'Seismic Change' as Dollar Hits 4-Year High

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Photo Credit: AlamyThe US dollar has surged to a four-year high against a basket of currencies and has punched through key technical resistance, marking a crucial turning point for the global financial system.

The so-called dollar index, watched closely by traders, has finally broken above its 30-year downtrend line as the US economy powers ahead and the Federal Reserve prepares to tighten monetary policy.

The index – a mix of six major currencies – hit 87.4 on Monday, rising above the key level of 87. This reflects the plunge in the Japanese yen since the Bank of Japan launched a fresh round of quantitative easing last week.

Data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange show that speculative dollar bets on the derivatives markets have reached a record high, with the biggest positions against sterling, the New Zealand dollar, the Canadian dollar, the yen and the Swiss franc, in that order.

David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, said a “seismic change” is under way and may lead to a 20pc surge in the dollar over a 12-month span. The mega-rally of 1980 to 1985 as the Volcker Fed tightened the screws saw a 90pc rise before the leading powers intervened at the Plaza Accord to cap the rise.

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Voter Fraud and Voter I.D.

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Photo Credit: TownHallOne of the biggest voter frauds may be the idea promoted by Attorney General Eric Holder and others that there is no voter fraud, that laws requiring voters to have a photo identification are just attempts to suppress black voting.

Reporter John Fund has written three books on voter fraud and a recent survey by Old Dominion University indicates that there are more than a million registered voters who are not citizens, and who therefore are not legally entitled to vote.

The most devastating account of voter fraud may be in the book “Injustice” by J. Christian Adams. He was a Justice Department attorney, who detailed with inside knowledge the voter frauds known to the Justice Department, and ignored by Attorney General Holder and Company.

One of these frauds involved sending out absentee ballots to people who had never asked for them. Then a political operator would show up — uninvited — the day the ballots arrived and “help” the voter to fill them out. Sometimes the intruders simply took the ballots, filled them out and forged the signatures of the voters.

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‘Scandal’ Sex Scene Airs Right After ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,’ Making Parents Angry

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Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley / FlickrFor those who say network scheduling isn’t a big deal anymore thanks to DVRs, we turn your attention to what happened Thursday night on ABC. In a very jarring transition, the adorable end of the annual special “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” segued into “Scandal,” which happened to kick off with a very steamy sex scene.

On Monday, the watchdog group Parents Television Council unleashed an angry statement at ABC condemning the abrupt shift in kid-centric programming to a very much not age-appropriate scene. After all, families are known to gather around the cartoon every year and may not have anticipated that they needed to quickly change the channel.

“Shame on ABC for putting a peep show next to a playground,” PTC President Tim Winter said. “In less than 26 seconds we were taken from the Peanuts pumpkin patch to a steamy ‘Scandal’ sex scene.”

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Churches Defy IRS, Endorse Candidates, Dare Agency to Sue…

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Photo Credit: APA record number of rogue Christian pastors are endorsing candidates from the pulpit this election cycle, using Sunday sermons to defiantly flout tax rules.

Their message to the IRS: Sue me.

But the tax agency is doing anything but. Although the IRS was sued itself for not enforcing the law and admitted about 100 churches may be breaking the rules, the pastors and their critics alike say the agency is looking the other way. The agency refuses to say if it is acting.

At the same time, the number of pastors endorsing candidates in what they call Pulpit Freedom Sunday jumped from 33 people in 2008 to more than 1,600 this year, according to organizers, Alliance Defending Freedom. And this year, they’ve stepped up their drive, telling pastors to back candidates any Sunday up until the election, not just one Sunday as in past years.

The church leaders are jumping in high-profile races that will help decide the Senate and tight governor races across the country, endorsing candidates from Thom Tillis (R) over Sen. Kay Hagan (D) in North Carolina to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) over Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) in Kentucky.

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Survey: 51 Percent of People Who Used Obamacare Exchanges Last Year Won't Use Them Again

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Photo Credit: TownHallAccording to a new study conducted by Bankrate.com, a majority of Americans who used the Obamacare healthcare exchanges last year through Healthcare.gov don’t plan on doing so again this year when open enrollment begins on November 15.

“Those who experienced the rocky rollout of the Obamacare health exchanges firsthand are feeling nervous about prices and wary of technical glitches on the eve of the second open enrollment period, according to the latest Bankrate Health Insurance Pulse survey. All of the survey respondents were from households that used the exchanges during the initial open enrollment last fall and winter,” Bankrate.com states about the study. . .

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National Constitution Center to Display Rare Founding Document

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Photo Credit: Scott Olson / GettyThe National Constitution Center in Philadelphia previewed the new George H.W. Bush Gallery last week and displayed its hallmark exhibition, “Constituting Liberty: From the Declaration to the Bill of Rights.”

The gallery features a first-edition copy of the Declaration of Independence and a copy of the U.S. Constitution from its first public printing.

But its star attraction—thanks to an historic agreement between the state of Pennsylvania and the New York Public Library—is an exhibition of one of the 12 remaining original copies of the Bill of Rights. This exhibition marks the first public display of the document in Pennsylvania.

The preview of the gallery opening later this year brought rare public remarks from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. He spoke of how fitting it was for the cities of New York and Philadelphia to work in tandem to display the document, as both are former capitals of the United States.

The “Bill of Rights codifies the rights in the Declaration of Independence,” Alito said. “The Bill of Rights is needed to keep the federal government and the state governments in check, that they do not violate precious individual rights. … The precious freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights are always fragile, are always under threat.”

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'I Have to Check Her Teeth': Chilling Footage Shows ISIS Fighters at Slave Girl 'Market' Bartering for Young Women…

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Photo Credit: YouTubeAn unsettling video has emerged purporting to show Islamic State fighters bartering over Yazidi women at a slave girl ‘market’.

The terror organisation recently boasted of enslaving women from the Iraqi ethnic minority, and the men appearing in the clip explain it is ‘slave market day’.

The clip shows the men negotiating the price of the women, with blue and green-eyed young girls fetching a higher price.

It starts with one man saying to the camera: ‘Today is the slave market day. Today is the day where this verse applies: ‘Except with their wives and the (captives) whom their right hands possess, – for (then) they are not too be blamed’.

He added: ‘Today is distribution day God willing. Each one takes his share.’

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Report: White House Delayed Action to Save American Journalists Held By ISIS For Five Weeks

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Photo Credit: TownHallAccording to new reporting from Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, the White House sat on intelligence detailing the location of ISIS hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff for five weeks before attempting a rescue. When a rescue operation was eventually launched, the location of the hostages had changed and shortly afterward, Foley and Sotloff were beheaded on video.

“The criticism is that the White House had a high [intelligence] threshold than those who would carry out the mission.”

More on the failed rescue attempt from the WSJ:

The Wall Street Journal reports that the July 3 raid on an oil storage facility, a mission for which Delta Force commandos drilled for weeks, took place too late, as officials believe the hostages were moved by the militants just days before.

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WATCH: This Robotic Penguin Chick is Doing Undercover Work in Antarctica

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Photo Credit: YouTubeIf you’re going to build a robotic spy, you might as well make it a cutie — especially if it needs to go incognito in crowds of adorable penguin chicks and their parents.

Researchers report in Nature Methods that they’ve created a new tool for penguin research: A furry fake penguin perched atop a remote-controlled rover.

A fiberglass penguin seemed to frighten the penguins, but the final (fuzzier) version passed muster.

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Surprise: Many Rock the Vote Celebs Didn't Vote in 2010 Midterms

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Photo Credit: TownHallIn case you missed Rock the Vote’s video this year, celebrities such as Lena Dunham, Sophia Bush, and Ireland Baldwin explain in a parody of Lil Jon’s “Turn Out for What” why they’re going to vote in the midterm elections. The group bills itself as a non-partisan organization seeking to drive the youth vote, but it’s really about as liberal as you can get, as Cortney has already explained.

It probably comes as no surprise, then, that at least five of the celebrities in the video didn’t even vote in the last midterm election.

Didn’t vote in the last midterm elections? It turns out many of the celebrities pressuring young people to vote in tomorrow’s off-year elections didn’t cast a ballot last time, either.

According to the Washington Post at least five stars who participated in a recent Rock the Vote video urging youth to exercise their franchise didn’t bother to show up to the polls themselves in 2010.

View co-host Whoppi Goldberg, Orange is the New Black’s Natasha Lyonne, Glee’s Darren Criss, Girls creator Lena Dunham and Rich Kids of Beverly Hills star E.J. Johnson did not vote in the last midterm election, the Post discovered.

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