Free Republic

Sitting next to his wife, Michelle, Obama told Winfrey that he asked a favor, in a way, from the Aloha State. "I said to my team, look, even though this is not usually what the state of Hawaii does. Even though the Republican governor of Hawaii, the Democratic governors of Hawaii, all the various officials had confirmed that I was born here, let's ask them for a special dispensation where they will go ahead and provide us with the original to see if we can put this to rest," Obama told the talk-show host.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration's "misguided" policies are to blame for huge U.S. budget deficits, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner charged on Wednesday as he sought to build an election-year case for ending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. With congressional elections looming in November, Geithner sought to regain the high ground on the issue of who bears responsibility for record budget gaps and to counter Republican labeling of Democrats as tax-and-spend, bailout-happy liberals. Geithner said extending the Bush-era tax cuts for top income earners, as Republicans want, would force more borrowing to cover lost revenues and crimp more-effective remedies...