St. Lucie County Canvassing Board Orders Retabulation of All Early Votes in Allen West Race

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The St. Lucie County Canvassing Board has ordered the retabulation of all the county’s early votes in the highly contested congressional race between Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) and Democrat Patrick Murphy, according to Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, a volunteer lawyer for the West campaign. The board voted 2-1 in favor of recounting the votes.

“This retabulation of all early votes as the Supervisor of Elections originally planned is a victory for democracy,” Shapiro told TheBlaze. “This restores some level of trust and public confidence in the system…it was the right thing to do.”

Starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, election officials will retabulate a total of 33,379 ballots from all eight days of early voting in St. Lucie County, he explained.

West needs to gain just 249 votes from those ballots to trigger a statutory recount under state law, Shapiro said. West gained 535 votes in the initial recount of 16,275 early voting ballots, making it theoretically possible that the outspoken congressman could pick up the required votes to force a recount. Both candidates combined lost more than 800 votes, however, 80 percent of the decrease was owned Murphy.

Before the canvassing board voted, state Division of Elections official David Drury made a “personal” recommendation that all early votes in the county be retabulated after officials realized there were 304 early voting ballots that were never counted. There was also reportedly a missing “communications log.”

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Federal Housing Administration Next in Line for Bailout

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photo credit: jeffryturnerWASHINGTON — The Federal Housing Administration, which has played a crucial role in stabilizing the housing market, said it ended September with $16.3 billion in projected losses — a possible prelude to a taxpayer bailout.

The precarious financial situation could force the FHA, which has been self-funded through mortgage insurance premiums since it was created during the Great Depression, to tap the U.S. Treasury to stay afloat.

The agency said a determination on whether it needs a bailout won’t come until next year.

The FHA is required to maintain enough cash reserves to cover losses on the mortgages it insures. But in its annual actuarial report to Congress, the agency said a slower-than-anticipated housing market recovery has led its reserves to fall $16.3 billion below anticipated losses.

The FHA’s cash reserves aren’t supposed to drop below 2% of projected losses. They ended the 2012 fiscal year at -1.44%, down from the seriously low level of 0.24% at the end of 2011.

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Mark Levin: Tea Party Only Thing That Stands ‘Between Liberty And Tyranny’

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Conservative scholar, talk radio host, and former Reagan administration official Mark Levin said conservatives need to first overthrow the Republican establishment to more successfully take on President Barack Obama and the institutional left.

“We cannot get through Obama and the left until we get through the Republican Establishment,” Levin said, railing against establishment consultants who attack the base and politicians who know nothing of “Burkean reform” because they have spent their whole careers “clawing their way to the top.”

In a talk at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday with his mentor, former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, for whom Levin served as Chief of Staff, Levin said the Republican Party is, “devouring the conservative movement,” and the old bulls need to step aside in favor of a new generation of conservatives who are fluent in conservatism.

“It’s time for the old bulls to get out of the way and for the fresh faces who believe in conservatism and liberty and originalist principles to step up,” Levin said, criticizing those like House Speaker John Boehner for “yielding territory” to the left in negotiations.

Levin said the Tea Party consists of constitutionalists, libertarians, Evangelicals, and those who are against the rigged establishment, beltway culture that for too long has not embraced conservatism and, as a consequence, lost national elections (George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney).

“The Tea Party is the only thing that stands between liberty and tyranny,” Levin said. “We have to defeat the Republican establishment mush in Washington, D.C.”

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Woman in Petraeus Scandal Has Been White House Guest On Multiple Occasions

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The two women at the center of the David Petraeus scandal — the biographer with whom he had an extramarital affair and the socialite who received worrisome emails that led investigators to uncover the illicit relationship — visited the White House on separate and apparently unrelated occasions. Neither woman met with President Barack Obama during their visits.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director last week after acknowledging an affair with writer Paula Broadwell. In briefings Friday with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the retired four-star general was apologetic and regretful and insisted that his resignation was related only to his personal behavior.

Paula Broadwell, who was writing a book about Petraeus and eventually became his paramour, attended meetings in June 2009 and June 2011 on Afghanistan-Pakistan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is located in the White House complex, a White House official said.

Jill Kelley, the Tampa, Fla., socialite who initiated the investigation that revealed the affair, and her twin sister had two “courtesy” meals at the White House mess as guests of a midlevel White House aide in September and October, the official said. Kelley and her family also received a White House tour on the weekend before the Nov. 6 election.

The White House visits by Broadwell and Kelley illustrate the wide-ranging access both women enjoyed because of their ties with Petraeus, Gen. John Allen and others in the close-knit military community. The White House official discussed their visits on condition of anonymity because the visitors logs being cited have yet to be made public.

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End of an Era as Hostess Twinkies Closes Up Shop Forever

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If there’s anything that symbolized America’s greatness in the snack industry, it was the iconic Hostess Twinkie. The tasty snack was a must have for cravers of a cheap, high caloric/carb/sugary fueled food rush.

We grew up with the entire family of Hostess snack foods: From chocolate covered Cupcakes, to the powder sugar Gems, Ding Dongs, Ho Ho’s, Sno Balls and Donettes.-these were comfort foods to millions of Americans. Every quick stop and grocery store in America carried Hostess products.

Everyone has had a personal relationship with some Hostess product at some point in their life.

But today it was announced that relationship is coming to an end as Hostess stated they were shutting their doors forever.

On announcement of the news, stoners on the Cheech and Chong blog said one of their favorite treats is going up in smoke and decry the empty Hostess shelves in local grocery stores.

An American success story in manufacturing and marketing since 1930,, Hostess, (Interstate Bakeries), also owns, Wonder Bread, Nature’s Pride, Dolly Madison, Butternut Breads, and Drake’s brands.

Hostess had been trying to get an agreement from their unionized labor pool of approximately 18,000, in order to stay in business and remain competitive. Operations at their plants had been paralyzed due to strikes and pickets. Last minute negotiations had brought some of the unions to agreement, but the bakers union voted 92% to turn down requests for scale backs on pay. As a result Hostess is shutting its doors and the 18,000 employees are all out of work.

The company had 372 collective bargaining agreements with a dozen unions and had roughly $2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities to its various unions’ workers.
Hostess work rules based on labor contracts included separate drivers for deliveries of different Hostess products, vastly increasing labor costs to the company.

Management has a part to play in the demise of the company as well. Many said they have been riding the popularity of the Twinkie since 1933 and had failed to refresh their company and products image. Sales began to decline in the 1980s and ’90s as consumers found healthier alternatives to snack cakes and white bread. The debt started to pile up and lead to the first company bankruptcy in 2004.

Whatever the reason for the ending of this company, it will be liquidating and selling off its brand names. It will be sold off piecemeal and reconstituted in much smaller separate entities. So perhaps the Twinkie will be back, but it will never be the same.
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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Ted Cruz: Mitt Romney ‘French-kissed’ Barack Obama

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Sen.-elect Ted Cruz believes Mitt Romney got a little too close to Barack Obama in the third presidential debate.

“I’m pretty certain Mitt Romney actually French-kissed Barack Obama,” Cruz said in a speech at the Federalist Society’s annual conference Friday.

Cruz said that conservatives failed to make their case to the American people, leaving Romney no choice but to move toward the president. “We didn’t win the argument, we didn’t even make the argument” throughout much of 2012, Cruz said.

But in the first debate, he argued, that changed.

“It was the one time we actually contested ideas, presented two viewpoints and directions for the country,” he said. “And then inevitably, there are these mandarins of politics, who give the voice: ‘Don’t show any contrasts. Don’t rock the boat.’ So by the third debate, I’m pretty certain Mitt Romney actually French-kissed Barack Obama.”

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EPA Refuses to Waive Ethanol Mandate

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photo credit: wxmomThe Environmental Protection Agency is rejecting requests from states and meat industry groups to waive regulations that require the blending of ethanol into gasoline.

EPA rejected petitions from nearly a dozen states, including Texas, Virginia, and Maryland, for waivers of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

“[T]he agency has not found evidence to support a finding of severe ‘economic harm’ that would warrant granting a waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard,” EPA said Friday.

Opponents of the RFS say drought-driven spikes in corn prices and reduced harvests should prompt the agency to relax the requirements, which require refiners to blend billions of gallons of ethanol into gasoline.

Livestock, poultry and food industry groups dismayed at the amount of corn used for ethanol have joined states in calling for EPA to back off the ethanol mandate. EPA also faced congressional pressure to ease the requirements. But EPA tossed aside their arguments.

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Bible Publisher Beats Obama Abortion-HHS Mandate in Court

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photo credit: dctim1A federal court today stopped enforcement of the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate against a Bible publisher which filed a lawsuit against it.

The mandate has generated massive opposition from pro-life groups because it forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

The Obama administration opposed the order, arguing that Tyndale House Publishers isn’t religious enough for an exemption from the mandate, a component of ObamaCare that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

The decision only applies to the company and does not stop the Obama HHS mandate nationwide against other religious groups, businesses, hospitals, or educational institutions.

Represented by attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, Tyndale House Publishers, based in Illinois, is the world’s largest privately held Christian publisher of books, Bibles, and digital media and directs 96.5 percent of its profits to religious non-profit causes worldwide. The publisher specifically objects to covering abortifacients under the mandate.

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Petraeus Confirms Early Knowledge That Benghazi Was Al Qaeda Attack; CIA Memo Changed by White House? (+video)

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photo credit: fort braggFormer CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points — while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News that intelligence officials who testified in a closed-door hearing a day earlier, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, said they did not know who changed the talking points. He said they went out to multiple departments, including the State Department, National Security Council, Justice Department and White House.

“To me the question right now is who changed those talking points and why. … I’d say it was somebody in the administration had to have taken it out,” King told Fox News. “That, to me, has to be pursued.”

Petraeus left Capitol Hill around noon, after testifying in private hearings before the House and Senate intelligence committees. In his wake, Republicans and Democrats battled over whether his testimony should raise more suspicions about the administration’s handling of the attack.

King and other Republicans indicated they still have plenty of questions about the aftermath of the strike.

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Denny’s to Charge 5% ‘Obamacare Surcharge’ and Cut Employee Hours to Recoup Costs

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photo credit: eric t. morrisPresident Obama’s election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power, but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.

Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny’s and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers’ bills and will reduce his employees’ hours.

With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is ‘the only alternative. I’ve got to pass on the cost to the customer.’

The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, ‘that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.’

Claiming that he is not anti-insurance Metz has said that he understands the problems this will cause for his employees.

‘I think it’s a terrible thing. It’s ridiculous that the maximum hours we can give people is 28 hours a week instead of 40,’ said Metz to the Huffington Post. ‘It’s going to force my employees to go out and get a second job.’

Obamacare requires businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.

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