By Jane Van Ryan
Friday 18 December 2009

As we approach the end of year, it’s time to take stock of 2009 and pause long enough in our holiday preparations to look forward to 2010. While none of us can predict the future–my snow globe doesn’t double as a crystal ball–there are three organizations that have made projections of oil demand in the coming year.

• The Energy Information Administration (EIA), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, projects that oil demand will rise by 1.1 million barrels a day in 2010.
• The Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) similarly predicts that demand will increase 0.8 million barrels a day.
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) has stated that world oil demand will rise by 1.5 million barrels a day to a total of 86.3 million barrels a day.

Updated with Vote Numbers

Posted by Dan Perrin
Sunday, December 20th

The corruption of using the public treasury as a check book to buy the votes of Senator Nelson and Senator Sanders — in the face not only overwhelming public opposition, but also in the face of a public that now wants Congress to do nothing on health care — means that extraordinary measures are needed to kill ObamaCare.

This plan, if executed properly, will kill the bill and it will give opponents two more bites at the apple, after it passes the Senate.

There are some atmospheric conditions that will help this plan work. For example, both sides of the net roots should cease fire on posts against each other. There must be a truce until the bill is dead. The target is the bill, not each other.

So, for those on the left who have decided to kill this bill, they are welcome to join in this the kill-the-bill fun.

Rationale: There are many reasons in agreement between the right and the left and the American public about why this bill must be killed:

1. It will increase health care costs;
2. The individual mandate is massive government intrusion on individual freedom, and is a gift to the private insurers, and disproportionately impacts lower-income families;
3. The fantasies of CBO’s assumptions notwithstanding, this bill will accelerate our march to financial insolvency; and,
4. Passage of the bill merely reinforces the practice of buying votes with debt issued by the U.S. Treasury;
5. Among many other reasons, in the words of Howard Dean, the bill does more harm than good.

The Plan: First, conservatives will object to the appointment of the conferees. This is not a motion, so it is non-debatable. An objection cannot be overcome unless the Senator making the objection caves. Let’s hope Senator McConnell agrees with this approach — but regardless, the objection shall be made.

This forces two votes in the U.S. House, one vote to amend the Senate bill on the House floor, since the Senate bill likely cannot pass the House unamended, and will force another vote on final passage of the amended House bill.

So, first, conservatives force two votes in the House, by preventing the appointment of the conferees, and therefore, preventing a House-Senate Conference.

Second, the left will focus on three separate issues to kill the bill in the House. The object of these issues is not to support these policies per say, but to add items to the House bill that will be so objectionable that when the bill goes back over to the Senate, that the Dems lose one or more of their 60 votes.

The Public Option: The progressive’s net roots should hold accountable the Democratic House members who said they would not vote for the bill if there was no public option. Progressives need to produce enough votes to force the public option back into the bill. Forcing the public option back into the bill is in the progressive’s interest since it will show they have the political power to do it, and will set a precedent for a new health care reform baseline in the House for Democrats. It is in conservative’s interest for this to happen because if it does, Senator Lieberman’s vote reverts to a NO.

The Nelson Buy-Off: Both the left and the right net roots will focus on pulling the Nebraska and Vermont free pass on increased Medicaid spending, on the basis that it is a corrupt back room deal that may be unconstitutional on the basis that it violates the equal protection clause (the 14th amendment to the Constitution.)

Unions: Unions must pull the Senate tax on Cadillac health plans, and replace it with the House tax on individuals. (I know, I can’t believe I just wrote that either!) This will force Senators, when the bill goes back to the Senate, to oppose the bill which could force the Dems lower than 60 votes.

Hold the No Votes: Conservatives need to hold and add one or two more no votes to the 39 House votes against the bill, among those Democrats who have concerns about their own re-election or who have announced their retirement — since the leverage from the Speaker has substantially decreased. If every No vote on the original House bill holds, there only needs to be two additional no votes.

Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion Forces: In short, have at it. Given the Stupak amendment majority in the House, the pro-lifers must stick Stupak back on the bill, so that when it is sent back to the Senate, the pro-abortion majority can pull Stupak back off. When the bill goes back to the Senate, the pro-abortion forces can remove Stupak, just as they did a couple of weeks ago. Once Stupak is pulled again from the Senate it must go back to the House to be amended, or die there.

I am willing to coordinate these actions with the left in real-time, and work with the Progressives who want to kill the bill — to share intelligence and whip counts. This way the left and the right working together will accomplish not only what we want, but what the American people want.

Oh, I did not mention this in the original post, but should have:

we do not need any more than 42 votes on the House floor, and last time there were 39 No votes.

Assuming we have a hard base of 25 no Dem votes, then the net roots need to produce eight House votes on either the abortion or public option question.

The Stupak folks ought to be able produce ten additional no votes.

This is not difficult math. And MoveOn.org is already telling its members to oppose the Senate bill.

Hate-spouting, Aryan who roots for the assassination of Barack Obama

Posted By Erick Erickson
Sunday, December 20th

And yes, Whitehouse was referring to the majority of American citizens.

Perhaps you should read the title again.

From the floor of the United States Senate, today Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse proclaimed as much about opponents of health care, including his Republican colleagues inside the United States Senate.

The President of the Senate let him get away with it.

By Connie Hair
12/21/2009

At 1:01 a.m., the Senate cleared the first hurdle to pass its own version of the government takeover of health care, holding a vote for cloture on what’s known as the Manager’s Amendment. The vote on the last-minute amendment that held multi-million dollar deals to buy key votes from Senators passed 60-40, a straight party line vote.

What did Senators get for their votes?

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) claimed to be holding out for language in the bill that would guarantee federal funding would not be used to pay for elective abortion on demand. Nelson threw the pro-life community under the bus, agreeing to language that every major pro-life group says still allows the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.

By Bob L.
12/21/09

Come 2010 elections are you going to do the same thing that you have done every Election year, put in OVER EDUCATED IDIOTS that don’t have an education more then a second grader.

This is short and sweet, you only get out of what you put in, and if you can’t see that that then you are just as stupid as those you put into office, people who lie just to get free medical for life, and perks that you the tax payer will pay until you changes the laws that they put in for them selves, So are you going to throw out every one of these slick willies, scam artists, what ever you want to call them, but all they want is a steady job and free money to add to their millions.

THROW OUT ALL THE BUMS AND DON’T LET THEM HAVE AN OTHER  Government JOB and don’t allow any more of them in, most of them are ones that could not get a any other JOB.

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer – Mon Dec 21

WASHINGTON – The little town of Libby, Mont., isn’t mentioned by name in the Senate’s mammoth health care bill, but its 2,900 citizens are big winners in the legislation, thanks to the influence of Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

After pushing for years for help for residents, many of whom suffer from asbestos-related illnesses from a now-closed mineral mining operation, Baucus inserted language in a package of last-minute amendments that grants them access to Medicare benefits.

By Bob L

This administration is getting closer to controlling your money and your life, 140 banks now closed or taken over by the Obama cronies.
__________________________________________________________

By MARCY GORDON, AP Business Writer – Fri Dec 18

WASHINGTON – Regulators on Friday shut down two big California banks, as well as banks in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois, bringing to 140 the number of U.S. banks brought down this year by the weak economy and mounting loan defaults.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over all seven.

Regulators shuttered First Federal Bank of California, based in Santa Monica, with $6.1 billion in assets and $4.5 billion in deposits, as was as Imperial Capital Bank of La Jolla, Calif., with about $4 billion in assets and $2.8 billion in deposits.

By Chuck Norris
12/15/2009

Washington is up to its old political shell game again, this time in an unprecedented way.

While Americans are focused upon the Christmas season and the mainstream media on health care and President Barack Obama’s two trips to Europe (last week to Oslo and this week to Copenhagen), the Democrats in Congress have slipped major pro-abortion legislation under the radar.

First, last Monday the Senate rejected the health care reform bill amendment introduced by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that would have banned federal funds from providing for abortion.

By Ann Coulter
12/16/2009

The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a column about John Brodniak of Oregon, who developed a cavernous hemangioma, causing him great pain as blood leaks into his brain.

According to Kristof, Brodniak can’t get medical help because we don’t have universal health care. Senators who vote against ObamaCare, Kristof said, are morally equivalent to someone who would walk past a man “writhing in pain on the sidewalk.”

By Newt Gingrich
December 16, 2009

Tomorrow morning, the delegates at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen will awaken to a
Sponsored Content

very simple but powerful message:

“In America, We Have a Constitution. It Begins: We the People…”

These are the opening lines of a message to the American delegates in Copenhagen and the rest of the world sent on behalf of the American people by American Solutions. They are meant as a reminder to both Obama Administration officials and international climate activists that under our constitutional system, the American people, not government bureaucrats, are sovereign.

Obama will find it hard to create jobs

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer                                  

Last Updated: November 5, 2008: 1:36 PM ET

  Unemployment is likely to rise during the first year of Obama’s term, no matter what steps he takes. 

What will the new President mean for your wallet? See where President-elect Barack Obama stands on major economic issues

Lets see if Obama lied like Bush just to get into office.

He has made more promises then can be done.

By 4mainstreet

Vanishing jobs, stressed consumers feed downturn

Published – Nov 07 2008 03:51AM EST | AP

By JEANNINE AVERSA – AP Economics Writer

 

Jobless ranks hit 10 million, most in 25 years

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer – 28 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The nation’s jobless ranks zoomed past 10 million last month, the most in a quarter-century, as piles of pink slips shut factory gates and office doors to 240,000 more Americans with the holidays nearing. Politicians and economists agreed on a painful bottom line: It’s only going to get worse.

 

 

Director goes on leave amid probe of Ohio plumber

By JULIE CARR SMYTH, Associated Press Writer Julie Carr Smyth, Associated Press Writer – Sat Nov 8, 12:00 am ET

 

 COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s governor placed an agency director on leave Friday, saying the step was necessary because a state computer or state e-mail account may have been used to assist in political fundraising.

This is what OBAMA thinks of MAIN STREET.

He wanted the job so now he wants us to move

his family. Whats wrong with his money.

Obama raising cash for administration

 

 

 

Bankrupt Montana resort for ultra-rich owes $343M

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer Matthew Brown, Associated Press Writer – Tue Nov 11, 7:50 pm ET

BILLINGS, Mont. – Court documents show the exclusive Yellowstone Club resort in Montana owes an estimated $343 million to creditors such as banks and local contractors.

Bush administration still working on $700B rescue

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – 45 mins ago

 

 

Q&A: Bailout Becomes Magnet For Other Industries

 

by Joshua Brockman

 

Congress examines $700 billion rescue program

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – 58 mins ago

 

 

What is your is your honest opinion about this economy.

By 4mainstreet

 

Jobless claims jump unexpectedly to

7-year high

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber, Ap Economics Writer – 5 mins ago

 

Stocks fluctuate after disappointing jobs data

By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer Joe Bel Bruno, Ap Business Writer – 23 mins ago

Group: AIG’s woes put public transit in trouble with banks

From Emily Anderson CNN

Story Highlights

AIG insured deals in which transit agencies sold, then leased back, equipment

AIG’s rating was downgraded after the federal bailout

Because of downgrade, banks can demand early payments from transit agencies

Transit agencies ask federal government to intervene, prevent early collection

Unhappy People Watch Lots More TV

 

 Jeanna Bryner
Senior Writer
LiveScience.com jeanna Bryner
senior Writer
livescience.com

Unhappy people glue themselves to the television 30 percent more than happy people.

5 Keys to Happiness

 

 

By Greg Soltis, LiveScience Staff

World leaders at economic summit vow to cooperate

By AP Associated Press

 

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush underscored how dire the economic crisis has become when he told world leaders that he had agreed to a $700 billion rescue plan for financial institutions only after he’d learned the U.S. was at risk of sinking into a “depression greater than the Great Depression.”

Americans uneasy over bailout for automakers

 

 

By Matthew Bigg – Mon Nov 17, 4:31 am ET

Reuters – Chrysler auto assembly workers leave the plant after their shift ends at the Chrysler Warren Truck Assembly …

Obama Says He Will Do `Whatever It Takes’ on Economy

 

 

 Edwin Chen Edwin  1 hr 24 mins ago

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) — President-elect Barack Obama said the U.S. government will do “whatever it takes” to revive the economy, and that means “we shouldn’t worry about the deficit next year or even the year after.”

Freedom of Religion

 By 4mainstreet and for a free America

What will be next, we don’t need any DICTATOR to take away more of our freedoms, if they get away with this, what will they try next.

These people need to be stopped, if we don’t we will have know body to blame but our selves.

If you believe in this country you will fight to keep it free and stand up against these people.

The CONSTITUTION gives us the right to freedom of religion with out persecution.

If you have a religion or not, stop this from happening, because even the ones trying to stop religious freedom, are also going to pay in the end.

Start a petition if you have not seen one already, and stop DICTATORS from taking over this country.

   

 

Lawmakers, Treasury lock horns on foreclosures

I am not for bailing out the big 3, but here is what this Government thinks of the American people. If we don’t bail them out there will be a lot more foreclosures if we don’t, but then they will say that these people bought homes they could not afford. Well I look at it this way, if people were not losing there jobs then they would not be losing their homes, so who needs the bailout, WALL STREET or the AMERICAN people by getting jobs back in this country so they can afford their homes.

I have seen this for many years like most of you, and I have seen this country become a dictator mentality more and more every year with disreguard for the American people with each year that go’s by, when the minority not the majority run this country.

My Opinion By 4mainstreet

 

 

 

Midnight Regulations

by Joaquin Sapien and Jesse Nankin, ProPublica – November 18, 2008 4:15 pm EDT

 Here is a rundown of 20 rules and regulations that the Bush administration is pushing through the rulemaking process in its waning days. We will update the list regularly by adding new rules, inserting links to breaking news on each rule, and tracking each rule through the rulemaking process. If you know of other rules we should add to this list, please send us an email here. You can use our tip-sheet to get started on your rules research.

Midnight Regulations

 

 

 

 

Bank Got Bailout, CEO Got Golden Parachute

by

 

Paul Kiel, ProPublica – November 19, 2008 5:16 pm EST
Tags: Golden Parachute, Mack Whittle, South Financial Group, Subprime Mortgages and Ratings Agencies Scandal, Wall Street, Wall Street Bailout

The South Financial Group, South Carolina’s largest bank, announced earlier this week that it had been approved to receive $347 million from the U.S. government. But the bank’s founder and longtime CEO Mack Whittle won’t be sticking around. He retired with an $18 million severance package in late October, two months earlier than had been expected. Because of the timing, he’s free from golden parachute limits (PDF) that come with accepting bailout money.

 

Obama outlines rebuilding plans to create jobs

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer Will Lester, Associated Press Writer – 21 mins ago

 

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.

 

Bush urges countries to avoid protectionism

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – 14 mins ago

 

 

LIMA, Peru – President George W. Bush, faced with a dwindling number of days in office, was using his final world summit to try to keep a virulent economic crisis from triggering a retreat into protectionism.

Editor’s note: Campbell Brown anchors CNN’s “Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull” at 8 p.m. ET Mondays through Fridays. She delivered this commentary during the “Cutting through the Bull” segment of Friday night’s broadcast.

 

 

 

Emotion, frustration mark Stewart’s Gibbs farewell

 

By David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — The familiar orange and white racecar came to a stop in the garage area, and for the longest time, Tony Stewart sat inside, helmet on, not moving. Was he savoring his final ride in the No. 20 machine with which he had become synonymous? Was he struggling to control his emotions following his last start with Joe Gibbs Racing?

Evernham says he plans to retire, buy N.C. dirt track

 

By The Associated Press
November 22, 2008
LINCOLNTON, N.C. — NASCAR team owner Ray Evernham says he is negotiating to buy a small track in North Carolina so he can “get back into grassroots racing.”

You see this in the news every day but all you can do

is run in a corner and bury your head. I hope this hits home

 

By 4mainstreet

Read more

 

 

Crooked Bank, Nitwit Bank, Bad Bank

By Michael M. Thomas

,A meditation on Mencken–and Citigroup.

On June 22, 1936, two months after I was born, H.L. Mencken wrote the following in The Baltimore Sun: “The insurance of small deposits, even if the insurance is actually paid when it is needed, will certainly not suffice to prevent wildcat banking…What is to be done about crooked banks, nitwit banks, bad banks in general?”

 

Chief Dunces Of Wealth Destruction, Inc.

By Robert Lenzner

There are not enough dunce caps to go around for all of the egregious performance in finance, but here’s a try.

 

 

101 killed as gunmen rampage in India city

 

 By 4mainstreet  Other AP 

BAN on GUNS, OPEN BOERDERS for any one to come in with out with out knowing who they are, SPELLS the same DISASTER as what is happening in INDIA.

Now do you think our Government has any idea that can happen in this country and leave us wide open with out any way of protecting our selves?

This Government is so stupid if they think this can’t happen here.

Look back in time (TWIN TOWERS), Bush Sr. they tried little damage, Bush Jr. 911, now what makes you think that they are not in the plans today and this in India is to see if it will work here, well look around and look at our Government, WHAT CAN YOU SEE?

I see disaster around the corner. (more)

  

How many people know or remember the Constitution and the bill of rights? If you want a refresher here Courtesy of Cornell University Law School

 

A speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Lincoln was speaking at the dedication of a soldiers’ cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. The opening and closing lines are particularly memorable: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…. [We must] be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Detroit’s auto bubble pain

Automakers are suffering because sales were artificially boosted by cheap credit and the Big Three thought this could last forever.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

Last Updated: December 1, 2008: 4:10 AM ET

 

Bush sorry economic crisis has cut jobs, 401 (k)s

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer Deb Riechmann, Associated Press Writer – Tue Dec 2, 12:04 am ET

My self I don’t believe one word he says after letting companies outsource jobs.

Restore power where it belongs: to the People!

What is “Government for the People” all about?

 

 

 

This poem was written by a Marine.

The following is his request. I think it is reasonable…..

PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favor of sending
this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming
soon and some credit is due to our U.S. service men and
women for our being able to celebrate these festivities.
Let’s try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we
owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and
dead, who sacrificed themselves for us. Please, do your
small part to plant this small seed

 

Obama says he won’t be smoking in White House

If this is more important news then the state of this economy, then we will never get a strait answer or should I say that the media will never let us know the truth about what is happening in this country.

So he smokes how many of the good old boys in DC still smoke their pipes and cigars, why don’t they talk about that. Last time I checked this was still a free country. Give the guy a brake he is human, I bet he also drinks to, that is also bad for your health.

Why don’t they tell you how many die each year from alcohol related deaths each year, they won’t because they all are hooked on it, better known as alcoholics and can’t go a day with out their fix.

By 4mainstreet

Read more.

 

 

Obama: Economy to get worse before it improves

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – Sun Dec 7

 

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday the economy will get worse before it gets better, pledged a recovery plan “equal to the task” and warned lawmakers that the days of pork barrel spending are over.

Chicago labor sit-in captures support from Obama

 

Story Highlights About 200 laid-off workers have occupied plant since Friday

They say Republic Windows and Doors didn’t give proper notice or pay

Obama: “These companies need to follow through on those commitments”

Union leaders and plant’s major creditor, Bank of America, to meet Monday

Updated 1:35 a.m. EST, Mon December 8, 2008 CNN

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — A weekend sit-in by laid-off workers at a Chicago window factory drew high-profile support from President-elect Barack Obama ahead of a Monday meeting between union leaders and the plant’s major creditor.

 

Company profits over CEO wages.Back in the 50’s people lived better then they do today, why

 

 

by 4mainstreetRead more

 

Congress sends White House auto aid plan with czar

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer –

WASHINGTON – Congressional Democrats and the White House worked to resolve their last disputes Monday over terms of a $15 billion bailout for U.S. auto makers — complete with a “car czar” to oversee the industry’s reinvention of itself — that’s expected to come to a vote as early as Wednesday.

China’s Chery says talks with Chrysler scrapped

Tue Dec 9, 3:04 am ET AFP/File

 

 

SHANGHAI (AFP) – Struggling US auto giant Chrysler has ended cooperation talks with China’s largest independent car maker Chery Automotive Co, citing the global economic slowdown, the Chinese company said Tuesday.

 

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Arrested

By MIKE ROBINSON – Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO(AP) Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiring to get financial benefits through his authority to appoint a U.S. senator to fill the vacancy left by Barack Obama’s election as president.

Five simple ways to save yourself hundreds of dollars a month

By Kelsey Hubbard, MarketWatch

 

Last update: 7:17 p.m. EST Dec. 9, 2008

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — We are a country of spenders who must learn the hard way to practice what our grandparents have always known: A penny saved is a penny earned.

 

Workers win a big round in Chicago factory sit-in

AP – Wed Dec 10, 1:24 AM ET

 

CHICAGO – The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, though the workers declared their protest unfinished.

By 4mainstreet

This is my opinion and many of you I hope, people OPEN your  eyes and see that this government is for lineing the pocket books of wall street and not the working people, so now who is responsible for the shape of this countrys problems?? We vote these %#%# in to make this country strong, but who do they keep strong, look around you and see who has a home and who is losing the the place they call home???

$14B auto bailout dies in Senate

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis And Ken Thomas, Associated Press Writer – Fri Dec 12, 2:18 am ET

 

 

By 4mainstreet

Here is of what to come, if you don’t believe me look around.

AndreBy a Hopkins Andrea Hopkins – Fri Dec 12, 1:04 am ET

  Parents talk money in recession-hit America

 CINCINNATI (Reuters) – With Christmas approaching and money tight, Cincinnati father of three Robin Marshall has had frank conversations with his children about the family’s finances and the U.S. recession.

 

 If you don’t think this country is falling apart, the fact is this is happening in this country every day, one way or another.

 

Payback is fun!!!!!!!!!!!! WRITE IT ON THE BACK OF YOUR ENVELOPES or on the front! According to Snopes, this is true.WE THINK THIS IS A GREAT IDEA. WE’LL START WRITING IT ON THE FRONT OF OUR ENVELOPES, TOO!! Including Bills!
You may have heard in the news that a couple of Post Offices in Texas have been forced to take down small posters that say 

 ‘IN GOD WE TRUST,’ The law, they say, is being violated.
Anyway, we heard proposed on a radio station show, that we should all write ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ on the back of all our mail. After all, that’s our National Motto, and it’s on all the money we use to buy those stamps. We think it’s a wonderful idea.
We must take back our nation from all the people who think that anything that offends them should be removed.
If you like this idea, please pass it on and DO IT. The idea of writing or stamping! ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ on our envelopes sounds good to us -WE ARE HAVING A STAMP MADE TOO! Heck, let’s use it as our signature on e-mails too!
It’s been reported that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, we have a very hard time understanding why there’s such a mess about having ‘In God We Trust’ on our money and having God in the pledge of Allegiance.
Could it be that WE just need to take action and tell the 14% to ’sit down and shut up’?
If you agree, pass this on, if not, delete!!! BUT REMEMBER IF YOU DELETE THIS,

that’s 1 reason why this world is in the mess we’re in now. WE SIT BACK, DO NOTHING & LET IT HAPPEN!!

that’s 1 reason why this world is in the mess we’re in now. WE SIT BACK, DO NOTHING & LET IT HAPPEN!!

 

 

Stupid statments from our Government!!!

The Bush administration simply wasn’t willing to stand by and watch the American auto industry financially collapse — the stakes were too huge.

Administration officials are talking with those automakers about conditions that must be met to get the aid and have not made final decisions on the size or duration of the help.

Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said. She noted that in normal times the administration would prefer to let the markets determine the fate of private firms, but these times are far from normal.

I thought wall street was privately owned???

Perino said that while “the federal government may need to step in to prevent an immediate failure, the auto companies, their labor unions, and all other stakeholders must be prepared to make the meaningful concessions necessary to become viable.”

What concessions had to be made before wall street got 700 billion dollars???

General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC have warned they are running out of cash and face bankruptcy without some form of assistance. Ford Motor Co., which is in somewhat better shape financially, has been seeking access to a line of credit.

That is what wall street said and got money at the snap of a finger!!!

$14 billion measure that would have extended short-term financing to the industry while establishing a powerful new “car czar” to make sure the money was used to turn the Big Three into competitive companies. That bill passed the House on Wednesday but immediately ran into opposition from Senate Republicans who said it did not go far enough.

Wall street do what ever you want, they are!!!

On Thursday, the GOP lawmakers demanded the United Auto Workers union agree to accept a lower pay and benefits package that would be in line with compensation earned by workers at U.S. factories producing cars for Japanese companies such as Honda, Toyota and Nissan.

Did they do this with wall street???

But we could not accept the effort by the Senate GOP caucus to single out workers and retirees for different treatment and to make them shoulder the entire burden of any restructuring.”

Not wall street!!!

If they’re going to give them TARP money, this administration ought to have the courage in its last 40 days to stand up and say, If you’re going to get that money, you’re going to restructure.

Again not wall street!!!

*Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas – no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a ‘Holiday’.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears*
*You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream Tree’*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
* not Happy Holiday!*
Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is “The Reason” for the Christ-mas Season!

By LAURIE KELLMAN – Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON(AP) When the auto bailout talks collapsed, Sen. Bob Corker won by losing.

The freshman Republican from Tennessee represented conservative Republicans who opposed the $14 billion rescue package passed by the House and saw Senate negotiations as one last chance to bludgeon organized labor before the GOP minority shrinks and Democrats expand their control of government.

Corker late Thursday pushed the United Auto Workers toward a firm date in 2009 by which wages and benefits would be reduced to match those of foreign manufacturers _ a demand that by all accounts was the deal-killer

Comments by 4mainstreet

Why are they not making all of them at the top do the same thing.
When working people are told to take a cut in pay and benefits, does the rest of the company above take a cut and give up their benefits, no they give them self a raise. How about our government will they cut their wages and benefits to help in this time of the poor economy NO.
Has any body ever noticed the cost of living go’s up while we are told we are making to much, then our wages go down but the cost of living keeps going up, why? look at what management gets, there is the cost of living.
When we want to keep up with the cost of living they say they can’t afford it, then turn right around and give them self a raise.
Well I think it is time to demand they ALL come back down to reality and cut their wages and benefits, and put that money back into the companys and country, not their pockets, then this COUNTRY will be solvent and not have to live out of the banks.
Banks are suppost to be for saving and and lending, not supporting living habits to keep with the jones or the family next door.

By JENNIFER LOVEN – AP White House Correspondent

On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference.

“This is a farewell kiss, you dog!” shouted the protester in Arabic, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

Bush ducked both shoes as they whizzed past his head and landed with a thud against the wall behind him.

Bush’s Iraq-Afghan farewell tour marred by dissent

AP – 1 minute ago

KABUL, Afghanistan – President George W. Bush wrapped up a whirlwind trip to two war zones Monday that in many ways was a victory lap without a clear victory and left thousands protesting in Iraq streets. A signature event occurred when an Iraqi reporter hurled two shoes at Bush, declaring: “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”

Euro hits eight-week high against dollar AFP – 4 minutes ago
LONDON (AFP) – The European single currency hit an eight-week peak against the dollar on Monday, the eve of a widely-expected interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve, dealers said.

Home values seen losing over $2 trillion during 2008 Reuters – 5 minutes ago
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Homes in the United States have lost trillions of dollars in value during 2008, with nearly 11.7 million American households now owing more on their mortgage than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Monday

China’s factory output slows further AP – 35 minutes ago
BEIJING – Growth in China’s factory output fell to its lowest level in nearly seven years as trade plunged, data showed Monday, adding to the threat of heavy job losses that could fuel unrest.

CHICAGO(AP) For sale: One Senate seat. Goes to the highest BLEEP-ing bidder. Seller’s positive feedback rating: since Tuesday, just about zero.

Outraged by the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, more than a dozen people have put the state’s vacant Senate seat up for bid on eBay.

The offers popped up on the Internet auction site after Blagojevich was accused Tuesday of trying to benefit financially from his power to appoint a Senate replacement to President-elect Barack Obama.

Daniel Finnegan, a student at the University of Georgia, said he started an auction because he’s “extremely upset about what happened” and wants to voice his opinion.

Finnegan says he’s glad others posted similar auctions so the accusations against Blagojevich don’t go unnoticed.

University of Illinois student Matt Platino says he posted his entry to be funny, but also because he’s upset with Blagojevich.

At least one seller carefully noted the ad was “not an offer for actual US Senate seat. … For entertainment purposes only.”
Another wound up with a similar disclaimer, but not before unloading on the gov: “OPEN YOUR CHECKBOOKS, OR PUT THE THUMBSCREWS ON SOMEONE TO GIVE A HIGH PAYING EXECUTIVE JOB TO AN ASSININE, GREEDY VINDICTIVE POL OR HIS WIFE.”

And folks are bidding, some jokingly. One posting (“Used Illinois Senate seat, all wood and leather, willing to deal on this one! Please be advised I will be away from my office for a while…”), had 78 bids and was going for $99,999,999.00 Wednesday morning.

Man without pants

YORKTOWN, N.Y.(AP) A man who showed up at a suburban New York doughnut shop drive-through without putting his pants on has been sentenced to three years’ probation. John Greco of Croton-on-Hudson was sentenced Thursday. He had pleaded guilty to public lewdness, admitting he exposed himself while placing an order at a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through in Yorktown in February.

The 46-year-old was caught because a worker noted his license plate number.
Defense lawyer John Voelp declined to comment.

Aw, nuts

DEMOTTE, Ind.(AP) Aw, nuts. That’s likely what Hope Wideup thought when her car’s turn signal and windshield wipers wouldn’t work. It’s also what she found later when she opened the hood. “There were thousands in there. They were everywhere,” she said, speculating a chipmunk found its way into her car, which had been sitting idle for several weeks, and used the engine compartment as a storage depot for a trove of black walnuts.
Wideup thinks it all started last fall when a chipmunk snatched a garden glove from her yard. She later found the glove in the engine compartment when she was trying to repair the broken turn signal. Unable to fix the problem, however, Wideup let the car sit unused for a couple of weeks and then heard a loud revving sound from the engine when she tried to start the vehicle.

That’s when she looked under the hood again and found the walnuts.

“Apparently this little guy stuffed a bunch of these nuts in the accelerator throttle,” said Wideup, who had to spend $242 for towing and repairs.

The chipmunk hasn’t returned, Wideup told the Post-Tribune for a story published Wednesday. But she’s not taking any chances, alternating use of her two cars so neither one is sitting too long.

“It’s funny, but it’s not,” she said.

Read more

Medicare assures patients about access to oxygen

By AP Associated press

WASHINGTON – Medicare officials tried on Monday to quell growing worry by the elderly that they could lose access to lifesaving oxygen supplies with the start of the new year.

The concerns are unfounded and stem in many cases from misleading representations from medical equipment companies, which are unhappy with a change in federal law that kicks in Jan. 1, said Laurence Wilson of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Out of concern that Medicare overpaid for oxygen, lawmakers capped at three years the length of time the government will pay a rental fee for oxygen concentrators.

This is my opinion and I challenge you to prove me wrong!!!!

INTERNET DECEPTION

By 4mainstreet

All INTERNET Millionares I have a challenge for you !!!!
Why don’t you realy tell every body where you really make your money.
All the studying this year, I have come to the conclusion is that the big money is selling programs and seminars from $45 to $10,000.00 dollars.
Can you do it with out that, and then make $25 to $1,000.00 a day, if you can, prove it to me. If you were starting out to day, with out selling books and seminars would you make that type of money, with out deception, I don’t think so. All I have seen is if you buy this book, it will show you how to make money on the internet, that is my point to where your money is made. I have tried different programs different ways and made a total of $2.00 dollars in 6 month as of today 12/16/08.
Every book I have read and every one who is telling you to buy this and that, then you will make this kind money.
I know my self that it is posible, but it takes a year or two to just to show a
proffit, just like any business, it can’t be done over night no matter how you slice it.
It takes (time), 20 to 30 hours a week, (willingness), is this what you want to do, and (determination), are you determined to do it, with out scaming some one to do it.
A lot of this INFORMATION is so OUT DATED, that they get rich while you go broke, in other words you are being SCAMED.
There are some who are real internet businesses, I would say about 1 out of 10.

Video Stock Market

Video     Stock Market

Also see The Great Conspiracy.

Credit card holders livid about ‘Rate-jacking’

Story Highlights
One man’s rate went from 9.5% to 16.99%: “It almost borders on loan-sharking”
Citigroup, recipient of bailout funds, seems to be the target of most bloggers’ ire
U.S. House passes “bill of rights” for customers, but legislation stalls in Senate
Citi says anyone unhappy with rate can opt out and close account when card expires

From Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston CNN Special Investigations Unit

Down with the Car Czar!

Commentary: History is rife with the bumblings of government management of business. Get ready for more.

By Brian Dumaine

December 18, 2008: 4:12 AM ET

SKorean lawmakers brawl over US free trade pact

By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer Jae-soon Chang, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – Brawling South Korean lawmakers tried to sledgehammer their way into a parliamentary meeting room barricaded by the ruling party as the National Assembly descended into chaos Thursday over a free trade agreement with the United States.

Regulators approve a number of key protections for credit card customers.

1. Stocks headed for a slump
2. Obama’s big bang: Sizing up risk
3. Fed OKs credit card crackdown
4. Good news when this bubble pops
5. Failed banks for sale…who’s buying?

By Jessica Dickler, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Cash-strapped consumers got some welcome news on Thursday when regulators voted to rein in controversial credit card practices. But they’ll have to wait another year and a half to get relief – the new rules won’t take effect until July 1, 2010.

The Federal Reserve Board, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration approved the regulation, which prohibits banks from certain practices like applying interest payments in ways that maximize penalties, and forces lenders to be more transparent about their billing practices.

Well it looks like four more years

By 4mainstreet

Has any body noticed that our new President is putting together the same type of administration that is leaving. More jobs lost, higher taxes, and unsafe boarders.
I don’t trust any body who has mislead the American people the way Obama did in his campaign. Where is all this money coming from, it looks like a money tree.
Watch your news real close, and look at the way they will twist it to look like Obama is doing a good job.
If the American People don’t join together and fight, our Constitutional rights will be gone. One person can’t do it alone, it takes Numbers.

Senate-for-sale case threatens new chief of staff

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and TAMMY WEBBER, Associated Press Writers Brett J. Blackledge And Tammy Webber, Associated Press Writers

CHICAGO – Gov. Rod Blagojevich is legendary in Illinois political circles for not picking up the phone or returning calls, even from important figures like the state’s senior senator, Dick Durbin.

From Ed Hornick and Josh Levs

(CNN) — Before he accepted Barack Obama’s offer to join his presidential ticket, Joe Biden got a promise from Obama: that he would be there for “every critical decision,” Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Speaking to ABC’s “This Week,” Biden said he believes the vice president’s role is to provide “the best, sagest, most accurate, most insightful advice and recommendations he or she can make to a president to help them make some of the very, very important decisions that have to be made.”

When Obama talked to him about the vice-presidential slot, Biden recalled, “I said, ‘I don’t want to be picked unless you’re picking me for my judgment. I don’t want to be the guy that goes out and has a specific assignment. … I want a commitment from you that in every important decision you’ll make, every critical decision, economic and political, as well as foreign policy, I’ll get to be in the room.’”
Biden said President-elect Obama has kept the promise, having Biden in the room for all of his decisions about who will fill key posts in the administration.

Caterpillar scales back executive pay in 2009

By Daniel Lovering, AP Manufacturing Writer

Caterpillar Inc. said Monday it will cut executive compensation by up to 50 percent next year because of weakening demand triggered by the global economic slowdown.

The world’s largest maker of mining and construction equipment also said it will reduce compensation for senior managers by 5 percent to 35 percent in 2009. Other management and support staff will see a reduction of up to 15 percent.
The company, based in Peoria, Ill., said the cuts reflect planned reductions in its incentive program and equity-based compensation. It has instituted a hiring freeze and plans to suspend merit pay increases for managers and support employees.

China seeks WTO probe of US taxes on Chinese goods

AP

Monday December 22, 11:03 am ET

China asks WTO to investigate US charges on steel pipes, off-road tires; US delays probe

GENEVA (AP) — China has asked the World Trade Organization to investigate whether the United States is illegally taxing Chinese goods such as steel pipes and off-road tires.

It’s the first time Beijing has ever sought a WTO panel in a trade dispute.

Washington delayed the panel’s establishment at a meeting of the WTO’s dispute body on Monday, but an investigation will likely be launched early next year.

The Geneva-based body can authorize trade sanctions if countries fail to comply with rules.

China says U.S. charges on some Chinese goods violate numerous trade agreements.

The U.S. says the goods are being exported at below-market value and that it is lawfully defending American manufacturers.

Line for Bailouts Grows: Commercial Developers Want Govt. Aid, Too

by Aaron Task in Investing, Recession

It’s almost like there’s a carnival barker standing outside Congress shouting: Bailouts, bailouts, step right up and get yer bailouts.”

First it was the banks and brokers, then came the automakers and homebuilders. And now commercial real estate developers are lining up for some government largess, according to The Wall Street Journal.

There’s good reason commercial real estate developers are looking for a bailout: About $530 billion of commercial mortgages are coming up for refinancing in the next three years, the WSJ reports.

The refinancing isn’t a surprise as these loans were structured to refinance after 5 to 10 years with a big balloon payment at the end. What has caught developers off guard is the stress in the credit markets and the likelihood they won’t be able to get nearly enough financing when the loans are set to expire.

Certainly, the developers are suffering because of the credit crunch but, just like the automakers and homebuilders, they apparently never considered such an environment and vastly overbuilt during the past cycle. Developers just assumed they’d always be able to access the debt markets to roll over the financing.

The industry is asking commercial real estate loans be included in the $200 billion Fed program recently established to buy consumer loans. With that plus the second $350 billion TARP fund yet to be allocated, there probably will be a handout for commercial developers.

Will the bailout madness never end?

Obamas Say Aloha to Hawaii

by 4mainstreet

When Americans are having to tighten their belts, I would like to know why our Government can afford to go and spend the type of money that our President Elect is. Is this what he calls helping the working class, or is the same as Bush, helping the wealthy.

From where I see it, it is nothing but a slap in the face to Americans who are suffering,  just to hope they have a place to live in the comming month or years, and maybe even a job.

Obama-Mania Takes Over Hawaii as Future First Family Arrives for a 12-Day Holiday

By YUNJI DE NIES and HUMA KHAN

It’s a wonderful time of the year for the Obamas.
The president-elect takes some time off for the holidays.

The future first family is trading in snow for sunshine. Barack and Michelle Obama and their two daughters, Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, are celebrating the holidays with friends in Hawaii, where the president-elect was raised.

And as for their vacation paradise, the Obamas and their close friends have rented three private houses worth more than $30 million.

Situated in the serene white sand of Kailua Beach, each house spans 5,000 square feet and features waterfalls and a lagoon-style pool.

It’s a home fit for a king, said David Zimel, whose company Paradise Point Estates owns two of the houses.

Paradise Point Estates built the two homes in 2006. One is known as the Bali House for its intricate wood carvings throughout and the other, the Plantation House, for its open design.

Baby boomers did you know that we are getting blamed for the crash of this economy?
By 4mainstreet
According to Marian Salzman the baby boomers are the cause of to days economy, her article Shifting generations: Boomers out, Cuspers in. I think she need to get her fax straight be for writing that about baby boomers. If you want to read the whole article go to MORE.

By Marian Salzman

Who’s to blame for the economy going into serious decline?
The short and easy answer is greedy boomers. This is the
generation that knew better than their cautious, fuddy-duddy
parents, the generation that protested, that had ideals and
marched to the beat of defiant music: “Street Fighting Man,”
“We Want the World and We Want It Now,” “Hope I Die
Before I Get Old.”

The New York Times

Here is a case that will show that money talks, brake the law go see the Government and get a pardon. On the other hand do your job to protect and you get to go to prison, this is one reason our country is in the shape it is in, our Government protects money class not middle class.

Bush’s un-pardon raises plenty of questions
Case highlights complex father-son relationship, and political tightrope

Check out this video and see what you think, if it has your attention check out page on conspiracy videos and then make your own opinion.

Click

HERE

Advice for renters if landlord faces foreclosure

‘Don’t panic or stick your head in the sand,’ says one credit expert
Ap Associated Press
You’re paying your bills, but your landlord isn’t. And you’re the one holding the eviction notice.
This is becoming an all too familiar scenario for thousands of renters nationwide who have become the unintended victims of foreclosures. Banks are booting good tenants onto the streets with little to no notice after seizing a property from a delinquent owner, ignoring tenant leases.
In the most troubling cases, some families are forced into shelters for temporary housing because they have little savings to cover moving costs, first month’s rent and a security deposit at another apartment.

By 4mainstreet
Here again is our Government working for us, Americans are expected to cut wages and benefits, but do you ever hear any Government employee or politician asked to give up any thing. How many CEO’s and top management are giving up wages and perks.
The only the ones who lose are police and fire, ( done so they get more money out of the tax payer ). Which is more important, Pencil Pushers or Protection???
Here the other day a city said it was going to outsource 911 dispatchers to save money, I my self worked of one of those outsource companies and got payed 5.50 an hour and I later found out that they were getting 30.00 dollars an hour for the service for each employee working, where is the savings. The only thing was no benefits.
How about all that pork and programs that these cities and states are making the tax payers pay for that should be payed for by the people who want them, a good example, training in performing arts, don’t you have to pay to get in, all these actors get payed millions, why don’t they take their money to support it not the tax payer. There are a lot of programs that we should not be paying for, but the wealthy don’t want to support it, so they dump it on the working people to pay for all these programs.

By Peter slevin
As the economy sputters and tax revenue plummets, governors and mayors across the United States are lining up to ask President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars to plug holes in their budgets, arguing that services will suffer and joblessness will rise if Washington does not come to the rescue.

In Ohio, which has shed 100,000 jobs in the past year, Gov. Ted Strickland (D) and his budget team spend a lot of time delivering bad news to constituents and plotting ways to wring money from the federal government. He announced $640 million in cuts for the budget year ending June 30, for a total of $1.9 billion since the economic crisis began.

Governments Greed
By 4mainstreet
If things were not bad enough for the American People, it seems that they now want to raise taxes to bail them self out so they can keep funding programs that should be cut like their favorite golf course, and sports arenas that are lit year round. There are a lot of other things that we don’t know about that is their pet projects.
What are they going to do when more businesses go under, keep raising taxes. Some where these taxes have to stop, and all these government agencies have to stop wild spending on programs for the wealthy, and special interest groups.
If they put a fat tax on non diet drinks, that will chase people in to diet drinks that are not good for people with diabetes. When will it all stop, after no body is working, and all business has gone under.
In 2002 this what the Bush white house was for right from the start, protect the wealthy.
Click HERE for this information.

To me this looks like a bribe for special favors!!!!

Arabs lavish jewels on Secretary of State Rice

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush’s foreign policies may be unpopular in the Middle East, but Arab leaders showered his top diplomat with jewelry worth far more than a quarter of a million dollars last year. While Bush himself didn’t fare nearly as well, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raked in at least $316,000 in gem-encrusted baubles from the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia alone, making her one of top recipients among U.S. officials of gifts from foreign heads of state and government and their aides in 2007.
More to story

By MEAD GRUVER, Associated Press Writer Mead Gruver, Associated Press Writer

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it’s very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

“They’re certainly not normal,” Smith said. “We haven’t had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years.”

Ap Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government’s poor handling of the natural disaster.

“Katrina to me was the tipping point,” said Matthew Dowd, Bush’s pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. “The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn’t matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn’t matter. P.R.? It didn’t matter. Travel? It didn’t matter.”

Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director and later counselor to the president, said: “Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin.”

Check it out HERE

I am changing directs for a while, I wanted to see why people are getting
in to internet marketing, being that I am disabled and have nothing
better to do.
I came across this program called traffic travis and found it quite amazing, you mite have heard about it, if not I think it is worth checking out, especially
if you are just getting started and want to learn how to do it right.

To day there is a lot of talk of going green, but do you think that maybe that they are going a little over board.
you know that the way this country is going greed crazy, it sounds that we should think about the future, and we should think of going green. there are a lot of companies that will help to under stand why we should.
There is a lot of ways we can save money and this is one tip of going green.

Home-Made Renewable Solar And Wind Energy, Click Here!

The first place to start is gardening, and less asphalt.

This law should have been years ago!!!

By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer Michael Tarm, Associated Press Writer

Laws aim to foil drunk drivers

CHICAGO – Motorists convicted of driving drunk will have to install breath-monitoring gadgets in their cars under new laws taking effect in six states this week.

The ignition interlocks prevent engines from starting until drivers blow into the alcohol detectors to prove they’re sober.

Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska and Washington state began Jan. 1 requiring the devices on all motorists convicted of first-time drunken driving. South Carolina began Thursday requiring them for repeat offenders.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been conducting a nationwide campaign to mandate ignition locks for anyone convicted of drunken driving, claiming doing so would save thousands of lives. But critics say interlocks could lead to measures that restrict alcohol policies too much.

No matter what you do, you can’t make this

Government happy.

First they tell you, you are driving to much, now they
say you are not driving enough, what do they want,
I know they want their cake and eat it to.
Well I guess some bodies pocket book is getting a
little thin and I don’t mean the middle class.!!!

And they want you to go green or save.

Spur call for tax increases

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren’t raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

That has the federal commission that oversees financing for transportation talking about increasing the federal fuel tax.

A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by the commission to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

By 4mainstreer     Some from  Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy

It is about time to tell our greedy Government we have had
enough taxes, it is time that they practice what they preach. Do not
tell the American people that they are not saving, and that is why
we are in the shape that we are in, and why we don’t have any money.
If it was not for all the taxes that we pay now we would have money, but
if we try to save you tax it.
Our Government expect us to pay higher taxes on gas, electricity, food,
heat,and now a fat tax, but some it is a medical problem, so punish
them to.
Tell all top public officials who pays their wages, and we can’t for get
Corporate, who makes the company there money, and busting there butts
every day just to make a living.

Motorists’ habits spur call for tax increases.

WASHINGTON – Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which
means fuel taxes aren’t raising enough money to keep pace with the cost
of road, bridge and transit programs.

A federal commission created by Congress to find a way to make up the
growing revenue shortfall in the program that funds highway repairs and
construction is talking about increasing federal gas and diesel taxes.

WASHINGTON(AP) President-elect Barack Obama is adding a “Youth Ball” to the parties planned to celebrate his Jan. 20 inauguration.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee said Tuesday the ball for people aged 18 to 35 would celebrate “the role young Americans can play to serve their communities.” Tickets will be available for a reduced price of $75. Most inaugural ball tickets are $150.

The committee also announced regional inaugural balls for guests from the Midwest, West, East, South and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country, as well as balls for guests from Obama’s home states of Illinois and Hawaii and Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s home states of Delaware and Pennsylvania.

The committee said there will be a total of 10 inaugural balls.

By ANDREW TAYLOR – Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON(AP) The Democratic-dominated Congress convenes Tuesday to confront perhaps the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and to grapple with a hugely ambitious agenda set by President-elect Barack Obama.

The opening day of a two-year session is typically more ceremony than substance, and Congress often recesses until the new president takes office or after the State of the Union address at the end of January.

This year, however, with the economy in a worsening recession, Democrats are promising swift action on an as-yet-unveiled $775 billion economy recovery program that is the first order of business for the Obama administration.

“We will hit the ground running … to address the pain being felt by the American people,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised Monday as she welcomed Obama to her office.

Fed predicts economy will get worse

In the minutes from its last meeting, the central bank said it expects GDP to decline in 2009 and unemployment to rise into 2010.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. economy is likely to deteriorate further this year and unemployment will rise into 2010, according to the latest forecasts from the staff of the Federal Reserve.

This bleak forecast was presented to Fed policymakers when they met last month and lowered interest rates to near zero. Low interest rates are one key tool the central bank uses to try to spur economic activity.

According to the minutes from that meeting, the central bank is now predicting that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, will fall in 2009.

“I think that the Fed is really very scared right now — like everybody else — and they want to pull out all the stops,” said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s.

The Fed indicated that most members at its meeting expected a slow recovery to begin in the second half of the year, but that unemployment would still rise “significantly” into 2010.

Democratic opposition to seating Burris cracks

By ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats are looking for ways to defuse the standoff that has denied Roland Burris the vacated Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama of Illinois, but maybe not much longer.

While Burris’ paperwork was rejected at the opening of the 111th Congress, he was scheduled to meet Wednesday with the Senate’s top two Democrats — Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and assistant leader Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Knowledgeable Senate officials in both parties said the saga was widely expected to end with Burris being seated. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly for Senate members.

Obama vows future budget restraint

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – To a public wary of government spending, President-elect Barack Obama is offering a salve with his massive economic stimulus package: the promise of long-term fiscal discipline.

Budget-conscious lawmakers are pressing Obama to embrace deficit-reduction goals even as he promotes a spending and tax-cutting plan — expected to cost about $775 billion — to jolt the economy out of its downward spiral.

“Part of the discussion that needs to happen right now is not what we do just right now, but what we look to in the future — about how we get back to a balanced budget and then start to deal with this horrible, horrible national debt that we have,” said Rep. Dennis Moore of Kansas, a member of the congressional Blue Dogs, a coalition of conservative and moderate Democrats.

Two weeks away from assuming the presidency, Obama vowed Tuesday to “bring a long-overdue sense of responsibility and accountability to Washington” and called the need for budget reform “an absolute necessity.”

How many of you are a John Smith. See this is the problem in this country today, you sat back and let our Government continually out source for their gain. Now what are you going to do about it, the same as always let some one else do it, and as usual stick your head in the sand, well then you mite just as well get ready for the bottom to fall out and lose every thing that our Four Fathers fought for, FREEDOM from foreign control.

Go down to  MORE to get the rest of the story!!!!!!

(For more years of ( Bush ), Starting up a new office, Buying a new limo, and he says he is going to cut Government spending,HA,HA.)

Obama taps spending watchdog, eyes Social Security

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON – Pointing with concern to “red ink as far as the eye can see,” President-elect Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to tackle out-of-control Social Security and Medicare spending and named a special watchdog to clamp down on other federal programs — even as he campaigned anew to spend the largest pile of taxpayer money in history to revive the sinking economy.
The steepness of the fiscal mountain he’ll face beginning Jan. 20 was underscored by stunning new figures: an estimate that the federal budget deficit will reach $1.2 trillion this year, by far the biggest ever, even without the new stimulus spending.
The incoming president has walked this same tightrope each day this week — advocating fiscal discipline and taxpayer largesse together at nearly every turn, though in every case with little detail to back it up. With less than two weeks to go before taking the helm at the White House, he’ll make the same pitch on Thursday, delivering a speech laying out why he wants Congress to quickly pass his still-evolving economic plan.

By ANDREW TAYLOR – Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON(AP) Lawmakers are under orders to finish action on President-elect Barack Obama’s nearly $800 billion economic recovery plan by mid-February. But already it is plain that a set of serious fissures need to be bridged if the bill is to be completed within five weeks.

Obama urged Congress on Thursday to “act boldly and act now” to fix an economy growing perilously weaker, even as top Democrats said they dislike key provisions, especially the design of his tax cuts.

Democrats such as Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad complained openly that many of the incoming administration’s proposed tax cuts wouldn’t work. Republicans warned against excessive new spending, with both parties signaling the incoming president they intend to place their own stamp on the economic recovery effort.

Conrad, D-N.D., and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., also staked a firm position against using the economic recovery plan for permanent spending increases, opening a split with House Democrats hoping to use the plan to broaden eligibility for unemployment insurance and boost education spending.

By JEANNINE AVERSA – AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON(AP) Trying to survive a deepening recession, employers are cutting their work forces to the bone, leaving more Americans unemployed and with dim prospects of finding a new job any time soon.

The Labor Department releases a report Friday expected to show the employment market turned worse in December, capping a year when job losses were logged every month.

With employers throttling back hiring, the unemployment rate is expected to jump from 6.7 percent in November to 7 percent in December, according to economists’ forecasts. If they are right, that would mark the highest jobless rate in 15-1/2 years.
By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ – AP Business Writer

HONG KONG(AP) Most Asian stock markets fell Friday amid more corporate gloom and worries that a key U.S. jobs report could show recession in the world’s largest economy is deepening.

After fluctuating in the morning, markets trended down later in the session as investors awaited closely watched non-farm payrolls data, due out later in the U.S., that’s expected to reveal massive job losses as the global downturn leads companies to lay off workers and curb hiring.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Pushed by fellow Democrats, President-elect Barack Obama agreed to modest changes in his proposed tax cuts on Friday after inviting lawmakers to “just show me” ideas for fixing an economy shedding jobs at an alarming rate. Democratic congressional officials said that Obama aides came under pressure in closed-door talks to jettison or significantly alter a proposed tax credit for creating jobs.

Further, Democrats sought inclusion of relief for upper middle-class families hit by the alternative minimum tax. The so-called AMT was originally designed to make sure the very wealthy did not escape taxes, but it now hits many more people because of inflation, despite measures by Congress every year to prevent it from reaching tens of millions of middle-income families.

Obama to discuss trade, drug war with Calderon

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will discuss the drug war and trade issues with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday, in Obama’s first meeting with a foreign leader since his November election.

Obama has promised to nurture close ties with Mexico and with Latin American countries that complained of neglect by the United States after President George W. Bush’s foreign policy focused heavily on Iraq and the war on terror.

With Mexico’s drug violence exploding and amid fears that Obama might seek changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, Calderon is eager for a meeting with the incoming U.S. president.

Obama aides said the Calderon meeting was part of a long tradition of U.S. presidents meeting with the Mexican leader before their inauguration.

The two leaders are to have lunch at noon and then sit down for a working meeting.

• GOP officials: Sen. Voinovich of Ohio to retire AP – Sun Jan 11, 9:54 PM ETWASHINGTON – Ohio Sen. George Voinovich has told associates he intends to retire next year rather than seek a new term, party officials said Sunday night. He is the fourth Republican to make departure plans since the Democratic landslide in November.
• US House speaker Pelosi wants more women in govt AFP – Sun Jan 11, 9:42 PM ETWASHINGTON, (AFP) – House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there should be more women in the incoming administration of president-elect Barack Obama, but praised the “diversity” of his team.
• Sen. Levin seeks details on Citigroup pact with Treasury Reuters – Sun Jan 11, 7:56 PM ETWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sen. Carl Levin said on Sunday he plans to subpoena the Treasury Department to see its agreement with Citigroup and determine what commitments the financial institution made in exchange for government aid.
• Senate boosts wilderness protection across US AP – Sun Jan 11, 7:55 PM ETWASHINGTON – In a rare Sunday session, the Senate advanced legislation that would set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as wilderness. Majority Democrats assembled more than enough votes to overcome GOP stalling tactics in an early showdown for the new Congress.

Burris may breeze into Senate

• Politico – Sun Jan 11, 7:12 PM ETSenate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) suggested Sunday evening that Democratic leaders may not require that a Senate panel review the appointment of Roland Burris before he is sworn in as the next senator from Illinois.
• Will Mitch McConnell rain on Obama’s parade? McClatchy Newspapers – Sun Jan 11, 6:59 PM ETWASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell may be the most powerful Republican in federal government, but he will have to work hard to herd his party’s dwindled caucus during President-elect Barack Obama’s congressional honeymoon phase.
• No. 2 Senate Democrat hopes deal near on Burris AP – Sun Jan 11, 6:36 PM ETWASHINGTON – The Senate’s second-in-command, Sen. Dick Durbin, said Sunday that he is moving away from resisting former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as President-elect Barack Obama’s successor and hopes a resolution to the disagreement will be reached soon.
• A look at key provisions in Senate lands bill AP – Sun Jan 11, 2:30 PM ETThe Senate on Sunday advanced legislation that would designate more than 2 million acres of wilderness across nine states, from California to Virginia. The bill, introduced by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, also would set aside former President Bill Clinton’s childhood home in Hope, Ark., as a national historic site.
• Analysis: GOP urging restraint in stimulus debate AP – Sun Jan 11, 8:32 AM ETWASHINGTON – Out of power, Republicans appear to be retreating to familiar old ground. They’re becoming deficit hawks again.

Looking at your self.

By 4mainstreet

LETS SEE IF YOU HAVE THE GUTS TO READ THIS AND PASS IT ON, I DON’T THINK YOU DO.

I have some bad news for you, youare going to get hurt and I hope you do, go look in the mirror, looks beautiful well get rid of it, because this country is no longer on that list, because you are to busy looking at your self in the mirror to see what is going on.

Watch TV and see if you fall in that category, buy a house, car, boat, you name it you have to have it, well it does not work that way, the Jones are broke, and now so are you.

Buy a house needs a wine room, bar, lots of room to party with lots of booze, come to think of it you fight to stop taxes on alcohol, and gas, lets say we stop taxes on every thing else, lets tell our Politicians we don’t want any more tax increases, you won’t because you are to busy looking at your self in the mirror.

Holidays are not honored any more, it’s just to go out and party and take the day off with pay. How many know what these Holidays represent.

You are out to become millionaires, well that is not going to happen. Watch TV or listen to the RADIO and hear about making money on line and jump on it, then get burned, and then when a legitimate comes along you call it a scam with out checking it out. You those adds are promoted by money to radio and TV, they don’t care if it is a scam or not, because it pays them money, and then they put a disclaimer on it saying that don’t endorse it.

I am into it and I can send you to sites that will tell you the truth and how you CAN make it in an online business, and how long it will take an how much time you will put into it, SO GET OVER YOUR SELF and lets get our COUNTRY BACK from CORPORATE and POLITICAL GREED!!!!!!!!

Cheney says financial crisis was not foreseen »

The current financial crisis was completely unforeseen by the Bush administration, according to vice president Dick Cheney.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Cheney claimed that people could not place blame for the economy’s collapse on President Bush because “nobody anywhere was smart enough to figure it out.”

When asked whether Bush should apologize for not doing more to prevent the recession, the vice president said, “I don’t think he needs to apologize. I think what he needed to do is take bold, aggressive action and he has.”

Democrats seek criminal probe of Bush ‘abuses’

By LARRY MARGASAK – Associated Press Writer

The incoming Obama administration should launch a criminal investigation of Bush administration officials to see whether they broke the law in the name of national security, a House Democratic report said Tuesday. President-elect Barack Obama has been more cautious on the issue and has not endorsed such a recommendation.

Along with the criminal probe, the report called for a Sept. 11-style commission with subpoena power, to gather facts and make recommendations on preventing misuse of power, according to the report by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee.

The report covers Bush administration policies that Democrats have protested for some time. Among them: interrogation of foreign detainees, warrantless wiretaps, retribution against critics, manipulation of intelligence and political dismissals of U.S. attorneys.

The White House was asked for comment on the report Tuesday, but did not immediately respond.

However, in an interview this month with The Associated Press, Vice President Dick Cheney said, “I can’t speak for everybody in the administration, but my view would be that the people who carried out that program _ intelligence surveillance program, the enhanced interrogation program, with respect to al Qaeda captives _ in fact were authorized to do what they did … .”

Cheney said legal opinions supported the officials.

What would you do?….you make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line there isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made
At a fund raising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its
dedicated staff, he offered a question:
‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.
Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.Where is the natural order of things in my son?’

The audience was stilled by the query.
The father continued. ‘I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.’
Then he told the following story:

These people are suppose to be EDUCATED, the only way to recover, is to get jobs back in this country, and get every body back to work.
Where is all this money coming from if no body is paying taxes, how dumb can they get.

By DAVID ESPO and ANDREW TAYLOR – Associated Press Writers

Working closely with President-elect Barack Obama, House Democrats on Thursday called for $825 billion in federal spending and tax cuts to revive the economy, with strong emphasis on energy, education, health care and jobs-producing highway construction.

The legislation calls for federal spending of roughly $550 billion and tax cuts of $275 billion over the next two years _ totals certain to change as the measure works its way through Congress.

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

BEDFORD HEIGHTS, Ohio – President-elect Barack Obama made a pitch for his massive economic stimulus plan at a Midwestern factory that manufactures wind turbine parts, saying Friday his proposal would make smart investments in the country’s future and create solid jobs in up-and-coming industries.

“Renewable energy isn’t something pie in the sky. It’s not part of a far-off future. It’s happening all across America right now,” Obama told workers at the Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. in this Cleveland suburb. “It can create millions of additional jobs and entire new industries if we act right now.”

Just days before taking the oath of office as the 44th president, Obama used the factory as a backdrop as he sought to generate support from the public — constituents of skeptical Republicans and Democrats in Congress — for his pricey plan to pull the country out of recession.

Obama cabinet short on business experience

Washington Business Journal – by Kent Hoover Washington Bureau Chief

President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet will have a lot less business experience than President Bush’s first round of key appointees.

Bush, the only U.S. president with an MBA, turned to corporate America for several key positions, starting with vice president. Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton Corp., a Houston-based oilfield services company, before joining Bush’s ticket in 2000.

Another Texas oilman, longtime Bush friend Don Evans, was appointed secretary of Commerce. Former Alcoa Chairman and CEO Paul O’Neill was Bush’s first secretary of Treasury, but lasted less than two years.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had served as chairman and CEO of two companies, pharmaceutical giant G.D. Searle & Co. and broadcast technology developer General Instrument Corp. He also chaired Gilead Sciences Inc., a biopharmaceutical company.

Circuit City to close 567 remaining US stores

This could not happen to a better company, after what they pulled on past employees, they deserve to close their doors. This is what they get for how they treat the working people.
If these companies put more money back and less in their pockets, they would be solvent, they are no better then wall street, pocketing all the profits and then wanting every body to work for peanuts, or for nothing, then look for a bailout.

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM and VINNEE TONG, AP Business Writers Michael Felberbaum And Vinnee Tong, Ap Business Writers

Circuit City became the largest retailer to fall victim to the expanding financial crisis Friday, announcing it will shut down its remaining 567 U.S. stores at the cost of 34,000 more jobs after failing to sell the business.

The closure of the nation’s second-biggest consumer electronics retailer spells more trouble for the nations malls, and is the latest casualty of an unprecedented pullback in consumer spending that has claimed KB Toys, Mervyns LLC and Linens ‘N Things.

“Very, very sad,” said Alan L. Wurtzel, son of company founder Samuel S. Wurtzel and himself a former chief executive of Circuit City. “I feel particularly badly for the people who are employed or until recently were employed.”

Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City had been seeking a buyer or a deal to refinance its debt, but the hobbled credit market and consumer worries proved insurmountable. Negotiations for an acquisition extended past midnight Thursday before finally falling through, Circuit City lawyer Gregg Galardi said.

FDA urges people to avoid peanut butter products

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Federal health authorities on Saturday urged consumers to avoid eating cookies, cakes, ice cream and other foods that contain peanut butter until authorities can learn more about a deadly outbreak of salmonella contamination.

Most peanut butter sold in jars at supermarkets appears to be safe, said Stephen Sundlof, head of the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety center.

“As of now, there is no indication that the major national name-brand jars of peanut butter sold in retails stores are linked to the recall,” Sundlof told reporters in a conference call.

Officials are focusing on peanut paste, as well as peanut butter, produced at a Blakely, Ga., facility owned by Peanut Corp. of America. Its peanut butter is not sold directly to consumers but distributed to institutions and food companies. But the peanut paste, made from roasted peanuts, is an ingredient in cookies, cakes and other products that people buy in the supermarket.

“This is an excellent illustration of an ingredient-driven outbreak,” said Dr. Robert Tauxe, who oversees foodborne illness investigations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Economic stimulus bill to fuel Obama’s priorities

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The economic crisis that will dominate Barack Obama’s first 100 days as president, and beyond, will give him a rare chance to enact big portions of his agenda that otherwise might have languished for months or years.

Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt has a new president been poised to pack so many ambitious, costly — and, under more normal circumstances, highly contentious — projects into one fast-moving bill. As in 1933, a frightening economic collapse makes the quick political work possible, choking off longer debates and possible opposition that many of the initiatives would have faced in better times.

Congress is working on a mammoth stimulus bill, costing $825 billion or more, to treat the sick economy. Obama is using it as a vehicle for an array of priorities, including billions of dollars for renewable energy, education and health care innovations.

The economic crisis that drives this train, of course, also poses severe challenges to the new president. His lofty approval ratings could collapse if the number of jobs and home values keep falling. And with the intense focus on stimulating the economy, he will postpone priorities that do not fit into the legislative package.

Obama stimulus plan not sure bet to heal economy

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer Tom Raum, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama and his congressional allies are gambling that the largest public spending program since World War II and a new round of tax cuts will pry the economy from the recession’s iron grip and avert another Depression.

But what if they’re wrong?

Some conservative economists say that additional stimulus may only prolong the grief at best, triggering runaway inflation down the road and resulting in an even more bloated federal bureaucracy.

“I think the economy will recover regardless of what Washington does. But the long-term effect here will be to reduce the standard of living of the next generation because they will be saddled with all this debt,” said Chris Edwards of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

Even without the new spending proposed by Obama, the U.S. has a $1.2 trillion budget deficit this year, he noted. “If that isn’t already enough of a Keynesian stimulus, what is?”

Early 20th-century British economist John Maynard Keynes argued that the government should intervene to avoid depressions by increasing its own spending and controlling interest rates. President Franklin D. Roosevelt based many of his New Deal spending initiatives on Keynesian theory.

But not all economists and politicians subscribe to that world view.

Bush commutes sentences of former US border agents

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer Deb Riechmann, Associated Press Writer – 47 mins ago

WASHINGTON – In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.

Bush’s decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were too harsh.

Rancor over their convictions, sentencing and firings has simmered ever since the shooting occurred in 2005. The former border guards in El Paso, Texas, are expected to be released from prison within the next two months.

“After four years of fighting this, it’s taken a toll on me and my daughter, and really the whole family,” said Joe Loya, Ramos’ father-in law, who has received tens of thousands of supportive e-mails and spent much of the past two years traveling the country to speak about the case.

Much in Obama stimulus bill won’t hit economy soon

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Andrew Taylor, Associated Press Writer   – Tue Jan 20, 3:13 am ET
WASHINGTON – It will take years before an infrastructure spending program proposed by President-elect Barack Obama will boost the economy, according to an analysis by congressional economists.

The findings, released to lawmakers Sunday, call into question the effectiveness of congressional Democrats’ efforts to pump up the economy through old-fashioned public works projects like roads, bridges and repairs of public housing.

Less than half of the $30 billion in highway construction funds detailed by House Democrats would be released into the economy over the next four years, concludes the analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. Less than $4 billion in highway construction money would reach the economy by September 2010.

THE INFLUENCE GAME: Lobbyists work inauguration

By ALAN FRAM and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writers Alan Fram And Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writers – 2 hrs 9 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Like many lobbying firms, BGR Group offered clients and friends a place to come in from the cold Tuesday and watch Barack Obama’s inauguration — with a scented twist.

The invitation-only reception in the firm’s new offices two blocks from Pennsylvania Avenue was among scores that lobbyists and corporations hosted to mark the start of a new political power in the capital. For those staging such events, the celebrations are a chance to rekindle old relationships, start new ones, flash influence and impress clients.

With the competition tight among party hosts to attract guests, BGR offered something that may have been unique — makeup touch-ups and makeovers, compliments of Guerlain, the French beauty company whose parent corporation is one of BGR’s clients.

“It’s a time here in Washington to celebrate between friends of the firm and clients coming to town,” said Ed Rogers, one of the firm’s partners. “It’s once every four years. There’s a big appetite for people to have a warm place” to watch the festivities.

Here is some more of these people who bought homes that could not afford them. ( According to our politicians )

This shows you what this Government thinks of the American people and our service men & women.

Here is a website you can check out.

www.PersonalLiberty.com

Here is a letter worth reading, this a new letter I received to day from Personal Liberty.

Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes

Providing Emergency Aid to Severely Wounded Troops and Their Families in Crisis

PO Box 96440 Washington, DC 20090

Already this January I’ve been flooded with frantic calls from severely wounded GIs on the brink of losing their homes this winter.

Many are paralyzed, brain-damaged, burned or blinded and they’re pleading for help to prevent their family from being tossed out into the street.

Please click here

to help a severely wounded – and desperate – serviceman or woman who’s about to lose their home this winter.

I’m General Chip Diehl (Ret.) and I’m writing to you on behalf of the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes. The Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded to help troops who have been severely wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Obama freezes salaries of some White House aides

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent – 43 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s first public act in office Wednesday was to institute new limits on lobbyists in his White House and to freeze the salaries of high-paid aides, in a nod to the country’s economic turmoil.

Announcing the moves while attending a ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to swear in his staff, Obama said the steps “represent a clean break from business as usual.”

The pay freeze, first reported by The Associated Press, would hold salaries at their current levels for the roughly 100 White House employees who make over $100,000 a year. “Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington,” said the new president, taking office amid startlingly bad economic times that many fear will grow worse.

Those affected by the freeze include the high-profile jobs of White House chief of staff, national security adviser and press secretary. Other aides who work in relative anonymity also would fit into that cap if Obama follows a structure similar to the one George W. Bush set up.

Texas oil country sees the downturn coming

By BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press Writer Betsy Blaney, Associated Press Writer – 37 mins ago

MIDLAND, Texas – In the West Texas oil patch, they can see the downturn coming at them from miles away like a pickup truck kicking up a dust cloud on the horizon.

With crude dropping below $40 a barrel from a high of around $150 over the summer, oil and gas companies in the Lone Star State are cutting back on drilling, the layoffs are beginning, and the boom of the past few years appears to be drawing to a close.

The boom may not necessarily give way to a bust. But the days of plentiful jobs, big paychecks and shiny new pickups and SUVS seem to be numbered.

“It’s been a good ride up, but we’re bracing ourselves for the ride down,” said Midland City Manager Courtney Sharp, who expects a drop in tax revenue next month because of slumping sales in the city of about 98,000.

Kevon Horst, 19, landed his first job over the summer in the booming West Texas oilfields when crude was selling for about $140 a barrel. Horst and about 20 others working a rig near Canadian, about 40 miles from the Oklahoma line, were laid off recently. Gone are his $2,000-a-week job and his apartment.

by Tom Van Riper
Wednesday, January 21, 2009provided by

While industry executives and shoppers will remember 2008 as the year the party ended, figure 2009 to be the year of the hangover. Already, Circuit City, Linens ‘N Things and Mervyn’s stores are going away. Sharper Image is too, though the company will continue to sell some of its high-end gadgets through license agreements with other retailers.

More pain is on the way. One-third of U.S. women recently surveyed by America’s Research Group said they plan no clothing purchases–none–in 2009. Normally, it’s just 4%. That means the market is still far too saturated with stores.

Expect closings and bankruptcies to rattle the likes of Lane Bryant, Gap, and Starbucks. It’s the inevitable counterpunch to the days of retailers fighting hand over fist for market share during an era of loose credit and minuscule interest rates.

Those days are over, probably for a long time. While accelerating unemployment will only last so long, consumers’ debt loads and credit access don’t figure to recover to pre-party levels for quite awhile.

House gives symbolic thumbs-down on TARP cash

By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a symbolic gesture of dissatisfaction with the government’s attempts to stabilize the financial system, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 270-155 on Thursday against releasing a second allotment of $350 billion to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The money will be released, nonetheless, because the Senate last week voted not to block the funds. That vote deprived the House’s decision of any legal weight since the funds could only be blocked by a vote of both chambers of Congress.

“The Senate has already killed this … Why are we still voting on it? Because there is a degree of anger in the American public,” said Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank. “We are here today because of that anger.”

The TARP is a $700-billion financial rescue program launched by the Bush administration in October amid a credit market crisis and used mainly to buy shares in troubled banks, such as Bank of America Corp and Citigroup.

Steered by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, TARP money also went to support insurer American International Group Inc and automakers General Motors and Chrysler LLC.

Good bank, bad bank all adds up to nationalization

By Patrick Rucker and Emily Kaiser – Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Whether it’s called good bank/bad bank, troubled asset relief or some new acronym, the United States appears to be on a course that will lead to the effective nationalization of some of the largest U.S. lenders.

Investors have little confidence in the banks’ ability to pull themselves out of the credit mess and are growing frustrated with a government response seen as haphazard. This is putting pressure on President Barack Obama to come up with a bolder plan.

His economic team has dropped strong hints that an idea to buy up bad assets, which was proposed but then discarded under former President George W. Bush, may soon be resurrected.

While the word “nationalization” is rarely uttered in official public discussion, the end result may be the same. By carving out the bad assets that are blocking the normal flow of credit and then pumping taxpayer money into the remaining healthy part, the public’s stake in these institutions may exceed private holdings.

“It’s really a question of semantics and what you call nationalization,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University professor and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. “The banking system can’t stand on its own at the moment and it needs to be cleaned up and recapitalized.”

By The Associated Press The Associated Press

Highlights of the economic recovery plan drafted by Senate Democrats and President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team. Most provisions expire in two years.

CASH PAYMENTS

Seniors, disabled and veterans — $300 payments to Social Security beneficiaries, and $300 payment under the Supplemental Security income program for elderly and disabled people living in poverty. Veterans receiving disability or pension payments would also receive $300. The cash payments are one time only.

TAXES

Individuals — $500-per-worker, $1,000-per-couple tax cut for two years, costing about $142 billion; greater access to the $1,000 per-child tax credit for the working poor; expanding the earned-income tax credit to include families with three children; a $2,500 college tuition tax credit; $7,500 tax credit for middle-income, first-time home buyers who purchase homes in the first half of 2009; temporarily suspends taxation of unemployment benefits. SEE MORE

Obama pitches his plan to reverse economic slide

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Saturday laid out more pieces of an economic plan he says would add 3,000 miles of electrical lines, increase security at 90 ports and double the United States’ renewable energy capacity within three years.

It was the latest appeal from the new president for a massive spending bill designed to inject almost a trillion dollars into a flailing U.S. economy and to fulfill campaign pledges. As members of Congress consider an $825 billion plan and Obama woos them, his White House released a radio and Internet address directed at voters who want answers.

“Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. And we could lose a generation of potential, as more young Americans are forced to forgo college dreams or the chance to train for the jobs of the future,” Obama said in a five-minute address that the White House released early Saturday.

“In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.”

To all FRIENDS of the world

By 4mainstreet

I am not wanting to offend any one, but this is the way I see it every day in the news.

This is what should be posted all over the world, I would say about 80% of the Americans are not monsters, they have an open heart for all people around the world, but there are some that all they want to do is fight, but not for freedom.
If all these Countries really cared about there citizens, they would provide good paying jobs, and equal import & export tariffs, then every one wins.

If all Countries provided, well lets look at Mexico, on jobs they send them to the US, where as of today not enough jobs for any body, well if Mexico would produce jobs with good pay, the US would not be treating Mexicans and any other Country as criminals when they come to the US, you can’t blame them for wanting to bettering them selves. And even the one’s who are citizen of the US get treated the same way, this is WRONG ALL THE WAY AROUND. All these countries condemn the US and try to tell us how to run this Country, but they can’t even run their own.

Click on MORE for the rest.

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer –

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s ban on earmarks in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill doesn’t mean interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers won’t be able to funnel money to pet projects.

They’re just working around it — and perhaps inadvertently making the process more secretive.

The projects run the gamut: a Metrolink station that needs building in Placentia, Calif.; a stretch of beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., that could really use some more sand; a water park in Miami.

There are thousands of projects like those that once would have been gotten money upfront but now are left to scramble for dollars at the back end of the process as “ready to go” jobs eligible for the stimulus plan.

The result, as The Associated Press learned in interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and state and local officials, is a shadowy lobbying effort that may make it difficult to discern how hundreds of billions in federal money will be parceled out.

“‘No earmarks’ isn’t a game-ender,” said Peter Buffa, former mayor of Costa Mesa, Calif. “It just means there’s a different way of going about making sure the funding is there.”

Boy, 14, dupes police, patrols Chicago for 5 hours

By MICHAEL TARM – Associated Press Writer
A 14-year-old aspiring police officer donned a uniform, walked into a Chicago police station and managed to get an assignment _ patroling in a squad car for five hours before he was detected, police said Sunday.

The boy did not have a gun, never issued any tickets and didn’t drive the squad car, Deputy Superintendent Daniel Dugan said.

Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said the ruse was discovered only after the boy’s patrol with an actual officer ended Saturday. Officers noticed his uniform lacked a star that is part of the regulation uniform.

Police said they were investigating how the deception went undetected for so long in what they described as a serious security breach. Police said disciplinary steps are possible pending the outcome of the investigation.

Police didn’t identify the boy because of his age. He has been charged as a juvenile with impersonating an officer.

Dugan said the boy looks older than 14 and was motivated by a desire to be an officer, not malice or “ill intent.”

The boy once took part in a Chicago program for youth interested in policing, so he would have been familiar with some procedures, perhaps helping him blend in, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
– Sir Winston Churchill
At first I thought this was funny… then I realized the awful truth of it.
Be sure to read all the way to the end!
Tax his land, tax his bed, Tax the table At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes Are the rule.
Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for peanuts Anyway!
Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat.
Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work, Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he Tries to think.
Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries Tax his tears. &nb sp;
Tax his car, Tax his gas, Find other ways To tax his …..
Tax all he has Then let him know That you won’t be done Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more, Tax him till He’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in Which he’s laid.
Put these words Upon his tomb, ‘Taxes drove me to my doom….’
When he’s gone, Do not relax, Its time to apply The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax ;
Food License Tax
Fu el Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge T ax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the
largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’ And I still have to ‘press 1′ for English!?!?!?!

I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!!!!
YOU can help it get there!!!!

GO AHEAD – - – BE AN AMERICAN

Citigroup will not take possession of new aircraft

By STEPHEN BERNARD, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK – Citigroup won’t be getting a new corporate jet after all. Under pressure from President Barack Obama, one of the nation’s largest banks reversed course, announcing that it will not take delivery of the jet it had planned to purchase before the credit crisis unfolded.

The canceled deal came as many politicians voiced concern about how banks are spending government bailout money.

The White House reached out to Citigroup on Monday to reiterate Obama’s position that such jets are not “the best use of money at this point,” calling them “outrageous” spending for a company getting taxpayer dollars, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was describing private conversations.

In a statement late Monday, Citigroup Inc. said it paid a deposit in 2005 to acquire the jet. The New York-based bank said it did not plan to use government money for the purchase, and it noted that any cancellation of the deal would probably lead to multimillion-dollar penalties.

On Monday, the New York Post reported that Citi was set to take possession of the jet even after receiving $45 billion from the government.

The government is also providing guarantees on hundreds of billions of dollars of Citi investments in mortgages and other troubled investments.

With the cancellation of the jet deal, a deposit on the plane will be lost, but is recoverable once the jet is sold, according to a person familiar with the situation. Citi was in the process of purchasing a Dassault Falcon 7X for $50 million, the person said.

Citi is also planning to cut the number of corporate jets in its existing fleet from five to two, said the person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been made public.

Corporate jets have become controversial during the credit crisis as critics of large companies question the cost of owning and operating the aircraft, especially for businesses receiving government help.

In November, executives of automakers Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC were sharply criticized for flying on corporate jets to Washington to ask Congress for federal bailout money.

Amid the credit woes, Citi has been working to streamline its operations and shed assets to regain profitability. The bank has posted five consecutive quarterly losses, including a fourth-quarter loss of $8.29 billion.

Earlier this month, Citi reached a deal to sell a majority stake in its Smith Barney brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley. Citi has also announced plans to split its operations into two units, separating its traditional banking businesses from its riskier operations.

Citi may have to wait a while to recover its deposit on the canceled jet deal, as the market for corporate aircraft has softened with the economy.

Before the jet market cooled last year, speculators sometimes placed orders with no intention of taking delivery of the plane. They would sell their position in line.

“There was such a backlog — three- or 3 1/2-year waits — people could buy positions and flip them for a profit,” said Robert F. Agnew, president and chief executive of aviation consulting firm Morton Beyer & Agnew. “Selling a slot today is probably very difficult.”

Agnew said buyers typically pay a few percentage points of the purchase price when placing the order, then a series of payments as production begins and other milestones are reached.

They might pay about 35 percent of the cost before taking delivery, then pay the balance when taking the plane, he said. At that rate, Citi could have already spent $17.5 million on a plane it will no longer receive.

Agnew noted that upfront costs can be much lower when the buyer and seller have a strong relationship, but he said he was not familiar with Citigroup’s arrangement with Dassault.

___

White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven in Washington and Business Writer David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

Hospices win $134m in stimulus

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – A measure worth $134 million to hospices across the country has made its way into a draft of Congress’ economic recovery bill, thanks to an intense and pricey lobbying effort by the industry.

The nation’s largest hospices are pushing hard to ensure the provision, which would essentially head off a cut in what the government pays them to care for Medicare patients, survives an increasingly partisan congressional debate and makes it to President Barack Obama’s desk.

Their effort is just one example of the behind-the-scenes haggling that’s shaping the stimulus plan, as diverse groups jockey to ensure their priorities hitch a ride on a remarkably costly measure that Obama considers must-pass legislation.

The hospices have already cleared some major hurdles in the Democratic-controlled Congress, where the House is poised to approve its version of the economic recovery bill — including the provision the hospices are seeking — with a vote scheduled for Wednesday.

Influential lawmakers led by Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the party’s House campaign chief, made sure the provision was a part of that bill.

“A lot of people who provide end-of-life care told us this was very important,” Van Hollen said Tuesday. “If you don’t adequately reimburse hospice care providers, they go out of business and then people lose their jobs.”

That’s the case that hospice advocacy groups have been making to Congress since last spring, when they began fighting a Bush administration-imposed rule they say could cost their industry more than $2 billion over the next five years, and 8,700 jobs in the next year alone.

More recently, they met with Obama’s team to press the incoming administration on the issue, said Jonathan Keyserling, an executive at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

“We’ve had programs close, we’ve had programs lay off professionals, we’ve had them shrink their service areas,” Keyserling said. “Our members have a broad outreach to Congress, and it is rare to enter an office where either the staff person or the member themselves have not had a hospice care for a member of their family.”

My Opinion By 4mainstreet

How much more is the american people going to put up with before this country comes crashing down around their ears???

What is it going to take for you to open your eyes, that this Government and the Corporations and don’t for get the special interest groups, don’t care about this country or the people here?, all they want is for you to shut your mouth and do what you are told, you are cutting into their profits.

Fed moves to help distressed homeowners

How many times are they going to tell you that they are going to help,( after the price is to where the money people can walk in and buy them and then turn around and sell them back to you so they can make more money from the American people.) Wake up, THEY DON’T CARE!!!!

Obama argues for stimulus plan before House vote

Obama’s White House: Big posts, overlapping tasks

No organization, costly to the tax payers!!!

Lawmaker calls for criminal probe in peanut recall

Where is the food and drug???

House Republicans Block Immediate Action on Digital TV Delay ( special interest involved )

House fails to pass DTV delay bill!!! ( special interest involved)

Problems with DTV they don’t care!!! ( special interest involved )

Jonathan Martin, Patrick O’Connor Jonathan Martin, Patrick O’connor – Tue Jan 27,

It was the love affair that could never be, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans.

The two sides came together en masse Tuesday for the first time since Obama took the oath of office. Despite the niceties, both sides walked away spurned.

In many ways, Obama told the assembled Republicans everything they would want to hear, according to people in the meetings.

He promised to make tough spending choices in his first budget blueprint — “everyone will have to take a haircut,” he said. He told them he wouldn’t increase the size of government just to increase the size of government. He even teased House Minority Leader John A. Boehner about his golf swing.

Likewise, Republicans left the meeting with kind words for the president — but still resolved to oppose him on the floor Wednesday when Democrats bring his massive economic stimulus plan up for a vote.

Beneath the polite give and take between the new president and the newly disempowered Republican caucus, there was a sense that Obama’s honeymoon had already begun to ebb. For the first time, it seems, congressional Republicans, shut out of power and seemingly cowed by the harsh verdict of voters and wild popularity of the new president, are finding their voice, rallying in large numbers against the centerpiece of Obama’s agenda.

Republicans succeeded in scuttling bill to delay analog to digital switch

Ap Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Bucking the Obama administration, House Republicans on Wednesday defeated a bill to postpone the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting to June 12 — leaving roughly 6.5 million U.S. households unprepared for the switchover.
The 258-168 vote failed to clear the two-thirds threshold needed for passage in a victory for GOP members, who warn that postponing the transition from the current Feb. 17 deadline would confuse consumers.
House Republicans say a delay also would burden wireless companies and public safety agencies waiting for the spectrum that will be vacated by the switchover, and create added costs for television stations that would have to continue broadcasting both analog and digital signals for four more months.
The defeat is a setback for President Barack Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill, who maintain that the Bush administration bungled efforts to ensure that all consumers — particularly poor, rural and low-income Americans — will be ready for next month’s analog shut-off.
The Nielsen Co. estimates more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog television sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals still are not prepared for the transition. People who subscribe to cable or satellite TV or have a newer TV with a digital tuner will not be affected.

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – A former deputy to Jack Abramoff was charged Wednesday in the lobbyist corruption scandal, accused of wining and dining public officials and showering them with other gifts to win favors for clients.

The government says Todd Boulanger gave government aides “a stream of things of value,” including all-expense-paid travel, tickets to professional sports and concerts and nights out at expensive restaurants, to reward and influence actions that would benefit his clients. He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The charge was outlined in a federal court document known as an information — a document normally filed as part of a plea deal. His attorney did not return messages seeking comment.

Boulanger worked as a deputy to Abramoff after spending several years as an aide to former GOP Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire. He worked with Abramoff at two lobbying firms — Preston Gates & Ellis and Greenberg Traurig — representing clients including the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

‘Buy American’ stimulus plan riles trade partners

by Veronica Smith

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A new “Buy American” push in President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan is sparking protests about protectionism from US trading partners.

Passage of the 819 billion dollar economic stimulus package Wednesday by the US House of Representatives raised hackles in Europe and Canada, the United States’s biggest trading partner.

Obama has pushed for swift passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as vital to prevent the collapse of the US economy, reeling from the global financial crisis that has thwarted governments’ unprecedented actions to ease the turmoil.

The legislation’s package of tax cuts and spending has moved to the Senate, where lawmakers are working on their own version of the plan.

The bulk of the bill’s spending is aimed at bringing aging infrastructure into the 21st century to preserve and improve the country’s long-term competitiveness in the global economy, creating millions of jobs in the process.

The sweep of projects is broad, from roads, rail, bridges, airports and dams to military construction and housing, among others.

Economy likely shrank at fastest clip since ‘82

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON – The country tumbled deeper into recession and probably logged its worst economic performance in a quarter-century during the final three months of last year as battered consumers and businesses throttled back spending.

The U.S. economy is deteriorating at an alarming clip as the housing, credit and financial crises — the worst since the 1930s — feed on each other in a vicious cycle that has proven difficult for Washington policymakers to break.

The Commerce Department is set to release a report Friday expected to show the economy shrank at a pace of 5.4 percent in the October-December period, a much faster descent than the 0.5 percent decline logged in the prior quarter. If economists’ forecasts are correct, it would mark the weakest quarterly showing since an annualized drop of 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 1982, when the country was suffering through a severe recession.

As Wall Street falters, Washington’s star rises

By Daniel Trotta Daniel Trotta – Fri Jan 30

Additional reporting by Joan Gralla and Edith Honan, Editing by Frances Kerry

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As Wall Street suffers through its worst slump in memory, New York City risks tarnishing its image as the city that drives America.

Waiting to fill the gap is Washington, home to a popular president and a Congress whose mood matches that of a public angry at Wall Street for losing people’s retirement savings while doling out executive bonuses and raking in billions from taxpayer-funded bailouts.

The U.S. capital is more used to being viewed as the rather dull seat of government.

“There is a shifting of power and influence at the moment from Manhattan to Washington. The same thing happened during other financial crises in our history but most especially in the 1930s,” said Kenneth T. Jackson, a Columbia University historian.

Jess Varughese, managing partner of financial services consultant Milestone, said Wall Street is worried about seeing its influence drift away while executives are demonized.

“It’s something that we’re all talking about every time we sit down with our industry counterparts and share a glass of wine or a cup of coffee,”

Varughese said.

Banks sought foreign workers

By FRANK BASS and RITA BEAMISH, Associated Press Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Banks collecting billions of dollars in federal bailout money sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers to the U.S. for high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.

The dozen banks receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.

The figures are significant because they show that the bailed-out banks, being kept afloat with U.S. taxpayer money, actively sought to hire foreign workers instead of American workers. As the economic collapse worsened last year — with huge numbers of bank employees laid off — the numbers of visas sought by the dozen banks in AP’s analysis increased by nearly one-third, from 3,258 in fiscal 2007 to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.

The AP reviewed visa applications the banks filed with the Labor Department under the H-1B visa program, which allows temporary employment of foreign workers in specialized-skill and advanced-degree positions.

It is unclear how many foreign workers the banks actually hired; the government does not release those details. The actual number is likely a fraction of the 21,800 foreign workers the banks sought to hire because the government limits the number of visas it grants to 85,000 each year among all U.S. employers.

During the last three months of 2008, the largest banks that received taxpayer loans announced more than 100,000 layoffs. The number of foreign workers included among those laid off is unknown.

Foreigners are attractive hires because companies have found ways to pay them less than American workers.

Creators of carbon credit scheme cashing in on it

By Judi McLeod  Tuesday, March 13, 2007

There’s an elephant in global warming’s living room that few in the mainstream media want to talk about: the creators of the carbon credit scheme are the ones cashing in on it.

The two cherub like choirboys singing loudest in the Holier Than Thou Global Warming Cathedral are Maurice Strong and Al Gore.

This duo has done more than anyone else to advance the alarmism of man-made global warming.

With little media monitoring, both Strong and Gore are cashing in on the lucrative cottage industry known as man-made global warming.

Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as “the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil.”

Gore buys his carbon off-sets from himself–the Generation Investment Management LLP, “an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C.” of which he is both chairman and founding partner.

To hear the saving-the-earth singsong of this dynamic duo, even the feather light petals of cherry blossoms in Washington leave a bigger carbon footprint.

It’s a strange global warming partnership that Strong and Gore have, but it’s one that’s working.

Strong is the silent partner, a man whose name often draws a blank in the

Washington cocktail circuit. Even though a former Secretary General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the much hyped Rio Earth Summit) and Under-Secretary General of the United Nations in the days of a beleaguered Kofi Annan, the Canadian born Strong is little known in the Unites States. That’s because he spends most of his time in China where he works to make the communist country the world’s next superpower. The nondescript Strong, nonetheless is big cheese in the world of climate change, and is one of the main architects of the coming-your-way-soon Kyoto Protocol.

As unemployment rises, Uncle Sam has jobs

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The economic downturn has forced private industry and state and local government to shed jobs, but one major employer in the country is hiring: The federal government.

While the nation’s 11 million unemployed and the millions more who fear losing their jobs may feel Washington should streamline too, economists say a strong federal work force is key to economic recovery. Were President Barack Obama to put any of the nearly 2 million federal civil servants out in the street in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the consequences could be dire.

“Federal belt-tightening would worsen the problem right now,” said Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “Most economists agree that the federal government is a built-in stabilizer,” said Hassett, a former adviser to GOP presidential campaigns.

Obama’s proposed $800-plus billion economic aid plan, which includes heavy spending on public works, is expected to increase the ranks of government workers, although mostly at the state and local level.

That measure is working its way through Congress just as Microsoft Corp., Pfizer, Caterpillar, Home Depot and scores of other companies are shedding workers, and governors are asking or ordering state workers to accept furloughs, salary reductions, truncated workweeks or reduced benefits.

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is taking responsibility for mistakes in the handling of the tax controversy that led to Tom Daschle’s withdrawal as President Barack Obama’s nominee to be health and human services secretary, saying: “I screwed up.”

The president did a series of back-to-back television interviews in which the subject of failed nominees was a top subject.

Obama told NBC “I’m frustrated with myself” for unintentionally sending a message that there are “two sets of rules” for paying taxes, “one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks.”

“I take responsibility for this mistake,” he told Fox News.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tom Daschle withdrew Tuesday as President Barack Obama’s nominee to be health and human services secretary, dealing potential blows to both speedy health care reform and Obama’s hopes for a smooth start in the White House.

“Now we must move forward,” Obama said in a written statement accepting “with sadness and regret” Daschle’s request to be removed from consideration. A day earlier, Obama had said he “absolutely” stood by Daschle in the face of problems over back taxes and potential conflicts of interest.

Obama economic plan now tops $900 billion

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The cost of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan is now above $900 billion after the Senate added money for medical research and tax breaks for car purchases.

It could go higher Wednesday if a tax break for homebuyers is made more generous, even as centrists in both parties promise to clear away spending items that won’t jump-start the economy right away.

In an interview on CNN, Obama signaled a willingness to drop items that “may not really stimulate the economy right now.” He also signaled he’ll try to remove “buy American” provisions in the legislation to avoid a possible trade war.

In a victory for auto manufacturers and dealers, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., won a 71-26 vote to allow most car buyers to claim an income tax deduction for sales taxes paid on new autos and interest payments on car loans. The break would cost $11 billion over the coming decade but could mean savings of $1,500 on a $25,000 car.

“Just as we need to get the housing market going, we need to get auto sales going,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

Wednesday’s session could produce even more generous savings for homebuyers.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., is pressing for a tax credit of up to $15,000 for everyone who buys a home this year, at a cost of $18.5 billion. The pending measure would award a $7,500 tax credit only to first-time homebuyers.

Wells Fargo defends, then cancels Vegas junket

By DANIEL WAGNER and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – It’s a tradition for Wells Fargo & Co. to reward top employees with a lavish junket. In previous years, though, the company hadn’t just received a $25 billion bailout from taxpayers.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Wells Fargo had booked 12 nights, beginning Friday, at the Wynn Las Vegas and the Encore Las Vegas.

“Let’s get this straight: These guys are going to Vegas to roll the dice on the taxpayer dime?” said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican who sits on the House Financial Services Committee. “They’re tone-deaf. It’s outrageous.”

The company initially defended the trip. But within hours, investigators and lawmakers on Capitol Hill had scorned the bank, and the company canceled.

Previous all-expense-paid trips for Wells Fargo have included helicopter rides, wine tasting, horseback riding in Puerto Rico and a private Jimmy Buffett concert in the Bahamas for more than 1,000 of the company’s top employees and guests.

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KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, rejected the company’s explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company’s “continuing quality deficiencies” and said KBR executives were “not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground.”

“Many within DOD (the Department of Defense) have lost or are losing all remaining confidence in KBR’s ability to successfully and repeatedly perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq,” wrote Graff, commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency, in a Sept. 30 letter.

Graff rejected the company’s claims that it wasn’t required to follow U.S. electrical codes for its work on U.S. military facilities in Iraq. KBR has said it would cost an extra $560 million to refurbish buildings in Iraq used by the U.S. military, including Saddam Hussein’s palaces, which among other problems are based on a 220-volt standard rather than the American 120-volt standard.

KBR announced last week it won a new $35.4 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers to design and build a convoy support center at Camp Adder in southern Iraq. It will include a power plant, electrical distribution center, water purification and distribution systems, wastewater and information systems and road paving.

Necessary to save jobs???

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – With the Senate moving toward a tenuous compromise on the White House’s economic stimulus plan, President Barack Obama hammered at the urgent need to pass a bill that will jump-start the struggling economy and put people back to work.

“Americans across this country are struggling, and they are watching to see if we’re equal to the task before us. Let’s show them that we are. And let’s do whatever it takes to keep the promise of America alive in our time,” Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Obama made an aggressive push for House and Senate lawmakers to work quickly to resolve their differences in an economic bill whose pricetag has swung from $720 billion upward toward a trillion dollars. The new president had hoped to sign economic legislation on his first day in office, but instead has spent his first three weeks in office wrangling with a reluctant Congress — including fellow Democrats — to heed his leadership.

Obama inched closer to a completed economic bill, as lawmakers sought to put their own stamp on the legislation. The House — without a single Republican vote — passed an $819 billion bill that gave many moderates pause for its size and scope.

Senate leaders went to work paring down that bill, working late into Friday to produce a $780 billion version. A vote on the measure could come as soon as Monday.

Most Republicans still looked at the bill skeptically, with only two publicly signing onto the proposal.

Sen. John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent in last November’s election, mocked the bill and said lawmakers could call it many things, “but ‘bipartisan’ is not one of them.”

Obama seeks grass-roots support for stimulus

By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will face a barrage of questions from ordinary Americans and skeptical reporters on his plans to reinvigorate the economy with a massive stimulus bill and additional billions in bailout money for the financial markets.

Two trips to cities hurting under the economic meltdown and a prime-time news conference are signs that Obama and his advisers are worried about a looming Senate vote on the stimulus bill, which failed to gather meaningful Republican support during rare weekend debate. The question-and-answer sessions will allow Obama to go directly to voters for grass-roots backing of his plans.

Both trips were added to Obama’s schedule as difficulties with the legislation on Capitol Hill increased. Originally, aides had insisted his time would be better spent in Washington to shepherd the bill rather than traveling the more traditional presidential route around the country, pressuring lawmakers from his bully pulpit.

The $827 billion Senate version of the plan was expected to pass the Senate on Tuesday. However, it must be reconciled with the House version, which totaled $820 billion in spending and tax cuts. With Senate and House negotiators preparing to deal, Obama is likely to push for a bill on his desk for his signature by mid-month.

Investors want US to share risk

By MATT APUZZO and STEVENSON JACOBS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Investors want the Obama administration to sweeten the deal before they agree to buy risky debt from U.S. banks as part of the government’s retooled program to rescue the ailing financial industry.

The administration is expected to announce Tuesday that the government’s latest bailout strategy will be enticing big investors to buy more than $1 trillion in troubled assets from the banks. The hope is that, free from the drag of subprime mortgage debt and other bad investments, banks will be more likely to start lending money again and the economy will rebound.

Treasury officials, briefing Congress on the plan Monday night, suggested two approaches that the administration was considering to deal with toxic assets, according to congressional staffers who spoke on condition of anonymity before the program was announced.

These aides said the government might provide guarantees for the bad assets to establish a floor on possible losses or perhaps provide low-cost financing through the Federal Reserve for investors willing to purchase the bad assets.

President Barack Obama, speaking at a prime time news conference Monday night, promised that his overhaul of the financial rescue program would bring”transparency and oversight” to the heavily criticized program.

Pass stimulus, don’t play games

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, urgently pressuring lawmakers to approve a massive economic recovery bill, turned his first news conference Monday night into a determined defense of his emergency plan and an offensive against Republicans who try to “play the usual political games.”

He said the recession has left the nation so weak that only the federal government can “jolt our economy back to life.” And he declared that failure to act swiftly and boldly “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”

“The party now is over,” he said.

Speedy passage of legislation to pump federal money into the crippled economy, once seemingly assured with bipartisan support, has become a much heavier lift and a major test of Obama’s young presidency. With more than 11 million Americans now out of work, Obama defended his program against Republican criticism that it is too big, loaded with pork-barrel spending and won’t create jobs.

“The plan is not perfect,” the president said. “No plan is. I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans.”

upstate NY kills 49 people

By JOHN WAWROW, Associated Press Writer

CLARENCE, N.Y. – A commuter plane “basically dove” into a house while coming in for a landing, sparking a fiery explosion that killed all 48 people on board and one person on the ground, an emergency official said Friday.

It was the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the U.S. in 2 1/2 years.

Witnesses heard the twin turboprop aircraft sputtering before it went down in light snow and fog around 10:20 p.m. Thursday. Flames silhouetted the shattered home after Continental Connection Flight 3407 plummeted into it around about five miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

“The whole sky was lit up orange,” said Bob Dworak, who lives less than a mile from the crash site. “All the sudden, there was a big bang, and the house shook.”

The 74-seat Q400 Bombardier aircraft, operated by Colgan Air, was flying from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and preparing to land at Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

Commerce secretary nominee

By LIZ SIDOTI and DAVID ESPO, Associated Press Writers Liz Sidoti And David Espo, Associated Press Writers –

WASHINGTON – Saying “I made a mistake,” Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire abruptly withdrew as commerce secretary nominee on Thursday and left the fledgling White House suddenly coping with Barack Obama’s third Cabinet withdrawal. Gregg cited “irresolvable conflicts” with Obama’s policies, specifically mentioning the $790 billion economic stimulus bill and 2010 census in a statement released without warning by his Senate office.

Later, at a news conference in the Capitol, he sounded more contrite.

“The president asked me to do it,” he said of the job offer. “I said, yes. That was my mistake.”

Obama offered a somewhat different account from Gregg.

“It comes as something of a surprise, because the truth, you know, Mr. Gregg approached us with interest and seemed enthusiastic,” Obama said in an interview with the Springfield (Ill.) Journal-Register.

Obama heads home for first time as president

——————————————————————————————

My thoughts By 4mainstreet

Is he going to be another one who lives in Air force one, and spending thousands of tax payers money on fuel jet setting around with the news media partying on the on the peoples money who are lucky if they can even go to the store and buy food. You know these People call them selves educated.

——————————————————————————————

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is getting away from Washington for a few days to his home in Chicago, leaving behind Cabinet headaches and a partisan divide over his economic stimulus package.

Obama was to make a Friday afternoon flight with his wife, Michelle, and daughters to his chilly hometown, his first return there since taking office. Aides said he planned a low-key, four-day holiday weekend, including a Valentine’s Day dinner on Saturday with his wife and a likely basketball game with friends.

I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight. ‘I’m glad I have a good book to read Perhaps I will get a short nap,’ I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came do wn the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation. ‘Where are you headed?’ I asked the soldier seated nearest to me.
‘Petawawa. We’ll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we’re being deployed to Afghanistan
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time..
As I reached for my wallet, I overheard soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. ‘No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn’t be worth five bucks. I’ll wait till we get to base ‘
His friend agreed.
I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. ‘Take a lunch to all those soldiers.’ She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. ‘My son was a soldier in Iraq ; it’s almost like you are doing it for him.’
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, ‘Which do you like best – beef or chicken?’

Congress strengthens exec pay limits!!!

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 14,

CHICAGO – President Barack Obama’s
economic team tried to keep Democratic allies negotiating the stimulus
bill from limiting paychecks for executives at banks in need of a
bailout. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic aide Lawrence Summers failed.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, inserted strict rules into the $787 billion economic stimulus package over the White House’s
objections. Dodd’s limits on bankers’ bonuses are significantly more
aggressive than those sought by Obama or Geithner in recent days, with
much fanfare.

Dodd, D-Conn., said the
restrictions — an executive making $1 million a year in salary could
receive only $500,000 in bonus money, for example — are necessary if
Obama plans to ask Congress for more money to save the financial sector.

“It
will never happen as long as the public perceives that there are people
getting rich,” Dodd said in an interview. “Save their pay or save
capitalism.”

That tone among Democrats flavored
much of the discussion about how to write the stimulus bill, which the
president could sign as early as Monday. Despite direct appeals from
Geithner, Summers and White House officials, Democrats didn’t budge,
according to administration officials.

Climate warming gases rising faster than expected

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer

CHICAGO – Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s, researchers warned Saturday.

Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate.

Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“It is now outside the entire envelope of possibilities” considered in the 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change, he said. The IPCC and former vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Prize for drawing attention to the dangers of climate change.

The largest factor in this increase is the widespread adoption of coal as an energy source, Field said, “and without aggressive attention societies will continue to focus on the energy sources that are cheapest, and that means coal.”

Americans’ Standard of Living Permanently Changed

Posted Feb 17, 2009 12:53pm EST by Aaron Task in Investing, Recession

There’s no question the American consumer is hurting in the face of a burst housing bubble, financial market meltdown and rising unemployment.

But “the worst is yet to come,” according to Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, who believes American’s standard of living is undergoing a “permanent change” – and not for the better as a result of:

• An $8 trillion negative wealth effect from declining home values.
• A $10 trillion negative wealth effect from weakened capital markets.
• A $14 trillion consumer debt load amid “exploding unemployment”, leading to “exploding bankruptcies.”

“The average American used to be able to borrow to buy a home, send their kids to a good school [and] buy a car,” Davidowitz says. “A lot of that is gone.”

Going forward, the veteran retail industry consultant foresees higher savings rate and people trading down in both the goods and services they buy – as well as their aspirations.

The end of rampant consumerism is ultimately a good thing, he says, but the unraveling of an economy built on debt-fueled spending will be painful for years to come.

To save millions from foreclosure

By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX – His massive stimulus plan now signed into law, President Barack Obama is turning to attack the home foreclosure crisis at the heart of the nation’s deepening economic woes.

His goal is to prevent millions of American families from losing their houses because they can’t make mortgage payments.

“We must stem the spread of foreclosures and falling home values for all Americans, and do everything we can to help responsible homeowner {My comment}( So if you lost your jobs you are no longer responsible, you can almost see the hand writing on the wall.) stay in their homes,” Obama said Tuesday as he signed his tax cut and spending package into law.

The ambitious plan he was announcing at a Phoenix high school Wednesday was expected to offer government cash to mortgage companies {My comment}(another bailout that Americans will be lucky to see) that reduce interest rates — and therefore monthly payments — for homeowners in danger of default, according to several people briefed on the plan. What remained unclear was how the government will decide who qualifies for relief.

If these Politicians were really trying to turn things around why are they JET SETTING all over this country????

By 4mainstreet

My opinion is, what happen to the weekly fire side chats, I guess that is not spending enough money. They seem to think that the Americans love to pay taxes to support their life styles.

Can you say how much money it takes to fly to all these town meeting and retreats, why do we even need Washington DC if they won’t stay there and do their jobs that they were elected to do.

They complain about corporations spending money on flying around wasting money from their companies, but these POLITICIANS are doing it on tax payer dollars.

Another thing lets talk about medical, why are we giving them 100% medical when they make 3 to 4 times more then the average American who does not have any medical at all, but they want us to pay for our own out of our pay that we get.

They get cost of living raises that the average American does not get, but if they do, it gets taken away in taxes.

Jobless hit with bank fees on benefits

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, AP Business Write

First, Arthur Santa-Maria called Bank of America to ask how to check the balance of his new unemployment benefits debit card. The bank charged him 50 cents.

He chose not to complain. That would have cost another 50 cents.

So he took out some of the money and then decided to pull out the rest. But that made two withdrawals on the same day, and that was $1.50.

For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there’s a new twist to their financial pain: Even when they’re collecting unemployment benefits, they’re paying the bank just to get the money — or even to call customer service to complain about it.

Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp, an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 — even though they could decline charges for more than what’s on the card.

“They’re trying to use my money to make money,” said Santa-Maria, a laid-off engineer who lives just outside Albuquerque, N.M. “I just see banks trying to make that 50 cents or a buck and a half when I should be given the service for free.”

GM unit Saab files for protection from creditors

By KARL RITTER, Associated Press Writer

STOCKHOLM – General Motors Corp.’s Swedish-based subsidiary Saab filed for bankruptcy protection Friday so it can be spun off or sold by its struggling U.S. parent, officials said.

The move comes after Sweden turned down GM’s request for government help for Saab.

An application to reorganize the Swedish-based unit was filed at a district court in Vanersborg, in southwestern Sweden, Saab spokeswoman Margareta Hogstrom said.

The Swedish government on Wednesday rejected a request from loss-making GM to inject money into the carmaker. GM, which is seeking help from the U.S. government to avoid bankruptcy at home, has been looking for buyers for Saab but said it needs more funding to spin off or sell the division.

“We explored and will continue to explore all available options for funding and/or selling Saab and it was determined a formal restructuring would be the best way to create a truly independent entity that is ready for investment,” Saab’s managing director, Jan Ake Jonsson, said in a statement.

The move would give Saab protection from creditors while it restructures in a process similar to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S.

See if you agree or disagree my self I think it is them!!!

If you think we the American people are are being lied to and are paying for more corporate greed, CLICK on page TRUTH or LIES

Freddie Mac investigates self over lobby campaign

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Lawyers hired by mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac are quietly investigating the firm’s own $2 million lobbying campaign, The Associated Press has learned. The lobbying effort helped quash proposed new regulations on the company before the housing market collapsed.

It was not immediately clear how much Freddie Mac is spending to investigate its own conduct or whether it is spending any federal bailout money on the internal probe. The firm was placed under U.S. government control due to its massive investment losses.

One of Washington’s leading law firms, Covington & Burling LLP, has spent more than a month interviewing current and former Freddie Mac employees and executives, according to three people familiar with the matter. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because they fear reprisals if they were identified. The inquiry is led by former Justice Department prosecutor Stephen Anthony, who specializes in corporate internal investigations.

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is bringing together dozens of advisers and adversaries to discuss how to curb a burgeoning federal deficit laden with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid obligations.

Obama’s summit at the White House on Monday is the first meeting toward a strategy to address the long-term fiscal health of the nation. The gathering also comes as Obama prepares ambitious plans to cut the federal deficit by half within four years.

“It will require doing all we can to get exploding deficits under control as our economy begins to recover,” Obama said in his weekend Internet and radio address. “That work begins on Monday, when I will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress to discuss how we can cut the trillion-dollar deficit that we’ve inherited.”

Even before it began, some of its 130 invited participants cautioned against overinflated expectations.

“It can either be a nice press event. Or it can be a substantive event,” said Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, whom Obama appointed as commerce secretary before the New Hampshire lawmaker balked. “History tells us it will be the first. We’ve had these meetings before. There’s always a lot of people willing to point out the problem.”

Gaza reconstruction aid to top $900M

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM – United States aid for the Gaza Strip’s reconstruction will likely top $900 million, an official said, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared to make her first Mideast trip as America’s top diplomat.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said Monday that Clinton will visit Israel and the West Bank during the first week of March. Clinton said during her Asia trip last week that she would attend an international donors conference in Egypt on March 2 to discuss reconstruction in Gaza.

She provided no other details, but a U.S. official in the United States said Monday that the Obama administration’s donation will be at least $900 million in humanitarian and rebuilding aid to the Palestinian Authority to help Gaza recover from Israel’s offensive against Hamas last month.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the donation had not received final approval, said the exact amount was still to be determined.

$410B spending bill

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON – House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year, setting up the second political struggle over federal funds in less than a month with Republicans.

The measure includes thousands of earmarks, the pet projects favored by lawmakers but often criticized by the public in opinion polls. There was no official total of the bill’s earmarks, which accounted for at least $3.8 billion.

The legislation, which includes an increase of roughly 8 percent over spending in the last fiscal year, is expected to clear the House later in the week.

Democrats defended the spending increases, saying they were needed to make up for cuts enacted in recent years or proposed a year ago by then-President George W. Bush in health, education, energy and other programs.

Republicans countered that the spending in the bill far outpaced inflation, and amounted to much higher increases when combined with spending in the stimulus legislation that President Barack Obama signed last week. In a letter to top Democratic leaders, the GOP leadership called for a spending freeze, a step they said would point toward a “new standard of fiscal discipline.”

Domestic spending atop stimulus.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – With one of their own in the White House, Democrats in Congress are moving to give domestic government agencies 8 percent more money, on average, to spend this year atop the whopping $787 billion in economic stimulus funds.

Just a day before President Barack Obama gives Congress a blueprint for the upcoming 2010 budget year, the House is taking up a massive $410 billion spending bill wrapping together the budgets for a dozen Cabinet departments through next September.

The big increases — including a 21 percent boost for a popular program that feeds infants and poor women and a 10 percent hike for Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor — represent a clear win for Democrats who spent most of the past decade battling with President George W. Bush over money for domestic programs.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group, counted 8,570 pet projects totaling $7.7 billion inserted into the bill by lawmakers. The so-called earmarks include $22 million for an addition for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, dozens of grants to states and counties to battle methamphetamine, and a new $250,000 siren for St. Paul, Minn., to warn residents of tornadoes and other emergencies.

Biden relatives linked to Stanford business!

WASHINGTON – Two members of Vice President Joe Biden’s family own the company that oversees an investment fund linked to Texas financier R. Allen Stanford.

Stanford is accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of engaging in an $8 billion fraud.

On Tuesday, the attorney for a son of the vice president, Hunter Biden, and for one of the vice president’s brothers, James, said that the business arrangements began in June 2007 and ended one week ago.

A fund of hedge funds controlled by the Bidens was marketed by companies controlled by Stanford. Stanford-related companies also invested $2.7 million from individual investors under the arrangement.

The Bidens’ lawyer, Marc LoPresti, said the $2.7 million has been set aside and made available to the receiver of Stanford’s enterprises.

LoPresti also said that “it’s entirely accurate” that no member of the Biden family has had any contact with anyone from the Stanford company.

Mass layoffs’ soared in January!

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON – Employers took a large ax to their payrolls in January, the government said Wednesday, and the cuts are likely to get worse over the next few months.

The Labor Department reported that mass layoffs, or job cuts of 50 or more by a single employer, increased to 2,227 in January, up almost 50 percent from the same month last year. More than 235,000 workers were fired in last month’s cuts.

January was a bad month for the labor market. Companies from a wide range of sectors announced tens of thousands of layoffs, including Home Depot Inc., Boeing Co., Pfizer Inc. and Caterpillar Inc.

Not all of those cuts were reflected in the government’s mass layoffs report, which counts actual firings as reported by laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits. Many of the layoffs announced in January will take place over time, meaning that the department’s mass layoff figures will likely keep increasing.

Big banks to deep recession test!

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. banking regulators on Wednesday launched a “stress test” program to assess larger banks’ ability cope with a deeper and longer-than-expected recession that sees the unemployment rate climbing above 10 percent next year.

The stress tests, mandatory for institutions with over $100 billion in assets, will be used partly to determine whether the banks need additional capital from a new U.S. Treasury program for government convertible preferred stock investments.

The new Treasury program will be placed alongside a previous program that has injected nearly $200 billion into banks since last October. Both will draw from remaining funds in the Treasury’s $700 billion financial rescue fund.

The stress tests, to be conducted by end of April by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, will measure banks against two economic scenarios — “baseline” and “more adverse.”

Spark fight in Congress!

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama sends his first budget proposals to Congress on Thursday bracing for fights over how best to heal the economy, create a new healthcare system and still cut out-of-control deficits.

Obama can take some comfort in knowing that his fellow Democrats in Congress — who control both chambers — most likely will not pronounce his budget “dead-on-arrival,” as has happened so many times to past presidents.

Even so, experts think that over the next several weeks, as lawmakers craft their own budget blueprint in response to Obama’s request, the popular new president could be in for his first real fight with Congress.

“It won’t be smooth sailing,” predicted Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which wants tough controls to bring down deficit spending and reform expensive programs like Social Security and the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly.

Obama, elected last November in part on a promise to foster fiscal responsibility, has seen Washington push through almost $1.5 trillion in emergency spending since October to fight a 14-month recession and a spreading global credit crisis.

By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON – U.S. House Judiciary Committee members, worried a federal judge could still receive his full salary even after pleading guilty this week in a sex crimes case, are looking at possible impeachment proceedings against the convicted jurist.

U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent pleaded guilty Monday to lying to investigators about sexually abusing his secretary in exchange for prosecutors dropping five sex-crime charges alleging he groped the secretary and his former case manager. Kent, the first federal judge charged with a sex crime, admitted the sexual contact was against the women’s will.

After the guilty plea, Kent’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, announced the judge was retiring, effective immediately.

But federal judges have to retire at 65 to collect their full salaries. Kent, who makes $169,300, is 59. The only way a younger judge could retire and still collect his salary would be to claim a disability, either mental or physical. A federal judge who resigns gets nothing.

Committee member James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said he is worried Kent will seek to retire because of a disability.

“If Judge Kent is allowed to retire on disability, that, I think, flies directly in the face of inspiring confidence in the federal court system,” said Sensenbrenner, who led the committee from 2001 to 2007. “If the disability is sexually harassing your employees, the outrage in my opinion gets worse.”

by Vera H-C Chan

A record-breaking stingray capture, by the numbers:

• 1 rod and line
• 90 minutes for one British biologist (with help) to reel in the freshwater fish
• 13 men to drag said fish onto a boat
• 125 pounds—that’s the difference between the stingray’s weight at 771 pounds and the previous record rod-&-reel capture of a catfish

The Thailand capture of the massive female stingray was part of a program to tag such Maeklong River residents. The captive, part of a “vulnerable species” listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, measured a hefty 7 feet by 7 feet. That doesn’t include the 10-foot-long poisonous tail.

Such creatures are dangerous, of course: Famed Australian TV personality Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin died from a stingray barb at the Great Barrier Reef in 2006.

The numbers currently put one Ian Welch on the world record books. (Pictures of Welch posing with his female companion can be found here.) The stingray’s resistance nearly dunked Welch into the river, and he was literally saved by the seat of his pants when a crewmate grabbed his trousers.

Another reason that this marine fish is so huge: She’s pregnant. (Cue soap-opera gasp.) After she had been towed to the bank (too big to be onboard the boat), she was duly marked, had DNA samples removed, and returned to the river whence she unwillingly came. Welch gave her a farewell smooch, then spent the rest of the day with a cold beer and memories of her.

By the way, one number isn’t known: the exact stingray population count, which has shrunk 20 percent in the past decade. With this lady’s help, at least one more will be added to this number…and with a tale to tell.

{ Here is where they will steal from social security and medicare to come up with the money, and say social security and medicare are going broke. Past Presidents have done the same thing and not pay it back.}

$1.75 trillion deficit this year?

By Caren Bohan and Jeff Mason Caren Bohan And Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will forecast a 2009 deficit of $1.75 trillion in a budget proposal on Thursday that sets goals of overhauling the healthcare system and shoring up the U.S. economy.

The huge deficit would represent 12.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product — the largest share since World War II.

Two senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the release of the 2010 budget at 11 a.m. EST, said Obama’s expensive policy goals would be offset by cuts to put the country in better fiscal shape.

Federal spending is skyrocketing as officials try to jolt the faltering economy with public-works spending and tax cuts and bail out the troubled financial industry.

Obama, a Democrat, has pledged to halve the more-than $1 trillion deficit he inherited from former Republican President George W. Bush in four years. The budget lays out spending cuts in agriculture subsidies and other areas to meet that goal.

But spending would increase to meet key objectives. The budget sets aside $250 billion as a “placeholder” if Obama decides to ask Congress for more money to help the troubled U.S. financial system. No such decision has been made yet, officials said.

Truth of it all

By 4mainstreet

I quite smoking after open heart surgery, well after a year my doctors told me to go back smoking because they could not control my weight, with in that year I went from 240 lbs which I weighed for 40 years to 450 lbs and and still going up, they said that is not healthy so go back to smoking and that turned things around I am now down to 400 lbs. So now you want them to tax the hell on cigarettes, I will be not able to afford them and that will be my death warrant, and many others. so I hope you are all happy now that you got you way.

To all you non smoking hypocrites who are trying to push your will just like the atheist who want every thing their way no matter what the cost.
Well when the Government and your self find out they have to raise taxes to pay for the loss, you will be screaming why, YOU will all get every thing  you deserve.
When you all push you children on to drugs because you want every thing your way YOU will have no body to blame but your self. Which do you want, them to smoke cigarettes or turn to drugs, but I guess you are not that smart.
Ok you raise taxes on cigarette to get people to quite smoking, how about raising the tax on alcohol as much as they do on cigarettes, then you will cut down on the number of DUI’s, and maybe more people will make to work every day and stop blaming it on cigarettes, you don’t want that, you fight it every time they try, why? because you are all addicted to alcohol and can’t live with out it.
Just think  how much the Government would be making on Taxes of
all that alochol that they have at all their parties and sporting event that they put on, taxes on cigarette would look like pennys compaired to the taxes they would get on the alochol.
The more taxes they put on cigarettes the less they get because more people stop buying, so what have they to gain, NOTHING.
Why don’t they put a $.50 cent per bottle tax above the tax that they have now on all alcoholic beverages.

Fastest pace in 26 years!!!

Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, as consumers and businesses ratcheted back spending, plunging the country deeper into recession.

The Commerce Department report released Friday showed the economy sinking much faster than the 3.8 percent annualized drop for the October-December quarter first estimated last month. It also was considerably weaker than the 5.4 percent annualized decline economists expected.

A much sharper cutback in consumer spending — which accounts for about two-thirds of economic activity — along with a bigger drop in U.S. exports sales, and reductions in business spending and inventories all contributed to the large downgrade.

Looking ahead, economists predict consumers and businesses will keep cutting back spending, making the first six months of this year especially rocky.

“Right now we’re in the period of maximum recession stress, where the big cuts are being made,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

On Wall Street, stocks slid as investors second-guessed Citigroup Inc.’s plans to turn over a bigger piece of itself to the government in a move designed to keep the banking giant alive and bolster its capital in the face of growing losses amid the global recession. The Dow Jones industrials lost about 50 points in morning trading.

John Bresnahan John Bresnahan

Nancy Pelosi repeatedly stood to applaud Barack Obama when he addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. But in the days since, the speaker of the House has been standing up for herself  — distancing herself from the president on Iraq, on tax cuts and on the prosecution of former Bush administration officials.

Pelosi’s aides say the speaker was comfortable playing the role of Obama’s shield during the stimulus fight — Republicans teed off on her rather than on the immensely popular new president — and that she remains strongly supportive of the administration on health care, energy and education reform.

But on Iraq and other high-profile issues that matter to her, aides say Pelosi has no intention of holding her tongue when she thinks Obama is wrong.

And she’s not alone.

While Newt Gingrich complained that Tuesday’s night unofficial State of the Union looked like a “Democratic pep rally,” the aftermath has looked more like a sibling rivalry.

On Wednesday morning, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) — the longest-serving member of the Senate — accused Obama of trying to steal power from Congress by appointing White House “czars” to handle issues that would otherwise be handled by departments subject to congressional oversight.

Charge drivers by the mile!

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Raise federal gasoline taxes to help pay for road projects?

Not during a recession, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said.

Then how about moving toward a system that finances highway construction by charging motorists by the mile?

When LaHood suggested last week that be considered among other potential financing schemes, he got bushwhacked by the White House. “It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration,” the president’s press secretary said.

With the administration’s position seemingly clear, a special commission created by Congress is nonetheless endorsing those two ideas.

Its report Thursday warns that if government fails to find a new way to raise money, “we will suffer grim consequences in the future: unimaginable levels of congestion, reduced safety, costlier goods and services, an eroded quality of life, and diminished economic competitiveness as a nation.”

The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission says the current 18.4 cents a gallon gas tax and 24.4 cents a gallon diesel tax are not raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of highway, bridge and transit projects. The commission proposes lifting the gasoline tax by 10 cents per gallon and the diesel tax by 15 cents per gallon, and adjusting both for inflation.

Dies at age of 90!!

By RUPA SHENOY, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO – Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer whose staccato style made him one of the nation’s most familiar voices, died Saturday in Arizona, according to ABC Radio Networks. He was 90.

Harvey died surrounded by family at a hospital in Phoenix, where he had a winter home, said Louis Adams, a spokesman for ABC Radio Networks, where Harvey worked for more than 50 years. No cause of death was immediately available.

Harvey had been forced off the air for several months in 2001 because of a virus that weakened a vocal cord. But he returned to work in Chicago and was still active as he passed his 90th birthday. His death comes less than a year after that of his wife and longtime producer, Lynne.

“My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news,” Paul Harvey Jr. said in a statement. “So in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents and today millions have lost a friend.”

Known for his resonant voice and trademark delivery of “The Rest of the Story,” Harvey had been heard nationally since 1951, when he began his “News and Comment” for ABC Radio Networks.

New aid package to AIG

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON – The government on Monday unveiled a revamped rescue package to insurance giant American International Group and will provide the troubled company another $30 billion on an “as needed” basis.

The new package comes as the company has burned through cash and has been unable to find buyers for pieces of its company that it hoped to sell to repay the government on its existing aid package, which totals some $150 billion.

Under the new package, the Federal Reserve will take stakes in two international units.

Instead of paying back $38 billion in cash with interest that it has used from a Federal Reserve credit line, AIG now will repay that amount with equity stakes in Asia-based American International Assurance Co. and American Life Insurance Co., which operates in 50 countries.

It marked the fourth time the government has stepped in to help AIG. Its inital lifeline came in September. The action was announced jointly early Monday by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.

The new package is designed to enhance the company’s capital and liquidity to facilitate the “orderly completion of the company’s global divestiture program,” the agencies said.

Power Media

By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer

Over the years, Power Media never worried about marketing itself; referrals did all the work. But in a weakened economy, the owner has had to step up his game.

Since starting his company 1997, Jon Erisey has been content to coast on referrals, happy to grow just as much as he needed to support the clients that happened his way.

But something funny happened on the way through the decade.

Power Media’s loyal customers stayed as new ones found him. His staff slowly grew from two to eight. Bit by bit, there was new equipment. Then a new building.

And then, recession.

Erisey admits it’s a little ironic that his company, whose products help other businesses market their products and services, had never really done anything to promote itself.

The economy has changed that. The fate of employees who also are friends has changed that. Pride in Akron and the desire to be part of the city’s economic success has changed that.

”We haven’t marketed ourselves and it’s catching up to us,” he admitted. ”It’s starting to sting.”

Now, as most small businesses these days, Power Media is focused on survival.

A couple of months ago, the company launched its first Web site. Erisey chuckles that for several years, the site simply stated that content was ”Coming soon.”

Budget plan

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is sending his Treasury secretary and budget director to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to defend his proposed tax increases, which are being met with misgivings by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Lawmakers in both parties question Obama’s call to reduce high-income earners’ tax deductions for the interest on their house payments and for charitable contributions. Also drawing fire is his proposal to start taxing industries on their greenhouse gas pollution — a move sure to raise consumers’ electric rates.

[Here are  these poor rich people who think that they should not have to pay the same taxes that the poor people have to pay, they think they should have more tax deductions then the average tax payers get, you make it you pay it, (that is what the poor people are told) and not hide it in a foreign bank.]

Obama and his top aides have been promoting the budget package since unveiling an outline last week, but Tuesday will provide the lawmakers their first opportunity to publicly question top officials about the details.

Administration officials say the nation’s economic crisis requires bold action to right the economy and expand access to health care while providing tax breaks to middle- and low-income families.

By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Offshore tax havens used by rich Americans in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and other nations are targeted for shutdown by bills offered on Monday by Democrats in both chambers of the Congress.

The Senate bill expands on one co-sponsored last year by then-Senator Barack Obama and Senator Carl Levin, who has sought a broad crackdown on tax dodgers estimated to deprive the U.S. government of more than $100 billion a year.

A thriving business in tax evasion developed in recent years on Wall Street among consulting firms, hedge funds and other elite financial players. Some purveyors even sought patent protection for their off-the-shelf schemes.

The Levin bill would ban patenting of tax avoidance plans, target dozens of offshore “secrecy jurisdictions” for attention, and put a greater burden on taxpayers to show that their tax arrangements are legitimate.

“Offshore tax haven and tax shelter abuses are undermining the integrity of our tax system,” said Levin, of Michigan, in a statement. “We cannot tolerate $100 billion in offshore tax abuses burning a hole through our budget each year.

“We can fight back against secrecy jurisdictions and shut down offshore tax abuses if we have the political will.”

Three provisions have been added since last year to the Levin bill. One would classify U.S.-controlled foreign corporations as domestic for income tax purposes. Another would close an offshore tax dividend loophole that lets people dodge payment of U.S. taxes on U.S. stock dividends.

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s proposal to limit itemized tax deductions for high earners is running into opposition from key Democrats in Congress who worry that charities and the housing market would be hurt. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus questioned Wednesday whether the proposal was viable, a day after his House counterpart also expressed reservations.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said tax increases on families making more than $250,000 a year are necessary to make a down payment on health care reform and to limit future budget deficits. But, he said, he was willing to work with lawmakers on proposals they objected to.

“We recognize there are other ways to do this,” Geithner told the Finance Committee.

Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said he thought the administration would be flexible on the proposal. “They want health care reform as much as I do,” he told reporters.

Geithner and White House budget director Peter Orszag returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a second day of hearings on Obama’s $3.6 trillion tax and spending proposal. Both faced tough questions about the tax package.

Obama’s budget calls for setting aside $634 billion over the next 10 years as a down payment on health care reform. Half the money would come from tax increases on upper-income earners; the other half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Choice for deputy withdraws

By DANIEL WAGNER, AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON – The person Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wanted as his chief deputy withdrew from consideration Thursday, dealing a setback to the understaffed agency as it struggles to address the worst financial crisis in decades.

Annette Nazareth, a former senior staffer and commissioner with the Securities and Exchange Commission, made “a personal decision” to withdraw from the process, according to a person familiar with her decision.

The decision followed more than a month of intense scrutiny of her taxes and multiple interviews. No tax problems or other issues arose during Nazareth’s vetting, said the person, who requested anonymity because Geithner’s choice of Nazareth was never announced officially.

“She did put a great deal of consideration into the potential of taking the position, and she concluded that she really enjoys what she’s doing now,” this person said.

Though popular in policy circles, Nazareth has drawn criticism for her role in creating what some considered to be lax oversight of the banking industry.

Nazareth, 53, a partner at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, could not be reached for comment. Treasury and White House officials said they would not comment.

Geithner has been criticized for staffing his department too slowly as it grapples with a banking crisis that has crippled the economy. Uncertainty about Treasury staff also has unnerved financial markets.

Five weeks into his tenure, he has yet to name a single top deputy or assistant secretary. This has left Treasury with too few people authorized to make decisions or represent the department in meetings with stakeholders.

On omnibus spending bill

WASHINGTON – The Senate has put off until next week a final vote on a $410 billion catchall spending bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he is one vote short of the 60 votes needed to advance the measure. The Nevada Democrat has now decided to allow Republicans more opportunities to change it next Monday.

Reid said Thursday night that both the House and the Senate will now have to pass a stopgap spending bill by Friday night. That’s when funds already approved for the government run out.

Republicans say the sprawling bill is too costly and loaded down with thousands of pet projects.

Those so-called “earmarks” have drawn the ire of conservatives who equate pet projects with wasteful, unnecessary spending — even though many Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers seek them out.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate appeared poised Thursday to send President Barack Obama a huge spending bill that awards big increases to domestic programs and is stuffed with pet projects sought by lawmakers in both parties.

After some nervous moments, Democratic leaders seemed increasingly confident they would attract enough GOP votes to clear a critical 60-vote procedural hurdle and pass the sprawling measure Thursday night.

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain deployed heavy sarcasm. Fellow Republican Marsha Blackburn trotted out a chart. A group of conservative House Republicans mocked: “‘Deficit we inherited?’ … Spare us the false outrage.” The war between Republicans and Democrats to frame the blame for the economy erupted in earnest this week.

Republicans pushed back against President Barack Obama’s claim — echoed relentlessly by his Cabinet members and Democrats in Congress — that he didn’t cause the mess and shouldn’t be judged yet on obligating taxpayers for a trillion dollars trying to fix it.

Just how long Democrats can credibly argue that they’re merely responding to — and not responsible for — a crisis created under Republican predecessors depends on which political and economic fortune tellers are doing the predicting.

“Not for too much longer,” says Stanley Renshon, a professor of political psychology at the City University of New York. “People are distracted by the sideshow only for so long, especially when the evidence is all around them. Every day brings a new cash infusion for a new industry, and the stocks drop.”

Polls show that voters are taking a wait-and-see posture toward the blur of legislation flowing between the White House and Congress, from the bailout money to a $410 billion spending bill that includes funding for thousands of lawmakers’ pet projects.

The TelePrompter

If this guy is so qualified why does he need a teleprompter every where he go’s. Maybe he is not running this country, some one else is and telling him what to do.

Carol E. Lee

President Barack Obama doesn’t go anywhere without his TelePrompter.

The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.

Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House’s stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks.

Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer and Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches, reports surfaced that he was training to wean himself off of the device while on vacation in Hawaii. But no such luck.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face. And it is a startling sight to see such sleek, modern technology set against the mahogany doors and Bohemian crystal chandeliers in the East Room or the marble columns of the Grand Foyer.

Here we go again March 8 don’t for get to lose an hour of daylight, I wish they would take this daylight saving time and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

Well here we go again the push that every one should look the same, don’t these idiots know that no body is or will be the same. If this was the norm,  football players, and weight lifters, would be in the hospital every time they got hit or tried to lift weights, are they going to tell basketball players that they are to tall, when are they going to stop dicktating their will on evey one else.

Study finds belly fat makes breathing harder

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Carrying excess weight around the middle can impair lung function, adding to a long list of health problems associated with belly fat, French researchers said on Friday.

Abdominal obesity is already linked with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease as part of a cluster of health problems known collectively as metabolic syndrome.

Researchers have now shown that a large waist measurement is strongly associated with decreased lung function, regardless of other complicating factors that affect the lungs such as overall obesity and smoking.

The researchers analyzed health information about 120,000 people in France, assessing demographic background, smoking history, alcohol consumption, as well as lung function with respect to a measure of obesity known as body mass index, waist circumference and other measures of metabolic health.

“We found a positive independent relationship between lung function impairment and metabolic syndrome due mainly to abdominal obesity,” Dr. Natalie Leone of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research wrote in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The researchers defined abdominal obesity as having a waist circumference of greater than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men.

Ever wonder why this Government is so expensive, well you are paying double the people to do the same job, because the Government pays private contractors to do the same thing you are paying the government to do. So who wins and who loses the taxpayer, so why do we need all that Government if they privatize all the jobs!!!!!!

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – So much for privatizing the federal government.

The Internal Revenue Service’s decision this week to quit using debt collectors to dun delinquent taxpayers was celebrated by public employee unions as a pendulum shift after watching the Bush administration often opt for private contractors over federal workers to deliver government services.

The IRS program was a small one, bringing in a little more than $80 million since its inception in 2006. But it represented an ideological toehold for conservatives who believe that private companies are more efficient than government agencies.

It was an ideology embraced by former President George W. Bush, who famously — and unsuccessfully — toyed with the idea of partially privatizing Social Security.

Privatization won’t disappear. It’s too widespread in a federal government that relies on private contractors for work as diverse as computer programming and providing security in Iraq. But with a new Democratic administration in charge, experts don’t expect to hear much about privatizing government functions from President Barack Obama.

“I think we’re going to see a reversal of privatization,” said Harvey B. Feigenbaum, a political science professor at George Washington University. “When contracts come up for renewal, they will see if it would be better for the public sector to do the work.”

You could say the Government is doing that to the tax payer, taking from all Americans under the premise of to keep this country running just to give it to give to the wealthy.

Follow the Yachts

By ROBERT CHEW

With so many Ponzis and so little time to know if you’ve been hoodwinked, there are some red flags even the most trusting investors can bank on: yachts, mansions, jets and women. If your investment adviser is dabbling in any of the above, there’s a good chance you’ve been “Ponzi-ed” or are about to be.

Creating the illusion of fantastic success, of course, is chapter one in the Scammer’s Handbook. But many, like R. Allen Stanford and Bernie Madoff, among the most egregious alleged billionaire bamboozlers, are taking the art of thievery to the next level. Some don’t even bother opening an investor account when new monies come in, they just go shopping. It’s enough to make Gordon “Greed is Good” Gecko blush. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

Take Stephen Walsh and Paul Greenwood, operators of Westridge Capital Management, with $1.3 billion in assets, who last week were charged by The Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly “misappropriating” at least $553 million for either personal expenses or to cover trading losses. The CFTC is the sister agency of the Securities and Exchange Commission and covers fraud in the commodities, futures, and foreign exchange markets. (See pictures of the demise of Bernard Madoff.)

The charge alleges Walsh and Greenwood gave themselves $8.2 million in employee “advances” and another whopping $160 million for personal expenses. The complaint detailed funds being used for buying rare books at auction, purchasing expensive horses, laying down $80,000 for a Steiff Teddy Bear and providing the ex-Mrs. Walsh with a $3 million residence.

Also last week, North Hills Management, a New York-based $40 million investment fund run by Mark Evan Bloom was charged by the same agency for “misappropriating for personal use” over $13 million from its clients’ fund. (See the top 10 financial-crisis buzzwords.)

I a time of crices you can see who is not practiceing what they preach, they don’t need a pay increase they need a pay cut, if the Americans have to take a cut so do they.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Andrew Taylor, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress would lose their annual cost-of-living pay raises under a proposal that’s headed for a vote in the Senate next week.

The move, by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., would require Congress to vote itself pay raises rather than get them automatically under a two-decades-old ethics bill that gave the annual raises, known as a cost-of-living adjustment or COLA, but required lawmakers to give up paid speeches called honoraria.

Vitter, who faces a potentially difficult re-election next year, has seized a potent issue with voters. But he’s not winning any popularity contests with his colleagues.

“In this tough economy when many people are making sacrifices, it’s time that the Congress quit … trying to quietly give itself a raise,” Vitter said in a statement.

His move has put congressional leaders, who generally support the system, in a difficult spot. If he’s successful, a pay system that has had solid backing from leaders in both parties — GOP icon Newt Gingrich was a key supporter back in 1989 — will be in shambles.

Most members support the pay raise as a means of retaining experienced lawmakers and of making sure that Congress is not simply dominated by wealthy people. Many lawmakers maintain homes both in the expensive Washington housing market and back in their districts. On most days, they meet with lobbyists making far more than they do.

Lawmakers have already opted against taking the raise that they’re due next Jan. 1 — the first day of an election year — adding language to an omnibus spending bill pending in the Senate to turn off the COLA for 2010. Vitter’s amendment would turn it off permanently, but is expected to be defeated on a bipartisan vote.

Lawmakers are going ahead and pocketing the $5,000 salary increase they got at the beginning of this year to raise their salaries to $174,000.

US should reach out to Taliban moderates

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says he hopes U.S. troops can identify moderate elements of the Taliban and move them toward reconciliation.

Asked in an interview with The New York Times if the United States is winning in Afghanistan, Obama said “no,” while adding “our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult situation.”

“But you’ve seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of years. The Taliban is bolder than it was. I think … in the southern regions of the country, you’re seeing them attack in ways that we have not seen previously,” Obama said in the interview, which was posted Saturday on the Times’ Web site.

“The national government still has not gained the confidence of the Afghan people,” he said. “And so it’s going to be critical for us to not only, get through these national elections to stabilize the security situation, but we’ve got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al-Qaida and extremists that would do us harm don’t have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate.”

There may be opportunities to reach out to moderates in the Taliban, but the situation in Afghanistan is more complicated than the challenges the American military faced in Iraq, Obama said.

U.S. troops were able to persuade Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq to cooperate in some instances because they had been alienated by the tactics of al-Qaida terrorists.

Obama cautioned that Afghanistan is a less-governed region with a history of fierce independence among tribes, creating a tough set of circumstances for the United States to deal with.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has chosen three people to join the senior ranks of the Treasury Department, where a slow pace of hiring has put the agency on the defensive.

The White House on Sunday said Obama is nominating David S. Cohen to be assistant secretary in dealing with terrorist financing; Alan B. Krueger for assistant secretary for economic policy; and Kim N. Wallace as assistant secretary for legislative affairs.

Each nominee is already serving as a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. All three are now subject to Senate confirmation.

As the government tries to help the nation climb out of recession and deep, crippling troubles in its banking sector, the Treasury Department is playing a vital management role.

Yet Geithner has been criticized for getting his department up to full staff too slowly, with few people authorized to make decisions or represent the agency in outside meetings.

Geithner says Treasury is moving carefully to get the best people in place. The agency says there are no delays or concerns over the vetting process.

How will we know?

By ALAN ZIBEL, CHRISTOPHER LEONARD and TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writers Alan Zibel, Christopher Leonard And Tim Paradis, Ap Business Writers

When will this wretched economy bottom out? The recession is already in its 15th month, making it longer than all but two downturns since World War II. For now, everything seems to be getting worse: The Dow is in free fall, jobs are vanishing every day, and one in eight American homeowners is in foreclosure or behind on payments.

But the economy always recovers. It runs in cycles, and economists are watching an array of statistics, some of them buried deep beneath the headlines, to spot the turning point. The Associated Press examined three markets — housing, jobs and stocks — and asked experts where things stand and how to know when they’ve hit bottom.

None of them expects it to come anytime soon.

JOBS

HOW BAD IS IT?: The U.S. unemployment rate hit 8.1 percent in February, a 25-year peak. The nation has lost 4.4 million jobs since the recession began in late 2007.

The job cuts began early last year, as the housing and construction industries slowed down. The collapse of the financial industry in the fall battered white-collar workers. Soon, layoffs spread across industries and income levels.

HOW MUCH WORSE COULD IT GET? The darkest days for the job market are almost certainly still ahead. With spending weak and credit markets stalled, experts think the economy will probably shed a total of 2.4 million jobs this year. That would mean an unemployment rate above 9 percent.

That would easily surpass the 2001 and 1990-91 recessions but trail the 10.8 percent rate of December 1982. Those expectations could be optimistic: The government’s “stress tests” to check the strength of banks’ balance sheets assume a 10.3 percent rate.

The job market will probably be weak for years, even if the economy starts to turn around next year. The unemployment rate may not fall back to its pre-recession level of 5 percent until 2013, according to Moody’s Economy.com.

I told my wife last year when the housing bubble burst that this was ging to happen, well the people with all the money (or vultures) were causing this so they could come in and profit.

On one of my web sitesGLOBAL WARMING HOAX, I have a video that says just what is happening that this artical is about.

Outside buyers drawn to Detroit’s foreclosed homes!

By JEFF KAROUB and COREY WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writers

DETROIT – Welcome to Landlord Nation, where foreclosure notices are plentiful and for-sale signs offer at least 1,800 homes for under $10,000 that once were worth at least 10 times more.

In extreme cases, homes are on sale for $1 or less, which has enticed investors to Detroit from as far away as the United Kingdom and Australia.

“In the past few months, I’ve picked up 10 new clients from out of state that are buying in bulk,” said Mike Shannon, a suburban Detroit real estate agent. His office specializes in foreclosures in a city that’s among the national leaders.

“They’re coming to us, saying `Look, I want to buy 50, 100, 1,000.’ They want to own every decent and cheap house they can find.”

Despite a stagnant retail housing market, real estate sales of foreclosed homes are booming. Shannon regularly fields calls from eager prospects, and recently sold 30 homes in one day to one buyer. A trio of U.K. investors has bought a half-dozen and plans many more.

“I thought it would be quite good fun to have a look,” said Darren Veness, who lives near Brighton, England.

By Jonathan Stempel

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Additional reporting by Lilla Zuill; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and John Wallace

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Warren Buffett said on Monday the U.S. economy had “fallen off a cliff” but would eventually recover, although a rebound could kindle inflation worse than that experienced in the late 1970s.

Speaking on CNBC television, the 78-year-old billionaire investor also said the economy was mere hours away from collapse last September when credit markets seized up, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc went bankrupt and insurer American International Group Inc got its first bailout. “The world almost did come to a stop,” he said.

Buffett spoke nine days after telling shareholders of his insurance and investment company Berkshire Hathaway Inc that the economy was in a “shambles” likely to persist beyond 2009.

On Monday, he said the country still faces an “economic Pearl Harbor,” experiencing a “close to the worst-case” scenario of falling business activity and rising unemployment.

He called on Democrats and Republican policymakers to set aside partisan differences and unite under the leadership of President Barack Obama to restore confidence in the banking system, fix the economy and communicate their efforts better.

“People are confused and scared,” he said. “People can’t be worried about banks, and a lot of them are.”

Buffett said Americans, including himself, did not predict the severity of home price declines, which led to problems with securitizations and other debt whose value depended on home prices continuing to rise, or at least not plummet.

“It was like some kids saying the emperor has no clothes, and then after he says that, he says now that the emperor doesn’t have any underwear either,” Buffett said.

What is your opinion of all this pork, leave A comment

I am going to air my comlaint with out mincing words this time, this Government does not care one little bit about the American people.

This so called Government is more worried about peddeling pork and shit, then they are about what this country is going through, and every one of them should have their wages taken away until this country is back on it’s feet.

Any body who moves in to an area that has been there before any body moved there has no room to complain, and the courts should tell tell these people to move if you don’t like it, and shut your mouth, they were there before you.

Also check out pages Obama page 1 & 2

Lawmakers defend attacks against pet projects

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Andrew Taylor, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The idea of devoting $1.8 million to research controlling the smell of pig dung stinks to high heaven to opponents of Congress’ proclivity for pork-barrel projects.

“Pigs stink. We know why,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. “We know where they live. So is that a priority right now?”

Spending $380,000 in the middle of a severe recession to fix up lighthouses in Maine doesn’t smell a lot better to Coburn and few other Republicans who day after day attack the 8,000 pet projects lawmakers have put into a bill setting a good part of the government’s agenda for the next six months.

What’s new is that more and more lawmakers are standing up to defend their earmarks as vital for people back home. Barack Obama promised during his presidential campaign to curb the practice and demanded that last month’s $787 billion stimulus bill contain “not a single pet project.”

“In farm country, manure and odor management are profoundly serious challenges that can be mitigated through scientific research,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said in a Senate speech last week. His defense of swine odor research and a $5.7 million earmark for school construction in Iowa covers four pages in the Congressional Record.

Obama still has the approval of the people, but the establishment is beginning to mumble that the president may not have what it takes.

LIVING POLITICS  Howard Fineman

Surfer that he is, President Obama should know a riptide when he’s in one. The center usually is the safest, most productive place in politics, but perhaps not now, not in a once-in-a-century economic crisis.

Swimming in the middle, he’s denounced as a socialist by conservatives, criticized as a polite accommodationist by government-is-the-answer liberals, and increasingly, dismissed as being in over his head by technocrats.

Luckily for Obama, the public still likes and trusts him, at least judging by the latest polls, including NEWSWEEK’s.But, in ways both large and small, what’s left of the American establishment is taking his measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking.

They have some reasons to be concerned. I trace them to a central trait of the president’s character: he’s not really an in-your-face guy. By recent standards—and that includes Bill Clinton as well as George Bush—Obama for the most part is seeking to govern from the left, looking to solidify and rely on his own party more than woo Republicans. And yet he is by temperament judicious, even judicial. He’d have made a fine judge. But we don’t need a judge. We need a blunt-spoken coach.

Obama may be mistaking motion for progress, calling signals for a game plan. A busy, industrious overachiever, he likes to check off boxes on a long to-do list. A genial, amenable guy, he likes to appeal to every constituency, or at least not write off any. A beau ideal of Harvard Law, he can’t wait to tackle extra-credit answers on the exam.

This guy has been lying to the American people from day one and no body would listen, and the news media is no better.

Push for new rules

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to sign a massive spending bill to keep the federal government running, even though it is stashed with the very kinds of pet projects that the campaigning Obama promised to resist.

Obama could sign the $410 billion spending package as early as Wednesday, although he remains “troubled” by the so-called earmarks in the bill that Republicans and moderate Democrats have assailed as unworthy pork-barrel spending. The president planned to use the signing ceremony to announce earmark reforms.

White House officials in recent weeks have dismissed criticism of the earmarks in the bill, saying the legislation was a remnant of last year and that the president planned to turn his attention to future spending instead of looking backward.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama wouldn’t be the first president to sign legislation that he viewed as less than ideal. Asked whether Obama had second thoughts about signing the bill, Gibbs’ reply was curt: “No.”

“This is necessary to continue funding government,” Gibbs said. “It represents last year’s business. Although it’s not perfect, the president will sign the legislation, but demonstrate for all involved rules moving forward that he thinks can make this process work a little bit better.”

It’s that process that administration official planned to focus on Wednesday, not a bill signing that might take place in private. Aides said the administration would move to introduce new “rules of the road” that could allow Obama greater sway over lawmakers, particularly on politically embarrassing spending that generated mockery from pundits and rival politicians.

Spending bill

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Acknowledging it’s an “imperfect” bill, President Barack Obama said Wednesday he will accept a $410 billion spending package that includes billions in earmarks like those he promised to curb in last year’s campaign. But he insisted the bill must signal an “end to the old way of doing business.”

The massive measure funding federal agencies through the fall contains nearly 8,000 pet projects, known as earmarks and denounced by critics as pork.

Obama defended earmarks when they’re “done right,” allowing lawmakers to direct money to worthy projects in their districts. But he said they’ve been abused, and he promised to work with Congress to curb them.

“I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it’s necessary for the ongoing functions of government,” Obama declared. “But I also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change.”

In a sign of his discomfort with the bill, Obama planned to sign the bill quietly rather than in public. He declined to answer a shouted reporters’ question about why.

Running for president, Obama denounced the many pet projects as wasteful and open to abuse — and vowed to rein them in.

Explaining his decision, Obama said that future earmarks must have a “legitimate and worthy public purpose”, and the any earmark for a private company should be subject to competitive bidding rules. Plus he said he’ll “work with Congress” to eliminate any the administration objects to.

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – If the global economy were a 100-yard dash, the U.S. would start 23 yards behind its closest competitors because of health care that costs too much and delivers too little, a business group says in a report to be released Thursday.

The report from the Business Roundtable, which represents CEOs of major companies, says America’s health care system has become a liability in a global economy.

Concern about high U.S. costs has existed for years, and business executives — whose companies provide health coverage for workers — have long called for getting costs under control. Now President Barack Obama says the costs have become unsustainable and the system must be overhauled.

Americans spend $2.4 trillion a year on health care. The Business Roundtable report says Americans in 2006 spent $1,928 per capita on health care, at least two-and-a-half times more per person than any other advanced country.

In a different twist, the report took those costs and factored benefits into the equation.

It compares statistics on life expectancy, death rates and even cholesterol readings and blood pressures. The health measures are factored together with costs into a 100-point “value” scale. That hasn’t been done before, the authors said.

The results are not encouraging.

Jen DiMascio

After years as the compliant neighbor to the south — coping with the Bush administration’s benign neglect despite rampant illegal immigration and drug trafficking — Mexico is emerging as a focus of concern for the Obama administration because of recent surges in drug-fueled violence, cross-border weapons trafficking, gruesome beheadings and other signs of unrest and corruption.

Drug wars claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people last year — many in the border cities of Tijuana and Juarez — prompting President Barack Obama and nearly all of his intelligence and security agencies to launch reviews of the situation.

Last week, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Mexico to see how the U.S. military could help, and Congress has been holding hearings on the matter all week long. The National Security Council is bringing together numerous other agencies for a series of meetings to consider the best approaches for aiding Mexico and preventing the violence there from spilling over the border.

The high-level attention underscores mounting concern in the United States that drug violence, exacerbated by the global financial crisis, could morph into political and social instability in Mexico, which shares a porous, 1,970-mile border with the United States. The biggest challenges, analysts say, will be coordinating a strategy among U.S. agencies — especially when the administration is already grappling with a number of Gordian knots — and with the fiercely nationalist Mexican government.

Of nation’s confidence-builder

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is embracing a mantle of confidence-builder in chief. Whether he is meeting with his own economic advisers or worried business leaders, his message is meant to be calm and reassuring — even in the wake of more bad economic news.

Obama will have another opportunity to assert his optimism after he meets Friday with Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who now guides the president’s economic recovery advisory board. Volcker was preparing to brief Obama and his economic team on how the $787 billion stimulus package is working.

Speaking to a gathering of the nation’s CEOs on Thursday, Obama defended his plans for pulling the economy out of a downward spiral, saying that his long-term view gives him reason to maintain optimism despite an uptick in unemployment and falling economic indicators.

“I’ve never bought into these Malthusian, woe, Chicken Little, the earth is falling. I tend to be pretty optimistic,” said Obama, once a long-shot candidate for the White House. “I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t pretty optimistic.”

The president boldly declared that the national crisis is “not as bad as we think” and that he has seen public opinion seesaw without logic.

“A smidgen of good news and suddenly everything is doing great. A little bit of bad news and ‘Ooohh, we’re down on the dumps,’” he said. “And I am obviously an object of this constantly varying assessment.”

Obama disagreed with the choices.

Pelosi dodges chance to end automatic pay raises

BY LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Congress’ automatic pay raises are in little immediate danger of being scrapped for good, even with the economy slumping and millions of Americans unemployed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday would not commit to holding a vote on a bill to do away with the annual cost-of-living increases. She pointed out that Congress recognized the economic crisis by voting this week to skip next year’s raise.

In so doing, though, lawmakers defeated a Senate measure to abolish the automatic pay hikes and force them into the deep discomfort of casting actual votes to give themselves raises.

No one is rushing to defend the current system in a tanking economy that has rendered the annual raise a quaint memory for many outside Washington.

Even inside the Beltway, President Barack Obama has frozen pay for about 100 White House workers making six-figure salaries — an acknowledgment that appearances matter to a financially fragile nation.

But scrapping Congress’ own automatic, cost-of-living raises for good? That’s where congressional leaders drew the line this week — and buried it beneath an avalanche of legislative process, blame-passing and rhetoric.

Competing proposals on the Senate floor earlier in the week effectively canceled each other out.

Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican with personal issues that could threaten his re-election, talked of adding a ban on automatic congressional raises to a $410 billion spending bill already passed by the House.

Number of PACs hits record

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The number of groups contributing money to presidential and congressional candidates has soared to an all-time high with their strongest growth in a generation, reflecting the fervor over last year’s presidential race and a desire for access and clout when lawmakers tackle upcoming issues.

According to the Federal Election Commission, on Jan. 1 there were 4,611 political action committees, which are formed by companies, unions or other groups to raise and spend money to help presidential and congressional candidates. That was up 9 percent over the 4,234 that existed a year earlier.

Many of the new political action committees created last year reflect the types of issues President Barack Obama and Congress, now largely controlled by Democrats, hope to tackle this year.

Among those forming new committees were the National Asphalt Pavement Association and several local branches of the International Union of Operating Engineers, whose members could benefit from paving new roads; the Patriot Coal Corp. of St. Louis, Mo., a large coal producer concerned about energy issues; and Varian Medical Systems of Palo Alto, Calif., a producer of medical devices for treating cancer, which could be affected by Obama’s plans to address health care.

One such group was started last year by the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, which represents businesses that handle human resources tasks for other companies. It was among 540 political action committees started in 2008, and its members are hoping lawmakers will make it easier for them to collect payroll taxes for their clients.

By Unknown

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.
It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.
That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.
On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. ‘Really?’ she heard whispered. ‘I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!’ and, ‘I didn’t know others liked me so much,’ were most of the comments.
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.
Several years later, one of the students was killed in VietNam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.
The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.
As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. ‘Were you Mark’s math teacher?’ he asked. She nodded: ‘yes.’ Then he said: ‘Mark talked about you a lot.’
After the funeral, most of Mark’s former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark’s mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher. See more for the rest of the story

HOW TO INSTALL A HOME SECURITY SYSTEM

1. Go to a secondhand store and buy a pair of men’s
Used size 14-16 work boots.
2. Place them on your front porch , along with a copy of
Guns & Ammo Magazine.
3. Put a few giant dog dishes next to the boots and
Magazines.
4. Leave a note on your door that reads:
Bubba,
Big’un, Duke, Slim, & I went for more ammo and
Beer. Back in an hour.
Don’t mess with the pit bulls – they attacked the
Mailman this morning and messed him up bad.
I don’t think Killer took part,
But it was hard to tell from all the blood .
Anyway, I locked all four of’em in the house.
Better wait outside.
Cooter

WASHINGTON – Republicans are trying to build on some bipartisan misgivings over President Barack Obama’s ambitious spending blueprint, claiming that the deficits and taxes he envisions are “destroying opportunities for the next generation.”

“The president and his allies in Congress want to spend too much, tax too much, and borrow too much,” Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa says in the Republicans’ weekly radio address. “Somebody has to pay — if not the middle class now, then later. Eventually the middle class gets hit.”

Grassley said Obama’s budget proposal to raise taxes, starting in 2011, on individuals earning more than $200,000 and on households earning more than $250,000 will hurt small businesses.

“These small businesses happen to create 74 percent of all new private sector jobs in the United States,” Grassley said. “Tell these business owners their taxes will go up. Odds are, they’ll cut spending. They’ll cancel orders for new equipment, cut health insurance for their employees, stop hiring, and lay people off.”

( remember he said there would be no increase in higher energy costs, and if I remember plants, and trees need carbon dioxide to survive, to produce oxygen that we breath.)

He also said Obama’s proposal for mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions to combat climate change will lead to higher energy costs and amount to an “average hidden tax increase of around $3,000 per household a year.” The Obama administration maintains that revenue from auctioning off carbon emission allowances would offset much of the higher energy costs for many Americans.

In the past week, Obama’s proposals for major health care, energy and education changes amid a recession faced skepticism from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, the Democratic chairman of the Budget Committee, called the track of future deficits “unsustainable.”

Obama is projecting a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion this year, by far the largest in history, but says he can get it down to $533 billion by 2013.

On Saturday, Grassley criticized Obama’s proposals for tax increases as failing “to connect all the dots.” The senator said the major tax increases will only force people to drop out of the work force, reducing tax revenue to pay down the deficit.

“There’s evidence that the president and his people understand this, even if their budget doesn’t show it,” Grassley said. “They say they don’t want to raise taxes until 2011 because the economy is too weak. … Well, if the president admits that tax increases hurt the economy, that will be true in two years as it is true today.”

Tell this Government you want these bonuses to, and not pay them back or pay taxes on them.

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer

WASHINGTON – American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars.

AIG is paying out the executive bonuses to meet a Sunday deadline, but the troubled insurance giant has agreed to administration requests to restrain future payments.

The Treasury Department determined that the government did not have the legal authority to block the current payments by the company. AIG declared earlier this month that it had suffered a loss of $61.7 billion for the fourth quarter of last year, the largest corporate loss in history.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has asked that the company scale back future bonus payments where legally possible, an administration official said Saturday.

This official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that Geithner had called AIG Chairman Edward Liddy on Wednesday to demand that Liddy renegotiate AIG’s current bonus structure.

Geithner termed the current bonus structure unacceptable in view of the billions of dollars of taxpayer support the company is receiving, this official said.

In a letter to Geithner dated Saturday, Liddy informed Treasury that outside lawyers had informed the company that AIG had contractual obligations to make the bonus payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so.

Liddy said in his letter that “quite frankly, AIG’s hands are tied” although he said that in light of the company’s current situation he found it “distasteful and difficult” to recommend going forward with the payments.

Obama aides reverse campaign rhetoric, call general economic conditions fundamentally sound

Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer

Associated Press writer Hope Yen contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of President Barack Obama’s economic advisers said Sunday that the economy is fundamentally sound, (where have we heard this before) a striking reversal from the Democrat’s campaign rhetoric as his administration now guides the nation’s financial health amid dire conditions.

Obama’s Democratic allies pleaded for patience for an administration hitting the two-month mark this week, while Republicans said the White House’s plans ignore small business and the immediate need to fix what ails the economy.

During the fall campaign, Obama mercilessly mocked his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, for declaring, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Obama’s team painted the veteran senator as out of touch and failing to grasp the challenges facing the country.

On Sunday, economic adviser Christina Romer was asked during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if the fundamentals of the economy were sound. “Of course they are sound,” she replied.

“The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology,” she said. “We know that — that temporarily we’re in a mess, right? We’ve seen huge job loss, we’ve seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we’re in a — in a bad situation.”

Just a week ago, White House Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag declared that “fundamentally, the economy is weak.” Days later, Obama told reporters he was confident in the economy.

Andie Coller, Daniel Libit

Historically, brothels and bars are the places where members of Congress get caught in compromising situations that can be hard to explain to the voters back home. But in the modern era, there’s a new danger zone: boarding areas.

Increasingly, airports spell trouble for politicians, with Sen. David Vitter’s recent dust-up at Dulles International Airport just the latest in a string of incidents involving luggage-toting lawmakers.

Andrew R. Thomas, an assistant professor at the University of Akron with expertise in air rage, isn’t surprised that federal officeholders foment their discontent in the plane domain.

“It really is based upon folks who feel they’re entitled based on their position,” says Thomas, who notes that athletes, supermodels and rap stars have also found the airport a particularly precarious place to be.

On the one hand, any frequent traveler can empathize with the frustrations — long lines, unexplained delays, and seemingly indifferent security and airline personnel — that cause lawmakers to boil over.

But it still makes for terrible press.

Vitter’s reputation has already taken a bordello beating, with the Louisiana Republican having admitted to a “very serious sin” involving the “D.C. Madam” prostitution scandal. So it certainly didn’t help when the Transportation Security Administration announced last week that it would review a report that Vitter had gotten into a spat with an airport employee after missing his flight home.

Draw chorus of outrage!

WASHINGTON – Leaders of the White House economic team and the Senate’s top Republican bellowed about bonuses at a bailed-out insurance giant and pledged to prevent such payments in the future.

From one Sunday talk show to the next, they tore into the contracts that American International Group asserted had to be honored, to the tune of about $165 million and payable to executives by Sunday — part of a larger total payout reportedly valued at $450 million. The company has benefited from more than $170 billion in a federal rescue.

AIG has agreed to Obama administration requests to restrain future payments. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed the president’s case with AIG’s chairman, Edward Liddy, last week.

“He stepped in and berated them, got them to reduce the bonuses following every legal means he has to do this,” said Austan Goolsbee, staff director of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

“I don’t know why they would follow a policy that’s really not sensible, is obviously going to ignite the ire of millions of people, and we’ve done exactly what we can do to prevent this kind of thing from happening again,” Goolsbee said.

Added Lawrence Summers, Obama’s top economic adviser: “The easy thing would be to just say … off with their heads, violate the contracts. But you have to think about the consequences of breaking contracts for the overall system of law, for the overall financial system.”

Summers said Geithner used all his power, “both legal and moral, to reduce the level of these bonus payments.”

The Democratic administration’s argument about the sanctity of contracts was more than Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky could bear.

Spend now, details later

By MATT APUZZO and BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama wants governors to hurry up and begin building bridges and schools to revive the economy. His administration is learning that spending $787 billion as quickly and transparently as promised is no easy task.

States wanting desperately to tap into the new money are having trouble keeping track of the application deadlines and requirements in the 400-page stimulus bill. Governors must sign pledges saying they’ll spend the money appropriately, but the administration is still figuring out what the rules are.

“Well, that’s kind of scary,” said Richard Eckstrum, South Carolina’s comptroller general.

Hanging over all of this are two threats. The first was written into the law, saying that if states miss a deadline or don’t spend the money fast enough, they lose the cash. The second was delivered by Vice President Joe Biden, who said last week that if states misspend the money, “don’t look for any help from the federal government for a long while.”

Yet figuring out how to spend the money correctly isn’t easy. For example:

_The Housing and Urban Development Department is offering $1.5 billion for homeless prevention, but there’s confusion over who qualifies.

Governors are required to report how many jobs are being saved or created, but there has been no explanation of how to count them.

_The Energy Department is giving out money to make homes energy-efficient, and the work must begin soon, but there aren’t enough trained workers for all the remodeling jobs.

FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is promising to reinvigorate the Freedom of Information Act by opening more of the government’s filing cabinets without a fight. It can’t happen soon enough for the people awaiting replies to more than 150,000 requests for information.

Behind the headlines, The Associated Press wrestles with bizarre administrative hurdles and jaw-dropping contradictions trying to use the law; some recent ones are described below.

Obama has begun to deliver, but there are conflicting signs about how far he will go.

On his first day as president, Obama told all federal agencies to adopt a presumption of disclosure — reversing the Bush administration policy of defending any legitimate excuse to withhold information.

This month, the Justice Department released nine legal opinions the Bush administration had used to justify its tactics in fighting terrorism but had withheld from the public. The papers showed that lawyers for the Bush administration once argued U.S. troops could pursue terrorists inside this country without obeying the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

But three dozen more Bush-era legal memos about anti-terrorism tactics are still kept secret, the subjects of lawsuits by private organizations trying to obtain them. The memos include the justification for wiretapping Americans in this country without court approval.

The Justice Department is writing new guidelines to flesh out Obama’s policy. One key question: How far will the new administration go in reconsidering the Bush administration’s refusal to release documents? In a few pending suits so far, the Justice Department under Obama has opposed or rejected delays to give it time to do just that.

Why not tax their bonuses, the American workers who get a bonus have to pay taxes on that as an income, so why are they privileged. How many people work for a company that only gives them 20 to 25 hours a week and then gives them a $50 dollar bonus, then you have to clam it on your taxes as an income. So what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

=====================================================

As public and political outrage grows over $165 million AIG paid as bonuses to executives while taking billions in taxpayer dollars, some in Congress want to tax the bonuses.

By Trish Turner   FOXNews

As public and political outrage grows over $165 million AIG paid as bonuses to executives while taking billions in taxpayer dollars, an idea is germinating in Congress. If you cannot get the money back, tax the bonuses.

“It’s an idea very much at the embryonic stage,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., “You can write a tax provision targeted specifically at 98 percent of the taxable proceeds.”

Dodd said that “doesn’t violate the terms of the contracts,” referring to legally-binding agreements that appear to preclude government action.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., says his staff is reviewing such a proposal. He called it a “worthy” idea but said he needs to know more about how it would work.

Dodd says this is something that “could happen fast. We could write this tomorrow.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney D-N.Y,  the chair of the Joint Economic Committee, is also calling for a 100 percent tax on bonuses not related to commissions.

In a letter she distributed to fellow legislators for co-sponsorship, Maloney introduces legislation that will instruct the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to develop guidelines that tax at 100 percent any bonus compensation that is not directly related to a commission for any recipient of TARP funds where the government is the majority owner of the company.

“For a company that has required $170 billion in U.S. taxpayer assistance and is 80 percent owned by the United States government, this is clearly unacceptable,” said Maloney.

When asked if he plans to write legislation to limit the Federal Reserve’s unfettered ability to lend money without strings attached, so as to prevent the situation with AIG from happening again, Dodd would not answer directly, saying only, “We need to look at that whole debate about modernization of the system … they’ve got to do a better job.”

Dodd says he plans hearings into the AIG bonuses. The senator said he was told about the controversy on Thursday.

Here is another dumb move from our Government, take our police off the street and put them on the boarder.

Now you open up our streets for gangs to run wild how much dumber is this over educated Government going to get.

To quell drug violence!

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – Seeking to stanch the flow of drugs, guns and violence saturating the Mexico-U.S. border, the Obama administration is preparing to send more federal agents as reinforcements.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is sending 37 agents to the region, while the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency may reassignment at least 90 officers to the border, and official familiar with the plan said. The official requested anonymity because the plan has not yet been announced.

The deployments are part of President Barack Obama’s first moves to boost federal security on the U.S. side of the border.

The additional immigration agents could double the size of an ongoing ICE task force that has been working with other federal agencies to fight the criminal organizations contributing to the border violence.

The ATF agents will be added to anti-gunrunning teams in McAllen, Texas; El Centro, Calif.; and Las Cruces, N.M., as well as to U.S. consulates in Juarez and Tijuana. Some of the reinforcement costs will be covered with economic recovery money recently approved by Congress.

The U.S.-Mexico border has been a different problem for Obama than it was for his predecessor, George W. Bush. While Bush sent National Guard troops to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, Obama’s first moves are designed more to keep violence from spilling across the border.

This is what you call, calling the kettle pink, (you have to watch what say today) when they just got a $5,000 dollar + cost of living pay raise.

Cue the Washington outrage

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Cue the outrage.

For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn’t until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.

Why the sudden furor, just weeks after Barack Obama’s team paid out $30 billion in additional aid to the company? So far, the administration has been unable to match its actions to Obama’s tough rhetoric on executive compensation. And Congress has been unable or unwilling to restrict bonuses for bailout recipients, despite some lawmakers’ repeated efforts to do so.

The situation has the White House and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the defensive. The administration was caught off guard Tuesday trying to explain why Geithner had waited until last Wednesday to call AIG chief executive Edward M. Liddy and demand that the bonus payments be restructured.

Publicly, the White House expressed confidence in Geithner — but still made it clear he was the one responsible for how the matter was handled.

While administration officials insisted Tuesday that neither Obama nor Geithner learned of the impending bonus payments until last week, the problem wasn’t new. AIG’s plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars were publicized last fall, when Congress started asking questions about expensive junkets the company had sponsored. A November SEC filing by the company details more than $469 million in “retention payments” to keep prized employees.

By 4mainstreet

UP DATE THEY ARE LOOKING AT RETRACTING MILITARY TO PAY FOR THEIR OWN INSURANCE.

I don’t know about you, but I think it is time to have a recall and replace every one of these public politicians. Their actions are no better then AIG, they received a pay increase + cost of living in this time when they are telling Americans to take a cut in wages and medical until this economy gets turned around.

Do you think that after the economy gets turned around, and all the people that they are bringing in this country to replace American workers that you will have a good paying job any more. And now Pleosi said it is Un-American to enforce immigration laws and that they are entitled to jobs in this Country.(House speaker recently told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants that enforcement of existing immigration laws, as currently practiced, is ‘un-American.’)

This Government is doing just what these Companies all want, they are replacing high payed jobs with low pay.

Have you ever noticed that Obama can not talk with out a teleprompter, to me it looks like some one is telling him what to say, it is just like there is a gun to his head, and he is not running this country.

To me the President is just a figure head, just a name and he is told what to do and what to say by other people,such as when Obama was running for the office he said he will stop the pork, but look what has happen, he can not do anything with out the PORK in it. If he has the power that they say the President has, then why has he allowed so much PORK in these bills he just signed.

Now the Obama administration is talking about another slap in the face of our service men and women who defend our freedom, they want to make them pay for their own medical when they come home injured, why don’t we demand that all Government give up their medical, and make them all, every Government personal who receive their pay from tax payers. Just think how money would be saved, so tell them NO MORE FREE MEDICAL, you use it, you pay for it out of your own pocket, and don’t say it is not right, well that is what they are telling us, and now want to tell our service men and women. And also tell them no more free services.

Lets make sure that they do not have any more expense accounts, every thing they do comes out of their own pocket, and not from the tax payer, And make them live on the same pay we get, and to get a pay raise, they have to go to the tax payer, and they can no longer say how much they are going to get payed, and behind closed doors,

Cries for Help in Obama’s Mailbox

U.S. News

Every weekday, President Obama sits behind his big desk in the Oval Office or settles into a comfortable chair in his East Wing residence and opens a purple folder containing some very important material–10 letters from the outside world. The correspondence is chosen by his staff as a sampling of the 40,000 letters he gets every day. The letters are selected to give him an idea of the public’s cares, concerns, suggestions, and critiques of how he’s doing.

IRS, USDA crack down on wealthy subsidy recipients

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service and the Agriculture Department are cracking down on millionaires who receive farm subsidies by mistake.

A report released last year shows that a sports team owner, a financial firm executive and 2,700 other millionaires were receiving farm payments even though they probably were ineligible. The Agriculture Department said they did not have access to IRS information that could have disqualified them.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is expected to announce Thursday that his department will now work with the IRS to verify the incomes of subsidy recipients.

The new rules are part of an administration effort to improve coordination between agencies and trim waste from departmental budgets.

Obama plays populist, anti-D.C. role in Calif.

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer

COSTA MESA, Calif. – In Washington, President Barack Obama is the ultimate insider, hosting White House parties to woo lawmakers and diplomats. Elsewhere, he increasingly plays the embattled and populist crusader, helping average Americans fight entrenched interests on Capitol Hill and Wall Street.

On Wednesday, Obama donned that cloak in Southern California, where he said the weather and conversations are much nicer than in Washington. The conversation was more one-sided, to be sure, as he stood before 1,300 frequently cheering people, 2,500 miles from the Capitol’s shadow.

Owe back taxes

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – At least 13 firms receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday.

Rep. John Lewis, chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two firms owe more than $100 million apiece.

“This is shameful. It is a disgrace,” said Lewis, D-Ga. “We are going to get to the bottom of what is going on here.”

The House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight discovered the unpaid taxes in a review of tax records from 23 of the firms receiving the most money, Lewis said as he opened a hearing on the issue.

The committee said it could not legally release the names of those companies owing taxes. It said one recipient had almost $113 million in unpaid federal income taxes from 2005 and 2006. A second recipient owed almost $102 million dating to before 2004. Another was behind $1.1 million in federal income taxes and $223,000 in federal employment taxes.

“If we looked at all 470 recipients, how much would they owe?” Lewis asked.

Banks and other firms receiving federal money were required to sign contracts stating they had no unpaid taxes, Lewis said. But he said the Treasury Department did not ask them to turn over their tax records.

Warns of expecting too much

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES – Facing largely adoring crowds far from Washington, President Barack Obama on Thursday asked Americans to back his far-reaching economic and health policies, but warned them not to expect too much from him or the federal government. With many Republicans and even some Democrats in Congress resisting his budget plans, Obama went into full campaign mode in California, using television, friendly audiences and his massive e-mail list to counter his critics.

Without naming names, he mocked Republican officials who call his plan too costly even though they presided over huge deficits while they controlled Congress and the White House. (Does he forget that he could not get to DC fast enough to sign that bailout bill.)

“Where have you been?” he said to several hundred people at a raucous town-hall meeting in Los Angeles. “What have you been doing?”

In his second California town hall in as many days, Obama mixed cockiness with humility.

He told Americans not to expect “something for nothing” from their government. Improvements to the economy and health care will take time and require unusually large deficits for a while, he said.

“Nothing is free,” he said. Responding to a woman’s complaint about cuts in jobs and salaries for teachers in California, Obama urged people not to ask the federal and state governments to cut taxes and improve services at the same time.

“At some point you’ve got to make some choices,” he told the crowd, which loudly cheered him repeatedly.

Obama also asked the country for patience and forbearance.

By JOE BIESK, Associated Press Writer

FRANKFORT, Ky. – A judge, school superintendent and county clerk in southeastern Kentucky have been indicted on charges they extorted money from political candidates so they could bribe voters in a scheme to rig several elections, authorities said Thursday.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said charges include racketeering, bribery, extortion and voter fraud against Clay County Circuit Court Judge Russell Cletus Maricle, school superintendent Douglas C. Adams, Clay County Clerk Freddy Thompson and others.

The investigation began after voting irregularities were reported during the 2006 elections. A statement from the federal prosecutor’s office claims the officials tried to rig federal, state and local elections in 2002, 2004 and 2006 in Clay County, about 170 miles southeast of Louisville.

Prosecutors claim a group led by Maricle and Adams, who were essentially “political bosses,” recruited a slate of candidates to run for certain offices and then tried to rig elections in their favor. They also tried to recruit members of the local elections board so they might avoid an investigation.

It was unclear how much money was involved in the alleged scheme, and exactly how long it may have been going on.

According to the indictment, Democratic election commissioner Charles Wayne Jones and election officer William E. Stivers helped extort money from candidates. In some cases, candidates were apparently asked to pool money so votes could be bought.

Thompson, the county clerk, allegedly provided money for election officers to buy votes. Thompson also told election officers how to change votes at the machines, according to the indictment.

Some voters were bribed at the voting booths. Some officials told voters to use booths incorrectly, so that they could go back and change the tallies, the indictment says.

Sen. Bernie Sanders

The “Masters of the Universe” on Wall Street — through their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior — have plunged this country and much of the world into a deep recession, causing millions of Americans to lose their jobs, their homes, their savings and their hope for the future.

One of the institutions that is most responsible for the financial crisis we are in today is American International Group. Over the past several years, AIG moved away from being the largest insurance company in the world to becoming the world’s largest unregulated casino. In essence, AIG placed hundreds of billions of dollars in risky bets on behalf of wealthy investors, banks and hedge funds. Once the bets turned sour, AIG could not cover the losses and turned to the government for help.

As a result of AIG’s risky gambles in what the financial world calls credit default swaps or financial derivatives, the American taxpayers have bailed out the company to the tune of $170 billion — about $600 for every man, woman and child in this country — and now own 80 percent of the company.
Incredibly, outrageously, reprehensibly, AIG executives, including those who ran the division that led to today’s financial catastrophe, have just been awarded $165 million in bonuses. The mess they created is so complicated, their defenders argue, that only the brain trust that created the puzzle can solve it. The bonuses supposedly are the price AIG must pay to retain executive talent and lead us out of this financial crisis. What nonsense.

We must demand that they give back the bonus money — all of it — to the American people.

Do you think this is a good move on the part of the President or is he walking on broken glass, I think this could work if the religious community would stop meddling in their religion, it seams that a lot of our problems stems from our religious community telling them how they are going to practice their religion.

It is just like some in this country are trying tell us how we are going to practice our religious beliefs and take away our freedom of religion.

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By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is reaching out to the Iranian people in a new video with Farsi subtitles, saying the U.S. is prepared to end years of strained relations if Tehran tones down its bellicose rhetoric.

The video released Friday was timed to the festival of Nowruz (no-ROOZ), which means “new day” and marks the arrival of spring. It’s a major holiday in Iran.

“So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran’s leaders,” Obama said in the video. “We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community.”

Obama has signaled a willingness to speak directly with Iran about its nuclear program and hostility toward Israel, a key U.S. ally. At his inauguration last month, the president said his administration would reach out to rival states, declaring “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

It’s been a rough start for Obama.

We The People

If you believe in America get this out and get every one involved.

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE THE START OF DICTATOR SHIP???

( The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a plan to overhaul financial regulation, the New York Times reported.

Obama is expected to announce the plan, which officials said would include a broad new role for the Fed to oversee large companies, ahead of the G-20 summit in early April.

The administration was still debating details of the plan including how broadly it should be applied and how far it should go beyond simple reporting requirements, the Times said, quoting unnamed officials.

The changes could go into effect through regulations, not legislation, depending on the result of discussions on the issue.

The regulations would reportedly cover all financial establishments, not just those receiving federal bailout aid and would likely work to ensure executive pay was in line with the financial interest of the company.)

Here is a place to start, the 912 project was started in what happen on 911, this is to get people to join together like they did that sad day.

To get involved go to  http://www.the912project.com/

Video # 1

video # 2

Video # 3

WE THE PEOPLE

Do you think the economy is going to get better, no if you look at this video, you will see that they are already talking about and trying to get these bills passed, if you don’t think this is not happening then you are depending to much on your local news, they are not telling you what is really going on.

Obama was pushing for these taxes on his campaign, if you the American people don’t getting active in this Country’s problem, it will never be turned around with out a war on US soil.

This video is number 5 of a 7 part series, if you look back to when JFK was killed and his brother is when this all started. Click Here to see this video.

If you want to see all go  HERE

I as an American citizen and proud of it, I have tried to get people mad to defend our country but it seams know body cares any more.

From the looks that this country is in today shows that one is worried that this country is about to be taken over by crooks called WALL STREET.

Who runs wall street the world bank.

I feel sorry for any one who thinks this is not happening, and are not worried about the future for your children. This is so sad to see the American people that can’t be bothered because they have their own problems, where did these problems start, open your eyes and stop depending on the local news media, they are part of it, because they are licenced by the federal government and local licences, so if you want to operate you follow the rules.

WELL I CAN SEE THERE ARE A LOT OF COWARDS WHO DON’T CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THIS COUNTRY.

If you did nothing when this country was started it would be treason.

I can’t believe that this country is nothing but a bunch of cowards, that are so rapped up in them selves to worry about what is happening. You let all these special interest groups run this great country down, you let our Government sell this country to the highest bidder, and destroy our CONSTITUTION, what is it going to take to get you to get off your ass and join the Americans who want this country back.

I have been watching stats sense I started this and joined the American TEA PARTY and it looks like you don’t care.

How many more of you are going to lose your jobs before you wake up, or are you one of those who is getting big boneses, well you better worry because the Obama administration wants to take that away from you too.

What is it going to take to get jobs back in this country, and make this country to enforce US law.

I have asked for comments and you could not even do that.

These People

are risking their lives every day so you have a place to live free, but yet you turn your back on them, you complain when about the problems in this Country, but when this country is being sold to the highest bidder by our Government and special interest groups you bury your head and say let some one else worry about it.

God Bless The USA

WASHINGTON – What kind of politician brings a teleprompter to a news conference?

(Some one who is being told what to say)

Obama Years Ago Helped Fund Carbon Program He Is Now Pushing Through Congress.

While on the board of a Chicago-based charity, Barack Obama helped fund a carbon trading exchange ( this is where Al Gore is involved and will profit from if approved ) that will likely play a critical role in the cap-and-trade carbon reduction program he is now trying to push through Congress as president.

When are the people going to see that he has been lying to the American people from day one.

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Obama to boost forces in Afghanistan

March 27 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama plans to send 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to train local forces and set benchmarks for progress in battling militants there and in Pakistan, administration officials said. Full Story»

More US troops for Afghan war

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Grappling with a war gone awry, President Barack Obama plans to send thousands more U.S. forces into Afghanistan, hoping to hasten the end of a conflict that still has no clear end in sight.

THE INFLUENCE GAME

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says lobbyists pushing for projects in the stimulus package can’t utter a word about them to administration officials. Lobbyists are hardly staying mum about this latest affront and are looking for ways to cope with the extraordinary speaking ban.

Is this not funny that the ones that brought this country down are the ones that Obama is working with to bring this country back.

(Obama said his overarching message was this: “Show some restraint. Show that you get that this is a crisis and everybody has to make sacrifices.)

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By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Top executives of the nation’s biggest banks said Friday after meeting with President Barack Obama that they will work with the administration on its economic recovery plans, but want more specifics from the White House. In an interview with CBS News, Obama said his overarching message was this: “Show some restraint. Show that you get that this is a crisis and everybody has to make sacrifices. They agreed and they recognized it. Now, the proof in the pudding is in the eating.”

Bankers said an administration proposal to jump-start lending, a problem at the heart of the industry’s crisis, is encouraging.

“People are looking at that. It’s positive,” Morgan Stanley’s John Mack told The Associated Press in an interview. “We think it’s the right thing to do and now we just need to get the details.”

The administration announced a program this week to help banks free themselves of so-called toxic assets. These investments have tied up capital and kept them from resuming more normal lending to consumers and businesses.

It is time for all non drinkers to start pushing for higher taxes on all alcoholic beverages, this seams to be a time that they are heavily taxing every thing except alcohol, WHY???

Just think how many lives will be saved and how much money will be saved in health cost if companies told employes the same thing they tell smokers, quit or lose your job.

Why do INSURANCE COMPANIES penalize smoking but not drinking alcohol, which cost insurance companies lots of money every year, in death and health problems, it also cost policy holders to pay for death and medical these companies pay out.

Just look at all the production lost every year due to alcohol, they call in sick or go to work with a hang over and can’t do their work to their full potential.

The US, States, and cities are going to increase taxes to make up for the loss in tobacco tax, now they are talking about taxing health insurance, you name it and they will want to tax it.

Today Obama gave a speech on the auto industry, well I took it as an other lie that he has been spouting sense he started in his campain for president.

He in a way told GM to get lost while he is backing a foreign company and not getting rid of the CEO of Chrysler who just about broke Home Depot before they got rid of him. Chrysler as of today I will never buy another one of their products.

As of today Obama’s speech turned my opinion from chrysler and GM to Ford and Toyota, I got from what he said, is that GM should go under, while helping a foreign  company.

Did any one hear Obama call for any one on wall street bail out to resign, NO! all I have heard is they are doing a good job. Well if you have not noticed just about every one in his cabinet is tied to wall street in one way or other.

What do you think, is Obama protecting some, while he is putting some in to bankruptcy or toward bankruptcy?

Do you think he is giving special treatment to foreign companies over US?

Worse Than Wall St

Many assembly line autoworkers reacted with skepticism and anger to the Obama administration’s tougher plan for Detroit after bailing-out several Wall Street firms, calling it a “double-standard.”

DETROIT — Many assembly line autoworkers reacted with skepticism and anger Monday to the Obama administration’s tough tactics, which stoked long-simmering feelings that the people who put the country on wheels get treated differently than the wizards of Wall Street.

“It’s the age-old Wall Street vs. Main Street smackdown again,” said Brian Fredline, president of UAW Local 602 at a plant near Lansing. “You have all kinds of funding available to banks that are apparently too big to fail, but they’re also too big to be responsible.”

“But when it comes to auto manufacturing and middle-class jobs and people that don’t matter on Wall Street, there are certainly different standards that we have to meet — higher standards — than the financials. That is a double standard that exists and it’s unfair,” Fredline said.

Many workers — not generally known for their affection toward executives — even sympathized with Rick Wagoner, who was forced to step down as chief executive of General Motors Corp. He was by turns called a “sacrificial lamb,” “scapegoat” and “fall guy.”

“We knew someone was going to have to take the proverbial `bullet,’ and it would have made it a lot easier to accept that had the CEOs of the banks also been required to give up their jobs,” said Jim Graham, president of a union local in Lordstown, Ohio, where GM produces the Cobalt and Pontiac G5 fuel-efficient cars.

Monday, March 30, 2009
By Bret Baier

Promises Promises

When President Obama signed the omnibus land conservation bill this afternoon, he again broke his campaign promise to post bills on the Web for five days before adding his signature.

The bill passed the House last Wednesday, but the White House did not post the document for comments until Friday, leaving just two weekend days for the public to register comments.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs addressed the shortened time saying: “Although not perfect, I think the president has made a greater step forward in transparency and feels like we’re making progress on ensuring that the American people can see and read what their president is going to sign into law.”

Of the nine bills President Obama has signed, six of them have not been posted the full five days. Officials say some of those bills were emergency legislation and therefore do not qualify for the five day minimum posting. And adding another excuse, White House officials said — in the most recent case — the President is leaving for Europe Tuesday.

History Lesson

Maybe Hillary Clinton should have picked up a guidebook prior to her trip to Mexico. Last week the secretary of state visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is the second most popular Catholic shrine in the world. Catholics believe the image of the Virgin Mary was miraculously imprinted on a peasant’s cloak 500 years ago. Clinton was apparently unaware of the legend. The Catholic News Agency reports that after being shown the famous image, Secretary Clinton asked, “Who painted it?” The rector of the Basilica responded, “God!”

And as she left the church, Clinton told some waiting outside, “You have a marvelous virgin!” Spokesmen for Clinton did not respond to requests for comment.

Monday, March 30, 2009
By Neil Cavuto

Before you celebrate Rick Wagoner getting his just desserts, think about who just heaved him: the government. More to the point: the president of the United States.

Think about that. The leader of a country firing the leader of a business. Arguing since taxpayer dollars were involved, the leader of the country had perfect right firing the leader of the business getting those tax dollars.

Just like he had the same right to force Chrysler to merge with Fiat. And U.S. companies that have operations abroad to pay dearly for it here.

Justifying these Chavezian grabs for power on the notion that it is our money, misses an even greater point: It’s no longer our country.

Not when the government routinely rescues businesses, then can justify running those businesses, what folks get paid at those businesses, whether they get bonuses at those businesses, and even — in the case of the GM chairman — whether they should be removed from those businesses.

It’s no wonder Goldman Sachs wants to give back bailout dough it never wanted, but now isn’t even permitted to return.

I see a pattern here: First, setting salary guidelines for executives at companies rescued by the government, then slipping in language extending such guidelines for companies that deal with companies rescued by the government.

This isn’t a dash to lash. This is a dash for cash.

I cannot believe even the most fervent Obama supporter voted for this because — hear me out on this — when those in government who have a tough enough time policing their own books, start policing others’ books, what new chapters have yet to be written?

Drug prices get out of whack; whack the drug companies.

Gas prices move up as demand moves up; heave the gas guys out.

No, this isn’t about doing what is right for America. This is about destroying everything that is America.

Do you see any mention of salary control on Government wages and perks. They think they are exempt from all laws and regulations that all tax payers have to follow, wait a minuet I for got they don’t pay their taxes or follow the rules.

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By Michelle Malkin

This is not a surprise. Grabby Hands Barney Frank has been signaling his salary control plans for weeks. In early February, you’ll recall, he told Business Week that compensation restrictions might be restricted to all US companies, not just TARP recipients.

Watch out for Barney Frank’s paws

In theory, I have no problem with limiting the executive pay and bonuses of corporations that take billions in taxpayer-funded bailout money. As Nicole Gelinas put it: “It is untenable for taxpayers directly to support lavish pay for executives at government-guaranteed corporations. When the taxpayer is bearing all risk — as the taxpayer is now in much of the financial industry — the government should set limits.”

But the first question is: Where are the limits on Fannie and Freddie corruptocrats’ executive pay? Have those been passed yet? Are they equal to the limits on private executives’ pay?

And the second question is: Where will it stop? Barney Frank has no intention of restraining his grubby government paws.

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES – President Barack Obama’s appearance two weeks ago before 1,100 people at a downtown school was advertised by the White House as free and open to the public.

It was free. But it wasn’t exactly public.

Far from being an open-doors forum, hundreds of tickets never made it into the public’s hands. Instead, they were distributed to Democratic officeholders and their staffs, community leaders, people connected to Obama’s 2008 campaign, Democratic fundraisers and others invited by the White House.

When Obama took the stage to cheers, he assured the audience the deck wasn’t stacked in his favor.

“We haven’t prescreened anybody,” Obama told the crowd. “If you don’t like me, go ahead and just say, you know, ‘You’re a bum.’”

At a time of double-digit unemployment in the state, and with public outrage peaking over $165 million in bonuses paid to executives of insurance giant American International Group Inc., Obama was greeted with resounding cheers. He was applauded often and appeared at ease, making occasional jokes.

The first woman selected by the president began her question by saying, “I’m very glad and thankful that you are our president.” The first man Obama chose began, “Mr. President, thank God for you.”

Poised to adopt pared-back budget

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Democrats controlling the House and Senate are on track to give President Barack Obama a key victory by adopting slightly pared-back versions of his $3.6 trillion budget.

Passage of the companion plans, expected Thursday, would provide the young administration with a symbolic boost, even though the budget blueprints provide little guidance on how to craft subsequent Obama initiatives to reshape the U.S. health care system or combat global warming.

House Democrats are pressing a plan to make it easier to use “fast-track” rules to expedite passage of health care legislation backed by Obama, even as their GOP rivals in the Senate won a key vote Wednesday emphatically rejecting such an approach on global warming.

Republicans in both chambers are putting forward alternatives that are more generous with tax cuts and stingier with spending, but none of the plans — Obama’s, House and Senate Democrats’, or the competing GOP outlines — would succeed in tamping down the deficit much below $500 billion within five years.

Congressional budget resolutions are nonbinding blueprints that set the parameters for legislation to follow. Unlike budget resolutions typically advanced in the first years of a presidency, the 2010 budget plans are remarkably light on detail, offering little guidance on how to pay for a health care overhaul or an extension of Obama’s signature $400 tax credit for most workers.

Why are they not regulating Alcohol, it is just as addictive as tobacco.

How about banning all alcoholic adds, you don’t think that is not aimed at kids to go out and party, and that is where the fun is at, and that alcohol can not hurt you, so party hearty.

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By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Anti-smoking forces are predicting a long-awaited victory when the House votes on legislation that would, for the first time, allow government regulation of tobacco products.

The House scheduled a vote for Thursday morning on the legislation, which gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate — but not ban — cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Action by the Senate, and President Barack Obama’s signature, still would be needed before the bill could become law.

Supporters were convinced they could achieve both those steps. They said success was in sight after years of attempts to tame an industry so fundamental to America that carved tobacco leaves adorn some parts of the U.S. Capitol.

“We have come to what I hope will be an historic occasion, and that is finally doing something about the harm that tobacco does to thousands and thousands of Americans who die each year,” Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Wednesday as lawmakers debated his Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

To fight global crisis

By JANE WARDELL, AP Business Writer

LONDON – World leaders pledged $1.1 trillion in loans and guarantees to impoverished countries and agreed Thursday to crack down on tax havens and hedge funds but failed to reach sweeping accord on stimulus spending that would directly attack the global economic decline.

In a communique capping a dramatic one-day gathering, the leaders of the Group of 20 nations announced the creation of a supervisory body to flag problems in the global financial system. They did not, however, satisfy U.S. and British calls for new stimulus measures.

They did bridge the gap between the United States and some European nations over how far to regulate the market and curb the excesses that sparked the global economic crisis.

Thursday’s gathering was called in hopes of restoring faith in the global financial system — and in one possible gauge of success, European and U.S. markets surged ahead as the outcome of the summit came into view.

“Today the largest countries of the world have agreed on a global plan for economic recovery and reform,” said the host, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His announcement was quickly followed by similar ones by the French and German leaders, who supported the results of the G-20 summit.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who earlier had threatened earlier to walk out if unsatisfied with the outcome, also praised President Barack Obama for helping to create consensus and persuade China to agree to publish lists of tax havens.

By DANIEL WAGNER, AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON – The man who built insurance giant American International Group Inc. from a startup to a global behemoth said he didn’t mismanage the company — but the government did.

Following weeks of public and congressional outrage over largest corporate failure in U.S. history, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, AIG’s chief executive until March 2005, said taxpayers got a raw deal in the largest bailout of the financial crisis.

Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday, Greenberg said his team had “nothing to do” with failures that so far have cost more than $182 billion. But he said the government’s actions since taking over the company have left taxpayers with a nearly 80 percent stake “in a steadily diminishing asset” and no good exit strategy.

Greenberg, 83, said he never would have made the disastrous decision to sell hundreds of billions of dollars in guarantees for corporate and consumer debt.

“When I left the company, it was a healthy company,” Greenberg said, citing its strong earnings and share price at the time. He did not discuss liabilities AIG was accumulating on its balance sheet through derivatives and a securities lending business.

In essence, AIG lent its triple-A credit rating to other companies for a small charge so they could reinvest money spent on securities backed by mortgages and other debt. When it lost that rating, it was forced to put up billions in collateral.

can sue in U.S. court

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge ruled on Thursday that some detainees at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan could sue for their release in civilian courts, dealing a blow to the U.S. government’s position on the issue.

The Obama administration, following in the footsteps of the previous Bush administration, has argued that the detainees at Bagram base have no right to have lawsuits heard in federal courts.

But U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected that argument and said three of four detainees who filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government can proceed with their bid to win freedom in the court system.

“Bagram detainees who are not Afghan citizens, who were not captured in Afghanistan and who have been held for an unreasonable amount of time — here over six years — without adequate process” have the legal right to sue in U.S. court, the judge ruled in a 53-page opinion.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that prisoners held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to sue in the American judicial system to seek their release.

It has been unclear whether that ruling would also apply to prisoners held in Afghanistan. There are some 600 detainees in U.S. custody at Bagram.

In one of his first acts in office, President Barack Obama ordered the Guantanamo prison closed within one year. The facility has been widely criticized by rights groups and foreign governments. About 240 prisoners are held there.

By DAVID ESPO and ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – The Democratic-controlled House approved a budget blueprint drawn to President Barack Obama’s specifications Thursday and the Senate hastened to follow suit after administration allies rejected alternatives from liberals and conservatives alike.

The vote in the House was 233-196, largely along party lines, for a $3.6 trillion plan that includes a deficit of $1.2 trillion.

The country wants “real change, and we have come here to make a difference,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said as both chambers worked on plans to boost spending on domestic programs, raise taxes on the wealthy in two years’ time and clear the way for action later in the year on Obama’s priority items of health care, energy and education.

Republicans in both houses accused Democrats of drafting plans that would hurt the recession-ravaged economy in the long run, rather than help it, and saddle future generations with too much debt.

“The administration’s budget simply taxes too much, spends too much and borrows too much at a moment when we can least afford it,” said the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Despite the rhetoric, there was no suspense as lawmakers engaged in an annual budget ritual destined to end in approval of the blueprints drafted by Obama’s supporters and supported by the White House.

In the House, that meant voting first on doomed alternatives drafted by progressives, the Congressional Black Caucus, Republicans and a splinter group of conservatives. In the Senate, it meant a day of sifting through nonbinding proposals often meant to score political points.

And Why It Matters

By PETER GUMBEL AND CATHERINE MAYER / LONDON

One measure of a summit’s success is the number of participants who attempt to lay claim to its outcome. And by that measure, the G-20 summit in London was a rip-roaring sensation, with several countries seeking to share in the glory. “This is the day that the world came together to fight back against the global recession, not with words but with a plan for global recovery and for reform and with a clear timetable for its delivery,” declared the summit host, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Speaking of the agreements reached on tighter regulation of financial markets and institutions, French President Nicolas Sarkozy bigged up his own role in agitating for the measures: “That our Anglo-Saxon friends accepted all of this represents immense progress,” he said, adding that “while there were moments of tension, we never thought we’d obtain such a big deal.”

Yet as American officials tell it, the real hero of the hour, proving his mettle at his first summit, was President Barack Obama. The remaining point of disagreement, which threatened until the last minute to derail the consensus so devoutly wished for by all parties, centered on tax havens. Sarkozy was determined that a list of tax havens that refuse to provide information to foreign tax authorities on request should be published immediately by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as part of a clampdown on such havens.

China, not a member of the OECD, was stalling because of its concern that such a list might include Macau and Hong Kong, which have both recently moved to implement OECD standards. The U.S. President took Sarkozy aside, then Chinese President Hu Jintao, and finally brought them together in a private meeting at the side of the room. “If he hadn’t done that, we’d still be there,” remarked a White House official after the communiquÉ had been safely published. 

By ALEX KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer

SINGAPORE – Oil prices rose above $53 a barrel Friday in Asia, extending the previous day’s rally, fuelled by investor optimism crude demand will soon rebound if the U.S. recession has bottomed.

Benchmark crude for May delivery rose 58 cents to $53.22 a barrel by late afternoon in Singapore in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $4.25 on Thursday to settle at $52.64.

Oil prices have bolted from below $35 a barrel six weeks ago, riding a wave of improving investor sentiment that the worst of the U.S. recession may be over. Crude prices have mirrored a surge in stock markets, with the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 20 percent during the last month.

“At this point, it’s more momentum than fundamentals,” said Gerard Rigby, energy analyst with Fuel First Consulting in Sydney. “People are expecting oil to jump over the next 12 to 24 months.”

Investors brushed off evidence this week that U.S. crude inventories are at a 16-year high.

Crude inventories grew by 2.8 million barrels, or 0.8 percent, for the week ended March 27, the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report on Wednesday. Oil stockpiles have not been this high since July 1993 and are 15.5 percent above year-ago levels.

Investors will be closely watching the U.S. jobs report for March, which is scheduled to be released later Friday. Economists predict the report will show a loss of 654,000 jobs following a drop of 651,000 jobs in February, which was a record third straight month of job losses above 600,000. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 8.5 percent from 8.1 percent in February.

“If the unemployment rate in the U.S. goes up a lot, it would definitely put the brakes on the recent price increase,” Rigby said.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for May delivery rose 0.52 cent to $1.48 a gallon and heating oil gained 1.02 cents to $1.44 a gallon.

Natural gas for May delivery jumped 2.8 cents to $3.81 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices rose 60 cents to $53.35 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

CDC: Rocket fuel chemical found in baby formula

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

ATLANTA – Traces of a chemical used in rocket fuel were found in samples of powdered baby formula, and could exceed what’s considered a safe dose for adults if mixed with water also contaminated with the ingredient, a government study has found.

The study by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked for the chemical, perchlorate, in different brands of powdered baby formula. It was published last month, but the Environmental Working Group issued a press release Thursday drawing attention to it.

The chemical has turned up in several cities’ drinking water supplies. It can occur naturally, but most perchlorate contamination has been tied to defense and aerospace sites.

No tests have ever shown the chemical caused health problems, but scientists have said significant amounts of perchlorate can affect thyroid function. The thyroid helps set the body’s metabolism. Thyroid problems can impact fetal and infant brain development.

However, the extent of the risk is hard to assess. The government requires that formula contain iodine, which counteracts perchlorate’s effects. The size of the infant and how much formula they consume are other factors that can influence risk.

The study itself sheds little light on how dangerous the perchlorate in baby formula is. “This wasn’t a study of health effects,” said Dr. Joshua Schier, one of the authors.

The largest amounts of the chemical were in formulas derived from cow’s milk, the study said.

The researchers would not disclose the brands of formula they studied. Only a few samples were studied, so it’s hard to know if the perchlorate levels would be found in all containers of those brands, a CDC spokesman said.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it was considering setting new limits on the amount of perchlorate that would be acceptable in drinking water. A few states have already set their own limits.

The EPA has checked nearly 4,000 public water supplies serving 10,000 people or more. About 160 of the water systems had detectable levels of perchlorate, and 31 had levels high enough to exceed a new safety level the EPA is considering.

Join The 912 Project, and lets tell Washington DC who they work for, not the rich or the minority.!!!! THE 912 PROJECT

Every day you can turn on the TV pick up the paper and see the same thing, if it is the local news things look good on the home front, if you believe it you are in for a rude awakening.

If you have not noticed this country is slowing going back to the beginning of when this was first started, slavery, not colored this time, it is the Mexicans and any one that they can get to come in to this country and work for nothing. Is this what you want to go back to slavery, and the rich and minority’s telling you what is best, well if you look around they have destroyed this country.

There are a lot of people out there trying to get people to open their eyes and see just what is really going on, but it is sad to say so many Americans believe Obama is god, if you have not noticed, nothing has changed, it is still the same as the last eight years.

Unemployment still going up, the debt still climbing, future of the next generation, left with a debt that will never be payed of in the next 50 years.

Does any one remember how this country came into being, if not, you better go back to school be for this country becomes China, Russia, I have nothing against them, but our forfathers fought to make this country a free place to live, and to set up laws that the people had a say in and not the leading party.

Beef and Pork cause Global Warming, Ban Beef & Pork , Deer, Bear, Elk, Buffalo, Humans, They all cause Global warming with methane gas, more then any thing else.

(STOP Global Warming,

Reducing Meat Consumption

is the Most Efficient Way to Reverse it ) [ LetsActNow ]

Now that this country is so scared, they will believe any thing that these corporations and chicken little’s tell them, even though the ones yelling the loudest are not scientist, they are people who will profit from it.

If you do some checking the ones that are pushing for it are going to profit from the tax payers, if you cant see it then they really have you scared, and I feel sad for your kids who have to pay for it for the rest of their life, and their kids, and life go’s on, or maybe ends in war, it is up to you, stop corporate greed, or end life, it will be one or the other.

Here is what to look for

(STOP Global Warming
Reducing Meat Consumption is the Most Efficient Way to Reverse it ) [  LetsActNow ]

(Global Warming Solutions
Consumers and corporate & social leaders can solve this problem!)[worldincbook ]

I rest my case, check with people who study this, not people who will profit.

“Carbon Trading – What’s All That About?”

By: Davis Green

There is an emissions trading scheme in operation internationally but many people aren’t aware that this is perceived to be the cornerstone of the climate change policy in the EU and USA.

By John Boehner
House Minority Leader

With Democrats now firmly in charge of Congress and the White House, Washington is increasingly out of control. From a Treasury Department that refuses to cooperate with independent oversight to a Democratic budget that causes the national debt to explode to the President’s firing of a private-sector CEO, Americans on a daily basis are seeing their government cross lines they never thought they would see their government cross.

As Americans become more incensed with government run amok in Washington, they are becoming more eager for a credible, energized alternative. This is why my House Republican colleagues and I have placed a strong emphasis on identifying better solutions and communicating them to the American people through the new media. Blogs, social networks, and the use of “next step” news and opinion websites like FOX Nation will play a big role in how House Republicans regain ground in the effort for a responsible government.

Democrats have controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives for three months now, and from their actions, a discomforting narrative has emerged. It’s a pattern of fiscal recklessness that is piling debt on our children and grandchildren—a pattern of flagrant indifference to waste and abuse of taxpayers’ money at a time when every penny counts.

And this week’s ratification of President Obama’s budget by the Democrat-run Congress serves notice to Americans that never-before dreamed of levels of spending, taxation, and red ink are on their way. Republicans countered their complete lack of fiscal discipline with an alternative budget that curbs spending, creates jobs, cuts taxes, and controls the debt.

Where are we going to find a strong middle class when this Government is tearing this Country apart for the good of the wealthy and the minorities  (I don’t mean nationalities, I mean organizations) , not the working class.

This Country started to go down hill when JFK was killed,they have been chipping away at the Constitution ever sense.

============================================

“A strong middle class equals a strong America.

We can’t have one without the other. This Task Force will be an important vehicle to assess new and existing policies across the board and determine if they are helping or hurting the middle class. It is our charge to get the middle class – the backbone of this country – up and running again.”
– Vice President Joe Biden

4/8/2009  Treasury Department Statement on Auto Supplier Support Program

The U.S. Department of the Treasury released the following statement today from spokesperson Jenni Engebretsen on the launch by Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corporation of Auto Supplier Support Programs. The programs launched today are open to any receivable created with respect to goods shipped after March 19, 2009 made on qualifying commercial terms. Suppliers interested in participating in the program should contact Chrysler and GM.

I am for honoring religious beliefs, but Obama seams to be putting on a lot of dinners on the tax payers dime for his friends and Government party.

======================================================

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is inviting close friends and staff to a private White House meal Thursday to mark Passover, a signal that the new president intends to fulfill his promise that Jewish voters would have an ally.

Among the invited is Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers, and family friend Eric Whitaker, who is visiting from Chicago and attended a seder last year with the campaign. Michelle Obama and the family’s two daughters also plan to attend.

The staff guest list includes aides from the campaign trail who marked last year’s Passover at the Sheraton hotel in Harrisburg, Pa. Obama’s personal aide, Reggie Love, Michelle Obama’s deputy chief of staff, Melissa Winter, personal aide Dana Lewis and associate social secretary Samantha Tubman all received invitations.

Also on the guest list are Eric Lesser, a personal aide to senior adviser David Axelrod, and his family. Lesser worked during the New Hampshire primary and later handled baggage for traveling reporters. White House videographer Arun Chaundhary — a constant presence on the trail — landed invitations for his family.

4/8/2009

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 4-8-09

Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals for key administration posts: Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State; Charles A. Hurley, Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Department of Transportation; Robert O. Work, Under Secretary of the Navy, Department of the Navy, Department of Defense; and Charles A. Blanchard, General Counsel, Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense.

4/8/2009

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 4/8/2009

Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals for key administration posts: Mary L. Smith, Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, Department of Justice; Robert R. Beers, Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs, Department of Homeland Security; Peter M. Rogoff, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, Department of Transportation; and Jane Oates, Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training Administration, Department of Labor.

4/8/2009

Tomorrow: White House Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers to Visit Ohio

Tomorrow, April 9, 2009, Dr. Ed Montgomery, the White House Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, will visit Cleveland, Ohio to discuss the President’s support of a strong American auto industry and the President’s Auto Task Force initiative to support and revitalize auto industry workers and communities.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama asked Congress on Thursday for $83.4 billion for U.S. military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for special troop funding that he opposed two years ago when he was senator and George W. Bush was president.

Obama’s request, including money to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, would push the costs of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The additional money would cover operations into the fall.

Obama is also requesting $350 million in new Pentagon funding to deal with Mexican drug cartels and conduct other security activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, along with another $400 million to help Pakistan in counterinsurgency efforts along the border with Afghanistan.

While the Iraq war by far gets the most money, the request reflects a shift in focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, where severe challenges remain and where the former Soviet Union learned firsthand the difficulties of battling Islamic extremists.

“Nearly 95 percent of these funds will be used to support our men and women in uniform as they help the people of Iraq to take responsibility for their own future — and work to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Obama wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

From hidden news source

News you are not suppose to see.

All the scientists are wrong, even the ones who are pushing global warming, the sky will fall by the end of the year if we don’t spend a lot of money before years end.
They are telling you that with all this ice melting the sea will raise about 20 to 25 feet, they were wrong it will raise 100 feet or more, it has already started, there is more flooding with higher water then usual all over the US, lasting longer, more devastation, and people are being forced out of their home with all this water caused by this warming of the earth. ( How come a full glass of water with ice in it does not over flow as the ice melts?????) I guess I am just so dumb I can’t see it over flowing.
We are going to pay more taxes to stop global warming, if we don’t our kids will have it to easy and won’t have to get out here on their hand and knees to work from sun up to sun down working 3 jobs just to feed their families. But that will be ok as long as they don’t make over $2500.000 a year, but if you think about it taxes will have to be lowered because the wealthy don’t want to pay taxes, ops I for got the Government for the people are not paying their taxes, that is only for the little guy.
As more comes in I will keep you updated, keep checking back.

Biden’s Puppy Breeder: “Never, Never, Never Again”

From Hidden news source

News you are not suppose to see.

Woman gets threatened for selling an illegal animal, this is what happens when you try to be an American and live the American dream.
This story is just to show how groups of special interest can get away with any thing they want.Word to the wise check with all these special interest groups before you buy or sell any thing so you don’t get vilified.  This just go’s to show you that you can no longer think for your self.
======================================================

Woman is vilified for selling a pedigreed pup to the Bidens.

By KAREN ARAIZA

Fifteen minutes of fame turned into four months of bitter remorse for the Chester County woman who sold the Bidens their adorable little German shepherd puppy.

Linda Brown’s been investigated, scorned and had her life threatened.

“I thought when Joe Biden bought a puppy from me, what an honor,” Brown told the Daily Local News. “Out of millions of breeders in the country, in the world, he picked me.”

That was December.

When the story got out, Brown faced backlash from pet lovers who thought the Bidens should have opted for a shelter over a breeder to find their new puppy.

PETA seized the moment as an opportunity to blame the killing of shelter animals on people who buy from breeders. The organization’s TV commercial, “Buy One, Get One Killed” ran in Delaware after the Biden puppy story made headlines.

Dog wardens from the state showed up at Brown’s Wolf Den kennel, repeatedly, for inspections.

“I was cited for a piece of kibble on the floor and five strands of dog hair. They took a picture of that, they walked around, snapped pictures and don’t tell you why,” Brown told the newspaper.

She was found “not guilty” for each citation, but hiring a lawyer for the court hearings has cost her $4,000 so far in legal fees.

Brown says she and Biden both received death threats from animal activists.

“Never, never, never again,” Brown said about selling a dog to anyone with a high profile.

Her advice to breeders who’ve called about the Obama’s puppy search: Don’t do it!

“It’s been horrific since December,” she said.

WASHINGTON – Republicans say the budget proposed by the Obama administration will require higher taxes in the future and unfairly loads debt onto future generations.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Saturday that President Barack Obama has talked about tax relief, but his budget suggests he’ll be raising taxes.

“I thought President Obama’s proposal to eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses was a pretty good idea. And his pledge to lower taxes for middle-class Americans was something Republicans wholeheartedly supported,” Pawlenty said in the GOP radio and Internet address. “But the budget that Congress is considering doesn’t provide that tax relief.”

Pawlenty said the administration is not eliminating capital gains taxes for small businesses immediately so they can create jobs now but “keeps those taxes high until after Obama’s term in office.”

“The federal government should keep a lid on taxes, control government spending and borrow less — rather than increase the size and scope of the federal government so much that Washington is guaranteeing future tax increases,” Pawlenty said, referring to Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal.

Obama’s Democratic allies in Congress have embraced providing health care to the uninsured, boosting education and promoting clean energy. But they’ve had differing views on how to find billions of dollars to finance the president’s agenda without further exploding the deficit.

Pawlenty said his anti-tax message would be welcomed with the approach of the April 15 tax deadline.

By MADHUR SINGH / NEW DELHI
Indolent cows languidly chewing their cud while befuddled motorists honk and maneuver their vehicles around them are images as stereotypically Indian as saffron-clad holy men and the Taj Mahal. Now, however, India’s ubiquitous cows – of which there are 283 million, more than anywhere else in the world – have assumed a more menacing role as they become part of the climate change debate.

By burping, belching and excreting copious amounts of methane – a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide – India’s livestock of roughly 485 million (including sheep and goats) contribute more to global warming than the vehicles they obstruct. With new research suggesting that emission of methane by Indian livestock is higher than previously estimated, scientists are furiously working at designing diets to help bovines and other ruminants eat better, stay more energetic and secrete lesser amounts of the offensive gas. (See pictures of India’s largest ruminant: the Asian elephant.)

Last month, scientists at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad in western India published a pan-India livestock methane emission inventory, the first ever, which put the figure at 11.75 million metric tons per year, higher than 9 million metric tons estimated in 1994. This amount is likely to increase as higher incomes and consumption rates put more pressure on the country’s dairy industry to become even more productive.

It is probably no surprise to many that “The Honorable” Sen John “Jay” Rockefeller IV, of West Virginia has proposed to give additional state powers to the executive branch of the government to regulate, control, and shut down the internet under the auspices of cybersecurity.

Some brief editorial is available at the American Thinker, and a more objective article is here at Computerworld.

Of course this type of empowerment of the executive branch is not a just action of our legistlative body. Giving executive authority to violate free speech and interfere in private communications is just plain enablement. I have been making my limited attempts to block and tackle this in committee.

If you have some information as to what personal interest Mr. Rockefeller has in signing away a kill switch on our ability to communicate with each other, please share it.

You can watch the status of Senate Bill 773 and Senate Bill 778.

By Street news USA  News you should think about

What you are not suppose to think about.

I guess I am so stupid that I can not see that this dirty tax is not going to affect me or any tax payer in any way shape or form.

Tax on coal, my electric bill will not go up so I can buy an electric car, wait a minute, where I live I have no place to plug it in, I live in an apartment where I am not allowed to use any out side electricity or water, but you know my rent will go up to pay for the increase in utilities and water. Just think I won’t even be able to buy a car that runs on water.

Gasoline won’t go up or will it, you know I guess it will, and you know if they tax by the mile plus at the pump, you know that the states will want their cut to, so will we be able afford to even own a car at all.

Hydrogen run cars, where will the water come from they are all ready saying there is a water shortage, so how is that going to work.

Propane, not as clean as they say it is, and does not get the mileage that they say. I have run both propane and natural gas both are expensive to operate on. I drove a pickup with propane and it would not pass EPA emissions, but being that was propane they passed it after five tests and $1,5000 dollars in repairs, and mileage at about 5 to 7 miles a gallon, but before I changed over from gas I was getting 15 to 18 miles per gallon. I worked for a company that was converting all their gas run dump trucks over to propane and natural gas, their big dumps ran 2 50 gallons tanks, at 55 miles you were hoping you could make it back before you ran out, they got ridge of though trucks and went diesel and could run 2 days on 100 gallons, and that was 150 to 200 miles a day, so which is more efficient, cleaner and cheaper to run. In Washington state Washington natural gas ran both natural and gas just in case they ran out of natural so they could get back to the shop to fuel up, you know to think about it where can you get natural or propane on the road, or how about electricity for your batteries on an electric car.

You can go on about these taxes and they will still find another way to get more taxes from us until we put a stop to it.

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER and ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – Most people say they plan to use this year’s tax refund to pay bills, deciding in this sour economy to be more frugal with their annual windfall.

Fifty-four percent of those receiving refunds said they intend to pay off credit card, utility, housing and other bills, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Monday. That compares with 35 percent who said the same thing a year ago.

Only 5 percent, about the same as a year ago, said they planned to go on a shopping spree.

The survey found that 38 percent of those receiving a refund said they plan to spend at least part of it. But the spending appears to be mostly on basic needs: 17 percent said they would use the money for everyday needs such as food and clothing. It was 7 percent a year ago.

Phillip Barks of Aberdeen, Md., said he and his wife, Kristy, have spent their $3,800 refund. Most went toward a credit card bill.

“We didn’t pay that off, though,” said Phillip Barks, 31, who serves in the Army. “We just put a big dent in it.”

The Barks, who were not part of the poll, were interviewed on a downtown street in Washington.

A few blocks away, Shannon Wyss of Washington said she plans to save most her $1,066 refund. She will, however, treat herself a bit; she’s already spent $99 on a device for her iPhone.

“I need a pair of shoes,” said Wyss, 36, who works for the National AIDS Fund.

The deadline for individuals to file their 2008 tax returns is Wednesday. As of last week, the Internal Revenue Service had sent out about $200 billion in tax refunds. Commissioner Doug Shulman said the agency expects to send out about $330 billion by the end of tax season.

The AP-GfK poll found that 57 percent of adults said they expect to receive a tax refund. The average refund this year is about $2,700, compared with $2,500 last year, Shulman said.

By Jasmin Melvin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As a deep recession strips Americans of their jobs, homes and investments, the 2009 U.S. tax season promises to see a large uptick in first-time delinquent income taxpayers.

“Our calls are up 280 percent,” said Richard Boggs, founder and chief executive of Los Angeles-based Nationwide Tax Relief, a firm that helps delinquent taxpayers resolve tax issues.

“We’ve seen a huge rise in what we call the rookie delinquent taxpayer,” he said. “They are incredibly scared, and they have no idea what’s going to happen to them because, God bless them, they’ve never owed before.”

As the weak economy puts job security and a steady flow of income on a slippery slope, many are wary of the U.S. tax man, tax consultants say.

With household balance sheets under pressure, more U.S. households are having trouble keeping up with their day-to-day bills and struggling to pay their taxes.

“Folks are not paying their taxes because they are spending it on necessary living expenses,” said Kristin Lavieri, an accountant with Weinstein & Anastasio, PC in Hamden, Connecticut.

She added that more of the self-employed, who are required to pay taxes each quarter, are likely to end up with back taxes. “When there is not enough money for general operating expenses, there most definitely isn’t going to be enough for quarterly estimates,” Lavieri said.

Among those not self-employed, many also have to make tough decisions that could carry long-term financial consequences.

What does it take for you to see that alcohol kills more people them cigarettes.

Put a hefty TAX on ALCOHOL to pay for health insurance.
You want cigerttes to pay for health insurance, so get your head out of your alcoholic glass and get a bigger tax on all alcohol.

The COLD, HARD, SOBERING FACTS about alcohol and drunk driving in the United States:

* Fact: A total of 41,059 total traffic fatalities were recorded in the US in 2007. Of those, an estimated 12,998 (over 31%) were drunk drivers (Blood Alcohol Concentration above .08).
* Fact: On average, someone is killed by a drunk driver in the US every 40 minutes.
The effects of alcohol and intoxicated driving are far-reaching. Its effects go way beyond the number of killed and injured. We are all equally at risk.
Question:

How close does death or injury have to come to you or your family at the hands of a drunk driver, before you will do something active, not passive? Get involved now! THE LIFE YOU SAVE COULD BE YOUR OWN OR THAT OF A LOVED ONE.

Our governments, federal, state and local have declared WAR on drunken driving, yet the problem remains.

We have gotten MADD, SADD, BADD and more, and still the madness continues.

When I posted this first part there has been 15 deaths or injuries.

Read carefully all the information in the balance of this site and learn how you or someone you know can take a pro-active step and have a direct effect in your own community on the problem of drinking and driving. Yes, you can save lives in your community and make money in the process.

Again, read the information carefully. Remember, it’s the right step for your community. Now you can decide if this active step is for you.

Did you know that there are literally hundreds of thousands of commercial establishments licensed to sell and serve alcoholic beverages in the United States?

There is a very real legal risk that the owners of these business establishments assume every day with respect to the sale of alcohol. If one of their customers drinks a sufficient quantity of alcohol until they are legally intoxicated, drives an automobile while in this drunken condition, and injures or kills someone in an accident, the owner of the bar where the alcohol was last consumed can be held liable for damages.

Whether or not you believe this is fair is irrelevant. It is the law in many states. Unfortunately, this law is in direct conflict with the owners’ (and bartenders’) incentive to sell alcoholic beverages to make money.

Because the potential liability is so high, many bar owners simply shrug their shoulders and ignore the situation. They have to earn a living. Many of the owners reason that if it ever does happen, they’ll simply hand over the keys to their establishment and find some other way to make a living.

What happens to the family if the bread winner loses their income who is going to help them. I think the person who sells and hands out these licences should be held responsible, not just the one who sold the alcoholic beverage.

A person’s blood alcohol content is influenced by several variables including their body weight, the amount and kind of food they’ve eaten, the percentage of alcohol in the drinks they’ve had, the amount of time they’ve been drinking, the number of drinks they’ve consumed, and the amount of time since their last drink. That should not matter, no alcohol should be consumed when drinking, take a truck driver, if they use a mouth wash they will get a fine or lose their job. A mouth wash will give you a .04 and a ticket, even though it is only in your mouth not your system.

Think you’ll just sleep it off?  Think again!

After a night of drinking, the effects of alcohol last longer than you might think.
You and your friends have decided to have a few drinks after work to ease the tension. You’ve been drinking since 6:00 p.m. and it’s now 1:00 a.m.  So, by now you already have a good idea of the way alcohol affects your motor skills, but are you aware of the blood alcohol levels?
After the designated driver has driven you home, you fall into bed at 2:00 a.m., intoxicated with an alcohol concentration of .190 (.08 is now legally intoxicated as determined by the federal government and most states).
Since alcohol leaves the blood at .015 per hour, let’s see the blood alcohol effects over the next ten hours…
Time
BAC*
2:00 a.m.
You get into bed, the room is spinning.
.190
3:00 a.m.
Sleeping
.175
4:00 a.m.
You wake up with a pounding headache, find the bathroom and take aspirin.     .160
5:00 a.m.
Sleeping.
.145
6:00 a.m.
Alarm startles you awake. Reluctantly, you get up for work.
.130
7:00 a.m.
You leave for work, wondering why the keys won’t fit the lock.
.115
8:00 a.m.
You’ve miraculously made it to work, but you’re still legally intoxicated!
.10
10:00 a.m.
You leave for an appointment and could still be arrested for “driving under the influence.”
.07
12:00 p.m.
Still under the influence.
.04
*Blood Alcohol Concentration (Information is based on a 170lb. average man)
See some more serious alcohol effects. Also see the effects of alcohol on the body.

Up date News media

How do you as an American, like to be treated, and called a right wing terrorist because you are trying to stand up for your rights?? And what did you think about the comment about our service personal???

I don’t know how many of you saw what the main stream news media called the American tea party April 15 09, but my opinion is that every one of them should be put out on the street and try to find a job and find out what it is like to lose every thing that they have worked for, and not be able to find a job that pays no more then minimum wage, then lets see if they will have a different attitude about this Country.

It seams that the ones who make big wages don’t want to see lower wage earners get ahead, so they cover up what is happening in this Country, WHAT DO YOU THINK????

I could not believe how much the mews media was so much for Government control of this Country, but that is how our Government gets away with what they do, is because the news media is covering up the problems in this country.

This is the same reason that the Americans don’t know what the politician are for.

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Civil liberties officials at the Homeland Security Department did not agree with some of the language in a controversial report on right-wing extremists, but the agency issued the report anyway.

The intelligence assessment issued to law enforcement last week said some military veterans could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or commit lone acts of violence. That prompted angry reactions from some lawmakers and veterans’ groups.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said the report was issued before officials resolved problems raised by the agency’s civil rights division. Kudwa would not specify what language raised the concerns.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the report Thursday, but she said the definition of right-wing extremism that was included in a footnote should be changed.

In the report, right-wing extremism was defined as hate-motivated groups and movements, such as hatred of certain religions, racial or ethnic groups. “It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the report said.

“If there’s one part of that report I would rewrite, in the word-smithing, Washington-ese that goes on after the fact, it would be that footnote,” Napolitano said Thursday on Fox News.

The same definition was included in the agency’s March 26 draft report on domestic extremism. Both reports were marked “For Official Use Only.” The department said the draft has been recalled and is being edited before it is sent to state and local law enforcement officials.

By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer
TOKYO – International donors, led by the United States and Japan, pledged more than $5 billion Friday to stabilize Pakistan’s troubled economy ( what about our economy ) and fight the spread of terrorism in the Islamic nation and neighboring Afghanistan.
The U.S. and Japan started off the one-day conference by pledging $1 billion each. Saudi Arabia added $700 million and the EU $640 million. The total pledged was $5.28 billion, according to Pakistan’s foreign minister.
“There is a desire to help Pakistan,” Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said, but he added that the international community is still trying to grasp the implications of the problems his country faces.
“I still fear that the understanding of the danger that Pakistan faces still does not register fully in the minds of the world,” he said. “If we lose, you lose. If we lose, the world loses.”
The donors said their contributions would be focused on improving the economic climate in Pakistan through infrastructure and other projects, and stressed that stability in Pakistan is key to averting the growth of terrorism throughout the region.
The total fell short of Zardari’s hope of as much as $6 billion in pledges. The conference’s Japanese hosts had said they expected a figure closer to $4 billion.
“We have demonstrated our clear determination to face the issues,” said Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone.
Both Japan and the U.S. will make their contributions over the next two years, and neither represented a dramatic change in their current pattern of donations. Saudi Arabia’s pledge would also be disbursed over the next two years, and the EU’s over the next four years.

Does this help the rest of America, if it does I will be surprised, or will it only benefit the rich. John Rich puts it the way it will really be.

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Saturday he will ask all of his department and agency heads for specific proposals for cutting their budgets at his Cabinet meeting early next week as he searches for ways to streamline government spending.

Obama, who is attending the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad this weekend, said in his weekly radio and Internet address that he would make the request for cuts Monday at a Cabinet meeting.

“In the coming weeks, I will be announcing the elimination of dozens of government programs shown to be wasteful or ineffective,” he said. “In this effort, there will be no sacred cows and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it’s time their government did the same.”

While discussing the need for more efficient government, Obama announced he was filling an administration position that caused him trouble on the last try. Obama said Jeffrey Zients, a CEO, management consultant and entrepreneur, will join the administration as the government’s chief performance officer and will also serve as deputy director for management of the Office of Management and Budget. He will work to streamline processes and cut costs, Obama said.

On Feb. 3, Nancy Killefer withdrew her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government, saying she didn’t want her mishandling of payroll taxes on her household help to become a distraction for the administration. Killefer was one of several Obama choices for top positions who have dealt with tax problems.

The Great Recession: America Becomes Thrift Nation

By NANCY GIBBS

Sometimes we change because we want to: lose weight, go vegan, find God, get sober. But sometimes we change because we have no choice, and since this violates our manifest destiny to do as we please, it may take a while before we notice that those are often the changes we need to make most. We ran a good long road test of the premise that more is better: we built houses that could hold all our stuff but were too big to heat; we bought cars that could ferry a soccer team but were too big to park; we thought we were embracing the simple life by squeezing in a yoga class between working and shopping and took an extra job to pay for it all.

Now we’re stripping down and starting over. A platoon of TIME reporters and pollsters fanned out to every corner of the country to measure – anecdotally and empirically – what’s changed in the way we set our priorities and spend our money since the Great Recession began. Most people think the pain will be lasting and the effects permanent: only 12% expect economic recovery to begin within six months, half believe it will be another year or two, and 14% believe we are at the start of a long-term decline. (See TIME’s special report on how Americans have adjusted to the recession.)

Our institutions watch for economic vital signs. But maybe, for individuals, the sickness is what came before – the hallucination that debt would never need to be repaid, that values only rise, that bubbles never burst. When the markets collapsed, that fever broke. In our assumptions and attitudes and expectations, the recovery is already well under way.

Related Stories

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Ice is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent’s western coast.

Antarctica has 90 percent of the Earth’s ice and 80 percent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilization of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com’s Natural Science Center.

However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.

East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week’s meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown “significant cooling in recent decades.”

• Breakaway Ice Shelf Would Reshape Map of Antarctica
• Massive Ice Shelf About to Break Away From Antarctic Coast
• Study: Arctic Sea Ice Melting Faster Than Anticipated
• Fish Oil Could Curb Cow Flatulence
• Dust, Not Humans, Chief Cause of Atlantic Warming
• U.K. Green Advisor: Cut Britain’s Population in Half
• Antarctic Ice Sheet Likely to Collapse, New Data Show
• Climate Change Affecting Antarctic Winds, Penguins

Australia Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison said sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica.

“Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally,” Allison said.

Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia’s Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Center shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years.

A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.

Click here to read the full story from News.com.au.

Mike Allen, Harry Siegel

White House economic adviser Larry Summers told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that President Obama plans to join a push planned by congressional Democrats on “credit card abuses” as part of looking out for the little guy while rebuilding the nation’s financial system.

“We need to do things to stop the marketing of credit in ways that addicts people to it,” Summers said.

Summers told moderator David Gregory that Obama is concerned about “the way people have been deceived into paying extraordinarily high rates that they wouldn’t have paid if they knew what they were getting themselves into.”

On other matters, Summers said he was “surprised” by the outpouring of conservative rage on Tax Day that took the form of mock “tea parties” around the country.

“You know, I don’t know that much about politics, but I’ve been surprised by these tea parties a bit,” Summer said. “The President is the one proposing cutting taxes on virtually all Americans, so I’m not sure who these tea parties see as being King George.”

After a series of notably upbeat statements on the economy from the administration, Summers was repeatedly cautious.

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An article posted Feb. 16 th

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Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. — Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.

“I don’t think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect,” said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.

Schmitt contends that scientists “are being intimidated” if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.

“They’ve seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming,” Schmitt said.

Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.

Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the “global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making.”

Williams said Heartland is skeptical about the crisis that people are proclaiming in global warming.

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And you don’t think there is no corruption in DC against Americans.

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California senator sought $25 billion for a government agency that had awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties.

Get the full story here

If you want higher prices, jump right in and help get this law passed, but don’t complain when prices go up.

YOU GET WHAT YOU ASK FOR.

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By DINA CAPPIELLO and H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – As Congress begins to debate climate change in earnest, the science is taking a back seat to economics: How much will it cost to slow the Earth’s warming because of man-made pollution — and what’s the cost of doing nothing?

With a key House committee starting four days of hearings, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed to get a climate bill approved this year. Noting that Earth Day will be celebrated on Wednesday, she told reporters by the next Earth Day “we want to celebrate what we’ve done this year” to address climate change and clean energy.

But the challenge of getting bipartisan support immediately became apparent.

The Energy and Commerce Committee hearing had barely begun when Republicans raised their concerns about higher energy prices produced by putting an added price for burning fossil fuels.

“In its current form, this bill may do more harm to our economy than any bill that is likely to come before Congress for the rest of this year, or perhaps during my natural lifetime,” declared Rep. Michael C. Burgess, R-Texas.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., whose state’s already is reeling economically and home to energy-intensive industries, said the economic impact of the bill drafted by Democrats “cannot be overstated” unless ways are found to blunt expected increases in energy costs.

This is just how getting carried this country is becoming, now they are dictating on what people are going to do or get punished or ridiculed for being over weight, see they want every one to look like them. If you don’t do what they say, they make it look like you are the cause of global warming and they have nothing to do with it, so if you are skinny, YOU don’t have any thing to do with global warming.

There are people out there that can eat all they want and never put on any weight, so every man, woman And child is guilty and responsible for global warming.

If you have not noticed by now that they do not really know what is causing global warming, then you are just as dumb as the ones saying the sky is falling, you see the ones saying the sky is falling are going to profit from it at the tax payers expense.

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• Scientists: Fat people make global warming a lot worse

  Scientists claim that fat people are making global warming a lot worse, The Sun reports. Because food production is a major factor in the CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming and overweight individuals eat more food, they’re a big factor in gl.

  New York Daily News - Apr 21 11:13 AM

• Report: Fat people cause of global warming

  Are overweight people the cause for global warming?So says an article published today in the Sun. “Moving about in a heavy body is like driving in a gas guzzler,” said Dr. Phil Edwards of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. According to the report, scientists say overweight people means more food production — a cause of CO2 gas emissions. It also says that means more people are …

  Chicago Sun-Times - Apr 21 9:53 AM

• STUDY: OBESE CONTRIBUTE TO GLOBAL WARMING

  The rising number of fat people is being blamed for global warming. Scientists warned that the increase in big-eaters means more food production — a major cause of CO2 gas emissions warming the planet. Overweight people are also more likely to…

  New York Post - Apr 21 8:19 AM

• Counter Intelligence: Fat Adds to Global Warming

  See how overweight individuals contribute to global warming and check out our list of must-reads that will have you chatting at the lunch counter, over IM or wherever it is that people actually talk these…

  NBC Philadelphia - Apr 21 10:29 AM

• Thinner is better to curb global warming, study says

  Here’s yet another reason to stay in shape: Thinner people contribute less to global warming, according to a new study.

  CNN - Apr 20 11:09 AM

Our Government seams to want to clean clean up our atmosphere by cleaning the smoke before it gos out the stack, and they say they want to bury it, but you know, the Government did the same thing back in the 1950’s and look what happen, they blamed the chemical company. If you check the files you will see that the state, county,and the federal Government were also dumping there. If we let them run off half cocked like they did in the past, we will end up with another love canal, and any where else that we don’t know about.

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Joshua Hertz, Alfred University student, 1996

A note from the Online Ethics Center: This report was a second-place winner in a 1996 contest for student-authored websites on topics in science and engineering ethics. The opinions and conclusions are the author’s own, not those of the staff of the Online Ethics Center. In some cases we have corrected factual errors. These corrections are contained in square brackets and marked with “[oec]“. Photos that originally accompanied the essay have been removed, because we could not identify their source or contents.
Historical Background

The purpose of this page is to inform the reader of the horrendous mistakes that were made to the “Love Canal” area of New York and to its residents. The errors made will continue to effect the local environment for thousands of years, and has made genetic mutations that will survive for generations.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, after America was once again a unified country, the entrepreneurial pioneers looked towards shipping. Many canals, such as the C&O and Erie Canals, unified American waterways to provide an efficient shipping system. In 1894, venture capitalist William Love envisioned a “power canal” (the purpose of which was to supply cheap hydroelectric power) in the Niagara Falls region of New York State. Construction began on Love’s vision, but soon a depression hit the nation, and Love was left with no investors and little more than an empty ditch. “Love Canal”–as the hole became affectionately known by the local townspeople– became a swimming hole in the summer, and an ice skating rink in the winter. This attitude towards the canal was to end by the mid-1900’s.

If you read the whole article, you will see that what they plan to do with the CO2, will lead to the same thing that happen in the 1950’s, if you don’t know, read Engineering or Public Policy.
This is the problem with the Government, they run off half cocked and have no idea what the out come is going to be, because WHERE THERE IS AN ACTION THERE IS ALWAYS A REACTION!!!! and can we stand any more ignorant people, looking for a profit no matter who gets hurt with the help of our Government and the environmentalist.

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By Agence France-Presse

NEW YORK, April 21, 2009 (AFP) – Scientists in New York on Tuesday touted an experimental plan to lock carbon dioxide gasses underground and prevent big polluters like China and the United States from wrecking the world’s climate.

The idea, called carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, is at the cutting edge of attempts to dramatically reduce CO2 spewed by industrial plants into the atmosphere. The technology exists, but is little tested and a group of energy companies, academics and state officials hope to make New York one of the field’s trail blazers.

“We have the opportunity to demonstrate new technology that could be revolutionary internationally,” Paul DeCotis, deputy head of energy policy for New York state, told a conference at Columbia University.

“We would love to be exporting to the rest of the world on carbon capture sequestration technology.”

These are early days for the daring concept, in which CO2 gasses from coal factories and other sources of pollution are captured, rather than being allowed to pour skyward, and injected deep underground. Despite global interest, high costs and lingering uncertainties about safety mean only a handful of projects are running. The world’s first coal-fired power plant to use CCS opened last year in Germany.

New York’s planned experiment at a coal-fired plant in Jamestown, in the far north of the state, has government backing. But new regulations and funding are needed before work can even start. Experts at a conference hosted by Columbia’s Earth Institute in New York city said the technology could be a planet saver when economies are turning increasingly to coal as an abundant, but dirty alternative to oil.

“Burning coal is not clean,” said Jared Snyder, state assistant commissioner for air resources and climate change. “But with carbon capture and sequestration, the use of fossil fuels can at least be low carbon.”

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, said that CCS would be crucial for giant emerging economies like China and India. China, said to be building one new coal-fired power plant a week, has overtaken the United States as the biggest producer of greenhouse gasses, with 80 percent of those emissions coal-related, Sachs said. For India, the figure is 70 percent, he said.

“If it turns out that there is no such thing as clean coal… we are in a world of massive crisis beyond where we are now, because a lot of the world depends on coal,” Sachs said.

“If it turns out this technology doesn’t work we’re in a lot of trouble.”

Some environmental activists, including Greenpeace, question the use of CCS, saying money would be better spent on moving from fossil fuels altogether to alternative sources such as wind or sun.

Even backers admit there are a lot of questions to resolve. The CCS process involves injecting CO2 to depths of about 2,500 feet (760 meters) underground. At that depth the gas compresses to what’s known as supercritical state, a liquid-like form that is easily pumped.  The bad gas is then literally sponged up by the rock and stored, much like subterranean concentrations of natural gas and oil.

Hoax 1 Hoax 2 Hoax 3

In checking the news and keeping up with some of this global warming information, there are a lot of companies hiding and waiting for Obama to sign cap and trade, and when he does all these people who have been behind Obama to get into office will get millions of tax payers money.

Last night I saw on the news and if it is true GE who owns NBC, if cap and trade gos through they will get millions, along with Gores company. As time gos on a lot more companies will be exposed. Here is a good example.

See for your self, there is some global warming but not to the extent to what they want you to believe. If you want to get rid of your money give to the disabled military personal who are protecting your freedom.

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By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Al Gore, a former vice president and one-time lawmaker, called a House measure that would curb the gases blamed for global warming one of the most important bills ever in Congress.

Gore, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on global warming, is scheduled to testify before a House panel Friday morning. In testimony prepared for delivery, Gore says the legislation will simultaneously solve the problems of the climate, economy and national security.

The former vice president described the bill as “one of the most important pieces of legislation ever introduced in the Congress.” He predicted passing it would “restore America’s leadership in the world and begin, at long last, to solve the climate crisis.”

Gore served in the House from 1977-85 and was Tennessee senator from 1985-93.

Gore’s backing comes after three days of hearings where experts, Republicans and moderate Democrats expressed concern that the bill will drive up energy costs.

Gore will urge the House panel to make sure the bill includes provisions to protect those people who will unfairly face hardship, such as workers in energy-intensive industries who could lose their jobs.

Gore’s celebrity on the issue of climate change could generate much needed public support for the legislation.

After three days of panels and testimony and more than 50 witnesses espousing on the nitty-gritty details of the 648-page draft, the grand finale on Friday will feature Gore, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and former Sen. John Warner, R-Va.

All have played leading roles in the issue of climate change — even though at times they have been on opposite sides of the debate.

POLITICO

By PATRICK O’CONNOR

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor returned from spring break determined to shed the “Dr. No” tag Democrats have hung around his neck — only to find himself in a face-to-face argument with the president over who started this year’s rift with the House GOP.

Early last week, Cantor talked like a man ready to make amends for the unanimous Republican “no” votes on President Barack Obama’s budget and economic stimulus plan.

“As we near the end of the first 100 days of this administration,” Cantor told reporters, “I think we can also reflect back and see that the era of bipartisanship we’d hoped for could probably be improved upon, and I believe that’s how we’ve come back from the Easter recess, to say to the president that we do want to work together, that we can actually unite.”

But headed for a meeting with the president at the White House Thursday, Cantor and other House Republican leaders couldn’t resist picking at the scab. They sent Obama a letter praising him for his “common-sense idea” that “Washington can work together for the American people instead of for political parties” — but also claiming that Democratic leaders in Congress had “ignored your call for a new era of bipartisanship in Washington.”

That’s what started the face-to-face bickering with the president. At the White House meeting — Cantor was the last of the Republican leaders to arrive — Obama brought up the letter and noted that not a single House Republican had backed his economic stimulus bill. According to a firsthand account of the meeting, Cantor took exception: “With all due respect, Mr. President, we offered you ideas on the stimulus plan directly, and they were ignored completely.”

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – A budget pact reached on Capitol Hill would give an endorsement to President Barack Obama’s agenda by his 100th day in office while putting off a series of difficult decisions on health care, global warming and taxes.

House-Senate negotiators on Monday night announced the agreement on a $3.5 trillion budget outline for 2010, with votes expected in the full House and Senate by Wednesday.

The budget plan, although nonbinding, would give Democrats a stronger hand in advancing Obama’s health care initiative this fall by allowing it to go forward without threat of GOP stalling tactics in the Senate.

But the budget pact also predicts dispiriting deficits that never get below $500 billion, even after the economy recovers and billions of dollars in financial rescue money are largely repaid.

Obama’s Democratic allies are endorsing his top priority of expanding health care coverage for the uninsured and boosting funding for education and clean energy programs, but they’re allowing his signature tax cut for most workers to expire after next year.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., announced the agreement and key details in a statement.

Most importantly, the congressional budget pact would prevent Senate Republicans from delaying or blocking Obama’s plan to vastly expand government-subsidized health care when it advances this fall.

The $3.5 trillion plan for the budget year starting Oct. 1 embraces several of Obama’s key goals besides a health care overhaul, including funds for domestic programs and clean energy, and a tax increase for individuals making more than $200,000 a year or couples making more than $250,000.

But the plan calls for extending most of the rest of former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for middle-class workers, investors and families with children.

Democrats would allow Obama’s $400 tax cut for most workers, $800 for couples, to expire at the end of next year. The temporary tax cut was part of the economic stimulus plan enacted in February, and Obama has proposed to make it permanent by using revenues from his global warming initiative to defray the cost.

Even after squeezing the defense and war budgets to levels that are probably unrealistic, the plan would cause a deficit of $523 billion in five years.

“I think this is a good budget,” Conrad said. But, he added, “Much more will have to be done to get us on a more sustainable course,” including slowing the growth of benefit programs like Medicare and overhauling the tax code.

Under Capitol Hill’s arcane rules, the annual congressional budget produces an outline for follow-up tax and spending legislation. The budget pact agreed to on Monday would allow Obama’s health program to pass the Senate by a simple majority instead of the 60 votes that are needed for many other bills.

Obama and his Democratic allies say they still want support from Republicans for health care legislation but need the option of expedited action in case the debate becomes overly partisan.

Don’t you think it is time to tell these people you are tired of their lies and put out on their ear, they are only getting in to office to line their pockets and don’t care about the people and this country.

These are the type of people that should be recalled and not be allowed to vote on any thing and be removed from office. He has no respect for the this country or the people who voted for him, he is only thinking about his own pocket book.

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By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON – Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, a move intended to boost his chances of winning re-election next year that also will push Democrats within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.

“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement was expected later in the day or Wednesday.

President Barack Obama called Specter almost immediately after he was informed of the decision to say the Democratic Party was “thrilled to have you,” according to a White House official. Spurned Republicans said his defection was motivated by ambition, not principle.

Specter, 79 and in his fifth term, is one of a handful of Republican moderates remaining in Congress in a party now dominated by conservatives. Several officials said secret talks that preceded his decision reached into the White House, involving both Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, a longtime colleague in the Senate. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell as well as Democratic leaders in Congress also were involved, added the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.

With Specter, Democrats would have 59 Senate seats. Democrat Al Franken is ahead in a marathon recount in Minnesota, and if he ultimately wins his race against Republican Norm Coleman, he would become the party’s 60th vote. That is the number needed to overcome a filibuster.

Specter faced an extraordinarily difficult re-election challenge in his home state in 2010, having first to confront a challenge from his right in the Republican primary before pivoting to a general election campaign against a Democrat in a state that has trended increasingly Democratic in recent elections. Former Rep. Pat Toomey, whom Specter defeated in a close primary race in 2004, is expected to run again.

Specter has publicly acknowledged in recent months that in order to win a sixth term, he would need the support of thousands of Pennsylvania Republicans who sided with Obama in last fall’s presidential election.

“I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate,” he said in the statement.

Asked by a reporter what he had to say to his constituents, Specter replied with a smile, “I don’t have to say anything to them. They said it to me.”

Specter has long been an independent Republican, and he proved it most recently when he became one of only three members of the GOP in Congress to vote for Obama’s economic stimulus legislation. Then, he proved it once more, pivoting not long afterwards to say he did not support legislation making it easier to form unions, a bill that is organized labor’s top priority in the current Congress.

In Pennsylvania, the chairman of the state Republican Party, Rob Gleason, said that Specter should offer a refund to Republicans who have helped fatten his war chest, which totaled $5.8 million at the end of 2008. “He should give them the option,” Gleason said.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement: “Some in the Republican Party are happy about this. I am not. Let’s be honest: Senator Specter didn’t leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.”

Specter has long been one of the most durable politicians of either party in Pennsylvania. In recent years, he has battled Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system, but maintains a busy schedule that includes daily games of squash.

As one of the most senior Republicans in the Senate, Specter held powerful positions on the Judiciary and Appropriations committees. It was not clear how Democrats would calculate his seniority in assigning committee perches.

As recently as late winter, he was asked by a reporter why he had not taken Democrats up on past offers to switch parties.

“Because I am a Republican,” he said at the time.

“I welcome Sen. Specter and his moderate voice to our diverse caucus,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.

A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no announcement has yet been made, said at 10:25 a.m. EDT Tuesday President Barack Obama was handed a note while in the Oval Office during his daily economic briefing. The note said: “Specter is announcing he is changing parties.” At 10:32, Obama reached Specter by phone and told him “you have my full support” and that the Democratic Party is “thrilled to have you.”

____

Associated Press Writers Julie Davis, Laurie Kellman and Liz Sidoti contributed to this story from Washington. Peter Jackson contributed from Harrisburg, Pa.

Short story but not sweet but a big profit for the Government!!!!

Here is more of our Governments plans to help the people to improve their life stile and start their own business, and get this country moving again.

Chris Malta is a person who is very informative and a good business man.

This is a gentleman who helps people to get started the right way, and how not to get burned, CHECK HERE for what the government is doing now.

Politicians are pinning their hopes for delivery from global warming on a technology that is not quite airtight.

Carbon capture and storage

From The Economist print edition

A RECENT American television advertisement features a series of trustworthy-looking individuals affirming their faith in the potential of “clean coal”. One by one, a sensible old lady in a hat, a lab-coated scientist standing by a microscope, a fresh-faced young schoolteacher, a weather-beaten farmer and a can-do machinist face the camera square-on and declare, “I believe.”

The idea that clean coal, or to be more specific, a technology known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), will save the world from global warming has become something of an article of faith among policymakers too. CCS features prominently in all the main blueprints for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The Stern Review, a celebrated report on the economics of climate change, considers it “essential”. It provides one of the seven tranches of emissions cuts proposed by Robert Socolow of Princeton University. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reckons the world will need over 200 power plants equipped with CCS by 2030 to limit the rise in average global temperatures to about 3°C—a bigger increase than many scientists would like.

Politicians have duly lined up behind the idea. Barack Obama talked up CCS during last year’s election. Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, has said the technology is necessary “if we are to have any chance of meeting our global climate goals”. The leaders of the G8, a rich-country club, want it to be widespread by 2020.

Despite all this enthusiasm, however, there is not a single big power plant using CCS anywhere in the world. Utilities refuse to build any, since the technology is expensive and unproven. Advocates insist that the price will come down with time and experience, but it is hard to say by how much, or who should bear the extra cost in the meantime. Green pressure groups worry that captured carbon will eventually leak. In short, the world’s leaders are counting on a fix for climate change that is at best uncertain and at worst unworkable.

CCS sounds beguilingly simple. It entails isolating carbon dioxide wherever it is produced in large quantities, such as the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants, compressing it and pumping it underground. The oil and chemical industries already use most of the processes that this involves, although not in combination. And oil, gas and salt water seem to stay put in certain rock formations indefinitely, suggesting that carbon dioxide should as well.

04/21/2009 by James Handley

Co-authored with Devin Helfrich

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA) prepared by Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) is the subject of four days of hearings before Waxman’s Energy and Commerce Committee this week. Here, we compare its cap-and-trade provisions with the leading alternative, a carbon tax embodied in Rep. John Larson’s America’s Energy Security Trust Fund Act of 2009 (AESTFA).

ACESA’s cap-and-trade provisions comprise one of four “titles” of the 648-page draft. ACESA would also impose renewable energy requirements on electric utilities; fund R&D and demonstration projects of carbon capture and sequestration for coal-fired power plants; set energy-efficiency standards for autos, appliances, homes and commercial buildings; and regulate other greenhouse gases (”black carbon” and CFCs).

Many of these regulations and programs appear positive, but they can only go so far in the absence of clear price signals on CO2 emissions. As Yale economist William Nordhaus noted recently:

Economic participants-thousands of governments, millions of firms, billions of people, all making trillions of decisions each year – need to face realistic prices for the use of carbon if their decisions about consumption, investment, and innovation are to be appropriate… without a strong price signal, there is simply no hope for making the vast number of decisions in a remotely efficient manner…  Raising the price of carbon is [thus] a necessary condition for implementing carbon policies in a way that will reach the multitude of decisions and decision makers over space, time, nations, and sectors.

We compare Waxman-Markey with Larson on six criteria that experts consider central to effective and equitable carbon pricing:

1) Auction all carbon pollution permits. Under a cap, polluters must hold permits to emit each ton of carbon pollution. Under ACESA, the government would issue tradeable permits declining in number by about 3% a year. The ACESA draft doesn’t say whether the government would give permits to polluters, auction them or some of each. Either way, permit prices would rise as the cap tightens and permits become scarce. Free permits are a windfall to polluters and have been criticized by the Congressional Budget Office, Friends of the Earth and candidate Barack Obama who promised to auction 100% of pollution permits.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Democrats in Congress capped President Barack Obama’s 100th day in office by advancing a $3.4 trillion federal budget for next year — a third of it borrowed — that prevents Republicans from blocking his proposed trillion-dollar expansion of government-provided health care over the next decade.

Wednesday’s House and Senate votes to adopt the nonbinding budget blueprint were only a first step toward Obama’s goal of providing health care coverage for all Americans. The budget plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 sets the parameters for subsequent tax and spending bills expected to boost clean energy programs and student aid and extend many of former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts.

“It’s a budget that reduces taxes, lowers the deficit and creates jobs,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. “It honors the three pillars of the Obama initiatives: energy, health care and education.”

Obama cheered passage of the plan, saying in a statement that it “builds on the steps we’ve taken over the last 100 days to move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity.”

The budget outline also makes it plain that Democrats won’t let a mountain of deficits and debt interfere with advancing Obama’s ambitious but costly agenda.

It gives Democrats the option of moving Obama’s health care plan through Congress without the threat of a Republican filibuster, though Democrats promise to try to find bipartisan agreement.

The Senate adopted the plan by a 53-43 vote just hours after a 233-193 House tally.

Newly-turned Democrat Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania voted against the measure as he did earlier this month when it initially passed the Senate. Three other Democrats also voted no: Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Evan Bayh of Indiana.

Seventeen House Democrats, mostly from GOP-leaning districts, voted against the budget.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
By Glenn Beck

Wednesday of course is Obama’s 100th day as president. He is celebrating in Missouri with a “town hall” and his third prime-time address — something that I’m sure pleases the broadcast networks, who have to once again pre-empt hit shows in favor of Obama highlighting his accomplishments.

But here’s the one thing about these first 100 days that you’re not going to hear the president talk about: Almost all of his accomplishments have been done in the red lights of an emergency.

In an emergency everything has to be done right now. No time to think, just react — quick, go-go-go!

Look at the economy, for instance. Yes, the president did “inherit” TARP from the Bush administration, but man, they took that ball and ran with it. Tim Geithner had to be confirmed fast and all $787 billion of the 1,073 page “stimulus bill” had to be passed immediately, without time to even read it — because it was an “emergency.”

Then we moved to a “housing emergency.” Obama called for another $75 billion in government TARP money to save the housing sector — because it was in “crisis.”

And the “car emergency”: With the same lame excuse as the Bush administration — the Big Three were too big to fail — so we handed over billions in financial aid.

The “banking emergency” continued and we are waiting for the results of stress tests. Meantime, the Obama budget sees the need for another $250 billion for banks this year.

Now, it’s the “swine flu emergency.” We suddenly forgot about all the important questions we had about Kathleen Sebelius and confirmed her as the new Health and Human Services secretary on Tuesday. Why? Because, according to Chris Dodd, “We find ourselves in the midst of a global crisis.”

Don’t think, just react — go-go-go!

Deficit Claims Questionable

President Obama turned the page on 100 days in office with an iffy boast about job creation and claims of fiscal prudence that are hard to square with his spending.
WASHINGTON — President Obama turned the page on 100 days in office with an iffy boast about job creation and claims of fiscal prudence that are hard to square with his spending.

Obama spoke with abundant confidence about his chances for achieving the big-ticket items on his agenda despite economic calamity:

– His assertion that his proposed budget “will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term” is an eyeball-roller for many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits the government is negotiating.

– He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.

– He pitched a remedy for Social Security’s long-term crisis that analysts say won’t fix half the problem.

Obama held a prime-time news conference Wednesday and addressed citizens at an Arnold, Mo., high school, using both events to review progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.

A look at some of his claims:

OBAMA: “We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs.” — from news conference.

THE FACTS: This assertion is dubious on several levels. For starters, the U.S. has lost more than 1.2 million jobs since Obama took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even if Obama’s stimulus bill saved or created as many jobs as he says, that number is dwarfed by the number of recent job losses.

Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of Americans enjoying their small windfall from President Barack Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax credit are in for an unpleasant surprise next spring.

The government is going to want some of that money back.

The tax credit is supposed to provide up to $400 to individuals and $800 to married couples as part of the massive economic recovery package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in the past month.

But new tax withholding tables issued by the IRS could cause millions of taxpayers to get hundreds of dollars more than they are entitled to under the credit, money that will have to be repaid at tax time.

At-risk taxpayers include a broad swath of the public: married couples in which both spouses work; workers with more than one job; retirees who have federal income taxes withheld from their pension payments and Social Security recipients with jobs that provide taxable income.

The Internal Revenue Service acknowledges problems with the withholding tables but has done little to warn average taxpayers.

“They need to get the Goodyear blimp out there on this,” said Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

For many, the new tax tables will simply mean smaller-than-expected tax refunds next year, IRS spokesman Terry Lemons said. The average refund was nearly $2,700 this year.

But taxpayers who calculate their withholding so they get only small refunds could face an unwelcome tax bill next April, said Jackie Perlman, an analyst with the Tax Institute at H&R Block.

“They are going to get a surprise,” she said.

By VINNEE TONG, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK – U.S. companies remain generous with the perks they give to CEOs, including some that are unfathomable to the average American worker: chauffeured cars, bodyguards, club memberships and free travel in company jets.

The median value of these and similar perks rose nearly 7 percent in 2008, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory filings from 309 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500. The increase came even as overall CEO compensation fell 7 percent to $7.6 million.

Perks rose despite a public backlash against such benefits, which many investors and lawmakers deem excessive. They argue well-paid executives should cover the costs of life insurance, charitable donations and financial planning themselves, especially as companies struggle with falling profits, slumping stock prices and massive job cuts.

Even some compensation consultants are saying enough is enough.

“Those are things the average person, the average Joe, doesn’t have, so we’re saying, don’t give them perks,” said Paul Dorf, a managing director at pay consultant Compensation Resources Inc.

But plenty of companies are keeping the spigots open. Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray Irani, for example, received $400,000 worth of financial planning, part of a $30 million pay package in 2008. To put it another way, that $400,000 in financial planning is more than the total annual household income of the vast majority of Americans. Occidental spokesman Richard Kline said the comprehensive financial planning helps Irani to “keep his complete attention on the company’s business.”

The median value of perks — which is the midpoint at which half of the executives received more and half less — was $170,501 in 2008, up from $159,586 the year before. Only three CEOs in the AP survey received no perks in 2008.

By Chris Malta

As if the credit card companies weren’t acting disgustingly enough with the crap they’re pulling that I detailed in my last post, here’s another (absolutely insane!) dirty credit card company trick that I hadn’t heard of yet, sent in by a reader named Ellen. You NEED to check with your CC company to make sure they aren’t pulling this crap on you:

[ Hey Chris,  I also got caught with this one. The biggest bite in the a_ _ is that I had been making my payments (larger than minimum) on the same day for several years. Well this year they shortened my month to 28 days (this gives them 13 payments in each year). I am sure they let me know somewhere in the really fine print somewhere along the line that they could do this but I missed it entirely. Soooo after making payment from $500- 2000 over my minimums I am now being reevaluated as well. Any way to fight back?
Thanks
Ellen ]

C’MON!! These scum-sacs are actually creating another month in the year in order to screw us over even more badly?? Incredible that the Fools on the Hill aren’t catching this and doing something about it immediately, instead of waiting until 2010 to enact new legislation. By that time, these bastards will have so much of these sleazy tricks in place that it will be too late for both us AND the CC companies. These people are obviously too selfish, too stupid or too desperate to avoid causing thier own demise.
Yes, Ellen, there is something you can do about it…write your State Representative immediately. Although in most cases this is like reporting a fire to an arsonist, maybe, just maybe, you’ll catch your rep on a day when they need some publicity to divert attention from something they’ve done wrong and been caught at, and they’ll say something to somebody about this. A longshot, but there it is.
Other than that, I would start sending them checks written on toilet paper, and include the phrase “If you’re going to sh** all over me, don’t forget to wipe”.
People, please check with your CC company to make sure you aren’t being victimized like this.
Ellen, when you read this, please comment and post the name of the company that’s doing this.

By Chris Malta

Even as the Federal Reserve actually said today that the recession is “easing”, many of the banks that contributed to the problem are still cracking down on us small business owners (and anybody else with a credit card) and doing thier best to make things worse.

Keep a close eye on your credit cards, people. The banks and card companies are up to a nasty trick designed to make YOU pay for thier greed and mismanagement. Citibank (phhhhtttt! to Citibank!) pulled this one on me, and after speaking to other people, I find that the other banks are doing it too.

Banks and card companies are raising thier credit card interest rates overnight, many of them doubling those rates with no apparent reason except that somewhere in the fine print of thier lengthy Terms and Conditions page, it says they can. What they’re really doing is tracking down everyone who’s ever made even a slightly late payment, and targeting them for “risk re-evaluation”. In other words, make one payment a couple of days late, and they use that as an excuse to double thier rates on you so that you can’t afford your card payments.

Why would they do this? It would seem that they would want you to be able to MAKE your payments, right? Ah, but you haven’t heard Part Two of the dastardly plan yet! So here it is.

When you call them and say “I can’t afford to make my credit card payments if you double my interest rate”, they cleverly offer you a “reduced rate buyout” of your account. What this means is that they will actually lower your interest back down to the previous rate, IF YOU AGREE to close your account and pay off the full balance at the lower rate within a year.

How does it benefit the bank when you agree to this “helpful” offer to close your account and pay it off at the lower rate? It allows them to book the entire balance due on your account as a “recieveable” in thier financial books, payable in full within 12 months. When they pull this crap on enough people, they LOOK like a stronger company on paper, at YOUR expense. What else is new.

If your rates haven’t gone up already, make sure you’re not even one day past the due date on your cards. In fact, pay them early. Don’t let these bloodsuckers chew on YOUR neck like they have so many others.

This is a despicable practice, and should be looked into at the Federal level. Not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, though.

By Bob L

People who complain about social security, but say nothing about how much the President cost the tax payers every time he does a trip for a town meeting, and all his uncalled flights for photo ops.

Social Security recipient has it deducted from his pay check and then receives it when disabled or retires, but the government also pays it to people who have never payed a dime into it, a good example Judges and our Government officials.

There was a judge in Texas that was bragging that when he retired he got full social security and has never payed one dime into it, if you did some checking you would find out that they pay it to any one that comes to this country if they stay for a few years, and their pork projects, and world charities.

The president and any one in DC cost tax payers, every time they start up their planes, just to do that New York fly over, cost tax payers about $300,000 thousand dollars or more but all any body complained about is social security.

For social security I have been paying into it sense I was 15, I am now 65 and I don’t have any other income, so what do you want, every one who has lost their retirement through companies that filed bankruptcy or just closed their doors for lack of business, and you can’t for get the ones who have lost their retirement because of the fall of wall street, or companies like Enron, then you are pretty stupid.

If you can’t tell by now that, PRIVATE or WALL STREET plans are not a good idea then you are so brainwashed you will never see it.

By Bret Baier

Practice What You Preach?

Democrats who accused the Bush administration of letting energy lobbyists write national policy have turned to their own lobbyists to help draft climate legislation.

The Washington Times reports that a group of environmental agencies and corporate giants known as the U.S. Climate Action Partnership has provided language included in the bill. It bars construction of new coal-fired projects for up to 15 years until clean coal technology is developed. It also gives a member of the lobby, Duke Energy Corporation, an exemption on a coal plant it is currently building. House Energy and Commerce Committee Deputy Republican staff director Larry Neal says: “the U.S. Climate Action Partnership companies must be delirious over the freebies that they’ve received after writing the blueprint for the House draft bill.”

Put it On My Tab

The New York State Psychiatric Institute will spend $400,000 dollars of your taxpayer money to study alcohol consumption among Argentinean homosexuals.

Cybercast News reports the grant was awarded by the division of the National Institute of Health that studies alcohol issues. The effort began in September and runs through August of next year.

Researchers will travel to Argentina to determine the relationship among drinking bars frequented by homosexuals, and what the study calls “risky behavior” to see if certain bars might be good targets for HIV prevention campaigns. Researchers say information gathered in those bars might help similar efforts in the future here at home.

By Peter Ferrara
Director, Entitlement and Budget Policy, Institute for Policy Innovation/General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union

How is Obama not a socialist?  Under his “auto bailout” policy, the government would be taking GM and Chrysler away from the investors, with majority controlling interest for GM placed instead in the hands of the government (with 50% common stock ownership), and the majority interest for Chrysler (55%) to be given to the UAW union.  This is exactly what socialism is.

This policy basically involves stealing the company from the investors and giving it to the federal government and the auto union.  This is especially clear for the senior bondholders that Obama has now taken to deriding as greedy.  These bondholders agreed to lend money to the auto companies on the condition that the debt owed to them would be senior to the debts of others.  Senior means they would be paid first out of the company’s available revenues.

But the auto bailout Obama wants them to agree to would pay these senior bondholders somewhere between 5% and 30% of what they are owed, while everyone else, including the unions and the government, would get a much higher percentage of what they are owed.  So Obama’s deal means they would be last instead of first, as was agreed, to get them to lend the money in the first place.  The bondholders were consequently quite right to object to this theft of their money and force the whole deal into bankruptcy court, where the rights of senior creditors are understood and respected.

This is our Government that worries more about world health then US health.They want to brake this countries bank to support every one else. How much money does the world pay to help Americans, and I don’t mean borrow.
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Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a $63 billion, six-year health initiative to help people in the world’s poorest countries, most of it to bolster existing programs.

“We cannot simply confront individual preventable illnesses in isolation. The world is interconnected, and that demands an integrated approach to global health,” Obama said in a statement.

Obama will request the money in his budget for the 2010 fiscal year that begins on October 1. The White House has already released the main elements of that budget, but plans to offer greater details on Thursday.

The money will go toward efforts to fight AIDS, tropical diseases and other illness and to help improve maternal health. The initiative will be aimed at addressing “some of the biggest global health challenges,” said Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew.

The program to combat AIDS and malaria which is known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and was created in the Bush administration, would get $51 billion over the six years.

The other $12 billion would be channeled to new programs to fight tropical disease and other health problems.

(Reporting by Caren Bohan; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

By Glenn Beck

President Obama’s new health care plan rolled out on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. HHS Secretary Sebelius talked about creating a government health insurance plan to compete with private insurers and “leveling the playing field” between them.

Government health care: great, they are coming to save you.

But here’s the one thing no one else is going to say: We have elected a former community organizer as our president who is helping to orchestrate a power grab of industry, energy, health care and taxes — he wants to control it.

Let me explain through two stories in the news right now:

First community organizers — what do they do? Take the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — better known as ACORN — for example. ACORN says they are, “committed to social and economic justice” and they “those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.”

Remember, President Obama say he wants his Supreme Court nominee to have empathy and understand social justice.

Anyway, what they neglect to mention is that one technique for accomplishing those things is fraud. ACORN is facing fraud charges in Nevada. Another way is intimidation. How many times has Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson threatened to bring their groups to the streets to “bring to justice” anyone they perceive as a threat? Who organized the bus tours of the homes AIG executives so they could protest and scare their children?

To groups like ACORN, it’s not really about helping “those who have been locked out.” It is about helping those who help them. This is a power grab. They work to get the people into office that can continue to feed them — and it’s a great strategy. They’ve reportedly received $53 million in federal funds since 1994.So, now we’ve elected a community organizer to the White House, what do you expect him to do? Well, you can take the organizer out of Chicago, but you can’t take the Chicago out of the organizer. By including ACORN and groups like them in the stimulus package, we’ve guaranteed them billions of dollars to buy more votes for the party.
Column Archive

Just as this is seed money for Democratic votes, the auto bailout will help the party flourish for years to come.

First take a look at Obama’s “car czar,” Steve Rattner. A top Democratic fundraiser, he served as finance chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2006 — during which the DNC raised approximately $600 million.

By Glenn Beck

Everyone else is talking about what’s in the $825 billion stimulus package, but here’s the one thing I want to know: How can we let the government get away with calling it a “stimulus” in the first place?

Let’s break down the numbers on this with the help of those non-partisan, radical hate-mongers over at the Congressional Budget Office.

According to the CBO, only $26 billion — just over 3 percent — will be spent this year. Another $110 billion — or 13 percent — will be spent next year. Which means that by the time President Obama’s term is halfway through, just 16 percent of the money will have been spent.

I thought President Obama said this is supposed to be a quick “jolt” to the economy?

The president has also billed the stimulus as an investment in America’s infrastructure. And if that were true, I’d be all for it. I mean, I-95 here on the East Coast isn’t exactly the autobahn. Yet only 3 percent — just $30 billion — of this entire package is dedicated to road and highway spending.

Then you have the promise about creating “green jobs” and clean energy.

Again, you want to seriously get wind and solar and nuclear power off the ground, I’m in. But this isn’t serious. Only 2 percent of the money is earmarked for clean energy and only 1/7th of that will be spent over the next 2 years.

The CBO tells us that billions of dollars are going to buy new computers and replace government cars with new alternative fuel vehicles. In all, the money is going to 150 different federal programs — from Amtrak to the TSA — and it’s not clear a single new job will be created.

America, let’s call a spade a spade: This package isn’t meant to stimulate the economy, it’s meant to reshape it.

If President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the progressives really believe that socialism is the best way out of this mess and the best way forward for America, then make the case. Let’s debate it and allow the American people to decide.

But what they’re doing now — using fear to promote long-term changes to the country — is exactly the kind of thing that has led to the biggest deficit of all: The deficit of trust we now have in our leaders.

What do you think? Send your comments to: glennbeck@foxnews.com

By Sean Hannity

In 1765 parliament passed the Stamp Pact provoking outrage among the American colonists. Now the leaders of the tax uprising were the Sons of Liberty who met in August of 1765 under an old elm tree in Boston to air their grievances against the tyrannical King George.

The Sons of Liberty will become an early voice for the rights of an oppressed citizenry and included some familiar names from the annals of American history including Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, John Hancock and John Adams.

At the end of that first protest in 1765 the Sons of Liberty hung two tax collectors in effigy from the branches of elm and from that day forward it became known as the Liberty Tree.

The tree became a symbol for the Colonial Revolutionaries and similar trees were planted in cities all across the colonies. The last original Liberty Tree stood until 10 years ago on the campus of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. Under it, colonists held a tea party and listened to the words of founding father Samuel Chase.

But after being damaged by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the 400-year-old tulip poplar suffered too much damage and was taken down. Two years ago, the graduating class of the college planted a new tulip poplar in its honor.

Therefore, in the spirit of our founding fathers, with our liberties once again threatened, we introduce our own Liberty Tree. Now as you can see, our tree is built upon the roots of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and freedom. They support the trunk of the tree which is made of we the people. And the trunk supports the branches and the fruits of our liberty represented by the apples.

It is those apples, the fruits of our liberty, that this administration is now picking clean. So what are those fruits? Now in 1789, Thomas Jefferson famously said, quote, “It is a great truth that industry, commerce, and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of a people.”

And as you can see, on our Liberty Tree, well, industry, commerce, and security are all represented as apples. The fruits of our liberty.Let’s start with industry. This administration has started down a dangerous road of stifling industry through expanded government control. In effect, nationalizing the banking industry.

The president has said that he doesn’t want to run General Motors or keep government control of the banks. But that’s exactly what has happened with the firing of the CEO of General Motors and the bullying of Chrysler investors to accept pennies on the dollar because it is, quote, “in the national interest.”

Your Government working  for you, the tax payer!!!!

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By Edward Barnes  FOX News

A greenhouse gases trading system funded with the help of then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama would appear to have another prominent supporter, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was also one of the system’s earliest clients.
A greenhouse gases trading system funded with the help of then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama would appear to have another prominent supporter, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was also one of the system’s earliest clients.

Three years ago, Lugar, who grows corn, soybeans and trees on his family’s 604 acres of property in Marion County, Ind., became the first farmer in his state to sign up with the new commodity market called the Chicago Climate Exchange, which is likely to play a major role in President Obama’s $650 billion cap-and-trade initiative. In the process, Lugar became what the exchange called an offset producer, entitling him to a financial reward in return for keeping his part of his property untouched.

Lugar, who was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at the time, not only participated in the Climate Exchange program. He also endorsed it in its promotional advertising, an endorsement that could prove significant as climate change legislation, which was introduced last month in the U.S. House of Representatives, moves forward as an Obama Administration priority.

Despite signing a promise not to cut down any of the 200 acres of walnut and other hardwood trees on his 604 acres, thus preserving the trees’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide, Lugar never cashed in on the financial profit due to him, a fact that his office confirmed in an interview with FOX News. He never sold the small stack of certificates he received from the exchange as part of a “cap and trade” deal involving the untouched trees.

The Climate Exchange, however, profited from its association with Lugar, one of the Senate’s most influential voices on foreign policy and a highly respected elder statesman. As recently as last October, the exchange was still using Lugar’s participation to promote itself to farmers and the public, in the form of a ringing endorsement from the Senator that the exchange displays in marketing tools.

Click here to see a Powerpoint presentation including the endorsement. (Warning: large file)

Lugar’s property, Lugar Stock Farm Inc., is also listed as an official “offset provider” among “participant members” of the exchange on the official Chicago Climate Change Web site.

Click here to see the listing.

“I am hopeful that farmers in Indiana and elsewhere will investigate the possibility of enrolling in the exchange,” Lugar said in a press release issued at the time of the deal. His quote was also contained in a Climate Exchange sales presentation dated October, 2008. “This not only will encourage the practice of sequestering carbon, it will provide an additional source of farm income to those who qualify,” the testimonial continued.

Lugar’s words are on the same page as a milder testimonial from Barack Obama, culled from a speech he made on April 3, 2006, as a freshman U.S. Senator and presidential aspirant.

Sen. Lugar’s deal with the exchange was typical of the cap-and-trade theory on which it operates. By guaranteeing to preserve his trees, Lugar created a new, tradeable good: a certified guarantee that the preservation would remove an estimated 3,400 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

This certificate, in turn, could be traded on the Climate Exchange, for a price that would vary with supply and demand, to a company that released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as an “offset” for its pollution. The value of the certificate to polluters is that it would likely be less than the cost of pollution control equipment to achieve the same effect.

At the time Lugar signed the agreement, a ton of carbon offset was trading for $3.89, according to press reports. Now, the same ton of carbon is trading for $1.50, largely because the recession has cut down on industrial output and consequently lowered the value of offsets.

The cap-and-trade offset that Lugar’s trees provide is a cornerstone of the system that President Obama wants to use in the U.S. to control carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous greenhouse gas that is blamed by many experts for helping to cause global warming. Schemes for reducing the carbon-based gas are decried by critics as a huge tax on American consumers and industry, that could cost as much as $2 trillion.

Congress is now considering a bill submitted by California Rep. Henry Waxman and Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey that would use a cap-and-trade scheme to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent from their 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. So far, the bill avoids the hard questions of how offset credits would be issued as well as how gas emission would be measured. But it does establish that credits and offsets be traded. If it is imposed, the Chicago Climate Exchange, the only carbon trading market in the nation, could be a major beneficiary because of its expertise on putting a value on carbon and its offsets.

The Climate Exchange is the brainchild of Richard Sandor, an economics professor who has worked for both the Chicago Mercantile Association and the Chicago Board of Trade. Known as “Mr. Derivative” for his work in creating interest rate futures markets, Sandor first proposed the creation of the Climate Exchange in 2000, just before the signing of the Kyoto Accord on greenhouse gas reduction. The United States subsequently refused to participate in the accords.

In 2000 and 2001, while still a state senator, Obama voted along with other members of the board of the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based charitable organization, to give more than $1.1 million to help the Climate Exchange get off the ground.

In 2001, when the Joyce Foundation gave more than $750,000 of the total to the exchange — a grant considered crucial to its launch — Joyce Foundation president Paula DiPerna had moved over to become president of the exchange’s parent company as well as the its executive vice president, a position she still holds. Obama was still on the Joyce Foundation’s board.

Despite the fact that he is used in Climate Exchange testimonial literature, and his property listed as an official climate exchange participant, Lugar’s spokesman, Andy Fisher, says that the Senator has never taken an official position on cap and trade, nor had he endorsed the exchange beyond seeing it as a promising source of farm income.

“The senator isn’t committed to cap and trade,” as the answer to global warming, Fisher told FOX News. “Indiana is dependent on coal for its energy and the Senator still has serious questions” about the right way to handle the problem of climate change.

Fisher said that the senator had become acquainted with the exchange because Sandor, its founder, had “testified before Congressional committees he headed around 20 times.” He also said the senator had no other dealings or financial interest with the exchange.

In fact, congressional campaign contribution records maintained by Open Secrets.org show that Sandor has contributed $3,000 to Lugar’s campaign coffers since 2005.

In 2007, according to a National Farmer’s Union press release, Lugar also allowed his farm to be the centerpiece venue of the Exchange’s celebration of Earth Day. “We are honored and proud to be able to further build this environmental market with the help of Senator Lugar’s farm as a source of emission offsets,” Sandor says in the release.

Calls by FOX News to the Climate Exchange were not returned.

That Obama and Lugar show up together in the exchange’s sales pitches is not surprising, according to Fisher. He said the two legislators became acquainted after sponsoring a nuclear non-proliferation initiative and traveling to Russia and Eastern Europe to support the bill several years ago.

On the trip, according to Fisher, the two discussed other issues that they had in common and decided to jointly introduce the American Fuels Act of 2006, that would increase the use of ethanol and move the country away from an oil based energy system, according to Obama. The bill was referred to committee but never passed.

In the next session of Congress, Obama solely sponsored the bill, which again died in committee.

AP Associated Press

In the party’s weekly radio and Internet address, Rep. Lynn Jenkins chided Obama and Democrats in Congress for pushing through initiatives that she said will waste taxpayers’ dollars and burden future generations.

Republicans say President Obama’s first 100 days in office can be summed up in three words: spending, taxing and borrowing.

In the party’s weekly radio and Internet address, Rep. Lynn Jenkins chided Obama and Democrats in Congress for pushing through a $787 billion stimulus package and a $3 trillion federal budget for next year that she said will waste taxpayers’ dollars and burden future generations.

“The plans they’ve passed in the first 100 days will add more to our nation’s public debt than all previous presidents combined in 200-plus years,” said the Kansas Republican, a former state treasurer. “They’ve taken away President Obama’s promised middle-class tax cut and paved the way for a new national energy tax to be paid by every American who dares to flip on a light switch.”

Pointing to the stimulus package, Jenkins contended millions of dollars have already needlessly gone for a homeless program in a town which doesn’t have such a problem, an artwalk in New York as well as sidewalks and trash cans outside a Michigan casino.

“This bill was supposed to be about jobs, but it’s gone off the rails in practically no time at all,” she said. “It’s quickly turning into a symbol of everything wrong with Washington, D.C. — unchecked spending, no accountability and oversight.”

Jenkins said Republicans believe they can help rebuild people’s savings, revitalize the housing market and create “twice as many jobs as the Democrats’ ’stimulus’ at half the cost.”

“Middle-class families and small businesses across America are tightening their belts and making sacrifices each and every day during this recession, and Republicans believe that it’s time for Washington to do the same,” she said.

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve could become the supercop for “too big to fail” companies capable of causing another financial meltdown under a proposal being seriously considered by the White House.

The Obama administration told industry officials on Friday that it was leaning toward making such a recommendation, according to officials who attended a private one-hour meeting between President Barack Obama’s economic advisers and representatives from about a dozen banks, hedge funds and other financial groups.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other officials made it clear they were not inclined to divide the job among various regulators as has been suggested by industry and some federal regulators. Geithner told the group that one organization needs to be held responsible for monitoring systemwide risk.

“Committees don’t make decisions,” said Geithner, according to one participant.

Officials from the Treasury Department and National Economic Council, which hosted the meeting, told participants that the Fed was considered the most likely candidate for the job, according to several officials who attended or were briefed on the discussions.

The administration officials said a legislative proposal would likely be sent to Capitol Hill in June with the expectation the House Financial Services Committee, led by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., would consider the measure before the Independence Day recess.

The officials requested anonymity because the meeting had not been publicly announced and they were not authorized to discuss it.

A Treasury Department statement provided to The Associated Press on Friday confirmed Geithner’s position that he wants a “single independent regulator with responsibility for systemically important firms and critical payment and settlement systems.”

A spokesman said Geithner also is open to creating a council to “coordinate among the various regulators, including the systemic risk regulator.”

The Fed itself hasn’t taken a position on whether it should have the job, although Chairman Ben Bernanke has said the Fed would have to be involved in any effort to identify and resolve systemwide risk.

Is this the type of people we need to run this country, I don’t think so. This is the problem today, they are only there for money and retirement, not for the good of this country and every one of them should be thrown out on their ear with out a retirement or compensation, that is what they are doing to the American people.

======================================================
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – It’s a political squall that won’t die: What did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi know about harsh questioning of detainees, and when did she know it? On Friday, the California Democrat was forced to issue yet another press release, reiterating her past assertions that she had been briefed in 2002 only on new interrogation techniques that had been deemed legal and were planned for future use.

Pelosi had made the same comments in 2007 when word first leaked that she was aware of the interrogation program and had not objected to it.

Her latest statement came three weeks after the Justice Department released formerly classified legal memos that detailed the once-secret CIA harsh interrogation program, and two weeks after she told reporters that when she got her sole CIA briefing on interrogation back in 2002, she had no idea the technique of waterboarding had already been used on a prisoner.

Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that President Barack Obama last week called torture.

The House speaker was responding to this week’s release of CIA records that show Pelosi was briefed in September 2002 on the harsh methods that were then being used. That appeared to contradict Pelosi’s version, which said she understood the techniques were only planned for future use.

Time

By Bryan Walsh

Once touted as an environmental and economic cure-all, corn ethanol has had a rough year. The collapse in grain and oil prices, preceded by overinvestment in refineries over the past few years, badly hurt ethanol producers. Meanwhile, environmentalists have steadily chipped away at ethanol’s green credentials. Far from being better for the planet than gasoline, many scientists now argue that ethanol actually has a sizable carbon footprint, because when farmers in the U.S. use their land to grow corn for fuel rather than food, farmers in the developing world end up cutting down more forests to pick up the slack.

Now a new study makes the case that ethanol isn’t even the greenest way to use biomass as a fuel. In an article published in the May 8 issue of Science, researchers from the Carnegie Institution, Stanford University and the University of California-Merced (UCM) used life-cycle analysis — which takes into account the entire impact of a biofuel from field to vehicle — to show that converting biomass to electricity (to power electric cars) produces 80% more transportation energy than turning it into ethanol (to power a flex-fuel car), with a carbon footprint that is half as small. (Bioelectricity is created the same way fossil fuel–generated electricity is: Biomass is usually burned to generate heat, turning water to steam and driving an electrical generator.)

For every acre of land planted with an energy crop — like corn or switchgrass — turning that biomass into electricity gives you more “miles per acre” than converting it to liquid ethanol, which is how biomass is used today, according to the study. A small SUV powered by bioelectricity could travel nearly 14,000 miles on the energy produced by an acre of switchgrass, while an ethanol-powered SUV could go only 9,000 miles. “It looks like converting biomass to electricity, instead of using it to make ethanol, makes the most sense for both transport and the climate,” says Elliott Campbell, an environmental engineer at UCM and lead author of the study.

What in the hell is she doing in Baghdad her job is in Washington DC, she can’t do her job here but she can go to Iraq and tell them about their ECONOMY, but she does not know how to do her job here, this is just to show you how much they care about this Country.

Look what it cost the American tax payer every time they take off on any time they want to, but this Government is telling us to tighten our belts, but yet when they want to talk to some one they just jump on a plane for a day with no regard for cost, because they are not paying for it, we are told that is what a phone is for.

[ U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise one-day visit to Baghdad Sunday and discussed U.S.-Iraqi economic relations with the prime minister, the government spokesman said. ]

======================================================

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

BAGHDAD – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise one-day visit to Baghdad Sunday and discussed U.S.-Iraqi economic relations with the prime minister, the government spokesman said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked Pelosi, a California Democrat, to shield Iraq from the demands for reparations from neighboring countries dating back to the actions by the previous ruler Saddam Hussein, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

“Al-Maliki requested the United States protect Iraqi funds and put an end to the demands of other countries which feel they were harmed during the two Gulf wars of the former regime,” he added.

Kuwait still claims billions of dollars in war reparations from Iraq dating from the 1990 invasion and has refused appeals by Baghdad to reduce their demands and forgive about $15 billion in Iraqi debt.

A fierce critic of the U.S.-led Iraq war, Pelosi originally opposed the 2007 increase in U.S. troops credited with contributing to a substantial reduction of violence in much of country in the past two years.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – With the economy performing worse than hoped, revised White House figures point to deepening budget deficits, with the government borrowing almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year.

The deficit for the current budget year will rise by $89 billion to above $1.8 trillion — about four times the record set just last year. The unprecedented red ink flows from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout, the cost of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus bill, as well as a structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.

As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion, the White House says. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps.

For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration’s plan. In one of the few positive signs, the actual 2009 deficit is likely to be $250 billion less than predicted because Congress is unlikely to provide another $250 billion in financial bailout money.

The developments come as the White House completes the official release of its $3.6 trillion budget for 2010, adding detail to some of its tax proposals and ideas for producing health care savings. The White House budget is a recommendation to Congress that represents Obama’s fiscal and policy vision for the next decade.

Annual deficits would never dip below $500 billion and would total $7.1 trillion over 2010-2019. Even those dismal figures rely on economic projections that are significantly more optimistic — just a 1.2 percent decline in gross domestic product this year and a 3.2 percent growth rate for 2010 — than those forecast by private sector economists and the Congressional Budget Office.

For the most part, Obama’s updated budget tracks the 134-page outline he submitted to lawmakers in February. His budget remains a bold but contentious document that proposes higher taxes for the wealthy, a hotly contested effort to combat global warming and the first steps toward guaranteed health care for all.

Obama’s Democratic allies controlling Congress have already made it clear that they will reject key elements of his plan. Already apparently dead is a plan to raise $267 billion over the next decade to pay for his health care initiative by curbing the ability of wealthier people to reduce their tax bills through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.

FOX News

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — In a rare move before the Obama administration has unveiled the details of its own health care overhaul, industry groups are offering to reduce the costs of coverage for all Americans in the hopes of staving off legislation that would restrict their profitability in future years.

Leaders of the health care industry have offered $2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years. The goal is to make insurance more affordable so the government does not create a system to enroll middle-class workers and their families that directly competes with the health care industry.

Under a government system, drug makers worry that in the future, new medications might have to pass a cost-benefit test before they can win approval. And hospitals and doctors are concerned the government could dictate what they get paid to care for any patient, not only the elderly and the poor.

Representatives of industry and provider groups have been invited to the White House Monday. Many of them were part of a health care summit held at the White House in March.

The groups attending Monday include the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, Pharma, AdvaMed, America’s Health Insurance Plans, SEIU, the Greater New York hospital association and the California Hospital association.

“We cannot continue down the same dangerous road we’ve been traveling for so many years, with costs that are out of control, because reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait,” Obama said in prepared remarks the White House released Sunday.

“That is why these groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment.”

The groups concede that their prices are not going down, they are merely slowing the rate of growth. But economists say the move would create breathing room to help provide health insurance to an estimated 50 million Americans who now go without it.

Senior administration officials who briefed media on the topic on Sunday said the change will save 1.5 percent or nearly one-fifth in the annual rate of increase in health care spending over the next decade.

Unknown

YOU’VE GOT TO LOVE THIS RANCHER’S TAKE ON THE CURRENT SITUATION.

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, who’s hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama as our president.

The old rancher said, ‘Well, ya know, Obama is a ‘Post Turtle”..

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was.

The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he continued to explain. ‘You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, and he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with’.

The Tax Poem
At first I thought this was funny… then I realized the awful truth of it.
Be sure to read all the way to the end!
Tax his land, tax his bed, Tax the table At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes Are the rule.
Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for peanuts Anyway!
Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat.
Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work, Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he Tries to think.
Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries Tax his tears. &nb sp;
Tax his car, Tax his gas, Find other ways To tax his …..
Tax all he has Then let him know That you won’t be done Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more, Tax him till He’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in Which he’s laid.
Put these words Upon his tomb, ‘Taxes drove me to my doom….’
When he’s gone, Do not relax, Its time to apply The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax ;
Food License Tax
Fu el Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax

IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) MORE

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN, KEEP THE PRESSURE ON, IF WE DON’T, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL BE A LAUGHING STOCK, AND THE ONES KNOCKING THE TEA PARTY WILL HAVE THE LAST LAUGH DO WE WANT THAT NO I WANT TO RUB THEIR NOSES IN IT.

====================================================

By John Tantillo

I’d bet my Borsalino hat that five years from now the tea party of 2009 is going to be considered little more than a fad that flopped. In fact, it shouldn’t even be compared to the monumental event that kicked our great country off with a rebellious bang.

The one thing I know Karl Marx got right was that history repeats itself: the first time as tragedy; the second time as farce.

This is America, I’m never against someone making a buck, but the merchandising of the tea party shows better than anything that we’re talking about a fad here, nothing more.

This time it’s a farce. Like anything marketed, popular movements need a symbol that resonates widely and deeply. The connection can’t be complicated or second hand. It’s got to have clout and it’s got to instantly make sense to everyone.

For colonial Americans, tea was a powerful symbol. It was something they drank a lot of and it was taxed heavily and this taxation was something they had no say over. Throwing it overboard said everything that needed to be said. They didn’t steal it; they rejected it. This was a statement that went straight to the British purse strings. It might have looked spontaneous, but it was sophisticated and made perfect sense in the context of the time.

Tea has nothing to do with our frustrations today. If tea was taxed at 100% most of us could still afford to drink it. Unfortunately, the tea of this year’s tea party is just a recycled symbol and, not only that, this symbol doesn’t make much sense.

After all, the colonials had no legal recourse to object to the taxation that was making their lives miserable. We do, even if it means an agonizingly long wait for the next election. Before you protest, you’ve got to figure out what you’re protesting and the 2009 tea party simply doesn’t help anyone do that.  Being angry isn’t enough.  In marketing and branding, you must be for something –from there you can create a plan that can capture the hearts and minds of most Americans.

The second big problem with the tea party movement is its origin. As we all know, it began in the media with Rick Santelli’s rant on live TV. It did not begin with the equivalent of Rosa Parks on a bus (a very vivid protest symbol to a very real injustice).  It is always better to start with reality, a “real” person standing for something, not a “media” person ranting about something.

Read the whole story, I highlighted parts that I have been trying to get people to under stand about SOCIAL SECURITY that it is not going broke because of SENIORS getting it, it is because the Government can’t keep their hands out of it, plus there are people who get it that do not pay into it, remember they have to pay for all their pork, and if that runs out they will just print more money, they don’t care, just raise taxes, money grows on the backs of the American worker, not the RICH.

====================================================

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON – The financial health of Social Security and Medicare, the government’s two biggest benefit programs, have worsened because of the severe recession, and Medicare is now paying out more than it receives.

Trustees of the programs said Tuesday that Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, one year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year and will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year’s report.

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government’s “full faith and credit” but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were a reminder that “the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be.”

Geithner said that President Barack Obama was committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade.However, Republicans pointed to the newly dire assessments as evidence the Obama administration has failed to come forward with actual entitlement reform to close the funding gaps.

“Instead of getting existing public programs in order right now, some are saying we should create a new government-run health insurance plan,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a reference to the administration’s health care proposals. “When we can’t afford the public health plan we have already, does it make sense to add more?”

House Republican leader John Boehner said the trustees report “confirms what we already knew: Our nation cannot afford to continue this reckless borrowing and spending spree.”

By 4mainstreet

Has any one noticed the double standard on what you say, well if you have had your head stuck in the sand you better pull it out.
Comedian Draws Fire With Cracks About (==========) Health, and Patriotism, Comedian launched a crude attack on the teen sensation saying, “Make a sex tape and grow up!” Other guests in the background can be heard saying “Be like (=======) and do some heroin. Be like (=======) and start seeing a lesbian…get some crack in your pipe. Now that’s what I want.” They will get away with it time after time saying any thing they want.

Now when another makes a comment, and then apologise, he got crusified then fired, another lashed out when being harassed during his show was drug across the coals for it.
This is just what is going on in this country and Washington DC, it all depends on who you are. I do not have any problem with any one from any country, unless they put their country before the United States, you are eather an American or a Foreigner, if you use both then it shows that you do not care about this Country, and will not stand up for FREEDOM from TYRANNY.

( A Government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler ) A good example Video No apology

If you have not noticed or don’t care, you better open your eyes because your freedoms are slowly being taken away, and this year it is going faster then the past. Every time some one gets wind of what is going on they change the name to through every one off.

Now you have a woman calling any one who stands up for their rights, are RACIST. These are the type of people who are tearing down this Country.

GM, Chrysler to cut up to 3,000 dealers, sources say

AIG’s CEO, Trustees called to answer by Congress

Providence mayor wants to tax college students

House Dems scale back plans to curb global warming

House Democrats near climate bill agreement

The cap-and trade levy would hit low-income earners especially hard.
By MARTIN FELDSTEIN
The barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.

Martin Kozlowski

Historians and economists who’ve studied the 1930s conclude that the tax increases passed during that decade derailed the recovery and slowed the decline in unemployment. That was true of the 1935 tax on corporate earnings and of the 1937 introduction of the payroll tax. Japan did the same destructive thing by raising its value-added tax rate in 1997.

By STEPHEN POWER and BRODY MULLINS

WASHINGTON — Business groups and environmentalists are flooding the airwaves with ads targeting a dozen or so Democrats whose votes are seen as crucial on a controversial climate bill.

The outreach is intensifying as House Democratic leaders are gaining confidence they have the votes needed to move the bill through the House Energy and Commerce Committee as early as next week. On Thursday, a key swing vote on the panel, Rep. Rick Boucher (D., Va.), announced he would support the measure, though he said he continues to harbor concerns about some of its provisions and intends to seek changes when it comes before the full House later this year.