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(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday he inherited much of the country's problems with high debt and deficits when he entered the White House, sounding a theme likely to dominate his 2012 re-election campaign. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, Obama also defended his economic record and noted that problems in Europe were affecting the United States.

UPDATE: Dow down 460 at 2:00 est. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is taking a beating as President Obama continues to speak. Towards the beginning of his speech, the index was down 375 points. As I write now it is down 450. Obama's blaming of everyone else and trotting out the same old "solutions" are not helping. The S&P average is down a total of 5% on the day. The NASDAQ is also down 5% on the day. This is becoming a run. We need leadership now. In addition, between the time he announced the speech and gave it, the...

Is this the beginning of a new wave of deformed animals which could take over the world? An earless bunny born Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant could be the start of lots of strange goings-on in the land of the rising sn. Amateur footage posted on Youtube shows an earless mutant rabbit, and the person who made the video claims it was shot just outside the exclusion zone near Japan's crippled Fukushima plant. The development has given rise to fears that the nuclear radiation leak is worse than expected and human babies with mutations may be next on the list....

Forget fingerprints or the colour of your eyes, airport security could soon be looking at the shape of your ears when deciding whether to allow you into the country Researchers have discovered that each person's ears have a unique shape and have created a system that is able to scan them. The scans can then be compared with a database of ear shapes to identify whose they are.

If President Barack Obama thought having a private lunch with Republican senators would ease partisan tensions in Congress, he grabbed the wrong recipe. The president walked into a remarkably contentious 80-minute session Tuesday in which GOP senators accused him of duplicity, audacity and unbending partisanship. Lawmakers said the testy exchange left legislative logjams intact, and one GOP leader said nothing is likely to change before the November elections. Obama's sharpest accuser was Bob Corker of Tennessee, a first-term senator who feels the administration undermined his efforts to craft a bipartisan financial regulation bill.

Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith hopped back onto the ice Sunday after losing seven teeth when he was hit in the mouth with a puck. But now hear this: Hall of Famer Stan Mikita not only lost teeth playing hockey, he once returned to action after losing an ear lobe. "I got one (puck) glance off my eyeball and my nose that nailed me pretty good. I couldn't see good for two or three days," the former Blackhawks center (1958-80) recalled Monday. "I got hit three or four times with the puck. If you're skating across the line of fire and...

A Northfield middle school teacher admitted in court Wednesday that she bit off a chunk of a stranger's ear while in a St. Paul cafe last month, severing a piece of flesh that police presume she swallowed. Susan M. Mwarabu, 30, of Rochester, pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to third-degree felony assault. She remains free pending sentencing May 20.

A White House official said the incident was an attempted act of terrorism. The FBI is investigating and President Obama, celebrating Christmas in Hawaii, was told of the incident about three hours after the plane landed, officials said. Obama has told White House officials that all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel, a spokesman said. Nevertheless, officials said, they are not prepared to raise the terrorism alert level, currently at orange -- or the second-highest of five levels -- for domestic and international air travel.

President Barack Obama is to release up to 2,000 photographs of alleged abuse at American prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan in a move which will reignite the scandal surrounding Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. The decision to make public the images sought in a legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union comes amid a political firestorm over alleged torture of detainees under President George W. Bush. Some of the photographs, which will be released before May 28, are said to show American service personnel humiliating prisoners, according to officials. The images relate to more than 400 separate cases involving...

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 7:28 pm President Obama declares turning point on earmark reform Today President Obama signed the final version of last year’s budget, as posted here on Friday while it was making its way through Congress, in order to keep the government functioning. As he explained, there was much to speak well of in the bill: “Now, yesterday Congress sent me the final part of last year's budget; a piece of legislation that rolls nine bills required to keep the government running into one, a piece of legislation that addresses the immediate concerns of the American people by making needed investments in...

During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain fought vigorously over who would be toughest on congressional earmarks. "We need earmark reform," Obama said in September during a presidential debate in Oxford, Miss. "And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely." President Barack Obama should prepare to carve out a lot of free time and keep the coffee hot this week as Congress prepares to unveil a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that's riddled with thousands of earmarks, despite his calls for restraint and efforts...

Barack Obama has strong ties to the group that pressured banks into making high-risk loans.Fort Worth, TX (WiredPRNews.com)— ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, pressured banks into making mortgages to those who would otherwise not qualify for them, according to an October 7, 2008 article by Stanley Kurtz, which appeared on the website for National Review. As all Americans are footing the bill for the $700 billion bailout to prevent the collapse the financial market, ACORN leader Madeline Talbot—who has close ties to Senator Obama—personally strong-armed banks into making mortgage loans to low income minorities...

There's an interesting detail in September 4th's ABC News poll that speaks directly to the effectiveness of the current skirmish over earmarks. Here’s the question: For each item I name, please tell me if it makes you think more favorably toward Palin, less favorably, or if it doesn't change your opinion of her one way or another...As mayor she obtained 27 million dollars in federal funding for projects in her town of about 7,000 people The responses are more than a little surprising. 32% of respondents thought it made her more favorable, 19% thought it made her less favorable, and...

Amie Parnes reports from Lebanon, VA: Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin's new "change" mantra. "You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig." "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink." "We've had enough of the same old thing." The crowd apparently took the "lipstick" line as a reference to Palin, who described the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull in a single word: "lipstick."

The troop surge in Iraq has been more successful than anyone could have imagined, Barack Obama conceded Thursday in his first-ever interview on FOX News. As recently as July, the Democratic presidential candidate declined to rate the surge a success, but said it had helped reduce violence in the country. On Thursday, Obama acknowledged the 2007 increase in U.S. troops has benefited the Iraqi people. “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.” Speaking on...

Rightwing fodder-- Barack Obama Invesco Field convention tickets picture upside down US flags- an international symbol of distress. The DNC tickets printed for Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field show an upside down US flag on both sides. This is the international symbol of extreme distress. FOX 9 reported: Some viewers contacted 9NEWS Saturday, questioning the design of the credentials to see Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at INVESCO Field at Mile High. The viewers say with the stars and blue field in the lower left corner, it looks like an upside down American flag....

<p>DALLAS - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama side-stepped a pointed query about abortion on Saturday by “mega-pastor” Rick Warren during a televised forum.</p> <p>Asked at what point a baby gets “human rights,” Obama, who strongly supports abortion rights, said: “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”</p>

"We could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could save just as much."

Video. This one is a little unnerving. Either we’re missing something, or Obama needs medication and some quality time with a psychiatrist.

DRUDGE HEADLINE WITH PHOTO: "POLITICS HITS THE WALL: PRAYER FOR CHANGE"