Watch Obama Botch the Debt Negotiations. Again. There's an easy way to best the GOP. The White House isn't using it.

How should Obama approach the next installment of our ongoing fiscal groundhog day?

The administration itself appears to be confused on this question. While the White House insists it won’t negotiate over raising the debt ceiling, negotiation appears to be precisely what it’s up to. Politico reports that White House officials are meeting with Republican senators on Thursday to explore a deal that would simultaneously fund the government past the September 30th end of the fiscal year, replace the sequester with a more sane combination of spending cuts and revenue, and raise the debt ceiling before it crushes us in mid-to-late October. 

his, to employ a clinical term, is nuts. Whether or not the White House maintains its no-debt-ceiling negotiation stance within these talks, the whole construct throws the GOP a lifeline where none would otherwise exist. After all, the Republican leadership knows it would be suicidal to force a debt-default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. It also knows that forcing a government shutdown by failing to fund the government past September 30th would be politically disastrous. (John Boehner has said he believes it could cost Republicans their House majority.) But, of course, rank-and-file Republicans in Congress are demanding that their leadership hold the line on at least one, and preferably both, of those issues. The right-wingers want their leadership to balk at keeping the government open unless they can first defund Obamacare, and to resist raising the debt ceiling unless they extract massive additional spending cuts, particularly from entitlement programs.

Via: New Republic

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Detroit Teachers Moonlight As ‘Sugar Babies’ To Offset Wage Cuts

DETROIT (WWJ) - It’s back-to-school season and many Detroit teachers are struggling in the wake of budget cuts and overcrowded classrooms.

According to the National School Supply and Equipment Association, the average teacher spent at least $485 on school supplies for their classroom last year.

So, what are some Detroit women doing to offset their struggles in the classroom? Well, they’re becoming “sugar babies” of course —  seeking financial assistance from wealthy men online.

In the Detroit School District alone, 201 teachers are moonlighting as sugar babies to offset wage cuts and job losses, according to dating website SeekingArrangement.com.

Brandon Wade, the website’s founder and CEO, said the average public school teacher registered on the site is between the ages of 28- and 33-years-old, and asks for approximately $3,000 a month in financial assistance from her sugar daddy.

Via: CBS Detroit

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Norquist Sees Obamacare Delay as Better Strategy Than Defunding

Republicans in Congress would be better off working to delay the Affordable Care Act, rather than trying to defund it, says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

He'd love to see defunding, but the Democratic Senate won't approve it, and even if it did, President Barack Obama wouldn't sign the bill, Norquist told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview. 

"If they don't do it, then you have to have plan B," he said. "Plan B, which is delay everything a year, has several advantages."


First, there are seven Democratic senators who have to run in red states, Norquist says. 

Editor's Note: ObamaCare Is About to Strike — Are You Prepared?

"They're terrified of Obamacare starting to take effect. . . . They might well prefer to delay it a year or even two to get it past the election." That could attract enough votes in the Senate for passage.

And when it comes to Obama, he already has delayed pieces of the healthcare law, also known as Obamacare, "to pay off his big business friends, his insurance company friends, his labor union friends and all of the congressional staffers," Norquist said.

"They get delays. You don't. We can talk about that for the next two months and embarrass the heck out of him and every Democrat running for [Congress] and say delay it for everyone, not just your fat cat friends, Mr. President."
Via: Newsmax

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US prepares to bypass UN on Syria response

The State Department made clear Wednesday that the Obama administration plans to bypass the United Nations Security Council as it prepares for a possible strike on Syria, after having failed to win support from Russia.

In blunt terms, department spokeswoman Marie Harf said last-ditch efforts to win support for an anti-Assad resolution at the U.N. were unsuccessful, and the U.S. would proceed anyway. 

"We see no avenue forward given continued Russian opposition to any meaningful council action on Syria," she said. "Therefore, the United States will continue its consultations and will take appropriate actions to respond in the days ahead." 

Earlier in the day, the U.S. and its allies tried to advance a resolution from Great Britain condemning the alleged chemical attack last week in Syria, and authorizing "necessary measures to protect civilians." The Russian delegation, traditional supporters of the Assad government, immediately complained about the resolution during the discussions at U.N. headquarters in New York. 

Harf said the U.N. Security Council would not be proceeding with a vote. 

Launching a military strike without U.N. authorization would not be without precedent -- the U.S. acted unilaterally during the 1983 invasion of Grenada, the 1989 invasion of Panama, and missile strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998. 

Via: Fox News Politics

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America's biggest rocket blasts off, likely carrying spy satellite

A 235-foot-tall rocket carrying a top-secret spy satellite roared to life and blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, leaving a thick white plume as it cut across the morning sky.

The launch took place Wednesday at 11:03 a.m. PDT at the picturesque base, which is located along the Pacific Ocean.

After countdown, the Delta IV Heavy rocket's three main engines ignited and climbed into skies. The hydrogen-fueled engines — each roughly the size of a pickup truck — were guzzling nearly a ton of propellants per second to provide 17 million horsepower.

Although little is publicly known about what exactly the rocket will be carrying into space, analysts said it is probably a $1-billion high-powered spy satellite capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below.

Wednesday’s mission, designated NROL-65, has been on schedule for months.

Although Cape Canaveral, Fla., is the launch site for NASA'scivilian space program, Vandenberg has been the site of military space projects for more than half a century.

Vandenberg, a 98,000-acre base along the Pacific, has been the primary site for launching spy satellites since the beginning of the Cold War because of its ideal location for putting satellites into a north-to-south orbit.

Space Launch Complex 6 is known on base as “Slick Six.” The launch pad was built in the 1960s and later was intended to accommodate space shuttle launches, but they remained in Florida. Since then, the pad has gone through many renovations. Most recently, Vandenberg spent $100 million on upgrades over three years.

This is the second time that a Delta IV Heavy rocket was launched from the pad at Vandenberg. The first time was in January 2011.

The rocket was built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. It made its maiden flight in 2004 and is capable of lifting payloads of up to 24 tons into low Earth orbit.

The launch was streamed live at rocket maker United Launch Alliance's website.

Via: LA Times

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MSNBC Personalities React to Obama’s Speech: Where Was the Policy Proposal?

MSNBC host Chris Matthews and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson were the first to react to President Barack Obama’s address on the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement’s march on Washington D.C. Both thought the speech was good, but lacked a policy proposal to address issues which are important for the African-American community. 

RELATED: Rush Limbaugh: Obama Will ‘Hijack’ MLK Anniversary to Push His Own Agenda

After Obama finished speaking, Touré turned to Chris Matthews for his reaction to the speech. “You have been so great at speaking about race throughout your career,” Touré noted. “I want to hear your thoughts on what’s going on right now.”

“I thought the speech had great values in it,” Matthews said.

He said he would not criticize the speech expect for the fact that it did not contain a policy proposal of any kind to address poverty. “I was waiting for a proposal today, something concrete,” Matthews added.

Robinson largely agreed, saying that Obama was not speaking to Washington D.C. with an agenda but to the nation at large. “Perhaps that’s the State of the Union address or – he has many chances to do that,” Robinson said.

“In many ways, he put the burden, sort of, on us to act and to push progress forward,” Krystal Ballopined.

Watch the clip below via MSNBC:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Will EPA ‘force’ another decision on Alaska’s native communities?

ILIAMNA, Alaska  — Lary Hill grew up in a crowded house surrounded by generations of family deep in the Alaska bush country.

In Iliamna, some 180 air miles southwest of Anchorage, communities hunted and fished to survive.

Hill, 68 and an elder of the community of 120 residents, said his family had no idea they were poor until the federal government told them.

“We always had enough food to eat and a warm place to live, with family all around. We had no understanding of what poor meant,” he said.

DOWNTOWN ILIAMNA: A hunting lodge along the main road through the Alaska bush country community of Iliamna.

Then, through years of government-administered programs in which “being poor meant you could get free stuff,” the destiny of the region’s people seemed to be in the hands of bureaucrats.

Hill knows all too well, though, what the government giveth, it can taketh away.

“There’s been a pattern here for so many years where the federal government once they start giving us all these things, once they do that we pretty much lose control over our own life, our own society,” he said. “If we don’t behave, the government will take the benefits away.”

Poverty prevails in Iliamna and the region, where at least a quarter of the population is unemployed.

Now there is opportunity in Iliamna, and the potential for so much more.

Hill and several others in his community are employees of the Pebble Limited Partnership. The development initiative of London-based Anglo American and British Columbia’s Northern Dynasty Minerals, proposes developing the mine, a multibillion-dollar capital investment that would create thousands of good paying, short-and long-term jobs, according to PLP.

Via: Watchdog.org

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Facebook Admits to Sharing Personal Information with Government 26,000 Times in the First Six Months of 2013

On Facebook, you can share posts and pictures with friends.

But at Facebook, they can (and do) share your posts and pictures and personal information with government agents all around the world.

Facebook released a report Tuesday detailing their level of involvement with government requests for data.  Since users willingly share so much about themselves on Facebook and other social media tools, it seems government agencies are looking to take advantage of the information – and Facebook is more than happy to comply.

“As we have said many times, we believe that while governments have an important responsibility to keep people safe, it is possible to do so while also being transparent,” said Colin Stretch, an attorney for the social networking mega-site.  “Government transparency and public safety are not mutually exclusive ideals.”
Stretch assured users that Facebook scrutinizes each request and maintains a “very high legal bar” that governments must clear before users’ private information is passed along.

Even so, the numbers are startling.

In total, Facebook received more than 26,000 separate requests for information about nearly 39,000 different accounts from 72 different national governments during the first six months of 2013.

Via: Watchdog.org

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Another delay on #obamacare ‘exchanges;’ difficulties getting products to markets?

The Obama administration has delayed a step crucial to the launch of the new healthcare law, the signing of final agreements with insurance plans to be sold on federal health insurance exchanges starting October 1.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified insurance companies on Tuesday that it would not sign final agreements with the plans between September 5 and 9, as originally anticipated, but would wait until mid-September instead, according to insurance industry sources.

Nevertheless, Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for HHS, said the department remains “on track to open” the marketplaces on time on October 1.

Welllll… yes, and no. Let us be honest, here: On October 1, 2013, something will be up and running. That something will undoubtedly be called “federal health insurance exchanges” and “marketplaces” by the Obama administration. And the administration will certainly act as if whatever is up and running at that point was what the administration intended, all along. Why, I even expect that the administration will make the claim that the ‘exchanges’ exceeded expectations; and if the administration does that, rest assured that at least some members of the Media will duly pass on that report without comment or clarification. These are all things that we know.

However: anyone who is going to be in need of health insurance (and doesn’t feel like just paying the modest penalty tax) would be well-advised to go ahead with acquiring it on their own, instead of waiting for the Obama administration to get its act together. It will be some time before this administration puts up anything truly functional. Assuming that it ever does, of course…

Via: Red State

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Obama Promises Mayors Unilateral Action On Guns

Excerpted from Washington Times – Stymied by Congress in his gun control efforts, President Obama told a group of big-city mayors Tuesday that he would take more executive actions to reduce gun violence.

The closed-door meeting at the White House included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who discussed “strategies to reduce youth violence,” the White House said in a statement.

Mr. Obama “vowed to continue doing everything in his power to combat gun violence through executive action and to press Congress to pass common-sense reforms like expanding the background check system and cracking down on gun trafficking,” the White House said in a statement.

The administration failed in an effort this spring to get the Senate to approve expanded background checks on gun purchases, a legislative response to the Sandy Hook school massacre last December in Connecticut.

Among those attending the session were Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate; Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; Washington, D.C., Mayor Vincent Gray; New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu; Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, Calif.; Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor Sly James of Kansas City, Mo.; Mayor Molly Ward of Hampton, Va., and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

One local official notably not on the list was Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the president’s former chief of staff, whose city has been especially plagued by gun violence involving youths.

The White House said Mr. Obama told the group that government isn’t the only answer to lowering gun violence.

Via: Pat Dollard

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