President Barack Obama asked Congress for another $1.2 trillion in government borrowing authority, the third and final request under an August deal with lawmakers that averted a U.S. default.

The president’s notification to congressional leaders yesterday starts a 15-day countdown for lawmakers to consider and vote on a joint resolution disapproving of the increase.

Laena Fallon, a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said the House is expected to vote on a resolution on Jan. 18. The Senate, where Democrats hold a majority, returns to work the following week.

Under legislation passed Aug. 2 after months of negotiating between the administration and Republican lawmakers, the president has authority to veto any disapproval resolution that clears both chambers of Congress.

While the request to raise the debt ceiling is a formality laid out in last year’s agreement, the national debt will play into the presidential campaign and congressional races that will be decided in November. After the economy and jobs, the federal deficit is among the top concerns mentioned by voters in polls.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner used the request to criticize Obama on the budget and the deficit.

“This request is another reminder that the president has consistently punted on the tough choices needed to rein in the deficit and protect important programs for American seniors from going bankrupt,” Brendan Buck said in an e-mail.

From:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-12/obama-sends-congress-notice-to-raise-federal-debt-ceiling.html

When it comes to how Americans view President Obama going into the new year, there appears to be very little spirit of Auld Lang Syne.

Instead, according to the new Washington Whispers poll, many voters aren’t forgetting what they dislike about Obama and want him out office.

In our New Year’s poll, when asked what news event they fear most about 2012, Americans by a margin of two-to-one said Obama’s reelection. Only 16 percent said they fear the Democrat won’t win a second term, while 33 percent said they fear four more years. [Check out the top political events of 2011]

Next to Obama’s reelection, 31 percent of Americans said they feared higher taxes, which may be proof that the president’s focus on the payroll tax cut has hit paydirt.

The poll, however, held out some hope for Obama. Some 38 percent of younger Americans, 18-24, said their biggest fear was higher taxes. Just 28 percent of those same voters said they feared Obama winning in November. [See pictures of Obama behind the scenes.]

But in results backed up by other polls, older Americans and those earning $75,000 or more are especially worried about the president getting a second term, according to the poll done by Synovate eNation.

Nearly half of Americans 65 and older said Obama’s reelection was their top fear, 39 percent of those making $75,000 or more agreed.

As we enter the presidential election year of 2012, what potential news event do you fear the most?

President Obama wins reelection 33%

Taxes will increase 31%

Iran will get a nuclear weapon 16%

Obama will lose reelection 16%

North Korea will attack South Korea 4%

From:  http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/01/09/poll-americans-2-1-fear-obamas-reelection

A White House “Alice in Wonderland” costume ball — put on by Johnny Depp and Hollywood director Tim Burton — proved to be a Mad-as-a-Hatter idea that was never made public for fear of a political backlash during hard economic times, according to a new tell-all.

“The Obamas,” by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party the first couple feted at the White House in 2009. It was so over the top that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas sent the original Chewbacca to mingle with invited guests.

The book reveals how any official announcement of the glittering affair — coming at a time when Tea Party activists and voters furious over the lagging economy, 10-percent unemployment rate, bank bailouts and Obama’s health-care plan were staging protests — quickly vanished down the rabbit hole.

“White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans — or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care — that the event was not discussed publicly and Burton’s and Depp’s contributions went unacknowledged,” the book says.

However, the White House made certain that more humble Halloween festivities earlier that day — for thousands of Washington-area schoolkids — were well reported by the press corps.

Then the Obamas went inside…Unbeknownst to reporters, the State Dining Room had also been transformed into a secretive White House Wonderland.

Tim Burton decorated it “in his signature creepy-comic style. His film version was about to be released, and he had turned the room into the Mad Hatter’s tea party, with a long table set with antique-looking linens, enormous stuffed animals in chairs, and tiered serving plates with treats like bone-shaped meringue cookies,” reports the book, which The Post purchased at a Manhattan bookstore.

“Fruit punch was served in blood vials at the bar. Burton’s own Mad Hatter, the actor Johnny Depp, presided over the scene in full costume, standing up on a table to welcome everyone in character.”

The Obamas’ daughters, Malia and Sasha, then 11 and 8 respectively, “sat at the table, surrounded by a gaggle of their friends, and then proceeded to the next delight, a magic show in the East Room.”

From:   http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/01/09/poll-americans-2-1-fear-obamas-reelection

She allegedly wanted the taxpayer-funded $4million trip when Barack Obama sought instead to make the short trip to Camp David in Maryland.

Political sources told the National Enquirer that the 47-year-old’s spending is rocketing and she even went on a shopping spree before the Hawaii trip.

‘The President’s advisers have told him that Michelle’s spending has spiralled “completely out of control”,’ one source told the National Enquirer.

‘Barack read his wife the riot act, but his words fell on deaf ears. Michelle said there was “no way” she was going to disappoint her daughters.’

The First Family has already attracted criticism as their annual vacation in Hawaii this year is likely to be their most expensive ever.

The President will travel separately from his family this time because he wanted resolve the payroll tax cut issue before leaving Washington D.C.

He will fly Friday afternoon on his own Air Force One flight with Bo, after he was seen buying Christmas presents on Wednesday at PetSmart and Best Buy in Alexandria, Virginia.

Mrs Obama took the children last weekend in a flight that cost an extra $100,000 – and her husband’s round-trip journey will be $3,271,611.

From:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2077625/Michelle-Obama-insisted-4m-getaway-Hawaii-husband-wanted-local-holiday.html

First Lady Michelle Obama is to make a guest appearance on an upcoming episode of the popular Nickelodeon show iCarly.

In the episode, which airs on January 16, the First Lady helps the show’s title character Carly get in touch with her father, an Air Force colonel who can’t make it home for his birthday.

Obama surprises the girl and her friends, which leads to her being called “Your Excellency” by Carly’s friend Sam Puckett.

After being corrected by a friend that you don’t call the First Lady that, Michelle Obama jumps in and says “No, no, I kind of like it.”

From:  http://conservativebyte.com/2012/01/michelle-obama-jokes-i-kind-of-like-being-called-your-excellency/

The president acted just a day after the Senate held a session — breaking with at least three different precedents that said the Senate must be in recess for at least three days for the president to exercise his appointment power.

Mr. Obama himself was part of two of those precedents, both during his time in the Senate and again in 2010 when one of his administration’s top constitutional lawyers made the argument for the three-day waiting period to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Obama tapped former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the CFPB, and named three others to the labor board — all of which had been stymied by congressional Republicans who said Mr. Obama is accruing too much power to himself through those two agencies.

In strikingly sharp language, Republicans said the Senate considers itself still in session for the express purpose of blocking recess appointments, and the move threatened to become a declaration of war against Congress.

“Although the Senate is not in recess, President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.

GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner called the move “an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab by President Obama that defies centuries of practice and the legal advice of his own Justice Department.”

“The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution,” the Ohio Republican said in a statement.

The White House, though, argues Republican senators have been stonewalling his nominees for so long that Mr. Obama had no choice but to circumvent them.

The president introduced Mr. Cordray during a trip to Ohio Wednesday, telling a supportive crowd that the Senate Republicans’ ongoing blockade of his nomination “inexcusable.”

“I refuse to take ‘No’ for an answer. I’ve said before that I will continue to look for every opportunity to work with Congress to move this country forward. But when Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them,” Mr. Obama said.

CPFB supporters has said the lack of a top executive has blocked the fledgling agency from taking on a number of tasks in its mandate to police the financial sector and protect consumers from fraud. Mr. Cordray was accompanying the president on the trip, and briefly spoke to reporters.

He said he would begin work immediately, adding: “We’re going to begin working to expand our program to non-banks, which is an area we haven’t been able to touch until now.”

The Constitution gives the president the power to make appointments when the Senate is not in session and able to confirm them. Traditionally, that has been understood to mean when the Senate has adjourned for a recess longer than 10 days, and a Clinton administration legal opinion said a recess must be at least three days.

Mr. Obama’s own top constitutional lawyers affirmed that view in 2010 in another case involving recess appointments. Asked what the standard was for making recess appointments, then-Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal told the justices the administration agreed with the three-day rule.

“The recess appointment power can work in a recess. I think our office has opined the recess has to be longer than 3 days,” Mr. Katyal said.

From:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/4/obama-unprecedented-recess-appointment/

John Corzine drove IMF Global into bankruptcy, and $1.2 billion dollars in customer money is still missing.  He claims he “doesn’t know” where the money went.  This is the same man who gave Obama his “economic recovery” plan.