July 2, 1776

Congress votes for independence

July 2, 1864

Congress passes the Wade-Davis Bill

July 2, 1881

President Garfield is shot

On this day in 1881, President James A. Garfield, who had been in office just under four months, is shot by an assassin. Garfield lingered for 80 days before dying of complications from the shooting.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=50757

1890 - The U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.

July 2, 1964

Johnson signs Civil Rights Act

On this day in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=5145

Now they want Reagan's name off the airport

By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Examiner Columnist
07/02/09 3:26 PM EDT

• Get Covered ... or Pay Up

  Americans who refuse to buy medical coverage may be hit with fines up to $1,000 under new bill by Senate Dems

Obama Administration to Involve NSA in Defending Civilian Agency Networks

The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials.

EDITORIAL: Democrats' FOIA problems

A lack of transparency in the majority party

By | Sunday, June 28, 2009

President Obama's promises of greater government transparency haven't panned out. Multiple transparency problems afflict the Obama administration.

Just last week, the administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for White House logs showing the names of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Mr. Obama's "clean coal" policies. This is the same Mr. Obama who as senator castigated the "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House during the Bush administration.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/28/democrats-foia-problems/

Time for an Israeli Strike?

With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.

Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070103020.html

EXCLUSIVE: Taliban buying children for suicide bombers

By Sara A. Carter (Contact) | Thursday, July 2, 2009

A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the going price for child bombers was $7,000 to $14,000 - huge sums in Pakistan, where per-capita income is about $2,600 a year.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/taliban-buying-children-to-serve-as-suicide-bomber/

Washington Post sells access, $25,000+

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html

Congress's Travel Tab Swells

Spending on Taxpayer-Funded Trips Rises Tenfold; From Italy to the Galápagos

WASHINGTON -- Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That's a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

467K jobs cut in June; jobless rate at 9.5 percent

WASHINGTON – Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, suggesting that the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_economy

Official: N. Korea Fires Four Short-Range Missiles

Thursday, July 02, 2009

AFP

Senators question U.S. role in hostage deal

Clarification sought on negotiations

By Sara A. Carter (Contact) and Eli Lake (Contact) | Thursday, July 2, 2009

Two senior Republican senators sent a letter to President Obama on Wednesday expressing concern over reports that the administration negotiated "directly or indirectly" with terrorists for the release of British hostages in Iraq.

In a letter made available to The Washington Times, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Jon Kyl of Arizona said that the U.S. release last month of Laith al-Khazali, a member of a militant Shi'ite group called Asaib al-Haq, may have been part of a deal to gain freedom for three British hostages held since 2007. On June 21, the group sent the bodies of two British hostages to the British Embassy in Baghdad. The other three are still being held.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/senators-concerned-us-part-of-deal-over-hostages/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_more_news_carousel

ACORN head claims a home is lost every 13 seconds; here's rest of the story

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor

Bertha Lewis, national president of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), issued a news release yesterday repeating a claim she has previously made that "every 13 seconds another American family loses its home."

Curious about how that figure was calculated, I called the contact person on the release, Austin King, director of the ACORN Financial Justice Center. "Oh, we got that figure from the Center for Responsible Lending," he said. "We have been using that figure for about five months now."

When asked if he had double-checked the accuracy of the figure, King said "we've ball-parked it, but I didn't do the numbers. They maybe [CRL] did some different benchmarks."

So, I pointed out to King that if a home is lost every 13 seconds, there would have to be at least 2.42 million homes lost in a year. But, according to Business Week, only about one million homes were lost in 2008.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/ACORN-claims-a-home-is-lost-every-13-seconds-49628217.html