Free Republic

Clovis Elementary Monday: President’s Day — No school Tuesday: Breakfast — Breakfast pizza. Lunch — Spaghetti and meat sauce, green beans, ranch salad and bread stix and fruit smoothie. Wednesday: Breakfast — Cinnamon roll. Lunch — Porky rib on a bun, baked french fries, coleslaw and fruited Jell-O. Thursday: Breakfast — Mini pancakes. Lunch — Pizza pasta bake, mixed veggies, chilled fruit and cookie. Friday: Breakfast — Taco omelet. Lunch — Beef and cheese soft taco, seasoned pinto beans, lettuce, tomato, salsa and seasonal fruit. Clovis junior high/high School Monday: President’s Day — No school Tuesday: Breakfast — Frudel. Lunch...

>> EPWORTH VILLAGE Monday — Beef teriyaki blasters, corn on the cob, muffin, tropical fruit Tuesday — Taco salad, brownie, grapes Wednesday — Tuna and noodles, green beans, bread, pear halves Thursday — Cheeseburger/ bun, sweet potato fries, jello w/fruit Friday — Fish patty/bun, green bean fries, cookie, peach slices * Milk served with all meals >> EXETER-MILLIGAN Monday — Chicken stir fry, stir fry veggies, rice or low mein noodles, mini egg roll, cookie, fruit Tuesday — Breaded pork sandwich, potato vegetable, fruit Wednesday — Grilled cheese, tomato soup, carrots and celery sticks, peanut butter bar, fruit Thursday —...

The American Petroleum Institute Director of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Howard Feldman warned of a "veritable tsunami" of new EPA air regulations for refineries that could "put some refineries out of business, diminish U.S. fuel manufacturing capacity, and increase our reliance on imported fuels" recently in a conference call with reporters: "The president himself has called on federal agencies to take into account the impact of regulations on jobs and the economy," Feldman said. "EPA should follow through by ensuring that their regulatory proposals are necessary, practical, and fair." Four U.S. refineries closed last year, according to Feldman. He said...

HERNANDO, Miss. -- DeSoto County has formally objected to the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to list it as "nonattainment" on ozone levels. DeSoto County officials also want the EPA to abandon a "misguided" proposal to list the county with Memphis as falling short on ozone standards. In December, EPA announced a proposal to include parts of DeSoto with Memphis, which has ozone emissions above allowable limits set by federal regulation. The plan would include urban areas of DeSoto County and Crittenden County, Ark., in the Memphis ozone "non-attainment" area. Ozone non-attainment could impair industrial recruitment by requiring prospective firms to...

Navistar International Corp on Thursday confirmed that it has received notice from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of an investigation into diesel-engine production that could lead to as much as $285 million in fines. In a letter dated Jan. 30, the EPA informed the Lisle, Illinois truck and engine maker that it is investigating whether 7,600 engines built in 2009 were properly certified under the Clean Air Act. Each violation carries a fine of up to $37,500. The engines in question were so-called transition engines, or engines built at a time when the company was preparing to launch a new...

Three years ago today, in his first major act in office, President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It stirred a great debate. Some called it too big; others warned it was too meager. With just a handful of exceptions, Republicans maligned it as the absolute wrong approach to creating jobs. • Today, that argument is settled. The Recovery Act did what we asked of it. Three million jobs were created or saved. Essential investments in keeping teachers on the job, building a domestic clean energy industry, and repairing our roads and bridges have helped...

Greece's austerity measures are being met with anger and grief by the people of the debt-ridden country. Days of violent protests couldn't stop Greece's parliament from passing a European bailout deal -- but now the country faces massive cutbacks. Whole government departments will be shut down and as many as 15,000 public servants will be thrown out of work. The crisis is even prompting a spike in suicide attemts. One of the things that has forced the Greek people to the precipice is the corrupt and inefficient government that everyone agrees must shrink. For decades, politicians have been handing out...

General Motors Co. is eliminating annual pension contributions for U.S. salaried workers who still receive them and will pare 2011 bonuses for all salaried workers, the auto maker said on Wednesday. The Detroit company also won't give salaried workers pay raises this year, but will offer them an additional week of vacation. The company is looking for ways to reduce its pension obligations and overall costs, while improving quality and productivity throughout the company. GM is expected tell its 26,000 U.S. salaried workers they will receive smaller bonuses for 2011 than the prior year because the company failed to meet...

President Obama heads west today for a three-day, three-state swing aimed largely at filling the coffers of his re-election campaign and honing his message to supporters in key states. Obama will headline eight fundraisers across California and Washington through Friday night. The events are expected to net at least $8.6 million for the Obama Victory Fund. Much of Obama’s focus will be on mingling with some of his wealthiest – and most famous – supporters in Los Angeles and San Francisco, who will play a key role in underwriting his bid for a second term. Later he’ll dine with 80...

Sanjay Wagle was a venture capitalist and Barack Obama fundraiser in 2008, rallying support through a group he headed known as Clean Tech for Obama. Shortly after Obama’s election, he left his California firm to join the Energy Department, just as the administration embarked on a massive program to stimulate the economy with federal investments in clean-technology firms. During the next three years, the department provided $2.4 billion in public funding to clean-energy companies in which Wagle’s former firm, Vantage Point Venture Partners, had invested, a Washington Post analysis found. Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants...

Unemployed Americans who started businesses last year was the lowest in at least a quarter-century. In 2011, 3.3% of out-of-work Americans started businesses, compared to 4.7% in 2010. But recent start-up activity is anemic compared to 1989 when 20.3% of unemployed were starting businesses. Until 1997, start-up activity was typically in double digits. “Basically, it was not a very inviting environment for would-be entrepreneurs,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “While big business definitely began to reap the benefits of the recovery in 2011, conditions were not nearly as fruitful for existing small business, let along...

PRINCETON, NJ -- U.S. small-business owners who aren't hiring -- 85% of those surveyed -- are most likely to say the reasons they are not doing so include not needing additional employees; worries about weak business conditions, including revenues; cash flow; and the overall U.S. economy. Additionally, nearly half of small-business owners point to potential healthcare costs (48%) and government regulations (46%) as reasons. One in four are not hiring because they worry they may not be in business in 12 months. Companies typically hold back on hiring when the economy is weak and when their operating environment is not...

Say goodbye to the much-loathed Alternative Minimum Tax and hello to the Buffett Rule. Sweet relief. The AMT has perplexed taxpayers and agonized accountants for decades. But wait: Are the AMT and the Buffett Rule really so different? The two take aim at different types of tax avoidance, so the details have little in common. But the headline is the same: Both were designed to make sure that wealthy citizens pay their fair share of income tax -- without creating a tax monster that somehow reaches down to regular people. When the AMT came into being in 1969, rich people...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The finance minister for Canada's top oil producing province of Alberta said he expects the Canada-to-U.S. Keystone XL pipeline project to be "revived" following presidential elections this year. In an interview on Monday, Ron Liepert said he thinks government approval for the $7 billion pipeline to ship around 830,000 barrels per day of oil sands crude from Alberta to South Texas could come following elections on November 6.

Gasoline prices could soon hit $4 a gallon, a threshold they haven't flirted with since last spring. .....(snip)..... The reason prices aren't falling comes down to increased uncertainty. ....(snip) The market is waiting to see if Sunoco will shut down its Philadelphia refinery, which, if it happens, would be the third refinery closure in Pennsylvania in the last six months. ...snip....

TAPPER: The president, when he spoke to students earlier today acknowledged that the numbers and the budget were so big, they were difficult to talk about. And to break them down, it would be along the lines of a family that makes $29,000 a year spending $38,000 a year, so taking on new debt — $9,000 in new debt, with a $153,000 credit card bill that they were not able to pay down. That would be a way for — like the average American to afford – to understand it. Does that seem responsible? CARNEY: I appreciate the analogy... TAPPER:...

According To This Study You can do as well working one week a month at minimum wage as you can working at a $60,000-a-year, full-time, high-stress job President Obama in 2008 tried very hard to vilify "rich people" making over $250,000 per year. Since he desperately needs more than those middle class business owners, he has now upped the ante and is charging harder than ever after millionaires and billionaires, even though he has already received sizable donations from millionaire Wall Streeters. They can rest assure that Obama will be paying them back with interest if he is reelected. This...

WASHINGTON — In the final budget proposal of his term, President Obama on Monday will revive the deficit-reduction and job-creation proposals he first called for last September and forecast a $1.3 trillion deficit for this fiscal year that drops to $901 billion next year, administration officials said on Friday. The election-year budget calls for more than $350 billion in short-term spending and payroll-tax cuts to continue spurring the economy like those in the September plan, including proposals for infrastructure projects and subsidies to states to help keep teachers and first responders in their jobs, requests that Congressional Republicans have blocked...

(Reuters) - U.S. health insurers said on Friday they feared President Barack Obama had set a new precedent by making them responsible for providing free birth control to employees of religious groups as he sought to defuse an election-year landmine. "We are concerned about the precedent this proposed rule would set," said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's trade group. "As we learn more about how this rule would be operationalized, we will provide comments through the regulatory process." Zirkelbach said insurers "have long offered contraceptive coverage to employers as part of comprehensive, preventive benefits that...

(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that President Barack Obama chose to embrace so-called “super PACs” (political action committees) for his re-election campaign so that billionaire philanthropists Charles H. Koch and David G. Koch would not “decide who the next President would be.” “The president made a decision, which I think was a wise one, that he was not going to unilaterally disarm and leave the field to the Koch brothers to decide who will be president of the United States and would control the Congress, and his commitment was for full disclosure,” Pelosi said. The...

(CNSNews.com) – Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), referencing the ‘Halftime in America’ Super Bowl ad, said that he was “fearful of what the final score is going to be,” if President Barack Obama is reelected in November. “If it’s halftime in America, I’m fearful of what the final score is going to be if we let this president start the second half as the quarterback,” Perry said in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday in Washington, D.C. Perry’s remark was a reference to a Chrysler ad aired during the Super Bowl that featured Clint Eastwood...

The Obama administration is attempting to persuade U.S. corporations about the benefits of investing in renewable energy in an effort to help the industry after a government grant program expired. The Department of Energy-led effort includes a planned March 13 meeting at which senior financial-firm executives and Energy Secretary Steven Chu would speak. The 79 invitees include some of the largest corporations in the U.S., from Exxon Mobil Corp. to Walt Disney. The idea is to tell companies with big tax bills about the "attractive rates of return and brand benefits" that come with entering the so-called tax equity markets...

Washington — An independent audit of the federal loan guarantee initiatives that backed the troubled solar technology company Solyndra failed to turn up the waste and broad incompetence that critics assert riddled the programs. But the audit showed the laws passed from 2005 to 2009 that established the programs in question at the Energy Department had few provisions for thorough monitoring and oversight of the loan guarantees once they were approved. One program created in 2007 did not “provide any requirements regarding governance and monitoring of loans after closing.” “Neither the statutes nor the regulations governing the programs specify internal...

(Reuters) - Americans felt worse about their personal finances in early February, even as they saw a light at the end of the tunnel for the jobs market, a survey released on Friday showed. An improving financial situation was reported by just 23 percent of all consumers surveyed in early February, down from 29 percent in January and last year's 30 percent. One in four families reported declines in income in the early February survey, even as official data have shown overall U.S. income growing since last August, albeit at a slow pace. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan overall index...

Professor Ian Clark just does not see any evidence of oil sands contributing to global warming. That’s quite a stand to take in the face of a global environmental community that considers the development of the Canadian heavy oil industry tantamount to hastening the end of the world.But Prof. Clark can claim to know a bit more about the science behind climate change than the average person. As a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa, he focuses on paleoclimatology — the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history...

The 2012 Index of Dependence on Government, released today, should be a wake-up call for America. Published by The Heritage Foundation for the past 10 years, the Index tracks the growth in government dependence dating back to the early 1960s. This year’s edition shows an alarming trend. Among the most troubling facts: One in five Americans—the highest in the nation’s history—relies on the federal government for everything from housing, health care, and food stamps to college tuition and retirement assistance. That’s more than 67.3 million Americans who receive subsidies from Washington.Government dependency jumped 8.1 percent in the past year, with...

(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve announced on Thursday it has reached an agreement with five U.S. banks on penalties totaling $766.5 million over problems in their mortgage servicing businesses as part of a larger $25 billion foreclosure deal struck between the banks and state and federal agencies. Under the agreement the banks would not pay their fines to the Fed and would instead make them as part of the programs that comprise the broader state-federal deal. Under the Fed agreement the breakdown of what each bank has agreed to pay is $175.5 million for Bank of America, $22 million for...

(MoneyWatch) Student loan debt is pushing a growing number of Americans into bankruptcy and an organization of bankruptcy lawyers predicted this week that the college debt problem could become as big a catastrophe as the home mortgage crisis. "Take it from those of us on the frontlines of economic distress in America, this could very well be the next debt bomb for the U.S. economy," warned William E. Brewer Jr., president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. The association just released a survey of 860 bankruptcy attorneys that revealed some disturbing trends. Here are some of the most...

What did the mortgage lenders and loan servicers agree to do? The banks and servicers have committed at least $17 billion to reduce principal for borrowers who 1) owe far more than their homes are worth 2) are behind on payments. The amount of principal reduction will average about $20,000 per borrower. Another $3 billion will go toward refinancing mortgages for borrowers who are current on their payments. This will enable them to take advantage of the historic low interest rates currently available. The banks will pay $5 billion directly to the states, the only hard money involved in the...

WASHINGTON — Drawing on a string of improved economic data, advisers to President Obama have updated their forecasts in recent days and now project that the economy will create two million jobs this year, reducing the unemployment rate to about 8 percent by year’s end. Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, confirmed the revised projection in an interview on Wednesday, saying that the forecast in the president’s annual budget, to be released on Monday, is already “stale and out of date.” The budget will project an average unemployment rate — the most important economic figure...

President Obama last week brandished new jobs numbers as proof that his policies were having an effect on the unemployment rate, which the report said declined to 8.3 percent in January. The president is right about one thing: his big government agenda and class warfare tactics are having an effect -- but it's not the one he claims. In truth, last month's drop in the unemployment statistic was due largely to the evaporation of 1.2 million people from the labor force number. When people become so discouraged they stop actively looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed...

<p>Will A be the new AA+? Perhaps, if the S&P follows through with its latest threat. Bloomberg reports that [Bloomberg material cannot be posted here] . . . .</p>

<p>As searches dragged on, many just stopped looking. Now they aren’t even counted among the jobless.</p> <p>Jackson Julien looked for a fun job, then for anything. Finally, demoralization set in.</p> <p>Millions of Americans have vanished from the US labor force in the past three years, many of them so discouraged by long, fruitless job searches that they have given up looking for work, convinced that no employer wants them, according to a new study.</p>

Refinancing mortgages... a plan pushed by Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia business school, also a top economic advisor to GOP hopeful Mitt Romney.

GM, Ford feud over Super Bowl ad (Reuters) - A simmering feud between General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co heated up on Sunday as Ford objected to GM's Super Bowl advertisement for its Chevy Silverado pickup truck. The ad, which will run on NBC's television broadcast of the Super Bowl on Sunday, depicts an apocalyptic scene in which Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks and their owners escape death and make it to a pre-arranged meeting point. But, one of their friends, identified as "Dave," who drives a Ford, doesn't make it to the meeting site, in the video that plays...

Federal and county governments are among the long list of creditors owed money by a nearly-bankrupt local business that stored livestock semen. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided about $536,000 in loans to the company. The federal government wants its stimulus money back, but so do the business’ 84 other creditors. The company stored the semen in slender “straws” frozen in liquid nitrogen. Now the business’ owner has filed for bankruptcy protection. The public creditors’ hearing is set for 10 a.m. at the U.S. bankruptcy court in Dayton. Genetic Connection owner Roger Clark said he would not...

...Friday's unemployment number showed bigger gains for African-Americans and Hispanics than for whites. And young people, another key Obama block from 2008 that has also been heavily affected, also saw big improvements. For each of those three groups, the unemployment rate is now the lowest it's been essentially since Obama took office. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in January for Hispanics dropped to 10.5 percent, down from 11 percent in December and 12 percent last January. The rate for African-Americans now stands at 13.6 percent, a sharp decline from 15.8 percent in December and 15.7...

WASHINGTON - For most people, the 8.3 percent unemployment rate is the most visible sign of the economy's health. The rate's every movement is closely watched, especially in an election year. But when the rate declines, it's not always because many more people were hired. The unemployment rate can rise or fall even when no jobs are created or lost. Last month, the rate fell because jobs were added. One reason for the rate's decline is that fewer people are looking for work. Here's why: The unemployment rate counts only people who don't have a job and are looking for...

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is suspicious about the newly released January unemployment numbers. In response to news that the overall unemployment rate had dropped to 8.3 percent and the unemployment rate in the black community declined from 15.8 percent to 13.6 percent, West floated the possibility that the numbers might have been cooked. "Can someone tell me how employment in the black community has improved at a rate three times the national average in just a few months?? With numbers like today, urban communities should be well on their way to economic recovery then! There is something suspicious about the...

It appears the record surge in people not in the labor force is not the only outlier in today's data. For the other one we go to the Household Data Survey (Table 9), and specifically the breakdown between Full Time and Part Time Workers (defined as those "who usually work less than 35 hours per week"). We won't spend too much time on it, as it is self-explanatory. In January, the number of Part Time workers rose by 699K, the most ever, from 27,040K to 27,739K, the third highest number in the history of this series. How about Full time...

BILL GROSS: 'We Are Witnessing The Death Of Abundance' Joe Weisenthal Febuary 1, 2012 In his latest monthly letter, PIMCO's Bill Gross has a long philosophical-sounding discussion about credit, delevering, and the difficult task facing Bernanke. The money line is this paragraph at the end: Where does credit go when it dies? It goes back to where it came from. It delevers, it slows and inhibits economic growth, and it turns economic theory upside down, ultimately challenging the wisdom of policymakers. We’ll all be making this up as we go along for what may seem like an eternity. A 30-50...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today invited investors interested in purchasing pools of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA foreclosures in the nations hardest-hit metropolitan areas with the requirement they rent them for a period of year to pre-qualify. The purpose of the pilot phase will be to examine investor interest in various types of assets,including the location, size, and composition of pools of assets; the ways in which investors maximize the participation of experienced local firms and organizations that can provide the types of services and support needed to ensure community stabilization; the types of structures and/or financing...

The media's "improving economy" this election year exists only in Democrats' talking points. A new congressional report shows that joblessness is underestimated, while debt skyrockets. Thirty-six pages into the Congressional Budget Office's "Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022," released Tuesday, is the news that "the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1 1/4 percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7%" once the "unusually large decline over so short a time" in labor force participation is factored out. This means that, contrary to the claims of a media rooting for...

Will investors, consumers and politicians be singing "Take this jobs report and shove it!" come Friday morning? The government will report two key numbers Friday: the number of jobs that were added in January and the unemployment rate. Both figures have been moving in the right direction lately and the hope is that this trend will continue. However, the labor market may have lost a little bit of steam in January. According to a survey of economists by CNNMoney, the current median forecast is that just 135,000 jobs were added last month and that the unemployment rate likely rose to...

That's the final, pathetic growth number for 2011. From the just-released GDP report: Real GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2011 (that is, from the 2010 annual level to the 2011 annual level), compared with an increase of 3.0 percent in 2010.

Eleven Stunning Revelations From Larry Summers’s Secret Economics Memo To Barack Obama By James Pethokoukis January 23, 2012, 3:08 pm A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House. A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, “Sensitive & Confidential” memo written by economist Larry Summers—eventually to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council—to Obama in December 2008. Here’s some of what I learned about Team Obama’s thinking as the financial crisis was exploding, followed by quotes from the memo itself: 1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda The short-run...

Obama Was Warned By His Economic Team That His Campaign Promises Would Create A Mountain Of Debt Michael Brendan Dougherty Jan. 23, 2012, 8:57 AM Ryan Lizza reports for the New Yorker that on December 15 2008, a few short weeks before his inauguration, president-elect Obama was presented with a 57-page memo on the depth of the economic crisis drafted by Lawrence Summers and other economic advisors. The memo informed the president that if he enacted his campaign promises in the current environment, he would shoot a gigantic hole into the nation's budget. “Since January 2007 the medium-term budget deficit...

A Los Angeles woman was arrested after she offered sexual favors in exchange for chicken McNuggets, Burbank police said. Khadijah Baseer of Los Angeles reportedly opened customers’ car doors in the drive-thru of McDonald’s on the 1700 block of Olive Avenue about 11 p.m. Wednesday, asking for free chicken McNuggets in exchange for sexual favors, Officer Joshua Kendrick said. A man told police Baseer approached him but he refused the offer. Baseer was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of prostitution.

After being told by Obama, and his propaganda machine the MSM, that the increased number of jobs created during the holiday season proves his economic policies are working and the country is on a rebound, we again learn they are all telling tall tales. Every year, whether the economy is up or down, the number of people being employed goes up during the holiday season. Those of us on the right have been saying it since November, "When the higher unemployment numbers for January start trickling in, the drop in November and December's unemployment numbers will prove to be...

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota granted a fourth extension of state aid for study of a plan to build a coal-to-liquid fuel factory, while the project's developers wait to see if the political climate in Washington changes after the presidential election. Dallas-based North American Coal Corp. and Headwaters Inc. of South Jordan, Utah, formed American Lignite Energy LLC in 2007 to oversee construction and operation of the $4 billion plant at a yet-to-be chosen site in western North Dakota. David Straley, a North American Coal Corp. spokesman said a decision on whether to start construction depends on a change of political climate...