Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
FACT CHECK: Obama And The ‘Hatchet’ Job (AP)
President Barack Obama, who once considered government spending freezes a hatchet job, told Americans on Wednesday it’s now part of his solution to the exploding deficit. He didn’t explain what had changed.
His State of the Union speech skipped over a variety of complex realities in laying out a “common-sense” call to action.
A look at some [...]
When Obama Talks, The Markets Tank (AP/Yahoo! News)
It was the fat cats’ fault before. But now it’s becoming Obama’s.
With the unemployment rate stubbornly high, people were already shifting blame for their economic woes to President Barack Obama one year into his presidency. Last week, investors joined them.
For 10 months, the stock market climbed at breathtaking speed. But the Dow Jones industrial average [...]
BACK TO THE TOWN HALLS: Obama Retools His Message For Ohio Town Hall Meeting (ABC News)
President Barack Obama tried to revive his battered agenda and rally despondent Democrats on Friday with a renewed emphasis on jobs. His visit to this struggling Rust Belt city capped a tough first-anniversary week for a presidency that suffered jolts at the hands of Massachusetts voters and the Supreme Court.
“I’m not going to win every [...]
BANKING WORLD UPDATE: Even The Rich Are Getting Turned Down For Mortgages (CNN)
The wealthy have money problems, too — yeah they do.
Even refinancing a mortgage for their fancy digs or getting a new loan can be near impossible these days thanks to skittish lenders. And the higher the loan value, the more they worry.
Still, that people with high six-figure incomes, stellar credit histories and gobs of assets [...]
UN Envoy Bill Clinton in Haiti, Meets Survivors In hospital (AFP)
UN special envoy Bill Clinton on Monday defended the pace of incoming foreign aid and praised doctors working in shocking conditions as he toured the devastation in Haiti’s capital.
“I’ll be surprised and disappointed if 48 hours from now we’re not feeding and bringing fresh water to dramatically larger amounts of people,” Clinton told reporters here.
The [...]
Obama Tells Banks: ‘We Want Our Money Back’ (Atlanta Business News)
President Barack Obama told banks Thursday they should pay a new tax to recoup the cost of bailing out foundering firms at the height of the financial crisis. “We want our money back,” he said.
In a brief appearance with advisers at the White House, Obama branded the latest round of bank bonuses as “obscene.” But [...]
Obama Concedes He Hasn’t Brought Country Together (Yahoo! News)
President Barack Obama says he has not succeeded in bringing the country together, acknowledging an atmosphere of divisiveness that has washed away the lofty national feeling surrounding his inauguration a year ago.
“That’s what’s been lost this year … that whole sense of changing how Washington works,” Obama said in an interview with People magazine.
The president [...]
OVERLOOKED STORY OF THE DAY: Obama Freezes Out GOP, May Compromise On Employer Health Mandate (AP/Yahoo!)
With congressional negotiators starting to make decisions on a final health overhaul bill, top Democrats are hoping a White House session with President Barack Obama will narrow differences between the House and Senate.
Obama was to meet Wednesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other Democratic leaders to discuss [...]
White House Visitors Log Released. Transparent Yes, Bi-partisan No (The Washington Post)
Tens of thousands of people poured through the White House in September, including many who visited as part of organized outreach by the Obama administration to particularly important constituencies, according to visitor logs that were released Wednesday.
The records, made public as part of President Obama’s effort to keep his promise of government transparency, include almost [...]
Obama And Reid ‘Hocus Pocus’: Buying Dem Health Care Votes One State At A Time (New York Times)
Buried in the deal-clinching health care package that Senate Democrats unveiled over the weekend is an inconspicuous proposal expanding Medicare to cover certain victims of “environmental health hazards.”
The intended beneficiaries are identified in a cryptic, mysterious way: individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the [...]
