Commentary: Recent Headlines

By Jim Pierce

Here are some headlines which have appeared recently:

NYC Mayor Bloomberg declares war on salt. Table salt!

Mayor – don’t you have anything better to do? How about putting some smokers in jail?

Stimulus Gives Cash to Illegals. No Social Security Number Needed.

Pelosi justifies $335,000,000 stimulus expenditure for STD.

Stimulus ear marks 25,000,000 for an ATV trail. Why does an ATV need a trail?

Obama’s Illegal Aunt seeks asylum after ignoring a 2004 deportation order. Hey Barack – have some cohones and give her asylum and while you’re at it send your half brother that lives on 20.00 a month a few of your bucks.

Jack Murtha offers to take Gitmo prisoners. Speak for yourself Jack. I don’t want terrorist in my back yard.

Holder receives Spector OK as Attorney General. Great judgment Arlen. You and Holder must have the same set of blinders. He O.K.’s the Mark Rich pardon and you OK him.

Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geither who oversees the IRS has been picked and confirmed by the Senate after it was disclosed that he “made a mistake” on his taxes. Obama wants him to lead the economic recovery and he either can’t do his taxes on Turbo Tax or he is a tax cheat.

Does anyone have any trouble believing the lowest approval ratings in history for Congress and the government in general? Sure Obama has high numbers now but I am sure he will catch up with Congress in no time.

We have the worst leadership I can imagine. Almost every elected official has one goal in mind and that is to increase their own power; the good of the country be damned. (Both Republicans and Democrates) We are now in the middle of a terrible economic downturn, recession, depression what ever you want to call it and our governmental leaders are only looking out for themselves.

Memo to Congress: If you want to stimulate the economy cut out taxes. I don’t mean reduce them I mean cut them out completely. Your going to borrow a trillion dollars before this stimulus package is paid for so instead of borrowing to spend it on the stimulus just stop collecting it. It is easy, fast, and equal. This country would be back on its feet before the 4^th of July.

Memo to Obama: Try hiring honest, hardworking, truthful people as aides. So far all I have seen is Clinton retreads, lobbyist, tax cheats, and pardon sellers. My apology goes out to those aides who are hardworking, honest, and truthful people. I hope you are there but right now I can’t see you through the cloud of b.s. which is hanging over Washington.

Why do I think this will fall on deaf ears?

StimuLess

No deal is better then a bad deal. It nice to see some GOP members waking up. How was your 8 year nap?

Dems were the only ones to vote for the Obama stimulus package in the house last night. Even 11 members of the democratic party opted to vote nay.

At a news conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the Democrat-only passage of the economic stimulus package, contending that Republicans were indeed included; their suggestions on tax cuts had become part of the bill itself, she said. But several G.O.P. senators and representatives hit the airwaves today, criticizing the spending portions and promoting their view of a more palatable alternative — bigger, broader tax cuts and incentives.

When Mrs. Pelosi was asked whether the vote — 244 to 188 without a single Republican’s approval — represented a failure on her part to advance President Obama’s desire for a broad bipartisan bill, she practically snapped:

“I didn’t come here to be partisan. I didn’t come here to be bipartisan. I came here, as did my colleagues, to be nonpartisan, to work for the American people, to do what is in their interest.

The president’s agenda is reflected in this legislation. It’s — I mentioned, some of the priorities that were there about creating jobs, cutting taxes, helping states through this difficult economic time, and to do so in a fiscally sound way.

People vote for what they believe in. Clearly, the Republicans did not believe in the agenda that I just described for you, and that’s probably one of the reasons they voted that way. I think they probably voted their conscience and they couldn’t support that. …

We reached out to the Republicans all along the way, and they know it. And they know it. They were part of the original bill, with the — some of the tax provisions were their suggestions. They had what they asked for in terms of committee mark-up. They had the rule on the floor that gave them plenty of opportunity to make changes. They just didn’t have the ideas that had the support of the majority of the people in the Congress. ”

She pushed back strenuously in response to remarks made by Minority Leader John Boehner and other House Republicans, who slammed the bill as “partisan” and full of excessive spending rather than the approach of using tax cuts.

Let hope the Senate takes good hard look at this!

BLAG - GO!

Gov. Blagojevich at 4:51 p.m. Thursday became the first governor in Illinois’ 190-year history to be driven from office by impeachment in a 59-0 vote. Wow that speech of his was really effective...

The Pitty Tour 2009 had a short and painful run. Balgo went out with an act of defiance. In one of his last official acts, Blagojevich wiped away the convictions of Jimmie L. Beck, a janitor at a homeless shelter and prominent Chicago real-estate developer Fred S. Latsko circumventing the prisoner review board.

Blagojevich issued a pardon and an expungement for the 40-year-old Beck, who was sentenced to a year of probation in 1986 on a battery conviction and was sentenced to a year in prison in 2000 for a drug conviction, court records show.

Patti Blagojevich, who started Sept. 1 as development director of the 100-year-old Chicago Christian Industrial League, was quietly dismissed from her $100,000-a-year job about a week ago. also expunged the 1985 deception and forgery conviction of Latsko, who had received a pardon for the conviction in 1989 from then-Gov. Jim Thompson.

Latsko, 43, is a Chicago socialite who reportedly was one of Oprah Winfrey’s guests at her fund-raiser for Barack Obama at her California mansion in 2007. He bought her sprawling estate in Rolling Prairie, Ind., in 2005.

Patti Blagojevich, who started Sept. 1 as development director of the 100-year-old Chicago Christian Industrial League, was quietly dismissed from her $100,000-a-year job about a week ago.

I'm sure we will see Blagojevich on HBO one of these days.

Radio Waves

Online Offline

Renda Broadcasting's WISH (99.7) and WJAS (1320) ceased their online broadcasting feature on January 1, 2009 "due to escalating royalty fees for online streaming broadcasts." Renda Broadcasting was among the first to pull music from the internet a number of years ago when the RIAA challenged whether there should be further royalties incurred for broadcasting over the net.

In Make Me Vomit TV News...

HBO's is airing "The Trials of Ted Haggard" the former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, who fell from grace after a scandal involving gay sex and drugs. Haggard comes off as pitiful, a self-described "first-class loser" who appears to be suicidal at one point. But the timing on this is interesting after new allegations came out late last week that Haggard had a relationship with a twentysomething male church volunteer. The new guy stepped forward to talk about his supposed relationship with Haggard because he feared the HBO doc would present Haggard as a victim.

Haggard told Newsweek that he never had an adult same-sex encounter with anyone other than male prostitute Mike Jones, whose revelations kicked off the Haggard scandal in 2006. Someone is not telling the truth.

My suggestion to Ted is to just go away. I forgot about you until you ran back in to the HBO spotlight. How many evangelical preachers would even admit they watch anything on HBO? Maybe Ted should audition for Sex in the City next?

Port Authority's Convenient Memory Loss

In an effort to explain the recent revelation that the North Shore Connector would need another $117.8 million to complete—bringing the total cost to $553 million—a Port Authority (PAT) spokesperson said the project’s cost was based on valid estimates for normal conditions. According to PAT the problem was drastic increases in costs that were not anticipated. Continue