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Donald6189 wrote: Sort of, but not quite on topic, just wondering if anyone has come up with a tshirt with the caption "The government went on Sequestration and all I got was this lousy economy!"? Sort of fits with the topic just not completely. - This Jobs Report Not Actual Size Dear Comrade Don, Actually it doesn’t fit with the topic, nor is it correct. It’s not even funny. The economy was lousy before sequestration. Sequestration is aimed at improving the economy even though the politicians would have you believe otherwise. The only problem I have with sequestration is that...

House Republican leaders have a new problem. They can’t count on their members to support them on procedural votes. Sixteen Republicans defected Wednesday in a vote on the rule governing consideration of a government-funding bill meant to prevent a government shutdown. The defections could have caused the rule to fail since most Democrats voted also voted against it. Even more striking? Seven of the Republicans who voted against the rule then voted for the funding bill.

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A lesson in economics. Learning from Obituaries.... It seems that every couple of days New Orleans loses one of its treasured ENTREPRENEURS . Lets get the players straight before we go on with this. interpretation of data not verified but... LARMONDO "FLAIR" ALLEN His Companion (NOT married with children: Kawanner Armstrong His Sons : Christian Allen Kwan Allen Larmondo Allen, Jr. His Daughters: Deidra Allen Larmenshell Allen Lamonshea Allen Larmomdriel Allen Larmerja Allen Korevell Allen AT AGE 25 - He had 9 Children. (Could Kawanner Armstrong Possibly Be The Mother Of All Of His Kids?) His Father: Burnell Thompson His...

U.S. lawmakers won’t have their $174,000 salaries affected by across-the-board government spending cuts going into effect this month, but there’s little clarity about how the bank accounts of senators and representatives were spared in the so-called sequester. The spending cuts hit every budget account with a few exceptions that were written into the law that set up the federal budgeting process more than two decades ago, known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act. Compensation for the president is specifically exempted, but there’s no mention of pay for members of Congress. So how did lawmakers’ pay escape the axe? Turns out that’s a...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) dismissed lawmakers’ criticisms over trying a former al Qaeda spokesman in New York City as partisan politics and said he’s confident that the trial won’t present a security risk. “I suspect a lot of the controversy will be partisan controversy, part of the political games that are played in Washington,” Bloomberg told CBS. Bloomberg did not second-guess the Obama administration’s decision to try former al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith in federal court rather than taking him to Guantanamo Bay and trying him before a military tribunal. The decision has drawn attacks from...

The Queen will tomorrow back an historic pledge to promote gay rights and ‘gender equality’ in one of the most controversial acts of her reign. In a live television broadcast, she will sign a new charter designed to stamp out discrimination against homosexual people and promote the ‘empowerment’ of women – a key part of a new drive to boost human rights and living standards across the Commonwealth. snip The charter, dubbed a ‘21st Century Commonwealth Magna Carta’ declares: ‘We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds.’...

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly using the emotion that comes from her 2011 shooting in Tuscon, Arizona to demand “something needs to be done” to stop “gun violence,” and that something (according to Mark Kelly) is the ban of “assault weapons.” He has testified to that effect before the U.S. Senate, as well as in Colorado. However, it appears that Mark Kelly is another shining example of the belief of the civilian disarmament folks that the same logic they use to try and disarm the general population doesn’t apply to themselves.

House Republican leaders have a new problem. They can’t count on their members to support them on procedural votes. Sixteen Republicans defected Wednesday in a vote on the rule governing consideration of a government-funding bill meant to prevent a government shutdown. The defections could have caused the rule to fail since most Democrats voted also voted against it. Even more striking? Seven of the Republicans who voted against the rule then voted for the funding bill. Votes on rules are supposed to be party-line and serve as tests of a caucus’s unity. So it was disconcerting for leaders to see...

President Obama’s approval rating dipped slightly after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a deal to avoid the sequester, according to a Gallup survey released Tuesday. Obama’s approval rating had been holding steadily above the 50-percent mark since last October. But over the weekend, following Friday’s sequester deadline, the president’s approval rating fell as low as 46 percent. Obama averaged 49-percent approval for the week ending March 3, down from the previous week’s average of 51 percent, and down from 53 percent, where he started February. Obama’s highest weekly average in 2013 came shortly before his second inauguration in early...

A newly unveiled component of President Obama’s healthcare law forcing insurers to pay annual fees is sowing angst in state capitols, where officials view the provision as a $15 billion tax that could disrupt Medicaid programs and other services. The health insurance providers fee, included in the healthcare reform law over the objections of congressional Republicans, is designed to raise tens of billions of dollars in the coming years. In Wisconsin alone, the fee would hit the state’s coffers to the tune of $23 million in 2014, and will likely total more than that in subsequent years, said J.P. Wieske,...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other liberals in Congress are ratcheting up pressure on President Obama to back away from a proposal to curb the growth of Social Security benefits. Sanders and other liberals are concerned Obama may strike a deficit-reduction deal with Republicans that would reduce Social Security benefits by adopting a less generous way of adjusting benefits for inflation. Obama has previously said he would consider using a formula known as chain-Consumer Price Index that would lower the growth of entitlements by slowing benefit increases for inflation. Sanders and other liberals are worried Obama will renew that offer...

A senior Republican launched a preemptive political strike Saturday against the budget plan that Senate Democrats will offer next week, alleging it won’t address the national debt or help workers. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, used the GOP’s weekly address to make his party’s case against the 10-year plan that Democrats hope to steer through the committee. He said that debt is slowing the economy and depressing wages, and that balancing the budget and ending the deficit – which Sessions calls “the great challenge of our time” – can be achieved by holding...

President Obama warned Saturday that automatic spending cuts known as the sequester threaten to stifle the surge in job growth the nation saw in February. Switching from the adversarial tone he has used to pressure Republican leaders in recent weeks, the president appealed to what he called the vision both parties share for the country. “As Democrats and Republicans, we may disagree on the best way to achieve our goals, but I’m confident we can agree on what those goals should be,” Obama said in his weekly address. He cited a vibrant middle class, an education system that gives more...

Organizing for Action has given up corporate cash, but watchdog groups won’t be satisfied until the pro-Obama nonprofit is shut down for good. The lobbying group, which was built from the remnants of President Obama’s reelection machine, has come under intense pressure from good-government advocates who say it’s ripe for corruption. “We continue to call on President Obama to shut it down,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. “President Obama should have never gotten into this in the first place, but it's not too late for him to correct this by having this entity shut down promptly.” When Organizing...

Secretary of State John Kerry had hoped to offer considerably more aid to Egypt than the $250 million he announced during his trip to Cairo but was blocked by Congress, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said. “This is not the aid package that the administration wanted to announce,” Royce told The Hill. The administration wanted to release a “larger sum,” but bowed to the wishes of Royce's committee as well as congressional appropriators, he said. Royce wouldn't say how much Kerry had hoped to announce, but the State Department has been pressing Congress to greenlight $450 million...

SOUTH CAROLINA'S BEST BET TO DEFEAT LINDSEY GRAHAM MAY RUN AFTER ALL... Fitsnews has the scoop. Click the Excerpt link for more info.

WICHITA FALLS, Texas - Bruce Martin was watching movies in the middle of the night when he suffered a massive heart attack. His dog Clyde nudged him and, getting no response, trotted into the bedroom to awaken Bruce's wife,Mitch. The Martins believe that Clyde, a 5-year-old pit bull/golden retriever mix, saved Bruce's life. "Clyde's my insomnia buddy. He'd stay up with me while I was watching movies at 3 in the morning," said Martin, still recovering from the Feb. 11 collapse and subsequent bypass surgery. "That particular night I got up to cross the room and had the heart attack....

The San Diego Zoo was placed on lockdown Friday night after two striped hyenas escaped from their enclosure, zoo officials confirmed. A source who wishes to remain anonymous told NBC 7 the incident happened around 5:30 p.m. The tipster believes the hyenas somehow jumped out of their enclosure. The zoo’s public relations office confirmed the incident Saturday morning and told NBC 7 that two striped hyenas were able to get past one of the barriers inside their enclosure, temporarily escaping. Worker at the zoo noticed the hyenas were not where they were supposed to be and, at that point, zookeepers...

A famed Brazilian soccer goalkeeper has been convicted in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Friday, a court said. The former Flamengo star Bruno Fernandes das Dores de Souza was sentenced of 22 years and three months for the murder of Eliza Samudio and the abduction of a child. The player's ex-wife, who was also on trial, was acquitted of kidnapping the child.