President Obama on June Jobs Numbers: A Positive Six Months, The White House, July 2, 2010, by Jesse Lee, quoted verbatim. Comment by Paul Evans: I thought it was only fair to present the government’s idea of how things have been going as far as any recovery. The jobs numbers aren’t great, but the hemorrhaging has ceased, and any way you look at it, that’s a good thing, right?

In a month where one might easily be confused by the official jobs numbers, the President followed up on CEA Chair Christina Romer’s excellent explanation this morning by laying down the bottom line:

This morning, we received the June employment report.  It reflected the planned phase out of 225,000 temporary Census jobs.  But it also showed the sixth straight month of job growth in the private sector.  All told, our economy has created nearly 600,000 private sector jobs this year.  That’s a stark turnaround from the first six months of last year, when we lost 3.7 million jobs at the height of the recession.

Now, make no mistake:  We are headed in the right direction.  But as I was reminded on a trip to Racine, Wisconsin, earlier this week, we’re not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans.  We’re not headed there fast enough for me, either.  The recession dug us a hole of about 8 million jobs deep.  And we continue to fight headwinds from volatile global markets.  So we still have a great deal of work to do to repair the economy and get the American people back to work.

Speaking at Andrews Airforce Base on his way to Charleston, West Virginia for the Senator Byrd’s memorial service, the President also emphasized another key point: the Recovery Act is still in action, and still putting people back to work.  The President took the opportunity to announce yet another component of the “Summer of Recovery”:

Secretary Locke and Secretary Vilsack have joined me here today to announce that the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture will invest in 66 new projects across America that will finally bring reliable broadband Internet service to communities that currently have little or no access.

In the short term, we expect these projects to create about 5,000 construction and installation jobs around the country.  And once we emerge from the immediate crisis, the long-term economic gains to communities that have been left behind in the digital age will be immeasurable.

All told, these investments will benefit tens of millions of Americans — more than 685,000 businesses, 900 health care facilities, and 2,400 schools around the — across the country.  And studies have shown that when communities adopt broadband access, it can lead to hundreds of thousands of new jobs.  Broadband can remove geographic barriers between patients and their doctors.  It can connect our kids to the digital skills and 21st century education required for the jobs of the future.  And it can prepare America to run on clean energy by helping us upgrade to a smarter, stronger, more secure electrical grid.

So we’re investing in our people and we’re investing in their future.  We’re competing aggressively to make sure that jobs and industries and the markets of tomorrow take root right here in the United States.  We’re moving forward.  And to every American who is looking for work, I promise you we are going to keep on doing everything that we can — I will do everything in my power to help our economy create jobs and opportunity for all people.

Now, Sunday is the Fourth of July.  And if that date reminds us of anything, it’s that America has never backed down from a challenge.  We’ve faced our share of tough times before.  But in such moments, we don’t flinch.  We dig deeper, we innovate, we compete and we win.  That’s in our DNA.  And it’s going to be what brings us through these tough times towards a brighter day.

So I want to say happy Fourth of July to everybody.  I want our troops overseas to know that we are thinking of your bravery and grateful for your service.

Amen to that! ~ Paul Evans

Visit Citizens for Legitimate Government Breaking News

Evans Liberal Politics, July 4, 2010, by Lori Price of CLG News, used with permission, edited to remove some of the more flagrant anti-Obama statements. Lori and I don’t quite agree on everything, but CLG News is an excellent news source. I am proud to count Lori as one friend who tries to tell the truth. She’s perhaps more “conspiracy” minded than I am, however. The current state of affairs in the United States government should be pretty obvious to all who follow the news. That doesn’t make Obama a bad man: you’d rather have McCain I guess? Or Hillary? (who would have bombed Iran by now)…

US: Felony charges, big fines for reporting within Gulf oil spill zone, CLG Breaking News, July 3, 2010, by Lori Price:

03 Jul 2010 Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees – The Spill and Transparency – Aired July 1, 2010 (Transcript) COOPER: We’re talking about the government, a new a rule announced today backed by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, a rule that will prevent reporters and photographers and anyone else from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife and just about any place we need to be. By now, you’re probably familiar with cleanup crews stiff-arming the media, private security blocking cameras, ordinary workers clamming up, some not even saying who they’re working for because they’re afraid of losing their jobs… Well, the Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches — 65 feet… Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges. [Boy, George W. Bush has got to be the most frustrated individual on God's green Earth! Can you *imagine* the outrage -- and protests -- if Bush threatened reporters and photographers with felony charges and fines, as Barack Obama is doing in the Gulf of Mexico? It makes my head *spin* to think of how fast the left would be up in arms. But when Obama lays down and dies for his corporaterrorist paymasters day after day and suspends the First Amendment, the so-called 'left' remains silent. (remainder at CLG News, excised for "overzealousness").

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: As to the photography, cameras can do pretty well at 65 feet. It is the principle of suspending the First Amendment that is troublesome here, and the failure to allow interviews with Coast Guard and BP employees that seems entirely unjustified and unwarranted. Obama should rethink this. It's exactly what went on with Bush and Katrina, and Obama's handling of this crisis, except for the nicely choreographed appearances he made in the Gulf, seems overall eerily parallel to the disastrous and still ongoing tragedy in the handling of the whole Katrina disaster. I expected better of Obama.

Obama also has lost an appeal in an attempt to suspend habeas corpus at Guantanamo (McClatchy DC). Well, people, what part of "we are living in a security state now" isn't the court getting? Civil rights? Civil liberties? It certainly is beginning to seem like we are in what the left wing calls "the security state", right? Have we really gone that far down that road? Do we absolutely need to?

In other Gulf Oil Spill/BP news, the government for now is working with BP to assess the oil spill damage (Washington Post, July 4, 2010, by Juliet Eilperin). While making efforts to distance itself from BP, the Obama administration continues to work directly with the oil company to assess damages from the spill. Can this be a good idea?

See also: BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowout, Pro Publica & PBS collaboration, July 2, 2010, by Ryan Knutson, excerpt quoted verbatim:

TEXAS CITY, TEXAS -- Two weeks before the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the huge, trouble-plagued BP refinery [1] in this coastal town spewed tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies.

The release from the BP facility here began April 6 and lasted 40 days [2]. It stemmed from the company’s decision to keep producing and selling gasoline while it attempted repairs on a key piece of equipment, according to BP officials and Texas regulators.

BP says it failed to detect the extent of the emissions for several weeks. It discovered the scope of the problem only after analyzing data from a monitor that measures emissions from a flare 300 feet above the ground that was supposed to incinerate the toxic chemicals.

The company now estimates that 538,000 pounds of chemicals escaped from the refinery while it was replacing the equipment. These included 17,000 pounds of benzene, a known carcinogen; 37,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to respiratory problems; and 186,000 pounds of carbon monoxide.

See also: Oil found in Gulf crabs raises new food chain fears, McClatchy DC, July 1, 2010, by Geoff Pender, excerpt quoted verbtim:

BILOXI, Miss. — University scientists have spotted the first indications oil is entering the Gulf seafood chain — in crab larvae — and one expert warns the effect on fisheries could last “years, probably not a matter of months” and affect many species.

Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla. The news comes as blobs of oil and tar continue to wash ashore in Mississippi in patches, with crews in chartreuse vests out cleaning beaches all along the coast on Thursday, and as state and federal fisheries from Louisiana to Florida are closed by the BP oil disaster.

“I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in,” said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. “Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil’s going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways.”

SCANDAL! – Swedish BP chairman ‘whisked married lover on luxury cruise as oil spill chaos erupted’, Mail Online, July 2, 2010, by Daniel Bates.

It just gets “funner and funner” doesn’t it? Happy Fourth of July! ~ Paul Evans