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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has made a last-minute personal appeal to Democrats to pass landmark health care legislation. His appeal came during a visit to Capitol Hill on Saturday as the House began debating a bill to expand coverage to millions who lack it. Obama made his trip to the Capitol complex as abortion rights lawmakers voiced anger at a last-minute concession granted to foes of the procedure. WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's landmark health care overhaul moved toward a vote in the House Saturday after anti-abortion lawmakers won a chance to knock out language that would let...

So the Treasury threw a party, or a press conference or something, and I was not invited. Geez, it's not like I am against covering Treasury officials. I did, for example, breakdown Phil Swagel's skills as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. And, it is not like I am not curious about the Treasury. I do want to know how many times Treasury Secretary Geithner's father me with President Obama's mother in Indonesia. I do want to know if Geithner's father was a CIA operative working Asia and if his influence helps in keeping Geithner in a position where he is...

ST ANDREWS, Scotland (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said high unemployment rates show that economic recovery is still perilous and governments need to maintain stimulus as long as necessary to ensure sustained growth. "If we put the brakes on too quickly we will weaken the economy and the financial system, unemployment will rise, more businesses will fail, budget deficits will rise, and the ultimate cost of the crisis will be greater," Geithner said in a statement issued at the conclusion of a two-day Group of 20 meeting. He said that with some growth beginning to become apparent in...

John Reed, who originally helped merge Traveller's Group with Citibank with Sandy Weill, is performing a mea culpa for creating megazombie Citigroup (C): Bloomberg: “I’m sorry,” Reed, 70, said in an interview yesterday. “These are people I love and care about. You could imagine emotionally it’s not easy to see what’s happened." “I would compartmentalize the industry for the same reason you compartmentalize ships,” Reed said in the interview in his office on Park Avenue in New York. “If you have a leak, the leak doesn’t spread and sink the whole vessel. So generally speaking you’d have consumer banking separate...

State District Name Rating Phone Party Blue Dog 1st Term  Pennsylvania  4th   Jason Altmire R+6 225-2565 D Yes    New York  24th   Michael A. Arcuri R+2 225-3665 D Yes    Washington  3rd   Brian Baird EVEN 225-3536 D      Georgia  12th   John Barrow D+1 225-2823 D      Arkansas  1st   Marion Berry R+8 225-4076 D Yes    Georgia  2nd   Sanford D. Bishop Jr. D+1 225-3631 D Yes    New York  1st   Timothy Bishop EVEN 225-3826 D      Ohio  16th   John A. Boccieri R+4 225-3876 D      Oklahoma  2nd   Dan Boren R+14 225-2701 D Yes    Iowa  3rd ...

WASHINGTON, DC - C-SPAN is carrying live the debate on socialized health care in the United States House of Representatives live. Members of Congress have had their phone lines flooded all week as opposition by the American people has mounted. Most of the Democrat members from North Carolina phone lines have either been busy or, once a caller gets the voice mail message, the caller gets a message that their voice mailbox is full and cannot receive any messages. Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, has taken over chairing the House as debate becomes contentious as the Democratic leadership tries...

How bad is it?

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America: I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know. This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration. It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor...

Celente says we are going into a manufactured depression and in America we will call it obamageddon.

Rather than post the entire foolish set of BS, here are the outlines--- and the outright lies "Passage of health-care reform will be defining moment for US" By U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Special to the Arizona Daily Star: Published: 11.06.2009 It was 45 years ago that Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 — a historic measure that for the first time outlawed all racial segregation in schools, public places and employment. We are poised to make another historic decision that for the first time would guarantee access to health care for all Americans. NO, It will guarantee...

What would you not want to happen if you were pushing legal-marijuana legislation? Oh I don’t know, maybe you wouldn’t want the fact that you were present when your boyfriend was arrested for possession of marijuana come out? That’s exactly what Rep. Barney Frank is going through right now; Frank is pushing the passage of legalized medical marijuana and now it comes out that Barney Frank was at his boyfriend’s house in 2007 when the man was arrested for possession. According to a report out of Boston, Barney Frank was present when his boyfriend, James Ready was arrested for marijuana...

DALLAS — Seventy million dollars worth of federal, state and city funds are pouring into the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Supporters hope the span will be a signature for the city. But it may be remembered for something else, because the key jobs in its construction -- tens of thousands of man hours of work — are going to Italians. On the construction site in the Trinity River bottoms, an American inspector told News 8: "If you don't speak Italian, it's going to be tough to communicate." In broken English, a man who appeared...

The Treasury recently reported that the federal government recorded a total budget deficit of $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009, about $960 billion more than the deficit incurred in 2008. CBO notes, in its latest Monthly Budget Review, that the federal deficit rose as a share of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009—the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945.As shown in the figure below, federal spending and receipts diverged dramatically in 2009, reflecting the weakening economy and the federal response. The increase in the deficit of...

Until the mass murder at Fort Hood intervened, I’d intended to write about Thursday’s bingo night to benefit the Girl Scouts. It was a cold and stormy night. Almost all of the summer visitors are gone. We thought there’d be sparse attendance at the monthly charity bingo game put on by the Rotary Club. But the place was packed, wall to wall. Dozens of Brownies and Girl Scouts in uniform were scurrying about, serving the players. Final figures weren’t available on the spot. From prior experience, however, I’m sure more than $1,000 was raised for the Scouts. How ordinary is...

"Or worse: When Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue," hits bookstores later this month, will the ideologically impure be required to read -- and commit to memory -- every golden word? Her publisher might consider culling the highlights into a pocket edition. That way, any Republican caught without a copy of "Quotations From Chairman Sarah" could be summarily expelled from the party." As a fan of The Boxcar Children series, let’s dub this one The Case of the Pol Pot Calling the Kettle a Communist. Let the record show that Eugene Robinson has a way with words, although what way that...

I just called my rep...just to make double sure his NO vote is solid. No live person there. Can't leave a msg either because his mailbox is full ! grrrr

Israel on Friday rejected a United Nations General Assembly resolution urging an investigation into a report saying war crimes were committed in Gaza, and condemned the world body vote as "completely detached from realities". In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said in response to Thursday's vote that Israel "maintains the right to self-defense", and would "continue to act to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of international terrorism". The resolution, endorsing a report on the Gaza war commissioned by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, was nonbinding and seen as unlikely to force either Israel or Islamist...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are burning a huge hole in the Treasury's pocket. But the Obama administration is getting something very valuable in return: the ability to provide immense support to the housing market with only limited interference from Congress. The credit crunch has displayed yawning democratic deficits, like the inability of Congress to get a proper handle on the Federal Reserve's emergency lending programs. But with Fannie and Freddie, it is the Treasury that gets to freely commit massive amounts of money. Both companies have bought most of the mortgages written in America this year and are modifying...

Taking candy from a baby: A consortium of Chinese and American companies goes to Washington and announces plans to build a $1.5 billion windmill farm in West Texas using $450 million in U.S. Stimulus funds, which will create 2,330 jobs – 2,000 of them in China. The baby – Washington -- doesn’t cry or whine or spit in the consortium’s face. That’s what’s really wrong with this story. So accustomed to being bought and sold, Washington simply begins processing forms so it can hand over your tax dollars to create jobs in a turbine factory in the city of Shenyang,...

A drive for a Personhood Amendment has been launched in Alaska. The proposed amendment would call for recognition of all human beings from the biological beginning of their development. Chris Kurka, who is leading the campaign, talked with television station KTUU. "The state's responsibility is to protect our rights -- and the most fundamental of those rights is the right to life," he explains. "So what we're doing...is asking the people of the state to sign this initiative to get it on the ballot, and then to vote for it so that the unborn will be recognized as a person...

House Democrats may finally be taking note of voters' fears of ObamaCare. The Dems were planning to pass their bill today, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi & Co. yesterday realized it might fail, and mulled delaying the vote. Here's a better idea: Give it up. There's no reason, after all, for them to follow the White House like lemmings down a path as dangerous to their party's electoral future as it is to the country. Indeed, that their trillion-dollar bill even remains a priority -- while unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, highest in 26 years, as was reported yesterday -- is...

The House healthcare bill has taken more twists and turns and has zig-zagged its way through more Democratic districts than the Mississippi River. And after a month’s worth of legislative wrangling and deal-making, the bill is approaching its final destination: a vote on final passage, expected sometime before the sun rises on Sunday. Pressing toward dawn on Saturday, the Rules committee passed a rule after nearly 12 hours that would set up a vote on the healthcare bill at 6 p.m. No Congress has ever come this close to the goal – first proposed by President Theodore Roosevelt – of...

The Hole at the Heart of Our Strategy We’re scrupulously non-judgmental about the ideology that drives terrorism. By Mark Steyn Thirteen dead and 31 wounded would be a bad day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, and a great victory for the Taliban. When it happens in Texas, in the heart of the biggest military base in the nation, at a processing center for soldiers either returning from or deploying to combat overseas, it is not merely a “tragedy” (as too many people called it) but a glimpse of a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of what we have...

Investigators believe that the gunmen had "political and religious motives." Meanwhile, Obama is set to give a major speech in Cairo in which, among other things, he's going to point out Muslim many contributions to America. "This individual appears to have been upset with the military, the Army in particular, and that's why he did what he did," Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said in a phone interview. "He has converted to Muslim here in the past few years," Hastings said. "To be honest we're not completely clear on what he was upset about. He had never been in...

The plan to attack the Fort Dix Army Base in New Jersey this year, they wanted to "kill as many soldiers as possible!" Five Muslim immigrants accused of scheming to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were convicted of conspiracy Monday in a case that tested the FBI's post-Sept. 11 strategy of infiltrating and breaking up terrorist plots in their earliest stages. The men could get life in prison when they are sentenced in April. The five, who lived in and around Philadelphia for years, were found guilty of conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel. But they were acquitted of...

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) ― Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, visited wounded soldiers and their families near the site of the worst mass shooting on an Army post in the United States. The Bushes made their private visit to Fort Hood's Darnall Army Medical Center on Friday night. Bush spokesman David Sherzer said in an e-mail that the couple thanked Fort Hood's military leaders and hospital staff for the "amazing care they are providing."

Earlier this week, Huntington Mayor Steve Updike held a press conference relaying information of coming citywide layoffs. The only position, at that date, to be announced in the layoff was the Mayor's secretary. He went on to say that six more layoffs were expected this week. Yesterday it was announce that......

Neither Barack Obama nor Nancy Pelosi can be as clueless as they want us to think they are. The White House said the president was so uninterested in the results on election night that he watched a documentary on the '08 presidential campaign, no doubt eager to see who won. Mzz Pelosi, as oblivious of the scoreboard as a ditzy cheerleader unaware of which team has the ball, insists her side won the night. Mr. Obama continues to campaign for the job the rest of us thought we gave him a year ago. The day after the Republicans sent wake-up...

<p>The dollar will get "utterly destroyed" and become "virtually worthless", said Damon Vickers, chief investment officer of Nine Points Capital Partners.</p> <p>"We don't have resources. Neither does a lot of Asia to be quite frank," Vickers said on CNBC's Asia Squawk Box. "Countries that have resources -- the Brazils, the Canadas, Australia -- their currencies are doing well."</p>

With Monday marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ronald Reagan's son Michael tells Newsmax that his father was deeply troubled by the wall from the night it was first erected. Michael Reagan also said President Barack Obama's decision not to attend the anniversary ceremonies in Berlin is "sad," but "completely consistent" with Obama. On June 12, 1987, President Reagan delivered a rousing speech near the Berlin Wall in which he challenged the leader of the Soviet Union: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Less than 2 1/2 years later, on Nov. 9, 1989, the wall...

(NaturalNews) Television viewing before bed is a significant contributor to chronic health problems, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and presented at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. Although most adults need at least seven to eight hours of sleep per night, as many as 40 percent of U.S. adults fail to get this much. Lack of sleep is a major contributor to chronic health problems, including obesity, heart disease and depression. In an attempt to find easy ways for people to get more sleep, researchers surveyed 21,475 people over the...

Any judgment of Barack Obama’s presidency based on a handful of off-year races is overstating the case. Trying to decipher the real meaning is something like reading tea leaves, and just as reliable. Still, they are clues and warnings, at least, for the national parties. My reading of the leaves: independents flexed their muscle and gave Obama a warning, passing health care reform is going to be a little harder but still in the cards, and New York voters deepened the Republican identity crisis. You could say this was in a part the opening blow of Obama vs. Sarah Palin...

How does one take a president seriously who preaches about a new era of transparency while sealing his complete birth certificate, college records, and passports? Why talk about transparency while hiding bare minimum information that past politicians have readily turned over? That’s not a new era of transparency; it’s a new era of secrecy. Why talk about transparency while rushing through thousand of pages of unread and un-analyzed law that will allow government control of health decisions? A 72-hour Internet posting is ridiculously insufficient in context of the mammoth power grab the federal government wishes to pull off. A person’s...

To this day I remain baffled and somewhat dumbstruck by the complacency of the public, the mainstream media, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court for their willingness to dismiss challenges to President Barack Obama's (aka Barry Soetoro) natural born U.S. citizen status. Yes, the election is over, and yes, I acknowledge that nothing likely will ever come of this, but it astounds me that we are in month nine of Obama, yet his eligibility to serve as president remains unresolved. The majority of challenges to Obama's natural-born status revolve around the fact he has refused to release his original, long-form,...

In recent months, at least three major newspapers have carried columns attempting to push Chief Justice John Roberts into voting to uphold a grossly unconstitutional federal law. But their cheap distortions and Chicken Little yammering will fail. The chief justice will do his job, and the country will be better off for it. On Sept. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court reheard arguments in the landmark campaign finance and free speech case, Citizens United v. FEC. At issue in this case is whether the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) could ban documentaries about candidates when Election Day is approaching. This...

Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn't care about the Constitution, it doesn't care about your inalienable rights. If this health care bill becomes law, America, life as you have known it, freedom as you have exercised it and privacy as you have enjoyed it will cease to be. [snip] We do not have two political parties in this country, America. We have one party; called the Big Government Party. The Republican wing likes deficits, war, and assaults on civil liberties. The Democratic wing likes wealth transfer, taxes, and assaults on commercial liberties. Both parties like power; and...

James Chanos, the famed short seller who was among the first to foresee the collapse of Enron, recently sounded the alarm on the municipal-bond market -- in the hallowed halls of the New York Historical Society, no less. The "cracking of state and local municipalities is coming," he predicted at a recent meeting attended by Barron's staffer Susan Witty, adding that he wouldn't touch munis. In a subsequent telephone interview with this columnist, Chanos said, "State and local municipal finance are a mess and going to get worse." It's not just the recession, which has reduced tax receipts. Rather, he...

Some AMA members are outraged that the group's trustees made the endorsement without the formal approval of the organization's House of Delegates. The American Medical Association's much-touted endorsement of the House health care reform bill has triggered a revolt among some members who want the endorsement withdrawn. Some members are outraged that the group's trustees made the endorsement without the formal approval of the organization's House of Delegates. On Monday, delegates will vote on a resolution offered by some members that, if approved, will withdraw the AMA’s endorsement of the bill. President Obama cited the endorsement of the influential AMA,...

After spending more than a year in suspended animation, the commercial real estate industry is expected to hit bottom in 2010 with a wrenching thud. Owners of business properties such as office buildings, warehouses and malls will suffer a surge of painful defaults, write-downs and workouts with their lenders as the market finally faces up to the reality of its diminished conditions, according to a report set for release today. The long-awaited blood bath, however, will benefit investors who are able to swoop in to take advantage of record bargains. Unlike the formerly overheated housing market, which is in the...

<p>As many people know by now, or are waking up to this morning, yesterday 39-year-old Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, went on a shooting spree at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas killing 13 and injuring at least 30. While Hasan is in critical condition and unconscious, some are speculating that the motive for the shooting was concern over his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.</p>

(AP Photo/ Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences ) In the wake of yesterday's carnage at Fort Hood, the media is scrambling to find answers about the reported shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and his motives. While they're all asking basically the same questions, here are some they're not asking. From Lt. Gen. Robert Cone: Cone said in a press conference Thursday night that "there was no indication" that the weapons used in the shootings were military weapons. Soldiers at the post do not carry weapons unless they are doing training exercises or something of that nature, he said....

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank took a dig Friday at the Republican lawmaker who organized a protest by conservatives against health care legislation. Frank, a Massachusetts liberal, told an audience: "Some of the people (at the rally) that wanted to engage me in conversation appeared to have been the losers in the 'Are you smarter than Michele Bachmann contest?"' Rep. Bachmann, R-Minn., had organized Thursday's rally attended by thousands of conservatives critical of the Democrats' health care plan. Frank, who recently compared arguing with an angry voter to conversing with a dining room table, said this week's protest was like being...

A bad week for Democrats compounded by an awful moment for Barack Obama. Getty Images President Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships. After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously...

Part 1: from the 12th essay by "Brutus" from the February 7th & 14th (1788) issues of The New-York Journal Part 2: Taken from the first half of the 14th essay February 28, 1788. In my last, I showed, that the judicial power of the United States under the first clause of the second section of article eight, would be authorised to explain the constitution, not only according to its letter, but according to its spirit and intention; and having this power, they would strongly incline to give it such a construction as to extend the powers of the general...

Washington D.C., Nov 6, 2009 / 06:48 pm (CNA).- A memo from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says that the Ellsworth Amendment to the U.S. House’s proposed health care reform bill is not a “meaningful compromise” but instead is a “money-laundering system” that does not address pro-life concerns about federal funding of abortion.The memo, written by U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities associate director Richard Doerflinger, discusses H.R. 3962 and the Ellsworth Amendment. The amendment claims to prevent federal funds from being used for abortions, CNSNews.com reports. It requires that federal money be segregated...

The health bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing to a vote (H.R. 3962) is 1,990 pages. Here are some of the details you need to know. What the government will require you to do: • Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a "qualified plan." If you get your insurance at work, your employer will have a "grace period" to switch you to a "qualified plan," meaning a plan designed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. If you buy your own insurance, there's no grace period. You'll have to enroll in...

What interpretation of Islam influ enced Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan? As often before, the trail leads to the official sect of Saudi Arabia -- known as Wahhabism to most of us of who denounce it. Confronting the role of radical Islam here is not Islamophobic, but common sense -- and the first response moderate Muslims themselves will have. Hasan, though born in America, refused to have his picture taken with women -- an attitude distinct to fundamentalist radicalism among Muslims. The Prophet Mohammed cautioned his followers that when they go to live in non-Muslim lands they must accept the laws...

First thought on Tuesday's elections: There's a lot of firing going on in America, and now that includes politicians. Seems only fair and will likely continue. I don't think voters in New Jersey and Virginia were saying, "Oh the Democrats are awful, and we hate them," nor were they saying, "Republicans are wonderful, and we love them." The voters were being practical, and thinking policy: "Will he raise my taxes?" In Jersey, they fired the incumbent governor because they couldn't imagine the state getting off its current trajectory (high unemployment, high taxes, high spending) with him there. And they're certain...

Disturbing new details surfaced yesterday about the deranged Fort Hood gunman and his methodical mass murder plot, which survivors say began with him screaming "Allahu akbar," before he fired more than 100 rounds at his fellow soldiers. The mystery of how Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, failed to draw concern from military brass before the attack -- despite trying to leave the Army for months, denouncing the war on terror and saying he was "a Muslim first and an American second" -- deepened as families prepared to bury his 13 victims. Some of the 23 people still hospitalized...

The wavering Democrats have been specifically identified by the Left for a large amount of pressure. The following members were specifically targeted for pressure in a Kos article last night: Arcuri, Baird, Bean, Boyd, Carney, Donnelly, Kaptor, Kucinich, McMahon, Scott Murphy, Nye Well, we need to encourage these members as well. To keep objecting to the bill. And to vote "NO" Please note: not all of these guys are "blue dogs." Take Kucinich for an example. His objection is that the bill doesn't go far enough. So when you call and fax and meet and greet, make sure to look...