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U.S. administration urges Republicans not to block "fiscal cliff" deal By Mark Felsenthal | Reuters – 58 mins ago HONOLULU (Reuters) - As President Barack Obama cut short a Christmas vacation to resume talks to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of automatic year-end tax hikes and spending cuts, the White House on Wednesday called on congressional Republicans not to stand in the way of a resolution in the U.S. Congress. "It's up to the Senate Minority Leader not to block a vote, and it's up the House Republican leader, the Speaker of the House ... to allow a vote," a senior...

The radio show “Marketplace” wanted to chat this morning about the news that the Obama administration might extend its mortgage-refinancing programs to include borrowers whose mortgages aren’t backed by the government. It’s one thing for the Administration to pressure loan modifications (with Congress’ blessing) for the FHA insured mortgages. It is even a bigger stretch for the Administration to pressure Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHFA to perform loan modifications (specifically principal writedowns since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private corporations … in conservatorship. But it quite another thing for the Administration to pressure non-government entities to make principal...

An official from the D.C. police told a member of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that David Gregory COULD display a high capacity magazine on "Meet the Press" Sunday ... TMZ has learned.

Oh how those Tea Party rubes are fouling the well-oiled political gears of Washington D.C. Have you heard of their latest shenanigans? Truly scandalous, and Republican Rep. Steven LaTourette does not like it one bit. Not even a smidge.What was the infraction that had earned them LaTourette’s scorn and label “Chuckleheads”? It is best we let Rep. LaTourette explain it himself: “I don’t know what the number is but say the number is 40 out of 240 – that’s not a repudiation of his (Speaker of the House John Boehner) leadership. That’s the same 40, 50 chuckleheads that all year...

Lots of folks scoffed in town when reports surfaced that Democrats had petitioned the President of the United States to insert himself into the unseemly debate over Right to Work. Some asked out loud, doesn't POTUS have more important things to do than lobby Gov. Rick Snyder on that? But lobby the president did. During an exclusive one-hour sit down on WKAR-Public TV, the governor confirms that he and President Barack Obama shared a few minutes in private and the president looked the governor in the eye and said, "He wasn't pleased with Right to Work," Mr. Snyder reveals for...

Administration puts an expensive end to a disgraceful episodeGeneral Motors will no longer be “Government Motors.” The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced its intention to liquidate federal holdings in the automobile company over the next 15 months. The final tally will show this policy has been a disaster for taxpayers. Under the best case scenario, the public will wind up shelling out more than $13 billion by the close of this unfortunate episode. Though President Obama has portrayed the GM bailout as saving Detroit, it was really a reward for the auto unions. It was a celebration of bad management...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I did, and even managed to go home to visit my Mirror family(snip)Butt here’s what you get when the “B” team is on duty: Instead of a high quality reflection, all you get is a grainy, crappy photo taken by a local journolist of MO and BO leaving Morimoto Waikiki where they dined before Christmas. Actually, the restaurant choice was surprising because, as I pointed out last year, Morimoto isn’t exactly an exemplary model of our new soon-to-be-imposed standards of civility. A little too much “Samurai Warrior” for the kinder, gentler, unarmed...

Last spring, President Obama attended a meeting of Latin American leaders. We remember that meeting because of the Secret Service scandal. It was also the meeting when Latin American leaders complained that the Obama administration does not have a policy toward the region. I was very happy to see that Mary Anastasia O'Grady of The Wall Street Journal posted an article about the nomination of Sen Kerry to be Secretary of State. She pointed out that Sen Kerry has been on the "left" side of every major event in the last 40 years: "Mr. Kerry's record of promoting American values...

The fiscal-cliff negotiations have deteriorated into an embarrassing travesty of competing press conferences, off-the-record remarks, closed meetings, and sound bites. The Republican side is frustrated and flabbergasted by the absence of a concrete proposal from the President that can be scored by the Congressional Budget Office and then “marked up” by Congress according to standard procedures. Vague offers of so and so many trillions of revenue increases and spending cuts spread over a decade are just words, not real proposals. The last serious fiscal-cliff projections date back to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) August 2012 assessment of the budgetary effects...

If politicians fail to cut a "fiscal cliff" deal before Jan. 1, it means a lot less money in your pocket, period. This is especially true for lower-income earners, who will be hit hardest proportionally. To illustrate the danger the fiscal cliff poses to Americans right now, at Christmastime, we used the Tax Foundation's tax calculator to produce a few examples of how Americans in various life situations will be affected. Our first example is Manuel -- a young fellow who makes about $50,000 a year working at a newspaper. Manuel, a single man with no dependents What he pays...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday sided with Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College in a decision related to the ongoing court challenges to the Obama administration's birth control mandate. The court said it would hold the Obama administration to its promise to never implement the current birth control mandate and to create a new rule by August, as part of the court decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to give it updates every 60 days, beginning in February, until a new rule is issued in August. The...

Did the Obama family skip church services this Christmas? The White House readout of the President’s activities on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day makes no mention of church services – although the President and the First Lady made time to visit service members of the United States Military at the Marine Corps Base in Hawaii. Below is the text of the White House release to the press: Last night, the President made holiday telephone calls to US service members, then sat down with his family for Christmas Eve dinner. This morning, the family gathered around 8AM to open their Christmas...

CBS) Advocates of medical marijuana say pot has all sorts of health benefits. Maybe so, but a new study from Australia suggests that smoking pot can drive some people crazy - or at least make them go crazy sooner than they would have if they had never picked up the pipe. The study, published online in "Archives of General Psychiatry," shows that potheads develop severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia about 2.7 years earlier than people who don't use marijuana.

In another victory for pro-life advocates challenging the pro-abortion HHS mandate in Obamacare, a pro-life Catholic group has won a legal battle in court to get an exemption from having to comply with the mandate. The new mandate compels religious employers to pay for and refer employees for birth control, abortion-causing drugs and contraception in violation of employers’ religious beliefs. On Thursday, pro-life attorneys Robert Muise and David Yerushalmi presented oral argument in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn) in support of Priests for Life’s request that the court immediately halt the enforcement...

... Obama is cutting short his vacation in the Pacific state of Hawaii and will return to Washington to resume talks with congressional leaders aimed at reaching agreement on a deficit reduction package before the year ends. The White House says Obama will leave Wednesday and is expected to arrive back in Washington early Thursday. Early last week,the president said he and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were relatively close to an agreement on a compromise to avert what is being called a "fiscal cliff" -- $500 billion in mandated spending cuts and tax increases that would affect almost all...

Since the election: (Updated 12/25/12 at 7:30 PM PST) Layoffs and closures. Number of jobs lost listed where reported. USA only Week of to # Laid off Running total Notes 11/7 11/13 21,164 21,164 11/14 11/20 35,247 56,411 11/21 11/27 3,630 60,041 Thanksgiving week 11/28 12/4 6,138 66,179 12/5 12/11 17,882 84,061 12/12 12/18 7,551 91,612 12/19 12/25 3,264 94,876 Merry Christmas! Organization Location # Laid off Running total Sector Notes Date Brevard Schools Brevard Co, FL 400 400 Education 12/19/12 Capital Jewelers Carson, NV 400 Retail Closure, no number reported 12/19/12 Office Max Cerritos, CA 400 Retail Closure, no...

A Christmas celebration - Obama style...

Secretary of State nominee John Kerry, with 20 years of concern about climate change, is expected to push the issue to center stage as a slow-motion crisis in need of a global solution. When he sought to defeat President George W. Bush in 2004, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts made a point of challenging the Bush administration's backtracking on the issue and rejection of climate science. In contrast, he told the nation, he “believes in science.”

As if Superstorm Sandy and the looming fiscal crisis weren't enough, a potential strike by thousands of dock workers from Boston to Houston threatens to shock the economy as early as this weekend. Business groups and state officials in recent days have called on President Obama to intervene, and use emergency powers to "avoid a coast wide port shutdown." They warn it could cost billions, citing estimates that a 10-day port lockout in 2002 cost $1 billion a day -- and caused a major backlog in shipments. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is the latest to enter the fray and call...

I decided to go check out the movie for myself thanks to the ringing endorsement by Senators Feinstein, Levin, and McCain: “I thought it was terrible,” said Feinstein, one of a handful of lawmakers to see the film ahead of its limited release this week. “It is a combination of fact, fiction and Hollywood in a very dangerous combination.” Despite concerns on the right that the movie was serving as a political propaganda piece for Team Obama, in actuality, the movie is rather apolitical, playing it pretty much straight down the middle. The movie does its best to avoid political...