Organized by We Surround Them Palm Springs, the TEA Party Anti-Tax Rally was a great success. Anytime on can have the local police begin to get upset and exert control over a peaceful enterprize, maybe one is touching a nerve. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)
Palm Springs TEA Party Anti-Tax Rally
The actual crowd was estimated to be a little less than 100 people. The event was very closely watched and monitored by the local police department and they responded quickly to any complaint of excessive noise.
This type of attention caught me off guard, in that, I was in Palm Springs soon after the November elections last year and witnessed a rally that had been organized by the people who were against Proposition 8 (the constitutional amendment defining marriage as being only between a man and a women). The proposition passed, as expected, by a wide margin, and those who wanted the proposition to be defeated were not happy. The rally managed to have about 50 or so cars parade down Palm Canyon Drive, at a very slow pace and have all of the cars horns HONK as the passengers hang out holding "NO On Eight" signs and placards. It was quite a show to watch as one was trying to share time with friends and family over dinner at the local California Pizza Kitchen. The conversation was nearly impossible.
After the parade, the participants roamed up and down the Drive, loudly making sure everyone knew of their displeasure at the measure (Prop 8) passing. The local police did nothing to quell this disturbance ... on this evening and about this issue.
Today, the police were vigilant, and it was hard to understand why ... until one realizes what WE were out on the street protesting about.
The crowd was on Palm Canyon Drive to bring attention to spending measures that our state government had drafted and placed on a ballot for a special election to be held in just a few days on May 19th, so that they, the state, could continue to spend money at a record rate. We all were tired of having the highest taxes of most any of the fifty states, the highest corporate taxes of most any of the fifty states, and it is time to STOP THE MADNESS!
The measures to be voted on are named Propositions 1-A, 1-B, 1-C, 1-D, 1-E, and 1-F --- to go on and parse each and every proposition, to be honest, is pointless because each of the propositions were drafted for and by a government that is in the middle of OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING ... and they wish to continue the practice. Not passing these measures on May 19, 2009 will send a message that the State of California can not go along doing business as usual.
Many hand made/home made signs designed to inform and get a reaction from passersby. The rally was held in the noonday sun of an early sping Friday with the temperature approaching 100 degrees, Fahrenheit. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)
The local police are government workers and are dependent upon what the state government does, so anything that works against the government, receives attention. This is why the protesters along Palm Canyon Drive needed to be reined in ... on the attention level we were creating.
Vote NO on Propositions 1-A, 1-B, 1-C, 1-D, 1-E, and 1-F to send a message to the politicians who are elected to protect our, the tax paying citizens, interests. It is time to STOP THE MADNESS and have the state government stop the spending - period.
Tomorrow, another, much larger event is planned for the Federal Building in Westwood on Westwood Blvd just East of the 405 Freeway. If you happen to be in the area around 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM PDT, please show up and show support for a no vote on Propositions 1-A, 1-B, 1-C, 1-D, 1-E, and 1-F.
If you're fed up with the Presidential politics, and want to get away from it with a little Xbox escapism, don't play Burnout Paradise. The racing game features VIRTUAL BILLBOARDS URGING GAMERS TO VOTE FOR OBAMA. Is the addition of political ads in console games change you can believe in? Caption & Image Credit: therawfeed.com
The Tripe With TARP & The Obama-Nation
The Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP) was originally created by the Bush Administration to help as a buffer for homeowners, who were in trouble of loosing their home when the flexible interest rates of the “sub-prime” mortgages they had used to initially purchase their home … increased. The idea was to be able to have the mortgages reset, or better, renegotiated to a level that the mortgages providers would not have their financial instruments be defaulted on by the people who had committed to pay the mortgages.
By having about 700 Billion dollars of TARP (read that as taxpayer money) set aside, the Federal Government felt that banks would be less inclined to foreclose on, or end the financial contract and the economy would remain relatively level and undisrupted.
This may have been effective … MAY … if the Federal Government applied the monies only where there they were needed. What has happened, however, is a massive level of “mission creep” where the Federal Government has decided to force all financial institutions to take money TARP money in exchange for specialized preferred stock, and if these banks did not participate, they would suffer additional activity brought about through audits and other Governmental investigative activity that hinders a bank from transacting a profitable business.
Further, the Federal Government unilaterally converted the Preferred Stock (non-ownership type) to Common Stock (ownership type) and now own an interest in the banks themselves … and remember, many of these institutions never participated in the issuing and selling of mortgages that are the topic of the TARP monies and/or do not have any loans in default.
The Federal Government forced a transition of ownership of privately held, once profitable businesses to be under the management control and influence of Federal Government bureaucrats who have never managed a private business for profit … in the first place.
The above description is an ugly enough scenario without looking at the additional uses of the original Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP).
Transportation Stock and Bond Certificates - Chrysler Corporation, Delaware, USA, 1970: $1,000 Sinking Fund Debenture certificate featuring the famous "Chrysler" radiator cap flanked by allegorical female character and company logos. Also includes traffic scenes showing old trucks and vintage cars in the background. Walter P. Chrysler, formerly of Buick and Willys, acquired Maxwell-Chalmers in 1923 and the first car bearing his name was produced in 1924. Chrysler laid the foundations for a motor empire to rival General Motors and Ford when he took over Dodge and launch the Plymouth Four and the De Soto Six in 1928. Punch cancelled. Scarce. VF+ - Red (12" x 8") $95.00 - Image Credit: stocksearchintl.com
This item published three days before Barack Obama took office excerpted and edited from the Washington Post –
U.S. Expands Aid To Auto Industry
Chrysler Financial Gets $1.5 Billion From Treasury; Ford Credit in Talks
By David Cho and Kendra Marr - Washington Post Staff Writers - Saturday, January 17, 2009; Page D02
The government expanded its bailout of the nation's troubled auto industry yesterday, announcing a new $1.5 billion loan for Chrysler Financial while Ford Credit said it was in talks to obtain federal aid.
The money for Chrysler Financial will come from the government's $700 billion financial rescue program. Senior officials from the Treasury and Federal Reserve are hoping the assistance, combined with earlier support for General Motors' chief lender GMAC, will keep auto loans flowing until the two agencies can make more funds available for credit cards, student loans and small business loans.
The developments came on a frantic last work day at the Treasury Department, as officials pushed out the door several key deals and announcements related to the rescue program, known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.
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Last fall, Paulson told lawmakers that the TARP would be used to buy bad assets. But soon after the bill was approved by Congress in early October, he moved away from the idea to provide more direct aid to financial institutions.
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The moves to aid the financing arms of the nation's automakers draw the federal government more deeply into Detroit's troubles.
To date, the government has committed TARP money to provide $17.4 billion for General Motors and Chrysler, $6 billion for GMAC, and now the new loan to back Chrysler Financial.
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"We're still funding our business," said Ford Credit spokeswoman Margaret Mellott, who confirmed the talks, which have been going on for months. "We have strong liquidity . . . It's an ongoing dialogue to free up credit."
Although Ford has said it can survive without federal aid or intervention, it continues asking to be treated the same as its struggling cross-town rivals GM and Chrysler.
----
The support for Chrysler Financial is structured differently than most other loans the Treasury has made from the TARP. Instead of investing money directly into Chrysler Financial, the company is creating a special entity that will receive the government loan. Chrysler Financial can then withdraw those funds to make new auto loans.
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In addition, Chrysler Financial agreed to reduce by 40 percent the pool of bonus money for its senior executives relative to the 2007 levels, among other limitations on what it can pay its top officials.
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"This will provide a great economic stimulus for car buyers across the country," Jim Press, Chrysler vice chairman and president said in a statement.
Chrysler Financial applied for TARP funds in November. In December, Chrysler's sales slid 53 percent compared with the corresponding month a year before.
"This funding will better position us to withstand the current economic challenges until funding becomes available through more traditional commercial sources," said Thomas F. Gilman, vice chairman and chief executive of Chrysler Financial in a statement.
----
Yesterday was supposed to be their last day of work, but many senior Treasury officials kept their government-issued BlackBerrys rather than turn them in. They were given Federal Express envelopes to ship their devices next week, in case they had to work over the weekend.
So, just about three months down the road, Chrysler declares bankruptcy!
The company is broken up into several parts where the United Auto Workers Union becomes the majority share owner – surprise, surprise.
Oh, and the people who invested their money in good faith in the company to get a return on their investment protected by our country’s bankruptcy laws which stipulate that the primary share owners are first honored? The Obama Administration shafted their interests and moved them to the back of the line only allowing them, the investors, a chance at a loss on their investment.
MODERN TIMES: If only the UAW were such a victim as they are depicted here in this R.J. Matson cartoon. The worker caught in a web of gears waiting to crush them up - the truth is that with a 55% ownership of Chrysler, THEY ARE the gears ... they had created through negotiation and now own. Image Credit: R.J. Matson, The New York Observer
This excerpted and edited from CBS News –
Chrysler Bankruptcy Exposes Dirty Politics
Declan McCullagh: Obama Calls Creditors Who Lent Money To Chrysler "Speculators," But What About the Rule Of Law?
May 7, 2009 | by Declan McCullagh
Chrysler's sad tale that led to this week's bankruptcy hearing in New York is not only an important business and political story. It also encompasses morality, the rule of law and strong-arm tactics used by some politicians.
----
During its slide, Chrysler borrowed money from lenders and in return signed a contract promising that as so-called senior creditors, they'd get paid before anyone else if the company went under.
These creditors, by the way, represent something of a cross-section of America: the University of Kentucky, Kraft Foods' retirement fund, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, pension funds, teachers' credit unions, and so on.
A normal bankruptcy filing would be straightforward. Senior creditors get paid 100 cents on the dollar. Everyone else gets in line.
But President Obama and his allies don't want that to happen. So they interfered on behalf of unions (the junior creditors) and publicly upbraided the senior creditors who were asserting their contractual rights and threatening to head to bankruptcy court.
Last week Mr. Obama lambasted them as "a small group of speculators" who "endanger Chrysler's future by refusing to sacrifice like everyone else."
Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, sent reporters a statement calling the creditors "vultures" and "rouge hedge funds." Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm piled on, taking aim during her radio address at a "few greedy hedge funds that didn't care how much pain the company's failure would have inflicted on families and communities everywhere."
It must be a coincidence that the United Auto Workers has handed $25.4 million to federal politicians over the last two decades, with 99 percent of that cash going to Democrats. And that Mr. Obama's final campaign stop on Election Day was a UAW phone bank.
If those politicians thought about this a bit more, they'd probably realize their mistake. Creditors didn't force Chrysler's management to head to the capital markets and beg for funds: It was poor management, uncompetitive wages, and a union that opposed pay cuts.
Without those greedy "vultures" and "rogues" injecting sorely-needed cash into a business they knew was risky, Chrysler might have been forced to declare bankruptcy much earlier. (And now that lenders know they may be demonized by the president, will they be as likely to help out next time?)
One of the better critiques of this unusual situation comes from Clifford Asness, managing partner at a $20 billion hedge fund named AQR Capital Management. His essay responds to what he called "toxic demagoguery" and says "the president's attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him."
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A document that the non-TARP creditors filed with the bankruptcy judge about the proposed sale to Fiat says: "The sale is far from an arm's length transaction, but rather, is the result of a tainted sales process dominated by the United States government... It is a sale that was orchestrated entirely by the Treasury and foisted upon (Chrysler)... Well before the filing, (Chrysler) had ceased to function as an independent company and had become an instrumentality of the government."
So if you're keeping score, you have a bankrupt company depending on the government for money negotiating with some TARP-funded creditors depending on the government for money and still more creditors who may hold insurance policies with AIG, which depends on the government for money. And we're already hearing similar allegations about General Motors and political interference.
One disturbing report came from a well-respected attorney representing the dissident Chrysler creditors. Thomas Lauria, the head of White & Case's bankruptcy practice, says that he was threatened by Steven Rattner, the White House's auto task force chief. (A White House spokesman denies making any threats.)
"I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday," Lauria said on a Detroit radio show. "One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That's how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence." Lauria said that his clients were willing to compromise on 50 cents on the dollar, but the government offered them only 29 cents.
In the Federalist Papers in 1788, James Madison wrote that "laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation." Unfortunately, Washington politicians seem to pay little attention to history, morality, or the rule of law.
All of this economic upheaval and Federal Government takeover of private enterprises are only the beginning of the misuse of tax money and the trust of the American people.
Within the first six weeks, a "Stimulus" appropriations bill was passed that increased the budgets of all Federal Government entities by an average of nearly 80% followed by the "Omnibus" appropriations bill that increased the budgets of all Federal Government entities by an additional 8%. Some agencies in six weeks saw a 100% increase in the amount of tax money they could spend ... this at a time of under 4% inflation.
We, at MAXINE hope you are enjoying these first four months of Carter's Second Term!
The crowd gathered for the Tax Day Tea Bag event held on the front steps of the Glendale, CA City Hall. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)
May Day - Not Just For The Undocumented Anymore
Ever feel a little left out of the modern day festivities that surround the first day in the month of May?
There was a time that a community would look with anticipation toward May and the recognition that the spring planting season had begun in earnest. Townspeople would gather in the town center and halls to share in traditions that included parties, sing-alongs, Old World maypole dancing, and parades. Throughout the Northern Hemisphere, the month of May is a time to celebrate a renewal of life marked with May Day on the first day of May.
The modern trend for the last couple of years saw the introduction of attention getting protests about United States immigration policy. Protests re-branded not as May Day celebrations of life renewal but as "A Day Without A Mexican" and gatherings to promote socialists ideals where the Government should be in control of everything.
"Reconquista", the undocumented immigrant movement to re-assimilate the southwest United States back into the territory of Mexico has become a modern day May Day theme. Image Credit: Google Images
Two weeks ago, a phenomenon popped-up in the pantheon of protests. Citizens who have always desired and worked toward being a part of the fabric of a strong and free society, gathered in front of City Halls holding Tea Bags as a sign of protest, in the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party against the governmental act of taxation without representation in England to the colony states in North America. These were gatherings in protest of excessive tax laws being enacted and out-of-control Federal Government Spending used to support a shift toward a Socialist society as opposed to one that is based upon self-reliance and the God given rights to make decisions about and control ones personal life.
The April 15 Tax Day Tea Parties amassed nearly one-million (1,000,000) people at over 900 gatherings throughout the United States.
Since the newly elected executive administration assumed power in office January 20, 2009, the actions of the Obama Administration and the current Democrat Party controlled Congress have enacted two large Taxing/Spending laws (The Stimulus and Omnibus Spending Bills) amounting to an assessment of over $18,000 of additional debt for each and every household to fund spending increases of over 90% of current bureaucratic infrastructure programs. Normal increases generally keep track with economic expansion and inflation (a single digit 3% to 6% increase has been the custom).
Image Credit: May Day! May Day! - Defeat 1A page in Facebook
Enter May Day 2009 in Pasadena (this notice excerpted and edited from a Facebook Tea Party message broadcast): May Day! May Day! - Defeat 1A ... because socialism isn't cool
An action to celebrate spring and protest the upcoming May 19th vote that asks California citizens to tax themselves even MORE through a YES Vote on Propositions 1 A, B, C, D, & F!
This gathering is to bring attention on why one would want to Vote NO on all of these propositions and reject the notion that they would actually limit government and government spending. Where: Pasadena City Hall 100 N Garfield Ave
When: Friday, May 1st, 4pm
What: VIP Speakers, Rally, May Day Parade, Happy Hour
The Pasadena Tea Party Patriots are thrilled to announce that conservative thinker Larry Greenfield will join Evan Sayet, Victoria Jackson and Andrew Breitbart to speak at our May Day rally.
Our theme is "Anti-Socialism", so please go all out with the clever signs and "propaganda". We're also having a contest to see who can come looking most like their favorite communist dictator. The top 5 look-alikes will get VIP seating behind the podium for maximum media exposure. This could be a recipe for hilarity!
See you ALL there! ---- Dear Tea Party Patriots,
On behalf of the Pasadena Tea Party organizers, we'd like to thank you for standing with us against high taxes and Big Government. Our Tea Party and hundreds of others around America this week are just the first steps toward restoring the personal and economic freedoms that our Constitution guarantees. We must now translate this energy into IMMEDIATE AND AGGRESSIVE POLITICAL ACTION. We must punish those who betrayed us and replace them with principled representatives.
> DEFEAT CALIFORNIA PROPOSITIONS 1A-1F ON MAY 19
Our immediate objective is simple: DEFEAT PROPOSITIONS 1A-1F on May 19. California is already fiscally and politically bankrupt. If passed, these propositions will only drive us further in the hole. When we win, politicians in both parties will know that Californians intend to retake control of state government. Like Proposition 13, it will send a shockwave throughout California, Washington, D.C., all of America and even the world. > MAY DAY! – MAY DAY!
Our next action dates are May 1 and May 19. We’re choosing May Day because that’s when despotic socialist countries like North Korea stage parades pretending to celebrate the worker and democracy. We need to take that day back. Choosing “Mayday” is also fitting because all pilots and mariners use this expression to signal distress and imminent danger. This is exactly where we are in California.
> SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
May 1, 4p-7p, Pasadena City Hall Tea Party Rally, Parade and Happy Hour
May 1- 19, San Gabriel Valley ‘Boots on the Ground’
May 19, 6-10p, Mijares Restaurant Post Election Party
> COMMUNITY RE-ORGANIZERS NEEDED NOW
The radicals and agitators driving us into financial ruin – including at least one President – like to call themselves “Community Organizers.” Well, I guess that makes anyone trying to fix this mess a “Community RE-Organizer.” If this describes you, then we need your help in putting Boots on the Ground. Wes Hampton has volunteered to lead the ‘ground game’ here in the San Gabriel Valley. He has generously offered the use of his San Gabriel offices and phones to support our efforts.
While we appreciate your financial support, we are most interested in your personal involvement. Our strength lies not only in our numbers but in the active commitment and participation of our members in the political process. We have to take the battle to the Big Spenders. The upcoming special election will be our first big test. Our opponents will be watching us very closely to find out just how real we are, whether we can transform vigorous dissent into electoral success. They are hoping that the Tea Parties will be a one-time event that fades into politics as usual for the two major parties.
The only way we can change their political calculations is for us to participate fully, regularly and reliably in the electoral process. Ronald Reagan once said that the Russians loved the arms race as long as they were the only ones in it. It’s the same with California politics.
The Spendocrats in both parties have had the game to themselves – with predictable results. All that changes starting now.
> ACTION STEPS
Here are the steps you need to take:
• Make sure we know who you are. If you’re getting this message, at least your on our facebook page. Reply to this message and provide information requested below.
• Volunteer for something. We currently need volunteers to perform the following tasks:
· Full-time and part-time volunteers to monitor our email and web site. This can be done in the office or at home.
· Full-time and part-time volunteers to staff our office, especially during the upcoming Prop1A-F campaign.
· Bookkeeper and/or treasurer. Financial professional preferred.
· Coordinator for Speakers’ Forum
•Make sure we know who your friends are. Using the reply function, send us the name, email and as much additional contact information as is available for anyone you think should be on our distribution list. Reference Here>>
So, we at MAXINE urge ... come one and come ALL ... May Day Is Not Just For The Undocumented, Anymore!
UPDATES - Photographs and videos to be added after the event HERE >> (MAXINE will be in attendance as a Citizen Journalist - Pajamas Media/Editor - NowPublic). Impressions from the event:
May Day! May Day! No On 1A!
An action to celebrate spring and protest the upcoming May 19th vote that asks California citizens to tax themselves even MORE through a YES Vote on Propositions 1 A through F! This gathering is to bring attention on why one would want to Vote NO.
A great and enthusiastic crowd showed up ... we were even visited by one (1) protester who interrupted the speaker at the podium and claimed that Andrew Breitbart was involved in racist hate speech by citing that the policies of our current president amount to practicing socialism. Andrew asked him to take the microphone and defend his position, who, at that point walked up to the podium and continued to spew accusations without being able to support his position. He left, frustrated that he was unable to have his thoughts come out clearly at the podium.
As the crowd gathered around waiting for the event to begin, ethnic Russian sounding music performed by LIMPOPO filled the air of this decidedly ANTI-socialism rally setting a fun tongue- in-cheek posture amongst this community of ... PROTESTERS!
VIP speakers included: -Victoria Jackson, comedienne and Saturday Night Live alum, -Evan Sayet, political pundit and comedian who will serve as Master of Ceremonies -Andrew Breitbart, Washington Times columnist and creator of Big Hollywood and Breitbart.tv -Larry Greenfield, Vice President of the Claremont Institute and former Regional Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
All were filled with great focus and good advice on how to stick to ones convictions. Evan Sayet had one of the most humorous lines of the gathering when said that the Left and the Right are really not that far apart - The Right quotes Patrick Henry (personage in full costume and fife played by Jim Riley of the apple growing region of San Bernardino County, Oak Glen, CA) and states "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" where as the Left ... while close, says "Give me Librium or give me Meth!"
There was a costume contest for protesters dressed as infamous communist dictators (i.e.Castro, Mao, Stalin, Chavez). The top 5 look-alikes would have received VIP seating behind the podium for maximum media exposure, but they wanted to remain in the crowd to give it the color and the humor the event commanded.
Victoria Jackson was brilliant and perfect for this gathering of unlikely protesters (she stated that she was not the type to get up and speak on political things, that this was her third time ... one couldn't tell, especially as she introduced her daughter). The protesters were unlikely in that, they were all well dressed, clean and a pretty sober bunch with smiles. It isn't that they lacked passion for the protest subject, the crowd just wouldn't be the sort that would go out and turn over cars, break windows, and such because they respected all peoples property and space ... but get them in a voting booth - WATCH OUT!
Following the rally, a fife playing Patrick Henry led protesters on a patriotic march through historic Old Town Pasadena where participants gathered for a happy hour celebration at Brix 42 Pub & Brewery. The march drew honks from passing cars on Colorado Blvd. in a show of support for the messages on the signs they had read.
It is time for all with a passion to place "BOOTS ON THE GROUND" in the community in order to defeat Propositions 1A-F. California is already fiscally and politically bankrupt. If passed, these propositions will only drive us further in the hole. When we win, politicians in both parties will know that Californians intend to retake control of state government. Like Proposition 13, it will send a shockwave throughout California, Washington, D.C., all of America and even the world.
Mexico rattled by 6.0 magnitude earthquake (double-click image for video). Image Credit: USGS
Mexico City - Earthquake Rocks Tixtla, Guerrero, 5.8 Magnitude
ACTIFY YOURSELVES! (see video, it is really rich!)
First reports have the earthquake set at 5.8 magnitude on the Richter scale but as these things go ... could go higher.
It is too soon to report on possible damage and injuries.
This just in from Reuters:
Mexico was hit by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The USGS said the quake hit 19 miles south-southeast of Tixtla, Guerrero, about 150 miles south of the capital, Mexico City. It was 25.6 miles deep.
Buildings in the capital shook.
Quakes of this magnitude are classified as strong and are capable of causing severe damage. The USGS earlier reported the quake measured 5.8. Source: reuters.com
This excerpted and edited from the BBC -
A strong earthquake has struck south of Mexico's capital, Mexico City, causing buildings to shake and prompting workers to rush out onto the streets. ----
Mexico is currently battling an outbreak of the swine flu virus, which has claimed 149 lives in the country. Source: news.bbc.co.uk
This excerpted from Bloomberg News -
Some phone lines were knocked out of service in the capital’s historic center, El Universal newspaper reported on its Web site. Reforma newspaper cited the public security ministry as saying there were no reports of major incidents of damage related to the earthquake. The quake hit at about 11:46 a.m. local time at a depth of about 49 kilometers, according to the USGS.
Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, said its refineries are operating normally following the earthquake.
A Health Ministry press conference about the country’s outbreak of swine flu paused during the temblor, then resumed. Source: bloomberg.com
Although the peacock logo for the NBC television network was meant to be multi-colored, for one week each year it definitely “goes green!” For the second year NBC Universal presented over 150 hours of environmentally themed content in a variety of platforms. NBC and NBC.com celebrated their talent in “The More You Know” PSA campaign. Using famous NBC regulars, they produced green-themed storylines in several of their daytime and primetime shows. Image Credit: cassiekleinsmith.files.wordpress.com
FEAR FACTOR ... Not Just Another Reality TV Show
FUTURE EARTH: Journey To The End Of The World ... with Lester Holt, on MSNBC
The title of this posting and the title of the NBC special program has to do with multinational corporation, General Electric, and it's attempts at using their extensive media arm NBC Universal and related properties (Bravo, CNBC, 13th Street, Sci-Fi Channel, Hallmark Channel, Universal Channel, DivaTV, KidsCo, MSNBC, mun2, NBC, NBC Universal Television Distribution, Universal Television Distribution, NBCU Cable Affiliate Support, NBCU Marketplace, Oxygen Pay Per View/VOD, Sci Fi, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Universal Production Studios, Universal Studios Home Video, Universal Studios Theme Parks: Featured Attraction, Universal Studios Theme Parks: Hollywood, Universal Studios Theme Parks: Japan, Universal Studios Theme Parks: Mediterranea, Universal Studios Theme Parks: Orlando, Universal Studios Theme Parks: Tickets, Universal Television, USA Network, The Weather Channel) to manipulate, massage, and coerce public opinion to be acceptable to Government mandated Green policies that would take Billions of taxpayer dollars through Cap and Trade carbon emissions laws and transfer them to Green projects General Electric believes their company would be the beneficiary of.
For its part, NBC News correspondent, Lester Holt, disclosed in a two minute "ad" that aired during the Sunday Today program, NBC's version of what appeared to be Al Gore's speculation filled, junk science based, Oscar Awarded movie ... "An Inconvenient Truth", which claims that our planet is headed for disaster and that our oceans will rise up 20 plus feet in the very near (tens of years) future.
The real inconvenient truth is that our population is being subjected to coercion, and corruption by a multinational corporation that wants YOUR money to prop it up!
Case In Point: Ad from NBC's Sunday Today for NBC News program (2:25 min.)
This just does not seem right. Full disclosure should be expected from a large company like General Electric. What really makes this situation worse, is that the company has not run its business responsibly, which places it into a situation of desperation. To receive large amounts of Government money in the form of Green contracts looks to be the only strategy of revival for this once proud sponsor of Ronald Reagan when he hosted television programs in the early fifties (before he became a politician).
Case In Point: O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo
This excerpted and edited from NewsBusters -
O'Reilly Claims 'Corruption': GE Using CNBC, MSNBC to Promote Cap-and-Trade for Financial Gain By Jeff Poor - April 23, 2009 - 21:11 ET
It has been something that there have been rumblings about, but no one has really put the x's and o's together entirely - that General Electric (NYSE:GE) is using its media arm, NBC Universal to promote President Barack Obama's so-called progressive agenda for its own financial gain. ---- O'Reilly outlined how Obama has gotten support from the NBC networks both pre-election and post-election.
"Will General Electric get paid for supporting President Obama - that is the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo," O'Reilly said. "As everybody knows, GE, which owns NBC has been very aggressive in helping Barack Obama - first supporting the president in the election and now attacking his critics." ---- Certain on-air CNBC personalities had been outspoken in criticizing Obama's economic policies. However, that has changed somewhat and according to O'Reilly, CNBC Chicago Mercantile Exchange reporter Rick Santelli - the inspiration for the recent Tax Day tea party protests - had said he had been sent to a "reeducation camp."
"There is also emerging evidence that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC News chief Jeff Zucker told CNBC personnel to stop criticizing Obama's economic policies," O'Reilly said. "Now, that would be a major breach of journalistic ethics. ---- O'Reilly played a clip from MSNBC' "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on April 16, when Janeane Garofalo, in a hateful tirade, called Tax Day tea party protest participants "nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks." ---- "That's no surprise, as also this week Forbes magazine labeled Immelt one of the worst-performing CEOs in the country."
O'Reilly also played the exchange between his producer Jesse Watters and Jeffrey Immelt at the April 22 shareholders' meeting, where he questioned the ethics of MSNBC. But, according to O'Reilly there is reason to believe the slant of MSNBC is allowed because GE stands to profit if Obama is successful in instituting his priorities, specifically cap-and-trade.
"Now, most CEOs would have stopped NBC's corruption a long time ago, but Immelt may be looking for a major payoff," O'Reilly said. "According to reporting by the Washington Examiner, GE is heavily lobbying the Obama administration for bailout money. The company is also pushing for the proposed cap-and-trade program. Apparently GE has set up a joint venture it hopes would manage billions of dollars in cap-and-trade transactions should that corporate carbon tax pass Congress."
NBC has been actively promoting green issues and this revelation by O'Reilly happens to fall during the NBC Universal networks "Green is Universal" week.
"Now think about this ladies and gentlemen - a failing corporation, General Electric might reap billions of dollars if the Feds OK the carbon deal," O'Reilly said. "By the way, GE is already getting taxpayer bailout money for its financial unit. So it's not a stretch to assume Immelt would want to help President Obama as much as possible."
According to O'Reilly, the level of corruption is so big, it stands to make Watergate look small.
"This is obviously a major story - when a powerful corporation, which controls a major part of the American media, may be using its power and the airwaves to influence politics, in order to make money from government contracts," O'Reilly said. "That kind of corruption would make Watergate look small. We hope it is not true." Reference Here>>
We, at MAXINE, think Bill O'Reilly is on to something, this Non-Reality television program is just another naked shake-down perpetrated by a major media arm of a hurting and failing consumer products company that is suffering from mismanagement.
Do not submit to the FEAR FACTOR of these tactics ... they are intended to have you agree with the transfer of Billions of your dollars to this corporation's bottom line.
"Citizen Journalist Wanted" - banner ad on PJTV - Photo Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009) Tea Parties - When Citizen Journalism Is The Only Outlet
Today, April 15, 2009 … a day when all Americans are supposed to have their taxes filed with the Internal Revenue Service (headed by Timothy Geithner – a man who was allowed to cheat/then pay-up on his taxes), 750 gatherings of citizens are scheduled throughout the nation and not one mention on the front pages of Main Stream Media newspapers. Examples:
New York Times Front Page
Image Credit: NYT.com
Boston Globe Front Page
Image Credit: Boston Globe, Online The Los Angeles Times Front Page
Image Credit: LA Times online
Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan, A Day Without An Immigrant, Million Man March, and other demonstrations that will have way less people showing up to attend to show support in getting a message of displeasure out routinely get front page spreads and advance information as to the event(s) and what the issues of protest are about from the MSM jungle drumbeat.
This tea party movement has had no such 4th Estate involvement.
A brief history excerpted and edited from Michelle Malkin – A Tax Day Tea Party cheat sheet: How it all started By Michelle Malkin • April 15, 2009 08:14 AM
For the Johnny-Come-Latelys in the MSM who will be dispatched by their editors to file obligatory stories about the hundreds of Tax Day Tea Party protests across the country today, here is a cheat sheet to get you up to speed.
Feb. 15: Keli Carender, who blogs as “Liberty Belle” spread the word about a grass-roots protest she was organizing in Seattle to raise her voice against the passage of the trillion-dollar stimulus/porkulus/Generational Theft Act of 2009. It’s the first time she had ever jumped into political organizing of any kind. She is not affiliated with any “corporate lobbyist” or think tank or national taxpayers’ organization. She’s a young conservative mom who blogs. Amazingly, she turned around the event in a few days all on her own by reaching out on the Internet, to her local talk station, and to anyone who would listen.
Feb. 16: An energetic crowd of about 100 people came downtown to lambaste the Chicken Little process and the lard-up of the stimulus bill:
Word of the Seattle protest spread across the blogosphere. Readers suggested there should be a Denver protest on Feb. 17 to greet President Obama for the porkulus signing. Separately, the local chapter of Americans for Prosperity was already working to put something together on the fly. I met the head of the state AFP for the first time on the steps of the Capitol. No conspiracy here, tinfoil hatters. It was a union of like minds in an impromptu show of outrage against the legislation-without-deliberation process in Washington. Also there: Jon Caldara of the libertarian Independence Institute on one end of the spectrum and Tom Tancredo on the strict immigration enforcement end (hundreds of the protesters were mad about the absence of E-Verify standards for the stimulus funding):
On Feb. 18, 500 fed-up taxpayers showed up in Mesa, AZ to oppose President Obama’s campaign for massive expansions of the government mortgage entitlement and to mock what SC Gov. Mark Sanford rightly called savior-based economics. No top-down organization. Just the effort of local talk radio station KFYI. No Beltway GOP involvement. Zero national media coverage.
On Feb. 19, reader Amanda Grosserode e-mailed that she was organizing a tax revolt protest in Overland Park, KS the following weekend. More than 400 people showed up in freezing weather to protest Rep. Dennis Moore’s vote for the bill. Glenn Reynolds did the reporting the MSM didn’t do.
On Feb. 19, CNBC’s Rick Santelli issued his now-famous “Tea Party” call — prompted, many people forget, by Obama’s mortgage entitlement expansion plans (proposals I’ve protested whether from Democrats or moron Republicans): ---- On Feb. 21, the grass-roots Internet group, Top Conservatives on Twitter, founded by Michael Patrick Leahy and powered by Rob Neppell, announced “simultaneous local tea parties around the country, beginning in Chicago, and including Washington DC, Fayetteville NC, San Diego CA, Omaha Nebraska, and dozens of other locations”. ---- And along the way, detractors have fumbled and bumbled over how to discredit the Tea Party organizers — first blaming a cabal tied to CNBC, then jeering at the amateurishness of the participants before crying “astroturf,” then claiming the events were “financed by Fox News” or (fill-in-the-blank) conservative conspiracy, then smearing the protesters as crazed gun nuts (FNC’s Bob Beckel) and racists (FNC’s Geraldo Rivera).
Wouldn’t it be refreshing if MSM coverage refrained from parroting all the lazy, groundless, uninformed canards and reported the simple truth? Reference Here>>
Again, large gatherings of Americans - NOT just Republicans, NOT just Democrats – are gathering in over 750 cities throughout the United States, and in most cases, Politicians have been dis-invited. Pretty much a definition of GRASS ROOTS, and all of this activity after the Department of Homeland Security has labeled this type of activity as part of the list of recruitment threats to Radical Right-Wing political activity and terrorism.
Crew members of the Maersk Alabama celebrated after hearing that their captain, who had been held hostage by Somali pirates, had been rescued. Image Credit: Roberto Schmidt/AFP — Getty Images
Somali Pirate Or Enemy Combatant – What’s The Difference?
All this last week and Easter weekend, the world media attention was affixed upon the events surrounding the assault, attempted takeover, and kidnapping of a captain of an American flagged container ship. The leadership and action shown by our military that ended the internationally illegal action and saved the container ship captain, Capt. Richard Phillips, was exemplary.
While our President ducked questions from the media (and diplomats from the State Department negotiated with Somali Klan Elders via satellite phone) about the assault and kidnapping happening in the Indian Ocean off of Somalia, the military was preparing for action, then acted under direct orders from the on-scene commander.
President-elect Barack Obama at a press conference on December 7, 2008. Image Credit: Scott Olson, Getty Images
This excerpted and edited from WXYZ-TV Detroit –
Obama declines to answer question on piracy wxyz.com - Last Update: 4/09 10:37 am
President Barack Obama has declined to answer a question about the hostage situation off the coast of Somalia.
The president was asked about the incident as he met with U.S. homeowners about refinancing mortgages. At the close of a Roosevelt Room event, the president was asked by a reporter if he were concerned about the piracy incident.
Obama responded: "Guys, we're talking about housing right now."
Reporters were then ushered out of the room as they usually are after such events. Reference Here>>
This is the new leader of the Free World and he can not even address the terrorist and illegal acts of pirates on an American vessel. I would have hated to see what President Barack Obama’s reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor would have been if he were in place on 7 December 1941.
Last March, the Obama Administration decided to remove the term “Enemy Combatant” from the terminology used by the American Government in dealing with people who committed acts of war but were not controlled or governed by any organized country. A term was needed after 11 September 2001, to deal with people who caused acts of war, mass murder, and were not governed by an organized country after hijacked passenger jets were flown into the World Trade Center Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C..
Why don’t we just call them Pirates?
Pirates are not governed by any country, they terrorize, disrupt a culture, murder and profit from their uncivilized and illegal acts just as “Enemy Combatants” and the international laws of piracy are clear and the punishment is harsh … first offense can get one life in prison!
We, at MAXINE, suggest that we call “Enemy Combatants” (EC’s) … “Pirates” (P’s).
EC’s and P’s are all working to disrupt the way life is carried out because of some perceived nonnegotiable grievance. EC’s and P’s all will use what ever means to achieve their ends that include violence, kidnapping, theft, and destruction. With EC’s and P’s, the war never ends until they choose not to act, otherwise all of these acts must be dealt with at the time they happen and harshly … these acts should never be appeased.
The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.The 300-pound prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway's characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It's designed to reach speeds of up to 35 miles-per-hour and can run 35 miles on a single charge. Image Credit: General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. via Huffington Post Obama's GM & Segway To Produce Single Person Clown Car
General Motors (struggling, Obama Administration managed automaker) is teaming up with Segway (geek-mover sold primarily to local Governments) to produce a new two-wheeled vehicle for the urban landscape called the PUMA.
It looks like someone took a SMART car and squeezed it. It's far more car-like (and faster) than the Segway, and hopefully, for both GM and Segway, prove more mass-market-friendly: the Segway is banned on many city streets because it's too big to be considered a bike, and too slow and exposed to be considered a car. It is this reason that it has only been acceptable to local Governments for patrol and traffic control (also featured in Paul Blartt Mall Cop, Safety Never Takes A Vacation).
This excerpted and edited from The Wall Street Journal -
GM, Segway to Make Vehicle By SHARON TERLEP, The Wall Street Journal - APRIL 7, 2009
General Motors Corp. is teaming with Segway Inc., maker of the upright, self-balancing scooters, to build a new type of two-wheeled vehicle designed to move easily through congested urban streets.
The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility - PUMA - Image Credit: General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. via Huffington Post ---- GM has slashed product-development programs, advertising and spending on auto-show events. But it will take to the streets of Manhattan on Tuesday to show off a prototype of the vehicle, called PUMA, for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility. ---- The machine, which GM says it aims to develop by 2012, would run on batteries and use wireless technology to avoid traffic backups and navigate cities. ---- GM is betting PUMA's more car-like traits -- an enclosed compartment and top speed of 35 miles per hour -- will lead to better results.
GM didn't say how much the machines would cost, but research chief Larry Burns said owners would spend one-third to one-fourth of the cost of a traditional vehicle. Reference Here>>
The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility - PUMA - Image Credit: General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. via Huffington Post
This is more of what we can expect from an automobile company owned and operated by the Federal Government and Unions - Clown Cars, and Scooters!
OK,OK! So they're hi-tech. Questions: How practical is this Obama Wheel-Chair (Barack-O-Chair)? Where does one place an airbag?
Where is the updated and Green refined version of the 1957 Chevy with a 0-100 in under 9 seconds acceleration that runs on Hydrogen or Electricity and costs under $20,000?!
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The Deaf Are The Most Longing To Hear by Edmund Jenks
March 26, 2009, 5:52 am
A blog post spawned by a response to a previous posting about the comparison of deficiet spending between the two-party rule 43rd Presidency and the fledgling one-party rule 44th Presidency ...
Thanks for your concern but if one more mind hears, then we all get a little less hurt.
You know, it isn't Left Vs Right ... Democrat Vs Republican anymore!
The political fight in this country is really between those who are aligned with Total Government - TG (Totalitarianism, Communism, Fascism, Dictatorship) and No Government - NG (Anarchy). Sadly, both Democrats and Republicans are way to the left of what would be a center point between these two extremes.
The Constitution of the United States, for example, structures a Government that is way closer to Anarchy than the center point between Total Government and No Government.
"Total Government - No Government" Political Spectrum - The political spectrum of the United Stated at the beginning of the 44th Presidency of Barack Obama. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (MAXINE) 2009
This is simply an illustration of how far our country has drifted away from its core values found in the Constitution.
It really is about all of us treating each and every individual, as we find them, with personal freedom and respect.
If you question the logic of this proposal, then all one needs to do is ask ---
"Is this a country by the people, for the people (as it says in the constitution) when the largest spending bill in the history of the nation is put to a vote, through a forced compressed time procedure, before anyone (legislator or citizen) has enough time to actually read the legislation?"
"Is this a country by the people, for the people when the legislators are considering a law that forces the elimination of a secret vote in the work place?" - what is next, laws to abolish any secret vote anywhere there are powerful forces that want to force their will on others?
What is happening in this country is that the Constitution is under assault and people's personal freedoms are not given any value by the people who are elected to protect them ... as guaranteed by the Constitution (this nation's founding and forming document).
In back-to-back press conferences (held Nov. 24, 2008) by Bush (first) and Obama (second), the men either stated or implied that they were sort of working together to muscle the nation through this tough economic period. Bush said, “I talked to Obama about the decision we made. I told the American people, and I told the president-elect when I first met him, that anytime we were to make a big decision during this transition, he will be informed, as will his team.” The plans discussed are still in play to this day during the Obama Administration. Image Credit: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (2008)
Ebony & Ivory - Obama Deficits & Bush Deficits Together
These figures do not live together in perfect harmony here in Carter's Second Term.
Question:
Did you know that the Barack Obama Administration inherited deficits from the previous Bush Administration? Really?!
How can the Obama Administration continue to float the tired old saw that they just happen to inherit large deficits so it will take more just to dig ourselves out?
After sixty short days, the Congress that the Obama Administration actually DID INHERIT, and Barack Obama himself, increased the commitments to spend taxpayer money on social programs alone from the 3% of GDP to 20% of GDP ... or an increase in social spending programs of an eerie 6.66 times greater level.
It is called Deficit Spending (socialism) - and now foreign countries (China and Russia) are suggesting that the world economy adopt a new currency on which to peg/judge the value of other currencies other than the United States dollar - the formally most stable currency in the world.
Graphic showing the Bush Administration and the committed and projected Obama Administration deficits side-by-side. Graphic Credit: The Washington Post via the Heritage Foundation (2009)
This excerpted and edited from the Heritage Foundation - Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures The Heritage Foundation - Posted March 24th, 2009 at 10.20am
President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The Washington Post has a great graphic which helps put President Obama’s budget deficits in context of President Bush’s.
* President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
* President Bush began a string of expensive financial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
* President Bush created a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new government health care fund.
* President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. President Obama would double it. ---- * President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.
* President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016. Reference Here>>
What the American people inherited with the Clinton and Bush Administrations (and thrust forward with the Obama Administration) were the building blocks of economic slavery and communism.
First, the Government took the position that every person that lived in America (citizen or non-citizen) deserved to be able to participate in home ownership. The Clinton Administration formed the quasi Governmental financial institutions backed by taxpayer money of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to insure low interest loans with reduced qualification requirements. Bonus programs were implemented and paid to the political (Democrat) management of these organizations.
Banks did not want to lend money with this level of low proof, so the management of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae had community development organizations (ACORN) prod them to loan money through lawsuits. In order to fuel demand for these weak mortgages (purchase commitments without the ability or intention to pay), the Government regulating agencies allowed them to be bundled and packaged as grouped financial instruments and sold to the highest bidder through insurance companies and financial institutions (AIG, WAMU, Wachovia, banks in France, Finland, Germany, and etc.).
What triggered this collapse is the increased payment demanded the mortgage companies when the initial period of artificially low inducement interest ran out and the actual value of the house became greater than the mortgage value of the home. People who originally had no real means to afford the home they committed to purchase in the first place, simply walked away with no real damage to their lives leaving all of the intuitions holding the mortgages without an income stream. The asset value of the bundled "Junk Mortgages" dropped and the economic crisis begins.
The sick logic in all of this is that the two-party Bush Government got our economy into this position and now the one-party Obama Government (of Obama/Pelosi/Reid) is smart enough to get us out … with heavier intervention and greater spending commitments - all on the American Taxpayer.
Does anyone in Government realize that this deficit spending of our collective money will all implode eventually?
We, at MAXINE, believe this strategy will turn our currency into the value of the bundled "Junk Mortgages" that helped to put us into this place to start with - all on the back of the Government move toward social engineering!
Organized by We Surround Them Palm Springs, the TEA Party Anti-Tax Rally was a great success. Anytime on can have the local police begin to get upset and exert control over a peaceful enterprize, maybe one is touching a nerve. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)
Many hand made/home made signs designed to inform and get a reaction from passersby. The rally was held in the noonday sun of an early sping Friday with the temperature approaching 100 degrees, Fahrenheit. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)
