Fox News

WASHINGTON –  Congress sent President Barack Obama a $1.1 trillion government-wide spending bill Thursday, easing the harshest effects of last year’s automatic budget cuts after tea party critics chastened by October’s partial shutdown mounted only a faint protest.

The Senate voted 72-26 for the measure, which cleared the House a little more than 24 hours earlier on a similarly lopsided vote. Obama’s signature on the bill was expected in time to prevent any interruption in government funding Saturday at midnight.   Continue reading “Senate passes $1.1 trillion spending bill”

Investment Watchblog

J.C. Penney Co. said on Wednesday it would close 33 stores and cut 2,000 jobs as part of its efforts to return to profitability.

Chief Executive Myron Ullman said in a statement the action “addresses a strategic priority to improve the profitability of our stores.”

Penney is the second major U.S. retailer in as many weeks to announce layoffs. Last week, Macy’s Inc. said it was eliminating 2,500 jobs. Those cuts will be offset over time as the retailer plans to add positions to its online business, leaving overall staffing levels unchanged at around 175,000.   Continue reading “Tough Times Are Just Around The Corner? JC Penney, Macy’s, Albertsons to Close Stores And Cut thousands of Jobs, Best Buy Plummets 30% After Abysmal Holiday Sales Update”

mark-welsh-air-force.jpgFox News

Thirty-four nuclear missile launch officers have been implicated in a cheating scandal and have been stripped of their certification, and three others have been implicated in a drug probe, in what the Air Force believes is the largest such breach of integrity in the nuclear force, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Wednesday.

The officers apparently texted to each other the answers to a monthly test on their knowledge of how to operate the missiles. The number includes who did the cheating as well as those who may have known about it but did not report it.   Continue reading “Air Force: 34 nuclear missile officers implicated in cheating scandal”

handofgodUSA Today – by Jolie Lee

What looks like an X-ray of a hand is actually the remains of a star that exploded 17,000 light-years away.

The astronomers who captured this image with a NASA space telescope call it the “Hand of God.”

“We don’t know if the hand shape is an optical illusion,” said Hongjun An of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in a statement from the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) Mission.   Continue reading “‘Hand of God’ captured in NASA image”

WND – by Bob Unruh

Truckers rallied in Washington to restore America to its constitutional republic foundations. So did veterans. And bikers. They all assembled and then departed, leaving the Beltway insiders to continue running the nation into the ground, according to one man who says an event he hopes to hold this spring will be different.

U.S. Army Col. Harry G. Riley, retired, who runs the Patriots for America website, told WND his event planned for May 16 doesn’t really have an organized sponsor – it will be just be individual Americans assembling to demand a restoration of their nation.   Continue reading “2nd Top Military Man Calls For Millions To March On D.C.”

Testosterone Pit

When Ben Bernanke gave his last speech as Fed Chairman on Friday, he used the opportunity to “reflect on some accomplishments of the past eight years,” to set the record straight, demolish the “sceptics,” as he called the uppity creatures that still doubted that the Fed was the best thing since sliced bread, and pat himself on the back. Under his heroic leadership, the Fed’s “forward guidance and large-scale asset purchases have helped promote the recovery,” he explained.

The “recovery” of what? Asset bubbles – he called it “boost asset prices” – and banks. Albeit not all banks, or most banks, or even many banks, but a few select huge banks, of which the Fed has become the “regulator,” protector, benefactor, and savior. Bernanke’s praise for the Fed and himself is perfectly on target; the “recovery” of these too-big-to-fail banks is nothing short of marvelous – as is the concentration of assets and power in their hands.   Continue reading “Bernanke’s Delirious Praise For His Handiwork, The Concentration Of Power At The Top Banks”

The Atlantean Conspiracy

Have you ever wondered why on Christmas we cut down/carry evergreen trees inside our houses, decorate them with fancy ornaments, and place presents underneath them?

“So, why do people bring Pine trees into their houses at the Winter Solstice, placing brightly colored (Red and White) packages under their boughs, as gifts to show their love for each other and as representations of the love of God and the gift of his Sons life? It is because, underneath the Pine bough is the exact location where one would find this ‘Most Sacred’Substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild.”–James Arthur, “Mushrooms and Mankind” (8)   Continue reading “Santa Claus the Magic Mushroom”

Fox News

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. –  Bitterly cold temperatures blowing into the Midwest and Northeast in the coming days are likely to set records, disrupt schools along with airports and endanger those who go outside without the proper clothing.

The frigid air will begin Sunday and last into early next week, funneled as far south as the Gulf Coast because of what one meteorologist called a “polar vortex,” a counterclockwise-rotating pool of cold, dense air.   Continue reading “Potentially record-setting cold temperatures blow into Midwest, Northeast”

Fox News

The Obama administration, stung by the failures of the HealthCare.gov rollout, is considering loosening hiring rules for technology specialists and creating a new federal unit dedicated to big tech projects, officials said.

The steps, some of which President Barack Obama could announce this quarter, are designed to address the lack of concentrated talent in civilian federal agencies to manage large technology projects—a shortcoming exposed by October’s disastrous launch of the federal health-insurance site.   Continue reading “Obama administration mulls loosening tech hiring rules after ObamaCare rollout”

Voice of Russia

The Klyuchevskoy Volcano erupting in Kamchatka has spewed ash six kilometers high, the Kamchatkan territorial emergency situations department reported on Wednesday.

“The volcanic event occurred on Wednesday afternoon. The ash cloud stretched 250 kilometers east-northeast. The towns of Ust-Kamchatsky and Krutoberegovo are situated in the path of the ash cloud,” it said.   Continue reading “Klyuchevskoy Volcano in Russia’s Kamchatka spews ash 6 km high”

Conservative Truth – by Alan Caruba

Let me begin by saying that the deal the U.S. struck with Iran on November 24 is so criminally stupid that mobs with torches and pitchforks should be surrounding the White House and Department of State demanding that the President and Secretary of State resign.

How many times does the United States have to make really bad deals with really bad nations? And then call it progress!   Continue reading “The Prospect of World War Three”