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Add to the private equity firms and airlines that may want to own all or a piece of bankrupt airlines AMR, the name of British Air. It could become partners with PE firm TPG Capital BA is part of the International Consolidated Airlines Group which also owns Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España. BA is also a partner in the One World Alliance which shares routes with AMR to allow passengers an easier way to travel to areas in which either BA or AMR has a large number of airplanes. This is, in turn, a key to customer retention

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for authority to close the Commerce Department and create a new export agency, an overhaul that could save US$3-billion and help inoculate him against Republican election-year charges that he is a big-government liberal. White House budget official Jeffrey Zients told reporters the reorganization would fold together the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other trade bodies now spread across Washington, giving businesses a single point of contact and ensuring federal spending goes further to boost exports. Obama was set to deliver remarks at 11:20 a.m. on the new, yet-to-be-named department that...

NEWTOWN, Conn --(Ammoland.com)- Urge ‘Yes’ Vote on Hatch Amendment No. 770 to Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Bill Now Being Debated on the Senate Floor. BACKGROUND Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is seeking to offer an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill now being debated on the Senate floor. Hatch’s amendment would permanently enshrine 10 different appropriations “riders” — essentially directions from Congress to the administration about how they must spend, or not spend, funds — into permanent law. Traditionally, each “rider” had to be reauthorized on a year-by-year basis. Some of these riders go back 30 years....

The firearms industry is thriving in Idaho, and business for some local companies is getting even better. The industry employs thousands of people in Idaho, and a new trade group wants to push that number higher. A dozen manufacturers gathered Tuesday at the first event hosted by the Idaho Firearms and Accessories Manufacturers Association. The association won a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the expo and for a report — due to USDA next month — on the economic impact of Idaho’s firearms industry. WHAT IS IFAMA? Four people started the all-volunteer association a year and...

The American Thinker has published as a blog item my review of President Obama’s so-called regulatory review (You call this regulatory reform?). Under the direction of Professor Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s former University of Chicago law school colleague, all federal regulatory bodies were to eliminate regulations which were unduly burdensome to small businesses. Private sector critics promptly called the reforms a drop in the bucket. Let’s look at that. Professor Sunstein claims that the reforms could save businesses over $10 billion in compliance costs over the next five years. The Small Business Administration reports that the total cost of regulation...

Speaker of the House Henry Clay and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman John C. Calhoun pushed legislation known as the Bonus Bill through the House of Representatives. On December 23, 1816 Calhoun introduced the bill to set apart funds for "internal improvements," spending money on roads, canals, or what today would be commonly referred to as infrastructure. The bill had set apart and pledged federal funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive...

An Aug. 4 agreement among federal agencies to provide environmental justice to communities overburdened by pollution is merely another attempt to over-regulate and control the free-market, opponents say. According to a press release, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder were joined by other government officials in signing the "Memorandum of Understanding on Environmental Justice and Executive Order 12898" (EJ MOU). President Obama's administration states that "environmental justice" means ...go to this link for the rest of the article (copyright considerations): http://www.legalnewsline.com/spotlight/233592-environmental-justice-agreement-over-regulates-critic-says

Should energy consumers pay extra taxes to fund government-mandated and subsidized renewable energy technologies? "Absolutely yes," says John Bryson, President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary. He made the remark at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California in 2009 and went on to extol the virtues of hidden rates in California, a state encumbered with some of the nation's highest electricity and unemployment rates. Bryson, retired CEO of the electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company Edison International, excused the practice, saying, "That's been a part of the regulatory environment for the investor-owned utilities for as...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Consumer confidence fell in June to the worst level in eight months on concerns about employment and income, the Conference Board reported Tuesday. The nonprofit organization said its consumer-confidence index fell to 58.5 in June from an upwardly revised 61.7 in May. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected a June reading of 60.5. “Overall, we take this as another sign of the cooler economic conditions that we judge likely to prove transitory, but the data does point to downside risks for a rebound in the labor market in June,” wrote David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities...

Aircraft manufacturing heavyweight Boeing Co. has been caught in a firestorm of controversy, pulled between unions and politicians, for a decision to open a non-union plant in Charleston, SC, a move that landed the company in hot water with the National Labor Relations Board and now has ensnared President Obama's nominee to head the Commerce Department. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, announced Monday that he will oppose the nomination of John Bryson, also a member of Boeing's board of directors since 1995, until the president voices support for the aircraft manufacturer. The senator said he wants Obama to "tell the country...

President Obama’s pick to replace Gary F. Locke as commerce secretary faces an uphill Senate confirmation battle. Even before the White House handed in the name of John Bryson for the job, Senate Republicans had vowed to block any nominee over administration foot-dragging on free-trade agreements. The selection of this particular leftist for a business-outreach post is rallying the opposition. “I find Mr Bryson unacceptable as secretary of commerce for the United States, and I will work in opposition to his conformation,” said Sen. John Barrasso, vice chairman of the Republican Conference, to The Washington Times. Mr. Bryson co-founded the...

A top Senate Republican said on Tuesday he would fight President Barack Obama's choice for commerce secretary, former energy executive John Bryson, whom he called an "environmental extremist." "The president has appointed someone who is going to make it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs," said Senator John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Republican leadership. "Instead of appointing an economic leader, he has appointed an environmental extremist," Barrasso said. He cited Bryson's support for climate change legislation that failed to clear the Senate and his role in the founding of the National Resource Defense...

Does John Bryson, Barack Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, want a world government? Critics say a newly uncovered video of the nominee suggests that he does. In the video – given to The Daily Caller by sources on Capitol Hill – Bryson refers to the 2009 United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen as “the closest thing we have to a world governance organization,” implying it provided the best model for imposing climate regulations on countries around the globe. Bryson also boasts about his role as an adviser to the U.N. secretary general on climate change in the video.

The wise man smiled and proclaimed that government should use "regulatory steps" as well as market forces to intervene in the power generation sector. The man also told his UC Berkeley audience that government should set higher targets for non-fossil-fuel-based energy production and penalize producers that don't comply. The issuer of these decrees was John Bryson, who at the time just happened to be CEO of Edison International, a company whose fortunes would increase under alternative energy mandates. Bryson now happens to be President Obama's nominee to head the Commerce Department. Just another day in Barack Obama's crony capitalist paradise....

John Bryson, the chairman, president and CEO of BrightSource Inc., is President Barack Obama’s pick to head the U.S. Department of Commerce. Despite White House efforts to portray Bryson as an innovative, creative business executive, he is actually, as The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney made clear in Thursday’s edition, another in the long list of crony capitalists who share the belief that government should pick winners and losers in the economy. Success in their world doesn’t come from profitably providing needed goods and services to consumers at affordable prices. Instead, crony capitalists make it by cultivating the right political connections...

Post: The nominee for commerce secretary founded an anti-energy group and believes in redistribution of wealth to help poorer nations. At this rate, we'll be one of them. If personnel is policy, there can be no better choice to help implement President Obama's anti-growth energy policy and redistribution of wealth plans than his choice to be the next secretary of commerce, John Bryson. One would think that the former CEO of power company Edison International would have a more practical view of energy development and management. But he's earned Rep. Darrell Issa's description of him as a "green evangelist." Bryson...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will nominate businessman John Bryson to lead the Commerce Department, a White House official said Tuesday. Bryson's appointment brings another private sector player into an administration that has been making a concerted effort to improve its relationship with the business community.

(CNSNews.com) – John Bryson, President Barack Obama's nominee to be secretary of commerce, said it was “incredibly important” that the United States pass cap and trade legislation and that America needed to be a global leader in combating man-made global warming. “I regard it as incredibly important that the United States comes forth in this year with federal climate change legislation as a foundation for moving ahead,” Bryson told the U.N. International Energy Conference in late August 2009. “I think we in the U.S. have an obligation to assist in significant ways in providing leadership in this community of nations...

On May 31, President Obama said he would nominate John E. Bryson for the position of United States Commerce Secretary. Bryson, who was the former Chairman and CEO of Edison International, spoke in front of the UN on September 1, 2009 at the International Energy Conference and praised California's regulatory system on energy, and called for the same to be applied to the United States as a whole. However, he didn't stop there. He went on to say they should place the same regulations globally: "The academic debate around this has often been should we send price signals, or should...

The ink was barely dry on President Barack Obama’s nomination for Secretary of Commerce before congressional Republicans promised to oppose the pick. California Rep. Darrel Issa, chairman of the House oversight committee, took aim at John Bryson, the nominee, calling him a “green evangelist.” Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe promised to work “actively” to defeat Bryson’s nomination. Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said Tuesday that Obama’s choice shows “that he has no intention of backing down from his job-killing agenda.” In a statement, Issa decried Obama’s choice to head the Department of Commerce,...

John Bryson, nominated by President Barack Obama today to head the Department of Commerce, once said it was “incredibly important” that the United States pass cap and trade legislation and that America needed to become a global leader in combating man-made global warming. “I regard it as incredibly important that the United States comes forth in this year with federal climate change legislation as a foundation for moving ahead,” Bryson told the U.N. International Energy Conference in late August 2009. “I think we in the U.S. have an obligation to assist

The Wall Street Journal CEO Compensation Study was conducted by Hay Group, a management-consulting firm. The study analyzes CEO pay from the biggest 350 U.S. public companies by revenue that filed their definitive proxy statements between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011. Survey Methodology & Terms Definitions Footnotes How to Use This Chart: Click on a column heading to sort by that category. For an individual executive's full compensation details, as well as a link to the proxy statement, click the relevant row. All figures in thousands

Harry Alford is the president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. And boy is he entertaining. He’s also not a fan of many of the business positions Democrats have taken. You might remember him for his fiery exchange with call-me-Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in 2009, when he accused the senator of infusing race into a congressional hearing: Today he joined Laura Ingraham on her radio show to talk about Obama’s business policies. He started with this: “Obama wanted the National Black Chamber to dance to his music and have blind allegiance to his crazy programs and agenda,...

The U.S. government will coordinate private-sector efforts to create trusted identification systems for the Internet, with the goal of giving consumers and businesses multiple options for authenticating identity online, according to a plan released by President Barack Obama's administration. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will work with private companies to drive development and adoption of trusted ID technologies, White House officials said. The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), released by the Department of Commerce on Friday, aims to protect the privacy and security of Internet users by encouraging a broad online authentication market in...

Numerous rumors have pinpointed Google's soon-to-be-outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt as a candidate for Secretary of Commerce. President Obama is reportedly close to picking the executive and could make the decision public within two weeks. SAI in picking up on discussions didn't name alternative candidates. He would be available as of April 4, when Larry Page becomes Google CEO and Schmidt under current plans would be Executive Chairman. Hints of a nomination have been few, but Reagan-era Commerce Department counsel Clyde Prestowitz declared earlier this week in Foreign Policy magazine that Schmidt would be good for the job. Schmidt coming in...

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., unveiled today his five-year path to a balanced budget, leaving several federal agencies behind. Among the items on the cutting room floor are the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development. “There’s a lot of things in here that everybody could agree to, Republicans and Democrats, but nobody’s leading on the president’s side and on our side we felt we needed to put this forward to get the debate started, at the very least,” the freshman Senator explained at a Capitol Hill press conference this afternoon. The proposal also calls for the repeal...

Hey Freepers, On the subject of free trade, unions and patriotism. Earlier this morning I was thinking about the goings on in Wisconsin, and about a purchase I wanted to make later today, and I started thinking. All my life I have been told to buy things "Made in America." I have done so as much as was possible, and buy locally, if I can, but I was recently thinking about the union goings on in Wisconsin. I have been spending money on "American" tools, vehicles, clothing, foods, etc. as much as I can find, but I recently have though,...

Does anybody know of a list of which Senators support and which Senators oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty.

This is not "proving that America can compete." This is proving that President Obama and state governments can lavish subsidies on some favored businesses using tax dollars taken by force from other, less-favored businesses and individuals. If there's competition involved, it's the competition for the taxpayer money as much as competition in the marketplace for products and services. Such a system may be good for politicians — they get campaign contributions because they are in a position to dispense tax breaks or grants, or to pick industries to subsidize. But it's bad for the country, because it breeds corruption, and...

Only one who simply doesn't care about individual rights could read Judge Vinson's decision and still believe the individual mandate is constitutional. In a seventy-eight page order released on January 31, Judge Vinson of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division, held the mandatory medical insurance provisions of ObamaCare unconstitutional as exceeding the powers of the federal government under the Commerce Clause. Finding the mandatory insurance provisions not severable from the remainder of ObamaCare, he declared it unconstitutional in its entirety and granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendant...

STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today. It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said. That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

In politics, seeing unfair & unfounded attacks against elected officials & candidates is all-to-common, and (despite myths to the contrary) has been so, since our nation began. One paradigm shift that has definitely taken place, of late however, is the hostility towards religion - especially Christianity - in the public arena. Still, I have been extremely-surprised, seeing the nature of the attacks, against U.S. Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL).... ======> Read the full blog entry... ...and then take action (see below)!! --------------------------------- The election, for Chairman of the powerful U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee, is being held THIS TUESDAY (11/30).I'm...

ACT NOW!!Today, the U.S. House GOP Steering Committee is hearing from the candidates, for Chairman of the [very-powerful] House Energy & Commerce Committee. The frontrunner for this spot is the previously-discussed moderate/liberal Fred Upton (R-MI). The selection of Upton, who is opposed by both economic conservatives and by pro-life groups, will be a betrayal of the TEA Party & grassroots conservative activists, who made the difference, in allowing the GOP to take back the U.S. House. The Hon. John Shimkus, as recently discussed here, is the Midwestern conservative, pro-TeaParty Congressman, who is also running for this position. He is the...

Health care repealers got a boost when Judge Henry E. Hudson of the Federal District Court in Richmond struck down the individual mandate and “directly dependent provisions” in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Virginia’s attorney general Ken Cuccinelli and solicitor general, E. Duncan Getchell Jr. have argued the powers extended in the commerce clause to regulate economic activity do not include economic inactivity. The commerce clause states, “The United States Congress shall have power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” I acknowledge there are compelling arguments in some...

Health care repealers got a boost when Judge Henry E. Hudson of the Federal District Court in Richmond struck down the individual mandate and “directly dependent provisions” in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Virginia’s attorney general Ken Cuccinelli and solicitor general, E. Duncan Getchell Jr. have argued the powers extended in the commerce clause to regulate economic activity do not include economic inactivity. The commerce clause states, “The United States Congress shall have power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” I acknowledge there are compelling arguments in some...

Everything is grubby in countries run by statist moonbats — even dishes fresh out of the dishwasher. A couple of months ago, Sandra Young from Vernon, Fla., started to notice that something was seriously amiss with her dishes. "The pots and pans were gray, the aluminum was starting to turn black, the glasses had fingerprints and lip prints still on them, and they were starting to get this powdery look to them," Vernon says. "I'm like, oh, my goodness, my dishwasher must be dying, I better get a new dishwasher." But others are having the same problem all across the...

The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution: “[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Over the years, Congress has sought to — and largely succeeded in — expanding the scope of “commerce” to include the growing and personal consumption of food on one’s own land, solely for one’s own use. The theory being, of course, that by *not* consuming food grown on someone else’s land in an altogether different state, one has affected “interstate commerce” by *not* doing something one could reasonably be expected to do....

RICHMOND, Va. - A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed Liberty University's lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's new federal health care law, declaring that a provision requiring most individuals to obtain insurance is constitutional.

This week marks the beginning of the end of the long national nightmare known as the 111th Congress.  Republicans were given a second chance—by default—through a national effort to stop the destructive Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda. House Republicans are poised to begin making the same kind of business-as-usual mistakes that relegated the party to minority status in 2006.  The most glaring example is the looming threat of having Rep. Fred Upton (RINO-Mich.) become chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, despite his liberal voting record, simply because he’s next in line.  If there is one thing voters made absolutely clear...

"The voters have spoken.... We have a clear mandate to cut the size of government, reduce spending and reverse costly job-killing regulations. The new Republican majority will be different — we will listen."

If nothing else, Michigan Republican Rep. Fred Upton has a lot of nerve to campaign to succeed California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Upton is wholly unsuitable for the job, as a stroll down Memory Lane quickly reminds us: » Upton was one of only 34 House Republicans to support the Democrats' Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 that removed millions of acres of federal lands from oil and gas leasing, thus helping drive up energy costs for consumers. » Upton was one of 29 House Republicans to support creation of...

In 2005 the Supreme Court said the federal government's power to "regulate commerce…among the several states" extends to the tiniest speck of marijuana wherever it may be found, even in the home of a patient who grows it for her own medical use in compliance with state law. "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause," Justice Clarence Thomas warned in his dissent, "then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers." The Obama administration, which was in court this week defending the new federal requirement that every American obtain...

For the past couple of weeks Barack Obama and other liberal democrats in his administration, Congress and on MSNBC have continued to claim that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using foreign funds to pay for campaign ads in this year's election cycle. If the Chamber was indeed doing that then it would be a violation of U.S. election laws, so these claims by Obama and his liberal cohorts are very serious, and potentially slanderous if they are found to be untrue. Of course, they are also completely unsubstantiated. And when Obama advisor, David Axelrod, suggested that the burden of...

he scariest part of the Democrats "Obamacare" legislation is the fact that Democrats believe we are nothing more than elements of Interstate Commerce. The last time the federal government treated human beings as elements of Interstate Commerce was during slavery. The federal government has traditionally excluded small businesses with under $500,000 in sales that don't sell across state lines from Interstate Commerce regulations such as the minimum wage law. So how can individual Americans be considered elements of Interstate Commerce? Commerce involves the transfer of money or property by entities that exist for that purpose. Democrats seem to feel that...

My Fox News colleague Glenn Beck yesterday urged his radio listeners to participate in the “largest fundraiser for the Chamber.” Several readers wanted me to join in. Sorry, but I can’t think of a more perfect illustration of that old saying that “the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.” If you have followed this blog over the years, you know I have opposed illegal alien amnesty in all forms, opposed the bipartisan TARP bailout from day one, opposed the bipartisan auto bailout from day one, and opposed the Obama stimulus from day one. The U.S. Chamber of...

LOS ANGELES — The Department of Justice says it intends to prosecute marijuana laws in California aggressively even if state voters approve an initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot to legalize the drug.

That’s right. You read that correctly. Finally you no longer need to be embarrassed by your dog’s exposed anus. A new product called “Rear Gear” protects your dog from “feeling left in the dirt because of his/her unsightly rear.” Not sure who is going to actually buy this product, nor the psychological profile of the individual who had this idea. But if there is one thing in can say is that, yes, this is one of those rare instances where words fail. The website Etsy has the product and order information that includes: "Is your pet feeling left in the...

Listening to Beck. He has just called for listeners to donate to the Chamber of Commerce today. He requested a story go up on The Blaze shortly. Eagles Up! Direct link to donation page: "Make a donation today to help the U.S. Chamber fight for your Business" https://www.uschambersmallbusinessnation.com/join-us/make-a-donation

First a bit of a primer. Some idiot in the White House, may have been the President, or one of his circle, decided it was a good idea to go after Karl Rove, the Chamber of Commerce, and contributions to the Republicans. They are getting trounced in the donation game and what better way to circle the wagons then to paint the Republicans as being influenced by boogymen, right? First they tried to blame Bush, then Boehner, FOX, and Wall Street. None of it worked so this is the result. Obama on the stump making assertions he can't prove and...

The left is not quite in full reverse on the groundless accusations against the Chamber of Commerce, but they will be soon enough. In a desperate attempt to run away from their political record (>9% unemployment, mountains of debt, Obamacare) the democrats thought they had found the perfect distraction. (Amazing how little has changed in one year) Seemingly coordinated accusations of “secret money” and buying elections spilled out of leftist precincts last week. Democrats, the President, and their sympathizers, didn’t just go after the chamber of commerce, but also Karl Rove and the Koch brothers. Democratic operative Robert Reich used...