Bernanke Leaves Fed with Record Balance Sheet

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez MonsivaisRetiring Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was replaced by Janet Yellen as of today, is leaving the Federal Reserve with an unprecedented $4,102,138,000,000 in total assets on its balance sheet, up 391 percent from the $834,663,000,000 in total assets the Fed showed on its balance sheet when Bernanke took over as chairman in February 2006.

Much of the increase in the Fed’s assets has come in the form of U.S. Treasury securities and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities that the Fed purchased over the last five years in its attempts to stimulate the economy.

As of Feb. 1, 2006, when Bernanke took over as chairman, the Fed’s balance sheet indicated it owned $748,840,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities. At that time, the balance sheet listed no mortgage-backed securities. As of Jan. 29, 2013, the balance sheet indicated the Fed owned $2,243,176,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities and $1,532,224,000,000 in mortgage-backed securities.

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Keystone XL Won’t Worsen Climate, State Dept. Study Finds

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Photo Credit: shannonpatrick17The proposed Keystone XL pipeline cleared a key hurdle today with a government study that found its impact on the climate would be minimal, which supporters said meets President Barack Obama’s test for allowing the project to be built.

In its final environmental review, the U.S. State Department found the Canada-U.S. oil pipeline would not greatly increase carbon emissions because the oil sands in Alberta will be developed anyway.

The study, while not the final word, is important because Obama has said he wouldn’t approve Keystone if it would exacerbate carbon pollution. Now the pipeline’s fate comes down to broader questions about whether the project is in the U.S. national interest, weighing matters such as energy needs and diplomatic relations.

“We are one step closer toward approval of the Keystone XL pipeline,” Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat and pipeline supporter, said in a statement. “Not only is it unacceptable, but it’s embarrassing that we cannot approve a pipeline application in the time it took us to fight World War II.”

TransCanada Corp. (TRP) applied more than five years ago for a permit to build the pipeline through the U.S. heartland, connecting the oil sands with refineries along the coast of Texas and Louisiana. It’s planned 830,000-barrel-a-day capacity would represent a fraction of U.S. oil imports, though the $5.4 billion project has spawned a multimillion-dollar lobbying fight and is forcing Obama to choose between angering an ally in Canada or his supporters in the environmental movement.

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DOD’s $5 Billion Push to Stop the Next Edward Snowden

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Photo Credit: Reuters/The Fiscal TimesIn the wake of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks, the Defense Department is scrambling to secure data on the growing number of mobile devices and computers with access to sensitive materials.

DOD’s latest action to safeguard data is limiting the use of IPhone and Android phones, forcing an unspecified number of Army personnel to using a Blackberry—a cellular phone that was once considered state of the art until the iPhone came along. iPhones and Android phones don’t use the Good Mobile Messaging System used by DOD to send secure data. Until the Pentagon upgrades to Fixmo, a new $16 million system compatible with the more advanced phones, some soldiers are going to have to carry the unpopular Blackberry.

An email announcing the change and obtained by NextGov.com said, [Army personnel] “have been told that between now and whenever this ‘fixmo’ is online, their Droids and iThings are simply to become useless. Expectation is that Droid and iThing users will be deviceless until March 2014 at earliest, and they can either do without or go back to a BB 9930,” an older Blackberry.

According to tech experts, the switch from more advanced phones to older model Blackberries is one small part of DOD’s seemingly never ending task to secure data. DOD faces tremendous challenges on this front.

John Slye, an advisory research analyst at Deltek, called what’s unfolding at the Pentagon the “perfect storm.” First, DOD allowed soldiers to use late model smart phones, forcing the department to keep up security on mobile devices like iPads and Androids. Technology on these newer devices evolves quickly, forcing DOD to continuously update security software to keep up.

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Attack On Mass Transit Seen As Top Super Bowl Security Risk

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/LUCAS JACKSONBomb attacks of the kind that tore through mass transit sites in Russia ahead of the upcoming Sochi Olympics are a top concern of security officials preparing for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the head of the New Jersey State Police said on Wednesday.

While law enforcement officials said they were not aware of any specific threats targeting the February 2 National Football League championship in East Rutherford, New Jersey, attacks like those that killed 34 people in two days in Russia late last year are their biggest worry.

“Of particular concern to us is what was going on overseas in Volgograd in regard to the Sochi Olympics. As you know both of those bombings were targeting mass transit,” Rick Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, told reporters. “That is a concern with the mass transit; we’ve prepared ourselves for it.”

Officials have sharply limited parking at MetLife Stadium, where Sunday’s game will be played, and expect as many as 30,000 people to arrive by bus or rail. Security screening will start at train stations, where fans will not be able to board stadium-bound trains or buses without tickets to the game, officials said.

New York Police Department Commissioner William Bratton said that while authorities were focused on a mass transit type of attack, they were not aware of any specific plans to target the game or surrounding events.

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New Study: Liberals Drink More Alcohol than Conservatives

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Photo Credit: Irish Government – Pool/Getty ImagesA sobering new study published by the Journal of Wine Economics — yes, there is a Journal of Wine Economics — finds that alcohol consumption in American states rises as the population’s politics becomes more liberal.

The study by Pavel Yakovlev and Walter P. Guessford of Duquesne University in Pennsylvania shows a direct correlation between political beliefs and the demand for alcohol. The study compares sales of alcoholic beverages against the political leanings of a state’s members of Congress, as ranked by liberal organizations Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE).

The research reveals that states with more liberal representatives like Nevada tend to consume up to three times more alcohol per head than more politically conservative states like Arkansas and Utah:

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Senate Democrats Have Reason to Freak Out

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressBy Jennifer Rubin.

Senate Democrats on the 2014 ballot who were sitting in the House chamber last night had reason to worry — a lot.. Here are eight reasons they should be nervous:

1. The president is already a drag on the ticket in 2014 in swing states. Gallup reports that among the twelve states in which Obama is most unpopular (ranging from 22.5 percent to 35 percent approval) there are four hotly contested Senate seats where the Republican can lasso his opponent to the president (e.g. West Virginia, Montana, South Dakota and Alaska). In other competitive states, the president is also a drag. (Arkansas 34.9 percent, Louisiana 40 percent, New Hampshire 44.6 percent, Colorado 42.3). In the top 12 battleground states, his approval averages 36 percent.

2. Whatever you thought of the State of the Union address it was no game changer, and the Democratic candidates will have to defend a “more of the same” message.

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsVulnerable Dems avoiding Obama? Itinerary skips over battlegrounds

By Fox News.

His poll numbers are diving, he just gave a State of the Union address that even his own supporters panned as flat, and with three years left to run the country he’s fending off the term “lame duck.”

So as Democrats fight to keep control of the Senate and make gains in the House, are they giving President Obama the cold shoulder?

Over the past six months, the president only has visited two states — North Carolina and Louisiana — where a vulnerable Senate Democrat is facing a tough race. And none of the states Obama was visiting on his latest two-day tour have Senate Democrats up for reelection in the fall.

The president’s itinerary has led to Republican jeers that vulnerable and moderate Democrats are intentionally avoiding him, keeping their distance as they try to hold their seats in November.

Democrats themselves aren’t exactly challenging that narrative.

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‘Duck Dynasty’ Star Turns Heads at State of the Union

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Robertson attended the speech as a guest of Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister, and he stood out in the sea of coats and ties with his long beard, untucked white shirt, and signature American flag bandana around his head.

“It was neat being here,” he told reporters after the speech. “It’s cool to be here. Neat experience.”

From the moment Robertson arrived in the Capitol complex, he was in high demand — multiple lawmakers tweeted pictures of themselves posing with him before the speech.

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House Leaders Sell Immigration Blueprint

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The House Republican leadership is trying to sell their colleagues on a series of broad immigration principles, including a path to legal status for those here illegally.

Speaker John Boehner’s leadership team introduced the principles at their annual policy retreat here. Top Republicans circulated a tightly held one-page memo titled “standards for immigration reform” toward the tail-end of a day that include strategy conversations about Obamacare, the economy and the national debt.

In the private meeting where the language was introduced, Boehner (R-Ohio) told Republicans that the standards are “as far as we are willing to go.”

“Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that for her caucus, it is a special path to citizenship or nothing,” Boehner said, according to a source in the room. “If Democrats insist on that, then we are not going to get anywhere this year.”

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Push for New National Cemeteries, As Veteran Deaths Bring Sites Near Capacity

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

National cemeteries across the country are starting to reach capacity amid an increase in the number of veterans dying — fueling a push for the government to approve new sites, particularly in states that don’t have any.

“One of the benefits is to be buried with dignity. All veterans are entitled to that,” Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said.

Titus represents one of the 11 states, many of them in the West, that don’t have a national cemetery. She’s introduced a bill that would force the Department of Veterans Affairs to put them in those states.

“I think they should have that opportunity and not be a victim of where they live,” she said of veterans.

Just what does a national cemetery mean to a veteran?

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Sandy Hook Killer’s PC Files: Pedophile Rights, Man/Boy Love Movie, ‘School Shooting’ Game

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The state’s attorney report on the horrific murders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School by shooter Adam Lanza found no “conclusive motive” for his actions but did document unsettling facts about the 20-year-old killer, including computer files he kept on the rights of pedophiles, a movie about man/boy love, instant messages concerning “homosexual fantasies,” numerous mass murder documents, and a computer game entitled “School Shooting.”

In “School Shooting,” an amateur computer game, “the player controls a character who enters a school and shoots at students,” reads an Investigation Report (DPS-302-E) that is among the 1,000-plus pages comprising the state’s attorney report on the shootings.

Lanza, after shooting his mother Nancy Lanza at home on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, drove to the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and shot and killed 20 children and six adults, and then shot himself. (Full report, text and images here. Summary report here.)

In his summary report, State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of Danbury Stephen Sedensky says the “shooter had significant mental health issues” but “the shooter’s mental status is no defense to his conduct as the evidence shows he knew his conduct to be against the law. He had the ability to control his behavior to obtain the results he wanted, including his own death.”

The summary report states that in the electronic evidence gathered at Lanza’s house from his computer, “investigators found many things that are on a typical hard drive or memory card” but, “That being said, the following selected topics or items were found within the digital evidence seized.”

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