MACKINAC ISLAND — For the first time in recent history, Detroit’s executive and legislative branches of government quashed potential squabbles over the city’s budget and agreed to make $250 million in cuts in an effort to steer Detroit back toward fiscal stability.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing this morning said he intends Friday to formally adopt the budget, which contains key public lighting, transportation and public safety initiatives. Bing is attending the Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island.

“My administration fundamentally agrees with City Council’s recommendations for the 2012-2013 budget,” Bing said, speaking this morning from the porch of the Grand Hotel. “This budget supports my financial and operational restructuring plan that will restore fiscal stability to the city of Detroit.

“I believe this budget is a key indicator of our efforts to collectively transform Detroit and will help to spearhead our efforts to improve core services and the overall quality of life of Detroiters,” he said.

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Fremont, California (CNN) – In a tightly-guarded surprise campaign stop, Mitt Romney visited failed energy company Solyndra Thursday and invoked the building as a symbol of what he called President Obama’s misuse of taxpayer dollars.

The visit – kept a secret by the campaign until shortly before the candidate and the press arrived at the site – offered a hulking visual to accompany Romney’s repeated criticism of Obama over the Solyndra scandal.

Standing on a gritty embankment across the street from Solyndra’s edifice, Romney called the glass-fronted building the “Taj Mahal” of corporate headquarters and a symbol “gross waste” and accused the president of cronyism.

“This building, this half a billion-dollar taxpayer investment, represents a serious conflict of interest on the part of the president and his team,” Romney said. “It’s also a symbol of how the president thinks about free enterprise. Free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers and giving it freely to his friends.”

The solar energy company based outside San Francisco went bankrupt less than two years after receiving a $535 million loan in 2009 from the Department of Energy.

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Forget waterboarding, Guantanamo Bay prisoners are now being tortured by BIG BIRD — at least according to a new documentary released by Al Jazeera.

According to the doc — called “Songs of War” — detainees at the U.S. Naval base have been forced to wear headphones blaring Sesame Street music on repeat for hours or days on end … to break their will (start at 2:00).

SEE THE REST HERE AT TMZ.COM

“European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policy makers will keep focusing their crisis support on solvent euro area banks as he reiterated it’s not the ECB’s job to fix the cause of the region’s turmoil.

“The ECB will continue lending to solvent banks and will keep the liquidity lines active and alive with solvent banks,” Draghi told a European Union Parliament committee in Brussels today.”

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Gubmint done it again; passing a law that succeeds at very little. Companies are complaining too many restrictions and cumbersome paper have wasted their time.

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Food safety advocates finally won for the testing of many strains of E. coli. The meat industry has successfully convinced the last and current administration not to allow the testing, but seeing as how many have fallen ill or died the decision not to test  would be stupid.

As for the safety of meat well there is still GMO, antibiotic issues, and proper food safety issues; so i’ll stick to local grass fed steer.

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“Under the deal with Christie, Seattle-based Amazon will start collecting sales tax as of July 1, 2013, on orders placed by New Jersey residents through its website, and will seek state financial help if it chooses to open a warehouse in the state, Lesniak said.”

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False pretense is a more respectful way of putting. Remember that oath of protecting against enemies both foreign and domestic.

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Get ready to pick up another tab.

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Fuck the TSA

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In a time of debt crisis you would think some discretion would be used…no ?

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A U.S. senator announced Tuesday he would introduce a bill stripping Pakistan of all foreign aid unless the doctor imprisoned for helping the CIA track Usama bin Laden is released. The Obama administration, meanwhile, appeared unwilling to budge from its talking points on the issue, despite an impassioned plea for U.S. intervention from Dr. Shakil Afridi’s family.

“The blame has been placed on my brother because of America,” Shakil’s brother, Jamil, told Fox News during an interview in Pakistan. “We should get justice and protection.”

Jamil Afridi claimed his brother had been tortured by Pakistani authorities.

In Washington, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would introduce a pair of bills next week to address Afridi’s plight. One would strip Pakistan, which received $2.1 billion from the U.S. for the current fiscal year, of all foreign aid until Afridi’s 33-year sentence is overturned and he’s allowed to leave the country; the bill other would grant Afridi U.S. citizenship.

The measures would go beyond the vote by a Senate panel last week to strip Pakistan of $33 million in aid.

“Pakistan must understand that they are choosing the wrong side. They accuse Dr. Afridi of working against Pakistan, but he was simply helping the U.S. capture the head of Al Qaeda. Surely Pakistan is not linking their interests with those of an international terrorist organization,” Paul said in a statement. “Foreign aid has been an abysmal failure precisely for this reason — we give the aid to governments who then turn and work against our national interest. That must end.”

Administration officials have made a similar case, saying repeatedly that Afridi was working against Al Qaeda, not the Pakistani government.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The payroll tax cut you’ve enjoyed since last year may be going away in January.

And for most Americans, it’s one of the most concrete pieces of the so-called fiscal cliff — $7 trillion in tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect next year.

The payroll tax cut — worth 2% of the first $110,100 of one’s wages — started in 2011 and remains in effect until Dec. 31. It noticeably increased paychecks for workers. A person making $50,000 has enjoyed roughly $83 extra a month, while someone making $110,100 has been taking home an extra $183.50 a month.

Unless Congress decides to extend the policy for another year, workers’ take-home pay will be reduced by similar amounts starting in January. That’s because the payroll tax rate — temporarily set at 4.2% — will revert to its original 6.2%.

The cut in the payroll tax — which funds Social Security – was intended to temporarily bolster consumer spending and therefore help the economic recovery.

If it expires as scheduled, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal revenue will increase by $95 billion next year.

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Gallup is out with a new poll showing that Romney is destroying Obama with male veterans.

See Gallup’s polling results here.

You can’t warm up a cold hearted bitch imo…history shows Germany loves pain.

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All one can say is calm the fuck down yo! Chill a bit !

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BEIJING (MarketWatch) — China’s Ministry of Commerce said Thursday that a months-long investigation had revealed that U.S. support for six clean energy projects violated World Trade Organization rules and acted as barriers to trade.

State-controlled Xinhua news agency said later that the ministry found that the U.S. government provided renewable energy companies unfair grants that are prohibited under WTO rules and distorted normal trade.

The ministry’s charges are likely to heighten trade tensions between the two countries. The U.S. and China have recently sparred more frequently over clean energy issues, ranging from copyright violations of wind-power technology to subsidies for manufacturers of solar and wind-turbine components. The two countries are also at odds over China’s rare-earth quotas and imports of Iranian crude oil.

The U.S. Commerce Department last week announced a preliminary decision to impose 31% tariffs on several of China’s largest solar-panel companies that it had found guilty of dumping.

The Chinese government blasted the U.S. decision as “protectionist”

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SSDD….

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