Selected News For Jan 17 – Jan 23

72 Responses to “Selected News For Jan 17 – Jan 23”

1. heykev

   January 17, 2009 at 8:48 am

   From the publishers of all things true: NY Times CNN no it’s Pravda (please forgive me, I got them confused):

   Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

   The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
   Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

   Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials…

   Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

   http://english.pravda.ru/scien....._ice_age-0

   As if I don’t have enough to worry about. Now I’m screwed either because it’s going to be too hot or too cold.

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2. ptat

   January 17, 2009 at 1:02 pm

   Friday’s The Daily Times (Salisbury, MD) has a great front page article:

   Parent objects to ‘hoopla’ of schools’ presidential events

   By Sarah Lake • Staff writer • January 16, 2009

   BERLIN — A concerned parent is planning to pull her child out of school Tuesday because of what she calls “biased, politically motivated hoopla.”

   The day of the inauguration, Buckingham Elementary School, along with many other schools on the Lower Shore, plan to conduct activities they say will provide a valuable educational experience for students. Buckingham in particular has scheduled a viewing of the inauguration for President-elect Barack Obama in the cafeteria; the entire school is expected to watch.

   “At BES, we are a learning community,” said Principal Roger Pacella. “We believe that both our students and staff will benefit from viewing the inauguration — an opportunity to understand and celebrate our great democratic tradition.”

   Kimberly McAllister of Berlin disagrees. In a Jan. 9 letter addressed to school officials, she explained why her 7-year-old daughter would not be attending school on Inauguration Day.

   “It was (Martin Luther King Jr.) who said we should be judging a man by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin,” she wrote. “If this special event is being promoted for that reason, it flies directly in the face of Dr. King’s teachings.”

   “Had it been John McCain and Sarah Palin,” she said, “I don’t think the hoopla would have been the same.” …

   Edward Lee, president of the Worcester County chapter of the NAACP, said he finds it unfortunate that McAllister would use King’s quotation to support her viewpoint and believes his words have been taken out of context.

   “Dr. Martin Luther King’s efforts were to bring persons of color into the decision-making process, where they have not been before,” Lee said. “In the accomplishment of the election of Obama, it seems there is a fulfillment of this great American’s dream. I think the school is recognizing this event for what it is: history.”

   McAllister, who attended Buckingham as a child, said she is certain the school has never held a large-scale assembly to view an inauguration.

   “Am I to believe the school has all of the sudden just realized this a teachable moment?” she asked…

   McAllister also believes that school is not the place for politics, and her child should not be forced to support the majority’s political ideology.

   “They’re supposed to just stick their heads in the sand and go along with everyone else,” she said. “It’s an odd thing for a first-grade class. The reasoning is get ‘em young and you’ve got ‘em for life.” …

   “Honestly, I could care less what color (Obama) is,” she said. “The fact is that they’re using my tax dollars for an indoctrination. And speaking with other people, I get the idea that I’m not alone (in my concern).”

   http://tinyurl.com/8qd7c6

   You got that right, Kimberly! I think there are at least 57 million others that agree!

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   • wardmama4

     January 22, 2009 at 9:26 am

     believes his words have been taken out of context

     Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. must be rolling over in his grave as to the hate, race baiting, racist, stupid, vapid and just plain ignorant ‘nuances’, ‘interpretations’ and misuse of his exact words: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

     Yes, Kimberly got it right – all of it. I too would have taken any children out of school – and told my daughter she had my permission to skip and/or walk out of the one class where the professor implied that they would be watching the Imaculation.
3. DW

   January 17, 2009 at 6:11 pm

   From the AFP:

   French Muslim Troops Refuse Afghan Duty

   January 15, 2009
   Agence France-Presse

   French Muslim soldiers have refused to serve in Afghanistan, saying their faith forbids them from fighting fellow Muslims, a military spokesman confirmed to AFP.

   “The refusal to be assigned to a mission for religious reasons is a micro-phenomenon concerning fewer than five cases per year,” said Colonel Benoit Royal, confirming a report on the website of left-wing daily Liberation.

   Liberation’s respected “Defence Secret” blog reported Wednesday that an infantry soldier in eastern France had in October refused to be stationed in Afghanistan but later agreed, after meeting with a Muslim chaplain.

   Soldiers who refuse a mission face disciplinary action and in most cases are discharged from the army, Royal said.

   Full article:
   http://www.military.com/news/a.....-duty.html

   Their faith forbids them from fighting fellow Muslims???
   Didn’t we just watch a few years of Sunnis and Shiites blowing the living crap out of each other in Iraq?

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   • Liberals Demise

     January 17, 2009 at 6:47 pm

     Nice catch on the killing of each other recently. You’d think that if they didn’t have to buy the ammo, this would be a great time to get their ya-yas’ out!!
4. BillK

   January 18, 2009 at 8:29 am

   Congress decides it’s time for more banks to fail.

   From the AP:

   Stimulus plan repeals big tax break for banks

   By Stephen Ohlemacher

   WASHINGTON – House Democrats’ version of the $825 billion recession rescue package would end billions of dollars in tax breaks the Bush administration quietly gave to banks last fall.

   Already almost exclusive beneficiaries of a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, banks are largely left out of the House stimulus package that President-elect Barack Obama wants passed quickly through Congress. Those getting financial bailout money wouldn’t even be eligible for one of the main business tax breaks aimed at priming the economic pump.

   Homebuilders, manufacturers, retailers and low-income families share the bulk of the $275 billion in proposed new tax cuts.

   House leaders moved this week to repeal the tax break for banks even as the Senate voted to help many of those same institutions by releasing the second $350 billion of the widely unpopular Wall Street bailout. Many lawmakers are unhappy with the results after the Bush administration spent the first $350 billion, making them wary of helping banks in the stimulus package.

   To address the financial industry meltdown, the Treasury Department last fall issued a new tax rule to make it more attractive for healthy banks to buy troubled ones hit hard by the mortgage crisis. It allowed healthy banks to avoid billions of dollars in taxes by offsetting their profits with the losses of the banks they acquire.

   Before, the merged bank could write off only a limited amount of the losses. Removing much of the restrictions enabled the acquiring banks to make huge reductions in their tax liabilities.

   In some cases, the tax breaks exceeded the cost of acquiring the troubled banks. Wells Fargo & Co., for example, made a bid to acquire Wachovia Corp., just days after the change in tax rules was issued Sept. 30. Wells Fargo paid $14.8 billion in a stock deal to buy Wachovia, but stands to reap about $20 billion in additional tax savings from the transaction, according to analyses by private tax experts.

   Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. reduced its taxes by about $5.1 billion through its takeover of National City Corp., according to the analyses.

   The Treasury Department did not release an estimate of how much the tax break would cost the government. However, a widely circulated commentary by the law firm of Jones Day estimated that banks could eventually reap tax savings of up to $140 billion by acquiring banks with large losses related to the housing market downturn.

   Repealing the tax break would negate those savings in future bank mergers. It would not, however, affect mergers already under way, according to a summary of the stimulus package released by the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. …

   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ulus_taxes

   In summary, the Bush plan gave tax breaks to banks to buy other poorly performing banks and as a result the buying bank would get a tax break for the liabilities of the bank they acquired.

   Thus banks like Wachovia were purchased rather than being taken over by the FDIC, benefiting depositors and saving the Federal Government money. Everyone won. Well, except those pushing for a socialist takeover of the banking industry as a whole.

   Now there is no reason for any bank to buy any poorly performing bank, leaving those banks with no option but to fail or beg the Government for even more money in handouts. (Because of course apparently banks are apparently supposed to buy weaker banks to lose money.)

   This assures that one way or another, those depositors will be getting their funds from Uncle Sam, and most Americans are too ignorant of economics to know the Democrats ensured it would keep happen while making themselves look like the white knights riding to the rescue.

   Nice.

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5. BillK

   January 18, 2009 at 9:18 am

   From the AP, only Democrats can in good conscience provide pork to their education buddies as part of an alleged “economic stimulus” program:

   Colorado would get $415 million for education under fed plan

   DENVER — Colorado would receive about $415 million for education spending under a federal proposal aimed at boosting the country’s ailing economy, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis said Saturday.

   The Colorado Democrat said the money would come from the proposal dubbed as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan by President-elect Barack Obama. Although the plan doesn’t have a final price tag, Obama aides have said it could cost as much as $775 billion.

   Polis said the funds would be broken into two parts over two years: $280 million to help low-income and special education students and $135 million for building repair and construction. Polis said the plan is still making its way through Congress and will be taken up by the Appropriations Committee and the Ways and Means Committee in the House in the coming weeks.

   Polis said if the plan is passed, states could start seeing money as soon as March.

   “The whole purpose of this recovery act is to infuse the money into the states very quickly,” said Polis, who was elected to Congress in November and sits on the House Education and Labor Committee.

   If approved, the funds would come at a time when Colorado is facing major budget cuts. Gov. Bill Ritter recommended $632 million in cuts from the current state budget Friday, with public and higher education facing big cuts.

   Under Ritter’s recommendation, $34 million in spending for full-day kindergarten construction would be eliminated, as well as $4.9 million for charter school construction and $1.2 million for teacher recruiting. Also eliminated would be $1.8 million for military dependents in public school. Ritter also said $30 million from higher education needs to be cut.

   Polis said the spending package would include money for higher education financial aid programs.

   He said it would mostly be up to school districts how to spend the money.

   “Those kind of decisions should be made at the local level and not the federal government. It’s going to be up to the school districts to decide,” he said. …

   http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....under-fed/

   So big payoffs to the Dems’ sycophantic supporters in education helps the economy how?

   (It of course doesn’t, but why let details get in the way,)

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6. BillK

   January 18, 2009 at 9:27 am

   I really want to vomit.

   From the Vail (CO) Daily:

   Barack Obama themed menus in Vail

   Edwards restaurants celebrate the inauguration

   Sarah Mausolf

   EDWARDS, Colorado — Dining on Barack of Lamb is how some Vailites will celebrate president Barack Obama’s inauguration Tuesday.

   At least two local restaurants will pay homage to the incoming president with Obama-themed menus.

   At Dish in Edwards, where Democrats plan a party, executive chef Jenna Johansen will prepare Obama’s favorite foods.

   Chili is the president-elect’s “go-to” meal, Johansen said.

   “That’s the one he always makes,” she said. “I’m going to try to find his recipe. There are some (Web) sites that say they have it but you never really know.”

   Thanks to the throngs of bloggers and journalists who chronicle Obama’s every move, the Internet boasts a wealth of information on the presidential palate.

   Johansen will recreate Obama’s favorite snack from the campaign trail — pizza margherita — and the guacamole Obama enjoys at his favorite restaurant in Chicago, Topolobampo. Expect to see shrimp and grits, another Obama must-have, and ahi poke, a shout-out to the president’s home state of Hawaii, Johansen said.

   “When I was thinking about planning the menu for this party, I was looking at, in my mind, how things are going to be changing in the White House, in terms of switching from kind of Tex Mex fare to bringing in a lot more international style foods,” Johansen said. “Certainly the cuisine that’s going to be enjoyed in the White House will be much different with Obama than it is currently.”

   Americans have long had a fascination with their politicians’ diets. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is known for scarfing down the city’s cheese steaks. And who can forget the time President George W. Bush choked on a pretzel?

   With Obama moving into the White House kitchen, curiosity about the fit president’s diet could spike. After all, the president is so calorie conscious, he refused a second helping of chocolate during a visit to a Pennsylvania candy store, a New York Times blogger reported.

   Another blogger seemed concerned about Obama’s snacking. A writer on Althouse.blogspot.com cautioned Obama about overdosing on MET-Rx protein bars.

   “’Hmmm: ‘This product contains sugar alcohols, which may cause gastrointestinal discomfort. Excessive consumption may have a laxative effect.’ Be careful, Barack!” the writer warned.

   For Vailites who live nearly 2,000 miles away from the inauguration, food offers a way to connect with the event.

   Matthew’s restaurant in Edwards plans a party tonight with dishes like Barack of Lamb and Sloppy Joe Biden Sliders.

   “I just think no matter who would have won (the election), I think change is overdue and a celebration of some sort of change is needed,” restaurant co-owner Elena Jones said.

   http://www.vaildaily.com/artic.....0/1062/rss

   Of course this is unadulterated B.S.

   Had McCain won, do you think we’d read a single story about any of this? Do you think a single school would waste a class minute on the equally historically important inauguration of the country’s first female V.P.?

   Not on your life.

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   • JohnMG

     January 18, 2009 at 9:51 am

     …..”And who can forget the time President George W. Bush choked on a pretzel?…..”

     One would certainly understand if “Honest Obe” were to choke on his ego…….it’s enormous!
   • dulcimergrl

     January 18, 2009 at 10:29 am

     Cough…retch…choke…

     Well, here’s another reason never to go to Vail (like I was going to anyway).

     And here’s another reason why I call obamby “He who must not be named”. I’ll be turning off the TV, shutting off the radio, and closing web sites every time I see his big ears or hear his voice. Then I’ll go pray that this country survives 4 years of “The One”.
   • Barbie

     January 18, 2009 at 10:39 am

     Barack of Lamb and SLOPPY JOE BIDEN SLIDERS? How creepy and unappetizing. GAG.
   • Liberals Demise

     January 18, 2009 at 10:57 am

     Even FOX is joining the media blitz. Any one know the number of a good witchdoctor or a really nasty looking witch with a attitude against men? All week of obama this and obama that and all the ass kissing. There ain’t enough Chap Stik in the world to prevent the lip chapping thats gonna happen. Just like the Whore Free Zone….there should be a No Ass Kissing Zone enforce with equal zeal.
   • JohnMG

     January 18, 2009 at 11:18 am

     “Baloney a’la Barack”, “Crab Cakes Michelle”, “Pork Frittered Away de la Pelosi”, “Barney, (100% weenie) Franks”, “Petty fois gras el Kennedy”……all a’la carte, of course.

     And don’t forget the ‘Children’s Menu’ developed especially for congress–including the new Kool-Aid flavor, “Grape Expectations”.

     Bring on the Pepto Bismol!
7. BillK

   January 18, 2009 at 9:38 am

   Funny, I thought Big Evil Oil needed to be taxed into oblivion.

   From the Denver Post:

   ConocoPhillips to cut workforce by 1,300

   HOUSTON — ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, said Friday that it’s cutting 4 percent of its overall workforce, or about 1,300 jobs, as the oil giant adjusts to tumbling crude prices and a dismal global economy.

   The Houston-based company also said it would slash capital spending by about 18 percent in 2009.

   After peaking above $147 a barrel in July, oil prices have fallen to about $40 a barrel, and oil and gas companies large and small are scaling back operations to ride out the economic malaise.

   ConocoPhillips is building a new campus in Louisville that will serve as a research and development facility.

   In addition to the estimated 1,300 employee cuts, ConocoPhillips said it planned to reduce its contractor headcount, but the company didn’t provide specifics.

   http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_11475906

   But but but windfall profits! Corporate greed!

   You mean oil companies are subject to the economy too?

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   • JohnMG

     January 18, 2009 at 9:59 am

     Only when things are going well and they represent a flush bank account from which the government can extort money. According to the libs, ‘Big Oil’ is only subject to GOOD economies.
   • Barbie

     January 18, 2009 at 11:08 am

     Just wait until first quarter’s profit/loss report is out. Since the media’s expressed such moral outrage at big oil’s past gross profit, I’m sure they’ll be equally supportive and contrite when big oil posts a loss…
8. BillK

   January 18, 2009 at 9:53 am

   Remember the apoplectic seizures suffered by the left that failing to support Bush’s agenda was perhaps not patriotic?

   Per usual it depends on who’s not supporting what.

   From the all-knowing Tom Hanks via Fox News:

   Tom Hanks Says Mormon Supporters of Proposition 8 ‘Un-American’

   By Hollie McKay

   Tom Hanks, an Executive Producer for HBO’s controversial polygamist series “Big Love,” made his feelings toward the Mormon Church’s involvement in California’s Prop 8 (which prohibits gay marriage) very clear at the show’s premiere party on Wednesday night.

   “The truth is this takes place in Utah, the truth is these people are some bizarre offshoot of the Mormon Church, and the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop-8 happen,” he told Tarts. “There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them. I do not like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper, any of the 50 states in America, but here’s what happens now. A little bit of light can be shed, and people can see who’s responsible, and that can motivate the next go around of our self correcting Constitution, and hopefully we can move forward instead of backwards. So let’s have faith in not only the American, but Californian, constitutional process.”

   When informed of the “Forrest Gump” star’s comments, Kim Farah, a spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, told Tarts, “Expressing an opinion in a free and democratic society is as American as it gets.”

   Bill McKeever, a rep for the Mormonism Research Ministry, added, “Personally, I find it un-American to tell people that they shouldn’t vote their conscience. Hanks said he doesn’t ‘like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper.’ Considering that just about every law discriminates in some form or another, makes this comment ridiculous. Hanks’ comment shows that he very much believes in discriminating against people with whom he disagrees. I may not agree with Mormon theology, but I certainly defend their right to express their opinion.” …

   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480167,00.html

   Recall this is the man who somehow with fellow lib Steven Spielberg somehow managed to churn out Band of Brothers.

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   • JohnMG

     January 18, 2009 at 10:15 am

     Is Hanks bi, or a conflicted homosexual? I’m remembering ‘Philadelphia’ (I think it was), and a host of other similar crap with which he’s been associated. If only fools like him could get as excited about patriotism and the true Constitutional rights therein contained, as he gets with issues from the radical fringe element. What, for instance, is more obvious than ensuring that the voting public’s wishes are honored via the ballot box? The Judicial does not make laws–it enforces them.

     Here yet is another of the pseudo-intellectuals whose work(?) I refuse to reward with my hard-earned money. He’s a publicity-whore, and any other time you wouldn’t hear from him unless there was a buck to be made from it. Hollywierd is rife with such types. May they all rot in their self-made decadence. The sooner, the better!
   • oldswimcoach

     January 23, 2009 at 1:22 pm

     “The truth is this takes place in Utah, the truth is these people are some bizarre offshoot of the Mormon Church, and the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop-8 happen,” he told Tarts.”

     Now I’ll grant that the Mormons were on the leading edge of this fight, and the “official” Mormon position has been that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman legally and lawfully wed, but Mr. Hanks, can you please show me the cancelled check from the Mormon church that made this happen?

     Also, I suspect more than a dozen Catholics and a few blacks and hispanics voted for proposition 8 because they are not nearly enough Mormons in California to vote down Prop 8 without an awful lot of non Mormons that agree that Prop 8 is bad law.

     “There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them. I do not like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper, any of the 50 states in America, but here’s what happens now.”

     Two points.

     First, obviously in California at least, there are a lot more people who think it’s un-American to legalize gay marriage. Second, unlike being black, hispanic, asian, female, etc., etc. homosexuality involves a chosen an activity, and Mr. Hanks, we have all kinds off laws discriminitory laws against activity – that’s why I can’t punch you in the nose, even though I was born with latent “punch Tom Hanks in the nose” tendencies.
9. Barbie

   January 18, 2009 at 10:59 am

   CA’s apparently forgot to consult with Tom Hanks before they voted – and Hanks is offended they voted other than how he would have dictated. Sorry Comrade Hanks – this is a country where we vote what we individually believe – not how you want us to collectively believe… (at least for awhile longer…)

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10. caligirl9

    January 18, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    Let me apologize in advance if this doesn’t format correctly…

    Schwarzenegger’s plan would cut kids off welfare
    By Karen de Sá

    Poverty experts say one in three California children on the state’s welfare rolls could be cut under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget plan, which calls for restricting eligibility in the program designed to serve working-poor families.

    And those who continue to receive grants would be hit as well: Despite soaring food prices and burgeoning unemployment, maximum monthly payments for a family of three would equal $43 less than what a similar-size family received in 1989.

    As budget battles continue raging in Sacramento, parent protesters took to the Capitol steps last week, demanding resolutions for the state’s $40 billion deficit that will not pummel the poor. But so far, deep cuts to the welfare-to-work program known as CalWORKS appear inevitable, even Democratic leaders agree…

    In his State of the State address Thursday, the governor lamented not being able to better protect social services such as health care, firefighting and gang intervention, but he stated that “each of us has to give up something” to head off looming insolvency.

    The governor’s plan for welfare would save the state an estimated $1 billion this fiscal year and next by reducing CalWORKS grants and reversing a long-standing policy to serve impoverished children even when their parents are not eligible for cash assistance. Welfare recipients lose their benefits after a 60-month lifetime limit or if they fail to fulfill work requirements, but unlike other states, California does not cut children off when their parents’ benefits end.

    Under Schwarzenegger’s proposal, such “child-only” cases would be eliminated, including children whose parents are undocumented immigrants. The Western Center on Law and Poverty reports that those changes, in combination with other proposed overhauls, will eliminate 310,000 children from the program — about one-third.

    More than 1.2 million Californians now receive CalWORKS benefits, with applications streaming in at four times last year’s rate…

    The proposed 10 percent grant cuts — which Democratic legislators have countered with a 2 percent cut — would shrink maximum monthly grants for a family of three from $723 to $651. A similar grant equaled $694 in 1989, when purchasing power was double what it is today, according to the nonpartisan California Budget Project…

    The CalWORKS cuts have legislators bitterly divided.

    Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, said the governor’s plan “beats up on poor people.” Beall is introducing a bill that would end the fingerprinting of applicants and simplify reporting in order to save costs. The governor, Beall said, takes the opposite approach: “Rather than cut the bureaucracy of CalWORKS, he’s cutting the people of CalWORKS.”

    Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, counters that the program is overly generous, with lax eligibility standards that make it too easy to fudge.

    “There are definitely people on CalWORKS who shouldn’t be there under federal law, and this would include felons and illegal immigrants,” DeVore said. “We should go back and look at who is qualifying for these entitlement programs and make sure only the truly needy are getting state assistance…”

    http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_11482820

    So much for illegals not receiving welfare benefits. It’s right there, in print. Here in California, they do.
    I have never understood the concept of children receiving welfare. I seriously doubt the parents of those children spend the money on those kids only. I have a feeling that their beer and “recreational drug needs” come first.

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    • Liberals Demise

      January 18, 2009 at 6:46 pm

      Lowriders also cost $$ and they go for the early 60s’ models so….2+2 does = 4
11. Al Morone

    January 19, 2009 at 12:38 am

    Guess who’s back — just in time for Obama’s inauguration?

    From the Associated Press:

    Obama’s former pastor gives sermon in Washington

    WASHINGTON (AP) – Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, says the lesson in Obama’s rise to the White House is that black people shouldn’t limit themselves – or allow others to.

    Wright was Obama’s longtime pastor in Chicago before Obama cut ties last year during the presidential campaign. Obama’s decision followed the uproar caused by some of Wright’s videotaped sermons. In them, Wright criticized the U.S. and blamed it for the Sept. 11 attacks.

    Wright delivered his sermon Sunday during church services at Howard University in Washington.

    http://apnews.myway.com/articl.....OIA00.html

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12. Helena

    January 19, 2009 at 9:43 am

    A little inspiring news.

    From Asia News:

    Afghan girls risk lives to go to school

    The girls who had acid thrown into their faces in November in Kandahar have gone back to school. The difficult situation for women in Afghanistan, where being raped is a grave dishonor. The majority of beggars today are women.

    Kabul (AsiaNews) – Shamsia Husseini has gone back to the Mirwais School for Girls in Kandahar. Shamsia is the 17-year-old young woman who had acid thrown into her face in November, to punish her because she wanted an education. She explains that “my parents told me to keep coming to school even if they want to kill me.” Local sources tell AsiaNews about the difficult situation for women in the country.

    14 other women have been attacked with acid, between students and teachers at the school. For a little while, all of the girls stayed away from school. Then the authorities promised more police, more supervision, they spoke of the importance of education for their lives and for society. Now almost all of the 1,300 female students in the area have gone back to school….

    http://www.asianews.it/index.p.....amp;size=A

    Let’s hope for the best for these girls.

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    • Barbie

      January 19, 2009 at 10:16 am

      Helena, thank you for the article. I know the feminist groups in the U.S. are protesting how these girls and other women in Afghanistan are treated, as are the Human Rights Organizations who care so… oh wait… never mind. (seiously, though, thanks for the article.)
13. BillK

    January 19, 2009 at 10:44 am

    SG, I think we’ll need to start a section devoted to the most breathless, glowing headline found in a “newspaper” over the next few days.

    Here’s our first entry, from the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    Special Section — The Obama Inauguration: Against all odds

    By Doug Erickson

    He was given little chance initially — a relatively young, relatively unknown U.S. senator just a couple of years into his first term.

    Yet Barack Obama, 47, would defy the odds time and again on his way to becoming the 44th president of the United States.

    Aided by an unpopular war and widespread fears of an economic free-fall, Obama beat Republican John McCain by shifting almost all groups of voters — including those who identify as conservatives — toward the Democratic party.

    Along the way, he shattered records, from the most money raised by a politician for a single race to the most votes received by a U.S. presidential candidate in a single election. As the country’s first African-American president, he made history the moment he won.

    Supporters say he brought hope back to politics. He will need that and much more to confront an unstable world and a nation beset by financial woes.

    “The road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep,” Obama said in his victory speech. “We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.” …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/spe/Obama/433296

    To resurrect a phrase Rush used during Clinton’s reign, starting Tuesday it’s:

    America Held Hostage: Day 1

    Perhaps we all need to add web counters stating that just like the left’s perennial Bush countdown widgets…

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14. BillK

    January 19, 2009 at 10:52 am

    Wow – are they just recycling articles now?

    From the WaPo:

    The growing foreclosure crisis

    By Dina ElBoghdady and Sarah Cohen

    Before Robin Bohnen and her husband, Shane, bought a $1.16 million Mediterranean-style house in an upscale Southern California suburb two years ago, they were not cash-strapped, debt-ridden or credit-impaired.
    Now they are all of the above. Soon they also may qualify for one more distressing category: home lost to foreclosure.

    “Wake me up, can this really be happening?” the 42-year-old Bohnen says. As she tries to describe how it feels to have the nation’s financial crisis land in her living room, the phone rings. She ignores it. “It’s probably the bank — again,” she says.

    Bohnen once owed her comfortable lifestyle to the dizzying growth that transformed Southern California over the past decade, creating a boom that led many to believe their home values would keep climbing. As the owner of a furniture store born during the housing boom, she provided bean bag chairs and bedroom sets for the brand-new communities that easy credit built.

    Now, she and husband just owe. They cannot afford their $6,400 monthly payment, and in this plummeting market, they wouldn’t make enough on a sale to pay off their mortgage or recoup the 20 percent they put down to buy their Riverside County home.

    They’re “underwater,” industry parlance for borrowers who owe more on their mortgage than their houses are worth. They have joined the growing line of homeowners seeking a break from their lenders.

    Both the departing and incoming administrations in Washington have promised help on the foreclosure front, but providing help requires federal regulators to get their collective arms around the size and shape of the crisis. That isn’t easy. No one agency collects information on every loan, every borrower and every delinquency.</b.

    But interviews and a Washington Post analysis of available data show that the foreclosure crisis knows no class or income boundaries. Many borrowers ensnared in the evolving mortgage mess do not fit neatly into the stereotypes that surfaced by early 2007 when delinquency rates shot up. They don’t have subprime loans, the lending industry’s jargon for the higher-rate mortgages made to borrowers with shaky credit or without enough cash for a down payment. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/top5/433341

    No, but I would bet even with 20% down their debt to income ratio was way, way out of whack.

    It’s certainly possible for many people to end up in this situation, especially small business owners subject to the whim of customers and, more importantly, government regulation.

    But really, there’s not a lot anyone can do when you buy more house that you can reasonably afford.

    (Well, there wasn’t; I’m sure the Feds will force banks to start forgiving these loans soon, resulting in even more bank failures.)

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15. sheehanjihad

    January 19, 2009 at 11:35 am

    Our local rag had this headline…”MLK Walked, So Obama Could Run” oh, I see, no race involved in this at all, is there? I left instructions to have the paper put directly in the recycle bin for the next month or so…..I cant stand it anymore.

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16. sheehanjihad

    January 19, 2009 at 11:53 am

    http://gatewaypundit.blogspot......-rips.html

    Germany is caving to Islamists as we speak! Hamas can fly their flags which is against the law in Germany up until now, but any Israeli flag will be taken down. So much for keeping Islam at bay, eh?

    Wait for the same thing to happen here….our flag means nothing to over half of this country….but the flag of Islam’s countries is held in the highest esteem and reverence by our liberal crowd.

    I gotta just stop reading for a while, my head can only take so much.

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    • Steve

      January 19, 2009 at 11:57 am

      SJ, please try to remember that the “selected news” thread is intended for news from mainstream media sources, as opposed to blogs, etc.

      Also, do try to follow the posting format whenever possible.
    • sheehanjihad

      January 19, 2009 at 12:38 pm

      oh shoot, sorry SG….I will comply.
17. BillK

    January 19, 2009 at 12:13 pm

    More not unexpected fun from the AP:

    Critics Push to End Abstinence-Only Sex Education

    NEW YORK — With the exit of the Bush administration, critics of abstinence-only sex education will be making an aggressive push to cut off federal funding for what they consider an ineffective, sometimes harmful program.

    How quickly and completely they reach their goal is uncertain, however, as conservative supporters of abstinence education lobby Congress and President-elect Barack Obama to preserve at least some of the funding, which now totals $176 million a year.

    And even if federal funding is halted, some states — such as Georgia — are determined to keep abstinence programs going on their own, ensuring that this front in the culture wars will remain active.

    Obama is considered an advocate of comprehensive sex education, which — unlike abstinence-only curriculum — includes advice to young people about using contraceptives if they do engage in sexual activity. However, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to elaborate on what the new president would propose in his own budget plan.

    Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of American, depicted the federal abstinence-only program as “an utter failure that has wasted more than $1.5 billion” over the past decade. Like other critics, she noted that several major studies — including a federally funded review — have found no evidence that the abstinence-only approach works in deterring teen sex.

    “Talking with Obama, he totally understands the need for young people to have comprehensive sex education — they need information that protects their health,” Richards said. “I hope that will be the position of the administration, but when Congress gets involved, sometimes things get more complicated.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480605,00.html

    You’d think if abstinence-only programs were as ineffective as Richards claims, they’d be thrilled with them as that would keep PP rolling in the dough their abortion mills generate.

    Sort of like the way the Dems seem to hate Palin so much, yet if she really was such a joke why not let her become the GOP’s leading candidate for the future?

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18. BillK

    January 19, 2009 at 12:19 pm

    Will the Treason Times soon be en Español?

    From FoxBusiness:

    Mexican Billionaire May Boost Stake in New York Times

    By Ken Sweet

    Amid layoffs and double-digit advertising revenue drops, the Gray Lady might be getting exactly what it needs: some more green.

    The New York Times Co. (NYT: 6.34, 0.17, 2.76%), the parent company of its widely-read namesake newspaper, may get a new investment from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

    Slim, who already owns a stake in the Times, may take an additional stake in the company though a preferred stock issue, or something similar, the Journal reported. It could possibly be similar in structure to Warren Buffett’s $10 billion investment in the Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs (GS: 72.76, -5.07, -6.51%) made back in September.

    Shares of the Times were unchanged on Monday because of the holiday.

    The Journal, citing sources, said there wasn’t a specific amount being discussed at the moment but currently it is expected to be in “hundreds of millions of dollars” arena.The Times said the investment might be around $250 million.

    The possible investment would come at a critical time for media company, who has been struggling in tough media market that has crippled nearly every newspaper. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, and other companies such as Lee Enterprises (LEE: 0.35, -0.02, -5.41%) have seen their stock fall to pennies.

    The New York Times recently mortgaged its newly-built Midtown Manhattan headquarters to raise cash and has had its credit rating downgraded to “junk” by the major rating agencies.

    According to the Journal, the toughest hurdle for the Times might be the company’s caretaker family the Sulzbergers, who own the vast majority of the company’s Class-B voting shares. Slim may want to hold more authority with the Times, something the Sulzbergers reportedly are against, making a Class-B stock issue nearly impossible.

    Slim, who is estimated to be worth $60 billion from his investments in Mexican telecommunications companies Telmex and America Movil…

    http://www.foxbusiness.com/sto.....12;report/

    I guess the left will claim it’s just another example of Mexicans doing a job that “Americans won’t do.”

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19. BillK

    January 19, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    From the AP:

    Crew of Downed Airplane Asks Media to Back Off

    WASHINGTON — The crew of the US Airways plane that landed in New York’s Hudson River has asked the media to back off while the accident is being investigated.

    Flight 1549’s captain, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, first officer and co-pilot Jeff Skiles, and flight attendants Sheila Dail, Doreen Welsh and Donna Dent said in a joint statement Monday they want the media to “respect their desire to refrain from participating in interviews until further notice” while the National Transportation Safety Board investigates the accident.

    The crew said they “wish to offer their sincere thanks and appreciation for the overwhelming support, praise and well wishes they have received from the public around the world since the events of last Thursday.”

    They said they are willing to do media interviews “when the time is right.”

    The statement was released by the US Airline Pilots Association — the US Airways pilots’ union — and the Association of Flight Attendants.

    The whole crew has been lauded as heroes since Thursday’s accident, in which there were no fatalities. In particular, the media has been clamoring to interview Sullenberger, whose skill and quick-thinking have been roundly praised. The veteran pilot had scheduled what was to be his first public interview for Monday with NBC’s “Today,” but canceled at the request of his union.

    Stephen Bradford, president of the pilots association, said he asked Sullenberger not to talk to the media because the pilots association has “interested party” status with the NTSB.

    NTSB spokeswoman Bridget Serchak said Sullenberger was free to give interviews if he wished.

    Sullenberger released a statement deferring to the union’s advice. “The Sullenbergers continue to thank their many well-wishers for the incredible outpouring of support,” the statement said.

    The pilot was invited to attend President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday, according to the mayor of his hometown, Danville, Calif. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480691,00.html

    Is this where the media coverage turns negative?

    They can’t duck the press like this, it’s the people’s right to know what the crew had for breakfast this morning!

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    • Gila Monster

      January 19, 2009 at 2:36 pm

      My question is, why does the union not want the crew talking to the media?

      US Airways and the NTSB have both stated that the crew can talk freely about the accident so what is the union(s) motive here?

      If it was simply protecting their members right to privacy, I would find that admirable but the cynic in me says the union has some other motive here.
    • BillK

      January 19, 2009 at 10:52 pm

      Personally I think it’s because the NTSB and the union don’t want to be seen as “blocking” the press, but the pilots and crew know all too well that anything they say will be used in the context of the investigation, and there is still the risk that when all is said and done the pilots and/or crew will be found to be at least partially at fault by the NTSB.

      Should that happen it will be a black mark on all their records.
20. BillK

    January 20, 2009 at 9:28 am

    From Fox News:

    Kenyans Celebrate Obama’s Presidency

    Many Kenyans hope that, as president, Barack Obama will help improve conditions for the vast number living in Nairobi’s sprawling slums.

    By Tiffany Wilson

    NAIROBI, Kenya — Americans aren’t the only ones celebrating Barack Obama’s new job. They’re hailing the new president in Kenya, too, embracing the American-born son of a Kenyan man as one of their own.

    “I feel so great because he’s one of us, he’s like a brother to us,” said Nick Otieno, 27, proudly displaying his Barack Obama t-shirt as he stood above a pile of dusty trash.

    One of nearly a million Kenyans who live in Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slum, Otieno has no running water or electricity, but he owns two Obama shirts. He knows the date Obama will enter office, and already has his plans in order. “We shall be celebrating the whole day and the whole night because that day we shall be sure that [Obama] is now the president,” he said.

    For Otieno, Obama’s victory is personal: he is a Luo, a member of the tribe of Obama’s father. Much of Obama’s family still lives in Kenya, and Obama’s Kenyan grandmother will be attending his inauguration.

    “He’s a Luo and Luos are so much proud of him,” said Otieno, who sees Luo traits in Obama’s speech and character. “Everything he does, he does the same way the Luos do things.“

    Members of the tribe living in Kibera expect much from Obama. A mother whose child’s distended belly protruded from an unbuttoned shirt said she hoped Obama would “bring us food.” A man loitering in the shade said he wanted more jobs in Kenya.

    Otieno was more specific. He said he hopes Obama will work with Kenya’s prime minister to bring infrastructure to Kibera. With running water, electric lines and garbage removal, Otieno sees the potential for a better life there, even if the slum’s corrugated metal roofs and flimsy wooden walls never change.

    “It is something the government has promised for a very long time and it has never come to pass,” he said.

    Forty-six percent of Kenyans live in poverty, but Obama’s success half a world away is a source of inspiration. “When we look at our lives and we look at where he came from … it really motivates us to do better … to be sure that one day even one of us can become one just like he is,” said Otieno.

    Nairobi’s streets reflect the influence of their new icon. “Kenyans for Obama” bumper stickers festoon the cars that ply the roads, and many of the colorful matatu minibuses that crowd the streets carry images of Obama’s face inside the halo of a $100 bill. A Barack Obama “Man of the Year” billboard hovers above a busy hilltop.

    Down in Kibera slum, the stench of burning garbage and unwashed bodies hangs in the air, and aged goods are sold in a rotted-out marketplace. Americans are generally unwelcome, but mention of Obama’s name works a uniform charm.

    Residents say they are proud of the first black man ever elected president of the United States, and many stop to speak about the man they consider a native son. “I am happy, I am looking forward to a better kind of world through Obama’s presidency,” said a woman, Nthenya, who carried her infant child on her back.

    “We expect much from him as far as Kenyan life is concerned — even us, the people who are staying in the slums here in Kibera,” said Otieno. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....residency/

    Perhaps he can start with his half-brother.

    Nah…

    Meanwhile, sounds like the Kenyans have swallowed the left’s propaganda hook, line and sinker.

    Really, their beliefs are no different than that of most Americans – Obama will solve everything don’t you know.

    We can only hope that someday their eyes will be opened and they will realize they have been following a false God.

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    • Barbie

      January 20, 2009 at 9:58 am

      This is probably a silly question, but shouldn’t Kenyans be looking to their own government to bring about necessary changes??
    • Dangerous

      January 20, 2009 at 10:08 am

      Heck, no. If that evil Bush guy could spend billions in aid to Africa and actually make sure it helps people instead of the dictators, imagine what the great Obama can do! Why bother cleaning up your own mess when you can hope that someone else will change your situation?
    • Barbie

      January 20, 2009 at 10:14 am

      The article reads ‘Americans are generally unwelcome’… but I take it American foreign aid is welcome with OPEN ARMS (apparently they hate us, but they’re quite happy to take our tax dollars).
21. BillK

    January 20, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    I’ve mentioned this before, but I wonder how many television station employees will be laid off because their employers will face the unexpected expense of having to run both analog and digital transmitters for another four months because clueless morons didn’t buy a converter box at some point in the last year and/or because the Government needs to throw more money into the wind.

    From Broadcasting & Cable:

    Waxman Says DTV Date Likely To Move

    House Energy & Commerce Committee chair says date-move would be “only short-term”

    By John Eggerton

    Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) says he expects Congress will delay the DTV transition date.

    Asked Monday whether he thought the date would move, he said “I think so, but only short-term.”

    Waxman, newly christened chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, was mingling with NBC bigwigs and other Washington notables at a brunch in Washington Monday in advance of Tuesday’s inauguration.

    Waxman last week proposed a bill that would move the date from Feb. 17 to June 12, as well as speed the distribution of DTV-to-analog converter box coupons, allow viewers to reapply for expired coupons, and take other associated steps.

    On a parallell track is a bill from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) that would simply move the date and leave other issues for another bill. His goal is to get the most easily passable bill through the Congress as quickly as possible.

    Congress will have to move fast to move the date, since it is now only four weeks away.

    Waxman also said that a mark-up of his version of the DTV date-move bill was still on track for a Wednesday hearing (1:30 p.m.). A mark-up is when legislators discuss and ammend bills before sending a bill along–if it is approved–for a vote in the full House.

    Expected to be added to Waxman’s draft bill by the mark-up is language related to first responders, who were scheduled to get reclaimed analog TV spectrum Feb. 17 for use in emergency communications. The bill as drafted made no mention of that issue.

    Police and firefighters asked Congress for a carveout from any delay bill so it could get access to the spectrum on time.

    The incoming Obama administration asked Waxman, Rockefeller and others to move the date after the National Telecommunications & Information Administration announced it was putting requests for DTV-to-analog converter box coupons on a waiting list because it had temporarily run out of money to distribute them. …

    http://www.broadcastingcable.c.....o_Move.php

    I love this:

    Expected to be added to Waxman’s draft bill by the mark-up is language related to first responders, who were scheduled to get reclaimed analog TV spectrum Feb. 17 for use in emergency communications. The bill as drafted made no mention of that issue.

    What difference does this make aside from the usual feel-good #$@!? The first responders won’t get access to the spectrum as long as broadcasters are using it, which they will now have to through June.

    But hey, at least the first responders are now mentioned…

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    • jobeth

      January 20, 2009 at 11:22 pm

      Did you forget?

      “O” has to have time to buy everyone a new Digital TV. Forget the “boxes”. After all most of the analog TVs are in the homes of the “poor”. (The poor have tvs in this country)

      So the $$ you were saving for your kids education?…well someone needs a new DTV and we all need to share now don’t we.
22. sheehanjihad

    January 20, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    From the Baltimore Sun, a glaring example of how our country has been taken to it’s knees by it’s own government. This has no excuse, this is just wrong.

    http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne.....e-flag-pic

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23. Al Morone

    January 20, 2009 at 6:43 pm

    Worst Dow drop in election day history:
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....=worldwide

    U.S. stocks sank, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst Inauguration Day decline, as speculation banks must raise more capital sent financial shares to an almost 14-year low.

    State Street Corp., the largest money manager for institutions, tumbled 59 percent after unrealized bond losses almost doubled. Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. slumped more than 23 percent on an analyst’s prediction that they’ll need to take steps to shore up their balance sheets. The Dow’s 4 percent slide was the most on an Inauguration Day in the measure’s 112-year history, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

    “All the banks are going to have to recapitalize,” said Greg Woodard, portfolio strategist at Manning & Napier Advisors Inc., which manages $16 billion in Fairport, New York. “That’s not done. That’s in front of them, and we don’t want to try to get in front of that trade.”

    The S&P 500 plunged 5.3 percent to 805.22. The S&P 500 Financials Index fell 17 percent to below its lowest closing level since March 1995 as concern European banks need more capital also weighed on the group. The Dow average slid 332.13 points to 7,949.09. Both the Dow and S&P 500 retreated to two- month lows.

    The S&P 500 is off to its worst start to a year, shattering the biggest rally since World War II, as analysts cut earnings estimates by a record 83 percentage points and companies signal worse to come.

    The S&P 500 is down 11 percent in the first 12 trading days of 2009, exceeding last year’s 9.2 percent drop, according to data compiled by Bloomberg going back to 1928. The decline helped erase more than two-thirds of a 24 percent rally since Nov. 20 as optimism that government spending would revive the economy evaporated.

    ‘Effectively Insolvent’

    U.S. financial losses from the credit crisis may reach $3.6 trillion, according to New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who predicted last year’s economic and stock-market meltdowns.

    “If that’s true, it means the U.S. banking system is effectively insolvent because it starts with a capital of $1.4 trillion,” Roubini said at a conference in Dubai today. “This is a systemic banking crisis.”

    Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index retreated 2.1 percent today, led by banks and technology companies. It fell almost 2 percent yesterday after Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc forecast the biggest-ever loss by a U.K. company. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index retreated 2.1 percent today.

    Obama Sworn In

    Barack Obama became the 44th U.S. president today, inheriting the most severe economic crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in 76 years ago. The turmoil has dragged the world’s largest economies into recession, caused more than $1 trillion of losses at financial institutions and prompted a sell-off in global stock markets.

    Treasuries fell for a second day on speculation Obama will sell record amounts of debt to battle the recession. The dollar strengthened for a second day against the euro.

    State Street lost $21.46 to $14.89 for the biggest drop in the S&P 500 and the stock’s steepest tumble since at least 1984. Unrealized losses on fixed-income investments rose to $6.3 billion at Dec. 31 from $3.3 billion at Sept. 30, the company said. Unrealized losses on assets held in conduits increased to $3.6 billion from $2.2 billion.

    Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custodian of financial assets, fell 17 percent to $19, its lowest closing price since 1997.

    Financials Tumble

    Financial companies posted the biggest drop among the S&P 500’s 10 main industry groups as all 81 shares fell.

    Wells Fargo, the largest bank on the U.S. West Coast, slid 24 percent to $14.23. Friedman Billings Ramsey Group Inc. analyst Paul Miller lowered his earnings estimates and price target, in addition to predicting a dividend cut.

    Bank of America, the biggest U.S. lender by assets, fell the most in the Dow average, sliding 29 percent to $5.10. FBR’s Miller estimated Bank of America needs at least $80 billion of additional capital.

    “You don’t want to be anywhere close to these common stocks because you don’t know how much new stock is going to be issued,” said Wayne Wilbanks, who oversees $1.1 billion as chief investment officer at Wilbanks Smith & Thomas in Norfolk, Virginia. “If one wants to invest in this space I would focus almost exclusively on the preferred shares,” he said, because that’s the same type of stock the government is purchasing.

    The U.S. government has taken preferred equity stakes in at least 257 banks including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York and State Street since October under its Troubled Asset Relief Program aimed at stabilizing the banking system.

    ‘Aggregator’ Bank

    Regions Financial Corp. fell 24 percent to an almost 24- year low of $4.60 after reporting a record fourth-quarter loss. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lost 21 percent to $18.09, the lowest since October 2002.

    Obama’s advisers are considering options for dealing with troubled assets still clogging banks’ balance sheets, according to people familiar with the matter. Among alternatives: setting up a government-backed “bad” or “aggregator” bank to hold the securities, or leaving the assets on banks’ books and providing a government guarantee.

    ‘Atmosphere of Cynicism’

    “The risk of investing in financials remains relatively high,” said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management in Richmond, Virginia. “There’s an atmosphere of cynicism and disbelief with regard to a lot of these turnaround stories.” RidgeWorth manages $70 billion.

    Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. slid 9.4 percent to $37.25. Goldman Sachs advised selling the designer of the U.S. Olympics team’s official uniform as consumer spending shifts from “aspirational to desperational.”

    Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum producer, sank 11 percent to $8.35. Aluminum declined for the seventh straight day in London on speculation that demand will weaken as the housing slump worsens.

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    • JohnMG

      January 20, 2009 at 6:56 pm

      Not a bad day’s work for “Honest Obe”. Even more impressive when you consider he wasn’t even on the job for 3 hours.

      More to come!
    • proreason

      January 20, 2009 at 7:06 pm

      So far, things are going according to plan.

      I may have to apologize for saying Obamy has no executive experience. Expertise doesn’t seem to matter when the goal is the destruction of an economic system.
    • DW

      January 20, 2009 at 7:30 pm

      Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum producer, sank 11 percent to $8.35. Aluminum declined for the seventh straight day in London…

      Interesting now that the left’s guy is running things, people don’t seem to need as much tinfoil…
    • BillK

      January 20, 2009 at 10:30 pm

      Wow, Goldman Sachs advised selling Lauren.

      Has anyone checked Sachs‘ performance over the past year?

      Not that I have a vested interest in Ralph’s company, but rather have an issue with the “consumer spending shifts from aspirational to desperational” comment.

      As far as Alcoa, I think all mining companies will take it in the shorts, especially as forced recycling will become a directive from the Federal level.
    • Helena

      January 20, 2009 at 10:56 pm

      Yessir, BHO is officially on the job. By their fruit shall ye know them.

      Very droll, DW.
24. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 12:35 am

    Yes, it’s back to that again – the battle over Huck Finn.

    From the AP:

    Teacher wants to expel Huck Finn

    The use of Mark Twain books in school is under scrutiny over the author’s use of a derogatory term for African Americans.
    An African American is about to be inaugurated as president. That leaves John Foley to wonder whether students should still read books that depict black men as ignorant, inarticulate and uneducated.

    By Kim Murphy

    Ridgefield, Wash. — John Foley figures he has pretty much maxed out on explaining to African American mothers why it’s OK to call a black man the N-word — as long as it’s in a novel that is considered a classic.

    For years, English teachers have been explaining away the obvious racism in Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” And for years, the book that perhaps best explains Americans’ genetic predilection for hitting the road, only to later find themselves, has stayed near the top of many high school reading lists.

    However, with an African American about to be inaugurated as president, Foley wonders whether ‘Huck Finn’ ought to be sent back down the river. Why not replace it with a more modern, less discomfiting novel documenting the epic journey of discovery?

    “The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms,” Foley wrote in a guest column this month for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that use the ‘N-word’ repeatedly need to go.”

    Foley, 48, teaches at a largely white suburban high school near Portland, Ore. Year after year, he said, he patiently explains to his students that Jim, a black man, is actually the hero of the novel, and that Huck comes to see the error of his ways and commits to helping Jim escape slavery. But many of them find the book dull and plodding, and they sometimes never get past the demeaning word Huck uses to refer to his friend.

    “This is particularly true, of course, of African American students,” Foley wrote. “With few exceptions, all the black students in my classes over the years have appeared very uncomfortable when I’ve discussed these matters at the beginning of the unit. And I never want to rationalize ‘Huck Finn’ to an angry African American mom again as long as I breathe.”

    He also thinks “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Harper Lee’s classic about racial inequity in the Deep South, and John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” should be removed from the curriculum for similar reasons.

    Foley had wanted to talk to the staff at Ridgefield High School about his proposal, but after his op-ed was published, it was as though a stink bomb had landed in a crowded room.

    “Obama would be horrified if he knew this censorship was done in his name,” wrote Trudy J. Sundberg, a retired teacher of American literature from Oak Harbor, Wash. Her response to Foley’s column was just one in a barrage of letters and e-mails that the newspaper received.

    “What an amazingly stupid teacher this is,” another reader wrote. “There is nothing in American literature that more succinctly and directly attacks racial prejudice than Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.’ This is another teacher anxious to pursue political correctness more than seek to understand what is involved in truly ‘reading’ a book.”

    Foley said he was most bemused by critics who insisted he was being satirical, that he couldn’t have seriously been attacking three novels that say more against human intolerance than almost any you could think of. “Whenever you take a couple of shots at sacred cows, people assume it’s satire,” he said one recent afternoon at a Starbucks as students streamed in for lattes and spiced tea.

    “It’s just my experience teaching, especially ‘Huck Finn.’ Every year, it seems to be a tougher sell to the kids. I have a lot of passion for ‘Huck Finn,’ and my enthusiasm usually carries the book. But I have kids come up to me, very smart kids, who say, ‘Mr. Foley, I hate this book.’ ” They hate not only the difficult dialogue, he said, but what students — usually white ones — object to as “demeaning stereotypes.”

    “Our new president is this very intelligent, highly articulate guy, and the literature we’re foisting on our children typically depicts black men as ignorant, inarticulate, uneducated. And the contrast just jumped out at me,” he said.

    Foley said his students were now reading “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The character Tom Robinson is very noble, he said, “but again, he’s uneducated, inarticulate. I was just thinking, for students here in Washington anyway, wouldn’t ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ be just as valuable?”

    That book, written by David Guterson, documents the internment of Japanese American residents of the San Juan Islands during World War II and the efforts of a few islanders to defend their neighbors against an onslaught of bigotry, jealousy and false accusations.

    If Foley could, he would replace “Huck Finn” with the epic tale of two old cowboys’ last great cattle drive, Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove,” and “Of Mice and Men” with Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam novel, “Going After Cacciato.” …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....6388.story

    Let the cleansing of our schools and curricula begin.

    Foley said he doesn’t want to ban the books. He just thinks they shouldn’t be the backbone of the American literature curriculum in 2009, he said, at a time when getting kids to read anything at all is a struggle.

    “You have to remember, it’s hard to sell kids these days on books. I write young adult novels, and sometimes I wonder, why bother? You’re writing for three girls who like to read.”

    If we’re going after “three girls,” I guess that means we should dump Huck Finn now and replace it with Twilight.

    Meanwhile, how are we to know precisely what Obama would or wouldn’t be “horrified” at being done in his name?

    I get the feeling his longtime pastor would be inclined to back Mr. Foley 100%.

    Besides, “Snow Falling on Cedars” is much more appropriate.

    Because it of course shows America as evil and worthy of derision.

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    • Flession

      January 21, 2009 at 12:41 am

      o_O

      …wow. Just wow. Let the re-re-re-education of our nation begin!
25. JohnMG

    January 21, 2009 at 12:57 am

    This guy writes books? Why haven’t I heard of him? He’s obviously more intellectually pure than Samuel Clemens, and certainly post-racial (whatever that is).

    As for depicting black men as uneducated and inarticulate, ………gosh, where would anyone ever get an idea like that? Unless they actually researched some data and mined a few statistics. Not all black men fit this description, but the numbers that do, and the reasons for this fact, shouldn’t be ignored. Or excused.

    Please, Mr. Teacher, don’t blame a book for your own shortcomings. Guns don’t cause murder, matches don’t cause arson, pencils don’t misspell words, and cars don’t cause drunk drivers. But stupidity does breed stupidity.

    It sounds as though this guy is more interested in social engineering than he is in teaching literature. Or just maybe, he doesn’t get it either.

    Johnny can’t read. And you wonder why?!

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26. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 9:01 am

    Hmmm, not like we didn’t say this time and time (and time and time and time) again before.

    From a presumably surprised AP:

    GM official says cash could run out by March 31

    By Tom Krisher

    DETROIT (AP) — The target date for General Motors Corp. to get its second installment of government loans passed last week, but a top company executive says he expects the money to arrive in the next several days.

    Fritz Henderson, GM’s president and chief operating officer, said without the second installment of $5.4 billion, the company would run out of cash long before March 31.

    In December, the Treasury Department authorized $13.4 billion in loans for GM and another $4 billion for Chrysler LLC to keep both automakers out of bankruptcy.

    GM received $4 billion late last year and was to get $5.4 billion Jan. 16 and another $4 billion on Feb. 17, the day it is to submit its plan to show the government how it will become viable.

    Henderson told the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit that the money is critically needed to pay its bills. He attributed the delay in receiving the second installment to the Treasury Department’s workload and the change in administrations.

    “If we don’t get our second installment of the funding we’ll run out of cash, it’s that’s simple,” he said. “We’ve been finalizing what we need to do. We anticipate receiving it. But it’s critical that we receive it.”

    Henderson also disagreed with United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger who said on Monday that that a mid-February deadline for General Motors and Chrysler to complete their restructuring plans may be “almost unattainable” and that the automakers may have been set up to fail.

    Henderson said the Treasury Department wouldn’t have worked as hard as it did to provide the loans to GM and its financial arm GMAC LLC if it was setting up failure, and he said he’s confident GM can meet the Feb. 17 deadline to turn it its viability plan.

    “It’s a tight time frame. We’re confident we can achieve all our milestones. Not everything has to be done by Feb. 17,” he said.

    By Feb. 17, the company needs to have a good sense of where it’s headed in terms of getting concessions from bondholders and the UAW, Henderson said.

    Although formal talks have not yet begun with the UAW, GM has supplied information and has been talking informally almost continually, he said.

    He also said January U.S. sales were looking a lot like December, which was among the worst months in the past quarter-century.

    And he told the group that GM will have four core brands in the future: Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC.

    GM is reviewing the Saturn brand with its dealers, is studying Saab and Hummer for sale and will shrink Pontiac to a performance niche brand.

    Henderson also predicted that oil prices will rise rapidly once global economic activity recovers, justifying GM’s electric car research spending.

    GM is spending millions to develop the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in vehicle that can go 40 miles on a single electric charge. After that, a small internal combustion motor kicks in to generate electricity for the car until it can be plugged in again. GM plans to bring the car to showrooms in late 2010.

    Henderson also told the group of industry insiders at the annual gathering sponsored by the trade publication that it’s not a big deal if GM is passed by Toyota Motor Corp. as the global sales leader for the first time in 77 years.

    “To me the most important thing to make GM successful,” he said. Any time spent on worrying about being passed by Toyota is “time wasted,” he said.

    http://customwire.ap.org/dynam....._HENDERSON

    Let’s just face it, there’s no way Obama will deny GM any cash. Too many favors to be paid back.

    GM’s “viability” plan will be something stupid like “we’re going 99% electric!”

    The left will swoon, GM will get their cash, and will need to keep coming back every three months for more in perpetuity.

    Meanwhile the financial fallout will mean a loaf of bread should cost around $23,000 by 2010…

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27. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 9:09 am

    From the way, way left Madison, WI Capital Times:

    Experts say bone-chilling cold and global warming are not mutually exclusive

    By Anita Weier

    You knew it was coming. In the midst of a second long, frigid and snowy winter, the skeptics of global warming are feeling a bit vindicated.

    “Last summer the state of Alaska had its coolest average high temperatures since the 1970s, and a number of cities in the South had their earliest measurable snowfall on record in 2008,” said state Rep. Jim Ott, R-Mequon, who worked for 30 years as a meteorologist for a Milwaukee TV station. “In Wisconsin last spring, the soil temperatures were one or two weeks behind schedule. In Milwaukee, we didn’t hit 90 degrees last summer. So it’s been quite a cool-down.”

    Ott thinks that Pacific Ocean temperatures and variations in energy output of the sun may be influencing climate more than man-made carbon emissions. Natural factors have influenced climate for millions of years, he added.

    “Lately global warming supporters have been calling it climate change,” he said. “It hasn’t been so warm, so they changed the name.”

    But Jon Newcomb, 27, who was skating this weekend at Tenney Park, said one cold winter has not yet changed his opinion that climate change is under way. The Madison resident and paramedic student at Madison Area Technical College agreed with Ott, however, that humans might not be solely to blame.

    “We have a small impact, but it’s a big planet, and I think the sun has a lot to do with this,” he said.

    Rebecca Hershman, 22, who is engaged to Newcomb, is on the same page. “We are still coming out of an ice age,” said Hershman, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in finance and economics. “I think this is more of a natural cycle.”

    Sean Duane, 27, however, is not yet ready to let people off the hook.

    “They keep building bigger companies and more industrial area,” said Duane, who was taking a break from a round of hockey. “I think Al Gore is right,” referring to Gore’s popular documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” which illustrates the dangers of global warming.

    Recent scientific reports also indicate that Gore’s Nobel Prize was justified.

    Ice sheets in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted much faster than predicted during the past five years, and swifter rises in sea levels are expected as a result. The National Climate Data Center says that nine of the top 10 warmest years on record have been since 1995, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that 2008 tied with 2001 as the eighth-warmest year on record.

    “I’m sure this cold snap is making a few people question the concept of a warming climate, but the long-term trend is toward fewer extremely cold days in southern Wisconsin,” said Stephen Vavrus, a climatologist at UW-Madison.

    Though computer models predict large reductions in the frequency of cold-air outbreaks as the climate warms, they also predict that a few areas will see more cold waves as atmospheric circulation changes, he added.

    “Nature likes to throw a few curve balls at us,” he said.

    John Magnuson, a UW-Madison professor emeritus and internationally respected lakes expert, said that despite the current cold weather, Wisconsin residents should plan for the effects of global warming.

    “Climate change is a relatively slow process, at least so far, and some fail to see it because they react to the short-term changes in weather,” Magnuson said. “But as I talk with people, more seem to be aware of and understand the difference between weather and climate now than just a few years ago.” …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/433759

    Too bad most people are ignorant that climate normally fluctuates; so called “normal” temperatures are merely a long term average of a system with massive year-to-year variation, not to mention variations over decades and centuries.

    But no, Al Gore is right as are computer models that can’t accurately predict weather a week out.

    Liberal “science” is wonderful – no matter what happens it manages to support their hypotheses.

    I weep for what science has become.

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28. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 9:41 am

    You’ve got to love it – from the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Experts say Obama should retake the oath

    By Carolyn Lochhead

    Washington – — <b.Several constitutional lawyers said President Obama should, just to be safe, retake the oath of office that was flubbed by Chief Justice John Roberts.

    The 35-word oath is explicitly prescribed in the Constitution, Article II, Section 1, which begins by saying the president “shall” take the oath “before he enter on the execution of his office.”

    The oath reads: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

    In giving the oath, Roberts misplaced the word “faithfully,” at which point Obama paused quizzically. Roberts then corrected himself, but Obama repeated the words as Roberts initially said them.

    A do-over “would take him 30 seconds, he can do it in private, it’s not a big deal, and he ought to do it just to be safe,” said Boston University constitutional scholar and Supreme Court watcher Jack Beermann. “It’s an open question whether he’s president until he takes the proper oath.”

    The courts would probably never hear a challenge, and some might argue that Obama automatically took office at noon because that’s when President Bush left the office. But because the procedure is so explicitly prescribed in the Constitution, Beermann said if he were Obama’s lawyer, he would recommend retaking it, just as two previous presidents, Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur, did under similar circumstances.

    “The Constitution says what he’s supposed to say,” Beermann said. “… It’s kind of surprising the chief justice couldn’t get it right.”

    The only reason not to retake the oath would be to prevent further embarrassment of the chief justice, he said. “It would seem appropriate for the president of the United States to take the oath specified in the Constitution,” he said. “It’s the same oath all 43 of his predecessors took. He ought to take it.”

    Charles Cooper, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President Ronald Reagan, said that the oath is mandatory, that an incorrect recitation should be fixed and that he would be surprised if the oath hadn’t already been re-administered. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....15E20I.DTL

    Of course it hasn’t been re-administered yet.

    Obama wouldn’t dare without the adoring press present, especially if he can further embarrass the Bush-nominated Roberts.

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29. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 9:44 am

    Those mean, evil Republicans just don’t get it.

    From the AP:

    Texas senator blocks Clinton’s state confirmation

    By Jim Abrams

    The confirmation of Hillary Rodham Clinton to be secretary of state will be held up for at least a day due to the objection of a single senator. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he wanted “a full and open debate and an up-or-down vote on Sen. Clinton’s nomination.”

    He said important questions remain unanswered concerning the foundation headed by former President Bill Clinton “and its acceptance of donations from foreign entities. Transparency transcends partisan politics and the American people deserve to know more.”

    Cornyn’s spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said the senator is not trying to block her confirmation, but is seeking more debate on the donation issue.

    Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that if a voice vote is blocked there will be a roll call vote Wednesday. He predicted that “she will receive overwhelming bipartisan support at that time.”

    The Senate does plan to confirm several of President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet by unanimous vote later Tuesday.

    Several Republicans raised questions at Clinton’s confirmation hearing about possible conflicts of interest from Bill Clinton’s fundraising work and his acceptance of large donations from foreign countries and companies.

    Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, urged Clinton to improve transparency in her husband’s fundraising activities. He said the former president’s foundation should stop taking foreign contributions while Clinton serves as secretary of state. McLaughlin said Cornyn has asked Clinton to take similar steps.

    In her testimony, Clinton said the foundation would provide a clearer picture of its annual donations.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....135S77.DTL

    See, it’s the GOP blocking the will of the people yet again.

    Will they never learn?

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30. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 9:50 am

    The latest in the worldwide rush to grovel at the feet of the Messiah, from an equally groveling AP:

    Worldwide hopes soar for Obama inauguration

    By Gregory Katz

    The arrival of a new American president triggered joy and jubilation Tuesday in a world made weary by warfare, recession and fear. Bulls and goats were slaughtered for feasts in Kenya, toasts were offered at black-tie balls in Europe and shamans in Latin America chanted Barack Obama’s name with reverence.

    From Kenya and Indonesia, where Barack Obama has family ties, to Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America, Obama’s inauguration sparked a volcanic explosion of hope for better days ahead.

    The ascendance of the first African-American to the presidency of the United States was heralded as marking a new era of tolerance and possibility.

    Nelson Mandela, the former South African president who also inspired millions, sent a letter to Obama on his inauguration day.

    “Your election to this high office has inspired people as few other events in recent times have done,” Mandela wrote. “Amongst many around the world a sense of hopelessness had set in as so many problems remain unresolved and seemingly incapable of being resolved. You, Mister President, have brought a new voice of hope that these problems can be addressed and that we can in fact change the world and make of it a better place.”

    The anti-apartheid icon’s sentiment was echoed in much of the world.

    Alex Andrade, a 24-year-old unemployed black Brazilian, said Obama’s rise has inspired Brazil’s poor.

    “Blacks face so much discrimination here,” he said, standing outside the Cantagalo slum, where ramshackle shacks line steep hills in Rio de Janeiro. “Now with a black man in charge of such an important country, it might help decrease the racism in Brazil.”

    It was a reflection of Obama’s sprawling, complex family tree that villages in places as diverse as Ireland and Kenya held special parties to celebrate their link to the new president.

    In Kenya, traditional dancers performed, feasts were held and movie screens were erected so neighbors could join together for the moment, only a year after their own elections were marred by horrific ethnic violence.

    “Our election in Kenya really had problems with ethnicity … America has shown that this doesn’t have to be that big a problem,” said Dr. Joseph Osoo, who runs a clinic in one of Kenya’s biggest slums.

    “Kenyans are very happy because their son is going to be the leader of America,” he said.

    In the village of Kogelo in western Kenya, where many of Obama’s Kenyan relatives live, women dressed in colorful printed cloths performed traditional dances to the rhythms of cowhide drums.

    At the biggest hospital in nearby Kisumu, Christine Aoko named her newborn daughter Michelle, after Obama’s wife.

    “I hope my girl will grow as tough as Michelle,” Aoko told The Associated Press.

    An Irish village called Moneygall covered itself in red, white and blue bunting Tuesday in honor of Obama’s connections, via a great-great-great grandfather named Fulmouth Kearney who emigrated to the United States in 1850.

    They also baked a special round fruitcake, locally called a “brack,” to sell for the occasion — with Obama’s picture on the wrapping.

    In the South American country of Guyana, dozens of work sites closed at noon to let employees watch the inauguration.

    “As far as I am concerned, today is a holiday,” said Patrick Hazelwood, an insurance agent in Georgetown. “Today is a serious day for everybody, a historic day.”

    There was also jubilation in the Colombian town of Puerto Tejada, where sugarcane-cutting descendants of African slaves had the day off and watched the Washington proceedings on a giant screen.

    “The people here see themselves represented in Obama,” Mayor Elver Montano told the AP.

    In Peru’s capital of Lima, a dozen faith healers from Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Bolivia danced during the inauguration. Stomping their feet, shaking rattles and blowing smoke, they chanted Obama’s name while throwing flower petals and coca leaves at his photograph.

    The ancient Andean ritual is known as Jatun Sonjo, or ‘Big Heart’ in the Quechua language, explained shaman Juan Osco.

    “In ancient times, it was one of the rituals dedicated to Inca and pre-Inca rulers,” Osco said. “Today we dedicate it from Peru to Obama, because he is the first black president and his heart is big for the whole world.”

    Antigua revealed a top honor for the American leder. Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said 1,300-foot Boggy Peak, the Caribbean nation’s highest point, will be renamed on Aug. 4 Mount Obama to mark the president’s 48th birthday. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....341S00.DTL

    This is where I couldn’t take the article any more without wretching, and also had to point out that the word “leder” above is verbatim.

    Funny, though, no word from Indonesia where one of their own citizens is now President of the United States. :-) :-)

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31. PIMarine

    January 21, 2009 at 12:27 pm

    Unifying Commander-in-Chief? I think not!

    Last evening I was watching Fox News with Brett Baier and they showed a video that near the end bothered me. So I searched and found it posted on the Fox News website. The part that bothered me is near the end, if you watch the counter which counts down the time left in the video the part comes with about 54 seconds remaining.

    http://www.foxnews.com/video2/.....alreport/#

    Now unless you are military or former military you might not understand what bothers me about this video. What bothers me is that all of the military personnel shown in the video are standing at present arms, which is how you salute when armed. President Obama ignores them all until he comes upon the only African-American sailor in the group. He smiles turns his head slightly towards this man and returns his salute, then continues on ignoring the rest.

    What bothers me as a former Marine is that each and every one of those men deserved to have their salute returned, however, that is not really possible, but to single out one man and return his says much more than words can about his idea of getting past racial issues and unity.

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    • proreason

      January 21, 2009 at 2:14 pm

      He’s unifying the people who voted for him. If you didn’t, you are just another problem that the government has to correct.
32. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    The Press is now preparing the public for the repeal of the Patriot Act.

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    In-flight confrontations can lead to charges defined as terrorism

    At least 200 passengers have been convicted of felonies under the Patriot Act, often for behavior involving raised voices and profanity. Some experts say airlines are misusing the law.

    By Ralph Vartabedian and Peter Pae

    Tamera Jo Freeman was on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver in 2007 when her two children began to quarrel over the window shade and then spilled a Bloody Mary into her lap.

    She spanked each of them on the thigh with three swats. It was a small incident, but one that in the heightened anxiety after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would eventually have enormous ramifications for Freeman and her children.

    A flight attendant confronted Freeman, who responded by hurling a few profanities and throwing what remained of a can of tomato juice on the floor.

    The incident aboard the Frontier flight ultimately led to Freeman’s arrest and conviction for a federal felony defined as an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act, the controversial federal law enacted after the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

    “I had no idea I was breaking the law,” said Freeman, 40, who spent three months in jail before pleading guilty.

    Freeman is one of at least 200 people on flights who have been convicted under the amended law. In most of the cases, there was no evidence that the passengers had attempted to hijack the airplane or physically attack any of the flight crew. Many have simply involved raised voices, foul language and drunken behavior.

    Some security experts say the use of the law by airlines and their employees has run amok, criminalizing incidents that did not start out as a threat to public safety, much less an act of terrorism.

    In one case, a couple was arrested after an argument with a flight attendant, who claimed the couple was engaged in “overt sexual activity” — an FBI affidavit said the two were “embracing, kissing and acting in a manner that made other passengers uncomfortable.”

    “We have gone completely berserk on this issue,” said Charles Slepian, a New York security consultant. “These are not threats to national security or threats to aircraft, but we use that as an excuse.”

    Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd defended the prosecutions, saying that they have helped improve airline security. He added that the department has only pursued prosecution “when the facts and circumstances of a particular case warrant such action.”

    Indeed, the law has given airlines new flexibility to clamp down on unruly behavior. But the intent of the Patriot Act provisions was to put terrorists in violation of the law before they could execute an actual takeover, said Nathan Sales, a law professor at George Mason University who helped write the Patriot Act when he served in the Justice Department.

    But Sales acknowledged that in the fervor to protect the skies, the practical application of the law has strayed.

    “A woman spanking her child is not as great a threat to aviation as members of Al Qaeda with box cutters. That much is clear,” he said. …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....8578.story

    This woman was not arrested because she spanked her children (though in ObamaLand, she’d surely be brought up on charges of child abuse anyway.)

    No, she was arrested for her behavior:

    Freeman, who responded by hurling a few profanities and throwing what remained of a can of tomato juice on the floor

    Then she claims:

    “I had no idea I was breaking the law,” said Freeman

    Wow, what a precedent-setting claim.

    “I had no idea that murder was breaking the law.”
    “I had no idea that just bringing cocaine into the country was illegal if I wasn’t going to sell it.”
    “I had no idea that driving with a .09 BAC was illegal in this state.”

    You can see how this can be applied to most any arena of daily life.

    Of course flight attendants must now be physicians and psychologists as well:

    Tolerance for irrational behavior linked to mental illness has also diminished, said Ronald Honberg, legal director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

    In a number of cases, mentally ill passengers act bizarre, falsely claiming to have heart attacks, seeing terrorists or needing to escape the plane. In other cases, including one earlier this month in Los Angeles, they use the word “bomb” or claim to have a bomb. They are typically restrained, but whether they are prosecuted depends on the widely varying judgment of prosecutors around the country.

    “If you get out of your seat and walk to the front of a plane and talk about bombs, you get what you deserve,” said Sales, the law professor.

    On the other hand, Sales adds, “There are other sanctions than throwing the book at a person who has mental health issues.”

    Just as Police must know the person coming at them with a weapon is mentally ill and should never use force to defend themselves in such circumstances.

    Meanwhile, who’s on Freeman’s side? A defense attorney, of course:

    The confrontation on the Frontier Airlines flight to Denver was particularly harsh, recalled Amy Fleming, the flight attendant who told Freeman to stop spanking her children. In a recent interview, Fleming called Freeman the most unruly passenger she had seen in 11 years on the job.

    “Absolutely she deserved a felony conviction,” she said.

    But at least one passenger, John Carlson, a defense attorney who was seated near Freeman, said there was no threat. “There was a nasty, loud exchange,” Carlson said. Then Freeman “capitulated and offered no resistance. My sympathy shifted to her.”

    Seriously – isn’t it a defense attorney’s purpose in life to never see a threat worthy of prosecution in any circumstance?

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33. BillK

    January 21, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    IRAQ: When new commander in chief mentions sacrifice, military families know what he means.

    By Tony Perry

    President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address in Washington, talked of the need for sacrifice from all Americans.

    For the early morning crowd at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego, sacrifice has been a way of life for several years. Even as Obama spoke, hundreds of family members were waiting for 250 Marines and sailors to return from Iraq, many from their second, third or fourth deployment.

    Take the family of Navy corpsman Edward Dikitanan, who was finishing his fourth deployment. His wife, mother-in-law, and four children, ages 1 to 11, were holding a large banner and waving small American flags.

    “The older the children get, the harder it gets,” said Dikitanan’s wife, Lanie.

    When the first embraces were over, 8-year-old Nalani had a request; “Daddy, can we go to the zoo now?”

    It’s like that for military families: their lives are often on hold while loved ones are away for six months to a year.

    Randy and Tracy Vanderwende of Rancho Cucamonga have kept their Christmas tree up and the presents unopened as they waited for their daughter Cpl. Kylie Vanderwende, 22, to return from her second deployment.

    “We’re going to take her home, let her sleep for a couple of days, and then we’ll have our Christmas,” said Tracy Vanderwende.

    Karie Bergmann, 22, and her husband, Sgt. Jason Bergmann, 28, have been married for 16 months. He’s been gone for 12 of those months.

    As the Marines got off their charter flight, Karie Bergmann held a sign so her husband could not miss her. “You Survived 4 Deployments. I Survived My 1st Deployment,” it read.

    Cpl. Andrew Anderson, 20, got to hold his eight-week-old daughter Kezia for the first time.

    Tuesday’s returning group was from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. More air squadrons and infantry battalions are due home soon, even as other groups leave to replace them.

    “We’re just going to take it one hour at a time,’ said Crystal Hall, 19, as she hugged her husband, Cpl. Aaron Hall, 20.

    Before they left Iraq, the Marines were given what is called a warrior transition briefing about how to adjust to a world without roadside bombs and snipers. “They need to remember what it’s like not to be constantly on guard,” said Lt. Col. Joe Borja.

    At 30, 60 and 90 days the Marines will be checked to see whether they’ve made another kind of sacrifice: post traumatic stress disorder.

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....ton-p.html

    Personally, I think the notion of equivocating their sacrifice with what Obama is suggesting makes most Military families want to projectile vomit.

    I also dispute Borja’s advice, given the large number of soliders who have returned alive from Iraq only to be killed on the street within weeks of returning home, apparently not realizing how dangerous America remains.

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34. gipper

    January 23, 2009 at 10:30 am

    Here is a showcase of idolatry from Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51kAw4OTlA0

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    • 1laidbackRN

      January 23, 2009 at 6:30 pm

      And they couldn’t do all of this before Obama was President…. Okay…..

      Come on people, real Americans are getting sick and tired of your Al Gored do as I say, not do as I do, BS. And I got an idea how they could help with all of these programs they talk about. How about donating some of the millions they make instead of expecting the rest of us to pay for it.
    • proreason

      January 23, 2009 at 7:18 pm

      Just a reminder, RN, that although it is very difficult to determine how much taxes the obscenely wealthy actually pay, we do have Theresa Kerry’s tax return from 2003, since the Traitor was running for pres at the time.

      That fine lady paid about 6/10th of1% of her billion dollar fortune in taxes that year. Sweet huh? On a percentage basis it’s like Joe Blow paying $60 dollars a year.

      Now, the Hollywood obamybots who actually still “work” in the movie industry, may pay a much higher %, since it is much harder to hide earned income than income generated by assets, but the people like Babs Streisand, who no doubt is sitting on more than $100M, is probably doing exactly what the Ketchup Queen is doing…..which is, paying virtually no taxes while sqwauking incessantly about how unfair the country is.

      But it’s ok for them, you see. They are our aristocracy.
    • GuppyNblue

      January 23, 2009 at 7:43 pm

      “I pledge to be a servant to our president”.
      The first to be fooled obviously would be the least intelligent. Take a look at what Ashton Kutcher drives around town. He takes hypocrisy to the extreme.
    • gipper

      January 23, 2009 at 8:12 pm

      “I pledge to be a servant to our president.”

      That line stuck out to me too, proreason. It is funny–politicians were once servants of the people, but now that has turned around. All hail, King Obama! You, over there, you are not bowing enough! Yes, I am talking about you. Bow to your king.
35. BillK

    January 23, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    Today’s entry in the Government and Small Business file.

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “South Milwaukee Now” site:

    Sunbrite closes amid environmental concerns

    Company’s 52 years in city yielded many loyal customers

    By Israil Debruin

    It’s not the work Sally Yesbeck will miss, because sometimes the stress of owning a business follows her home.

    Instead, when Sunbrite Cleaners ends its 52-year run Saturday, Jan. 31, Yesbeck will miss the customers.

    “It’s just really hard leaving everybody,” Yesbeck said. “These aren’t just our customers coming in, these are our friends.”

    Yesbeck said her customer directory has 6,000 entries. The Milwaukee Avenue dry cleaner serves about 300 people each week, some of whom have been faithful for all of the company’s 52 years.

    Sunbrite’s problem isn’t corporate competition or tough economic times. It’s tetrachloroethylene, a dry cleaning solvent called “perc” for short.

    Some scientists say long-term exposure to perc may cause damage to the liver and kidneys, and possibly cancer. Because of its potential danger, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources tests dry cleaners for signs of perc spills. In a preliminary check, which tested for the presence of perc on the surface of the floor, Sunbrite tested positive. The next step is a more thorough test, which would determine if the spill has any depth, followed by potential cleanup requirements.

    Yesbeck swears she has never had a perc spill, but the two owners before her may have.

    Either way, Sunbrite’s landlord, Henry Ciesinski, said he is ready to get out of the dry cleaning business.

    “It’s just all the hoops and everything you’ve got to jump through,” Ciesinski said about the chemical restrictions.

    The property owner said Sunbrite could stay if it switched to greener methods of dry cleaning, or cut the service from its menu. Yesbeck said she is getting too old to reinvent herself or move to a new building.

    “If I were younger and the economy were better, I’d consider a move,” Yesbeck said.

    She’s 63 now, 14 years older than when she bought Sunbrite with the hope of selling it and retiring by age 62.

    “I really wasn’t planning on this, but these things happen,” Yesbeck said.

    Yesbeck will sell off Sunbrite’s equipment and hopes to break as close to even as possible. Then she will get a part-time job to cover the rest of the cost.

    “This was supposed to be my retirement, and I’m not getting anything out of it,” Yesbeck said. “I’ll probably be paying this off for years.” …

    http://www.southmilwaukeenow.c.....?id=839786

    Ah yes, the Government forces her out of business. Will she see a dime of consideration from any entity, local, state or Federal?

    Of course not, she’ll probably be fined somehow.

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36. BillK

    January 23, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    From a horrified Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    We Energies drops spending for renewable energy plans

    By Thomas Content

    We Energies says it’s committed to expanding renewable energy but has pulled off the table, for now, a request to spend up to $69 million on renewable energy project planning.

    Citing a weakened economy and the prospect of new regulations to expand use of renewable energy, the Milwaukee-based utility withdrew a request it filed in November with the state Public Service Commission.

    “In the months since the filing, economic conditions in the United States and Wisconsin have changed dramatically, and the potential for additional state legislation and for federal renewable legislation is coming into focus,” the utility said in a letter to the PSC.

    The company said it needed to “re-evaluate its approach” to adding renewable generation. The company plans to make a new proposal “once the timing and direction of state and federal legislation becomes clearer.”

    Economic disruptions have changed market conditions such as the tight market for wind turbines for companies looking to build wind-power projects, said Charlie Higley, executive director of the Wisconsin Citizens’ Utility Board.

    Higley said his group had opposed We Energies’ move as unnecessary and one that, if approved, would have saddled the utility’s 1.1 million electricity customers with higher costs unnecessarily.

    Many pieces of legislation at the state and federal level could change mandates for utilities that are now required to generate 10% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2015. The state task force recommended boosting that to 25% of the state’s electricity by 2025, and there is a push in Congress for a national renewable energy mandate.

    President Barack Obama stressed the need to expand solar and wind power during his inaugural address Tuesday. The administration supports a national mandate for 10% of the country’s electricity to come from renewable power by 2012 and 25% by 2025.

    A report this week by energy analysts at Morgan Stanley predicted a national renewable mandate will be passed by Congress between April and October.

    “Now that the sessions of Congress and the Legislature have kicked off, we’re much more likely to see some additional factors that we need to consider,” said Barry McNulty, a We Energies spokesman.

    We Energies remains committed to renewable energy, McNulty said, including its proposal to build the Glacier Hills Wind Park in Columbia County, at a cost of up to $530 million, and previous commitments to expand solar and biogas generation.

    The renewables request had also included an offer by We Energies to contribute $3 million toward a study that could pave the way for construction of wind turbines in Lake Michigan. The utility’s $3 million offer still stands, McNulty said. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/business/38144374.html

    Just a taste of things to come as businesses halt spending in their tracks (no economic impact there) as they wait to see what Obama is going to force upon them.

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37. BillK

    January 23, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    There are still at least a few politicians that “get it.”

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Harley says it will cut 1,100 jobs, after dismal fourth quarter

    By Rick Barrett

    Harley-Davidson Inc. will close its Capitol Drive plant in 2010, eliminating several hundred jobs, as part of a restructuring that includes the loss of 1,100 jobs over the next two years.

    Six hundred and forty of the 1,100 job cuts will be at Harley facilities in Wisconsin, Jim Ziemer, president and CEO said in a Journal Sentinel interview this morning.

    Two hundred and thirty of the job cuts will be in non-production positions, mostly salaried personnel, including engineering, administrative and finance departments.

    Harley said it will consolidate engine and transmission production now at Capitol Drive into its Menomonee Falls plant.

    One hundred and fifty of the cuts will come from the closing of Harley’s distribution center in Franklin.

    About 70% of the job reductions will occur this year, with the remainder coming in 2010.

    The cuts are being viewed as permanent, rather than layoffs.

    “These are all very tough decisions, but sometimes we have to go through some pain” to ensure the company’s long-term viability, Ziemer said.

    The Milwaukee area has been pummeled by job losses in recent weeks.

    The announcement that Harley-Davidson Inc. (HOG) is cutting 1,100 jobs, including hundreds in Milwaukee, could hardly have come at a worse time, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker said this morning.

    The Milwaukee area has been pummeled by job losses in recent weeks.

    “The news from Harley-Davidson would be bad at any time, but it is even worse now,” Walker said. “This is a serious blow. We need to get more money into the economy and the quickest way to do that is through bold tax cuts. Reducing the payroll tax can be done immediately and that will put more money into the hands of consumers who can then buy things like Harley-Davidson motorcycles. I hope that we can save some of the 1,100 jobs.”

    Gov. Jim Doyle added:

    “When great companies like Harley-Davidson have to lay off people, it really demonstrates the depth of this recession and what we are going to have to work through. I have spoken to Harley-Davidson officials and believe that their company is strong and will be ready to come back stronger than ever as our country recovers.”

    Even though the company has received state assistance over the years, Doyle said he was not looking for any paybacks from the company now that it is laying off workers.

    “Harley is doing everything it can,” he said. “They’re just trying to live in a difficult, difficult economy.” …

    http://www.jsonline.com/business/38211079.html

    Can you guess Scott Walker’s party affiliation?

    We need to get more money into the economy and the quickest way to do that is through bold tax cuts. Reducing the payroll tax can be done immediately and that will put more money into the hands of consumers who can then buy things like Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

    That’s right – Republican.

    How about the hands-off “#$@! happens” do-nothing quote:

    Gov. Jim Doyle added:

    “When great companies like Harley-Davidson have to lay off people, it really demonstrates the depth of this recession and what we are going to have to work through. I have spoken to Harley-Davidson officials and believe that their company is strong and will be ready to come back stronger than ever as our country recovers.”"Harley is doing everything it can,” he said.

    That’s right, far left Democrat.…

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38. BillK

    January 23, 2009 at 6:05 pm

    Shoclker! It’s all Bush’s fault!

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    EPA’s system of chemical regulation broken, audit says

    By Meg Kissinger

    The Environmental Protection Agency is as broken as the nation’s financial markets and needs a total overhaul, a congressional audit has found.

    The Government Accountability Office has released a report saying that the EPA lacks even basic information to determine whether chemicals pose substantial health risks to the public. It says actions are needed to streamline and increase the transparency of the EPA’s registry of chemicals. And it calls for measures to be taken to enhance the agency’s ability to obtain health and safety information from the chemical industry.

    “The EPA lacks adequate scientific information on the toxicity of many chemicals that may be found in the environment – as well as on tens of thousands of chemicals used commercially in the United States,” the GAO report said. “EPA’s inadequate progress in assessing toxic chemicals significantly limits the agency’s ability to fulfill its mission of protecting human health and the environment.”

    Health and environmental advocates pounced on the findings as proof that the EPA has been shirking its responsibilities for years.

    “This just shows that the EPA is not any better able to protect Americans from risky chemicals than FEMA was to save New Orleans or the SEC was to cope with the financial collapse,” said John Peter Myers, a scientist and author who has been writing about chemical risks to human health for more than three decades.

    For the EPA to be compared to the collapsed financial markets dramatically underscores the need for a complete overhaul of the regulation of toxic chemicals, said Richard Wiles, executive director of Environmental Working Group, a health watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.

    “The EPA joins the Hall of Shame of failed government programs,” Wiles said.

    Strengthening the EPA is one of the GAO’s top three urgent priorities for the Obama administration. The GAO also called for overhauling the nation’s financial regulatory system, whose inattention helped trigger the global financial crisis, and improving the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to protect the public from unsafe or ineffective drugs and other medical products.

    http://www.jsonline.com/featur.....45474.html

    So the GAO and a bunch of left-wing scientists confirm one of the Obama administration’s self-admitted “top priorities” by releasing a biased report and by bashing Bush.

    Sounds about right.

    No one will ever point out that the mess post-Kartrina was caused by inaction by Democrats and the banking crisis was caused by a combination of explicit inaction and actions taken by Democrats.

    But hey, those same Democrats will make it all better now.

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39. BillK

    January 23, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    Government spending as usual, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Supervisors take in inaugural events on taxpayers’ dime

    By Daniel Bice

    f you wished to attend but couldn’t pay to go to President Obama’s inauguration, you were pretty much out of luck.

    Unless you’re a member of the County Board.

    Two county supervisors, Toni Clark and Elizabeth Coggs, are billing taxpayers thousands of dollars – including a hotel stay for one of them at $644 per night – so they could spend five days in Washington, D.C., this past week, a trip that allowed the pair to attend various inaugural festivities.

    “Did I go to the swearing in?” Clark said Thursday. “Yes, I did.”

    Clark, however, cut off the interview, saying she was in the middle of children’s basketball practice. Coggs did not return repeated calls to her office and cell phone.

    Terrence Cooley, chief of staff for Board Chairman Lee Holloway, said he signed off on the trip in early December because it appeared legitimate. Clark and Coggs said they were going to Washington to meet with U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, county lobbyists and others.

    “Nobody said anything about the inaugural,” Cooley said.

    He said he, of course, realized that the trip would coincide with the Obama festivities, but he said he wouldn’t speculate on whether Clark and Coggs designed the trip so they could be in D.C. when the new president was taking his oath.

    “This is when they could schedule the meetings,” Cooley said.

    Officials haven’t done a final tally of the cost for the two supervisors to jet to D.C., but the figure is expected to come in around $4,000, including airfare, hotel and other expenses.

    The biggest expense was to find lodging near the capital during the height of inaugural activities. An estimated 2 million attended Obama’s swearing-in ceremony Tuesday. Records show Clark stayed at a Comfort Inn in Alexandria, Va., just minutes from the U.S. Capitol, arriving the afternoon of Jan. 16 and leaving Wednesday morning. The county issued a pre-paid check to the hotel for $2,227.60 for the five-day stay.

    The hotel cost a little less than $160 for each of the first two days, but the daily rate then skyrocketed to $644 for the final three days of her stay. Clark had to kick in $20 from her wallet to cover the full cost of her room, according to a hotel receipt provided by Comfort Inn.

    By contrast, Coggs had no lodging expenses because she stayed with relatives in the D.C. area.

    In addition, the two had earlier estimated their combined airfare at a little more than $900. They also each received cash advances for $324.

    Numerous aldermen, state reps and other Wisconsin government officials went to the inauguration, but No Quarter couldn’t find any others who billed taxpayers for their costs.

    A Coggs staffer initially put in the request for the trip on Dec. 4. The letter said Coggs and Clark had four meetings over three days on Monday through Wednesday of this week.

    But at least one of those meetings never happened.

    According to the schedule, the two County Board members were to sit down with officials at Waterman & Associates, the county’s D.C. lobbying firm.

    “There were travel complications that did not permit the meeting they had planned,” board spokesman Harold Mester said Thursday. He didn’t have any further explanation.

    Clark and Coggs were also slated to meet with a staffer with the Casey Family Programs, a Washington-based foundation, on Monday and an official with the National Association of Manufacturers on Wednesday. Neither group returned calls. The schedule also lists a sit-down with Moore, Milwaukee’s Democratic rep in the U.S. Congress.

    Moore spokesman Derrick Plummer said he would check to see if that meeting happened. He declined to say whether his boss supplied the two county pols – or anyone else – with inaugural tickets. Wisconsin’s congressional delegation distributed some 1,600 tickets to state residents.

    “We have a policy of not disclosing that,” Plummer said.

    Several officials confirmed that Coggs and Clark were among many Wisconsin dignitaries to attend an open house at the Les Aspin Center for Government in D.C. on Monday night. The state’s congressional delegation held its own open house earlier in the day.

    State Sen. Spencer Coggs, a Milwaukee Democrat, said he saw both Clark and Coggs, his cousin, at the Les Aspin event. He said he didn’t see them at Obama’s swearing-in ceremony, but he assumed they went, saying that was the main purpose for everybody’s trip.

    But the senator, who paid for his own trip, defended his cousin and Clark, saying both had mentioned that they were in Washington for several meetings. He said it was justifiable that they used tax dollars for the excursion.

    “If, in fact, they had legitimate county meetings, then it was a legitimate trip,” the senator said.

    But if their real intent was to go to these meetings, couldn’t they have found some dates when hotels and others weren’t charging premium rates? Otherwise, why head to Washington this week?

    “I don’t know,” said Coggs, the senator. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/watchd.....01214.html

    Same old same old.

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40. JohnMG

    January 23, 2009 at 7:01 pm

    And the party to which these people belong……….? Took a long time to find that out, didn’t it?

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