Week in Review 02/06/10

Justice openly disagrees with Obama in speech

WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito didn’t like hearing President Barack Obama publicly criticize the high court’s ruling removing corporate campaign spending limits — and he didn’t try to hide it.

Alito made a dismissive face, shook his head repeatedly and appeared to mouth the words “not true” or possibly “simply not true” when Obama assailed the decision Wednesday night in his State of the Union address.

The president had taken the unusual step of publicly scolding the high court, with some of its members in robes seated before him in the House. “With all due deference to the separation of powers,” he said, the court last week “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.” Read more.

Deal sought with failed Detroit attack suspect

Authorities are inching toward an agreement that would secure cooperation from the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner attack, according to two sources familiar with the case, even as fresh details emerged about the intense and chaotic response to the Christmas Day incident.

Seizing on the near miss, GOP lawmakers have mounted a sustained attack on President Obama and the Justice Department, saying they may have lost out on valuable intelligence by charging Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in a federal court rather than under the military justice system.

But new details complicate that narrative, suggesting that Abdulmutallab, 23, clammed up even before he was informed of his right to remain silent — a warning that could have come later had he been placed in military custody. He continued to speak to authorities before undergoing treatment for second- and third-degree burns below the waist that occurred during a bid to detonate explosives on Northwest Flight 253. Read more.

Ayla Brown – “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the Boston Pops

Watchdog: Bank Bailouts Created More Risk in System

The government’s bailout of financial institutions deemed “too big to fail” has created a risk that the United States could face a worse fiscal meltdown in the future, an independent watchdog assigned to review the program told Congress on Sunday.

The Troubled Assets Relief Program, known as TARP, has not addressed the problems that led to the last crisis and in some case those problems have festered and are a bigger threat than before, warned Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general at the Treasury Department.

“Even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car,” Barofsky wrote. Read more.

Obama’s Amnesty Footnote

t the very end of his State of the Union address, President Obama said, “we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system -– to secure our borders and enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.”

Like most Americans, I agree with those broad principles, and that is exactly why Obama was so vague in his speech. His claim that “jobs must be our number one focus in 2010” would be exposed as a complete fraud if he promoted giving amnesty for illegal immigration and importing hundreds of thousands of additional legal foreign workers in the same address.

The situation is already bad enough as it is. At least twelve million illegal immigrants are in this country and eight million illegal aliens are in the American workforce. Additionally, our government issues 75,000 permanent work visas and 50,000 temporary work permits to foreign workers every single month. A recent census study found that one out of every six workers in this country is foreign born. Read more.

Burr’s war chest dwarfs Democrats’

RALEIGH — Republican Sen. Richard Burr, benefiting from incumbency and strong business ties, starts the year with at least a 13-1 money advantage over each of his prospective Democratic challengers.

Burr had $4.3 million in his campaign treasury at the end of the year, compared with $303,175 for former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, $211,113 for Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, and $116,456 for Chapel Hill attorney Ken Lewis, according to campaign disclosure reports filed Monday with the Federal Elections Commission.

“There are only two ways to keep score until Election Day,” said Gary Pearce, a veteran Democratic strategist. “One is money, and one is polls. Burr is in a strong position, no doubt about it.” Read more.

Gates Urges Congress to Approve $768 Billion Defense Budget

WASHINGTON (AP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is urging Congress to approve the Obama administration’s $768.2 billion Pentagon budget request, saying America needs “a broad portfolio of military capabilities.”

Gates joined Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in outlining fiscal 2011 budget proposals to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gates said the United States must “prepare for a much broader range of security challenges on the horizon.”

He said a continuing threat of terrorism from “nonstate groups,” is among the challenges. And Gates added that such 21st century threats “transcend the familiar contingencies that dominated U.S. planning after the Cold War.” He said the proposed budget justifiably exempts defense from spending freezes President Obama is seeking for other government agencies and activities.

Inquiries Take Toll on Easley Team

RALEIGH — When a federal grand jury indicted former Gov. Mike Easley’s legal counsel Ruffin Poole Jan. 21, it was just the latest setback for an Easley associate since the state’s media began investigating the former governor’s activities.

Poole’s indictment came nearly four years after Carolina Journal first reported that Easley bought a waterfront lot for a bargain price in the Cannonsgate community on Bogue Sound in Carteret County.

The former gubernatorial legal counsel was charged with 51 counts of corruption related to his involvement with a group of politically active coastal developers behind Cannonsgate. Read more.

Intelligence officials say al-Qaeda will try to attack U.S. in next 6 months

The Obama administration’s top intelligence officials on Tuesday described it as “certain” that al-Qaeda or its allies will try to attack the United States in the next six months, and they called for new flexibility in how U.S. officials detain and question terrorist suspects.

The officials, testifying before the Senate intelligence committee, also warned of increased risk of cyber-attacks in the coming months, saying that the recent China-based hacking of Google’s computers was both a “wake-up call” and a forerunner to future strikes aimed at businesses or intended to cause economic disruption.

“Al-Qaeda maintains its intent to attack the homeland — preferably with a large-scale operation that would cause mass casualties, harm the U.S. economy or both,” Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told the committee in a hearing convened to assess threats against the country. Read more.

Obama Backs Down After Anti-Vegas Remarks

LAS VEGAS — President Barack Obama is known for having a way with words, but some lawmakers from Nevada wish he would pipe down about trips to Sin City.

After sparking a firestorm of criticism from Nevada’s elected officials for suggesting that people saving money for college shouldn’t blow it in Las Vegas, Obama told U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a letter that he wasn’t saying anything negative about Las Vegas.

It was the second time since taking office that Obama singled out Las Vegas as a potential example of spending excessively.

“I was making the simple point that families use vacation dollars, not college tuition money, to have fun,” Obama said, according to the letter released by Reid’s office. “There is no place better to have fun than Vegas, one of our country’s great destinations.” Read more.

Kissell Walks Tightrope on Health Care

RALEIGH — North Carolina Rep. Larry Kissell was one of three Tar Heel Democrats to break ranks with party leaders and vote against the House version of health care reform in November. Political observers say that vote could play a role in Kissell’s bid for re-election this year as he walks the fine line between pleasing Beltway Democrats and his constituents — many of whom are more conservative than his party’s leaders.

“[Kissell] took a position against his sitting president. It was pretty unpopular with the left,” said David McLennan, a political science professor at Peace College in Raleigh, in a telephone interview with Carolina Journal.

Kissell, who represents the state’s 8th Congressional District stretching from Charlotte to Fayetteville, joined 39 House Democrats in voting against the health care reform bill. It passed by five votes Nov. 7. Read More.

House faces tough vote on $1.9 trillion more debt

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a politically excruciating vote, House Democratic leaders are counting on new budget deficit curbs to help smooth the way for a bill allowing the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper into debt over the next year – or about $6,000 more for every U.S. resident.

The debt measure set for a House vote Thursday would raise the cap on federal borrowing to $14.3 trillion. That’s enough to keep Congress from having to vote again before the November elections on an issue that is feeding a sense among voters that the government is spending too much and putting future generations under a mountain of debt to do it.

Already, the accumulated debt amounts to $40,000 per person. And the debt is increasingly held by foreign nations such as China. Read more.

Newt Gingrich: Impeach judges – Crush and Replace the Left – 2012 “Victory or Death!”

ACORN’s Web of Connections in North Carolina

A Single Seed Grows Many Branches: ACORN’s Web of Connections in North Carolina

The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) has woven itself into the fabric of the left in North Carolina. Listed below are short explanations of the ties between the groups.

Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN)

ACORN NC – ACORN’s North Carolina arm – has offices in Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte. ACORN NC is a member of Blueprint NC and partners with NC Housing Coalition, NC Policy Watch and the NC Justice Center, among others. Read more.

Depositions Could Pose Legal Peril for Easley Aides

RALEIGH — Several aides to former Gov. Mike Easley could be in legal jeopardy based on conflicting statements they gave in sworn depositions.

Former Press Secretary Renee Hoffman recalled separate orders from communications directors Cari Boyce and Sherri Johnson for public information officers to delete e-mails to and from Easley — who used a private e-mail account to conduct public business. Under oath, Boyce and Johnson denied such a blanket order was issued.

Raleigh attorney and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Kieran Shanahan says these inconsistencies could pose problems. Read more.

Sen. Larry Shaw Becomes 7th Dem to Not Seek Re-Election for N.C. Senate

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Another veteran Democrat in the state Senate won't return after 2010 as Sen. Larry Shaw announced Thursday he won't seek an eighth two-year term. The decision means the Legislature will lose its only openly practicing Muslim.

Shaw, a Democrat from Cumberland County who also served a term in the House, brings to seven the number of Senate Democrats since last fall who have resigned or said they won't run for re-election. The candidate filing period begins Monday.

Shaw, 60, didn't give a specific reason for stepping aside, and he wasn't immediately available for comment Thursday, according to a person who answered the phone at his Fayetteville home. Shaw said in a news release he plans to keep working with the family business -- he's the owner of a food services company -- and "in the international faith communities." Read more.

Week in Review 01/30/10

Bin Laden claims airline bomb attempt on Christmas

CAIRO (AP) – Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas in a new audio message released Sunday threatening more attacks on the United States. The United States said there was no indication to suggest that bin Laden or any of his top lieutenants had anything to do with the attempted attack and that the claim may have been motivated by the wish of the terror network’s leaders to appear in control of al-Qaida’s offshoots. “They offer strategic guidance and rely on their affiliates to carry out that strategic guidance,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in an interview. Read more.

NC Democrats must again overcome corruption rap

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — For the past decade, North Carolina Democrats in charge of state government have been successful persuading the public they’re unlike fellow party colleagues who’ve ended up behind bars.

Democrats have remained in power in the Legislature and at the Executive Mansion despite the news of illegal activities that sent then-House Speaker Jim Black, Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps and Rep. Thomas Wright to prison.

They’ve done so while passing tougher ethics and campaign finance laws, and even expelling Wright from the Legislature. At the same time, they’ve had political advantages to get their message out, such as outraising Republicans on campaign dollars, pushing education initiatives and presiding during a span largely marked by growth and prosperity in the state. Read more.

Obama Administration Steers Lucrative No-Bid Contract for Afghan Work to Dem Donor

Despite President Obama’s long history of criticizing the Bush administration for “sweetheart deals” with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide “rule of law stabilization services” in war-torn Afghanistan.

A synopsis of the contract published on the USAID Web site says Checchi & Company will “train the next generation of legal professionals” throughout the Afghan provinces and thereby “develop the capacity of Afghanistan’s justice system to be accessible, reliable, and fair.” Read more.

Democrats on the precipice of failure

Trying to guarantee Americans the thrill of the precipice, the president dashed to Massachusetts on Sunday, thereby conceding that he had already lost Tuesday’s Senate election, which had become a referendum on his signature program. By promising to cast the decisive 41st vote against the president’s health-care legislation, the Republican candidate forced all congressional Democrats to contemplate this: Not even frenzied national mobilization of Democratic manpower and millions of dollars could rescue one of the safest Democratic seats in the national legislature from national dismay about the incontinent government expansion, of which that legislation is symptomatic.

Because the legislation is frightening and unpopular, Democrats have had to resort to serial bribery to advance it. Massachusetts voted immediately after the corruption of exempting, until 2018, union members from the tax on high-value health insurance plans. This tax was supposedly the crucial component of what supposedly was reform’s primary goal: reducing costs. Read more.

Climate Chief Staying Put Despite Calls for His Head

The chief of the U.N.’s climate science panel says he isn’t going anywhere, despite calls for his head amid allegations that he is a sloppy scientist who presided over a report that contained intentionally misleading statements.

“I know a lot of climate skeptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.’sIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told The Times of London.

Pachauri spoke following revelations that an oft-cited “fact” in his panel’s 2008 climate change report — that the Himalayas were on track to melt by 2035 — was sloppily copied from a magazine interview with a single glaciologist in 1999.

Like water flowing downhill from a melting glacier, other errors have since emerged from the report, simply titled AR4. Read more.

Obama Gets ‘F’ on Stopping Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction

A bipartisan, independent commission on stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction says that the Obama administration has failed in its first year in office to do enough to prevent a germ weapons attack on America or to respond quickly and effectively should such an attack occur.

In a 19-page report card being published Tuesday, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism, chaired by former Senators Bob Graham, a Democrat from Florida, and Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican, gives the new administration the grade of “F” for failing to take key steps the commission outlined just over a year ago in its initial report.

Specifically, the commission concludes that the Obama administration, like the three administrations before it, has failed to pay consistent and urgent attention to increasing the nation’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to a germ attack that would inflict massive casualties on the nation. Read more.

Sense of frustration awakens activists

They meet across the region in bars, restaurants, churches and fire stations. They’re Republicans, independents, even Democrats. They belong to groups with names such as We the People, Stand Up America and CAUTION.

What most share is frustration over what they see as an ever-expanding federal government and a belief that America has drifted from its founding principles.

They’re engaged and – like the voters who pushed Republican Scott Brown to victory in Massachusetts – energized.

“We’ve been asleep in politics too long. We’ve got to get involved,” says Deborah Walters, 52, one of more than 200 people at this month’s kickoff of Strengthen Charlotte. Read more

Obama Seeks Partial Three-Year Spending Freeze

President Obama, after spending hundreds of billions his first year, now is seeking a partial three-year federal spending freeze that would reduce budgets by less than 1 percent.

The drop-in-the-bucket nature of the president’s proposal was underscored Tuesday by a Congressional Budget Office estimate projecting the 2010 federal deficit to hit $1.35 trillion — Obama’s spending freeze would be expected to save up to $15 billion the first year.

The president will propose the congressional freeze on “non-security” spending in his State of the Union address Wednesday night, senior administration officials said. The freeze, which would apply to annual spending on day-to-day government, appears to be an attempt to answer widespread voter concern about rising deficits and debt. Read more.

A “Fishy” business: Sen. Basnight, Basnight Construction and the $25 million dollar state pier

Civitas first reported on the now infamous $25 million fishing pier in Nags Head as a Bad Bill of the Week in May. TheAugust issue of Civitas Review featured “Pier Pressure,” an in-depth background of this project and its ties to Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight (D-Dare).

As the funding of this project was questioned, Civitas continued to provide the below updates on our Civitasreview.com blog.

Although this project was hailed as “shovel ready” by lawmakers, job creation claims were overblown and even downright ridiculous. Yet, despite concerns, the N.C. Aquariums have continued to pursue planning for additional piers in Emerald Isle and Carolina Beach.

The December issue of Civitas Review exposed how Sen. Basnight has benefited from his support of the Pier. Civitas continued to update this story, when it became clear that Basnight Construction has received subcontract work on the Pier.

Thomas Jefferson’s Words of Wisdom

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

People Said It didn’t Matter

God Save Us From Those Among US Who Are Too Stupid to Know the Truth And Worse: They Don’t Care! The Fundamental Transformation of America When Obama wrote a book and said he was mentored as a youth by Frank, (Frank Marshall Davis) an avowed Communist, people said it didn’t matter. When it was discovered that his grandparents, were strong socialist, sent Obama’s mother to a socialist school, introduced Frank Marshall Davis to young Obama, people said it didn’t matter. When people found out that he was enrolled as a Muslim child in school and his father and step father were both Muslims, people said it didn’t matter. Read more.

Gloves come off after Obama rips Supreme Court ruling

Washington (CNN) — The political furor escalated over President Obama’s high-profile rebuke of a recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign advertising Thursday, as Democrats pounded the high court decision. Democrats rallied around Obama the day after the president committed a rare breach of political etiquette, criticizing the controversial ruling in his State of the Union address as members of the high court sat only a few feet away. The court’s 5-4 decision, issued last week, removed long-established legal barriers preventing corporations from spending unlimited sums of money to influence voters in political campaigns. Democrats fear the decision has given the traditionally pro-business GOP a powerful new advantage. Read more.

Pelosi Pushes $300 Billion ‘Fix’ to Senate Health Care Bill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing a $300 billion “fix” to the Senate health care bill, saying that her chamber could approve the Senate’s package if those changes are made first.

Senior Democratic aides told Fox News that Pelosi has offered up the new package of changes to Senate Democratic leaders, with the hope that they will be able to pass it using a controversial procedural maneuver known as “reconciliation.” The maneuver would allow Democrats to pass the measure with just 51 votes, without having to first overcome the normal 60-vote threshold.

Some Democrats are keen on using that process, since the election last week of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts broke the Democrats’ 60-vote supermajority. However, some Democratic moderates — notably Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh — have balked at using the controversial tactic to ram through health care reform measures. Read more.

Poole’s arrest puts reform in fast lane

Leading lawmakers and the governor are shaping a wide range of reforms that promise more accountability and sunshine across state government, fixes aimed at restoring trust after a stretch of scandals.

The efforts are moving with speed and are coalescing as another embarrassment commands attention: Ruffin Poole, a longtime senior aide to former Gov. Mike Easley, was arrested and appeared in court Thursday for the first time since his indictment last week on 51 corruption charges.

Poole, 38, has not entered a plea. He and his lawyer declined to comment Thursday. Read more.

Gitmo closure looks increasingly uncertain

The closure of the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is beginning to look like a protracted and uncertain project for the Obama administration as political, legal and security concerns limit the president’s options.

Having blown the one-year closure deadline set last January in an executive order, the administration is planning to transfer some detainees to a state prison it hopes to acquire in Illinois. But there appears to be little mood in Congress to provide the administration with either the funding for the prison or the authority to transfer detainees who will be held indefinitely.

At the same time, opposition is building to plans to transfer a number of detainees, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to a civilian court in Lower Manhattan for federal trial. Read more.

Senate votes to raise limits on national debt

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats needed all 60 votes at their disposal Thursday to muscle through legislation allowing the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt.

Democratic leaders were able to prevail on the politically volatile 60-39 vote only because Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts has yet to be seated. Republicans had insisted on a 60-vote, super-majority threshhold to pass the measure. An earlier test vote succeeded on a 60-40 vote.

The measure would put the government on track for a national debt of $14.3 trillion — about $45,000 for every American — and it served as a vivid reminder of the United States’ dire fiscal straits. Read more.

Week in Review 01/23/10

After Rocky First Year, Geithner Faces Another Test in AIG Bailout Hearing

The Treasury secretary is back in the hot seat, for bailout decisions he made about AIG while he was head of the New York Federal Reserve — and it has created a firestorm that some critics hope will mark the end of his tenure. Timothy Geithner’s tenure as Treasury secretary got off to a rocky start, to say the least. There was the revelation during his Senate confirmation last year that he once failed to pay taxes. There were the questions surrounding his role at Freddie Mac during an accounting scandal. And later, there were the calls from some lawmakers for his resignation for what they deemed as a poor response to the U.S. economic crisis. Read more.

House Democrats don’t like Plan B

House Democrats privately worry that the rank-and-file would reject a doomsday strategy that requires them to approve the Senate health care bill if Republican Scott Brown wins in Massachusetts on Tuesday. “Progressives and conservatives in the caucus won’t go for it,” one aide predicted on Monday. But they may not have another choice if the party loses its critical 60th vote in the Senate. If Brown beats Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to fill the seat recently occupied by the late-Ted Kennedy, one alternative has the House passing the bill the Senate approved just before Christmas last year, with a promise to make additional changes through the upcoming budget process. Read more.

Hunt urged Obama to put Wright behind him

A new documentary about Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in North Carolina discloses that former Gov. Jim Hunt urged Obama to distance himself from his controversial pastor.

In April 2008, at the height of the controversy over Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Hunt called Obama’s North Carolina campaign. He advised Obama to publicly profess his Christianity, love of country and denounce his pastor if he were to have any chance of winning the state’s May 6 primary.

“I made it very clear … you can either win this campaign, or you can lose it,” Hunt told the film’s producer, journalist Cash Michaels. Read more.

Estimates shore up Marco Rubio’s claim about illegal immigrants with visas

The statement “Close to half of the folks in this country illegally, entered legally (but) overstayed (their ) visas.” Marco Rubio on Thursday, in interview with Glenn Beck The ruling Florida U.S. Senate hopeful Marco Rubio has hit the big time — Glenn Beck’s radio program. During a wide-ranging interview Thursday, Rubio said that he thinks Republicans need to be the party that supports and promotes legal immigration. Then, he added: “Close to half of the folks in this country illegally, entered legally (but) overstayed (their) visas,” Rubio said. Read more.

Under Obama, U.S. has taken a step back in war on terror

Why is the Obama administration providing a despicable Nigerian Muslim terrorist named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with sacred American constitutional rights? Why is Obama going to prosecute him in an American civilian court? Why did Team Obama read this scoundrel his Miranda rights? On Christmas Day 2009, nearly 300 people escaped death solely because the terrorist’s detonator failed to ignite his underwear bomb. In just one year the Obama administration has made America significantly less safe. I stated before Obama’s election that he would weaken America. It was my theory then. But it is certainly no longer in doubt. Obama is so busy trying to socialize America that he has completely taken his eye off of his most important duty: to keep America safe. Read more.

Scott Brown roars to Senate upset win

State Sen. Scott Brown has pulled a Bay State bombshell by upsetting his Democratic rival to capture the open U.S. Senate seat by a 5-point margin. Brown, 50, of Wrentham, will roll into Washington as the nation struggles with health-care reform. But Brown has vowed to be “the 41st Senator” that will defeat the measure. Democrat Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, has gone down in a stunning defeat. Brown has won 52-47 percent, with 89 percent of the precincts reporting. Independent Joseph L. Kennedy finished way back with 1 precent of the vote. Read more.

Senate Democrats Propose $1.9T Increase to U.S. Debt Limit

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would permit the national debt to reach $14.3 trillion. The unpopular legislation is needed to allow the federal government to issue bonds to fund programs and prevent a first-time default on obligations. It promises to be a challenging debate for Democrats who, as the party in power, hold the responsibility for passing the legislation. The record increase in the so-called debt limit is required because the budget deficit has spiraled out of control in the wake of a recession that cut tax revenues, the Wall Street bailout, and increased spending by the Democratic-controlled Congress. Last year’s deficit hit a phenomenal $1.4 trillion, and the current year’s deficit promises to be as high or higher. Read more.

John Edwards admits paternity

John Edwards admitted this morning to being the father of Frances Quinn Hunter, the two-year-old daughter of his former mistress Rielle Hunter.

The admission comes after more than two years of rumors and tabloid hounding and an investigation into campaign money federal authorities suspect circulated around Edwards’ mistress. Edwards, former North Carolina senator and failed presidential candidate, has repeatedly denied being Frances Quinn Hunter’s father since August 2008.

“It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter, and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me,” Edwards said in a statement. That statement was released to NBC’s Today show and The News & Observer. Read more.

House Democrats reluctant to take up Senate health-care reform bill

Determined to enact a health-care reform bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struggled Wednesday to sell the Senate version of the legislation to reluctant Democrats, even as party moderates raised doubts about forging ahead without bipartisan support. Republican Scott Brown’s victory Tuesday in a Senate special election in Massachusetts blindsided President Obama and Democratic leaders, who had nearly reached the finish line on an ambitious overhaul of the nation’s health-care system and were beginning to turn their attention to other challenges, namely creating jobs and lowering the deficit. Read more.

Obama Seen as Anti-Business by 77% of U.S. Investors

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) — U.S. investors overwhelmingly see President Barack Obama as anti-business and question his ability to manage afinancial crisis, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The global quarterly poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers finds that 77 percent of U.S. respondents believe Obama is too anti-business and four-out-of-five are only somewhat confident or not confident of his ability to handle a financial emergency.

The poll also finds a decline in Obama’s overall favorability rating one year after taking office. He is viewed favorably by 27 percent of U.S. investors. In an October poll, 32 percent in the U.S. held a positive impression. Read more.

51 charges for former Easley aide

Ruffin Poole, a longtime senior aide to former Gov. Mike Easley, corrupted his office by taking trips, liquor, money and other gifts from people he helped with state government action, a federal grand jury charged Thursday.

In a wide-ranging indictment, Poole was charged with 51 counts that include extortion, bribery, racketeering, fraud, money laundering and engaging in transactions in “criminally derived” property. Many of the charges in the indictment from the grand jury flow from Poole’s interference in environmental permits, in some cases for projects in which he had invested. Read more.

Obama concedes health overhaul hit ‘buzz saw’

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama, two days after signaling retreat on a massive health care overhaul, discounted the small-bore approach Friday and pledged to press for ambitious changes despite running into a “bit of a buzz saw” of opposition.

Even as the president sought to bring the public and nervous Democrats back on board, a leading member of his party suggested Congress slow it down on health care, a sign of eroding political will in the wake of Tuesday’s Republican election upset in Massachusetts.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who ushered the overhaul legislation through the Senate’s health committee last year after the death of his friend, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, said Obama and lawmakers could “maybe take a breather for a month, six weeks.” Read more.