Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
PLAYING BALL IN WASHINGTON: GOP Budget Gets Obama’s Attention (Washington Post)
Rep. Paul D. Ryan says he is determined to make sure the Republican Party is viewed as “the alternative party, not the opposition party.”
That is a goal President Obama embraced when he visited House Republicans at their policy retreat in Baltimore last week, and he singled out Ryan as someone he would like to work [...]
AIR TRAVERL SHOCKER: Airlines Continue To Fly Planes With Maintenance Problems (USA Today)
Alerted by a brake warning light in the cockpit, the captain on a U.S. airline flight last August warned passengers he was making an emergency landing and called for firetrucks to be standing by.
The trucks weren’t needed, it turned out. The Boeing 767-300 jet landed safely, the pilot said in his account to NASA's Aviation [...]
After Obama Speech, Democrats Confused About Path Ahead (Washington Post)
A day after President Obama called on them to renew efforts to pass his ambitious agenda, congressional Democrats remained in disarray Thursday about how to move forward, with at least some pointing at the White House as the cause of the legislative standstill gripping Capitol Hill.
Democrats left town early Thursday weighing their next steps on [...]
Studies Link Exercise in Older Adults to Healthier Aging (Time)
We all know that exercise is good for you. Staying physically active helps keep your heart healthy and your muscles strong, and in cancer patients it has even been shown to ward off relapse. Now a series of independently conducted studies on the effects of exercise in healthy older adults, published on Monday in the [...]
Obama To Seek Up To $4B In New Education Spending (Washington Post)
President Barack Obama said Wednesday his administration will work with Congress to expand school improvements across the country, saying the success of children cannot depend on where they live.
As he prepares to ask Congress for billions of dollars in new spending for education, Obama said the nation’s students need to be inspired to succeed in [...]
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 [...]
Consumers Are Squeezed As Inflation Outpaces Wages (Yahoo! News)
The spending power of families is being squeezed, government data showed Friday, highlighting doubts about consumers’; ability to drive the economic rebound.Workers saw their inflation-adjusted weekly wages fall 1.6 percent last year — the sharpest drop since 1990 — even as consumer prices rose only modestly. Slack pay and scarce job growth, along with tight [...]
Save $100 on Groceries in 3 Easy Steps (The Motley Fool)
There are those who keep color-coded files with meticulously clipped coupons indexed by category, retailer, and expiration date. And then there’s the rest of us.
The good news is that big supermarket savings can be had by those of us who can barely take the time to jot down a shopping list … or even remember [...]
Martin Luther King Day, A Time ‘To Do Something’ (Washington Post Article & Video)
For a decade and half, Harris Wofford has taken what Americans do on the national holiday marking the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy personally.
During his single term in the U.S. Senate, Wofford (D-Pa.) partnered with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) in 1994 to pass the King Holiday and Service Act. Both men, veterans of the [...]
CZAR PROFILES: Obama’s Head Of Information Cass Sunstein Has Some Interesting Ideas On How To Control The Information You Hear (Salon.com)
Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs.” In 2008, while at [...]
