By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jul. 14, 2010 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) — Leaders of the country’s largest civil rights organization accused tea party activists on Tuesday of tolerating bigotry and approved a resolution condemning racism within the political movement.
The resolution was adopted during the annual convention in Kansas City of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, spokesman Chris Fleming said. Tea party organizers disputed claims of racism and called on the NAACP to withdraw the resolution.
Debate was mostly closed to the public, but the final version “calls on the tea party and all people of good will to repudiate the racist element and activities within the tea party,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau.
“I hope it will empower the tea party to actually look at itself and see that there are those who are noticing things that I think most tea partiers don’t want,” he said.
Sarah Palin, a vocal tea party supporter, said in a statement late Tuesday that she was “saddened by the NAACP’s claim that patriotic Americans … are somehow ‘racists.’”
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Associated Press via AARP Bulletin
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BP says new cap on well fully closed, no more oil leaking into Gulf
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Washington Post
BP says oil has stopped leaking into the Gulf for the first time since April.
BP has been slowly dialing down the flow as part of a test on a new cap. Engineers are now monitoring the pressure to see if the busted well holds.
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When 67-year-old Beverly Weaver of Sacramento, Calif., visited her dentist, she was blindsided by the diagnosis. “Just about all of my fillings were 30 years old, so they had started cracking,” she says. She had to have two root canals and caps redone—dental procedures not covered by Medicare. The total cost: $8,000, an amount Weaver simply could not afford on her fixed income.
So Weaver applied for a CareCredit card, one of several credit cards that are designated for financing out-of-pocket health care expenses. The cards offer zero percent or very low interest for a fixed period after a medical procedure. Without the card, “I would never have been able to afford the dental work,” Weaver says.
Weaver’s use of a medical credit card had a happy outcome. But some patients have found that the cards place them on a treadmill of old-fashioned plastic debt. For instance, the office of Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is investigating a complaint concerning a 91-year-old woman who used a card to pay for a hearing aid. When her final payment arrived late, Swanson’s office says, the woman received a bill for $1,200 in interest going back to the date of the initial charge.
The cards “may have a longer grace period and zero percent APR offers, but usually they will increase to a similar interest rate percentage as a regular credit card, sometimes even higher,” says José Garcia, associate director for research and policy with the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, a New York-based research and advocacy firm.
More patients charging medical costs
As Americans seek ways to deal with fast-rising medical costs, the use of credit cards at the doctor’s office is increasingly common. ………….READ MORE:
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By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post
Burdened by low approval on the economy, President Obama brought former president Bill Clinton and investor Warren Buffett to the White House on Wednesday to talk about job creation.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that Clinton — who oversaw record surpluses and was generally seen as business-friendly — was brought in to mediate between business leaders and Obama, now under fire from corporate leaders for his economic policies.
This week, the US Chamber of Commerce issued a harsh letter complaining that the White House is burdening businesses with too much regulation and hampering job growth.
“Do I think they speak monolithically for business? No,” Gibbs said of the Chamber.
On Wednesday, the White House also responded directly to the Chamber. “We were surprised and disappointed by the rhetoric we have heard from some in the business community,” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett wrote in a letter addressed to the Chamber. “While we may not agree on every single issue, we should always remember that there is much we agree on and that we are all working towards the same goal of putting American back to work and getting our economy back on track,” they wrote.
Clinton, whose foundation is working on clean energy programs that would employ additional workers, and Buffett met with Obama as part of a White House push on the economy and employment. On Tuesday, Obama tapped Jacob Lew as budget director and publicly directed him to reduce the deficit. On Thursday, Obama travels to Michigan to talk job creation once more.
Gibbs said the timing of the two Wednesday meetings was coincidental, and that Buffett initiated their sit-down.
“You don’t turn down an opportunity to talk to Warren Buffett,” Gibbs said. Buffett has been an Obama supporter and adviser since backing him in the 2008 primaries.
The Clinton meeting was designed to “discuss new ways to create jobs in the private sector and continue to build on the success we have seen through the Recovery Act on building public-private partnerships in the clean energy sector,” a White House statement said……read more.
http://washingtonpost.com
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News Alert: Fed leaders: Economic recovery slower than expected
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Federal Reserve leaders marked down their expectations for growth and inflation last month, concluding that the economic recovery is proceeding more slowly than they had thought in the spring but that the slowdown did not warrant new policy actions.
But Fed leaders did agree to explore options for supporting the economy further in case conditions worsen.
http://washingtonpost.com
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