Advertising Guru Sells Hamptons Estate: ‘I don’t Want My Money Going To Obama’

He got taxed out of town.

Legendary advertising guru Jerry Della Femina is the latest Hamptons fat cat to unload his East End spread at the precipice of the dreaded fiscal cliff, The Post has learned.

The flamboyant Madison Avenue guru has sold his 8,500-square-foot estate — the host of many legendary Hamptons bashes — for $25 million, and blames his flight squarely on President Obama’s fiscal policies.

“I want the proceeds of this sale to go to my kids and my grandkids,” said the man behind iconic ad campaigns for Meow Mix and Absolut Vodka. “I don’t want my money going to Obama, and that’s what’s going to happen in the New Year. That’s why I sold right now, that’s why I wanted to get this done.”

Doug Kuntz

TAXING DECISION: A Hamptons party at the oceanfront mansion of Jerry Della Femina in happier times — before Obama’s “class warfare.”

The listing broker for the East Hampton oceanfront property, Corcoran’s Susan Breitenbach, declined to comment on the megabucks deal.

Sources said that the buyers are a New York based family.

Della Femina’s buzzer-beating sale is just one of many big-ticket closings sweeping the Hamptons as affluent homeowners seek to move their blue-chip digs before taking a capital-gains beating in the coming year.

A fall off the fiscal cliff could trigger a 40 percent rise in taxes on short-term investments and a 5 percent spike in taxes on long-term capital gains.

Della Femina said that brokers are in the midst of a frenzied sell-off as the fiscal cliff approaches.

“I’m basically the loser in Obama’s class warfare,” he fumed. “That’s what this boils down to. If Romney was elected, we would have had our parties in East Hampton this year.”

Via: New York Post

Continue Reading...

EPA cries ‘uncle’ in face of lawsuit, withdraws threat against W.Va. chicken farmer

The Environmental Protection Agency is backing off from a controversial lawsuit that brought farming groups out of the woodwork to defend a West Virginia farmer against charges that chicken droppings violated the Clean Water Act because rains could carry them into a stream located two football fields away.

The case mobilized agriculture organizations against what they saw as bureaucratic bullying that could impact thousands of other farmers. Green groups saw it as an opportunity to give the EPA tighter control over what they have derisively called “factory farms.”

The EPA said in November 2011 that Lois Alt and her husband needed a Clean Water Act discharge permit because rainwater on their farm could come into contact with dust, feathers or small amounts of chicken manure that strayed out of the large barns where they raise their flocks. Rainwater at Eight Is Enough Farms empties into Mudlick Run, a stream 200 yards away from the edge of the property.

The agency had warned the Alts that they could be fined up to $37,500 — per day — if they failed to apply for the permit, and another $37,500 per day if the government moved to enforce the Clean Water Act against them. But in a Dec. 13 letter, the EPA told their attorney it had withdrawn last year’s order entirely.

Alt told the agency in February that she intended to ignore the order. She sued the federal government in June, insisting that the threat was “arbitrary, capricious, not in accordance with the law, and in excess of the EPA’s jurisdiction and authority.”

The EPA’s threat was an attempt to define rainwater on livestock farms as a pollution “point source” under the Clean Water Act if it comes into contact with animal waste.

While the Clean Water Act considers animal barns themselves pollution point sources in some cases — if manure spills and seeps into rivers, lakes or streams, for instance — a sweeping 1972 amendment to the law specifically said point sources do “not include agricultural stormwater discharges.”

Via: Daily Caller

Continue Reading...

The ‘Reagan 13’ give Americans Something to Believe In

In the astroturfed Christmas Card Version of Obama’s 20-day Hawaiian holiday, (Michelle and daughters already there, but starting for Barry this weekend) the mental vision strived for is the regime and its staffers running happily, like the Moon-doggies of old, into the surf.

With Axelrod doing the astroturfing,  who needs Hollywood, and if Gidget can go Hawaiian, why not a lugubrious Valerie or Michelle?

The astroturf version of the Obamas’ $4 million holiday in Hawaii is set to demoralize and depress the proletariat.  It vividly underlines how the rich and powerful get to spend long, care free days kissed by the sun, while the left behind average citizenry of the winter-bound Northeast get to spend theirs slogging through the slush.

The Obamas and their traveling road show can, and do, holiday whenever they want. The real reason for ‘Obama’s Vacation From Four Years of Vacation’ is a strategy session to savor driving the last nails into the coffin lid of “the home of the brave”.

If Obama was power drunk before his reelection, imagine his euphoric mental state as he heads out for Hawaii today.


Confident with the four years the November 6 election grants him, Obama is planning an airtight new world for what he sees as his hapless, can’t-do-anything-to-stop-him constituents.

In the coming new world shaped by the Marxism-obsessed Obama, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod et al, there will be no room for competition.  It goes without saying that there’s never any room for competition in anti-Free Market, Marxist set ups.Confident with the four years the November 6 election grants him, Obama is planning an airtight new world for what he sees as his hapless, can’t-do-anything-to-stop-him constituents.

In the coming new world shaped by the Marxism-obsessed Obama, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod et al, there will be no room for competition.  It goes without saying that there’s never any room for competition in anti-Free Market, Marxist set ups.

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading...

Reagan’s House Heroes Stop Plan B

Call it a Reykjavik Moment.

An Air Traffic Controllers Moment.

Both of which were Reagan Moments.

Moments in American history when, under extreme pressure, Ronald Reagan simply refused to buckle. Against all the chorus shouted from the media and congressional bleachers — that he had failed by walking out on a bad deal with Gorbachev or recklessly fired striking air traffic controllers who were striking against federal law — Ronald Reagan never blinked.

And the fact that he didn’t blink made America — and the world — an infinitely better place.

Thursday night 13 conservative House Republicans defeated the Rule for the vote on Speaker Boehner’s highly controversial “Plan B.”

Those conservatives, by name (an asterisk denoting those who will not be returning to Congress next year) are:

Justin Amash of MI
Paul Broun of GA
Trent Franks of AZ
Louie Gohmert of TX
Tim Huelskamp of KS
Walter Jones of NC
Jim Jordan of OH
Andy Harris of MD
Jeff Landry of LA*
Thomas Massie of KY
Ron Paul of TX*
Jean Schmidt of OH*
Joe Walsh of IL*

Let’s not forget here that in terms of pressure, a great deal of it was coming from the GOP House Leadership. Congressmen Amash, Huelskamp, and Jones were removed from their committee assignments for not cooperating with the Leadership.

And make no mistake….the talk radio stars jumped on this, each in their own way. Rush was there. Hannity was there. Levin was there.

Then there was the great Brent Bozell from For America (as reported at Breitbart) pounding away just Wednesday at a Capitol Hill presser saying:

I’m going to make a prediction, right here and now, and write it down – and call me on it. If the Republicans support this tax increase, they will lose control of the House in the 2014 elections,” Bozell said.

Via: The American Spectator

Continue Reading...

‘Democratic’ and ‘Anti-Business’ Are Becoming Synonymous

Forbes’s recently released list of “The Best States for Businesses and Careers” provides further evidence of the Democratic party’s striking erosion as a party of economic growth and prosperity.  Based on their votes in the most recent presidential election, all but three of Forbes’s top-10 states are Republican-leaning, while all but two of its bottom-10 states are Democratic-leaning. 

The top-10 states on Forbes’s list — Utah, Virginia, North Dakota, North Carolina, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Iowa — voted for Mitt Romney by an average margin of 14 percentage points.  Meanwhile, the bottom-10 states on Forbes’s list — California, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Vermont, West Virginia, Mississippi, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Maine — voted for President Obama by an average margin of 13 points.  That’s a 27-point swing from Romney to Obama as we move from the top-10 states to the bottom-10 states.

Forbes rated the states based on six factors: “business costs,” “labor supply,” “regulatory environment,” “economic climate,” “growth prospects,” and “quality of life.”  Forbes rated 62 percent of Obama’s states as being below average and 63 percent of Romney’s states as being above average.  Obama won only 33 percent of Forbes’s top-15 states but 73 percent of its bottom-15 states.

Via: Weekly Standard

Continue Reading...

Court Rebukes Obama Administration’s “Trust Us” Revision of the HHS Mandate

The influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a short procedural order rebuking the Obama Administration in a lawsuit that was filed by Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College. The two religiously affiliated organizations had challenged the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) anti-conscience mandate that requires them to fund health care plans for their employees that provide abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, or else pay substantial penalties.

As discussed in a Heritage Legal Memorandum, the plaintiffs have very strong claims that the mandate violates their rights under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Following the uproar that ensued after the mandate was issued, the government announced a one-year, temporary enforcement suspension against some religious employers. The Obama Administration misleadingly labeled this move a “safe harbor.” The Administration then announced its intention to develop and propose changes to the HHS mandate that would provide contraceptive coverage without cost-sharing to covered individuals while at the same time accommodating the religious objections of nonprofit organizations like the plaintiffs.

In light of this non-binding promise to make some hypothetical policy changes that would supposedly assuage objectors’ concerns, some lower courts dismissed this and other similar lawsuits as being premature. But the D.C. Circuit has now indicated that it is prepared to hold the government’s feet to the fire, so to speak.

Via: The Foundry

Continue Reading...

The Cost of Spending: Can deficit-reduction plans make a dent?

The report from President Obama's highly touted deficit-reduction commission came out two years and 18 days ago. 

On that brisk December morning, Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad painted a dire picture if lawmakers didn't move quickly.

"If we fail to act now, our country could find itself in a circumstance in which we have to take draconian action, at the worst possible time in the middle of a crisis. I pray to God that we have the wisdom to act before that point," he said. 

The two commission co-chairmen couldn't agree more. "This baby ain't going away," co-chairman Alan Simpson said.

But so far, Congress has not been able to pass a plan that achieves what their proposal would -- a $4 trillion deficit reduction within 10 years. And it's unclear if they ever will. 

In the current talks over the looming fiscal crisis, the deal on the table is considerably smaller -- and yet President Obama said Wednesday that Republicans should be pleased with the spending cuts they'd be getting him to sign onto.

"Take the deal," he said. "You know, they will be able to claim that they have worked with me over the last two years to reduce the deficit more than any other deficit reduction package; that we will have stabilized it for 10 years. That is a significant achievement for them. They should be proud of it." 

But clearly, they're not.

Last week, Republicans warned about "kicking the can down the road" and "doing all the gimmicks that have been done in the past." 

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading...

Leader Reid rules out Senate vote on 'Plan B'

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday the Senate will not vote on Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) "Plan B" to extend tax rates for family income below $1 million.

The Democratic leader blasted Boehner for wasting time on "fiscal cliff" legislation that will not see floor time in the upper chamber.

“We are not taking up any of the things that they’re working on over there now,” Reid told reporters. “It’s very, very, very unfortunate the Republicans have wasted an entire week on a number of pointless political stunts.” 

“The bill has no future, if they don’t know it now, tell them what I said,” he added.

Reid said Boehner should schedule a House vote on the Senate-passed bill to extend the Bush-era tax rates for family income below $250,000.  

“The Senate bill is the only one that will be signed into law. We could protect middle-class families tomorrow,” Reid said. “The Speaker refuses to bring our bill to the floor because it would pass.”

Republicans argue the Senate-passed bill is not a solution to the stalemate because it would allow tax rates on inheritances and dividend income to rise dramatically.

Democratic leaders say the GOP plan will not see the light of day in the upper chamber because it raises taxes on middle-class families, does not extend the college tuition tax credit, the earned income tax credit or the child tax credit and includes an “unrealistic proposal” for the estate tax. 

Boehner’s plan would keep the top estate tax rate at 35 percent. It is scheduled to rise to 55 percent without congressional action.

Via: The Hill

Continue Reading...

CONSERVATIVES SHOULD NOT SURRENDER

In a December 13 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Peter Berekowitz, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, argued that big government and the sexual revolution are here to stay. He urged conservatives to get used to it and to content themselves with shaping those realities.

A similar argument was pressed upon Britons in the 19^th century when socialism was in its ascendancy. To that, James Fitzjames Stephen responded: “The waters are out and no human force can turn them back, but I do not see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god.”

But Stephen and other conservatives of that period did not surrender to the waters. They offered a powerful alternative vision of ordered liberty. That vision and political theory is as potent today as it was more than a century ago.

There is no doubt that the welfare state will be difficult to dismantle. In fact, we are now struggling just to reduce its rate of growth. Yet, it will never be contained without the forceful articulation of the alternative conservative vision.

It is imperative that conservatives challenge the very legitimacy of the welfare state and show that its burdens, both financial and psychological, will inevitably destroy the American Republic. This necessarily means an engagement with progressives over political ideology. Theirs is fundamentally flawed. The conservative vision is the only hope for preserving a governing system that produced a nation that was truly the envy of the rest of the world.

Not all political concepts can coexist. Conservatism and big government cannot coexist. The ideology of American Progressivism, as practiced by the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress, is eroding the foundations of our constitutional system and national economy. That threat will not be defeated by efforts to shape and moderate the progressive ideology. Only a direct challenge holds the promise of achieving what is necessary to save the nation.

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading...

Hillary’s Benghazi Report (ARB) Blames Amb. Christopher Stevens (Part 3)

Click here for The Fix is in—Part I and Part II

When government officials like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton self- investigate themselves in ‘internal’ ‘independent’ reviews the truth is always covered up and buried. While you were sleeping on Tuesday night the Obama-Clinton regime did just that when they released a 39-page, unclassified report, an Accountability Review Board (ARB), on the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans: Ambassador Christopher Stevens, former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith, a computer expert.

Straight out of the Clinton era cover-up playbook, everyone except Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama, disgraced, philandering ex-CIA director David Petraeus (the mastermind of the failed, deadly COIN policy in Afghanistan), and Defense Chief Leon Panetta, are blamed including the deceased. In this case—Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

On page 6 and 34 of ARB, Hillary’s handpicked ARB Board, chaired by Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering with Admiral Michael Mullen as Vice Chairman determined:

“The Board found that Ambassador Stevens made the decision to travel to Benghazi independently of Washington, per standard practice. Timing for his trip was driven in part by commitments in Tripoli, as well as a staffing gap between principal officers in Benghazi. Plans for the Ambassador’s trip provided for minimal close protection security support and were not shared thoroughly with the Embassy’s country team, who were not fully aware of planned movements off compound. The Ambassador did not see a direct threat of an attack of this nature and scale on the U.S. Mission in the overall negative trendline of security incidents from spring to summer 2012. His status as the leading U.S. government advocate on Libya policy, and his expertise on Benghazi in particular, caused Washington to give unusual deference to his judgments.”

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading

OPINION: Why Boehner's Plan B Is Conservatives' Best Hope

After President Obama was re-elected on Nov. 6, Americans faced a reality on Nov. 7: Taxes are going up. The only question facing conservatives now is how much of that tax hike they can prevent while also preserving as much of the hard-fought spending cuts they won in 2011.

Here are the facts: If nothing happens by Jan. 1, taxes will automatically rise by about $4.6 trillion over 10 years. Every working American would be hit. However, thanks to the August 2011 debt-limit deal, spending is also set to be cut by $1.2 trillion. Conservatives often forget about this little piece of leverage.

Obama's top priority is to raise taxes as high as he possibly can. A $1.3 trillion tax hike was his latest offer. But undoing the $1.2 trillion spending cut in the debt-limit deal is also important to him. His latest offer not only rescinds the scheduled spending cut, but it also calls for $80 billion in new stimulus spending. Obama did also offer to cut Social Security by $120 billion over 10 years and make $800 billion more in other unspecified spending cuts, but he has flat out refused to entertain any serious entitlement reform proposals.

Boehner's last offer to Obama wasn't much better. It only raised taxes by $1 trillion and undid the $1.2 trillion spending cut from the debt-limit deal. Boehner did call for a new $1 trillion spending cut to replace the sequester, but no meaningful structural entitlement reforms were included.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading...

Shootings up 49% in November in Gun-Free Zone of Chicago

Thelma Smith was visiting her mother's South Side home Friday night to talk about a birthday party in memory of her son, Samuel Clay, 25, who was shot and killed in April.

After several shots rang out on the next block, Smith rushed over and discovered to her horror that another son, William Lee Martin, 30, had been slain.

The father of six became the latest sad statistic as a violent November came to an end. Shootings jumped to 192 for the month, up 49 percent from 129 a year earlier, according to Police Department records.

That meant shootings were up more than 11 percent in the first 11 months of 2012 compared with a year earlier. Through October, shootings had risen about 81/2 percent.

And four fatal shootings on Friday alone pushed the homicide total for the month to 38, just above 37 in November 2011. For the first 11 months of 2012, homicides have risen to 480, a 21 percent increase from 398 a year earlier. If trends continue, Chicago will likely exceed 500 homicides for the first time since 2008.

The violence has earned Chicago unflattering national attention since the first three months of the year, when homicides skyrocketed amid unseasonably warm weather. The rate of increase has eased since then.

Robert Tracy, chief of the department's crime-control strategies, noted that the same trend has occurred with shootings after spiking by 40 percent in the early part of the year. He credited the department's use of "gang audits" — in which specialized units share gang intelligence with beat officers — and other strategies with helping bring that percentage down.

"I think we've done a very good job with that," Tracy said. "(But) any murder or any shooting is unacceptable."

As for the sharp rise in shootings in November, criminologists said that could merely be part of the random ebb and flow of crime statistics. Still, the increase is worth noting, said Arthur Lurigio, a professor of criminal justice and psychology at Loyola University Chicago.

"Last year's total was markedly low, so we would expect an uptick this year simply because statistics fluctuate in the direction in which they have more room to move," he said. "However, this is a substantial increase from one year to the next."

Via: Chicago Trbiune

Continue Reading...

Surprise, Surprise: Report Finds Homeland Security Wasting Money

In his oversight report, “Safety at Any Price: Assessing the Impact of Homeland Security Spending in U.S. Cities,” Senator Tom Coburn (R–OK) highlights several examples of cities using homeland security grants for ill-advised expenses. Senator Coburn’s report is an important one and a must read for the media and policymakers.

My hometown of Columbus, Ohio, is singled out for wasting terrorism funds on an underwater robot. In case you didn’t know, Columbus isn’t known for its large bodies of water, and not one tunnel in Central Ohio goes underneath water, so who knows what terrorist threat Mayor Michael Coleman sees in our shallow rivers.

Coburn, however, gets a couple of vital things wrong that would have made his report even more powerful. First, contrary to his report, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not fail “to issue preparedness goals, intended to shape the use of [Urban Areas Securities Initiative] funds, until last year—nine years after the program was created.” Secondly, DHS did not fail to establish “defined performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of federal expenditures made to date.”

As I detail in my 2009 book Homeland Security and Federalism: Protecting America from Outside the Beltway, DHS released the Initial National Preparedness Goal in April 2005, with the National Preparedness Guidelines (the successor document to the Initial National Preparedness Goal) in September 2007. The most recent National Preparedness Goal issued in September 2011 is just a warmed-over version of the older documents. The fact that these earlier documents existed makes Coburn’s points all the more troubling.

Via: The Foundry

Continue Reading...

Union Thugs Hit New Low, Protest Cancer Research Event In NYC

Disgruntled union workers put their fight against Cablevision over the fight against cancer at a Times Square protest last night.

About 50 members of the Communications Workers of America Local 1109 disrupted a benefit for cancer research at the Hard Rock Cafe, carrying signs and blaring music as attendees streamed in.

Cablevision CEO James Dolan, whose rock band performed at the event, told The Post that the workers’ actions are “despicable.”

“They think being disruptive for their personal gain is more important than beating pancreatic cancer,” he said. “Their values are twisted. I’m surprised at the depth of their lowness. Everyone who deals with them should take note. It’s shameful.”

NY Post: Brian Zak

TIN EARS: Cablevision’s James Dolan performs at the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe yesterday at a benefit to fight pancreatic cancer, as union members protest outside.

Dan Brinzac

James Dolan

The benefit was expected to raise $1.75 million for the Lustgarten Foundation, which funds pancreatic-cancer research.

The foundation is named for Cablevision exec Marc Lustgarten, who died of pancreatic cancer in 1999. Cablevision pays all the foundation’s administrative costs, and the foundation says that all the money raised last night will go to research.

The union, which is in drawn-out contract talks with Cablevision, labeled Dolan a “Grinch” for stalling negotiations with 280 company technicians and dispatchers in Brooklyn.

  

Via: New York Post

Continue Reading...

Wasserman Schultz Takes Parting Shot at Jim DeMint, Tea Party

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz appeared on Current TV and took a parting shot at Sen. Jim DeMint, saying he gave up in the Senate because he was alone with his Tea Party "extremism."

I think Senator DeMint clearly sees that the Tea Party is not a growth industry. I mean, he had an election that just passed that did not see the ranks of Tea Party members expand the Senate candidates that he expected to be very likery to join him in the Senate were rejected in red states by the voters who simply know that extremism is just not the way that we need to go forward in getting our economy turned around, in reducing our deficit, in creating jobs. 

So I think, when Jim DeMint looked around, he looked and saw a future where he would be standing by himself very often, and likely facing dwindling, even greater dwindling number of Tea Party advocates and allies. I think he headed for the doors, because he thinks that probably, as he said, the only way he's significant impact is through a think tank. 

Sen. DeMint announced he will be leaving the Senate to become President of the Heritage Foundation.

Cheney Takes Flamethrower To Obama

AP

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was honored tonight at the Hudson Institute’s 2012 Herman Khan Award Dinner at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.  Cheney was introduced by Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who spoke in detail about Cheney’s life and accomplishments, joking about how Cheney twice flunked out of Yale, and joking about Cheney’s hunting incident.  In his remarks Cheney was harshly critical of President Obama and the administration’s policy in the Mideast.  He said he’s very, very concerned about what he sees developing day by day.  He detailed the history of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, and what has been done to fight terror and said the Middle East is a very, very dangerous part of the world. 

He said that when he hears our president announce that we got Bin Laden and we can “pivot” to Asia he is on the one hand “appalled” and on the other hand fears for future developments.  Cheney said that that entire part of the world appears to be moving in a direction fundamentally hostile to U.S. interests, and that the U.S. is increasingly unable to influence events in that part of the world, seemingly because we’re “headed for the exit.”  He was critical of reductions in Afghanistan, and mentioned President Obama’s trip to Cairo where he “apologized” for the U.S. reaction after 9/11.  Cheney referenced the serious economic problems in the U.S but said he is concerned about the Middle East. 

He said our allies no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us.  He was highly critical of President Obama on Syria and basically said he has grave doubts the president will take any actions besides hope.  He continued to say the national security threat is as serious as the economic one, and said that enormous damage is being done to the U.S. military with cuts.  Toward the end of his remarks he said we can be absolutely certain that there are people out there planning to attack us, only with deadlier weapons than 19 hijackers and boxcutters.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading...

Schumer: Jobless Benefits ‘The Best Stimulus There Is’

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that extending long-term unemployment benefits would be the “best stimulus there is” for the economy, saying it would create the most jobs for the money.

“At the end of last year, there were 5 million people receiving emergency UI [unemployment insurance]. This year, there are only 2 million. It’s working,” Schumer said at a press conference Thursday.

“We’re all talking about a stimulus. How do we get the economy moving? This is the best stimulus there is.”

Schumer and fellow Senate Democrats called for yet another extension of benefits for the long-term unemployed before the current benefit extension expires at the end of the year.

Recently, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a full-year extension of the benefits would cost $30 billion and create approximately 300,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

CBO’s estimate is not saying that extending benefits will create 300,000 new positions or that 300,000 additional people will be hired, but that the demand created when the unemployed spend their benefit checks will in turn pay for enough work-hours to equal 300,000 full time jobs. The actual job creation figures could be far lower.

Via: CNS News

Continue Reading...

370k New Jobless Claims; Gallup Reports Unemployment Jump to 8.3%

After a few post-Hurricane Sandy weeks of new jobless claims hitting over 400,000, it looks as though we've settled back into the new and accepted normal of new claims landing somewhere in the 360,000 to 390,000 range. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this week saw 370,000 new claims filed.

Keep in mind, though, that it's only in Barack Obama's America that we've learned to celebrate any number under 400,000. We're nowhere near the point where our economy creates enough jobs to keep up with those lost every week. But because the media will never allow Obama to fail at anything, only 370,000 new unemployment claims is an occasion for pom-poms and much dancing around the golden calf.

Meanwhile, Gallup is reporting that unemployment spiked last month from 7.0% to 7.8%. Adjusted seasonally, the rate is 8.3%. This is the sharpest one-month increase Gallup's seen in two years:

It is unclear what caused the increase in the unemployment rate in November, although some experts speculate that it was caused by jobs lost as a result of superstorm Sandy. It is also possible that lackluster holiday hiring is to blame.

Silly Gallup; floating the idea that a spike in unemployment was caused by slow holiday hiring… What a waste of time. Thanks for playing, but the media will tell us what the "truth" is and the "truth" will be that lackluster hiring wasn't our Lightbringer's fault. It was the fault of a hurricane that was the result of Global Warming that was the result of American capitalism that was the result of not enough socialism that was the result of the Founding Fathers owning slaves.

Tomorrow, we'll get the November job creation numbers. Those too are expected to be disappointing… Due to a hurricane that wouldn’t have happened were it not for Christopher Columbus.

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading...

Opinion: Why A Budget Deal Could Push Unemployment Above 10 Percent

Friday, forecasters expect the Labor Department to report the economy added 80,000 jobs in November—substantially less than the 171,000 added the prior month. As budgets talks are progressing disappointing jobs reports could likely continue into the New Year.

Factors contributing to a slowdown in jobs creation include temporary displacements caused by Hurricane Sandy and business worries that President Obama and Congressional Republicans will not reach a compromise to avert the fiscal cliff. However, looming larger has been a slowdown in growth of consumer spending in recent months, and the continuing nagging effects of the trade deficit on economic activity.

The economy must add more than 349,000 jobs each month for three years to lower unemployment to 6 percent and that is not likely with current policies.

Convincing millions of American adults they don’t need or want a job has been Washington’s most effective jobs program.

Most analysts see the unemployment rate inching up to 8.0 percent, while a few see it remaining steady. The wildcard is the number of adults actually working or seeking jobs—the measure of the labor force used to calculate the unemployment rate.

Labor force participation is lower today than when President Obama took office and the recovery began, and factoring in discouraged adults and others working part-time that would prefer full time work, the unemployment rate is 14.6 percent.

Convincing millions more adults they don’t need or want a job has been Washington’s most effective jobs program, despite trillions in new stimulus spending, industrial policies, targeted tax cuts, and social programs intended to boost demand.

Via Fox News

Continue Reading...

AMERICA NEARS EL TIPPING POINTO

I apologize to America's young people, whose dashed dreams and dim employment prospects I had laughed at, believing these to be a direct result of their voting for Obama. 

On closer examination, it turns out that young voters, aged 18-29, overwhelmingly supported Romney. But only the white ones. 

According to Pew Research, 54 percent of white voters under 30 voted for Romney and only 41 percent for Obama. That's the same percentage Reagan got from the entire white population in 1980. Even the Lena Dunham demographic -- white women under 30 -- slightly favored Romney. 

Reagan got just 43 percent of young voters in 1980 -- and that was when whites were 88 percent of the electorate. Only 58 percent of today's under-30 vote is white and it's shrinking daily. 

What the youth vote shows is not that young people are nitwits who deserve lives of misery and joblessness, as I had previously believed, but that America is hitting the tipping point on our immigration policy. 

The youth vote is a snapshot of elections to come if nothing is done to reverse the deluge of unskilled immigrants pouring into the country as a result of Ted Kennedy's 1965 immigration act. Eighty-five percent of legal immigrants since 1968 have come from the Third World. A majority of them are in need of government assistance. 

Whites are 76 percent of the electorate over the age of 30 and only 58 percent of the electorate under 30. Obama won the "youth vote" because it is the knife's edge of a demographic shift, not because he offered the kids free tuition and contraception (which they don't need because it's hard to have sex when you're living with your parents at 27). 

Via: Ann Coulter

Continue Reading...

Obama Consults with MSNBC Hosts Sharpton, Maddow on Tax Rates

President Barack Obama met with several MSNBC hosts this afternoon at the White House to discuss tax rates, according to Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery. The reporter wondered if an "MSNBC love fest" was going on at the White House.

Here's Bendery's reporting, in a series of tweets:

Just passed Al Sharpton walking into the WH.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Also, Al Sharpton is so unbelievably tiny now. I actually gasped when I saw him pass by just now. Hope he's ok.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Rachel Maddow is now in the West Wing. How do I know this? I just walked in with her.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Never met Maddow until now. We kind of look alike, esp today. My intro: "Are you my long lost sister?" Her: "Glad we both got the memo."

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

Maddow, heading into West Wing, said she was here for a "hippie cabal." Asked if I was coming. NO, DAMN IT, I WASN'T INVITED.

— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) December 4, 2012

So... in the last hour, I watched Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton and Lawrence O'Donnell all walk into the West Wing. MSNBC love fest?

Via: Weekly Standard

Continue Reading...