39 Percent of Unemployed Workers Have Been Out of Work Longer than 27 Weeks

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Of the 12.2 million Americans who were unemployed as of December 2012, 39 percent (4.7 million) had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, according to a new report from the Urban Institute.

These 4.7 million workers are known as the long-term unemployed, and are among the worst consequences of the Great Recession of 2008.

Report author Josh Mitchell noted that “relative to currently employed workers, the long-term unemployed tend to be less educated and are more likely to be nonwhite, unmarried, disabled, impoverished and to have worked previously in the construction industry and construction occupations.”

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Man who Hacked Zuckerberg’s Facebook Account to Get Cash Reward … but not from Facebook

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

A man who hacked into Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page to expose a software bug is getting donations from hackers around the world after the company declined to pay him under a program that normally rewards people who report flaws.

Khalil Shreateh discovered and reported the flaw but was initially dismissed by the company’s security team. He then posted a message on the billionaire’s wall to prove the bug’s existence.

Now, Marc Maiffret, chief technology officer of cybersecurity firm BeyondTrust, is trying to mobilize fellow hackers to raise a $10,000 reward for Shreateh after Facebook refused to compensate him.

Maiffret, a high school dropout and self-taught hacker, said Tuesday he has raised about $9,000 so far, including the $2,000 he initially contributed.

He and other hackers say Facebook unfairly denied Shreateh, a Palestinian, a payment under its “Bug Bounty” program. It doles out at least $500 to individuals who bring software bugs to the company’s attention.

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The Missing Koch Report

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

In late September 2010, Iowa senator Chuck Grassley and six of his colleagues grew suspicious that a senior Obama administration official had improperly accessed the tax information of industrial behemoth Koch Industries. After Austan Goolsbee, then-chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, made an erroneous statement that implied direct knowledge of the company’s confidential tax status, the senators demanded that the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) investigate. Now, more than two years since the completion of that investigation, and despite repeated requests from Koch Industries and Senator Grassley himself, the results have yet to see the light of day.

Ironically, federal law is designed to keep that information from public view. Asked how taxpayers might discover whether their information has been accessed improperly, a spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee tells National Review Online that, in most cases, “They won’t.”

In order for Koch Industries or the general public to see the TIGTA report, the IG’s office must refer the case to the Department of Justice for prosecution. If Justice declines to prosecute, all the relevant information remains under lock and key. Critics worry that a highly politicized Justice Department is unlikely to take up cases that have the potential to damage the Obama administration.

Koch Industries’ tax returns became the subject of controversy when, in an August 2010 briefing with reporters on a newly released tax-reform report, Goolsbee claimed that the company paid no corporate-income taxes. “We have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax,” he said, “some of which are really giant firms — you know, Koch Industries, I think, is one, is a multibillion-dollar business…”

Goolsbee’s assertion raised the eyebrows of a half-dozen GOP lawmakers, who subsequently called on Treasury Department inspector general J. Russell George to investigate whether Goolsbee had accessed the company’s tax returns in violation of federal law. In a letter to George, Grassley and his colleagues said they were “very concerned” by Goolsbee’s remarks. “The statement that Koch is a pass-through entity implies direct knowledge of Koch’s legal and tax status, which would appear to be a violation of section 6103,” they wrote, referring to the section of the Internal Revenue Code that protects the confidentiality of tax returns and all related information. George agreed to investigate.

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Ted Cruz to Renounce Canadian Citizenship: ‘Nothing Against Canada, but I’m an American’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Jason Howerton.

Less than 24 hours after the Dallas Morning News reported that he likely maintains dual citizenship to the U.S. and Canada, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced Monday evening that he will renounce his Canadian citizenship.

“Now the Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship. Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I’m an American by birth and as a U.S. senator; I believe I should be only an American,” Cruz said in a statement.

Several legal experts apparently determined that Cruz remains a Canadian citizen because his mother gave birth to him in the country and he never renounced it…

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Dallas News

Photo Credit: Dallas News

Dual citizenship may pose problem if Ted Cruz seeks presidency

By Todd Gillman.

Born in Canada to an American mother, Ted Cruz became an instant U.S. citizen. But under Canadian law, he also became a citizen of that country the moment he was born.

Unless the Texas Republican senator formally renounces that citizenship, he will remain a citizen of both countries, legal experts say.

That means he could assert the right to vote in Canada or even run for Parliament. On a lunch break from the U.S. Senate, he could head to the nearby embassy — the one flying a bright red maple leaf flag — pull out his Calgary, Alberta, birth certificate and obtain a passport.

“He’s a Canadian,” said Toronto lawyer Stephen Green, past chairman of the Canadian Bar Association’s Citizenship and Immigration Section.

The circumstances of Cruz’s birth have fueled a simmering debate over his eligibility to run for president. Knowingly or not, dual citizenship is an apparent if inconvenient truth for the tea party firebrand, who shows every sign he’s angling for the White House.

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Senator Says Obama Administration Secretly Suspended Military Aid to Egypt

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. government has decided privately to act as if the military takeover of Egypt was a coup, temporarily suspending most forms of military aid, despite deciding not to announce publicly a coup determination one way or the other, according to a leading U.S. senator.

In the latest example of its poorly understood Egypt policy, the Obama administration has decided to temporarily suspend the disbursement of most direct military aid, the delivery of weapons to the Egyptian military, and some forms of economic aid to the Egyptian government while it conducts a broad review of the relationship. The administration won’t publicly acknowledge all aspects of the aid suspension and maintains its rhetorical line that no official coup determination has been made, but behind the scenes, extensive measures to treat the military takeover of Egypt last month as a coup are being implemented on a temporary basis.

The office of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the head of the Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, told The Daily Beast on Monday that military aid to Egypt has been temporarily cut off.

“[Senator Leahy’s] understanding is that aid to the Egyptian military has been halted, as required by law,” said David Carle, a spokesman for Leahy.

The administration’s public message is that $585 million of promised aid to the Egyptian military in fiscal 2013 is not officially on hold, as technically it is not due until Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, and no final decisions have been made.

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$2,001,093,000,000: Fed’s Ownership of U.S. Debt Breaks $2T for First Time

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BEN BERNANKE(CNSNews.com) – The Federal Reserve’s holdings of publicly traded U.S. Treasury securities—federal government debt—pushed above $2 trillion for the first time last week, hitting approximately $2,001,093,000,000 as of Aug. 14, according to the Fed’s latest weekly accounting.

The Fed’s accounting for the previous week showed that it had owned approximately $1,993,375,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities as of Aug. 7.

Back on Dec. 31, 2008, before the Fed began its strategy of “Quantitative Easing,” the Fed owned only $475.9 billion in U.S. Treasury securities. Since then, the Fed’s holdings of U.S. government debt have more than quadrupled.

Launched in 2009, the Fed’s Quantitative Easing (QE) efforts have attempted to stimulate the economy.

“Under QE,” explains a February 2013 Congressional Research Service report, “the Fed attempts to lower long-term Treasury and MBS [mortgage-backed security] yields directly through purchases that drive down their yields, in the hope that lower Treasury and MBS yields will indirectly filter through to reductions in other private long-term yields. (Lower Treasury yields do not directly stimulate economic activity—they are only stimulative if other yields fall as a result.) This could occur because Treasury securities are considered a ‘benchmark’ against which other private securities are priced, so that other securities are automatically repriced when Treasuries are repriced (although the change is unlikely to be one-to-one).”

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Al Jazeera America Promises a More Sober Look at the News

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Photo Credit: Suzanne DeChillo

Photo Credit: Suzanne DeChillo

Fourteen hours of straight news every day. Hard-hitting documentaries. Correspondents in oft-overlooked corners of the country. And fewer commercials than any other news channel.

It sounds like something a journalism professor would imagine. In actuality, it is Al Jazeera America, the culmination of a long-held dream among the leaders of Qatar, the Middle Eastern emirate that already reaches most of the rest of the world with its Arabic- and English-language news channels. The new channel, created specifically for consumers in the United States, will join cable and satellite lineups on Tuesday afternoon.

Al Jazeera America is the most ambitious American television news venture since Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes started the Fox News Channel in 1996. It faces some of the same obstacles that Fox eventually glided over — including blanket skepticism about whether distributors, advertisers and viewers will give it a chance. But that is where the parallels to other channels end, because Al Jazeera America is going against the grain of seemingly every trend in television news.

“Viewers will see a news channel unlike the others, as our programming proves Al Jazeera America will air fact-based, unbiased and in-depth news,” said Ehab Al Shihabi, the channel’s acting chief executive, on a news conference call last week. He was explicit about what will be different, saying, “There will be less opinion, less yelling and fewer celebrity sightings.”

Mr. Al Shihabi and other Al Jazeera representatives say proprietary research supports their assertions that American viewers want a PBS-like news channel 24 hours a day. Originally the new channel was going to have an international bent; now its overseers emphasize how much American news it will cover and how many domestic bureaus it will have, which some see as an effort to appease skeptics.

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Study: NY Welfare Recipients Eligible for More in Benefits than Teachers Earn

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

A new study finds that a New York mother of two is eligible for $38,004 in welfare benefits–a sum more than the annual salary of a New York entry-level school teacher.

The study, conducted by the CATO Institute, says in many states welfare pays better than work. Topping the list of wage-equivalent benefits for a mother and two children was Hawaii at $60,590. Idaho came in last with $11,150.

The study found that 33 states and the District of Columbia offer welfare benefits that pay recipients more than an $8-an-hour job would. Twelve states and the District of Columbia offer welfare packages that pay better than a $15-an-hour job does.

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Unpublished CRS Memo: Obama Administration Has Missed Half Of Obamacare’s Legally Imposed Implementation Deadlines

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Cong Library - Main Reading RoomIn recent months, President Obama and his subordinates have waived or delayed a number of Obamacare’s notable features, such as the law’s employer mandate, and its procedures for protecting taxpayers from fraud and identity theft.

Earlier this month, in that context, I obtained a heretofore-unpublished memorandum from the Congressional Research Service. The CRS, Congress’ non-partisan in-house think tank, compiled 82 deadlines that the Affordable Care Act mandates upon the first three years of its own implementation. Remarkably, it turns out that the White House has missed half of the deadlines legally required by the ACA. And some of those deadlines remain unmet to this day.

The new CRS memo, dated June 5, 2013, is an addendum to a series of previous reports in which the agency examined missed deadlines during the law’s first two years. The CRS excluded from its analysis deadlines that don’t reflect on the administration’s competence; for example, as states expand Medicaid, the federal spending associated with those expansions occurs more or less automatically. Deadlines that the law imposes on non-federal government actors, like state governments and private companies, were also excluded.

41 out of 82 deadlines missed by the administration.

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Regulation Nation: Obama Expands Regulatory State

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Obama has overseen a dramatic expansion of the regulatory state that will outlast his time in the White House.

The reach of the executive branch has advanced steadily on his watch, further solidifying the power of bureaucrats who churn out regulations that touch nearly every aspect of American life and business.

Experts debate whether federal rule-making has accelerated under Obama, but few dispute that Washington, for better or worse, is reaching deeper than ever before into the workings of society.

“It would be difficult for anyone to pretend that this isn’t a high-water mark in terms of regulation,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office who now heads the American Action Forum.

Obama famously signaled his intent to use the machinery of government to further his policy goals after the 2010 elections, declaring: “Where Congress won’t act, I will.”

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