FOX News reporter William La Jeunesse reports that the Social Security Administration is holding a 3-day training conference, including such illuminating subjects as “team building,” “diversity training,” “stress in the workplace, and “mentoring” at the exclusive five star Biltmore Resort in Phoenix — with an estimated price tag of $750,000 — paid for by American taxpayers, of course.
700 managers from as far away as American Samoa and Guam, along with a Washington D.C. contingent and their entourages will be lounging poolside at our expense in these most financially difficult times.
Listen closely to the remarks from Pete Spencer, a social security administrator as La Jeunesse asks him about the costly soiree.
By their own calculations the Social Security administration wastes $4.6 billion in overpayments each year.
For a bit of local bragging rights, La Jeunesse previously worked as an investigative reporter for KTVK-TV 3 and at KTSP- TV 10 in Phoenix. Believe it or not, this FOX News reporter began his journalism career at the Arizona Republic, where he spent five years writing investigative pieces for the daily. How far he’s come!
Italian luxury goods manufacturer VBH was thrilled to report that First Lady Michelle Obama was toting their $5,950 alligator manila clutch-style handbag earlier this week while tooling around Russia.
But the White House vehemently denied the nearly $6000 version, saying that the First Lady was only carrying the cheap $875 VBH patent leather clutch.
Whew! That sure beats paying an exorbitant price for a small handbag.
The New York Daily News reports that after sticking to their initial claim, the high-end leather manufacturer is now backing off. “If that’s what the White House is saying, then it’s a patent bag,” tactfully evaded the VBH rep — despite being certain earlier in the morning about the bag being the multi-thousand dollar version. “It’s definitely ours [manila bag],” she said at the time — although she now says that she made an assumption and misidentified the bag.
Ooo-kay.
But don’t forget the fashion conscious Obama served up porridge to the homeless at a D.C. shelter wearing a pair of $540 Lanvin sneakers. You know the ones. Gray suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps. You gals probably have a pair sitting right there in the closet at home.
Scott Wong, writing for the daily, exposes some of the shenanigans that went on during the recent city council meeting when Phoenix attorney Bill Gates, a Republican, was selected to fill the vacancy created by the skedaddling of short-termer Maria Baier.
The supposedly non-partisan council and mayor were engaging in high-stakes partisan gamesmanship, intended to ensure a much different result to the composition of the left-leaning council. Mayor Phil Gordon, who has made an art-form of underhanded duplicity, is a liberal of longstanding and his hand-picked choice Tom Milton was flagging — causing Gordon to decide to deal from the bottom of the deck. Fortunately, Gordon was blocked in his ruse by an objection from Councilman Michael Johnson who pointed out the violation of rules and City Attorney Gary Verburg who ultimately put a stop to the maneuver.
Remember this exposé by Wong when the term-limited and shifty Phil Gordon decides to throw his hat in the ring for higher office.
An economic adviser to India’s Prime Minister is urging the Indian government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars.
“The major part of Indian reserves is in dollars — that is something that’s a problem for us,” said Suresh Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, questioning U.S. dollar dominance.
India is preparing to join leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations — the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia — at a summit in Italy next week which is due to tackle the global economy. China and Brazil will also send representatives to the summit.
China and Russia have already stepped up calls to rethink how global currency reserves are composed and managed. Yet these heavy polluting emerging markets along with India, are not constrained by the recently passed Cap-and-Trade legislation which imposes severe restrictions and heavy penalties on U.S. industry — while not requiring them to reduce their carbon emissions.
“There should be a system to maintain the stability of the major reserve currencies,” the former Chinese Vice Premier said in Beijing yesterday, highlighting China’s concerns about a global financial system dominated by the dollar, Bloomberg News reports.
The late Paul Weyrich noted on Townhall last November that former President George W. Bush’s Fiscal Year 2009 Foreign Operations Budget for the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other foreign affairs agencies totals $26.1 billion. The requested amount was an 8.9% increase over the total Fiscal Year 2008 amount, including emergency funding. In addition, the United States contributes well over $3 billion to the United Nations, an organization which in turn welcomes our enemies to speak against us.
Many of the nations topping the list are also top oil producing nations. Of the top 13 suppliers of oil, only one among them, Canada, can be counted as a friend.
‘We need fathers to step up‘ is Barack Obama’s Father’s Day missive in which he expresses disappointment in his own father while exhorting others to do a better job parenting.
“We were in the midst of working on the June 21 issue of Parade when we got the call from the White House.
President Obama had enjoyed such an extraordinary reaction to the last article he wrote for Parade that he’d like to do another. Were we interested?
From the last article he wrote, I knew President Obama doesn’t require much editing. His tone is distinctly his own, and he has the same cadence on paper that he does when he speaks. As you read his words, you can clearly hear his voice,” fawned Janice Kaplan, editor of Parade.
Parade is tucked inside the Sunday edition of hundreds of newspapers nationwide. If you need a bit more of a nudge to cancel your subscription, this partisan blather masquerading as a Father’s Day article could be the final poke.
An article in the daily details the joint efforts of Valley law enforcement agencies including the Maricopa County Sheriff and County Attorney’s offices, Phoenix, Chandler, Glendale and Tempe police departments, and the U.S. Postal Service — in breaking up an identity-theft ring that stole mail to pass fraudulent checks and withdraw money from victims’ bank accounts.
Warrants were served on five Phoenix locations and one in Mesa resulting in the arrest of 17. The indictment charges 42 felony counts, including identity theft, conspiracy, money laundering, forgery, fraud, misconduct involving weapons and trafficking in the identity of another.
But the fact that those charged were part of a criminal syndicate linked to funding the Mexican Mafia, is exposed only by continuing further into the article and then reading this quote from Maricopa County Attorney, Andrew Thomas:
“These indictments and arrests are the result of a united effort by law enforcement to tackle gangs and identity theft,” County Attorney Andrew Thomas said. “The goal is to break this criminal syndicate, which stole thousands of dollars from victims in order to fund the Mexican Mafia.”
The Arizona Republic has a new ploy in reporting news they really don’t want the readers to see. We provided an example in this post earlier in the week, when the headline had no connection to the real story about Mayor Phil Gordon’s relatives receiving lucrative city contracts.
OK. Let’s get this straight. President Obama says worrying about the U.S. government’s finances “keeps me awake at night.”
Yet even acute sleeplessness doesn’t intrude on his desire to further encumber American taxpayers with what is estimated to be $4 trillion — over ten years — in health care costs as he seeks to implement his nationalized scheme.
Speaking to the American Medical Association earlier this week, Obama declared of the price tag of health care legislation: “It is a cost that will not – I repeat, not – add to our deficits.”
The perpetrators of a mega telemarketing scheme many of us have been exposed to, have been identified and targeted by the Federal Trade Commission ((FTC) in a suit filed in in federal court.
Four people are alleged to be responsible for more than $10 million in telemarketing scams. The deceptive “robocalls” are part of an effort aimed at consumers to sell them vehicle service contracts for between $2,000 and $3,000, under the guise that they are extensions of original warranties, which are falsely portrayed as “about to expire.”
Court documents name Christopher Cowart, James and Maureen Dunne, and Damian Kohlfield as those responsible for the automated “robocall” schemes that have sent out more than 1 billion telephone calls since 2007, according to a FOX News report.
“This is one of the most aggressive telemarketing schemes the FTC has ever encountered,” said Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “I’m not sure which is worse, the abusive telemarketing tactics of these companies, or the way they try to deceive people once they get them on the phone. Either way, we intend to shut them down.”
For starters, the Montréal, Québec-based company has recently been awarded a $260 million contract by the City of Phoenix. They are contracted to build a sky train at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, linking the airport terminals to the light rail, the rental car center and airport parking — a project scheduled for completion by 2020.
But even before the contract was awarded, Bombardier hired Phoenix-based Policy Development Group to help guide them through the bid process. And a wise move it was, given that the principles would certainly have an inside track — since the company is run by none other than Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon’s sister and brother-in-law, Gail Gordon and Ron Ober.
Pretty cozy arrangement.
Bombardier also hired Phoenix International Consultants, led by Ronnie Lopez, who chaired election campaigns for both the mayor and Councilman Claude Mattox.
Meanwhile, contract competitor Sumitomo brought on former Phoenix firefighters union President Billy Shields, a close friend and fundraiser of Gordon, who now runs lobbying firm Shields Consulting/Public Policy Partners.
And speaking of firefighters, it’s worth noting that Maria Baier, Phil Gordon’s hand picked and personally endorsed District 3 city council person is the sister of Fire Chief Bob Khan, positioned to vote for pay increases for her own brother and his union. Baier is also notable for appearing on the endorsement list of Republicans for Janet — Arizona’s liberal former governor, now doing her part to keep the borders porous for the Obama administration.
The daily has the full article regarding the contracts that is worth reading — if you can keep the players straight. The juicy information is tucked away under this likely intended-to-be-overlooked headline: Phoenix City Council to award Sky Train contract.
Posted by seeingredaz 
Posted by seeingredaz 
Posted by seeingredaz 
