Fiscal cliff talks reach make-or-break point

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By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Brooke Brower

*** What is Boehner doing? That’s our question after House Speaker John Boehner yesterday unveiled “Plan B” -- legislation that would raise tax rates on household income above $1 million but keep them status quo for everyone else -- which the House is scheduled to vote on Thursday. Is Plan B, which comes after President Obama made some of his biggest concessions in the fiscal-cliff debate (chained CPI, moving the income marker to $400,000), a way to strengthen Boehner’s negotiating hand with the White House? Is it to prove a point to his rank-and-file members that they can’t have their entire way in these negotiations? (It’s highly doubtful that Boehner even has the votes to pass Plan B.) Or is it a way to scuttle the talks with the White House? Here’s the answer from Boehner’s office: “Making sure we protect 99.81% of Americans from a tax hike.” What we’re watching today: Do Boehner and House GOP leaders spend more time trying to get votes for Plan B, or do they spend more time negotiating with the White House?

*** Three reasons why the move is so puzzling: There are three reasons why Plan B -- if it’s a serious effort -- seems so puzzling. One, as we wrote yesterday, the two sides are thisclose in getting a deal done. (Where the two sides are publicly is not where they were Monday night; they have both moved in each other’s direction further.) Two, if we go over the fiscal cliff (and time is running out, folks), Republicans might not realize the extent to which President Obama will own the bully pulpit in January. After all, there’s a certain inaugural address on Jan. 21, as well as the State of the Union. And three, are enough House Republicans really going to cast a tough vote -- raising taxes -- without getting any spending cuts or resolution on the sequester in return? And are they going to cast a vote for legislation that breaks a longstanding pledge on taxes that has zero chance of becoming law simply to give Boehner leverage? If Boehner and leadership do pull this off and convince their rank-and-file to vote on legislation that is designed just to give Boehner leverage, it would be quite the political feat. But for what end? Boehner already had one big piece of invisible leverage over the White House: a 2013 domestic agenda. The White House knows not getting a deal now, while politically more damaging for Republicans, probably means he’ll get very little down legislatively next year -- perhaps his ONLY year in a second term to focus on passing legislation.

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Greenspan: Markets will crater if fiscal cliff unsolved

(Bloomberg) Allowing taxes to rise would be a small price to pay to get U.S. lawmakers to accept spending cuts on entitlement programs, even if it leads to a “moderate recession,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said today during an interview on Bloomberg Television and also at a panel discussion in Washington.

“Even if we have to pay the cost of a significant rise in taxes to get a significant slowing, and then decline, in social benefits that is a very cheap price,” Greenspan said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop” with Betty Liu. “A large increase in taxes required to fund what is currently in the books is going to cause a recession,” he said. “If we can get away with that as the only cost to this whole problem, I think that’s a pretty good deal.”

Now White House petition seeks Obama's birth certificate

WND/ Bob Unruh

Birther Report

When the White House set up a system to allow American citizens to petition for grievances on the official website, officials probably didn’t expect to see citizens in all 50 states seeking secession.

Nor did they likely imagine it would be a place that would become a forum for those questioning Barack Obama’s eligibility for office and seeking his college and university records.

But a new petition on the government website does exactly that, asking for Obama records from Hawaii, Occidental and Harvard.

The title of the just-launched petition is, “Require Barack Obama To Allow The Public Examination Of His Birth Certificate Records & His College & University Records.”

Specifically, it states: “We The People request the Obama administration to require Barack H. Obama to authorize the public examination of his birth certificate records together his college and university records. We have all seen the document produced by The White House which has been declared suspect by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, but The People request that Barack Obama authorize the State of Hawaii to release all related information concerning his birth in the State. We also request that Barack Obama authorize Occidental College and Harvard University release all records they hold in connection with The President. The People will willingly pay a reasonable fee for each page or document copied and provided by either entity in accordance with their standard fee schedule.”

The issue, of course, has been in the headlines since before Obama’s first election in 2008, when it was reveal there were unanswered questions, and logical suspicions, about Obama’s eligibility even to be president under the Constitution’s requirement that the president be a “natural born citizen.”

At the time the nation was founded, that likely was understood to mean the offspring of two citizen parents and likely born in the United States. If eligibility is subject to being the offspring of two citizen parents, Obama is unqualified as his father was a visiting foreign national to attended school in the U.S.

The dispute continues to rage over his birth location, with the latest development in the case an accusation from a Cold Case Posse investigator from Arizona that Hawaii officials are covering up for Obama.

Learn more about the birth certificate issue, and express your opinion, at the WND Superstore.

The suggestion was contained in a sworn affidavit from Cold Case Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo just a week after the publication of a sworn mathematical analysis demonstrating the near-zero probability that the White House “birth certificate” is genuine.

Also, a math professor from Louisiana State University, Charles Delzell, has confirmed and endorsed the mathematical conclusions in yet another sworn statement.

Zullo, a seasoned sleuth who heads the team deputized by Joe Arpaio, recently re-elected sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., fingers Hawaii’s governor, deputy attorney general and health department chiefs as obstructing justice.

Zullo’s affidavit charges these officials are “hiding” original birth records, thwarting the posse’s hunt for those who forged the document at the White House website.

The department, Zullo reported, “has engaged in what the sheriff’s investigators believe is a systematic effort to hide from law enforcement and the public whatever original 1961 birth records the Hawaii Department of Health may have in its possession.”

And he charged that Hawaii officials “changed their policies and procedures in a manner calculated to hinder our law-enforcement investigation.”

In addition to simply refusing to discuss the issue or respond to questions, state officials also have issued contradictory statements. And state lawmakers went so far as to exempt employees from answering questions about the issue.

Zullo’s investigation documents how in 1961, state law allowed Hawaiian parents of children born anywhere in the world to register them as Hawaiian-born, a legalized backdoor to U.S. citizenship. Article II of the U.S. Constitution insists that only a “natural-born citizen” can serve as president.

Zullo’s posse already has reported to the sheriff that two crimes have been committed: first, fraudulently creating a forgery that the White House had characterized, knowingly or unknowingly, as an officially produced governmental birth record; and secondly, fraudulently presenting to the residents of Maricopa County and to the American public at large a forgery that the White House had represented as “proof positive” of Obama’s authentic 1961 Hawaiian long-form birth certificate.

Zullo concludes that the whole question could be settled quickly and decisively if Hawaii would let his forensic specialists examine Obama’s original birth certificate and hospital birth record.

In Zullo’s 16-page statement, he notes that 250 residents of the state asked the sheriff to investigate possible illegalities. But he said virtually all of the pertinent records about Obama have been ordered sealed and Obama’s attorneys have refused access to documents that typically are available regarding presidents.

He notes, among many other issues, why did a biography written by Obama for 17 years boast that he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii?

Other questions:

• Why have Hawaii officials been unable to get their story straight on the issue
• Why do officials refuse to answer his questions about Obama’s records?
• Why has no doctor or nurse ever come forward to talk about the birth?
• Why was Obama’s first executive order as president instructions to seal his own records from the public?
• Why are his birth records, baptismal records, adoption records, kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia University thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passports, medical records, files as an Illinois state senator and his Illinois state bar association records all concealed?
• Why was Hawaii’s governor unable to keep his word when he said he would find Obama’s records and confirm his status?
• Why are the National Archives records for immigration from 1961 – during the three days around Obama’s birth – missing?
• Why has nothing been done regarding the law enforcement conclusions that “President Obama’s long-form birth certificate is a computer-generated document; that it was manufactured piecemeal and electronically; and that it did not originate as a copy of a true paper record from a bound volume…”
• What is the significance of the fact that Obama’s birth record number is out of sequence?

The government petition website suddenly became a news item because residents in all 50 states are petitioning there for permission for their states to leave the union.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has said there is no such right. But historians would note that Thomas Jefferson said states “should separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers.”

His letter, posted online at Constitution.org, sheds light on the arguments raised on the Obama administration’s online petition site, where dozens of petitions are seeking permission for virtually all of the states to leave the union.

Jefferson wrote about the expansion of power then by the federal government “towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power.”

He continued: “Take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the president, and the misconstructions of the constitutional Compact acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities; of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic.”

He targeted the same authority that Obama has cited in his promotion of Obamacare: “Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume indefinitely that also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and that, too, the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the other, the most flourishing of all.

“Under the authority to establish post roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for the construction of roads, of digging canals, and aided by a little sophistry on the words ‘general welfare,’ a right to do, not only the acts to effect that, which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think, or pretend will be for the general welfare. And what is our resource for the preservation of the Constitution?”

Political debate at that point, reasoned Jefferson, was futile.

“Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from incorrect views of government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient voting together to outnumber the sound parts; and with majorities only of one, two, or three, bold enough to go forward in defiance. ”

And he continued: “[We must] keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation.”

The Key to True Secession with Dr. Edwin Vieira

TheAlexJonesChannel Alex Jones laid out a constitutional plan to have the states secede, not to destroy the Union, but to reconstitute it because the federal government admits it is now run by foreign special interest powers and has been conquered. Over the three hour show, he had constitutional lawyers, Lew Rockwell and others on who concurred with his analysis. We are going to Ron Paul to ask him to lead this movement at the states. We will soon have a transcript of Alex's constitutional battle plan.

Why Don't Secessionists Just Renounce Their Citizenship?

MidweekPolitics

Sarah Palin: Who is running our country?

A Time For Choosing

By Sarah Palin

Who is running our country? We’ve got a CIA Director sharing security info with his mistress using an unsecure gmail account.

We’ve got the delusional Susan Rice blaming the death of an ambassador on a Youtube video.

We’ve got Iran firing on one of our drones a week before the election.

We’ve got the White House either ignorant of or covering up all of this.

Who is minding the store?

Everywhere we look we see the rank incompetence or corruption of the people who are supposedly running our country and our major institutions. Let’s hope that responsible reporters at Obama’s press conference today ask the right questions Americans deserve answers to.

Here’s my question for the president: As our nation’s chief executive you claim to be unaware of the most important and tragic situations we’re facing; so, as a former chief executive, I’d like to know how long it takes for your staff to tell you things like: “Sir, your CIA Director is under investigation“?

50-State Participation on 'Secede' Petitions Reach 675,000 Signatures

 

By David Martosko, The Daily Caller

Less than a week after a New Orleans suburbanite petitioned the White House to allow Louisiana to secede from the United States, petitions from seven states have collected enough signatures to trigger a promised review from the Obama administration.

By 6:00 a.m. EST Wednesday, more than 675,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to a Daily Caller analysis of requests lodged with the White House’s “We the People” online petition system.

A petition from Vermont, where talk of secession is a regular feature of political life, was the final entry.

Petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas residents have accrued at least 25,000 signatures, the number the Obama administration says it will reward with a staff review of online proposals. 

The Texas petition leads all others by a wide margin. Shortly before 9:00 a.m. EST Wednesday, it had attracted 94,700 signatures. But a spokesperson for Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday afternoon that he does not support the idea of his state striking out on its own.

“Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it. But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government,” according to a statement from the governor’s office.

A backlash Monday night saw requests filed with the White House to strip citizenship rights from Americans who signed petitions to help states secede. 

And in a similar nose-thumbing aimed at Texas’ conservative majority, progressives from the liberal state capital of Austin responded Monday with a petition to secede from their state if Texas as a whole should decide to leave the Union.

Late Tuesday a second group of Texans, this one from Houston, lodged their own White House petition. Secession-minded Texans, they wrote, “are mentally deficient and [we] do not want them representing us. We would like more education in our state to eradicate their disease.”

Houstonian “Kimberly F” — The White House does not provide last names — submitted the petition. She told TheDC in an email that ”[w]e need both sides presented, or we all look like a bunch of fools.”

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/2012-presidential-election/2012/11/14/wh-secede-petitions-reach-675000-signatures-50-state-participation?cmpid=NL_FiredUpFoxNation#ixzz2CEAlyExA

Citizens In Over 40 States File Petitions For Secession from U.S.

States highlighted in red mark where petitions for secession from the U.S. have been filed/ GossipOnThis.com

Following last week’s re-election of President Barack Obama, residents in more than forty U.S. states have filed petitions to secede from the country via the government’s “We the People” program on the White House’s official website.

The states include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

------------------------------------------------

Tim Brown

As I reported over the weekend, Texas and Louisiana citizens began petitions to the White House to peacefully withdraw from the United States and then yesterday that number had grown to nearly forty states. As this happened, the Texas petition topped it’s goal of 20,000 signatures.

As of the writing of this article, the Texas petition has 70,278 signatures, nearly three times the amount required to be reviewed by the White House.
According to the White House petition site, once the petition reaches 25,000 signatures within 30 days “White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.”
Below is a video that explains how the process is supposed to work:

I admit, I am wary of petitioning the federal government over any of this. However, I think the number of petitions and the people signing is only an indication that the “union” is no longer united. This, along with the recent election, demonstrate that we are a nation divided.

It was at another period in our history where states sought to peacefully withdraw from the Union, only to be invaded by that very Union. With stakes as high as they are now, I am not very optimistic that the current state of things in America will lead to a peaceful agreement between the federal government and the states.

Let me be clear, these petitions are not put forth by the states officially, but they are put forth by residents of those states. After all, the people are the ones who select their representatives and if the people voice their disapproval of what is taking place at the federal level enough in their own state, this may gain traction. I suggest not only signing the petition for your state, but letting your state legislature know and possibly garnering signatures to provide your state legislature and governor with.

Texas Governor Rick Perry says he will not give credibility to the online movement. His spokesperson Catherine Frazier said that while Perry “shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government,” the governor “believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it.”

I’m guessing the governor has not heard directly from the 70,000 plus people who have signed the petition. Perhaps phone calls and such might just let him know how serious the people of his state actually are.

I leave you with the words of the Founders in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Clearly they believed in the right of peaceful secession of the states from the Union.

UPDATE: Louisiana has also met their goal.

UPDATE 2: Two petitions have been filed at the White House Petitions site against those petitioning for withdraw. “Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America” and “Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them.”

Sorry to say, there may be a Union, but there is definitely not unity.

UPDATE: Florida has also met their petition goal.

Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/11/texas-secession-petition-tops-goal-requires-review-by-white-house/#ixzz2CBHv4zWL

From the Vault: Deficit Deal Stalemate

PBS Newly re-elected, President Obama has to find a way to get a divided Congress to reach an agreement to prevent a fiscal crisis or risk pushing the country into recession. We look in the vault to November 2011 when the the supercommittee failed to reach a budget deal affecting national politics and the economy.

The looming ’fiscal cliff’ -- cataclysm or compromise?

businessweek.com

By NBC's Mike Viqueira

While no can say for sure how the negotiations to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" -- the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and impending across-the-board spending cuts -- will unfold, the betting here is it will get ugly before it gets better.

First, virtually no one believes what happened last time will happen this time: President Obama won't cave on extending tax cuts for upper income earners.

So will House Republicans come to the table voluntarily, before the first of the year? Or will it require all hell breaking loose -- an expiration of the income and payroll tax cuts, sequestration, the estate tax, and the AMT kicking in, cap gains and dividend rates rising -- before they are forced to come kicking and screaming to an agreement?  More >>

Republicans, Democrats draw lines in fiscal cliff fight

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Estados Unidos: lo que se viene/ Alvaro Vargas Llosa

earthjoynow.com

El Independent/ Alvaro Vargas Llosa

Pasada la euforia del triunfo, el Presidente Obama enfrenta ahora el dilema de todo presidente reelecto: si dedicarse a llevar hasta las últimas consecuencias su agenda ideológica o transar con la oposición y comprometer sus instintos más profundos, pero pasar a la historia -al igual, digamos, que un Bill Clinton- como un hombre que supo leer la temperatura de los tiempos y poner lo posible por encima de lo deseable.

Por lo pronto, carece de un mandato categórico que permita tomar la primera vía. Es el primer mandatario de la era moderna en los Estados Unidos que gana su segunda elección presidencial con un margen menor que la primera vez. Pasó de derrotar a John McCain por siete puntos en el voto popular a superar a Mitt Romney por menos de dos puntos. El agravante es que tendrá, como lo tiene desde 2010, una Cámara de Representantes con mayoría republicana, pues la correlación de fuerzas en ese ámbito se mantuvo tras esta elección con una alteración menor, mientras que seguirá con el dominio del Senado, pero con sólo 51 escaños de 100. Todo apunta, pues, a que Obama tendría muy difícil el escenario del todo por el todo. Lo más probable es que tenga que buscar un espacio centrista, lo que pasa necesariamente por una negociación con la derecha.

Esto se da en el contexto de lo que ha dado en llamarse, con lenguaje tremebundo salido de los labios del presidente de la Reserva Federal, Ben Bernanke, el “precipicio fiscal”, un acuerdo que entrará automáticamente en vigor el 1 de enero. Se trata de una combinación de aumento de impuestos y reducción de gastos que, juntos, implicarán retirar de la economía entre 600 y 800 mil millones de dólares. El resultado en el corto plazo podría ser una nueva recesión, con repercusión en todo el globo.

La razón de esto tiene que ver con la dura polarización ideológica. En agosto del año pasado, para aceptar el pedido de Obama en el sentido de aumentar el límite de la deuda, el Congreso republicano exigió al gobierno un compromiso de reducción de gastos. La comisión que se creó a resultas de este pulso político debía proponer una reducción de 1,2 billones de dólares en 10 años. Si no se lograba un acuerdo en la comisión bipartidista, entraría en vigor el 1 de enero de 2013, por exigencia de Obama, lo ya mencionado: un aumento de impuestos, básicamente, consistente en derogar las rebajas decretadas por George W. Bush en su día y un recorte de gastos en más de mil programas gubernamentales, incluidos algunos del sector de la Defensa y el seguro sanitario llamado Medicare, que beneficia a ciudadanos de la tercera edad. Sólo ciertas áreas, como la seguridad social y las pensiones federales, quedarían protegidas.

Esto, que puede parecer una discusión abstrusa o menor, tiene a medio planeta en vilo, porque provocaría precisamente lo que ha dado en llamarse el “precipicio fiscal”. Los cálculos más espeluznantes hablan de una caída de cuatro puntos del PIB si esto llega a ocurrir. Otros, más realistas, hablan de la mitad. En cualquier caso, la sombra ominosa de una recesión ha empezado a planear sobre Obama, porque el tiempo apremia y no hay visos de negociación.

Para impedir la hecatombe, el presidente tiene que negociar con los republicanos, léase con el hombre que preside la Cámara de Representantes, John Boehner, un acuerdo antes del 1 de enero, cuando entrará en funciones el nuevo Congreso recientemente elegido. Dado que ese nuevo Congreso seguirá en manos republicanas y con Boehner a la cabeza, no es inconcebible que, de no haber un acuerdo ahora, los recortes y los aumentos de impuestos se den en enero, pero luego se interrumpan si llega a producirse un acuerdo posterior. En cualquier caso, esta será la prueba de fuego de la administración Obama y -de no mediar una gran crisis internacional- el asunto que definirá su segundo gobierno. ¿Por qué? Esencialmente, porque para evitar el “precipicio fiscal”, Obama tendrá que renunciar a su agenda ideológica parcialmente y entenderse, como lo hizo Clinton, con un Congreso de derechas, aceptando una drástica reducción del gasto público y renunciando a aumentar una buena parte de los impuestos que quisiera subir. Lo que está en juego no es sólo un asunto fiscal: es la orientación filosófica del país.

En el plano externo, la agenda estará marcada, siempre a condición de que no surjan imprevistos de gran calibre, por Irán, Siria y China. En el primer caso, el reto de Obama es frenar a Benjamin Netanyahu, líder israelí que, una vez que renueve mandato en enero, presionará para un bombardeo militar. Obama deberá mostrar logros mediante el uso de las sanciones drásticas que ha impuesto en meses recientes, junto a Europa, para impedir esa escalada. En cuanto a Siria, el reto es elevar sustancialmente la eficacia de la rebelión armada para evitar que la OTAN se involucre militarmente, como lo hizo en Libia. Esto no parece al alcance de la mano, a juzgar por el éxito del régimen sirio en su política de tierra arrasada contra la rebelión (con el soporte de Rusia). Por último, en materia de las relaciones con China, Obama tendrá que establecer una relación con un nuevo Presidente, Xi Jinping, que está a punto de asumir el mando, en un momento de mucha tensión por la política exterior cada vez más afirmativa de Beijing en el Asia y su conflicto con Japón en torno a las islas Senkaku (el conflicto involucra además a Taiwán, que también mantiene un reclamo sobre esas ínsulas).

¿Qué sucederá, mientras tanto, con el Partido Republicano? Porque esa será la otra gran cuestión de la política en los Estados Unidos durante el próximo cuatrienio: qué efecto tendrá lo sucedido en el partido de Lincoln. Las elecciones han confirmado lo que ya se presentía: que el Partido Republicano se ha enajenado a tres grupos de votantes muy significativos y tiene insuficiente aceptación en un cuarto grupo. El conservadurismo asumía que, en vista de la crisis persistente y los escasos logros concretos del mandatario, los hispanos, los afroamericanos, los jóvenes y las mujeres solteras no saldrían a votar con el mismo nivel de intensidad que hace cuatro años. Esto no se cumplió. En 2008, el voto negro representó 11 por ciento del total y ahora ha representado un 13 por ciento. El ocho por ciento del voto fue hispano en 2008 y ahora lo fue el 10 por ciento. En 2008, 17 de cada cien votantes fueron menores de 30 años y esta vez la cifra lo han sido 19 de cada cien. Y un alto 18 por ciento de los votantes fueron mujeres solteras. El voto afroamericano de Obama fue 12 veces superior al de Romney. Entre los hispanos, el 70 por ciento se inclinó por el presidente. Entre los menores de 30 años, Romney obtuvo siete votos por cada 12 que obtuvo el mandatario y la ventaja de Obama entre las mujeres solteras fue de 2 a 1. Esta coalición social, por así llamarla, explica el triunfo de Obama y representa, al mismo tiempo, el tremendo desafío de los republicanos.

En el caso del voto joven, la diferencia no ha sido tan abrumadora como en los otros grupos. Pero, en el caso de los hispanos y las mujeres solteras -aceptando que el voto afroamericano es abrumadoramente demócrata desde hace mucho tiempo-, es evidente que la línea duramente hostil a la inmigración y la posición vertical en los temas valóricos, especialmente los relacionados con la salud reproductiva, han minado seriamente al Partido Republicano. A diferencia de Obama, cuya coalición es hoy representativa de país (obtuvo un 39 por ciento del voto blanco, que se combinó con los otros segmentos sociales mencionados), la votación de los republicanos es básicamente unidimensional. El viejo partido de Lincoln está quedando confinado en un sector social representado por la herencia anglosajona de cierta edad. Su implantación en las fuerzas emergentes de la política estadounidense es escasa y podría significar su alejamiento de la Casa Blanca por mucho tiempo.

Esto puede parecer una exageración, dado que Romney obtuvo la mitad de los votos del país. Pero lo cierto es que con cada elección crece la proporción de votantes que pertenecen a los grupos mencionados. Por tanto, el riesgo es que el problema se agrave en el futuro. La pesadilla conservadora es que pase con los hispanos y las mujeres solteras lo que pasó con los afroamericanos: que dejen de forma permanente el Partido Republicano.

La pregunta obvia respecto a este partido es si veremos una renovación traumática del ideario en ciertos temas como la inmigración, el aborto, el matrimonio gay, la investigación con células madre y otros asuntos valóricos. Ya hay tendencias dentro del partido, hasta ahora minoritarias, que apuntan, por ejemplo, a una modificación de la línea partidista respecto a la inmigración.

Líderes como Jeb Bush y Rudy Giuliani llevan años recordándoles a sus compañeros de partido que Reagan fue un defensor de la inmigración y otorgó la amnistía a más de tres millones de indocumentados. Más complejo es el escenario valórico: la derecha evangélica, que es clave en la base del partido, no aceptaría nunca una modificación. Ello podría implicar, en el futuro, el riesgo de una fractura e, incluso, de una escisión o cisma.

En lo inmediato, las cabezas visibles del partido serán los líderes de las bancadas republicanas en las dos cámaras del Congreso, John Boehner (que acaba de decirle al presidente: “Este es su momento”) y Eric Cantor. Pero poco a poco veremos a la nueva camada de líderes -un Bobby Jindal, gobernador de Luisiana; un Marco Rubio, la estrella cubana de los conservadores, o un Chris Christie, el gobernador de Nueva Jersey que elogió a Obama con ocasión del huracán Sandy y se ganó críticas conservadoras, pero que es una fuerza en ascenso- asumir roles cada vez más prominentes. Ellos tendrán la misión de ir desplazando a la vieja guardia y adecuando al partido a una realidad que está dejándolo en offside: la realidad de una sociedad multicultural y multirracial, y de una generación que ve las cuestiones morales a través de un prisma menos religioso.

Es demasiado prematuro pronosticar lo que se sucederá, entre otras cosas, porque no sabemos cómo puede reaccionar la base ante un intento por “modernizar” al partido en estos y otros asuntos. Pero una cosa es clara: empieza a cundir entre muchos líderes republicanos la sensación de que algo está cambiando a su alrededor y ellos han tardado demasiado en entenderlo.

Obama's win clouded by looming 'fiscal cliff'

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

John W. Schoen, NBC

Congratulations, President Barack Obama. Now you have just 49 days to resolve a $600 billion fiscal crisis that could push the economy back into recession.

The slow, steady improvement in the economy that helped Obama defeat Republican nominee Mitt Romney Tuesday is in peril if he can’t quickly forge agreement with a still-divided Congress on a new budget that delays steep tax increases and deep spending cuts.

The so-called “fiscal cliff” – set to take effect Jan.1 – is a doomsday budget package Congress enacted in 2011 to try to force compromise on a series of bitterly divisive policy choices. The budget package is a witch's brew of harsh measures designed to inflict political pain as widely as possible, the better to prompt all sides to reach the compromise that would prevent it from taking effect.

The law slashes Obama’s popular payroll tax cut, cancels extended jobless benefits, imposes deep cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors, exposes millions of Americans to the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminates tax deductions for state and local sales taxes and child care tax credits (among others), takes a meat ax to defense spending and slashes “discretionary” spending – on everything from education to homeland security – by as much as 10 percent.

Economists and politicians, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, have warned it would almost certainly wipe out any progress the White House has made in reviving the economy and creating jobs.

Concern about the fiscal cliff was among the factors driving down stock prices sharply in a post-election slump. The Dow Jones industrial average was down nearly 300 points in its biggest one-day slump in nearly a year, pushing the benchmark index below the 13,000 level before it recovered slightly.

Recent reports have shown the economy picking up strength. Growth in U.S. gross domestic product, though still sluggish, picked up to a 2.0 percent annual pace in the third quarter from a 1.3 percent rate in the second. After a pause this spring, the pace of hiring picked up this summer, with employers now adding some 175,000 new jobs a month to payrolls. Consumers are spending more on big-ticket items, like cars and appliances.

A prolonged budget impasse would reverse those gains. The hit to consumer spending from higher taxes, along with the loss of government spending, would knock 3 to 4 percent from GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Related: Stocks plunge on worries about fiscal cliff, Europe

"If we go back into recession, we will likely pull the global economy with us," said Ameriprise Financial   economist Russell Price. "The longer a (budget) deal takes, the longer the economy suffers. It’s just that simple."

In their election night speeches, both Obama and Romney hinted that members of the newly elected Congress, who have been gridlocked over the issue for months, need to cross party lines to tackle the problem when they resume business next week.

"In the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties, to meet the challenges we can only solve together,” Obama said.  “We are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe."

“At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering and political posturing,” Romney said. “Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work.”

There are some broad signs that a congressional compromise is possible before year-end. An influential group of business economists recently indicated support for some new tax increases to balance the budget. Obama and some Senate Democrats have indicated further cuts are needed in large entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, by far the biggest contributors to budget deficits. A major flash point remains over the White House's insistence on raising tax rates for the wealthiest Americans – those earning $250,000 or more. The White House recently renewed its threat to veto any budget deal that preserves Bush tax cuts for those high-income earners.

As both sides begin to look for a compromise, that contentious issue remains. Despite campaign spending of some $6 billion, voters re-elected a government with virtually the same political make-up as the one that has been deadlocked for years over tax policy.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Wednesday that House Republicans “want the president to succeed” and urged broad reform of the tax code. But he renewed his party’s opposition to raising tax rates on the upper end of the income ladder. 

“We’re willing to accept new revenues under the right conditions,” he said. “(But) feeding the growth of government with higher tax rates won’t solve the problem.”

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he was willing to negotiate with Republicans any time on any issue.

"We have to sit down and go to work on it now, not wait. This was really the message the American people sent," Reid said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

If the House remains dug in over the issue of tax increases, compromise with Senate Democrats and the White House will be difficult to reach – even if it means reversing recent progress in mending the economy.

“With neither party gaining much political capital during the elections, both have little choice but to strive for a compromise that prevents the hikes in taxes and cuts in government spending that are due to start sucking $600 billion, or 4 percent of GDP, out of the economy early next year,” economists Paul Dales and Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics wrote to clients Wednesday.

Last minute deal? Ashworth and Dales believe that the impasse will likely be broken at the last minute as Democrats agree to extend the tax cuts for high-income earners and Republicans agree to delay spending cuts.

“So although another recession will probably be avoided, postponing the cliff without tackling the underlying long-term fiscal problems will undoubtedly lead to more credit ratings downgrades early next year,” they said.

The U.S. government's failure to get its fiscal house in order after political gridlock set in during the summer of 2011 prompted Standard & Poor's to take the historic step of downgrading the U.S. credit rating from AAA+, its highest, to AAA. Ratings agency Fitch said Wednesday it might follow suit if a pact is not reached quickly.

Some aren't so sure a compromise will be reached in the lame-duck session.

“The House Republicans are not going to vote for an increase in marginal tax rates,” Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman in the George W. Bush administration, told CNBC. “They're not going to do it. This is what they believe in. This is their economic policy. They don't want to see higher tax rates. And they believe it's bad for the economy.”

Given that resistance, some political observers suggest that the White House may let the budget impasse extend through the first of the year, allowing spending cuts and tax increases kick in.

At that point, with rates at much higher, pre-Bush levels, Obama and Senate Democrats could propose large “tax cuts” – for everyone except the wealthiest - that would still leave revenues higher than they are under current law. That strategy would, in effect, amount to a game of chicken, with the economy the biggest potential loser.

The impact could take time to unfold. While clearly dire in the long run, the economic damage from combined tax increases and spending cuts would be felt gradually in the early months of 2013, according to Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former economic adviser to the Obama administration.

“The way to think about the fiscal cliff is more of a slope,” he said. “Just going over the fiscal cliff and reversing yourself pretty quickly - the fiscal bungee jump - I don't think it's a good thing, but that's not recessionary.”

Even is a deal if reached, the budget process faces yet another monkey wrench early next year: the looming expiration of the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. The once-routine process of raising the government’s legal borrowing created the political fracas that produced the fiscal cliff in the first place.

'Modern-day Nostradamus' warns U.S. of doom

WND/ By Troy Anderson

At a time of skyrocketing federal debt, declining morality and growing spiritual apathy and apostasy, New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg – known as a “modern-day Nostradamus” – says America may face cataclysmic collapse in the not-too distant future.

In his new book, Implosion: Can America Recover from its Economic & Spiritual Challenges in Time? (Tyndale House Publishers), Rosenberg explores the question a growing number of politicians, academics, authors and others are asking about the future of the United States.

“My concern is we are experiencing an epic failure of leadership at almost every level of American society right now,” Rosenberg told WND. “Something has gone terribly wrong with the American experiment. Our families are imploding, our national debt is exploding, experts on the left and right are warning us that we need to change our direction because we’re on an unsustainable trajectory economically, socially and culturally.

“Unfortunately, too many leaders in our country are stuck in business as usual mode and Americans are getting anxious that the ice is cracking under our feet.”

The book, released this week, comes as people at nearly 300 locations nationwide are set to listen to Rosenberg on Saturday morning discuss whether America is headed for implosion or revival during a live, three-hour “Implosion Simulcast” from First Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. Details have been posted at JoelRosenberg.com.

Rosenberg is a bestselling author with more than 2.5 million copies of his books in print. One of his books – “The Last Jihad’ – put readers in the cockpit of a hijacked jet on a kamikaze mission into an American city. It was written nine months before the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attacks. Afterwards, U.S. News & World Report described him as a “modern-day Nostradamus.” He also wrote about the U.S. at war in Iraq four months before the war began.   

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EEUU - Rehenes del Diablo

Por Andrés Pascual

       El temblequante y pusilánimemente interesado Sistema Judicial de Estados Unidos, a instancias del FBI, casi instauran una causa que cierre las bocas de los ciudadanos de una vez, con igual efecto que la Propaganda Enemiga de la tiranía castrista sobre el pueblo cubano. Es la implantación del Terror a una población que no se diferencia en nada, una parte importante, de lo que llaman repúblicas bananeras.

       El país está “bien despachado”, por lo que no puede identificarse como el del cuento “El Sueño Americano”, tanto es así que, para verguenza de su historia, se informó hace poco que legiones de naturales o postizos están renunciando a su ciudadania para evitar el pago de impuestos. Yo creo que eso no se vio nunca aqui o, por lo menos, de la forma tan preocupante como sucede hoy.

       Se está merced del antiamericanismo de mil formas, por ejemplo, he escuchado a Giménez, alcalde de Miami y a Javier Souto, concejal, “condenar enérgicamente” lo que dijo un ex capitán de bomberos en Twitter sobre cómo ve ciertas detalles del caso Trayvon Martin, al tipo lo degradaron desde capitán a soldado raso y casi dan una fiesta por la complacencia colectiva para festejarlo; pero resulta que un oficial jefe del cuerpo está siendo investigado por el FBI por supuesto acoso sexual y a este señor también lo relacionan con el “crimen de odio racial” que es decir cómo uno ve el caso Trayvon, que debe ser como a uno le de la gana, como yo, que no me gusta la violencia, pero no soy quien la práctica diariamente matando infelices en las calles por un reloj, o metiéndole un tiro a una policía en la boca que, casualmente, intentó ayudar al negro asesino que la hirió por lo que, el caso del joven asesinado, no lo veo ni como la Media ni como los liberales ni como la mano de pendejos que están enterrando lo que queda de esta ayer gran nación.

       Para entender bien el peligro de perder al país, que nadie sabe si puede evitarse ya, entre políticas favorables a Castro, al Islam, al matrimonio gay o con promesas secretas para desproteger a Europa ante Rusia, ningún medio ha tomado en cuenta las amenazas de muerte del Black Panters contra George Zimmerman, que le pusieron precio a la cabeza del tipo al estilo bounty hunter de Dog en estos tiempos o de Clay Allison cuando el Wild West; no conformes, el grupo terrorista-progromista de Obama y los liberales comunicó la semana pasada que “los blancos se van a poner muy bravos en noviembre”. Por lo que se ve, nadie está a cargo de llamar a contar a estos delincuentes que, no sé si decir lamentablemente, son negros . Es la degradacion absoluta de valores, sin dudas, Estados Unidos está en las manos de lo peor posible y nadie sabe a dónde irá a parar…

       El miedo de los politicos de Miami y el contubernio interesado, ampliado al resto del país, de muchos blancos decadentes bajo la sombrilla demócrata, los ilegales y una porcion enorme de negros, han logrado hacer un Estados Unidos que, en lo socio-político, no tiene nada que envidiarle al castrismo.

      Yo creo que es hora de que se trate de hacer algo por los miembros del cuerpo de bomberos ante la injusticia salvaje que cometen con ellos, porque está en juego, empleando como justificacion engañosa por el FBI “la política de odio racial” para ultimarla, la soberanía individual del ciudadano común y corriente, a través de la sumisión por el terror de una población que, ahora mismo, tiene perdida y ni se ha dado cuenta, la libertad de expresion.

Central Planning and The Fall of the US Empire

Global Guerrillas

Here's some thinking that draws on decision making theory.  It's very much in line with how the late John Boyd (America's best strategist) would approach it. Reminder:  I'm @johnrobb on twitter or +John Robb on Google if you want to listen in on my daily thinking.

___________

One of the most interesting underlying reasons for the decline of the Soviet Union, and soon the US, is misallocation of resources due to a reliance on central planning.

Misallocation in this context means that year after year, decade after decade, the wealth of a nation is spent on the wrong things.  The wrong projects are funded.  The wrong infrastructure is built (or not built -- the US is 38th in the world in Internet connectivity and falling).  The wrong things were bought and so on.  Eventually, the accumulation of bad investment made the USSR so fragile that even the smallest shock could topple them.  

The reason for this failure was that the Soviets relied on central planning.  A system of economic governance where small group of people -- in the Soviet Unions case bureaucrats -- had all the decision making power.  They decided what was spent and where.  Even with copious amount of information, they decided badly.

Why did they decide badly?  The massive economy of a modern superstate is too complex for a small group of people to manage.  Too much data.  Too many uncertainties.  Too many moving parts.  

The only way to manage an economy as complex as this is to allow massively parallel decision making.  A huge number of economically empowered people making small decisions, that in aggregate, are able to process more data, get better data (by being closer to the problem), and apply more brainpower to weighing alternatives than any centralized decision making group.

Of course, the misallocation due to centralized decision making wasn't supposed to be a vulnerability of the West.  To allocate resources in our economy, we had a conceptually more efficient mechanism: markets.  Markets are supposed to be a mechanism that allows massively parallel decision making.

Those assumptions are proving false. The succession of market bubbles, the global financial collpse of 2008, and the recent US debt problem is prima facie evidence that gross misallocation has occurred for decades.  The wealth of the West, particularly the US, is being spent on the wrong things year after year, decade after decade.   We are now as fragile as the Soviet Union in the late 80's.

What happened?

Central planning took over the decision making process in the US, both through the growth of government and through an unparalleled concentration of wealth.

The parallels between the rapid growth of US government bureaucracy and the Soviet bureaucracy is straight forward.  As more and more of US economy was controlled by a narrow group of decision makers allocating government resources, the more sluggish the entire economy became (most of this was due to massive growth and mis-allocation in entitlements and defense).  Further, the ability of government bureaucracies to extend their decision making to remaining majority of the economy through regulatory action, is also a form of centralization.  However, even with all of this government growth, it's is still not enough to account for the level of misallocation we are seeing.  

There's is something else at work.

The answer is that an extreme concentration of wealth at the center of our market economy has led to a form of central planning.   The concentration of wealth is now in so few hands and is so extreme in degree, that the combined liquid financial power of all of those not in this small group is inconsequential to determining the direction of the economy.   As a result, we now have the equivalent of centralized planning in global marketplaces.  A few thousand extremely wealthy people making decisions on the allocation of our collective wealth.  The result was inevitable:  gross misallocation across all facets of the private economy. 

To see what this extreme wealth concentration looks like as a distribution, we don't have to look further than income distribution in the US (classic power law).   The liquid wealth of those on the extreme left of the curve completely outweighs the 99.5% of the population to the right (the distribution is FAR more skewed than most people even imagine -- Republican or Democrat).  This graph would also be a good way to demonstrate how decision making in a bureaucratic dictatorship in a country like the Soviet Union looked like before it collapsed.

The result of central planning in the US has finally hit the wall.  The list of problems is endless. The misallocations range from the dangerous $600 trillion derivatives market to the destruction of the US middle class (by exporting jobs and the substitution of income with debt).

The end result is that our economic and political system has become very fragile.  All it will take is is one extremely bad decision and the cascade of failure that follows will catch everyone off guard.

#Conspiracy - Obama's Deliberate Destruction of America: Bob Chapman Reports

Uploaded by TheAlexJonesChannel on Sep 30, 2011

The takedown of gold and silver markets over the past two weeks signified a new milestone in corruption, brazenness, arrogance and it reveals the level of evil control behind our government. This past week, in just one week, saw gold fall almost $200 and silver about $10.00. We have been involved in gold and silver for 53 years and the only event that comes close to this was October 19, 1987, when we witnessed the Bank of England sell down gold $100.00 under the orders of the Fed and the US Treasury, which borrowed the gold from the IMF. That was illegal, but that means little to the Illuminists who do as they please. Today thanks to Ronald Reagan we have the "President's Working Group on Financial Markets," which has legitimatized corruption to conform to the Keynesian model of corporatist fascism. After the close on Friday we were informed, that the CME, which controls the Comex, had raised margin requirements on gold by 21%, silver 16% and in copper by 18%. In retrospect it is obvious that many banking insiders and traders knew early in the week that this momentous psychological warfare was going to be unleashed on these markets. Your government definitely rigged these markets. Today in America and many other places as well, crime pays. What has been done to investors over this past week is not only a crime, but also a disgrace to all Americans.