Wow 48 million

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Barack Obama partied with Hollywood celebrities Tuesday night and with the help of Oscar-winning singer and actress Barbra Streisand raised an eye-popping $9 million for his presidential campaign and the Democratic Party.

The night was split into two glitzy events, a reception and dinner costing $28,500 each at the Greystone Mansion, followed by entertainment by Streisand at the nearby Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. About 250 people were expected at the dinner and about 800 at the entertainment, which cost $2,500 a ticket.

It was a day of contrasts for Obama. Earlier in the day, the Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the public's deepening economic anxieties and portrayed Republican challenger John McCain as out of touch with the needs of hardworking people.

McCain groused about Obama mixing it up with celebrities. He told a rally in Vienna, Ohio on Tuesday that Obama "talks about siding with the people, siding with the people just before he flies off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends. Let me tell you my friends, there's no place I'd rather be than here with the working men and women of Ohio."

A night earlier, McCain was with deep-pocketed donors in Florida and raised $5 million, a fact noted by Obama's campaign.

"I don't know who showed up down in Florida where he raised $5 million but my guess is that it wasn't a lot of nurses, firefighters and police officers," Obama's senior strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters. "The whole corporate lobbying community is rallying to his side. We're going to have to struggle to keep pace. You can't challenge that group and not expect them to have a lot of money."

While the final total was not determined, Obama's campaign did not dispute estimates that the twin events would bring in $9 million for Obama and the Democratic Party. That would be his second-biggest, fundraising day. Obama received $10 million from online donors the day after McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, delivered her speech at the Republican convention.

On another big fundraising night in California, Obama raised $7 million in August in San Francisco.
Obama is financing his presidential race with private contributions after abandoning a pledge to take public financing capped at $84 million. His campaign announced Sunday it had collected $66 million in August, a fundraising record for any presidential candidate in a monthlong period.

By comparison, McCain raised $47 million in August, a personal best for his campaign as well. After claiming the GOP nomination, McCain accepted the $84 million in taxpayer funds allotted by the public financing system for the race.

All this controversy over the number in attendance af last week's tea parties, and who was there! I would think over a quarter-million participants would rank right up there as far as demonstration statistics go.

There was another demonstration in 1995 which planned to attact a million demonstators. Wikipedia has this:

......... Finally, within the first twenty-four hours following the March a conflict between March organizers and Park Service officials erupted over crowd size estimates. Initially, the National Park Service issued an estimate of about 400,000 attendees; a number significantly lower than March organizers had hoped for. After a heated exchange between leaders of the March and Park Services the estimate was raised to 850,000* but still fell short of the organizers� estimate of over 1 million. The controversy over the number of men who actually participated in the March has yet to be firmly resolved. *[guess they were getting the 2 for 1 special?]

Even back then, folks were hollering 'recount,' I don't recall seeing any female or white faces in that crowd, either. I think that was pretty sexist and racist. The point is, you hang with like-minded individuals. Nobody put out the 'whites only' sign at the tea parties. It was equal opportunity, and if you were a hard-working black business owner you might have been there.

He's talking about people that got schnuckered so they can keep their homes. Maybe they would reduce the principle, but that would also keep people in their homes and make the other homes in that neighborhood keep their value.

Do you understand the concept that if the homes around you go into foreclosure then that brings your home value down?

Check out this Canadian news article on this pitiful event -- this might answer your question about why no other news stations were giving this much air time -- NOT NEWSWORTHY!! Not even 10s of thousands, much less a million!! Where did you get your statistics? Is that what you heard on TRIX news?

What the Mousvi supporters are trying to do in Iran is to show the world that they can bring down the Ahmedinejad and hopefully also the leader of the theocray

There are also in the cleric council contradicting opinions regarding the legitimate outcome of the election and how to proceed in solving this massive protests.

This shows AGAIN the diplomatic excellence of Obama AND Biden when they held back their meddling and interfering, letting the people try it on their own!

If it were up to McCain and Cheney they would have made out of this conflict a 2nd-Iraq siituation, probaly invaded Iran!

U.S. owes Iraq $208 million, auditor says
Gouging, shoddy work by Halliburton blamed

An auditing board sponsored by the United Nations recommended Friday that the United States repay as much as $208 million to the Iraqi government for contracting work in 2003 and 2004 assigned to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton Co. subsidiary.

The work was paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, but the board says it was either carried out at inflated prices or done poorly. The board did not give examples of poor work.

Some of the work involved postwar fuel imports carried out by KBR that previous audits have criticized as grossly overpriced. But this is the first time that an international auditing group has suggested that the United States repay some of that money to Iraq.

The U.N. group, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund for Iraq, compiled reports from an array of Pentagon, U.S. government and private auditors to carry out its analysis.

A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Cathy Mann, said the questions raised in the military audits, carried out in the Pentagon's Defense Contract Auditing Agency, had largely focused on issues of paperwork and documentation and alleged nothing about the quality of the work done by KBR. The monitoring board relied heavily on the Pentagon audits in drawing its conclusions.

Mann said, in an e-mail response to questions, that it would be completely wrong to say or imply that any of these costs that were incurred at the client's direction for its benefit are 'overcharges.'

The monitoring board, created by the United Nations specifically to oversee the Development Fund -- which includes Iraqi oil revenues and some money seized from Saddam Hussein's government -- said that because the audits were continuing, it was too early to say how much of the $208 million should ultimately be paid back.

The KBR contracts that have drawn fresh scrutiny also cover services other than fuel deliveries, like building and repairing oil pipelines and installing emergency power generators in Iraq. The documents released Friday by the monitoring board do not detail problems with specific tasks in those broad categories but instead summarize a series of newly disclosed audits that call into question $208,491,382 of the company's work in Iraq.

The monitoring board's authority extends only to making recommendations on any reimbursement. It would be up to the U.S. government to decide whether to make the payments, and who should make them.

Vice President Dick Cheney's former role as chief executive of Halliburton has led to repeated charges, uniformly dismissed by Cheney and the company, that it received preferential treatment in receiving Iraq-related contracts.

The Bush administration repeatedly gave Halliburton special treatment and allowed the company to gouge both U.S. taxpayers and the Iraqi people, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, the senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said in a statement on the new audits.

In Iraq on Friday, insurgent attacks -- including one in which the attackers disguised themselves as women -- left at least 16 Iraqis dead.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, the leading insurgency group, said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site that two Moroccan Embassy employees had been condemned to death, the Associated Press reported. There was no indication Friday that they had been killed.

The U.S. military said Friday that two more soldiers had died the previous day, one in a noncombat incident and one when his convoy struck an explosive.

In the day's deadliest assault, insurgents dressed in women's clothing attacked a police checkpoint in Buhruz, 35 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least six Iraqi police and injuring at least 10 others, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

The gunmen were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, and pulled up in five cars, an Interior Ministry official said. The policemen managed to kill at least two of the gunmen, he added

The Senate is about to vote on a crucial bill, the revised H.R. 4437, that could give amnesty to 12-30 million illegal aliens and open the door for their relatives and a new flood of illegals to enter, which could mean 100-200 million new people coming into the country in 20 years according to expert analysis, virtually all poor, diminishing wages, increasing the crime rate, and bankrupting tax coffers. Now is the time to call any of the key Senators who could be persuaded into a NO vote, otherwise, there is a chance the House-Senate joint committee will approve for a likely vote in the House:

Lindsay Graham (SC): (202) 224-5972
Chuck Hagel (NE): (202) 224-4224
Richard Lugar (IN): (202) 224-4814
Mel Martinez (FL): (202) 224-3041
John McCain (AZ): (202) 224-2235
Richard Shelby (AL): (202) 224-5744
Olympia Snowe (ME): 202) 224-5344
Arlen Specter (PA): (202) 224-4254
Ted Stevens (AK): (202) 224-3004
George Voinovich (OH): (202) 224-3353
John Warner (VA): (202) 224-2023
Robert Bennett (UT): (202) 224-5444
Sam Brownback (KS): (202) 224-6521
Lincoln Chafee (RI): (202) 224-2921
Norm Coleman (MN): (202) 224-5641
Susan Collins (ME) (202) 224-2523
Larry Craig (ID): (202) 224-2752
Mike DeWine (OH): (202) 224-2315

I just caught the tail end of this info on Oprah and have been looking for verification of this. Haven't found it yet. They might keep this under wraps since the bail out still hasn't happened yet.

I was just thinking the other day: If I'm Obama, I'm saying to he!! with spending enough money to secure the borders. The main threat is that Jackson Hole airport.

I'm telling you, people, the government has gone positively insane. $6 million would go a VERY long way at the border. Oh, but wait - that wouldn't make good pork politics, now, would it?

I was just thinking the other day: If I'm Obama, I'm saying to he!! with spending enough money to secure the borders. The main threat is that Jackson Hole airport.

I'm telling you, people, the government has gone positively insane. $6 million would go a VERY long way at the border. Oh, but wait - that wouldn't make good pork politics, now, would it?

Zogby Poll Finds Over 70 Million Voting Age Americans Support New 9/11 Investigation.

Unemployment rate soars to 8.1 percent
Employers resort to even bigger layoffs as they scramble to survive
BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
updated 8:02 a.m. CT, Fri., March. 6, 2009

WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs.

Both figures were worse than analysts expected and the Labor Department's report shows America's workers being clobbered by a relentless wave of layoffs.

The net loss of jobs in February came after even deeper payroll reductions in the prior two months, according to revised figures. The economy lost 681,000 jobs in December and another 655,000 in January.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs, more than half of which occurred in the past four months.

Employers are shrinking their work forces at alarming clip and are turning to other ways to slash costs � including trimming workers' hours, freezing wages or cutting pay � because the recession has eaten into their sales and profits. Customers at home and abroad are cutting back as other countries cope with their own economic problems.

With employers showing no appetite to hire, the unemployment jumped to 8.1 percent from 7.6 percent in January. That was the highest since December 1983, when the jobless rate was 8.3 percent.

All told, the number of unemployed people climbed to 12.5 million. In addition, the number of people forced to work part time for "economic reasons" rose by a sharp 787,000 to 8.6 million. That's people who would like to work full time but whose hours were cut back or were unable to find full-time work.

Meanwhile, the average work week in February stayed at 33.3 hours, matching the record low set in December.

Construction companies eliminated 104,000 jobs. Factories axed 168,000. Retailers cut nearly 40,000. Professional and business services got rid of 180,000, with 78,000 jobs lost at temporary-help agencies. Financial companies reduced payrolls by 44,000. Leisure and hospitality firms chopped 33,000 positions.

The few areas spared: education and health services, as well as government, which boosted employment last month.

General Dynamics Corp. said Thursday it will lay off 1,200 workers due partly to plummeting sales of business and personal jets that forced it to cut production. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp., and Tyco Electronics Ltd., which makes electronic components, undersea telecommunications systems and wireless equipment, also are trimming payrolls.

"This is basically cleaning house for a lot of firms," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. "They are using the first quarter to cut back employment and figure out what they want."

Disappearing jobs and evaporating wealth from tanking home values, 401(k)s and other investments have forced consumers to retrench, driving companies to lay off workers. It's a vicious cycle in which all the economy's negative problems feed on each other, worsening the downward spiral.

"The economy is in a tailspin. Businesses are jettisoning jobs at an unprecedented pace," said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research.

The country is getting bloodied by fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises_ the worst since the 1930s. And there's no easy fix for a quick turnaround, economists said.

President Barack Obama is counting on a multipronged assault to lift the country out of recession: a $787 billion stimulus package of increased federal spending and tax cuts; a revamped, multibillion-dollar bailout program for the nation's troubled banks; and a $75 billion effort to stem home foreclosures.

Even in the best-case scenario that the relief efforts work and the recession ends later in 2009, the unemployment rate is expected to keep climbing, hitting 9 percent or higher this year. In fact, the Federal Reserve thinks the unemployment rate will stay elevated into 2011. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal � meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate � until 2013.

Businesses won't be inclined to ramp up hiring until they are sure any economic recovery has staying power.

The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, and it will probably continue to shrink during the first six months of this year.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress earlier this week that recent economic barometers "show little sign of improvement" and suggest that "labor market conditions may have worsened further in recent weeks."

Consumers� growing frugality has hammered automakers, among other industries. General Motors Corp.'s auditors on Thursday raised "substantial doubt" about the auto giant�s ability to continue operations, and the company said it might have to seek bankruptcy protection, sending its shares below $2.

Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association, said his group�s members are reporting record increases in deposits. Government figures show the savings rate jumped to 5 percent in January from zero last spring. That�s the highest rate since 1995 and a much faster shift than he had expected, Hampel said.

Consumer spending makes up about 70 percent of the economy. It topped out at 71 percent in 2005, Hampel said, but will likely drop by 2 to 3 percentage points over the next few years.

Increased savings can actually lower economic growth. Economists call it the �paradox of thrift�: What�s good for each of us individually � being thrifty, limiting our spending � can worsen a recession when everyone does it all at once.

Hoffman said about half the 6.2 percent drop in economic output last quarter was attributable to lower consumer spending.

Wow 48 million

U.S. owes Iraq $208 million, auditor says Gouging, shoddy work by Halliburton blamed

U.S. owes Iraq $208 million, auditor says
Gouging, shoddy work by Halliburton blamed