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I can confirm tonight from multiple sources that phone calls are in fact occurring between Republicans in Washington and among evangelical leaders to raise money for Rick Santorum rapidly. The sources tell me that this is not for a Santorum win, though the evangelicals I spoke to continue to hope it is possible. This is to stop Newt Gingrich. One evangelical leader I spoke to said, “If Newt wins, we won’t be able to make family values an issue in the general.” One lobbyist I spoke to said, “They [the GOP leaders in DC] are really nervous about Gingrich and...

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law. But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist. In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required...

Back in 2006, the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona noticed that a mysterious body had begun orbiting the Earth. This object had a spectrum that was remarkably similar to the titanium white paint used on Saturn V rocket stages and, indeed, a number of rocket stages are known to orbit the Sun close to Earth. But this was not an object of ours. Instead, 2006 RH120, as it became known, turned out to be a tiny asteroid just a few metres across--a natural satellite like the Moon. It was captured by Earth's gravity in September 2006 and orbited us...

An audit of the Federal Reserve has revealed that the privately owned Federal Reserve secretly doled out more than $16 trillion in zero interest loans to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world. The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed acted illegally. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to its employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans. The report is evidence that reveals major securities fraud...

Circumstantial evidence is never exposed , For I circumcised you from the accuser when I Arose ! So take what I have given "forgiven ARE You" ! All that I have done by My Blood shed for you , So now in this power it is that you walk ! Fear not the enemy or his stalk , For I surround all those that fear and reverance Me , I AM the fullness of All 3 , Your Christ , Your Savior and Your Friend , I shall never forsake you for "We Are One" to the very end ,...

By Amy Oliver and Michael SandovalIf lawmakers really cared about consumers, they would ditch expensive renewable energy mandates that require a subsidized market for resources that are not practical on a large scale.  It’s a classic case of putting the cart before the horse; policy came before practical application.The Department of Energy (DOE) reports that 24 states and the district of Columbia have renewable energy mandates ranging from Maine’s high of 40 percent to Pennsylvania’s low of 8 percent.  Also known as a “Renewable Portfolio Standard” (RPS), these policies require that energy providers ignore practicality and price in order to...

To know what is wrong with the Federal Reserve, one must first understand the nature of money. Money is like any other good in our economy that emerges from the market to satisfy the needs and wants of consumers. Its particular usefulness is that it helps facilitate indirect exchange, making it easier for us to buy and sell goods because there is a common way of measuring their value. Money is not a government phenomenon, and it need not and should not be managed by government. When central banks like the Fed manage money they are engaging in price fixing,...

Politics: You'd think a Republican debate on the economy would be a perfect time to blast Obama policies as an unmitigated disaster. Yet Obama escaped largely unscathed. Whom do these folks think they're running against? If aliens landed Tuesday night and managed to find the GOP debate on Bloomberg TV, they might think the GOP candidates were running against Ben Bernanke, someone named Dodd-Frank, Obama-Care and China. Newt Gingrich focused his ire, for example, on Bernanke, saying he's "the first person to fire." Michele Bachmann went on about Dodd-Frank, calling it "the jobs and housing destruction act." Rick Santorum said...

I'm in the 1%. But I support the 99%Last year, I earned a million dollars on Wall Street, but I'm sick of this society that skews the rewards for work so grotesquely Brad Maher Friday 14 October 2011 12.04 EDT **SNIP** I've chosen this life, of course, and I'm compensated for that financially. But I'm not part of the truly rich for whom taxes are optional, and for whom ever-increasing property prices are a source of entrenching their wealth. Thank God, my earnings permit me to live without the fears of the next energy bill, or phone bill, or medical...

Republican Leaders Warn Bernanke Against QE3 Zeke Miller Sep. 20, 2011, 7:13 PM | Top Republican lawmakers in both chambers of Congress warned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke against pursuing another round of quantitative easing after tomorrow's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Questioning the efficacy of the first two rounds of monetary easing, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said they are concerned another round of QE could "exacerbate current problems or further harm the U.S. economy." Here's...

Dear Chairman Bernanke, It is our understanding that the Board Members of the Federal Reserve will meet later this week to consider additional monetary stimulus proposals. We write to express our reservations about any such measures. Respectfully, we submit that the board should resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy, particularly without a clear articulation of the goals of such a policy, direction for success, ample data proving a case for economic action and quantifiable benefits to the American people. It is not clear that the recent round of quantitative easing undertaken by the Federal Reserve has facilitated economic...

In the run-up to the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve fueled the housing bubble with its easy money policy. Now, we know that after the crisis struck, the Fed secretly propped up elite bankers all the way from Wall Street to Brussels to the Central Bank of Libya. A Bloomberg news investigation found that while the Treasury Department was pumping $700 billion into banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Fed was covertly operating its own bailout program — the biggest in American history. The Fed's Shadow TARP issued $1.2 trillion in loans to domestic and foreign banks from...

FOR the last three years we have been told repeatedly by government officials that funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to large and teetering banks during the credit crisis was necessary to save the financial system, and beneficial to Main Street... --snip-- Bloomberg reported that the Fed had provided a stunning $1.2 trillion to large global financial institutions at the peak of its crisis lending in December 2008. --snip-- In 2008, the Royal Bank of Scotland received $84.5 billion, and Dexia, a Belgian lender, borrowed $58.5 billion from the Fed at... --snip-- Mr. Todd also questioned the Fed’s decision to...

Rising greenhouse emissions may tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report for Nasa It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by scientists at Nasa and Pennsylvania State...

Extra, extra read all about it (hat tip Andrew Bolt): Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists Rising greenhouse emissions may tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report for Nasa Is it April Fools’ Day, or is someone playing the alien card? The scare report was brought to us by the Guardian’s science correspondent, Ian Sample. One threat – preemptive strikes: The authors warn that extraterrestrials may be wary of civilisations that expand very rapidly, as these may be prone to destroy other life as they grow, just as humans have...

The Case for MORE Spending to Prevent a Recession By Matt Nesto | Breakout – 3 hours ago It took Jimmy Buffett three verses to admit it in Margaritaville, but even he figured it out eventually. "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, But I know, it's my own damn fault." Get the idea? Dean Baker sure does. He's the Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and a believer of the theory that we are our own worst enemy when it comes to getting the country back on its feet, financially speaking. "We're worsening the...

Ron Paul's recent idea on how to ease the national debt is hardly original but none the less worthy of consideration. He has proposed what leftist critics of the status quo monetary system have been proposing for decades: that money printing should be used to fund the government. To give Ron due credit, he is not proposing exactly that. More precisely, he is proposing that the Fed should tear up a bundle of its Treasury securities, which would lower our overall debt total bringing us below the current debt ceiling. Still, the mechanics are identical, if not in reverse order....

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said his company and his industry would be helped, not hurt, if consumers paid higher gas taxes. In an interview published in Tuesday's Detroit News, Akerson floated the idea of a $1 a gallon increase in the gas tax as a way to encourage buyers to purchase smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Greg Martin, spokesman for GM's Washington office, confirmed that the quotes reflect Akerson's and GM's view. Akerson said he would support a jump in the gas tax if it came instead of tighter fuel economy regulations that GM (GM, Fortune 500) and other...

Lawmakers have taken a step to make California more relevant in presidential politics, voting to give the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. The state Assembly passed AB459 on Thursday on a 43-18 vote, sending it to the state Senate. . . .

Amid questions about the authenticity of Obama's posted birth records raised by the registration number, a researcher has discovered a possible explanation. The Post and Email blog, which has focused on the Obama eligibility controversy, features a report by an unnamed researcher who discovered the record of a girl born the same day as the president who died a day later that could have been the source of Obama's birth certificate. The find is significant because of questions about the plausibility of the registration number indicated on the images of short-form and long-form birth certificates for the president posted on...