Obama Tries to Avoid Government Shutdown

President Obama has invited House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to meet with him at the White House at 8:45 p.m. this evening in an attempt to avert the government shutdown that will begin if a budget deal is not worked out by Friday.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president called the meeting because he "decided that not enough progress has been made."

Lawmakers in the past, have passed a pair of short-resolutions to keep the government running while they've debated a budget bill to last for the rest of the fiscal year, but President Obama said he will not accept another such bill.

A bill was introduced in the GOP-led House on Monday that funds the government for another week and also funds the Department of Defense for the rest of the year. The bill includes $12 billion in spending cuts, as well as a policy rider that would prohibit taxpayer funds for abortions in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have rejected this proposal, which is expected to come up for a House vote on Thursday. It appears designed to be used to cast Democrats as responsible if and when a shutdown comes to pass.

The $12 billion in cuts is six times as many cuts as in past short-term resolutions. The House and Senate have passed $10 billion in cuts so far.

Democrats say they are willing to cut $33 billion from the budget and have cast Boehner and the Republican leadership as unwilling to compromise because they are being held hostage by the Tea Party.

In a conference call on Wednesday, a senior administration official told reporters that over 800,000 workers will be furloughed if the government shuts down. Tens of thousands of military personnel would also not immediately be paid and national parks, the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies would be closed.

Fiesta Bowl CEO Junker Fired - Outrageous Spending

The Fiesta Bowl fired president and CEO John Junker for "an apparent scheme" to reimburse employees for political contributions and "an apparent conspiracy" to cover it up. 

After reading the report on FiestaBowl.org at http://www.fiestabowl.org/_documents/reports/Fiesta_Bowl_Final_Public.pdf Junker did much more than make illegal political contributions.

His spending in my opinion, was excessive and out of line, even for a BCS Bowl Game.

Junker, always looking in control in his bright yellow Fiesta Bowl sports jacket, had been the face of the event for three decades, leading it from an upstart event to one of the BCS giants. With an annual salary of about $600,000, he had been on paid administrative lead since Feb. 4 after, the board said, he failed to comply with two written directives to cooperate with the investigation.

The board said the probe also uncovered "excessive compensation, nonbusiness and inappropriate expenditures and inappropriate gifts."

Here are some examples from the 276 page reports as I read it in pdf form.

Some of Junker's reimbursed expenses were classified as "Undetermined."  How can that be? 

From the report:

The volume or excessiveness of certain expense reimbursements calls into question the reasonableness of these transactions taken as a whole. Following are examples of the types of expenditures that we classified as “Undetermined”:
•
Seemingly excessive expenditures on items that otherwise may be appropriate such as hotel expenses greater than $500 per night, air fare greater than $1,500, and high-dollar limousine charges.
•
Numerous gifts and tickets given to non-Fiesta Bowl employees915 such as conference officials, athletic directors, coaches, and sponsors. Gifts given to football players participating in the games, gifts given as memorials and tickets to other BCS bowl games were all classified as “Potentially Appropriate.”

The Fiesta Bowl, led by Junker also put on illegal fundraisers for politicians and gave gifts that they are not allowed to provide to politicians.  Also from the report:

The Fiesta Bowl would sometimes provide items of value to certain politicians. For example, in a number of the reimbursement requests submitted by the Fiesta Bowl employees whose expense materials we reviewed, the employee’s description of the expense named one or more politicians.

How about Junker using Fiesta Bowl money to pay $110,000 at an auction for a round of golf with Jack Nicklaus.

In March 2003, Junker attended “Celebrity Fight Night,” which bills itself as “one of the nation’s elite charity events” with a live auction. There are two charges on Junker’s American Express statement from March 24, 2003, one for $95,000 and another for $15,000. Each is listed as “Celebrity Fight Night” with a handwritten notation as “Jack Nicklaus golf bid.” It appears that in 2004 the Fiesta Bowl paid for Junker and at least one other person to fly to Florida to play golf with Jack Nicklaus in connection with the auction item purchased in 2003. There is also a $735.50 charge to “Prestige,” which may be a limousine service, in Boca Rotan in connection with the “Nicklaus” trip. Junker, in a supplemental statement offered by his attorneys, noted that the attendees of the foursome were supposed to be Nicklaus, John Compton (President of Frito-Lay), Kevin Weiberg (Big 12 Commissioner), and Mark Womack (SEC Senior Associate Commissioner). According to Junker, Weiberg cancelled at the last minute, and Junker filled in.  Junker believes that the golf trip was important for the Bowl’s relationship with Frito-Lay and its relationship with the SEC. A March 29, 2003 memo to file from Junker explains the purchase.

Junker also was allowed to have memberships at 4, yes 4 golf clubs.  Paid for of course, by the Fiesta Bowl.

The golf clubs were:

Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona

Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Oregon

The Biltmore Golf Club in Phoenix, Arizona

Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Oklahoma

Remember, Junker lived in Arizona.

Two more areas that I couldn't believe.

Cars:

During the years that GMC was a sponsor of the Fiesta Bowl, senior Fiesta Bowl executives received GMC company cars.1101 When this sponsorship ended in 2009, Junker, Wisneski, Schoeffler, and Fields received money from the Fiesta Bowl to make down payments on a car, plus monthly automobile stipends.

In addition to the senior executives, Junker’s wife, Susan, also has a car paid for by the Fiesta Bowl. In the past, Susan Junker was provided a car under the Fiesta Bowl’s contract with General Motors. When that contract ended, Junker received a stipend to cover not only his own car, but also a car for his wife.

On August 25, 2009, Junker received an $8,500 check for automobile down payment(s); Wisneski received $6,500; Schoeffler received $3,000; and Fields received $2,000 on October 22, 2009.1 According to information Wisneski provided to PricewaterhouseCoopers, in 2009 Junker received an annual automobile stipend of $27,000; Wisneski $15,600; and Fields $9,600. Schoeffler stated that his monthly automobile stipend was $1,000/month.

And the infamous strip club visits:

On September 12, 2008, Junker, Aaron Brown, and Shawn Schoeffler spent the evening at Phoenix’s Bourbon Street, which claims to be a “World Famous Strip Club.”  Aaron Brown is a Maricopa County Sheriff’s lieutenant who owns Blue Steel Consulting, Inc., a company that provides security services to the Fiesta Bowl.

Junker’s American Express statement includes five separate charges from Bourbon Street for the evening, totaling $1,241.75.  (The men also spent $46 at Z Tejas, a restaurant, and $48.47 at Tilted Kilt, a bar, that evening, all paid for by the Fiesta Bowl.) Junker acknowledged that the more than $1,200 spent at Bourbon Street that evening was not all spent for food and drink but “in all likelihood” included the payment for women to dance for them. -  Huh?

One of the investigators retained by counsel to the Special Committee conducted an investigation that concluded that the individual amounts that totaled up to the night’s charges equated with the charges for private dances. The Fiesta Bowl paid for the drinks and all the strip club charges.

Now, read that above paragraph again.  An investigator's job was to go to  strip club and conduct an investigation on how to spend $1,241?  What kind of job is that?

Conclusion at this point - The report is mind blowing, Junker will probably be charged criminally and the BCS may have to look at sanctioning the Fiesta Bowl.  Good job to everyone who was lining their pockets on the pretense of putting on a bowl game for "student athletes."

Obama: Launch Tomahawk Missiles!

The U.S. military has launched its first missiles in Libya against Moammar Gadhafi's forces, a senior Defense Department official said Saturday, and secoded by President Barack Obama during a live briefing from Brasil.

Earlier, French fighter jets deployed over Libya fired at a military vehicle on Saturday, the country's first strike against Moammar Gadhafi's military forces who earlier attacked the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

U.S. Tomahawk missiles have landed in the western area around Tripoli and Misrata, the American military official said.

"He's clearly been on the offensive," the official said of Gadhafi. "He said that he was going to do a cease-fire and he continued to move his forces into Benghazi."

The French are using surveillance aircraft and two frigates in the operation to protect civilians. The aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle will soon depart Toulon, France.

"Our air force will oppose any aggression by Colonel Gadhafi against the population of Benghazi," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking after an international, top-level meeting in Paris over the Libyan crisis.

"As of now, our aircraft are preventing planes from attacking the town," he said, calling the intervention a "grave decision."

The international show of force is much welcomed by besieged rebel forces who have called for backup to help them stave off a government offensive against their positions in Benghazi and other rebel-held enclaves.

Protesting is a Family Activity in Wisconsin

Madison Police Department spokesman Joel DeSpain said police figure the crowd of protesters Saturday in downtown Madison, Wis., exceeded last week's Saturday protest, which was estimated at 70,000 people and included a small counter-demonstration by supporters of Gov. Scott Walker.

The crowd could have numbered as high as 100,000, but counting it was difficult because it was spread over parts of State Street as well as the Capitol Square and in the Capitol itself. DeSpain said there were no arrests and called the demonstrators "a very civil group."

Part of the civility can be attributed to efforts by demonstrators to self-police themselves.
Between 500 and 600 volunteer marshals have helped maintain peace throughout the two weeks of protests against Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill by instructing people where to go and assisting authorities with crowd control.

Thousands of children are among the protesters in the state's capital, many accompanied by mom and dad.

For parents, the protests are an opportunity for a real-life civics lesson.

"I'm trying to teach my kids to stand up for your rights," said Kieran Connor, a teacher in the Sun Prairie school district who attended Saturday's event with his wife, Cindy, and young sons, Sullivan and Finnegan.

Finnegan, 4, was carrying a homemade sign that read, "My daddy is a school teacher. Stop making him sad."

Adults were split whether the kids understood the magnitude of the protests and why people had taken to the streets.

Michele Brogunier said her two daughters wanted to come to the rallies because they were concerned about their teachers. One even asked to stay the night in the Capitol, "so she could tell her grandkids about it."

"Think back to when you were 11 and what lens you saw the world through and what connects," Brogunier said. "This is hitting some of these kids hard."

But Jim McKiernan said his two grandnephews — one of whom carried the "Recall Walker" sign — were most likely just in awe of the spectacle.

Still, he didn't want them to miss it.

"This is history, man," said McKiernan, an instructor at Madison Area Technical College. "Hopefully we don't see this every generation but it does seem like every one has these types of moments."



Parker Out at CNN's 'Parker Spitzer'

CNN has announced the departure of Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Kathleen Parker from the network, leaving former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to host a new show dubbed “In the Arena.”

CNN's “Parker Spitzer,” which debuted last October at 8 p.m., was supposed to be a daily debate hashing issues in a substantive, analytical manner with Parker leaning right and Spitzer leaning left. Ratings, however, remained horrid.

Last week, the show drew about 500,000 viewers a night, according to Nielsen ratings. That’s about half of what Lawrence O’Donnell pulled in at MSNBC and one-sixth the numbers Bill O’Reilly received on Fox News.

Back in the fall, CNN had high hopes for "Parker Spitzer."

It was obvious the pair never got along well. 

There were even reports Spitzer felt he excelled when she was out sick and he hosted alone during the recent Egypt crisis.  Still a long way to go to make this show watchable.