Two conservative Republicans booted from House budget panel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two of the most conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have been kicked off the House Budget Committee, a rare move that could make it easier for the panel to advance a deal with Democrats to cut fiscal deficits.

Representatives Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Justin Amash of Michigan – both favorites of the anti-tax Tea Party movement – are among those Republicans voting most often against House Speaker John Boehner.

Huelskamp and Amash, who both will begin second terms in the House next month, voted against last year’s deal to raise the federal debt limit and staunchly oppose any tax increases. Boehner has now included new revenue in his latest offer to avert the “fiscal cliff” of year-end tax hikes and automatic spending cuts. Given their voting records, winning support from Huelskamp and Amash for such a compromise seemed an uphill battle.

Huelskamp released a statement saying the Republican leadership “might think they have silenced conservatives but removing me and others from key committees only confirms our conservative convictions.

“This is clearly a vindictive move and a sure sign that the GOP establishment cannot handle disagreement,” he said.

Huelskamp and Amash had said that despite sweeping changes to the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs, committee chairman Paul Ryan’s budget did not make deep enough cuts to entitlement programs and military spending.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to be specific on the reasons for their ouster by the House Republican Steering Committee, which occurred Monday in a closed-door meeting.

“The Steering Committee makes decisions based on a range of factors,” Steel said.

Huelskamp said he was given “limited explanation” for his removal from the Budget Committee, a move he called “vindictive.” A spokesman for Amash could not be immediately reached for comment.

Huelskamp and Amash cast the only House Budget Committee votes against Ryan’s budget plan earlier this year.

While there is often wrangling over committee chairmanships just before a new Congress takes office, it is rare for rank-and-file committee members to be stripped of their assignments.

The 34-member Republican steering committee is headed by Boehner and includes members of House leadership, committee chairs and other lawmakers representing different regions of the country.

The same group last week recommended that Ryan, the conservative former Republican vice presidential candidate, be renewed as Budget Committee chairman.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

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GOP senator: Boehner’s budget proposal ‘will destroy American jobs’

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON—South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint just gave Democrats a shiny new talking point.

The tea party-backed senator on Tuesday slammed House Republican leaders for the fiscal cliff proposal they offered earlier this week.

"Speaker [John] Boehner's $800 billion tax hike will destroy American jobs and allow politicians in Washington to spend even more, while not reducing our $16 trillion debt by a single penny," DeMint said in a statement. "This isn't rocket science. Everyone knows that when you take money out of the economy, it destroys jobs, and everyone knows that when you give politicians more money, they spend it. This is why Republicans must oppose tax increases and insist on real spending reductions that shrink the size of government and allow Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money."

Republican House leaders on Monday sent a letter to the White House with a plan to avoid a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts set to begin on Jan. 1, 2013. With a 10-year price tag of about $2.2 trillion, the Republican proposal would raise federal revenue by closing loopholes and capping deductions within the tax code and making changes to entitlement programs. The letter was signed by seven House leaders, including Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan.

Democrats dismissed it quickly, calling for a bill that would increase taxes on households earning more than $250,000 per year and more federal spending on infrastructure, which were not included in the Republican plan.

DeMint's comment may be a bit of a sideshow—he's not directly involved in the negotiations and he represents just a single vote in Congress—but it's representative of how conservatives feel about the Republican proposal, and it offers ample ammunition to President Barack Obama and Democrats in the fiscal cliff media relations war.

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Gunmen assassinate peasant leader in Paraguay

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Gunmen murdered one of the surviving leaders of a peasant movement whose land dispute with a powerful politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo‘s presidency last June.

Vidal Vega, 48, was hit four times early Saturday by bullets from a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver fired by two unidentified men who sped away on a motorcycle, according to an official report prepared at the police headquarters in the provincial capital of Curuguaty.

A friend, Mario Espinola, told The Associated Press that Vega was shot down when he stepped outside to feed his farm animals.

Vega was among the public faces of a commission of landless peasants from the settlement of Yby Pyta, which means Red Dirt in their native Guarani language.

He had lobbied the government for many years to redistribute some of the ranchland that Colorado Party Sen. Blas Riquelme began occupying in the 1960s.

By last May, the peasants finally lost patience and moved onto the land. A firefight during their eviction on June 15 killed 11 peasants and six police officers, prompting the Colorado Party and other leading parties to vote Lugo out of office for allegedly mismanaging the dispute.

Twelve suspects, nearly all of them peasants from Yby Pyta, have been jailed without formal charges since then on suspicion of murdering the officers, seizing property and resisting authority. The prosecutor had six months to develop the case and will present his findings Dec. 16.

Vega was expected to be a witness at the criminal trial, since he was among the few leaders who weren’t killed in the clash or jailed afterward.

He wasn’t charged because he was away getting supplies when the violence erupted at the settlement erected by the peasants inside Riquelme’s ranch, the Naranjaty Commission’s secretary, Martina Paredes, told the AP.

“We think he was assassinated by hit men who were sent, we don’t know by whom, perhaps to frighten us and frustrate our fight to recover the state lands that were illegally taken by Riquelme,” she said.

Riquelme, who died of natural causes about a month after the battle in June, occupied the land during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, whose government gave away land for free to anyone willing to put it to productive use.

A local court in Curuguaty upheld Riquelme’s claim to the land years later. Lugo’s government later sought to overturn the decision, but the case remains tied up in court.

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Nokia debunks rumor that it may be considering shift to Android

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Led Zeppelin will Reunite – for “Letterman” interview

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The surviving members of Led Zeppelin will make a rare appearance together on “Late Show With David Letterman” on December 3, CBS said Friday.

Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones will drop in on the late-night show for an interview – which isn’t quite the reunion that Zep fans have been patiently waiting for, but it might have to do. With the exception of a one-off tribute concert for Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun at London’s O2 Arena in 2007 – which was released as the DVD “Celebration Day” in October – Jones has largely been estranged from Page and Plant since the group’s 1980 breakup following drummer John Bonham‘s death.

The “Late Show” appearance won’t be the only time that Letterman hangs out with the rock legends – the group, along with Letterman, will be lauded at the 35th Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., which will take place December 2 and air December 26 on CBS.

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GSK details hopes for 14 pipeline drugs in 2013-14

LONDON (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline expects to have pivotal clinical trial results on up to 14 medicines in the next two years, including two new products which – if they work – could change the way cancer and heart disease are treated.

Unveiling the next wave of its pipeline on Monday, Britain’s biggest drugmaker said it was now developing a broader range of drugs than in the past, as it moves away from the industry’s traditional focus on “blockbusters”.

Some of the new medicines will be relatively small commercially but a handful have the potential to become multibillion-dollar-a-year sellers.

GSK is banking on the pipeline to revive its business after it failed to grow sales this year as hoped, due to steep pressure on drug prices in austerity-hit Europe.

Key experimental drugs that will have results from final-stage Phase III clinical trials in 2013 and 2014 include the heart drug darapladib and therapeutic cancer vaccine MAGE-A3, the company said in a briefing to investors and analysts.

Chief Executive Andrew Witty said he did not expect any significant increase in costs as a result of the roll out of new products and GSK would continue to look for ways to increase efficiency across the business.

(Editing by Kate Kelland)

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Italy votes for center-left candidate for premier

ROME (AP) — Italians are choosing a center-left candidate for premier for elections early next year, an important primary runoff given the main party is ahead in the polls against a center-right camp in utter chaos over whether Silvio Berlusconi will run again.

Sunday’s runoff pits a veteran center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, against the 37-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, who has campaigned on an Obama-style “Let’s change Italy now” mantra.

Nearly all polls show Bersani winning the primary, after he won the first round of balloting Nov. 25 with 44.9 percent of the vote. Since he didn’t get an absolute majority, he was forced into a runoff with Renzi, who garnered 35.5 percent.

After battling all week to get more voters to the polling stations for round two, Renzi seemed almost resigned to a Bersani win by Sunday, saying he hoped that by Monday “we can all work together.”

Bersani, a former transport and industry minister, seemed confident of victory as well, joking about Berlusconi’s flip-flopping political ambitions by asking “What time did he say it?” when told that the media mogul had purportedly decided against running.

Next year’s general election will largely decide how and whether Italy continues on the path to financial health charted by Premier Mario Monti, appointed last year to save Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis.

The former European commissioner was named to head a technical government after international markets lost confidence in then-Premier Berlusconi’s ability to reign in Italy’s public debt and push through sorely needed structural reforms.

Berlusconi has largely stayed out of the public spotlight for the past year, but he returned with force in recent weeks, announcing he was thinking about running again, then changing his mind, then threatening to bring down Monti’s government, and most recently staying silent about his political plans.

His waffling has thrown his People of Freedom party into disarray and disrupted its own plans for a primary — all of which has only seemed to bolster the impression of order, stability and organization within the center-left camp.

A poll published Friday gave the Democratic Party 30 percent of the vote if the election were held now, compared with some 19.5 percent for the upstart populist movement of comic Beppe Grillo, and Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in third with 14.3 percent. The poll, by the SWG firm for state-run RAI 3, surveyed 5,000 voting-age adults by telephone between Nov. 26 and 28. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.36 percentage points.

It’s quite a turnabout for Berlusconi’s once-dominant movement, and a similarly remarkable shift in fortunes for the Democratic Party, which had been in shambles for years, unable to capitalize on Berlusconi’s professional and personal failings while he was premier.

But Berlusconi’s 2011 downfall and a series of recent political party funding scandals that have targeted mostly center-right politicians have contributed to the party’s rise as Italy struggles through a grinding recession and near-record high unemployment.

Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi’s hand-picked political heir, seemed again exasperated Sunday after a long meeting with his patron over Berlusconi’s plans. News reports have suggested Berlusconi might split the party in two and re-launch the Forza Italia party that brought him to political power for the first time in 1994.

“We have to work to reconstruct the center-right, and reconstructing it means having a big center-right party,” not a divided one, Alfano said.

He added that Berlusconi didn’t say one way or another if he would run himself. “It’s his choice,” he said. “If there are any decisions in this regard, he’ll be the one to say so.”

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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7 Quirky Christmas Gift Ideas

‘Tis the season to give…bacon-shaped Christmas tree ornaments? Stocking-stuffer candy simulating black lumps of coal? Crime scene tape for wrapping packages? How about a dreidel with Santa’s picture on it?

Yes to all these and more, say fans of quirky gifts.

Online retailers specializing in leg-lamps–the kind made famous by the movie “A Christmas Story”–and in Emergency Santa Kits say business is brisk.

Seattle novelty-seller Archie McPhee, for instance, which makes the Emergency Santa Kit, reports its business is up 20 percent from last year. Each Kit contains an inflatable white beard and red hat. “It’s in case you’re ever on an airplane flight and you suddenly have to play Santa,” explains McPhee’s spokesperson and self-styled Director of Awesomeness, David Wall.

Anything involving bacon, he says, has been selling well—so well that McPhee dedicates a portion of its website to bacon-inspired items, including candy canes, ornaments and toothpaste.

“People just naturally enjoy bacon,” he says. “At a time when everybody is so health-conscious, it’s become a kind of ‘rebel’ food. It seems naughty. To our customers, bacon has become a sign of rebellion against the status quo.”

Online retailer Perpetual Kid sells black, lump-shaped candy-coal. Says vice president Wendy Paula, “We’re definitely seeing people looking for silly products this year—things you buy for their ‘smile value.’ Candy coal has been Christmas season favorite for us for years.” She herself grew up with it. “It’s just got to be in your stocking.”

Unlike some novelty purveyors, says Paula, Perpetual Kid, shies away from anything that could be considered offensive or in bad taste. Not so Things You Never Knew Existed, a website that appears to have cornered the market on flatulent-Santa items. These include a Pull My Finger Santa’ and a spherical ornament simulating Santa’s buttocks.

For a slideshow of quirky items appropriate (or not) for holiday giving, read on.

“The world’s only beanie with a built-in beard,” trumpets website Fab.com. The tightly-knit cap and attached face-warmer is perfect for snowball fights, says the site, and will keep any chin warm on the coldest of days. “A great gift for the facial-hair challenged.” ($ 29)

Website for Perpetual Kid calls this cinnamon-flavored candy coal the perfect stocking stuffer: “You can always tell who has been naughty Christmas morning, since this candy will temporarily turn your mouth blue! Great for office parties and gift exchanges.” ($ 4.49)

The dreidel depicts Santa on one side, a Christmas tree on the other. “Don’t choose between Christmas and Hanukkah,” says Archie McPhee’s website. “Choose Chrismukkah! Imagine the fun you’ll have playing the dreidel game by the light of the menorah while waiting for Santa and his reindeer to arrive.” ($ 4.50)

“Big bacon flavor in a candy cane,” promises Archie McPhee. Canes come in both regular size and colossal. Of the collosal, the site says, “If there were a king of bacon, this would be his scepter. It’s bacon-y Christmas perfection.” For proper dental hygiene, you’ll want to brush afterwards with bacon-flavored toothpaste, also available on the website. (Colossal cane, $ 5.00)

Archie McPhee doesn’t explicitly recommend this tape for sealing up the seams of wrapping paper you have used to decorate your gifts—but just think how festive and disturbing it will look underneath the tree. Alternatively, says the website, you can use it to “mark off the scene of an itty-bitty murder.” ($ 4.50).

Christmas-in-a-tin, Archie McPhee calls its Emergency Santa Kit. “Let’s say you’re on a long flight, and everyone around you is frowning and grumpy,” says the site. Each Kit contains an inflatable white beard and jaunty Santa hat. “Just open the tin, inflate the beard, put on the hat, and shake your belly like a bowl full o’ jelly.” Before you know it, “Everyone will be sitting on your lap.” ($ 12.00)

The morning after Christmas you’ll run no risk of oversleeping if someone has been kind enough to give you this especially aggressive alarm clock. Hit its snooze button once too often, and Clocky takes matters into its own hands (or feet) by rolling away from you on powered wheels. “It will literally jump off your nightstand and scurry way, forcing you to get up out of bed and go get it to turn it off,” says a spokesperson for novelty retailer Fab.com. ($ 45.00)

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German producers plan Pope Benedict biopic

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – Two German producers have bought the film rights to an upcoming biography of Pope Benedict by the Bavarian author of three best-selling interview books with the pontiff.

The Odeon Film company said producers Marcus Mende and Peter Weckert planned a film for international release based on a biography by journalist Peter Seewald due to be published in early 2014.

Seewald’s book-length interviews with Benedict – two as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and one as pope – have given readers many insights into the life and thoughts of the shy theologian who now heads the Roman Catholic Church.

Seewald has signed on as a consultant to the scriptwriter, Odeon Film said in a statement on Thursday. It gave no information about the schedule for the film or who might play the main role.

“The producers plan an international film that illustrates all aspects of the extraordinary life and work of Joseph Ratzinger from his birth on Easter night in 1927 in Marktl am Inn in Bavaria to his pontificate today,” it said.

Benedict’s predecessor Pope John Paul was the subject of a dozen documentary films around the world and two major television movies in the United States.

(Reporting by Tom Heneghan; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Geithner predicts Republicans will accept higher tax rates

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed Republicans to offer a plan to increase revenues and cut government spending, and predicted they would agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest to secure a deal by year-end to avoid the “fiscal cliff.”

In a blitz of appearances on five Sunday morning talk shows, Geithner insisted that tax rates on the richest needed to go up in order to reach a deal, a step Republicans have so far resisted, and he dismissed much of the contentious rhetoric from last week as “political theater.”

“The only thing standing in the way of would be a refusal by Republicans to accept that rates are going to have to go up on the wealthiest Americans. And I don’t really see them doing that,” Geithner, who is leading the Obama administration‘s fiscal cliff negotiations, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The comments mark the latest round of high-stakes gamesmanship focusing on whether to extend the temporary tax cuts that originated under former President George W. Bush beyond their December 31 expiration date for all taxpayers, as Republicans want, or just for those with incomes under $ 250,000, as President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats want.

Republicans, who control the House of Representatives but are the minority in the Senate, have expressed a willingness to raise revenues by taking steps such a limiting tax deductions, but they have largely held the line on increasing rates.

A handful of House Republicans expressed flexibility beyond that of their party leaders about considering an increase in tax rates for the wealthiest, as long as they are accompanied by significant spending cuts.

But most House Republicans refuse to back higher rates, preferring to raise revenue through tax reform.

“There’s not going to be an agreement without rates heading up,” Geithner said bluntly on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The scheduled expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts and automatic reductions government spending set to take hold early next year would suck about $ 600 billion out of the economy and could spark a recession. The Obama administration and Congress are engaged in talks to avoid the fiscal cliff with a less-drastic plan to reduce U.S. budget deficits.

WHO SHOULD PAY?

Geithner’s Sunday interviews are part of a broader push to build public support for the Democrats’ position in the negotiations. Obama has made campaign-style appearances, including visiting a Pennsylvania toy factory on Friday where he portrayed Republicans as scrooges at Christmas time.

While breaking no new ground on the Obama administration’s position on Sunday, Geithner repeatedly urged Republicans to provide their own plan.

“They said they’re prepared to raise revenues but haven’t said how, or how much, or who should pay,” Geithner said on NBC.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, asked Democrats to accept an increase in the Medicare eligibility age, impose higher Medicare premiums for the wealthy, and slow cost-of-living increases for Social Security.

At least one of those suggestions appears to have White House support. On CNN, Geithner said the administration‘s proposal included a modest rise in premiums for higher-income Medicare beneficiaries.

“What we can’t do is sit here trying to figure out what works for them,” Geithner said. “The ball really is with them now.”

The administration has said it is willing to find savings in the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs for the elderly and poor, but Geithner reiterated in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” that it would only be open to looking at changes in the Social Security retirement program outside of the context of a fiscal cliff deal.

(Reporting By Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Eric Beech)

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