Obama’s budget numbers are five feet high and risin’

According to the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget, the federal government will have to borrow nearly 40 percent of its total expenditures in 2010.

This squiggly-decorated report, titled Mid-Session Review, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010, gives the bad news.

The second largest component of federal revenue — after this unprecedented level of borrowing — is personal income tax, which accounts for only 27.3 percent of federal fund, according to a CNS News report.

Still Obama is committed to push through his nationalized health care extravaganza, which is estimated to cost $1.3 trillion dollars over ten years. Most Americans think the House plan will cost about $130 billion a year. The Heritage Foundation reports they have been mislead. In reality, by 2019 the House health plan will cost $245 billion a year.

Brings this Johnny Cash original to mind.

Can we have a do over?

Trow ‘da bums out!

 And check out the indicators from Republicans not that long ago, when gauging their own congressional reps.

Shooting holes in the Republic’s gun skew

Newspaper decries Arizona’s “image problem”

The daily is at it again. Today’s Page One, above-the-fold article, features a 3-column by 9-inch photo of a gun carried by Phoenix resident Christopher Broughton. A conservative proponent of Second Amendment rights, Broughton is concealed in the much-used, cropped photograph depicting him from a back view, showing just his gun and shirt. Nowhere in the article is it revealed that he is black and does not support Barack Obama.  Such facts wouldn’t fit the configuration of the article.

President Obama was attending the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Phoenix on August 17, when the incident in which Broughton was one of several exercising his constitutional rights took place.

Instead, the left-leaning newspaper focuses on a denunciation from “world-renowned travel writer” and “travel icon,” Arthur Frommer, 80, who says he’ll boycott Arizona because he fears for his personal safety after reading accounts of protesters carrying weapons on the streets of Phoenix.  Frommer, who sold his company 32 years ago, told NPR he was disturbed that police officers stood around “like scared rabbits” while armed protesters tried to “threaten” and “intimidate” Obama supporters.

Interesting assessment from a man who was not here and doesn’t intend to travel to Arizona. The article also omitted the fact that octogenarian Frommer has been a lifelong liberal who has donated to Democrats and the DNC for decades and was a high-dollar Obama supporter.

Although the newspaper refers to our laws as “lax,” Arizona joins the majority of states in allowing for open carry of firearms. There are also laws allowing for concealed carry for licensed owners who have taken the requisite classes.

Last year, Forbes magazine listed Phoenix among America’s 15 most dangerous metropolitan areas, no doubt due to the fact that Arizona is the most traveled portal for illegal aliens gaining entry through our southern border.

“Every time we loosen gun laws to make it easier for citizens to carry guns in Arizona, we see a drop in the crime rate,” said Tucson resident Todd Rathner, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. “These people have to get over the emotional, ignorant and insane reaction to law-abiding citizens with firearms.”

Protester: “This used to be America!” Officer: “It ain’t no more, okay?”

Watch and listen to this astonishing interplay as Officer Wesley Cheeks tells a protester who was demonstrating at Rep. Jim Moran’s (D-VA) Town Hall meeting in Reston, Virginia, that he can “charge [him] with whatever I want to” because the protester was holding a sign he didn’t like.

When the protester asks why other sign-holders aren’t being threatened with trespassing charges, the officer says it’s because the protester’s sign has a picture.

“This used to be America!” the protester exclaims.

The officer retorts: “It ain’t no more, okay?”

Another guy to bow down to

Even after losing 4.6 percent of his personal wealth in the past year, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, 54, Citigroup Inc.’s largest individual investor, has been ranked the richest Saudi national by Arabian Business.

Alwaleed’s assets are valued at $16.3 billion, compared with $17.1 billion last year. Forbes magazine estimated he was worth $13.3 billion in March, ranking him 22nd among the world’s billionaires, Bloomberg News reports.

Prince Alwaleed earned a bachelor’s degree from Menlo College near San Francisco.

Here is President Obama greeting Saudi King Abdullah last April.

Support for Bashas’ supermarkets mounts

Last week the daily reported that Arizona business leaders were leading a movement to generate support for the 77-year-old Bashas’ grocery chain, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month.

Four generations of the Basha family have supported Arizona schools, charities and cultural events for decades, easily giving away $100 million to those causes.  Herman Chanen, speaking on behalf of the Good Samaritan business leaders, urged residents to support their hometown grocer by patronizing the company’s Bashas’, Food City, A.J.’s Fine Foods and Sportsman’s Fine Wines & Spirits stores.

“They need our help, and it’s time we showed our appreciation,” said Phoenix businessman Herman Chanen, who put up $100,000 to get the campaign off the ground. He stressed that the group is not affiliated with Chandler-based Bashas’ or the Basha family.

Although the economic slowdown and tight credit markets were among the problems faced by the Valley’s only local supermarket chain — Seeing Red AZ has previously covered the fact that the non-union enterprise has been the victim of thuggishly unscrupulous practices by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union —  whose relentless attacks and promotion of false claims have cost Bashas’ millions in legal fees, damage control and lost business.

Today Steve Chanen, Herman’s son, authors a Viewpoints piece in which he makes the point that Bashas’ employs about 10,000 employees, ranks among the five biggest employers headquartered in Arizona and is need of consumer support.

Although Eddie Basha has long been active in Democrat politics, running against twice-elected Republican Gov. Fife Symington, we agree that these are unusual times and join the business community in urging customer support of this Arizona business.

Rash of teacher perverts in Valley schools

A teacher at a Peoria high school has been fired after administrators learned he had previously been terminated by another district for videotaping his children’s 13-year-old babysitter changing clothes in his house and lying to district officials about it, the daily reports.

Officials at Skyline West Prep weren’t aware of past misconduct by Thomas Hetherington, a science teacher at the Peoria charter school.

He has been terminated after court records revealed he hid a camera in his children’s bathroom to videotape the young babysitter as she changed into her swimsuit.

He acknowledges the incident and claims he thought she was older. If you don’t believe that, he also says it was a one-time incident and will never happen again.

Hetherington passed a complete background check when he was hired by Skyline West Prep in November 2007. At the time Hetherington was hired, a database for the Arizona Department of Education had no records about his problems at Paradise Valley Unified where he had previously taught. References at the district raised no red flags.

“Mr. Hetherington had a valid fingerprint card when hired and throughout his employment with Skyline Schools,” Assistant Superintendent Brian Shipman said.

Hetherington has withdrawn his application for renewal of his secondary teaching certificate and the board is pursuing disciplinary action against his remaining substitute certificate.

Seeing Red AZ is seeing red at this betrayal of trust as sexual predators are back in Arizona classrooms. Read a few recent posts on the topic here, here, here and here.

Jackie O’s granddaughter lacks her class

A scene from Sen. Ted Kennedy’s funeral procession

Boston’s FOX 25 provides the video of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg’s daughter — 21-year-old Rose Schlossberg — as she flips off one of the people lining the street during her grand uncle Ted’s funeral procession.

Rose is the granddaughter of former president John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

4% of Israelis are fools

 The Jerusalem Post offers up some startling poll numbers.

Another Valley landmark bites the dust

The Pink Pony, Scottsdale’s oldest restaurant, joins El Chorro Lodge and the Arizona Club as longtime Valley stalwarts that have felt the pinch of the economy. The acclaimed steakhouse and bar, long a hangout for sports fans and baseball legends opened its doors 60 years ago.

The daily covers the shuttering of the renown establishment which New Yorker magazine once described as the “the best baseball restaurant in the land.”