As the Obama Administration struggles to come to terms with Tuesday’s election of Republican Scott Brown to the US Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy, Americans are seeing another rise in jobless claims. The Department of Labor’s weekly jobless number rose by 36,000 in the report released this morning.

Initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 36,000 to 482,000 in the week ended Jan. 16, according to the Labor Department’s weekly report Thursday. The previous week’s level was revised upward to 446,000 from 444,000.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected a decrease of 4,000 initial claims.

The four-week moving average, which aims to smooth volatility in the data, also increased as well last week. The Labor Department said the four-week moving average increased by 7,000 to 448,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 441,250.

Looking at the retirement of Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore, Michael Barone suggests Democrats may be facing a tough year.

2010 undoubtedly looks like an uphill race for Dennis Moore. By announcing his retirement, he is free to vote for House Democratic leaders’ unpopular legislation without political repercussion and is spared the trouble of extensive campaigning. That’s fine for him. But if other Democratic incumbents in marginal districts—and, remember, the 3rd district voted for Obama—choose to follow Moore’s course, that could make it much harder to Democrats to maintain a big majority in the House and could make it easier for Republicans to gain most or all of the 41 seats they need to win a majority there.

(The following are excerpts from an Investor’s Business Daily article titled “The War on Banks”. You can view the full article at: Read the complete article at http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=518187

You can also view Rep. McCotter’s remarks to Fox News about the bank tax plan.)

Financial Crisis: The White House wants to impose a stiff new tax on banks to punish them for their role in the financial meltdown. That’ll really get them lending again … won’t it?

We have to admit we’re a little perplexed. The White House and Congress have complained over and over again about the banks’ “failure to lend” to get the economy moving.

Home foreclosures are expected to hit an all-time record this year as unemployment and depressed home values continue to take their toll on Americans hard-hit by the weak economy.

Last year there were 2.82 million foreclosures, the most since RealtyTrac began compiling data in 2005. More than 4.5 million filings are expected this year, including default or auction notices and bank seizures, said Rick Sharga, senior vice president for the Irvine, California-based seller of default data and forecasts. There were 3.96 million filings in 2009. …

U.S. lenders permanently modified 31,382 mortgages, or 1 percent, of the 4 million loans targeted under the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention plan through November, the U.S. Treasury Department said last month. Fewer than half of the 3.2 million homeowners estimated as eligible for mortgage relief by the Treasury actually qualify, according to Herb Allison, assistant secretary for financial stability.

From around the web today come a number of interesting stories. John Batchelor points to Janet Napolitano’s comments about the “criminal justice investigation” into the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day.

[H]er rejoinder to Candy Crowley’s not unsympathetic and hardly direct questions suggests that Janet Napolitano does not aim to speak to the facts of any of it. “That’s part of the criminal justice investigation that is ongoing…” Wrong answer. This was an attack against the national security of the United States. It was not the act of a lone criminal named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Treating the attempted detonation of of an airliner as though it were no different than an attempted robbery of a 7-11 is the wrong approach to protecting the security and freedom of the United States.

Realizing that executive pay has a lot to do with executive retention, the US government’ pay czar has approved a compensation package worth nearly $5 million for a top executive at AIG.

A top executive of American International Group has been granted a $4.3 million pay-package bump by the troubled insurance giant’s majority owner — the U.S. government — because the executive has decided to remain with the company. Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s pay czar, approved an AIG request to grant the executive a long-term compensation package that includes stock options with a current value of $3.26 million and an additional incentive award of up to $1 million. The package comes on top of the executive’s 2009 base salary of $450,000… The executive had been planning to leave the company and had not been granted long-term compensation benefits.

While many people have criticized executive pay, and despite government intrusion in such decisions for bailed out companies, the market typically drives such decisions. In this case, the executive in questions would have left AIG, and tekne his expertise with him, unless he was given comparable pay. The free market still works, even in the face of government meddling.

The Hill reports today on the passage of “Stimulus II”. The pressure being brought to bear to keep Democrats in line is increasing, as are the huge debt and deficits our children will inherit.

The House narrowly passed Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) $174 billion jobs bill Wednesday, only after Pelosi and other party leaders yelled, pleaded and cajoled reluctant Democrats worried over deficit spending.

The vote was 217-212. No Republicans voted for the bill, and 38 Democrats voted against it.

Had 38 Republicans broken with their party to vote for anything, the media would call it “a bipartisan effort”, but of course “bipartisan opposition to the Democrats’ spending plans”is unlikely to get mentioned by the media.

Most of the news out of DC today concerns lots and lots of money – Your money, my money, our money, your neighbors money. The House approved a $1.1 trillion spending bill without any GOP votes. It’s not clear whether the Senate will have the 60 votes necessary to shove the massive spending bill through the chamber.

The 1,088-page, $1.1 trillion measure would provide $447 billion in operating budgets for 10 Cabinet departments, awarding increases averaging almost 10 percent. On top of that comes more than $600 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

The 221-202 vote to approve the House-Senate compromise bill sends it to the Senate, which immediately voted 56-43 to begin debate. That tally could mean trouble for the bill since it is less than the 60 votes needed to break a GOP filibuster.

In addition, after promising that we wouldn’t lose money as a result of the bailouts, the Treasury is now telling us we’ll need to spend more money to be able to stop spending money, and, oh yeah, we probably won’t get al that money back after all.

There are some interesting reads today in the papers (can we call them that anymore since most are accessed online?). Obama continues to push Stimulus II, despite a cool reception from most. The Wall Street Journal covers his big gamble with your ante.

President Barack Obama pressed forward with an expansion of his $787 billion stimulus plan Tuesday, unveiling job-creation proposals that largely build on the initial package, including a hiring tax credit that his own party jettisoned as unworkable and some business owners deemed ineffective.

Meanwhile, the USA Today notes that supporters of the health care bill are jamming it full of all sorts of goodies.