Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Clinton White House provided the USA with a Budget SURPLUS. I think I left off with page 300 or so.

.
04:00 AM PT, Oct 15 2008

When President Clinton left office (click title to entry - thank you), the federal budget was showing a $127-billion surplus.
The books are closed on fiscal 2008. The surplus the current President Bush inherited has turned into a record deficit: $455 billion.
That is more than twice the 2007 deficit of $162 billion and beyond the previous record of $413 billion in 2004....

...from The Nation...

Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle (click here)
By William Greider
September 19, 2008

...If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public--all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called "responsible opinion." If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics--exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion. As I have been saying for several months, this crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political parties, take your choice....

The pages I have been reading for at least the past 100 pages are primarily regarding Medicare and the changes that will provide for a streamlined and more efficient use of American Health Care which is anticipated to allow people a higher quality of life and less cost to the USA Treasury.

The House Health Care Recovery Bill seeks to set 'example' to the Health Care Industry with their improvements in Medicare delivery. Ultimately, all private physicians will be members of the new Health Delivery Infrastructure as a means of improving their own care delivery to their patients.

Page 299, starting with line 3 there is a solid commitment by the House Legislature to these goals:

SEC. 1152. POST ACUTE CARE SERVICES PAYMENT REFORM PLAN AND BUNDLING PILOT PROGRAM.
(a) PLAN.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Health and Human Services (in this section referred to as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall develop a detailed plan to reform payment for post acute care (PAC) services under the Medicare program under title XVIII of the Social Security Act (in this section referred to as the ‘‘Medicare program)’’. The goals of such payment reform are to—
(A) improve the coordination, quality, and efficiency of such services; and
(B) improve outcomes for individuals such as reducing the need for readmission to hospitals from providers of such services.
(2) BUNDLING POST ACUTE SERVICES.—The plan described in paragraph (1) shall include detailed specifications for a bundled payment for post acute services (in this section referred to as the ‘‘post acute care bundle’’), and may include other approaches determined appropriate by the Secretary.

(3) POST ACUTE SERVICES.—For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘post acute services’’ means services for which payment may be made under the Medicare program that are furnished by skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long term care hospitals, hospital based outpatient rehabilitation facilities and home health agencies to an individual after discharge of such individual from a hospital, and such other services determined ap10
propriate by the Secretary.
(b) DETAILS.—The plan described in subsection
(a)(1) shall include consideration of the following issues:

The bill goes on to describe more details and definitions not necessary to list here. There is an important limitation to the 'Pilot Program' that is designed to promote the 'principles' of these provisions. It is important to realize the commitment of which the House Bill lends itself to a benevolent intent of the citizens of the USA.

Page 306, lines 11 through 23:

‘‘(c) LIMITATION.—The Secretary shall only expand the pilot program under subsection (a)(2) if the Secretary finds that—
‘‘(1) the demonstration program under section 1866C and pilot program under this section maintain or increase the quality of care received by individuals enrolled under this title; and
‘‘(2) such demonstration program and pilot program reduce program expenditures and, based on the certification under subsection (d), that the expansion of such pilot program would result in estimated spending that would be less than what spending would otherwise be in the absence of this section.

AND

Page 307, lines 5 through 7:

‘‘(e) VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION.—Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed as requiring the participation of an entity in the pilot program under this section.’’.

Page 311, line 15 begins a discussion about home care and the new provisions for it under Medicare.

The provisions continue for many pages while it defines the requirements for physician participation and hospitals and physician owned hospitals, etc. It is all necessary terminology to protect, 'ultimately' the monies being paid for services. In other words, are there monies being paid twice to the same entity under different names and is there an exploitation by any entity for double dipping. The extent this bill goes to 'secure' proper payment to the entity providing services is rather extensive with every section. They are being careful with the people receiving care and the money that pays for the services. This bill was NOT drafted in a couple weeks. This bill has been 'in the works' for some time. There isn't this kind of detail without very careful processes to cover all the bases necessary. This isn't a 'rough draft' either.

Page 315, lines 16 through 20 provide for transparency. The following paragraphs details what happens where there isn't disclosure.

‘‘(3) PUBLICATION OF INFORMATION.—The Secretary shall publish, and periodically update, the information submitted by hospitals under paragraph (2)(A) on the public Internet website of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.’’;

This will allow 'watch dogs' such as AARP to monitor services, providers and payment of monies. There is fairly tight control over unsustainable growth of a health care system. There are formulas within the legislation that provides for assessment of hospitals, the number of their procedure rooms, operating rooms and bed in relation to the size of the community it serves and the growth of that community. In other words, the 'facilities' can't just dump monies into building a parking garage because their non-profit 'fund' has extra monies that would put them outside the definition of non-profit. Within this bill, facilities have to clearly justify the spending on infrastructure and where the justification lacks, the extra monies will be returned to the clients of that facility in the form of rebates. It is the the way it is supposed to be. Non-profits aren't supposed to continually increase what they charge simply to have surplus and build things. It is wasteful.

I am listing this here because it is a definition most people don't think about in terms of health care providers. Page 326, lines 4 through 9.

‘‘(3) PHYSICIAN OWNER OR INVESTOR DEFINED.—For purposes of this subsection and subsection (f)(2), the term ‘physician owner or investor’ means a physician (or an immediate family member of such physician) with a direct or an indirect ownership or investment interest in the hospital.

Some physician owned facilities can be non-profits. Some don't have emergency rooms and don't necessarily provide for emergencies that occur within them. Some are long term care facilities. At any rate, much of this section discusses all that and wants to have plans from these facilities as to what they do when emergencies result, etc. It is a lot of long winded '...but, what if ...' kind of stuff. There is a provision on Page 321, lines 7 through 13 that allows for community input in regard to local facilities.

continued...

"There has got to be some kind of rebellion between the people that have nothing and the people that's got it all." I can't wait !

The USA Constitution does not 'require' Capitalism !

It allows it !

The purpose of the USA Constitution is to provide for the peace and tranquility of the citizens of this country, not their enslavement !



"Where is our money?"

"I DON'T KNOW."

The Cheney Observer - The KKK is alive and well ! Funding by Private Equity Industry (click title to entry - thank you)


Report: Nagin dismissed in crime-camera lawsuit (click here)

05:49 PM CDT on Monday, August 24, 2009

WWLTV.com
NEW ORLEANS – Mayor Ray Nagin has been dismissed personally from a crime-camera lawsuit, according to published reports.

The Times-Picayune reports the mayor was dismissed from the civil suit brought by two crime-camera firms that allege their technology was stolen in a conspiracy by the city, Nagin's fomer technology chief and Dell Inc.
Nagin remains in the lawsuit in his official capacity as mayor.

Mayor Ray Nagin Hails New Orleans Recovery (click here)
Tue, 08/25/2009 - 19:50
By: Floyd O. Wilson
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Four years ago this week, the City of New Orleans was deep under the waters splashed ashore by a raging Hurricane Katrina. By the time the storm cleared, hundreds of men, women, children and their pets were dead. A formerly vibrant city on the Gulf Coast was left in ruins, depopulated by almost a third of its homeless citizens and property damage running at more than $100 billion.
But the damage didn't stop there. A White House that until then had seemed invincible was left reeling and humbled from the exposure of its utter incompetence to a shocked nation, whose reputation for efficiency and compassion was by now in tatters. What's more, the recovery efforts was not only disjointed, but also was thoroughly corrupt.
A lone voice that at least temporarily could be heard on radio by a grieving city that of Ray Nagin, the affable mayor who, though bearing a portion of the blame, was justly deemed the only public official still in touch with his suffering people and at least understood exactly the magnitude of tragedy that had befallen his beloved city....

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
ALABAMA EXPOSURE: Don Siegelman wants Karl Rove to Testify (click here)
www.tuscaloosanews.com

August 23, 2009

For several years, former Gov. Don Siegelman has been demanding that Karl Rove, adviser to former President George W. Bush, testify to Congress about his alleged actions in Siegelman’s federal criminal case.

Siegelman was convicted of bribery charges in federal court in 2006. Last month, Rove was interviewed over two days by U.S. House Judiciary Committee lawyers under an “agreement of accommodation.”

Here’s the relevant Siegelman question and response, according to the unofficial transcript on the committee’s Web site:

“In fact, you did have an interest in the Siegelman case, didn’t you?” asked Elliot Mincberg, majority chief counsel of investigations and oversight.

Rove said, “I had a lot more pressing things on my platter than the [2006] Alabama governor’s race, and, as a result, a lot more significant things to worry about than the Don Siegelman case.”

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., in a press release about Rove’s interview, focused on Rove’s alleged involvement in the alleged illegal firing of certain U.S. attorneys during Bush’s term....

DIDN'T BELIEVE ME ABOUT MURDOCK AND HIS LYING NEWS EMPIRE ?

Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ Nailed on Karl Rove’s Lies (click here)

...The reason I want to thank you is that Mr. Rove has clearly lied about me in this article. You have captured and printed it without even checking to see if it is so or not. The lie he has told is and I quote, “Judiciary Democrats didn’t get testimony from either Mr. Siegelman or Dana Jill Simpson, the eccentric Alabama lawyer, who drew attention by publicly supporting the allegations.” In case you are unaware, I testified on September 14, 2007, before the House Judiciary Committee lawyers that were selected to question me. I most definitely gave sworn testimony to the House Judiciary Democrats. In fact, I gave over 143 pages of testimony before the Judiciary Democratic and Republican lawyers. It is unfortunate that your paper does not give a rip about the truth or you would have checked out the bold-faced lie that Karl Rove put in his article before you printed it....

NewsCorp’s Wall Street Journal Busted For Printing Lies (click here)
Thanking Murdoch’s Journal for More of Rove’s Lies
08/24/2009 by Gabriel Voiles
OpEd News has published an open letter from attorney Dana Jill Simpson (8/20/09) to “Mr. Murdoch and all the editors at the Wall Street Journal,” in which she expresses her wish to “thank you from the very bottom of my heart for running Karl Rove’s delusional article, ‘Closing In on Rove,’ on August 20, 2009″:
Thanking Murdoch’s Journal for More of Rove’s Lies
OpEd News has published an open letter from attorney Dana Jill Simpson (8/20/09) to “Mr. Murdoch and all the editors at the Wall Street Journal,” in which she expresses her wish to “thank you from the very bottom of my heart for running Karl Rove’s delusional article, ‘Closing In on Rove,’ on August 20, 2009″:
The reason I want to thank you is that Mr. Rove has clearly lied about me in this article. You have captured and printed it without even checking to see if it is so or not. The lie he has told is and I quote, “Judiciary Democrats didn’t get testimony from either Mr. Siegelman or Dana Jill Simpson, the eccentric Alabama lawyer, who drew attention by publicly supporting the allegations.” In case you are unaware, I testified on September 14, 2007, before the House Judiciary Committee lawyers that were selected to question me. I most definitely gave sworn testimony to the House Judiciary Democrats. In fact, I gave over 143 pages of testimony before the Judiciary Democratic and Republican lawyers. It is unfortunate that your paper does not give a rip about the truth or you would have checked out the bold-faced lie that Karl Rove put in his article before you printed it.

August 25, 2009
NJ Gov: GOP Poll Shows Race Tightening (click here)

Amid sustained attacks from Democrats over ties to Karl Rove and a personal loan to a former colleague, Chris Christie's lead appears to be shrinking. A poll conducted by Rick Shaftan, a consultant to Christie's former primary opponent, shows that Gov. Jon Corzine has pulled to within just two points....

Rove falsely claimed Obama admin. pushing vets toward "assisted suicide" (click here for video from Murdock)

August 25, 2009 7:23 pm ET

Continuing Fox News' pattern of falsely suggesting that the Obama administration is pressuring veterans to end their lives prematurely, Karl Rove claimed that the Veterans Health Administration is directing veterans to an end-of-life educational booklet, "Your Life, Your Choices," that includes contact information for "a group that believes in assisted suicide," and thus "the kind of guidance we're giving returning veterans" is "you ought to go to an assisted suicide group." In fact, that group is not referenced in the current version of the document, a fact that Jim Towey -- who originated the smear of the booklet as a "death book" -- acknowledged in interview on Fox News Sunday....

Aide indicted, widens Abramoff scandal (click here)
Former official accused of accepting thousands in gifts
By
(Contact) Saturday, August 22, 2009

A former congressional aide who also worked at the Labor Department and the government's broadcasting service has become the latest public official to be ensnared in a corruption scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Horace M. Cooper, 44, was accused Friday of taking thousands of dollars in gifts from Abramoff between 1998 and 2005.
Authorities say Mr. Cooper first began receiving gifts while working for former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas Republican. He is accused of continuing to accept gifts while working as chief of staff for the Voice of America broadcasting service and as chief of staff for the Employment Standards Administration of the Labor Department....

Kevin Spacey's Abramoff is tight with Bush & Cheney in 'Casino Jack' (click here)
Sunday, August 16th 2009, 4:00 AM

Filming just wrapped on "Casino Jack," in which Kevin Spacey plays jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Having gotten a peek at Norman Snider's deft script, we can tell you that some of its real-life characters have cause for concern.
The screenplay paints George W. Bush and Karl Rove as much chummier with Abramoff than they've acknowledged. ("How you doing there, buff guy?" Bush asks the black-hatted con artist in one Oval Office scene.)...

Everyone is trying to 'sell' the idea that the younger voters that came out in droves for Obama have disappeared from the radar on Health Care Reform. "W"rong. They are there, but, they aren't unhappy about it, only that the man they elected into the Presidency is letting the Republicans 'get away' with lies, DESTROYING any friendly bipartisan for the sake of the country and fear mongering !

August 25, 2009
Boiling health-care pot (click here)
Posted by Michael Carper

So this is where bipartisanship gets you. Barack Obama gave Republican leadership the entire summer to voice opinions regarding health care. Instead of publicly supporting a plan and fostering thoughtful public discourse, the moderate Senate Republicans let their radical colleagues in the House and their equally frenzied allies on the airwaves dictate the Republican response.

Which leads us to where we are today: A bunch of angry boomers afraid of a non-existent health-care plan. Or, depending on when they tune into Fox News, "ObamaCare," "socialism," or "a government takeover."

Because President Obama let the health-care pot boil for three months without taking leadership by sharply defining the bills specifics, conservative commentators are bursting their kettle, screaming about select portions which may or may not be in the text of HR 3200 or whichever bill they feel deserves hyperbole. If no text exists, pundits like Karl Rove exaggerate about the British NHS or the Veteran's Affairs hospitals. They generally avoid Medicare, lest their readers remember where those checks are coming from. This active opposition, grassroots or not, is overwhelming the 77 percent of Americans that support the idea of a public option. Barack Obama can defend this idea. Let him.

George Walker Bush couldn't declare eminent domaine over the land for his library, so he thought he'd just use intimidation.


Deal between SMU, ex-condo owners to end land fight falls apart (click here)
12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, August 25, 2009
By LORI STAHL / The Dallas Morning News lstahl@dallasnews.com
A deal that was supposed to end a long-running lawsuit against SMU – and smooth the path for George W. Bush's presidential library – has fallen apart amid charges that both sides broke the terms of a confidential agreement.
Last month, Southern Methodist University and two former condominium owners announced that they had settled the bitter four-year fight over who is the rightful owner of land now slated for the grounds of the Bush library.
The lawyers hailed the deal on the basis of an e-mail that contained four bullet points, according to filings in the case and interviews with attorneys on both sides. But now, what those bullet points said – or did not say – is in dispute, with both sides pointing fingers.
The terms of the agreement were kept confidential, but lawyers said the former condominium owners would be paid in exchange for dropping their claims to the disputed land....

According to Thomas and Scalia there is nothing in the Constitution that says a black man can't be killed even though he is innocent.

Editorial
Innocent and in jail (click here)
The Supreme Court has at last made a ruling that may help free the wrongfully convicted.

...Last week, they ordered a federal court in Georgia to reconsider the case of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer 18 years ago. Since then, seven prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony, and dignitaries including former President Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI have pleaded for clemency, with the pope's representative providing Georgia officials with a detailed critique of the evidence used to convict Davis....

...In dissenting from the order, Justice Antonin Scalia (joined by Justice Clarence Thomas) complained that the court "has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."...

Tom DeLay, the hammer, is a Birther !

Tom DeLay Joined the Ranks of the Birthers (click here)

...DeLay did not avoid the question. On the contrary, he seemed to place himself firmly in the birther camp. "I would like the president to produce his birth certificate," he said. "I can. I can, most illegal aliens here in America can. Why can't the president of the United States produce a birth certificate?"
DeLay even went so far as to ask for Matthews' help in securing the document. "Chris, will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you ask the president to show me... his birth certificate." Matthews declined, and pointed out that there was a newspaper announcement of the president's birth in 1961. DeLay questioned that as well: "Is a newspaper article an official document?"...

....Then we got a look at a May 1996 article from the Houston Chronicle about a series of protests by the disabilities advocacy group ADAPT, brought to our attention by Democratic consultant Peter Lindstrom.
It begins like this:
"Groups of protesters, most of them in wheelchairs, barricaded two local political offices Tuesday to demand changes in the way disabled people receive care in America. ... A second group of about 150 ADAPT supporters blockaded and occupied U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's office in Sugar Land [Texas], until DeLay agreed to meet with them. "
And continues:
"Tuesday's protesters narrowly escaped arrest by Stafford police when DeLay, who is in Washington, D.C., agreed to meet with them next month."
Huh. And here, again, is what DeLay told Chris Matthews:
"When I did my town hall meetings, I'll never forget one back in the '80s -- on health care, by the way. They brought in quadriplegics on gurneys and dumped them on the floor in front of my podium."
Time tinges everyone's memories; but this seems like a bit of a stretch.
Is it possible that DeLay is thinking of the ADAPT episode -- and just replacing 90s with 80s, district office with health care town hall, protesters in wheelchairs with quadriplegics dumped from gurneys, and not-having-been-there-at-all with seeing it unfold in front of his podium?
Perhaps DeLay's story would have a little more credibility if he could simply produce its birth certificate.
Late Update: Two reporters who've covered DeLay extensively over the years say the quadriplegic story is new to them.

'Dancing With the Stars' pairings announced (click here)

- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and two-time champ Cheryl Burke (hey, it had to be someone, didn't it?)...

The Cheney Observer continued below...

The Cheney Observer - continued...

...I have expressed my frustration with this tactic many times before (click title to entry - thank you), and I know it is getting tedious. But, to recap, the tactic is this: (1) Make a preposterous and false claim about a bill. (2) Have the claim disproved. (3) Avoid defending the original claim, but instead observe that the controversy reflects "a legitimate difference of interpretation" about what might happen in the future. Effective opposition in three easy steps!...


Perhaps the TRUTH about Karl Rove's role in the US Attorney's firing will be turning 'state's witness' against George Walker Bush. After all, it took ? six ? or ? seven ? time before the Grand Jury of Fitzgerald to fry Libby instead to himself.

Rove and Miers' Public Testimony Could Focus on Bush (click here)
Former Bush administration officials Karl Rove and Harriet Miers will be called to testify publicly about the U.S. attorney firings, according to a report from Jason Leopold at The Public Record.The public examination is expected to cover President George W. Bush and information he might have received about the firings.The news follows last week's release of documents from Rove and Miers' non-public testimony before staff members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Those documents included Rove's testimony about the Don Siegelman prosecution in Alabama. It is unclear if the public testimony, expected to come this fall, will cover the Siegelman case....


Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove to appear on FOX's 'Family Guy' (Video) (click here)



Sarah Palin and Jeb Bush Poised to Lead Town-Hallers (click here)
August 25, 2009 09:28 AM ET Paul Bedard
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Some call it the next conservative revolution, but whatever we dub the antigovernment ire at tea parties and town halls, there so far appears to be no elected official leading the charge. "It's a faceless movement," says a former Bush adviser, who credited media bigs like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck for whipping up the frenzy. So who's best positioned to lead the protesters into the next presidential election? Whispers asked a dozen GOP and conservative leaders to come up with a top 10 list. First, Rep. Ron Paul, popular among the town hallers. Then, Sarah Palin, whose 2008 crowds cheered her antitax message. Third, Newt Gingrich, the father of the 1994 conservative revolution. Next, populist Mike Huckabee. And fifth, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said to be the family's passionate conservative.

The rest: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint; Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; House GOP Whip Eric Cantor; and Pennsylvania Senate hopeful Pat Toomey.
Note who's missing: Mitt Romney. The GOP analysts say that's because conservatives are wary of his program to reform healthcare in Massachusetts that some say resembles universal healthcare.




Well, it would seem Jeb Bush is ahead of Sarah Palin in harkening the Catholic Vote.

700,000 expected at Communion and Liberation’s Rimini Meeting (click here)

August 25, 2009
Jeb Bush, Tony Blair, Mary Ann Glendon, Robert George, the president of the European Union, and dozens of figures in European ecclesiastical, political, and intellectual life are speaking this week at the 30th Rimini Meeting, which is associated with the Communion and Liberation movement. “Knowledge is always an Event” is the meeting’s theme....


Obama Leads Top GOP Contenders for 2012 in New Poll; Palin is Weakest Opponent; Romney Tops 2012 GOP Field (click here)

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new nationwide poll of American voters shows President Obama leading major 2012 Republican presidential contenders. The survey, conducted by Clarus Research Group, a nonpartisan research firm based in Washington, D.C., shows Obama leading GOP challengers by margins ranging from 9 to 19 points.

In the poll, Obama led:
Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, by nine points: 47 percent to 38 percent, with 15 percent undecided.
Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, by 10 points: 48 percent to 38 percent, with 15 percent undecided.
Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, by 18 points: 52 percent to 34 percent, with 15 percent undecided.
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, by 19 points: 53 percent to 34 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
"The fact that Obama falls below 50 percent against two possible Republican opponents should be troubling for him," said Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group. "It also shows that the electorate is increasingly divided on Obama, with significant partisan polarization." The president's standing among swing voters has eroded since November, 2008, when exit polling showed he defeated John McCain 52 percent to 44 percent among independents....





The Latest from Carlyle, there is no recession or 'down turn' at the firm.

Prior to Plainfield Asset Management, Ms. Pedersen (click here) was a Managing Director at U.S. Trust Company where she was the head of a team in their Family Wealth Management practice. Previously, Ms. Pedersen held positions at J.P. Morgan Investment Management as an energy analyst and at Morgan Stanley in Corporate Finance.
Ms. Pedersen earned her BA at the University of Pennsylvania and her BSE at The Wharton School.
* * * * *
The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm with $84.5 billion of assets under management committed to 64 funds as of March 31, 2009. Carlyle invests in buyouts, growth capital, real estate and leveraged finance in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America focusing on aerospace & defense, automotive & transportation, consumer & retail, energy & power, financial services, healthcare, industrial, infrastructure, technology & business services and telecommunications & media. Since 1987, the firm has invested $55.7 billion of equity in 909 transactions for a total purchase price of approximately $227.5 billion. The Carlyle Group employs more than 890 people in 20 countries. In the aggregate, Carlyle portfolio companies have more than $109 billion in revenue and employ more than 415,000 people around the world. http://www.carlyle.com/

Primus confident of bid for AIG unit (click here)
Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:20am EDT

By Faith Hung and Rachel Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Primus Financial Holdings is "very confident" it will get approval from Taiwan's regulators for its bid to buy AIG's (AIG.N) Taiwan insurance unit, a top executive from the investment firm said on Tuesday.
Primus' co-chief executive Wing-fai Ng told Reuters in an interview that it planned to list Nan Shan Life in Taiwan in three years if it won the bid, and then in Hong Kong and the United States, which would turn Nan Shan into a global brand.
Primus, founded by former top Citi (C.N) Asia banker Robert Morse, is in the final bidding race with the Carlyle Group CYL.UL and Bain Capital for a deal estimated at about $2 billion for Nan Shan, the most expensive asset for sale in Asia of American International Group.

American International Group, Inc. (New York Stock Exchange) (click here)

The latest from from GM CEO Fritz Henderson who is in line to become the next Rodger Smith, by squandering the selling of the American technology for the Volt and outsourcing its production to Europe through Opel.

Where is the UAW when they are needed. They sold their souls to keep GM alive and now GM is turning on them ! They are turning on them with American Treasury funds !

FACTBOX: New GM board at center of Opel talks (click here)
Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:44pm EDT

DETROIT (Reuters) - The new board of General Motors Co has emerged as a key player in the outcome of the automaker's long-running talks to sell off its Opel unit.
Last week, the board failed to endorse a carefully negotiated deal that would have sold Opel to a group led by the Canadian automotive group Magna with financial backing from the government of Germany.
Instead, the board asked for more information on that bid and a rival offer from Belgium-based RHJ.
Sources with knowledge of the deliberations also told Reuters on Monday that GM was considering trying to raise $4 billion to keep Opel instead of selling the unit.
GM's board includes members appointed by Treasury, Canada and the United Auto Workers union healthcare trust as well as GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson, reflecting the ownership of the automaker that emerged from bankruptcy in July.
Treasury holds a more than a 60 percent stake in GM, Canada and its Ontario province holds 11.7 percent, the UAW healthcare trust 17.5 percent and creditors from the old GM, now called Motors Liquidation Co, hold a 10 percent interest.
GM is not publicly traded but plans an initial public offering as early as next year.man has experience fixing struggling businesses -- he made his name helping to pull Continental Airlines out of bankruptcy in the 1990s and turning the airline around....
* Daniel Akerson, managing director and head of global buyout at The Carlyle Group, was a Treasury appointee to the board in July....

Under the terms that gave the USA citizens 60.8% stock in General Motors COMPANY, they were to sell off their foreign assets. They are in breech of their agreement with the American Taxpayers. I say we need to reclaim the company and take back what is rightfully ours !

Slimeballs.

Wall Street = Slimeballs.

'Gov. Corzine: Unions Key to Income Equality' (click here)
by Tula Connell, Aug 15, 2009
As the state with the most extensive union membership, it’s no surprise that New Jersey working families have a strong social contract, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said today. Speaking at a lunchtime panel at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, Corzine told the hundreds of progressive bloggers in the audience:
There is no question that the association of the union movement with shared wealth is absolutely a reality—and we need to get back to it.
Corzine, who is in a tough fight with challenger
Chris Christie in one of two governor’s races this fall, said the distribution of income in this country is skewed—with the nation’s tax policy ”completely tilted toward corporations against labor.” (Media reports today tie Bush-backer Christie with Karl Rove and the illegal firing of U.S. attorneys. Find out more about Christi’s anti-worker stances here.)...

London Mayor Criticizes Tube Contractor Over Delays (Update2) (click here)
By Brian Lysaght
Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- London Mayor Boris Johnson criticized the work of Tube Lines Ltd., the largest contractor on the London Underground, over its delays on a project to upgrade the Jubilee Line.
“I am hugely frustrated at their progress to date, which is simply unacceptable,” Johnson said in an e-mailed statement today. The company may not meet its contractual deadline to finish work on the line by Dec. 31, and has “stretched Londoners’ patience almost to breaking point,” he said.
Tube Lines, owned by Spain’s Grupo Ferrovial SA and San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp, said it will complete the work on time if it’s allowed to shut the line for five extra days to allow work crews into the tunnels. The company has a 30-year contract, called a public-private partnership, to maintain and upgrade the Northern, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines....

continued...

The Cheney Observer - continued from above...

Halliburton breaks ground in Williston (click here)
WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) An international oil service company is expanding in Williston.Halliburton Co. broke ground Thursday on a complex estimated at about $20 million in the city's Industrial Park.Halliburton provides oil field services to major companies and independent firms, and employs more than 300 people in northwestern North Dakota and eastern Montana.The new complex is to open next year with space for tools, truck washing, sand and parking.Halliburton officials say they had to lay off workers in Williston recently but they believe the economy will change....


Food for thought. Is the newspaper business about reporting 'the truth' or 'promoting politics?'

He Said, She Said Journalism, Horse Race Journalism, & the Church of the Savvy (click here)
August 19, 2009
I’m posting something Jay Rosen, an NYU Journalism professor posted two years ago on “he said, she said”/horse race political journalism. Rosen calls it the “church of savvy,” and I guess others do as well.
The issue is that don’t journalists don’t actually cover the issue and whether a claim is true or not, they just report on the politics of the situation. Or, better put in one of Rosen’s tweets: “Is it true? vs. Will it work? The church of the savvy disgusts Paul Krugman
http://tr.im/wrTr ”...

So good to know former Senator Bill Frist believes in American Labor.

Sen. Bill Frist uses Cash for Clunkers, junks Suburban for Prius (click here)
by Jeremy Korzeniewski on Aug 25th 2009 at 9:02AM
Apparently, it's a common misconception that all Prius drivers are Democrats. Not true. In fact, recently retired Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) just got himself a shiny new hybrid hatchback from Toyota. The former senator even got a few thousand dollars off the price of his new eco-friendly ride courtesy of the just-concluded Cash for Clunkers program here in the United States.
In an interview on Larry King Live, Frist responded to King's quip that "You don't see a lot of Republicans driving a Prius" with the response that the hybrid's 50 miles per gallon along with the fact that "the taxpayer gave me $6,000 to do it" as reasons for the Prius purchase....

Follow the Government MONEY !!!!

Oh, it's only Halliburton, Jr - KBR.

Shoddy Work To Follow !!!

Analyst: KBR moving from military to energy work (click here)
HARTFORD, Conn.
Shares of KBR Inc. rose Tuesday after an analyst raised his price target on the engineering and construction company's shares, saying KBR is moving successfully into large energy projects and away from military contracts.
Broadpoint AmTech analyst Will Gabrielski raised his price target to $29 from $24 and reiterated a "buy" rating on KBR.
The Houston company, which was spun off from Halliburton Co., is doing a "solid job of transitioning" its work from the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LogCap, though it took longer than expected, Gabrielski said.
Last month, defense contractors DynCorp International Inc. and Fluor Corp. received a combined $3 billion contract from the Army for support services to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The award excluded KBR.
However, Gabrielski said two large Iraq orders could be awarded by the end of the year and KBR's "positioning in Iraq remains intact given the company's entrenched status."...


Halliburton Company HAL, builds concrete plant, will cost $10 million to $12 million (click here)
Halliburton Company
Rochester, NY 8/25/2009 03:12 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)
Halliburton Company said that it has agreed to begin construction on a concrete plant to serve north-central Pennsylvania's expanding natural gas drilling industry. The cost estimation will be $10 million to $12 million, including a concrete plant, warehouse, offices, truck wash and maintenance bays. The site is appealing because it is close to areas where exploration companies are drilling into the potentially lucrative Marcellus Shale gas formation, says Halliburton officials.




Bush bashing (click title to this entry - thank you)
Cheney’s next target is apparently his former boss
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 14, 2009, 8:39PM
During the last two presidential terms, an oft-repeated assertion by journalists covering the White House was that the real power in the George W. Bush administration was Vice President Dick Cheney. A New Yorker Magazine cover satirized the relationship by depicting Bush as Cheney's manservant cleaning up behind him.
Apparently that image wasn't too far from Cheney's own conception of his role as one of the most influential No. 2's in American history. A report in the Washington Post by Barton Gellman indicates Cheney is hard at work on a tell-all memoir that will unload on his former boss for failing to continue following the veep's policies in the closing years of his presidency....

...By the early '90s, working out of the U.S. attorney's office in Connecticut, he was receiving national attention heading cases against New England crime kings, providing evidence to put John Gotti behind bars, and going after crooked politicos like former Connecticut governor John Rowland. In 1999, he was asked by former attorney general Janet Reno to investigate a number of corrupt state police officers and FBI agents in Boston that had been working with the mob (a case whose players served as inspiration for characters in the Oscar-winning film, The Departed).
During the '80s and '90s, Durham became known in New England as the "white knight": dogged, spotlight-shy, puritanical, and successful. He's a devout Catholic that takes no prisoners in the court room. As of 2001, he'd never lost a case. In July 2004, he was awarded the Award for Exceptional Service by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft....
(CN) - The 9th Circuit dismissed a lawsuit for insurance benefits filed by victims of the Armenian genocide. The court said the claims were trumped by the U.S. government's refusal to use the term genocide to describe the systematic slaughter of more than 500,000 Armenians during and after World War I....
...Senior Circuit Judge Thompson cited the Bush administration's efforts to quash a 2007 Armenian Genocide Resolution, which sought official recognition of the genocide. Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that passage of such a resolution "could harm American troops in the field, constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and significantly damage our efforts to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey." Then-President George W. Bush added that the resolution "is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror."...


6 Confirmation Questions For Ben Bernanke (click here)
August 25, 2009 03:57 PM ET Rick Newman
It’s not surprising that Ben Bernanke is getting a second round as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Had President Obama bounced Bernanke after one two-year term, it would have sent an unsettling message just as the economy appears to be turning the corner. And history may show that Bernanke’s aggressive intervention in the economy over the last 18 months has been much more prudent than the hands-off approach his detractors would have preferred....
...Why did Goldman Sachs get AIG bailout money? Six months after the beginning of the AIG bailout, we learned that $12.9 billion worth of AIG bailout money actually went to Goldman Sachs, which had multiple deals with AIG that the government basically redeemed at 100 cents on the dollar. Three European banks got more than $30 billion in AIG bailout money, with other AIG trading partners getting lesser amounts. There may have been a sound reason for passing through so much money to AIG counterparties. So what was it? And why didn’t those trading partners even take a haircut on their deals with AIG, when the government itself will probably lose a bundle? This deal is especially fishy given that former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came straight to Washington from Goldman, where he was CEO. Bernanke has the standing to put conspiracy theories to rest—if there’s a convincing explanation for the Goldman payouts that for some reason we haven’t heard so far....

...John Rendon (click here) spoke and gave an assessment of how they had done in the run-up to the war. And he said, “Well, there were three things we tried to do, and we did well on two, but not the third.” The first was to make the news be theirs 24/7, and they did that by the morning briefings from Baghdad—or from Kuwait and then the afternoon press conference from the Pentagon. “We wanted to control the printed media, and that was primarily done by the embedded program.” He said, “The one thing we failed at was we didn’t have people who provided the context. We lost control of the military analysts, and they were giving context.”...


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