DebateGate

Words of encouragement from your president:

"The American people sent us here to do the right thing, not for party but for country. So, we're going to work together to get things done on their behalf. That's the least that they should expect of us. Not the most that they should expect of us. I am ready to roll up my sleeves over the next several weeks and next several months. I know that people in both parties are ready to do that as well, and we will keep you updated on the progress that we're making on these debt limit talks over the next several days. Thank you," President Obama said today about the debt talks.

Barry & Company want illegals to be treated like US citizens, and have OUR constitutional rights. Well, Texas says screw you! Fry, mother fucker, fry. I want this Mexican turned into a crispy Chimichanga.



http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/articles/huntsville-128543-mexican-seeks.html

White House seeks delay of Mexican man's execution
July 07, 2011 9:42 AM
MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE (AP) — The planned execution Thursday of a Mexican national has prompted a flurry of appeals on his behalf, including a rare plea from the White House, because of what it could mean for other foreigners arrested in the U.S. and for Americans detained in other countries.

Humberto Leal, 38, is awaiting a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on whether to block his lethal injection in Huntsville. He was sentenced to die for the 1994 rape and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda of San Antonio.

The appeal contends that authorities never told Leal after his arrest that he could seek legal assistance from the Mexican government under an international treaty, and that such assistance would have aided his defense. Leal moved to the U.S. as a toddler.

Leal's attorneys have support from the White House, the Mexican government and other diplomats who believe the execution should be delayed so his case can be thoroughly reviewed.

"There can be little doubt that if the government of Mexico had been allowed access to Mr. Leal in a timely manner, he would not now be facing execution for a capital murder he did not commit," Leal's attorneys told the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in a clemency request rejected Tuesday. "Unfortunately, Mexico's assistance came too late to affect the result of Mr. Leal's capital murder prosecution."

President Barack Obama's administration took the unusual step of intervening in a state murder case when it asked the Supreme Court last week to delay Leal's execution for up to six months. The U.S. solicitor general told the court that Congress needed time to consider legislation that would allow federal courts to review cases of condemned foreign nationals to determine if the lack of consular help made a significant difference in the outcome of their cases.

The legislation, backed by the U.S. State Department and the United Nations, would bring the U.S. into compliance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations provision regarding the arrest of foreign nationals.

Lower courts already rejected the pleas, agreeing with the Texas Attorney General's office that since the legislation hasn't been passed and signed into law, it doesn't apply. At least two measures like it failed earlier in Congress.

"Leal's argument is nothing but a transparent attempt to evade his impending punishment," Stephen Hoffman, an assistant attorney general for the state of Texas, told the Supreme Court.

Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., wrote numerous congressional members and Texas officials calling attention to the legislation and the case and urged Gov. Rick Perry to stop the punishment.

Perry had the authority to issue a one-time 30-day reprieve but made no decision while the courts remained involved.

Prosecutors said on the night she was killed, Sauceda was drunk and high on cocaine at an outdoor party in an undeveloped neighborhood of San Antonio and was assaulted by several males. At some point, prosecutors said, Leal showed up and said he knew her parents and would take her home and explain the situation to them.

Witnesses said Leal drove off with Sauceda around 5 a.m. Some partygoers found her brutalized body later that morning and called police, prosecutors said. When officers arrived, they found Sauceda's head battered by a 30- to 40-pound chunk of asphalt and evidence that she had been bitten, strangled and raped. A large stick that had a screw protruding from it was left in her body.

Leal, a mechanic, was identified as the last person seen with her. He was questioned and arrested.

A witness testified Leal's brother appeared at the party, agitated that Leal had arrived home bloody and saying he had killed a girl. Testifying during the trial's punishment phase, Leal acknowledged being intoxicated and doing wrong but said he wasn't responsible for what prosecutors alleged.

The question of protection for foreign nationals under the international treaty isn't new.

President George W. Bush in 2005 agreed with an International Court of Justice ruling that Leal and 50 other Mexican-born inmates nationwide should be entitled to new hearings in U.S. courts to determine if their consular rights were violated at the time of their arrests. The Supreme Court later overruled Bush, negating the decision from the Netherlands-based court.

Jose Medellin, condemned for participating in the rape-slayings of two Houston teenage girls, in 2008 raised a Vienna Convention claim similar to the one pending for Leal. It failed and he was executed.

I'm thinking that the 2012 VP choice should be Marco Rubio.

I pray to God Christie runs for president. He's our only hope!

http://blog.nj.com/njv_tom_moran/2011/07/democrats_cry_foul_at_gov_chri.html

TRENTON — Senate President Stephen Sweeney went to bed furious Thursday night after reviewing the governor’s line-item veto of the state budget.

He woke up Friday morning even angrier.

"This is all about him being a bully and a punk," he said in an interview Friday.

"I wanted to punch him in his head."

Sweeney had just risked his political neck to support the governor’s pension and health reform, and his reward was a slap across the face. The governor’s budget was a brusque rejection of every Democratic move, and Sweeney couldn’t even get an audience with the governor to discuss it.

"You know who he reminds me of?" Sweeney says. "Mr. Potter from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ the mean old bastard who screws everybody."

This is not your regular budget dispute. This is personal. And it could have seismic impact on state politics.

Because the working alliance between these two men is the central political fact in New Jersey these days. If that changes, this brief and productive era of bipartisan cooperation is over.

"Last night I couldn’t calm down," Sweeney said. "To prove a point to me — a guy who has stood side by side with him, and made tough decisions — for him to punish people to prove his political point? He’s just a rotten bastard to do what he did."

It is a law of nature that Democrats and Republicans fight over budgets, like dogs chasing cats. And both parties are playing to their ideological scripts in this dispute.

But Sweeney’s beef with the governor goes much deeper. He feels the governor has acted in bad faith.

The governor’s budget, he says, is full of vindictive cuts designed to punish Democrats, and anyone else who dared to defy him. And he is furious that the governor refused to talk to him during the final week.

"After all the heavy lifting that’s been done — the property tax cap, the interest arbitration reform, the pension and health care reform — and the guy wouldn’t even talk to me?" Sweeney asks.

The details are even uglier. The governor, Sweeney said, personally told him they would talk. His staff called Sweeney and asked him to remain close all day Wednesday. At one point, the staff told him the governor planned to call in five minutes.

No call.

No negotiations.

"I sat in my office all day like a nitwit, figuring we were going to talk," Sweeney says.

As for the vindictive cuts, Sweeney’s list of suspects is a long one.

The governor cut the Senate and Assembly budgets, but not his own, a move that is unprecedented. He cut money from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, the outfit that sided with Democrats on this year’s revenue estimates.

He cut a fellowship program run by Alan Rosenthal, the Rutgers University professor who served as referee in this year’s legislative redistricting fight, and sided with Democrats.

When Democrats tried to restore money to a few favorite programs — including college scholarships for poor students, and legal aid for the needy — the governor not only rejected the additions, he added new cuts on top of that.

He mowed down a series of Democratic add-ons, including $45 million in tax credits for the working poor, $9 million in health care for the working poor, $8 million for women’s health care, another $8 million in AIDS funding and $9 million in mental-health services.

But the governor added $150 million in school aid for the suburbs, including the wealthiest towns in the state. That is enough to restore all the cuts just listed.

"Listen, you can punch me in the face and knock me down, do what you want," Sweeney says. "But don’t be vindictive and punish innocent people. These people didn’t do anything to him. It’s like a bank robber taking hostages. And now he’s starting to shoot people.

"I liken it to being spoiled. He was angry because he wanted a mutual budget. But do you hurt people because of that? Do you take $8 million in AIDS funding away? Legal services is drowning as it is, and you take away another $5 million? I’m just so angry that he hurt people like this to prove a point. He is a cruel man."

The governor refused to discuss this, as did his chief of staff, Richard Bagger, and his treasurer, Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff. Republican legislative leaders, who have been reduced to impotent Bobbleheads in the Christie era, say only that they agree with the governor, whatever he says.

This tiff began when Democrats decided to draft their own budget, as an alternative to the governor’s and a means of contrasting their priorities with his.

The governor’s office wanted to negotiate a single budget instead. But they would not discuss it until an agreement was reached on pension and health reform, according to Sweeney and the chairmen of the budget committees in the Assembly and Senate. In the end, the reform wasn’t signed until Tuesday, just two days before the budget was due.

So Christie took the Democratic plan, and pruned it with his line-item veto, without talking to Sweeney. When Democrats saw it, they considered it a declaration of war. It gave no ground to their priorities, and it came with a condescending lecture.

"He’s mean-spirited," Sweeney said in the Friday interview. "He’s angry. If you don’t do what he says, I liken it to being spoiled, I’m going to get my way, or else."

And: "He’s a rotten prick."

The truth is that in New Jersey, the governor has all the power in a budget fight. He simply vetoes any budget line he doesn’t like, and it disappears.

The bigger political question is whether Sweeney and Christie will ever find common ground again on big issues. Education reform is next, though it’s likely to wait until after the November elections.

That leaves time to cool off. But Sweeney may benefit from a continuing fight. The party’s liberal base is furious at him over pension and health reform. And unless he regains their trust, he’s not likely to win the party’s nomination for governor or U.S. Senate, as he hopes.

For now, Sweeney will have to content himself with making Republicans pay some price for this budget. He plans to schedule override votes on these line-item vetoes.

The Republican Bobbleheads will side with the governor again, and the vetoes will stand. But individual legislators will have to go on record supporting each of these ugly cuts.

Yes, this will be all theater. And yes, it will be all partisan. Sadly, it seems Trenton is reverting to form.

The damage to and theft of air conditioning units is not isolated.  There's been a rash of damage to and thefts of central air and window units.  Police say thieves are going after the copper tubing and selling it for cash.

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Vandals-Destroy-ACs-at-Animal-Welfare-League-124881849.html#ixzz1R3DooZfj

“I thought he was a kind of a dick yesterday,” Halperin, who also is an editor at large for Time, said on “Morning Joe,” referring to the president’s conduct during his press conference.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/58098.html#ixzz1Qotg1mSR

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43598606

Fed's Massive Stimulus Had Little Impact: Greenspan

The Federal Reserve's massive stimulus program had little impact on the U.S. economy besides weakening the dollar and helping U.S. exports, Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan told CNBC Thursday.

In a blunt critique of his successor, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Greenspan said the $2 trillion in quantative easing over the past two years had done little to loosen credit and boost the economy.

"There is no evidence that huge inflow of money into the system basically worked," Greenspan said in a live interview.

"It obviously had some effect on the exchange rate and the exchange rate was a critical issue in export expansion," he said. "Aside from that, I am ill-aware of anything that really worked. Not only QE2 but QE1."

Greenspan’s comments came as the Fed ended the second installment of its bond-buying program, known as QE2, after spending $600 billion. There were no hints of any more monetary easing—or QE3—to come.

Greenspan said he "would be surprised if there was a QE3"  because it would "continue erosion of the dollar."

The former Fed chairman himself has been widely criticized for the low-interest rate policy in the early and mid 2000s that many believe led to the 2008 credit crisis.

Bernanke, who took over for Greenspan in 2006, began implementing the quantitative easing program in 2009 in an attempt to unfreeze credit and prevent a collapse of the US financial system. The strategy has gotten mixed reviews so far.

On Greece, Greenspan a default is likely and will  "affect the whole structure of profitability in the U.S." because of this country's large economic commitments to Europe, which holds Greek debt. Europe is also where "half the foreign [U.S.] affiliate earnings" are generated, he added.

"We can’t afford a significant drop in foreign affiliate earnings," Greenspan said.

Greenspan was also pessimistic about the U.S. deficit talks, saying he didn’t think Congress would reach an agreement on raising the debt ceiling by the Aug 2 deadline.

“We’re going to get up to Aug 2 and I think on that night, we are not going to have the issue solved,” he said.

If that happens, he said, the U.S. would have to continue paying debt holders or risk major damage in global financial markets. As a result, “we will default on everything else.”

He added: “At that point, I think we’ll all come to our senses.”

How refreshing that some people can grow up mentally rather than just physically!

Lennon was a closet Republican

John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death - according to the tragic Beatles star's last personal assistant.

Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon's death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self.

In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn't the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant.

He says, "John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter.

"He'd met Reagan back, I think, in the 70s at some sporting event... Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe, to go after the young (peace) demonstrators in Berkeley, so I think that John maybe forgot about that... He did express support for Reagan, which shocked me.

"I also saw John embark in some really brutal arguments with my uncle, who's an old-time communist... He enjoyed really provoking my uncle... Maybe he was being provocative... but it was pretty obvious to me he had moved away from his earlier radicalism.

"He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he'd been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy's naivete."

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/28/lennon-was-a-closet-republican-assistant