Free Republic

(via Instapundit): In David Petraeus’s final days at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency, his relations with chiefs of other U.S. agencies, including his boss, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, took a contentious turn. At issue was whether the CIA should break its silence about its role in Benghazi, Libya, to counter criticism that increasingly was being leveled at the agency and Mr. Petraeus, said senior officials involved in the discussions. Mr. Petraeus wanted his aides to push back hard and release their own timeline of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi and a...

....In David Petraeus’s final days at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency, his relations with chiefs of other U.S. agencies, including his boss, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, took a contentious turn. Mr. Petraeus wanted his aides to push back hard and release their own timeline of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi and a nearby CIA safe house, seeking to set the record straight and paint the CIA’s role in a more favorable light. Mr. Clapper and agencies including the Pentagon objected, but Mr. Petraeus told his aides to proceed, said the senior...

A very important article came out from the Wall Street Journal yesterday titled “FHA Nears Need for Taxpayer Funds,” and it outlines the serious financial problems facing the Federal Housing Administration. For those that are unaware or need a refresher, the FHA has been the key element to the phony “housing recovery” the government has been trying to create. In the wake of the collapse of 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac blew up and what was left to pick up the pieces was the FHA. No private player would issue loans with down payments of 3%, but this was...

"President Obama; that's why people aren't buying stocks," says Todd Schoenberger, managing principal at The BlackBay Group. 1. Companies aren't going to hire with the increased expenses associated with Obamacare 2. People aren't going to have money for discretionary spending when taxes going up for the 1% 3. Small business owners won't expand 4. Higher tax rates for individuals making over $250,000 a year will result in a general lack of ambition.

Didn't take long for the defenders of the freebie culture to race in defense of one Susan Rice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dJlCoHDJKUYou see how this works? If they are black you must not offend lest you be deemed a racist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAxlI2Rg2E8Uh oh Senator McCain...you are a RACIST! I mean you dare to allege that this "young african-american woman" isn't very bright? How dare you. Doesn't matter that she went on show after show the day after the attack and mislead the American people. They knew this wasn't some mob protesting a video, hell...I knew it the day after and I'm not very bright...

10:07 am - November 15, 2012 — Updated: 10:07 am - November 15, 2012 Wake Forest Baptist Hospital to eliminate 950 jobs Associated Press WINSTON-SALEM — Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center says it will lay off 76 employees this week and cut a total of 950 jobs by the end of June. Chief executive Dr. John McConnell said Wednesday most of the cuts are administrative positions, but some faculty members could lose their jobs due to cuts in federal research funding.

By Paul McDougall InformationWeek November 15, 2012 11:37 AM Texas Instruments said it will lay off about 1,700 workers, or about 5% of its total workforce, as part of a restructuring that will see it exit the market for mobile chips that power smartphones and tablets, including Amazon's Kindle Fire. The company said it would instead focus its OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) business on embedded systems that power business tools and other products that don't evolve as rapidly as mobile gadgets.

Hostess Brands said Wednesday that it will go into liquidation unless bakers striking in protest against a new contract imposed in bankruptcy court return to work by the end of the day Thursday. "We simply do not have the financial resources to survive an ongoing national strike," Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn said in a statement. The liquidation would result in Hostess' nearly 18,000 workers losing their jobs. The bakers' union represents around 5,000. The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday, but has called the concessions demanded in the new contract "outrageous." "Our members are on...

Minnesota employers cut 8,100 jobs statewide in October, by far the worst monthly job report of the year. A massive positive revision to the September numbers helped offset the loss, but the state’s employment and economic development agency, DEED, reported major losses in administrative support and lower-paid business services jobs, which shed 4,800 jobs. State government lost 1,900 jobs, mostly in education, and durable goods manufacturing lost 800 jobs. “Employment data for October does certainly reinforce the concerns we’ve expressed here, that the recovery, while it does continue, is a fragile one,” said Steve Hine, DEED’s labor market economist. “We’ll...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- The U.S. Labor Department Thursday said first-time jobless benefits claims rose by 78,000 in the week ending Saturday. Initial claims jumped out of a relatively comfortable 355,000 claims -- the third lowest week since the recession ended in June 2009 -- to 439,000 with the four-week rolling average up 11,750 to 383,750. The weekly figure has been volatile of late -- rising by 46,000 one week in mid-October, for example, but a one-week jump of 78,000 is a clear setback. First time claims have not been this high since the week of April 30, 2011....

The Department of Labor has announced that new jobless claims rose by a staggering 78,000 in the first week after the election, reaching a seasonally-adjusted total of 439,000. Over the past year, and in the weeks leading up to the election, jobless claims were said to be declining, dipping as low as 339,000, with the media proclaiming that they had reached the "lowest level in more than four years." Now, suddenly, the news seems far less rosy. From the Department of Labor press release this morning: In the week ending November 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims...

We held our first post-reelection post-partisan post-racial news conference yesterday: With respect to the issue of mandate, I’ve got one mandate.(snip)a man-date? Unless he’s following in Jennifer Granholm’s footsteps by appearing on“The Dating Game,” Bachelor #1,“bachelor” #2,bachelor #3 the only man-date he got on November 6 was from the coalition of the aggrieved, deranged and lazy.   Re. the Fiscal Cliff(snip)technically, going “back into a recession”  would be called a “double-dip,” A simple double-dip can still be blamed it on “W” (Dubya) (snip)There were many other highlights from the presser which you can read or watch right here, in case...

In June, the Washington Post celebrated the 40th anniversary of the biggest scoop in journalistic history — Watergate. Looking back on it, the Post has every right to crow. The story was so huge that every political scandal since has been labeled with the word “gate” tagged onto the end of it. However, the Post should also consider the adage, “You’re only as good as your last story,” because there’s a bigger one out there for the taking, if it only had the courage to pursue it. That story is, of course, the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi,...

During a speech today in Washington D.C., AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the looming debt disaster a "manufactured crisis" and said "there isn't a fiscal cliff." "There is no fiscal cliff," Trumka says in prepared remarks to the National Mediation Board Conference in Washington on Thursday. "What we’re facing is an obstacle course within a manufactured crisis that was hastily thrown together in response to inflated rhetoric about our federal deficit." Obama met with Trumka earlier this week, in addition to other far left leaders, to discuss economic policy. Apparently a $3500 tax increase on every family doesn't serve as...

Don't Sign a Petition Email With permission, I post this email circulated in a private company: All, As some of you may have heard since the Presidential election there are currently 32 states that have a petition to Secede from the United States. There may be some of you who are considering signing the petitions but we FSO’s need to remind you that Allegiance to the United States is one of the 13 adjudicative guidelines that DISCO uses to grant you a security clearance and give you access to classified information. For that reason, we strongly suggest you do not...

James Pethokoukis writing at the AEI Enterprise blog, examines the president's "balanced" plan to cut $4.4 trillion from the budget over the next decade. James points out that the plan is "reheating of his 80-page deficit reduction package from September 2011 which, on paper, showed $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in taxes raised. Not so fast: ***** Once you begin to dig into the numbers, the plan doesn't look balanced at all. As the bipartisan Committee for Responsible Federal Budget noted back then: The Administration claims that the plan would save about $4.4 trillion in total (including interest...

CNN's Gary Tuchman heads to King County, Texas, where President Obama won only five votes. Video at link.

President Obama's proposed tax hike on the top 2% of incomes will do next to nothing to close our chronic budget deficits, now running more than $1 trillion a year. But it will have a major impact on one struggling part of our economy: small business. In his Wednesday press conference, just before meeting with representatives of the nation's largest businesses, the president again claimed his plan to reduce the deficit and avoid the fiscal cliff would mean that "97% of small businesses are not going to see their taxes go up." But this is, to put it politely, deceptive....

"Let it crash!" "Give them what they want and they'll see what happens!" "Surely, once the left's programs are implemented and the economy crashes, people will come to their senses." Since the election, many on the right have echoed this meme. They are convinced that widespread poverty and lack of opportunity will bring a resurgence of the America many of them knew growing up. Grandma and Grandpa's America. Perhaps these people forget that Roosevelt was re-elected three times during a depression that he helped prolong -- a depression that featured soup lines and starvation in a population that actually wanted...

I received this message yesterday. IF this proves to be true, it is impeachable grounds. It also may help explain why Petreaus was forced out a few days before the Benghazi hearings coming up. It explains a lot of behavior by Obama and his administration - the pulled security, the "stand down" orders, and blaming that stupid video. The fireworks are coming. It will be the first of many disasters ahead. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to sources in the State Department and the CIA, and intercepted communications from the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama "staged" the attack in Benghazi in order to create a...