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Gail Norton,
Secretary of the Interior in the Bush administration for five years,
is resigning. |
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The Abramoff scandal is sucking
Norton down. She has been long aggrandized for her superficial work
and long ignored for her self-promoting lobbyist efforts. |
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For several
years she has operated -- with assistance from assistants long-time
Colorado supporters -- a lobbying organization. Now the Abramoff
lobbying scandal and whirlpool is opening more wormy cans and deepening some worm
holes that have nothing to do astrophysics. |
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The US trade
deficit hit a record in February. The actual number
($68,500,000,000) hardly matters since it is steadily increasing
with no sign of abating. Just five years ago it was around
$32,000,000,000 per month. |
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Producing cars that are
undistinguishable from the cheese box pictured above, it is not
comprehensible how the Japanese, etc. and Germans, etc., can sell so
many look-alike boxes. Apparently Americans are completely
undiscriminating and fail to come close to being the connoisseurs of
beauty they fancy themselves to be. |
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And why should Americans blame
themselves for the trade deficit when they can whine and blame their
government? Certainly some governmental policies contribute, but it
the widening trade deficit is due to rising geo-political problems
in the major oil-producing regions and American consumers who buy
foreign cheese boxes. |
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Do Americans understand that the
trade deficit is directly increased by their purchases of foreign
products? Do Americans understand that the trade deficit is not the
same entity as the US budget deficit? The US budget deficit they
should blame on their congressmen and fellow American recipients of
the so-called entitlements. |
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Hewlett-Packard's
one-time CEO boss lady, the
overpaid Carly Fiorina, continued to be paid even
after having been fired as chief executive officer.
So says a suit filed by four union pension funds seeking
return of a severance package that they
value at $42 million. Hewlett-Packard
fired Fiorina in 2005. |
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The suit
was filed in San Francisco federal court
and claims that directors violated
their own executive termination policy adopted in 2003.
They gave Fiorina severance, including stock, options, and
pension benefits totaling over 2.99 times
her annual base pay. The suit contends this was
done without seeking shareholder approval. |
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Robert
Zito, a partner with the New York law firm Schiff Hardin LLP,
said "Violation of that policy is going to be Exhibit 1,"
in the pension funds' case. He added, "The
board is going to have difficulty explaining why they deviated from
that guideline," if the funds can prove it
applies. Zito defends companies in
securities lawsuits. |
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Former toe
sucker and advisor to Bill and Hilary Clinton, Dick Morris, who has
turned super political advisor and best-selling author, reports that
Bill Clinton is a paid advisor to the royal prince of Dubai. Clinton
is paid by the princely company Yucaipa (as in yuck-it-up, Bill).
Yucaipa recently set up dealings with a company called Yucaipa
Investment Group in order to set up a new company called DIGL. DIGL
will manage the global investments of the crown prince of Dubai.
Clinton is paid a percentage of DIGL profits which have surpassed
40% in recent years. Clinton also has received about a million
dollars laundered through his library and another roughly $600,000
paid for two speaking deals. |
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This reveals that Clinton
is a paid agent of a foreign government. However he has not
registered as a paid agent of a foreign government -- a lobbyist,
that is. Even Jack Abramoff registered and was more forthcoming than
Clinton. MMM uses its imagination to only imagine what dealings
Clinton dealt while serving the American people for eight years from
the Oval Office. We know he failed to stop bin Laden during the late
1990s. |
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Has Hillary Rodham Clinton
disclosed how much money is going into their joint bank account...
the account of a US senator? |
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Mohammed
Reza Taheri-azar, 22, is
the driver of
the SUV that plowed into a group of pedestrians at University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He told police that his act was
retribution for treatment of Muslims around the world. He is being
held on $5.5 million bond. He will be charged with multiple counts
of attempted murder. |
| A
group of UN-Chapel Hill
students plans to rally on campus to
protest the attack. They will hand out small American flags. |
An evacuee is
shown being arrested for domestic violence. |
Following Hurricane
Katrina, Houston was
justifiably labeled by New Orleans environs
evacuees the city with a Big Heart. Houston housed, fed and
salvaged over 150,000 survivors.
Houston initiated the biggest shelter
operation in US history.
Later, when more was needed, Houston
closed less-adequate facilities and moved
evacuees into comfortable housing. |
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Houston then
offered evacuees
vouchers that covered rent and utilities for a year. Angelo
Edwards, vice chair of the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association
says, "No other city really provided the resources and
assistance Houston has... If not for Mayor
[Bill] White and his administration, a lot of us
would've been lost." |
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Six months
later Houston is
witnessing why Katrina's impact is lasting so long. So are other
cities,
including Atlanta and San Antonio.
Dallas' city housing authority
provided rent vouchers to some of
its 20,000 evacuees.
Soon Dallas became
overwhelmed when evacuees failed
to pay rent which prompted
eviction notices. |
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Guests of
Houston are not returning the city's
goodwill. At the same
time they are demonstrating why New Orleans had been poor and
unproductive before Katrina. It is one thing for Houston to have
been generous and open itself to people forced out of their homes by
Katrina. It is another to have evacuees fail to make the effort to
stop taking and say "thanks" and return home to start rebuilding.
Instead, Houston's crime is up, schools are
over-crowded, and hospitals are packed over-capacity. The
reality of absorbing a traumatized and sometimes destitute
population is heroic. The lack of initiative to
repay and rebuild is laziness. |
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