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Rumor has it that in a matter of days, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits.

A Channel 2 report on Monday night said a deal had been worked out to legalize Ramat Gilad and prevent any future attempts at demolition. The report said five buildings slated for demolition would be moved several dozen meters, off land that Arabs dispute. In return for moving the buildings the state has agreed authorize the area as part of the city plan of Karnei Shomron, effectively turning the area into a new neighborhood for the town. The plan was reportedly worked out between Minister Benny Begin and Yesha Council head Danny Dayan. A report in Makor Rishon on Friday...

Now that the second phase of the Shalit deal has been implemented and 550 terrorist prisoners have been released, the Hamas terror group is already planning the next kidnapping. In a press briefing held on Sunday evening, the spokesman of Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, welcomed the Shalit deal and called it “an achievement of the Palestinian resistance,” according to a Channel 2 News report. Abu Obeida then added, “Our wish was and still is to empty the prisons of the occupation of all the heroic prisoners. Our success in this historic deal will not cause us to never abandon...

Lawmakers reached an agreement Monday on the $662 billion Defense authorization bill they believe will satisfy White House demands to avoid a veto over the detention of terror suspects. House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders changed the bill to add a provision saying that FBI and other law enforcement’s national security authority would not be affected by provisions mandating military custody of terror suspects. A White House veto threat has been hanging over the Pentagon policy bill for the past month, but House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders said Monday the new language would address the Obama administration’s...

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) — An all-encompassing climate deal "may be beyond our reach for now," the U.N. chief said Tuesday as China and India delivered a setback to European plans to negotiate a new treaty that would bind all parties to their pledges on greenhouse gas emissions. The European "road map" toward a new accord that would take effect after 2020 is a centerpiece of negotiations among 194 countries at a U.N. climate conference in the South African coastal city of Durban. It has been presented as a condition for Europe to renew and expand its emissions reduction targets...

WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday that no one from the White House ever contacted him to make a political decision on a half-billion-dollar loan to a California solar company that later went bankrupt. Testifying under oath on a widening controversy, Chu said he was unaware of his staff predictions in 2009 that Solyndra was likely to face severe cash-flow problems. He said that market changes which led to a steep decline in the price of solar panels were "totally unexpected." Solyndra went belly-up after getting the $528 million loan from the government, and Chu told the House...

In an apparent about-face, US officials criticized Tuesday evening the deal brokered for the freedom of Gilad Shalit, which set hundreds of terrorists, including those who had murdered Americans, free. The criticism came after it became clear that the released terrorists included those who had murdered Jews with United States citizenship. Earlier on Tuesday, US President Barak Obama had said he was pleased with the deal that set Shalit free despite his own nation’s strict policy of not negotiating with terrorists for the release of its citizens. Obama also expressed the hope Israel and officials in Ramallah would take the...

n an apparent about-face, US officials criticized Tuesday evening the deal brokered for the freedom of Gilad Shalit, which set hundreds of terrorists, including those who had murdered Americans, free. The criticism came after it became clear that the released terrorists included those who had murdered Jews with United States citizenship. Earlier on Tuesday, US President Barak Obama had said he was pleased with the deal that set Shalit free despite his own nation’s strict policy of not negotiating with terrorists for the release of its citizens. Obama also expressed the hope Israel and officials in Ramallah would take the...

The writer, a veteran right wing newsman, analyzes the security aspects of the Shalit deal. They are better than the previous ones, he says, leaving moral and political considerations aside for now. Haggai Huberman The author is a noted military correspondent, a veteran reporter for Arutz Sheva and regular columnist in the Hebrew weekly BeSheva. â–º More from this writer If I were a cabinet minister, I would vote for the deal to ransom Shalit, not because it is a good one, which it most definitely is not, but because for once, just this once, this is a deal that...

Hamas has made additional last minute demands of Israel in return for freeing abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Analysts say the demands could imperil the deal or postpone its implementation. While Hamas kingpin Khaled Mashaal has boasted that all Palestinian Authority (PA) female terrorist prisoners will be freed, his organization appears to have discovered at week's end that there are more such prisoners that it thought. The number of female PA terrorists in Israel's jails is 35, not 27 as Hamas apparently believed until now. Jacqueline Alfaraja, a lawyer for the PA's Prisoners' Club, told the PA based Ma'an news...

My good friends John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson offer eulogies for the Tim Pawlenty presidential campaign today at Power Line, and as usual, they are quite insightful. Scott says that Pawlenty’s descent started when he backed down from challenging Mitt Romney in an earlier debate, and notes that Republicans in this cycle want a fighter. John laments the loss of the one candidate he thought could easily beat Barack Obama based on his record, and says that Pawlenty never got past “the first impression of him as just another guy in a suit.” Both are fair conclusions, and be sure...

As if trapped in one of those awful nightmares where we try to run from the bad guys and we find we can’t lift our feet, we continue to watch in terrific horror as our federal government fully morphs into a communist dictatorship, while we can do almost nothing to stop it. It is apparent that the communist Democrats of the Obama administration will not be checked. What unconstitutional moves will they not make? Who will restrain them? Is it possible that they could ever speak with anything other than lies? Sadly, the answers to all those questions are nothing,...

If you want less spending in the future, you will vote for Republicans next time around. If you want to continue with the big government philosophy, you'll vote Democrat. If the GOP wins the presidency, the Senate and holds the House, then we can expect a radical transformation in Washington. That is, massive spending cuts and hopefully a new tax code, which would raise far more revenue than the class warfare system we have right now. The truth is we need more revenue in America, and the far right should understand that. A New York Times editorial on Monday says:...

This sounds like good news...The leader of the Black Socialist Caucus says the debt deal is a “sugar-coated Satan sandwich.” That must mean it is a much better deal than we had hoped for. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver is the current leader of the Black Caucus (without black Republican members) Roll Call reported: President Barack Obama’s rightward lurch to reach a $3 trillion deficit reduction deal with no guarantee of additional revenues had liberals fuming and Republicans all but declaring victory Sunday afternoon. With time running out to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling before Tuesday’s default deadline, Obama...

Don’t be fooled. We’ve just been betrayed by Washington. A deal on the debt ceiling is near and Washington still hasn’t gotten serious about the fundamentals. It hasn’t gotten serious about default. It certainly hasn’t gotten serious about the future. When Harry Reid hails a “bipartisan compromise” you know we’re doomed. Republicans and Democrats have just negotiated away the future of our children behind closed doors. The big compromise on Capitol Hill features elaborate triggers, tranches, Hornswogglers, Snozzwangers, Super Duper Commissions that will make the Snozzberries taste like Snozeberries, and a whole bunch of other convoluted gibberish that will, no...

The debt framework President Obama and congressional leaders reached Sunday night runs 74 pages long, and could authorize as much as $2.4 trillion in new debt — or $32.4 billion per page. That debt increase will get the country through the 2012 election, both sides said, but it does not bring to an end the sea of red ink that will continue to wash over the federal government for the foreseeable future. In the near term, the bill sets budget numbers for 2012 that would require a real cut of $7 billion in discretionary spending from 2011 levels, though that’s...

I just love Washington-speak which offers heartfelt phrases such as “baseline spending,” “debt ceiling,” “drop dead dates,” and my ultimate favorites, “the cut,” “to cut,” “a cut,” or just simply “cuts.” Like the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” a “cut” means different things to different people. Let me explain by first discussing common-speak, which is very easy to understand. When someone takes a cut in pay, it could mean going from $20 per hour to $15 per hour. Or, they’re paid $30,000 per year for a job that used to pay $35,000 per year. To most...

Speaker John Boehner's Powerpoint On The Deal TWO-STEP APPROACH TO HOLD PRESIDENT OBAMA ACCOUNTABLE Emerging framework has three main features: (1) cuts government spending more than it increases the debt limit; (2) implements spending caps to restrain future spending; (3) advances the cause of a Balanced Budget Amendment Framework accomplishes this without tax hikes, which would destroy jobs, while preventing a job-killing national default. NO TAX HIKES ‣ Same as House-passed bill, the framework includes no tax hikes. ‣ Under the framework, the Joint Committee of Congress will work off a current-law baseline, as required by the 1974 Budget Act,...

<p>That’s the job that Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signed up for when each gave his or her word to President Barack Obama Sunday night that the deal was in hand.</p>

President Obama announces agreement Sunday night with GOP and Democratic leaders on a debt-reduction plan compromise that could end a perilous stalemate and avoid a potential default on America's loans

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota’s leaders made a deal that will probably end the nation’s longest state government shutdown in a decade, but they didn’t really solve their budget problem. Instead, they just shuffled it down the road to be faced another day.

Minn. governor, GOP leaders have deal to end government shutdown; needs legislative approval. Gov. Mark Dayton said Thursday morning that he is willing to accept Republicans' June 30 budget offer, which would close a $1.4 billion budget difference by delaying payment of school funds and borrowing against the state's tobacco settlement. "This is the only viable option that's potentially available," Dayton said. Dayton said his acceptance was contingent on Republicans' dropping all controversial policy positions as well as the push to cut 15 percent of the state's work force, and the passage of a $500 million bonding bill. Senate GOP...

White House debt-ceiling negotiations have collapsed into a public relations duel, as each political coalition tries to harness the public’s simultaneous fears of defaults and runaway budgets. Obama administration officials want swing voters to pressure Republicans to agree to a tax increase in advance of the 2012 elections. Republicans want swing voters to pressure Democrats to accept budget cuts. White House officials believe that they have a winning hand. Republicans, meanwhile, view themselves as better positioned in the current debt ceiling fight than they were in the mid-1990s budget showdowns with President Bill Clinton. “That’s really the nub of it...

RUSH: Well, we knew it was gonna get to this point. The Republicans are nervous, some of them are very nervous, and a few of them are outright paranoid. Hi, folks, great to have you back, Rush Limbaugh, already the middle of the week here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Our telephone number is 800-282-2882. You want to send an e-mail, the address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. About this time yesterday we quoted Senator Mitch McConnell as saying nothing substantive will ever get done in this country until Barack Obama is removed from the Oval Office. As long as Obama's in the...

Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ce92636-ab1a-11e0-b4d8-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1Rk3Rq0vt Amid disturbing signs that the US recovery has stalled, President Barack Obama took a huge gamble in his approach to the debt-ceiling talks last week. Believing he had an understanding with John Boehner, leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, he declared he wanted a $4,000bn “grand bargain” on the budget. Barely a day later, Mr Boehner said the deal...

The Atlanta schools cheating case is now in the hands of three local district attorneys, who must decide whether the scandal is also criminal. District attorneys in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties said they are reviewing the voluminous report by state investigators and will decide whether to seek indictments. Douglas County DA David McDade said Friday he expects it will take prosecutors a considerable amount of time to reach decisions. He noted that the GBI’s investigative file in the case amasses 120 volumes. As prosecutors consider their options, scores of current and former APS educators and administrators, some at the...

The Hamas-run Al-Risala newspaper reported on its website on Sunday that Palestinian Authority-based terrorist groups may carry out another operation like the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Abu Ataya, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the three terrorist organizations which joined together to kidnap Shalit in June 2006, was quoted by the newspaper as saying the PA terror organizations have the ability to carry out a similar operation if they wish. “Shalit’s kidnapping was not the first nor will it be the last,” he said. “We will return the ball to our court when and where...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Monday that a "significant" deal with Republicans on cutting government spending and raising the nation's debt limit is still possible, even as the administration hardened its stance on the need for increased tax revenue to be part of any agreement. President Barack Obama made his first direct foray into the deficit negotiations Monday. He met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the Oval Office for about 30 minutes Monday morning, and planned to meet with Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell in the early evening. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama's meeting with...

Inflation Part Three: The New Deal, The Great Depression, And Today Two major themes dominate the overview of how FDR attempted to cope with financial and economic disaster: first, he tried hard to increase governmental control of the economy by increasing regulation and regimentation, and second, he tried to inject money into the economy by hiring people. The push for a centrally-controlled economy was a huge mistake. At first, it pitted the president against the supreme court, which tossed out some of his vital legislation. Furious, FDR threatened the court, which backed down (“the switch in time that saved nine”)...

On Tuesday, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal released the results of a survey that he had requested from the state agriculture commissioner on farm labor shortages in Georgia. The survey found that there are approximately 11,080 unfilled farm jobs in the state. In response to the report, Deal suggested that people who are on criminal probation could fill the job openings: “There are 100,000 probationers statewide, 8,000 of which are in the Southwest region of the state and 25 percent of which are unemployed.” According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, although probationers in Georgia are required to find employment if possible, state...

Fox 5/WAGA-TV’s Justin Gray was blocked by state troopers from a public immigration bill signing held today by Gov. Nathan Deal at the Gold Dome. Why? Deal’s press office was angry about an unrelated, unflattering story Dale Russell had done the night before about Deal. Below is the story that upset Deal’s office. The campaign had paid $90,000 to a fund-raising company the I-Team had never heard of called Southern Magnolia Capital. Russell discovered that company was connected to Deal’s daughter in law Denise Deal. Phil Wilheit, identified in the story as Deal’s campaign manager, told Russell the transaction was...

ATLANTA - Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed a bill that cracks down on illegal immigration by increasing some enforcement powers and requiring many employers to check the immigration status of new hires. Deal on Friday signed the bill that has some similarities to a controversial bill enacted last year in Arizona. Most parts of the Georgia law are set to enter into effect July 1. But opponents have said they plan to file lawsuits seeking to block it.

US forces were given permission to conduct unilateral raid inside Pakistan if they knew where Bin Laden was hiding, officials say The deal was struck between Pervez Musharraf and George Bush in 2001 and renewed during the 'transition to democracy' – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected. The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned. The deal was struck...

San Francisco - The US Supreme Court has granted a whopping victory to AT&T, the US Chamber of Commerce, and supportive corporations, by reversing previous court decisions that had prevented corporations from requiring individual arbitration of customers' complaint. By issuing its 5-4 decision on Wednesday, the Court has essentially stripped away individuals' rights to band together in class-action lawsuits should a corporation choose to include an arbitration requirement in its contracts or

Sunday S.O.S. to patriots everywhere: Donald Trump is not the saviour on the eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama. In fact for all those working so hard to prove that Obama is the biggest scam ever pulled on America, Trump looks more like Brutus.

The big news today is that the $38.5 billion in budget cuts announced with such fanfare on Friday night mostly aren’t real. A good deal of it involves money from previous years and previous budgets that hasn’t actually been spent. As the AP puts it, the budget deal is financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially ‘score’ as savings to pay for spending elsewhere, -snip- The total amount actually cut appears to be somewhere between $8 and $14 billion. The politics here are very complicated now. On the one hand, polls suggest the public is overwhelmingly...

Washington (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Friday morning that the abortion issue is the lone remaining stumbling block for negotiators trying to reach a budget agreement that would prevent a government shutdown. "This all deals with women's health. Everything (else) has been resolved. Everything," Reid said. "It's an ideological battle. It has nothing to do with fiscal integrity in this country." Republicans have been pushing to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood during the budget talks. But a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, immediately disputed Reid's assertion. "While nothing will be decided until everything is...

In the last 24 hours, former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich has touched base with several prominent Republicans in his former home state, telling them that he intends to make a run for president in 2012 using Georgia as his base – and that he already has his eye on office space in Buckhead for a campaign headquarters. Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich Gingrich met on Thursday with Nathan Deal, whom Gingrich endorsed during a critical phase of last year’s Republican primary for governor. House Speaker David Ralston introduced Gingrich Thursday night at a downtown Atlanta affair hosted by...

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Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Sunday defended what he acknowledged as a "morally troubling" decision by President Obama to extend tax rates for all Americans as part of wide-ranging interview on key national and international issues. Mr. Biden said the president still thinks extending the George W. Bush-era rates for the country's highest wage-earners, along with everyone else, is "morally troubling." He said the president broke his 2008 campaign promise on the issue to help only the middle class. "We couldn't get it done," he said in a pre-taped interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."...

No Deal on the Tax DealBy Randall Hoven Charles Krauthammer, Mike Pence, and Mitt Romney are right. Paul Ryan and Chris Christie are wrong. The proposed tax deal is not the best deal achievable. Doing nothing is better. The logic in favor of the tax deal (from conservatives) is understandable: It is not exactly what we wanted, but it is the best deal we can get, and it is better than no deal at all. The idea is that the current tax rates are extended for everyone, which is what we wanted. While other stuff, undesirable stuff, was added, the...

Alternate headline: “Blogger now opposes tax deal.” Seriously, though: Is this true or a clever lie by DeFazio? “The White House is putting on tremendous pressure, making phone calls, the president is making phone calls saying this is the end of his presidency if he doesn’t get this bad deal,” he told CNN’s Eliot Spitzer. Obama’s push shows that the president is going to the mat in order to push through Congress the compromise brokered with Republicans. During the end of the healthcare debate, Obama reportedly told Democrats upset that the bill did not contain a public healthcare option that...

George W. Bush: Stop Calling Them "Bush Tax Cuts"Posted by Mary Dooe December 14, 2010 10:59 AM George W. Bush suggested in a radio interview on Monday that the debate over extending tax cuts in Washington might be made easier by using a phrase other than "Bush tax cuts." In the interview, conservative talk radio host Scott Hennen said that three of the most used words in politics in the last few months have been "Bush tax cuts." That's because of the debate raging over whether and how to extend the cuts, which were established in 2001 and 2003 and...

1 The "cost" of the bill is $857 billion...over 10 years = $85 billion/year 2 $85 billion/year is 2% of spending (proposed to be $3830 billion this year) 3 $721 billion out of $857 billion, or 84% of the bill, are keeping the tax cuts. Is this really "spending" to keep our own $? 4 Extending the estate tax "costs" $68 billion over 10 years, or $6.8 billion/year. That is 0.1% of spending this year. 5 Extending unemployment insurance costs $56 billion over 10 years, or $5.6 billion/year. 6 The payroll tax holiday costs $111 billion over 10 years, or...

Boehner is a tough, wily and underestimated son of Ohio, one of 12 children, a product of Catholic schools, a Bishop Moeller Crusader through and through. He is said to be loyal to his friends and to the traditions of the House, and last week he promoted three long-serving Republicans to the leadership of three committees where various sets of reformers had hoped to see new faces for a new era. Tea Party activists are outraged and, worse by far, the Pledge to America that Boehner and his colleagues promulgated on a House Web site as binding on the Republicans...

Tax bill deal becoming a Christmas tree of goodies by Nancy Thorner A test vote will happen this coming Monday, December 13, on the 74-page tax deal worked out between Democrat and Republican leadership. Sixty votes are needed in the Senate for debate to begin. This past Friday President Obama brought former President Bill Clinton into the White House to try to persuade wayward Democrat legislators to support the tax compromise.bill as the best deal Democrats could hope to get, where he upstaged Obama. But are Democrats really satisfied? Similar to what happened with Obamacare, much horse trading is going...

For several years, I have assumed that my taxes, and those of many millions of Americans, would skyrocket in 2011. So when I first learned the terms of the compromise between the President and the Republican leadership--most of the Bush-era tax rates made permanent, tax rates for upper-income taxpayers extended for two years, a one-year two percent payroll tax holiday, long a favorite conservative policy--I thought, and wrote, that it was an excellent deal for conservatives. Since then, however, the deal has steadily worsened, to the point where even the Associated Press says that "Add-ons turn tax cut bill into...

Lawmakers extend tax breaks, credits on energyWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Senate is moving swiftly to pass a broad tax package estimated to cost $858 billion over 10 years after lawmakers put the finishing touches on the bill Thursday night. The final Senate bill extends a number of tax benefits not included in earlier drafts such as renewed ethanol subsidies, credits for green-energy development and the purchase of energy-efficient appliances, among other things. Most of the cost of the tax bill, though, is tied to the extension of lower Bush-era tax rates on individuals, dividends and capital gains. The bill also...

WASHINGTON — The tax deal struck by President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans essentially gives Americans a pay raise — pumping money into the economy almost immediately, probably creating hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next two years and raising economic growth, economists say. But it also will dramatically raise the federal deficit. The compromise already has economists raising their forecasts for growth next year, mainly because it includes a surprising one-year cut in Social Security taxes. The amount of that cut — 2 percent of pay for most American workers — instantly becomes more take-home money. Critics complain...

A nasty battle of the blind quotes is shaping up between the West Wing and Democratic leadership aides on the Hill. Congressional Democrats are not so very thrilled with the message emanating from President Obama’s aides in the wake of the White House-GOP tax-cut deal – with one senior staffer accusing the president’s team of caving, then blaming congressional Democrats for lacking spine.