The story of Nadya Suleman is contrived and calculated. My theory in all of this is that Ms. Suleman has been watching The Learning Channel and was seeing dollar signs when she was implanted with eight embryos and took fertility drugs to make sure that all the embryos took. I am sure it will be learned over the next few weeks that she has shopped her show around Hollywood looking to hit the lottery of life by getting her own show.

For reasons unknown to me, people seem to like to watch “Jon and Kate Plus 8” to see just how miserable these two idiots are with their eight children. Jon and Kate Gosselin thought it would be a good idea after already having twins through artificial insemination and fertility drugs to shoot for two more. Much to their surprise they had 6 embryos take and the rest is history.

Enter The Discovery Channel. A once great educational channel that has been turned into reality TV central. They own The Learning Channel that was once another great educational channel that has been morphed into a reality/fashion channel. I guess the powers that be at Discovery Channel think that the almighty dollar is far more important than education. Rather than teaching us about the world and the wonderful creatures contained therein, Discovery has decided that mindless behavior is far more entertaining and profitable.

So they put Jon and Kate Gosselin on The Learning Channel and like sheep being led to slaughter, the people line up to watch as these two idiots try to raise eight kids. Back to my theory. Ms. Suleman sees all this transpire and calls Discovery to tell them she has six kids and she is a single mom. Discovery Channel doesn’t bite. So Ms. Suleman and her dopey parents decide to take it to the next level. “Lets give birth to a baseball team.”

Enter the media. The Los Angeles Times as well as local talk show hosts John and Ken begin to scrutinize Ms. Suleman and her family. They start to question the family about how they intend to pay for these eight new arrivals. The media then learns that Ms. Suleman has six other children for a total of 14. She literally hit it right out of the park with the eight new babies. Surely the Discovery Channel would give her a show now. But the media attacks become relentless. They begin to ask the age old question . . . Why? Why would a woman that already has six children that she cannot afford have eight more?

Enter the taxpayer. Me and the rest of the poor schnooks here in California that are going to be financially burdened with having to take care of an entire platoon of children. The Taxpayers here in California are livid about this and now we are asking why Ms. Suleman would do such a thing. Is she trying to make her own army? Is Ms. Suleman trying to get an expansion team from the NFL for Los Angeles? Is she looking to start her own construction company and hire nothing but family to avoid payroll tax? Is Ms. Suleman out of her mind? How can someone that cannot afford the children she already has be allowed to have eight more children?

Again back to my theory. The Discovery Channel. There is probably already a show in pre-production. I would bet money on it. I would bet that it was The Discovery Channel that leaked the story to the press in the first place. I would also bet that they didn’t do any background research on Ms. Suleman and realize that it was going to get so much negative publicity. But who cares? A & E brought “Dog the Bounty Hunter” back from the dead after his racially insensitive remarks about black people. In fact old Dog has turned speaking at churches and schools into a whole cottage industry and making a fortune off of it.

So here is how this will play out. The Discovery Channel will lay low for six months or so, all the while shooting footage for their new show “Nadya plus 14″ which will show America the struggles and foibles of raising fourteen children. America being the nation of blithering idiots that we are will line up like sheep being led off to slaughter and watch every week being careful not to miss an episode. Unfortunately, we will never know how hard the taxpayer will take it in the seat because of confidentiality laws here in The People’s Republic of California. But I know one thing. The Discovery Channel will make millions. JD

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So here is the “change” that President Obama promised us and guess what? It’s more of the same thing that President Bush offered us . . . only worse. I see no “change” in anything. The only difference I see is that Obama caved in to the teachers unions and supplied 41 billion dollars for teachers. That’s it. Everything else I see is just giving money to the unions across America that supported Obama’s campaign. This bill will by best estimates by the liberal think tanks create less than 100,000 jobs. So much for stimulus.

It is becoming ever more clear that the Obama stimulus package is anything but. A quick review reveals an anti-business, pro-welfare abomination designed to reward special interest groups and promote welfare. The ultimate result will be to prop up uncompetitive businesses and siphon huge sums into State bureaucracies, health care paperwork, environmentalist and academia coffers. Services that are already among the most ill-run in America, with virtually no accountability. The disbursements look like this:

Spending

· $32 billion to transform the nation’s energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid and focusing investment in renewable technology.

Expect to see no practical application of this money. Most will stay in Washington, some will drift into wind farm and solar projects that will be shot down by environmentalist NIMBY.

Grade: FAIL

· $16 billion to repair public housing and make key energy efficiency retrofits.

Because government housing has proven to be such a bargain.

Grade: FAIL

· $6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes.

Expect fraud on a Katrina level.

Grade: FAIL

· $10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation.

Academic welfare. Global Warming redux.

Grade: FAIL

· $6 billion to expand broadband internet access so businesses in rural and other under served areas can link up to the global economy.

This hoax has already cost well over a billion dollars. In one instance, $100 million was paid to bring broadband to 44 homes that already had private service.

Grade: FAIL

· $30 billion for highway construction.

Bridges to nowhere. We need bridge and highway repair.

Grade: FAIL

· $31 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure with investments that lead to long term energy cost savings.

When a budget item is so meaninglessly described, you know that it is BS. This is bureaucracy and a slush fund for Obama. This is where he will be the Chicago Pol. Look at this budget for sign of corruption and payoffs.

Grade: FAIL

· $19 billion for clean water, flood control, and environmental restoration investments.

First, when an expense does not earn money, it is not an investment. It is an expense. These are expenses. Flood control is corporate welfare to the max. Environmental restoration is a worthwhile goal. To bad no one in Washington realizes that often the best method is to clear, plant, fence, and come back in 20 years. Putting dirt in drums merely preserves the toxins and can use up of this money in a single year. If the government were to restock fisheries and forests, that would be one thing. We could even accept sewer repair, maintenance, and secondary treatment. But this item smells.

Grade: FAIL

· $10 billion for transit and rail to reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption.

We suspect this meant ‘gasoline’ consumption. Welfare to the states to prop up a service that cost a lot of money to go where you do not want to be. Nevertheless, if spent properly on hard assets, DBKP gives it a passing grade.

Grade: PASS

· $41 billion to local school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology program ($1 billion).

Right down the rat hole. Need we say more? Reward the teachers and the nut cases that run modern education.

Grade: FAIL

· $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cutbacks to key services, including $39 billion to local school districts, public colleges, and universities distributed through existing state and federal formulas. Fifteen billion to states as bonus grants as a reward for meeting key performance measures, and $25 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education.

Same old crap. Since when is it our responsibility to fund school districts in other states plus hand out bonus rewards for actually doing your job. This does nothing for the economy, the stated purpose of this travesty.

Grade: Massive Failure

· $15.6 billion to increase the Pell grant by $500.

My favorite. Bloated institutions will merely raise their tuition. Simple solution, end tenure. This would lower the cost of education by billions.

Grade: FAIL

· $6 billion for higher education modernization.

More climbing towers, Muslim only gyms, anti- American/Jews/Capitalism/Free Speech Rallies? Bigger Bongs? Massage Chairs in the Entertainment Lounge? Caviar?

Grade: FAIL

· $20 billion for health information technology to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients, and introduce cost-saving efficiencies.

Because government paperwork has proven to be such a cost saver to date?

Grade: FAIL

· $4.1 billion to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective health care treatments.

First, understand what is being called for: A REDUCTION IN MEDICAL SERVICES DESCRIBED AS A POSITIVE. Once that is understood, understand that they are trying to screw you–but want you to pay for a study on how best to kill you off.

Grade: FAIL

· $43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and job training.

Increased welfare.

Grade: FAIL

· $39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer provided healthcare under COBRA and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid.

Another form of welfare.

Grade: FAIL

· $20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit by over 13% in order to help defray rising food costs.

Food stamp use has been going down for years. Rather than be happy, Liberals want to crow that it is going up. So they increase it 13% over the inflationary index. Wonderful.

Grade: MASIVE FAIL

-Save Public Sector Jobs and Protect Vital Services: We will provide relief to states, so they can continue to employ teachers, firefighters, and police officers and provide vital services without having to unnecessarily raise middle class taxes.

Frankly, we need the States to dramatically reduce public sector jobs, particularly social workers, home heating specialists, and the myriad other jobs, including many teachers, that are simply redundant such as six men watching one fix a pipe, or two police officers paid overtime to direct traffic.

· $87 billion for a temporary increase in the Medicaid matching rate.

Another form of welfare.

Grade: FAIL

· $4 billion for state and local law enforcement funding.

State Welfare.

Grade: FAIL

Only one item “passed” on the criteria set forth in the Stimulus package bill. Otherwise, it is a bizarre and unnecessary spending package that will create a minuscule number of jobs and actually decrease productivity.

IT IS A FRICKIN DISASTER.

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7293 Commentshttp://www.brokencountry.com/index.php/2009/01/29/abc-cbs-chide-republicans-for-turning-cold-shoulder-to-obama/ABC+%26+CBS+Chide+Republicans+for+%27Turning+Cold+Shoulder%27+to+Obama+2009-01-29+23%3A35%3A15JD

If the Goracle wants to stop global warming perhaps he should go on a diet. How much air is he consuming at that enormous weight? Not to mention the tremendous dumps he takes and flushes down the toilet. Geez

The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.

What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth — and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry (D-Mass.), appealed to hear more of the Goracle’s premonitions. “Share with us, if you would, sort of the immediate vision that you see in this transformative process as we move to this new economy,” he beseeched.

“Geothermal energy,” the Goracle prophesied. “This has great potential; it is not very far off.”

Another lawmaker asked about the future of nuclear power. “I have grown skeptical about the degree to which it will expand,” the Goracle spoke.

A third asked the legislative future — and here the Goracle spoke in riddle. “The road to Copenhagen has three steps to it,” he said.

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) begged the Goracle to look further into the future. “What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” he inquired.

The Goracle chuckled. “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator.”

It was a jarring reminder that the Goracle is, indeed, mortal. Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as “unified national smart grid” the way he once did “no controlling legal authority” — and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.

“Tennessee,” gushed Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Gore’s home state, “has a legacy of having people here in the Senate and in public service that have been of major consequence and contributed in a major way to the public debate, and you no doubt have helped build that legacy.” If that wasn’t quite enough, Corker added: “Very much enjoyed your sense of humor, too.”

Humor? From Al Gore? “I benefit from low expectations,” he replied.

The Goracle’s powers seem to come from his ability to scare the bejesus out of people. “We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization,” he said. And: “This is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced.” And: It “could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force.”

Though some lawmakers tangled with Gore on his last visit to Capitol Hill, none did on the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. Dick Lugar (Ind.), the ranking Republican, agreed that there will be “an almost existential impact” from the climate changes Gore described.

As such, the Goracle, even when questioned, was shown great deference. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), challenging Gore over spent nuclear fuel, began by saying: “I stand to be corrected, and I defer to your position, you’re probably right, and I’m probably wrong.” He ended his question by saying: “I’m not questioning you; I’m questioning myself.”

Others sought to buy the Goracle’s favor by offering him gifts. “Thank you for your incredible leadership; you make this crystalline for those who don’t either understand it or want to understand it,” gushed Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who went on to ask: “Will you join me this summer at the Jersey Shore?”

The chairman worried that the Goracle may have been offended by “naysayers” who thought it funny that Gore’s testimony before the committee came on a morning after a snow-and-ice storm in the capital. “The little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis,” Kerry said at the start of the hearing.

The climate was well controlled inside the hearing room, although Gore, suffering from a case of personal climate change, perspired heavily during his testimony. The Goracle presented the latest version of his climate-change slide show to the senators: a globe with yellow and red blotches, a house falling into water, and ones with obscure titles such as “Warming Impacts Ugandan Coffee Growing Region.” At one point he flashed a biblical passage on the screen, but he quickly removed it. “I’m not proselytizing,” he explained. A graphic showing a disappearing rain forest was accompanied by construction noises.

The Goracle supplied abundant metaphors to accompany his visuals. Oil demand: “This roller coaster is headed for a crash, and we’re in the front car.” Polar ice: “Like a beating heart, and the permanent ice looks almost like blood spilling out of a body along the eastern coast of Greenland.”

The lawmakers joined in. “There are a lot of ways to skin a cat,” contributed Isakson, who is unlikely to get the Humane Society endorsement. “And if we have the dire circumstances we’re facing, we need to find every way to skin every cat.”

Mostly, however, the lawmakers took turns asking the Goracle for advice, as if playing with a Magic 8 Ball.

Lugar, a 32-year veteran of the Senate, asked Gore, as a “practical politician,” how to get the votes for climate-change legislation. “I am a recovering politician. I’m on about Step 9,” the Goracle replied, before providing his vision.

Prospects for regulating a future carbon emissions market? “There’s a high degree of confidence.” The future of automobiles in China and India? “I wouldn’t give up on electric vehicles.” The potential of solar power in those countries? “I have no question about it at all.”

Of course not. He’s the Goracle.

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Gee I can’t imagine why Starbucks is laying off personnel. Wall Street has been laughing at this company for years for opening up a Starbucks on every corner. I predict bankruptcy within the year. Besides, a person would have to be a fool to pay five dollars at a Starbucks for what they can get for a dollar fifty at the local 7-11. JD

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — Starbucks Corp., the world’s largest chain of coffee shops, said it will cut 6,700 jobs and close 300 more stores after reporting first-quarter profit that fell more than analysts estimated.

The company plans to close 200 locations in the U.S. and 100 overseas, in addition to the 600 Starbucks said it would close last year. The workforce reduction will eliminate 6,000 café positions and 700 corporate jobs, the Seattle-based chain said today in a statement.

Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz warned in December that Starbucks’ profit would be less than analysts’ estimates at the time as sales in established stores worsened in November. Customers pinched by job losses and falling home prices are cutting back on premium coffee. The firings and closings announced today further accelerate Schultz’s plan to trim costs.

Schultz also asked the board to cut his annual base pay to less than $10,000, or the minimum required to maintain benefits for him and his family, spokeswoman Deb Trevino said today in a telephone interview. His base pay was about $1.2 million in 2008. Starbucks is also selling a corporate jet, bringing the fleet to one plane following a similar sale late last year.

“The only grown-up attitude and thing for them to do in this environment” is to adjust to the declining revenue, Sharon Zackfia, an analyst with William Blair & Co. in Chicago, said today in a Bloomberg Television interview. “You have to give this company credit for coming up with ways to bolster their margin even though same-store sales are down.”

Trimming Expenses

The additional measures increase the company’s plan to trim costs by $100 million this year, to at least $500 million, Starbucks said. Starbucks may save more next year as the store closings take effect, Chief Financial Officer Troy Alstead said on a conference call.

Sales at U.S. stores open at least 13 months dropped 10 percent in the first quarter. The company had a total of 16,875 stores, including franchised locations, as of Dec. 28.

“The pace of weakening in the business environment and the global economy has been accelerating,” Schultz said on the conference call today. “I’m far from pleased with our performance this quarter and I anticipate that our results could remain under pressure until the economy begins to recover.”

Starbucks rose 50 cents to $9.65 today in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The stock has lost 51 percent in the past 12 months.

‘Slow Drip’

The coffee seller in July said it would close 600 company- operated stores in the U.S. and 61 shops in Australia. The move slashed 12,000 café positions, although about 70 percent of workers were able to transfer to nearby locations, resulting in about 3,600 jobs lost.

Net income dropped 69 percent to $64.3 million, or 9 cents a share, from $208.1 million, or 28 cents, a year earlier, the company said in the statement. Sales fell 5.5 percent to $2.6 billion in the period ended Dec. 28.

Excluding some restructuring costs, profit was 15 cents a share. The average of 16 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for profit of 17 cents a share on sales of $2.71 billion. The company doesn’t give quarterly forecasts.

The store closings announced last year are still being implemented, and the shutterings announced today will be carried out through the year that ends in September, Starbucks said. Half of the corporate cuts announced today will come from Seattle.

“I’m hoping 300 stores is enough, and that they’ve done what they need to do,” said Patty Edwards, a retail analyst with Storehouse Partners in Seattle. “Slow drip, even in coffee, isn’t necessarily the best thing. Sometimes you just need to get the pain over with.”

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The distraught California dad who wiped out his family before killing himself said in a suicide note the mass murder was his wife’s idea.

“After a horrendous ordeal, my wife felt it better to end our lives and why leave the children in someone else’s hands,” Ervin Lupoe wrote in the note he faxed to a Los Angeles TV station.

After typing his name, Lupoe printed an anguished postscript: “Oh Lord my God is there no hope for a widow’s son?”

The letter, which appeared on the KABC-TV Web site Wednesday, reveals the writer clearly did not think so.

It also shed more light on why Lupoe shot his wife and kids execution style in the heads before shooting himself.

Lupoe was despondent because he and his wife were canned from their jobs as X-ray technicians at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center.

He began his “tragic story” by introducing himself and his doomed spouse, Ana.

Then he listed their kids and their ages: Brittney, 8; twin daughters Jaszmin and Jassely, 5; and twins boys Benjamin and Christian, both “2 yrs 4 mo.”

“My wife and I were being investigated for misrepresentation of our employment to an outside agency,” Lupoe continued.

In a pre-Christmas questioning, Lupoe claimed an administrator told him: “You should not even had bothered to come to work today you should have blown your brains out.”

“It seems Kiaser (sic) Permanente want’s (sic) us to kill ourselves and take our family with us,” he wrote.

Kaiser Permanente confirmed the couple was fired “after an internal investigation” but gave no details. “We are confident that no one told him to take his own life or the lives of his family,” the statement said.

KABC-TV called the cops when they got the fax, which arrived around the time police dispatchers got a call from a man who said, “I just returned home and my whole family’s been shot.”

Police suspect the caller was Lupoe, who was found dead with a revolver by his side Tuesday at his home in Wilmington, a suburb wedged between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The sight of so much carnage horrified even the most hardened police officers, witnesses said.

“The reaction on their faces was not a pretty sight,” neighbor Jasmine Gomez told CNN. “There was an officer who came out of the house throwing up.”

It was the fifth mass death of a family by murder or suicide in California – a state hit hit by the recession and mortgage meltdown – since last February.

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Wilmington California

The local story on this Ervin Lupoe is that he and his wife both worked for Kaiser Permenente in Los Angeles. For those of you that don’t know, Kaiser Permenente owns their own hospitals and from what I understand the work environment is compared to working at Walmart where the employee is treated poorly and the hours can be exhausting. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Lupoe had both worked for Kaiser and were recently fired for some sort of fraud.

The Lupoe’s had recently added onto their house to make room for their growing family and were deeply in debt. The Lupoe’s had pulled their kids out of school three weeks ago and told the school they were moving to Kansas. It hass not been confirmed as of yet but it seems as if Mrs. Lupoe was in on this murder suicide pact with Mr. Lupoe. I heard this morning on the news that they “didn’t want to burden anyone with raising their children.” What a sad story. I cannot imagine doing harm to my own children under any circumstances. JD

A man in California murdered his five children and wife before committing suicide after losing his job, police officials said. The seven bodies of the family were found in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington on Tuesday after police were notified after the man threatened to kill his family and himself in a fax sent to a local TV station.

According to preliminary reports, a local TV station received a fax in which a man threatened to kill his family and himself. The station then immediately notified the police, who found the seven bodies in the family’s Wilmington home. The fax allegedly mentioned the man had just lost his job in a hospital.

The man reportedly also called 911 and told the operator that his family was dead before killing himself.

The police said the child victims were an eight-year-old girl, five-year-old twin girls and two-year-old twin boys.

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at a news conference about the tragedy, saying the man who killed his family had recently lost his job and the desperation put him over the edge.

“Unfortunately, this has become an all too common story in the last few months but that does not, and should not, lead people to resort to extreme measures. Help is available. Resources exist,” the mayor said.

A similar tragedy in relation to the recession occurred last October when a financial adviser in Los Angeles killed his wife, three sons, his mother in law and himself after losing his private fortune due to falling market shares.

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Open letter to President Obama,

Dear President Obama,

If you think you can reason with a mad man, I would advise you to confer with France and Spain. They have tried this tactic and it has failed miserably. The extremists in the Islamic world cannot be reasoned with. You cannot simply say “we are your friends and we want to play nice with you. Every time France and Spain do this, another bomb goes off. Spain pulled out of Iraq and has had several major terrorist attacks since then. The same with France.

President Obama, doing this is akin to asking a school yard bully for your bag of marbles back that he took from you the day before. All it will get you is an ass kicking. It’s a dynamic that I have never been able to understand with the liberal way of thinking. One day perhaps you liberals will realize that some people simply cannot be reasoned with. Some people are inherently evil and cannot be rehabilitated.

Understanding that a small percentage of Islam are what are called “fanatical extremists,” that have vowed to kill all infidels, well then it would only stand to reason that placating and appeasing will only lead to MORE terrorist attacks. Here is a simple analogy Mr. President. If you give a child candy every time the child cries, it won’t take long for the child to realize that all it has to do is cry or “act out” to receive a reward.

Using this same logic, we can easily understand why Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia finance terrorism. Because we keep buying oil from Iran and Saudi Arabia. We keep sending money to Pakistan. We have been appeasing these people for years trying to extend the olive branch to all of these countries and each time it blows up in our collective face.

When you combine these facts with the almost visceral hatred of America by the vast majority of the countries that make up the United Nations, it becomes easy to understand why appeasement does not work. Mr. President, I don’t want to get bogged down with arguments as to why most countries of the world hate the United States. I believe it is because although or system of governing may not be perfect, it is still the best system in the world.

So all I can say Mr. Obama is this; You cannot reason with madmen. Using this as a guideline won’t prevent the United States from being attacked again by terrorists, but not appeasing the Islamic extremists will give you Mr. President the ability to say “I didn’t appease these madmen. I did all that I could to prevent this.”

Because let me be the first to say that if you President Obama go forward from here and appease these cretins and America is attacked again, You will suffer the wrath of the American public. I was hoping that your judgment not be clouded by your own Islamic beliefs, but I can see that this will not be the case.

Now lets see if the media begins to attack you Mr. President for making your decisions based on your religious faith or ideology. This type of attack became almost routine During the Bush Administration. Because that is what I believe you are doing President Obama. I believe that you are letting your religion affect the safety and well being of the American population and this President Obama is something that America will not take lightly.

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For all you knucklehead environmentalists think that this is going to fix the fraudulent “global warming” problem, Well it won’t fix anything and here is why. Here in California and nationally, it will do nothing but cost the consumer/tax payer more money. How you ask? Well let me explain it to you.

First, California as well as the other twelve states that want local control of emissions will use this Obama decision to tax the motor vehicle owner based on “estimated emissions.” What this means is that the state will add a “fee” (that’s what the California State Legislature calls taxes now) based on your current vehicle and it’s estimated “Carbon footprint.” In the words of Ray Liota in Goodfella’’s, “It’s beautiful.”

It gives the State latitude as to how much to charge the consumer based on the vehicle they drive. If you have a big truck, hold onto your wallets. For those of you that don’t know this, if you buy a 2009 half ton pick up truck, you pay 600.00 dollars a year to register it in California. This is more than ten times the rate charged by surrounding states.

Well now they can simply charge an additional “fee” for what the state of California calls “gross polluter” vehicles. It’s like a luxury tax. For all of you simpletons across America that don’t believe me, don’t worry. Like Illegal aliens, it will be coming to your neighborhood soon. It’s a scam to bilk you out of more of your earnings and control your behavior and nothing more.

This is what G.W. Bush was trying to protect us against and this is exactly what President Obama wants to do to us. Screw us out of more money because lets face it. More money for states means more money for the Feds. It means less money the federal government has to give back to the states.

Then there is the added bonus off being able to tell the major automakers not just in America but around the world how to run their businesses too. If a Toyota does not meet California emissions, well there will be an extra tax on that vehicle and we all know who ultimately ends up paying that. The consumer.

Now I am willing to bet he goes after the petroleum industry and hammers them with new “fees” called windfall taxes. I have a huge problem with windfall taxes. First of all, when British Petroleum drills holes and doesn’t find any oil, does the government help absorb their losses? When a drug company invests billions inn research and development of a new drug that doesn’t work, does the government help absorb their costs? The answer is a resounding NO !

Then why does the government feel that it should be entitled to some of the profits when things go good for these same companies? Can’t you see? The whole end game here is power and control. It has nothing to do with helping “global warming” or anything else.

And here is the rub. The auto industry will do what all big business is forced to do to insure its own survival. They will be forced to flood Washington D.C. with vast sums of money in the form of Lobbying dollars to keep Congress from letting this happen. The other rub is that our beloved elected officials will do what they have been doing for fifty years to save face. They will push the compliance date back until after they are dead and gone. Ah, the perfect Ponzi scheme. JD

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The amazing thing about this article is that the main stream media seems to almost be saying to anyone that opposes Barack Obama ” you realize the new president is black . . . right?” As if he is above reproach..

Sen. John McCain and House Minority Leader John Boehner object to the economic stimulus plan. McCain also criticizes a Pentagon appointment and the decision to close Guantanamo.

Reporting from Washington — Republicans signaled Sunday that they would not be daunted by President Obama’s soaring approval ratings, criticizing his proposed $825-billion economic stimulus plan, his strategy for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay and his decision to exempt a top-ranking Pentagon appointee from new ethics rules.

Some of the sharpest criticism came from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the party’s challenger to Obama in the election and the recipient of aggressive outreach as part of the new president’s efforts to forge an image of bipartisanship.

Obama honored McCain on the eve of last week’s inauguration with a bipartisan candlelight dinner, and he has solicited his former rival’s advice on top appointments. McCain has returned the favor by pressing fellow Republicans to speedily confirm Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But Sunday, McCain had few kind words for Obama’s initial moves as president. He called it “disingenuous” for the White House to impose new rules to limit the influence of lobbyists but immediately claim an exemption for William Lynn III, the nominee to be deputy Defense secretary, who has lobbied on behalf of defense contractor Raytheon Co.

McCain said he would not have announced the pending closure of Guantanamo, as Obama did last week by signing an executive order, without having first decided what to do with the 245 detainees there.

And the senator said he would not support the stimulus plan in its current form, asserting that it should have more tax cuts and less emphasis on projects, such as repairing the National Mall or extending broadband access to rural areas.

“There’s got to be some kind of litmus as to whether it will really stimulate the economy,” McCain said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding later: “There has to be major rewrites [of the legislation] if we want to stimulate the economy.”

McCain’s comments were echoed by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he and many of his colleagues could not support the measure in its current form because they “see this as a lot of wasteful Washington spending, padding the bureaucracy and doing nothing to help create jobs and preserve jobs.”

The plan being pushed by Obama and Democratic congressional leaders would add thousands of miles of electronic transmission lines, retool thousands of schools and federal buildings and build infrastructure to promote wind and solar energy. It contains $275 billion in tax cuts — not nearly as much as Republicans want — and would fund a range of programs that GOP officials say are unnecessary or would not stir economic activity quickly enough.

The White House has set a goal of spending three-quarters of the money within 18 months and wants Congress to pass the plan by mid-February.

One of Obama’s top economic advisors, Lawrence H. Summers, told NBC that the stimulus plan was a “properly sized approach to move the economy forward.”

Summers did not rule out additional government investment in troubled banks. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said on ABC’s “This Week” that it could be necessary.

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Dear President Obama, this isn’t Chicago or any other ghetto. In the real world you have to work for a living. You don’t just wake up and your running IBM. This is reality asshole. You have to actually do something for a change. Go ahead Obama. Live up to your stereotype and lay about complaining about why your aren’t getting your way. Typical liberal crybaies. Here we go again. JD

President Obama’s plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials — barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees — discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is “scattered throughout the executive branch,” a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.
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Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration’s focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.

But other former officials took issue with the criticism and suggested that the new team has begun to appreciate the complexity and dangers of the issue and is looking for excuses.

After promising quick solutions, one former senior official said, the Obama administration is now “backpedaling and trying to buy time” by blaming its predecessor. Unless political appointees decide to overrule the recommendations of the career bureaucrats handling the issue under both administrations, he predicted, the new review will reach the same conclusion as the last: that most of the detainees can be neither released nor easily tried in this country.

“All but about 60 who have been approved for release,” assuming countries can be found to accept them, “are either high-level al-Qaeda people responsible for 9/11 or bombings, or were high-level Taliban or al-Qaeda facilitators or money people,” said the former official who, like others, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters about such matters. He acknowledged that he relied on Pentagon assurances that the files were comprehensive and in order rather than reading them himself.

Obama officials said they want to make their own judgments.

“The consensus among almost everyone is that the current system is not in our national interest and not sustainable,” another senior official said. But “it’s clear that we can’t clear up this issue overnight” partly because the files “are not comprehensive.”

Charles D. “Cully” Stimson, who served as deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee affairs in 2006-2007, said he had persistent problems in attempts to assemble all information on individual cases. Threats to recommend the release or transfer of a detainee were often required, he said, to persuade the CIA to “cough up a sentence or two.”

A second former Pentagon official said most individual files are heavily summarized dossiers that do not contain the kind of background and investigative work that would be put together by a federal prosecution team. He described “regular food fights” among different parts of the government over information-sharing on the detainees.

A CIA spokesman denied that the agency had not been “forthcoming” with detainee information, saying that such suggestions were “simply wrong” and that “we have worked very closely with other agencies to share what we know” about the prisoners. While denying there had been problems, one intelligence official said the Defense Department was far more likely to be responsible for any information lapses, since it had initially detained and interrogated most of the prisoners and had been in charge of them at the prison.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that the Defense Department would cooperate fully in the review.

“Fundamentally, we believe that the individual files on each detainee are comprehensive and sufficiently organized,” Morrell said. He added that “in many cases, there will be thousands of pages of documents . . . which makes a comprehensive assessment a time-consuming endeavor.”

“Not all the documents are physically located in one place,” Morrell said, but most are available through a database.

“The main point here is that there are lots of records, and we are prepared to make them available to anybody who needs to see them as part of this review.”

There have been indications from within and outside the government for some time, however, that evidence and other materials on the Guantanamo prisoners were in disarray, even though most of the detainees have been held for years.

Justice Department lawyers responding in federal courts to defense challenges over the past six months have said repeatedly that the government was overwhelmed by the sudden need to assemble material after Supreme Court rulings giving detainees habeas corpus and other rights.

In one federal filing, the Justice Department said that “the record . . . is not simply a collection of papers sitting in a box at the Defense Department. It is a massive undertaking just to produce the record in this one case.” In another filing, the department said that “defending these cases requires an intense, inter-agency coordination of efforts. None of the relevant agencies, however, was prepared to handle this volume of habeas cases on an expedited basis.”

Evidence gathered for military commission trials is in disarray, according to some former officials, who said military lawyers lacked the trial experience to prosecute complex international terrorism cases.

In a court filing this month, Darrel Vandeveld, a former military prosecutor at Guantanamo who asked to be relieved of his duties, said evidence was “strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks.”

He said he once accidentally found “crucial physical evidence” that “had been tossed in a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten.”

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God almighty, I found this link for about three minutes on the top of Google News ! It was gone just a few minutes later. But it was there, I swear it. This article is not from the kool aide drinkers on the left. It’s from people that know how the economy runs and what makes it work like a well oiled machine.

A federal economic stimulus package that could help balance the state budget and create jobs in Georgia won’t have the support of Atlanta-area Republicans in Congress.

While they agree the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill could ease state budget problems, local Republican congressmen argue the stimulus package isn’t good for Georgia or the economy in the long run.

“Everybody likes to get gifts,” said U.S. Rep. John Linder, a Republican from Duluth. “Somebody has to pay for them.”

Linder said his constituents are tired of bailouts and aren’t pressuring him to vote for the bill. He tells callers the package will pass, but not with his vote. The federal government is in worse shape than state governments, he said, and it has no business balancing their budgets. He argues there’s no guarantee the package would create “even one job,” and a better plan would cut taxes and help small businesses build a stable future.

Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican, is pushing for more tax cuts and credits, too.

“We’re going to take money from Georgians, wash it through Washington, take off some of the money Georgians sent to Washington and then allow Georgians to have some of that money back,” Price said. “It absolutely makes no sense.”

The proposed bill includes about $825 billion in tax breaks and new federal spending, much of which would pass through to state governments.

In Georgia, more than $5.6 billion in stimulus money would go to K-12 education, transportation and infrastructure projects, Medicaid and public safety. Mark Zandi, an economist from Moodys.com who served as an adviser to Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, said last week the country will have 4 million more jobs by the end of 2010 if the plan is approved, 143,000 of them in Georgia.

“It’s a very broad-based package,” said Alan Essig, a former state budget analyst who runs the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, which bills itself as an independent think tank in Atlanta. “It should help lessen the need for state budget cuts, increase jobs and employment, help solidify the safety net when we really need one.”

Georgia is facing $2 billion in budget cuts, affecting teachers, police and firefighters. The state’s Medicaid program is short by $208 million.

The unemployment rate has risen above 8 percent. Zandi, the Moodys.com economist, estimates that the stimulus plan could lower it by 1.8 percent by the end of 2010.

“I don’t think anybody wants to hear you’re voting against it or that the money’s not going to be coming,” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican from Grantville. If the bill dealt only with roads, infrastructure and job creation, he said, he would vote for it — but not as it’s written now.

Rep. Jack Kingston, a south Georgia Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, faulted the package for spending too much on “left-leaning” social programs. He took particular aim at money earmarked for arts and health programs, including a national wellness program he characterized as creating something akin to a “national fat farm.”

“I thought what we were trying to do was support shovel-ready projects, but that’s absolutely not the case so far,” Kingston said. “It looks to me like a huge expansion of social programs and things we do not need to do in this atmosphere.”

But Atlanta and other cities have plenty of projects that can start immediately, said Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat. He defended arts funding as a “great investment”and said the stimulus package should help middle-class Americans more than the tax rebates tried by the Bush administration.

“The economy is in a ditch and we need to do something now to get it out,” Lewis said. His advice for Georgia Republicans: “They should get behind their president and support him, because we need to act.”

President Barack Obama has asked Congress to approve a plan by mid-February, and members of Congress say that’s likely to happen, even with some Republicans’ dissent.

While the stimulus plan will boost state economies, it won’t address one of the most important issues: the slow trickle of credit flowing from banks, said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University. Until a clear plan for financial institutions emerges, he said, the stimulus will act as economic aspirin, dulling the pain without finding a cure.

“If we don’t solve that problem,” Dhawan said, “the rest are unsolvable.”

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So Belgium has banned personal firearms ownership. What happens? Well humans are well versed in adaptation, and that is just what happened here. A man picks up a knife and stabs two children and an adult to death and wounds 12 others. So now what? Will they outlaw knives too? What happens when someone uses a stick or bat? Will they outlaw bats? Hockey sticks? Will they force people to cut off their hands when someone strangles another?

It has been a year since the new weapon law was introduced and only 10 percent of the guns in Belgium have surfaced. In addition provincial services that grant permits are busier than ever with applications. Parliament approved a new weapon law after the shooting of a nanny, toddler and other woman on the street in Antwerp by Hans Van Themsche on 11 May 2006. All firearms are banned unless a permit is obtained from the provincial governor. What a joke. JD

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — A 20-year-old man accused of a day-care center stabbing spree was carrying a backpack of weapons and the addresses of three other nurseries when he was arrested, Belgian authorities said Saturday.

Prosecutor Christian Du Four said the man held in Friday’s fatal rampage lived alone, was unemployed and had no criminal record or previously known mental problems.

Three judicial officials told The Associated Press that police found the addresses of the other nurseries after taking the man into custody. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not being publicly released.

Du Four said the suspect wore a bulletproof vest under his clothing and had a knife, an axe and a fake pistol. He said that police also found two other knives near the daycare center where a 9-month old girl, a 6-month old boy and a 54-year-old caregiver were killed.

Du Four said he would not comment on whether the suspect planned other attacks, but said the weapons found in his backpack “point to premeditation.”

Investigators believe the suspect entered the “Fabeltjesland” — Fairytale-land — creche at around 10 a.m. on Friday with an eight-inch (20-centimeter) knife and started stabbing and slashing the children. He had painted his face white with black patches around the eyes.

Belgian newspapers are referring to the attacker as the “Joker” killer, a reference to the “Batman” villain played by Heath Ledger.

Dr. Ignace Demeyer, from Our Lady Hospital in nearby Aalst said six of the 10 wounded children could be released from care over the weekend. Two adults were also hurt. All those hurt were in stable condition Saturday.

The prosecutor’s office in the town of Dendermonde, located northwest of Brussels, said the man was charged with three counts of murder and lived in Belsele, a town around 20 kilometers (12.43 miles) north of Dendermonde.

Du Four said the suspect, whom local media have identified as “Kim D,” is refusing to cooperate with police after hours of questioning at a police station in Dendermonde where he is being held.

“The man has so far not admitted to anything and has refused to do so,” Du Four said at a press conference in Dendermonde . He added the suspect has been placed under judicial arrest and in custody until a court hearing expected on Tuesday.

The man in question was charged on the basis of identifications by eyewitnesses at the day-care center, Du Four said.

Police have also searched his house and seized a computer.

“We don’t know anything in terms of motive, we also don’t know whether there is a link between the man and Dendermonde,” said Du Four.

One worker tried but failed to disarm the suspect, who walked out of the building and rode off on a bicycle. He was later arrested in a nearby town.

Belgians were in shock after the brutal attack and many gathered outside the building Saturday to leave flowers and teddy bears and light candles in memory of the victims. The De Standaard newspaper described the rampage as “madness,” while De Morgen headlined “Cold, Bloodthirsty, Inhuman.”

“We thought that things like this only happened in the United States and now we see that in Belgium, in a small village like this … that such a thing could happen, it is very, very bad,” said local resident Serge De Plecker.

Some 40,000 people also joined a condolences and support page on the Facebook networking site.

A march and vigil outside the center was also planned for the coming days, said Dendermonde Mayor Piet Buyse.

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From The Smoking Gun.

JANUARY 23–Add heroin to the scores of products that have been branded with President Barack Obama’s name. Cops in upstate New York this week broke up a drug ring that allegedly sold heroin under several brand names, including “Obama.” As seen in Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office photos, the president’s surname was stamped in red ink on small glassine wrappers that were peddled by street dealers. Investigators arrested five suspects for their alleged roles in the narcotics distribution activity. The branding of illicit drugs is a favorite of pushers, who have previously sold bin Laden heroin, Harry Potter Ecstasy, bricks of Teletubbies cocaine, and green-tinted crack in recognition of St. Patrick’s Day.

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