Definition of degenerate: “Having fallen to an inferior or undesirable state, especially in mental or moral qualities.”

I’m hearing a lot of whining from liberals who were silent when he pushed through our legislature (Dem majority in both Houses) the biggest tax increase in the states history – which they did it in the middle of the night to avoid scrutiny. Of course tax receipts started shrinking as affected business’ got the hell out of Dodge. lmao!

From a jubilant AP:

Franken leads Coleman for first time in Minnesota recount

Democrat Al Franken now has a slight edge over incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, but the race still probably won’t be decided before the Senate reconvenes.

By P.J. Huffstutter

Al Franken took his first lead over Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman in the bitter recount battle for Coleman’s U.S. Senate seat, a race whose outcome probably won’t be finalized until early in the new year.

The lead was a symbolic boost for Democrat Franken, who moved ahead by 53 votes this morning during the fourth day of a recount by the state Canvassing Board. Coleman led Franken on election night in November and had a 188-vote lead before the board began its deliberations.

The board is expected to resolve several hundred remaining challenges by tonight, but the effort will not decide the closely watched contest. The candidates have withdrawn about 5,000 challenges, but the board could allocate those votes on Monday.

The outcome also depends on an estimated 1,600 absentee ballots that were initially rejected. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that those ballots must be counted, and set a Dec. 31 deadline.

The fight over the country’s only undecided Senate race has whipsawed political emotions, sparked dozens of lawsuits and tested voters’ patience in the North Star State. Neither man pulled in more than 42% of the vote and the breathtakingly narrow margin of votes between Coleman and Franken has steadily dwindled.

When the state recount began Nov. 19, there were 215 ballots in favor of Coleman over Franken, out of 2.9 million cast. On Thursday, Coleman led by five votes.

With a winner unlikely before the new Congress convenes on Jan. 6, there have been rumblings that Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, may appoint someone to the Senate seat on a temporary basis, though the governor has said that he expects the election to be resolved before then.

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....5120.story

Anyone want to bet that the 1,600 rejected ballots will be exclusively for Franken?

Be sure to visit John Lott’s Minnesota recount website to see some of the ballots the Minnesota Canvassing Board claim are for “no one” – the ones with 99% filled in Coleman ovals but no other marks in the race.

There’s no question the Democrats are stealing the election, what’s amazing is that the voters of Minnesota and of course Minnesota Republicans are letting them.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Schwarzenegger orders mass layoffs, unpaid furloughs

Union leaders for state employees vow to challenge the legality of the furloughs, which they say amount to a 10% paycut.

By Patrick McGreevy and Jordan Rau

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday ordered mass layoffs and unpaid furloughs for state workers starting in February to address the growing fiscal crisis, and called another special session of the state Legislature.

The workforce cuts were condemned by officials of state employee unions, who vowed a legal challenge, while Democratic legislative leaders voiced disappointment but said they were willing to return to negotiations with the governor to solve the budget problem.

A day after the governor said he would veto an $18-billion package of cuts and new revenues adopted by the Legislature, Schwarzenegger blamed lawmakers for his having to seek layoffs that would cut spending by 10%.

“Our state’s fiscal crisis has worsened dramatically in the past few weeks without legislative action to address our budget crisis,” Schwarzenegger said in a letter to state employees Friday after he declared another fiscal emergency.

Under the executive order, rank-and-file employees will face a furlough of two days per month starting Feb. 1, 2009, and lasting through June 30, 2010. Managers will receive either the furlough or an equivalent salary reduction during the same period.

Union officials, who announced Friday that they would file a legal challenge to the order, said the furloughs are the equivalent of a 10% pay cut.

Schwarzenegger also asked the personnel department to work with state agencies to initiate “layoffs, reductions and other efficiencies” to achieve savings of up to 10% starting Feb. 1.

Employees in the bottom 20% of seniority will receive notices within the next month, but not all who receive notices will be laid off.

“I regret having to take these steps,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “We simply have no choice. The emergency steps I am announcing will require sacrifice from everyone, including those in my own office.”

Employee groups including the Service Employee International Union Local 1000, said they would file a grievance with the state Public Employee Relations Board, charging that the order is an unfair labor practice because workforce reductions are currently the subject of contract negotiations, according to Yvonne Walker, president of the local.

“The situation is out of control,” Walker said. “With the state’s economy heading towards a cliff, Gov. Schwarzenegger has pushed the state’s fiscal crisis into catastrophe.” …

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....1499.story

The unions in this case are saying “we don’t care if you don’t have the money to pay us or what the economic realities are, we have a contract!”

Sound familiar?

The latest example, from the Los Angeles Times:

Jerry Brown: Gay-marriage ban should be invalidated

By Jessica Garrison

In a surprise move, state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to invalidate Proposition 8. He said the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage “deprives people of the right to marry, an aspect of liberty that the Supreme Court has concluded is guaranteed by the California Constitution.”

It is the attorney general’s duty to defend the state’s laws, and after gay rights activists filed legal challenges to Proposition 8, which amended the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, Brown said he planned to defend the proposition as enacted by the people of California.

But after studying the matter, Brown concluded that “Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification.”

Backers of Proposition 8 expressed anger at Brown’s decision not to honor the will of voters, who approved the measure in November. “It’s outrageous,”said Frank Schubert, campaign manager for Proposition 8.

Proposition 8 foes, however, were elated. “Atty. Gen. Brown’s position that Proposition 8 should be invalidated demonstrates that he is a leader of courage and conviction,” said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California.

In his brief to the high court, Brown noted that the California Constitution says that “all people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights,” which include a right to “privacy.”

The courts have previously said that the right of a person to marry is protected as one of those inalienable rights, he wrote. The question at the center of the gay marriage cases, he told the justices “is whether rights secured under the state Constitution’s safeguard of liberty as an ‘inalienable’ right may intentionally be withdrawn from a class of persons by an initiative amendment.” That, he concluded, should not be allowed.

Although voters are allowed to amend other parts of the constitution by majority vote, to use the ballot box to take away an “inalienable” right would establish a “tyranny of the majority,” which the Constitution was designed, in part, to prevent, he wrote. “For we are talking, necessarily, about rights of individuals or groups against the larger community, and against the majority — even an overwhelming majority — of the society as a whole.”

The briefs filed Friday were in response to a spate of legal challenges filed by gay rights advocates, including the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Last month, the California Supreme Court announced that it would hear arguments in the case, perhaps as soon as March. A revision of the state Constitution can go before voters only after a two-thirds vote of the Legislature or a constitutional convention. Proposition 8 was put on the ballot after a signature drive. Brown’s brief also said he believes that the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages performed from June to November should remain valid.

Because it did not trust Brown to mount a staunch defense of the proposition, the group Protect Marriage intervened in the case and filed its own brief. It argued that Proposition 8 should remain legal and that the same-sex marriages performed from June to November should no longer be recognized.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....enera.html

It goes beyond arrogance but is completely expected.

From an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times:

UAW busting, Southern style

Foreign carmakers are enlisting the help of GOP senators from states in the South to break the union.

By Bruce Raynor

The foreign nonunion auto companies located in the South have a plan to reduce wages and benefits at their factories in the United States. And to do it, they need to destroy the United Auto Workers.

Last week, Senate Republicans from some Southern states went to work trying to do just that, on the foreign car companies’ behalf. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Bob Corker ( R-Tenn.) and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) — representatives from states that subsidize companies such as Honda, Volkswagen, Toyota and Nissan — first tried to force the UAW to take reductions in wages and benefits as a condition for supporting the auto industry bailout bill. When the UAW refused, those senators torpedoed the bill.

They claimed that they couldn’t support the bill without specifics about how wages would be “restructured.” They didn’t, however, require such specificity when it came to bailing out the financial sector. Their grandstanding, and the government’s generally lackluster response to the auto crisis, highlight many of the problems that have caused our current economic mess: the lack of concern about manufacturing, the privileged way our government treats the financial sector, and political support given to companies that attempt to slash worker’s wages.

When one compares how the auto industry and the financial sector are being treated by Congress, the double standard is staggering. In the financial sector, employee compensation makes up a huge percentage of costs. According to the New York state comptroller, it accounted for more than 60% of 2007 revenues for the seven largest financial firms in New York.

At Goldman Sachs, for example, employee compensation made up 71% of total operating expenses in 2007. In the auto industry, by contrast, autoworker compensation makes up less than 10% of the cost of manufacturing a car. Hundreds of billions were given to the financial-services industry with barely a question about compensation; the auto bailout, however, was sunk on this issue alone.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger realized that the existence of the union was under attack, which is why he refused to give in to the Senate Republicans’ demands that the UAW make further concessions. I say “further” because the union has already conceded a lot. Its 2007 contract introduced a two-tier contract to pay new hires $15 an hour (instead of $28) with no defined pension plan and dramatic cuts to their health insurance. In addition, the UAW agreed that healthcare benefits for existing retirees would be transferred from the auto companies to an independent trust. With the transferring of the healthcare costs, the labor cost gap between the Big Three and the foreign transplants will be almost eliminated by the end of the current contracts.

These concessions go some distance toward leveling the playing field (retiree costs are still a factor for the Big Three). But what the foreign car companies want is to level — which is to say, wipe out — the union. They currently discourage their workforce from organizing by paying wages comparable to the Big Three’s UAW contracts. In fact, Toyota’s per-hour wages are actually above UAW wages.

However, an internal Toyota report, leaked to the Detroit Free Press last year, reveals that the company wants to slash $300 million out of its rising labor costs by 2011. The report indicated that Toyota no longer wants to “tie [itself] so closely to the U.S. auto industry.” Instead, the company intends to benchmark the prevailing manufacturing wage in the state in which a plant is located. The Free Press reported that in Kentucky, where the company is headquartered, this wage is $12.64 an hour, according to federal labor statistics, less than half Toyota’s $30-an-hour wage.

If the companies, with the support of their senators, can wipe out or greatly weaken the UAW, they will be free to implement their plan.

But their plan will not work. The Bush administration is likely to keep the Big Three alive long enough for President-elect Barack Obama to construct a real solution. Democrats and even most Republicans understand that a nation that has already lost 2 million jobs this year cannot afford to put at risk 3 million more.

What the economy needs now is rising wages so the country can get on the path of wage-driven consumption growth. That means stronger unions. Indeed, I believe eventually it will mean the unionization of the entire U.S. auto industry.

http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....6838.story

Yep, “stronger unions” are what’s needed, because nothing will help the economy more than making the United States even more uncompetitive in the global market for products they produce.

Hell, let’s have the unions make the wage $100/hour? Why not?

As long as the government keeps bailing out the auto companies, who really cares, right?

Those evil Japanese car companies, wanting to pay a prevailing wage instead of some artifically inflated number driven by Unions making their competition unsuccessful.

Just wait until card check is passed and auto workers in the South who don’t want a Union start having “accidents.”

Nah, that would never happen.

Oh, the moronic author?

Bruce Raynor is the general president of Unite Here, a union of 465,000 workers in the apparel, textile, laundry, food service, distribution, hotel and gaming industries.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Health providers’ ‘conscience’ rule to take effect

The last-minute Bush administration declaration lets doctors, clinics, receptionists and others refuse to give care they find morally objectionable.

By David G. Savage

The Bush administration announced its “conscience protection” rule for the healthcare industry Thursday, giving doctors, hospitals, and even receptionists and volunteers in medical experiments the right to refuse to participate in medical care they find morally objectionable.

“This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience,” said outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.
The right-to-refuse rule includes abortion and other aspects of healthcare where moral concerns could arise, Leavitt’s office said, such as birth control, emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research and assisted suicide.

The rule, to be published today in the Federal Register, takes effect the day before President Bush leaves office.

It sets the stage for conflict in Barack Obama’s incoming administration. In August, Obama criticized the rule proposal and said he was “committed to ensuring that the health and reproductive rights of women are protected.”

The rule says providers — including hospitals, clinics, universities, pharmacies and doctor’s offices — can be charged with discrimination if an employee is pressured to participate in care that is “contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Violators would lose their federal funds.

Critics of the rule said it was too broad and threatened the rights of patients.

They said they were particularly worried that patients would not be given full and complete information about their medical options. For example, they said, an antiabortion doctor in a federally funded clinic might refuse to tell a pregnant patient that her fetus had a severe abnormality. Or an emergency room worker might withhold from rape victims information about emergency contraception.

“This gives an open invitation to any doctor, nurse, receptionist, insurance plan or even hospital to refuse to provide information about birth control on the grounds that they believe contraception amounts to abortion,” said lawyers for the National Women’s Law Center.

Critics also cited the timing of the change.

“We are shocked that the Bush administration chose to finalize its midnight regulation and to take this parting shot at women’s health and ignore patients’ rights to receive critical healthcare services and information they deserve,” said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement. “We look forward to working with President-elect Obama and leaders in Congress to repeal this disastrous rule and expand patients’ access to full healthcare information and services, not limit it.”

An Obama spokesman, asked Thursday about the rule, said Obama “will review all 11th-hour regulations and will address them once he is president.”

The Obama administration could revise the rule after he takes office Jan. 20, but the process would probably be months long.

A speedier option would be a congressional resolution rejecting the Bush administration’s late rules. Democratic Reps. Louise M. Slaughter of New York and Diana DeGette of Colorado said Thursday that they would lead such an effort.

Decades ago — shortly after the Supreme Court in 1973 established a right to abortion — Congress adopted laws clarifying that no one was required to perform an abortion. Later laws declared that “no individual shall be required to perform or assist” in any medical research or procedure “contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

The new rule is needed to enforce the laws, Secretary Leavitt said. In a preamble to the rule, he expressed concern about “an environment in sectors of the healthcare field that is intolerant of individual objections to abortion or individual religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

He said that the “doctor- patient relationship requires a balancing of interests” and that doctors have a duty only “to provide care that they are comfortable providing.”

Health and Human Services said in its regulation: “To avoid potential conflicts from occurring, we strongly encourage early, open and respectful communications between providers and patients surrounding sensitive issues of healthcare, including issues of conscience.” …

http://www.latimes.com/feature.....8045.story

Now Congress can summarily “reject” an administration’s rules?

Willl Republicans remember that if they someday regain power?

Somehow, I think not.

From the Los Angeles Times:

California Supreme Court allows good Samaritans to be sued for nonmedical care

The ruling stems from a case in which a woman pulled a crash victim from a car ‘like a rag doll,’ allegedly aggravating a vertebrae injury.

By Carol J. Williams

Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier.

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn’t immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn’t medical.

The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.

Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her “like a rag doll” from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004.

But in a sharp dissent, three of the seven justices said that by making a distinction between medical care and emergency response, the court was placing “an arbitrary and unreasonable limitation” on protections for those trying to help.

In 1980, the Legislature enacted the Health and Safety Code, which provides that “no person who in good faith, and not for compensation, renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission.”

Although that passage does not use the word “medical” in describing the protected emergency care, it was included in the section of the code that deals with emergency medical services. By placing it there, lawmakers intended to shield “only those persons who in good faith render emergency medical care at the scene of a medical emergency,” Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote for the majority.

The high court cited no previous cases involving good Samaritan actions deemed unprotected by the state code, suggesting the challenge of Torti’s rescue effort was the first to narrow the scope of the law.

The three dissenting justices argued, however, that the aim of the legislation was clearly “to encourage persons not to pass by those in need of emergency help, but to show compassion and render the necessary aid.”

Justice Marvin R. Baxter said the ruling was “illogical” because it recognizes legal immunity for nonprofessionals administering medical care while denying it for potentially life-saving actions like saving a person from drowning or carrying an injured hiker to safety.

“One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim,” Baxter wrote for the dissenters. “Here, the result is that defendant Torti has no immunity for her bravery in pulling her injured friend from a crashed vehicle, even if she reasonably believed it might be about to explode.”

Both opinions have merit, “but I think the majority has better arguments,” said Michael Shapiro, professor of constitutional and bioethics law at USC.

Shapiro said the majority was correct in interpreting that the Legislature meant to shield doctors and other healthcare professionals from being sued for injuries they cause despite acting with “reasonable care,” as the law requires.

Noting that he would be reluctant himself to step in to aid a crash victim with potential spinal injuries, Shapiro said the court’s message was that emergency care “should be left to medical professionals.”

Torti’s liability has yet to be determined in court, and if the Legislature is unhappy with any judgment arising from the immunity denial, it can revise the code, he concluded.

Torti, Van Horn and three other co-workers from a San Fernando Valley department store had gone out to a bar on Halloween for a night of drinking and dancing, departing in two cars at 1:30 a.m., the justices noted as background.

Van Horn was a front-seat passenger in a vehicle driven by Anthony Glen Watson, whom she also sued, and Torti rode in the second car. After Watson’s car crashed into a light pole at about 45 mph, the rear car pulled off the road and driver Dion Ofoegbu and Torti rushed to help Watson’s two passengers escape the wreckage.

Torti testified in a deposition that she saw smoke and liquid coming from Watson’s vehicle and feared the car was about to catch fire. None of the others reported seeing signs of an imminent explosion, and Van Horn said in her deposition that Torti grabbed her arm and yanked her out “like a rag doll.”

Van Horn’s suit alleges negligence by Torti in aggravating a vertebrae injury suffered in the crash, causing permanent damage to the spinal cord. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....3454.story

So remember, if you see someone that needs help in any way, call 911 and drive away before they can get your license plate number.

Like so many other areas of society, the courts have ruled that ordinary people helping people is something that needs to be stamped out.

Religious charities? Almost gone.

Cooking for food banks or even bake sales? Not so fast, unless you’ve a license and a health inspection.

See someone drowning? Call 911 and hope they can tread water for 20 minutes until the EMTs arrive.

Obama to name pro-union Rep. Hilda Solis to Labor post

PRO-LABOR: Rep. Hilda Solis was elected to Congress in 2000 from a district that includes swaths of East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley. She has consistently voted in support of labor’s interests.
The California congresswoman is a leader in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and is called a coalition-builder.

By Peter Nicholas

Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte), a Congressional Hispanic Caucus leader considered to be one of the most reliably pro-union voices in the House, is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the Labor Department, a Democratic official said Thursday.

Obama is expected to announce the selection at a news conference today in Chicago.

Solis, 51, would be the third Latino member of Obama’s Cabinet, a measure of diversity that has garnered praise from this fast-growing slice of the electorate.

After Obama nominated New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to be his Commerce secretary, some Latino officials complained that they were being shut out of the most prestigious Cabinet posts. Richardson at one time had been rumored to be in line for secretary of State, before Obama offered him the Commerce slot.

Rep. Joe Baca (D-Rialto) had cautioned that Obama’s legislative agenda might face roadblocks unless more Latinos were installed in top positions.

Since then, Obama has said he will nominate Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) as secretary of the Interior, and now Solis as Labor secretary. Prominent Latino officials are now praising the new Cabinet’s makeup.

In an interview Thursday, Baca said: “We’re glad he listened to our voices and listened to the Hispanic community that came out and delivered for him on election day. It’s a great day for the Hispanic community.”

Solis did not return calls for comment.

Elected to Congress in 2000 from a district that includes swaths of East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley, Solis has consistently voted in support of labor’s interests. A congressional voting analysis conducted by the AFL-CIO showed that she voted with organized labor 100% of the time last year.

She supported measures increasing the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to organize and preserving a ban on privatizing jobs at the Labor Department. Other labor groups that study congressional voting patterns gave her a 100% rating in 2005 and 2006.

J.P. Fielder, spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, suggested that Solis’ voting record is overly weighted in labor’s favor. “The business community recognizes that economic growth has happened in a number of non-unionized states. She has sided with the AFL-CIO in 97% of the votes that she has cast on the Hill,” he said.

Solis also serves on the board of directors of American Rights at Work, which advocates for the right to form unions and bargain collectively. The chairman is former Rep. David Bonior of Michigan, who was also in the running for the Labor secretary post.

“I’m very excited,” said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “This is an extraordinary moment for all women, but especially for the Latino community.”

Durazo said Solis would be effective in the job because she is a “coalition-builder” who “doesn’t walk in thinking everything has to be a battle with business.”

Before winning her congressional seat, Solis spent 18 years in the Legislature in Sacramento. In Solis’ hometown of El Monte, officials are hoping that her move to Labor secretary will give the local economy a much-needed boost.

El Monte officials cut more than $2 million from the city’s budget Wednesday and laid off more than 80 part- and full-time workers during a special meeting. The city had long ago banked on the auto sales industry, and now that is flagging.

Councilwoman Emily Ishigaki, 63, said she had high hopes for Solis, whom she has long worked with as a fellow member of the El Monte Business and Professional Women.

“I hope she can devise a way to bring jobs back to America,” Ishigaki said. “I sure hope it means notice for the San Gabriel Valley.” …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....9325.story

Hint: “Pro-Union.” That will not “bring jobs back to America.”

But don’t you love the way the Dems are already strong-arming Obama on behalf of their special interest groups?

Now there are “Latino quotas” for cabinet positions. Wonderful.

Who cares if they can do the job, are they the right race?

Well that’s OK then.

Stimulus plan could shape course of Barack Obama’s presidency

Democrats want to have a bill ready and waiting for him. But with Republicans seeking more time for public hearings and to purge special-interest projects, his plans for bipartisanship will be tested.

By Peter Nicholas

President-elect Barack Obama’s call for speedy adoption of a massive spending plan to “jolt” the economy will prove an early test of two major promises: that he will work in a bipartisan style with a skeptical Republican Party, and that he will purge the federal budget of wasteful projects.

Even conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill predict that, in the end, a substantial stimulus package will pass. Job losses and a deepening recession demand a quick infusion of money, they say.

But Republicans in the Senate, even with their ranks diminished, still possess leverage to tailor a package that fits certain specifications. They want public hearings on the stimulus, even if it thwarts Democratic ambitions to present the bill to Obama for his signature when he is sworn in to office Jan. 20. And they insist that the bill be scrubbed of projects that, in their view, are aimed more at appeasing interest groups than creating jobs.

When the new Congress convenes on Jan. 6, Senate Democrats will still lack the 60-vote majority needed to stave off GOP delay tactics — a reality that gives Republicans some confidence that they can win concessions.

Obama has identified the stimulus package as an urgent priority. His economic advisors are considering a package of no less than $600 billion and potentially as much as $1 trillion over two years, according to the transition office.

The fate of the bill could shape the course of Obama’s presidency. If it works, it could help lift the economy out of recession, giving him the space to enact his ambitious energy, education and healthcare plans.

Behind him is a formidable array of interest groups eager to see a major national spending program unleashed. Business groups and organized labor, mayors and governors — all will be pressing lawmakers to pass Obama’s spending plan.

For her part, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has touted a $600-billion plan that would include the middle-class tax cut Obama laid out during the campaign.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, said in an interview Wednesday that he wanted to see Obama sign the bill on the day he is sworn in. In talks with his congressional delegation, Corzine said, he learned that the “goal is to have something on the president’s desk on Inauguration Day.”

Republicans are watching to see whether Obama will ignore them in his zeal to achieve the first victory of his presidency. Were that to happen, they caution, it could perpetuate political divisions and set a sour tone for the next four years. Republicans and conservative interest groups also want Obama to resist pressures to lard the bill with needless projects.

“I’m concerned that politics and pet projects will end up being as much or more of a significant consideration than what I think should be the acid test, which is what will have the most stimulus and the quickest impact,” said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). He added: “We can try to use our position of slightly more than 40 votes to shape legislation.”

Obama’s methods may prove a revealing window into his governing style. Pushing for legislation by Inauguration Day would allow for just two weeks of public debate on a bill that could cost as much as the entire Iraq war.

Republicans would like to see the timetable slowed and more debate encouraged — which they argue would also be in keeping with the transparent and inclusive style Obama embraced as a candidate for president.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said: “There has to be transparency for a bill that big. If it gets to be $800 billion to $900 billion, it’s bigger than any single bill in the history of the country. It’s going to take some work and need some oversight, and nobody’s really talking about that right now.”

Demanding that the bill be passed by Inauguration Day, he said, “is a pretty big ask.” …

http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....5571.story

I don’t know why the Republicans would even agree to vote on what will be called “Obama’s plan” while Bush is still in office, but that’s just me.

You know that if the plan succeeds, it will be “Obama’s Brilliant Success,” and if it fails, it will be “Bush’s Last Big DIsaster.”

NASA’s spending is under scrutiny

Obama’s transition team wants to know about the agency’s basic money management, including cost overruns.

By Mark K. Matthews and Robert Block

Most nights it’s possible to look skyward with a pair of cheap binoculars and see a $100,000 mistake circling the Earth. The glowing object — an orbiting NASA tool bag — was lost last month by an astronaut during a routine spacewalk.

The canvas-and-acrylic caddy contained two grease guns, a scraper, a trash bag and some wipes, hardly cutting-edge technology. So why did it cost $100,000?

NASA officials said they had no answer to that question — beyond the fact that, as spokesman Allard Beutel put it, “space flight is expensive.” That expense is drawing serious scrutiny from the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

Of 74 questions submitted to the agency by Obama’s NASA transition team, more than half asked about basic spending issues, including cost overruns.

It’s clear that NASA’s long-standing inability to manage its money has attracted the team’s attention.

For nearly two decades, NASA and its out-of-this-world projects have made a “high-risk” list compiled by government auditors because of cost overruns totaling millions — sometimes billions — of dollars.

The designation applies to programs that are “impeding effective government and costing the government billions of dollars each year,” according to the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency.

NASA has been on this list since 1990.

“Our space program is running inefficiently, and without sufficient regard to cost performance,” wrote Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator who has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Michael Griffin, the current NASA administrator.

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, Stern called the cost overruns a “cancer” that has cost the agency’s science program about $5 billion over five years.

Few missions seem immune. In 1988, when NASA engineers started designing the International Space Station, the orbiting complex was to cost $23 billion and be completed by 1996. Today, the cost has topped $100 billion — and it still is not finished.

Another project, a science satellite named Glory, was conceived more than a decade ago to help scientists better understand how the sun and particles in the atmosphere affect Earth’s climate. Since 2007, its cost has jumped by nearly one-third, from $169 million to $221 million.

NASA says that part of the problem is the cutting-edge nature of what it does.

“We start these things out, and we admit up front we don’t completely know how to do them. That is what makes them interesting,” Griffin said recently.

Agency officials said they had improved financial controls — including forcing managers to better estimate costs.

But the problem is so bad that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that NASA’s new moon rocket would go over budget by as much as $7 billion. It based the estimate on an analysis of 72 other programs that blew their budgets by an average of about 50%.

NASA often blames its contractors, saying aerospace companies promise too much for too little and then cannot deliver at the bid price.

Auditors say NASA does a poor job of policing the companies.

NASA is involved in a lawsuit with an auditing company hired to review NASA contracts. The firm, Horn & Associates of Utah, says it has found millions of dollars in overpayments but was unable to get a full picture of the problem because NASA refused to let it see all its records.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the firm cited one example in which a NASA employee at Johnson Space Center in Houston defended contractors, whom she called her “customers,” and refused to go after some of the companies to refund the money that was overcharged. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....9135.story

It’s clear that this needs to be done, and it’s actually good that Obama is doing it, it’s just interesting to see he’s getting a complete pass from the “scientific community” for doing so.

Immigration-overhaul supporters hope their hour has come

With Obama in office, a sympathetic Cabinet and more Democrats in Congress, supporters hope to revive a reform package next year. But the economic downturn sparks worry about protecting U.S. workers.

By Teresa Watanabe

Immigrant advocates said Thursday that long-stalled efforts to legalize millions of illegal migrants, crack down on employers who hire them and win more family visas would be revived next year and could possibly succeed in early 2010 following sizable Democratic gains powered by record turnouts of Latino voters in the November election.

Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, a Washington-based immigrant advocacy organization, said that Democrats who favored a comprehensive reform approach beat Republicans advocating only border control and other enforcement measures in 20 of 22 congressional races in such battleground states as Colorado and New Mexico. Those results were in part driven by Latino voters, who doubled their turnout over 2000, supported President-elect Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain 67% to 31% and helped Democrats win, in addition to Colorado and New Mexico, other swing states such as Florida and Nevada, Sharry said.

“This is a defining issue among the fastest growing group of new voters in the country,” Sharry said of Latino support for immigration reform. “This is a huge priority.”

In a national teleconference Thursday, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), said Obama had asked him to relay that he remains committed to a comprehensive solution to repair the nation’s immigration system. Advocates said Obama’s Cabinet appointments were a promising sign that he was assembling a strong team to deliver on reform promises, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as secretary of Commerce, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of Homeland Security and, announced Thursday, Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) as secretary of Labor.

All three are strong supporters of comprehensive reform, including a path to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

“It’s another indication that immigration reform is going to be a high priority for the incoming administration,” said David Mermin, a pollster with Lake Research Partners. Mermin said that the majority of Americans he surveyed for America’s Voice support a comprehensive solution that would secure the borders, crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and offer legalization to undocumented migrants who pay fines, learn English and meet other requirements.

But Ira Melman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based restrictionist organization, said its own polling by Zogby International showed that the majority of Americans are concerned that legalizing immigrants during the economic downturn would hurt U.S. workers.

“It’s going to be very, very difficult to sell this to the American people when the economy is generally in a state of collapse,” Melman said.

Sharry said the recession would probably affect the outlines of a reform package. To protect American workers, Sharry said, the package might not include an increase in temporary visas for either skilled or unskilled foreign workers, for which business has long lobbied. An exception would be made for temporary farm workers, he said.

Sharry also said the reform package would probably include greater emphasis on aggressive labor enforcement to target employers who simultaneously violate immigration and labor laws by hiring illegal workers into jobs with poor wages and working conditions.

In Los Angeles, immigrant advocates said they plan to launch an appeal to Obama to stop immigration raids on homes and work sites.

In the Chicago area, Gutierrez said, Roman Catholic and evangelical churches have begun mobilizing thousands of citizens to support immigration reform by publicizing the hardship they face waiting for loved ones to receive entry visas. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....8825.story

Don’t want to wait for your “loved one” to receive a visa? Go home. If you loved them so much, why did you leave them in the first place?!?!

Meanwhile, it’s amazing how mob rule can lobby the President to stop enforcing the law.

But most importantly, how does what they want Obama to do differ from what McCain wanted to do?

Schwarzenegger says he won’t back Democratic budget plan

The governor says the $18-billion plan calling for higher taxes and spending cuts doesn’t go as far as he’d like to stimulate the economy. The state may run out of money in early February.

By Jordan Rau and Patrick McGreevy

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday rejected an $18-billion plan the Legislature passed to ease the state’s financial crisis through higher gas, sales and income taxes and cuts to schools and healthcare.

Schwarzenegger, who for weeks has exhorted lawmakers to act to forestall a cash crisis, vowed to veto the package after Democrats used a series of legal maneuvers to push through $9.3 billion in taxes without any GOP votes. He called on legislators to return to the negotiating table.

It was not the taxes — or the tactics Democrats used to pass them — that Schwarzenegger said troubled him. He complained the plan did not go as far as he wanted to stimulate the economy.

“I need exactly what I recommended [for my] recovery package,” he told reporters an hour after the Senate and Assembly concluded voting following a tense legislative session. “I think they should stay here, work some more on this budget.”

Schwarzenegger said the Democratic plan — which would speed up financing for more than $3 billion in public spending on construction related to hospitals, streets, housing, flood protection, parks and transit– was “bogus.” He said the state also needs to ease environmental rules that can delay such projects and allow a greater role for private contractors in public building.

He also complained that it did not include an additional $1.2 billion in cuts to the state workforce and welfare programs.

“They thought I would sign it, that they could put the pressure on,” he said.

The governor’s move comes as the state is projected to run out of cash as early as February. And it came a day after the state’s financial straits forced officials to stop payments for nearly 2,000 public works projects. The suspension of that money could make it impossible for lawmakers and Schwarzenegger to jump-start construction even if the stimulus measures the governor seeks are passed.

Democrats accused the governor of keeping the state in financial jeopardy over fringe issues. The projects that Schwarzenegger would like to see privatized or fast-tracked and the program cuts he wants implemented, they say, make up only a tiny fraction of overall state spending.

“We gave him an $18-billion gift, and he tossed it down the toilet,” said Sen. Mark Leno, (D-San Francisco). “This is more about his ego than what is good for the state.”

Despite the veto threat, many in the Capitol expect some version of the package to survive.

Legislative leaders late Thursday had not sent their bills to the governor’s desk, according to Capitol staffers involved in budget discussions and are planning to reopen talks with the governor’s office in coming days.

“When the bus is about to go over the cliff, you don’t just pump the brakes once and give up,” said Democratic strategist Jason Kinney. “You keep pumping until the bus stops.”]

If some version of the plan is eventually signed into law, it could still unravel.

Several Republican lawmakers and antitax advocates said they would file a lawsuit charging that the plan violates Proposition 13’s provision that all tax increases require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

They also threatened to launch a referendum to overturn the proposed increase in the 13-cent-a gallon gas tax, which is scheduled to take effect in February.

“Let’s just have the signature gatherers stand at the gas stations and see how long that takes to get the signatures on a referendum,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Qualifying the referendum would require 433,971 signatures. Once they were collected and validated, the increase would be suspended pending a vote of the electorate.

Legal experts said it was unclear whether courts would overturn other parts of the Democrats’ package in the event that the governor were to sign it.

The proposal would raise $9.3 billion by increasing sales taxes three-fourths of a cent. It would add a surcharge of 2.5% to everyone’s 2009 state income tax bill. It would also require businesses to withhold taxes on payments above $600 made to independent contractors, as they are now required to do with salaried employees.

In addition, it would cut $7.3 billion from schools, healthcare and other programs. Their package would nearly halve the state’s budget shortfall, projected to reach $41.8 billion in the next 18 months.

The Democrats circumvented Republicans through a number of novel maneuvers that took advantage of the legal difference between taxes and fees and skirted the need for a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, which is normally required for tax hikes. A two-thirds vote would have required some Republican support, but GOP lawmakers have vowed not to raise taxes. On the floors of the Senate and Assembly, Republicans said the Democrats showed contempt for voters and an unprecedented subversion of California’s Constitution.

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....1906.story

I’ve got to hand it to Californai’s Republican state legislators – they are sticking to their guns and remember what the GOP at least used to stand for.

Ahnold seems to in some ways but in others he’s been listening to his wife’s family far too long.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Credit card changes will give consumers a break

The rules from federal regulators represent a sweeping change. But the new limits on fees and rates don’t start until 2010.

By Tiffany Hsu

Responding to rising consumer complaints, federal regulators Thursday adopted the most sweeping new rules for the credit card industry in three decades, including tougher restrictions on interest rate hikes and late fees.

The regulations, which take effect in July 2010, would block card companies from applying higher interest rates on existing balances. Late fees could not be charged without giving consumers at least 21 days to make a payment.

The new measures were needed to reverse a trend in which the pricing schemes and terms of credit cards have grown increasingly complicated and obscure, leaving consumers frustrated by mysterious charges, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said.

The banking industry opposed the measures, contending that card issuers would be less likely to take a chance on people with weak credit. Card companies will also be forced to raise interest rates to cover the expense of the new measures, saddling most card users with higher costs, said Edward L. Yingling, chief executive of the American Bankers Assn.

But consumer advocates said the measures, adopted by the Fed, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration, were needed to address hidden traps and fees nestled in the fine print of card applications.

“There has been a long time since these regulations have changed, and banking and card companies have had very successful lobbies that kept any meaningful legislation at bay,” said Ginna Green, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending. “But consumer advocates and congressional leadership have put the pressure on regulators to do what really needs to be done for a number of years.” …

http://www.latimes.com/busines.....9850.story

They never learn.

With these new regs, the last credit accessible by most people will be cut off. For the “poor” and “working man” the left loves so much, it will become a cash-only society.

Of course until the Government hands over a few hundred billion more dollars to “ease the consumer credit crunch.”