Five-year Low: 13% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction

The number of U.S. voters who feel the country is heading in the right direction has fallen to the lowest level of the Obama presidency.

Just 13% of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey for the week ending October 13. That's down from 17% the week before and the lowest finding since the week of October 20-26, 2008, when George W. Bush was still president.

Confidence in the country's direction has fallen 15 points since the government shutdown began two weeks ago and is down from a high of 43% the week before Election Day last fall.

After President Obama assumed office in January 2009, the number of voters who felt the country was heading in the right direction rose to 40% in early May of that year. In 2010 and 2011, confidence fell to the narrow range of 14% to 19%, levels similar to those measured in the final months of the Bush administration. Optimism began easing up again in mid-December 2011.

France's top appeals court on Wednesday upheld a fraud conviction and hundreds of thousands of euros in fines against the Church of Scientology for taking advantage of vulnerable followers.

The Cour de Cassation rejected the organization's request that a 2009 conviction for "organized fraud" be overturned on the grounds it violated religious freedoms.

The group has previously indicated that it will appeal the conviction to the European Court of Human Rights.

The conviction saw Scientology's Celebrity Centre and its bookshop in Paris, the two branches of its French operations, ordered to pay 600,000 euros ($838,452) in fines for preying financially on several followers in the 1990s.

The budget measure that ended the partial government shutdown allows for a 1 percent raise for federal employees in January in addition to providing back pay for those furloughed, according to two Democratic Maryland senators.

"The promise of a modest pay raise and back pay for furloughed government employees are good first steps in recognizing the value of federal workers," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee in a joint statement with Sen. Ben Cardin.

"I'm proud we were able to fulfill our promise to make them whole again with back pay and finally break through the pay freeze with a modest adjustment for next year," said Cardin, a member of the Senate Finance Committee.

Federal employee salary rates have not been increased since January 2010. Some employees have had their pay frozen that entire time while some have received raises due to promotion, performance, or on advancing up the steps of their pay grades.

Chicago, Illinois - Continuing the trend of mass-suspension of the 4th amendment at every possible event, police searched the bags of anyone they chose along the 26-mile track of the annual Chicago Marathon. More disturbing than the predictable push to eliminate privacy rights is the public's utter acquiescence in the face of the growing police state.

At the annual race on Sunday, October 13th, a legion of police officers lined the streets. Chicago Police sent more than 1,000 officers to the race; some wearing conspicuous yellow vests, others infiltrating the crowd in plain clothes. FBI agents wearing military fatigues held a visible presence throughout the track, along with federal ATF agents and U.S. Marshals carrying rifles. DHS agents littered the scene performing searches with dogs.

Department of Homeland Security designated the marathon a "Level Two" event, justifying the massive presence of federal agents at the race. Near the intersection of Michigan and Jackson, a giant Emergency Alert System banner read "EAS: Alert Level Low."

"Everywhere you look there's about 20 officers at the corner, about 14 helicopters in the air," said Amie Byrne.
Grant Park was locked down with checkpoints and suspicionless bag searches. To add to the security theater, the race banned costumes for participants and only allowed runners to carry clear plastic baggies.

Barriers and fencing were erected in many places, a notable difference from years past. "(Now) you can't run out and say, 'Hi,'" commented one onlooker. Unlike in the past, when police have looked the other way, no one was allowed to help a marathoner finish the run in the last mile or two.

A new bill making its way through Congress could allow the federal government to prevent Americans who owe back taxes from leaving the country.

The provision is part of Senate Bill 1813, which was introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in November and passed by the Senate on March 14 "to reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes."

Those "other purposes" have come to include a little-known amendment recently introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that would allow the State Department to revoke, deny or limit passports for anyone the Internal Revenue Service certifies as having "a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000."

While the provision does make exceptions if the debt "is being paid in a timely manner" or "in emergency circumstances or for humanitarian reasons," it doesn't require that a person be charged with tax evasion before having their passport revoked -- only that the IRS has filed a notice of lien or levy against them.

Constitutional Attorney Angel Reyes says that's a violation of due process and is unconstitutional.

"It takes away your right to enter or exit the country based upon a non-judicial IRS determination that you owe taxes," Reyes told FOX Business. "It's a scary thought that our congressional representatives want to give the IRS the power to detain US citizens over taxes, which could very well be in dispute."

The government shutdown cannot end soon enough for poor residents of North Carolina, as the state has become the first in the country to cut off welfare benefits due to the gridlock in Washington.

The decision came from North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which ordered its local offices on October 10 to stop processing applications for November until the federal government is back up and running.

The state's welfare program, called "Work First," services more than 20,000 people, primarily children, and requires participants to reapply for benefits every month. Work First is funded entirely by the federal government, and helps poor residents purchase food and other supplies necessary for day-to-day life.

But Work First isn't the only North Carolina service hampered by the government shutdown. According to Reuters, other programs will also be affected - including one that provides childcare subsidies covering more than 70,000 children. In various parts of the state, the delivery of those subsidies has already come to a halt.

"I would say this is an emergency," Alexandra Sirota, director of the low-income advocacy group North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, told Reuters. "They're cutting off a lifeline for thousands of North Carolina families who have experienced significant hardships."

After a year of traveling, I had planned a last, short trip. I was going to take the train from Montreal to New Orleans. The travels I had been undertaking earlier this year had brought me to places that were meant to form the background of my second novel.

This trip, however, was for my dad. He, a trumpet player, loved New Orleans and had died a year ago. It felt like the first sensible trip I undertook this year. I had been searching for ways to forget about the last hours at his deathbed. He had been ill for 15 years and his body just would not give up. It was a violent sight. I had decided the trip to New Orleans would put an end to those memories.

Usually, I barely plan my trips in advance. But this time I had booked everything: my train tickets, hotels and my flight back to Montreal, from which I would depart back to Amsterdam. In total the trip was supposed to take three weeks. The confirmations and tickets I had printed and tucked away in a brown envelope I had bought especially for the trip. I like things to be neatly arranged. At home, in Amsterdam, my house enjoys a slight version of OCD.

Traces of the deadly radioactive material polonium-210 have been discovered on the belongings of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, findings that "support the possibility" of poisoning, according to new study.

Toxicologists at Switzerland's University of Lausanne found the substance on a toothbrush and in underwear owned by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader, who died in a French hospital in 2004 at the age of 75.

It is the same material connected to the London death of the former Russian spy-turned-Kremlin-critic Alexander Litvinenko two years after Arafat's death.

In an article published Saturday in the medical journal The Lancet, Swiss toxicologists said they examined 38 items of Arafat's clothing, including his hat, toothbrush, hospital gown and underwear, and tested them for polonium.

President Barack Obama has signed legislation passed by Congress Wednesday to temporarily lift the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown after 16 days, averting the threat of default just hours before the October 17 deadline.

The legislation funds the government through January 15 and lifts the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling through February 7.

As promised, Obama signed the legislation shortly after it was passed in the House of Representatives.

As indicated before the US Senate vote, Republican House Speaker John Boehner did not block the fiscal deal from moving on, and it passed by a vote of 285-144 in the lower chamber.

The measure was supported by every Democratic member of the House, but was rejected by a sizeable portion of Boehner's GOP caucus.

Conservative Republicans were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the plan, as the federal health care law - the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare - they so object to will go virtually unscathed after all.

The Senate approved the proposal by a vote of 81-18 on Wednesday evening.

Republicans Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio were among the 18 'nay' votes in the Senate.

Despite the wildly over-hyped partial "shutdown" of the federal government, U.S. taxpayer dollars continue flowing to foreign lands and innumerable other unconstitutional schemes that are arbitrarily deemed "essential." The Obama administration's Department of Agriculture (USDA), however, sent a letter to states apparently ordering them to cut off food stamps for Americans by November 1, pending further notice. A welfare program for women, children, and infants known as WIC is also on the chopping block, and some analysts are forecasting potential disaster.

As part of the effort to extort funds for ObamaCare from the people's representatives in Congress, the administration has already been caught deliberately trying to make the "shutdown" feel as "painful" as possible - closing parks, evicting homeowners, shuttering businesses, harassing veterans, trying to shut down parts of the ocean, and more, often at additional expense to taxpayers. Suddenly cutting off funds to the food stamp "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program" (SNAP) that some 50 million people have come to depend on, though, would take the obscene antics to a new level - especially doing it with no warning.