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President Barack Obama will meet with chief executive officers and presidents from a dozen community banks today to discuss his proposals to boost small-business lending and his plans for regulatory overhaul.

President Barack Obama is spending almost $600 million to build community health centers and to make medical records easier to find. The White House on Wednesday painted the spending -- part of the $787 billion stimulus bill the president championed during his first days in office -- as a way to add jobs to a struggling economy. Officials also linked it to the administration's broader push for an overhaul of the nation's health systems that remains unfinished in Congress.

Conservative Republicans are capitalizing on the troubles of community activist group ACORN—ranging from charges of voter registration fraud to embarrassing videos of its employees—to revive their long-standing fight against a federal law that grades banks on their investments in poor and minority neighborhoods. The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act was intended to end redlining, a practice in which banks in effect walled off many inner-city neighborhoods from mortgage loans. But some GOP lawmakers say it has outlived its purpose and is being used inappropriately by ACORN to shake down banks for money. They want to repeal the law, scale it back...

House Minority Leader John Boehner introduced legislation Tuesday that would break all federal government ties with ACORN, and Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an investigation by the Justice Department House Minority Leader John Boehner introduced legislation Tuesday that would break all federal government ties with ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. And Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an investigation by the Justice Department. He cited reports that ACORN may "have been engaged in illegal activity" by aiding and abetting tax evasion, prostitution, human trafficking, fraud and...

Here’s a thought to ponder. Let’s think of a community of families that each agree to put aside a minimum of $100 CASH a month. They agree that this cash will henceforth ONLY be spent within the community – and physical cash will be the only currency accepted. Any purchases not made in the community will be made with other resources. There would be no “central bank” within the community. There would be no central figure to “trust”. The only requirement is a verbal agreement to use that money within the community by buying and selling with other members, or...

Students would pay out-of-state tuition and wouldn't get government grants or loans Community colleges in North Carolina would be required to admit students who are not legal residents of the United States if the state approves a proposed policy. The state Board of Community Colleges will consider a proposal that would admit students who aren’t in the country legally and require them to pay the out-of-state tuition rate.

Analysis: Critics co-opt Obama organizing playbookBy LIZ SIDOTI (AP) – 1 day ago WASHINGTON — There's a certain irony here. The 20th century community organizer who used 21st century tools for his people-powered White House campaign now finds himself besieged by citizens airing their grievances at 19th century-inspired town hall style meetings. Barack Obama's top legislative goal hangs in the balance and his popularity is suffering as critics co-opt his tech-savvy organizing methods, tag him as a boogyman and disrupt local gatherings on his proposed health care overhaul. Is the groundbreaking campaigner, whose White House political arm is aptly called...

I have a question to you, my fellow freeper community: Fellow Patriots: Forgive the vanity, but I have a question, and would like a solid answer(s) becuase it is really the only way that we will continue to build the movement? WE ALL KNOW that the majority of the population is against Obamacare/Nationalized Healthcare, however eventually we will reach a plateau of support against the President/Congress Plans (eventually protests, media against this plan) will reach a point where the numbers probably will not change mucy (I'd say 65% Against 35% for), anyway my question is how do we reach those...

YAKIMA, Wash. -- One of the most remote communities in the lower 48 states is finally set to get phone service. The National Park Service is allowing a small telephone company to use public land to bring service to Stehekin, about 100 miles northeast of Seattle in the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. Stehekin has about 80 year-round residents and is reachable only by boat, float plane or a several-day hike through the wilderness. The phone company, WeavTel, has been pursuing a chance to install telephone service there for years, despite opposition from some residents who don't want it. A...

Forget Norman Rockwell. The town hall meetings that many representatives and senators are holding back in their districts to make the case for a health care overhaul are turning into knockdown-dragouts. Some of the aggressive questioning, and even heckling, of legislators meeting with constituents across the country appears to be staged. A memo on "best practices" for disrupting town hall meetings has surfaced on the Web. A conservative group in Connecticut called Right Principles laid out how it "conducted an action" at a town hall meeting of Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) in late May, even calling it a "potential playbook"...

Robert Nisbet’s Quest Seattle, WA Robert Nisbet’s 1953 book The Quest for Community has rightfully achieved that rare and estimable status of “classic.” What Nisbet saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries - or ours - is that one of the deepest flaws of the modern era was its hostility to the reality of groups. Modern liberalism (developed, among others by Thomas Hobbes, and later John Locke - and, at its root, Nisbet argued, in developments of Protestant theology) was broadly conceived in the backdrop of a hostility to organizations, institutions, communities and groups by which people defined their...

We’ve all seen it. In our schools, our children’s schools, public meetings, television shows, leadership seminars, political speeches, and even in legislation supported by the President, the message is clear: we should all be doing community service. The fact is that the call to service is greater now than at any time in our country’s past, and the pressure to provide it even greater. The pressure to conform to the growing demand to volunteer your self, in body and bankbook, can be daunting. When confronted with a group of peers, all telling you how much you are needed, it can...

As tutors, mentors and role models, these young leaders make a difference in the lives of children, and transform schools and neighborhoods in 18 U.S. locations and Johannesburg, South Africa. Just as important, during their year of service corps members develop civic leadership skills they can use throughout a lifetime of community service.

PORT O’CONNOR, Texas, May 21, 2009 – Because soldiers spend most of their time with other soldiers, their everyday lives seem completely normal to them. But every once in a while, they run into someone who tells them that what they do is extraordinary. Motorcyclists from the Patriot Guard Riders show their support to servicemembers at the Warrior's Weekend in Port O'Connor, Texas, May 16, 2009. Local residents treated wounded soldiers and veterans to free fishing at the event. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Stephen Decatur  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Pvt. Michael Varner, a cannon crew...

However, at Maryland-based First United Corp.'s annual meeting of shareholders yesterday, one banker spent a considerable amount of time trying to set the record straight about who's responsible for the nation's economic woes, and -- more to the point -- who's not. (A slideshow of the presentation may be found here in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.) For those keeping track, the government gave First United a $30 million infusion of capital on Jan. 30. The bank got the money through the Treasury Department's Capital Purchase Program -- part of TARP -- in exchange for 30,000 shares...

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 27, 2009 – More than 240 Wardak province residents became the first to graduate from the new Afghan Public Protection Force program designed to enhance security throughout Afghanistan. After a rigorous, three-week training program, the graduates proudly accepted their certificates of completion yesterday in front of an audience that included high-level officials from the Afghan government, Wardak province elders, Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, and other distinguished guests. The Afghan Public Protection Force is an Afghan-led program that is designed to provide enhanced security to designated...

My mom was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer a little under five months ago. It had spread into the lymph nodes, and getting the news was one of those things that I will never forget. I would throw myself under the wheels of a bus if doing so would protect my mother; and hearing that she had cancer - the very same form of cancer that took her own mother's life - was frightening. My mom went through 3 months of chemo that left her as bald as a cue ball, and had surgery this week. She is now...

FORT HUACHUCA — Army soldiers are all volunteers. It is also said that when a soldier marries, the resulting family also volunteers to serve the country. Some soldiers and their families take volunteering a step further by being active in their local community. That can be said of the Dean family on Fort Huachuca. The family of four — Sgt. 1st Class Chad Dean, his wife Charity and their two teenage sons, Brandon, 15, and Bradley, 13 — spend hours in Scouting, youth football and other activities on and off the post. Like many parents who volunteer their services, Chad...

NEW YORK, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), together with other community groups, today met with Mayor Michael Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion to express their concerns about the mayor's "uncritical" support for Israel's recent attacks on Gaza that killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

CAMP VICTORY — Although Iraq has taken huge steps toward becoming a safe and democratic nation, there is still more to be done. To that end, The United States Agency for International Development is continuing its mission to bring peace and stability to Iraq through various community programs. “USAID has been in Iraq since 2003 and has spent over 6.1 billion dollars through various programs designed to promote peace and stability,” said Maj. Gita Velu, liaison officer to USAID. USAID is a branch of the State Department based in Washington D.C. with offices in developing countries all over the world....