An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Morning Coffee 02/16/09
Quinn dumping Blagojevich’s people
The purge has begun. After promising to “fumigate” state government, Gov. Quinn has wasted no time ridding his administration of holdovers from former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s regime. Gone so far are former Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters, acting head of the Department of Natural Resources Kurt Granberg and chief Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero.
I can’t imagine why he’s want to keep any of them on in a new administration. Even if they weren’t involved in any way, shape or form, there will always be that cloud hanging over their heads, and suspicion of anything they say or do.
Budding bilinguals: Grant to fund classes in Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin at Memphis schools
Seven months into the school year, Tamara Boyer speaks almost no English as she leads students at Brownsville Road Elementary through animated lessons in Russian, immersion style.
With great fanfare and Southern accents, they respond in Russian with the words for turnip (penka), grandfather (dedushka) and mouse (myshka), collecting photocopied Russian currency for correct answers.
If you’ve ever seen any kids interviewed on the evening news, about a drive by, or fight at some school, you’ll realize that $1.3 MILLION dollars would be better spent to teach those kids how to speak ENGLISH! I have no problem with kids learning foreign languages. Broaden horizons and all that, but when you have kids graduating from high school, who can barely read or write the native language, much less speak in coherent sentences, is it wise to spend time and money on such classes? AFTER they are fluent in English, then, give them the option of learning another language.
Two Moderate GOP Senators Give Big Voice To Little Maine
But the new math of Obama-era politics gives Maine influence out of proportion to its size. Even though Democrats have big majorities in both houses of Congress, they fall just short of a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate. It’s a situation tailor-made for moderate Republicans to become kingmakers. Collins and Snowe — along with fellow GOP moderate Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania — could hold the key to an array of Obama administration hopes, including health-care reform and further efforts to resuscitate the economy. They can make things happen, or they can stand in the way.
Gotta love that ‘new math of Obama-era’! Where one and one equals 500,000,000. I wonder how the folks of Maine feel about their senators? Will they work to get rid of them as they’ve led the way down the past to destruction? Just curious if there are any folks with backbone up there anymore. Use to be a time when New Englanders would stand firm against tyranny. Guess that time is long past.
Gov. Paterson has secretly granted raises of as much as 46 percent to more than a dozen staffers at a time when he has asked 130,000 state workers to give up 3 percent pay hikes because of the state’s fiscal crisis, The Post has learned.
The startling pay hikes, costing about $250,000 annually, were granted after the governor’s “emergency” declaration in August of a looming fiscal crisis that required the state to cut spending and impose a “hard” hiring freeze.
One raise was approved as recently as last month – when Paterson claimed the budget deficit had reached an unprecedented $15.5 billion.
Amazing. Just plain amazing. The words ‘cut spending’ don’t really apply to democrats, do they. That seems to average out to about 20 grand per raisee. Must be nice. Wonder what they do to warrant such raises, when other folks that actually WORK, physically and mentally, have to take cuts. Nope. Doesn’t mean a thing to ‘em.
US to pay 18,000 Philippine WWII veterans
Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said the nation shared a “profound sense of joy,” in seeing the service of these veterans finally recognised after years of lobbying the US government.
The US finance package, which was approved by Washington lawmakers on Friday, will provide a lump sum payment of 15,000 dollars to Filipino veterans living in the United States, and 9,000 dollars to those still in the Philippines, Romulo said in a statement.
The Philippine Veterans Affairs Office said the measure would benefit about 18,000 surviving veterans of the estimated 250,000 Filipinos who fought alongside US forces against the Japanese during World War II when the Philippines was a US colony.
Why was this not made a separate bill?????? What does righting a wrong of 60 years have to do with this porkulus bill? And why the hell has it taken so long for them to do this? Somethings fishy.
Proposed emissions rules worry automakers
On one side are environmental activists and many consumers who insist that U.S. carmakers build vehicles that don’t harm air quality and that help reduce the nation’s dependence on dirty-burning fossil fuels.
On the other are pro-industry groups and many auto analysts who say the clean air push is forcing automakers to manufacture cars that people won’t buy and that will only drive the companies further into financial disarray.
“You’re telling the car companies that they have to build cars that people don’t want to buy,” said Jeremy Anwyl, president and chief executive of the consumer Web site Edmunds.com and a longtime auto industry consultant. “It’s not exactly a recipe for viability.”
And while they are at it, how ’bout forcing folks to wear those Moa type Chinese jammies, eat tofu, and watch MSNBC? 
What they are going to actually succeed in doing, is detroy the auto industry, only to find out, those aluminum cans are pretty much useless in the grand scheme of things. Oh, I’m sure they are fine for tooling around a city, where you can hop from one store to another, or head to the spa for your daily facial. But a LOT of folks live out on the real world, where you have to drive more than 10 miles to get to a decent grocery store.
Obama May Force Israeli Unity Coalition To Gain US Leverage
Obama’s only hope of forcing Israel back to the negotiating table with the Palestinian Authority is through a ‘national unity government’ comprising Likud and Kadima, according to a report in Britain’s The Daily Telegraph. According to sources in Washington, Obama is ready to manipulate Israeli politics behind the scenes in order to make that happen, as Israeli president Shimon Peres determines who he will ask to head up Israel’s next government.
That CRAPOTUS would see Israel destroyed as well as the U.S.? I hope the rumors are false, because there may come a time when we are looking to them for defense against the encroachment of Islam.
Venezuelans Vote to Eliminate Two-Term Limit on All Elected Office 54.4% to 45.6%
At 9:35pm local time, three and a half hours after polls closed and with 94.2% of voted counted, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced that Venezuelans had voted 54.4% to 45.6% in favor of a constitutional amendment to eliminate the two-term limit on all elected office.
Chávez supporters celebrated the nearly 9-point victory margin with enthusiasm, as it will allow President Hugo Chávez to run for a third full term in 2012.
Are those people so ill equipped for life that they’d prefer a ruthless dictator over freedom?
S.S. D.D.
