Isn’t that great?? Well, it would be if it was actually true. But it is not. For instance, did you know that Puerto Rico has 99 districts? Nope, me, either. Because they don’t. They have 1 (one). How about Arizona? Heck, they’ve got at least 38 (thirty-eight), right? Oh, wait, no they don’t – they have 8 (eight). The alleged “recovered jobs” bragged about by Biden and how our stimulus money is being spent don’t quite match up. I know, big surprise (almost as much as the following report being on ABCNews):

Wow that’s some “state of the art system” you got going on there, Joe. And I am SOOOOO sure that all of the problems are the result of people not knowing in which district they live. Oh, sure. Because it is so difficult to access that information. I mean, really, you might need to make a PHONE CALL or something. Or look it up on “the internets,” if it isn’t in the area in which you live. Because then, you could just take a little look-see at your voter registration card! Gosh, I am just stunned that they would not be getting these numbers right!

Speaking of jobs, check out these headlines:

This is exactly why so many of us are concerned about the Government running our health care system. Can you say fraud? If they cannot even get this right, how are they going to adequately address issues of life and death?? I don’t think even an abacus could help out there …

I am sure you will be SHOCKED to learn that Obama is acting in much the same way. I know, I know – what a surprise. Ahem. Well, it seems some one has been doing a little investigative journalism, something in VERY short supply of late. But get this – I tell you, you better be sitting down – in this case, it was – WAIT FOR IT –
MSNBC. YES, the very network to which we routinely refer as “MSNBO”! Once I recovered from the shock of it all, I couldn’t wait to see just how transparent President Obama was compared to Bush. (I wonder if there is a way for us to do a pool on these kinds of things, like for NCAA basketball or something?)

This is what MSNBC uncovered in this report:

Obama Names 110 White House Visitors

The White House on Friday released a small list of visitors to the White House since President Barack Obama took office in January, including lobbyists, business executives, activists and celebrities.

No previous administration has released such a list, though the information out so far is incomplete. Only about 110 names —and 481 visits —out of the hundreds of thousands who have visited the Obama White House were made public. Like the Bush administration before it, Obama is arguing that any release is voluntary, not required by law, despite two federal court rulings to the contrary.

The emphasis there is mine. This is a bit of a schizophrenic opening. On the one hand, they want to champion that Obama released 110 names – Woohoo!! On the other hand, they have to acknowledge that, once again, President Obama is using the SAME arguments as Bush. Moreover, this “Constitutional Scholar” is doing so in clear violation of not one, but TWO federal court rulings! Maybe the KoolAide was made improperly that day, I don’t know, but the report continues:

Under the Obama White House’s policy, most names of visitors from Inauguration Day in January through the end of September will never be released. The White House says it plans to release most of the names of visitors from October on, and that release is due near the end of the year. There are limitations there as well, including potential Supreme Court nominees, personal guests of the First Family, and certain security officials.

The names released Friday include business leaders and lobbyists with a lot to gain or lose from Obama policies. They include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (whose foundation is pushing for changes in teacher pay), former AIG chairman Maurice Greenberg, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Chevron CEO David O’Reilly, Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JP Morgan’s James Dimon, Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis, John Stumpf of Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley’s John Mack, State Street bank’s Ron Logue, BNY Mellon’s Robert Kelly, labor leader Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union (22 visits)*, American Bankers Association CEO Ed Yingling, community bankers president Camden Fine, and lobbyists Heather and Anthony Podesta, whose brother John Podesta led Obama’s transition team.

Besides Gates, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt are also on the list. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC. One of NBC’s parents is GE.)

Advocates and nonprofit leaders include National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is interested in health policy.

So, this is how Obama is paying these people and organizations back, by having them in the White House? I bet Kim Gandy was just all aflutter after she threw ALL women under the bus to endorse Obama over a life-long women’s advocate. There is more on her below.

I know many readers will be interested in this White House guest:

Democratic donor and businessman George Soros visited with White House aides twice.

Yes, indeedy, a major funder of Moveon.org has been to check up on his biggest investment – ahem – twice.

We’re just getting started:

Political figures include former Sen. Thomas Daschle, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, former Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. Al Franken, former Vice President Al Gore, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, and Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf.

Celebrities at the White House include Oprah Winfrey, actors Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Denzel Washington, and tennis star Serena Williams. Journalists include Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner in economics.

Conservative religious leader Gary Bauer visited, as did liberal civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Okay, the last two, along with Oprah, are NOT a surprise. Gary Bauer? Just a tad surprising.

For anyone who wants to see more:

Msnbc.com has put the full list in a handy PDF file, and also in an Excel file for those who like to sort.

One guest is mighty interesting:

Not that Bill Ayers

The White House warns that many names that may appear familiar — and controversial — do not in fact refer to the most famous people to carry those names. Jeremiah Wright is on the list, but it’s not the president’s former pastor. This Michael Jordan is not the basketball player. This Michael Moore is not a filmmaker. The William Ayers who took a group tour of the White House isn’t the former radical from Chicago who figured so prominently in the 2008 campaign. And the Angela Davis on the list has a different middle initial than the activist and former fugitive.

The White House could have avoided some of that sort of confusion by providing more information on the visitors, such as an employer name and the city they hail from. For example, is the Shawn Carter who attended a poetry reading the same one who goes by Jay-Z and had campaigned for Obama?

“This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information,” a White House special counsel, Norm Eisen, wrote on the White House blog.

If you spot a name on the list that bears investigating, please drop us a note.

Of COURSE we will just trust Obama and his spokes-minions when they assure us that this Bill Ayers could not POSSIBLY be domestic terrorist – Capitol Building and Pentagon bomber – long time friend and mentor Bill Ayers! He is just some guy who wanted to visit the White House Gift Shop and pick up a couple of Marine One helicopter models for his boys. I am sure of it. Sheesh. Really? They expect us to believe this crap? Evidently – they got plenty of other people to believe that kind of crap and more, so why stop now?

Okay – if you are consuming any liquids right this minute, I suggest you put it down when you read this:

Limited release

Despite the accompanying White House claim of “transparency like you’ve never seen before,” the Obama White House continues to take the same legal position as the Bush White House, arguing that the records are not public records subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Only limited “voluntary releases” are being made to settle a lawsuit filed by an advocacy group, though a federal judge has twice ruled that all the visitor logs are public. (Again, emphasis is mine.)

Yet there are severe limitations to the transparency:

Most of the visitors from Inauguration Day to September will never be released by the White House under this voluntary disclosure — unless the public can guess their names. The White House policy doesn’t allow members of the public or press to ask for “everyone who visited health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle,” or everyone who visited on May 4, or everyone from the American Medical Association. Only individual names can be checked.

I know, right? Didn’t this sound just a little pissy?? From someone at MSNBC?? The bigger picture is that the Obama Administration is BREAKING THE LAW. Hell to the YES, that information falls under FOIA – this is OUR White House, not the Obamas. We most definitely DO get to know every single John Smith and Jane Doe who cross the threshold of the White House. You better believe we do.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it is a start:

The list released at 4:30 p.m. Friday includes just about 110 names with 481 visits. Those names were among those requested by members of the public so far, for visits during the period from Inauguration Day through July. (That’s why we know of visits by the wrong Bill Ayers, the wrong Angela Davis, etc., but we don’t know of visits by countless unnamed lobbyists.) Members of the public who used the White House online form to check names did not receive a personal reply indicating whether or not the request was received, or whether the name appeared on the list, so the system provides no feedback. Does the absence of Bill Clinton’s name on the list mean that he has not been to the White House, or that the request wasn’t received by the White House online system?

A request for the complete records of all visitors from the first months of the administration, filed by msnbc.com, was rejected by the White House, and an appeal is pending. The news organization requested the names of all visitors to the Obama White House beginning with Inauguration Day. Msnbc.com has filed an administrative appeal with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

Say whaa?? The White House rejected a request from their lapdog “news” source?? Huh. There’s a shocker. Welcome to the “Under The Bus” club, MSNBC!

The Wall Street Journal focused on the most frequent visitor to the White House. He was mentioned in the list above, but without the acknowledgment of the frequency:

SEIU’s Stern Tops White House Visitor List

Promising “transparency like you’ve never seen before,” The White House released its visitor log this evening under a new voluntary disclosure policy.

The log chronicles 481 visits to the White House from individuals ranging from Jay-Z to Bill Gates from January through July.

The list includes William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Moore, Robert Kelly (R. Kelly), Malik Shabazz, and Michael Jordan.

But the White House said those aren’t the guys you’re thinking of. Nor is the log complete.

Ahahahahahahaha!!! I just cannot get enough of this one – sure, they aren’t the same people. Yeah, okay, we believe you. NOT. And because it is just so much fun to see them squirm, I am keeping in the part that is repetitive of the article above, especially the quotes from Eisen. Oh, what a funny guy:

“A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings. Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few ‘false positives’ – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else,” Norm Eisen, a special counsel to the president, writes on the White House blog. “The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.”

Adds Eisen: “This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information.”

Uh, ya know, I think we are all smart enough to not get all confused by this incredible level of “transparency.” Beginning with, we actually know the definition of “transparency,” something Eisen and Obama apparently do not.

And then there is this:

One thing is clear: *Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern holds sway at the White House, where he’s listed for 22 visits—the top number on the logs. Visitors in the top 10 also include former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, and NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan.

So THAT’S what Gandy and Keenan got for stabbing Hillary Clinton and, well, WOMEN, int he back – visits to the White House. I guess there is something gained by selling your soul, though, personally, I don’t think it is worth it. But that’s just me.

Anywho – yes, the President of the SEIU, again, the union co-founded by the founder of ACORN, Wade Rathke, is the TOP visitor at the White House. The SEIU has been in the news quite a bit, especially for holding California hostage – threatening that their good buddy, Obama, would not give the state any federal stimulus funds if it had the audacity to expect the union to cut wages like everyone else so the state wouldn’t go bankrupt. NOW we know how the union was able to do that. All those visits to the White House apparently paid off – for the union, not California, the state with one of the largest budgets around (as in 5th in the world). What makes this more egregious is that California pays a lot into the federal tax system and receives little comparatively speaking. And this union is allowed – by the White House – to hold it over a barrel. Yep, all those meetings seemed to do the trick!

Aren’t you just so heartened by all of this “transparency”? And by seeing who Obama is welcoming into our White House? Yeah, me, too. As long as the Obama Administration continues to thumb its nose at Federal Law, I reckon we should be “thankful” for this (no, not really – it’s BS that they are still sitting on so much information).

Oh, but if you can just GUESS who might else have been there and submit that form asking them, maybe you can confirm some other folks who have been there, too. Lemme know what you find out, okay? I am sure we would all just love to know…

MSNBC is devoting the week to news and opinion stories on the dramatically shifting power and influence of women in America. The week’s reports, led by Maria Shriver and John Podesta, is called “A Woman’s Nation.” Below you’ll find videos of two segments that contain impressive statistics on the growing status of women.

Over and over again, in segments I caught today, MSNBC played Hillary Clinton’s powerful but saddening speech about those “18 million cracks.” (I still cannot watch that speech without my throat tightening. Every time I hear it, I’m reminded about what might have been had she received the nomination she won, and then the presidency, which she surely would have won.)

Then there’s the gorilla in the room that we all know: Only two women, ever, have been on a national ticket (Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin) and, then, as VP candidates.

The only two women to run for president, said the men of MSNBC (with the females* nodding along), were the wives of top-level politicians — Elizabeth Dole and Hillary. The three women running currently for governor, including Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, were mentioned as future viable candidates, as was Sarah Palin in passing.

Podesta and Joe Scarborough said there’s no “bench” from which to consider a woman for national office, and the two men referred to the three female candidates as the only potential (emphasis on potent) candidates. Oddly (or typically), in describing the lack of that “bench,” the MSNBC hosts failed to mention the women who currently are governor. Oh, wait – that’s right. Women who are in the same positions as their male counterparts don’t count as much as the men do. How could I forget that reality?

If present and past governors such as Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Howard Dean have been easily regarded as part of the male bench — and we all know that male governors are regularly, habitually promoted for national office — why don’t the MSNBC males consider the current female governors serving their states? Are Jodi Rell (CT), Christine Gregoire (WA), Beverly Perdue (NC), and Jan Brewer (AZ) so shunted aside in any national media discussion that no one outside their states even knows who they are? Why don’t any of them merit a mention for national office? Why is a former governor, Sarah Palin, the only female mentioned, and even then, with derision, as if she had no business even being acknowledged as governor of a state? It is a fairly prestigious accomplishment given the fairly low numbers of governors in general. She WON the position. It was not handed to her. Yet, neither she, nor the other female governors are treated the same as their male counterparts.

Ever since I watched that segment on Morning Joe, the MSNBC males’ dismissal of any of the current female governors — not even a word about them, let alone their names — has been eating at me. How dare these males say that women have “no bench” of candidates until they, themselves, realize that the media regularly fail to mention any of these powerful female governors?

Then there are the 13 female U.S. senators. Why do no media outlets ever bring up, say, Senator Maria Cantwell as a potential presidential candidate? Why not Maria Cantwell? If John (yech) Kerry can be the Democratic nominee, why not Cantwell?

Just in case you are keeping score, there are 61 women in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a reminder, there are 435 Representatives in the House.

You know, for a group that is the majority, women are woefully under-represented.

Now, the videos. The first is a segment from Morning Joe followed by Meet The Press.

It’s important to note the discussion in the videos about what MEN need too.

Yes, women have made some strides, particularly in the workplace. But women still have to outperform men for comparable jobs, and even then, they are often passed over (look no further than the Clinton v. Obama race). Politics in general is still firmly entrenched in the Boys Club. Seems the same for the media, if these two videos are par for the course, and after this past election, I have no doubt that they are.

And so it goes. I guess this old adage is still true: the more things change, the more they remain the same. I’m ready for a change. How about you?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* His co-host, Mika Brzezinski, and guest, Maria Shriver — the two women in the segment — were astonishingly silent on Scarborough’s boisterous “no bench” imbroglio.

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: President Obama, like any other President, has his fair share of critics. Even fourth-graders have noticed.

“Why do people hate you?”, a fourth-grade boy asked Obama at a town hall event in New Orleans today. “They’re supposed to love you. And God is love.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” replied the President.

Here’s the video of the exchange, though the transcript is below if you’d prefer:

Um, what the hell was he talking about BEFORE the little boy asked his question? Wasn’t he saying, “It’s a man’s turn. Isn’t it? It’s a guy’s turn.” That’s what it sounded like to me, anyway…So, just what came BEFORE that?? Curious.

Obama continued his response to the child:

“First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me,” Obama noted, before adding, “What is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time. And I — you know, I think that you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of gets — feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes.”

“And so you shouldn’t take it too seriously,” Obama told the boy. “And then, sometimes, as I said before, people just — I think they’re worried about their own lives. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now. A lot of people are losing their health care or they’ve lost their homes to foreclosure, and they’re feeling frustrated. And when you’re president of the United States, you know, you’ve got to deal with all of that.”

So, um, not to quibble or anything, but just when do you think you are going to get around to dealing with job loss, home loss, and losing health care? Hey, just asking:

“You get some of the credit when things go good. And when things are going tough, then, you know, you’re going to get some of the blame, and that’s part of the job,” he continued. “But, you know, I’m a pretty tough guy.”

“You’ve just got to keep on going, even when folks are criticizing you, because — as long as you know that you’re doing it for other people, all right?” Obama concluded.

The boy’s question was the last one the President fielded at his event at the University of New Orleans, his first trip to the city since being elected to the Oval Office.

Well, there is a good reason the child asked that question. While Obama did get elected, the latest Fox Poll shows that he wouldn’t if the election was held today, as this article highlights, Fox News Poll: 43 Percent Would Vote To Re-Elect President Obama:If the election were held today, 43 percent of American voters would back Barack Obama for president, according to a new Fox News poll.

Oh dear. I guess that’s some of the “blame” Obama is getting for not fulfilling his campaign promises, for starters, not to mention his continued constant campaigning instead of working thing he’s got going on. Here are the results of this poll:

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama’s job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. (Emphasis mine.) That’s down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president — and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, the latest Fox News poll finds the president’s ratings on foreign issues are lower than his overall job ratings. All in all, 49 percent of Americans say they approve of the job President Obama is doing and 45 percent disapprove. His average approval for the term so far is 58 percent.

Yep, Obama’s approval numbers are below 50% for the first time at 49%. How about on some of the issues:

On Afghanistan, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Obama is doing and 43 percent disapprove. For his handling of Iran, 44 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.

On the president’s handling of the economy, voters are almost equally split: 48 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove. On health care, some 42 percent approve of the president’s performance and half disapprove, 50 percent.

Among Democrats, 78 percent say they would vote to re-elect President Obama, down from 87 percent in April. For 2008 Obama voters, 81 percent say they would vote to re-elect him — that’s a slight up tick from the 79 percent who said so previously.

Six in 10 Americans — 60 percent — think Obama is a strong and decisive leader.
And while 38 percent think President Obama is getting good advice from his advisors, a larger number — 45 percent — think he is “listening to the wrong people.” (Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from October 13 to October 14. The poll has a 3-point error margin.)

Like Rahm Emmanuel, or David Axelrod, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid? Yeah, I’d say he’s listening to the wrong people.

And about that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing:

Did He Deserve It?

Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama said, “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformational figures.” Most Americans agree with the president — 65 percent say he did not deserve to win, while 29 percent say he did.

Furthermore, a slim 54 percent majority of Democrats think Obama did deserve to win, while 38 percent disagree. For independents, 19 percent think he deserved it, while nearly three-quarters, 74 percent, say he did not. Among Republicans, almost all — 91 percent — say he did not deserve it.

When asked why the Nobel Committee gave the president the prize, about a third of Americans, 32 percent, say because he deserved it, while the largest number — 44 percent — think the committee hoped the prize would make Obama “think twice before using military force in the future.”

About that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing. Remember how we were all told the Committee Was unanimous in their decision to give it to Obama? Turns out that 3 out of 5 of them did NOT want to give it to him. Golly gee, I guess truth really DOES will out! Evidently, their reaction was the same as many of ours – he hasn’t DONE anything yet but speechify, for cryin’ out loud!

The poll also address how Congress was doing:

Most Americans are unhappy with Congress these days — 66 percent disapprove, including 45 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans. Overall, less than one of four Americans, 24 percent, approve of the job Congress is doing.

Looking ahead to the 2010 Congressional election, for the first time this year the Republicans have the advantage: 42 percent of voters say they are more likely to back the Republicans to provide a check on President Obama’s power, while 38 percent say they would vote for the Democrat to help the president pass his policies.

Finally, in a rare example of bipartisan agreement, majorities of Democrats, 53 percent, Republicans, 78 percent, and Independents, 61 percent, agree the country is more divided these days. All in all, 64 percent of Americans think the country is more politically divided today — that’s more than twice the number who say it is not more divided, 31 percent.

Click here for the raw data.

What a bang-up job Obama has done in uniting us, just like he said he would. Blech. Can’t believe people fell for THAT line again, can you? Great – so glad there is one area that is truly bipartisan. Ahem.

And while President Obama is still feeling the love, the numbers of those who love him seem to be decreasing the more they open their eyes to see and their ears to hear. Such a shame they couldn’t muster that BEFORE the election, isn’t it? Now, his daily tracking poll continues to go down; Secretary Clinton’s approval numbers are higher than his (no big surprise to ME there); and his overall rating is at 49%. COngress doesn’t fare much better. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy, or more deserving Congress, could it?

Well, it turns out that figure of $1 million is just a little low. By $4 million dollars, that is. Holy smokes. In this article, ACORN Embezzlement Was $5 Million, LA Attorney General Says, that figure is revised way up, and not by a reporter, or a politician with an ax to grind, as ACORN would not doubt claim, but the State Attorney General:

Louisiana’s attorney general has broadened the scope of an investigation of ACORN to include a possible embezzlement of $5 million a decade ago within the community organization, five times more than previously reported.

ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new reported amount is “completely false.”

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has been conducting an investigation of ACORN since June. He issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to former ACORN International President Wade Rathke and his brother Dale Rathke, who kept the group’s books. Those subpoenas were focused on possible ACORN violations for non-payment of employee withholding taxes, obstructing justice and violating the Employee Retirement Security Act. No charges have been made.

The attorney general had inquired in June into an alleged embezzlement within ACORN that happened 10 years ago. The group last year dealt with an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke made nearly $1 million in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. The brother and a donor repaid the money.

Did you catch that? A “donor” helped pay back the money. Dale was not formally charged, nor did he have to spend any time in prison. None. Now we know it was so much more money than previously thought:

Caldwell said last month that the statute of limitations presented obstacles to prosecutors taking action on the embezzlement, and that his investigation was not focused on that issue. The subpoena issued Monday changed the tone of the investigation and put a new emphasis on the embezzlement issue.

“Current high-ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million, ” the new subpoena says.

The subpoena says, “It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds.”

The subpoena requests documents from Citizens Consulting Inc., a financial arm of ACORN, and from various accounting and legal consultants in New Orleans. Investigators are trying to verify the issues raised in the subpoena.

“We’re going to follow the evidence where it leads us and try to do the right thing,” said David Caldwell, head of the attorney general’s public corruption and special prosecutions divisions. “We are actively investigating the case, whatever the outcome might be. This is something we are devoting our full attention to.”

Wade Rathke, who was in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, referred questions to ACORN officials. Lewis said she would comment further after she and ACORN attorneys had a chance to review the subpoena.

ACORN board member Vanessa Gueringer, chairwoman of the Lower 9th Ward Chapter, said she had not seen the subpoena but that the accusation about the larger embezzlement was untrue.

“I believe it is another lie, another witch hunt, ” Gueringer said.

ACORN, which provides counseling on housing and other assistance to low and moderate income families, has been reeling from national negative publicity in recent weeks. Actions have been taken on the federal level and by many states, including Louisiana, to end public contracts with the group. (Robert Travis Scott can be reached at rscott@timespicayune.com or 225.342.4197.)

Now that’s some Major League Denial going on there, isn’t it?? The Attorney General of the State isn’t just making stuff up. He has actually been INVESTIGATING ACORN, and rightly so.

Let’s just do the math here. ACORN has received $53 Million of our taxpaying dollars. Dale Rathke embezzled $5 million from ACORN. Sure they get donations, but honestly – you don’t think some of that money was OURS???? And why is he NOT IN PRISON?? That’s what I’d like to know. Hopefully, he will be soon, thanks to the LA State Attorney General.

And that begs the question – where has everyone ELSE been on this issue? It’s not like it wasn’t public knowledge, and not like it hasn’t been reported in major newspapers across the country. I’m glad someone is doing his job.

And speaking of the Rathke Brothers, don’t forget that Wade is also the one who co-founded the SEIU, yes, the union that held California hostage. Well, you are not going to believe where their name pops up in connection to the White House. Check out this video, beginning at the 1:45 minute mark:

Holy smokes. The SEIU is working with the Wite House and the NEA to spend YOUR/OUR money on propaganda.

And we thought the Bush Administration was bad about the whole propaganda thing…

I. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
July: 9.5%
August: 9.4%
September: 9.7%
– October Consensus Expectation: 9.8%
– October Actual: 9.8%

>> LD’s comments: as expected and only getting worse. The underemployment rate is 17%!! (High five MC). Long term unemployed (those out of work 24 weeks or more) is 5.4 million!!

II. NON-FARM PAYROLL (click here for definition of this term)
July: initial loss of 467k initially revised to a loss of 443k and now revised to a loss of 463k
August: initial loss of 247k revised to a loss of 276k, further revised to -304k
September: initial loss of 216k, revised to a loss of 201k
– October Consensus Expectation: loss of 175k
– October Actual: a loss of 263k, with revisions to the prior two months of a further loss of 13k jobs.

>> LD’s comments: decidedly worse than expected, this figure shoots a huge hole in the case of those who thought the economy would have a V-shaped recovery. Construction lost 64k jobs. The one sector of the economy that people would expect to support this number is government jobs. This did not happen as government payrolls declined by 53k jobs. This is an indication that cities, states, and towns are cutting payroll and services as tax revenues plummet.

III. AVERAGE HOURLY EARNINGS
July: 0.0%
August: +.2% revised to +.3
September: came in at .3 with the prior month revised to .3 as well.
– October Consensus Expectation: .2%
– October Actual: .1%, also worse than expected.

>> LD’s comment: This number inspires no confidence that the economy can expect a rebound in consumer spending and retail sales anytime soon. Be mindful that the prior month was revised to +.4%. That figure is largely a result of a rise in the minimum wage.

IV. AVERAGE HOURLY WORKWEEK
July: 33.0 hours
August: 33.1 hours
September: 33.1 hours
– October Consensus Expectation: 33.1 hours
– October Actual: 33.0 hours, another big disappointment

>> LD’s comments: this number is a confirmation that businesses see no pickup in new orders. This number may be the most disappointing of all components as it hits directly at what business owners view as the future business climate.

V. FURTHER COLOR
Although many Wall Street based economists, media mavens, and government pundits are reporting these numbers as disappointing, the mere fact is prior reports were reported in a far too ebullient fashion. Our economy is trying to adapt to a lack of credit. Meredith Whitney highlights this fact in today’s WSJ in writing, The Credit Crunch Continues. Expect an increased call for greater fiscal stimulus. The fact is the government programs have largely created safety nets and pulled consumer demand forward while the major structural unemployment issues in the economy loom very large.

VI. MARKET REACTION
At 8:10am:

2yr Tsy: .87%
10yr Tsy: 3.15%
S&P 500 Futures: -3.2
DJIA Futures: -27
U. S. Dollar Index: 77.22

At 8:50am, Post-Report:

2yr Tsy: .85%
10yr Tsy: 3.14%, we did get as low as 3.10% immediately after the report.
S&P 500 Futures: -12.00, which indicates that the stock market will open up down approximately 1.2%
DJIA Futures: -104
U.S. Dollar Index: 77.30…basically unchanged. Recall that a lot of hedge funds and speculators are short dollars and long a host of risk-based assets. The dollar may improve as those risk-based markets sell off.

Questions, comments, constructive criticisms always encouraged and appreciated.

Thanks.

LD

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers – a Detroit Democrat – is weighing into the controversy involving a much-maligned national community organization, asking congressional researchers whether any laws may have been broken by surreptitious recording of the group’s employees.

Just last week, the Democratic-led House followed up on a Senate vote that started cutting off federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, amid Republican-led calls for a widespread investigation into the group and its activities.

Even President Barack Obama has criticized the actions of ACORN employees in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere seen in sting videos. The employees appear to give tax advice to filmmakers pretending to be a hooker and her boyfriend. (Well, kinda – he said it wad “inappropriate. See video/transcript below.)

Conyers and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts asked the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service on Tuesday to provide an analysis on several aspects of ACORN. Among them:

# Any current or previous criminal investigations into the group.

# A breakdown of any funding received by the group and any violations of the terms of that funding.

# A report on alleged improprieties in collecting voter-registration forms and “the extent … that resulted in people being improperly placed on voting roles and actually attempting to vote.”

# The group’s programs to provide housing opportunities.

It also asked for a report on private sting activities “in which individuals have reportedly visited ACORN offices, misrepresented their identities and proposed activities, surreptitiously videotaped resulting conversations with ACORN workers, and widely distributed them.”

The letter went onto say, “Conflicting allegations have been made about the propriety of these activities. Please research and report on the federal and state laws that could apply to such videotaping and distribution of conversations without the consent of all parties.”

I’m sure they’ll get right on that.

Why the disdain dropping from my laptop? Because this isn’t the FIRST time Rep. Conyers was going to investigate ACORN. Previously, he had been pretty disturbed by the actions of ACORN, or so he claimed (this is a good article to see more of the underhanded workings of ACORN). Remember that they have been under investigation in over 14 states for voter fraud and voter registration fraud for some time now. The recent expose is just the icing on the cake. But the disdain comes for the REASON Conyers dropped it: The “Powers That Be” put an end to it. Yes, you read that right: THE POWERS THAT BE told the House Judiciary Chairman to knock it off.

Hmm. Let’s think. Just who is high enough to tell this powerful chairman to drop his investigation? It’s a pretty short list, I can tell you that much,

But, hey – better late than never, right? Yeah. Sure.

And I just KNOW once Obama has a spare moment, you know, when he’s not on The David Letterman Show, or something, maybe he will finally have a chance to follow what’s going on with ACORN, since he claimed to be out of the loop despite the millions ACORN has gotten, or the billions it stands to get. Yes, this is what he said in his recent interview with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA: You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

Or you can watch it here:

That Obama – he’s just so busy doing the talk show circuit, he couldn’t POSSIBLY know what is going on with ACORN. I mean, really, besides his having worked for them, and all of that, what possible connection could he have with them?

Oh, wait – he does. Right in the West Wing. Uh huh – his Rove, the Director of the Office of Political Affairs, is Patrick Gaspard. Mr. Gaspard, before moving into the West Wing, was the Executive Vice President of – Wait For It – SEIU. SEIU was founded by Dale Rathke, the brother who embezzled a million bucks from ACORN. Which they hid, by the way. Whatever. Just a million of your tax paying dollars, no biggie.

And Patrick has a brother, Michael, who works for the Advance Group. Which represents – like you need to wait for it – ACORN. Coincidentally (hahahahaha), the national spokesman for The Advance Group, and ACORN, is one in the same, Scott Levenson.

I gotta wonder, how long will it be before Conyers is called off of THIS investigation?

(Photo above bymusicFIRSTCoalition)

What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation, not daring to criticize the Obama administration’s bungling of healthcare reform lest it give aid and comfort to the GOP. Well, that ice dam sure broke with a roar. Dissident Democrats found their voices, and by late August even the liberal lemmings of the mainstream media, from CBS to CNN, had drastically altered their tone of reportage, from priggish disdain of the town hall insurgency to frank admission of serious problems in the healthcare bills as well as of Obama’s declining national support.

…As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration’s strategic missteps this year. … from week one after the inauguration, when Obama went flat as a rug in letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package. Had more Democrats protested, the administration would have felt less arrogantly emboldened to jam through a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national healthcare reform. (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama’s plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?)

Due respect to Ms. Paglia, she might ask herself why she bought into any of this before the election. We did not. Their disastrous spending plans: using the cover of the economic crisis to push through pet projects under the phony label of stimulus, offering bailouts of Wall St., not Main Street. People are without jobs, losing their homes and they are playing games with our money? Most readers at NQ sensed where Obama’s allegiance would be 18 months ago. I find precious little satisfaction in yet another prominent Obama supporter expressing disgust. The stakes are too high and we are now stuck.

I am grateful, however, that a respected voice is calling the arrogant Dem leadership out on its despicable characterizations of American citizens, who are rightfully outraged at this mess:

By foolishly trying to reduce all objections to healthcare reform to the malevolence of obstructionist Republicans, Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired. If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis.

Pelosi needs to lose her seat for that one. Disgraceful.

Paglia seems to think Obama might turn it around with a great speech, but wonders if too much damage has already been done. She has written the Dems off is 2012, unless Republicans nominate someone dead from the neck up – entirely possible. Paglia says she “has been calling for heads to roll at the White House from the get-go”:

…Thankfully, they do seem to be falling faster — as witness the middle-of-the-night bum’s rush given to “green jobs” czar Van Jones last week — but there’s a long way to go. An example of the provincial amateurism of current White House operations was the way the president’s innocuous back-to-school pep talk got sandbagged by imbecilic support materials soliciting students to write fantasy letters to “help” the president (a coercive directive quickly withdrawn under pressure). Even worse, the entire project was stupidly scheduled to conflict with the busy opening days of class this week, when harried teachers already have their hands full. Comically, some major school districts, including New York City, were not even open yet. And this is the gang who wants to revamp national healthcare?

Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year’s tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators?

Ms. Paglia still betrays a trusting naiveté here, thinking that Democrats were too insulated to know the protests were genuine. Not so. The Obama Administration simply continued the same techniques of the Obama campaign – demonize any opponents in order to silence them. She acknowledges that network and cable TV are not the central forums for debate any longer. They just play out more junk politics, backing their respective brands. Ms. Paglia notes…

…the truly transformative political energy is coming from talk radio and the Web — both of which Democrat-sponsored proposals have threatened to stifle, in defiance of freedom of speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights. …[O]n talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco … I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows.

While she concludes her column giving the Republicans some well deserved slaps as well (and I encourage you to read the rest of her piece for yourself), most of it is devoted to pointing out Democratic Party arrogance. This is what the Clinton wing of the party, cruelly cast aside along with Hillary after the primaries, have noted as well. Ms. Paglia asks questions many here would find familiar:

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. …Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it’s invisible.

If any of Obama’s supporters had been capable of critical thought last year, they would have seen through his ridiculous promises and contradictory policy statements and had the sense to turn away. As this article is a prelude to President Obama’s big speech on healthcare this evening, Ms. Paglia’s next comments reveal the shortcomings of a compliant media and congress…

Throughout this fractious summer, I was dismayed not just at the self-defeating silence of Democrats at the gaping holes or evasions in the healthcare bills but also at the fogginess or insipidity of articles and Op-Eds about the controversy emanating from liberal mainstream media and Web sources. By a proportion of something like 10-to-1, negative articles by conservatives were vastly more detailed, specific and practical about the proposals than were supportive articles by Democrats, which often made gestures rather than arguments and brimmed with emotion and sneers. There was a glaring inability in most Democratic commentary to think ahead and forecast what would or could be the actual snarled consequences — in terms of delays, denial of services, errors, miscommunications and gross invasions of privacy — of a massive single-payer overhaul of the healthcare system in a nation as large and populous as ours. It was as if Democrats live in a utopian dream world, divorced from the daily demands and realities of organization and management.

Yes, the party in power does seem oddly divorced from reality as if wishing at the foot of President Obama’s HOPE poster would make their rosy predictions about the effects of their reckless leglislation come true. This past week, other columnists have pointed out that dissent and disagreement are a value to any President. Blank stares and idol worship will not make this Administration better. For the sake of our country, it would be refreshing change indeed if someone in the White House showed actual concern for the needs of Americans and went back to doing the people’s business. I think that may only happen if left, right and center keep speaking out and keep the pressure on. Only fear of the voters might have any effect whatsoever. And I’m not even sure of that.

Ms. Paglia, for one, worries it’s too late for Obama to turn it around…

Unemployment Rate
June: 9.4%
July: 9.5%
August: 9.4%
September: 9.7%!!

>>LD’s comments: higher than the expectation of 9.5%. Recall that the rate moved down last month from 9.5% to 9.4% as the labor pool shrunk. This move higher puts the rate back on the track it previously held and would project to a likely double digit unemployment rate in the 4th quarter.

Where’s the stimulus? Where are the jobs? Bulls would say the employment situation is stabilizing. Pragmatists look at the numbers and see an economy settling in to a likely low growth path at best. The unemployment rate of 9.7% is the highest since 1983. The underemployment rate of 16.8% is very sobering!!

Non-Farm Payroll (click here for definition of this term)
June: loss of 322k
July: loss of 467k initially revised to a loss of 443k and now revised to a loss of 463k
August: loss of 247k revised to a loss of 276k
September: loss of 216k

>>LD’s comments: Close to consensus, but the prior two months had revisions showing further declines of 49k. (The prior month was revised from a loss of 247k jobs to 276k. July was revised from a loss of 443k jobs to 463k jobs). Manufacturing lost 63k jobs, government showed a loss of 18k jobs with more of these at the state level.I repeat my comments from above. We are not witnessing any inclination by private companies to start the rehiring process. As such, the likelihood of long term structural unemployment is growing. This fact will serve as a real drag on consumers in general and the economy as a whole.

Average Hourly Earnings
June: +.1%
July: 0.0%
August: +.2% revised to +.3
September: came in at .3 with the prior month revised to .3 as well.

>>LD’s comments: Largely due to the increase in the minimum wage. Do not look at this increase as an indication of potential growth in retail sales.

Average Hourly Workweek
June: 33.1 hours
July: 33.0 hours
August: 33.1 hours
September: 33.1 hours

>>LD’s comments: as expected the average hourly workweek remained unchanged. This number, which remains mired at a level last seen in 1964, is an indication that an expected rebuild in inventories is not on the near term horizon.

Further Color: the economy remains significantly challenged. Despite all of the government stimulus and government programs, in my opinion the economy is very vulnerable. Behind these numbers, the consumer is seeing few signs of improvement in the jobs space. That reality is impacting the sluggish retail sales along with the continued increase in delinquencies and defaults on the credit front.

Market Reaction: futures have been bouncing up and down post-report. Prior to the report, equity futures indicated a slightly positive opening to the equity market. Now the futures are closer to unchanged.

Interest rates have also bounced around, but the front end of the yield curve seems better bid as the unsettledness behind these numbers makes investors nervous.

The dollar index is somewhat improved but not in a meaningful fashion.

Add it all up and I see the following:

>> the cheerleaders can put away the pom-poms

>> the pure doom and gloom guys who have been short forever remain frustrated

>> the economy remains challenged and will bump along the bottom. No “V” recovery, but more like the “caterpillar” designation assigned by our Sense on Cents Economic All-Star Bob Rodriguez.

Get used to it because it is not going to change appreciably anytime soon.

I repeat my market call from the other day in which I believe equities will retreat from current levels.

LD

See the Update about how many of our Elected Officials will/not be holding Town Hall Forums at the bottom of the page.

Friend to NQ, Kathleen Wynne from HandCountPaperallotsNow made a suggestion after seeing the negative spin the MSM is putting on reports of concerned citizens calling out their representatives on the issue of health care reform, even if all they want is for them to READ the damn thing. Here are some of her suggestions:

After watching the reporting by the usual suspects in the media, who are turning these protests into orchestrated, manufactured outrage, it’s clear that having a number of town hall meetings where those reps either chose not to participate in one or who chose to have a conference call instead, will help prove that they are merely trying to discredit these protests and undermine the citizens true feelings about the health care legislation. Or how Senator Boxer ridiculed citizens voicing their concerns as trying to “hurt our president” and too well dressed for this NOT to be orchestrated

:

Another point that should be put out there for all to see is that during the primary and general election, it was Obama, himself, who told his supporters to have debates with those who did not support him and “get in their face.” Here is a reminder of Obama saying that, along with some other actions by his supporters

:

More importantly, we want citizens to realize how important it is for them to participate in democracy and recognize how important they are in making these reps accountable and to expose their total indifference to the citizens’ concern, not to mention their total lack of knowledge of exactly what’s in the bill. This is a pivotal moment to increase citizen involvement in “taking to the streets” and keeping the pressure on. The longer citizens stay engaged in these protests, the less the MSM can dismiss them as “astro turf” (i.e., not real grassroots concerns), as Nancy Pelosi refers to them in this clip

:

Ms. Wynne is:

asking citizens in those towns where the representatives have chosen NOT to have a town hall meeting or worse, canceled them, to “BE THE MEDIA” by organizing and conducting town hall meetings themselves and having a public discussion about what they don’t like about the health-care bill and any of the other bills that have been rammed down our throats and videotape the event. In particular, they should make it clear that they are having the town hall meeting despite their representative’s choice to not have one or to cancel one. That should be made clear at the beginning, and then say that they would not be silenced.

Then request that clips of these events be sent to NQ, here, and other websites of their choosing in order to make the people’s outrage at not being listened to be seen and heard by other citizens, so that we know that this isn’t just a group of fringe groups being sent out to disrupt town hall meetings.*

It’s an end-run around the MSM’s attempt to ignore and not report what the people are really feeling about the Obama Administration’s policies.

Now word is coming that unions are being sent in to counter those who oppose this plan. And videos are already rolling in, including footage of union members (SEIU) getting into it with Tea Party protesters.

This is our country, and we have every right to speak out, to dissent, to question. And we have the right to speak out without fear of harassment, violence, or intimidation by those in power or their surrogates. We have the right to demand accountability of those whom we have elected to represent us, and that they REPRESENT US. That is their job, after all.

So, are you game? If so, feel free to send this post to whatever sites you frequent, and let’s get this thing rolling.

UPDATE: Check out how many of our elected officials are NOT meeting with their constituents:

I would only wish that the dirty little secrets embedded in urban education were more widely disseminated so that ‘real’ progress can be made. I see evidence of these secrets again this morning in reading the New York Times. The lead article in the right hand column of the front page highlights, Black-White Gap in Jobless Rate Widens in City:

Unemployment among blacks in New York City has increased much faster than for whites, and the gap appears to be widening at an accelerating pace, new studies of jobless data have found.

While unemployment rose steadily for white New Yorkers from the first quarter of 2008 through the first three months of this year, the number of unemployed blacks in the city rose four times as fast, according to a report to be released on Monday by the city comptroller’s office. By the end of March, there were about 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, according to the report, even though there are roughly 1.5 million more whites than blacks here.

Across the nation, the surge in unemployment has cut across all demographic lines, and the gap between blacks and whites has risen, but at a much slower rate than in New York.

Economists said they were not certain why so many more blacks were losing their jobs in New York...(LD’s highlight)

What? Not certain? Once again, economists and public policy analysts are not being honest on the disastrous state of urban education.

I highlighted this point the other day in my call for total transparency and honesty on this topic. In writing Warren Buffett: “Wall Street Owes the American People”, I called for:

1. honesty on where we currently stand across all aspects of our economy and society. Publicize our successes and, more importantly, our failures so we can properly address them.

Do not allow urban education dropout rates of 50% to be swept under the rug. Promote the correlation between those figures, single parent birth rates, income levels, and criminal behaviors. BE HONEST ON THESE TOPICS!!!

While economists and the New York Times itself may not want to publicize education statistics, the fact is New York City’s public schools, like most major urban schools, are disproportionately filled with minority students.

For New York City, that breakdown is:

The racial makeup of public school students is 36.7 percent Hispanic, 34.7 percent black, 14.3 percent Asian, and 14.2 percent white.

The specialized high schools tend to be disproportionately white and Asian.

In terms of graduation rates, the New York City Department of Education released on June 22, 2009:

the City’s four-year graduation rate rose to 56.4 percent in 2008 from 52.8 percent in 2007 and 46.5 percent in 2005. The five-year graduation rate rose to 62.6 percent in 2008 from 58.8 percent in 2007 and 55.7 percent in 2006. The six-year graduation rate rose to 61.8 percent in 2008 from 58.5 percent in 2007.

Blacks and Hispanics are narrowing the gap in the overall graduation rates with their white and Asian counterparts, but the overall numbers remain daunting. We learn:

Overall, 51.4 percent of black students in the class of 2008 graduated in four years, compared to 47.8 percent in 2007 and 40.1 percent in 2005. This 11.3 point increase over two years compares to a 7.5 point increase among white students and a 7.8 point increase among Asian students during the same period. Similarly, 48.7 percent of Hispanic students in the class of 2008 graduated in four years, compared to 43.5 percent in 2007 and 37.4 percent in 2005, an increase of 11.3 points over two years.

While progress is being made in NYC’s overall high school graduation rates, are the numbers truly representative of students prepared to move forward in life or is the system still being gamed to a large extent? How uncanny that today’s New York Times also highlights, Makeup Work Allows Students to Slide By, Critics Say:

A year after reports showed that New York City high schools were offering failing students a chance to earn credit simply by completing worksheets or attending weeklong cram sessions, educators say the system of making up schoolwork is still abused.

Not that I have the answers to solving the urban education problems in our country (I am fully supportive of further promotion of charter schools and student vouchers), but I do know that without being totally honest and transparent on the issue, real progress will never be made.

In the process, the very minorities whom politicians and public policy experts claim they want to help will continue to suffer.

LD

The spring rain came, then the summer sun. And still no shoots. So I started looking over fences to see how others were doing – see if they were having better luck. And as you might expect I did find some green shoots, but I also found a few other things that I thought you might find interesting. So I went ahead and put together a little garden report on what I’ve been finding so far.

Will it surprise you to learn, Wall Street has managed to pull off a bumper crop in the midst of a recession and is eagerly awaiting a rich harvest of green.

Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street:

Business is back on Wall Street. If the good times continue to roll, lofty pay packages may be set for a comeback as well.

Based on analysts’ earnings forecasts for 2009, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay out as much as $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee. That would be nearly double the firm’s $363,000 average last year, and slightly higher than the $661,000 for the average Goldman employee in fiscal 2007, according to analyst estimates reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

And AIG too. After a little deferred gratification is feeling lush and flush enough in green to seek the governments blessing for about $250 million in promised bonuses that come due during the next nine months.

AIG in Talks With U.S. Over Another $250 Million in Bonuses

AIG has asked the government to rule on several categories of bonuses, said a person familiar with the discussions. These include millions of dollars in payments owed to top corporate executives in coming days, and the troubled insurer has been seeking consent from senior Treasury official Kenneth R. Feinberg in the hope this would provide the company with political cover.

But of greater concern to both sides is what to do about the vastly larger sum that comes due in March 2010, when AIG is scheduled to pay more than $200 million in bonuses aimed at retaining executives at AIG Financial Products, the unit whose complex derivative contracts nearly wrecked the insurance giant last fall.

AIG Seeks Clearance For More Bonuses:

AIG’s proxy statement filed last month explains why AIG initially instituted the retention payments. The company stated that after the federal bailout began in September, “we needed to confront the fact that many of our employees, perhaps the majority, knew that their long-term future with us was limited, and our competitors knew that our key producers could perhaps be lured away. . . . Allowing departures to erode the strength of our businesses would have damaged our ability to repay taxpayers for their assistance.”

On the other hand, many American’s (outside of Wall Street and other bailout industries) found themselves trying to spread their Independence day picnic blankets over unsightly brown spots that seems to have taken over their front lawns.

Layoffs undermine consumers’ ability to ignite economy

In an economy in which consumers account for roughly 70% of the demand for goods and services, their ability to earn a paycheck is key to a lasting recovery. …”For any economy, the most important thing is income in the form of wages, and having a job or not having a job is the biggest impact on spending,” says Charles Biderman, CEO of TrimTabs. “You can’t get more basic than that.”

But it’s not just those ugly brown spots on their lawns, that have home owner worried. There seems to be plant wilt and leaf droop that is also spreading through neighborhoods.

As economy drops jobs, paychecks drop some weight

The recession has taken out 6.5 million jobs in about a year and a half. All told, nearly 15 million people were considered unemployed in June.

Illustrating how hard it is to land a job, 29 percent of the unemployed have been out of work six months or longer. That’s the most on records dating to just after World War II. The unemployment rate for teenagers is 24 percent, the highest since 1983.

Including laid-off workers who have given up looking for jobs or have settled for part-time work, the so-called underemployment rate was 16.5 percent in June — the highest on records dating to 1994.

The falling wages come from furloughs, pay freezes and pay cuts imposed by employers across the country. Many also have cut hours: The average work week in June fell to 33 hours, the lowest on records dating to 1964.

Average weekly earnings fell about $2 in June to $611.49, the lowest in nearly a year and the first month-to-month drop since March.

And apparently brown spots on your lawn can’t necessarily be stimulated back to life with a little fertilizer and water. And if the condition starts to radically deteriorate, a grub worm infestation is your prime suspect. Grub worms, which are beetle larvae, eat away at the roots of plants, flowers and grasses. Basically, starving your lawn or garden plant of the water and nutrients it needs to function properly, leaving the affected plant to slowly wither and die.

Regulators aim to curb speculators’ influence on oil prices

“In the past couple of years the U.S. taxpayer has taken a kick in the teeth on prices they pay for a loaf of bread, a gallon of gas, even the palladium that goes in the catalytic converter in your car – and it’s the responsibility of the CFTC to ensure, not high or low prices, but fair prices,” said Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, in a statement to McClatchy Newspapers.

“I think that the CFTC has not done enough to ensure that speculative limits or levels were enforced aggressively and that exemptions from these important regulations were granted appropriately. And, I believe that American consumer paid the price … for that lack of diligence.”

The exemptions he referred to involve big Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others, which have been exempted from limits on how much they can trade.

These financial players are treated as commercial players although they have never taken possession of the product. That allows them to hedge bets they have made in the unregulated swaps market, where private bets between two parties take place outside a regulated exchange.

NYSE Halts Transparency, Feels Goldman Program Trading Disclosure Is Unnecessary

In a move set to infuriate and send many Zero Hedge readers over the top, the NYSE has taken action to make sure that nobody will henceforth be able to keep track of the complete dominance that Goldman Sachs exerts over the New York Stock Exchange. This basically ends our weekly Program Trading updates disclosed every Thursday indicating that Goldman has singlehandedly captured all of NYSE’s program trading.

In addition to the expense and damage to your garden caused from the grub worm infestation itself, grub worms attract other pests to your yard. A variety of mammals (gophers, moles and the like) will burrow underground to feed on grub worms, leaving a nasty trail of furrows and holes in your lawn and garden.

Goldman Sachs Loses Grip on Its Doomsday Machine

Aleynikov, 39, is the former Goldman computer programmer who was arrested on theft charges July 3… two days after Goldman (Sachs) told the government he had stolen its secret, rapid-fire, stock- and commodities-trading software in early June during his last week as a Goldman employee. …

It wasn’t just Goldman that faced imminent harm if Aleynikov were to be released, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti told a federal magistrate judge at his July 4 bail hearing in New York. … “The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.”

… Facciponti said the bank told the government that “they do not believe that any steps they can take would mitigate the danger of this program being released.” He added: “Once it is out there, anybody will be able to use this, and their market share will be adversely affected.”

Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to completely prevent or eliminate grub worms. Cultivating Robins and other songbirds that love to eat grub worms is probably the most beneficial long-term control solution. Along with keeping a vigilant eye on your landscaping so you can tackle an infestation as soon as it start. And it is always a good idea to contact your local agricultural extension for information that may apply to your area, and particularly before apply any chemicals insecticides.

U.S. Job Report Suggests that Green Shoots are Mostly Yellow Weeds

The job market report is essentially the tip of the iceberg. It’s a significant signal of the weaknesses in the economy. It affects consumer confidence. It affects labor income. It affects consumption. It affects the willingness of firms to start increasing production. It has significant consequences of the housing market. And it has significant consequences, of course, on the banking system.

Home prices have already fallen from their peak by about 30 percent. Based on our analysis, they are going to fall by at least 40 percent from their peak, and more likely 45 percent, before they bottom out. They are still falling at an annualized rate of over 18 percent. That fall of at least 40-45% percent of home prices from their peak is going to imply that about half of all households that have a mortgage – about 25 million of the 51 million that have mortgages – are going to be underwater with negative equity in their homes, and therefore will have a significant incentive to just walk away from their homes.

For the time being, of course, there are massive deflationary pressures in the economy: the slack in the goods markets, with demand falling relative to supply-and-excess capacity. The rising slack in labor markets, which are controlling wages and labor costs and pushing them down, implies that deflationary pressures are going to be dominant this year and next year.

But eventually, large budget deficits and their monetization are going to lead – towards the end of next year and in 2011 – to an increase in expected inflation that may lead to a further increase in ten-year treasuries and other long-term government bond yields, and thus mortgage and private-market rates. Together with higher oil prices driven up in part by this wall of liquidity rather than fundamentals alone, this could be a double whammy that could push the economy into a double-dip or W-shaped recession by late 2010 or 2011. So the outlook for the US and global economy remains extremely weak ahead.

So what’s happening in your garden? Did those ‘green shoots’ arrive as predicted. Were those shoots properly stimulated to grow into strong and healthy plants? Are you looking out at a lush green jungle? Or did the Grub Worms get to your garden too?

One proposal is to mimic the Massachusetts’ plan. Except there are some problems with that:

Huh. Well, that sounds just perfect – go ahead and implement a program that has quickly gone into the red. Perfect management of our tax-paying dollars, right? Oh, yeah.

So, just how would we even pay for this? Oh, you are gonna love this plan by the US Senate:
Senate Health Plan Could Tax 1 in 8 Workers. One in EIGHT. 12.5% of Americans will be helping to foot the bill for everyone else. Holy smokes. Here’s the nitty gritty:

About one in eight U.S. workers who receive health benefits from an employer — more than nine million workers — could pay higher income taxes on benefits as part of a Senate proposal that aims to raise billions of dollars to finance health-care reform, according an independent analysis of the proposal.

A five-page presentation, obtained by FOX Business, was prepared by the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is leading efforts by Senate Democrats to formulate funding alternatives for a reform plan. In the document, Baucus proposes “options to limit allowable tax free health benefits.”

Since World War II, when companies facing work-force shortages began offering comprehensive health-care coverage to attract and retain workers, such benefits have been tax-free to employees. Today, more than 150 million workers and their dependents receive health insurance from their current — or, if retired, former — employer.

Preliminary estimates from the Congressional Budget Office put the cost of health-care reform at $1 trillion or more over 10 years.

Read the whole presentation here.

According to the document, Sen. Baucus is looking at four ways to tax benefits starting in 2013, when many reform proposals would take full effect:

* Tax benefits of single workers who earn more than $100,000 a year and couples that earn more than $200,000. The presentation cites a previous estimate from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation [JCT] that the proposal would raise $161.9 billion over 10 years if the changes were effective on January 1, 2010.
* Tax benefits that exceed a value of $6,182 for a single worker and a value of $15,700 for a worker who also receives coverage for his family. The document cites a previous JCT estimate that the proposal would raise $418 billion over a decade if the changes were effective January 1, 2010.
* Tax those “base” benefits plus 10%, or a value of $6,800 for an individual worker and a value of $17,240 for families. The higher cap would eliminate taxes for some workers. The document says Baucus has requested an estimate, presumably from the JCT, of how much this proposal would generate in new tax revenue with the change effective January 1, 2013.
* Tax base benefits plus 20%, or a value of $7,420 for an individual and a value of $18,840 for families, which would shelter even more workers from tax liability. Baucus also has requested, presumably from the JTC, an estimate for this proposal also effective January 1, 2013.

Now, I know numbers like these can make your head spin. But what they are considering is pretty important for, well, one out of EIGHT of us, who will be helping to provide health care. Ahem. It is actually important to all of us, I know. Especially since health care is an important part of many people’s benefits package:

Most of the value of amounts cited in the presentation is the cost of insurance premiums that companies pay for their employees’ health benefits. But the presentation says the total value calculated for taxation would also include supplemental health plans for vision and dental care, as well as contributions employees make to their flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts, which workers contribute to with pre-tax dollars. Baucus would also adjust benchmarks annually to inflation.

A 2008 survey of employer health benefits suggests more than nine million workers could face new tax liabilities under the Baucus proposals, according one of the survey’s authors. The survey was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center, for the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Education Trust.

The survey, of 1,900 small and large companies, can be found here.

Among other things, the survey identified insurance-premium levels employers paid for their workers’ coverage last year. To analyze variations around national averages, the survey reported higher premiums due to factors such as geography and benefit differences.

Based on the survey, Jon Gabel, NORC senior fellow for health policy and evaluation in Washington, D.C., said that if the Baucus proposal to tax single workers receiving more than $6,182 in benefits were in effect today, about 15% of single workers, or 4.7 million, could face new tax payments — potentially hundreds of dollars or more per person per year, depending on tax brackets and the size of benefit packages.

Gabel estimated that about 17% of workers with family coverage, or 4.5 million workers, could face new taxes if the proposal to tax employees with families who receive more than $15,700 in health benefits were in effect today. Under the survey methodology, with family coverage defined as a policy insuring four people, the tax could affect benefits for about 18 million people, Gabel estimated.

The survey and the Baucus proposals did not address another 12 million workers who receive coverage for themselves and one dependent, usually a spouse. Presumably any tax proposal would apply to a subset of them as well.

With health care inflation, even more workers could face tax payments by 2013 as premium payments rose. But by adopting higher benchmarks, such as Baucus’ “base plus 10%” and “base plus 20%,” policymakers would narrow the number of workers required to pay taxes, if Congress adopts such proposals. Congress could also limit their impact by combining a benefits level cap with an income test — such as taxing only single workers who receive $6,182 in annual health care benefits and who earn more than $100,000 a year.

Gabel said most workers will have to ask their employer for benefit information to determine the value of their individual health care packages.

For more information on taxation of health benefits, you can read Center for Budget Policy and Priorities report here.

In these difficult economic times, I’m sure this is just what these people want to hear. But this seems to be one area in which there is agreement across the aisle:

The idea of taxing health-care benefits has bipartisan roots. Some conservative economists and Republican policymakers believe health-care costs are soaring faster then general inflation in part because such benefits are excluded from taxable income, encouraging excessive health care spending by consumers. Some Democrats agree.

During the presidential campaign last year, then-candidate Barack Obama criticized his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for proposing to tax all health-care benefits. Under his health-care reform plan, McCain would have used the new revenues to the government to fund health-care tax credits.

But in a meeting with Baucus and other senators earlier this month, President Obama signaled he would not rule out taxing benefits to help finance a reform plan.

“If I’m not mistaken, I can think of at least one Republican off the top of my head that talked about changing the tax benefits for the exclusion,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily press briefing on Friday. “I think if I sat at Google for about five minutes I could probably get you several dozen. I think one of the major reform bills that’s up there right now that’s been written by Sen. [Richard] Burr (R-N.C.) includes, if not a complete ending of the exclusion, some cap of it.”

The Obama Administration has already proposed more than $300 billion in tax increases to pay for reform, mainly by limiting deductions for wealthier families, and proposed more than $600 billion in cuts in Medicare and Medicaid spending.

But NORC’s Gabel said of specifically taxing benefits, “I think it’s very difficult to sell. As we know, Americans are almost schizophrenic in their views on taxing and spending. You name it, they think we should do more on it — spend more on education, more on defense, more on health care. On the other hand, they think taxes are too high and they don’t see a contradiction between the two.”

Well, at least this proposal would apply to everyone, right? Wrong:

The tax proposals also likely face strong opposition from some of the President’s and the Democratic party’s key supporters — unions that enjoy more generous health-care benefits won through hard-fought contact negotiations over decades. Apparently anticipating some objections about the possibility of affecting contracts already in place, Baucus has proposed protecting some union benefits by “grandfathering” collective-bargaining agreements existing on January 1, 2013, in his “base plus 10%” and “base plus 20%” options, according to his presentation.

Did you catch that? Unions may be exempt from having to pony up like everyone else will have to do. WOW – they really DID buy themselves a president, didn’t they??? I wonder how hard it would be to organize a United Office Workers Union (h/t to my partner for that union idea)?? How long are most Americans just going to accept that Union workers have far better benefits and pensions than the rest of us because we are subsidizing them? (Again, I’m not anti-union, but these things kind of stick in my craw…)

But there does seem to be agreement (more or less) that something needs to change:

On Sunday, a New York Times poll on health-care reform suggested taxing health benefits may not be as politically treacherous as assumed: the Times reported that 57% of voters said they would be willing to pay higher taxes “so that all Americans have health insurance that they can’t lose no matter what.” Just over a third — 37% — said they would not be willing to pay such taxes, and 6% had no opinion.

In a press briefing on June 9, Baucus said he was considering either a 50-50 or 60-40 split between taxes and savings to pay for a reform plan. Baucus specifically mentioned a “grandfathering” idea that he said would help mitigate taxes to some people who receive health-insurance benefits and said he favored an income test to narrow the impact as well.

In the House, Democratic leaders announced their own draft reform plan on Friday. But they did not present any options for financing it.

Gabel said taxes on benefits could not only raise some revenue for a new government plan but could also help to reduce health care spending, and thus inflation, as some economists believe.

“People will move from rich benefits where they don’t face deductibles to higher deductibles so their premiums are lower, and this will reduce the use of services,” Gabel said. “Also, they may move back into tightly managed HMOs like Kaiser, which have shown they can deliver care at lower cost.”

Well, that would be something at least. I think it would be great if everyone had health care – as long as we can PAY for it without going further into massive debt as a country. Or without putting the lion’s share of burden on some employees while allowing others off scott free. Surely a more just proposal can be worked out, yes? Let’s hope so, otherwise, those aren’t great odds for the 12.5% of employees who will pay more…

Basically, the Germans wanted an adult in the room as opposed to the adolescent they got:

Hillary Clinton has intervened in talks over the future of Opel and Vauxhall at the request of German ministers as the American Government unveiled plans to sink more taxpayers’ funds into the European carmakers’ US parent, General Motors (GM).

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Finance Minister, spoke by telephone today with Mrs Clinton to seek “support in the search for a solution,” his spokesman said. Mrs Clinton pledged to intervene to demand “the greatest possible American support” from Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, the spokesman added.

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the Economics Minister, also denounced the US Treasury for dispatching a junior official who had to consult Washington through a video link at regular intervals during the night.

Mr Guttenberg said the talks had been “absurd in parts” and demanded “more seriousness and a greater willingness to compromise on the part of the US.”

It is also hoped that developments today in the US could pave the way for smoother negotiations with the two preferred bidders – Fiat, the Italian car group, and Magna, the Canadian components maker.

Nothing like insulting one of our big allies and business partners by sending some flunky to do a woman’s job. Ahem.

As for the rest of the article, some of this may have changed – who knows? I guess it depends on whatever mood Obama is in today and just how much control he is handing over to the union that bought him, but here it is:

GM’s biggest bondholders have agreed to a new offer to wipe out the automaker’s debt, raising hopes that the carmaker will make a quick exit from the now inevitable move into bankruptcy.

Bondholders that own about 20 per cent of GM’s $27.2 billion of unsecured debt agreed to wipe out the borrowings in return for a 10 per cent stake in the company and warrants to buy a further 15 per cent of the equity in the new business.

They had previously rejected an offer of a flat 10 per cent because the United Auto Workers (UAW) union had been promised more equity – 17.5 per cent – for a smaller $20 billion debt.

The remainder of GM’s debt investors, which include individuals and pension funds, have until Saturday afternoon to agree to the new offer.

If they do not support the offer, forcing GM into a contentious bankruptcy, the Government has warned that bondholders will be all but wiped out.

In exchange for the improved payout, creditors must agree not to oppose a move to sell GM’s profitable assets to a new company funded by the Government in a fast-track bankruptcy process.

Just a teensy weensy little reminder – when they talk about wiping out GM’s debt, that’s all the money WE paid to bail them out because they were “to big to fail.” So, all those BILLIONS of dollars of OUR money that Obama was handing out like candy to them? Poof – GONE!!!!

And then, add to that, the government going into the automobile business – as if it knows ANYTHING about it:

GM’s filing also revealed that the Government’s stake in the restructured company would be 72.5 per cent, much larger than the 50 per cent it was expected to be handed in return for forgiving some of the bailout cash it has provided the company.

The bigger stake is likely to increase the cost of GM’s bankruptcy to taxpayers, which is estimated to reach as high as $50 billion.

Overnight negotiations over the future of the US carmaker’s European operation broke down when GM sought more funding for Opel despite Germany’s pledge to provide billions of euros in state guarantees as well as a €1.5 billion bridging loan.

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary today reiterated the British government’s support for Vauxhall but said it was too early to comment on what funding the UK may provide since talks over Opel needed to be resolved first.

He also said that unlike Opel, Vauxhall was not in desperate need of funding.

Lord Mandelson has extracted promises from both Fiat and Opel over the future of Vauxhall and British jobs.

Although the Business Secretary has conceded that GM Europe suffers from excess costs and is selling vehicles into a depressed market, he has made clear that the amount of money that Britain will commit will depend on the level of job guarantees in the medium term and the long term.

“Each of the bids envisages government support, but we are some way off from a discussion about government’s role in any commercial outcome to these discussions,” he said.

The assurances represent a significant victory for Lord Mandelson, who has been desperate to make sure that the German Government does not give in to election-year pressure with a pledge to protect domestic jobs at the expense of those in the UK. Berlin’s view is crucial because it is being asked to stump up billions of euros in loan guarantees as part of any deal.

Magna calculates job losses of 9,000 across Europe – 2,500 of them in Germany. However, before a Chancellery meeting last night, Magna hinted that it could shift the production of the Opel Astra from Antwerp, Belgium, to Bochum, Germany. Under that scenario, job losses in Germany would total only 300.

Fiat has promised to cut fewer than 10,000 jobs in GM Europe. That could entail closing an engine factory in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Unions fear that overlapping of Fiat’s products with those of Opel and Vauxhall will mean that redundancies could be much higher than promised.

Whew. This is really a pickle, isn’t it? We have taken over, no – check that – OBAMA and the UAW have taken over a private business in this country, about which Obama, anyway, knows NOTHING. He is not a businessman, you know. The UAW is certainly a business – some might say a racket – which has ensured ITS pensions at the expense of ours. How is it that some Americans deserve to have one and others don’t?

That’s just one of those pesky little questions I am certain Obama would label as “Un-American,” just like he did the secured creditors to GM – you know, the Teachers Retirement Fund and State Police of Indiana, for example:

Maybe Obama should follow Germany’s example, and ask Secretary Clinton to figure this out for everyone – GM, the taxpayers, the UAW, everyone. Heck, she could probably design a more aerodynamic, fuel efficient vehicle, change the oil in everyone’s car, AND not rip off the taxpayers for billions of dollars all at the same time! Oh c’mon, you know she could!! In any event, it is sure worth a try.

I mean, really, if it is good enough for Germany to have her step in, it is surely good enough for us! No doubt she would do far better at this than Obama and the UAW are doing now. I say, bring her on!!

See the UPDATE at end of story.

*You’re Ahead In A Ford All The Way – Ford Ad slogan 1950s-60s.

Ford, the American carmaker most likely to survive the auto implosion without going bankrupt or taking government aid, deserves credit for making prescient decisions before the meltdown. – The Street

“We’ve been trying to engage with some automobile manufacturer, and let’s face it, a couple have had other things on their mind,” said Don Clevenger, vice president of external affairs for Oncor, a Texas Utility.

UPDATE. The shareholders meeting is over and the Ford family still controls 40% of the vote. Some quotes from the meeting:

“At last year’s meeting, talk was of profitability in 2009. Now, there is talk of profitability in 2011,” said William Thrower, of Katy, Texas, who introduced a proposal seeking limits on executive pay and an elimination of bonuses until Ford reports a profit. “As stockholders, we must insist that all available capital be used for …restructuring.”

My comment: You still own a car company. Be happy.

Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. acknowledged the company’s challenges.

“In all my years with the company, I have never seen market conditions as difficult as they are now,” Ford said. “However, I have never been more excited about the prospects for our future.”

Ford’s stock price, now trading at more than $5 per share, has more than tripled since Feb. 20 when it was at $1.58, while GM’s stock hovering around $1.20 per share.

“I’m glad to see the stock price has come up, and I’m glad they did not take Obama dollars,” said Melody Schools, a nurse from Richwood, N.J., who occasionally attends Ford’s annual meeting. “Compared to some of the other companies, they are doing pretty good.”

Agreed.

Disclosure statement:   My first car was a 1964 ½ Ford Mustang.