Conservatives

The White House is challenging Republican members of Congress this week as Congress starts up again to offer constructive criticism of Obama's plans that they disagree with instead of just complaining about it and being negative. The Conservatives are beating the Obama presidancy up and he and his office are calling for advice and working together.

Latin America

Obama took a trip through Latin America, meeting with the leaders of countries like Venezuela and Cuba in hopes of opening up space for more talk and deal making in the future. A lot of Republicans in Congress and elsewhere feel that Obama was too friendly with Cuba's president Chavez.

nuclear weapons.

Obama gave a speech in Europe today promoting his ideal nuclear free world. He said he realizes it may not happen in his lifetime but he's going to strive for it. He and his administration are working on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that would help acheive a global ban on nuclear testing. He also said the US would retain its nuclear weapons as long as there were weapons in other countries, althought it would work to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons.

GM

The White House requested that the chairman of GM step down today because the company has plummeted so much. GM and Chrysler will be receiving more aid from the government soon but Obama says they need to justify their needs before the money will be handed over. Rick Wagoner has been chairman for six years. Along with his resignation the company plans to cut 47,000 jobs before the end of 2009. It's all very messy.

survey

A poll of CNN's said that 55% of people surveyed thought that Obama had taken on too much as he entered the oval office, addressing concerns with the economy, health care, bailouts and troop deployment. Obama simply responded that "the challenges we face are too large to ignore." The survey also said, however, that 58% percent of Americans thought that Obama's programs were right for the country.

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17,000 troops will be deployed to Afghanistan soon to join the 38,000 there after President Obama okayed the plan today. 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and 4,000 Army troops from Fort Lewis, Washington are expected to be the first to leave. 5,000 more are expected to follow some time soon. The troops are supposed to train Afghanistan groups and stop foreign armies from entering the country. They will mainly be stationed in the Southern part of the country by Pakistan.

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Obama is creating a task force to help loan out over 17 billion dollars to GM and Chrysler in federal loans. He's putting the problem into the hands of people who would be more likely to be able to solve it than he. The task force will be run by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, although its members will include people from 9 different departments, offices and councils. They are working with the car companies mostly on how they would repay the loans.