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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Fewer boarded-up homes: Vacancy rate for US housing falls to pre-bust levels

In the final quarter of 2012, the vacancy rate was 1.9 percent of homeowner housing, and 8.7 percent of the rental housing market, according to a new census report.

By Mark Trumbull,?Staff writer / February 20, 2013

In this Jan. photo, a construction worker works at a new home under construction in Chicago.

Nam Y. Huh/AP

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Across America fewer homes are boarded up. And fewer people are ?doubled up,? sharing a tight apartment with friends or parents.

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According to the Census Bureau, vacancy rates for residential housing in the United States have fallen to levels last seen before the peak of the housing boom in 2006 and the subsequent recession.

In the final quarter of 2012, the vacancy rate was 1.9 percent of homeowner housing, and 8.7 percent of the rental housing market. That?s down from rates as high as 2.9 percent (2008) in the owner market and 11.1 percent (mid-2009) for rentals.

The census numbers, released in an annual vacancy report Wednesday, add to other indications of rising strength in the US housing market ? from rising home prices to home-builder enthusiasm and investor activity.

?As long as the economy is adding jobs and growing, housing is going to continue improving,? says Patrick Newport, an economist who follows real estate at the forecasting firm IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.

Two main drivers of progress for the housing market over the past year have been the persistence of low interest rates and the tightening supply of homes available for purchase.

?And since we're not building at normal rates ... the supply keeps getting tighter,? he says.

Of course, rising home prices are a mixed blessing. Owners feel rising wealth, and lenders feel greater confidence about making home loans. But it means the cost of housing, for potential buyers and renters, is going up.

Over time, the market?s tightening should prompt builders to rev up construction of both rental and owner-occupied units. Already, residential construction is adding to the gross domestic product, although it hasn?t been the driving force that it usually is in an economic recovery.

For more than five years, housing was a locus of economic challenges such as foreclosure and construction layoffs. As the unemployment rate rose, the vacancy rate soared. Homes were being lost to foreclosure, and people were doubling up with others rather than buying or renting.

Those trends aren?t over, but the census numbers suggest they are receding.

The quarterly census numbers on vacancy have some flaws, compared with the more thorough survey that the census does every 10 years, Mr. Newport notes.

Also, the fact that today?s 1.9 percent homeowner vacancy rate is lower than the 2 percent posted at the end of 2005 probably needs an asterisk. Many homes count as occupied today even though the households are financially troubled. Compared with 2005, many more borrowers are delinquent, with foreclosure looming, or are ?underwater? (with a loan balance larger than the value of their homes).

Still, the progress is real, and according to the new numbers, it spans much of the nation.

States that were hard hit by housing busts have seen significant declines in vacancy rates over the past year. These include Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Ohio, which have all experienced declines of half a percentage point or more.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Kl_RbJs56LM/Fewer-boarded-up-homes-Vacancy-rate-for-US-housing-falls-to-pre-bust-levels

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Pentagon notifies Congress of likely furloughs

Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, right, talks with Marine Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, left, and assistant Defense Department press secretary Carl Woog, second from left, before boarding a E-4B aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, before traveling to Brussels for a NATO defense ministers meeting. (AP Photo/Chip Somodevilla, Pool)

Secretary of State John Kerry gestures as he delivers his first foreign policy speech, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in Old Cabel Hall at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. Kerry said the greatest challenge to U.S. foreign policy is not emerging China or Middle East instability. It's Congress. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress on Wednesday that if automatic government spending cuts kick in on March 1 he may have to shorten the workweek for the "vast majority" of the Defense Department's 800,000 civilian workers.

They would lose one day of work per week, or 20 percent of their pay, for up to 22 weeks, probably starting in late April.

To dispel the notion that this is mainly a problem for the nation's capital, the Pentagon's budget chief, Robert Hale, told reporters that the economic impact would be felt nationwide. The biggest potential losses, in term of total civilian payroll dollars, would be in Virginia, California, Maryland, Texas and Georgia, according to figures provided by the Pentagon.

Hale said the unpaid leaves for civilian workers would begin in late April and would save $4 billion to $5 billion if extended through the end of the budget year, Sept. 30. That is only a fraction of the $46 billion the Pentagon would have to cut this budget year unless a deficit-reduction deal is reached.

Panetta also said the across-the-board spending reductions would "put us on a path toward a hollow force," meaning a military incapable of fulfilling all of its missions.

In a written message to employees, Panetta said that he notified members of Congress Wednesday that if the White House and Congress cannot strike a deficit reduction deal before March 1 to avoid the furloughs, all affected workers will get at least 30 days' advance notice.

"In the event of sequestration we will do everything we can to be able to continue to perform our core mission of providing for the security of the United States, but there is no mistaking that the rigid nature of the cuts forced upon this department, and their scale, will result in a serious erosion of readiness across the force," Panetta wrote.

Adding his voice to the budget debate, Secretary of State John Kerry said the fiscal impasse is a serious threat to American credibility around the world.

"Think about it: It is hard to tell the leadership of any number of countries that they have to resolve their economic issues if we don't resolve our own," Kerry said Wednesday at the University of Virginia.

House Speaker John Boehner put the blame on Obama and said he agrees with Panetta that automatic spending cuts would devastate the military.

Boehner released a copy of Panetta's letter formally notifying Congress that the Pentagon will have to consider furloughing a large portion of its civilian workforce if sequestration kicks in.

"The furloughs contemplated by this notice will do real harm to our national security," Panetta wrote in his congressional notification letter, adding that it would make troops less ready for combat and slow the acquisition of important weapons.

"Overall, sequestration will put us on a path toward a hollow force and inflict serious damage on our national security," Panetta wrote.

Panetta was flying Wednesday to Brussels to attend a NATO defense ministers meeting. Spokesman George Little told reporters en route that Panetta would tell his counterparts that across-the-board budget cuts will hurt not only the U.S. military but also the ability of NATO to respond to crises.

Little said the Pentagon is also discussing the possibility of not being able to send military units on planned rotations to various places around the world. In anticipation of cuts, the Pentagon has already decided not to send one aircraft carrier back to the Persian Gulf, reducing the U.S. presence there to one carrier.

The Pentagon has begun discussing details of the furloughs with defense worker union officials.

President Barack Obama has exempted military personnel from furloughs.

Obama was continuing to pressure Republican lawmakers to avert the automatic cuts by supporting a Senate Democratic plan that would replace the immediate cuts with a mix of spending reductions and tax increases. He was conducting interviews with local television in eight markets: Boston, Charleston, S.C., Baltimore, Oklahoma City, Okla., Wichita, Kan., San Antonio, Texas, San Francisco, and Honolulu.

"I don't know why it is in this town folks leave stuff to the last minute. You know, there's no other profession, no other industry, where people wait until the 11th hour to solve these big problems," Obama told WJZ, the CBS affiliate in Baltimore.

The only civilian Pentagon workers who would be exempt from furloughs would be Senate-confirmed political appointees such as the defense secretary and deputy defense secretary, as well as a relatively small number of workers deemed essential to protect the safety of defense property and personnel.

Panetta said the administration is still working with Congress to avoid automatic budget cuts by reaching agreement on a deficit reduction plan.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Lolita C. Baldor and Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-20-Budget%20Battle/id-e5f71510e7b4498aa229045e00b3ec1c

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Trash Talkin? Tuesday

Trash Talkin’ Tuesday

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Trash Talkin’ Tuesday Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/02/trash-talkin-tuesday-83/

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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Kate Upton ? Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2013 BTS ? 1080i HD Screencaps

If you bought the 2013 SI Swimsuit issue, then I?m sure you skipped over the page that advertised the SI Swimsuit BTS Special that aired on the Travel Channel last night (as opposed to last year when it aired on VH1). Well, if you missed it, then you?re screwed but becuz I like you, I?ll post the best moments of Kate Upton and Jessica Gomes from the special.

And, for the record, the fact that Kate Upton gets paid MILLIONS of dollars to do what she does and yet I have to hear her constantly bitch and moan about doing a photoshoot in the icy cold tundra? You get no sympathy from me, darling. Just shut the EFF up and POSE!

All screencaps are 1080 Progressive but capped from an interlaced source.

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Source: http://fashionscansremastered.net/2013/02/17/kate-upton-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-2013-bts-1080i-hd-screencaps/

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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Would Hagel at Defense make war with Iran more likely?

Republican former Sen. Chuck Hagel testifies before a Senate committee in January. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)Would Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel help set the stage for a war with Iran? Or would the Republican former senator, who seems on track to be confirmed late this month, put the brakes on a possible military confrontation with Tehran over its nuclear program?

The answer -- to both questions -- is yes, some veteran observers of U.S. foreign policy say.

It's a question that reaches far beyond speculative inside-the-Beltway parlor games. There are signs that President Barack Obama?s second-term foreign policy and national security team?and his recent signals to Iran?are part of a final push on the diplomatic front before using military force.

The theory runs something like this: Secretary of State John Kerry is a staunch believer in diplomatic engagement. Hagel has repeatedly expressed deep skepticism about the effectiveness of war with Iran (he even opposed unilateral economic sanctions a decade ago). Both voted in favor of war with Iraq, then turned sharply critical of the conflict. Both men, decorated Vietnam War veterans, aren't likely to rush the country into another overseas occupation.

"These are exactly the people who could make an assault on [Iran] politically sellable," explains Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. "They may be the smiley face painted on the tip of a bunker-buster."

Ibish said Obama is purposely assembling a team positioned to say two things simultaneously to the Iranian government.

?One is ?We want to make a deal with you, and you will get the best deal out of us that you?ll ever get from any U.S. administration, so take it,'" Ibish told Yahoo News. ?And two, 'If you don?t take it and you cross the red line, you?ll face military action by a group of people who are also in a perfect position to lead the world into a conflict without being vulnerable to the charges of recklessness or warmongering.'"

Ibish may have pioneered the theory, but it can also be heard among influential lawmakers.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently told Yahoo News he believes the Obama administration's diplomatic outreach may be laying the groundwork in the event that talks fail.

"The more we are out there diplomatically, doing everything we can to, in a rational way, negotiate with the Iranians, I do think we are building world support should something else have to occur," Corker said.

Vice President Joe Biden, in remarks at an international security conference in Germany, recently offered Iran direct talks. Tehran refused.

"They (the Obama administration) seem like they are checking the boxes of diplomacy," said one foreign policy analyst, who requested anonymity to offer a candid appraisal of that offer.

Hawkish Republicans opposed to confirming Hagel don't see it that way.

GOP senators led by John McCain of Arizona have repeatedly and forcefully denounced their former colleague as insufficiently tough on Iran?casting him as a defense secretary who might gaze on impotently while the Islamic republic develops an atomic arsenal. They've pointed to Hagel's criticisms of imposing unilateral economic sanctions a decade ago, as well as his open skepticism of the effectiveness of military action.

"Can we expect Sen. Hagel to advance and support policies to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons capability when he has opposed economic sanctions and military intervention?" said McCain, one of his party's top voices on national security.

McCain also dinged Hagel for saying in his confirmation hearing that he backed "containment" of a nuclear Iran?an apparent slip of the tongue on Hagel's part later corrected by the panel's chairman, Democratic Sen. Carl Levin.

?Sen. Hagel?s opposition to the use of sanctions; his apparent confusion about administration policy and its implications; and his apparent incomprehension of the threat a nuclear-armed Iran poses to international stability is alarming and would cause other nations to doubt the credibility of the president?s commitments," McCain charged.

At the White House, officials note that Obama has repeatedly said he won't shy away from using force to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, even though he wants to exhaust diplomatic efforts first. The Democratic president has even embraced the diplo-speak phrase "all options are on the table" that refers to going to war.

?This president has shown time and again that he means what he says?on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on Osama bin Laden,? said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor. ?Republicans should look over here and realize that's true on Iran.?

That may be the biggest problem with the notion that Hagel, or even Kerry, will have a decisive impact on foreign policy.

"It doesn?t matter what John Kerry thinks about Iran. It doens't matter what Chuck Hagel thinks about Iran," said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert who has served in Republican and Democratic administrations. "This president has no intention of being the president on whose watch Iran either acquires the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon or a weapon itself."

Obama may successfully cut a diplomatic deal in which Iran bows to demands to halt its uranium enrichment in return for some concessions, perhaps an easing of crippling economic sanctions, said Miller, a vice president at the Wilson Center.

Or, "with great reluctance and some trepidation, the president will use military force" that may not end Iran's nuclear program, Miller said.

"He will accept a messy conclusion, plunging stock markets, inflated oil prices and more regional instability, rather than be the potted plant of American power on this particular question," Miller said. "So Kerry and Hagel may be helpers in that enterprise, but they will not be shapers of it."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/hagel-confirmation-war-iran-more-likely-205057684--politics.html

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Bill Blum: Targeted Killings: A Legal History - Truthdig

Targeted Killings: A Legal History

Posted on Feb?14,?2013

By Bill Blum

Unless you are an unquestioning hawk in the war on terror, ?scary? doesn?t begin to describe the breathtaking expansion of executive authority called for in the Justice Department?s ?white paper? on ?targeted killing,? published this month by NBC News. In 16 pages of dense single-spaced legal prose, the paper lays out a justification under both international and domestic law for the president or other unspecified ?informed, high-level? administration officials to order the execution of U.S. citizens abroad who are deemed to be senior operational leaders of al-Qaida or forces ?associated? with the terrorist network.

When all the legalese is stripped away, the paper offers a stark and simple bottom line: Because America is at war, all that?s needed for a kill order to proceed is evidence that a targeted individual is ?continually involved in planning terrorist attacks against the United States.? An attack need not be imminent or immediate, and the supporting evidence need never be made public because a targeted kill order, according to the paper, is beyond the scope of judicial review, either pre- or post-execution.

Since the white paper?s release, constitutional scholars and political commentators have picked apart the memo?s legal reasoning, decrying the administration?s position as a wholesale violation of due process, and an audacious power grab that, if allowed to stand, will insulate Obama and future presidents from the accountability and openness that are the bedrocks of democracy.

But as sweeping and disturbing as the white paper may be, it is not without historical precedent. Minus the drone technology involved, we as a nation have been down this road before, although for the most part covertly. Indeed, according to Harvard Law School professors Gabriella Blum and Philip Heymann, targeted killings, or ?assassinations? as they were more bluntly called before the newspeak of post-9/11 politics, have long been regarded as a basic element of foreign relations that largely remained in the dark, unspoken of but widely practiced in response to perceived threats to national security.

In 1975, the Senate select committee chaired by the late Frank Church, D-Neb., famously broke through the secrecy, reporting that it had uncovered evidence linking the CIA to at least eight assassination plots, involving such world figures as Fidel Castro, the corrupt South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem and Chilean Gen. Rene Schneider, who was killed in 1970 after he refused to block the election of Salvador Allende. And while secrecy remained the norm thereafter, a handful of subsequent operations that were too big to go unnoticed entered the public domain, including the 1986 airstrike ordered by President Reagan on Moammar Gadhafi?s residence, and the 1998 bombing of Osama bin Laden?s Afghanistan headquarters, undertaken by the Clinton administration.

After the 9/11 attacks, the number of kill orders, now directed against al-Qaida and its allies, increased exponentially, expanding beyond the Afghan battlefields under the authority of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act, one of the principal legal sources cited in the white paper on the current targeted kill program. Since 2004, drone strikes in Pakistan alone have resulted in as many as 3,468 deaths. Three U.S. citizens?the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, along with Samir Khan, the editor of al-Qaida?s English-language Web magazine Inspire, have been killed, all in Yemen.?

Seen in an even wider historical context, the Justice Department?s white paper also can be understood as an outgrowth of America?s long and often lamentable history of combating purported domestic threats to national security. As Yeshiva University history professor Ellen Schrecker?considered by many the foremost authority on McCarthyism?reminds us, political repression at home is ?as American as apple pie.?

Although each period of repression, from the subjugation of the Native American population to the red scare of the mid-20th century and the Islamophobia afoot today, has its unique character, according to Schrecker, they share at least two core parallel features. First, the enemy is dehumanized and demonized by politicians and the press as an alien outside force bent on destroying the country, its citizens and its values. Second, there is a precipitating crisis, usually in the form of a hot or cold war, that drives the demonization and serves to validate the curbs on civil liberties that repression brings.

The red scare is particularly instructive, both to our understanding the present crisis and for pointing a way out of it. Then, as now, the U.S. found itself in the throes of a protracted struggle against a foreign enemy?the Soviet Union and later, China?that in the rhetoric of the day threatened the American way of life. Then, as now, those in power responded with increased surveillance of suspected subversives, the compilation of security indexes and enemy lists, arrests, imprisonment, and in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, execution.?

Then, as now, there also was a determined effort to limit the state?s overreach, both through political organizing and the courts. As a young lawyer, I worked as an associate in a Los Angeles law firm that long before my arrival had helped litigate some of the landmark lawsuits that eventually made their way to the Supreme Court and changed the face of constitutional law, clarifying that mere advocacy of political ideas could not be criminalized and that only speech that reasonably and intentionally threatens actual imminent harm may be proscribed.

Following in that tradition, the ACLU and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights have filed a federal lawsuit (Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta) in Washington, D.C., to have the targeted kill program declared unlawful.

Whether the ACLU?s case succeeds, of course, remains uncertain, as is true of all lawsuits. But regardless of the outcome of any single case, one truth with any luck and enough perseverance will ultimately prevail: In exercising its legitimate right of self-defense, our government will remain bound by the Constitution, and its acts, for better or worse, will remain subject to thorough judicial review.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama promised ?to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.? These are bold words and, if believed, reassuring. Judging from the Justice Department?s white paper, however, the president has an enormous amount of rethinking to do before we can take his promise at face value.

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Source: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/targeted_killings_a_legal_history_20130214/

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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Small business owners still feeling 'fiscal cliff' pinch

Heesun Wee , CNBC.com ? ? ? 40 min.

Small-business owners' confidence was virtually flat in January, as entrepreneurs failed to recoup losses sparked by December's scare about the so-called "fiscal cliff."

That's the finding of a monthly survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. The group said Tuesday that its small-business optimism index edged up just 0.9 points to 88.9 last month from 88 points in December 2012.

While a fiscal deal was reached in January on tax increases and spending cuts, benefits have remained elusive for much of Main Street ? a traditional driver of new jobs during past economic downturns. (Read More: Amid 'Fiscal Cliff' Stalemate, Main Street Deteriorates)

"The only good news is that it 'budged' up, not down. If small businesses were publicly traded companies, the stock market would be in shambles," said NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg. "While corporate profits are at record levels as a share of GDP, small businesses are still struggling to turn a profit," he sad in a prepared statement.

The latest monthly reading among small-business owners also showed low expectations for future growth ? clearly not a good way to kick off 2013.

Expectations for improved business conditions remained overwhelmingly low. Actual job creation and job creation plans improved nominally, but still not enough to keep up with population growth.

The NFIB also noted sales trends remain overwhelmingly negative for small employers, with more owners reporting declining sales.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/small-business-owners-still-feeling-fiscal-cliff-pinch-1C8340258

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