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yubanet.com — Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the 1,000-member coalition that led the successful fight for health reform, released a report today showing that in 2009, while America's families struggled with skyrocketing health insurance costs and the worst economy since the Great Depression, chief executives of the 10 largest for-profit health insurance companies collected total pay of $228.1 million, up from $85.5 million the year before. The CEOs of UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint, Aetna, CIGNA, Humana, Coventry Health Care, Health Net, Amerigroup, Centene and Universal American took $944.1 million in compensation from 2000 through 2009, according to the report, entitled "Breaking the Bank."

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washingtonpost.com — The number of U.S. homes lost to foreclosure rose sharply in July, as lenders took back more properties from homeowners who had been in default for months on end.

Lenders repossessed 92,858 properties last month, up 9 percent from June and an increase of 6 percent from July 2009, the foreclosure-listing firm RealtyTrac said Thursday.

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bloomberg.com — The Federal Reserve’s first attempt to bolster the flagging U.S. recovery shows no sign of dispelling investor concerns the world’s largest economy may slide back into a recession.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell for a third straight day yesterday after paring losses in the hours after the central bank’s Aug. 10 announcement it would sustain its assets at the current level. A subsequent decline in 10-year Treasury yields hasn’t yet filtered through to corporations now paying higher premiums.

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salon.com — In an interview with Salon today, a Republican candidate for the Florida state Legislature stood by her controversial idea to arrest illegal immigrants and send them to "camps" where they can be held en masse.

"We can ship them out to the middle of the country and put up high walls and leave them there," said Marg Baker, the middle-aged real estate broker vying for the Republican nomination in the state's 48th district, north of Tampa.

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washingtonpost.com — We were eight Mexican peasants, one smuggler and me -- desperately stretched out in dirt furrows in the night. The Border Patrol helicopter with its huge searchlight kept coming closer. It stopped, hovered and turned the other way.

"Madre," whispered Pablo, who at 17 was the youngest among us.

We took off running, then crawling past a parked Border Patrol jeep that was so close you could hear the patrol officers as they booked a group they had caught. Finally, two hours after squirming under a fence in Tijuana, we were running down empty streets in San Ysidro, Calif., to a safe house and America.

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latimes.com — Congress gave final approval Thursday to a $600-million border security package that President Obama had sought to tighten the border with Mexico — a move supporters hope will open a broader political discussion on comprehensive immigration reform.

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thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com — In a highly unusual session, the chamber of filibusters and anonymous holds temporarily came back from its summer recess on Thursday to send a border security measure to President Obama’s desk and to pass a resolution honoring former Senator Ted Stevens — with only two senators present, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, both Democrats.

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wonkroom.thinkprogress.org — Republicans have been defending their desire to preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy — which the Obama administration would like to see expire at the end of the year — by falsely claiming that they will affect a multitude of small businesses. Florida’s Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio is willing to take this concocted version of reality so far as to claim that it’s actually a “misnomer” to call them tax cuts for the wealthy at all:

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huffingtonpost.com — Despite the outpouring of support for bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren's candidacy to lead a new consumer protection agency, one prominent Democrat continues to publicly stand in her way: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd.

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blogs.wsj.com — Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren, a top White House candidate to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is apparently no longer on the outside looking in.

Thursday, she was on the inside – literally – meeting with White House officials, including senior advisor David Axelrod.

It was unclear what was discussed, and Warren is no stranger to the Obama White House, but the meeting will likely trigger buzz in Washington because White House officials are still in the process of determining whether to nominate Warren to be the first director of the CFPB.

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