Union Drops Health Coverage for Workers’ Children

From The Wall Street Journal

By Yuliya Chernova

Associated Press

Jason Morales, an 1199SEIU member from Brooklyn, protested proposed health-care cuts in the state budget in June. A benefit fund for the union is dropping insurance coverage for workers’ children.

One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.

The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.

The fund informed its members late last month that their dependents will no longer be covered as of Jan. 1, 2011. Currently about 6,000 children are covered by the benefit fund, some until age 23.

The union fund faced a “dramatic shortfall” between what employers contributed to the fund and the premiums charged by its insurance provider, Fidelis Care, according to Mitra Behroozi, executive director of benefit and pension funds for 1199SEIU. The union fund pools contributions from several home-care agencies and then buys insurance from Fidelis.

“In addition, new federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26,” Behroozi wrote in a letter to members Oct. 22. “Our limited resources are already stretched as far as possible, and meeting this new requirement would be financially impossible.”

Behroozi estimated that the fund faced a $15 million shortfall in 2011 and more in the following years for the coverage of workers’ children.

The union said in a statement that the state required the fund to participate in a new program — the Family Health Plus Buy-In Program — beginning in 2008. The union said it expected that by joining the program, many of its members would qualify for state assistance for health-insurance coverage. “Instead they raised insurance rate increases without any increase in funding, and then cut Medicaid funding to the same workers nine times in the last three years,” the union said in a statement.

But the state denies requiring the union to join the program. “The state is not forcing 1199 to do anything regarding its employee health insurance,” said Jeffrey W. Hammond, spokesman for the New York Department of Health.

Home-care agencies that contribute to the union fund collect their revenue from the state’s Medicaid program. Over the past two years the state cut about $370 million in Medicaid reimbursements to home and community-based care programs, according to New York State Association of Health Care Providers Inc., a trade association that represents agencies that employ home attendants.

“In home care in general, whether in a union or a non-unionized workplace, they are dealing with the crisis of trying to do more and more with less and less, and cut on top of cut,” said Christine Johnston, president of the association.

For the 1199 fund, premiums rose because Fidelis realized that the home health-care attendants are sicker than average, according to Mark Lane, president and chief executive of Fidelis Care. “These people are hard working people. There’s physical labor, which manifests itself in terms of more chronic and acute care type of illnesses,” said Lane.

As premiums went up and employer contributions remained constant, the benefit fund started cutting the rolls of eligible members. In the past three years the 1199 fund reduced its total enrollment in half, to less than 40,000 currently.

“We hope the state of New York will do the right thing and provide the funding necessary for this most vulnerable population of direct caregivers,” the union said in a statement.

Politically correct Portland rejected feds who saved city from terrorist attack

From The Washington Examiner

By: Byron York 11/28/10 7:29 AM
Chief Political Correspondent

In 2005, leaders in Portland, Oregon, angry at the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror, voted not to allow city law enforcement officers to participate in a key anti-terror initiative, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. On Friday, that task force helped prevent what could have been a horrific terrorist attack in Portland. Now city officials say they might re-think their participation in the task force -- because Barack Obama is in the White House.

Reading the FBI affidavit describing Islamist terror suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud's plan to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square is a chilling experience. Mohamud, a Somali-born naturalized U.S. citizen who attended Oregon State University, told undercover FBI agents he dreamed of performing acts of jihad in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans would die. "Do you remember when 9/11 happened when those people were jumping from skyscrapers?" Mohamud asked the agents, according to the affidavit. "I thought that was awesome."

In months of preparation with men he thought were co-conspirators but were in fact undercover agents, Mohamud backed up his talk with action. After initially making email contact with Islamist radicals in Pakistan, he took part in constructing what he hoped would be an extraordinarily powerful bomb, scouted the best location for the attack, parked the van containing the bomb near the Christmas tree crowd, and, finally, dialed the cell phone number he believed would detonate the explosives. "I want whoever is attending that event to leave either dead or injured," Mohamud said of the 25,000 people expected to take part in the event.

That Mohamud was arrested and no one was hurt is a testament to good intelligence and law enforcement work. Having Mohamud behind bars has undoubtedly saved lives in Portland; had he not encountered the undercover FBI agents, he might have worked with actual terrorists to construct a bomb, or he might have simply gotten a gun and carried out "an operation here, you know, like something like Mumbai," as he told the agents.

What is ironic is that the operation that found and stopped Mohamud is precisely the kind of law enforcement work that Portland's leaders, working with the American Civil Liberties Union, rejected during the Bush years. In April 2005, the Portland city council voted 4 to 1 to withdraw Portland city police officers from participating in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. Mayor Tom Potter said the FBI refused to give him a top-secret security clearance so he could make sure the officers weren't violating state anti-discrimination laws that bar law enforcement from targeting suspects on the basis of their religious or political beliefs.

Other city leaders agreed. "Here in Portland, we are not willing to give up individual liberties in order to have a perception of safety," said city commissioner Randy Leonard. "It's important for cities to know how their police officers are being used."

Local officials were also angry about the FBI's mistaken arrest of Brandon Mayfield, a Portland lawyer and convert to Islam, for the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain. But well before the Mayfield case, Portland had a history of rejecting Bush administration efforts to fight terrorism. "Portland's decision would not be the first time the city has taken a contrary stand in the war on terrorism," the Los Angeles Times reported in 2005. "In the months after Sept. 11, city leaders refused to cooperate with federal efforts to interview thousands of local Muslims. In 2003, the City Council criticized and called for radical changes in the USA Patriot Act, the much-debated federal anti-terrorism legislation."

In the Mohamud case, it appears that Portland's anti-law enforcement stand might actually have influenced Mohamud's decision to undertake an attack in the city. According to the FBI affidavit, the undercover agents asked whether he worried that law enforcement would stop him. "In Portland?" Mohamud replied. "Not really. They don't see it as a place where anything will happen. People say, you know, why, anybody want to do something in Portland, you know, it's on the west coast, it's in Oregon, and Oregon's, like you know, nobody ever thinks about it."

Now, there are indications that the Mohamud case might cause city leaders to change their mind about the FBI and the war on terror. Current mayor Sam Adams, who says he was not aware of the Mohamud investigation until after Mohamud had been arrested, told the Oregonian newspaper that he might ask the city council to reconsider the decision to pull out of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Because he now realizes the city was wrong? Not at all. "[Adams] stressed that he has much more faith in the Obama administration and the leadership of the U.S. Attorney’s office now than he did in 2005," the paper reported.

UN IPCC Official Admits 'We Redistribute World's Wealth By Climate Policy'

From Newsbusters

By Noel Sheppard | November 18, 2010 | 11:27

If you needed any more evidence that the entire theory of manmade global warming was a scheme to redistribute wealth you got it Sunday when a leading member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told a German news outlet, "[W]e redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy."

Such was originally published by Germany's NZZ Online Sunday, and reprinted in English by the Global Warming Policy Foundation moments ago:

(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.

(EDENHOFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

(NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.

(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

For the record, Edenhofer was co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group III, and was a lead author of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007 which controversially concluded, "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

As such, this man is a huge player in advancing this theory, and he has now made it quite clear - as folks on the realist side of this debate have been saying for years - that this is actually an international economic scheme designed to redistribute wealth.

Readers are encouraged to review the entire interview at GWPF or Google's slightly different translation.

Beck: Let's just shoot people if they talk on their cell phone while driving!

Our benevolent nanny state is pursuing a device to install in vehicles that would jam cellphones while we are driving, because, according to Ray Lahood, people just think they can talk on their cell phone whenever and wherever they want. Beck wonders why on earth people in America would think they are free to use their stuff whenever they want, and just offers up the idea to start reeducation camps and if that doesn’t work let’s just shoot ‘em!

Factbox: Taxpayers in deep water on GM investment

From Reuters

Thu Nov 18, 2010 3:44pm EST

n">(Reuters) - General Motors Co may have the world's biggest initial public offering, but U.S. taxpayers were more than $9 billion underwater on the government-funded restructuring at its current share price on Thursday.

A breakdown of the paper loss follows.

* The U.S. Treasury loaned GM about $49.86 billion from late 2008 through 2009 to restructure the company and finance its move through bankruptcy and beyond.

* Before accounting for the Treasury proceeds from the IPO, GM had repaid about $9.74 billion to the government. Those repayments included unused loans, the purchase of Treasury preferred shares, and dividends and interest. That left taxpayers owed a little more than $40.1 billion.

* Including overallotments, Treasury will recover more than $13.6 billion by selling 412.3 million common shares, leaving taxpayers owed about $26.5 billion. Treasury would need to sell its remaining 500.1 million share-stake at an average price of about $53 for taxpayers to be repaid.

* With GM shares trading at $34.50 Thursday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, taxpayers were facing an $18.50 per-share deficit on their remaining stake, or about $9.25 billion.

SOURCES: Treasury public reports, GM SEC filings

Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin: Bond Market Could Implode, Vote to Increase Deficit Could be the Trigger

From HotAirPundit

Rubin speaking at the Pierre Hotel in NYC

"Terribly dangerous territory"

businessinsider

Warning of the risk of an "implosion" in the bond market, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin says the soaring federal budget deficit and the Fed's quantitative easing are putting the U.S. in "terribly dangerous territory."

Speaking at an event at The Pierre Hotel in New York City honoring Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Rubin joined the growing number of current and former officials (foreign and domestic) to criticize QE2. The Fed's plan to buy $600 billion of Treasuries "has a lot of risk," he said, calling the international reaction "horrendous."

Rubin, who issued a similar warning about the bond market at The FT's "Future of Finance" conference in October, said Congress' vote on raising the deficit ceiling next spring could be the "trigger" for a rout in the Treasury market. Several Republican and Tea Party candidates vowed to not increase the government's debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to sharp cuts in spending that may not be politically tenable.

Sen. Rockefeller: FCC should shut down Fox News and MSNBC

From The Right Scoop

Posted by therightscoop on Nov 18, 2010 in Politics | 35 Comments

via theBlaze.com. Sen. Rockefeller, in a more rare and honest moment, says that he is tired of the Right and the Left and that we’d all be better off if the FCC would shut down Fox News and MSNBC. That’s interesting, because the FCC doesn’t have any jurisdiction over cable whatsoever. At least not yet.

You see, Rockefeller says he hungers for quality news and believes that the FCC should play a part in facilitating that end. He believes that without the extremes of Fox News and MSNBC, the American people would have more faith in their government, would have better political discourse, and that it would help legislators do their work. Yeah right, Fox News is the reason why the American people don’t have faith in their government.

What Rockefeller really wants is news that doesn’t hold him and his legislative buddies accountable. He doesn’t want news that would appropriately vet, say President Obama, and uncover what he really believes and how it’s the complete opposite of what the majority of Americans believe. What he wants is a propaganda machine, which is why for the life of me I can’t figure out why he wants MSNBC taken off the air. Anyway, what this is really about is not what the American people want, but rather what he wants – freedom of speech and the Constitution be damned.

The bigger point here is the size of government. This is a prime example of why we must limit the size of government so as to maximize the freedom of the individual. Milton Friedman points out that every person works for their own self interest and the bigger the government, the better chance that a legislator’s self interest will conflict with yours. And when they conflict, we all know who wins that battle (ie. Obamacare).

If left alone, the American people will decide which news outlets are successful and which are not, and that’s the way it should be. I just hope that the next time Sen. Rockefeller is on the ballot, the American people teach him a good lesson by using their constitutionally protected freedom of speech and send him packing.

UPDATED: I changed it to match my more updated version at hotair.com

Where Marxists Pontificate, and Play

From The New York Times

Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

By CHANNING JOSEPH

Published: November 4, 2010

IF communists have a reputation for anything, it is seriousness. (And if you have seen old photos of Karl Marx, you know that he did not smile much.) But at the Brecht Forum, a community center on West Street where revolutionaries and radicals gather daily to ponder and to pontificate, they also play. (Smiles abound.)

Amid the honeycomb of offices and hidden rooms on the ground floor of a shabby brick building facing the Hudson River, activists and agitators unite for classes like “Antonio Gramsci: Revolutionary Strategy and the Historic Bloc” and talks like “Envisioning a Post-Capitalist Future.” Networks of pipes snaking along the ceiling and glimpses of exposed brick give the space a slightly industrial feel, which seems fitting for discussions on labor theory and worker exploitation.

But there is also the monthly Game Night, when regulars put down their copies of “Das Kapital” and immerse themselves in table tennis, foosball and a complicated Marxist version of Monopoly called, appropriately, Class Struggle.

In a city known for cynicism, the Brecht, which survives on donations, is a surprisingly open and idealistic place.

“We have folks who are superfamous, along with folks who are homeless,” said Kazembe Balagun, 34, outreach director of the forum for the past three years. A big, bearded, bespectacled man, Mr. Balagun (born Keith Alexander Mitchell) manages to be both bashful and effusive as he greets visitors in his sunny way. He is a child of mainline Democrats, but Mr. Balagun said he was attracted to Marxism because it offered “a way to understand the world, and understand how the world could be different.”

The forum, named for the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, began in 1975 as the New York Marxist School and had several downtown Manhattan addresses before settling in the West Street building, which once housed Serge Gym, in 2005. Over the years, Noam Chomsky has joined in forum activities, and so has Tony Kushner.

No test of ideological purity is administered at the door. Even the rare Republican is welcome, and admission to all events is either free or based on what visitors say they can afford. Working at the Brecht is part of a life of activism, Mr. Balagun said; but it can be a good time, too.

When I visited one evening in October, about two dozen youngish, fashionable people — men in button-down shirts and dress slacks, women in knee-high boots and hoop earrings — had gathered under harsh flood lamps in the forum’s circular meeting space for a panel discussion, “Child Welfare From the Crack Era to the Age of Obama.”

As the panelists spoke, a group of well-dressed ladies nodded and hummed their approval.

“We’re a society that puts capital before children,” one panelist said.

“Mm-hmm,” the women responded.

“Every woman that has a child is not a mother,” another panelist later said.

“Mm-hmm,” they crooned again.

After the talk, people chatted in the lobby, and Mr. Balagun shared amusing tales: like the one about how the supermodel Tyra Banks once ran into the Brecht to use the bathroom, and how the singer Bjork once rode by on the handlebars of a bicycle.

But when the audience had dispersed into the night, a small cadre of loyalists gathered around a table for something more entertaining: poker. Despite the temptation, I politely excused myself.

As I tried to slink away, Anoush Dertaulian, a forum volunteer, stopped laying out chips and guided me, for one last lesson, to a shrine honoring Hampig Sassounian — an Armenian immigrant imprisoned in California for murder. Ms. Dertaulian said he was a political prisoner. “You’ve never heard of him,” she added, hurrying back to the game. She was right.

While Mr. Balagun waved me out the front door, I imagined Marx’s ghost floating in the hazy light of the evening, watching over the poker players. Behind his famous thicket of a beard, I could almost see a grin.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 7, 2010, on page MB3 of the New York edition.

Soros Tells Progressives: Prepare to Bail on Obama

From The Blaze

Posted on November 17, 2010 at 6:53pm by Meredith Jessup

Quoting “several Democratic sources,” the Huffington Post reports that billionaire George Soros may be encouraging his fellow progressives to funnel their money away from President Barack Obama — that is, unless Obama can deliver for their cause.

During a small, “private” meeting of the Democracy Alliance Tuesday afternoon, Soros reportedly told the well-funded, progressive-minded crowd that the Obama administration might not be their best investment:

According to multiple sources with knowledge of his remarks, Soros told those in attendance that he is “used to fighting losing battles but doesn’t like to lose without fighting.”

“We have just lost this election, we need to draw a line,” he said, according to several Democratic sources. “And if this president can’t do what we need, it is time to start looking somewhere else.”

According to HuffPo, Soros’ political director later did not dispute the comments, but insisted that Soros remains a staunch supporter of Barack Obama.

“Mr. Soros fully supports the president as the leader of the Democratic Party,” said [Michael] Vachon. “He was not suggesting that we seek another candidate for 2012. His comments were made in a private, informal conversation that was about the need for progressives to be more forceful in promoting their agenda. He was stressing the importance of being heard by elected officials.”

In addition, the council of progressive big spenders also reportedly unloaded some tough questions on White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina Wednesday, including why the Obama administration wasn’t “more combative with Republicans.”

So who is the Democracy Alliance? The group’s leadership consists of former and current officials of the SEIU, National Education Association (NEA), Tides Foundation, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), NARAL Pro-Choice, EMILY’s List, Media Matters, the Clinton Administration, the NAACP and a number of private family foundations.

The group’s stated mission is “to build progressive infrastructure that could help counter the well-funded and sophisticated conservative apparatus in the areas of civic engagement, leadership, media, and ideas.”

Surprise: Communists Make Cameo Appearances in Jobs Video

From The Blaze

Posted on November 16, 2010 at 10:01am by Jonathon M. Seidl

The Chicago Jobs With Justice says its goal is to “improve working people’s standards of living, fight for job security, and stand up for workers’ right to organize.“ Their ”core belief“ is that ”in order to be successful, workers’ rights struggles have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice.“ So it might come as no surprise that a recent promo video for the group includes some familiar ”struggle” proponents: communists.

First, the group’s leader. As Trevor Loudon over at NZ Patriot points out, Chicago Jobs With Justice is lead by Susan Hurley. Hurley is a veteran of the SEIU as well as George Soros’s MoveOn.org. She will even be the keynote speaker at the Chicago Communist Party’s 23rd Annual People’s World / Mundo Popular banquet.

It makes sense, then, that communists pop up in her new promo video. Loudon explains who you will see:

Here’s a promotional video for the U.W.C. featuring Hurley, a cameo of Communist Party labor secretary Scott Marshall at 27 seconds and a speech from 91 year old Communist Party veteran Beatrice Lumpkin at 3:34.

Loudon believes the video points to a larger plan and problem:

Communist Party “friend” Barack Obama creates unemployment with socialist economic policies.

The communists then organize those unemployed to pressure the Administration for “Green Jobs” and huge public works programs.

The communist then colonize those organizations and programs and use them to pressure Obama for still more socialism.

Meanwhile, you and your family pay, in gold and grief, the entire cost of your “liberation”.

Clever eh?

Read all of Loudon’s thoughts in his post, “Communists Exploit Unemployed for Socialist Agenda.”

Exclusive Audio: Militant Anti-Tea Party National Socialist Strategy Session Calling for Head-Cracking Revolution

From The Blaze

Posted on November 16, 2010 at 7:19am by Pam Key

Lots of Unions Are on the ‘Hidden’ List to Receive ObamaCare Waivers

From The Blaze

Posted on November 15, 2010 at 8:17am by Scott Baker

If ObamaCare is such a good idea, then why are there 111 companies on the waiver list?

That’s the question in this Fox News segment:

GatewayPundit highights the segment’s central charge:

“The bottom line here is that they gave out waivers is an admission of guilt. Basically they’re saying, “You’re right. We screwed up.” That’s the bottom line here. They did not create a law that benefits all of us.”

Further, GatewayPundit’s analysis of the 111 names (full list here) turns up some familiar names — like SEIU and other unions:

#12– UFCW Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust
#14– IBEW No.915
#19– Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
#33– Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
#35– UFCW Local 227
#52– UFCW Maximus Local 455
#55– Local 25 SEIU
#60– UFCW Local 1262
#78– Local 802 Musicians Health Fund
#83– Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund
#89– International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT)
#91– Transport Workers
#92– UFT Welfare Fund (United Federation of Teachers)

The New York Times:

As Obama administration officials put into place some of the new rules that go into effect under the federal health care law, they are issuing more waivers to try to prevent some insurers and employers from dropping coverage and also promising to modify other rules because many of the existing policies would not meet new standards.

Last month, federal officials granted dozens of one-year waivers that were aimed at sparing certain employers, including McDonald’s, insurers and unions who offer plans that sharply limit the coverage they provide. These limited-benefit plans, also known as “minimeds,” fail to comply with new rules phasing out limits on how much policies will provide in medical care each year.

Concerned about the potential disruption that would be created by enforcing the new rules, the administration has granted dozens of additional waivers and also made clear that it would modify other rules affecting these policies. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services issued more guidance, saying it would use a different method of calculating spending for these plans so they would be able to meet new regulations dictating how insurers should use the premium dollars they collect.

Meantime, Michelle Malkin notes that “Soros monkeys” are attacking “Republican repeal mongers” like crazy:

Even as the Obama administration concedes failure and continues to approve temporary repeals of the federal mandates to company after company after union after union.

Here’s the “repeal monger” attack:

Health Care for America Now executive director Ethan Rome says advocates must make it clear what repealing the law or its major provisions would really mean. “The law gets the insurance companies off the backs of the consumers,” he says. “The Republican repeal mongers want to give health care back to the insurance industry. That is what it boils down to.”

Malkins conclusion: Guess we are all “repeal mongers” now, eh?

Losses double for U.S. Postal Service

By Aaron Smith, staff writerNovember 12, 2010: 12:46 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The U.S. Postal Service more than doubled its losses in fiscal year 2010, despite cutting billions of dollars in expenses and trimming its staff.

The Postal Service said its net loss totaled $8.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. That compares to a loss of $3.8 billion the prior year.

The Postal Service blamed the deeper losses on the recession and on the continuing growth of e-mail. A change in the interest rates affecting the Postal Service's workers' compensation liability also played a role, the organization said.

Chief Financial Officer Joe Corbett said the losses were worsening despite cuts that generated cost savings of $9 billion over the past two years. Those savings came primarily from the elimination of 105,000 full-time positions -- "more than any other organization, anywhere," Corbett said.

As more communications go electronic, mail volume keeps dropping. The Postal Service delivered 170.6 billion pieces in its 2010 fiscal year, compared to 176.7 billion pieces the prior year. That decline cost the service around $1 billion in lost revenue.

"We will continue our relentless efforts to innovate and improve efficiency," Corbett said. "However, the need for changes to legislation, regulations and labor contracts has never been more obvious."

Postal Service spokeswoman Joanne Veto said her organization has asked Congress to allow it to scale back to five-day delivery, cutting Saturdays, and to discontinue its "unique" requirement to pre-fund its retirement fund -- something no other federal agency is required to do.

Congress has taken no action on these requests, she said.

Auditor Ernst & Young is expected to issue an audit opinion saying that "questions remain" about the Postal Service's ability to make its $5.5 billion pre-funding payment for retiree health benefits, due at the end of fiscal year 2011.

Despite that, Veto said the Postal Service is "fully funded for existing retirement benefits."

Veto also said that mail volume is expected to pick up in fiscal year 2011, although first-class mail -- the service's most lucrative product -- is forecast to continue its decline.

Glenn Beck Responds to ADL Statement Calling His Soros Reporting 'Horrific' & 'Offensive'

From The Blaze

After three days of television shows focusing on the work and impact of George Soros, the wave of Beck criticism crested Thursday night with the leader of the Anti-Defamation League issuing a strong denunciation of the programs:

Throughout three programs this week, Mr. Beck has portrayed Mr. Soros, a billionaire investor and philanthropist, as a “puppet master” who is “notorious for collapsing economies and regimes all around the world” and whose “next target” is the United States. Citing Mr. Soros’s statements about the decline of the dollar, Mr. Beck said, “Not only does he want to bring America to her knees, financially, he wants to reap obscene profits off us as well.”

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, took issue with Mr. Beck’s depiction of Mr. Soros as a “Jewish boy helping sending the Jews to the death camps,” calling it “offensive” and “horrific.”

On Tuesday on his Fox program, watched by about 2.8 million people, Mr. Beck said that during the Holocaust, the 14-year-old Mr. Soros “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off.”

Mr. Beck continued: “I am certainly not saying that George Soros enjoyed that, even had a choice. I mean, he’s 14 years old. He was surviving. So I’m not making a judgment. That’s between him and God.” He also said that “many people” would call Mr. Soros “an anti-Semite,” though “I will not.”

On Thursday’s program, Beck revisited the issue and focused on how Soros has himself described that time in his life:

On his radio program Friday morning, Beck talked about a letter he recently received from the ADL’s Foxman.

Beck noted that his office provided a copy of the letter to The New York Times prior to the publication of their story. The contents of the letter were not included in the article.

This is the key segment from the Friday morning radio show:

‘The Three Little Pigs Revisited’: New Version With Recycled Houses and ‘Miscommunication’

From The Blaze
Posted on November 10, 2010 at 4:10pm by Jonathon M. Seidl

Remember the childhood story “The Three Little Pigs”? Complete with animals, action, and some life lessons about not taking the easiest route, the tale has become a classic. And despite variations over the years, the core story remains the same. Until now.

A new version of the story is now popping up in the classroom as part of the the fourth grade reading textbook Storytown: Winning Catch 4. In that book’s version, the wolf has a sudden heart attack while trying to blow down the third little pig’s adobe house. The three little pigs rush to his aid, save him, and while trying to flee from him once recovered, realize that the whole “huff and puff and blow your house down” thing was a simple “lack of communication”: the wolf actually wanted to move in with the pigs and was testing each abode’s structural security.

The story is complete with housing shortages and houses made of recycled newspaper and aluminum. An electronic version can be viewed here by picking theme two, lesson eight.

One reader, however, sent The Blaze a two-page excerpt from the updated version, which is being used in at least one school in Shelby county, Alabama:

This isn’t the first time the pigs have faced scrutiny. In 2008, another version of “The Three Little Pigs” came under fire for not being politically correct. Then, a British educational system award panel turned down a new version of the story called “The Three Little Cowboy Builders” because it was offensive to Muslims, Asians, and builders.

“Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?” a panel of judges asked.

Comrade Atkins Admits Communist Infiltration of Democratic Party

From New Zeal

This blog has long contended that the Communist Party USA and other Marxist groups have heavily infiltrated the Democratic Party.

This has enabled the Communist Party to both influence Democratic Party policy and to choose and promote Democratic candidates at all levels.



Writing on the Party website Political Affairs, comrade C.J. Atkins admits that Communists indeed do work inside the Democratic Party, including on state level policy committees.

Comrade Atkins also admits that Party members work inDemocratic-aligned organizations including Organize for America, Progressive Democrats of America, the Campaign for America’s Future or the New York Working Families Party.

The context here is that Atkins believes that the Party is stigmatized by the "communist" label and should drop the name, in order to more easily and effectively work through the Democrats and other "mainstream" organizations.

Forces on the progressive left must organize as currents within the orbit of the Democratic Party, but as elements separate from it. This is the stance taken by the organized labor movement. And, if the CPUSA is honest with itself, we would see that this is an approach which we have already taken for quite some time as well. Our members participate in the Democratic primary process at the local level, volunteer in GOTV (Get Out The Vote) efforts, and many take part in the platform-drafting process in their local Democratic committees. More participate in Democratic-aligned outfits such as Organize for America, Progressive Democrats of America, or the Campaign for America’s Future.

However, by not formally affiliating with the Democratic Party organizationally (though many members do individually), the CPUSA and some of these other left formations are able to maintain the independence that allows them to join in the mass coalition efforts to defeat the ultra right without endorsing or accepting the corporate influence and control that prevails among too many top Democratic policy-makers.

All of this is to say, we have to consider the possibility that our current practice, which is broadly in agreement with the understanding of political independence summarized above, may not best be served by our continued adherence to a specifically party-type of organization. I would suggest that we ponder whether it may be appropriate to drop not only the “communist” half of our title, but the “party” half as well.

It is my belief that we could be more effectual operating as a socialist and working-class political organization which does not present itself as a “party” as such. By doing so, we could eliminate the ambiguities and confusion which sometimes arises when CPUSA members run as Democratic or independent candidates. Our members can freely participate in the Democratic Party process, with the Working Families Party or other independent political formations, etc. as appropriate to the circumstances and in accordance with collective judgment of the situation. The details of what such an organization would look like would of course have to be discussed in greater detail by the party as a whole, but it is a transformation worth considering.

So as should be clear, this article is both a call for change as well as a suggestion for the codification of existing practice. The CPUSA has done much to renew itself and join the 21st century. It is now time to move forward with this process and remove any obstacles that still stand in the way of fully participating in the broad democratic upsurge of our times. We are living in an era of change and must do everything to make sure we stay in tune with the movement of history.

The Communist Party USA works closely with the Communist parties of Cuba, China, Russia, and with many Latin America, Africa and Asia.

It's loyalties do not lie with the United States of America, but with a re-energized and growing international communist movement.

The fact that the Communist Party USA has heavily infiltrated the Party of President Barack Obama, a man the Communists call a "friend" should be very big news.

Why isn't it?

If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness--these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions 'for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

George Washington
Farewell Address (September 19, 1796)

ACORN Files For Bankruptcy On Election Day, Blames 'political onslaught,' 'barrage of unmitigated accusations'

From RBO
November 2, 2010 by Brenda J. Elliott

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports:

ACORN, a national registration organization accused of rampant voter fraud, celebrated this election day by declaring it is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

“For over 40 years ACORN has fought the good fight,” Bertha Lewis, the group’s CEO, said in a news release today.

Lewis blamed a “barrage of unmitigated accusations” as taking its toll on the organization while “ongoing political onslaught caused irreparable harm.”

“We have spent our remaining resources trying to dissolve the organization with integrity, while continuing to respond to the extremist attacks,” she said. “Let us all learn from the past, and march boldly into the future.”

While ACORN claimed this past March it was disbanding, the organization continues to operate under different names as local chapters throughout the country.

ACORN International, for example, changed its name to Community Organizations International. California ACORN now goes by the name of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment while New York ACORN renamed itself New York Communities for Change.

An offshoot ACORN organization called Acorn Housing changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America, but it retained the same tax and employee identification numbers that it held under its former name.

Obama misleads on ACORN ties

WND previously documented Obama’s close relationship with ACORN.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, when asked about his relationship with ACORN in a televised debate, Obama declared, “The only involvement I’ve had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.”

Obama’s claim his only involvement with Acorn was his representation of the organization in a lawsuit is inaccurate. The 1995 suit on behalf of ACORN, in which the state of Illinois was compelled to implement the federal “motor-voter” bill, was just a sampling of Obama’s association.

ACORN was very active in Obama’s native Chicago, where in 1997, some 200 members attempted to storm a City Hall meeting, resulting in six members being arrested, including Madeleine Talbot, ACORN’s Chicago director.

In the early 1990s, Talbot invited Obama to help train ACORN activists.

While Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit, it channeled millions of dollars to ACORN and affiliated groups.

Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund’s website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000.

He served on the Fund alongside William C. Ayers, an unrepentant member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.

Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns.

In the Social Policy Journal, Toni Foulkes, a Chicago ACORN leader, documents what he terms Obama’s “long service” with ACORN, which he said led many of theorganization’s members to help in voter campaigns for Obama’s early Chicago campaigns.

Foulkes said Obama and ACORN were “old friends.”

In 1992, Obama was director of Project Vote in Chicago, which helped register 150,000 voters on the city’s South Side. Obama’s successful work was credited in multiple media reports with helping to elect Democratic Sen. Carol Moseley Braun.

Obama’s campaign in 2008 falsely claimed ACORN was “not part of” Project Vote, but the organization’s incorporation papers, obtained by WND, show Project Vote is a trademark name whose parent company is registered at the same New Orleans address in which ACORN and multiple ACORN affiliates are housed.

Obama himself previously connected Project Vote to ACORN.

“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drives in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work,” Obama was quoted on his own campaign website as saying at an ACORN meeting, according to a post by official Obama website blogger Sam Graham-Felsen.

Clarifying the role of ACORN in Project Vote, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told the New York Times Project Vote and ACORN were not as intertwined in 1992 as they are today, as a significant part of Project Vote’s revenues flow to ACORN and various affiliates as payment for services.

But LaBolt’s statement, which admits Project Vote and ACORN were intertwined on some level while Obama was director, directly contradicts the Obama campaign’s “Fact Check” claim that ACORN was “not part” of Project Vote.

In a misleading statement, Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign website claimed “ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee,” but it fails to mention Obama was an unpaid ACORN trainer, as WND first reported in August.

Lewis Goldberg, a spokesman for ACORN, confirmed Obama conducted two hour-long leadership training sessions for his organization in the late 1990s and said Obama was not paid for the work.

Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns.

Campaign pays ACORN affiliate

WND first reported in August 2008 Obama’s campaign paid more than $800,000 in services to Citizen Services Inc., or CSI, which, as McCain mentioned last night, is a nonprofit offshoot of ACORN.

According to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Obama campaign paid CSI $832,598.29 from Feb. 25 to May 17, including $564,342.21 for “stage, lighting and sound.” The payments stood out since CSI does not offer services for stage, lighting or sound.

The Obama campaign amended the FEC reports in August and September to claim the payments to CSI were for get-out-the-vote efforts.

Glenn Beck Show - September 21, 2010

Global Government
Glenn Beck Show - September 21, 2010

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


This Is A Great Segment From The Glenn Beck Radio Show On Global Government

MSNBC Anchor Lawrence O'Donnell Admits: "I Am a Socialist"

From The Blaze

They don’t even try to hide it anymore.
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell admitted today, "I am a socialist."

---

Dr. David Janda Explains Rationing In ObamaCare Bill

Go to Page 151 of the house bill of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to see the "FEDERAL COORDINATING COUNCIL FOR COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH".

Here is a link to the Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research.Go to the bottom of the page and you will see that Ezekiel J. Emanuel is on the committee.

Go to Page 116 of the senate bill of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to see the "NATIONAL COORDINATOR FOR HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY" and to see the quote given by Dr. Janda

Here is a link to the National Coordinator For Health Information Technology.

Here's John Dingell

AARP Hikes Employee Health Care Costs, Blames ObamaCare

Posted on November 5, 2010 at 5:24pm by Meredith Jessup

WASHINGTON — AARP‘s endorsement helped pass President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Now the powerful seniors’ lobby is telling employees their costs will go up as a result.

In an e-mail to employees obtained by the Associated Press, AARP says employees’ health care premiums will increase by 5 percent — from 8 percent to 13 percent — next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.

“Most plan co-pays and deductibles have been modified,” Jennifer Hodges, AARP’s director of compensation and benefits, wrote employees in the Oct. 25 e-mail. “Plan value changes were necessary not only from a cost management standpoint but also to ensure that AARP’s plans fall below the threshold for high-cost group plans under health care reform.”

AARP says it is also changing co-payments and deductibles to avoid a new goverment-mandated 40 percent tax on high cost “Cadillac” health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law. Shifting costs to employees lowers the value of a health plan; it’s like an escape hatch from the tax.

AARP officials said medical inflation is the main reason employee costs are rising. Its legislative affairs director, David Certner, says the health care law is “a small part.”

Fannie Mae Reports $1.3 Billion Net Loss For Q3 2010

WASHINGTON (MNI) - The following are excerpts from the statement by U.S. mortgage giant Fannie Mae Wednesday on its financial performance for the third quarter of 2010:

Fannie Mae (FNMA/OTC) today reported a net loss of $1.3 billion in the third quarter of 2010, compared to a net loss of $1.2 billion in the second quarter of the year. The company continues to focus on building a strong new book of business and returning to profitability (excluding Treasury dividend payments), and its operating results reflect stabilizing credit-related expenses and increasing revenues.

The company's net loss attributable to common stockholders was $3.5 billion, including $2.1 billion in dividend payments to the U.S. Treasury. To eliminate the company's net worth deficit of $2.4 billion as of September 30, 2010, more than 85 percent of which is the dividend payment to Treasury, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has requested $2.5 billion on the company's behalf from Treasury. Upon receiving those funds, the company's total obligation to Treasury for its senior preferred stock will be $88.6 billion. The company has paid a total of $8.1 billion in dividends to Treasury.

"Our operating results reflect our ongoing efforts to manage the credit-related expenses in our legacy business and build a new, profitable book of business," said Fannie Mae President and CEO Michael J. Williams. "The loans we have acquired since the beginning of 2009 reflect our commitment to realistic, common-sense lending standards and sustainable homeownership. Their credit profile remains strong, and we expect these loans to be profitable over their lifecycle. We are building this new book of business while we continue to provide liquidity to America's housing market as it struggles to recover, and to support programs to help families stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure whenever possible."

The company's net loss attributable to common stockholders was $3.5 billion, or ($0.61) per diluted share, compared with a loss of $3.1 billion, or ($0.55) per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2010. The net worth deficit of $2.4 billion as of September 30, 2010 takes into account the company's net loss, dividends paid on senior preferred stock held by Treasury, and a reduction in unrealized losses on available-for-sale securities during the third quarter.

Net revenues were $5.1 billion in the third quarter of 2010, up 13 percent from $4.5 billion in the second quarter of 2010, due primarily to an increase in net interest income. Net interest income was $4.8 billion, up 14 percent from $4.2 billion in the second quarter of 2010. The increase was due primarily to lower debt funding costs and the purchase from MBS trusts of the substantial majority of the single-family loans that are four or more monthly payments delinquent, as the cost of purchasing these delinquent loans and holding them in the company's portfolio is less than the cost of advancing delinquent payments to security holders.

For the third quarter of 2010, interest income that the company did not recognize for nonaccrual mortgage loans was $1.8 billion, compared with $2.2 billion in the second quarter of 2010.

Credit-related expenses, which are the total provision for credit losses plus foreclosed property expense, were $5.6 billion, up from $4.9 billion in the second quarter of 2010. The increase was driven in part by valuation adjustments that reduced the value of the company's real-estate-owned inventory, as well as higher expenses due to increased acquisitions of foreclosed properties.

Credit losses, which the company defines generally as net charge-offs plus foreclosed property expense, excluding certain fair-value losses, were $8.2 billion in the third quarter of 2010, compared with $7.0 billion in the second quarter of 2010. The increase was attributable to an increase in defaults, particularly those due to the prolonged period of high unemployment and the decline in home prices.

Total loss reserves and fair value losses previously recognized on acquired credit-impaired loans were $84.6 billion as of September 30, 2010, or 2.8 percent of the company's book of business, compared with $87.4 billion, or 2.9 percent of the company's guaranty book of business, as of June 30, 2010. The company considers its $19.8 billion of total fair value losses previously recognized on loans purchased out of MBS trusts an effective reserve for credit losses because the mortgage loan balances were reduced by these fair value losses at acquisition. Total nonperforming loans in the company's guaranty book of business were $213.3 billion, compared with $218.2 billion as of June 30, 2010. Net fair value gains were $525 million in the third quarter, compared with gains of $303 million in the second quarter of 2010. The increase was attributable primarily to gains on the company's trading mortgage securities due to rate declines and spread tightening.

Net other-than-temporary impairment was $326 million in the third quarter, compared with $137 million in the second quarter of 2010. The increase was due primarily to a decline in forecasted home prices for certain geographic regions that resulted in a decrease in projected cash flows on subprime and Alt-A securities.

NET WORTH AND U.S. TREASURY FUNDING

The Acting Director of FHFA has requested $2.5 billion of funds from Treasury on the company's behalf under the terms of the senior preferred stock purchase agreement between Fannie Mae and Treasury to eliminate the company's net worth deficit as of September 30, 2010. The company's third quarter dividend of $2.1 billion on its senior preferred stock held by Treasury was declared by FHFA and paid by us on September 30, 2010.

On September 30, 2010, Treasury provided to the company $1.5 billion to cure its net worth deficit as of June 30, 2010. As a result of this draw, the aggregate liquidation preference of the senior preferred stock increased from $84.6 billion to $86.1 billion as of September 30, 2010, and will increase to $88.6 billion upon the receipt of funds from Treasury to eliminate the company's third-quarter 2010 net worth deficit. Through September 30, 2010, the company has paid in aggregate $8.1 billion to Treasury in dividends on the senior preferred stock.

FORECLOSURE PROCESS DEFICIENCIES

Recently, a number of the company's single-family mortgage servicers temporarily halted foreclosures in some or all states after discovering deficiencies in their processes relating to the execution of affidavits in connection with the foreclosure process. These deficiencies have generated significant public concern and are currently being investigated by various government agencies and by the attorneys general of all 50 states, and have resulted in courts in at least two states issuing rules applying to the foreclosure process that the company anticipates will increase costs and may result in delays. The company has directed its servicers to review their policies and procedures relating to the execution of affidavits, verifications, and other legal documents in connection with the foreclosure process. The company is also addressing concerns that have been raised regarding the practices of some law firms that handle the foreclosure process in Florida for the company's mortgage servicers. In the case of one law firm under investigation by the Florida attorney general's office, the company has instructed the firm to stop processing foreclosures for its mortgage loans and has stopped servicers from referring new matters to the firm.

The Acting Director of FHFA issued statements on October 1 and October 13, 2010 regarding servicers' foreclosure processing issues. The company is currently coordinating with FHFA regarding appropriate corrective actions consistent with the four-point policy framework issued by FHFA on October 13, 2010. During the first nine months of 2010, 80 percent of the single-family properties the company acquired through foreclosures involved mortgages on which the borrowers had made three or fewer payments in the preceding 12 months.

Although the company expects the foreclosure pause will likely negatively affect its serious delinquency rates, creditrelated expenses, credit losses, and foreclosure timelines, it cannot yet predict the extent of the impact.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

GM Could Be Free of Taxes for Years

By RANDALL SMITH and SHARON TERLEP

General Motors Co. will drive away from its U.S.-government-financed restructuring with a final gift in its trunk: a tax break that could be worth as much as $45 billion.

GM, which plans to begin promoting its relisting on the stock exchange to investors this week, wiped out billions of dollars in debt, laid off thousands of employees and jettisoned money-losing brands during its U.S.-funded reorganization last year.

Now it turns out, according to documents filed with federal regulators, the revamping left the car maker with another boost as it prepares to return to the stock market. It won't have to pay $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits.

The tax benefit stems from so-called tax-loss carry-forwards and other provisions, which allow companies to use losses in prior years and costs related to pensions and other expenses to shield profits from U.S. taxes for up to 20 years. In GM's case, the losses stem from years prior to when GM entered bankruptcy.

Usually, companies that undergo a significant change in ownership risk having major restrictions put on their tax benefits. The U.S. bailout of GM, in which the Treasury took a 61% stake in the company, ordinarily would have resulted in GM having such limits put on its tax benefits, according to tax experts.

But the federal government, in a little-noticed ruling last year, decided that companies that received U.S. bailout money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program won't fall under that rule.

Neal Boudette discusses GM's IPO plans, which will raise up to $10 billion and cut the government's stake to below 50%.

"The Internal Revenue Service has decided that the government's involvement with these companies, both its acquisitions plus its disposals of their stock, means they should be exempt" from the rule, said Robert Willens, a New York tax consultant who advises investment banks and hedge funds.

The government's rationale, said people familiar with the situation, is that the profit-shielding tax credit makes the bailed-out companies more attractive to investors, and that the value of the benefit is greater than the lost tax payments, especially since the tax payments would not exist if the companies fail.

GM declined to comment.

The $45.4 billion in future tax savings consist of $18.9 billion in carry-forwards based on past losses, according to GM's pre-IPO public disclosure. The other tax savings are related to costs such as pensions and other post-retirement benefits, and property, plants and equipment.

GM may avoid paying up to $45 billion in taxes for up to 20 years, according to people familiar with the situation. Above,GM's Cadillac logo is displayed on the grill of a Cadillac SRX.

The losses were incurred by "Old GM," the company that remained in bankruptcy after the current "New GM" resulted from the reorganization last June.

Investors typically view tax-loss carry-forwards losses as important assets in bolstering a company's balance sheet.

GM's chief domestic rival, Ford Motor Co., last year adopted a plan to preserve deferred "tax assets" which stood at $17 billion at the end of 2009. Ford can use the tax attributes in certain circumstances to reduce its federal tax liability. Ford declined to comment on the GM tax ruling.

Nationalizing Our 401(k)s And IRA's

Huge See, I Told You So from 2008: Democrats Try To Take Your 401(k) November 1, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Rio Rancho "Huevos," New Mexico, this is Alicia. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Oh, Rush, this is such an honor, and I'm so nervous. (giggles)

RUSH: You don't sound nervous at all.

CALLER: Oh, thank you. I'm just urging everybody to get out and vote in all the close races, congressmen, senators.

RUSH: No, no! Get out and vote in all the slam-dunk races. Get out and vote in all of the races.

CALLER: Yes. In all of them, that's true, but we must sweep in, because as bad as what's been done to us already with health care and the takeovers and everything, people have to ask themselves: What's going to happen? What else are they planning? Like nationalizing our 401(k)s and IRAs, that's on the agenda.

RUSH: Well, now, that's fascinating you mention that, because that's the next item up in my Stack of Stuff and I talked about this weeks ago, maybe even months ago when Tom "Dung Heap" Harken proposed this. Now, before you condition Alicia, let me refer to what she's talking about. It's Mark Hemingway in the Washington Examiner: " Will the government outlaw your 401(k) plan? It seems like an absurd possibility, yet earlier this month two Democratic senators, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., held a hearing on Capitol Hill exploring the possibility of doing exactly that. On Oct. 8, the two senators from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on 'Retirement (In)security in America.' "Among the proposals discussed was 'Guaranteed Retirement Accounts,' or GRAs. The purpose of the GRA proposal is simple: To force Americans to stop putting their retirement savings money into private 401(k) accounts and send their money to the government instead." Now, this has been in the works for a long time and I remember the first time I mentioned this on the program, Alicia, we were deluged with calls from Washington: "No, no, no! You totally misunderstand. Nobody in the Democrat Party is talking about eliminating 401(k)s," and they are.

CALLER: Yes, they are.

RUSH: And it's not stopping there. They're also planning on going after your pension fund.

CALLER: Yeah, your private pension fund.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Right. And I'm scared to death. I get a private pension from Verizon. We saved, we lived below our income to save and put in our IRAs, and now they want to nationalize it -- and the worst of it is, the plan put forth by this woman [Teresa] Ghilarducci -- or something, I'm not sure how to say her name, I think: Ghilarducci -- for the White House, is: Okay, if they take all my IRAs, my husband's and my IRAs, whatever we spend, we can't spend it as we want. They only want us to have a monthly allowance.

RUSH: Exactly right. We've talk about this in great detail. They don't want to essentially take your IRA away from you and then give you back something like its current value at 2% interest.

CALLER: Right, and then you can only leave half of it to your heirs.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: The government keeps the other half.

RUSH: Folks, she is exactly right about this. "The purpose of the GRA" from Harkin and Sanders "is simple: To force Americans to stop putting their retirement savings money into private 401(k) accounts and send their money to the government instead. The GRAs," which is again the Guaranteed Retirement Account where you turn your 401(k) into a guaranteed retirement account, "'eliminate the favorable tax treatment currently afforded to 401(k) plans...'" What this is rooted in is eliminating the tax deduction that you get for the contribution to your 401(k). The Democrats think it's "costing" the government money. Now, they came up with this idea, the 401(k) plan, but now it's costing them money so they gonna get rid of it. You know, you're allowed to put a certain percentage of your gross into your 401(k) without taxes on it provided you don't withdraw it early.

They want to eliminate this. They want to take the money away from you, eliminate the tax deduction for future contributions, and give you back 2% interest on what you've got. That's essentially what it is. I need to find this in the website archives. I remember discussing this in great detail, and I remember -- it seems like years ago, actually' I know it was months ago -- and I remember talking about this and we got more hell from people in Washington saying this wasn't being discussed, that this wasn't being planned. In fact under Bush there had been a move to increase the cap on 401(k)s, and the Democrats stopped all of it. This is social justice.

"GRAs would 'eliminate the favorable tax treatment currently afforded to 401(k) plans, and instead use those dollars to fund government-invested GRAs into which all employees would be required to contribute a portion of their salary,' according to a letter signed by House Minority Leader John Boehner and 12 other Republican representatives. The letter urged opposition to the proposal and was sent to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in May. The Harkin-Sanders HELP committee hearing shows Democrats are ignoring critics of the GRA proposal." Now, guess who's behind it, though? Unions.

The unions are behind this. You might say, "Why? Why are the unions pushing this?" Very simple. The average union pension plan right now is only 62% funded -- and that's way below the point at which the government considers a pension plan endangered. So there are estimates that suggest unions' multiemployer pension plans are underfunded by $165 billion and could be on the verge of collapse, because all the money the union guys think is stashed away for them has been spent. The Reverend Jackson years ago talked raiding pension accounts for "social justice." The union leaders see these retirement security ideas like GRAs as vehicles as a back-door pension bailout:

To go get your 401(k) and add it to their pensions that are underfunded, thereby making their pensions whole, in exchange. The government funds a retirement account for you, but you no longer are in charge of how much it is or what kind of tax deduction that you get. I'm gonna go back. We're gonna go back and find what I said about this at RushLimbaugh.com. We have. I'm just gonna in the process here of Cynthia sizing it, editing it and printing it out. But the unions are behind this. The unions and their Democrat friends in Congress are still pushing to do away with your 401(k)s. They essentially are doing for a bailout of their pension plans with your money. That's what this by no means down to -- and the Democrats, Harkin and what's-his-face here, Sanders, are telling you that they're saving your retirement like putting it in a lockbox, saving your retirement.

When in fact they're taking your money in your 401(k) and bailing out union allies with it. That's the purpose of this. I talked about this back in October of 2008. I know it goes back two years. My memory? Don't ever, don't ever doubt my memory. Here, let me read to you the first part of my transcript from the show on October 24th, 2008. At the website, we entitled it, " "Biden: CEO Pensions 'Go First' (And Your 401(k) Will Go Next) -- I want to talk to all of you who have 401(k)s or SEP/Keogh plans, some kind of pension plan or retirement plan. ... I want to remind you, two weeks ago Congressman George Miller from California who chairs some congressional committee, big Democrat, been there for ages, said, 'We're going to have to do something about the tax deductibility of contributions to people's 401(k)s because government's losing money.

"We're losing money on this,' so he's going to propose eliminating the deductibility of whatever you contribute to your 401(k). This goes back to 2008, and all hell broke loose. All kinds of denials were phoned into this program from Washington in a panic, and I remember pointing out: You can talk about all the so-called greed in the private sector. They're gonna go out and they're gonna take the pension of a CEO and your 401(k) plan and they're gonna transfer it to union plans. I said, "Listen to this. Look at me. 'A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. ... Under Ghilarducci's plan," this is what the caller was talking about "all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the US government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account [GRA] administered by the Social Security Administration.'

"In other words, there is a plan that the Democrats are considering to convert your 401(k) to the Social Security Administration, your 401(k) then administered by the SSA, your private retirement plan becomes owned by the government. 'The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation'" to you. Ghilarducci is the name the caller was trying to come up with. This goes back to 2008. Now, again this Ghilarducci babe is a professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research. She's the one that went bat nuts. She's the one when they asked her about this said, "Oh, Limbaugh, he's nuts! He doesn't understand what I'm talking about. He doesn't have brain power to understand what I'm talk about," and yet here today, earlier this month, it has now become official with a proposal by Tom Harkin (Democrat-Iowa) and Bernie Sanders ("Democrat"-Vermont) to create the GRA to take your 401(k), take it away from you, replace it with 600 bucks a year at 3%, and give the money to the unions to make their pensions whole. That's what they're proposing, come hell or high water. Look for this in a lame duck session. This is the kind of stuff you ought to be mad about and are.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I remember this like it was yesterday. This woman appeared before George Miller's committee, and remember we had a call from somebody in George Miller's district last week. We talked about the who he is. But anyway this woman, Ghilarducci, showed up, and I remember talking about this. The reaction that I got was, "Well, Rush, you're nuts. You're crazy to even be concerned about this. This is just a think piece. This is just Ms. Ghilarducci thinking about things. This is what we liberals do! It's just a thought exercise. She doesn't have any policy power here." I remember this like it was yesterday, and here the story is today. Two years later, almost to the day two years later -- actually 25 months later -- her proposal has now been accepted and has been proposed as a piece of legislation by Tom Harkin and Bernie Sanders to create an annuity funded by most of the private money now in private pension plans. It's not much different from Social Security, but it would take your 401(k) away from you, and the people pushing it -- and, by the way, it makes total sense, doesn't it, that Harkin and Sanders are pushing it? I mean, it's for unions. It's the unions behind it who are panicking over their unfunded (underfunded, unfunded, whatever) pension plans to the tune of over $150 billion.

END TRANSCRIPT