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House Republicans and tea party protesters spent the summer and much of the fall in an awkward mating dance, with neither group too sure it wanted to embrace the other. But they consummated the relationship over the weekend in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, and they’ll come together Thursday in Washington for a coordinated assault on the Democrats’ plans for health care reform.

The $US6.7 billion ($NZ 9.3 billion) sale of 200 tonnes of gold to India's Reserve Bank by the International Monetary Fund propelled the precious metal to a new record high of $US1087.45 per ounce in New York this week. Throughout October and November, gold has hit four new highs after it broke through the $US1000 mark in late-February this year. Recently, with the US dollar, Euro, British Pound and Yen all weakening in the face of the global recession, governments and investors alike are turning from currencies to gold instead to underpin their respective treasuries and share portfolios as a...

House Will Vote on Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill on Saturday Washington, DC -- The House of Representatives will finally cast its first votes on the pro-abortion health care reform bill this weekend. After a fluid process that saw dates repeatedly pushed back, the first chance pro-life advocates will have to stop the abortion funding bill will come Saturday night. ACTION NEEDED! This is it, the House will finally vote on the pro-abortion health care bill. Please pass this on and then call or email NOW and urge NO votes on the rule and the bill. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5615.html

Congressional Phone/Office Directory HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 111th CONGRESS Phone# & Room# (alpha by State & Name) 40094 Representative State District Phone Room Young, Don AK At Large 202-225-5765 2111 * Aderholt, Robert B. AL 4th 202-225-4876 1433 Bachus, Spencer AL 6th 202-225-4921 2246 Bonner, Jo AL 1st 202-225-4931 2236 Bright, Bobby AL 2nd 202-225-2901 1205 Davis, Artur AL 7th 202-225-2665 208 Griffith, Parker AL 5th 202-225-4801 417 Rogers, Mike AL 3rd 202-225-3261 324 * Berry, Marion AR 1st 202-225-4076 2305 Boozman, John AR 3rd 202-225-4301 1519 Ross, Mike AR 4th 202-225-3772 2436 Snyder, Vic AR 2nd 202-225-2506 2210 *...

The proposition to do away with red light cameras in College Station passed by a margin of 52-48 percent.

Who do you think is the most likely GOP Contender in 2012 of this group?Scroll down a bit... on the right side.

Commentary: Rates to stay low as long as unemployment stays highWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve isn't going anywhere until the unemployment rate drops. In answer to all those who are clamoring for the central bank to begin raising interest rates or to at least explain when higher rates might come, the Federal Open Market Committee gave a simple response on Wednesday: Show us the jobs. Rates will stay "exceptionally low" as long as the unemployment rate is rising and inflation trends are subdued, the FOMC said. After its two-day meeting ended on Wednesday, the FOMC made essentially no changes...

"We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we'd lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night." So famously said Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman in the marvelous conclusion of one of the greatest films of all time, "Casablanca." On Wednesday, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell shamelessly used a version of this line on White House advisor David Axelrod. During her interview about yesterday's election results, including Bill Owens' victory in New York's 23rd Congressional district, Mitchell asked Axelrod about the Obama campaign documentary aired on HBO Tuesday. ...more (w/video)...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen with automatic weapons burst into a Mexican strip club on the U.S. border, opened fire on patrons and killed six people including an American soldier, the army said on Wednesday. The hooded gunmen stormed into the bar in Ciudad Juarez as strippers were dancing for customers, sought out the six men and shot them each several times. A 26-year-old off-duty U.S. soldier who had crossed over from El Paso, Texas, was among the dead, army spokesman Enrique Torres said. "It appears drugs were being sold at the place," Torres said of the strip joint....

...a 25-year-old Canadian stricken with cancer, is in Pittsburgh for a grueling procedure that she hopes will help save her life and allow her new daughter to know her. ...Hudon said the only procedure that may help in her fight was pioneered at the Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside and is not offered in Canada

San Jose, California (CNN) One day, while uploading yet another text file to the Google Docs Web site, I started to wonder: When I save this file online, where does it actually go? I store tons of information on the Internet instead of just on my laptop or work computer. Often, I do this specifically so I can access information from both places, or from my mobile phone if I need it on-the-go. Without realizing it, I'd started cloud computing, that nebulous term that refers to the idea that computing power is moving off home PCs and laptops and onto...

From our perspective, we won last night," the California Democrat told reporters during a Wednesday photo op. "We had one race that we were engaged in, it was in northern New York, it was a race where a Republican has held the seat since the Civil War. And we won that seat.So, from our standpoint, no, a candidate was victorious who supports health care reform, and his remarks last night said this was a victory for health care reform and other initiatives for the American people."http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1109/Pelosi_dismisses_impact_of_New_Jersey_Virginia.html

It's probably safe to assume many Democrats weren't happy about last evening's election results, no matter how they spun them and how they pertained to President Barack Obama. And to his credit, that's something MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews admitted was not good for the Democratic Party. However, MSNBC, the so-called "Place for Politics" hyped up its Nov. 3 "Super Tuesday" election coverage throughout the day (emphasis added): "Tonight, Super Tuesday continues on MSNBC with live coverage of ‘Decision ‘09' inside the key elections that will set the stage for a 2010 political battle," the announcer on the TV spot...

The economic crisis has forced every state to scramble to get its budget in balance. This has meant torturous efforts to preserve essential services and minimize the pain and damage from slashed spending and lost jobs. Every state has sacrificed. But Hawaii has sacrificed its own schoolchildren. The 50th state, the only one with a single statewide school district, has just cut 17 days from the academic year, under a new labor contract with public school teachers that avoids layoffs in favor of pay cuts and furloughs, all to be taken on instructional days.

The Democrats did not lose a 2-1 squeaker last night. They lost two huge races, saw an overall evaporation of 25 basis points of support -- and lost by nearly 500,000 cumulative votes in the three high-profile elections. Or put another way, Republicans won two races decided by millions of voters -- and Democrats won a small race dominated by party operatives. In addition, the GOP made some historic gains in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington state special elections to boot. In the context of Bob McDonnell's huge win in Virginia and Chris Christie's surprisingly comfortable win in New Jersey, of...

Apparently, rules don’t apply to zealots-with-gavels convinced they were put on this planet to secure its salvation. Lacking a single occupied Republican seat in the room, Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has nonetheless moved markup of the climate bill she cosponsors ahead for a second straight day.  And in doing so, the ever-arrogant eco-crusader appears to be walking a thin green legal line. Here’s the latest: Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) arrived at the EPW hearing room this morning to restate the GOP position that markup should be postponed pending comprehensive cost analysis. The...

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President Obama's top advisers closed ranks around their boss Wednesday, declaring themselves unconcerned by Tuesday night's Democratic losses as they attempted to insulate the president from any political damage to his reputation and his legislative agenda.

As if $22 billion in bonuses were not enough, Goldman Sachs would now like to obtain another $1 billion in tax benefits from the federal government. As with the $12.9 billion that Goldman Sachs received from the U.S. government via payments made to the American International Group, Goldman Sachs would obtain an indirect federal benefit by using tax credits the government provided to Fannie Mae to offset its own profits and thus its federal tax payments. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Goldman Sachs might be purchasing up to $1 billion of Fannie Mae's tax credits. However, the tax credits,...

Amazing story here.... you really need to read the whole thing. The salient point is here: The county paid JPMorgan and a group of banks $120.2 million in fees for $5.8 billion of derivatives, according to a series of stories published by Bloomberg News in 2005. The payments were about $100 million more than they should have been based on prevailing rates, according to estimates in 2007 by James White, an adviser the county hired after the SEC said it was investigating the deals. That's six times what they should have cost - that is, six hundred percent of market...

From The Wall Street Examiner comes this: Another anomaly of note is the fact that 10 year Fannie paper is now yielding less than 10 year Treasuries. This is another sign of mass psychosis. Unfortunately, the source of the infection has been Bernanke’s insane policy of piling up risky MBS paper on the Fed’s balance sheet. Wave after weekly wave of Fed buying has created one of the most ridiculous market distortions in history. Unfortunately, the problem it was designed to solve, the housing market collapse, isn’t responding. This is more than ridiculous. It is in fact outrageous. The GSEs...

 If you are the Democrat party of New Jersey and it looks like you may lose the Governors office to a 500 pound fat guy (Jon Corzine's words, not mine), what do you do? After all, even the great One, Obama himself, could not seem to turn the tide that was ready to hit them from the Republican Party and it's candidate, Christie. Well, we have documented the story after story about intimidation tactics used by the left in this country, but what the Democrats did in this election has even left some liberals scratching their heads. Imagine you are...

Andrew Sullivan: The truth about civil marriage - why it is the essential criterion for gay equality - is that it alone explodes this core marginalization and invisibility of gay people. It alone can reach those gay kids who need to know they have a future as a dignified human being with a family. It alone tells society that gay people are equal in their loves and in their hearts and in their families - not just useful in a society with a need for talented or able individuals whose private lives remain perforce sequestered from view. This is why...

Ayers, William....Davis, Angela....Moore, Michael....Shabazz, Malik....Wright, Reverend Jeremiah....Kelly, R....

RNC Chair Michael Steele was in a feisty mood this morning, but the Democrats weren't his only target. How intentional was that message to the Palin wing of the GOP? My colleague, ABC News' David Chalian has more... As any party chairman should, RNC Chairman Michael Steele took the opportunity this morning to crow about GOP victories in New Jersey and Virginia. But he also seemed to deliver a bit of a rebuke to potential 2012 presidential aspirants in his party such as Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, and Rick Santorum, all of whom immersed themselves in the NY-23 special House...

We’ve had it with sexism, racism, religious prejudice – all now considered utterly unacceptable in the workplace. Will employees across UK Plc now have to start watching their tongues in case they are guilty of greenism? After yesterday’s legal landmark ruling, “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief” akin to religion. This judgment means a company must not discriminate against someone because of their deeply-held environmental convictions. So no more jokes about the office hippy at the sustainable water-cooler then. It has all come about because Tim Nicholson, 42, of...

The federal government wants to leverage interest and investment in vaccine development to get pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that could "inoculate" people against addiction to cocaine, nicotine, and other substances, Reuters reported Oct. 20th.....

CAIRO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the U.S. stance toward Israeli settlement building to worried Arab allies on Wednesday, saying Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever." Still, she said an Israeli offer to restrain — but not halt — construction represents "positive movement forward" toward resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Clinton met for an hour with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a hastily arranged stopover in the Egyptian capital to soothe Arab concerns that Washington is backing off demands for an Israeli settlement halt. Egypt...

Video at site. Why is Ben Bernanke being so slow to start talking about raising rates, much less start raising them? Because he has a secret plan that he can't talk about. What's Ben's secret plan? Intentionally keep rates too low for too long, thus encouraging uncomfortably high inflation. Why would Ben want that when he keeps talking about the importance of managing inflation? Two reasons: Faster economic growth, which leads to more jobs, fewer angry constituents, and a Congress that's happier with Ben Bernanke Faster erosion of the real value of our debts. Consumers and the government are drowning...

Scozzafava's strenuous support of Owens during these critical hours was probably the most decisive factor in moving those undecideds. She recorded two robocalls, which were delivered throughout the district, and appeared with Owens at a local event. New York State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long raised questions over the manner in which the Obama White House secured Scozzafava's decisive support on Saturday. Publicly, Long has asked for an Federal Elections Commission investigation of possible legal violations involved in reported personal meetings between a White House staff member and Scozzafava on the Saturday afternoon preceding her endorsement of Owens the following...

In January 2009, as Obama unveiled his plans for economic recovery, he assured the Congress and the American people that, if we would just agree to set up a $787 billion slush fund for him to play with, he would fix our sick economy and that the unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent. With a straight face, and with words that came straight from his teleprompter, he vowed that he would accomplish something that no man, and no government, has ever accomplished before: he would halt the downward spiral of the economy and stimulate economic growth, and he would...

http://money.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/49044.html CNN poll halfway down on right. 1. What should U.S. nuclear power policy be? It's a safe, clean alternative right now...77% More safety testing is needed...11% We shouldn't use it...11%

Here it comes, more artificial support for the housing market. You can't blame people for speculating on houses when they know the government will come in and try to save them. So here we are again, warping market expectations and sowing the seeds for the next housing bubble with an extension and expansion of the homebuyer tax credits. NYT: The Senate might pass its version as early as Wednesday, and aides to Congressional leaders say the House could accept it this week, sending the bill to President Obama to sign into law. After weeks of partisan delay in the Senate,...

MILAN -- An Italian court on Wednesday convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel of orchestrating the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he said he was later tortured.

Can they pick them, or not? Boy, those 11 county chairmen who picked Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava to run for Congress on the Republican ticket in New York’s 23rd Congressional District in the special election to succeed Rep. John McHugh have an eye for a winner. Seeking a candidate for a center-right district near the Canadian border, they picked someone well to the left of some centrist Democrats, with none of the flair or pizazz that makes parties willing to tolerate mavericks. She excited no one and repelled the conservatives, whom the chairmen accused of splitting the party. She was, they...

NEW YORK — Five immigrant men who were detained in roundups and eventually deported following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 have reached a $1.26 million settlement with the U.S. government. The men were part of a lawsuit against the government over the roundups that put them in federal detention and the abuse they say they suffered while they were there.

Spot gold ran to a record high above $1,090 per ounce on Wednesday, latching on to a weaker dollar with continued support from the IMF's sale of gold to India's central bank. The dollar index declined 0.34 percent as investors awaited a Fed statement later on Wednesday. Spot gold hit a record high of $1,092.60 an ounce and was bid at $1,091.05 an ounce, compared with $1,084.50 late in New York on Tuesday. U.S. COMEX gold futures also hit an historic $1,093.70 in electronic trade, and were later up $7.40 at $1,092.40. Buying on the back of the IMF's announcement...

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says: * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability. * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that...

On Sunday, CIT filed for bankruptcy, meaning that $2.3 billion in taxpayer money is probably lost. That means that each American threw about $8 down the CIT rat hole. Unfortunately, that could just be the start of losing big bucks on TARP "investments" in troubled financial companies. We took the top ten bailout recipients, from AIG to PNC, and divided the amount Uncle Sam threw at them by the number of Americans (308.84 million and counting). Then we used a highly scientific guess to determine your chances of getting it back. It ain't pretty. Here's How Much Each Bailout Cost...

The Federal Reserve will reaffirm its low interest rate policy later this afternoon, a person inside the Federal Reserve said. The central bankers are fearful that any change to the wording of its interest rate policy or economic outlook will cause a huge panic in the stock market, the person said. As a result, it is highly likely the wording about interest rate policy will not change at all. Of course, the debate is still continuing inside the Fed. Some inside the Fed have argued that the central bank should begin to signal an end to the zero-interest rate policy...

Despite Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s pronouncement yesterday that the health are “reform” bill may not come to a vote in the senate this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still pushing and shoving her caucus to the brink, insisting on a vote as early as Friday night. One of the two big steps remaining before the vote -- the so-called “manager’s amendment of final changes -- was revealed last night. The “Amendment to H.R.3962 Offered by Mr. Dingell of Michigan,” otherwise known as the Manager’s Amendment, is out and up online. Democrat Rep. John Dingell, Chairman Emeritus of the...

Long lines at public flu clinics -- initially intended to primarily serve the uninsured -- are now commonplace nationwide as doses of the vaccine remain scarce. Many clinics report seeing large numbers of people who have insurance but have been unable to get H1N1 vaccines from private doctors, who say they have either already run out or have yet to get any. The line at the Glendale clinic, the first to be held in that city since Los Angeles County received doses late last month, was the longest yet, county Department of Public Health officials said. And the stakes were...

WASHINGTON – An ebullient Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele asserted Wednesday that GOP victories in governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia demonstrate "a transcendent party" on the move again. The White House said the elections were not a repudiation of President Barack Obama. "We're not crowing, we're just smiling," Steele said in a nationally broadcast interview. "I think it's a bellwether for the party ... You look at where we were nine months ago." Steele said he believes Chris Christie's victory in New Jersey and Robert McDonnell's win in Virginia show that the GOP has "really found its voice...

MILAN - An Italian judge says he has convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street in a CIA extraordinary rendition. Citing diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi told the Milan courtroom Wednesday that he was acquitting three other Americans. Twenty-two of the convicted Americans were immediately sentenced to five years in jail at the end of the nearly three-year trial. The other convicted American, Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady, was given the stiffest sentence, eight years in prison. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here All of the Americans were...

MEXICO CITY — The leader of a Mexican farmworkers' organization and 14 other people were killed in a mass shooting in the northern Mexico state of Sonora... Sonora prosecutors' spokesman Jose Larrinaga said the victims include farm leader Margarito Montes, 10 other men, one woman and three minors. Most were believed to be Montes' relatives or employees. Larrinaga said the victims' bullet-ridden bodies were found on a roadside near a farm Friday. The killers apparently used assault rifles, the sort of weapon favored by Mexico's drug gangs.... Montes was the leader of the General Popular Union of Workers and Farmers,...

The primary trailer to Michael Moore's latest hideously unwatchable “documentary” Capitalism: A Love Story features a narration of a series of events surrounding the financial crisis beginning in late 2008 and the federal government's particular method for addressing it with Moore ultimately proclaiming that “By spending just a few million dollars to buy Congress Wall Street was given billions.” No arguing with that proposition. After just 22 seconds time Moore takes us to Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) of Ohio who laments the fact that “Everything was being handled by the Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs...they [influential Wall Street firms] had...

THE last hope of blocking a new European constitution was snuffed out last night - the final kick in the teeth after Labour's betrayal of Britain. The Czech Republic became the last EU nation to sign the Lisbon Treaty, which will now become law. Gordon Brown's Labour broke a promise to give 60million Britons a say on it. Now it's too late as we are dragged screaming into a vastly more powerful European Union yesterday. The last remaining opposition to the new EU constitution ended when Czech president Vaclav Klaus was forced to sign the Lisbon Treaty. His reluctant endorsement...

Pro-Life Advocates Excited by Defeat of Abortion Backers in Virginia, New Jersey Washington, DC -- Tuesday night provided a shot in the arm for the pro-life movement following the disheartening loss last year that resulted in the election of pro-abortion President Barack Obama. With victories in New Jersey and Virginia, pro-life candidates dispatched their pro-abortion opponents. http://www.LifeNews.com/state4542.html