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Saturday, July 20, 2013

SEO Ranking | Payment On Ranking Only | White Hat Techniques

Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013

White Hat SEO is a Joke! There's No Such Thing!

Hi everyone,
For those of you who think that there's such thing as White Hat SEO, think twice!
In a perfect world, Google doesn't want anyone manipulating the search engines in any way, shape, or form. They want their search engines to be as natural as can get...
This means no on page optimization, no backlinks, and absolutely zero manipulation whatsoever.
Now think about it for a second, if we do SEO, that does in fact mean we are manipulate the search engines in some way... whether its by a little, or by a lot... manipulation is manipulation... simple as that!
So, if you are going to be part of the SEO game, you have to understand and accept that you are in fact doing at a bare minimum... Grey Hat.... and some of you Black Hat lol...
This is the reality of the world we live in today!
So stop kidding yourself, and just accept it
This is an ad that I inserted!
To Your Success,
Marc

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

Michael Calderone: Obama Doing Local TV Interviews Amid White Press Corps 'Frustration'

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Michael CalderoneSenior Media Reporter, The Huffington Post

GET UPDATES FROM Michael Calderone Like 533 Obama Doing Local TV Interviews Amid White House Press Corps 'Frustration' Posted: 02/19/2013 5:46 pm Read more

Media News , Obama Local Anchors , Obama Local News , Obama Press Corps , Calderone: The Backstory , Media News
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The White House press corps has been up arms this week over access to the president, an issue that's long caused tension between reporters and press handlers.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defended the administration's record in terms of access on Tuesday, telling reporters that Obama's done 591 interviews since taking office. While Obama has done hundreds of interviews, the president hasn't sat down in several years with major newspapers such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.

But during the 2012 campaign, Obama made time for local TV anchors, a media strategy that rankled some national reporters. The president did 58 local media interviews and just eight national media interviews through roughly the first half of 2012.

That local media strategy appears to be continuing into the 2nd term, even as White House reporters grumble about not getting enough time with the president.

Dan Ashley, an anchor from ABC7 in San Francisco, is heading to Washington this week to interview Obama, according to an article on his station's site. Ashley also tweeted a photo on his way.

Yunji de Nies, an anchor/ reporter for KITV4 News Honolulu, will also be interviewing Obama this week, according to a report on the station's site. She tweeted a photo Tuesday from the White House.

Kevin Ogle, an anchor with KFOR in Oklahoma City, is also interviewing Obama this week.

During the campaign, Obama would typically do round robin interviews with local anchors over an hour or two, a savvy strategy that ensures coverage at the top of newscasts in several markets on the same night. It's unclear how many anchors will be on hand at the White House this week or the set-up for the interviews.

A White House spokesman did not provide a list of interviewers when reached by The Huffington Post, but did not refute reports on local station sites.

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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

'Fire Steve Heymann' Petition Reaches Threshold, Must Be Answered By White House

A White House petition calling for the firing of prosecutor Stephen Heymann, who handled the case against Aaron Swartz, has reached the threshold of signatures needed to warrant an official White House response -- yet the White House has so far been silent.

Sometime between Feb. 8 and Feb. 10, the petition reached 25,000 signatures, an achievement that a video on the White House's website says is enough to have it forwarded to administration officials and to earn it a response. (The threshold was raised to 100,000 shortly after the creation of the Stephen Heymann petition.)

The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann, headed the Swartz case along with U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. Swartz, an Internet pioneer instrumental in the development of social news site Reddit, hanged himself in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment in January. He had been accused of illegally downloading nearly 5 million files from the online scholarly database JSTOR and faced faced years in prison and steep fines if he did not plead guilty to his crimes. Even a plea deal would still have landed him in jail for six months.

One of Swartz's lawyers, Andy Good, told the Boston Globe that Heymann knew Swartz was a suicide risk and was nonetheless "heedless" in the way he proceeded with his prosecution of Swartz.

Heymann is a head of the cybercrime unit at the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's Office and led the successful prosecution in 1997 of an Argentine hacker who had accessed sensitive information on Harvard University networks. The case was the first-ever court-authorized Internet wiretap.

Heymann was also a prosecutor in the biggest identity theft case in the history of the U.S., involving a group of hackers who had accessed tens of millions of consumer credit cards from several major retailers, crimes that cost U.S. companies about $200 million. In one of the harshest cybercrime punishments in history, Heymann secured a total of 38 years in jail for the hackers in that case, including a 20-year sentence for lead hacker Albert Gonzalez (known by his online alias "Soupnazi"). Heymann said he wanted to make an example of Gonzalez.

Another hacker, who wrote a piece of code used in the crime, was given two years in jail, even though he said he made no profit from its use and, according to the New York Times Magazine, was "never fully aware" that his code was being used for illegal purposes.

A 24-year-old man even committed suicide in 2008, shortly after having his house raided as part of that investigation. In his suicide note, he said he was innocent but was afraid authorities were going to make him a scapegoat.

Heymann won an award for his work on that case from the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder.

A second petition calling for the removal of Ortiz has also reached the signature threshold but has not yet been answered by the White House.

(Hat tip, Wired)

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Mary Jo White, Obama Pick to Head SEC, Pushed Former Enforcement Chief As Bank Lawyer

Morgan Stanley needed someone with an inside line to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was 2005, and the investment banking giant's board of directors was hearing that its top candidate for CEO could be implicated in a probe of insider trading at a major hedge fund. Seeking clarity, the board engaged the lawyer many considered the best in the business: Mary Jo White.

White swiftly lived up to her reputation, setting Morgan Stanley's board at ease. According to a report later prepared by the Senate Finance Committee, she emailed and then spoke by phone with the agency's chief of enforcement and learned that the board's CEO choice, John Mack, was most likely in the clear. The SEC investigation -- which had seemed to be leading closer to Mack -- disappeared, and Mack took the helm at Morgan Stanley.

On Thursday, President Obama tapped White to run the SEC as its next commissioner, a powerful role as Wall Street's top regulator and cop. If she is confirmed by Congress, the agency will have at its helm a well-respected attorney who won high-profile cases against mobsters, terrorists and financial fraudsters over the course of nearly a decade as the U.S. attorney for Manhattan.

The agency would also gain a powerful defense lawyer, one who has represented many of the biggest names on Wall Street -- including former Bank of America chief Ken Lewis -- in cases before the SEC.

As the Mack case shows, White was not afraid to push the SEC to get what she wanted. While there is no evidence that White behaved improperly, the episode is an example of what critics often deride as a too-cozy relationship between regulators and defense attorneys, and it almost certainly will be raised by Congress during White's confirmation hearing. These relationships are often further bolstered by the common practice of lawyers moving -- as White will do, if confirmed -- between jobs advocating for Wall Street and jobs policing it.

"This is nothing more than a continuation of the revolving door," said Larry Doyle, the managing partner at the independent advisory firm DM Income Advisers, in Connecticut. Doyle said White's nomination diminishes already weakened public trust and confidence in the system.

Although other critics share Doyle's broad view that the SEC is too close to the industry it polices, many of those who have been toughest on the agency in the past applauded Obama's selection. White's reputation as a fair and independent prosecutor, they said, make her perfect for the job. Moreover, several noted, she worked in private practice before she became a U.S. attorney, and her reputation there is sterling.

"Mary Jo White was a tough, smart, no nonsense, broadly experienced and highly accomplished prosecutor," Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, a nonprofit group, said in a statement. "She knew who the bad guys were, went after them and put them in prison when they broke the law. That’s what must happen if integrity and investor confidence is to be restored in our securities markets."

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who hasn't been afraid to buck the Obama administration in the past, also praised White's nomination. "She is a tough, experienced prosecutor, which is exactly what the SEC needs right now to restore investor confidence," Schneiderman said in a statement.

William McLucas, chair of the securities department at Washington-based law firm WilmerHale, worked alongside White in the 1990s when he served as director of enforcement at the SEC. He praised White and said her status as a Wall Street insider in the latter part of her career would be a public benefit.

"It adds to your perspective. It adds to your understanding. It lends a greater depth and a greater breadth of wisdom to your capacity to serve as a chairman," he said. Looking to benefit those in the industry is "just not the way people like Mary Jo White would approach the job and conduct themselves. She's a public servant first."

White first emerged on the national scene in 1993, when President Clinton appointed her U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the highest-profile jobs for a federal prosecutor. On her watch, the office reeled in a series of big wins, securing convictions against the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and against mobster John Gotti. Her proteges at the office include Robert Khuzami, who recently stepped down as the SEC's enforcement chief, and Patrick Fitzgerald, who successfully prosecuted two former Illinois governors as U.S. attorney in Chicago.

After she returned in 2002 to Debevoise & Plimpton, the law firm where she worked early in her career, White put together one of the best teams of white-collar lawyers in the country. In recent years, the firm has often defended those accused of wrongdoing during the financial crisis.

As an experienced litigator with deep knowledge of law enforcement, White, who has her own spokesman at Debevoise, is often sought out by reporters for her views on financial crime. In Interviews, she has characterized of the origins of the financial crisis in ways that put her at odds with many financial reform advocates who have pushed the Obama administration to bring more cases against bank executives. Its possible those views could complicate her selection to head the SEC.

"The financial crisis was so expensive and so many people were injured that one's instinct is to think that there must have been massive wrongdoing from the top on down," she told The Huffington Post in September. But criminal cases must be built on compelling evidence, not suppositions, and evidence of broad-based misconduct that would rise to that level doesn't exist, White said. She made similar statements on behalf of clients.

"Some have looked to assign blame for every aspect of the financial crisis, even where there is no evidence of misconduct," she wrote in a motion defending Bank of America's Lewis in 2010. She referred to then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's charges against the former bank chief as "a badly misguided decision without support in the facts or the law."

In addition to big-name clients like Lewis, White also became known over the last decade as the lawyer companies hire to conduct an internal investigation -- a probe into possible misdeeds. Many such investigations are never made public.

The Morgan Stanley matter likely would have stayed behind closed doors, too, but for accusations made by a former SEC attorney that the insider-trading investigation into Mack was killed for political reasons. That claim led to hearings by the Senate Finance Committee, and, in 2007, a report critical of how the agency handled the investigation.

In June of 2005, according to the report, White emailed Linda Thomsen, then head of the SEC's enforcement division. The subject line: "URGENT."

Thomsen later testified that she didn't divulge any information about the insider-trading case. That account, however, contradicts what White wrote in talking points used to brief Morgan Stanley's board, according to the Senate committee. Those notes indicate that Thomsen told White there was "smoke" regarding Mack's involvement in the alleged illegal trading, but "surely not fire."

The implication: Thomsen told White more about the status of the case than she let on. Four days after the phone call, Morgan Stanley hired Mack. Soon after, the SEC ended its investigation.

In congressional testimony, Robert Hanson, one of the SEC supervisors working on the case, said Assistant Director Mark Kreitman had told him he knew about the call between White and Thomsen.

"Kreitman also said that it is a little out of the ordinary for Mary Jo White to contact Linda Thomsen directly, but that White is very prestigious and it isn't uncommon for someone prominent to have someone intervene on their behalf," Hanson said.

That such a conversation was "not uncommon," the Senate committee said in its report, "is precisely the problem."

Gary Aguirre, the SEC attorney whose complaints prompted the Senate probe, accused the agency of refusing to pursue Mack because of his "very powerful political connections," an account that emails from Aguirre's former supervisor confirmed, the committee concluded.

In an interview with The Huffington Post on Wednesday, Aguirre said he believes the White phone call to Thomsen also played a role in killing the SEC's investigation into Mack. "There’s no question in my mind that that phone call from Mary Jo White stopped the whole investigation," he said. "The case was like a railroad heading for a criminal investigation. And it got zapped with a call."

The Senate report was also critical of Paul Berger, a current Debevoise partner who at the time of the insider-trading investigation was a senior supervisor in the SEC's enforcement division. In 2005, Berger reached out through a friend to White to mention his interest in joining the private firm. The report criticized Berger for not immediately recusing himself from the Mack investigation when Morgan Stanley hired Debevoise. "When initially questioned, Berger’s answers concerning his employment search were less than forthcoming," the report concluded.

Berger, who later joined Debevoise as a partner, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The Senate report found the SEC "squandered [an] opportunity through a series of missteps" to fully investigate the insider-trading case, but it did not conclude that White's phone call led to the agency dropping the case, nor did it suggest that she behaved inappropriately.

White also did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday, but other defense lawyers said her actions during the course of the Mack case were entirely appropriate. Pushing for information about a matter of interest to a client is a lawyer's job, they said.

"It shows that she is nothing less than an exceptionally skilled litigator," said Ralph Ferrara, a Washington securities attorney who has known White more than 20 years. "She should have knocked on that door hard. That [the SEC] opened it is on them, not her."

Mark Gongloff contributed reporting.

Also on HuffPost:

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Kids' Letters About Gun Control Read At White House [PHOTOS]

(Reuters) - "Dear President Obama," began a letter from 8-year-old Grant Fritz, with the shaky printing -- missed words, spelling errors -- of someone just learning how to put thoughts down on paper.

"I think there should be some changes in the law with guns," Fritz said in the December 17 letter he sent to the president days after the Newtown school shootings.

Invited to the White House on Wednesday, Fritz and three other children in their Sunday best sat on stage as Obama read out parts of their letters to illustrate why he wants to tighten gun laws.

The children's' presence at Obama's announcement aimed to keep kids at the heart of the often emotional battle over gun control, which reignited with the murder of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Connecticut, last month.

The president's own young daughters were dragged into the fray on Tuesday when the National Rifle Association put out an ad accusing Obama of hypocrisy by giving the girls armed Secret Service protection.

That broke a long-held taboo against using a president's children in political attacks and outraged the White House, which described the ad as "repugnant."

A-GRADE VS FIRST GRADE

With the letter-writing children looking on, Obama announced wide-ranging plans for gun control, including bringing an assault weapon ban to Congress. He challenged Americans to ask their lawmakers to support his plan despite objections from groups who believe the measures will infringe on gun ownership rights.

"Ask them what's more important: doing whatever it takes to get a 'A' grade from the gun lobby that funds their campaigns, or giving parents some peace of mind when they drop their child off for first grade?" Obama said to applause from a crowd of interest groups, Democratic lawmakers and law enforcement officials who agree with his plan.

Anger and pain over the December 14 Newtown shooting has been a common topic in the stacks of letters from Americans that flood into the White House. Obama says he reads 10 letters a day from the public.

Julia Stokes, 11, wrote that she "may not (be) that into politics but my opinion is that it should be very hard for people to buy guns."

"I know that laws have to be passed by congress but I beg you to try very hard to make guns not allowed," wrote Julia, who dotted her 'i' with a heart.

Hinna Zeejah, 8, whose patent-leather Mary Jane shoes didn't reach the floor as she sat on the White House stage, wrote, "I feel terrible for the parents who lost their children."

In the front row of the event sat Chris and Lynn McDonald, whose 7-year-old daughter, Grace, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

"I'm told she loved pink. She loved the beach. She dreamed of becoming a painter," Obama said. Her parents looked at each other and smiled as the president spoke of how one of Grace's paintings now hangs in his private study.

The horror of the Newtown school shooting made a significant difference in the debate over gun violence, said Annette Nance-Holt, who lost her only child, Blair, in a shooting on a city bus, when he was coming home from school in 2007.

"In Chicago, we've been waiting for a long time. I don't just represent Blair - that was my baby - but there are so many other babies in the city of Chicago that have been gunned down innocently," Nance-Holt told reporters, wearing a picture of her son on her lapel.

"Now we have a groundswell of movement. We have 20 babies, and people are looking at this totally different."

Obama was criticized by conservative pundits and bloggers as using children as political "props."

"I don't even know what to say about the White House publishing letters from children for political purposes. It's just so disgusting," tweeted Michelle Clouthier, a libertarian blogger.

In its ad, the NRA accused Obama of being "just another elitist hypocrite" for allowing armed Secret Service protection for his daughters but turning down the lobby group's proposal after the Newtown shooting to put armed guards in all schools.

That drew fire from White House spokesman Jay Carney.

"Most Americans agree that a president's children should not be used as pawns in a political fight. But to go so far as to make the safety of the president's children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly," Carney said.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Doina Chiacu)

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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Julie Pace Named AP White House Correspondent

The Associated Press named Julie Pace White House correspondent on Friday.

Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee sent a memo to staffers announcing the news. Pace has been covering President Obama since his 2008 presidential campaign. Buzbee described her as "a tenacious reporter" who has "distinguished herself with a steady stream of scoops and other smart stories."

She added, "Ben Feller's last day is today and I know all of you join me in wishing Ben well in his new adventures in New York," Buzbee wrote.

The Associated Press announced that Feller would be leaving the AP's White House beat in late November. Feller is moving to New York City with his family, where his wife will start as an editor at the New York Times. Feller's last day at the news organization was Friday.

View the original article here

Friday, February 1, 2013

Kim Kardashian And Betty White Join Forces For Comedy

Talk about an odd couple.

Kim Kardashian joins Betty White for the veteran actress's NBC series Betty White's Off Their Rockers – premiering Jan. 8 (8 p.m. ET) – for a hilarious comedy bit.

In the routine, while researching her family tree White, 90, discovers that she and Kardashian, 32, are actually related.

Read the whole story at People

View the original article here

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Fiscal Cliff News: Live Updates On Congress, White House Negotiations

Congressional leaders are still engaged in negotiations over the fiscal cliff.

The Senate passed a last-minute plan at 2 a.m. Tuesday with a vote of 89 to 8. The plan came about after a late-night visit from Vice President Joe Biden on New Year's Eve.

Below, a live blog of the latest developments in the negotiations:

Senate Bill Includes Help For Troubled Homeowners

The Senate version of the legislation to avert the so-called fiscal cliff is littered with favors for select corporations. But it also includes a prime provision for troubled homeowners who receive mortgage relief from their banks.

Without the special clause, the limited foreclosure relief efforts that are currently in the works would be extinguished. Banks have been extremely reluctant to grant families debt relief on mortgages facing foreclosure. But tax policy is poised to poison any debt relief that borrowers could receive from banks -- unless Congress acts.

Millions of homes are worth far less today than what buyers paid for them during the housing bubble. Banks can often save money for themselves and investors by writing down the value of a troubled mortgage to the current value of the house -- thus averting costly foreclosure expenses. At midnight on January 1, 2013, the tax policy for this relief changed. Any debt that banks forgave would be counted as ordinary, taxable income for the borrower. If a $300,000 mortgage is written down to a $200,000 current home value, the homeowner is suddenly burdened with a tax bill for $100,000 in income.

As a result, a homeowner struggling to pay the bills would be faced with tens of thousands of dollars in taxes. That would destroy any hope of establishing future mortgage debt relief for troubled homeowners, as any bank leniency would result in heavy tax trauma for borrowers.

But the Senate version of the fiscal cliff bill would delay this tax policy change for a year. If the deal passes the House, the few mortgage modifications that are currently in the works will be able to proceed.

-- Zach Carter

ACU Responds

American Conservative Union Chairman Al Cardenas released the following statement on the latest fiscal cliff proposal:

"The American Conservative Union simply cannot accept or support the Senate Bill as passed this morning, which does nothing to reign in out of control spending. Given the dire financial situation our country faces, ACU would have supported, albeit reluctantly, the Bush era tax cut extensions for those with incomes under $400,000 to $450,000 and supported the Death Tax provisions that maintain the current exemptions and are indexed for inflation. This is vital for our family farms and family-owned businesses. Our nation has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Rather than do the essential work of cutting spending, the current bill actually adds even more deficit spending. Congress needs to make the hard decisions now for the future of our children and grandchildren. Therefore, ACU recommends that the House take the non-tax provisions out of the Senate Bill and pass it. They should then go back to the drawing board and put together a comprehensive plan to responsibly deal with unemployment insurance, the Farm Bill, special interest tax subsidies and replacing the sequester with targeted spending cuts in a way that would be in line with our conservative values."

GOP 'Not Batshit Crazy'

@ OKnox : Dem. Rep. Hastings tells reporters GOP going w. clean up/down vote on Senate deal. "They're crazy but they're not that batshit crazy" Confused House GOP Republicans Shifting Back To Senate Deal

After their second conference meeting of the day on the fiscal cliff deal, House Republicans seemed subdued and were beginning to back away from a fresh showdown with the Democratic-led Senate.

Rep. Richard Nugent (R-Fla.) told reporters that House Speaker John Boehner explained to the caucus that Boehner would vote for the Senate bill, if that were the choice.

"I think he showed he's trying to listen to the conference in regards to giving everybody an equal shot at moving something forward," said Nugent. "But you also have to be pragmatic about what's going to pass."

"When you have a bill passed with so many Republicans in the Senate, it probably would get a similar result [in the House]," said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), comparing the situation to the 2011 end-of-year battle over the payroll tax cuts, which the House balked at then ultimately passed after 89 senators had voted for them -- the same as voted early Tuesday for the fiscal cliff deal.

Republicans seemed to be looking forward to future chances to extract cuts. "We still have more opportunities. We've got the debt ceiling coming, sequestration," Fleming said. "So we're going to get taxes off the table. The president can't say, 'We've go to raise taxes first before we get to spending cuts.' We will have already done that.Now the topic will be spending cuts, from this point out."

It remained undecided whether there would be a vote on the Senate bill or an amended Senate, and whether it would be voted on tonight or Wednesday.

-- Michael McAuliff

House To Vote On Senate Bill

@ DanaBashCNN : About to report w/ @AliVelshi : sentiment emerging among house repubs that the house will just vote up or down on senate bill no amendment Rep. John Fleming: We Have Enough Republican Votes To Pass Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Amendments

Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said Tuesday there are enough votes among House Republicans to pass the Senate fiscal cliff bill without any amendments -- so long as a majority of Democrats support it.

"There are some Republicans who do support this along with Democrats," Fleming told reporters after the second GOP caucus meeting Tuesday, adding that he thought the number would be sufficient to get the Senate-passed bill through the House.

Fleming said he does not support the bill but thought it would be a "waste of time" to amend it when Senate Democratic leaders have already said they would reject any amendments to the legislation -- and he was confident most Republicans did not want to go down that road.

"I don't think the amendment will have 218 votes, because the sentiment I'm getting from people is this will put us in the same kind of situation we're in with the payroll tax where we sent something back to the Senate and the Senate wouldn't take it up," Fleming said. "So I think they're unlikely to take it up."

Fleming also weighed in on the alleged disagreement between House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) over the fiscal cliff deal and said that he did not feel the two men were on the same page.

"I think there's a division between the speaker and the leader on this. The only thing I know is the Leader said that he personally did not support the speaker," Fleming said. "I heard the speaker say he is going to vote for the bill -- we're talking without amendments. [But] it's always possible the leader will vote with Speaker Boehner just in unity even though he personally doesn't support it."

Shortly before the meeting, Cantor spokesman Doug Heye pushed back against rumors of a rift between Boehner and the Majority Leader, tweeting, "Majority Leader Cantor stands with @SpeakerBoehner. Speculation otherwise is silly, non-productive and untrue."

Boehner presented his caucus with two options during the meeting: amend the Senate bill with approximately $328 billion in spending cuts, if a majority commit to passing it, or hold a vote on the Senate-passed legislation with no amendments.

--Sabrina Siddiqui

House Staffer: Need to Wait For 113th Congress For Deal

A senior House Republican staffer from the conference's most conservative wing summed up his latest sense of the state of play.

"My gut is that this 'deal' falls apart, and we have to start over when the 113th Congress reconvenes later this week," the aide told HuffPost by e-mail.

-- Jon Ward

What Is Boehner's Next Move?

A House GOP leadership aide mapped out House Speaker John Boehner's plan forward: See if the 218 votes are there to amend the Senate-passed bill to add in spending cuts, and if the answer is no, hold an up-or-down vote on the Senate-passed bill.

From the aide:

"The Speaker presented his members two options. The first would be to make an amendment to the Senate bill that would add a package of spending cuts. The Whip will do a whip check on this spending cuts amendment after the meeting. If we can get the commitment of 218 votes on this amendment, we will bring it to the floor and send it to the Senate. The Speaker and the Leader both cautioned members about the risk in such a strategy. They told them there is no guarantee the Senate would act on it. If we cannot get the commitment of 218 votes tonight, we will bring up the Senate-passed measure for an up-or-down vote in the House.

Members said that the amendment would include about $328 billion in cuts, although none spelled out what those cuts would be.

-- Jen Bendery and Michael McAuliff

Senate Wraps Up For Evening

The Senate adjourned until noon on Wednesday, which means if the House does alter the fiscal cliff deal, there is no chance the Senate would follow suit today.

In any case, Democrats there say they wouldn't take it up anyway.

-- Michael McAuliff

GOP Changes To Cliff Deal Could Backfire

Not only could Republican changes to the fiscal cliff deal create a measure that the Senate refuses to take up, it could create a bill that's actually tougher on the GOP.

Why?

As the measure stands now, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would push Democrats to hold their noses and back the bill, which is not enthusiastically supported. There could be around 150 Democratic votes in favor, meaning fewer than 70 Republicans would have to sign on.

But if Republicans amend the deal with anything Dems like less, all bets are off, said one Democratic source.

House Speaker John Boehner would then have to compel more of his caucus to back the deal, and he was unable to get that sort of support when he tried his Plan B proposal to set the tax-cut cut-off at $1 million -- more than double what passed the Senate early this morning.

"It would just kill this thing," a Democrat said. "It wouldn't pass."

House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) was asked if amending the bill is the equivalent of killing it. "To me, that's the case," he said, according to Fox News' Chad Pergram.

-- Michael McAuliff

Time For Some Sandwiches

“It's meatball with provolone”-VP, ordering sandwiches for his staff @potbelly today in DC. (WH Photo-D. Lienemann) twitter.com/VP/status/2862…
— Office of VP Biden (@VP) January 1, 2013

Cantor, Boehner Coming Together

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) spokesman Doug Heye tweeted out a peace offering to House Speaker John Boehner, a sign that leadership is coming together and moving closer to a path to passage of the Senate bill.

"Majority Leader Cantor stands with @SpeakerBoehner. Speculation otherwise is silly, non-productive and untrue," Heye tweeted.

-- Ryan Grim

All Major Conservative Groups Oppose White House-Senate Deal

Three influential conservative groups that helped to defeat Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" before Christmas called for a "no" vote on the fiscal cliff deal struck by the White House and the Senate. The calls of opposition from these groups appear to have been heard by House Republicans, who are refusing to support the deal passed by the Senate.

The ultra-conservative Club for Growth stated, "This bill raises taxes immediately with the promise of cutting spending later. Tax rates will go up on marginal income, capital gains, dividends, and even certain estates when a person passes away. But it also delays the sequester for at least two months, breaking the promise made by Congress in 2011 to cut government spending. And, among other things, it includes an unpaid for extension of unemployment benefits."

Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, echoed these concerns, "To be clear, this is a tax increase. ... Heritage Action opposes the kick-the-can tax increase and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard."

FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe opposed Senate passage of the deal and wrote to his group's members to call their senator to express their opposition. "I urge you to call your state’s two U.S. Senators and ask them to vote NO on the McConnell-Obama bill to raise taxes and postpone the promised sequester savings. We will count any vote on this proposal as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2012."

A fourth group, the Koch brothers-controlled Americans for Prosperity, stopped short of calling for supporters to oppose the deal, but did blast both the deal's contents and the way it was being passed.

"The package is being rushed through at the last minute, possibly voiding the Speaker’s promise that the country would be able to review legislation for three days before the House voted on it. Much like the President’s health care law, it looks like we’ll have to pass the tax bill to find out what’s in it," Americans for Prosperity policy director James Valvo wrote on AFP's blog.

Both the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks are known for getting involved in Republican primary elections to oppose lawmakers that they deem insufficiently conservative. In the past three elections, the Club for Growth defeated four incumbent lawmakers in primaries including Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.). The group's primary opposition to the late Arlen Specter led him to switch parties in 2009 to run for reelection as a Democrat.

-- Paul Blumenthal

Dems: What Will We Do When Deal Collapses?

Some Democrats were already thinking out loud about what will follow the collapse of the Senate deal, which they now expect.

If Republicans attempt to offer amendments -- as is expected -- Democrats will oppose a rule to allow that to happen procedurally.

If the GOP then tries to pass an amended bill, "they will have to do it with their own votes," said Rep. James Clyburn, (D- S.C.), a member of the leadership. Either scenario would kill the deal.

If the GOP doesn't offer an up or down vote on the Senate deal, well, that would kill the deal, too.

And then what? "Well, I say that then we wait for the new Congress to come in on Thursday. We'll have better numbers, more members on our side," said Clyburn. "Then we offer a new bill that they will like even less. They didn't like the 450 (thousand dollar in household income) floor on the tax increase? Let's see how much they like it when we push it back down to 250 (thousand)!"

-- Howard Fineman

House Democratic Leadership Calls On Boehner To Bring Fiscal Cliff Deal Up For A Vote

Following a three-hour meeting with their caucus that included a discussion with Vice President Joe Biden, House Democratic leadership called on House Speaker John Boehner to bring the Senate-passed fiscal cliff deal to the floor for an up-or-down vote.

"The United States Senate voted in an uncharacteristically, very strong bipartisan way -- 89 votes in favor of the compromise legislation -- that's historic," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Tuesday on Capitol Hill. "Up until now, the speaker has said when the Senate acts, we will have a vote in the House. That is what he said, that is what we expect, that is what the American people deserve."

She added that she thought there had been "gigantic progress," but stopped short of saying whether she anticipated having enough votes from members of her caucus to see the bill through the lower chamber.

"Right now, our members after very thoughtful deliberations and review are continuing to review the legislation, weighing the pros and cons and weighing the equities of not going over the cliff," Pelosi said. "But we're all very eager to see the form that the Republican leadership will put onto the floor today … our members are making their decisions now."

But even though the deal negotiated between Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is unpopular across both parties, a House leadership aide was confident the majority of House Democrats would get behind the bill.

"There's concern among members, but no one [is] really saying they'll vote no," the aide said in an email.

-- Sabrina Siddiqui

GOP Deeply Displeased With Spending In Fiscal Cliff Deal

Republicans emerging from their first of two meetings on the fiscal cliff deal Tuesday were unanimously displeased with the spending measures in the bill the Senate passed in the very early hours of New Year's Day.

“The speaker and leader laid out options to the members and listened to feedback," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "The lack of spending cuts in the Senate bill was a universal concern amongst members in today’s meeting. Conversations with members will continue throughout the afternoon on the path forward.”

Members stated their objections just as plainly.

The majority of us, and I'm one of those, is not satisfied with what the Senate sent over," said Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.). "The membership is very concerned about the increase spending in the bill."

Many seemed interested in changing the bill, but also worried that it could get killed, creating a deeply uncertain atmosphere on Capitol Hill and in the financial markets.

"I would say that that's a strong possibility -- that there will be some changes on the floor that will get back to the Senate," Jones said.

"It may go back with, as someone said, not a poison pill, just enough to give 'em a little heartburn and get it done," said Rep. Bob Turner (R-N.Y.).

-- Michael McAuliff

Federal Workers Fear Agency Cuts, Furloughs In Cliff Deal

A union for federal employees has criticized a tentative "fiscal cliff" deal that would lead to funding cuts for federal agencies, saying lawmakers should curb federal contractor pay rather than ask federal employees for sacrifices.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 670,000 workers, said it was "concerned" about the Senate proposal to pay for the delay of the sequester with unspecified agency cuts.

"How agencies will achieve these amounts is not clear in the language of the bill," J. David Cox Sr., the union’s president, said in a statement. "Before they look any further at unpaid furloughs or other cuts to critical agency programs, [the White House’s Office of Management and Budget] should sharply reduce the amount taxpayers provide to federal contractors for excessive salaries for their top executives."

The unions representing federal employees have been worried for months that a fiscal cliff deal hammered out by lawmakers would lead to further pay freezes or furloughs at federal agencies. Federal workers haven't had a raise in two years due to an extended pay freeze, and new federal workers will be facing significantly higher pension costs.

Arguing for shared sacrifice, AFGE has tried to pressure Congress to lower the cap for the taxpayer-subsidized salaries of federal contractors, from its current level of roughly $760,000 down to the vice president's salary of $230,000.

-- Dave Jamieson

Biden To The Rescue?

fiscal cliff

Vice President Joe Biden arrives for a House Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss the legislation that will blunt the effects of the fiscal cliff before a rare New Year's Day session on Tuesday. Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) negotiated the deal that produced The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which passed the Senate after midnight on New Year's Day. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Dems, GOP Fights For Votes Continue

Democrat and GOP leaders are currently on the phone with each other trying to see who has which votes, reports Howard Fineman, editorial director of the Huffington Post Media Group.

Democrats think they can get 140-150 Democratic votes but are not sure -- and neither are the GOPers -- that the GOP side can get enough votes to pass the Senate deal, he said.

Fineman reports that Democrats don't want to be blamed for going over the cliff, but GOP Tea Partiers may see it as a perverse act of courage to do so.

-- Howard Fineman

GOP: Fiscal Cliff Deal May Be In Trouble

The few Republicans who have filed out of the House GOP meeting have sounded cautionary notes about the fiscal cliff deal, suggesting it faces serious trouble.

"I'd be shocked if this bill did not go back," said Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

The biggest complaint is the lack of spending cuts.

"We've got to provide responsible spending balance long-term," said Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) "This bill does not do that."

The few Republicans who have filed out of the House GOP meeting have sounded cautionary notes about the fiscal cliff deal, suggesting it faces serious trouble.

"I'd be shocked if this bill did not go back," said Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

The biggest complaint is the lack of spending cuts.

"We've got to provide responsible spending balance long-term," said Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) "This bill does not do that."

-- Mike McAuliff

Biden Leaves Dems Meeting

At 2:06 p.m. Tuesday, Biden swept out of back door of a Democratic caucus meeting about the fiscal cliff deal without giving any concrete indication of what had gone on in an hour and a half of talking and answering questions.

I asked him if he had the votes and he said, "you're an old hand and you know that I never predict the vote." I asked him what the most effective argument was that he had made and he said, "you'll have to ask the members that."

He smiled the usual Biden sincerely frozen grimace and added, "I'm a 'foreign policy expert!' Why am I here doing this?"

Then he disappeared up the escalator surrounded by a cloud of aides and security officers.

-- Howard Fineman

Richard Trumka On Fiscal Cliff Deal

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka put out several tweets Monday night urging lawmakers to put the brakes on the fiscal cliff deal being negotiated in the Senate. The deal ended up passing that chamber. And as it made its way to the House Tuesday morning, Trumka was sounding a bit more favorably disposed to the legislation, albeit with some criticisms peppered in.

His full statement is below:

The agreement passed by the Senate last night is a breakthrough in beginning to restore tax fairness and achieves some key goals of working families. It does not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. It raises over $700 billion over 10 years, including interest savings, by ending the Bush income tax cuts for families making over $450,000 a year. And in recognition of the continuing jobs crisis, it extends unemployment benefits for a year. A strong message from voters and a relentless echo from grassroots activists over the last six weeks helped get us this far.
But lawmakers should have listened even better. The deal extends the Bush tax cuts for families earning between $250,000 and $450,000 a year and makes permanent Bush estate tax cuts exempting estates valued up to $5 million from any tax. These concessions amount to over $200 billion in additional tax cuts for the 2%.
And because of Republican hostage taking, the deal simply postpones the $1.2 trillion sequester for only two months and does not address the debt ceiling, setting the stage for more fiscal blackmail at the expense of the middle class.
Instead of moving to address our nation’s real jobs and public investment crisis, our leaders will be debating a prolonged artificial fiscal crisis. In the weeks to come, as the confrontation over the economic direction of our country continues, the working men and women of the AFL-CIO will continue to fight to keep poor and middle class families from giving more so rich people can continue paying less. That means a fairer, more progressive tax system, an end to Bush tax rates for the 2% and protection of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from benefit cuts.

-- Sam Stein

Boehner: GOP Meeting To Explain Fiscal Cliff Deal

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said the point of the Republican meeting going on this afternoon on Capitol Hill was purely to explain the fiscal cliff deal. Boehner was not making any recommendations on how members should vote, contrary to some reporting.

Such a recommendation would more likely come in a second meeting later Tuesday, after Republicans digest what they learn.

-- Michael McAuliff

Fiscal Cliff Deal And The Deficit

The fiscal cliff deal adds $3.9 trillion to the deficit, over the next 10 years, at least technically.

That's because while most people assumed most of the Bush-era tax cuts would be extended, the Congressional Budget Office must look only at what the law says. The law called for letting all the cuts expire, which would have brought in more than $4 trillion. The fiscal cliff deal lets most of that revenue go, letting rates increase only for single filers above $400,000 and $450,000 for couples.

The CBO estimates are here.

Senate Fiscal Cliff Deal Offers Help After Foreclosure

The Senate deal to avert the cliff includes a one-year extension of a tax provision that prevents foreclosure victims from getting hit with a huge tax bill after they lose their homes, according to the legislation as written.

-- Ryan Grim

Scores For Senate's Fiscal Cliff Deal

The Congressional Budget Office has scored the Senate-passed deal. View the CBO document.

Cleaver: Biden A 'Persuasive Guy'

Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri estimated that, before the meeting, the sentiment was running about 7-2 among Democrats in favor of the deal, based on the floor statements he had heard.

Emerging from the meeting, he said that Biden's had changed at least one vote to a "yes" and would probably change more. "He's a persuasive guy," he said.

He better be: A 7-2 ratio would mean a lot of "no" votes among the 191 Dems -- and would imperil the deal big time.

-- Howard Fineman

Republicans Delay Fiscal Cliff Deal Vote

In a sign that the fiscal cliff deal could face an uncertain future in the House, Republican leaders delayed their planned vote on the measure and were expected to meet twice before going to the floor of the House in the late afternoon or evening.

If the House amends the bill passed by the Senate early this morning, or worse, offers a whole new bill, it could throw the seeming certainty achieved by the Senate out the window. Many observers had seen the strong bipartisan vote in the Senate -- including such conservatives as former Club For Growth head Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) -- as an encouraging sign that Tea Party House members could also hold their noses and go along.

-- Mike McAuliff

Lee: Biden Emphasizes History To Dems

Ducking out of the closed-door meeting of Democrats to attend another event, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas said that Vice President Joe Biden had made a pitch based on "historical perspective."

He explained that he had taken a central role in the final deal because, as president of the Senate and a former long-time member there, he was in the best position to deal with GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell -- and President Barack Obama had realized that and asked the Veep to take the lead.

Biden went through the long history of GOP refusals to vote for income-tax rate hikes -- a history that goes back to 1993, long before the Tea Party was a gleam in Grover Norquist's eye. Lee agreed that it was a victory of sorts for the president to get the Republicans to move on that issue, however modestly.

Biden, according to Lee, also stressed that the debt "crisis" was largely of the GOP's making because of profligate spending in the Bush II Years. If the Democrats now have to agree to spending cuts, it will be up to the GOP to offer up its pet categories of spending -- defense in particular -- for new limits.

Lee, a staunch liberal, said that she was undecided about how to vote -- out of concern that the deal would lead to a "hostage taking" two months from now when spending cuts are negotiated in the midst of another manufactured "crisis" -- the one over raising the debt ceiling. She said that she was concerned that a latter deal would include restrictive changes in how cost-of-living adjustments are calculated for Social Security; and that it would cut programs such as funding for housing and homeless shelters.

"I haven't decided -- but I am listening," she said.

Lee is apparently worried that Biden might have made promises to McConnell on those items.

-- Howard Fineman

Liberals Opposing Fiscal Cliff Deal

Liberals really do not like the fiscal cliff deal.

Robert Borosage, of the Campaign for America's Future, hammered the deal in a blog post..

Borosage noted some positive points in the deal, such as raising taxes on some of the wealthy and extending breaks for the middle class, but he also detailed what he saw as major problems. “No one should be fooled," he wrote. "This is an ugly deal, with foul implications for the coming months."

1. Setting Up the Next Extortion
“The most ominous part of the deal is what was left out. The deal makes no provision for lifting the debt ceiling. It postpones the sequester (automatic cuts in domestic and military spending) for only two months. It is a smaller deficit reduction package than that originally sought by the president. It therefore sets up the right-wing House zealots to hold the economy hostage once more, while demanding deep cuts in public services (known as cuts in domestic spending), backed by a media frenzy about deficits. And while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid escaped unscathed in this deal, they will be the prime targets in the coming debate.
2. Hiking Taxes for Working Americans; A Million Jobs Lost
“By allowing the payroll tax cut to expire, every working American gets a tax hike of 2 percent of their income (up to about $113,000 in income). A worker making $50,000 a year will pay an extra $1,000 in taxes. Payroll checks will be cut. Belts will have to be tightened even more. That will lower demand, producing job loss totaling up to an estimated million jobs. (Taxes on the wealthy go up also, but those have only marginal effects on jobs).
3. Compromising the Compromising President
“President Obama sensibly told Republicans that he would not sign any bill or agree to any deal that extended the Bush tax cuts on those making over $250,000. He had stumped on that across the country on this pledge and received a mandate from the voters. Polls showed the majority of Americans were with him. With all the Bush tax breaks due to expire, Republicans were faced with letting taxes go up on everyone just to defend tax breaks for the richest Americans. The President began the negotiations saying this was not negotiable. He could not have been in a stronger position.
“But he chose to compromise. The Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire on couples making over $450,000. This costs about $150-200 billion in revenue over 10 years. The president argues he got the important extension of unemployment insurance and the working poor tax credits in return. But these could have been folded into a package after going over the cliff. And the cost to the president is significant. Once more Republicans have learned that obstruction works, that the president will always blink.
“The next extortion – the debt ceiling, automatic sequester – in the next eight weeks makes this a big deal. The President says sensibly that he will not negotiate over lifting the debt ceiling. Period. And now there is even less reason for the Republicans to believe him than before. This encourages extreme demands rather than discouraging them. This was the time to draw the line.
4. Feeding the deficit distraction
“The deal is already being denounced in the mainstream media as `too timid,’ offering too little in deficit reduction. It guarantees the next eight weeks will be fixated on the debate about what to cut and how much to cut headed into the debt ceiling.
“But this entire debate is wrong-headed. You can’t fix the debt without fixing the economy. And deficit reduction won’t fix the economy. The recovery is too slow and too skewed to put people back to work. Deficit reduction can only slow it further.
“We need a big and bold debate about fundamental reforms needed to make this economy work for working people. That includes making big investments vital to our future at a time when we can borrow for virtually nothing – rebuilding and modernizing our decrepit infrastructure, funding R&D, doing at least the basics in education. We need to balance our trade, and revive manufacturing, beginning with capturing a leading role in the global move to clean energy.
“We need to address inequality frontally. That requires much more than small marginal increases in taxes for millionaires. It includes raising the minimum wage, empowering workers to organize and bargain for a fair share of the profits they help to generate, limiting perverse CEO compensation schemes. It includes a financial transaction tax that might curb Wall Street gambling.

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