150 Straight Days: Treasury Says Debt Stood Still at $16,699,396,000,000

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Photo Credit: AP/Susan WalshEvery business day since May 17, the U.S. Treasury has published a daily statement claiming that the federal debt subject to the limit set by Congress closed the day at $16,699,396,000,000—about $25 million below the legal limit.

Monday, the Columbus Day holiday, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released today, marked the 150th straight day that the Treasury has said the debt subject to limit was stuck at $16,699,396,000,000.

On May 17, the first day the debt closed the day at $16,699,396,000,000, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner stating that since the Treasury was about to hit the debt limit he would begin to use “extraordinary measures” to prevent it from doing so. These included, among other things, suspending investment of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund in U.S. Treasury securities, and redeeming securities already held by this fund.

“In total, the extraordinary measures currently available free up approximately $260 billion in headroom under the limit,” Lew wrote then.

But in that letter, Lew described the unpredictability of the Treasury’s flow of funds to explain why he could not predict exactly when the extraordinary measures would be exhausted.

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Complaint: UAW, VW Coerced Workers Into Accepting Unionization

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Photo Credit: APTennessee autoworkers have filed a second set of complaints alleging that Volkswagen’s corporate headquarters pressured employees to join the United Auto Workers Union.

Four autoworkers filed a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board alleging that members of the German-based company’s board of directors threatened to end plant expansion in the right-to-work state if employees did not join a European-style works council.

The support that corporate leaders are lending to the UAW amounts to coercion, according to the complaint filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW).

“Bernd Osterloh, vice-chairman of VW and head of VW’s global works council, who makes production decisions for VW, said publicly that employees in Chattanooga must form a works council and bring in the UAW as their agent if their plant is going to be given the opportunity to produce additional products for VW,” the complaint states.

“Volkswagen AG through their officers, directors, and/or agents are thus interfering with Chattanooga facility employees’ rights to choose whether or not to engage in self-organization to form, join, or assist labor organizations.”

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Bonnie Doon Ice Cream Blames Obamacare for Shutdown (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox 28An iconic Michiana company is closing.

Tuesday, FOX28 talked with owners of the Bonnie Doon plant and downtown Mishawaka location. They tell us there are many reasons for the shutdown such as the declining economy and the rise in production costs. But the number one factor? The anticipated cost of the Affordable Care Act.

Adam Carroll is owner of the Lincolnway Bonnie Doon. Even though the Bonnie Doon Plant and downtown location are closing, he says he’s not going anywhere. “I’ve been with the company for 21 years, it was my first job and I started working for them when I was 14.”

He says the closing plant means he has to find a new ice cream supplier. “With the Obamacare it just will affect the businesses too much so that was their main reason for shutting down the ice cream plant at this time.”

FOX28 talked with the CFO who confirmed the anticipation of the Affordable Care Act played a large part in the shut down, something Kyle Hannon, Elkhart Chamber of Commerce President says many small businesses are wrestling with. “Our businesses have been concerned, kind of wondering ‘how much is this going to cost? How is it going to impact us?”

Fox 28: South Bend, Elkhart IN News, Weather, Sports

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Feds $82,800 Study On How to Use Twitter For ‘Depression Surveillance’

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Photo Credit: APThe federal government is studying how to use Twitter for surveillance on depressed people.

The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) began a study financed by the National Institutes of Health last month that will provide “population level depression monitoring” through the social media site.

The project, “Utilizing Social Media as a Resource for Mental Health Surveillance,” is costing taxpayers $82,800.

While Twitter has been used by government agencies, such as the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security, for national security related monitoring, the project suggests the social network can be used for public health surveillance as well.

“Major depressive disorder is one of the most common debilitating illnesses in the United States, with a lifetime prevalence of 16.2 [percent],” the project grant states. “Currently, nationwide mental health surveillance takes the form of large-scale telephone- based surveys.”

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Shutdown: Bush’s Fault? (+video)

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MRCTV’s Dan Joseph had a question on his mind that he couldn’t shake: who bears the brunt of the blame for the government shutdown? Who really is responsible for the mess we’re in right now? Is it President Obama or former President George W. Bush? He decided to take these questions to the heart of our misery: Washington D.C.

Despite the fact that “Dubya” has been out of office for the past five years, most of the respondents said former President George W. Bush is to blame for the shutdown.

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De Blasio Tells Muslims He’ll End Broad NYPD Spying If Elected

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Photo Credit: Jim Smith/WCBS 880Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio told a group of Muslim supporters Wednesday that they won’t have to live in fear of being under constant surveillance if he’s elected mayor.

As WCBS 880′s Jim Smith reported, de Blasio, the front-runner in the Nov. 5 general election, said that, on his watch, NYPD surveillance tactics would only be authorized to follow up on specific leads and that the police force would be under the supervision of a new inspector general.

“The efforts of surveillance have to be based on specifically specific information, and obviously you need to go through a careful vetting process,” de Blasio said during a rally at Columbus Park in Downtown Brooklyn.

Based on internal NYPD reports and interviews with officials involved in the programs, the NYPD has conducted wholesale surveillance of entire Muslim neighborhoods, chronicling daily life including where people eat, pray and get their hair cut, according to a series of reports by The Associated Press. Police also reportedly infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups.

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Why Oreos Are As Addictive As Cocaine To Your Brain

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Photo Credit: WikipediaA small new study suggests the brain responds to Oreo cookies quite like it responds to actual drugs – at least if you’re a rat. The “pleasure center” of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, apparently gets just as activated in response to Oreos as it does to cocaine and morphine, which could actually have some major public health implications. While the study was done in rats, the authors say it’s likely relevant to humans as well, and could explain why people have such a hard time resisting eating an entire sleeve of the cookies. The study, which will be presented at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual conference next month, also made another discovery: Rats, like humans, like to eat Oreo’s creamy center first.

To test how the animals responded to Oreos vs. drugs, the team trained mice to navigate a maze. On one side, Oreo cookies were provided, and on the other side plain rice cakes were offered. As you’d guess, the rats were significantly more likely to spend time on the Oreo side of the maze. The team also compared these results to rats who were trained with morphine or cocaine rather than Oreos. They found that regardless of what “substance” the rats were offered (Oreos, cocaine, or morphine) they spent about the same amount of time on the “drug” side of the maze.

These behavioral data aren’t so surprising, but the researchers also reported some interesting neurological results. When rats were given Oreos, a protein called c-Fos was expressed strongly in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which is well known to be active in pleasure and addiction.

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Alaska Has Zero Obamacare Enrollees

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Though Alaska’s Sen. Mark Begich (D) promised an “aggressive strategy” to assure the success of ObamaCare in his state, not one Alaskan has been able to sign up for his state’s exchange.

In June, Senate Democrats who voted to approve ObamaCare vowed to double down in their support of the law that has proven to be a disastrous nightmare in its rollout.

“I don’t run from my votes,” Begich told the Associated Press. “Politicians who sit around and say, ‘That’s controversial so I better run from it,’ just ask for trouble. Voters may not always agree with you, but they respect people who think about these issues and talk about them.”

Begich reminded voters that, as a 2008 candidate, he called for an end to insurers denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, an end to lifetime coverage limits, and an easy transition for workers to leave their jobs and still have insurance under the new exchanges.

“There’s a lot of good that people will realize as this all comes online,” Begich said of ObamaCare’s exchanges.

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Obama: Boehner Can’t Control “Extreme Faction” of His Caucus (+video)

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama on Tuesday said talks over a budget deal had been complicated because Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) “can’t control his caucus.”

In an interview with WABC, the president was asked about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) proposal that the president and congressional leaders lock themselves in a room to hammer out a deal to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government.

But Obama said the problem with that solution is that one-on-one negotiations with the Boehner “isn’t necessarily good for the extreme faction in his caucus.”

“It weakens him,” Obama said. “So there have been repeated situations where we have agreements, then he goes back, and then it turns out that he can’t control his caucus. So, the challenge here is, ‘Can you deliver on agreements that are made?’ ”

“One thing that I’ve shown is that if I say I’m prepared to compromise on something, then I can deliver votes,” the president added.

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Obamacare Exchanges Required to Offer “Motor Voter” Registration

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Photo Credit: Pete SouzaBy Sophie Novack.

As members of Congress continue to argue over the Affordable Care Act, one impact of the law on partisan politics has largely been left out of the conversation: voter registration.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also known as the “Motor Voter” law, requires government agencies to offer individuals the opportunity to vote—and that includes the newly opened Obamacare exchanges.

That gives some Republicans one more reason to oppose the law. If low-income applicants lean Democratic, the argument goes, the exchanges could boost the party’s voter rolls.

“The practice raises longstanding suspicions on the right that the ACA exchanges are designed for political as well as regulatory purposes,” said Tim Miller, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been characteristically blunt on the subject. “The purpose of Obamacare got nothing to do with your health, and nothing to do with your insurance,” he said. “It’s about building a permanent, undefeatable, always-funded Democrat majority.”

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Photo Credit: AP11,588,500 Words: Obamacare Regs 30x as Long as Law

By Penny Starr.

Bureaucracies in the Obama Administration have thus far published approximately 11,588,500 words of final Obamacare regulations, while there are only 381,517 words in the Obamacare law itself.

That means unelected federal officials have now written 30 words of regulations for each word in the law.

What is commonly known as the Obamacare law includes both the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA). Since these bills were signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, various agencies in the administration have published 109 final regulations spelling out how they are to be implemented.

These 109 final regulations account for a combined 10,535 pages in the Federal Register, where the government officially published them.

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