• Man Arrested for Defending Family From M-13 Thugs.
• Schwarzenegger Passes Crown To Maldonado For Week
• NYT’s Krugman Warns of Dire Consequence of GOP Takeover.
• Rotten Egg Smell Ignored By PG & E Before CA. Gas Blast.
• Federal Court Says Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Unconstitutional
• Could Secret Iran Nuke Plant Be Obama’s October Surprise?
• Muslim College Opens In Berkeley, CA.
• The Withering Mainstream Print and TV Media Markets.
• Whistleblowers Allege Hanna Beth Jackson Aided Planned Parenthood To Loot Taxpayers of Tens of Millions.
• Obama’s Job Approval At All Time Low.
• California Cities’ Investigations Growing
• Americans Want Less Government
• Rahm Will Leave White House And So Will Others.
• Russia Pumping Arms Into Middle East
• Congressional and White House Staffers Not Paying Taxes

Republican Marco Rubio has opened up a double-digit lead over both of his opponents in the race for the U.S. Senate seat from Florida, a new poll reveals.

A Long Island, New York man was arrested after he fired four shots into the dirt of his own front hard to frighten off more than 20 members of the notoriously violent M-13 gang that had swarmed his home threatening to kill him, his wife and babies.

Poilice say he went too far admitting that there are more than 2,000 members of the gang in Nassau County which has apparently gone to hell in a hand basket.

He was charged with endangerment and other crimes and had to post $10,000 bail.  No gang members were arrested

 The incident is proof of the adage it is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

Recovery summer factoid: Every month this summer the Federal government has adding 10,000 more taxpayer paid for workers - not counting military.

Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado (R), 43, of Santa Maria, CA. gets to be Governor until Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) returns to the State on September 15 following his trade trip to Asia. Pundits are labeling this as Maldonado’s big chance to gain ground and may be take a lead over his reelection rival San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) ,43.

 Friday Maldonado was busy getting face time and signing stuff to aide victims of the disaster in San Bruno, Ca. as a result of the PG&E gas pipeline blowing up.

Among other things Maldonado was left the task of signing Bell-related legislation including: AB 900, which would allow the refund of $2.9 million in property taxes, and and AB 827, which would prohibit automatic pay raises built into employment contracts for city managers.

Maldonado’s handlers have applied for a special event permit to stage the signing in from of Bell City Hall on Monday the 13^th to ring the bell as loudly as possible.

In the battle of the 43-year-olds Newsom lead Maldonado 43-to-34 percent in a Field Poll released last month so pulling off a success next week is a big deal. Conservatives are branding Maldonado a Rainbow Republican for his moderation.

Obama gave a more than one hour campaign speech billed as a press conference on Friday morning droning on and on to a largely managed and stilted array of questions. As the Bard said, “Sound and fury signifiying nothing.”

Paul Krugman, the New York Times’ arch-liberal and partisan economist and columnist is ominously opining that if Republicans take control of Congress in November it will be Armagedon. Americans, he says, will wish they were as bad off as the Japanese. The almost always morose Krugman says, “In short, Japan’s performance has been disappointing but not disastrous. And given the policy agenda of America’s right, that’s a performance we may wish we’d managed to match.”

America, Krugman warns, will be much worse off if it doesn’t follow Tokyo’s lead.

In Krugman’s opinion Japan is better off … (T)hanks to those government job-creation plans, the country isn’t suffering mass unemployment. Debt has risen, but despite constant warnings of imminent crisis - and even downgrades from rating agencies back in 2002 - the government is still able to borrow, long term, at an interest rate of only 1.1 percent.”
“Japan’s economy may be depressed, but it’s not in a depression. The employment picture has been troubled, with a growing number of ‘freeters’  living from temporary job to temporary job.”

 The Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Balance of Power shows Democrats with a 47-45 advantage in the U. S. Senate while eight races are now Toss-Ups (California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Ohio   Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin). Republicans hold a twelve-point advantage on the Generic Congressional Ballot. 

 Friday the Cook Report predicted a GOIP pickup of 7 Senate seats and maybe the ten needed to become the majority. In the House it now strongly predicts a pickup of at least 40 seats by Republicans who need 39 for majority control.

 Amid fears of big financial liability Pacific Gas & Electric Co. lost over a billion dollars in book value Friday in the wake of Thursday’s deadly explosion and fire in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno.

 At least four persons died and a couple dozen were injured in the PG&E natural gas pipeline detonation..

 Local residents are reporting that they had reported a strong smell of natural gas for days to the utility without response.

 The gas line exploded at suppertime Thursday reportedly sending a fireball a thousand feet high in what was described as a napalm-like eruption igniting fires so hot fire fighters were driven back. The explosion broke the water main cutting off water to the firefighting efforts.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the blast. But, adults will soon enter the investigation.

The Obama White House says Congress will vote later this year on extending parts of the Bush tax cuts not including an extension of those cuts for the wealthiest Americans, a crushing blow to small business people.

Contrary to Obama’s claim that very few small businesses would pay the top tax rate it turn out 48% of small businesses would pay new top tax rate under Obama’s plan to increase taxes on the rish. Unless Republicans clobber Obama and Democrats in November he / they will try for a lameduck session tax increase and a political battle royale will erupt.

 A federal court in Riverside, California, ruled Thursday that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy — which bars homosexual men and women from serving openly — is unconstitutional.

“Plaintiff has demonstrated it is entitled to the relief sought on behalf of its members, a judicial declaration that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act violates the Fifth and First Amendments, and a permanent injunction barring its enforcement,” concluded U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, a 1999 Clinton appointee.

 The ruling came in a case filed by the group Log Cabin Republicans (a Republican homosexual group) against the government and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

The next step is expected to be for the government to ask for a temporary injunction to prevent the ruling from going into immediate effect, pending further appeals. The government at some point in the next few weeks or months would then file a petition with the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which is based in San Francisco, for a hearing. If the government were to lose, its next step would be to the Supreme Court.

But since the Pentagon and White House have signaled their intention to end DADT, with congressional approval, Thursday’s ruling may be viewed in a different light.

For a time the Florida minister appeared smarter than anyone thought saying his plans to burn Qurans is linked to the Park51 mosque in New York City. He said he had a deal to move the NYC mosque but the responsible Imam denies any such deal. He did fly to NYC Saturday to little or no impact.

 Another hitherto secret uranium enrichment facility has been exposed in Iran.  It is reportedly 85% complete and designed to speed up Iran’s enrichment efforts for bomb grade material.

 Almost simultaneously with the disclosure the U. N. nuclear regulators admitted that Iran is impeding their inspections of nuclear sites. Iran said it has every right to do so. In fact Iran asserted it can bar inspections of its uranium enrichment plants.

Cynics point to this as an opportunity for Obama to stage an October surprise as he and we seem to be hurtling toward an abyss. If he test those waters by plumbing its depths that would be an indelible sign. Then what remains is for him to cajole Israel to being his proxy warriors and attack Iran while he huffs and puffs about decisiveness and leadership.

Some will recall that Bill Clinton blasted Afghanistan and Sudan blowing up ten dollar tents with million dollar cruise missile as he fought off impeachment. I doubt even Obama has this much Chutzpah, hubris or simple gall.

 Police were forced to escort three fans out of the U.S. Open after a brawl broke out. When is this wealthy-white-guy-on-wealthy-white-guy violence going to end? — Leno

Last weekend was the 9^th anniversary of the 9-11-2001 radical Muslim terrorist attacks.in New York and Washington DC. In an odd coincidence last week a new Islamic college announced opening its doors in California with plans to educate a new generation of Muslim-American leaders.

Founded by three prominent Islamic scholars, Zaytuna College in Berkeley is a small school with just five faculty members and 15 students in its inaugural freshman class. The school wants to become the country’s first fully accredited Muslim academic institution.

Zaytuna College is opening at a time when fierce opposition to the proposed Islamic community center and mosque near the former World Trade Center has left many American Muslims feeling under siege.

Critics have charged, “This is stealth jihad in the sense that it is about promoting in the United States incubators for sharia,” the religious law of Islam, said Gaffney, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

Zaytuna’s founders dismiss such criticism, saying it represents the views of a small minority of Americans who don’t understand Islam.

Zaytuna, which means “olive tree” in Arabic, offers an education that combines training in Arabic language and Islamic scholarship with courses in the humanities and social sciences. There have been other attempts to start Muslim colleges in the U.S., but those schools have closed or remained obscure.

In the category of least political correctness is this:

A friend of mine just started her own business making landmines that look like prayer mats. It’s doing well.  She says the Prophets are going through the roof.

Most newspapers, magazines and even yellow pages are going the way of the buggy whip.  The Internet has more readers and believers.  Few trust the integrity of the NY Times, the Washington Post or the LA Times. Remaining readers are going to blogs and Fox News–not the Times (any variety) or Katie Couric for information and facts. 

If you want propaganda and the mainstream media is your best bet.  Want information?  Go to alternative sources for facts and information about BO, Democrats and government in general.  Only local newspapers will survive the technology changes and the honesty factor people expect.

 Many are adding social media marketing and pay per call elements to their traditional column inch advertising ideas.

 So ugly have things become in traditional media that the big three networks are shrinking dramatically including NBC, ABC and CBS ad sales and viewers..

Conservative comedic actor Kelsey Grammer has begin a web based Right Network that he hopes will grow to fill the broadcast vacuum.

In an interview with a generally liberal magazine’s reporter Fidel Castro said this week that communism is not working in Cuba.

 Whistle blowers say then California Assemblywoman Hanna Beth Jackson helped Planned Parenthood bamboozle taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars through fraudulent billing practices..

 At the time Jackson said she was acting to defend woman’s access to abortions.

The whistle blowers, including Planned Parenthood’s financial officer. won an appeal to expose the fraud and bilking of taxpayers. Planned Parenthood bills the federal, state and sometimes local governments for performing abortions reportedly at many times costs.

The Washington Times reports that between 2002 and 2008 the abortion behemoths own annual reports show that it took in $2.3 billion from government grants and programs but says it spent $657 million. No one seems to know where the taxpayer money went.

 PPA says it systematically aborted 1.8 million pre-born babies between 2002 and 2008

 Actor Andy Griffith’s personal popularity has plummeted an astonishing 25% since he became a spokesman for Obamacare.

 It appears the more Americans see of Obama the less they like what they see.

 As Obama sticks his chin out farther and farther in a fumbling effort to save himself and Democrats just forty-one percent say they at least somewhat approve of his job performance. Fifty-eight percent (58%) now disapprove.
 
Today’s Approval Index rating is the lowest yet recorded for this president. Overall Job Approval matches the lowest recorded number, and the number who Strongly Disapprove matches the highest yet recorded.

 President Obama continues to earn Approval from 74% of Democrats. Blacks overwhelmingly support Obama but Hispanics have moved away from him. 88% of Republicans disapprove. So do 63% of those not affiliated with either major political party. Those unaffiliated “swing” voters have shifted farther and faster away from Obama than any group.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan are ending their zero-tolerance policy on corruption and allowing local officials who are on our side to be “moderately” corrupt. It’s the same policy we have in Congress. - Leno

Since the revelation of outrageous misdeeds in Bell City government other Cities all over California are under increased scrutiny and investigation for tawdry behavior including:

• Amid whispers of shenanigans the Compton City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night in closed session to terminate its City Administrator saying they want to go in a “new direction.’ Few specifics are available.
• City of Vernon taxpayers are hopping mad at being billed hundreds of thousands of dollars for first-class flights, luxury hotels and limousines between 2005 and 2010 by city officials.
• The outrage continues to grow in the City of Oxnard.over smelly under the table dealings o city contracts. Homes are being searched and City Hall has been locked down twice by the FBI.
• The former Mayor of Temple City is going to jail for corruption. The 53-year-old woman bribed a developer to OK permits to build a mall. Other city council people await sentencing.
• Members of Santa Barbara’s downtown organization are more than a little cranky over what they see as a City shakedown deceiving them about city finances to con them out of tens of thousands of dollars to return a bicycle patrolman to duty telling them the city was broke. An independent has audit found over $100,000,000 in unrestricted funds have been squirreled away.

In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.

 According to a Rasmussen Reports poll, “Sixty-eight percent (68%) of U.S. voters want a smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes to a more active one that offers more services and higher taxes.

Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Republicans and 74% of voters not affiliated with either major party prefer a smaller government. Democrats are evenly divided.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of the Political Class like a more active government with more services and higher taxes. Eighty-two percent (82%) of Mainstream voters favor a smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes instead.

62% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that no matter how bad things are Congress can always make them worse. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 19% disagree, with 19% more not sure.

This level of skepticism is shared by a majority of just about every partisan and demographic group, including 53% of Democrats whose party currently controls both houses of Congress.

Only 29% of Likely Voters - largely comprised of Democrats — say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey

Condom machines are the latest step in a program to promote safe sex at the San Francisco Jail’s San Bruno lockup. The San Francisco Chronicle’s reported this week that authorities at the jail installed 16 condom machines throughout the facility — one in each jail pod — even though sex is technically illegal in the cell block which houses only men.

Rahm Emanuel’s expected departure is likely to mark the beginning of a wider White House shake-up aimed at helping the administration regain its footing in the aftermath of anticipated Democratic losses in the November midterm elections and positioning Obama for a tough 2012 reelection fight that shows signs of a challenge from within his own party - maybe by Hillary Clinton.

Rahm’s expected run could get crowded Rep. Jesse Jackson is once again considering a run for Chicago mayor, according to published reports - and so is his wife, Sandi.

Also expected to leave at some point after the elections is chief political strategist David Axelrod although most expect Axelrod to play a big role in Obama’s 2012 campaign.

Christina Romer, who was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, left this month to return to academia, and Obama has yet to pick a successor. Peter Orszag left his post as budget director this summer, and his replacement, Jack Lew, is awaiting Senate confirmation.

Sources both inside and outside the White House said any new chief of staff may want to reshape the economic brain trust, starting with the controversial top adviser, Lawrence H. Summers. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has also said he is leaving - probably next year - putting Obama on the spot of whether to appoint Hillary Clinton to that job to lessen the likelihood she will run against him in 2012. Of course that would opens up the Secretary of State slot and some think he’d appoint VP Biden as Secretary of State removing a big bugaboo and strengthening Obama’s 2012 ticket with someone more popular.as a running mate. Ironically, the member of Obama’s economic operation considered most likely to remain is the brainiac=lookingTreasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who has endured scathing criticism and calls for his resignation from both the right and the left. Geithner’s role increasingly is to be a lightening rod to deflect from Obama and take the heat for the stumbling and bumbling economy.. Obama is keeping close counsel mindful of Republican calls to shake up and shake out his advisers in favor of a less radical and ideologically motivated crew. Of course much will depend upon outcomes of November’s elections.  The worse that outcome for Democrats the more heads will be bouncing down the White House driveway. The Democrat demonizing of Tea Partiers looks like a top down ordered Hail Mary desperation to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on November 2nd. This feels like the 1960s tactic when then California Governor Pat Brown (Jerry’s Dad) ran TV ads against Ronald Reagan reminding black and other liberal voters that it was an actor who shot President Lincoln. The Kremlin has approved the sale of anti-ship missiles to the Syrian Navy. Officials said the missile, identified as P-800, was deemed a defensive weapon that would not change the military balance in the Middle East. “I would like to stress that the Russian Federation is committed to all agreements previously signed between Russia and Syria,” Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko said. Prikhodko said the P-800 sale was approved by the Kremlin based on a study of its affect on the military balance with Israel He said Russian weapons to Syria would not be directed “against any third party.” I wonder who they are referring to? One of Britney Spears bodyguards has filed a lawsuit alleging that seeing her naked was sexual abuse and scarred him for life because she repeatedly exposed herself and repeatedly sexually propositioned him. 638 Congressional staffers owe an average of almost $13,000 in unpaid federal taxes including a million bucks owed by 43 White House staffers. In all federal workers owe over $9.3 billion in unpaid federal taxes for last year. Republican members of Congress are pushing for the firings of government workers who owe the IRS. Of course some disputes are legitimate. For his part Obama is ignoring taxes owned by Federal workers including the 41 in his own executive office who owe $831,000 while urging a crackdown on those “greedy, terrible” businesses who are government contractors who are delinquent That all could get attention since Congressional staffer’s unpaid taxes has shot up 36% since 2007 to nearly $10 million.. Last month Americans spent 41,000,000 minutes, over 28,000 days, on Facebook the social media networking website. It was the first time it exceeded Google and all other information search websites.