Pol.PeanutButterNews.com

Full Story at CNN.com

Washington (CNN) — Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, plans to step down, the Obama administration announced Friday.

Her office came under scrutiny after a couple who lacked an invitation were allowed into President Obama’s first state dinner.

“We are enormously grateful to Desiree Rogers for the terrific job she’s done as the White House social secretary,” the president and first lady said in a statement released Friday.

Full Story at CNN.com

(CNN) — Both houses of the New Jersey legislature plan to vote Monday on a controversial bill backed by Democrats that would qualify illegal immigrants for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

Supporters hope to pass the measure before Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine leaves office. Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie, a Republican who takes office January 19, has said he opposes the bill.

Full Story at msnbc.com

ALBANY, N.Y. – Using federal stimulus money to avoid layoffs at schools is going to create a shortfall even more difficult for states and schools to contend with when that money runs out, according to a first-of-its-kind study released Monday.

New York alone will see a $2 billion shortfall after stimulus money ends in 2011-12, and that could drive up some of the nation’s highest local property taxes another 8 percent, according to the analysis by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Full Story at CNN.com

Washington (CNN) — The contentious debate over health care took a new twist Monday as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced his decision to craft legislation including a public insurance option allowing states to opt out.

Reid’s decision is a major victory for the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has been melding legislation from the more conservative Senate Finance Committee and the more liberal Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The Health Committee included a form of the public option in its bill; the Finance Committee did not.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted that the House of Representatives will pass a health care reform bill including a public option.

Full Story at CNN.com

And according to a preliminary report on stimulus funding for schools by the Department of Education and the Domestic Policy Council, the stimulus plan has created jobs.

State governments have created and saved at least 250,000 education jobs — and restored nearly all their projected education budget shortfalls for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 — according to preliminary findings released Monday by the White House.

But some states that used the funds to fill existing budget gaps could face a crisis when the money runs out after 2010. And the Department of Education has chastised certain states for their stimulus funding programs and warned them that they risk their chances at getting other DOE grants down the road.

Full Story at CNN.com

“Some are still dismissed and cast aside for nothing more than being less than perfect,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said at the unveiling ceremony. “The story of Helen Keller inspires us all.”

The statue shows Keller — who lost her sight and hearing to illness when she was 19 months old — standing at a water pump as a 7-year-old, a look of recognition on her face as water streams into her hand. It depicts the moment in 1887 when teacher Anne Sullivan spelled “W-A-T-E-R” into one of the child’s hands as she held the other under the pump. It’s the moment when Keller realized meanings were hidden in the manual alphabet shapes Sullivan had taught her to make with her hands.

“W-A-T-E-R,” said Alabama Gov. Bob Riley. “Five simple letters that helped rescue 7-year-old Helen Keller from a world of

Full Story at Blogs from CNN.com

In the midst of perhaps the most contentious national debate since the Vietnam War, President Obama has nominated a paid consultant for Burger King to be the nation’s top doctor.

Can you spell tone-deaf?

Dr. Regina Benjamin has been paid 10-thousand dollars since last year to serve on a scientific advisory board for the company that brings us the Whopper and the B-K Triple Stacker.

According to the Washington Times, Burger King says the doctor was on the company’s nutritional advisory panel… which is meant to “promote balanced diets and active lifestyle choices.”

Full Story At  CNN.com

“[Charles] Lindbergh was flying across the Atlantic, and a lot of other people were flying air races and things like that. It was very romantic,” she said.

Flight was still relatively new in the 1920s and 1930s, and female pilots were few.

But Tedeschi was determined.

In 1941, she found a childhood friend who taught flying and started taking lessons. After the friend was sent off to war and the airport near her home in Bethesda, Maryland, was closed to private flying, she traveled about 40 miles to Frederick and spent nights on the floor of a farmhouse to continue her lessons.

Around the same time, Deanie Parrish was working in a bank in Avon Park, Florida, and kept seeing aviation students who were attending a flying school there.

Full Story At  CNN.com

Californians in Tuesday’s special election voted down five of six propositions aimed at closing the state’s budget deficit, according to partial returns. State leaders conceded defeat based on those returns.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had said that, if the propositions failed, he would have to make drastic cuts to education and health care, and would probably free many inmates from the state prison system.

With all six measures defeated, the deficit would surge to $21.3 billion, Schwarzenegger’s office said last week. Even if all the measures passed, the deficit would hit $15.4 billion at the start of the new fiscal year in July.

Schwarzenegger spoke about the apparent defeat late Tuesday.

Full Story At  CNN.com

The president outlined a plan under which the Department of Education will send colleges legal guidance, encouraging them to increase financial aid packages for the unemployed so they can enroll in educational and training programs while keeping their unemployment benefits.

Under Obama’s initiative, colleges would consider a person’s current financial situation to make it possible for them to receive Pell grants, which are available for low-income students. The unemployed person would not lose any unemployment benefits and the maximum Pell grant would be increased in July by $500 to $5,350.