115 Banks failed in 2009

U.S. Bancorp Takes Over 9 Banks Seized by Regulators (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

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Banking regulators seized nine related community lenders in California, Illinois, Arizona and Texas, representing the collapse of one of the nation's largest privately held bank holding companies that grew through a string of acquisitions dating back to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1990s.

The nine small banks represented the holdings of FBOP Corp., based in Oak Park, Ill., and owned by a banker who had plowed into real-estate lending around the country.

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U.S. Bancorp Takes Over 9 Banks Seized by Regulators (Update1) - Bloomberg.com: "U.S. Bancorp, the Minneapolis-based lender expanding amid the financial crisis, agreed to acquire nine failed banks owned by closely held FBOP Corp. and seized by regulators yesterday.
The nine banks will cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. a combined $2.5 billion, the agency said. So far this year, 115 banks have failed, sending the insurance fund into a deficit in September and prompting the agency to propose that banks prepay three years of premiums to raise $45 billion."

9.9%: Consumers, Government Propel Growth - Politico

9.9%! The largest economy in the world is back.
“Data released today by the Commerce Department show that real GDP grew at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter of the year. This is in stark contrast to the decline of 6.4 percent annual rate just two quarters ago. Indeed, the two-quarter swing in the rate of growth of 9.9 percentage points was the largest since 1980. Analysis by both the Council of Economic Advisers and a wide range of private- and public-sector forecasters indicates that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 contributed between 3 and 4 percentage points to real GDP growth in the third quarter. This suggests that in the absence of the Recovery Act, real GDP would have risen little, if at all, this past quarter.”

Raw Video:Obama Honors Return of Fallen Soldiers - 2:57

Obama Visits Returning War Dead - NYTimes.com

Obama Visits Returning War Dead - NYTimes.com: "Obama Visits Returning War Dead
By JEFF ZELENY


President Obama traveled to Dover Air Force Base early Thursday morning, where he met with family members and paid his respects as the bodies of 18 Americans killed this week in Afghanistan were returned to the United States."

It was the president’s first trip to the Delaware air base, the main point of entry for the nation’s war dead to return home. The trip was a symbolic one for Mr. Obama — intended to convey the gravity of his decision as he moves closer to announcing whether he will send more troops to Afghanistan.

The overnight trip was not announced in advance. The president, wearing a dark suit and long overcoat, left the White House at 11:44 p.m. A small contingent of reporters and photographers accompanied Mr. Obama to Dover, where he arrived at 12:34 a.m. aboard Marine One. He returned to the South Lawn of the White House at 4:45 a.m.

October has been the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began eight years ago, with at least 55 troops killed in action. This week alone, about two dozen soldiers have died in attacks and accidents. The bodies returning to Dover Air Force Base shortly after midnight included seven Army soldiers and three agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency who were killed when their helicopter crashed on Monday in rural Afghanistan. The bodies of eight soldiers killed in an attack on Monday also arrived on an Air Force C-17.

On a clear fall morning, Mr. Obama boarded the back of the gray plane at 3:40 a.m., standing watch as Air Force Chaplain, Maj. Richard S. Bach, offered a brief prayer over the cases containing the remains of the 15 soldiers and three federal agents.

The family of Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin, 29, of Terre Haute, Ind., agreed to have the transfer of his remains photographed early Thursday morning. The other families chose not to, officials said, under a new Pentagon policy that lifted an 18-year ban on media covering the return of U.S. service members killed in action if families provide permission.

Largest Drug Sting Ever - AG Eric Holder

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Blackhorse Regiment

President Obama Bestows Presidential Unit Citation on the Blackhorse Regiment

15 states have double-digit jobless rate in Sept. - MarketWatch

15 states have double-digit jobless rate in Sept. - MarketWatch

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Lawmakers criticize state, Northrop Grumman | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Lawmakers criticize state, Northrop Grumman Richmond Times-Dispatch

Virginia has a 10-year, 2.3 billion pact with Northrop Grumman to provide information-technology services

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Business Roundtable Issues Report Examining the Cost of Inaction on Health Care Reform

Business Roundtable Issues Report Examining the Cost of Inaction on Health Care Reform

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David Frum - Health costs hurt incomes in Bush years - audio

With information from a recent report, we may finally be able to reach a verdict on President George W. Bush's economic record. Commentator David Frum doesn't like what he sees.

Iran Guard Commanders Are Killed in Bombings - NYTimes.com

Iran Guard Commanders Are Killed in Bombings - NYTimes.com: "At least five commanders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed and dozens of others left dead and injured in two terrorist bombings in the restive region of the nation’s southeastern frontier with Pakistan, according to multiple Iranian state news agencies.
The coordinated attacks appeared to mark an escalation in hostilities between Iran’s leadership and one of the nation’s many disgruntled ethnic and religious minorities, in this case the Baluchis. The southeast region, Sistan-Baluchistan, has been the scene of terrorist attacks in the past, and in April the government put the Guards Corps in control of security there to try to stop the escalating violence.
Iranian officials have accused foreign enemies of supporting the terrorist insurgents and repeated that charge Sunday, a day before Iran is set to meet for another round of sensitive talks on its nuclear program with several Western countries."

Size of Bank Failures Smaller, But Pace Remains Strong - Financials * US * News * Story - CNBC.com

Size of Bank Failures Smaller, But Pace Remains Strong - Financials * US * News * Story - CNBC.com: "One more U.S. bank was shuttered on Friday, as the tally of failures so far this year inched closer to 100.
The pace of bank failures has picked up sharply this year as the industry continues to work through bad loans that were made during the credit boom.
On Friday regulators closed San Joaquin Bank of Bakersfield, California. It was the 99th U.S. bank failure of 2009.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, which was named receiver, said San Joaquin had $775 million in assets and $631 million in deposits.
Citizens Business Bank of Ontario, Calif., agreed to assume all deposits of San Joaquin, whose five branches will reopen on Monday as branches of Citizens Business Bank."

OpenSecrets | Support for Charles Rangel Wanes In Midst of Alleged Ethics Scandals - Capital Eye

OpenSecrets Support for Charles Rangel Wanes In Midst of Alleged Ethics Scandals - Capital Eye

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TP video - What Glenn Beck Doesn’t Know About His Hero Thomas Paine

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Beck says he gathers his inspiration from political philosopher Thomas Paine. The title of Beck’s bestselling book is Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine. Think Progress has unearthed startling evidence that Paine also held radical notions about social justice and wealth redistribution.
In his 1796 tract, Agrarian Justice, Paine writes:
1. It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.
Paine then goes on to claim that in order for the dispossessed to earn their rightful part of this common inheritance, it is necessary to charge wealthy landowners ground-rent that would be used to…
2. [C]reate a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.
By the iron-clad logic of the blackboard, these associations can only mean one thing about Glenn Beck. Who will tell the people?

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TP video - Beck’s Attack On Obama Adviser Ignores Right-Wing Interest In Mao

TP audio - Limbaugh states that NFL is an outpost of ‘racism and liberalism.’

Bush-era EPA document on climate change released -- latimes.com

Johnson attended Taylor University, receiving a B.A. in biology followed by a master's degree in pathology from George Washington University. Before working for the U.S. Government, he held a number of positions in laboratory and bio-technology companies. He was also the director of Hazelton Laboratories, now Covance.

Leavitt graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics and business from Southern Utah University and married Jacalyn Smith.

Bush-era EPA document on climate change released -- latimes.com

The Environmental Protection Agency released a long-secret document last week that reveals the agency's conclusions on global warming while President Bush was in office. The December 2007 document says greenhouse gases are dangerous and need to be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
"The Bush administration never accepted the need to regulate greenhouse gases," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson tells Liane Hansen. "That's why the endangerment finding was never released."
The agency's decision to release that "endangerment finding" now highlights the stark differences between the EPA under Bush and the EPA under President Obama.

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Has anyone noticed the cooperation with the Healthcare Industry?

After looking at the Healthcare debate it came to my attention that there is a lot of coordination and strategizing with the President and the Healthcare stakeholders.

WSJ - Women's Wages Outpaced Men's During Recession

The wages of the typical woman who had a job during the worst recession in decades rose faster than those of the typical man, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show.
Over the past two years, the wages of the median woman -- at the statistical middle -- rose 3.2% when adjusted for inflation. Wages of the median man rose 2%. Minority men were particularly hard hit, while minority women and highly educated women of all races did better.
The typical full-time female worker earned $657 a week in the third quarter, the BLS said. The typical man earned $812 a week. Men are more likely to be unemployed, though: The male jobless rate is 11%; for women, it's 8.4%
Economists cautioned that the wage numbers and the increases don't reflect the large numbers of workers who aren't working at all.

WSJ - Median wages in 3/4 2009 (part 1 of 2)

Click on link for full image.

Former Bush official is sentenced to one year in prison (10/16/09) -- GovExec.com

Former Bush official is sentenced to one year in prison (10/16/09) -- GovExec.com: "David Safavian, the former head of federal procurement policy during the Bush administration, was sentenced on Friday to 12 months and one day in prison for lying about his dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He will be on supervised probation for 24 months after his release from prison.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, however, ruled that Safavian would not have to surrender to authorities until after his pregnant wife, Jennifer, gives birth. It is not clear when she is due to give birth.
Prosecutors had been asking for a prison sentence of 15 to 21 months."

Record-High Deficit

The Obama administration has argued that the deficit was the price the country had to pay to pull the recession-ravaged economy back from the brink. But on Friday it promised to take measures to bring it back down.

Government spending rose 18.2 per cent from 2008, in part because of Tarp and the $787bn fiscal stimulus package. Such efforts to stabilise the economy accounted for a quarter of the deficit, the government said. Outlays for benefits such as food stamps and unemployment insurance were also pushed higher by the recession.

At the same time, tax revenues slumped 16.6 per cent as incomes and corporate profits declined.

Ultra Libertarian Noam Chomsky - video 3:19

Ultra Libertarian, Noam Chomsky, relates US to 1920 Europe!

Gov. Jindal calls for Resignation!

Gov. Bobby Jindal joined civil rights groups and others in calling for the resignation of a white justice of the peace who said he had refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children they might have. The justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell, said earlier that he had discussed the topic with blacks and whites. “There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Mr. Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer, and I won’t help put them through it.” The couple, Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, who is black, both of Hammond, say they would consult the federal Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint. Senator Mary L. Landrieu in a statement said Mr. Bardwell’s practices and comments were deeply disturbing.

Gerald R. Ford: Remarks Upon Signing a Summer Youth Employment Bill.

Gerald R. Ford: Remarks Upon Signing a Summer Youth Employment Bill.

BEFORE SIGNING the summer youth employment, recreation, and transportation supplemental appropriation bill, I do want to thank the Members of Congress, both the House and the Senate, both Democratic as well as Republican, for the quick action in getting this supplemental appropriation bill through.

It amounts to about $473 million. It will provide approximately 840,000 job opportunities for young people in the summer of 1975.

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Federal Deficit Hits All-Time High of $1.42 Trillion - NY Times

The federal budget deficit has surged to an all-time high of $1.42 trillion as the recession caused tax revenues to plunge while the government was spending massive amounts to stabilize the financial system and jump-start the economy.

The imbalance for the budget year ended Sept. 30, more than tripled last year's record. The Obama administration projects deficits will total $9.1 trillion over the next decade unless corrective action is taken.

As a portion of the economy, the budget deficit stood at 10 percent, the highest since World War II, according to government data released Friday.

It's a crime people: Galleon Group, ex-Bear Sterns directors, others charged in insider trading scam

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Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam and five others have been arrested and charged in a $20 million insider-trading case, prosecutors said.

At a press conference Friday, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced that Rajaratnam, the founder of the Galleon Group and portfolio manager for the Galleon Technology Funds, has been charged with four counts of conspiracy and eight counts of securities fraud.

Galleon at one point had as much as $7 billion in assets under management.

"This is not a garden variety insider-trading case," Bharara said. "This case represents the largest hedge fund insider-trading case ever charged criminally."

Bharara also said he believed it was the first time that prosecutors had used a wiretap in an insider-trading case.

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Galleon Statement
Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:59pm EDT
NEW YORK--(Business Wire)--
Galleon Group LP ("Galleon") today issued the following statement:

"Galleon was shocked to learn today that Raj Rajaratnam was arrested this
morning at his apartment. We had no knowledge of the investigation before it was
made public and we intend to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities.
Galleon continues to operate and is highly liquid."

Media:
Sard Verbinnen & Co
George Sard/Dan Gagnier/Renee Soto
212-687-8080

It is clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction

In announcing that Limbaugh was no longer associated with his bid for the Rams, Checketts said it was "clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction." That's the way the free market works in this great country of ours.

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He gave this overview of the preponderance of black players in the league:
1. "The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
2. He has referred to basketball as "the favorite sport of gangs."
3. He has called President Obama "the greatest living example of a reverse racist" and "an angry black guy" and -- because of his biracial heritage -- a "Halfrican-American."
4. An equal-opportunity offender, Limbaugh also has called Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor a "reverse racist,"
5. Compared Latino illegal immigrants to an "invasive species," and
6. Referred to Native Americans as "Injuns."

Boy Asks Obama, 'Why Do People Hate You?' - video 2:18

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Wounded Soldiers Return to Iraq

FORWARD OPERATING BASE NORMANDY, Iraq — Soldiers have often returned to old battlefields, to honor fallen comrades and to exorcise persistent demons. British soldiers go back to the Falklands. Normandy cemeteries are on many V.F.W. and American Legion itineraries. Vietnam veterans can even get package tours now to the places where they were stationed.

Now, Americans wounded in the Iraq war are being ferried back to the scenes where they were maimed to help achieve psychological closure, the first time such visits have been tried while a war is still in progress.

The seven-day program, called Operation Proper Exit, has been kept quiet previously, partly because returning to a combat zone is considered a delicate experiment. For the eight wounded men who returned to Iraq this week, including five amputees and one blinded soldier, the hope is that returning to places many of them left while unconscious or in agony might reassure them that their losses have been worth it.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey - video 4:38

Libertarian Party | Smaller Government | Lower Taxes | More Freedom

Teabaggers Try To ‘Flush’ Graham Out Of GOP - video

Teabaggers Try To ‘Flush’ Graham Out Of GOP; Graham Responds: ‘If You Don’t Like’ Moderates, ‘You Can Leave’

Just ain't right! - Limbaugh to Be Dropped From Rams

Sources tell ESPN that Dave Checketts, chairman of the NHL's St. Louis Blues and the point man in the Limbaugh group attempting to buy the Rams, is planning to remove the controversial radio host as a minority member in the group in order to get approval from other NFL owners.

10,000 points above the sea

10,000 for First Time in Over a Year

.S. stocks rallied, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 10,000 for the first time in a year, on better-than-estimated earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Intel Corp. Oil climbed, while the Dollar Index slid to the lowest level since August 2008 and Treasuries fell.

JPMorgan added 3.3 percent as a surge in fixed-income revenue helped the bank increase profit almost sevenfold. Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, rose 1.7 percent after its sales forecast topped estimates by as much as $1 billion. Macy’s Inc. and Nordstrom Inc. gained on a government report that showed retail sales fell less than economists forecast last month.

Let Him Own a Team!! - Colts owner won't vote for Limbaugh's Rams bid

Colts owner won't vote for Limbaugh's Rams bid


Commissioner Roger Goodell cast doubt on Rush Limbaugh’s viability as an N.F.L. owner Tuesday, saying that “divisive comments are not what the N.F.L. is all about.”

“I’ve said many times before, we’re all held to a high standard here,” Goodell said. “I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the N.F.L. — absolutely not.”

Goodell emphasized that it was extremely early in the process and that the Rosenbloom family, which owns the St. Louis Rams, is not even fully committed to sell its majority stake in the team.

Limbaugh has teamed with Dave Checketts, a former Madison Square Garden executive, in a bid to buy into the Rams. But Goodell’s comments were a thinly veiled signal that Limbaugh’s bid — even if it were the highest — would most likely not receive support from owners. Three-quarters of the 32 owners must approve a sale, meaning just nine of them can scuttle a deal.

Goodell, who presides over a league whose players are 65 percent black, took the extraordinary step of addressing an ownership bid early because a brushfire had sprung up last week when Limbaugh’s interest in the Rams became public.


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Lindsey Graham Faces Tea Party Fury: "Traitor," "Democrat In Drag," "Half-A-Sissy" (VIDEO)

LTC Graham is a "Traitor"?

Republican Gomorrah - audio WBUR

Republican Gomorrah
Listen
Journalist Max Blumenthal spent six years covering the radical right, we speak with him about his new book “Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party.” Blumenthal is also senior writer for The Daily Beast.

Navy honors civil rights martyr Sergeant Medgar Evers - Boston.com

Navy honors civil rights martyr Medgar Evers - Boston.com



Today in Jackson, Mississippi, I was privileged to honor a civil rights hero and the millions of Americans who have furthered the cause of liberty. As Secretary of the Navy, I am responsible for naming our ships. Today, I announced that the first ship I will name will be the USNS Medgar Evers.

The ship that will carry Medgar Evers name around the world for a generation is a T-AKE, a critically important supply ship. They are traditionally named for famous American pioneers, explorers, and visionaries. They celebrate the dreams and bold action of the American spirit and they honor men and women who have changed our country and the world for the better - men and women like Alan Shepard, Sacagawea, Carl Brashear, and Amelia Earhart. The ships' namesakes represent the rich tapestry that is America.

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I didn't think about this. I thought it was a good idea.

Black NFL players crush prospect of playing for a Rush Limbaugh-owned St. Louis Rams

Updated Friday, October 9th 2009, 8:59 AM
Mathias Kiwanuka loves his former defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, but the Giants' defensive end says he will never play for Spagnuolo's Rams if Rush Limbaugh purchases the team.

Kiwanuka and the Jets' Bart Scott made it clear Thursday that they would never play for the Rams or any team owned by the controversial conservative radio host.

Comments from Think Progress:

– “Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”

– “We need segregated buses. … This is Obama’s America.”

– “President Obama is black. And I think he’s got a chip on his shoulder.”

– Democrats are interested in Darfur to secure black “voting bloc.”

– “Minorities never do anything for which they have to apologize.”

– Obama’s nomination for president “goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy.”

– Obama is a “halfrican-American.”

PBS - Obama's War - video 24:46

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Warning: This video contains graphic language and imagery (language, death, war footage)

See this show on air October 13 at 2100.

Includes:
Marines in Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment
Interviews
Related reports
Readings

Fallen vet’s mother seeks relief in a bill - The Boston Globe

Fallen vet’s mother seeks relief in a bill - The Boston Globe


US Representative Barney Frank introduced a bill yesterday to try to clear the way for a grief-stricken Mansfield mother to be buried in a veterans cemetery along with her 21-year-old son, who was killed while serving in Iraq.

Discuss
COMMENTS (1)
Denise Anderson lost her son, Army Specialist Corey Shea, in November 2008 when he was attacked by a renegade Iraqi soldier who turned on the Americans he was accompanying.

After her son’s burial in the National Veterans Cemetery in Bourne, Anderson, with the help of Frank’s office, sought permission from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to be buried with her son when she eventually dies.

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I keep hearing this from conservative media.

A point keeps being made about won the Peace prize award, in a negative light. The person stated negatively, on FoxNews this morning, was Arafat. Weird right? Think about who won the award that year...
1994
The prize was awarded joinly to:

YASSER ARAFAT , Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority.

SHIMON PERES , Foreign Minister of Israel.

YITZHAK RABIN , Prime Minister of Israel.

for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.

Below is a list of others who won this now ridiculed award by conservatives:
1. KIM DAE JUNG for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular.
2. NELSON MANDELA Leader of the ANC.
FREDRIK WILLEM DE KLERK President of the Republic of South Africa.
3. MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH GORBACHEV , President of the USSR, helped to bring the Cold War to an end.
4. THE 14TH DALAI LAMA (TENZIN GYATSO) , Tibet. Religious and political leader of the Tibetan people.
5. ELIE WIESEL , U.S.A., Chairman of 'The President's Commission on the Holocaust'. Author, humanitarian.
6. INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR Boston, MA, U.S.A.
7. DESMOND MPILO TUTU , South Africa, Bishop of Johannesburg, former Secretary General South African Council of Churches (S.A.C.C.). for his work against apartheid.
8. LECH WALESA , Poland. Founder of Solidarity, campaigner for human rights.
9. MOTHER TERESA , India, Leader of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity.

1978
10. The prize was divided equally between: MOHAMED ANWAR AL-SADAT , President of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
MENACHEM BEGIN , Prime Minister of Israel.
11. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL London, Great Britain. A worldwide organization for the protection of the rights of prisoners of conscience.

1973
12. The prize was awarded jointly to: HENRY A. KISSINGER , Secretary of State, State Department, Washington.
LE DUC THO , Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. (Declined the prize.) for jointly negotiating the Vietnam peace accord in 1973.

While President - Nobel award

Presidents:
Barack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson - three US presidents who earned the Nobel peace prize.

Wow - for deeds not yet complete - Nobel Prize

President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” a stunning honor that came less than nine months after Mr. Obama made United States history by becoming the country’s first African-American president.

The award, announced here by the Nobel Committee while much of official Washington — including the president — was still asleep, cited in particular the president’s efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Undercover Stings Expose 'Gun Show Loophole' - video

This aren't right. Follow the law. Dealers should lose their license forever, since the weapon's sale can have a fatal outcome.

American Story - NYTimes

In First Lady’s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery

In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.

In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.

In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, represents the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.

Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.

First Lady - Slavery roots traced by Genealogist - Video

Really, really cool.


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Sen. John Ensign - video

Senator it's a crime!

Gates Urges Confidentiality in Advising Obama on Afghan War - WashPo

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday it is "imperative" that the advice U.S. military and civilian leaders provide to President Obama as he contemplates strategy in Afghanistan remain private.
"In this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations -- civilians and military alike -- provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately," Gates said in a speech to hundreds of Army personnel at the Association of the United States Army annual meeting in Washington.

Wash Post - The Battle of Wanat

The Battle of WanatOn July 13, 2008, Taliban fighters launched a major assault on a small U.S. Army outpost in Afghanistan, killing nine soldiers and wounding 27. This timeline chronicles the battle from the perspective of a lieutenant killed in the fight, Jonathan Brostrom, and his father, who has sought answers to what went wrong. It was researched partly in collaboration with CBS News, whose report on the battle of Wanat airs Monday on the CBS Evening News.

NYTimes - The Distance Between ‘We Must’ and ‘We Can’

Over the next few weeks, Barack Obama must make the most difficult decision of his presidency to date: whether or not to send up to 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, as his commanding general there, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has reportedly proposed.
This summer, Mr. Obama described the effort in Afghanistan as “a war of necessity.” In such a war, you do whatever you need to do to win. But now, as criticism mounts from those who argue that the war in Afghanistan cannot, in fact, be won with more troops and a better strategy, the president is having second thoughts.

A war of necessity is presumably one that is “fundamental to the defense of our people,” as Mr. Obama has said about Afghanistan. But if such a war is unwinnable, then perhaps you must reconsider your sense of its necessity and choose a more modest policy instead.

The pivot - Graham: Beck is not the voice of conservatism.

Republicans are starting to pivot from talk radio conversativism. This is the second time this week COL Graham came out against radio show conservatism.

MGen James Jones

Mitt Romney speaks sense on Obama, Olympics - AJC

Now the Olympics, first healthcare keep him in the Conservative doghouse until it's passed. He's not making firends. Huckabee 2012!


SALT LAKE CITY –Former Massachusetts governor and head of the 2002 Olympic Organizing Committee Mitt Romney says President Obama is doing exactly what needs to be done by flying to Denmark to lobby for the Olympics to come to Chicago in 2016.

Romney tells ABC News that having a sitting president make a personal pitch can make an enormous difference to the 106 members of the International Olympic Committee.

“I think the people in the IOC want to understand the level of the commitment of the host country,” Romney said. “Does the host country really care? Is this going to be a high priority? And nothing says that like having the presence of the leader of that country and, particularly, the case of Barack Obama.”

Bill Frist on Health Bill: I'd Vote For

Bill Frist on Health Bill: I'd Vote For It



Were he still in the Senate, "I would end up voting for it," he said. "As leader, I would take heat for it. ... That's what leadership is all about."

This is not to say that Frist is entirely happy with everything that is in the bill.

For one thing, he doesn't think it does nearly enough to bring costs under control. In his view, it does not fundamentally change the incentives that providers now have to provide more care, rather than better care. "There is really nothing to bend the cost curve," he says.

And Frist also predicts it will extend coverage to only 20 million or so additional Americans--far short of true universal coverage. Given the fiscal constraints, he says, he says a better approach would be to provide a more bare-bones package of benefits known as "catastrophic coverage" that would insure more people.

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Minnesota bank is 97th U.S. failure of 2009 - MarketWatch

Minnesota bank is 97th U.S. failure of 2009 - MarketWatch



Two regional banks were closed by regulators on Friday evening, bringing the 2009 tally to 97.

Warren Bank, based in Warren, Mich., and Jennings State Bank in Spring Grove, Minn., were the latest to go down.




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Chicago Pleads Its Case to Host Olympic Games in 2016 - NYTimes.com

Although I want Chicago to win, 2016 in Rio would be incredible!

Chicago Pleads Its Case to Host Olympic Games in 2016 - NYTimes.com: "Chicago Pleads Its Case"