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Purveyor's JournalS&P 500 Rallies to Highest Level Since April on Housing, Cisco
Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks advanced, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to the highest level since April, as building permits jumped in July to a four-year peak and Cisco Systems Inc.’s earnings beat estimates.
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“We’re in a situation where the economy is growing, jobs are being created, and the consumer seems to be feeling better about spending,” Jason Benowitz, who helps manage $5 billion at Roosevelt Investment Group Inc. in New York, said in a phone interview. “The fact permitting is improving in the housing market suggests the future is going to be there. On the other hand, you have to counterweight the less likely chance of further monetary easing.”
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“Everybody is seeing an emerging good story coming out of Europe,” Greg Peterson, director of investment research at Ballentine Partners LLC in Waltham, Massachusetts, which has about $4 billion in assets, said in a phone interview. “American corporations are in great shape. Their earnings are solid and their cash at hand is excellent. I expect the solid returns to hold for the rest of the year, if not build on it.”
Building permits, a proxy for future construction, rose to an 812,000 pace, the most since August 2008, the Commerce Department said today. A Labor Department report showed jobless claims climbed by 2,000 to 366,000 in the week ended Aug. 11 while the Fed Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index showed manufacturing in the Philadelphia region contracted in August for a fourth consecutive month.
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http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/S-P-500-Rallies-to-Highest-Level-Since-April-on-3794162.php
Dizzying Transition Underway For VP Pick Paul Ryan, Dan Senor Working With Him Full Time
WASHINGTON — Paul Ryan was in a Fairfield Inn in coastal North Carolina last Friday night, eating takeout food from Applebee’s in one of his last meals as an unknown to most Americans. Within hours, the Wisconsin congressman would undergo one of the oddest, headiest, and most dramatic transformations in politics: becoming a vice presidential nominee.
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Ryan also has significant ground to make up on foreign policy. He has been on at least nine trips abroad, visiting at least 21 countries, according to a preliminary list from campaign officials and a Globe review of congressional records. But he is far more comfortable talking about deficit reduction and budget figures.
To help out, Dan Senor, one of Romney’s foreign policy advisers, is working with Ryan full time.
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http://bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2012/08/15/gop-acts-turn-congressman-paul-ryan-into-candidate-for-vice-president/6U1NH7s512pVg50jxuZgYO/story.html
Ecuador To Washington And Britain: Go To Hell
On August 16, word came. Asylum was granted short of freedom to leave Britain unarrested. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said "Ecuador decided to grant political asylum to Julian Assange following the request sent to the President."
He faces likely extradition to a third country without proper guarantees. If tried in America, it won't be fair. Patino called Ecuador's decision "protected by international law."
Shortly before Patino's announcement, President Raphael Correa twittered "No one is going to terrorize us." He signaled his likely decision.
Earlier, Patino released details of a letter from Britain's Quito embassy, saying:
"You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy."
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ecuador-to-Washington-and-by-Stephen-Lendman-120816-908.html
How Low Will Facebook Shares Go? 'Lockup' Expires, Stock Plunges
Facebook shares were supposed to do the lambada, not the limbo.
Instead stock in the social networking giant, whose contortions have demoralized investors, sank to a fresh low on Thursday, losing more than $4 billion of market value after the first in a series of "lockups" expired that had kept insiders from selling their shares.
Facebook shares plunged as much as $1.49, or 7%, to $19.71 in Thursday morning trading. It’s getting close to losing half its value since its much-hyped initial public stock offering in May that put its value at $100 billion.
Facebook already had 421 million shares trading. On Thursday 271 million more became eligible to be bought and sold. If many insiders sell, that could put increased pressure on the already depressed stock. Facebook's stock is close to doubling its usual trading volume with about 84 million shares trading hands already Thursday.
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http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-how-low-will-facebook-shares-go-lockup-expires-stock-plunges-20120816,0,7503684.story
Big-Name No-Shows For The GOP, DEM Conventions
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sarah Palin and George W. Bush won't be in Tampa, Fla. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore won't make the trip to Charlotte, N.C. And scores of other Republican and Democratic stars are taking a pass as their parties gather for this year's national conventions.
The reasons are varied - and often, of course, political.
In some cases, high-wattage politicians weren't invited to have speaking roles. Advisers to Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are selecting people to stand at the podiums who most fit the message each candidate will try to send. And who won't steal the spotlight. Other party rock stars are choosing to be on the sidelines because they're in hard-fought campaigns of their own.
One of the biggest names in the Democratic Party - Secretary of State Clinton - isn't allowed to attend under the law. But her husband, the former president, will be a featured speaker.
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CONVENTION_NO_SHOWS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-16-15-37-25
Majority Of Israelis Oppose A Strike On Iran's Nuclear Facilities Without U.S. Cooperation
August 16, 2012
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A majority of Israelis oppose a strike by their country on Iran's nuclear facilities without U.S. cooperation, a new poll found.
Nearly 61 percent of respondents oppose the strike without the cooperation of the United States and 27 percent favor it, according to a poll released Thursday by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University's Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution.
The poll also found that nearly 56 percent of Israelis think it is unlikely that Israel would launch airstrikes against Iran unilaterally; 33 percent believe the country will go forward with the strikes on its own.
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http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/08/16/3104176/majority-of-israelis-against-iran-strike-poll-finds
Fatah: Israel Dragging PA To 'Slaughterhouse' Over Iran
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is using Iran as a way to distract both Israelis and the world at large from the Palestinian issue, Nabil Sha'ath, the Fatah Commissioner for International Affairs said on Thursday.
Sha'ath compared the Prime Minister’s fear-mongering to former President George W. Bush’s insistence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the American invasion of Iraq.
“We’re afraid that a so-called preventive attack on Iran might also destroy us,” Shaath said. “We are being dragged by the people of Israel to a slaughterhouse that is not of our choice.”
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“But honestly, I’m worried about your atomic bomb, and Dimona [nuclear reactor] sending nuclear dirt that kills my people,” Sha'ath said. “Why should I be less concerned about an Israeli bomb? The Israeli bomb is a reality. The Iranian bomb is a potentiality.”
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http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=281545
Romney: My Medicare Plan Is ‘The Same If Not Identical’ To Ryan’s
By David Edwards
Thursday, August 16, 2012 10:26 EDT
After some initial confusion, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is making it clear that his plan for Medicare is “the same if not identical” to a proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) that Democrats say would end the program as it exists today.
After Romney announced on Saturday that he had selected Ryan as the vice presidential nominee, a campaign memo sought to distance the presidential candidate’s plan from Ryan’s budget proposal, insisting that “as president he will be putting together his own plan.”
But in an interview with Wisconsin’s WBAY on Wednesday, Romney said he fully embraced the voucher idea in Ryan’s plan.
“Actually, Paul Ryan and my plan for Medicare, I think, is the same if not identical–it’s probably close to identical,” Romney told WBAY’s Matt Smith. “The only change I’d mention for 55 or older is we’d restore the $817 billion President Obama took out of the Medicare trust fund.”
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/16/romney-my-medicare-plan-is-the-same-if-not-identical-to-ryans/
11 Killed in American Copter Crash in South Afghanistan
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: August 16, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Seven American soldiers and three Afghan soldiers and an interpreter were killed after daybreak on Thursday when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, said the American-led military command here.
A spokesman for the Taliban said the group had shot the helicopter down, but American officials said there was no indication yet that enemy fire was the cause. The helicopter crashed in a Taliban-controlled area in the northern part of Kandahar Province known as Shah Wali Kot at about 10 a.m. on Thursday, an official at the Kandahar provincial governor’s office said.
Maj. Martyn Crighton of the Army, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul, said it was not yet clear whether mechanical failure or Taliban fire was responsible.
“Currently, there is no operational reporting that indicates the helicopter was brought down by enemy fire,” Major Crighton said. But he added that “it is far too early in the investigation to make any definitive statement about what caused the accident.” He said everyone on board the helicopter was killed, and he confirmed that the crash occurred in Kandahar Province. But he declined to specify the precise location, saying that recovery and investigative operations may still be under way.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/asia/11-killed-in-american-copter-crash-in-south-afghanistan.html
Paul Ryan’s Democratic Fan Club
By Jonathan Alter - Aug 15, 2012
If Barack Obama’s campaign officials were happy over the weekend about Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, they’re ecstatic now.
The Obama camp is guarding against overconfidence and still betting the U.S. presidential race will be close. But aides traveling with Obama pointed with glee to headlines from Florida, Iowa and elsewhere that lash the Republican ticket to Ryan’s plan for deep cuts in Medicare, the nation’s most popular social program after Social Security.
Some Democrats now dare to wonder if Romney’s pick for vice president could even undermine Republican control of the House of Representatives. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has said for months that the Democrats can take the House; no one believed her. Although it’s still a steep challenge, Ryan’s addition to the ticket makes the climb easier.
Almost every Republican in the House voted for the Ryan plan -- twice. Last week, when Ryan was just the House Budget Committee chairman, it was difficult to make much of an issue of that. Voters didn’t know anything about Ryan or his plan. This week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is encouraging its candidates to wrap Ryan around their opponents’ necks.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-08-15/will-ryan-pick-tip-house-back-to-democrats-.html
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