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The White House on Monday pushed up its forecast for the U.S. budget deficit for this year by $89 billion, reflecting the recession, a raft of new unemployment claims and corporate bailouts. A fresh estimate of the deficit showed it coming in at $1.84 trillion -- representing a massive 12.9 percent of gross domestic product -- in the current 2009 fiscal year that ends on September 30. A prior White House forecast released in February projected a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.3 percent of GDP. The report may add to the political challenges facing President Barack Obama as he...

César Chávez Elementary School 825 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA. 94110 Voice/TTY (415) 695-5765 Fax (415) 695-5843 Email: sch603@muse.sfusd.edu Silent Language of the Soul (©1990), mural by Juana Alicia & Susan Cervantes, welcomes diversity in our school. Full image (500 K) Si Se Puede (©1996) mural by Susan Cervantes, keeps César Chávez' s struggle for justice and dignity alive. Full image (340K) Our Mission Statement César Chávez School is a community of life-long learners, achievers and activists who support self determination. We incorporate and integrate academic skills, leadership development, and cultural awareness that is relative to the reality of our...

President Barack 0bama announced today that he has selected Perez Hilton to fill the vacancy left on the US Supreme Court by retiring Justice David Souter. "I was impressed by how Judge Perez Hilton handled Miss California. He has just the sort of judicial temperament and demeanor I'm looking to bring to the Supreme Court," explained the President. 0bama also expressed an interest in keeping the seat homosexual. "I think we need to keep it gay. I know Perez could fill Justice Souter's seat nicely. I look forward to seeing that."

Republicans are in position to play their once and future strong suit of limited government. Well, we Republicans have just made history. Not the type of history we wanted to make, mind you, but history nonetheless. Not only did we lose the White House but, after losing our House and Senate majorities in 2006, we followed it up Tuesday night with even steeper losses in Congress. In January, Democrats will enjoy lopsided congressional ratios not seen since the 1970s. Let's face it: We Republicans are now, by any reasonable measurement, deep in the political wilderness. The temptation for Republican members...

A week and a half after Republicans suffered their second rout in as many election cycles, the party is looking for ways to regroup and rebuild. The first steps, planning for which began months ago, will take place this week as three groups of prominent Republicans meet separately to plot comebacks. A gathering of the Republican Governors Association in Miami this week will attract the most attention and will serve as an unofficial cattle call for a number of potential presidential candidates. Hosted by Florida Governor Charlie Crist, the RGA meeting will also include Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Governor...

Three out of the four most powerful House Republican leadership positions will be changing hands in the wake of Tuesday’s election, in which Democrats gained 19 seats. That won’t include the position of House Minority Leader, however. Sources on Capitol Hill told CNSNews.com that despite “widespread discontent” among rank-and-file Republicans, it is unlikely that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) will even be challenged for his position in the new Congress. “The general feeling around here is, ‘Let’s just get rid of all of them,’” one Republican aide said Friday. “We’re just not big fans (of Boehner.) We have got...

O'Reilly just bet Dick Morris that Sarah Palin would appoint herself to the Senate. The only problem: Alaskan governors can't appoint vacant senate seats, because of the murkowski scandal. More "expert analysis" from O'Reilly and his pals.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Friday, U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote that Republicans need to "rebuild our party by fighting for the principles of freedom, opportunity, security and individual liberty." You think? Boehner wrote that during an Obama presidency, Republicans will "stand firmly against policies that violate our principles." If only more Republicans had stood firm when their own leadership pushed policies that violated their principles, the party might be enjoying its eighth consecutive electoral victory instead of its second consecutive shellacking. Also on Friday, Boehner's predecessor, former Majority Leader Dick Armey, wrote in...

Cantoring on Could Eric Cantor be the next minority whip? REPUBLICANS, licking their wounds after this year's election losses, are casting about for a new face for the party. Will their gazes fall on Virginia's 7th District House member, Rep. Eric Cantor? Mr. Cantor won re-election to his seat handily on Nov. 4, with nearly 63 percent of the vote versus his opponent's 37 percent, a margin to which he has become accustomed. A congressman since 2001, he has served as chief deputy minority whip for Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., since his second term. On Thursday, Mr. Blunt announced he...

WASHINGTON – Rep. Roy Blunt, the House of Representatives' second-ranking Republican, stepped down from his leadership post Thursday as the House GOP moved quickly to reposition itself as more conservative, unified and eager to fight Democrats. The Missouri congressman's resignation came a day after Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., the House's third-ranking Republican, quit his leadership job. Likely to replace them are two combative favorites of die-hard conservatives: Virginia's Rep. Eric Cantor, expected to replace Blunt, and Indiana's Rep. Mike Pence, who would take Putnam's place. Ohio Rep. John Boehner is expected to remain as the House minority leader, in charge...

Vanessa Niekamp said that when was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case. Niekamp didn't know she just had checked on "Joe the Plumber," who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain's example in a debate of an average American. The senior manager would not learn about "Joe" for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was...

Freep this poll: Has the Factor's campaign coverage been... Pro-McCain Pro-Obama Just right  

'Auntie Zeituni', who, with Uncle Omar, dropped out of sight after moving to the US, is backing the presidential candidate from her modest flat Barack Obama has lived one version of the American Dream that has taken him to the steps of the White House. But a few miles from where the Democratic presidential candidate studied at Harvard, his Kenyan aunt and uncle, immigrants living in modest circumstances in Boston, have a contrasting American story. Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Mr Obama’s best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public...

During his first campaign for the Illinois state senate in 1995-96, Barack Obama was a member of, and was endorsed by, the far-left New Party. Obama’s New Party ties give the lie to his claim to be a post-partisan, post-ideological pragmatist. Particularly in Chicago, the New Party functioned as the electoral arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). So despite repeated attempts to distance himself from ACORN, Obama’s New Party ties raise disturbing questions about his links to those proudly militant leftists. The media’s near-total silence on this critical element of Obama’s past is deeply irresponsible....

WASHINGTON – The $700 billion bailout compromise announced yesterday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. was rejected this afternoon by the U.S. House in a 228-to-205 vote. “The American people rejected this bailout and now Congress did likewise,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, according to Bloomberg News. The legislation would have given the Treasury broad authority to buy troubled assets from financial companies. “I’m very disappointed,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said in a statement after the vote. “The Republicans killed this.” No further vote on the plan is expected today,...

BOEHNER: Americans are angry, and so are my colleagues. They don't want to have to vote for a bill like this, and I understand that. But I have concerns about what this means for the American people, what it means for our economy, and what it means for people's jobs. I think that we need to renew our efforts to find a solution that Congress can support. I do believe that we could have gotten there today had it not been for this partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House. I mean, we were --...

The first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama is on track to pull a surprisingly average viewership number, drawing fewer households in the preliminary ratings than George W. Bush's face off against John Kerry four years ago. In the meter-market overnights, Friday night's 90-minute debate in Mississippi received a preliminary household rating of 33.2. That's 16% lower than the national number from the 2004 debate, which aired on a Thursday -- generally TV's most-watched night of the week. Friday's number is roughly on par with George W. Bush and Al Gore's first debate in 2000 and the Clinton-Dole debate...

President George Bush's emergency meeting to solve the economic crisis in America failed to reach an agreement, a top senator involved has said. Senator Richard Shelby told reporters outside the White House that he did not believe there was an agreement and that the proposals by US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson constituted a "bad plan". Both presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama were taking part in the meeting after being invited by Mr Bush on Wednesday. The president has said a 700 billion dollar (£380bn) rescue plan needs to be agreed "immediately" if the United States is to avoid...

SOURCE: House Republicans met in am: Just 4 members support Paulson plan...