WASHINGTON - President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year's huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy's freefall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. "We must take these emergency measures," he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of hi

"America should have no part of it" is what Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the U.S. Congresswoman for Spokane and Eastern Washington says about the outrageous demand by the International Money Fund that America send billions overseas to bail out socialist Greece with 50 billion dollars. The IMF demand is being supported by our own Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner. But she says "Americans are suffering from bailout fatigue." She is trying to be the cavalry to rescue us from that.