| No Deal on Debt Ceiling Posted: 22 Apr 2011 02:00 AM PDT 
By JAKE SHERMAN & JONATHAN ALLEN | 4/20/11 6:41 PM EDT | POLITICO One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP "will not grant their request for a debt limit increase" without major spending cuts or budget process reforms. The Virginia Republican's missive is a clear escalation in the long-running Washington spending war, with no less than the full faith and credit of the United States hanging in the balance. In the most recent budget battle — over a six-month spending bill — Republican leaders carefully avoided threatening to shut down the government. Now, Cantor says he's ready to plunge the nation into default if the GOP's demands are not met. People close to Cantor say that he hopes to make clear that small concessions from Democrats, including President Barack Obama, will not be enough to deliver the GOP on a debt increase. Democrats were quick to punch back. "Congress will not permit the nation to default on its obligations because it would be beyond irresponsible to do so," said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), in a statement to POLITICO. "Leader Cantor knows this, and should heed the many business leaders who are telling Republicans to stop playing games with the debt ceiling to gain political leverage." Republicans are floating a wide range of major structural reforms that could be attached to the debt limit vote, including statutory spending caps, a balanced budget amendment and a two-thirds vote requirement for tax increases and debt limit increases. Liberals want a "clean" vote to raise the $14.3 trillion borrowing limit. Those in the center simply hope to find an accord that will prevent the nation from defaulting on its obligations and sending global markets into a tailspin. The Treasury Department estimates the country will hit the debt ceiling between mid-May and July 8, and Democrats say it's no time to play chicken with the standing of the nation's credit — which has taken a hit already this week with Standard and Poor changing its outlook on U.S. debt from "stable" to "negative." Click Here for the full article. |
| High-Tech Police Spying Sparks Privacy Battle Posted: 22 Apr 2011 02:00 AM PDT By Maxim Lott Published April 21, 2011 | FoxNews.com Michigan State Police Thursday defended their use of a high-tech device that connects to almost any personal cell phone — and in mere minutes downloads its entire contents, including call logs, texts, photos and web history. State police say the device, called the Cellebrite UFED, is an effective tool in fighting crime. But the Michigan branch of the ACLU disagrees, fearing that cops are abusing the device — even using it on routine arrests and traffic stops. “We believe that [the police] are using new devices that allow them to extract information from cell phones without a warrant, and using them during routine traffic stops,” Kary Moss, executive director of the Michigan ACLU, told FoxNews.com. Michigan State Police spokesman Tiffany Brown told FoxNews.com Thursday that the devices are only used to gather evidence for serious cases such as crimes against children — and that it has never been the department’s policy to use the device during routine traffic stops. But Brown declined to say whether the device has ever been used in traffic stops, saying instead that there have been no citizen complaints or lawsuits. Click here for the full story |
| Rationed Canadian Healthcare Leads Family To U.S. for Hope Posted: 22 Apr 2011 02:00 AM PDT Published April 21, 2011 | Associated Press 
A 15-month-old boy at the center of an end-of-life debate on Thursday left the St. Louis hospital that treated him after doctors in his native Canada refused, doctors and family friends said. Joseph Maraachli left Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis before dawn Thursday and flew with his parents and 7-year-old brother back to Canada, exactly one month after receiving a tracheotomy. The Rev. Frank Pavone of New York City-based Priests for Life, which lobbies against abortion rights and euthanasia and paid for Joseph’s transfer to St. Louis, confirmed that the family was back in their Ontario apartment after a brief checkup at a Windsor hospital. “It’s just a great thing,” Pavone said. Known as Baby Joseph, the child suffers from the progressive neurological disease Leigh Syndrome. Doctors in Canada had refused to perform the tracheotomy, saying it was futile because the disease is terminal, and an Ontario court decided doctors could remove the child’s breathing tube. His family sought help from American hospitals, and Cardinal Glennon agreed to treat Joseph.
Joseph’s parents are overjoyed with his progress, said Brother Paul O’Donnell, a family friend. “I would say they think it’s a miracle. It’s absolutely astounding,” O’Donnell said. “He is on a lot less medication. He is doing phenomenal.” St. Louis doctors said the procedure provides Joseph with increased mobility and comfort while providing a more stable airway. It protects his lungs from inhaled saliva or other material that could cause aspiration pneumonia. Doctors have declined to predict if the procedure will extend Joseph’s life but his family believes it could add months. “By providing him with this common palliative procedure, we’ve given Joseph the chance to go home and be with his family after spending so much of his young life in the hospital,” said Dr. Robert Wilmott, chief of pediatrics at Cardinal Glennon. Click here for the full story |
| Obama Deficit Plan Underwhelms Posted: 22 Apr 2011 02:00 AM PDT 
Published April 21, 2011 | FoxNews.com A leading panel of budget experts estimated Thursday that President Obama’s latest spending plan does not save as much money as the White House initially claimed and is about $1.5 trillion more expensive than the Republican plan. Since he delivered a major fiscal policy address last week, Obama and other officials have touted that the White House plan would cut $4 trillion over 12 years. Using that figure, they’ve claimed it’s very similar to a House Republican plan which supposedly would cut $4.4 trillion over 10 years. But given that most budget outlines use a 10-year window, as required by law, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget tried to offer an apples-to-apples comparison — and determined Obama’s proposal would actually cut deficits by $2.5 trillion over the next decade. It credited the president for “moving the ball forward,” but said that based on Congressional Budget Office assumptions, the plan doesn’t do enough to tackle the debt crisis. “It appears unlikely that the policies proposed in the president’s framework would be sufficient to reduce debt to a manageable level,” they wrote. Click here for the full article |
| Internet Sales Tax to be Introduced in US Senate Posted: 22 Apr 2011 02:00 AM PDT 
Published April 17, 2011 | New York Post WASHINGTON — Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) could propose sweeping legislation as soon as Monday to tax all online purchases, in a move aimed at closing states’ budget shortfalls. Such a tax would plow more than $1 billion in tax revenues into New York’s state coffers for the 2012 budget, according to some estimates. William Fox, a University of Tennessee economics professor, said that based on his own estimates, New York lost about $865.5 million in tax revenues in 2010 — almost enough to close that year’s $1 billion budget deficit — based on its four percent tax rate. However, he acknowledged that a research report he helped author last year did not appropriately factor in the blistering pace of online sales growth over the past several years. Fox estimates that the annual growth rate for online sales was actually about 14 percent from 2006 to present, rather than the study’s 9.9 percent. Some reports indicate that online sales hit a whopping $165 billion in 2010 — an annual growth rate closer to 15 percent, which would put New York’s tax receipts at close to $1 billion. Click here for more. |
| Baby Joseph Safely Home in Canada Posted: 22 Apr 2011 02:00 AM PDT |
| S&P action strengthens Tea Party’s hand Posted: 21 Apr 2011 10:26 AM PDT Reuters | Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:16pm EDT By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) – The powerful yet often criticized Tea Party movement found its fiscal conservatism strengthened on Monday when Standard & Poor’s threatened to downgrade the U.S. credit rating. S&P’s move changing its outlook on the U.S. rating to negative from stable comes as Republicans and Democrats spar over how to slash the deficit and debate whether to raise the limits on U.S. credit. The influential Wall Street rating agency changed its credit outlook for the United States citing a “material risk” that Washington may not agree on how to trim the massive U.S. deficit, projected to reach $1.4 trillion this year. “It (the S&P report) is a vindication of the Tea Party and its stance that we’re spending too much,” said Republican Blake Farenthold, one of more than 50 members of the House of Representatives’ Tea Party Caucus. “The Tea Party isn’t a bunch of radical crazies. They are everyday folks who have enough common sense to realize that we are on an unsustainable path of ‘spend, spend, spend,’” Farenthold told Reuters. The Tea Party helped make deficit reduction a top issue in last year’s election, and, in doing so, helped Republicans win control of the House of Representatives from President Barack Obama’s Democrats. Under pressure from the Tea Party, Congress last week approved what was billed as a historic deal to cut U.S. spending this fiscal year by $38 billion. But Tea Partiers, who favored at least $100 billion in cuts, complained it wasn’t nearly enough. House Republican Leader Eric Cantor, who along with other high-ranking members of his party have drawn Tea Party fire, reiterated his call for any increase in the $14.3 trillion debt limit to be accompanied by significant spending cuts. Click here for the full article. |
| Tea party backers hold tax-day rally Posted: 21 Apr 2011 10:19 AM PDT By Becky Schlikerman Tribune reporter 7:28 p.m. CDT, April 18, 2011 Ask tea party supporters why they bundled up Monday and attended a downtown rally, and many will have a similar answer. "I think the country is going in the wrong direction," said Marlene Koerner, 65, of Huntley, summing up the mood of the crowd. Koerner was one of several hundred tea party demonstrators from across the region who gathered in Daley Plaza to vent their frustrations with high taxes, unruly spending and big government. It was the third such rally since 2009 on the day federal taxes are due, said Steve Stevlic, director of the Chicago Tea Party. The crowd of approximately 500 people, many holding American flags and handmade signs, cheered on the dozen speakers who took to the stage, including U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., and Herman Cain, a tea party leader who has formed a presidential exploratory committee. Walsh, a freshman congressman and tea party favorite, told the boisterous crowd that "progress" is being made in Washington. "The reason we are (making progress) is because you all won't go away," he said. "For us to get this country back, it's got to be you all. |
| NRA chief says Obama re-election threatens guns rights Posted: 21 Apr 2011 10:15 AM PDT Posted on 19 April 2011 By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK — The chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association said in a talk here today he worries about the  future of gun rights if President Obama is re-elected and makes more nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court. "I believe that the Second Amendment hangs by one vote, and this 2012 election could break the back of it one way or the other," said Wayne LaPierre, the association's CEO and executive vice president, in a packed room at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. LaPierre, who has held his current post since 1991, said Obama already has named two people to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who LaPierre believes "will spend the next 30 years trying to gut the Second Amendment." The high court ruled 5-4 in 2008 that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own a firearm for private use. Last year, the court ruled 5-4 that the Second Amendment's guarantee of the individual right to bear arms applies to state and local gun laws. Click here for the full article. |
| GOP escalates debt-limit demands Posted: 21 Apr 2011 10:12 AM PDT POLITICO | By JAKE SHERMAN & JONATHAN ALLEN | 4/20/11 6:41 PM EDT Updated: 4/21/11 12:16 PM EDT One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP "will not grant their request for a debt limit increase" without major spending cuts or budget process reforms. The Virginia Republican's missive is a clear escalation in the long-running Washington spending war, with no less than the full faith and credit of the United States hanging in the balance. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53501.html#ixzz1KB8V5Cr6 |
