Friday July 3, 2009, 11:54 am
very scary here... arrggghhh... Thanks Tom!

Friday July 3, 2009, 12:24 pm

While he cuts every benefit for poor Californians, Republican Governor Schwarzenegger repairs, several times ech day, to a LUXURY tent that he had put up in a courtyard next to his office, which allows him to smoke cigars legally at work (no smoking is allowed inside the Capitol). The tent is about 15 square feet, carpeted with artificial turf and outfitted with stylish furniture, an iPod, a video-conferencing terminal, trays of almonds, a chess table, a refrigerator and a large photo of the governor. Schwarzenegger reclined deeply in his chair, lighted an eight-inch cigar and declared himself “perfectly fine,” despite the fiscal debacle and personal heartsickness all around him. “Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don’t walk out of here depressed,” Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,” he said. “I’m going to lay back with a stogie.

Friday July 3, 2009, 3:23 pm
So why are not the people out there with the torches and pitchforks yet? I know some get hostile when this is mentioned but why are not the illegal people being sent back to their own Countries? That is illegal, with captital I. If you can't take care of the citizens why are we still taking care of illegals? I'd like to help everyone, and I realize they are not the full problem, but it seems the oil companies, banks, and other fat cats, and a list of theives have taken what little I had. Well as Russell Means has said, "welcome to the reservation."

Friday July 3, 2009, 4:52 pm
Arnold's IOUs are bad enough, but there's more...

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has cut SSI payments twice this year, with a third cut on its way. California SSI recipients have seen their monthly checks shrink from $907 in January to $850 in July, a 6.3% negative "Cost of Living Adjustment" so far this year. SSI is the sole source of income for more than 1.2 million elderly, blind and disabled persons, who must rely on the SSI grant for all their living expenses.

Another $20 cut is scheduled for September, leaving the total 2009 SSI/SSP monthly grant level reduced from $907 to $830. That's an 8.4% reduction of $77/month, or $924/year, for the poorest of the poor in California, so the Governator won't have to tax the richest of the rich, his cigar chomping campaign-donating buddies in the oil and tobacco industries.

Schwarzenegger is actually imposing an 8.4% "poor tax" on the elderly, blind and disabled while claiming that it's all to avoid raising taxes. Hello? And the cuts, as ordered by Schwarzenegger, are permanent. To add insult to injury, he is cutting dental care out of MediCal benefits and cutting funding to In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) for senior citizens, increasing their expenses while reducing their income. The IHSS program pays for aides to help elderly and disabled people with personal care and chores, enabling them to remain in their own homes instead of nursing homes.

You start throwing medically-frail elderly, blind and disabled people onto the streets and watch the death toll among the homeless rise. Those who receive SSI are not eligible for food stamps. In pre-Nazi Germany, they also decided that the disabled were just too big a burden: they had a van they sent around, a gas chamber on wheels, and they gassed many of their own citizens just because they were that most horrible of all sins: nonproductive. Do we really want to emulate that? Wasn't Arnold's father a Nazi? As the saying goes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Friday July 3, 2009, 7:11 pm
If only someone 'out there' will write a proposition to have all the legislators NOT get paid, no cash or state IOU's, until the budget is passed. The budget must be passed at the appointed time, at the deadline, at the due date the first time.

This would include ALL Legislators, legislative employees, employees of legislatures, and appointees currently is session in Sacramento. All of their health benefits and all other state benefits would be suspended, ceased, as well as per diem car mileage, state gas credit cards.

TY, Tom.

Friday July 3, 2009, 7:22 pm

The last time California issued IOUs - such a drastic step hadn't been taken since the Great Depression.

Here is an article which appeared in the SF Chronicle, today, by Grey Davis, former Governor, former state controller who made the controversial call in 1992. Here, Grey Davis explains the differences between then and now about the IOU's.


LINK:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/03/MNT118I9A5.DTL

I remembered the IOU's as I was a state employee at that time in 1992 and was fortunate to have had a bank to cash the IOU's. Other state employees who had different banks had to go elsewhere to get their IOU's cashed.

TY, Tom.

Friday July 3, 2009, 9:53 pm
This is terribly alarming. What the hell are the aged to do!!
Tx Tom

Friday July 3, 2009, 10:24 pm
California cannot support its aged and blind citizens, but it is making plans to resume executions!

Each death row inmate costs the state $90,000 more than if the inmate was in for life without parole. If they ditched the death chamber, California would have $1 BILLION in just five years.

But the folks in charge would rather execute people than to care for its elderly and blind citizens. Is something wrong with that picture?

If California released inmates who are in for non-violent offenses and have already served 1/2 of their sentences, the state would probably save another billion without any risk to the community. Many people are doing hard time for possession of grass.

SOMEBODY receives the money that goes to private prisons. Your prison system in CA is taking all your money. Who profits?

Friday July 3, 2009, 10:58 pm
Many of the police who were on our streets preventing crime got shifted over to prisons, guarding 'drug offenders'. Most of the people in jail right now are there for drug related offenses..

The policy of making drugs illegal is costing us all BIG TIME... In Denmark, all drugs are legal, very few people are in jail and crime is almost nonexistent. Wake up people... America has more people in prison, many more than any other civilized nation per capita.... many for no good reason.. Make drugs legal. Take away the reasons for crime.

The alcohol Prohibition laws did not work, just as the drug war will NEVER win, EVER. It will just make more criminals and worse gangs, as Prohibition did.

We also seem to spend more on war and have more wars going in more countries than even the worst dictators. We spend more than 50% of our income on war. Actually we borrow all of that money from the Communist Chinese. Whatever happened to the war on Communism? They are now our best friends.. right?

I am amazed that our nation continues to function. I pray for our prosperity and for a sustainable policy to take the place of lots of unsustainable ones... Will we learn?

Saturday July 4, 2009, 12:01 am
Our gardeners son is in San Bernadino Jail for supposedly throwing his looney toones wife (brother is a cop) into the street. Witnesses saw her throw herself into traffic and he got 15yrs because he had been in Juvenile 25 years ago!
Time to take our country back! Get rid of everyone in office of any kind and start afresh.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 1:15 am
Everything goes the way they want... Put the single puzzle parts together and see the whole picture. Then you understand!

Saturday July 4, 2009, 5:29 am
Noted with great sadness for those who earned and deserve but will not get.
Thank you Tom for sharing.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 6:38 am
This makes little to no sense!!! I thought CA was one of the richest states in the USA! What the heck did they do with the money????

Saturday July 4, 2009, 11:43 am
this is dreadful thanks tom

Saturday July 4, 2009, 12:05 pm
Enron stole a lot of it then came the economic meltdown.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 1:05 pm
Just because Arnold is the son of an active Nazi does not mean that he is but he obviously learned at his father's knee! Supporting the Simon Wiesenthal Center may be a sop to his conscience!

I have said before that the vulnerable are at risk from people like Schwarzenegger who have no interest in them as they give him no money and are too few, votewise, for him to worry about. Governors must be accountable for their treatment of them. The democracy exists because many of the disabled/elderly or their family fought against people like Schwarzenegger's father yet democracy allows his son to destroy them I'm not sure that this is the intention of those that died but I have no doubt that they are turning in their graves at this deliberate ill treatment of them.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 3:26 pm
Schwarzenegger was just insisting on giving more money to private prisons a couple of years ago. I will find you the article.

PRIVATE PRISONS ARE THE BACKBONE OF THE NWO. I

Private prisons is where the NWO gets most of its revenue - imprisoning people mostly on non-violent crimes. And imprisoning the mentally ill, who should be in hospitals or treated in their communities WITH THE SAME MONEY.

Prison profiteering revenue increases significantly in an economic crisis, becasue people are laid off by scores.

The same man who proposed H.R. 645 - CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN AMERICA - has now proposed to study how put forth a new bill: H.R. 2924 to STUDY potentially violent criminals.

It is as though folks are ruining the economy, then studying those most vulnerable to the economic crisis to see who goes to the camps first.

According to the Department of Justice, the Federal Government spent $36,248,000,000 on criminal justice in 2006, while local governments spent $109,205,351,000.

SOMEBODY IS MAKING BILLIONS OFF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

According to the Department of Labor, the number of unemployed persons has increased from 7,675,000 in April 2008 to 13,724,000 in April 2009. Unemployed workers are more likely to be teenagers, young adults, and African-Americans.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 7:13 pm
TROLL ALERT!!!!

Saturday July 4, 2009, 7:19 pm

Reported. (Thanks for the alert, Jim P.)

Others, please report (and note this URL when doing so).

Saturday July 4, 2009, 7:20 pm
FLAGGED/TAKE THE TROLL DOWN.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 7:24 pm
Flagged!:(

Saturday July 4, 2009, 7:51 pm
Flagged

Saturday July 4, 2009, 7:53 pm
flagged

Saturday July 4, 2009, 8:58 pm
Flagged.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 9:15 pm
Flagged.

Saturday July 4, 2009, 11:05 pm
FLAGGED!!!

Sunday July 5, 2009, 3:34 am
What's going on in CA?? And, of course don't blame Arnold - some people chose him, some people chose CA gov and some people agreed for that - as there is democracy I believe that majority of CA residents are happy with that all
shame

Sunday July 5, 2009, 7:13 am
Arnold was always called Terminator... not surprising he is now terminating financial gain for the poor and elderly and now he's saying "I'll be Back" sorry with your IOU's ... sis on you Arnold, not nice and not something I wold of expected from a person of your calbre...

Sunday July 5, 2009, 11:28 am
I have been out of work for a month due to illness and I am now forced to go on medi-cal to survive...hope it lasts. One of my clients is an IHSS client on dialysis who unfortunately has had a rough time replacing me while I am down due to these cutbacks.I was not well enough to turn in my last time card....will my arrears be IOU? A good friend of mine has been battling lymphoma and finally felt well enough to get her dental work done right when the dental-cal was cut. My sister works for the state and luckily still has a job, however with mandatory furlow days she is now making what she made 10 years ago. On furlow days small businesses in downtown Sacramento have to shut down because no one is around. What's happening here is insanity.

Sunday July 5, 2009, 8:41 pm
The above Free Spirit Running is a fake ID.

It is NOT the real FreeSpirit Running person.

Flagging.

Sunday July 5, 2009, 10:32 pm
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis wrote "For this is what it means to be a true leader: .... and when there's hunger in the land (as there must be every now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land."

I don't see any of our political leaders, at any level of the government, following that adage. Apparantly, tighten your belts only applies to the peasants not the politicians.

Tuesday July 7, 2009, 1:25 pm
Here is the article I promised you.

Schwarzenegger seeks $67 million boost for private-prison operator
by Andy Furillo
Published: Sunday, Mar. 09, 2008 | Page 1A

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/771380.html

McFARLAND, Kern County – This year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's state corrections agency is proposing a five-year, $67 million increase to one company, GEO Group Inc. The proposal would bump up the daily rate the state pays per inmate by 50 percent, which the company says it needs to increase the minimum pay of its officers from $10 an hour to $14.70. (See link above for entire article.)

Please contact DEATH PENALTY FOCUS to help stop the resumption of capital punishment in California - that will save billions ovr time ---- www.deathpenalty.org