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Festival of Smoke and Mirrors Day When : Always March 29th Smoke and Mirrors Day is a day of illusions. The term "smoke and mirrors" means something is not really as it appears to be. People often put up smoke and mirrors to hide something. This day is also referred to as the Festival of Smoke and Mirrors. We did not discover an actual festival of this nature. But, who needs historical facts to have fun an a special day? Let's get out and enjoy Smoke and Mirrors Day to the fullest. A large jet plane crashed on a...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The chief meteorologist at a Charlotte television station is questioning the decision by Democrats to move President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention to a smaller venue because of the weather. “Thursday night will likely be the best weather of the entire week,” Brad Panovich of WCNC-NBC TV wrote on Twitter in reference to when Obama’s speech was planned to take place at the outside Bank of America stadium, which can accommodate 70,000 people. The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday announced that the weather is forcing them to relocate Obama’s speech to the Time Warner...

Democrats say voters need look no further than California's $91 billion general fund budget to see how dramatically they have cut. That spending total is 11 percent below the state's pre-recession peak. But the number can be misleading. While California has cut education and services for the poor, budget writers also have relied on creative revenue streams and accounting maneuvers to move programs off the general fund books rather than cut them. That has made comparisons difficult and, experts say, contributed to state bookkeeping disparities that have emerged in recent weeks. "We've been through a period of extreme financial difficulty...

Mitt Romney either lied in federal filings that show he worked at Bain Capital through 2002 and could be guilty of a felony, or has lied to the American people in saying he left the company in 1999, the Obama campaign is arguing in light of news reports on the firm’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

she is Holder's witness in the Texas case

For the first time, federal officials revealed Monday that murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and an elite squad of federal agents first fired bean bags -- not bullets -- at a heavily armed drug cartel crew in the mountains south of Tucson in December 2011. The announcement came as the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment charging five individuals allegedly involved in Terry's death. A sixth suspect has also been charged in a related incident. The U.S. is also offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to the arrest of four outstanding suspects believed to...

Justice Department (DOJ) officials indicted five individuals for the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — who was murdered by drug traffickers armed through Operation Fast and Furious – and a $1 million reward for information leading to their arrest. “Agent Terry served his country honorably and made the ultimate sacrifice in trying to protect it from harm, and we will stop at nothing to bring those responsible for his murder to justice,” Attorney General Eric Holder said today. “This investigation has previously resulted in one defendant being charged with Agent Terry’s murder and taken into custody, and...

The state budget that the Legislature will enact this week will assume that half of its deficit will be covered by voter approval of new income and sales taxes next November. However, it's looking steadily less like a reasonable assumption and increasingly like just another in a long string of budget gimmicks, not unlike last year's bogus assumption that the tax system would generate an extra $4 billion. Indeed, one could say that Gov. Jerry Brown and fellow Democrats are doubling down on miracle money, from last year's $4 billion to this year's $8.5 billion. History does not favor new...

Democratic lawmakers have vowed all spring to fight spending cuts to programs that serve the poorest Californians, including welfare-to-work and Cal Grant scholarships. In a Capitol where fiscal maneuvers have flourished in recent years, Gov. Jerry Brown says he wants real cuts to health and welfare programs because the state cannot afford what it provides. Facing a Friday deadline to pass a balanced budget, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg are meeting with Brown behind closed doors to find middle ground. Deal or no deal, it is nearly certain that lawmakers will send the...

There was no chance that Democratic legislators would fashion a new state budget before last Tuesday's primary election, since budget votes could have become campaign ammunition. However, that leaves just a week before the June 15 constitutional budget deadline – with legislators' salaries at risk if they don't make it. And with at least a $16 billion deficit to close, they can't skate by merely assuming voters will pass new taxes in November. They will plug in that assumption, certainly, but that still leaves about $7 billion in income/outgo shortfall to be covered. Democrats are balking at Gov. Jerry Brown's...

Legislative Democrats aren't organizing a bake sale just yet, but they say they will desperately search for cash in the coming weeks to avoid the most severe cuts proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Saying the state's budget deficit has risen from $9.2 billion to $15.7 billion, the Democratic governor has proposed more cuts to programs that serve the state's poorest residents. Brown has described it as a "day of reckoning" and wants his fellow Democrats to slash as much as possible before he asks voters to hike taxes on sales and high-income earners in November. But Democrats signaled immediately that...

The pile-on was in full effect within hours of Gov. Jerry Brown's announcement this week that California's budget deficit had grown to $15.7 billion, with The Week giving its national audience a summary of the Golden State's financial affairs. "California's financial apocalypse," the magazine offered. "A concise guide." Fox News played the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication," and host Greg Gutfeld proclaimed Brown captain of "the Titanic that is California, a state so broke it may ask Greece for a loan." On Friday, the Democratic governor slapped back on national TV. "This is not Europe," Brown told Charlie Rose on...

Poker players often use the phrase "betting on the come" to describe a willingness, if instincts and odds indicate, to wager big on the hope that they will draw winning cards. That's a perfectly valid tactic when one is playing with one's own money and therefore bearing the risk. But is it appropriate for California politicians to bet on the come by approving many billions of dollars in spending on very shaky assumptions that the money will be there when it's needed to pay the bills? Risk was the underlying theme of two hearings in the Capitol on Tuesday. One...

Just a few months ago, Gov. Jerry Brown chastised "declinists" and "dystopian journalists" for their pessimism about California, particularly about emerging from a deep recession. "Contrary to those critics who fantasize that California is a failed state, I see unspent potential and incredible opportunity," Brown told the Legislature in January, citing supposed signs of economic recovery. On Monday, however, Brown blamed a sluggish economy for revenues falling billions of dollars short of the rosy estimates in the budget he signed last June. "You can never get it quite right," Brown told reporters as he released a revised budget aimed at...

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that the state budget deficit had grown by a remarkable 70 percent since January, but fiscal experts said the economy had little to do with it. They instead blamed a bad marriage of volatile capital gains and political intransigence that led state leaders last year to count on a huge upswing in revenues that never materialized. At the same time, corporate tax changes from 2009 appear to have cost California more than state officials ever realized. The Democratic governor says the general fund deficit has mushroomed from $9.2 billion to $15.7 billion. Most of the...

California's fiscal mess – which is more political than financial – was brought into razor-sharp focus Wednesday by three events. First was Sacramento Superior Court Judge David I. Brown's ruling that Controller John Chiang violated the state constitution last year when he cut off legislators' salaries by invoking a newly passed constitutional dictum that they would lose pay if they failed to pass a budget by June 15. Democratic lawmakers had passed a 2011-12 budget before then, but Gov. Jerry Brown immediately vetoed it as being hopelessly unbalanced. Chiang then cut off their paychecks. Brown quickly tossed legislators a lifeline...

The topic was "States and competitiveness in a global economy," but first off, the panel's moderator wanted Gov. Jerry Brown to give us a "sneak peek" at his 2012-13 budget revision, scheduled for next month. Brown demurred, but said, "It will be very interesting." In fact, "You'll hear howls of execration over the next 30 days," he told a gathering of Silicon Valley CEOs on Tuesday. That is, when he lays out additional cuts - watch out health and social services - beyond the $4 billion he's already asked for. Basically, some cuts that Brown wanted have been delayed by...

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has tentatively ruled that the state controller has no authority to judge whether the state budget is balanced or block lawmakers' pay as he did last June. In a bitter feud during last year's budget battle, Controller John Chiang determined that the budget passed by legislative Democrats was not balanced. Using new powers he believed he had under voter-approved Proposition 25, Chiang then blocked lawmakers' pay and expense money for 12 days until they cut a budget deal with Gov. Jerry Brown. In a tentative ruling today, Judge David I. Brown said that the controller...

With the state budget mired in deficits, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators, especially his fellow Democrats, are searching under every fiscal rock for money to spend. That search has spawned an odd syndrome involving what could be three big pots of money – a competition among liberals over how they should be spent if, indeed, they materialize. The pots: • What could be several billion dollars a year in "cap-and-trade" fees that industries must pay as part of the state's anti-greenhouse gas crusade. • Another billion-plus bucks that it's believed would appear were the state to change taxation of multi-state...

In a show of good faith one year ago, legislative Democrats slashed Medi-Cal, cut universities and reduced welfare grants to slice the state deficit 13 weeks before the constitutional deadline. But this year Democrats are refusing to go along with Gov. Jerry Brown's most controversial reductions, spurning his demand to have cuts in place by March. They oppose Brown's plan to halve the amount of time that unemployed adults can receive welfare-to-work benefits and to slash grants to children. Assembly Democrats have voted against his proposal to cut scholarship aid for 26,000 low-income students through higher grade requirements for Cal...

Solving California's public pension crisis must begin with honest numbers. So when top government administrators, who are supposed to be the neutral brokers, start advocating for cooking the books for political and budgetary reasons, we should be concerned. That's what happened last week as the California Public Employees' Retirement System took a small step toward realistically forecasting future investment returns. Peter Ng, employee benefits director for Santa Clara County, supported by his boss, County Administrator Jeff Smith, pleaded with CalPERS board members to override their actuary's advice because it would lead to increased short-term pension costs. While the investment forecast...

When Democrats control the state Legislature and all statewide offices, sooner or later they will end up fighting each other in court. One need look no further than the approaching showdown between legislative leaders and state Controller John Chiang. The issue was joined in January when Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez and Senate President Darrell Steinberg sued their fellow Democrat over Chiang's decision last June to withhold lawmakers' pay after concluding the budget they passed was unbalanced. In a recent court filing, lawmakers argued that Chiang overstepped his authority in an effort to be "politically expedient.

Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday he is racing to clear the November ballot of two rival tax initiatives because failure will lead to severe ongoing budget problems and Democratic blame-trading. "If we get down the road and there are no taxes," he said, "there's going to be a lot of finger-pointing." The Democratic governor, who proposes to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners, said a proposed tax on millionaires would attract many of the same people who might otherwise support his plan, splitting the vote and likely leaving both measures to fail. "That would,...

Political machinations over the state budget dominate every legislative session, but this year's version of the annual budget game may be particularly bizarre due to a confluence of unusual factors, to wit: • Not only is it an election year, but incumbents and aspirants will be running in districts that have been altered, sometimes hugely, by the state's new redistricting commission. • This is also the first year for a new election system in which the top two finishers in the June primary, regardless of party, will face each other in November. • Legislators briefly lost their salaries last year...

This is the html version of the file http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/statement-Congress-letterhead-2nd%20hearing.pdf. Page 1 Leader Pelosi, Members of Congress, good morning, and thank you for calling this hearing on women’s health and allowing me to testify on behalf of the women who will benefit from the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage regulation. Myname is Sandra Fluke, and I’m a third year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school. I’m also a past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. I’d like to acknowledge my fellow LSRJ members and allies and all of the student activists with us and thank them...

For the past two months, Gov. Jerry Brown has been selling the concept that were the Legislature to approve his proposed budget and voters to approve his tax increase, the state's fiscal house would be repaired. It's turning out to be more a pipe dream than a realistic plan. The courts and the Obama administration are stalling, perhaps permanently, many of the spending cuts that the 2011-12 budget had assumed. A Legislature controlled by Brown's fellow Democrats is refusing to jump-start more health and welfare reductions in his 2012-13 budget. Controller John Chiang has reported that spending is running $2.5...

Gov. Jerry Brown is counting on $6.5 billion too much through June 2013 even with a Facebook stock sale on the horizon, according to a new review by the state's fiscal analyst. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has taken a more pessimistic view of capital gains in California over the next 16 months, though it acknowledges in its new report that predicting those totals is "notoriously difficult." California's heavy reliance on volatile capital gains income has been a huge reason why the state has found it so difficult to budget in recent years. The analyst's latest revenue forecast is not...

Democrats in Washington State’s House of Representatives have unveiled their budget proposal – HB 2127 – which they claim closes a $1 billion budget shortfall without raising taxes or borrowing money. In reality, the budget does raise taxes, and relies on accounting gimmicks to solve their $1 billion spending problem. The budget proposal, along with SB 2728, would allow counties in Washington State to add a 6-perent utility tax that in many instances would wind up on taxpayers’ cell phone bills. Washington State already has the 2nd highest national tax burden on wireless, with a combined state and federal rate...

It's not just the economic numbers that are looking up for President Obama. A new New York Times/CBS News poll puts his approval rating at 50 percent, his highest mark since May 2010 (except for a brief bump after Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in May). That's a couple of points better than the RealClearPolitics average as displayed in the chart, but the uptrend is clear. Now, let’s assume the economy continues to grow—not gangbusters, but something along the lines predicted by economists in the recent Wall Street Journal survey. We’re talking slow-but-steady 2.5 percent GDP growth and a...

California revenues last month lagged 5.5 percent behind what Gov. Jerry Brown expected in his just-proposed January budget, a development that Controller John Chiang termed "disappointing." Though the big spring revenue months and Facebook's public stock offering are still to come, the latest report may provide a cautionary signal for Democratic lawmakers who think Brown's forecast is too pessimistic. According to Chiang's office, the state fell $528.4 million behind the governor's latest projection for January, including a $525 million (6.3 percent) shortage in income tax collections. After the first seven months of the fiscal year, the state is $694 million...

If the subject is the state budget, you know what follows: What will be cut this time? This has been an annual discussion ever since California's economy imploded and tax revenues dried up. It was the central topic of state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier's town hall meeting in Concord last week, where he gave a primer on the arcane process by which Sacramento balances income and outflow. He talked about Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget for 2012-13, his planned cuts, projected revenues, assumed tax hikes, triggered cuts if the taxes do not pass, and the many meetings that will take place...

Gov. Jerry Brown and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature settled on a hastily revised state budget last June – after Brown had vetoed legislators' first version – and pronounced it to be balanced and timely. "My colleagues and I have voted on a responsible budget," Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, told constituents in a newsletter, adding, "While we have projected additional revenues, we have also identified further tough cuts if these revenues are not realized. We are charged with the responsibility to pass a balanced budget on time. Democratic lawmakers have done so." Dickinson wasn't alone in crowing to constituents...

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today. The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June. But Chiang said additional cash management solutions are needed because state tax revenues are $2.6 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers assumed in their optimistic budget last year. Meanwhile, Chiang said, the state is...

Last Tuesday, the Public Policy Institute of California issued a new poll that found, among other things, just 17 percent of the state's voters like the Legislature's performance. Simultaneously, the Legislature's top leaders provided another reason for Californians to harbor such scorn. Assembly Speaker John Pérez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced that they would spend untold amounts of taxpayers' money on high-priced lawyers to sue state Controller John Chiang over his decision to withhold legislators' paychecks last year after they failed to enact a balanced budget. Chiang was merely enforcing a new provision of the state constitution...

Democratic legislative leaders sued Controller John Chiang today for blocking their pay during last year's budget dispute, a decision that drew scorn from lawmakers last summer. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said the Democratic controller overstepped his bounds when he decided that lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a flawed budget last June and docked their pay. They said they are not suing for back earnings, but to ask the court whether Chiang can intervene this year if lawmakers face another budget dispute with Brown at the June 15 deadline. The lawmakers filed in...

Gov. Jerry Brown's new budget says that the state's shaky finances are "exacerbated by an unprecedented level of debts, deferrals and budgetary obligations," which he describes as "a wall of debt." However, California's debt, much of it run up over the last decade, is more like a mountain, at least a Mount Whitney and perhaps a Mount Everest. Brown's budget cites the $33 billion in on- and off-the-books debt run up in recent years to cover the state's operational shortfalls – notwithstanding various constitutional prohibitions on deficit spending. It also cites constitutional obligations to restore school financing and mounting payments...

California's dark days of budget deficits and severe spending cuts may be nearing an end. Since the economic collapse in 2008, state leaders have seen a steep drop in tax revenue that had them jostling to keep public services intact in schools, universities, prisons and aid to the poor, disabled and sick. General fund spending has dropped by $17 billion since 2007 - from a high of nearly $103 billion - and the cuts continued as recently as last week when Gov. Jerry Brown announced another $1 billion reduction to programs serving California's 37.5 million residents. And the Democratic governor...

California taxpayers should ask themselves, in the words of Clint Eastwood's famous movie character, "Do I feel lucky?" We're not staring down the barrel of "Dirty Harry" Callahan's gun wondering whether there's a bullet in the chamber. Instead, we're gambling our financial future on whether public pension fund investments will surpass reasonable expectations. If state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, union leaders and the state's largest government employee retirement funds have their way, they'll continue betting against the odds. It's not surprising. It's not their money at risk. They won't have to cover the losses. Taxpayers will. Last week, a study led...

California's public schools received a rare bit of good news Tuesday when Gov. Jerry Brown largely exempted them from automatic reductions in state aid, citing improvements in the economy. However, Brown's declaration that the economy is getting better and he doesn't have to squeeze all automatic spending cut "triggers" also lessened the air of crisis and therefore complicated Brown's efforts to persuade voters to raise taxes next year. "The economy of California is recovering," Brown said as he announced that about half of the $4 billion in questionable new revenue is materializing, adding, "We're getting wealthier by the day but...

Gov. Jerry Brown will slash higher education, child care and school bus service, but he will largely spare K-12 classrooms from mid-year cuts under a revised budget forecast to be released at noon, sources said. K-12 school districts were at risk of losing as much $1.5 billion - the equivalent of seven instructional days - under the budget Brown and lawmakers enacted earlier this year. But sources said they will face a smaller $70 million reduction, or about $11 per student. That should avert massive reductions in the school calendar or other drastic measures for most districts. Districts will still...

SACRAMENTO -- As Gov. Jerry Brown gets ready to pull the trigger on more budget cuts this week, lawmakers and interest groups are bracing to see how devastating the cuts will be. While many in the Capitol are resigned to the worst, some believe the governor will do all he can to avoid cuts to schools -- no matter what the revenue figures show. "He can spin the economic data either way as governor," said Kevin Gordon, a leading education lobbyist. "Ultimately, it's a political decision." On Thursday, Brown will announce the long-awaited results of his finance team's forecast for...

California would impose $2 billion in mid-year "trigger" cuts next month, mostly through K-12 school reductions, under a new revenue forecast issued this morning by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office. The LAO also said the deficit for the year beginning July 1, 2012 would be nearly $13 billion. The analyst's report is not the sole determinant of whether the state will impose those cuts, but it is one of two tools the Department of Finance must rely upon before deciding whether to slash spending. The finance department will issue its own forecast in December. The Analyst said the state will...

The state constitution assumes that the governor and the Legislature will pass one state budget each year, and that's the way it worked for many decades. It's been proposed from time to time that the state go on a two-year budget cycle that coincides with the Legislature's biennial sessions, on the theory that it would result in more comprehensive and forward-looking fiscal plans. However, the Capitol has been going the other direction in recent years as governors and lawmakers wrestle with chronic budget deficits. It's been on roughly a five- to six-month budget cycle. The Legislature passes a budget, but...

Gov. Jerry Brown is doing well in the polls right now, but he's got a problem in the works that could really take him down. Check in with legislative analysts - the state is on track to run out of money by Thanksgiving. It turns out that the budget Brown signed had revenue projections that were ... well, I won't call them phony, but let's just say they've turned out to be several billion dollars short of accurate. Plus, the courts stopped him from pulling in the money he was hoping to raise from redevelopment agencies across the state. In...

State Attorney General Kamala Harris has rejected a GOP request that she opine on whether the state budget signed by Gov. Jerry Brown is constitutional. Republican lawmakers asked Harris last month to examine whether the budget complies with the constitution's requirements for education funding. Supervising deputy attorney general Susan Duncan Lee wrote in response that Harris' office could not do so because it will likely have to represent the state should someone sue on those grounds. Interestingly, Lee suggested in a Tuesday letter that the budget is destined for a court battle.

Jerry Brown was specifically nonspecific when asking voters last year to return him to the governorship – especially when it came to the state's chronic budget deficit. Although pledging to balance the budget without gimmicks, Brown refused to say whether he'd raise taxes, which he knew would alienate many voters. Nevertheless, Brown's first budget was keyed to continuing some temporary taxes that were on the verge of expiring. "For 10 years," Brown told reporters, "we've had budget gimmicks and tricks that pushed us deep into debt. We must now return California to fiscal responsibility and get our state on the...

California has already fallen behind the revenue hopes that Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers used to solve the budget deficit in June, raising fears Tuesday that deeper education cuts may be in the state's future. Controller John Chiang said for the first month of the new fiscal year, California missed its $5.2 billion July general fund revenue target by $538.8 million, or 10.3 percent. To help bridge the deficit in the face of Republican tax opposition, Democrats relied on an optimistic assumption that California would receive $4 billion more than previously forecast through June 2012. Under the budget agreement, if...

SACRAMENTO -- Amid growing fears of a double-dip recession -- punctuated by the stock market's harrowing plunge -- Gov. Jerry Brown's bet on a $4 billion tax surge to bolster the state's coffers is looking illusory at best, economists say. And that means in a matter of months California's students, poor and disabled could be paying big-time for the state's gamble on a rebounding economy. Without a bull market pumping out a generous batch of capital gains, Californians can expect another round of severe budget cuts in January. Brown's "revenue projections were silly before," Chris Thornberg, founding principle at Beacon...

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state budget five weeks ago, but the battle over spending cuts and fees rages on outside the state Capitol. In the latest bid to unravel the $85.9 billion general fund budget, advocates for doctors, insurers and low-income patients will ask federal officials in Washington today to reject $1.3 billion in Medi-Cal cuts they say will hurt the most vulnerable Californians. Cities last month asked the California Supreme Court to halt a $1.7 billion state overhaul of redevelopment agencies. Amazon.com is gathering signatures to reverse a $200 million budget bill requiring online sales tax collection. Sen....

Don’t look now, but Gov. Jerry Brown is morphing into Arnold Schwarzenegger before our very eyes. Once again, a governor has come into Sacramento promising to change the way things work in the Capitol, to make the tough decisions to make state government fiscally solvent. And once again, we are stuck with a state budget based on unrealistic revenue assumptions that avoid necessary spending cuts. You could call this the Wimpy Budget, in homage to the Popeye character who repeatedly conned everyone by saying, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Brown and the Democratic legislators have cobbled...