Oceans of Tomorrow

++President Obama used Carl Sandburg's term in his speech in Galesburg, Illinois to outline his economic vision for America. John Boehner said it was "an empty shell of a speech" while Rep. Issa said that no Presidential speech created a job. The Washington pundit belt slammed the President for the lack of new ideas. But E.J. Dionne said that like FDR and Reagan Obama was setting down the framework which would guide future Presidents and dominate the future. Writing in Salon, Michael Lind said it was the Speech that won the Economic Debate. Throughout the speech, the President slammed trickle-down economics and refuted the economic arguments made for the past thirty years. He called for a middle out economy to stabilize the ever-shrinking middle class.He also challenged the inequality that has been growing in American society after a generation. 

++We are at that stage of summer when President Obama's approval rating droops as always. He is down to 49% and oil rigs are again burning off Louisiana. Congress' approval rating is now below cockroaches, head lice and America going Communist. The House will be leaving next week for a five week vacation and 9 days scheduled in September.

++The President isn't taking August off. He has already hit the road for economic speeches in Jacksonville and next week will hit Tennessee. Most of his points we heard last year when he was campaigning for support of his Jobs Bill. In Jacksonville, he made his pitch for infrastructure spending. Currently, the Senate is grappling with the transportation and urban housing bill and a $100 billion is hung up since the House hasn't passed a budget for the past 100 days. The President made the point that all industrialized countries are investing far greater in improving their infrastructure than we are. The Society of Civil Engineers has released its report card on the U.S. and given the country a D+ in several categories. The GOP, which once boasted of infrastructure spending, has taken their ball and left the field.

++The transportation bill in the Senate has bipartisan support but the House is seeking a cut of 50% to Community Development Block grants, an idea they once supported. 

++While the President had a great week with his economic speech and his comments on the Trayvon Martin case,Eric Holder stepped up to the plate to challenge the voter restriction acts they have mushroomed since the Voting Rights Act was gutted. Holder is using the remaining articles to seek pre-clearance from Texas and other states.

++Since VRA was gutted, Florida has happily begun purging voter lists again,Pennsylvania is defending their ID law and North Carolina has passed the most restrictive voting laws in the country so much so that I was surprised they didn't just outlaw voting altogether. What this will mean is open to debate but polls in North Carolina show the people are overwhelmingly opposed to such restrictions.

++We know what the general outline of the Republican plan is with voter suppression but even Ross Douhat of the New York Times is beginning to believe that such measures will spark a backlash against the party without any great compensation for the effort. 

++Nancy Pelosi made a statement that the Democrats may win back the House. Tom Coburn believes that a fight over raising the debt ceiling because of demands for defunding Obamacare will trigger the loss of the House. Personally,I didn't believe the Republicans can lose the House until 2021, after the next census. However, Republicans have placed two more members on the endangered list, bringing the number up to 20. 

++But this can't be true because turnout will be lower in the mid-term,minorities will vote less and the elderly will vote overwhelming for the Republicans. Not so fast,Charlie Cook has been rummaging around on the polls about the GOP base and found that , while the Democrats have lost seniors since 2008,losing them be a whopping 59-38 in 2010,there seems to be a reverse trend now where Democrats are only 5% behind on seniors. He doesn't know why that is but maybe it is that seniors realize by now that  President Obama didn't cut their Medicare benefits and that the GOP are gunning for their pensions. 

++Eugene Robinson has hit the summer doldrum in a column in the Washington Post. Robinson believes nothing is going to happen with Congress on the budget or immigration reform because of gridlock or Republican tantrums and the President's approval will continue to decline because nothing is getting done.

++Rep. King ,who got the House to pass a resolution for the deportation of the DREAM KIDs, blasted them again this week as being a bunch of drug smugglers. While the House leadership had to criticize him for this,the House Republicans are between a rock and a hard place on immigration reform. If Boehner caved and let the Hastert Law go by the boards, the House would pass the Senate bill with Democratic votes. But then again, he would lose his job. Paul Ryan, trying to save the party from catastrophe, claims now that the House will vote for immigration reform in October. He promises there would be a path to citizenship. Evangelicals will be meeting this week with the Republicans to explain why the immigration system needs to be fixed.

++House Republicans have been given little educational packets for their recess to argue to their constituents they are fighting Washington. They are also holding town meetings on the Emergency in Healthcare, which I guess means you might get some. The Koch brothers are handing out Obamacare cards so that college students may burn them--of course, while their parents carry them on their health insurance. Fall is looking to be quite nasty for Congress.

++Christie's Auction house has arrived in Detroit to appraise the collection at the Detroit Art Museum. New York art collectors are horrified by the prospect of over 660,000 items being sold off because they claim it will destroy the global art market. 

++The privately owned Detroit Windsor tunnel has filed for bankruptcy. 

++The Detroit Emergency City Manager has floated a $400 million bond so the Red Wings will have a new arena.

++Pennsylvania under its free market governor has sunk to 46th place in job creation. The state's attorney general will not enforce the law against same sex marriage and the first five licenses were issued in a town north of Philadelphia.

++Federal judges have stopped the strict anti-abortion laws throughout the country on the basis that they are so restrictive as to prohibit access in the states.