WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s furious, final push to get a health care bill passed threatens to shove aside the message he promised would top his list this year: creating jobs.

Even as the White House juggles several enormous issues at once, the public takes its cues about the president’s chief concern from how he spends his time, energy and capital. As Obama himself put it on Wednesday, from now until Congress takes a final vote on a health care overhaul, “I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform.”

That kind of now-or-never campaign means America can expect a debate consumed by health care, again, for weeks.

The White House is trying mightily to focus it on real people and the human cost of inaction. But there will be no escaping the same slog that turned off so many people in 2009 — congressional process, arm-twisting and doomsday rhetoric.

So what unfolds over the next few weeks will affect millions of Americans and alter the course of Obama’s presidency. He has a shrinking window in which to find enough votes within his party to pass health care legislation so he can free himself to spend more bully pulpit time on the single issue that has stoked the public ire since he became president — disappearing jobs.

Polling shows the economy remains a bigger personal worry to people than the cost, access and coverage problems endemic to the health care system.

There is a huge economic element to health care as people struggle to pay premiums or keep their insurance. Yet to many, the astounding loss of jobs is a singular issue that demands constant, bold attention.

It is just this competition — the economy versus health care — that helped define Obama’s grueling first year in office and prompted howls within his own party for a recalibrated jobs-first agenda.

Obama responded with a State of the Union speech on Jan. 27 that was remarkably focused on the economy, dwarfing all other issues. “Creating jobs has to be our number one priority in 2010,” Obama emphasized the next day at a stop in Tampa, Florida.

Yet it was always the reality that Obama would consolidate his attention on health care again, at least for one last blitz. Beyond all the policy implications, Obama has spent a year on it and never intended to let that effort go to waste.

The White House’s political calculation is that the next few weeks are their last chance to push through an overhaul of health coverage. But aides also know it cannot drag on, as every day focused on process overshadows their message.

There is no expectation within the West Wing that voters’ moods will change until they see their lives improving. Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said the plan is to keep plugging away on an agenda to shore up the economy for the long haul.

“We’re going to still be out there on jobs,” Axelrod said, dismissing any worry that the economy-first message will be obscured. “We’re going to be focused on health care for the next few weeks, but we’re still going to be doing jobs.”

To get votes, Obama is lobbying lawmakers, many of whom are teetering in this election year. He’s calling on his 2008 campaign supporters to push Congress for a vote. He’s staging health care events in Philadelphia and St. Louis this coming week.

“They are looking at the election in November, and they need to have one big victory that they can claim,” said Michael Lind, policy director of the economic growth program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. “This is not the victory they would have chosen, because even if it does help the economy, it won’t help most people for years to come. The problem is, there just doesn’t seem to be the ability to do anything significant about jobs this year.”

The House and Senate have passed versions of a $35 billion bill that offers a tax break to companies that hire workers and extends federal highway programs, but even supporters doubt it will create many jobs. By comparison, the economic stimulus bill enacted last year — and not nearly spent out yet — was an $862 billion measure.

Lawmakers plan more steps this year. But there is less political will to keep spending on big jolts to the economy.

Obama has always argued that overhauling health care is not just about health, but also an economic imperative for families who will suffer “if we let this opportunity pass for another year or another decade or another generation” — a message he conveyed Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Part of Obama’s final argument to Democratic lawmakers is that getting health care done will give them momentum on other issues. It’s possible that the opposite is true, and a defeat now could undermine him on other fronts.

Maryland’s Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley said Obama understands that the rising costs of health care are hurting U.S. economic interests long term. Still, he urged Obama to finish up this priority and pivot back to a heavier jobs message.

“If we wrap this up, if we get this passed, it will become clear that health care was always about jobs,” he said.

Tweet This Post 

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.

Tweet This Post 

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Saturday that he’s ready to compromise with Republicans if they’re serious about it but that his health care overhaul must go forward.

Obama’s comments in his weekly Internet and radio address, two days after an all-day bipartisan summit across from the White House, were the latest sign that Democrats are girding to try to plow sweeping health care legislation through Congress with no Republicans on board.

Success will require colossal efforts on the part of Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress to round up votes after a year of corrosive debate and a Senate special-election upset that threw the overhaul effort into limbo last month. But Obama and the Democrats reject the piecemeal approach sought by Republicans and have no intention of scrapping their 10-year, $1 trillion bill and starting over as the GOP demands.

“I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done. But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge,” Obama said.

“The tens of millions of men and women who cannot afford their health insurance cannot wait another generation for us to act. Small businesses cannot wait. Americans with pre-existing conditions cannot wait. State and federal budgets cannot sustain these rising costs.

“It is time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities to the American people and to future generations,” Obama said. “So let’s get this done.”
ad_icon

Obama’s legislation would insure some 30 million more Americans over 10 years with a new requirement for nearly everyone to carry insurance and would end insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Republicans generally oppose mandates that make everyone get insurance, and although they want people with pre-existing conditions to be able to buy insurance, they would try to address the problem without new requirements on insurance companies.

Obama plans to unveil an updated proposal this coming week, likely on Wednesday, according to press secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs suggested it would include concepts put forward by Republicans at the summit. One Republican who was there, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., was contacted Friday by the White House and asked to submit details of suggestions he made on rooting out waste and fraud from the medical system, Coburn’s spokesman said.

Spokesman John Hart said that Coburn views Obama’s legislation as a government takeover and would not be able to support it even if it’s changed to include some of his proposals.

Adding Republican ideas is not likely to win Republican votes because the GOP insists Democrats should start from scratch. But Obama would be able to say that he’d listened to Republicans and attempted to meet them part way, and that could give Democrats political cover to move forward on their own. Doing so would require use of controversial Senate rules that would let Democrats pass legislation with a simple majority instead of the 60-vote supermajority they no longer command.

The approach infuriates Republicans and is opposed by some Democratic moderates because of its partisan nature.

Coburn, the GOP’s weekly address, argued against a Democrats-only bill.

Tweet This Post 

So this is one of the pressing, important issues that faces California today. Whether or not people are cussing. Geez Louise, the state is bankrupt, but the Mamalukes that run the state of California are worried about people cussing.

We have good reason to cuss Damn it. Mostly because you idiots in Sacramento have ruined the state of California with your socialist policy that has turned the state into a mecca for lazy ass people and illegal aliens to come glom off of the welfare system and all the other built in freebies you assholes have created.

Feeling a little salty? Better get it out of your system while you can.

Amid the ongoing — and occasionally tense — debate over how to clean up California’s budget mess, lawmakers have taken time out to tidy something else almost as unmanageable: our language. This morning, the Assembly approved a ceremonial resolution turning the first week of March into “Cuss Free Week.”

Once the Senate follows suit, say good-bye to four-letter words, a few choice compound words and probably certain gestures, too. Not that police officers will be waiting with soap. That’s isn’t the point.

According to sponsors of the measure — inspired by a Southern California teen whose creation of a “no cussing” school club sparked an international movement — it’s more about minding the delicate sensibilities of those around you. Like your grandmother.

“When we’re at our grandmother’s house,” said Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada/Flintridge, “we have respect and decorum.”

Are there more important things on government’s agenda right now? Sure, Portantino concedes. But maybe a little civility is just the prescription to help “break through that log jam.”

To keep folks honest, Portantino is handing out no-cuss jars to all 120 legislative offices in the Capitol — and to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Every time a naughty word slips out, a few coins get dropped in.

How’s that for a deficit-reduction strategy?

Tweet This Post 

We didn’t know there were any houses large enough to house 14 people in Rialto. Ed.

Fourteen people were displaced Wednesday night when a fire broke in a Rialto home.

The blaze started about 7:20 p.m. in the garage of a two-story house in the 1700 block of West Via Verde Drive. Nearly 20 firefighter from Rialto and San Bernardino County Fire Department responded, extinguishing the flames in 40 minutes.

Firefighters kept the blaze contained to the garage, though the house sustained minor smoke damage. Estimated loss is $80,000. One firefighter was injured while dousing the flames.

The five adults and nine children who lived in the home safely evacuated and are being assisted by the American Red Cross.

Cause of the fire has not been determined.

Tweet This Post 

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested California could ease its crowded prison system by sending thousands of undocumented inmates to specially built jails in Mexico.

Speaking to reporters at the Sacramento Press Club, Schwarzenegger said California could ease its strained finances by a billion dollars if 20,000 illegal immigrants currently held in the state were housed across the border.

“I think that we can do so much better in the prison system alone if we can go and take, inmates for instance, the 20,000 inmates that are illegal immigrants that are here and get them to Mexico,” Schwarzenegger said.

“Think about it — if California gives Mexico the money. Not ‘Hey, you take care of them, these are your citizens’. No. Not at all.

“We pay them to build the prison down in Mexico. And then we have those undocumented immigrants down there in prison. It would half the costs to build the prison and run the prison. We could save a billion dollars right there that could go into higher education.”

Schwarzenegger’s remarks come as California prepares for the latest in a long line of state budget crises.

Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency earlier this month, warning severe cuts were necessary to stem a 19.9-billion-dollar deficit.

California has some of the most overcrowded prisons in the United States, with an estimated 170,000 inmates housed in facilities designed for 100,000 people, according to 2007 figures.

Schwarzenegger said he believed the financial burden of California’s prisons could be eased if the private sector moved into the industry.

“I think that there is no reason why we should have just state employees and public prisons,” Schwarzenegger said. “Why shouldn’t we have private prisons and private prisons competing with public prisons?

“I don’t want to go and get rid of public prisons, not at all. It’s not an attack on their labor union even though they may take it as such.

Tweet This Post 

Obama's teleprompters speaking to school children on Monday.

We know that there are jobs that Americans will not do, but working at McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell and just about every other fast food place is not one of them. Yet these fast food chains all use illegal immigrants in their work places.

The Franchise owners claim that their franchisees do not use illegal help, yet there are many of these establishments where, when ordering food at the drive through, the person on the other end speaks little or no English. We know that not speaking English does not make them illegal immigrants by default, but it does make one wonder.

Now times are tough, and people need jobs. While watching CNN the other day, they said that Immigration reform would be a major election issue in the the 2012 elections. One thing is clear. Americans cannot absorb everyone into the job pool in the current economic situation. My kids cannot find jobs in any fast food establishment. There are no entry level jobs anywhere her in Southern California.

Perhaps now people might understand what we have been saying for years here at the brokencountry. It has nothing to do with racism. We have said it before, if I were in a foreign land and saw how much greener the grass was on the other side of the fence, I would hop the fence.

This is not the fault of the illegal immigrant. It is the fault of the U.S. government for not doing anything to stop illegal immigration. Republicans and their corporate buddies exploit the cheap labor, and democrats want them here for the almighty votes. Meanwhile the illegal immigrant is exploited and denied the rights afforded to U.S. citizens. Something has to give. Ed.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. economic recession has taken a particularly heavy toll on young Americans, with a record one out five black men aged 20 to 24 neither working nor in school, according to research released on Tuesday.

U.S.

Teenagers have found it significantly harder to get a job since the recession began in late 2007, with black youths and young people from low-income families faring the worst, wrote Andrew Sum of Northeastern University in Boston, a employment researcher commissioned by the Chicago Urban League and the Alternative Schools Network.

“Low-income and minority youth, who depended on part-time jobs as a significant stepping stone to future employment, have been forced out of the job market and economically marginalized,” Herman Brewer of the Chicago Urban League said in a statement.

Overall, 26 percent of American teenagers aged 16 to 19 had jobs in late 2009, said the report, which was based on U.S. Census Bureau data. That figure is a record low since statistics began to be kept in 1948, the researchers said.

Employment counts the number of people with a job as a percentage of the entire work force. By contrast, the unemployment rate — which stood at 10 percent in December in the United States — does not include people who have grown discouraged and stopped looking for work.

Joblessness was particularly rife among high school dropouts aged 16 to 24 who were neither in school nor holding a job, the report said. Family income also had a influence on joblessness.

Only 13 percent of low-income black teenagers in Illinois held a job in 2008 compared with 48 percent of more affluent white, non-Hispanic teens.

The “disconnection rate” — Americans aged 20 to 24 who were neither in school nor working — jumped to 28 percent last year from 17 percent in 2007.

“If you included those in prison it would be a couple of points higher,” the report’s co-author Joseph McLaughlin of Northeastern.

Among the proposals the report supported were government-funded jobs programs directed at the young, additional funding to help re-enroll school dropouts, and government-funded expansions of work internships.

Tweet This Post 

Who is Ellie Light? It seems as if this person who is writing to newspapers across the country defending Obama might actually exist. After reading articles about Ellie Light, I decided to do what I always do, Google Ellie Light. I found her! She is on Facebook at this link.

Now we are not sure if this Ellie Light and the Ellie Light writing to defend President Obama are one in the same, but an Ellie Light actually does exist. I took the liberty of forwarding the Ellie Light on Facebook the articles I have found and asked her if she was the person responsible for the letters, but hve not yet received a response.

We will see if this is indeed the Ellie Light we are looking for. In defense of Obama and Ms. Light, I have seen letters to the editors repeated in many different papers from the same author. We will keep you posted . . .

By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

January 22, 2010, 5:35AM

Ellie Light sure gets around.

In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.

“It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News

.A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City, California.

Associated PressPresident Barack Obama has both detractors and fans. A curious number of his fans are named Ellie Light.

Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses.

Light – who e-mailed an identical missive to this reporter on Jan. 16 without listing a hometown – would not answer e-mailed questions about the address discrepancies in newspapers that ran her letter, or her identity, although she did say she wasn’t a former co-worker of this reporter’s who had a similar name.

“I do not write as a representative of any organization,” she said in an e-mail. “The letter I wrote was motivated by surprise and wonderment at the absence of any media support for our President, who won a record-breaking election by a landslide less than 18 months ago, and now, seems to be abandoned by all, supposedly for the infantile reason that he couldn’t make all of Bush’s errors disappear in one day.”

University of Missouri journalism professor Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of a textbook on journalistic values titled “The Elements of Journalism,” reacted with surprise and wonderment upon learning of Light’s widespread publication under multiple addresses.

He said newspapers might be able to avoid similar situations in the future by requesting street addresses and home telephone numbers from would-be correspondents, and verifying that those addresses and phone numbers exist.

“Just because it is inconvenient for us in the news business to find out who people are doesn’t mean it isn’t important anymore,” Rosenstiel said. “It is not OK for people to have multiple identities. This is something that people in the news business and in the business of printing “letters to the editor” need to be aware of.”

Tweet This Post 

Nancy Pelosi is an idiot. This is the same Nancy Pelosi that with the help of Henry Waxman, helped to put California in the financial crisis that we find ourselves in with her socialist spending at the state level. Now these two morons are doing the same to America.

Given what looks like the impending loss of the party’s Senate supermajority, Democrats have reason to be down in the dumps about healthcare reform. But if that’s the way House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s feeling, she’s not showing it publicly.

“Let’s remove all doubt, we will have healthcare one way or another,” Pelosi said during an event in San Francisco on Monday. “Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts. Just the question about how we would proceed. But it doesn’t mean we won’t have a health care bill.”

There is one way to pass the bill, even without 60 votes in the Senate, that’s getting a lot of attention now. But Pelosi probably won’t like it, and neither will a fair amount of her members.

The procedure in question would involve simply having the House vote on the bill that the Senate has already passed. That would mean avoiding yet another cloture vote in the Senate, one Democrats would be likely to lose if their caucus is down to 59 members after the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

House liberals will be upset about this idea, and progressive activists would likely be angry as well, but it may well be the only option left, and Democrats are reportedly leaning towards it. On Monday night, the New York Times reported: “The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders, scrambling for a backup plan to rescue their health care legislation if Republicans win the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday, are preparing to ask House Democrats to approve the Senate version of the bill, which would send the measure directly to President Obama for his signature.”

Tweet This Post 

Well Wyclef, stop using the money that your foundation collects to pay yourself to do concerts and the scrutiny will stop. JD

Haitian-born rapper Wyclef Jean says he’s ‘disgusted’ by claims he’s profiting off his foundation, which is in the midst of aiding victims of the devastating earthquake.

“I have been committed to helping the people of Haiti throughout my life, and that commitment will continue until the day I die,” Jean wrote in a statement posted to his Web site, which was accompanied by a video.

Concerns over the Yele Haiti Foundation – also known as the Wyclef Jean Foundation – surfaced last week, after it took in close to $2 million through a text message movement to raise money to aid quake victims.

Questions over accounting practices and its connection to Jean’s businesses kicked off reports online that the 37-year-old Grammy-winner was profiting from the organization.

“I denounce any allegation that I have ever profited personally through my work with Yele Haiti,” he wrote. “These baseless attacks are simply not true.”

In the video, Jean claims to have donated $1 million of his own money to the foundation, noting, “I never, or would ever, take money for my personal pocket when it comes to Yele.”

An Associated Press review of tax returns and independent audits provided by Jean’s foundation showed that it was closely intertwined with Jean’s businesses.

According to foundation president Hugh Locke, Yele Haiti intends to airlift medical supplies, water and Clif Bars to Haiti using a FedEx plane early next week.

Tweet This Post 

Big Labor got some big love from President Obama and congressional Democrats yesterday after they agreed to exempt union workers from the whopping “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health-care plans until 2018.

The sweetheart deal, hammered out behind closed doors, will save union employees at least $60 billion over the years involved, while others won’t be as lucky — they’ll have to cough up almost $90 billion.

The 40 percent excise tax on what have come to be called “Cadillac” health-care plans would exempt collective-bargaining contracts covering government employees and other union members until Jan. 1, 2018.
Barack Obama

In another major concession to labor, the value of dental and vision plans would be exempt from the tax even after the deal expires in eight years, negotiators said.

Under the plan to help fund health-care reform, the tax would kick in for plans valued at $8,900 or more for individuals and $24,000 or more for families.

That’s slightly higher than the $8,500 and $23,000 thresholds in the bill passed by the Senate last month.

The threshold will be even higher for certain plans with many older workers and women — a move to benefit unions with a high proportion of female membership, sources said.

New York labor leaders — who had initially campaigned against the Cadillac tax, favoring instead a surcharge on the wealthy — said they are thrilled.

“We can live with it. We have an agreement that nothing will be taxed until 2018,” crowed George Boncoraglio, regional president of the Civil Service Employees Association.

Officials said the deal was thrashed out over more than 15 hours of negotiating at the White House that ended after midnight Wednesday.

Powerful unions were well-represented around the bargaining table.

Participants included AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Andy Stern, head of Service Employees International Union; Anna Burger, head of Change to Win; and the leaders of unions representing teachers, government workers, food and commercial workers, and electricians.

Stern has been among the most frequent visitors to the White House over the last year, showing up more than 20 times, according to logs.

Originally, the Cadillac tax included in the Senate bill was estimated to raise $149 billion through 2019.

But Trumka said the exemption would reduce that amount by $60 billion — money that negotiators will now have to find elsewhere, or reduce the coverage in the legislation.

Boncoraglio said CSEA leaders were meeting in Albany — preparing to wage a major offensive against the tax — when their Washington lobbyist called and briefed them on the changes.

Obama backs the Cadillac excise tax, citing economists who say it would drive down costs by encouraging insurance companies to offer employers and workers a chance to buy lower-cost health plans to avoid the levy.

Tweet This Post 

The reality of Mexico's drug war

MEXICO CITY —  Mexico opened the new year with what could be its most dubious distinction yet in the 3-year-old battle against drug trafficking — 69 murders in one day.

The country resembled a grim, statistical dart board Saturday as law enforcement and media reported the deaths from various regions, including 26 in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, 13 in and around Mexico City and 10 in the northern city of Chihuahua.

More than 6,500 drug-related killings made 2009 the bloodiest year since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in late 2006 and deployed 45,000 soldiers to fight organized crime, according to death tallies by San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute.

Two weeks into 2010, gang bloodshed is becoming more grotesque as drug lords ramp up their attempts at intimidation. Last week a victim’s face was peeled from his skull and sewn onto a soccer ball. On Monday, prosecutors in Culiacan identified the remains of 41-year-old former police officer divided into two separate ice chests.

“You wonder how this will end, and it seems impossible,” said Daniel Vega, an architect in the northern city of Monterrey. “I doubt Mexico can override drug use, especially since demand for the drugs, as well as all the money and weapons, come from the United States.”

Using their so-called Narcobarometer, researchers at the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute track and analyze murders in Mexico, hoping to find ways to quell the violence. Their tally? More than 20,000 murders since 2001, more than half in the past two years.

“It does appear that the violence has grown exponentially, but it’s not clear that it’s necessarily a slippery downward slope from here,” institute director David Shirk said, noting that government operations — including a December raid that killed cartel boss Arturo Beltran Leyva — have hit seven of Mexico’s eight significant cartels.

Shirk said the remaining, mostly unscathed Sinaloa cartel headed by billionaire gang boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman may now become dominant, reducing the deadly power struggles.

“If that happens, it’s quite possible that six months from now things will be much calmer,” Shirk said.

Though almost all of drug-violence victims are somehow involved with cartels, the impact is felt well beyond law enforcement and organized crime.

“I’m afraid to take to the streets every day because of the violence, and I no longer want to excel economically because it could make me an easy target for a kidnapping,” said Silvana Cervantes, a Monterrey nurse.

Tijuana resident Fernando Escobedo said he used to spend his evenings at a vibrant strip of clubs in the border city until a recent massacre at one of his hangouts.

“Now I prefer socializing at houses or parties, with family or lifetime friends,” he said.

As Mexico tries to develop both politically and economically, the killings jeopardize its international reputation, said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington.

“The figures in Mexico are so scary that it has produced a subliminal sense that Mexico is a dangerous place and you’d better keep away,” he said.

Calderon said last week he would shift focus to job creation and reducing poverty and move the fight against drug cartels that dominated the first half of his presidency to No. 3.

Monterrey police officer Delfino Ramos, who grapples with the violence in his daily work, said economic issues are at the root of the problems.

“So much unemployment pushes people toward crime,” he said.

Tweet This Post 

Most of you don’t know this,  but trust me when  say it,  as California goes,  so goes the rest of the country.   There are so many people sponging off of the state of California that the state is sinking under the weight of all the social programs.   I personally know a family that has a combined income of more than 100k a year,  who has their kids on public assistance.

This goes on all day in California.  There is no one that stops this fraud.  It goes on day in,  day out.  I go to the supermarket,  and people driving Cadillac Escalades and BMW’s are using food stamps (actually called a WIC card now) to buy their groceries.

The level of corruption runs like a river from Sacramento to every corner of the state.  Its at every level of government here.  Prisons,  fire departments, schools,  they are all sucking us dry,  and all the state can do is raise taxes,  not cut spending because all of California’s elected officials are owned lock, stock and barrel by the unions.

I pay $300.00 a year to register my car.  I pay 18% state income tax and 36 cents a gallon tax on every gallon of gas I buy.  Gasoline here in Los Angeles is three dollars a gallon when in Arizona it is two fifty.  I pay 10% sales tax.  When will it end?   JD

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says California is getting shortchanged when it comes to federal spending and likened the health care legislation moving through Congress to beating up on his state.

The Republican governor is entering his final year of office with the task of bridging a $20 billion deficit. He says the federal government “owed” the state billions of dollars. If the state is unsuccessful in getting more federal funding this year, his budget calls for eliminating scores of social service programs such as in-home care for frail seniors and the disabled as well as the state’s main welfare program, CalWORKS.

“We also will inspire and push extra hard the California congressional delegation—the bipartisan delegation—because they’re not being representing us really well in this case,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Schwarzenegger said the health bill will increase costs for California because of an expansion of the Medicaid program, but he noted that the bill that passed the Senate covered those costs for Nebraska.

“I just cannot imagine that why we would have … our Senators and Congressional people, how they would vote for something like that,” he said. “Were they representing Nebraska and not us?”

Sen. Barbara Boxer on Friday disputed the governor’s contention that the state is currently a donor state, in essence, paying more to the federal government in taxes than it gets back in services. The Democratic senator projected the state would get about $1.45 back for every $1 spent during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, largely as a result of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill.

Schwarzenegger said he agreed that the stimulus bill helped the state, but he likened it to a one-time bonus that won’t help California meet recurring expenses.

“We were very appreciative. But it’s one-time money. One should always know the difference between one-time money and ongoing money,” Schwarzenegger said. “One-time money, that’s here today gone tomorrow.”

By criticizing the efforts of the state’s congressional delegation, he’s largely putting the blame on Democrats, because they comprise two-thirds of the delegation. The delegation includes Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as well as the state’s two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Boxer.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, addressed Schwarzenegger’s points soon after he unveiled his budget on Friday. He said billions of dollars will continue to come to the state this year through the stimulus package, and that Pelosi does believe the final health care legislation should treat all states equally when it comes to Medicaid.

“That being said, the federal government is not responsible for the state of California’s budget and we look forward to hearing a sustainable plan for the state to get its house in order,” Hammill said.

Tweet This Post 

The Senate filibuster has emerged as the bane of President Obama’s legislative agenda, igniting anger among liberals over a tactic that is now hogtying Congress even on noncontroversial bills.

The threat of filibusters has become so common that congressional leaders take it for granted that any bill of consequence will not pass the 100-member Senate with a simple majority of 51. Instead, 60 votes — the number needed to cut off the interminable speeches of a filibuster — has become the minimum required.

Frustration has intensified since Senate Republicans’ no-holds-barred effort to block the healthcare bill. GOP use of the tactic forced Democrats to scrounge for 60 votes at every legislative turn to prevent filibusters.

Now, facing the prospect of losing seats in this fall’s midterm elections, some Democrats are seeking to change the rules.

While Democrats have large majorities in the House and Senate, the 60-vote threshold for action in the Senate has become a powerful curb on the scope of the Obama agenda. To prevail over united Republicans, all 58 Democrats, including a small but influential faction of conservatives, have to stick together, along with the Senate’s two independents.

The Democrats’ vulnerability could be even greater given the announcements of Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) that they will not run for reelection this year.

The demands of hitting that 60-vote bar have dashed liberal hopes of including in the healthcare bill a new government insurance option to compete with private companies. Earlier last year, filibuster threats from Republicans and conservative Democrats in effect forced Obama to accept a smaller economic stimulus bill than many Democrats wanted. Obama’s Senate allies have been hard-pressed to round up 60 votes for a major initiative to address global warming.

It is the Senate’s own rules, not the Constitution, that set 60 votes as the benchmark for cutting off debate. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate health committee, argues that current rules have made it too hard for Democrats to exercise the mandate they received from the voters in 2008.

“Elections should have consequences,” Harkin said in a recent letter to his colleagues urging a change in filibuster rules. “Even when a party loses, it too easily can prevent the majority elected to govern from legislating.”

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) has launched a petition drive urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to push for cutting from 60 to 55 the number of votes needed to cut off a filibuster.

“Why should launching wars and cutting taxes for the rich require only 50 votes, while saving lives requires 60?” asked Grayson, who cited a number of major bills that were passed by the Senate with less than 60 votes while President George W. Bush was in office.

Democrats have used the filibuster against Republicans when the GOP was in the majority, most recently from 2001 to 2006. Back then, Democrats were great defenders of the right to filibuster Bush’s judicial nominations. At one point in 2003, Reid spent more than eight hours on the Senate floor protesting the fact that Republicans spent so much time on four disputed judges instead of on joblessness. Reid read six chapters from a book he’d written about his tiny hometown of Searchlight, Nev.

Today, Reid is the Senate majority leader and complains bitterly about GOP delaying tactics.

To make it easier to end a filibuster, Harkin has proposed gradually reducing the number of votes needed to cut off debate — from 60 votes on the first attempt, to 57 votes if another vote is held two days later, and eventually to 51 votes if the debate drags on long enough.

“Under this proposal, a determined minority could slow any bill down,” Harkin said in his recent letter to colleagues. “A minority of members, however, could not stymie the majority by grinding the Senate to a halt, as sadly too regularly happens today.”

But few senators show much inclination to tamper with a tool that gives enormous leverage to either party when it finds itself in the minority.

“It’s a real obstacle to getting much done, but it’s ingrained into the Senate,” said the Senate’s historian, Donald A. Ritchie. “It’s the institution the senators enacted themselves. They do have the power to change it.”

Some senators’ refusal to even consider changes infuriates Democrats in the House, where a simple majority prevails and debate is strictly limited. Frustrated liberals say that Senate rules are a relic of another era that hobbles Congress’ ability to address the nation’s problems.

The filibuster is rooted in the Senate’s tradition of allowing unlimited debate, which is intended to produce a more considered judgment on policy than in the House. The Senate did not allow for any debate limits until 1917, when a filibuster blocked legislation to allow merchant ships to be armed against German submarine attacks during World War I. Infuriated, President Wilson called the Senate back into session to pass the bill and adopt new procedures for cutting off filibusters.

The rule called for closing debate — or invoking cloture — by a vote of two-thirds of the senators present. That threshold was lowered to 60 votes in 1975 and remains today. That is why, in practice, a minority of 40 senators can keep legislation from coming to a vote.

The most renowned use of the filibuster was by Southern senators who blocked civil rights legislation for decades. That ended in 1964, when the Senate cut off a record 87-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act, a turning point in the nation’s long struggle over outlawing racial discrimination. It marked the first time the Senate had been able to cut off the filibuster of a civil rights bill.

The storied filibusters of the 20th century were the all-night talkathons of legend, with senators reading recipes and the Constitution to hold the floor, and using urine bags so they did not have to take bathroom breaks. That image was cemented by Jimmy Stewart’s performance in the film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” in which he played a political rookie who filibustered against corrupt legislation until he collapsed.

Now, as House and Senate leaders are working with the White House to resolve differences between their two versions of the healthcare bill, the number 60 looms large over the talks.

To circumvent further delaying tactics, Democrats have decided not to name an official House-Senate conference committee to reconcile the bills’ differences — because naming those conferees is just one more thing that Republicans could filibuster.

Instead, leaders of the two chambers will negotiate informally, then bring the compromise straight to the House and Senate floors.

Tweet This Post 

I was sort of wondering why,  in our color blind society,  the color of the mayor would matter in the first place.   Just a thought.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – New Orleans’ black political base is one more victim of Hurricane Katrina. The storm decimated once-thriving black, middle-class neighborhoods, undercutting efforts by black candidates to raise money and build voter support.

All of this is coming into play as the mostly black city readies to elect a successor to the very-public political face during and since Katrina—Mayor Ray Nagin. There’s a good chance his successor will be city’s first white mayor in three decades.

Tweet This Post