S.F City paid for flights for illegal youths dealing crack

The most liberal city by the bay San Francisco has managed to figure out another way to break the Law, citing the city's immigrant sanctuary status. You're not going hear any protest from OBama who favors immigrant sanctuary cities throughout the United States if you really want to know how your country will run once obama is elected then just look too San Francisco.


Feds probe S.F.'s migrant-offender shield
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, June 29, 2008
San Francisco juvenile probation officials - citing the city's immigrant sanctuary status - are protecting Honduran youths caught dealing crack cocaine from possible federal deportation and have given some offenders a city-paid flight home with carte blanche to return.
The city's practices recently prompted a federal criminal investigation into whether San Francisco has been systematically circumventing U.S. immigration law, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.
City officials say they are trying to balance their obligations under federal and state law with local court orders and San Francisco's policies aimed at protecting the rights of the young immigrants, who they say are often victims of exploitation.
Federal authorities counter that drug kingpins are indeed exploiting the immigrants, but that the city's stance allows them to get away with "gaming the system."
San Francisco juvenile authorities have been grappling for several years with an influx of young Honduran immigrants dealing crack in the Mission District and Tenderloin.
Those who are arrested routinely say they are minors, but police suspect that many are actually adults, living communally in Oakland and other cities at the behest of drug traffickers who claim to be their relatives.
Nonetheless, city authorities have typically accepted the suspects' stories and handled the cases in Juvenile Court, where proceedings are often shielded from public scrutiny.
Unorthodox strategy
Barred by state law from sending drug offenders to the California Youth Authority and bound by a 1989 city law defining San Francisco as a sanctuary city for immigrants - meaning officials do not cooperate with federal immigration investigations - juvenile officials settled on an unorthodox strategy.
Rather than have the drug offenders deported, they have recommended that Juvenile Court judges and commissioners approve city-paid flights home to Honduras for the offenders with the aim of reuniting them with their families.
The practice, federal authorities say, does nothing to prevent offenders from coming back, while federal deportation legally bars them from ever returning. Federal officials also say U.S. law prohibits helping an illegal immigrant to cross the border, even if it is to return home.
Federal officials recently detained a San Francisco juvenile probation officer at the Houston airport, where he was accompanying two Honduran juvenile drug offenders about to board a flight to Tegucigalpa.
They questioned him for several hours before letting him go, and seized the youths and deported them.
"Our job is to uphold the nation's immigration laws," said Greg Palmore, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "Although San Francisco is a sanctuary city, it's a problem whenever someone attempts to evade the law. ... Our law does not allow us to turn a blind eye to any individual who has come into this country illegally."
Feds 'flabbergasted'
Joseph Russoniello, the U.S. attorney in charge of the San Francisco area, said he was "flabbergasted that the taxpayers' money was being spent for the purpose of ferrying detainees home. You have to have a perfect storm of dumb moves to have it happen."
William Siffermann, chief of San Francisco's Juvenile Probation Department, said federal agents have never specifically told his office not to send immigrants back to their home countries, but that he has stopped the practice until differences between the city and immigration authorities are resolved.
He said the city's stance is that it does not have to report illegal immigrant minors to the federal government, even if they are found in Juvenile Court to have committed a crime.
"We are not obligated to," he said. "We are abiding by the sanctuary city ordinance."
Siffermann added, "I don't believe we've done anything wrong." But he stressed that his office wants to make sure it is fulfilling its duties "in all arenas, with federal statutes, state statutes and the sanctuary city law."
Juveniles with beards
San Francisco police doubt that many of the young Hondurans they arrest on drug charges are even juveniles.
Police can report suspected adult illegal immigrants to federal authorities if they commit a crime, said Capt. Tim Hettrich, until recently the head of the narcotics unit.
So immigrant drug dealers "pass themselves off as juveniles, with a three-day growth of beard and everything else. It's frustrating," he said.
"Some of them have been arrested four or five times," Hettrich said. "That is one of the big problems with being a city of sanctuary."
He scoffed at San Francisco's strategy of returning the offenders to their home country. "They probably get the round trip and the next day, they will be right back here," Hettrich said.
Patricia Lee, head of the San Francisco public defender's juvenile branch, would not comment on pending cases. But, she said, "a lot of the young people have suffered a lot of abuse, abandonment and neglect in their native country and have been used as (drug-running) mules. There is lot of victimization and trafficking of these young people."
'Gaming the system'
Russoniello said the drug dealers are being sent here as part of an effort that takes advantage of San Francisco's leniency.
"What we're facing is a number of people gaming the system," he said. "Sooner or later the city will realize the advantage to cooperating (with federal authorities), whether it's the threat of criminal prosecution ... or some other method."
Russoniello would not confirm or deny the existence of a federal investigation, but juvenile probation officers connected to the case have been interviewed by federal agents about the flights.
City officials will not say how many juvenile drug offenders have been flown out of the country in recent years or how much the city has spent on the effort.
Federal immigration authorities stumbled on to the effort when they caught several illegal immigrants in December at the airport in Houston, along with a San Francisco juvenile probation officer.
The officer was on hand to make sure the immigrants boarded a plane to Tegucigalpa.
Federal authorities say they met with Siffermann and told him that any juvenile offender had to be handed over to immigration officials after completing his sentence.
The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency sent a letter to Siffermann on Dec. 17 stressing that it would soon "like to begin receiving referrals" about immigrant juveniles in custody in the city.
"The red flag was flown," Russoniello said.
City saw it differently
Siffermann, however, said federal authorities were not exactly clear about what the city could and could not do related to the flights or the status of immigrants held in juvenile cases.
"They did a little friendly stop-by," Siffermann said. "They said, 'This is something we would like you to cooperate on.' ... They said, 'Hey, look, this could be contrary to federal law, you might be in violation.' "
Meanwhile, the flights continued.
On May 15, two more illegal immigrants from Honduras were arrested in Houston, again accompanied by a San Francisco juvenile probation officer. Federal immigration authorities held the officer for more than three hours before releasing him.
Six days later, there was another meeting, Siffermann said. This time it was with a representative of Russoniello's office.
After that, Siffermann put the flights on hold. "We will look for other (approaches) for them," he said.
Siffermann stressed that the city ships out juvenile offenders to their home countries only after all other rehabilitative efforts have failed, including probation, foster care and juvenile detention.
The strategy is appropriate, Siffermann said, because deporting young offenders would doom them from ever becoming productive residents of the United States.
"It might prevent them from obtaining citizenship," he said, denying them a chance to "take a different course."
In a statement released by the city attorney's office, which is advising the city on the issue, spokesman Matt Dorsey said, "We've been in ongoing contact with the U.S. attorney's office on this, and we've informed them of our intention to address these issues in court proceedings.
"We're looking at the legal issues carefully and methodically," Dorsey's statement said, "and we're in the process of advising our client, the Juvenile Probation Department."
He said his office was not aware of the practice of flying juveniles back to Honduras.
Stranded juveniles
A recent count showed 22 of the 125 minors in custody at juvenile hall were immigrants and had no legal guardians in the United States, Siffermann said. He said his office is trying to figure out what to do with them now that flights are no longer an option.
Russoniello said the city has no choice but to comply with U.S. law and turn the youths over to federal authorities. "The alternative, now that they are all on notice, is a period of prolonged darkness," he said.
Judge Donna Hitchens, who oversees the city's Juvenile Court, said the original idea for flying youths home came from juvenile probation officials, and that it is up to them, not judges, to work out their differences with the federal government."We are only the judicial branch," she said. "The issue is between the city and ICE."

Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy

http//anthonylandaeta.blogspot.com
Information provided by Boston Globe who has endorsed Senator Obama for President


The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.

Presidential hopeful, residents' complaints(Boston Globe) At a dilapidated Chicago housing project, some see problems with Obama's favored housing policy.
Produced by Scott LaPierre / Globe staff

By Binyamin Appelbaum
Globe Staff / June 27, 2008
CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.
But it's not safe to live here.
About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.
Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.
As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.
But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.
Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.
Some of the residents of Grove Parc say they are angry that Obama did not notice their plight. The development straddles the boundary of Obama's state Senate district. Many of the tenants have been his constituents for more than a decade.
"No one should have to live like this, and no one did anything about it," said Cynthia Ashley, who has lived at Grove Parc since 1994.
Obama's campaign, in a written response to Globe questions, affirmed the candidate's support of public-private partnerships as an alternative to public housing, saying that Obama has "consistently fought to make livable, affordable housing in mixed-income neighborhoods available to all."The campaign did not respond to questions about whether Obama was aware of the problems with buildings in his district during his time as a state senator, nor did it comment on the roles played by people connected to the senator.

Among those tied to Obama politically, personally, or professionally are:
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.
Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama's US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama's former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments.
Antoin "Tony" Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama's early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko's company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama's district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.
Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.
One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.
Butler and Davis did not respond to messages. Rezko is in prison; his lawyer did not respond to inquiries.
Jarrett, a powerful figure in the Chicago development community, agreed to be interviewed but declined to answer questions about Grove Parc, citing what she called a continuing duty to Habitat's former business partners. She did, however, defend Obama's position that public-private partnerships are superior to public housing.
"Government is just not as good at owning and managing as the private sector because the incentives are not there," said Jarrett, whose company manages more than 23,000 apartments. "I would argue that someone living in a poor neighborhood that isn't 100 percent public housing is by definition better off."
In the middle of the 20th century, Chicago built some of the nation's largest public housing developments, culminating in Robert Taylor Homes: 4,415 apartments in 28 high-rise buildings stretching for 2 miles along an interstate highway.
By the late 1980s, however, Robert Taylor Homes and the rest of the Chicago developments had become American bywords for urban misery. The roughly 30 developments operated for poor families by the Chicago Housing Authority were plagued by crime and mired in poverty.
In Stateway Gardens, a large complex just north of Robert Taylor, a study of 1990 census data found the per-capita annual income was $1,650. And the projects were falling apart after decades of epic, sometimes criminal, mismanagement.
Similar problems plagued public housing in other cities, leading the federal government to greatly increase funding to address the problems. Many cities, including Boston, mostly used that money to rehabilitate their projects, maintaining public control.
Chicago chose a more dramatic approach. Under Mayor Richard M. Daley, who was elected in 1989, the city launched a massive plan to let private companies tear down the projects and build mixed-income communities on the same land.
The city also hired private companies to manage the remaining public housing. And it subsidized private companies to create and manage new affordable housing, some of which was used to accommodate tenants displaced from public housing.
Chicago's plans drew critics from the start. They asked why the government should pay developers to perform a basic public service - one successfully performed by governments in other cities. And they noted that privately managed projects had a history of deteriorating because guaranteed government rent subsidies left companies with little incentive to spend money on maintenance.
Most of all, they alleged that Chicago was interested primarily in redeveloping projects close to the Loop, the downtown area that was seeing a surge of private development activity, shunting poor families to neighborhoods farther from the city center. Only about one in three residents was able to return to the redeveloped projects.
"They are rapidly displacing poor people, and these companies are profiting from this displacement," said Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle of Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that seeks to help tenants stay in the same neighborhoods.
"The same exact people who ran these places into the ground," the private companies paid to build and manage the city's affordable housing, "now are profiting by redeveloping them."
Barack Obama was among the many Chicago residents who shared Daley's conviction that private companies would make better landlords than the Chicago Housing Authority.
He had seen the failure of the public projects in the mid-1980s as a community organizer at Altgeld Gardens, a large public housing complex on the far South Side.
He once told the Chicago Tribune that he had briefly considered becoming a developer of affordable housing. But after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991, he turned down a job with Tony Rezko's development company, Rezmar, choosing instead to work at the civil rights law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, then led by Allison Davis.
The firm represented a number of nonprofit companies that were partnering with private developers to build affordable housing with government subsidies.
Obama sometimes worked on their cases. In at least one instance, he represented the nonprofit company that owned Grove Parc, Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., when it was sued by the city for failing to adequately heat one of its apartment complexes.Shortly after becoming a state senator in 1997, Obama told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that his experience working with the development industry had reinforced his belief in subsidizing private developers of affordable housing.

Another inartful attempt to explain an inaccurate representation of senator Obama views

A look back to Nov. 20, 2007 statement by Obama, The Obama Camp Disavows Last Year's 'Inartful' Statement on D.C. Gun Law
June 26, 2008 7:35 AM

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Alexa Ainsworth Report: With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.'s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.
"That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.
The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007.
In a story entitled, "Court to Hear Gun Case," the Chicago Tribune's James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins wrote ". . . the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he '...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.'"
http://www.topix.com/content/trb/2007/11/court-to-hear-gun-case
The Chicago Tribune clip from Nov. 20, 2007, is an inaccurate representation of Obama's views, according to Burton, because the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has refrained from developing a position on whether the D.C. gun law runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
When Obama has been asked on multiple occasions to weigh in on the D.C. gun case he has regularly maintained that the Second Amendment provides an individual right while at the same time saying that right is not absolute and that the Constitution does not prevent local governments from enacting what Obama calls "common sense laws."
Although he has been willing to describe his general views on this topic, Obama has sidestepped the question of whether the ban in the nation's capital runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
Asked by ABC News' Charlie Gibson if he considers the D.C. law to be consistent with an individual's right to bear arms at ABC's April 16, 2008, debate in Philadelphia, Obama said, "Well, Charlie, I confess I obviously haven't listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., by contrast, has been forthcoming when it comes to the D.C. gun law. He signed an amicus brief in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, signaling not only his belief in the Second Amendment but also his view that the DC gun ban is incompatible with it.
The D.C. ban prohibits residents from keeping handguns inside their homes and requires that lawfully registered guns, such as shotguns, be locked and unloaded when kept at home.

Barack Obama's Offshore Oil Drilling Follies

Written By: theFinancialSkinny
http//anthonylandaeta.blogspot.com/

You just have to love the Democrats. If they're good at anything it's finding a scapegoat for their failed policies. For more than two decades they've banned drilling for oil in 80% of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) on the alleged grounds that they're trying to protect the environment. More recently, and on the same grounds, they've prohibited oil shale leasing on Federal lands.
There hasn't been a new oil refinery built in this country in thirty years because the Democrats at all levels of government have made the approval process a nightmare. As a result, we now import not only crude oil, but fully refined, much more expensive gasoline as well.
They won't consider the thought of clean-coal technology.
They won't allow the building of nuclear power plants.
They won't permit the construction of a windmill farm in Nantucket Sound because, in the words of Ted Kennedy: "Don't they understand that that's where I sail?" (That notwithstanding, we wish the Senator many more years of sailing there.)
And now that China and India are emerging from the dark ages, their demand for oil has pushed the outer bounds of the world's current ability to produce it.
And whom do the Democrats blame? Why the evil speculators of course.
Are Democrats willfully ignorant of the laws of supply and demand?
What they don't tell you while they're professing their love for the environment is that Cuba, which lies just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, is negotiating with Chinese companies to drill for oil in Cuban waters. Seismic mapping (you know, the kind that drives the whales mad) has already commenced. So Cuba soon will be producing (and probably exporting) oil from waters just south of the Florida Keys, while the United States will be importing petroleum from our good friends in OPEC.
Barack Obama and the Democrats think it's fine for two Communist countries to drill in waters 90 miles off our coast, but not for American companies to drill in our OCS. That puts the lie to their concern for our beaches, don't you think?
It should also tell you just how far out on the loony fringe these people are.
For those of you who are wondering, the U.S. Government's Minerals Management Service (MMS) defines the OCS as consisting "of the submerged lands, subsoil, and seabed, lying between the seaward extent of the States' jurisdiction and the seaward extent of Federal jurisdiction. The continental shelf is the gently sloping undersea plain between a continent and the deep ocean". Generally speaking the OCS extends about 200 miles out to sea.
We love the beach and have spent many vacations in Florida and would hate to see that pristine sand fouled. Consider these facts:
· In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina's top wind speeds reached 175 mph as it moved across the Gulf of Mexico, where there were 4,000 structures, 130 drilling rigs, and 34,000 miles of pipeline on the seafloor.
· Although there were 100 spills from Katrina and 260 from Rita, most of which the U.S. Coast Guard classified as minor, the MMS reports that "there were no accounts of Federal OCS spills that reached the shoreline or oiled birds or mammals. In addition, there were no large volumes of oil discovered offshore to be collected or cleaned up".
· In November 2000 the MMS reported that fish densities in the Gulf around active platforms (which serve as de facto reefs) were 20-50 times higher than in nearby open water.
· As of that date, at the encouragement of the states and the MMS, 151 obsolete platforms had been converted to artificial reefs.
All of that sounds like a pretty good balance between the need to develop energy from the OCS and the importance of protecting the coastal environments. In fact, we've seen college students on spring break make more of a mess at the beach than the petroleum industry did during the hurricanes of 2005.
It's estimated that there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in our OCS, or about two years' worth of oil and ten years' worth of natural gas.
We now have the technology to extract oil from shale in an environmentally sound way, and at current prices it would be feasible economically. The Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming has an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which is roughly equivalent to 100 years of imports at current levels.
Obama says that wouldn't be enough to lower the price. The man must have been absent from economics class on the day they taught economics.
The market is made on the margin, Senator. Get a clue.
As for the alternative sources of energy mantra, the new Honda FCX Clarity has great promise, but it's likely to be 8-10 more years before it goes into mass production.

Obama Flip-Flops on D.C. School Voucher Program - Now Intends to Squash it

June 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A landmark education program that provides opportunity to hundreds of families in the nation's capital to attend private schools is being opposed by Democrats in Congress.

Barack Obama told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in February that he was open to voucher programs, but just last week announced his intentions to squash the DC pilot program.

"Barack Obama prefers private education for his daughters but won't give DC parents the same opportunity," said Brian Burch, President of Fidelis, a Catholic-based political, legal, research and educational organization.

"Vouchers are Change," he continued. "Rather than subjecting kids to rotting schools, vouchers have brought change to hundreds of families, who opted for private or parochial schools. If Barack Obama had fought for this program, it would be saved. But he refuses to help these low-income families. By supporting the teachers union, he sadly has become the Status Quo Candidate on education."

Back in February, it looked like Barack Obama would be willing to back the teachers union and support the voucher program.

The Illinois Senator told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "If there was any argument for vouchers, it was 'Alright, let's see if this experiment works,' and if it does, then whatever my preconceptions, my attitude is you do what works for the kids," the senator said. "I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn. We're losing several generations of kids and something has to be done."

But by June, the teachers lobby convinced Obama to work against the program.

The senator told ABC News last week: "We don't have enough slots for every child to go into a parochial school or a private school. And what you would see is a huge drain of resources out of the public schools."

Fidelis also said Republicans in Congress, including long-time voucher supporter Sen. John McCain, deserve credit for placing parents and kids above the special interests of the teachers union.

At a 2007 presidential primary debate, McCain said: "Choice and competition is the key to success in education in America. That means charter schools, that means home schooling, it means vouchers, it means rewarding good teachers and finding bad teachers another line of work."

Burch concluded, saying, "Over the last eight years, we have seen some progress on education reform. John McCain has been a long-time advocate of education reform by providing alternatives to low-income families. Despite all the criticisms about Washington lobbyists and special interests, Barack Obama has sided with one of the most powerful special interest groups in Washington, this time at the expense of the educational future of thousands of children."

Beware of people promoting change you may not like what you get!!!!!!!

Not all of Obama donors are sending in $10 checks, check out the top contributor donors for Obama

By Anthony Landaeta jr
http://anthonylandaeta.blogspot.com/

"Having discussions about what matters most to you "

The Decision to opt out of the public financing system will pay dividends for Obama down the road,the system was supposed to level the playing field so that candidates without huge fundraising machines or personal fortunes could still run viable campaigns. The public campaign funding system was meant to protect the integrity of presidential elections by reducing candidates' dependence on private donors to whom they would later be beholden.

Well here we are Mr. Change
Last Reported

Top Contributors
Goldman Sachs $605,980
JP Morgan Chase $403,130
UBS $370,130
Citigroup $363,454
Top 5 Industries
Lawyers/Law Firms $17,730,876
Securities & Invesment $8,582,811
Education $6,855,751
Misc Business $13,391,968
Retired (AARP) $10,167,470



Obama told Tim Russert at Feb. 27 debate he would "sit down with John McCain" to discuss public financing. Obama never did before opting out of system.
WASHINGTON-The legacy of the sharp questioning of Tim Russert, Feb. 27 Democratic primary debate where as moderator, Russert challenged now presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) about the pledge he made to opt for public financing. On Thursday, Obama announced he will not take public financing. "You may break your word," Russert asked. Obama replied, , "What I've said is, at the point where I'm the nominee, at the point where it's appropriate, I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that works for everybody."

The entire exchange:
RUSSERT: Senator Obama, let me ask you about motivating, inspiring, keeping your word. Nothing more important.
Last year you said if you were the nominee you would opt for public financing in the general election of the campaign, try to get some of the money out. You checked "yes" on a questionnaire.
And now Senator McCain has said, calling your bluff, let's do it. You seem to be waffling, saying, well, if we can work on an arrangement here.
Why won't you keep your word in writing that you made to abide by public financing of the fall election?
OBAMA: Tim, I am not yet the nominee. And what I have said is, when I am the nominee, if I am the nominee -- because we've still got a bunch of contests left, and Senator Clinton is a pretty tough opponent -- if I am the nominee, then I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that is fair for both sides. Because, Tim, as you know, there are all sorts of ways of getting around these loopholes.
Senator McCain is trying to explain some of the things that he has done so far, where he accepted public financing money but people aren't exactly clear whether all of the t's were crossed and the i's were dotted. Now, what I want to point out, though, more broadly is how we have approached this campaign.
I said very early on I would not take PAC money, I would not take money from federal registered lobbyists. That was a multi-million- dollar decision, but it was the right thing to do. And the reason we were able to do that was because I had confidence that the American people, if they were motivated, would, in fact, finance the campaign.
We have now raised 90 percent of our donations from small donors, $25, $50. We average -- our average donation is $109. So we have built the kind of organization that is funded by the American people that is exactly the goal and the aim of everybody who's interested in good government and politics that works.
RUSSERT: So you may opt out of public financing. You may break your word.
OBAMA: What I've said is, at the point where I'm the nominee, at the point where it's appropriate, I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that woks for everybody.

Beware of people promoting change you may not like what you get

By Anthony Landaeta Jr

Obama Proud Campaign pictures 08

The man of the hour Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama. Clearly, people are hungry for a change

Obama Proud Campaign pictures 08

The man of the hour Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama. Clearly, people are hungry for a change

House leadership and Senate Leadership in Bed with big Banks Congrats to Charles E. Schumer SENATOR (D - NY) for leading the list.

Article by Anthony Landaeta posted 6/17/08
110th Congress House Leadership 110th Congress Senate Leadership Just looking at the Leadership of both the House and Senate who are receiving contributions from the Big Banks. It just so happens that only the democrats lead that distinguished award, Top 5 Contributors list for Fundraising for 2007-2008 Cycle.Charles E. Schumer who's on the committee's for Banking, Housing, Urban Affairs, Finance, Judiciary, Rules and Administration leads the pack with Citigroup Inc. $80,800 UBS Americas $74,250 also the top Lobby contributors for the Industries contributions Securites & Investment $1,370,339, Real Estate $751,551 Misc Finance $ 321,948 Commercial Banks $285,500. These folks are sending mixed signals to the American People on there stand with Mortgage Crisis.

Rahm Emanuel REPRESENTATIVE (D - IL) Ways and Means Committee
UBS AG $58,100
JP MORGAN CHASE $45,700

Dick Durbin SENATOR (D - IL) Appropriations, Judicary, Rules and Administration, Majority Whip
Citigroup Inc $46,575

Byron L. Dorgan SENATOR (D - ND) Appropriations, Commerce, Science, and , Transportation, Indian Affairs, Rules and Administration.
Goldman Sacks $ 19,250

Charles E. Schumer SENATOR (D - NY) Banking, Housing, Urban Affairs, Finance, Judiciary, Rules and Administration
Citigroup Inc. $80,800
UBS Americas $74,250
Also in the Top Industries
Securites & Investment $1,370,339, Real Estate $751,551 Misc Finance $ 321,948 Commercial Banks $285,500

Steny H. Hoyer REPRESENTATIVE (D - MD) Majority Leader
JP MORGAN CHASE $ 21,500

Oil crisis: Obama vs. McCain

The Democrat wants the government to do more to encourage conservation and find alternatives, while the Republican sees a bigger role for the free market

By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
The Democrat and Republican candidates for president offer their plans for how the U.S. should confront the energy challenge of high gas prices, tight oil supplies and greenhouse gas reduction.

Energy issues have arguably never received so much public scrutiny.Record gas prices are taking a big chunk out of people's budgets, and take a big part of the blame for our shaky economy.
But it isn't just high prices that are worrying voters. Oil supplies are tight, and global warming threatens major disruptions to life on Earth.
Whoever wins the White House this fall may spend more time tackling theses energy challenges than any other president in history.
The energy policies of Barack Obama and John McCain differ widely and voters can bet on some spirited political debate.
McCain would mandate reductions in greenhouse gasses, then largely rely on the free market to spur conservation. In order to ease the pain of high gas prices he also wants to suspend the federal gas tax.
Obama would tax oil companies and use the money to help low income people. He would also restrict greenhouse gasses, but charge more for companies to pollute and use the money to fund renewable energy research. He also sees a bigger role for government in encouraging conservation.
CNNMoney.com asked the candidates questions which we feel are central to solving the world's energy challenge. Here's what they said:
How they'd help consumers
• Should Americans get direct rebates from the government? Some say the government should tax big oil or issue rebate checks out of the general fund to help people deal with pricier gas. Others say revenue from more oil company taxes would be marginal, and more borrowing would hurt the dollar and send oil prices higher. (more)
McCain: Yes, but not right away. McCain's rebate would go to low income people and would come from an eventual sale of pollution permits to companies. He doesn't say when this sale would take place. He also supports eliminating a current tax break for oil companies.
Obama: Yes. Obama would close a tax credit for oil companies and institute a windfall profits tax - charging big oil companies a higher rate when oil is over $80 a barrel. The money would be used to ease the burden of high energy prices on low income people.
• Should the role of speculators be limited? Should traders be required to put more of their own money down to buy oil futures? Should trading in oil contracts be limited only to bulk oil users, such as refiners and airlines? Some say too many speculators are creating an oil price bubble. Others say they are merely following the trend, and provide much-needed liquidity. (more)
McCain: Maybe. The government needs to review how much money traders are required to put up, but McCain hasn't specifically called for raising that amount.
Obama: Maybe. The candidate would require more information gathering by the government, but it's unclear if he'd enact more restrictions.
• Should the gas tax be suspended? Some say suspending the 18.4 cent a gallon federal gas tax would give motorists much needed relief. Others say it would leave road repairs underfunded and encourage more driving. (more)
McCain: Yes.
Obama: No.
How they'd limit demand
• Should fuel efficiency standards be raised more? Congress hiked them last fall for the first time in three decades, from 25 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. Where should they go beyond 2020? (more)
McCain: See how automakers do with the new rules before passing new ones.
Obama: Wants to double fuel economy standards within 18 years to 50 mpg by 2026.
• Should the government do more to promote conservation? Some ideas include government incentives for walking to work, a luxury tax on large cars, a tax rebate for small or electric cars, tax incentives and public wireless networks for people who telecommute, lowering the speed limit, among others.
McCain: Supports market incentives for more Internet coverage to help telecommuters. He would rely on laws restricting greenhouse gas emissions to spur innovative conservation.
Obama: Wants to make all new buildings carbon neutral, or produce zero emissions, by 2030. Promotes investment in a smart utility grid that can better manage energy demand. Has a lengthy section on his Web site talking about better urban development plans, and government incentives for towns that follow them. Obama wants to give utilities incentives to conserve energy. Lift cap on tax credit for more efficient cars, increase funding for public transport.
Candidate plans for boosting supply
• Should more areas be open for drilling in the U.S.? Some 1 to 2 million barrels a day, maybe more, of new production could be brought online by opening areas in the U.S. currently closed to drilling, most coming from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Critics of more drilling say by the time production is ramped up, the amount will be too small to matter. (more)
McCain: Would keep ANWR closed, but open up some coastal areas.
Obama: No.
• Should refiners be required to make more gasoline even if their profit margins are small? Should the government streamline the number of fuel blends the refiners make, or ease some clean air requirements? (more)
McCain: Would not relax air quality standards, but would limit the number of fuel blends.
Obama: Would require fuel suppliers to reduce the carbon their fuel emits by 10% by 2020.
• Should the ethanol tariff be lifted in an attempt to lower gas prices? Ethanol is a required component of gasoline. But in an effort to protect the domestic ethanol industry, there's a 54 cent a gallon tax on imported ethanol. (more)
McCain: Yes
Obama: No
• Should the government release supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to calm oil markets? Critics of the calls to release SPR oil say the supplies should only be used in a genuine emergency, and drawing them down now could send prices higher by shrinking that buffer. (more)
McCain: No
Obama: No
Developing alternatives
• Should the government increase funding for renewable and cleaner energy? Some say the government should embark on a massive project - akin to the Apollo Project that put a man on the moon - in an effort to rapidly make technologies like solar, geothermal, advanced biofuels or clean coal cheaper, especially when electricity is expected to replace oil as the main fuel for cars. Others say this is best left to the free market.
McCain: No, says market forces created by restricting carbon dioxide emissions would do the trick.
Obama: Yes. The candidate would commit $150 billion over 10 years, plus another $50 billion in venture capital. The money would come from auctioning off permits for polluters to emit greenhouse gasses.
• Should the government require utilities to buy renewable energy? A bill requiring utilities to buy a certain percent of their energy from renewable sources recently failed in the Senate. Supporters said it would create a much-needed market for renewable power. Opponents said it was a one-size-fits-all solution. (more)
McCain: No
Obama: Yes, 25% by 2025.
Global warming
Despite the fact that most economists say a carbon tax is a more efficient way to reduce greenhouse gasses, most politicians that want to restrict greenhouse gas emissions support a cap and trade system, including McCain and Obama. (more)
A cap and trade is where the government issues permits to emit carbon dioxide, then reduces those permits every year. That's the cap part. Companies are then required to buy these permits from each other on an open market - hence the trade.
The idea is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but give companies the option of either paying to pollute or installing better equipment. Paying to pollute would get more expensive each year as the number of permits declines.
While a cap and trade bill recently failed in the Senate on grounds that it would be too costly, both Obama and McCain said they would have voted for it had they been present, and the issue is certain to reemerge. But Obama's and McCain's approach to cap and trade do differ.
McCain: Would give away permits at first. Aims to reduce emissions 60% below 1990 levels by 2050.
Obama: Wants to charge companies for the permits right from the beginning. Aims to reduce emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

Johnson Steps Down From Obama VP Team, Marking First General Election Casualty

Barack Obama, shown here speaking at a roundtable discussion on predatory lending in Chicago Wednesday, has parted ways with an adviser who was vetting his potential running mates. (AP Photo)

Longtime Washington insider Jim Johnson became the first casualty of the general election campaign Wednesday, leaving his seat on Barack Obama’s running-mate search team after coming under fire for his lucrative ties to financial corporations and lenders.
Johnson, a former Fannie Mae CEO who also helped vet running mates for Walter Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004, stepped down following reports that he received favorable loan terms from a mortgage lender that Obama has criticized sharply on the campaign trail.
“Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice presidential nominee, so he has made a decision to step aside that I accept,” Obama said in a statement issued after three days of criticism.
Though there appears to have been nothing illegal about Johnson’s actions, John McCain’s campaign has used his prominent role in the Obama campaign to portray the presumptive Democratic nominee as hypocritical.
And when Johnson stepped down Wednesday, the McCain campaign attacked Obama for caving to pressure.
“Jim Johnson’s resignation raises serious questions about Barack Obama’s judgment,” spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement, adding “the American people have reason to question the judgment of a candidate who has shown he will only make the right call when under pressure from the news media. America can’t afford a president who flip-flops on key questions in the course of 24 hours.”
The crossfire portends the scrutiny that every campaign aide or adviser easily could face in the months leading to the November election.
During the Democratic primary, Obama and Hillary Clinton each waved goodbye to several aides and advisers who in some way had offended the other side. Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power left after calling Clinton a “monster” in an interview with a Scottish newspaper. Geraldine Ferraro, a former vice presidential candidate, left her seat on Clinton’s finance team after saying Obama was being aided politically by his race.
The general election campaign formally began last week, when Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, and Johnson swiftly became an early target of Republicans.
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Johnson received favorable loan terms from lender Countrywide Financial Corp., a firm Obama has criticized for contributing to the home mortgage crisis. That report opened the door for several other reports, including by The Washington Post and The New York Times, which revisited Johnson’s history with Fannie Mae before the company drew the scrutiny of regulators and his role on several boards granting hefty payouts to CEOs.
Don’t expect Johnson’s exit to end criticism about either candidate’s campaign team.
The Republican National Committee released a statement Wednesday saying, “If Barack Obama is concerned his campaign’s ties to special interests are distracting from his VP search and message, why is Eric Holder still on his search committee?”
Holder, a former deputy attorney general, has come under fire by Republicans for his role in helping fugitive financier Marc Rich get a pardon from President Clinton. He is still on the running-mate search team for Obama along with Caroline Kennedy.
Obama’s campaign in turn issued a fiery counterattack on McCain, criticizing him for keeping lobbyists and former lobbyists close.
In recent weeks, McCain has endured a mini-staffing purge, getting rid of campaign operatives whose lobbying ties had come to the surface.
“We don’t need any lectures from a campaign that waited 15 months to purge the lobbyists from their staff,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said. “It’s too bad their campaign is still rife with lobbyist influence and doesn’t see a similar ‘perception problem’ with the man currently running their own vice presidential selection process.”
The campaign was referring to Arthur Culvahouse, a former Reagan official and former lobbyist who is advising McCain in his running-mate hunt.
Meanwhile, Johnson continued to garner kind words from Democrats on Wednesday, despite his exit from the Obama campaign.
“We have a very good selection process underway, and I am confident that it will produce a number of highly qualified candidates for me to choose from in the weeks ahead. I remain grateful to Jim for his service and his efforts in this process,” Obama said in his statement.
Kerry, speaking with reporters on a conference call Wednesday, praised Johnson for the work he did four years ago and said the criticism is just “one of those … Washington grab stories.”
“Jim Johnson is a very experienced, very discreet, very capable individual who is performing a voluntary function without pay … he’s not seeking a job,” Kerry said.
“Jim Johnson is a capable guy. He has been vetting VPs for a while,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told MSNBC on Wednesday. He said Johnson just was doing a volunteer job, and “this is nothing to do with special interests and influence in the campaign, unlike John McCain.”
After McCain on Monday called the Johnson connection a “contradiction” for Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee told reporters he can’t be expected to track down the mortgage history of his search committee members.
“I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters,” Obama said in St. Louis, Mo., on Tuesday, adding that Johnson was not technically working for him since he was an unpaid volunteer.
Obama strategist David Axelrod repeated that argument in an interview Wednesday morning.
“We honestly didn’t ask him for his mortgage statements of his financials and I don’t think anyone would expect us to,” he told MSNBC. “We can’t vet all the vetters.”
McCain’s campaign went after Obama on Tuesday for being “in a state of denial” about Johnson’s role in the campaign and his past taking “sweetheart deals” from Countrywide.
FOX News’ Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

National Health Care

National Health Care

By Anthony Landaeta

http://anthonylandaeta.blogspot.com/

Posted 06/09/08

It would be nice to have a national health care system but we as citizens cannot afford to pay the cost of it, as you know nothing is Free in life all countries like Germany, France, Britain, Canada have some what of a good government plan for all citizens But these folks pay for it in the payroll taxes up to 7% of there income, sales taxes, and gas taxes and that just covers basic health insurance if they want more then the basic they have to pay for it out of there pocket. This is how other countries pay for there state sponsored health Insurance.

Gas Tax Average 70%
State Sales Tax Average 19%
Payroll Taxes 7% and higher for some countries
How about a Television Tax to watch T.V or a Habitation Tax whether you own a property or not this tax is based on location and size of family.Gas Taxes in Germany, France, Britain and Canada are 60% to 75% of the cost of gas per barrel so taking 70% the tax would be $5.60 plus the base price of gas of $3.39 per gallon = $8.99 per gallon.

All I hear is from the candidates is we need too cover all citizens with a National Health Care how do we pay for it.

Canada's Estimated Cost $148 billion per year 10.3 percent of GDP (2006) there population is 33,679,263

All of the other countries populations is smaller then the U.S population and in fact here is the populations of all four countries:

France 64,094,658
Canada 33,679,263
Germany 82,369,548
Britain 60,943,912

Total for all Four 241,087,381

The U.S population 303,824,650
U.S Baby Boomer population of 78,997,409 is bigger then 3 of the 4 countries listed above in population.

I still ask how do we pay for National Health Care when it could cost the tax payer as much as
1 trillion dollars too put into place, that's a lot of money and yes our taxes would go up but maybe nobody would mind paying all of our money towards taxes, its funny how we always talk about other countries and all the great things they do for there Citizens (like making them pay 19% in sales tax and $9.00 a gallon for gas and don't for get the great (Habitation Tax whether you own a property or not this tax is based on location and size of family). Everybody wants a free ride but nobody wants to pay for it.

See link below

http://www.openmedicine.ca/article/view/8/1 (A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States)

We do need to do something, how about trying capitalism instead of socialism

Anthony Landaeta Jr.