My Daily Domestic Diigolet 12/20/2008

• Duggar Family Welcomes Baby #18Duggar derangement syndrome in full swing. All of the comments are so predictable! What concerns me though is that this baby was a Cesarean and I am wondering if Mrs. Duggar got railroaded into that because of a no VBAC policy? or if there was a real medical need. I guess we’ll find out. TLC is showing the birth Monday at 9. tags: Duggar
• TheHill.comtags: politics, finance
  • A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who
    have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for
    free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting
    to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional
    salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

  • “As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives
    to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for
    their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior
    Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent
    helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and
    struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”

    However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that
    lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment
    of Social Security recipients.

    Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog
    Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of
    freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

    “Look at the way the economy is and how most people
    aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have
    gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and
    ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their
    way.”

• Roc Around the ClockAlexa’s new blog and snazzy template!tags: blogosphere

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