Tagged: obama

Vice President Joe Biden took the spotlight at Detroit’s Labor Day parade. It's one more sign that the auto bailout is shaping up as a central theme of the Obama-Biden campaign.

Last week Republican nominee Mitt Romney asked Americans if they were better off today than four years ago. Now comes part of the Democrats’ response: you sure are if you’re an auto worker.

Last night I was thinking of a moment in American history not that long ago, when a newly elected conservative Republican President had to choose a new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The president was neither a scholar, a lawyer, nor an intellectual, and his choice filled the legal community with dismay. He picked a former governor and failed vice presidential candidate who had never served a day as a judge.

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) - U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow say a Senate subcommittee has significantly increased the recommended annual funding for a planned $600 million physics research facility at Michigan State University.

The Michigan Democrats said Tuesday that the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water has budgeted $30 million in the 2013 fiscal year for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

That's up from $22 million that President Barack Obama recommended Feb. 13 in his budget proposal. About $55 million in funding was stipulated by the original agreement.

Michigan State won a national competition to land the project in December 2008, and design work is under way.

Levin and Stabenow say construction of the facility will create about 5,000 construction jobs, with 400 permanent jobs after completion.

The White House has announced President Obama will make a statement shortly. We expect the president to address the downgrading of US credit. Click the "listen live" button above, to stream special coverage from NPR. 

President Obama congratulated a crowd of Chrysler auto workers today in Toledo for their hard work as he stood surrounded by an assembly line of Jeeps. He stressed the importance of the 2008 bailout of Chrysler and G-M to the rest of the auto industry, including Ford:

Michigan U.S. Senator Carl Levin is defending President Obama’s decision to get involved in the war in Libya. Critics have complained the president waited too long to act or should have kept the U.S out of the conflict. Levin says the president has chosen the right course.

 “He has proceeded in a way which is cautious and thoughtful.”   

Levin  says the president has worked well with European and Arab allies to put pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.  

“The long term goal is to keep the pressure on to have him be removed."

Levin expects the Congress will ask the president to comply with the War Powers Act next week. The president will then have three months to respond to Congress’ request for information about the decision to bomb Libya.

Levin is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

The NCAA Men’s basketball tournament begins in earnest tomorrow.   But one very well-known basketball fan expects no team with ties to Michigan will reach the Sweet 16.  

The White House released President Obama’s brackets today.