Chairman Ed Whitacre Jr. said at a hastily called news conference that he will serve as interim CEO, and an international search for a new CEO and president is planned.

Whitacre thanked Henderson for his work during a period of challenge and change, but said it is time to accelerate the pace of rebuilding the largest U.S. automaker.

The resignation comes just eight months after Henderson, 51, replaced former chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, who was ousted March 29 by the Obama administration's government's auto task force.

Henderson has been with GM his entire career and was the government's choice to run the beleaguered company after Wagoner left. Whitacre, picked by the government in June to be chairman of the new GM, is considered an industry outsider, having run AT&T Inc. for 17 years.

Whitacre and the board have become increasingly active in the company's decisions, at times challenging some of Henderson's decisions. In November, the board voted to abandon plans to sell GM's European Opel unit. That reversed an earlier option favored by Henderson to sell it to a consortium led by Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc.

The embattled community service organization ACORN recently considered changing its name in an effort to improve its image, according to an internal memo obtained by Politico.

The document will be released Tuesday as part of a Republican congressional forum on ACORN, Politico reports. It illustrates the internal deliberation the group has undergone after a year of embarrassing scandals, GOP lawmakers say.

CHICAGO—The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States. When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.

Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.

Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon’s decision to remove a child’s tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending operations based on what’s right for the patient.

We agree with the President that the best thing for patients with diabetes is to manage the disease proactively to avoid the bad consequences that can occur, including blindness, stroke, and amputation. But as is the case for a person who has been treated for cancer and still needs to have a tumor removed, or a person who is in a terrible car crash and needs access to a trauma surgeon, there are times when even a perfectly managed diabetic patient needs a surgeon. The President’s remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.

We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care.

About the American College of Surgeons
The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and to improve the care of the surgical patient. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 74,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Americans with "honest questions" about health care reform are being squeezed out by the anti-healthcare demonstrators.

"This is clearly being orchestrated and these folks have instructions," he said on CNN's "State of the Union," adding that it's not right for those who are part of that movement to disrupt the meetings.

• Do you feel nervous when you're around a liberal?
• Are you scared of disagreeing with liberals?
• Do you remain silent in front of a liberal because you want them to like you?
• Do you try to please a liberal, only to be rebuked for your efforts?
• Do liberals criticize you, or humiliate you in front of other people?
• Do you have to control your behavior or your language to avoid their anger and ridicule?
• Do you feel pressured by them to participate in activities you find offensive?
• Do liberals mock you when your express profoundly held beliefs about capitalism, religion, sex and gender issues?
• Do liberals demand that you think, speak, and even support ideas that are disgusting to you?
• Are liberals always calling you names?
• Do liberals repeatedly and wrongly accuse you of being something you're not, such as racist, homophobic, and uncaring?
• Do liberals tell you that if you changed, they wouldn't have to say these awful things about you?
• Do you believe that if you changed, the liberal would like you more?
• Are liberals jealous because you have made a success of your life?
• Do liberals blame you for everything that goes wrong in their lives?
• Do liberals tell lies about you?
• Do liberals threaten your freedom of movement?
• Do liberals interfere with the way you want to raise, discipline and educate your children?
• Do liberals make you feel like you are wrong, stupid, crazy or inadequate?
• Do liberals attempt to prevent you from doing what makes you happy?
• Do liberals put roadblocks in your way when you try to escape their plans for you?
• Do liberals attempt to control your money, your associations, and your goals?
• Are you expected to do things to please liberals, rather than to please yourself?
• Do you feel that, with liberals, nothing you ever do is good enough?
• Do liberals claim it's your own fault they are attacking you, or claim that they were "just joking" when they hurled epithets at you?
• Have liberals ever scared you by threatening to get even, or to ruin your reputation, or by suggesting that they are the only people standing between you and the pitchforks?

In April, personal household, inflation-adjusted income rose by $122 billion. Of that increase, one-third or $44 billion, came from the government's stimulus program. But while personal income was rising, household savings (which includes paying down credit card balances, mortgages, student loans, car loans, etc) rose by $132 billion — $10 billion more than the rise in income. So personal consumption dropped 0.1 percent.

The stimulus package was a total and complete failure.

As predicted, as happened with Bush's 2008 tax cut, as happened with the Japanese stimulus packages of the 90s, fearful consumers sat on their money and wouldn't spend it. Keynesian economics didn't work. Again.

But the debt sure piled up.

The deficit quadrupled and is sending interest rates soaring as the government elbows aside businesses and consumers at the loan window, all in a desperate effort to borrow enough money to spend enough money to stimulate the economy, which isn't happening.

Sit in on a corporate board room struggling to come to grips with the new economic climate Obama has created. Do we expand? Create more jobs? Launch a new product line? Step up our marketing efforts? Ratchet up production?

Well, wait a minute — the bigger our company gets, the closer we come to being "too big to fail," a "systemic risk." The nearer we are to intrusive government oversight, limits on executive pay, and regulators breathing down our necks.

We better watch out. We may even get taken over. Stay small. Forget the new jobs.

An investor ponders where to put his 401(k) retirement money. Should I invest in robust, growing companies? Firms with a bright future? I better be careful — they could get so big that they get taken over by the government and I would lose my entire investment.

Don't invest in firms that will fail, but stay away from those that will succeed too.

Meanwhile, at the kitchen table, a middle class family discusses their career moves. Should she go back to school to pursue a better job at higher pay? Should he put in overtime? Move up in the company?

Hey wait a minute — our combined income is just under $200,000 a year. If we go any higher, our tax bracket goes up, and we start having Social Security withheld on our new income; we lose our current deductions for our mortgage, and state and local taxes, and charitable donations.

Do you reject “federal authority in favor of state or local authority,” or “government authority entirely”? Are you “dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration”?

If so, you are a dangerous, right-wing extremist, according to Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, which bans the use of the word “terrorist” unless it’s applied to us right-wing extremists who, for example, are so extreme as to view the grisly killing of the unborn in their mothers’ wombs as cold-blooded murder.

Are you a veteran returning from Iraq or Afghanistan after risking life and limb to protect your fellow Americans? If so, you are a ticking time bomb likely to be recruited by those dangerous right-wing extremists.

After all, the vaunted Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, Department of Homeland Security, warns that you “possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists,” and these Obama-ite loons are concerned that right-wing extremists “will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.”

Prior to his inauguration, Obama basked in glowing media coverage and enjoyed an approval rating of 83 percent.

The numbers naturally declined as Obama moved into the Oval Office and began making tough decisions, such as closing the Guantanamo prison.

Still, his 69 percent Gallup approval rating based on Jan. 21-23 polling “ranks him near the top of the list of presidents elected after World War II,” Gallup reported on Jan. 26. In fact, only President Kennedy, at 72 percent approval, had a higher initial approval rating once in office.

That was then, this is now.

The most recent USA Today/Gallup poll, based on surveys of 1.027 adults from Jan.30 – Feb.1, show only 64 percent approve of Obama’s job performance as president, compared to 25 percent who disapprove.

...

Also, Gallup reports that 58 percent of voters believe it was a mistake for Obama to lift the federal ban on U.S. funds going to overseas family planning groups that provide abortions.

http://www.newsmax.com/us/gay_couple_divorcing/2009/02/04/178334.html

Julie and Hillary Goodridge were among seven gay couples whose lawsuit, Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health, thrust Massachusetts into the center of a nationwide debate on gay marriage. The couple became the public face of the debate in the state, the first to legalize same-sex marriages.

The couple was married on May 17, 2004, the first day same-sex marriages became legal under a court ruling. Their daughter served as ring-bearer.

The divorce filing is not unexpected. The couple announced they were separating in 2006.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue.

...

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.

"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/20/pay-raises-lawmakers-angers-watchdog-groups/

As Americans across the country grapple with one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression, members of Congress quietly are getting a pay raise.

...

The Senior Citizens League asserted the pay raise would rank each lawmaker in the top six percent of American households.

"As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain," the group's chairman, Daniel O'Connell, said in a written statement. "This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter."

Authorities in Xintai, a municipal region in eastern Shandong province, had forced at least 18 people with grievances, ranging from police brutality to property disputes, into a local mental hospital, the Beijing News said.

Chinese residents with complaints directed at local governments often travel to "petitions and appeals" offices (also called "letters and visits" offices) in provincial capitals and in Beijing after failing to get redress through lower channels.

Local governments, fearing embarrassment, often send police and other officials to intercept them and forcefully take them back to their home villages.

...

"The hospital also has its misgivings," Wu told the paper, saying that it was under pressure to take petitioners, some of whom would arrive escorted by police.

Checking petitioners into the hospital was in part a matter of hard-boiled economics, a local official said, given cash-strapped local governments could ill afford to chase petitioners to Beijing and other places.

"Every time we have to send three or five people to Beijing, and pay their food and accommodation, it's not a matter of pennies," the paper quoted Chen Jianfa, assistant to the head of Quangou township in Xintai, as saying

Officials contacted at the publicity office of Xintai municipal government and its petitions office refused to comment on the report.

A notice posted on the website of the Xintai petitions office (www.xtxfj.gov.cn) dated November 9 urged officials to identify mentally ill petitioners.

"Show care for mentally ill petitioners, help them to get legal evaluation, and send those not in a sound mind to hospital for treatment," the notice said.