Time For a Yard Sale? Selling Excess Property Could Net Government Billions (+video)

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When families face a budget crunch, they have but a few options — spend less, make more or starting selling stuff.

So why doesn’t the federal government do the same?

Given the current state of the country’s finances, many are wondering if it is time for the federal government to sell what it doesn’t need — basically, hold a yard sale.

The federal government is sitting on billions in assets that are either sluggish or just dead weight. That includes federal land, buildings and other structures. Two years ago, President Obama’s deficit commission identified 64,000 buildings and structures that it deemed excessive, underutilized or vacant and recommended should be sold.

“So instead of raising taxes, which takes money out of the economy and lowers economic activity, we ought to be looking at selling federal assets,” said Myron Ebell, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

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Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Plans to Put Armed Posse at Schools (+video)

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An Arizona sheriff has proposed placing an armed volunteer posse at many Phoenix-area schools, in response to the deadly school shooting in Connecticut.

Earlier in the week, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne proposed firearms training for one educator in every school in the state. Following that lead, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday he wants to start dispatching volunteer patrols to schools within a week, according to MyFoxPhoenix.com.

The report emphasized that the plan calls for armed posse members around the perimeters of schools, not inside them. It will focus on about 50 schools within Maricopa County.

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Feinstein Drops Gun Bill Before Police Give Report on Newtown Shooting

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The Connecticut State Police report regarding the deadly mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School will not be released for “several months,” spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said over one week ago.“There is no further information to be released by the Connecticut State Police at this time.”

Despite the lack of information about the Newtown gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, or how he managed to get the weapons from his mother Nancy Lanza, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced an updated version of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban bill to Congress on December 17.

Feinstein’s office did not respond to an inquiry as to why she did not wait for a police report to be released with so many facts yet unknown. For example, numerous claims have been made that Mrs. Lanza even attempted to secure her weapons before her son used them to commit mass murder. Newtown Police told Breitbart News that the department could “neither confirm nor deny” that Mrs. Lanza did not at least attempt to secure the guns her son was reported to have used.

Breitbart News’ AWR Hawkins points that the Feinstein Assault Weapon Bill is actually a handgun ban.

“[T]he details of the ban betray a gun grab that includes semi-automatic pistols that use ‘a detachable magazine’ and have ‘one military characteristic.'”

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No Let Up In Senseless Attacks On Tim Tebow

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After years of swirling around Tim Tebow, the vultures now have something else to pick on.

It’s barely a scrap, if that, for holier-than-Tebow critics who have been foaming at the mouth to dig up a granule of dirt on the man ever since he announced he was still a virgin.

So as reports surfaced that Tebow informed New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan that he didn’t want to be a part of the wildcat offense in Sunday’s game against the San Diego Chargers, apparently angry at being passed over for the starting quarterback job in place of maligned Mark Sanchez, the vultures closed in.

He’s a “fraud,” a “loser” and, as ESPN’s Merril Hoge declared, is as “phony as a three-dollar bill.”

Never mind that reports of Tebow’s insubordination all came via secondhand, unnamed sources or that Ryan wouldn’t confirm the story. One reported moment of a frustrated quarterback is enough for some to assassinate the character of a man who has proven time and time again to be as standup a human being as there is in a world where more and more sitting down is encouraged and celebrated.

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Report: $91 Million Spent On Secret NSA Tests Probing Domestic Computer Systems

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The National Security Agency is conducting secret tests on the computer systems of U.S. private sector entities, including public utilities, a CNET report revealed this week.

The secret program, dubbed Perfect Citizen, is part of an effort by the government to improve security systems in the private sector and test offensive operations against enemies’ computer systems.

Targets reportedly include power grids and gas pipelines. The NSA’s operation reportedly probes their computer systems for vulnerabilities as part of a larger cybersecurity and cyberwarfare initiative.

Details about the program were revealed through documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington, D.C.-based research nonprofit.

Of the 190 pages obtained by EPIC about the program, 98 were heavily redacted for a number of reasons, including portions labeled “classified top secret.”

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Poll: Majority Expect Recession in 2013

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photo credit: donkey hotey

A majority of voters believe that a recession is likely next year regardless of whether lawmakers reach a last-minute deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” according to a new poll.

A full 70 percent of voters told the conservative-leaning pollster Rasmussen they expect a recession next year if Congress fails to stop the tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin in January.

But even if lawmakers take action before the end of the year, 54 percent believe a recession is coming in 2013, with 26 percent rating that outcome “very likely.”

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The Tea Party Has Not Yet Begun to Fight

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If the Tea Party has been weakened by the November election, why are the mainstream media expending so much effort attacking it?

The latest attempt is today’s front-page article by the New York Times, which alleges that the Tea Party is turning to “narrower” issues and suggests, none too subtly, that Congress should stop paying attention to it.

As proof, the Times offers the fact that Republican leaders “have embraced raising tax revenues in budget negotiations, repudiating a central tenet of the Tea Party.” It ignores the fact that Republican leaders could not muster the votes in the House to pass those proposals.

To the great frustration of the mainstream media and the GOP establishment alike, the Tea Party continues to hold the line against tax hikes and new bailouts. It also won a significant victory with the recent passage of right-to-work legislation in Michigan.

These are not “narrower” issues: they are the most fundamental issues concerning the nation’s fiscal health and economic future. It is the Times and the liberal gentry that it serves who cling to narrow, often contrived issues such as the co-called “war on women” to maintain their political clout. The ailing, indebted Times hates the Tea Party precisely because it is serious about economic realities the left would prefer to deny.

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Journalists’ Addresses Posted In Revenge For Newspaper’s Google Map Of Gun Permit Owners

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A week after the Newtown massacre, The Journal News published an interactive Google Map with the names and addresses of gun permit owners in select New York cities. The bold move has escalated into a transparency arms race, after a Connecticut lawyer posted the phone number and addresses of the Journal‘s staff, including a Google Maps satellite Image of the Publisher’s home. “I don’t know whether the Journal’s publisher Janet Hasson is a permit holder herself, but here’s how to find her to ask,” read Christopher Fountain’s blog post. The double irony here is that open data was heralded as a tool of enlightened civic dialog, and has been co-opted for fierce partisanship, bordering on public endangerment.

The Journal‘s original publication of the map sparked nationwide outrage and thousands of angry comments. Gun permit holding is public information in New York, and can be acquired through a mere request via the Freedom of Information Act. But, coming on the heals of the Newtown shooting, the publication had a clear provocative intent. “New York residents have the right to own guns with a permit and they also have a right to access public information,” said a defiant Hasson.

Given that Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle used in the School shooting was reportedly legally registered with the killer’s mother, the Google Map sparked a debate about whether gun owners should be labeled like other potential menaces to society, “The implications are mind-boggling,” said Marine Scott F. Williams to The Journal News, “It’s as if gun owners are sex offenders (and) to own a handgun risks exposure as if one is a sex offender. It’s, in my mind, crazy.”

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State Governments To Share the ‘Death Tax’ Loot If Feds Go Over Fiscal Cliff

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Falling off the “fiscal cliff” is a bad thing, right? Not necessarily for some state governments that could begin collecting more in estate taxes on wealth left to heirs if the United States goes over the “cliff,” allowing sharp tax increases and federal spending cuts to take effect in January.

In an example of federal and state tax law interaction that gets little notice on Capitol Hill, 30 states next year could collect $3 billion more in estate taxes if Congress and President Barack Obama do not act soon, estimated the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

The reason? The federal estate tax would return with a vengeance and so would a federal credit system that shares a portion of it with the 30 states. They had been getting their cut of this tax revenue stream until the early 2000s. That was when the credit system for payment of state estate tax went away due to tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush.

With the return of the credit system next year as part of the “cliff,” states such as Florida, Colorado and Texas — which have not collected estate tax since 2004 — could resume doing so. California Gov. Jerry Brown has already begun to add the anticipated estate tax revenue into his plans, including $45 million of it in his 2012-2013 revised budget.

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America Has a Brand-New Benedict Arnold

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He single-handedly delivered the swing vote to approve Obamacare and perhaps even crushed the American health system that has been the envy of the world.

WND has selected U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. for its first-ever Benedict Arnold Award.

“There are lots of bad guys out there who would qualify as ‘Villain of the Year,’ but precious few candidates for the ‘Benedict Arnold Award,’” explained WND Vice President and Managing Editor David Kupelian. “Benedict Arnold, after all, was a good guy; he was an American general in the Revolutionary War who fought valiantly on behalf of the Continental Army – that is, until, for reasons yet unknown, he defected to the British side and betrayed the cause he had formerly served.”

Kupelian added, “That pretty much describes Justice Roberts, who gained the enthusiastic support of conservatives and other Constitution-lovers by virtue of his earlier rulings and judicial temperament, and yet betrayed that trust in a devastating way. And we still don’t know why he did it.”

On June 28, 2012, Roberts joined the left of the Court in a dramatic 5-4 decision to uphold President Obama’s signature legislation. The Court ruled that Obamacare’s individual mandate is not constitutional under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, but is reasonably considered a tax valid under Congress’ authority to “lay and collect taxes.”

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