Ben van Beurden, the Shell chief executive, was on a media blitz last week trying to prop up sagging confidence in his ability to keep paying blue-chip dividends while expanding his empire at a time of very low oil prices. The planned takeover of BG Group is an important test of the Dutchman’s credibility in the City and on Wall Street, but an increasing number of analysts are questioning whether it makes sense with $50-a-barrel oil.
President Obama dropped a reality bomb on Republicans today by declaring that defunding Planned Parenthood is an illegitimate issue.
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The President said: It’s hard to believe, but it was seven years ago this week that one of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks went bankrupt, triggering a meltdown on Wall Street and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And in the months that followed, millions of Americans lost their jobs, their homes, and the savings they’d worked so hard to build.
Today’s a different story. Over the past five and a half years, our businesses have created more than 13 million new jobs. The unemployment rate is lower than it’s been in over seven years. Manufacturing is growing. Housing is bouncing back. We’ve reduced our deficits by two-thirds. And 16 million more Americans now know the security of health insurance.
This is your progress. It’s because of your hard work and sacrifice that America has come back from crisis faster than almost every other advanced nation on Earth. We remain the safest, strongest bet in the world.
Of course, you might not know all that if you only listened to the bluster of political season, when it’s in the interest of some politicians to paint America as dark and depressing as possible. But I don’t see it that way. I’ve met too many Americans who prove, day in and day out, that this is a place where anything is possible. Yes, we have a lot of work to do to rebuild a middle class that’s had the odds stacked against it now for decades. That’s the thing about America – our work is never finished. We always strive to be better – to perfect ourselves.
We just have to make the right choices. And if Republicans want to help, they can choose, right now, to pass a budget that helps us grow our economy even faster, create jobs even faster, lift people’s incomes and prospects even faster. But they’ve only got until the end of the month to do it – or they’ll shut down our government for the second time in two years.
Democrats are ready to sit down and negotiate with Republicans right now. But it should be over legitimate issues like how much do we invest in education, job training, and infrastructure – not unrelated ideological issues like Planned Parenthood. We need to set our sights higher than that. We need to reverse harmful cuts to middle-class economic priorities, close loopholes that benefit only a fortunate few at the top, and invest more in the things that help our entire economy grow.
There’s nothing principled about the idea of another government shutdown. There’s nothing patriotic about denying the progress you’ve worked so hard to make. America is great right now – not because of our government, or our wealth, or our power, but because of everyone who works hard every day to move this country forward. Now Congress needs to work as hard as you do.
The reality is that if President Obama says defunding Planned Parenthood is an illegitimate issue that means that Republicans have no chance of seeing it happen.
House Republicans can throw a tantrum and shut down the government, but Obama is never going to sign off on defunding Planned Parenthood. Any funding plan that defunded the organization would be dead before it hit the President’s desk.
Tucked inside of the President’s call for Republicans to pass a responsible budget was a massive reality bomb that should make the right shudder. Republicans have already lost the fight to defund Planned Parenthood, and a government shutdown would only serve to expand their losses to include the 2016 election.
241 U.S. representatives just voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
Had enough of the outrageous attacks? Join us on September 29 for#PinkOut Day! We're turning the world PINK in a massive show of strength and solidarity for reproductive health and rights. Visit istandwithpp.org.
"I kept thinking my Republican Party would come back. But now I know it’s dead. The Party is now a sinkhole of ignorance and bigotry."
I got a call this morning from an old college friend who’s been a lifelong Republican (for years we’ve kidded one another about our respective politics), who told me he had decided to leave the GOP.
“It’s become the Party of hatemongers and know-nothings,” he said. “I’m embarrassed to be one of them.”
I asked him what had tipped him over the edge.
“Everything,” he said. “Their harangues against undocumented immigrants and promises to round them up and build a wall along the southern border. Their willingness to accept charges Obama is a Muslim and not born in America; that vaccines cause autism; that global warming is a hoax.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty awful.”
“But that’s not all,” he said, becoming agitated. “It’s also their knee-jerk warmongering substituting for foreign policy. Their intolerance of a woman’s right to choose, and of gays’ and lesbians’ right to marry. Their willful suppression of black votes. Their racism!”
It was as if I’d opened a sluice gate. He went on, almost shouting: “Their incessant pandering to their wealthy funders by wanting even more tax cuts for the rich and big corporations, and then lying that the benefits will “trickle-down.” Their attacks on teachers. Cuts in school budgets. Eagerness to cut school lunches for poor kids…”
“Whoa,” I stopped him. “I get it. But these aren’t all new. Why did you stay a Republican all these years?”
He was silent for a moment. “Because I admired Mark Hatfield and Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits,” he said. “I supported Barry Goldwater and John McCain. They reflected my values.
I kept thinking my Republican Party would come back. But now I know it’s dead. The Party is now a sinkhole of ignorance and bigotry.”
“So,” I asked with a smile in my voice, “does this mean you’re coming over to my side?”
“No,” he said, still deeply serious. “Not yet. For now I’m an Independent.”
“But you’ll vote for a Democrat in the presidential election?”
“Absolutely. The Republicans now running are all “a-- ----s.”
Some green campaigners seem to believe Shell boss Ben van Beurden would be happy dunking polar bears in thick, black crude oil if it helped make the planet even hotter.
But van Beurden, the 57-year-old engineer who has run Royal Dutch Shell for nearly two years and has given the company the green light to drill in Arctic waters, believes his view of the world’s future is considerably more honest than that of many environmentalists.
‘The amount of energy we consume is going to double in the first half of the century so we will have to supply twice as much as we do today as an industry. Most renewables produce electricity, and electricity is just 20 per cent of the energy mix. Where is the other 80 per cent going to come from?’ says the Dutchman.
Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, is on a charm offensive to convince investors – and the press – that both the dividend is safe and the pending £45bn takeover of BG Group will proceed as planned. These promises attempt to address what is in essence the same underlying worry – the low oil price and its prospects for recovery.
In each case, the markets are plainly sceptical. Shares in Shell are on a barely believable yield of more than 7 per cent, indicating a high probability of a dividend cut to come, while BG shares trade on a discount of more than 10 per cent to the see through value of Shell’s offer.
SEE BELOW FOR THE 1001STTIME THE REITERATION OF DEMAND PAYMENT OF RETIREMENT PAY WHICH SHELL REFUSED TO HONOR IN THE PRESENCE AND DEEMED APPROVAL OF THE HONORABLE MAGISTRATES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINES
Sunday 20 September 2015 
