Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase, has warned American investors should be more worried about the risk of default of the state of California than of Greece’s current debt woes.

Everyone knows that California is a greater risk financially than Greece. The socialist machine in Sacramento will simply take any monies from any source and spend it on welfare and illegal immigrants. J.P. Morgan Chase understands this.

California is broken. Its one of the reasons I named this site BrokenCountry.Com. Its been broken for more than 25 years, since the hippies from the Haight Ashbury area of San Francisco decided to run for office.

These socialist assholes have ruined California and turned the state into a mecca for degenerates and low lives from every corner of the planet. Now the state is bankrupt because these same socialist spend every penny sent to Sacramento on their unions, which run the state, and their social programs that they create to ensure that they are re-elected. JD

Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank’s annual meeting that “there could be contagion” if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. “Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country,” said Mr Dimon. “We don’t really foresee the European Union coming apart.” The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.

California however poses more of a risk, given the state’s $20bn (£13.1bn) budget deficit, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to reduce.

Earlier this week, the state’s legislature passed bills that will cut the deficit by $2.8bn through budget cuts and other measures. However the former Hollywood film star turned politician is looking for $8.9bn of cuts over the next 16 months, and is also hoping for as much as $7bn of handouts from the federal government.

Earlier this week, John Chiang, the state’s controller, said that if a workable plan to reduce the deficit and increase cash levels is not reached soon, he will have to return to issuing IOU’s, forcing state workers to take additional unpaid leave and potentially freezing spending.

Last summer, California issued $3bn of IOU’s to creditors including residents owed tax refunds as a way of staving off a cash crisis.

“I can’t write checks without money; that’s against the law. My main goal is to keep the state afloat, but I won’t be able to do it without the help of new legislation,” said Mr Chiang.

WHILE the Top End and Central Australia have been battered by torrential rains, a Territory town has reportedly had fish falling from the sky.

The freak phenomena happened not once, but twice, on Thursday and Friday afternoon about 6pm at Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine, The Northern Territory News reports.

Christine Balmer, who took the photos of the fish on the ground and in a bucket, said she had to pinch herself when she was told “hundreds and hundreds” of small white fish had fallen from the sky.

“It rained fish in Lajamanu on Thursday and Friday night,” she said,

“They fell from the sky everywhere.

“Locals were picking them up off the footy oval and on the ground everywhere.

“These fish were alive when they hit the ground.”

Mrs Balmer, the aged care co-ordinator at the Lajamanu Aged Care Centre, said her family interstate thought she had lost the plot when she told them about the event.

“I haven’t lost my marbles,” she said, reassuring herself.

“Thank God it didn’t rain crocodiles.”

Lajamanu sits on the edge of the Tanami Desert, hundreds of kilometres from Lake Argyle and Lake Elliott and even further from the coast. But it’s not the first time the remote community has been bombarded by fins from above.

In 2004, locals reported fish falling from the sky, and in 1974, a similar incident captured international headlines.

The small white fish are believed to be spangled perch, which are very common through much of northern Australia.

Weather bureau senior forecaster Ashley Patterson said the geological conditions were perfect on Friday for a tornado in the Douglas Daly region.

He said it would have been an ideal weather situation to allow the phenomena to occur – but no tornados have been reported to the authority.

“It’s a very unusual event,” he said.

“With an updraft, (fish and water picked up) could get up high – up to 60,000 or 70,000 feet.

“Or possibly from a tornado over a large water body – but we haven’t had any reports,” he said.

So let me get this straight. The leader of the free world, who is telling us we need his health care reform, smokes cigarettes? Imagine that. Aren’t these the same leftist guerrillas in Congress that made the tobacco industry the bane of society by vilifying them and suing them for medical costs associated with smoking cigarettes?

How in the hell are we to believe in a man that’s too weak emotionally to quit smoking cigarettes? Bob

President Obama’s doctors hinted Sunday that he still might be sneaking smokes when Michelle and the kids aren’t around to yell at him.

Obama’s routine physical at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center found him in “excellent health” and “fit for duty” but the docs also included a cryptic recommendation that he “continue smoking cessation efforts.”

Obama should continue his “nicotine replacement therapy – self-use (gum or the patch),” the doctor said.

Obama owned up during the 2008 presidential campaign to falling off the wagon occassionally in his effort to quit with the help of nicotine gum.

Obama has also said that First Lady Michelle Obama, and kids Malia and Sasha, have been all over him to break the habit.

The initial report on the physical from Dr. Jeff Kuhlman, director of the White House Medical Unit, also suggested that Obama may have lost some of the jump on his jump shot.

The report said his knees sometimes ache and the docs recommended a “lower extemity muscle strengthening program.”

What a travesty. Andy Griffith statue vandalized? I consider this an attack on America. Andy Griffith is pure Americana. Griffith represents all that is good in America.

For some retarded kids to randomly deface a statue of the man is a direct attack on America and should be considered a terrorist act. The perpetrators should be treated as terrorists.

If you’re curious if hoodlums would actually spray paint a statue depicting Andy Taylor and his son Opie, the answer is yes.

The statue of Andy Griffith that cable network TV Land put in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, was defaced by vandals over the weekend – Andy’s head was painted green and his body red. Local residents are appalled by the misdeed, puzzled why anyone would do this to something dear to the community.

TV Land, who actually maintains the statue, will be flying someone down shortly to repair the damage. A cash reward is offered by the Mt. Airy police department for information leading to the culprits.

Mt. Airy was the hometown of The Andy Griffith Show, hence the statue being erected there. Similarly, TV Land has also erected statues of Mary Richards in Minneapolis (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Bob Hartley in Chicago (The Bob Newhart Show), Ralph Kramden in New York (The Honeymooners, The Fonz in Milwaukee (Happy Days), and Samantha Stevens in Salem (Bewitched).

WASHINGTON- In yet another stunning show of disdain for American voters, President Obama had his left wing radicals all over the Sunday morning news shows trying desperately to keep health care reform alive.

Obama has demanded what the White House calls “a simple up or down” vote on the massive spending bill designed to nationalize the U.S. health care system.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and compared passing health care reform to selling pie. Pelosi said “you can bake the pie, you can sell the pie. But you have to have a pie to sell.”

We are still trying to figure out what selling pie has to do with health care reform, especially in light of the fact that the legislation contains a special tax on pie to help fund it.

In voicing support for a simple majority vote, White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle signaled Obama’s intention to push the Democratic-crafted bill under Senate rules that would overcome GOP stalling tactics.

Republicans unanimously oppose the Democratic proposals. Without GOP support, Obama’s only chance of emerging with a policy and political victory is to bypass the bipartisanship he promoted during his televised seven-hour health care summit Thursday.

“We’re not talking about changing any rules here,” DeParle said. “All the president’s talking about is: Do we need to address this problem and does it make sense to have a simple, up-or-down vote on whether or not we want to fix these problems?”

DeParle was optimistic that the president would have the votes to pass the massive bill. But none of legislation’s advocates who spoke on Sunday indicated that those votes were in hand.

“I think we will get to that point where we will have the votes,” predicted Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. “I believe that we will pass health care reform this spring.”

In a sober call to arms, Pelosi said lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public. “We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress,” she said. “We’re here to do the job for the American people.”

Pelosi said it took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, she said, “and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill.”

It’s unclear whether Pelosi’s remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmaker unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November elections.

Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between urging them to back left-of-center policies and giving them a green light to buck party leaders to improve their re-election hopes.

Her comments seemed to acknowledge the widely held view that Democrats will lose House seats this fall—maybe a lot. They now control the chamber 255 to 178, with two vacancies. Pelosi stopped well short of suggesting Democrats could lose their majority, but she called on members of her party to make a bold move on health care with no prospects of GOP help.

“Time is up,” she said. “We really have to go forth.”

Her comments somewhat echoed those of President Barack Obama, who said at the end of last week’s bipartisan health care summit that Congress should act on the issue and let voters render their verdicts. “That’s what elections are for,” he said.

The White House is redoubling efforts to remind voters that the Senate passed an Obama-backed health care bill in December with 60 votes. Every Republican voted against that bill. A Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts in January, however, left Democrats one vote shy of the number necessary to overcome GOP filibusters.

As a result, a new plan would call for the House to pass the Senate bill and send it to Obama. The Senate would then use budget reconciliation rules to make several changes demanded by House Democrats. Those rules prohibit filibusters.

Exactly what the legislation would look like remained a matter of negotiation within Democratic ranks. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, “is working with his caucus, the White House and the House leadership on strategy and next steps,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Sunday.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky renewed his party’s demand that Obama and the Democrats start over and write a bipartisan health care bill. He said that while the reconciliation process has been used to pass legislation in the past, it should not apply to health care legislation.

“There are a number of other Republicans who do not think something of this magnitude ought to be jammed down the throats of a public that doesn’t want it through this kind of device,” McConnell said.

Pelosi said that “in a matter of days” Democrats will have specific legislative language on health care to show to the public and to wavering lawmakers. She predicted voters will warm up to the bill once they understand its details.

“When we have a bill,” she said, “you can bake the pie, you can sell the pie. But you have to have a pie to sell.”

Pelosi appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” DeParle was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Menendez appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and McConnell spoke on CNN.

FONTANA – Police officers shot and killed a 35-year-old Beaumont man in an exchange of gunfire Saturday after he tried to flee in a stolen car.

Mark Smith was killed at 7:22 a.m. when the car pursuit ended at Cherry Avenue and Merrill Avenue and shots were fired, according to a police news release and Deputy David McCarthy of the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s division.

Police were investigating a grand theft auto call at Arrow Boulevard and Sierra Avenue when a person was reported driving a stolen vehicle and brandishing a handgun.

When officers found the vehicle and tried to stop the suspect, the suspect tried to escape in the car.

McCarthy said he had no further information about the incident.

San Bernardino County fire dispatch supervisor Tim Franke said he had heard Cherry Avenue was shut down for a period of time Saturday because of the investigation.

Arden Wiltshire, spokeswoman with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, said her department’s homicide team was conducting the investigation.

“That’s usually standard procedure,” she said. She said Fontana is responsible for releasing information about the shooting.

A message left for spokesman Sgt. Jeff Decker on Saturday was not returned. A Fontana police dispatcher said no one else in the department was authorized to speak about the shooting.