Investment Falls Off a Cliff

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U.S. companies are scaling back investment plans at the fastest pace since the recession, signaling more trouble for the economic recovery.

Half of the nation’s 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders have announced plans to curtail capital expenditures this year or next, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal of securities filings and conference calls.

Nationwide, business investment in equipment and software—a measure of economic vitality in the corporate sector—stalled in the third quarter for the first time since early 2009. Corporate investment in new buildings has declined.

At the same time, exports are slowing or falling to such critical markets as China and the euro zone as the global economy downshifts, creating another drag on firms’ expansion plans.

Corporate executives say they are slowing or delaying big projects to protect profits amid easing demand and rising uncertainty. Uncertainty around the U.S. elections and federal budget policies also appear among the factors driving the investment pullback since midyear. It is unclear whether Washington will avert the so-called fiscal cliff, tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to begin Jan. 2.

Read more from this story HERE.

FBI Opens Fire on Unarmed Girl During Unexplained Raid of DC-Area Home (+video)

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An early morning FBI raid has a District Heights family in fear. The agents came into the house and drew their guns at the family’s daughter, but she wasn’t armed.

“They almost hit my daughter, man,” says Emory Hughley. “If I hadn’t told her to go back in her room they probably would have shot her.”

Hughley says he was asleep in the basement when he heard a bang at the front door. His 18-year-old daughter Myasia was upstairs in her room with two friends who were spending the night. Around 6 a.m. he says he came up to the living room and saw 15 FBI SWAT agents coming inside, guns drawn.

“I’m shouting ‘Nobody is armed, nobody has a gun!’ and then all of a sudden I heard ‘She’s got a gun!’ and they just opened fire,” he says.

Hughley says he looked up and saw his daughter standing outside her bedroom in the hallway. Then he heard gunfire. Read more from this story, including a statement that the man’s young daughter was hit by bullet shrapnel in the back of the neck, HERE.

Arizona Gun Store Tells Obama Voters to ‘Turn Around and Leave’

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photo credit: mike saechang An Arizona gun store has a simple message for Barack Obama voters: you’re not welcome here.

The Southwest Shooting Authority in Pinetop, Ariz. posted a sign on its door and took out a newspaper ad declaring that if you voted for the president last week, you’re not allowed in.

“If you voted for Obama, please turn around and leave! You have proven that you are not responsible enough to own a firearm!” the sign states.

Owner Cope Reynolds conceded that he can’t really tell who voted for Obama unless they “own up to it” — but if they do, they’re out.

“If they don’t say anything, we’ll never know,” Reynolds said in an email to the Phoenix New Times. “However, if they own up to it, we will not serve them.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Cardinal Dolan: Catholics Won’t ‘Give In’ on HHS Mandate

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said that the Catholic Church will continue to move ahead with challenges to the Obama administration’s HHS mandate.

Dolan asserted that the Church will not comply with the mandate that requires most employers, even those affiliated with religious organizations, to provide free contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients through health insurance plans.

“The only thing we’re certainly not prepared to do is give in,” Dolan said at a news conference. “Not violate our consciences, and not obey what we consider to be something immoral. That we’re committed on.”

Dozens of Catholic dioceses and other Catholic organizations have filed lawsuits in federal courts over the mandate, which is included in ObamaCare.

Read more from this story HERE.

Manhandling Hostess, Big Labor Costs 18,500 Workers Their Jobs

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Union intransigence and unrealistic expectations at Hostess Brands have forced the bakery to shut its doors permanently and throw 18,500 people out of work. So much for Big Labor caring about the little guy.

A down economy and two restructurings in three years left Hostess, maker of Twinkies and Sno Balls, in dire fiscal straits. The company warned its workers, union and nonunion, to make concessions or everyone would go down in a liquidation.

Instead, one union, the AFL-CIO-affiliated Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International (BCTGM), imagined the company was bluffing and went on strike.

That didn’t matter to the striking union, whose 5,000 members pull in as much as $22 an hour plus medical benefits, get nine weeks of paid leave and a company pension. It ignored the warning and Nov. 15 deadline and now will take 100% losses on salaries and benefits instead of the 8% requested by management. Some union brotherhood — the bakers’ action took their fellow workers down with them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Google Goes to Bat for Net Neutrality, Again

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Google, along with other tech industry supporters of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations mandating net neutrality, is urging a federal court to side with the FCC in a suit brought by Internet service providers Verizon and MetroPCS.

That suit, brought in the wake of the FCC’s controversial order mandating net neutrality issued in late 2010, asserts that the FCC did not have the legal authority required to institute net neutrality rules. In addition, it claims that the FCC lacked evidence to indicate that net neutrality was necessary.

Verizon has also said that net neutrality rules violate the company’s First Amendment rights.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Republicans Question EPA Over Secret Email Accounts

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photo credit: usdagovRepublicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee have launched a probe into whether Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson has been conducting official business using secret email accounts.

The lawmakers said the practice may violate transparency and record-keeping laws.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and vocal critical of the administration’s environmental policies, claimed earlier this month that, while researching a book, he discovered evidence that Jackson was using alias email accounts, including one under the name “Richard Windsor.”

“The use of these accounts could seriously impair records collection, preservation, and access, therefore compromising transparency and oversight,” the Republicans wrote in a letter to Jackson.

Read more from this story HERE.

Despite $15.9 Billion Loss, U.S. Postal Service Execs See Boost in Pay

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photo credit: amelungcDespite nearly $16 billion in annual losses announced by the U.S. Postal Service on Thursday, all but one of the top five executives for the nation’s mail service had an overall compensation increase this year, records show.

Unlike past years, when the Postal Service’s politically appointed, bipartisan board of governors awarded executives lucrative deferred compensation deals and incentive bonuses, this year’s compensation increases came mostly in the form of pension plan earnings.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, for instance, earned a base salary of $276,840, but even without a bonus or incentive payout, his overall compensation came to $512,093, compared with $384,229 in 2011, according to regulatory filings.

Fueling the rise was the fact that his retirement account grew by $186,536. A 37-year employee of the Postal Service, Mr. Donahoe was paid $4.76 per hour during his first job as a postal clerk.

Meanwhile, two other executives — Ellis Burgoyne, chief information officer, and Mary Anne Gibbons, general counsel — also received hefty increases in their retirement plans.

Read more from this story HERE.

University Bans ‘Needlessly Provocative’ Ann Coulter, Welcomes Advocate of Bestiality, Euthenasia and Infanticide

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photo credit: gage skidmoreAfter effectively barring conservative columnist Ann Coulter from speaking on campus last week, the Jesuit college Fordham University welcomed infanticide and bestiality advocate Peter Singer for a panel discussion on Friday.

According to Fordham’s media relations website, Singer, a tenured Princeton bioethics professor, spoke from 4 to 6 p.m. in a panel the university promised “will provoke Christians to think about other animals in new ways.”

Singer has long lamented the societal stigma against having sex with animals.

“Not so long ago,” Singer wrote in one essay, “any form of sexuality not leading to the conception of children was seen as, at best, wanton lust, or worse, a perversion. One by one, the taboos have fallen. But … not every taboo has crumbled.”

In the essay, titled “Heavy Petting,” Singer concluded that “sex across the species barrier,” while not normal, “ceases to be an offence [sic] to our status and dignity as human beings.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Ranchers, Farmers Brace for ‘Death Tax’ Impact (+video)

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photo credit: royal_broilRancher Kevin Kester works dawn to dusk, drives a 12-year-old pick-up truck and earns less than a typical bureaucrat in Washington D.C., yet the federal government considers him rich enough to pay the estate tax — also known as the “death tax.”

And with that tax set to soar at the beginning of 2013 without some kind of intervention from Congress, farmers and ranchers like Kester are waiting anxiously.

“There is no way financially my kids can pay what the IRS is going to demand from them nine months after death and keep this ranch intact for their generation and future generations,” said Kester, of the Bear Valley Ranch in Central California.

Two decades ago, Kester paid the IRS $2 million when he inherited a 22,000-acre cattle ranch from his grandfather. Come January, the tax burden on his children will be more than $13 million.

For supporters of a high estate tax, which is imposed on somebody’s estate after death, Kester is the kind of person they rarely mention. He doesn’t own a mansion. He’s not the CEO of a multi-national. But because of his line of work, he owns a lot of property that would be subject to a lot of tax.

Read more from this story HERE.