Obama Pushes Republican Senators To Look Past Midterm Elections

President Barack Obama pushed Senators to ignore the fact that midterm elections are right around the corner and seize the opportunity to lend a helping hand to the backbone of America - the middle class.

The president told reporters Monday that the time has come “to stop holding workers laid off in this recession hostage to Washington politics.”

Obama called out Republican Senators saying many of them supported extending emergency relief in the past, but have now decided to withdraw that support despite a longstanding tradition of providing the unemployed relief during Republican and Democratic presidencies. 

“A majority of Senators have tried, not once, not twice but three times to extend emergency relief on a temporary basis,” Obama said. “Each time a partisan minority in the Senate has used parliamentary maneuvers to block a vote denying millions of people out of work much needed relief.”

The president urged Senators to stop focusing on the upcoming midterm elections and to start thinking of middle-class Americans. 

“It’s time to do what’s right,” Obama said. “Not for the next election, but for the middle class.”

Extended unemployment benefits and small business tax cuts are only pieces of a larger package the Senate will vote on Tuesday. The president reminded members of the media that extended unemployment benefits is an issue that should be met with bipartisan support, even if midterm elections are just a mere four months away.

“Times are hard right now… I know it’s getting close to an election but there are times where you put elections aside, this is one of those times,” Obama said.

Obama Applauds New Cap's Success, Says We're Not In The Clear Yet

After recent success in temporarily capping the spewing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama told reporters Friday that there is an enormous amount of work that still needs to be done. 

The president said the success of new cap is “good news” but, when looking at the bigger picture, all roads end after the two relief wells being drilled are completed and the Macondo well is killed. According to President Obama, the drilling of the two relief wells is ahead of schedule, but said connecting the relief wells to the Macondo well is the most crucial step in finally stopping the flow of oil.

The “well integrity” test that, for the first time in nearly three months, stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf has seen great success so far. If the new cap fails to completely shut down the well, the president said it will be effective in containing nearly 80,000 barrels of oil per day, a monumental increase compared to the 25,000 the previous cap was averaging. 

President Obama urged members of the media and the American people to recognize that this does not mean that our fight against the well is over.

“We won’t be done until we actually know that we’ve killed the well and we have a permanent solution in place,” Obama said. “We’re moving in that direction, but I don’t want us to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

Obama Has Low Global Approval Ratings Says Expert

Andrew Kohut, President of the Pew Research Center, says that the Pew Global Project's 2010 Survey finds that Obama has low approval ratings internationally about the way he has handled issues with Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. (0:17)

Muslim Countries Displeased With Obama Says Expert

Andrew Kohut, President of the Pew Research Center, said that the Pew Global Attitudes Project's 2010 Survey finds that many predominantly Muslim countries are not pleased with President Obama or the United States. (1:12)

Nuclear Summit Will Not Influence Iran, North Korea, Says Expert

By Benny Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

The Nuclear Security Summit will do little to accelerate a campaign goal laid out by then-candidate Barack Obama to secure all nuclear material internationally by the end of his first term, Ted Bromund, a Senior Research Fellow with a focus on American Leadership and Terrorism at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Talk Radio News Monday.

"These are excellent aims for the President to pursue," Bromund said. "But he's going about them in ways that will achieve absolutely nothing."

Bromund said the summit will fail to be effective since it will not deter countries like Iran and North Korea from pursuing and maintaining nuclear capabilities.

"There's no reason why a summit meeting, even with the 46 nations attending, is going to convince Iran to stop doing something that it's done enthusiastically for more than a decade," Bromund said.