At a town hall meeting in Illinois, President Obama reaffirmed that he will personally push for Congress to make Medicare and Social Security cuts part of any talk about deficit reduction or job creation.

Like America, European nations have been pursuing spending cuts and other austerity that lead to declining GDP growth numbers and fears of a double dip recession. Europe embraced austerity more quickly than did the US, and it’s predictably depressing, so the expected results are occurring: Britain, which ushered in a mass austerity program, is paying the price with zero growth and may now be reconsidering whether to pursue at least some monetary stimulus.

Today former Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, who lost his seat in 2010 to Ron Johnson, told supporters he will not run for office in 2012.

This decision could be good news for Gov. Walker. Without a strong challenger like Feingold willing to run in a recall election, it could cause forces opposed to Walker to decide it may not be worth going through the difficult and expensive task for running a recall effort.

The warning signs for Bank of America are all there. The liabilities are rising. The lawsuits keep coming in. The Knights of Columbus actually expanded their challenge to the large settlement on mortgage backed securities, another signal that the get-out-of-jail free card that BofA sought is not forthcoming. They’ve desperately tried to cut operating costs without resorting to raise capital, which would be given away cheaply because of the stock price. They started selling various units, a Canadian credit card company, some commercial real estate properties, everything non-core that wasn’t nailed down. And now, they plan to cut labor costs.

Here’s the list or the latest civil liberties stories. Protests and civil disobedience against the Obama administration’s “Secure Communities” program have taken place all over the country, while protests and violence continue in the UK. Plus updates in wikileaks and much more.

You cannot let rationality or truth seep into the Republican Party.

The Rat Pack (with Johnny Carson) — The Birth of the Blues.

Did you ever think you’d be nostalgic for the Poppy Bush era, when candidates had acknowledged handlers, and were obvious puppets of their own hired hands? Watching Christine O’Donnell and Goodhair Perry get crazee for the fun of it does that for me. The world of videos going viral has taken over in our political sphere.

In 2005, the most important court decision on evolution since the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Edwards v. Aguillard, came about: the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Edwards had nailed the door shut on teaching “creationism” as science in schools. Kitzmiller nailed it shut on trying to the same with “intelligent design.” Both were definitive. Perry should know that, as should the entire field of GOP 2012 hopefuls.

To me, this is an important subject, and has been for some time. Science education is vital to our future as a nation, as a planet. Whenever I read, watch or listen to a media person bringing up creationism, intelligent design or evolution as if there might be a scientific component to more than one of those three ideas, I just shake my head.

Well, here we go again. As usual, the past couple of weeks there have been a few articles on how the economy really isn’t THAT bad. In fact, that was a large part of the title of this article from McClatchy while USA Today offered up this from a Maria Bartiromo interview with the head of AIG, Robert Benosche (with a McCainesque “There’s a core of strength to the economy”). However once again, the reality on the ground rears up to refute the cheerleaders. Today’s (Thursday, August 18) Initial Unemployment Claims report for last week is out and the numbers are back over the dreaded 400k line once again (via Reuters):