A promise is a promise... until it isn't anymore

One of the earliest fears about tax-favored savings accounts like IRAs and 401(k) plans was that when this pool of savings grew large enough Congress would not be able to resist tapping it to help solve the nation’s debt problems. We’re about to find out if those fears—persistent for decades—have been justified. Read more at TIME...

What could possibly go wrong? Read More......

Democrats seek more benefits for jobless

Warning that more than 2 million Americans are poised to lose their long-term unemployment insurance, some Democrats are calling on Congress to extend the “economic lifeline” before it expires next month.

Some Republicans, though, are demanding that an extension of jobless benefits — and any other form of new spending — be offset through savings or spending reductions elsewhere in the federal budget.

In a letter to party leaders last week, Sen. Jeff Sessions said that extending the unemployment benefits another year carries a $26 billion price tag.

Read more at the Washington Times



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Senate Democrats divided over cuts to benefit programs, raising roadblock to any fiscal deal

WASHINGTON - Deep divisions among Senate Democrats over whether cuts to popular benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid should be part of a plan to slow the government's mushrooming debt pose a big obstacle to a deal for avoiding a potentially economy-crushing "fiscal cliff," even if Republicans agree to raise taxes.

Much of the focus during negotiations seeking an alternative to $671 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts beginning in January has centered on whether Republicans would agree to raising taxes on the wealthy. President Barack Obama has insisted repeatedly that tax increases on the wealthy must be part of any deal, even as White House officials concede that government benefit programs will have to be in the package too.

Read more at the Star Tribune Read More......

A Constitutional Opening

Now that President Obama has won reelection, the states are grappling with implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Last June, in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court gave the act a mixed bill of constitutional health. It upheld the individual mandate by saying that it was constitutional under Congress’s taxing power. However, it also ruled that Congress could not compel the states to expand their Medicaid programs by threatening to cut off all Medicaid subsidies if they did not do so. Imposing onerous new requirements in a program that already represents such a large part of the states’ budgets that they can’t afford to lose federal subsidies, the Court ruled, is unconstitutional. This was the first significant limitation on the federal government’s power to use the strings attached to fiscal subsidies — “grants-in-aid,” as they used to be known — in order to make states implement federal policies.

Read more at National Review Read More......

New home sales stagnant, casts shadow on housing

(Reuters) - New single-family home sales fell slightly in October and the prior month's pace of sales was revised sharply lower, casting a small shadow over what has been one of the brighter spots in the U.S. economy.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday sales dropped 0.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted 368,000-unit annual rate.

Government data for new home sales are subject to substantial revisions. Indeed, the Commerce Department cut its estimate for September's sales rate to 369,000 from 389,000.

Read more at Reuters Read More......

Brent Bozell calls out GOP leadership on Fiscal Cliff

ForAmerica's Brent Bozell writes the Republican Leadership of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate challenging them on putting tax raises on the table.  The question he asks is, "If you now claim a tax increase on small business is the correct course of action, were you lying all along when you claimed this tax increase would decimate the economy?" See full letter at ForAmerica... Read More......

Red State: Only in Washington

By Daniel Horowitz
For those of us who are not schooled in the ways of Washington, here is a glimpse into the duplicity of the “budget savings” as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations. Read all about it at Red State... Read More......

Rice: Syria is central to holding together the Mideast

By Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009)
The civil war in Syria may well be the last act in the story of the disintegration of the Middle East as we know it. The opportunity to hold the region together and to rebuild it on a firmer foundation of tolerance, freedom and, eventually, democratic stability is slipping from our grasp. Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......

D'Souza: Sandwiches, Wagons & Politics

On October 8, 2012, the OSU Socratic Club sponsored a debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Michael Shermer. The topic was "Is Christianity Good for American Politics?" This 7 minute video is from the Q&A session following the debate. D'Souza presents fantastic (and humorous) analogies with a Christian viewpoint to explain his opposition to Obamacare and Obama's "fair share" ethos. (Hat tip: Patricia Anderson)

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Feds to double habitat for spotted owl to 9.6 M acres in California, Oregon and Washington

GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The last building block of the Obama administration's strategy unveiled Wednesday to keep the northern spotted owl from extinction nearly doubles the amount of Northwest national forest land dedicated to protecting the bird by the Bush administration four years ago. ✧ Still, conservation groups that went to court to force the overhaul said key gaps remain, such as an exemption for private forest lands and most state forests. ✧ The full critical habitat plan will not be published until next week, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 9.6 million acres of Oregon, Washington and Northern California will come under its provisions, almost all of it federal lands. ✧ The amount is down from nearly 14 million acres proposed last February but still exceeds the 5.3 million acres proposed in 2008. The biggest cut came in private timberlands -- 1.3 million acres. State forests covering 271,000 acres remain. ✧ Following a directive last February from the White House, officials revised the latest plan to make room for thinning and logging inside critical habitat to reduce the danger of wildfire and improve the health of forests. Read more at The Willits News... Read More......

A Conservative finds clues from a Liberal to fight Liberalism

This 2009 article from blogger, A Goy and his Blog, with video and graphs is interesting. Essentially, the conservative's job is education not compromise. Find out why (fairly long piece but valuable).  He starts with this question, "Why do leftist ideologues persist with each new decade in clinging to a perennially discredited Utopian fantasy?"

Compromising with Moral Adolescence: A Losing Strategy Read More......

Whitewashing Pedophilia at PBS

J. Christian Adams, 11/20/2012 - Another victim has come forward and accused the voice of Sesame Street’s Elmo of engaging in pedophilia. Kevin Clash, the 28-year voice of Elmo, has resigned from the show after another alleged victim has come forward, this time in court. Cecil Singleton has sued Clash for engaging in sexual conduct with the boy when he was 15. Singleton is the second victim to come forward. ✧ The reaction of the government-funded PBS’s Sesame Workshop? Condemnation? Disgust? Hardly. Read more at Rule of Law... Read More......

Cows Flee California Seeking a Better Economic Climate

It's not just millionaires and billionaires who are fleeing the economic madness in California. Even cows are starting to depart for greener pastures. That's right, 400 bovine refugees shuffled off to Kansas just this month, with more expected to follow as over 100 dairy farms in California close their doors.

Why are cows voting with their hooves?

It's hard to find a government program as insane as the complex web of price supports, market orders, direct payments, diversion programs, herd reductions, import barriers, export subsidies, and stacked-to-the-rafters cheese warehouses that characterize Uncle Sam's efforts to "rationally manage" the dairy market. If you really want to understand how crony capitalism works to create market conditions only a Soviet commissar could love, take a look at what happens when byzantine federal regulations collide with state interventions.

Read more at Real Clear Markets Read More......

Investment Falls Off a Cliff

U.S. companies are scaling back investment plans at the fastest pace since the recession, signaling more trouble for the economic recovery.

Half of the nation's 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders have announced plans to curtail capital expenditures this year or next, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal of securities filings and conference calls.

Nationwide, business investment in equipment and software—a measure of economic vitality in the corporate sector—stalled in the third quarter for the first time since early 2009. Corporate investment in new buildings has declined.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal On-Line Read More......

Obama's Economy: What We've Learned Since Re-election

Obama II: In the "now they tell us" file, add a vast array of reports that have come out since the election showing just how weak the economy really is. Looks like the president will need a new scapegoat soon.

Here's just a sampling of what we've learned since voters decided to give Obama four more years to "experiment" with the economy.

Earnings falling: The Labor Dept. reported on Thursday that real average hourly earnings dropped again in October for the third month in a row, and are now down 2% from when Obama took office.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily Read More......

United Technologies laying off 500 workers, including 4 in Charlotte area

United Technologies Corp. announced Friday it is laying off 500 salaried and hourly employees worldwide – including some in the Charlotte area – between now and the end of the year.

The multinational manufacturing and transportation company, which acquired Charlotte-based Goodrich Corp. this past summer, said it is laying off three workers at its Monroe plant and one in its Charlotte aerospace division headquarters.

The company started telling workers Friday, company spokesman Dan Coulom said. The company will continue to notify affected workers through December, Coulom said. He was not aware of additional layoffs planned for the Charlotte area, he said. Read more at the Charlotte Observer

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/16/3670382/united-technologies-laying-off.html#storylink=cpy

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Medical giant Stryker cuts 1,170 jobs, citing ObamaCare

Medical supply giant Stryker is the latest company to announce job cuts in anticipation of coming costs associated with ObamaCare, even though the man who inherited a fortune from the company's founder is a fan.

The company will cut 1,170 jobs, or five percent of its worldwide workforce, despite the fact that the founder's grandson was one of the largest contributors to President Obama’s re-election campaign. Medical tech scion Jon Stryker, whose net worth is currently estimated at $1.2 billion, contributed $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC and has given $66,000 in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party. Stryker does not run the company.


Read more Fox News Read More......

Battery maker A123 got U.S. funds as it sought bankruptcy

(Reuters) - The Obama administration provided struggling battery maker A123 Systems Inc with nearly $1 million on the day it filed for bankruptcy, the company told lawmakers investigating its government grant.

The company, which makes lithium ion batteries for electric cars, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after a rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group fell apart.

That same day, October 16, A123 received a $946,830 payment as part of its $249 million clean energy grant from the Energy Department, the company said in a letter, obtained by Reuters, to Republican Senators John Thune and Chuck Grassley.

Read more at Reuters

List of Failed Obama Green Energy & Solar Companies in the Billions Read More......

House GOP: Obama officials using secret emails to avoid oversight

The House science committee is demanding the White House explain why top administration officials are using secret e-mail accounts and other techniques to conceal their taxpayer-paid activities from public oversight.

The evidence of officials’ efforts to evade transparency laws includes EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s use of the fake name “Richard Windsor”, and hidden e-mail accounts, according to a Nov. 16 letter sent by the committee to several White House officials, including Jackson. (RELATED: EPA chief’s secret ‘alias’ email revealed)


Read more at the Daily Caller Read More......

U.N. Poll Watchers Baffled U.S. Doesn't Require I.D. to Vote

By Katie Pavlich - Those of us who thought U.N election observers would be completely worthless or unhelpful today [11/6], were wrong. U.N. observers are expressing their surprise at how much trust Americans put into the election system without verification and cannot believe Voter I.D. isn't a national requirement to vote. Read more at Townhall.com... Read More......

Countdown Israel II

By Richard Fernandez - News that rockets were fired at southern Israel from the Sinai — from Egypt in other words — raised the possibility that an IDF operation directed against Gaza might lead to further incidents with Cairo. ✧ [Excerpt] The potential collision between Egypt and Israel over Gaza now threaten to catch him [Obama] between two fires. A collision between the two American ‘allies’ will force him to reap the bitter fruit of trying to be all things to all men; of trying to support the Brotherhood, with its hostility to Israel — and Israel. He will have to square the circle or openly choose sides in a way that not even the New York Times can conceal. Read full post at The Belmont Club... Read More......

USA Today: Don't write off GOP yet

Not only are Republicans still strongly competitive and in some areas they are dominant. ✧ [Excerpt] Not only are Republicans still strongly competitive from the courthouse to Congress, in some areas they also are dominant. For example, they control:

• 30 of 50 governorships, including those in seven of the 10 most populous states.
• 27 of 49 state House of Representatives (Nebraska has a unicameral, non-partisan legislature).
• 28 of 49 state senates;
• A 40-seat majority in the U.S. House;
• 45 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate, enough to sustain a filibuster.

Midterm bonanza - Many of these numbers are the legacy of the 2010 midterm elections, when Republicans made historic gains, picking up 63 U.S. House seats, six governorships and 12 state legislatures (22 state house or senate chambers switched from Democratic to Republican — more than 700 seats). ✧ It's also worth noting, because so much has been made about the Hispanic vote this year, that six of the 10 states with the highest Hispanic populations have GOP governors.

Read full article by Don Campbell at USA Today...
(Hat tip: Sen. Brian Boquist via John Bell)
Senator Boquist added a bullet point: 14 of 30 Oregon Senate seats is enough to block any tax increase. Read More......

VDH: A Country Unhinged

11/13/2012 by Victor Davis Hanson
Nothing seems real anymore, not preelection federal data on jobs or food stamps or the release of such “facts”; not foreign-policy information like an Iranian attack on a drone; not the supposedly competent federal relief in response to Hurricane Sandy. Even Saddam Hussein’s plebiscites could not achieve margins like the 19,605 to 0 we saw in 59 Philadelphia precincts. Does anyone care? Read more at The Corner... Read More......

On the mark or off the track?

25 Examples Of What America Would Be Like If Everyone Was A Liberal
25 Examples of What America Would Be Like if We Were All Christian Conservative Tea Partiers

Townhall.com by John Hawkins Read More......

Samuelson: It’s the welfare state, stupid

By Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - If you doubt there’s an American welfare state, you should read the new study by demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, whose blizzard of numbers demonstrates otherwise. A welfare state transfers income from some people to other people to improve the recipients’ well-being. In 1935, these transfers were less than 3 percent of the economy; now they’re almost 20 percent. That’s $7,200 a year for every American, calculates Eberstadt. He says that nearly 40 percent of these transfers aim to relieve poverty (through Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance and the like), while most of the rest goes to the elderly (mainly through Social Security and Medicare).

By all means, let’s avoid the “fiscal cliff”: the $500 billion in tax increases and federal spending cuts scheduled for early 2013 that, if they occurred, might trigger a recession. But let’s recognize that we still need to bring the budget into long-term balance. This can’t be done only by higher taxes on the rich, which seem inevitable. Nor can it be done by deep cuts in defense and domestic “discretionary” programs (from highways to schools), which are already happening. It requires controlling the welfare state. In 2011, “payments for individuals,” including health care, constituted 65 percent of federal spending, up from 21 percent in 1955. That’s the welfare state.

Yet, the subject is virtually taboo...  Read more at Washington Post Read More......

Oregon's economy slows further in September, U of O index shows

Oregon’s economy retreated in September, dampened by one of the sharpest monthly jobs losses since the recession.

A University of Oregon gauge that tracks the state’s economic activity edged down to a reading of –0.66, meaning the state is expanding slower than its normal pace since 1990.

A labor dispute at the Port of Portland hampered growth in July and August, while an estimated 7,900 job cuts weighed on the economy in September, according to the measure.

Read more at Oregon Live Read More......

The hope-a-nomics disaster: One company’s horror story

President Obama promises to move the country forward with his recycled pledge of five million green jobs. But in the real world, small businesses are struggling to stay afloat as they deal with the fiscal wreckage of this administration’s disastrous venture socialism. Here’s the tale of just one Colorado company victimized by the Obama Department of Energy (DOE).

Colorado Distribution Group is a privately held storage and shipping company based in Denver. Thanks to hope-a-nomics, its warehouse is saddled with nearly 7,000 pallets of federally subsidized solar panels (one-third of which are completely spoiled and unsalable), along with related detritus such as broken glass and stray module parts.

Read more at Human Events Read More......

Hours after election Obama backs new arms treaty talks

Just hours after President Barack Obama secured a second term in the White House, the United States supported the U.N. in its bid Wednesday to reignite talks over an international treaty regulating the $70 billion global conventional arms trade, according to Reuters:

U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge Washington denies.  Read more at The Blaze...

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Cast aside: Thousands of votes from our military troops uncounted or missing

According to the Naval Enlisted Reserve Association, scores of military absentee ballots cast in the 2012 Election will not be counted. U.S. Military personnel and their families are outraged: “Where the hell is this country’s moral compass?!” stated the mother of a 25 year old Marine who served in Afghanistan.
 
The military mail service is notoriously slow, and lawmakers have said that it could be almost two months after the election before ballots even arrive to be processed.

“We write to express concerns over another serious failure by the Department of Defense to safeguard the voting rights of our overseas military service members, which we believe could result in the imminent disenfranchisement of thousands,” stated a letter sent to Defense Department Secretary Leon Panetta by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., John McCain, R-Ariz., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Read more at the Examiner Read More......

Forward! To mass layoffs!

Obamanomics grinds grimly onward, as CNBC brings word that on the day after the election, “Boeing announced a major restructuring of its defense division on Wednesday that will cut 30 percent of management jobs from 2010 levels, close facilities in California, and consolidate several business units to cut costs.” It was sweet of them to keep that under wraps until after the election, wasn’t it?

And that’s not even the dreaded “sequestration” layoffs, which Obama broke the law to convince defense contractors to keep under wraps until after the election. Those are yet to come. The upside to living in a banana Republic with Party-dominated media is that life is full of “unexpected” surprises, to use the word that has come to dominate economic news in the Obama era.

Read more at Human Events Read More......

Nearly 200 'family-sustaining' jobs to be lost as HarperCollins plans to close warehouse

HarperCollins Publishers will close its warehouse and distribution operation in Throop next summer and put close to 200 people out of work.

“The industry is changing,” said Erin Crum, spokeswoman for HarperCollins, a book publisher based in New York. “It just makes sense for us to go this route as we shift to a more digital industry.”

Ms. Crum would not disclose how many people will be laid off when the warehouse at the Keystone Industrial Park closes.

However, Craig Pawlik, principal officer of Teamsters Local 229 in Scranton, said 192 people will be furloughed. The union represents maintenance and warehouse workers at the facility.

Read more at the Times-Tribune Read More......

Vestas to cut 3,000 more jobs

Vestas Wind Systems is aiming to sell a stake of as much as 20 percent and shed another 3,000 off its headcount, more than doubling the number of jobs it plans to eliminate by 2013.

The announcement came as the Danish company reported disappointing financial results that sent its shares tumbling 13 percent.

Read more at Oregon Live Read More......

Who Is Bolat Bersebayev and Why Is He Monitoring Our Elections?

Who is Bolat Bersebayev of Kazakhstan and why is he “monitoring” our polling places in Indianapolis, Indiana and Lansing Michigan? And who is Elchin Musaeyev of Azerbaijan, and why has he been tasked with monitoring the November 6 elections in Boston, Massachusetts, and Concord, New Hampshire?

Neither Kazakhstan nor Azerbaijan are notable as paragons of electoral virtue. Nor are they models of liberty, honesty, and decency. The facts show quite the opposite.

Kazakhstan is a brutal and corrupt dictatorship run by 72-year-old Nursultan Nazarbayev, a lifelong Communist who claims to have received 95.54 percent of the vote in the 2011 elections. No one believes the Kazakh election was anything other than a scripted event with a pre-set outcome. Put “Kazakhstan human rights” into your search engine and you’ll find abundant data from numerous sources confirming that efforts to exercise freedom of expression or freedom of assembly are met with baseball bats, bullets, and prison.

Read more at the New American Read More......

Sources: Key task force not convened during Benghazi consulate attack

CBS News has learned that during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Obama Administration did not convene its top interagency counterterrorism resource: the Counterterrorism Security Group, (CSG).

 "The CSG is the one group that's supposed to know what resources every agency has. They know of multiple options and have the ability to coordinate counterterrorism assets across all the agencies," a high-ranking government official told CBS News. "They were not allowed to do their job. They were not called upon."

See more at CBS News Read More......