Obama Signs Spending Bill, Breaks Yet Another Promise

In a not-so-surprising move today, President Obama signed into a law a “an imperfect spending bill” worth $410 billion. According to an article released by the Associated Press, the bill was signed in private and Obama took no questions from the press regarding the bill or its signing.

Now-needy FDIC collected little in premiums

With fund going strong, banks didn’t pay for decade

WASHINGTON – The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.

A Dirty Pun Tweaks China’s Online Censors

BEIJING — Since its first unheralded appearance in January on a Chinese Web page, the grass-mud horse has become nothing less than a phenomenon.

A YouTube children’s song about the beast has drawn nearly 1.4 million viewers. A grass-mud horse cartoon has logged a quarter million more views. A nature documentary on its habits attracted 180,000 more. Stores are selling grass-mud horse dolls. Chinese intellectuals are writing treatises on the grass-mud horse’s social importance. The story of the grass-mud horse’s struggle against the evil river crab has spread far and wide across the Chinese online community.

MSM: Ex-financier Madoff pleads guilty to all charges

NEW YORK – Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to all 11 felony charges brought by prosecutors in one of Wall Street’s largest investment swindles.

Food caravan stops in hard-hit Ind. county

ELKHART, Ind. – In this job-starved city where President Barack Obama last month made a public appeal for his economic stimulus plan, hundreds of volunteers — and an agency that specializes in handing out food — worked together Tuesday to feed 5,200 hungry families.

MSM: U.S. official – Obama won’t cut military aid to Israel

U.S. President Barack Obama will not cut the billions of dollars in military aid promised to Israel, a senior U.S. administration official said Wednesday.