

In thousands upon thousands of cases, executives at mortgage servicers were "robo-signing" foreclosure documents without actually reviewing the paperwork. Those documents were then shipped off to notaries who simply took it on faith that the facts attested to by the documentation were correct. Critics of the bill believe that, behind the scenes, banks and mortgage lenders pressured their allies in the Senate to pass the notarization bill in the hope that it might provide some ex post facto protection for them from the avalanche of law suits that is about to pound the mortgage industry.

Building Skills for the America’s Future

Today, President Obama announced the launch of a new initiative Skills for the America’s Future - an effort to improve the industry partnerships with the community colleges to ensure that America’s community college students are gaining the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in the workforce.

In his remarks before the start of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) meeting today, President Obama laid the vision for the Skills for America's Future program:

The idea here is simple: we want to make it easier to connect the students looking for jobs with businesses looking to hire. We want to help the community colleges and employers create programs that match curricula in the classroom with the needs of the boardroom.

We’ve already seen cases where this can work. Cisco, for example, has been working directly with community colleges to prepare students and workers for jobs ranging from work in broadband to health IT. And all over the country, we know that the most successful community colleges are those that partner with the private sector. So Skills for America’s Future would help build on these success stories by connecting more employers, schools, and other job training providers, and helping them share knowledge about what practices work best. The goal is to ensure that every state in the country has at least one strong partnership between a growing industry and a community college. Already, companies from UTC to Accenture to the GAP have announced their support for this initiative, as well as business leaders like my friend Penny Pritzker and the Aspen Institute’s Walter Isaacson. I hope other business leaders will follow suit, and I’m also setting up a taskforce to work directly with the business community on this effort.

The President also emphasized the importance investing in education as a means of investing in our long-term economic growth.