President's debt offer: risky but could be win-win
July 23, 2011

It's hard to know which is more surprising: a Democratic president pushing historic cuts in spending, including Social Security and Medicare. Or a Republican-controlled House refusing to accept the deal and declare a huge victory for long-sought GOP goals.
Political orthodoxy has been turned on its head ever since President Barack Obama stepped up his call for a bipartisan "grand bargain" to raise the national debt ceiling and avert a default on U.S. obligations. The deal would include $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years, mainly through steep spending cuts but also including up to $1 trillion in new federal revenue.
Those are far bigger targets than typical budget negotiations. And the spending cuts would seem more appropriate for a Republican president than a Democrat.
Some pundits and political insiders say Republicans should leap at the offer. But there's a hitch: The new revenue - mainly from overhauling the tax code and lowering rates by eliminating or limiting a broad swath of loopholes, deductions and tax breaks - presumably would violate a no-net-tax-hike pledge that scores of Republican lawmakers have signed.
Mostly for that reason, House Republicans so far have rejected Obama's overture, despite the interest shown by Speaker John Boehner. Some pro-Republican analysts seem bewildered.
Obama's offer of big spending cuts would have "brutally fractured the Democratic Party," and congressional Republicans probably "will come to regret this missed opportunity," wrote David Brooks, a moderate-to-conservative columnist for The New York Times.

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Bachmann seeks to reassure voters over migraines
July 22, 2011

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann sought on Wednesday to reassure voters that her migraines are not debilitating, releasing a doctor's statement that said she is able to manage them.
A report on The Daily Caller website said Bachmann, a deeply conservative member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota, suffers from stress-induced severe headaches that occur about once a week and can "incapacitate" her for days at a time.
Bachmann rejected the report and said she controls her migraines easily with prescription medication.
Seeking to put the matter to rest, Bachmann's campaign released a letter by Brian Monahan, the attending physician for the U.S. Congress, that said Bachmann has had an extensive evaluation by his office as well as a neurologist.
"Your evaluation has entailed detailed labwork and brain scans all of which were normal. Your migraines occur infrequently and have known trigger factors of which you are aware and know how to avoid," Monahan said in the letter to Bachmann.
He said she controls her migraines with prescription medication sumatriptan and odansetron and that "you are overall in good general health."
A leading figure in the conservative Tea Party movement, Bachmann, 55, is battling with Mitt Romney for leadership of the Republican race to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in next year's election.
Asked about Bachmann's migraines, Romney said her health should not be an issue in the campaign.
"There's no question in my mind that Michele Bachmann's health is in no way an impediment to her being able to serve as president," Romney said at a campaign stop in Los Angeles.

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Murdoch returns to News Corp. worries in US
July 21, 2011

Emerging relatively unscathed from a British parliamentary hearing on the phone hacking scandal, Rupert Murdoch returned to the United States on Wednesday, where his company faces a host of financial and legal challenges.
As the scandal runs its course in the U.K., Murdoch's News Corp. must confront at least two U.S.-based shareholder lawsuits, a possible Standard & Poor's credit downgrade, and the beginnings of a federal investigation.
The conglomerate Murdoch controls through a family trust owns a movie studio, a broadcast network, pay TV channels and newspapers around the globe. It made $33 billion in revenue last year and generates about $2 billion in cash every year. The company has the financial capacity to withstand fines or most other corporate calamities.
Even so, News Corp. could face further damage to its standing. Standard & Poor's put the company on notice that it may cut its investment-grade "BBB+" credit rating in the next 90 days. The move could affect nearly $15.5 billion in debt and raise the company's costs when it obtains loans in the future.
"We see increased business and reputation risks associated with the broadening legal inquiries going on," said Michael Altberg, the S&P; analyst who issued the notice on Monday. Even after what some said was a good performance by Murdoch at Tuesday's hearing, those risks remain, Altberg said.
"There are reputational risks, which definitely could lead to the alienation of current and potential clients such as advertisers," he said.

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Obama open to short-term debt fix if big deal agreed
July 21, 2011

The White House signaled on Wednesday it could support a short-term increase in the U.S. borrowing limit for "a few days" if lawmakers agreed to a broad deficit reduction deal but needed more time to pass it.
The move, a shift from President Barack Obama's previous position, reflects the growing political reality that time is short for Congress to pass a massive deficit-cutting deal before the United States runs out of money on August 2.
A new proposal for long-term deficit reduction from a group of senators known as the Gang of Six has revived hope that a broad agreement on spending cuts can be reached to avoid a looming default and alleviate pressure on America's triple-A credit rating.
Obama had repeatedly opposed a short-term extension of the $14.3 trillion (8.8 trillion pound) debt limit as a solution to the dilemma, and the White House reiterated that stance on Wednesday -- but with a caveat.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a written statement that the president would consider supporting a short-term fix if a deal had been reached "and we needed a very short-term extension (like a few days) to allow a bit of extra time for a bill to work its way through the legislative process."
The United States will run out of money to pay its bills if Congress does not increase the debt limit by August 2. Failure to act could plunge the United States back into recession and send shockwaves through global financial markets.

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Huge deficit-cutting bill sails through GOP House
July 20, 2011

Defying a veto threat, the Republican-controlled House voted Tuesday night to slice federal spending by $6 trillion and require a constitutional balanced budget amendment to be sent to the states in exchange for averting a threatened Aug. 2 government default.
The 234-190 vote marked the power of deeply conservative first-term Republicans, and it stood in contrast to calls at the White House and in the Senate for a late stab at bipartisanship to solve the nation's looming debt crisis.
President Barack Obama and a startling number of Republican senators lauded a deficit-reduction plan put forward earlier in the day by a bipartisan "Gang of Six" lawmakers that calls for $1 trillion in what sponsors delicately called "additional revenue" and some critics swiftly labeled as higher taxes.
The president said he hoped congressional leaders would "start talking turkey" on a deal to reduce deficits and raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit as soon as Wednesday, using that plan as a roadmap.
Wall Street cheered the news of possible compromise as well. The Dow Jones industrials average soared 202 points, the biggest one-day leap this year.
Treasury officials say that without an increase in U.S. borrowing authority by Aug. 2, the government will not be able to pay all its bills, and default could result in severe consequences for the economy.
Yet a few hours after Obama spoke at the White House, supporters of the newly passed House measure breathed defiance.
"Let me be clear. This is the compromise. This is the best plan out there," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, head of a conservative group inside the House known as the Republican Study Committee.

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Murdoch says he's staying
July 20, 2011

Rupert Murdoch said he was the best person to clean up News Corp. Investors agreed.
The company's stock had its best day since the phone-hacking scandal broke, rising more than 5 percent Tuesday while Murdoch and his son and deputy, James, testified before a committee of the British Parliament in London.
The gains restored about $2.2 billion of the $8.3 billion in market value the company had lost during the furor.
Murdoch, 80, said he was ashamed at revelations that the News of the World, a News Corp. tabloid, had broken into the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, potentially interfering with investigators and giving false hope to her family that she was alive.
But Murdoch declined to take personal blame in a crisis that has extended to the top levels of the British police and to the prime minister. Asked whether he was considering resigning as head of News Corp., he said: "No."
"I feel that people I trusted, I'm not saying who, I don't know at what level, have let me down," Murdoch said. "And I think they behaved disgracefully, betrayed the company and me, and it's for them to pay. I think that frankly, I'm the best person to clean this up."

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Stress-related condition 'incapacitates' Bachmann; heavy pill use alleged
July 20, 2011

In late July 2010, Rep. Michele Bachmann's then-communications director, Dave Dziok, told his boss that he planned to take a new job with the public relations firm Edelman.
Dziok had worked for Bachmann for two and a half years, a relatively long period by the standards of her office, and was leaving on good terms.
Staff turnover can frustrate any employer, but Bachmann responded more dramatically. Dziok's departure triggered a debilitating medical episode that landed the congresswoman in urgent care.
"Within 24 hours she was in the hospital," a former aide says.
Bachmann was admitted to a Washington, D.C. hospital on Friday, July 30, and released that same day. She flew home to Minnesota to recuperate, missing a scheduled campaign event with Sen. Roy Blunt.
It's "nothing folks should worry about going forward," Dziok told reporters at the time, refusing to specify why Bachmann had been hospitalized.
It was, according to three people who have worked closely with Bachmann, not an isolated event.

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Now free, Casey Anthony avoiding public eye
July 19, 2011

Casey Anthony's whereabouts for her first week of freedom were a closely guarded secret Monday, known only to a select few as she tries to start a new life after being acquitted of killing her daughter. Her lawyer says her allies are exploring a number of options for her future.
Those options could be limited, though, by lawsuits pending against her, the scorn of multitudes who think she was guilty of the killing and a criminal record from her convictions for lying to police. She walked out of jail shortly after midnight Sunday.
Her attorney Jose Baez told Fox News Channel late Sunday that her lawyers are "certainly exploring all possibilities right now" when he was asked about whether she would enter a residential therapy program. He'd previously said that he hoped she could get counseling and treatment. Baez said he was foremost concerned about Anthony's safety, and struck out at media commentators who have been condemning Anthony as guilty despite the jury's verdict.
"This young woman had her day in court," Baez told Fox News. "We need to start respecting jury verdicts and decisions that juries make."
Experts who have helped other notorious defendants through rough times say she will have opportunities, but it won't be easy for the 25-year-old, who was found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, but convicted of lying to investigators.
"Casey is in good hands," said Todd Macaluso, a former member of Anthony's defense team who declined to comment further.
Asked if Anthony planned to cash in on her fame, Baez said she has "certain rights as an individual in this country." Attorneys planned to handle Anthony's affairs in a "dignified manner," he said.
"If she decides she wants to speak publicly about it, she'll make that decision," he said.

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Coburn proposes $9 trillion deficit cut measure
July 19, 2011

One of the Senate's staunchest budget-cutters unveiled Monday a massive plan to cut the nation's deficit by $9 trillion over the coming decade, including $1 trillion in tax increases opposed by most of his fellow Republicans.
The plan by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is laced with politically perilous proposals like raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits. It would cut farm subsidies, Medicare, student aid, housing subsidies for the poor, and funding for community development grants. Coburn even takes on the powerful veterans' lobby by proposing that some veterans pay more for medical care and prescription drugs.
Coburn would also eliminate $1 trillion in tax breaks over the coming decade, earning him an immediate rebuke from Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax organization with which Coburn has had a running feud. He would block taxpayers from claiming the mortgage interest deduction on second homes and limit it to homes worth $500,000. He would also ease taxpayers into higher tax brackets more quickly by using a smaller measure of inflation to adjust the brackets.
Coburn was a member of President Barack Obama's fiscal commission and voted for its plan to cut the budget by about $4 trillion over a decade. He recently dropped out of the closely watched "Gang of Six" senators seeking a bipartisan agreement to rein in deficits and break through the partisanship engulfing official Washington over the deficit.
His re-entry into the deficit debate comes as Obama and lawmakers struggle over increasing the so-called debt limit and avoid a first-ever default on U.S. obligations.
Coburn's $9 trillion savings figure doesn't include another $2.4 trillion in cuts to Social Security that are funneled back into the program. In addition to raising the retirement age gradually, he would peg future benefits to a less-generous measure of inflation and curb benefit increases even more for the top 40 percent of earners.

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After 'Marriage Vow' Fiasco, Bachmann Signs DeMint Pledge
July 19, 2011

Minnesota Congresswoman and presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann seems to be opting for some sort of "balance" with her pledges. Having possibly alienated more than a few of the national electorate with her signing of a controversial conservative/religious document in Iowa, Bachmann went to the capital of South Carolina to sign on to the "cut, cap, balance" pledge developed by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to hold elected officials to a commitment of spending frugality and balanced budgets.
Rep. Bachmann was in Columbia, S.C., today and signed another in what appears to be a series of pledges being agreed to by various conservatives throughout the country. Besides the "Marriage Vow" pledge and the "cut, cap, balance" pledge, there is also the 25-year-old document designed by conservative strategist Grover Norquist whereby the signer pledges to never vote to raise taxes. Bachmann, who apparently believes in committing, has signed all three.
But signing pledges on legislation concerning taxes and spending are one thing. Signing pledges that appear to intrude on religious and personal privacy issues are another. Bachmann, being a political realist as well as an opportunist, undoubtedly understood (after the signing became controversial) that her signing of the Iowa organization The Family Leader's "The Marriage Vow -- A Declaration Of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family" pledge may have gone a little too far in the assertion of her beliefs.
The "Marriage Vow" pledgers, according to the document, committed themselves to advocating for stronger marriages and protecting the Defense of Marriage Act and will work toward a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual union. Support for defending marriage would include a ban on all pornography, which was considered as detrimental to the institution of marriage and akin to adultery.
Within the preamble of the "Marriage Vow" was an allusion that African-American children were worse off today under the Obama administration than those children born to slaves prior to the Civil War.
Only Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum signed the pledge. Bachmann later said that the document she signed had nothing about slavery in it. But she never denied signing the anti-gay, pornography and polygamy equals adultery pledge.

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