New York — Yesterday as I entered Federal Hall in the heart of Wall Street to hear President Barack Obama’s speech, a huge crowd gathered outside the building hoping for a glimpse of President Obama. Inside the hall I sat down with 150 Wall Street executives, government officials, including Tim Geithner and Mayor Bloomberg and a few citizen activists, to hear his speech. The activists included Phyllis Salowe-Kaye from New Jersey Citizen Action (NJCA) and other members of Americans for Financial Reform (AFR).

Cross-posted with tomdispatch.com . At the end of this summer of discontent, of death panels and unplugging poor Grandma, of birthers and astroturfers and rifle-toting picketers, the halcyon early days of the Obama administration feel increasingly like hazy, gilt-edged memories. The president’s sprawling legislative agenda — a health-care overhaul, financial regulation reform, slashing wasteful military spending, and climate change legislation legislation — is slowly grinding its way through the halls of Congress.

Tristan McConnell | GlobalPost NAIROBI, Kenya — A strike by six U.S. helicopter gunships on an Al Qaeda target in Somalia on Monday marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy to a direct hands-on approach to the failed state in the Horn of Africa. The American gunships attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying Al Qaeda militants and killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, an Al Qaeda leader wanted for the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and an Israeli-owned Kenyan hotel in 2002.

TORONTO — One of Canada’s opposition parties said Tuesday it will prop up Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government in a no-confidence vote this week, averting an immediate election. Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said his party will vote for the government’s key budget bill Friday because there is nothing inherently wrong with it. The news that Canada won’t have an immediate election comes as Harper prepares to visit President Barack Obama at the White House on Wednesday.

Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson thinks this is a photo of you. Would we be accused of racism if we said Georgia Democrat Hank Johnson is an idiot? Johnson is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. You know, the group that traveled to Havana last year to bese el asno de Castro. (Translation available at Babelfish.com). This duly-elected Democrat fears that a failure to rebuke South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson will prompt you to get your favorite white hood and robe out of the closet and head for the nearest the Ku Klux Klan meeting, perhaps stopping along the way to lynch a few random darkies.

Saw this on today’s Patriot Post , and thought it interesting in light of the President’s proposed healthcare ‘reform’. Emphasis mine. We warned of things to come, of the danger inherent in unwarranted government involvement in things not its proper province. What we warned against has come to pass. And today more than two-thirds of our citizens are telling us, and each other, that social engineering by the federal government has failed. The Great Society is great only in power, in size and in cost.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board sees light at the end of the tunnel: The recession is “very likely over,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Tuesday, but the job market is likely to remain weak for some time. Taking questions following a speech at the Brookings Institution, Bernanke gave his most explicit endorsement yet to the idea that the economy bottomed out sometime this summer and has begun growing again, at least as measured by gross domestic product.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The House of Representatives on Tuesday formally admonished Republican Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting “you lie” during President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week. The House passed a resolution of disapproval on a 240-179 vote that was mostly along party lines, reflecting the Democratic majority in the chamber. Five representatives voted “present.” According to the Office of the House Historian, it was the first time in its 220-year history that the House has disciplined a member for speaking out during a presidential speech in the chamber to a joint session of Congress.

I realize that many (if not all of you) have probably seen the undercover videos made by a James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. If you have not (or simply would like a brief overview of where things are right now) then we’ve got a few links for you. Episode 1: James and Hannah get some assistance in setting up a brothel from ACORN staff in Baltimore. Episode 2: Our intrepid reporters reprise their roles and find the staff in the Washington DC office of ACORN most helpful . Episode 3: Once again into the breach.

Representative Joe Wilson dismissedthe need for a House resolution rebuking him for shouting “youlie at President Barack Obama last week, saying the measurewill do “nothing for the taxpayers. Wilson, speaking as debate began on the Democratic-sponso …