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From the Wall Street Journal:
The Obama administration launched a clean-energy blitz Tuesday, with President Barack Obama sweeping into this Central Florida hamlet to unveil $3.4 billion in stimulus grants for advanced electricity-grid projects and Vice President Joe Biden traveling to his home state of Delaware to open an electric-automobile plant.
The administration Tuesday released a list of about 100 companies and communities in 45 states and territories that will receive federal subsidies to modernize the electric grid. The administration promised the projects would create "tens of thousands of jobs."
When combined with funds from utility customers, the federal program is expected to inject more than $8 billion into grid-modernization efforts nationally, administration officials said. Even so, that represents just a fraction of what would be needed to bring the entire U.S. electrical grid into the digital age….
Tuesday’s twin events, and last Friday’s presidential visit to a wind-energy-testing lab in Boston, signal a renewed push on energy issues by the Obama administration, after weeks during which energy and climate change have taken a back seat to fights over health care and future strategy in Afghanistan. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held its first hearing Tuesday on long-stalled climate-change legislation…
From Politico:
President Obama exhorted Virginia Democrats Tuesday to get behind their underdog gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds, urging them to shake off the complacency that has plagued the party this year.
Citing polls that show Deeds trailing Republican Bob McDonnell a week before the election, Obama emphasized to a raucous crowd here the importance of electing another Democratic governor to succeed his close friend, DNC Chairman and Gov. Tim Kaine.
“I don’t believe in can’t, I don’t believe in giving up, I don’t believe that we would turn our back on the progress that Tim Kaine has made here in Virginia,” Obama told about 5,000 rally-goers in a college basketball arena…
Obama delivered precisely the message Deeds has sought to leave with voters: that the state senator would govern in the same sort of moderate, competent tradition of Kaine and his predecessor, now-Sen. Mark Warner. “You’ll have a choice: you can decide to break that tradition of good stewardship or you can continue with that opportunity,” Obama said, saying that Deeds was cut from “the very same cloth” as the two governors….
“Are you looking for slick?” Obama asked. “Or are you looking for somebody who’s going to be fighting for you?” Perhaps inspired by the largest crowd of his campaign, Deeds delivered an impassioned speech that bore little trace of his usually-halting speaking style. Like Obama, he urged the audience to ignore his deficit. “If I believed every poll I ever looked at, I would have quit this process a long time ago,” Deeds said…
From USA Today:
States have reported using stimulus money to create or save more than 388,000 jobs so far this year, buttressing the Obama administration’s claim that the $787 billion plan has had a significant impact on the economy.
That total, based on a USA TODAY review of reports from 33 states and Puerto Rico, includes teachers, construction workers, and others whose jobs were funded by stimulus money awarded to states. The administration plans Friday to release reports from all 50 states, providing the broadest accounting yet of the stimulus plan’s impact…
Still, Frank Lichtenberg of the Columbia Business School says the figures show a significant economic impact. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors estimated that the stimulus had saved or created 600,000 to 1.1 million jobs. Lichtenberg said the states’ reports "make that sound like a reasonable estimate."
From ScreenCrave:
Entertainment and politics have merged once again! Health care reform supporters have entered over a thousand videos in a competition for the best 30-second TV spot to support Obama on his health care mission. This morning, the top 20 spots were announced and now a group of Hollywood celebrities including Will.i.am, Olivia Wilde, Seth MacFarlane, Dule Hill, John Cho, Rosario Dawson, and more will pick the winner and someone will have their message turned into a national television ad paid for by Organizing for America.
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