Seattle reaped the benefit of a $20 million federal grant to weatherize homes in one of America’s "greenest" cities, and 16 months later, a whopping 14 jobs were created — making the cost per job a wondrous $1,428,571. "The jobs are not there," Todd Myers, author of the book Eco Fads, told Fox News. "So we’re training people for jobs that don’t exist." (In his famous October 27, 1964 speech in behalf of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan noted that Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" proposed job training camps "that we're going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700!") Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn skipped to Washington to blazon the new "green jobs" initiative that is supposed to create at least 2,000 jobs and shrink Seattle’s carbon footprint by insulating attics and crawl spaces in thousands of homes. But the project has fallen way short of its goals. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on the federal government’s latest environmental hoax:

Across the fruited plain, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is $3.62, a full dollar higher than it was just one year ago. Of that $3.62, 18.4 cents go directly to the federal government, which then disburses most of it to states for road construction and repair. One might conclude that reducing or eliminating the federal gas tax would help stimulate the economy by leaving more money in the hands of individual Americans. President Barack Obama, on the other hand, thinks that the way to stimulate economic growth is to continue taking that money out of the private sector and spending it on projects that benefit labor unions and other politically favored entities. Therefore, he is sounding the alarm that if Congress fails to pass a transportation spending bill whose “key component is the federal gas tax,” according to FoxNews.com, the federal government will be deprived of billions of dollars in revenue, and as many as one million jobs could be lost. (Revenue and jobs denied to politically powerless Americans because of the ongoing levy don’t count in Obama’s world.)

President Obama sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Tuesday detailing seven new regulations that would each cost the U.S. economy more than $1 billion annually. With regulatory costs for American businesses of at least $38 billion per year and compliance costs of $100 billion per year, the seven proposed regulations would target transportation and the environment. Boehner wrote the President last Friday, "The economy cannot withstand the barrage of major new federal regulations planned by the administration." He noted that the Obama Administration’s regulatory agenda counters Obama’s proclaimed motive to reduce burdens on American businesses. Boehner further noted that during the President’s tenure 219 rules have been proposed, each projected to cost at least $100 million. Obama’s regulatory proposal includes four rules from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and three from the Department of Transportation (DOT). An air-quality standards rule alone could cost between $19 billion and $90 billion per year for the U.S. economy.

Declaring a First Amendment right to videotape police making an arrest in public, the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has denied a police claim of immunity and allowed a civil rights suit against three Boston police officers to go forward. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston on behalf of Simon Glik, a Boston attorney who was arrested on the evening of October 1, 2007 for using his cellphone to record police officers making an arrest on the Boston Common. Glik's suit claims police violated his First Amendment rights by stopping him from recording and his Fourth Amendment rights by arresting him without probable cause. The officers appealed a district court ruling denying them qualified immunity from the suit. A ruling by a three-judge panel of the appeals circuit on Friday of last week upheld the lower court's decision.    

Earlier this month, a special task force assembled by General David Petraeus released the findings from its investigation that determined approximately $360 million in U.S. tax dollars landed in the hands of those that the American military have been fighting for over a decade: Taliban, criminals, and power brokers. More recently, however, another commission determined that the figure is actually closer to $60 billion. An independent panel, the Commission on Wartime Contracting-established by Congress in 2008- asserts that $60 billion in American tax dollars has been lost to waste and corruption in Afghanistan and Iraq within the last decade. The Commission’s 240-page report asserts that the United States is expected to have spent beyond $206 billion by the end of the 2011 budget year on its operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of that $206 billion, it has determined that approximately 10 to 20 percent has been spent on “contracting waste” while an additional 5 to 9 percent of that total was absorbed by fraud.

Citizens in the Aloha State of Hawaii are seeking to challenge the restrictive gun regulations on the books on the basis that they violate Second Amendment rights. In a lawsuit mounted by Chris Baker, President of Hawaii Defense Foundation, Baker contends that Hawaii’s firearms licensing statutes and its other gun regulations are unconstitutional. The Blaze explains some of Hawaii’s gun laws: Hawaii is a “may issue” state, which means that police determine who gets a carry permit and who doesn’t. On the other hand, in “shall issue” states — like Texas — the government must provide concealed carry permits as long as the applicant passes all background checks and has no history of mental illness. Baker contends that the law restricts Hawaiians from carrying a firearm except under “exceptional circumstance, [or] where a need or urgency has been sufficiently indicated.” All concealed carry permits must first be approved by the police chief in Honolulu. Baker asserts that this violates the Constitution.

According to Laura Chanthalath, manager at High’s Chimney Service, business is booming. Located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, her company might rebuild one chimney a day during the summer when business is slow. But now, thanks to Irene, “We’re completely booked. This has been a big boost to our business because the summer is extremely slow, especially in the chimney business. So it’s been good for us.” Not counting lost man-hours and production, Irene is estimated to have cost at least $20 billion but, as the Washington Times wrote, “Economists say much of the rebuilding of roads, bridges and buildings, along with retail purchases … will recoup virtually all of the losses in the coming years.”

A new national survey has found that a majority of Americans think that abortion is wrong. While 48 percent of 1,000 likely U.S. voters queried in the late August Rasmussen Reports phone survey said they considered themselves pro-choice, with 43 percent identifying themselves as pro-life, 55 percent said they think abortion is morally wrong most of the time. Another 30 percent said they think abortion is morally acceptable in the majority of cases, with 15 remaining undecided on the issue. Predictably, the poll found that 70 percent of Democrats identify themselves as pro-choice, while 62 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of voters affiliated with neither party identified themselves as pro-life. When asked about the morality of the procedure, 72 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of unaffiliated voters said they thought abortion is wrong most of the time, with 46 percent of Democrats disagreeing and saying abortion is not wrong in most instances.

In banking, few values count more than consistency and integrity. The sovereign debt crisis in Europe, however, appears to have watered down those values in the case of some banks. The International Accounting Standards Board has stated that some European banks used the value provided by the Greek government in determining how much value Greek bonds should be counted in the assets of the bank. That would mean the bonds would be worth about 21% less than  than the original valuation.  Those bonds on the open market, IASP Chairman Hans Hoogervost wrote in a letter to the European Securities Markets Authority — the organization responsible for regulating securities valuation — have much lower values than that. “This is a matter of great concern to us” the August 4th letter, which was made public on August 29th, warned.  “It is hard to imagine that there are buyers willing to buy those bonds at the prices indicated by the valuation models being used.”

One of the terms of the recent debt ceiling deal between Congress and the White House was that Congress would vote on, but not necessarily pass, a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. The deal did not, however, specify the language in the amendment, giving legislators plenty of opportunities to sneak in loopholes that might very well render any amendment that does pass meaningless. One Senator, in fact, is doing just that. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) has proposed an amendment with more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese — “the worst idea of them all,” according to Colin Hanna, president of the Pennsylvania public-policy organization Let Freedom Ring. While Udall’s amendment does require the President to submit a balanced budget to Congress, it also provides Congress with several ways to skirt the same requirement for the budget it passes. For instance, if 60 percent of both houses of Congress votes to override the balanced budget requirement for the current fiscal year, it’s a goner. (Hanna notes that this “effectively applies only to the House, since the Senate typically requires 60% for nearly everything already.”)