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President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday. He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup. Their excuse? “Inclement weather,” according to the White House... That awkward moment on speakerphone in the White House, for better...

In public, President Obama is on a tear against Wall Street. In private, not so much Over the weekend, Obama attacked fat-cat investment bankers, telling "60 Minutes" he didn't become president to aid and abet Wall Street -- which, only a year after the financial meltdown and taxpayer bailout, is now scheduled to hand out tens of billions of dollars in bonuses to its bankers and traders. But the president's meeting yesterday with the CEOs of the largest banks was nearly a lovefest, I'm told by attendees. Yes, White House spinmeisters advertised the gathering as a chance for Obama to...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats last night dropped a key Medicare expansion plan from the proposed health-care bill in a major last-minute concession to save the legislation from going under. The plan would have allowed people as young as 55 to enroll in Medicare. The decision to scrap the idea -- which would have considerably expanded health-care coverage, a key promise made by Democrats in last year's elections -- came as President Obama put heavy pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats to reach a compromise that they could still call "health-care reform."

Harry Reid can rightly claim to be making history. If he passes health-care re form, he'll depend on a series of historic "firsts." It'd be the first time Congress had passed a major new entitlement program without bipartisan support; it'd be the first time it passed such a program without popular support; and the first time it passed such a program without knowing or particularly caring what's in it. John McCain complained last week that he had no idea what constituted the highly touted backroom deal that Reid sent to the Congressional Budget Office for evaluation. The No. 2 Senate...

They just announced it. I didn't catch whether he is on at 7AM or 8AM He'll be slamming the Fed which I want to see You can TIVO it if you have one

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced that he was working on yet another version of health reform, incorporating tweaks such as a huge expansion of Medicare, a brand-new version of the so-called "public option" based on the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program plus a possible increase in Medicaid eligibility. Reid's latest vision not only hasn't been debated or scored by the Congressional Budget Office, no one except Sen. Reid even knows for certain what's in it. Even so, Sen. Reid says the Senate must vote on this new package before Christmas.

Sarah Palin has added a second speech to her appearance in Redding in February. Tickets went on sale Monday morning. The former Republican vice presidential candidate will address the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference. Tickets for her first speech scheduled for February 8th at 7pm, sold out in days. Palin has now added a matinée speech for the same day at 3pm. There are about a thousand tickets remaining, they run $54 and $74. You can purchase them at Northern Lights Energy, KLXR radio or the Redding Convention Center.

Now that it's reaching its final stages, wanna know what the celebrated two-week summit conference in Copenhagen on climate change was all about? Forget the official version: Cautious optimism, supposedly blended with the reality that the organizers foist on the world -- a last chance to save the planet, and all that with nearly 200 countries and world leaders attending. Instead, turn to Conrad Black in the National Post, writing from Coleman Correctional Complex in Florida, where he's awaiting the findings of the U.S. Supreme Court which is reviewing his convictions for mail fraud. To Conrad, "Copenhagen is the epitome...

China executed Tuesday the former manager of a securities company who embezzled millions of dollars — the first execution of an executive from the communist country's financial sector, state media said. Some wanted Yang Yanming kept alive so he would explain where the 65 million yuan ($9.5 million) went, news reports said. Yang refused to tell. China has also executed government officials in its long-running fight against corruption, which is a major source of anger among the country's citizens. The Beijing Evening News said Yang was the first person from a Chinese securities company to be executed. "Someone has to...

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. government must craft a plan next year to get its ballooning debt under control or face possible panic in financial markets, a bipartisan panel of budget experts said in a report on Monday. Though the government should hold off on immediate tax hikes and spending cuts to avoid harming the fragile economic recovery, it will need to make such painful changes by 2012 in order to keep debt at a manageable 60 percent of GDP by 2018, according to the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. Without action, investors could lose confidence in the...

U.S. taxpayers could ultimately see a profit of $13 billion to $14 billion from Citigroup's payback of bailout investments, including dividends paid, a U.S. Treasury official said on Monday. That amount includes the gain on the government's 34 percent stake in Citi common shares , which was close to $5.8 billion as of Friday's close, as well as trust preferred securities with a $5.2 billion face value, received in a loss-sharing agreement backing a pool of Citigroup assets. The official also said the total also includes estimates of nearly $3 billion in dividends paid on the government's investments in the...

With $41 billion XTO buyout, Rex Tillerson maps a path energy companies will likely follow in the decade to come. ExxonMobil's $41 billion buyout of XTO Energy caught the oilpatch off guard Monday morning. Over the weekend all eyes were on Iraq, where numerous international oil companies secured contracts to develop the world's biggest untapped oil fields. ExxonMobil (XOM), looking for avenues of growth, already has a tentative $25 billion deal to develop the first phase of the giant West Qurna field. But don't expect the company to show interest in additional Iraqi acreage. In this most recent round, "We...

President Obama is the one who still doesn’t get it. In an administration fiendishly adroit at stagecraft, he chose an exclusive interview on “60 Minutes” last night to bash bankers with the “f” word — “fatcats,” he called them — just 16 hours before his scheduled sitdown with the chiefs of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and other banking giants. What an icebreaker! That impolite precursor on “60 Minutes,” especially when it comes from a guy who most times is charming and almost too ingratiating, shows a President torn between pious populism and prosperous capitalism. Obama needs...

The city’s Department of Education plans to offer a contract renewal to a school bus company that was identified in a federal investigation as having paid bribes to school bus inspectors. Logan Bus Company was one of nine companies identified in the investigation as having paid bribes in exchange for favorable treatment, which in some cases included overlooking safety violations and falsifying records that allowed the companies to overcharge the city. The city takes measures to exclude companies from city contracting that have defrauded it. But the bus companies were not charged with any crimes, and prosecutors have described the...

Putting Obama on Hold, in a Hint of Who’s Boss By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN December 14, 2009 President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday. He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup. Their excuse? “Inclement...

If anyone hasn't seen Kayak's commercial making a joke out of the sacrifices of our soldiers on D-Day, the link is below. It disgusts me, and I finally decided to let the company know. I hope you will do the same. The commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RFoEn5EYJw Here's what I wrote to them on their "feedback" page: Hello Kayak, I just wanted you to know that after seeing your tasteless commercial featuring a man talking like a WW2 veteran about Cancun, I've decided that I will never, EVER use your site, and whenever any of my friends discuss taking or booking a trip,...

Poll Reveals Depth and Trauma of Joblessness in U.S. By MICHAEL LUO and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN December 14, 2009 More than half of the nation’s unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work. Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work. Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Winchester Ammunition was recently awarded a contract by the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security to supply a maximum of 200 million, 40 cal. rounds over the next five years. The load selected for this contract is a 135-grain, hollow point designed for the office of Field Operations of Customs and Border Protection. It will fall under the Winchester Ranger line.

Late this December, the Unites States Treasury will reach the $12.1 trillion statutory ceiling on the national debt. It will mark the 91st time Congress has had to raise the debt limit since the original $43 billion ceiling was established in 1940. Many on the left argue that the United States federal government can borrow and spend as much money as it wants, and that any concerns about what it might cost us in the future are just a Phantom Menace. But as the chart to the right shows, we are already paying a hefty sum in monthly interest payments...

Senate Dems May Scrap Medicare Expansion L awmakers say dropping provision appears necessary to pass overhaul bill "Democrats aren't going to let the American people down. We all stand shoulder-to-shoulder," Majority Leader Harry Reid said after a closed-door meeting called to discuss last-minute trade-offs in health care legislation WASHINGTON - The end game at hand, Senate Democrats appeared ready to jettison a proposed Medicare expansion from sweeping health care legislation Monday in a bid to remove the largest remaining obstacle in the way of Christmas-week passage of the measure. "Democrats aren't going to let the American people down. We all...

Areas receiving funding will include health, safety, education and training programs More federal funding could be headed to West Virginia. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., Dec. 14 announced that the House of Representatives and Senate have completed action on the Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill. The measure includes funding for health, safety, education, and training programs in the Mountain State. The bill includes more than $630 million for programs in West Virginia. The bill is part of an Omnibus Appropriations bill, which combined six of the 12 annual spending appropriations measures. The bill...

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - California, the largest borrower among U.S. states, may see its debt interest costs nearly double to over $10 billion in 2020, the state treasurer reported on Monday. Financials General fund debt service on outstanding bonds, authorized but unissued bonds and proposed water bonds is set to peak in fiscal 2020 at $10.45 billion, compared with a current level around $6 billion, and stay near that level through fiscal 2028, Treasurer Bill Lockyer said in a presentation for the state legislature. Crippled by the housing downturn and high unemployment, California has been one of the worst-hit...

COPENHAGEN – The atmosphere at the U.N. climate conference grew more tense and divisive after talks were suspended for most of Monday's session — a sign of the developing nations' deep distrust of the promises by industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions. ... The wrangle over emission reductions froze a timetable for government ministers to negotiate a host of complex issues. Though procedural in nature, the Africa-led suspension went to the core of suspicions by poor countries that wealthier ones were trying to soften their commitments and evade penalties for missing their targets. ... The negotiations were meant to...

Guilt Quiz & Guilt Level Chart: Tools for the Guilted Age Now that the properly conditioned guilt-ridden voters have elected the first Certified-Oppressed-Minority™ president, America has officially entered a new Guilted Age. The Guilted Age is similar to the Gilded Age, only instead of being motivated by the acquisition of gold, the nation is motivated by the distribution of Guilt™. A guilty electorate is a less demanding electorate: beggars are not choosers. Collective remorse makes the masses more malleable. Workers toil harder for less pay and donate surpluses to progressive causes within the hope that it would offset their culpability...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Plans from Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup to repay taxpayer funds will put the U.S. government on track to reduce its bailout investments in banks by more than 75 percent, while earning a healthy profit for the U.S., U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday. "With the recent announcements on repayments, we are now on track to reduce TARP bank investments by more than 75 percent, while earning a healthy profit on that commitment," Geithner said in a statement after Wells Fargo announced it will repay the $25 billion it received from the government under...

Drivers with a heavy foot could soon face heavy fines across Georgia. When the new 'Super Speeders' law takes effect January 1, 2010, motorists caught driving over 75 mph or more on 2 lane roads, and 85 mph or more on any multiple lane roads in the state, will get slapped with a $200 state-issued fine, in addition to local fines.Georgia state patrol trooper Jim Lewis says he thinks the new fines will deter some speeders, but not all. He says he responds to high-speed crashes regularly, and knows the dangers. "Speeding on narrow roads, you're not only putting yourself...

Low rate expectations are pushing dollars abroad. That capital needs to stay here to grow businesses and create jobs. The Federal Reserve implemented an emergency monetary policy after the 2008 Lehman bankruptcy to salvage the world financial system. In his testimony yesterday* before the Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said, "We must be prepared to withdraw the extraordinary policy support in a smooth and timely way as markets and the economy recover." This leaves all-out emergency monetary stimulus in place, but with a different, much weaker justification. With the system stabilized, the Fed hopes that artificially low interest...

For Immediate Release Thursday, December 10, 2009 Contact: Contact: Kaelan Richards 202-225-3661 DeLauro Calls for Equality for Women Farmers Washington, DC— Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) today introduced the Equality for Women Farmers Act. She was joined by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (CA-14), an original co-sponsor of the bill, and by six women farmers who shared their stories of discrimination by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) simply because of their gender. This legislation will seek to change the USDA’s history of discrimination towards women farmers, by addressing past transgressions and working to prevent future problems. For those who have been...

Finance: The White House thinks it can jawbone banks into lending to people they don't want to lend to. We've been down this road before, and it led all the way to the 2007 financial meltdown. The president on Monday gave a tongue-lashing to the "fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," as he called them the day before. He wants them to make more loans to small businesses and consumers to give the economy a boost. But should banks be lending just because a politician tells them to? We tried this before. Indeed, it's the very source of the financial and...

Upwards of 40 percent of all land in the United States is already under some form of government control or ownership -- 800 million to 900 million acres out of America's total 2.2 billion acres. The government now appears poised to wield greater control over private property on a number of fronts. The battle over private property rights has intensified since 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo v. City of New London case that the government could take property from one group of private landowners and give it to another. Outraged over that ruling and a series...

<p>Finance Commissioner Dave Goetz said Monday that state revenue collections for November were $708 million, or $13.5 million less than estimated. The general fund was undercollected by $8.1 million.</p> <p>Though still negative, Goetz said franchise and excise taxes combined for November were $42 million, which is $11.6 million above the budgeted estimate of $30.7 million.</p>

BOSTON, December 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - New details on President Barack Obama's "Safe Schools Czar" Kevin Jennings have emerged, as an eye-witness has finally broken her silence and says that Jennings was present at Tufts University during the infamous "Fistgate" scandal, and says that he bears personal responsibility for the event.Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit reports that a Massachusetts teacher - who remains anonymous out of concern for herself and her family - told him that she saw Jennings in 2000 at the 10 Year Anniversary Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN)/Boston conference at Tufts University. At that time Jennings...

ohn Williams, who runs the popular counter government data manipulation site Shadowstats, has thrown down the gauntlet to deflationists, and in an extensive report concludes that the probability of a hyperinflationary episode in America over the next year has reached critical levels. While the debate between deflationists and (hyper)inflationists has been a long and painful one, numerous events set off in motion by the Bernanke Fed (as a direct legacy of the Greenspan multi-decade period of cheap and boundless credit) may have well cast America as the unwilling protagonist in the sequel of the failed monetary policy economic experiment better...

Hollywood, Calif., Dec 14, 2009 / 05:37 pm (CNA).- A new independent film explores the issue of a woman's ability to chose to have an abortion, using a blend of the drama and documentary genres. “South Dakota: A woman's right to chose” isn't in theaters yet, but it has riveted audiences at a series of screenings in California.Bruce Isacson, director of “South Dakota,” began with the idea of making a documentary on the subject of abortion.” However, Isacson knew that he couldn't reach large numbers of people with the documentary genre. Historically, he notes on the movie's website, “documentaries draw...

This is a story that I originally posted in a thread a while back and it was suggested to me to make my own thread. Sorry it took so long.... I was kinda busy ;) If this is in the wrong place or I have broken any rules, I apologize in advance. UPDATE: Jack is home now and getting better IN SPITE of the NHS, NOT BECAUSE of it. I really felt the need to share this... it is not just a story in a newspaper or word of mouth tale. We are real life, down to earth people who...

Standard & Poor's downgraded Mexico's sovereign rating by one notch Monday, saying it expects the country to face fiscal challenges ahead, while it lowered prospects of government measures to improve economic growth. The downgrade to BBB from BBB+, the latest in a recent string of sovereign downgrades and warnings around the world, leaves Mexico a notch above the minimum investment grade. S&P changed Mexico's outlook to stable from negative. The downgrade was widely expected after Fitch Ratings cut Mexico in November, also to BBB from BBB+.

It's a good thing New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wasn't a used car salesman because CNBC "Squawk on the Street" co-host Mark Haines would have driven off the lot in a lemon. Friedman appeared on the Dec. 14 broadcast of "Squawk on the Street" to promote the paperback release of his book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." And once again, he made the case the United States is lagging behind in green technology and the only way to overcome this innovation gap is to set some sort of premium on the price of using carbon-based energy sources, as he meticulously...

Austria has nationalised the Carinthian lender Hypo Group after it ran into trouble on hidden losses in Eastern Europe, offering a stark reminder that Europe's banks are not yet out of the woods. Finance minister Josef Pröll said the government had been forced by fast-moving events to take a 100pc stake in the bank, Austria's sixth biggest lender with assets of €42bn (£38bn). "The risk situation of this bank has created an enormous threat to Austria, to its future as a financial centre, and to the whole economic region in recent days and weeks," he said, speaking after a 14-hour...

Commission Warns of Rising Public Debt The public debt of the United States is rising at such a rapid clip that it threatens to plunge the nation into a crisis unless Congress and the White House reverse course over the next couple years, a blue-ribbon commission of fiscal experts warned Monday. In the past year alone, the U.S. public debt level soared from 41 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 53 percent. The debt is projected to increase steadily, reaching 85 percent of GDP by 2018, 100 percent by 2022 and 200 percent in 2038, the Peterson-Pew Commission on...

December 14, 2009 What Senators Think They Know about Health Care ... Isn’t So. By Ramesh Ponnuru The Senate floor debate on health-care legislation has included a lot of confident assertions — many of them false. Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), for example, said during floor debate that the uninsured impose a “hidden tax” of more than $1,000 per person. That claim, as regular readers of NRO already know, originated with a left-wing advocacy group. A Kaiser Family Foundation study debunked the group’s analysis, reaching an estimate closer to $200 per year for a family. The Congressional Budget Office has...

For days now, the health care legislation in the Senate has been stalled. Democrats are divided over a proposed amendment that would let consumers buy pharmaceuticals from abroad. During the presidential campaign, Obama promised to allow such purchases. But earlier this year he announced his opposition in return for pharmaceutical companies promising to spend at least $150 million, and possibly as much as $200 million, to push his health care legislation. President Obama obviously faces a dilemma: either he keeps the campaign promise he made to voters or he keep his later promise to drug companies. Passing the proposed drug...

<p>What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.</p>

Race-related comments by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are offensive and historically inaccurate, says the Project 21 black leadership group. “Harry Reid has resorted to the most shopworn trick in the liberal playbook. He deployed the race card in the ugliest way while debating health care reform,” said Deroy Murdock, a Project 21 member and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. “It is astonishing and outrageous to equate those who seek the defeat of Reid’s 2,074-page, $2.5 trillion legislative monstrosity with those who were happy to keep blacks in chains, unpaid...

Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico's pipelines over the past two years, in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and the state-run oil company.

WASHINGTON — Today’s fight with the Catholic bishops over abortion in the health insurance bill is a far cry from a quarter century ago, when they could defeat a constitutional amendment giving equal rights to women and draw scarcely a peep of complaint. Then-Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-Queens, wanted Congress to vote more time for the states to approve ERA. The bishops, here for a meeting, quietly called targeted House members from their D. C. hotel rooms and they stuffed it. Now Democratic House members are going to the airwaves, the Internet and the floor to denounce the bishops for violating...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- President Barack Obama on Monday pressed the chief executives of the nation's largest banks to lend more to small businesses, increase their assistance to troubled homeowners and end their opposition to bank regulatory reform legislation moving on Capitol Hill. "I urged these institutions here today to go back and take a third and fourth look about how they are operating when it comes to small business and medium-sized business lending," Obama said after meeting at the White House with the bankers. "Banks could be doing more to lend to small businesses." See full text of Obama's remarks....

For the second time Detroit Public Schools Financial Manager Robert Bobb has threatened to bankrupt the school system. Bobb wants school teachers to agree to a Termination Incentive Plan (TIP) which says each teacher must loan the district $10,000 a year from pre-tax earnings to help eliminate the schools’ deficit. DFT President Keith Johnson says if teachers do not agree to the union-generated plan, they face a 10 percent pay cut for five years widening the wage gap between city and suburban teachers. Additionally, teachers may face bankruptcy proceedings that could make a teachers’ contract void. Many teachers have said...

"Judge indicates lender cannot be responsible for 'deterioration of inner city'" "A federal judge has suggested that he might "cut down" an unprecedented lawsuit filed by Baltimore city against Wells Fargo. The city says the mortgage giant engaged in illegal "reverse redlining" -- targeting black neighborhoods for bad loans that resulted in mass foreclosures. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz heard arguments Monday on a motion to dismiss the complaint. Wells Fargo's attorneys say the city can't prove that the company's actions caused widespread urban blight. Motz suggested that it's not plausible to claim that Wells Fargo is responsible for...

Or did they? It sure sounds that way.... First, the Government of Abu Dhabi and the UAE Central Bank have agreed to provide important support. Specifically, the Government of Abu Dhabi has agreed to fund $10 billion to the Dubai Financial Support Fund that will be used to satisfy a series of upcoming obligations on Dubai World. You'll bail out the immediate maturing bond (you can call it a "sukuk" if you want; I call it a dodge to "comply" through fraudulent means a claimed absolute ban on the charging of interest, but then again, I tend to view anyone...

Black activist to Obama: Promote job growth by killing cap-and-trade As a candidate, Obama admitted that, under such a plan, "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket"   Monday, December 14, 2009 If the White House jobs summit is more than a publicity stunt, says Deneen Borelli of the Project 21 black leadership network, Obama should abandon efforts to implement a cap-and-trade policy, as it would kill jobs. "If Obama is sincere about finding ways to fix our country's employment crisis, he should start by putting the brakes on job-killing cap-and-trade legislation," said Deneen Borelli, a Project 21 fellow. Obama is...