White House Community College Summit Video

Obama speaks at the 16 minute mark:

Closing session with Jill Biden, Arne Duncan and Hilda Solis:

Obama Speaks on Healthcare Implementation June 22 Video

It's been 90 days since Obama signed health reform into law. Here is a fact sheet.

Obama Speaks on Mine Safety April 15 Video

Update: Massey Energy Co. says Obama is misinformed, even though Massey has violations coming out the yin-yang. No independent investigations are needed to know that. And how many people just died in their mine? Sick bunch of folks at Massey.

Read the Department of Labor's report on Massey's violations.

The Obama administration will look at mine safety at mines across the nation and strengthen enforcement of existing mine laws, which were made stronger after the Sago mine tragedy in 2006. In this case it looks like Massey Energy Company flouted the regulations because they could. Apparently, there are still ways for companies to litigate and get around laws. Massey is a perfect example of how companies will always put profits ahead of everything else (even though it could be argued that putting employees in the line of danger isn't profitable in the long term) and why airtight regulations are needed.Transcript

Obama to Speak on Increasing Jobs Dec. 8

Update: Obama will speak at the Brookings Institution at 11:15 am eastern. The speech is likely to be live streamed at msnbc.com or WhiteHouse.gov. Obama is weighing using leftover TARP funds to boost hiring:

The administration is considering several new steps to boost hiring, including using money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, incentives for homeowners and businesses to make buildings more energy efficient and more spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects. Obama plans to outline proposals next week in a speech from Washington. Bloomerg

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis with Andrea Mitchell:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama Aims to Employ More Veterans

The Executive Order creates an interagency Council on Veterans Employment that will advise the President and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management on the veterans’ employment initiative. The Council will be chaired by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki. OPM Director John Berry will serve as the Vice Chair and Chief Operating Officer of the Council.

“Veterans have shown unmatched dedication to public service,” said Secretary Shinseki. “They offer leadership and technical skills that are in high demand, whether in the public or private workforce. Not only does this initiative present an opportunity for Veterans to serve their Nation once again, the Nation will benefit from the education and training Veterans received in the Armed Forces. I am looking forward to working with Secretary Solis and Director Berry to achieve the objectives of this initiative across the federal government.”

“Veterans are an important part of our nation’s past, present and future. They deserve our full support as they reintegrate into the civilian workforce,” said Secretary Solis, “In signing this Executive Order, President Obama underscores his Administration’s commitment to our military men and women, and keeps us squarely on the path to achieving the goal of good jobs for everyone.”

“President Obama strongly believes in honoring the service of our veterans and he sees this initiative as an opportunity to put some real muscle behind that promise,” said Director Berry. “The strong sense of patriotism and public service held by members of our armed forces doesn’t leave them when they exit from active duty. It benefits our government to seize this opportunity to utilize their skills and dedication to service. The Veterans Employment Initiative will help our federal agencies identify qualified veterans, clarify the hiring process for veterans seeking employment with the federal government, and help our veterans adjust to civilian life once they are hired.”

The Order also establishes a Veterans Employment Program office within most federal agencies. These offices will be responsible for helping veterans identify employment opportunities within those federal agencies, providing feedback to veterans about their employment application status, and helping veterans recently employed by these agencies adjust to civilian life and a workplace culture often different than military service. Read more at the WH

Gloria Estefan, Jose Feliciano and Sheila E Headline White House Latin Music Night

In a continuing music series at the White House, tonight is Latin music night. Live streaming now. (7:30 eastern) In the house, the Obama family, First grandma Marian Robinson, Ken Salazar, Sonia Sotomayor and Hilda Solis. Celebs: Jimmy Smits, Eva Longoria, George Lopez, Marc Anthony and JLo. Other performers: Los Lobos and Marc Anthony.
That was a great show--I love Latin music and Sheila E!, having done a little drumming myself. At the end of the show, Malia Obama danced with Michelle on stage and then took up the drums next to Sheila E. She looked like she knew what she was doing. Sasha danced with Pop. Eva Longoria escorted Justice Sonia Sotomayor on stage to dance.
I missed this part. Obama gets up to dance:

Thalia:

The end of the show. This is where Malia and Sasha dance with mom and dad and Malia plays percussion:

Obama's Speech to Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute

Obama speaks at the CHCI awards gala. Michelle Obama, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Nancy Pelosi were in the house. Obama says the number of Latinas/Latinos he's appointed in his administration exceeds any in history and "we're not finished yet." Marc Anthony received an award, which explains why Anthony and J-Lo were at the White House today.

Hilda Solis: No Quick Economic Fix

Solis makes the most sense so far. Just this morning I blogged about what an impatient lot we are.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who still has $250 million to "roll out'' for job creation, maintains that the Obama administration is "not looking at just a quick fix'' for the economy and allows that this is "the toughest job'' she ever has held.

The former congresswoman from Callifornia and member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet, says in an interview airing this afternoon on FOX Business Network that the administration is intent on pursuing solutions to the recession that will "take us out of this bad economy for the next decade.''

"We're not looking at just a quick fix here, we're looking at something that is going to take us out of this bad economy for the next decade,'' Solis says. "And we have to make these investments that were neglected in the last eight years."

With unemployment at 9.5 percent in the latest count, and with the Obama administration holding out hope that the economic stimulus that the president signed in February will save or create 3.5 million jobs, the Labor secretary says it's too soon to start talking about any second stimulus bill.

"I think it would be wise to go ahead and extend all of the dollars that we have already set aside that have been approved by the Congress,'' Solis says. Read the story and the Q&A transcript with Fox Business at the Swamp

Obama Speaks on Clean Energy Jobs

Obama says energy is new foundation for long-term growth:

Hilda Solis on the jobs report:

Obama Speaks on Job Retraining and Community Colleges

If you've been laid off, it may be time to go back to school. That was the message in Obama's announcement this morning.
A small business woman spoke first, saying the recovery act allowed her to hire back workers.
Another woman spoke about being able to keep unemployment insurance in Maine while earning an associates degree in nursing. She introduced Obama, who said the unemployment rate (see below) is still a sobering toll. "We should expect further job losses in the months to come."
There are signs of improvement--construction spending is up, he said. Obama talked of the letters from Americans that he reads every night and mentioned a few.
Obama says we need to boost the skills of our workforce now. "Education is the single best bet we can make."
Obama transitioned to educational training and retraining for people out of work. Now is the time to not only look for a job but to prepare for a new job, he said.
Unemployed workers who want to go back to school may be eligible for Pell grants, he said. Obama says he's going to make it easier for people to get Pell grants.

If you want to get more education or training, you have to give up unemployment benefits. But if you return to school, you don't qualify for federal education grants since, in most cases, your qualification is based on the previous year's income.

The president outlined a plan under which the Department of Education will send colleges legal guidance, encouraging them to increase financial aid packages for the unemployed so they can enroll in educational and training programs while keeping their unemployment benefits. CNN

Arne Duncan and Hilda Solis are on the case: opportunity.gov. So is Jill Biden, who will lead a national effort to help get people to community colleges. Biden teaches at Northern Virginia Community College. By 2020, Obama hopes to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

The NYT calls the jobs report dreadful yet encouraging. Well said:

By any objective standard, this morning’s jobs report was terrible. But it was also pretty encouraging.

Job losses have now been slowing for three straight months. Ever since World War II, a trend like that has been a signal that a recession was in its final months. There are no guarantees, of course. Because of the depth of the financial crisis, this recession is already the scariest since World War II, and it may well have more surprises in store. But this morning’s news was, all things considered, reason for optimism.

The economy shed 539,000 jobs last month — down from 699,000 in March, 681,000 in February and 741,000 in January. Before February, job losses had accelerated for six straight months. Last month’s loss was the smallest since October. Chart 2, on the first page of the Labor Department’s news release, tells the story.

Even the increase in the unemployment rate, to 8.9 percent from 8.5 percent, wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was nearly all a shift of people from unofficial unemployment — not working and not looking for a job — to official unemployment. The percentage of adults with jobs remained unchanged, at 59.9 percent.
Read the rest at NYT

Hilda Solis Confirmed While Republican Bitterness Lingers

Good news. Not the lingering republican bitterness but the confirmation of Solis.

Politico: California Rep. Hilda Solis won Senate confirmation to be labor secretary on Tuesday, ending her rocky two-month nomination process.

Solis faced tough questioning from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in her confirmation hearing last month. Republicans on the committee pressed Solis on her support for controversial card check legislation and her connection to a union-backing organization. Throughout the process, Republicans expressed concern at what they said was her lack of specificity in answering questions about her views.

Solis was confirmed 80-17, but some Republicans expressed their lingering bitterness.

Obama Should Consider Overhauling Tax Code

Hilda Solis's husband just now paid back tax liens, $6,400, on his business. Though Solis shouldn't be penalized for her husband's error, republicans aren't fond of Solis because she's an advocate for workers, so they'll make a big to-do about it.
It seems, many so-called upstanding people don't pay their taxes. Just us dumb working folk. I didn't know you could get away with not paying your taxes without getting hauled off to jail. So maybe this is a sign that the tax system needs to be simplified and overhauled.
Gibbs says Solis is still in the running:

USA Today: At a news conference, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said of Solis: "I read the story in USA TODAY and it quotes somebody who works here. Obviously we know about the story. We reviewed her tax returns and her tax returns are in order. Her husband had an issue."

"She's not a partner in that business," Gibbs said. "We're not going to penalize her for her husband's business mistakes."

Gibbs said he thought Solis' husband, Sam Sayyad, paid the liens because he owed the taxes, not because of White House pressure. "The White House believes that if you owe taxes you should pay them," Gibbs added.

Obama, Bush, Blago, Warren and Levi

An action packed day and I've been away so let's get caught up.
Obama announces Ron Kirk for Federal Trade Representative and venture capitalist Karen Mills, administrator of the Small Business Administration. Obama announces his picks for labor, Hilda Solis, and transportation, Ron LaHood:

CNN: At a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, Obama nominated Rep. Hilda Solis for secretary of labor. She is a four-term Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, California.

He also nominated Republican Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois as transportation secretary, venture capitalist Karen Mills to head the Small Business Administration and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to serve as U.S. trade representative.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Will Bush pardon the shoe thrower? The shoe thrower, who has been beaten hopes so.
Blagojevich won't back down and his attorney is thuggish. I caught a few minutes of his press conference.
George Bush taps into the bank bailout money to rescue the automakers:

Politico: President Bush steps into the Roosevelt Room at 9:01 a.m. and announces a $17.4 billion bailout for GM and Chrysler, with the loans conditioned on the automakers showing a plan for 'viability' by March 31. A senior administration official told reporters during a telephone background briefing just before the president spoke that the firms need to show they can be 'profitable soon.' Ford got new financing before credit froze, and has said it does not need immediate government assistance to stay alive.

I kind of feel sorry for Bush because he seems to be a guy of limited talents forced into big shoes. He did the best he could, which wasn't good enough.

WSJ: The administrations of George W. Bush have virtually assured such a displacement by catastrophically throwing the country off balance, both politically and financially, while breaking the nation's sword in an inconclusive seven-year struggle against a ragtag enemy in two small bankrupt states. Their one great accomplishment -- no subsequent attacks on American soil thus far -- has been offset by the stunningly incompetent prosecution of the war. It could be no other way, with war aims that inexplicably danced up and down the scale, from "ending tyranny in the world," to reforging in a matter of months (with 130,000 troops) the political culture of the Arabs, to establishing a democracy in Iraq, to only reducing violence, to merely holding on in our cantonments until we withdraw.

Also, from Politico:

'Obama has yet to name his picks for senior intelligence positions; those announcements aren't expected until Obama returns from his holiday break. Several Democratic officials with knowledge of the deliberations said Friday that Dennis Blair, a retired admiral and the former head of U.S. Pacific Command, is likely - if not certain - to become director of national intelligence.'

Obama team is seriously scouring NASA's budget:

LA Times: Reporting from Washington -- Most nights it's possible to look skyward with a pair of cheap binoculars and see a $100,000 mistake circling the Earth. The glowing object -- an orbiting NASA tool bag -- was lost last month by an astronaut during a routine spacewalk.

The canvas-and-acrylic caddy contained two grease guns, a scraper, a trash bag and some wipes, hardly cutting-edge technology. So why did it cost $100,000?

NASA officials said they had no answer to that question -- beyond the fact that, as spokesman Allard Beutel put it, "space flight is expensive." That expense is drawing serious scrutiny from the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

Of 74 questions submitted to the agency by Obama's NASA transition team, more than half asked about basic spending issues, including cost overruns.

Two Obama administrations for the price of one?

WSJ: The Obama transition is putting a new twist on that idea. The president-elect is giving the country two administrations for the price of one.

The first, composed of Mr. Obama's initial wave of high-profile appointees, is full of familiar Washington veterans. This is the team that pleased moderates and even some Republicans, reassured financial markets -- and made the party's liberals complain about "retreads" and wonder what all that change rhetoric was about.

The second wave of appointments, most coming in the past week or so, is composed of lesser-known names, new faces and, all told, the kind of folks who look like the fabled "agents of change" promised in the campaign.

Obama's team lacks the ideological fervor:

But the most striking characteristic of the emerging cast of characters is this mix of old and new faces. What the two camps have in common is a general lack of obvious ideological fervor.

The gay community is really upset about Rick Warren giving his inaugural blessings. I think this guy is being elevated to more than his worth. I understand the outrage, though. An Obama advisor assures Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic that he's with gay people:

The deeper dynamic, though, is this: liberal groups are used to being treated like stepchildren in Washington. They are used to being under seige at all times, and it's going to take some adjustment to realize that gay rights are probably not in danger because of things like the Warren pick. (An Obama adviser, discussing this matter with me, urged patience, saying that Obama is committed to the substance of his campaign promises to expand gay rights.)
A little private reassurance would go a long way, and it seems that the Obama team ihas not accounted for the fact that everyone, on all sides, is going through a period of psychological adjustment from the Bush years.
This includes liberal interest groups accustomed to being slapped around by Bush and taken for granted by Bill Clinton.

Rick Warren praises Obama's "courage." Seems to me Warren could've offered a bit more humility to the gay community. Warren will be on Dateline tonight declaring that he's not homophobic. I think Warren is too big for his britches. That's the one of the problems with the choice of Warren. It validates his views. But he's not worth the fuss.

I commend President-elect Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn't agree on every issue, to offer the Invocation at his historic Inaugural ceremony.

Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America.

The Bible admonishes us to pray for our leaders. I am honored by this opportunity to pray God's blessing on the office of the President and its current and future inhabitant, asking the Lord to provide wisdom to America's leaders during this critical time in our nation's history.

Mike Madden of Salon asks: How the hell did Warren get inauguration tickets?
All the people at Salon are angry about Warren:

Even on vacation, I can't quite get over the choice of pastor Rick Warren to give Barack Obama's inaugural invocation. I'm all for Obama (and Republicans, for that matter) reaching out to the other side. I am not theoretically opposed to Obama choosing an antiabortion gay-rights critic; I'm opposed to Warren himself. He's a poster boy for kinder, gentler 21st century bigotry, and Obama shouldn't validate him with this lofty symbolic role.

Sarah Palin's daughter's Bristol's soon to be mother-in-law (Levi Johnston's mom) is busted on drug charges. The Palin clan never stops making news. 

Obama Picks Hilda Solis for Labor Secretary

That's according to Chuck Todd at MSNBC.
Solis looks like a great pick. The California congresswoman is a workers' labor secretary. She is the daughter of naturalized parents. She fights for women, immigrants’ rights, education, worker safety and healthcare. Here's what she said recently on the guest worker program:

Washington, D.C. - Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (D-CA) issued the following statement in regard to the recent changes made to the H-2A guest worker program by the U.S. Department of Labor. These include changes in the wage scales, rules to recruit foreign workers and reductions in worker protections.

“With many families already burdened by this bad economy, our nation cannot afford these guest worker program changes. This recent action by the Bush administration is just the latest example of how out of touch the president is with working families, especially with Latino families that make up a large portion of the farm workers in this country.

“There is no question that the guest worker program needs significant overhaul but slashing wages and reducing basic rights for the most vulnerable workers in our country, especially hardworking Latino farm workers, is not the answer. I look forward to working with the Obama administration and the Democratic majority to find the best solutions to strengthen this workforce and protections afforded to them.”

Her bio:

First elected in 2000, Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis is serving her fourth term in Congress representing California's 32nd Congressional District, which includes Azusa, Baldwin Park, Covina, Duarte, El Monte, Irwindale, Rosemead, South El Monte, and West Covina and portions of Monterey Park and East Los Angeles. Solis’ priorities in Congress include expanding access to affordable health care, protecting the environment, and improving the lives of working families.

Solis is the first Latina to serve on the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where she is Vice Chair of the Environment and Hazardous Materials (EHM) Subcommittee and a member of the Health and Telecommunications Subcommittees. From 2003-2006, she served as the Ranking Democratic Member of the EHM Subcommittee. Solis also serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources and in March 2007 was named a member of the newly created House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Solis also serves as Co-Vice Chair of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. She is a Senior Whip, as well as a Regional Whip for Southern California. Solis is also Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Task Force on Health and the Environment, under which she spearheads annual summits across the country about racial and ethnic health disparities.

In 2007, Solis was appointed to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission), as well as the Mexico – United States Interparliamentary Group. In June 2007, Solis was elected Vice Chair of the Helsinki Commission’s General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions. She is the only U.S. elected official to serve on this Committee.

Here she is talking about children's healthcare:

Here she is on the economy: