Why Capitalism Is Worth Defending

Why Capitalism Is Worth Defending
As Obama demonizes the wealthy and pitches a dozen plans to restructure the economy, opponents of this program need a reminder of what exactly we're fighting for. We are resisting bureaucracy, central planning, and encroachments on our freedom and communities. Yet this does not get to the heart of the matter. We are not only an opposition movement, countering the president and his partisans' agenda. More fundamentally, we stand in defense of the greatest engine of material prosperity in human history, the fount of civilization, peace, and modernity: Capitalism.

Many regard it a dirty word and it is tarnished most of all by its supposed guardians. Wall Street giants fancy themselves capitalists even as they live off the taxpayer and thrive on the state's gifts of privilege, inflation, and barriers to entry. In the military-industrial complex they champion it by name as they produce devices of murder for the state. In the Republican Party and every conservative institution they talk it up while making such vast exceptions to the principle as to swallow it whole. When many think of capitalism, they think of the corporatist status quo, leading even some who favor economic freedom to abandon the term.

We've Been Played for Saps, Folks; Boehner Bill Will Become Reid Bill (Rush Limbaugh Transcript) July 28, 2011

We've Been Played for Saps, Folks: Boehner Bill Will Become Reid Bill

July 28, 2011

Listen To It! WMP | Flash Audio clips available for Rush 24/7 members only -- Join Now! BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I think we've been played for a bunch of saps, I mean not us exclusively, I just mean the whole country, the Republican Party, ruling class. I'll explain as uncomfortable as it is and as grading as it is, I'll explain as the program unfolds it's great to have you here as always telephone number if you want to be on the program. 800-282-2882. The e-mail address ElRushbo@eibnet.com. Where are we on the debt deal? I suspect that most of the people, and this is what a lot of people are relying on, "Just finish it!" A lot of people are sick and tired of hearing about it, let's move on to something else. "I'm tired of talking about it. Can't we do something that's fun? What the hell is going on?" I understand the sentiment. Yesterday or last night the Republican leadership succeeded in getting Allen West to flip and vote for the Boehner plan or to commit to it. The same thing with Paul Ryan, and I've had a lot of e-mails: "What's Allen West doing? I can't believe Allen West, of all people." These Democrats, folks, you have to understand who we're dealing with here. This whole thing with Debbie "Blabbermouth" Schultz going on the House floor and accusing West of wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security and all that in the south Florida district, and you remember the contretemps that begin with West responding to it and so forth. They have put his re-election into play and, of course, they've got the media on their side down here in south Florida. So all over the media is the allegation that Allen West wants to do all this damage to senior citizens and so forth so that's how his vote gets -- I'm guessing. I haven't spoken to him. But I think that's a large part of it. Now, as we all know the Boehner bill is not ideal. It's another one of these eight hundred, nine hundred, I don't even think it gets to a trillion, but let's say it does, a trillion dollars in cuts over 10 years, the debt limit raised immediately so the spending occurs immediately, but it re-invites the debt limit debate all over again in a few short few months and in fact there is from the Daily Caller today a story that says the GOP is stealing Christmas. The Democrats are going back to the Gingrich that stole Christmas theme from the Clinton days. And here's the story from the Daily Caller: "GOP Aims to Gut Christmas, White House Alleges -- House Speaker and national grinch John Boehner is planning to spoil Christmas, White House officials are claiming, as they try to head off passage of Boehner's two-stage debt ceiling bill." They don't want to head off passage of the Boehner bill. They want the Boehner bill to pass in the house. There's a trap essentially that's being set, and I noticed that there's an AP story, and way down at the AP story: "In fact, Boehner's plan has enough in common with Reid's -- including the establishment of a special congressional panel to recommend additional spending cuts this fall -- that Reid hinted a compromise could be easy to snap together," between his nonexistent bill and the Boehner bill. What does that mean? What it means is that over in the Senate Reid really doesn't have a bill. He's got an idea, but he doesn't have a bill. And what he's put forth as an idea hasn't gotten all that much support. But here comes, let's say the House, and Boehner doesn't have the votes in the House yet according to Politico. And this is key. That was as of 9:30 this morning and they're going to be working the Republican caucus all day long before the vote tonight. But, as of now, Boehner doesn't have the votes for his bill. But let's assume he gets the votes. The Boehner bill then goes to the Senate where it's dead on arrival. There are 58 senators that are going to vote against it, by design. However, they've got a bill over there now. So Dingy Harry can take the Boehner bill and tweak it and rewrite it, make additions to it, take some things out of it, play with it however he wants, and get enough votes from Democrats since it becomes the Reid bill, and then it gets sent back to Boehner in the House looking nothing like his bill, but the rationale for passing the Boehner bill in the House is we've got to do this, the time is up, we're not going to get blamed. So if Reid monkeys around with the bill that he gets from Boehner, and it passes in the Senate, with whatever changes that are not favorable to us, of course, they throw it back in Boehner's lap, and then the pressure is going to be back on Boehner. Okay, do you sign the Reid bill? Do you pass it? Do you get your guys to vote for it and send it to Obama, basically a Democrat bill. That is what a lot of people -- and I sign on to the theory, too -- this is one of the traps that's being set. The Boehner bill is essentially being used to be a foundation for a nonexistent as of yet Reid bill. And thereby the Boehner bill becomes the Reid bill, therefore Democrat bill all in the absence of an Obama plan. No Obama plan at all in this.

There's no Obama bill. There's nothing set down on paper. So the Reid bill will become the Obama bill. The Boehner plan will become the Obama plan. I think that's the trap. And, of course, the establishment, Republicans are all gung ho. "Gotta get this done. It's the best we can get." Because they're telling themselves there aren't any tax increases in it, and there aren't. There aren't any tax increases in the Boehner bill. And there are spending cuts and there are caps, but what happens when that goes over to the Senate and Reid says, "You know what, I like some of this and I don't like that. Let's take some of this out and put some of this in," and gets his votes for it and the Boehner bill becomes something unrecognizable, then goes back to the House, what are they going to do? They've already passed the Boehner bill under the guise that we can't wait any longer, that AAA credit rating is in jeopardy, all this rotgut BS. So that, essentially, is where things stand. Now, back to this Daily Caller story. The one thing in the Boehner bill, and Democrats don't like this, is that the debt ceiling doesn't get raised enough to get us through the 2012 election. In other words, the Boehner bill is not a full-fledged Obama Reelection Lifeline Bill. But that's what Reid wants to turn it into. Now they're attacking that aspect of the Boehner bill by saying that the Republicans want to destroy Christmas. "House Speaker and national grinch John Boehner is planing [sic] to spoil Christmas, White House officials are claiming, as they try to head off passage of Boehner's two-stage debt ceiling bill. "'Happy Holidays[,] America: Boehner plan would have the debt ceiling all over again during the holiday season, which is critical for the economy,' White House deputy spokesman Dan Pfeiffer declared today at 9.50 a.m." Now, the Boehner bill would carry us through next March or April -- or at least, the last time the Speaker spoke to us that's what he told us, that there would be enough of an increase in the debt ceiling to get us through the spring. "White House political adviser David Plouffe made the same claim about Christmas almost one hour earlier when MSNBC's [F.] Chuck Todd quizzed him about the White House's opposition to Boehner's two-stage debt ceiling proposal. ... "White House spokesman Jay Carney repeated the same theme at his midday press conference. A two-stage plan that extends the debt ceiling only until 'the holiday season,' he said, 'would almost certainly require almost all of us to go through this again at the end of the year, the most important economic season of the country.'" Democrats are pulling out all rhetorical stops. Pelosi said this morning, "What we're trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We're trying to save life on this planet as we know it today." That's Pelosi. The CBO has scored both of these bills in such a way as to make it seem like there's very little difference between them, spending cut-wise, the Reid and Boehner bills. There are real differences, but we're supposed to just look at the numbers and say, "Oh, they're that close? Then let's just split the difference." When is the last time you heard that the Boehner bill was very close to the Reid bill? I've never heard that until today -- and they're not close! The Reid bill counts all kinds of "savings" from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all kinds of mumbo jumbo in there that Boehner's bill doesn't have. What is such a victory in there being no tax increases in the Reid debt ceiling deal? When in the history of the country has there ever been a tax increase included in the debt ceiling increase? We've mentioned this before: No debt ceiling increase bill has ever had a tax increase in it, yet this is being heralded as something unprecedented. It's not. It's common. There's never a tax increase in a debt ceiling bill. There could be in this one, though, because the Boehner bill sets up this commission of unnamed members. They could do whatever they want. It's claimed that they can't do tax increases, but nothing's going to stop them if they want to. So the question that we have to ask is: Where is Republican victory in the Reid bill? Where is the victory in there being no tax increases in the Reid debt ceiling deal, because there never have been. So that's where we are (at least that's where I think we are) and they are really hustling and they are twisting arms on the Republican side. They're using phrases like, "Get your ass in line." They are saying, "Don't let ideological purity stand in the way." Boehner said the same thing before the TARP vote. He said the exact same thing. He wasn't Speaker then but before the TARP vote in 2000 he said, "It's crucial. We're at a pressure point in the country where we can't let ideological purity stand in the right thing to do." They're saying the same thing now to the Republican freshmen in the House. "You can't let ideological purity stand in the way of doing the right thing. We've got to do this now," and their reasoning basically, when you boil it all down, is, "We've got to do something, no matter what it is, so we don't get blamed for not doing anything." So that's where we are as I, El Rushbo, see it. I'd love to be wrong. I love being right, as you well know, but I would love to be wrong. There are no real spending cuts in either bill. We went through that yesterday the baseline and all that. There are no real cuts, and certainly not at all in the Reid bill. So we shall see.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: My gosh, this is really tough for me -- and I'm not complaining for you. I'm just sharing. If the Boehner bill is stopped, Harry Reid is stopped. If the Boehner bill passes, then essentially the Harry Reid bill is going to take the place of the Boehner bill. The Boehner bill will become the Harry Reid bill. Now, little old me -- sitting here in south Florida, growing up in Missouri, not part of any establishment -- looks at the establishment and I think that they have it all wrong. This deal, if after all of this talk about what a crisis point we are at, is the best that can be done essentially we will be institutionalizing the debt situation. The establishment that this is the new normal will make it $2.5 trillion harder to undo what will be done from this deal. That's what Reid's spending is. Reid's bill is $2.5 trillion of spending. That's the debt limit increase in the Reid bill. So it takes us from 14.3 up to 16.8. So that becomes the new normal. Now, if we control all three branches, all three branches will have to deal with almost $17 trillion in immediate debt rather than trillions less, and the political situation is not going to be any better in dealing with it. Let's just advance forward and let's say we do win the Senate and we do win the presidency in 2012, but we've added $2.5 trillion in debt between now and then. The political situation is not going to be any better in terms of dealing with the debt. Plus we're going to have to deal with entitlements as well. None of this does. The Reid bill doesn't deal with entitlements and the Boehner bill doesn't deal with entitlements, and that's where the real hard work is going to be, and so we're kicking that can down the road. The Republicans want a deal now to get it off their plate. They want to be able to say that they did the best they could. "We've taken a good first step." That's what they want, and they want also to have it said that they compromised. There's magic in that word in Washington and they're salivating over the opportunity to be called great compromisers. Politico today, as of 9:43 this morning: "Speaker John Boehner told lawmakers Thursday that Republicans don't yet have the votes to pass the package, but predicted his leadership team would get the legislation across the finish line this evening. "'We do not have the votes yet,' Boehner told a closed meeting of House Republicans Thursday morning... 'But today is the day. We're going to get it passed.' ... Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) also said Boehner admitted not being at 217 votes yet -- the minimum number of votes needed to pass the House. 'I don't think we're there yet, but I think we will be,' said Chabot, who is backing the Boehner plan." They're planning an evening vote on Boehner's package to lift the debt ceiling after the financial markets close this afternoon in New York. Now, Politico says here Republican "leaders feel momentum has turned in their direction after the Congressional Budget Office released new estimates showing the Boehner plan reduces the deficit by more than the bill raises the debt limit." You know we're not even talking a trillion dollars here from the current baseline? Remember yesterday (there's always so much to remember): If you're just joining us today, if you were not here yesterday, get this: If the Boehner bill was simply a freeze, not one dime spent next year more than is spent this year -- we don't increase spending a dime -- the congressional budget office would score that as a $9.5 trillion cut over 10 years because $9.5 trillion is built into the baseline from which the federal budget is built every year. That's how out of whack this is. If we don't spend a dime, the CBO would come out and claim that Boehner is cutting spending $9.5 trillion, when he's not. There's no cut in a freeze. There's only a cut if you are going to pretend that you're going to spend nearly $10 trillion the next 10 years -- which, of course, it's going to be more than that. The annual budget's over that easily.

The guys at Red State, reading stuff this morning, and they found an interesting passage in Mike Allen's Playbook in The Politico. Mike Allen has this thing every morning. It's sort of a take-off of what the Hotline does, a little Dot, Dot, Dot column on all that's going on in Washington, politically; what's supposed to happen today and what happened last night and all kinds of things. It's just the political junkie's delight. There's this little package, a quote from an unnamed top Democrat. "The press will obsess about today's House vote on the Boehner two-step bill, but at best it is an exercise in political machismo. At worst it's the beginning of the most irresponsible act in congressional history, because the House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. "At least 58 senators are on record saying they will not support the Boehner bill. That's worse than the Ryan bill. That's worse than Cut, Cap and Balance. So once the vote is over, Speaker Boehner needs to begin immediately working on a way out of the mess Cantor created." That's what this top Democrat is saying. "If he doesn't, we could be in big trouble. There are dozens of possible compromises. He just has to take one. Reid, McConnell and the White House have plenty of options. The question is: 'Will he choose compromise for the sake of the country or political grandstanding for the sake of his caucus.'" So what they're talking about here is the Democrats are trying to say that what Boehner is doing is irresponsible. He's going to send a bill up to the Senate that he knows doesn't have a chance, and I can tell you their thinking behind that. Their thinking behind that -- and you tell me if you think this makes sense. The Republican thinking is, "We got a bill, the Boehner bill, the Boehner two-step. We send it up there and the Senate votes it down, it's their problem. We had a bill! We came up with deficit reduction! We expanded the debt ceiling. No new taxes. The Senate shot it down. Therefore, the ball's in the Democrats court and it's their problem." That's the thinking. This Democrat is saying that's the most irresponsible act in congressional history. Of course, the Democrat wants something that Boehner would send something over that Harry Reid and the Democrats would vote for, but read this very carefully. The Democrat is saying what I just told you. Boehner's going to need to begin immediately working on a way out of the mess because it's still going to be his mess, according to the Democrats. They're going to say, "The sent us something that we wouldn't possibly pass. He's trying to make us look like the obstructionist, but he knows we wouldn't vote for this, so why did he send it to us? So we're going to monkey around with it, we're going to send it back to him, and we're going to put the compromise onus back on him again." So the thinking is the Democrats think they can get away after Boehner and the Republicans might think they've won the day on compromise. The Democrats say, "Oh no you haven't! You've sent us something we can't possibly vote for. "Here. We're going to send it back to you with some changes we're going to make in it, and it's going to be up to you, Mr. Boehner, to begin immediately working on a way out of this mess -- and if you don't, we could be in big trouble." Then Reid, McConnell, and the White House have plenty of options. Here goes monkying around with the Boehner bill to turn it into something that the Senate will vote for, and it goes back to Boehner and then the question: "Will he choose compromise for the sake of the country or...?" In other words: "Will Boehner agree to the changes the Senate makes to his bill, or not?" and if he doesn't, the problem then becomes, "Republicans refuse to compromise," which is what the Democrats want all along. Meanwhile, the Republicans think that by dumping this thing in Reid's lap, the Democrats are going to end up looking like they don't compromise. The Democrats are a step or two ahead here. That is, if they're not all on the same page and just playing us for saps anyway. However, as Red State points out here: "All the Republicans keep telling us that this is the best they can hope for," that the Boehner two-step is the best they can hope for. That's what they keep telling us: "We've got to do it now. We've got the best we can possibly get." So how is it the best they can hope for when it is going to get less votes in the House and Senate than either Paul Ryan's plan or Cut, Cap and Balance. They're going backwards on this.

Mass. Healthcare Reform Augurs Badly for Obamacare!! Newsmax.com

Mass. Healthcare Reform Augurs Badly for Obamacare

A new study of the healthcare reform enacted by Massachusetts and its then Gov. Mitt Romney five years ago offers an ominous warning about the likely effects of Obamacare on the nation as a whole.

Researchers at the Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) at Suffolk University in Boston found that the Bay State healthcare reform plan has led to increased healthcare expenditures and private health insurance costs, as well as additional payments for Medicare and Medicaid, for a total of $8.5 billion in new outlays.

In 2006, Massachusetts enacted healthcare reform legislation that promised to extend healthcare coverage to all citizens while significantly lowering costs. The law imposes mandates on residents to obtain health insurance and on employers to provide it if they have 11 or more employees.

It also expands Medicaid coverage, establishes a health insurance subsidy program, and creates an insurance exchange that helps those who are ineligible for Medicaid buy competitively priced health plans.

The BHI report states: "Now that the law has been in effect for more than five years, we can begin to assess its impact on the state of Massachusetts."

Among the findings:

• State healthcare expenditures have risen by $414 million over the five-year period.

• Private health insurance costs have risen by $4.31 billion.

• The federal government has spent an additional $2.41 billion on Medicaid in Massachusetts.

• Medicare expenditures increased by $1.42 billion.

The total cumulative cost over the period is just over $8.5 billion.

But the state has been able to shift the majority of the costs to the federal government, which continues to absorb a significant part of the cost of healthcare reform through enhanced Medicaid payments and the Medicare program — meaning Americans outside Massachusetts are helping to pay the bills for the healthcare plan.

In analyzing the study's results, the researchers observe: "Cost‐containment is often a major goal of health reform plans. However, this particular healthcare reform legislation did not provide an effective means for containing costs.

"The promise of cost‐containment rested on a vague hope that the newly insured would seek preventive care, access their primary care physicians earlier in their illness and avoid costly emergency room visits. Yet the number of emergency room visits rose from 2.351 million in 2006 to 2.521 million in 2009, or by 7.2 percent over the period. The total cost of emergency visits has soared by 36 percent over the period, or by $943 million."

The large number of newly insured residents in the state has increased demands on the primary care system, forcing patients to visit emergency rooms at a rate significantly higher than expected.

The BHI report also states that "by increasing demand for healthcare services without an equal increase in their supply, the universal healthcare law guaranteed that the price of healthcare services and health insurance would increase."

The researchers point out that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed by President Barack Obama in March 2010 is "essentially identical" to the Massachusetts law.

Obama claimed the law will lower healthcare costs. But the researchers conclude: "If the federal law is modeled after the Massachusetts law, it stands to reason that Massachusetts' experience with healthcare reform provides an idea of what is in store for the country under the federal law."

'Irrefutable' Proof of Obama forgery... Document details show typwriter had variable type way back in 1961? Posted July 17, 2011... When will Congress Investigate???

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

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CERTIFIGATE
WND Exclusive
'Irrefutable' proof of Obama forgery
Document details show typewriter had variable type way back in 1961?

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Posted: July 17, 2011
5:20 pm Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi

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WND

NEW YORK – Unless the typewriter used to type Barack Obama's purported Hawaiian "Certificate of Live Birth" in 1961 was magically capable of producing different size and shaped images with the exact same key, the document released by the White House April 27 is a forgery, says a professional typographer with 50 years experience.

"Steel-stamped letters do not expand to larger sizes and morph into different styles of type," retired New York City typographer Paul Irey told WND.

As WND previously reported, it would be impossible for the different letters that appear in the Obama birth certificate to have been typed by one typewriter, according to Irey.

Jerome Corsi's new book, "Where's the Birth Certificate?", is now available for immediate shipping, autographed by the author, only from the WND Superstore

"These are irrefutable proofs of forgery," he said.

His newest analysis suggests the document was assembled from images of letters or words taken from other documents.

"The forger who produced the Obama Hawaii long-form birth certificate may have thought that all typewriter typeface styles were alike," he said.

(Story continues below)

"To get his letters, the forger must have understood that he needed to copy the old typewriter styles," he continued. "So the forger probably scanned a bunch of old birth certificates, without realizing that the letters in the old files were from different typewriter styles. That's why the letters in the forged document do not match each other."

Irey used as a source document the Xerox copy of the Obama birth certificate the White House press staff handed to the press assembled in the White House pressroom on April 27, as seen in Exhibit 1:

From this source, Irey extracted individual typed letters and prepared a chart listing each typed letter that appeared in the document identified in the chart with a unique number identifier, as seen in Exhibit 2:

In Exhibit 3, Irey advanced his previously published analysis by comparing the two letters, #144 and #146, used to form the name "Barack" in Box 8, "Name of the Father," and explained they are not identical, such that the one is significantly bigger than the other.

"Why then is #144 significantly bigger than #146, if the same typewriter key struck both?" Irey asked.

Exhibit 3: 1st set typeface comparisons from the Obama long-form birth certificate released by the White House, April 27, 2011

Exhibit 4 extends the analysis to four additional letters from the Obama birth certificate, with the width of each letter measured and compared to make clear the size difference in the typeface.

As seen with the "s" in "Hussein" compared to the "s" in "Stanley," the typeface differs not only in size, but also in kind, with the serif differences leading to the conclusion that more than one typewriter was used to create the document.

Exhibit 4: 2nd set typeface comparisons from the Obama long-form birth certificate released by the White House, April 27, 2011

In Exhibit 5, Irey notes that the two different "t" letters in the word "Student" are particularly noteworthy.

"As a typographer I could see no reason for a different style of letter within the same word," Irey commented regarding the two different "t" letters used in typing the word "Student," a peculiarity seen in the last example presented in Exhibit 5.

Exhibit 5: 3rd set typeface comparisons from the Obama long-form birth certificate released by the White House, April 27, 2011

In Exhibit 6, Irey summarizes his argument: "If all the letters are from the same typewriter, why don't they match?"

Exhibit 6: Typeface analysis: Summary of argument Obama long-form birth certificate, White House Release, April 27, 2011.

"It's been some 30 years since we have used typewriters to produce documents," Irey noted. "Computers have replaced the typewriter and give us great advantages in document preparation. There is no need to understand the old typewriter – except when you need to forge a typewritten document."

House Votes 234-190 to Pass 'Cap, Cut and Balance' Tues, July 19, 2011

Newsmax

House Votes 234-190 to Pass 'Cap, Cut and Balance'

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 08:37 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has passed legislation conditioning a $2.4 trillion increase in the nation's borrowing cap on a tea party-backed plan to require immediate spending cuts and a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.

The 234-190 vote sends the "cut, cap and balance" plan to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it has virtually no chance of passing.

With the House tally cast, attention is returning to efforts in the Senate to provide President Barack Obama authority to impose an increase in thedebt limit without approval by Congress and on a new Senate "Gang of Six" proposal to cut the deficit by almost $4 trillion over the coming decade.






© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Budget Cuts To Law Enforcement Draw Ire.... Thurs. July 7, 2011.... By Chris Levister Published in BlackVoiceNews

Budget Cuts To Law Enforcement Draw Ire

THURSDAY, 07 JULY 2011 05:11

Attorney General Kamala Harris warns of "Gang-and-Drug Armageddon"

By Chris Levister –

In the early morning hours of June 7, 2011, an elite U.S., state and local multi-jurisdictional task force staged Operation "Bright Lights Big City", a back-breaking raid on members of the notorious Varrio Latino gang Azusa 13, they say conspired to rid the Southern California city of its Black residents. "It was hell on earth," recalls a Riverside mother of three (name withheld) who in 2007 escaped Azusa and the gang law enforcement say is tied to the Mexican Mafia.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris looks over some of the guns seized in a six-week sweep conducted by agents from the Department of Justice, 1,200 firearms were seized including one from a Azusa, California gang targeting African Americans.

Azusa Police Chief Robert Garcia said Azusa 13's attacks included scrawling racial epithets on African-Americans' homes and street violence that last year targeted a Black high school student walking home from a track meet.

According to the latest U.S. Census information, about 64% of the city's 47,000 residents are Hispanic and nearly 4% are Black.

"This is not the first Southern California gang accused of racially-motivated attacks. The Avenues in Highland Park, Varrio Hawaiian Gardens and Florencia 13 in South L.A. are all Latino gangs whose members have faced state or federal civil rights charges for attacking and killing African- Americans," said state Attorney General Kamala Harris.

The Azusa 13 gang adopted a racist principle "that members of the gang will harass and use violence to drive African- Americans out of the City of Azusa and would use violence in order to prevent African-Americans from moving into the City," according to U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr.

The kind of multi-jurisdictional cooperation seen in the Azusa 13 raid is in serious jeopardy Harris warned Friday, following the passage of an $86 million budget signed by Governor Jerry Brown last week without a single GOP vote. We're looking at "Gang-and-Drug Armageddon."

Harris and members of other state and local public safety agencies came out swinging after a Democrat led Legislature passed and an on time budget that would see a $35.8 million reduction in its law enforcement budget next fiscal year and another $35.2 million in the year after that.

A $71 million cut to the Division of Law Enforcement budget will "handcuff" the state Department of Justice's ability to fight gang violence and disrupt the flow of drugs, guns and human beings across our border, Harris said in a statement.

"The cuts will likely eliminate 55 state-led task forces that coordinate the response to our growing gang problem. The Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence and Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement will also likely be eliminated, as well as the investigative capacities of the newly formed Mortgage Fraud Strike Task Force. All told, several hundred agents, investigators, and other law enforcement positions will be lost, as will the ability to prosecute cases like these," said Harris.

That $71 million cut could cost the DOJ another $40 million in matching federal funds over the next two years, said Division of Law Enforcement Director Larry Wallace.

"We could be looking at cuts in excess of $100 million," he said. "It's unprecedented, unsafe and unsustainable to the Department of Justice and it will greatly handcuff California law enforcement. We could lose up to 600 law enforcement positions if we take this hit, and possibly have to eliminate the bureau of narcotic enforcement and the bureau of investigations and intelligence."

The president of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association -- who happens to work as a DOJ special agent -- Alan Barcelona accused Democrats of welcoming drug gangs to California and called the budget cut "absolutely astounding."

"At a time when our local law enforcement agencies are being stretched to the point of layoffs due to their own budget problems, they do not have the fiscal capacity or the authority to handle the responsibilities of coordinating multijurisdictional task forces to stop the flood of drugs and gangs from flowing into our state," said Barcelona.

Also unhappy: California Chief Justice Tani Cantil- Sakauye, who watched her court system lose $200 million in annual funding in March, then found out Monday that Democrats are aiming for another $150 million cut -- and are going to delay $310 million in court construction costs by putting those projects on hold for a year.

"I am completely dismayed and gravely concerned about how the proposed budget cuts will affect the judicial branch and the public we serve. The cumulative impact of the cuts to the courts in the last three years will have the effect of court closures, fewer services to court users, and the specter of more furloughs and layoffs for employees.

LOCAL IMPACT

State law enforcement officials aren't the only one's hopping mad over the budget cuts to public safety. "We're looking at impending disaster," warns San Bernardino District Attorney Mike Ramos. The district attorney's office would lose $2.1 million, leading to the loss of 33 positions. Ramos said he already has a backlog of 3,000 cases that he needs more staff to tackle.

The probation department would lose 77 positions in the budget. This also would be due to the vehicle tax cut, which will result in decreased programs for juvenile offenders and affect adult probation programs such as domestic violence, sex offender and gang units, Chief Probation Officer Michelle Scray said.

The Sheriff's Department has scrapped plans for a new crime lab and is using asset-forfeiture funds to avoid layoffs.

Riverside County is also bracing for more cuts and layoffs.

Sheriff Stan Sniff said public safety departments, including the sheriff, district attorney and fire, face cuts from 3 percent to 5 percent in his recommended budget.

Other departments will see, on average, 19 percent reductions.

Sniff has already sent out layoff notices. If he has to meet even lower budget projections, the first 100 layoffs would take place July 13 followed by another 100 on Aug. 10.

A group of city police chiefs wrote in early June that reductions in unincorporated patrols will increase the need for mutual aid at a time when cities also are struggling financially.

Speaking on behalf of law enforcement agencies and organizations across the state, AG Harris called on lawmakers to restore the money.

"Public safety is a basic right of all people and a core function of our government. For that reason I call on Governor Brown and the Legislature to immediately restore adequate funding to California law enforcement."

Obama Administration Officials Plan Stealth Survey on Access to Doctors

Filed under Government, Health {42 comments}

Alarmed by a shortage of primary care doctors, Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of "mystery shoppers" to pose as patients, call doctors' offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.

The administration says the survey will address a "critical public policy problem": the increasing shortage of primary care doctors, including specialists in internal medicine and family practice. It will also try to discover whether doctors are accepting patients with private insurance while turning away those in government health programs that pay lower reimbursement rates.

Federal officials predict that more than 30 million Americans will gain coverage under the health care law passed last year. "These newly insured Americans will need to seek out new primary care physicians, further exacerbating the already growing problem of P.C.P. shortages in the United States," the Department of Health and Human Services said in a description of the project that it submitted to the White House.

Is Light Bulb Ban about to be Repealed?

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) says that he is "close" to an agreement with sponsors of legislation that would repeal the 2007 ban on the ordinary incandescent light bulb.

Upton told bloggers at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, that he is working with Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Michael Burgess (R-Texas) and expects that "soon, very soon" they will advance a bill that would undo regulations that effectively ban the ordinary incandescent light bulb by 2012 – regulations that Upton sponsored in 2007.

"We're very close to seeing an agreement emerge and happen, so stay tuned, I guess you have to say," Upton said. "(There are) a couple of different things we're looking at, so stay tuned in the next — probably couple of days, actually. Soon, just say soon.

Obama's Economists Admit Stimulas Has Cost $278,000.00 Per Job

Obama's Economists Admit 'Stimulus' Has Cost $278,000 per Job

July 4, 2011

When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it's clearly not trying to draw attention to the report's contents. Sure enough, the "Seventh Quarterly Report" on the economic impact of the "stimulus," released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama's economic "stimulus" did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House's Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the "stimulus" in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using "mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus" (which it describes as a "natural way to estimate the effects of" the legislation), the "stimulus" has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That's a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

San Bernardino: Airport Needs Better Oversight, Grand Jury finds (Press-Enterprise) Friday, July 1, 2011

SAN BERNARDINO: Airport needs better oversight, grand jury finds

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12:15 PM PDT on Friday, July 1, 2011

By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL, DUG BEGLEY and DARRELL R. SANTSCHI
The Press-Enterprise

PDF: Read the 2010-11 Grand Jury report for San Bernardino County

The man developing much of San Bernardino International Airport is the focus of concern in a grand jury report released late Thursday that is critical of how the public project is being managed.

San Bernardino International Airport Authority -- a group of county and city officials from San Bernardino County's East Valley -- must strengthen their financial oversight and reconsider agreements with Scot Spencer, who heads two companies that are developing much of the former Norton Air Force Base, according to the report written by an independent auditor hired by the grand jury.

Auditors also suggested the authority should stop some payments to Spencer and his companies, citing the lack of a purchase agreement for $4.1 millionworth of equipment, such as jet bridges, the authority already paid for.

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Scot Spencer

"Without immediate implementation of the recommendations, Norton Development and SBD Properties will likely continue to spend taxpayer funds without being subject to proper controls," the report said.

The report was the result of a two-year investigation involving San Bernardino County's civil grand jury -- which oversees public agencies and their practices but wields no legal power -- and an outside auditor. It was one of 14 San Bernardino County grand jury reports issued Thursday. Agencies have 90 days to respond.

Spencer was banned from the aviation industry in 2005 by the federal Department of Transportation.

The report says that his activities at San Bernardino airport are in direct violation of that ban.

Spencer disagreed.

"Certainly every attorney that I've ever discussed that with and every expert I've discussed it with has disagreed with that," he said when reached by phone.

As of 7:35 p.m. Thursday, Spencer said he had only had time to glance at the report that was given to him about a half-hour earlier. He said he was disappointed in the auditor.

"I spent a lot of time with them, spent a lot of time taking them around the airport, meeting with them in my offices," he said. "Just glancing at it, I've found at least a dozen factual errors in 15 minutes."

Representatives from San Bernardino County, along with the cities of San Bernardino, Colton, Loma Linda and Highland, make up the boards that govern the Inland Valley Development Agency and San Bernardino International Airport Authority.

The two agencies have been redeveloping Norton Air Force Base since it closed in 1994 and took with it an estimated 10,000 jobs.

The price to build the airport has surged from $38 million to $142.5 million as plans ballooned from a commercial airline terminal to also include a luxury general aviation terminal, a U.S Customs building, a rehabilitated runway, parking lots and landscaping. The airport still does not have a single commercial airline offering scheduled flights.

TAXES OWED

And public records recently showed Spencer's SBD Properties and another managed by him, SBD Aircraft Services LLC, owe more than $680,000 in property and employment taxes.

Officials on the development and airport boards reached Thursday evening said they would need time to review the report before they could comment.

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2009/The Press-Enterprise

Features that cost $142 million are available at San Bernardino International Airport, but the facility still does not have a single commercial airline offering scheduled flights. Add-ons include a U.S. Customs building and a luxury general aviation terminal.

"I do have full and complete confidence in our executive staff," said Ovidiu Popescu, mayor pro tem of Loma Linda and a member of both the Inland Valley Development Agency and the San Bernardino International Airport Authority governing boards.

Poor Oversight

The report listed examples of contracts where public officials deferred to airport management and Spencer's recommendations for cost increases.

Many of those increasingly costly projects included deals in which Spencer received a percentage of the contract's value.

"This created a clear conflict of interest," auditors with San Francisco-based Harvey M. Rose Associates wrote in their report.

Much of the taxpayer investment aimed at turning the air base into a bustling airport with passenger and cargo services is funneled through Norton Development and SBD Properties.

"Although most major financial matters are brought before the (airport authority) for consideration, the analysis supporting decision-making is often incomplete or vaguely stated," auditors wrote.

Auditors pointed to a $1 million settlement that the airport authority paid out to two companies -- one run by Spencer and another started by him -- over a disputed lease of a hangar. The settlement was reached 18 days after officials received the claim, and with little verification of the damages each company was rightfully owed.

Previous Problems

Spencer's past dealings -- including a stint in a federal penitentiary -- also raised serious concerns for auditors.

He arrived at San Bernardino airport in 2003 not long after he was released from prison, having served several years for bankruptcy fraud and conspiracy to commit bankruptcy fraud related to his role at Braniff Airlines.

Within a few months of moving his Ascend Aviation Group charter airline business to the airport, it ran out of money. In 2005, the Department of Transportation accused Spencer and others of operating Ascend without the proper charter airline license. An administrative law judge fined Spencer $1 million and banned him from the "aviation industry."

Spencer appealed the default decision, alleging he wasn't able to present his case, but nothing has happened since 2006 and in the meantime the judgment has stood.

Despite the ban, Spencer signed a five-year lease on one of the largest hangars at the airport in November 2005.

Airport officials stood by him, noting that the ban was being appealed, but auditors disagreed.

"This interpretation runs counter to a plain language understanding of the judge's order and is not documented in any fashion," the report reads.

Given his tenuous tenure with the aviation ban hanging over him, auditors said airport staff should review all of their dealings with Spencer. The benefit would be that the airport authority "would limit exposure to the types of difficulties described throughout this report and would no longer be party to Mr. Spencer's apparent violation of the DOT order banning him from the aviation industry."

Other reports

Other agencies analyzed and findings made by the grand jury included:

County supervisors' benefits should not exceed their salary. First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt is paid $150,197, according to the report, and his benefits total $158,403. He is the only supervisor whose benefits exceed salary.

The Board of Supervisors should hire a chief audit executive as a civil-service employee to improve county auditing functions.

An outside audit should be performed of the county's Children and Family Services agency to ensure adequate oversight.

Jurors contend that fees that the public defender charges indigent clients are too low. The fees for felony defenses dropped from $500 to $150 since 2008, and for misdemeanor defenses from $300 to $100, and "the Grand Jury could not find a reason for this change."

The city of San Bernardino should try to find more money to pay for park maintenance, and the city's Police Department should "dissuade the homeless and transient populations from gathering in the parks."

The county needs more code-enforcement officers to investigate complaints.

The county needs to make security improvements at its 911 call centers in Rialto and Victorville, where jurors found no working cameras, crowding and, in the case of Rialto, a fence with alarms that had been disconnected years ago because animals were setting them off and a building that would not survive a natural disaster.

Supervisors voted this week to move the county's emergency operations center from Rialto to Hesperia out of concern that its current location could be at risk during an earthquake.

Reach Kimberly Pierceall at 951-368-9552 or kpierceall@PE.com

Reach Dug Begley at 951-368-9475 or dbegley@PE.com

Reach Darrell R. Santschi at 951-368-9484 or dsantschi@PE.com