Hidden Spending Measures Playing Chicken with Shutdown

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Robert F. Bukaty, APTemporary spending bills approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate include measures that would require the Obama administration to rescind strict new rules on the poultry industry.

Advocates for independent chicken farmers want lawmakers to drop the language, which had been sought by poultry processors and their trade groups. The rules give farmers more clout in their business dealings with the processors.

“It’s a totally outrageous for a handful of multinational corporations to waltz in while we are trying to keep the government open and insert these” provisions, said Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, one of the groups siding with roughly 32,000 farmers who produce the broiler chickens that end up on supermarket shelves.

The most recent showdown between the two adversaries illustrates the way interest groups, large and small, are racing to shape whatever stopgap spending bill Congress passes to end the partial government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

Medical-device manufacturers, for instance, are lobbying aggressively to repeal a 2.3% excise tax imposed on their industry as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Some of the medical-device makers’ supporters on Capitol Hill want to insert the language in either a temporary spending bill restarting government operations or in another measure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has warned the government will run out of borrowed money Oct. 17, requiring action by Congress.

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Government Closes AMBER Alert Website

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amber_Alert.jpgBy Christine Rousselle.

The government website for AMBER Alerts, a service dedicated to the safe recovery of missing children, has been closed during the shutdown. The name is a reference to Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered in 1996. Over 650 children have been safely recovered since the advent of the AMBER Alert system.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:

AMBER Alerts are broadcast through radio, television, road signs and all available technology referred to as the AMBER Alert Secondary Distribution Program. These broadcasts let law enforcement use the eyes and ears of the public to help quickly locate an abducted child. The U.S. Department of Justice coordinates the AMBER Alert program on a national basis.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘The Taliban Have Never Come for a Small Girl’: What Brave Pakistani Schoolgirl Malala Told Friend Before She was Shot in the Head (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty Images Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai told her friend not to worry because the Taliban ‘have never come for a small girl’, shortly before she was shot in the head by a militant.

The 16-year-old was gunned down last year on her school bus after angering the Taliban with her brave and outspoken pleas for girls to be educated.

In her autobiography, I am Malala, she describes the moment she was shot on her way home from school in the valley of Swat in north-west Pakistan on October 9, 2012.

Malala was travelling with about 20 other girls when a masked man approached their school bus and said: ‘Who is Malala?’

Although no one said a word, some girls looked at Malala and she as the only one with her face uncovered.

Read more from this story HERE.

America’s Warning About Jihadis in the Military

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WNDRet. Command Sergeant Major Bart E. Womack says it was golfer Tiger Woods who saved his life when a grenade landed at his feet.

Womack was stationed in Kuwait before the coalition’s invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power in 2003.

He said he was awake in the middle of the night because he is a golf fan, and Woods was competing in the Bay Hill Invitational and Womack knew a campaign was coming so every swing could have been the last one he would see for a long time.

Then it happened.

“As I concentrated on Tiger’s swing and listened for the sweet THWACK of a ball, I heard the tent flap flutter again and a scraping sound as something rolled toward me,” he writes in his new book “Embedded Enemy: The Insider Threat.”

“The hand grenade rolled between Tiger and me, resting at the tent’s edge,” he reports. “It is amazing how quickly thoughts can ping through your mind. I knew grenades only took five seconds to blow, and I think I wasted two seconds coming to the shocking realization of what was happening.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Boy Boards Plane To Vegas At MSP Without Ticket

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: CBSA 9-year-old Minneapolis boy was able to get through security and onto a plane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport without a ticket, an airport spokesman said Sunday.

Security officials screened the boy at airport shortly after 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Patrick Hogan said. The boy then boarded Delta Flight 1651, which left for Las Vegas at 11:15 a.m.

The flight was not full, Hogan said, and the flight crew became suspicious mid-flight because the boy was not on their list of unattended minors. The crew contacted Las Vegas police, who met them upon landing and transferred the boy to child protection services, Hogan said.

Minneapolis Police went to his residence. Parents told officers they “hadn’t seen much of him today.”

WCCO contacted the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) Sunday morning, during which a spokesperson said staffing is currently low due to the number of employees furloughed in the wake of the federal government shutdown.

Read more from this story HERE.

New York Police: Bikers Stomped on SUV Driver (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: QuotableKidneyAbout a half-dozen bikers accused of beating an SUV driver last weekend used their helmets to attack him and kicked his head and body as he lay on the ground, New York police said.

Police said one of the bikers — Robert Sims — also stomped on the driver’s head and body, according to a detective’s criminal complaint.

Sims was one of two bikers who turned himself in to authorities on Friday. He has been charged with attempted assault, gang assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

According to police, Sims can be seen in a video going after the SUV.

The driver of the SUV suffered two black eyes and cuts on his face and side, requiring stitches, the criminal complaint said.

Read more from this story HERE.

As U.S. Struggles with Health Reform, the Amish Go their Own Way

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters/Jonathan BachmanThe debate over U.S. healthcare reform that has gripped the nation and led to a government shutdown is of small concern in rural Pennsylvania’s Amish country for a very simple reason.

Along with eschewing cars and many other modern technologies, the descendants of 18th-Century German immigrants who practice the Amish and Old Order Mennonite religions, have effectively opted out of Obamacare, along with most federal safety net programs.

A little-known provision of the law with its roots in a 1950s battle over Social Security exempts these communities from the individual mandate, an element of the Affordable Care Act that requires most Americans to purchase health insurance in some form.

But it is not the idea of health insurance the Amish reject – the close-knit communities essentially insure themselves.

“We have our own health care,” said a retired Amish carpenter, who like other Amish interviewed for this story, asked that his name not be used because of a traditional aversion to publicity and bringing attention to oneself.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mike Lee: He and Ted Cruz Faced ‘Demeaning’ and ‘All-Out Attack’ from GOP Colleagues (+video)

/14 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreSenate Republicans furiously attacked Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Utah Sen. Mike Lee behind closed doors and leaked details of an off-record meeting to the media to harm the two senators, according to Lee.

Lee divulged some of the details of a closed-door meeting on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Friday, since he said much of it had been leaked to the media by his own colleagues.

“[N]ormally, I don’t comment at all on closed-door meetings between Republican senators,” Lee said. “It’s a pretty strict rule we follow. But one exception I’ll make is circumstances like this, where contents of the meeting were leaked deliberately by several of my colleagues and leaked in a very one-sided way. I’m happy to tell you about it here.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Top Dem: Shutdown ‘May Widen our Path’ to Re-Taking House

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyBy Alexandra Jaffe.

House Democrats believe the shutdown will help them put the lower chamber in play this cycle.

Democratic candidates running against vulnerable Republicans have wasted no time in hammering the incumbents as key actors in what they’re characterizing as a Tea Party-led shutdown that’s hurting Americans.

Many of those Republicans, in a signal they’re concerned about the possible political ramifications, are calling for an end to the stalemate — like Reps. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) and Jon Runyan (R-N.J.), all of whom are facing reelection in difficult districts and all of whom called this week for the passage of a clean CR to end the shutdown.

Multiple polls, too, have shown Americans are placing the blame for the shutdown on Republicans.

Democrats need to pick up 17 seats to win back the House, a tall order under any circumstances, and even taller in an off-year when the party holding the White House typically loses seats.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________________________

Photo Credit: © Images.com/CorbisThe Shutdown Is a Sideshow. Debt Is the Threat

By Niall Ferguson.

In the words of a veteran investor, watching the U.S. bond market today is like sitting in a packed theater and smelling smoke. You look around for signs of other nervous sniffers. But everyone else seems oblivious.

Yes, the federal government shut down this week. Yes, we are just two weeks away from the point when the Treasury secretary says he will run out of cash if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Yes, bond king Bill Gross has been on TV warning that a default by the government would be “catastrophic.” Yet the yield on a 10-year Treasury note has fallen slightly over the past month (though short-term T-bill rates ticked up this week).

Part of the reason people aren’t rushing for the exits is that the comedy they are watching is so horribly fascinating. In his vain attempt to stop the Senate striking out the defunding of ObamaCare from the last version of the continuing resolution, freshman Sen. Ted Cruz managed to quote Doctor Seuss while re-enacting a scene from the classic movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Meanwhile, President Obama has become the Hamlet of the West Wing: One minute he’s for bombing Syria, the next he’s not; one minute Larry Summers will succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the next he won’t; one minute the president is jetting off to Asia, the next he’s not. To be in charge, or not to be in charge: that is indeed the question.

According to conventional wisdom, the key to what is going on is a Republican Party increasingly at the mercy of the tea party. I agree that it was politically inept to seek to block ObamaCare by these means. This is not the way to win back the White House and Senate. But responsibility also lies with the president, who has consistently failed to understand that a key function of the head of the executive branch is to twist the arms of legislators on both sides. It was not the tea party that shot down Mr. Summers’s nomination as Fed chairman; it was Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the new face of the American left.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats say House Vote for Back Pay Shows GOP Wants Government to Stay Closed

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERSThe Republican-led House passed a bill Saturday to give thousands of furloughed federal workers back pay when the government reopens, but Democrats promptly characterized it as a signal the GOP doesn’t want the partial shutdown to end.

“Now we’re saying to federal employees: We’re going to pay you when this is all over with,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said minutes after the 407-to-0 House vote. “But right now, you just stay home … watch TV, play chess, whatever you’re going to do, because we won’t let you work.”

The Senate is expected to OK it as well but adjourned Saturday without a vote. The Democrat-controlled chamber will not scheduled a vote until at least Monday afternoon, when members return to Washington.

The back-and-forth comes on the fifth day of the partial government shutdown and marks the second straight weekend that members of Congress are on Capitol Hill trying to agree on a spending bill to end the saga.

At the same time, House Democrats extended Reid’s talking point while also adding that both sides have agreed to spending levels for a temporary funding bill to end the partial shutdown, so House Republicans should drop their effort to defund or delay ObamaCare and vote this weekend to fully re-open the government.

Read more from this story HERE.