State Budget Shortfalls Across America

Blue: No projected budget gap
Yellow: Projected budge gap of 10%
Red: Projected budget gap of between 10% and 15%

California is not the only state that has a budget shortfall. There are a few more states whose budget gaps are much larger like Arizona and Georgia. The dollar amount though belongs to California. California is looking at a $42 billion dollar shortfall.

On the other hand there are a few states with NO projected budget shortfalls, Texas, Oklahoma and curiously Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina's effect on Louisiana's budget has been neutralized. Good for them!

The budget gaps are spread throughout every geographic region and political landscape. The budget gaps are afflicting red and blue states alike. There is no political party that is a "winner" in this economy. So Democrats stop trying to put all the blame on the Republicans. Hard-core blue states like California and Michigan are in deep trouble and they have had Democratic-controlled Legislatures for years.

In Defense of Rush: "Magic Negro" is Just a Parody

Sometimes I have to defend Rush Limbaugh when he is unfairly attacked. I don't trust anything Limbaugh says on his radio show. There are plenty of comments by Limbaugh that can be attacked for the sheer stupidity of them. In this case though liberals and quite a bit of the mainstream media are regurgitating the "Barack the Magic Negro" song as racist. It doesn't help when the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Mike Duncan, also calls it racist. The song is NOT racist. It is a parody. And besides nobody explained why it is racist? Is it the "negro" word that makes it racist? The song is sung by Paul Shanklin imitating Al Sharpton.

Chorus
Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
'Cause he's not authentic like me.
Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper
Said he makes guilty whites feel good
They'll vote for him, and not for me
'Cause he's not from the hood.

Verse
Some say Barack’s “articulate”
And bright and new and “clean.”
The media sure loves this guy,
A white interloper’s dream!
But, when you vote for president,
Watch out, and don’t be fooled!
Don’t vote the Magic Negro in
Cause ...

Really is there anything "racist" here? People need to just shut up and laugh. If you don't think it's funny well then DON'T laugh! Stop with all the "faux"outrage! For those without some French "learning" ... stop the fake outrage!

The Jewish Settlements and What Britain is Doing About It

After looking at this map how would anyone even think the Palestinians will have a "country?" The West Bank is pockmarked with Jewish settlements. We can be sure that the Jewish settlers will have priority over the Palestinians in matters of water and land disputes.

The current war Israel is waging on Gaza is part of the unsettled question of a Palestinian country. The Palestinians deserve a country. These lands were as much theirs as any claim the Israelis make. I have no faith in someone who claims lands are theirs because some "magical being" told them so. Really why believe a supernatural being who doesn't appear to us now to settle this question?

Unlike our catatonic government the British and Austrians are actively petitioning the Israeli government to stop the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently instructed the Foreign Office to issue a warning to British citizens against the purchase of houses and real estate in the settlements.

Other measures recently imposed by London on West Bank settlements include tying the upgrade of relations between the European Union and Israel to the cessation of construction in the settlements in the West Bank and putting special labels on products denoting that they were made in West Bank settlements.

An excellent step by the British and Austrians. It might not sound like a lot but any anti-Israeli settlement talk is most welcome. The Israeli government has no intention of stopping the construction of settlements in occupied lands. International law is not what the Israelis follow. Now if a few badly aimed rockets land in open space in Israel then the Israelis whine.

The Stupidity of Rush: Blaming Sen Schumer for IndyMac Failure

Rush Limbaugh is stretching his already weak credibility with this whopper. Rush blames Sen Schumer for the failure of IndyMac which in turn caused the financial meltdown in October which in turn enabled Obama to win the Presidency. Can Rush get any more idiotic? I hope this is a joke on his part. Why would anyone hurt their already weak credibility by saying something this stupid?

The sleazy part of Rush is that he always puts out the most outrageous BS on the radio and then when he is called upon it he claims "I was only repeating what so and so said" or "I was only quoting what so and so wrote." He is a gutless wonder. I am waiting for someone to call him out on this idiotic statement . I am 100% sure he will claim he was only repeating what the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and Office of Thrift Supervision says.

No wonder the conservative movement is in its death spiral. Someone with true conservative credentials needs to step up and take over from the blowhards who have really done more harm than good for the conservative movement.

Sen Schumer releases a letter he wrote about his concerns about IndyMac's solvency.

But depositors may have been spooked by a letter late last week from Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, saying he was "concerned that IndyMac’s financial deterioration poses significant risks to both taxpayers and borrowers."

Sen Schumer was correct. IndyMac was saddled with huge mortgage debts which went bad. IndyMac's financial situation was getting worse by the hour. So Sen Schumer releases a letter stating his concerns and then IndyMac went bad like Limbaugh wants you to believe? What IndyMac released:

Pasadena-based mortgage lender IndyMac battling fresh rumors that it is near collapse, conceded today that its financial position "has deteriorated since last quarter," and said it was working on a plan with its regulators to improve "the safety and soundness" of the bank.

I guess Rush doesn't understand the meaning of "run on the bank" because he claimed IndyMac collapsed because so many people withdrew their money. IndyMac stated:

In its statement today, IndyMac said that after the Schumer letter appeared in the media, "we did experience elevated customer inquiries and withdrawals in our branch network last Friday and on Saturday of roughly $100 million." IndyMac said that amounted to about 0.5% of its total deposits of $19 billion.

So Rush thinks withdrawals in the amount of less than half of one percent caused the collapse of the bank? It wasn't their horrendous lending practices, their willingness to lend money to anyone who walked in the door, their lack of oversight of lending associates ... none of that caused IndyMac's failure. According to Rush it was Sen Schumer's letter that did the bank in.

IndyMac's failure came after years of rapid expansion during the housing boom. From June 2005 through March 2008, the assets on IndyMac's books jumped from $18 billion to $32 billion, fueled by variable-rate loans made without verifying the finances of borrowers, who often were allowed to pay so little each month that their loan balances rose.

Well I guess Rush is oblivious to facts or its just a scheme to press on lesser informed listeners that Democrats caused Wall Street's meltdown and the ensuing economic crisis. When you are desperate I guess you have to resort to desperate tactics.

The $700 Billion Stimulus: More Sprawl More Illegals?

Obama is planning on a tour of the country to sell his outrageous $700 billion dollar stimulus package. The package supposedly consists of money to fund "backlogged" transportation projects, school improvements and other projects that are supposed to "stimulate" the economy. The inherent idea is that the stimulus package provides money for new green technologies and mass transit. It won't work.

The states for one do not want Obama's mass transit plans for them. They want to build more roads that will only aggravate urban sprawl.

Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.

Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.

These projects are supposed to employ thousands of Americans and by extension prop up the economy by these workers new wages. Really? Katrina should have employed thousands of out-of-work Louisiana residents but instead thousands of illegals got jobs.

Thousands of men from Mexico and Central America were driving into the city. Word had spread throughout the Latino immigrant diaspora in America that the city had plenty of work, construction wages had doubled to $16 an hour and no one was asking for papers.

Are we looking at another Katrina? The employment boom won't go to Americans provided by the stimulus. It most likely will go to illegals who will once again flock to America to seek employment in construction. The construction this time won't be homes but roads and other infrastructure projects and the stimulus for this "growth industry" will be Obama's stimulus package.

Of course we need to blame the contractors and subcontractors who hire the illegals. These "Americans" are more concerned with profit than their own country. These people get away with their crimes because the laws in this country are not strong enough to do more than levy weak fines. They still keep their licenses and continue to work and in many cases continue to hire illegals at below par wages.

The group of five contractor groups are suing to the federal government to abolish new immigration checks.

Five trade groups are suing the Homeland Security Department to block a new requirement that federal contractors check the immigration status of their employees using the department’s E-Verify system.

The new immigration checks these contractor trade groups are against are federal contractors and subcontractors are required to verify the employment eligibility of all new hires regardless of whether those employees will perform work on a federal contract. Existing employees assigned to government work also must be re-verified using the system.

Is this such a problem for the contractor groups? The case was filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Associated Builders and Contractors, the Society for Human Resource Management, the American Council on International Personnel and the HR Policy Association.

Obama better gear up for a huge showdown. The environmental groups vs local and state governments over sprawl and pro-illegal and contractor groups vs the American worker.