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Six members of the New York congressional delegation sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asking him not to kill a deal giving Citigroup naming rights to the New York Mets new baseball stadium, which is slated to open this April.

The letter comes in response to one from Reps. Tom Poe (R-Texas) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who both asked for the 20-year, $400 million deal naming the stadium "Citi Field" to be killed. A report in the Feb. 3 Wall Street Journal said the company, which has received $45 billion in TARP funds, was considering abandoning the deal, citing anonymous sources. Read more...

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is seeking Wall Street executives to help him with an upcoming documentary on the financial industry, and he's doing so in a very public way.

Moore posted an open letter on his own website and The Huffington Post this morning looking for financial employees to come forward and talk, imploring Wall Street's denizens "for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history."

"I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know," Moore wrote. "Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know 'the real deal' about the abuses that have been happening."

"If you work for a bank, a brokerage firm or an insurance company -- or if you have seen things or heard things that you believe the American people have a right to know -- please contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ," Moore wrote.

Moore also sent the letter to members of his e-mail distribution list, according to the letter.

Moore's upcoming film will be backed by Paramount Vantage and Overture. Originally announced in May 2008 as a sequel to "Farenheit 9/11," news broke in November that Moore's focus had shifted to the economic crisis.

The film won't be Moore's first to deal with the economy: his 1989 documentary "Roger and Me" detailed Moore's attempts to confront then-G.M. CEO Roger Smith about the economic impact of G.M.'s downsizing on Flint, Mich., Moore's home town.

See Moore's full letter below: Read more...

Major league shortstop Miguel Tejada has been charged with lying to congressional investigators about the use of performance-enhancing drug use in baseball.

The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia filed a charge today alleging that Tejada knowingly lied to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff in 2005 when he said he had never heard of any major league baseball player using steroids.

The report published by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine) in December 2007 listed Tejada as a user of performance-enhancing substances. Read more...

President Obama took his pitch for the economic stimulus package to Fort Myers, Fla. today, delivering a speech that hit on similar notes as those sounded yesterday.

"Now, I'm not going to tell you that this plan is perfect," Obama told the crows, borrowing a line from the speeches he delivered yesterday in Elkhart, Ind. and at the White House during his first prime-time news conference. "But I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act in the face of this crisis will only bring deepening disaster. Doing nothing is not an option."

Obama promised tax credits to help 195,000 Florida families send children to college as he detailed the tax cuts and spending provisions in his plan.

"This plan will put people to work right now by making direct investments in areas like healthcare, energy, edcation, and infrastructure -- investments that save jobs, create new jobs and new businesses, and help our economy grow again," Obama said, according to prepared remarks.

As Obama was taking questions from the audience, the Senate passed his stimulus package on a 61-37 vote.

The crowd cheered as Obama paused to announce the result of the Senate vote.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning to discuss President Obama's economic stimulus plan and the push to garner support for it.

Assessing Obama's performance last night at his first prime-time news conference, Gibbs said the president is "by far and away our best weapon" in explaining and promoting the stimulus.

Watch the video below:

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Support for President Obama's economic stimulus package has slipped since January, while Obama himself enjoys favorable impressions among Americans, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

According to the study, 51 percent of Americans think the stimulus package is a "good idea," compared to 57 percent in a similar survey published in early January.

But as Obama has gone on a media blitz in support of the package, he enjoys high ratings on favorable attributes: 92 percent view him as a good communicator, 87 percent see him as warm and friendly, and 66 percent view the president as bringing a "new approach to politics," according to Pew.

Pew surveyed 1,303 Americans Feb. 4-8 for the poll.

See more results on impressions of Obama below:

President Obama is winning the public opinion fight over the economic stimulus package under consideration in Congress, according to a new poll from Gallup.

Obama enjoys a 67 percent approval rating on how he has handled the government's efforts to pass a stimulus bill, while Republicans in Congress have earned a 31 percent approval rating on how they've handled the stimulus effort, according to the poll.

Congressional Democrats ranked in the middle, with a 48 percent approval rating on the stimulus.



Disapproval ratings reflected the same order. Obama collected a disapproval rating of 25 percent on the stimulus; Congressional Democrats, 42 percent; and Congressional Republicans, 58 percent.

Gallup surveyed 1,012 U.S. adults on Feb. 4 for the poll. Its margin of error is +/- three percentage points.

President Obama tried to tamp down expectations for the fervent supporters of Lockheed Martin

The economic stimulus package being debated by Congress, his nomnees' tax problems, and a comment about U.S. policy in the Middle East have given President Obama a "rocky" start to his White House tenure, former Massachusetts Gov. and GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney told TIME magazine in a recent interview.

"I think President Obama is off to a rocky start," Romney said. "The theme of 'Yes, we can' seems to have been replaced with 'Well, maybe we can't.'"

Romney specifically took issue with House Democrats' role in crafting the pending economic stimulus package and Obama's comment in his first TV interview as president, with Arabic network Al-Arabiya, that the U.S. "All too often the United States starts by dictating" in engaging with Middle Eastern nations.

See Romney's full comments on Obama, as excerpted from the TIME interview, below:

How do you think President Obama is doing so far? (See pictures of how Presidents age in office.)

I think President Obama is off to a rocky start. The theme "Yes, we can" seems to have been replaced with "Well, maybe we can't." I believe that with all the challenges America faces, the simple solutions and the hope that were sold by the Obama team are inadequate to the task ahead.

The cabinet appointments have been subject to a disappointing vetting process. His forays into foreign affairs produced a very unfortunate comment that America has been "dictating" to other nations.

And rather than proposing and driving through Congress his own economic stimulus plan, President Obama ceded the construction to House Democrats. They in turn have come up with a pork-laden, ineffective piece of legislation which I think Americans are increasingly recognizing will not solve the economic challenges we face.

The U.S. economy has lost 3.6 million jobs since the current recession began in Decmber 2007, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The economy lost 598,000 non-farm payroll jobs in January, and unemployment rose from 7.2 percent to 7.6 percent, according to the same report--the largest 13-month job loss total since the Department of Labor began producing its monthly employment reports in 1939.

President Obama issued a statement calling for action from Washington, as the Senate continues to debate a modified version of his economic stimulus package.

"These numbers, and the very real suffering of American workers they represent, reinforce the need for bold fiscal action. If we fail to act, we are likely to lose millions more jobs and the unemployment rate could reach double digits," Obama said. "Prompt, well-designed fiscal policy is necessary to stop the decline and heal the economy. The American people are counting on leadership from Washington to help the economy recover and lay the long-term foundation for long-term economic growth."