Hello
A mishmash below the cut.
The government is mailing starting today $250 checks to seniors who fall into the gap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage. The first checks will be sent three weeks earlier than scheduled, to about 80,000 people. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that about 4 million seniors will get the rebates in 2010.
Earlier this week the president held a national tele-town hall meeting with senior citizens to discuss health care reform. It wasn't too early to make death-panels jokes or to warn against the Republicans threats to repeal the law.
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New DNC health reform ad:
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Job openings rise to highest level in 16 months
WASHINGTON – Job openings jumped in April to the highest level in 16 months, a sign that private employers may boost hiring in coming months.
The number of jobs advertised at the end of April rose to 3.1 million from 2.8 million in March, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That's the most openings since December 2008.
Private employers accounted for the entire net gain. The government's advertising for jobs decreased, despite the hiring of hundreds of thousands of census workers in May.
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Sign of jobs thaw: Quitters outnumber layoffs
One sign of better economic times is when more people start finding jobs. Another is when they feel confident enough to quit them.
More people quit their jobs in the past three months than were laid off — a sharp reversal after 15 straight months in which layoffs exceeded voluntary departures. The trend suggests the job market is finally thawing.
Some of the quitters are leaving for new jobs. Others have no firm offers. But their newfound confidence about landing work is itself evidence of more hiring and a strengthening economy.
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Still, the number of people quitting their jobs is nowhere near what it was before the recession. Economists expect the improvement in the job market to be fitful, rather than consistent. In May, for example, private employers added only 41,000 net jobs after adding 218,000 in April.
Yet the long-term trend points to an improving job market. The economy has created a net 982,000 jobs this year after a recession that wiped out more than 8 million of them.
The government said Tuesday that the number of people quitting rose in April to nearly 2 million. That was the most in more than a year and an increase of nearly 12 percent since January. That compares with 1.75 million people who were laid off in April, the fewest since January 2007, before the recession began.
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Americans' wealth rises for 4th straight quarter
WASHINGTON — Americans saw their wealth increase at the start of this year as the economic recovery boosted stock portfolios.
The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that household net worth rose by 2.1 percent in the first three months of this year to $54.6 trillion. It marked the fourth consecutive quarter that Americans' wealth grew.
Even with the first-quarter gain, Americans' net worth would have to rise an additional 21 percent to get back to its pre-recession peak of $65.9 trillion.
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A very good CNN story on the subject-whose-name-won't-be-mention:
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Why Obama doesn't dare become the 'angry black man'
Here's proof that President Obama has indeed ushered in a new era in race relations.
Who would have ever expected some white Americans to demand that an African-American man show more rage?
If you've followed the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, you've heard the complaints that Obama isn't showing enough emotion.
But scholars say Obama's critics ignore a lesson from American history: Many white Americans don't like angry black men.
"Folks are waiting for a Samuel Jackson 'Snakes on the Plane' moment from this president as in: 'We gotta' get this $#@!!* oil back in the $#!!* rig!' But that's just not who Obama is,'' says Saladin Ambar, a political science professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Some of the same people crying for Obama to show more emotion would have voted against him if he had displayed anger during his presidential run, says William Jelani Cobb, author of "The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress."
"It would have fed deeply into a pre-existing set of narratives about the angry black man," Cobb says. "The anger would have gotten in the way. He would have frightened off white voters who were interested in him because he seemed to be like the black guy they worked with or went to graduate school with -- not a black guy who is threatening."
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During a news conference last summer, Obama casually said that police acted "stupidly" when they arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates in his home for disorderly conduct after a confrontation with a white police officer.
Obama's comments infuriated many white people, and even some black supporters. Obama had to have a Beer Summit to calm the public uproar.
"He flashed genuine anger," says Ambar. "At that moment, when he touched on the issue of race, he spoke frankly and passionately about what he felt and it got him into a big deal of trouble."
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If Obama wants to go down as a great president, though, he may have to discover the political value of rage, others say.
Franklin Roosevelt was such a president, historians say. During the Great Depression, he went after business leaders who opposed his New Deal policies. Roosevelt once said that he "welcomed the hatred" of the economic elites.
Could Obama become a 21st-century version of Roosevelt, not only in taking on the oil companies but big bankers as well?
Ambar, from Lehigh University, doesn't think so. Obama doesn't share Roosevelt's elite background, which inoculated him from charges of being anti-American. Roosevelt came from a prominent, and wealthy, American family.
"It's easier to do it if your name is Roosevelt," Ambar says. "No one questions your love of capitalism or your patriotism."
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"Our commander in chief has many burdens, and among them is our history and culture," Baick says. "Compared to the weight of that, the current BP crisis and the years of environmental damage and cleanup must seem transient."
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President Obama's remarks following the United Nations Security Council decision to pass a resolution that puts in place the toughest sanctions to date against Iran, a resolution backed by Russia and China.
(BTW, in an interview on Israeli radio today John Bolton said (i'm paraphrasing here) that "the only way to stop Iran is by military, and since it doesn't look like the United States is going to do so, Israel should". Adorable.)
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President Obama announces $400 million in additional help for housing, schools, and development in Gaza and the West Bank after a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday. *
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US arrests 2,200 in Mexican drug trafficking probe
WASHINGTON—Law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 2,200 people in a 22-month investigation targeting Mexican drug trafficking organizations in the United States, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
The Justice Department says the nearly-two-year probe has led to the seizure of $154 million in currency, over 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.5 tons of cocaine, over 1,400 pounds of heroin and 69 tons of marijuana.
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Among those arrested in recent days was Carlos Ramon Castro-Rocha, believed by law enforcement agencies to be among the leaders of organizations importing narcotics to the U.S.
In Mexico, Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics division of Mexico's federal police, said that U.S.-Mexico cooperation has been key in arresting traffickers.
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VP Biden terrific speech in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday: "Hello, i'm Joe Biden, and i work for Barack Obama ;)
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Student Atheist Leaders Invited for the first time to White House Meeting on Interfaith Service Projects
leaders of the secular student movement were included in an invitation to the White House to participate in a meeting on interfaith service projects on college campuses. The event, held on Monday June 7th, was sponsored by the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Participating on behalf of nontheistic students were August Brunsman, Executive Director of the Secular Student Alliance, and Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and Chair of the SSA Advisory Board.
"Our inclusion in today’s meeting is a welcome acknowledgement that secular students have been working to make a positive difference in the world," said Brunsman. "As more and more students openly identify as nontheistic, we are taking a greater role in the charitable interfaith community".
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President Obama to Write Foreword for Mandela Book
President Obama is making a brief return to friendly territory: the book industry.
He has agreed to write the foreword for "Conversations with Myself" by Nelson Mandela, the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, announced Wednesday. The book is set for publication on Oct. 12.
The publisher described the book as "a sweeping narrative of great immediacy and stunning power." It draws on Mr. Mandela’s journals from the early 1960s, his diaries written while in prison, speeches and recorded conversations
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More from the president's visit to Kalamazoo Central High School’s in Michigan. Before the formal speech, he went backstage to talk to the graduates without the presence of the media, except for the school news team. If you like the president, YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS:
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(Official WH photos by Pete Souza)
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All by AP.
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President Obama greets Minnie Small, 94, of Silver Spring, MD, after a national teleconference town hall meeting at the Holiday Park Multipurpose Senior Center, June 8.
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First Lady Michelle Obama hugs Betsy (L), age 5, and Sophia, age 7, children of Louisiana Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), as she helps pack Healthy Lifestyle Kits for District of Columbia area children at a Congressional service event at the Kennedy Recreation Center in Washington on June 8.
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VP Biden meets Wangari Maathai, Noble Prize Laurete at Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Wednesday, June 9. Biden is in Kenya to press for political reforms in the country and discuss the situation in Somalia and Sudan.
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Jill Biden receives a foot rug made by a student of Beacon of Hope when she toured the facility in Ongata Rongai, Kenya, Wednesday June 9. Partially funded by the U.S. government, Beacon of Hope teaches HIV positive women the disease skills that can help them generate an income. This will help them to sustain themselves and their children. Many of these women have been rejected by society because of their HIV status .It also supports those who have lost family to the disease.
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