Free Republic

SAN DIEGO The city recklessly and deliberately mismanaged its finances for years, according to a report released Tuesday that marks a key milestone in San Diego's fiscal recovery. Kroll Inc. said San Diego "fell prey to the same type of corruption" that ruined companies including Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. and prompted Orange County to file for bankruptcy protection in 1994. "The evidence demonstrates not mere negligence but deliberate disregard for the law, disregard for fiduciary responsibility and disregard for the financial welfare of the city's residents," the report concludes. The 266-page tome, which took 18 months to complete and...

A Chevy Chase couple has been ordered by the county to demolish their partially renovated home — or to move it 1.7 feet back from the property line. Marc and Marianne Duffy believe they are victims of a backlash against oversized homes being squeezed into small lots in older neighborhoods. They say they are being punished for a county agency’s mistakes. Neighbors who opposed the construction believe the Duffy’s problems are their own creation. Marc Duffy, an attorney, and Marianne Duffy, a stay-at-home mom and former attorney, served as their own general contractors on the project. ‘‘Three times my husband...

SMITH SAYS: ROMAN CATHOLICS.....TAKE BACK YOUR CHURCH The LA Times, west coast media puppet of the ACLU, carried, on 05/26/06, a news item which should be a clarion call as loud as Tom Paine’s "Common Sense." An RC church in Huntington Beach, Orange County (that's the wealthy county that went bankrupt rather than pays its bills) told a parishioner who knelt during part of the Mass (the Agnes Dei to be specific), he had committed a MORTAL SIN, and would no longer be welcome in the Church and could not receive Communion or other sacraments. The church in question is...

US might seek substitute for UN By Betsy Pisik The Washington Times Published November 15, 2005 NEW YORK -- America's representative at the United Nations said yesterday that the organization must become better at solving problems and more responsive to U.S. concerns or Washington will seek other venues for international action. During a luncheon with reporters and editors at The Washington Times, U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton said repeatedly that the Bush administration requires nothing less than "a revolution of reform" at the world body, encompassing everything from U.N. Security Council engagement to management changes to a focus on administrative...

**WE GET ANOTHER UPDATE from our bud, a former San Diego Border Patrol Agent who shifted to the northern USA border and then joined the Vermont Guard and was instantly called to duty. His email handle is “onefrozenmigra.” Anywho he gets some training at a place called Camp Shelby and then boards an aircraft for Afghanistan. You may have heard ROGER relate recently that our bud was allowed to get on a chartered commercial aircraft for the Afghan flight with his guns…M4’s, M-16’s and nine millimeter Beretta sidearms. But he was not allowed to bring on board his nail clippers...

Democracy: As Cuba digs out from one of the worst hurricane sever to hit the island, Fidel Castro faces a new challenge to his tyranny. It’s not just the failure of Cuba’s infrastructure. It’s also what’s filling the void. That something is the use of technology as a lifeline to the construction of a civil society. As Hurricane Dennis slammed through Cuba, an interesting change happened: Cubans lost their fear of the state and provided minute-by-minute reporting about conditions by cell phone, e-mail or short-wave radio on the hurricane to their Miami brethren.

Bad pension moves and accounting irregularities have made a mess of San Diego's finances, but is California's second-largest city on the brink of bankruptcy? Depends who you ask. Some pundits and some bankruptcy lawyers say it is. Not surprisingly, Mayor Dick Murphy and current and former top city officials insist it isn't, and some municipal finance experts agree. Meanwhile, Wall Street credit-rating agencies and other informed third-party observers show little sign of bracing for San Diego turning into the next Orange County, which became the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history in 1994. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services suspended...

The Los Angeles Unified School District faces a potential financial crisis that threatens its future because of its unfunded $5 billion liability to provide full medical coverage to retired employees and their families, according to a new state analysis. The report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office warned that soaring health-care costs, generous employee contracts and the failure to earmark money for the expenses pose a serious danger. It said the LAUSD needs to put away $500 million a year -- about 8 percent of its current budget -- for 30 years to cover a liability that could reach $11...

Introduction During the last week, the weather in Venezuela has been extremely atypical with rainfall establishing records and flash floods killing over one hundred people while thousands have lost their homes. This is obviously an abnormal natural phenomenon and nobody can be blamed for it. However, the case of Vargas state, a densely populated and small state north of Caracas, is very particular, because that state was the victim of an even larger tragedy in December 99, when tens of thousands were killed due to generalized mudslides. That tragedy was like nothing Venezuela had ever seen in its history, coinciding...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

I just find this below excerpt suspicious... - - - - - - - - - - Closures on table as Seattle Schools faces bankruptcy By Sanjay Bhatt Seattle Times staff reporter Seattle Public Schools is considering plans to close the equivalent of 12 to 22 schools starting in two years in order to stave off bankruptcy, district officials say. After similar actions by urban districts in California, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, administrators in Seattle say closing schools would help stabilize the district's financial health and channel scarce resources to teachers and learning, rather than bricks and buses. Seattle hasn't...

Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, betting that new bids or a different design for the new Bay Bridge will save hundreds of millions of dollars and won't cause further delays, rejected on Thursday what Bay Area leaders had considered the best chance of getting the span built before the next big earthquake. The state chose to let expire the lone bid for the new bridge's trademark -- a spire-like single-tower suspension span to Yerba Buena Island. The decision, announced by Sunne Wright McPeak, state secretary of business, transportation and housing, is a gamble.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - The worst blackout in more than a decade hit Athens and southern Greece on Monday, leaving millions sweltering in a heat wave and raising concerns about whether the lights will go out at next month's Olympics. The government blamed the outage on "mismanagement" of the electricity grid. Still, officials promised the network was ready to handle the Aug. 13-29 Olympics. But it was yet another hurdle in Athens' attempt to convince the world it is ready to host well-run and safe games. Olympics preparations have come under criticism because of construction delays and concerns over security...

CAGW's Pork Patrol Takes a Closer Look at Fiscal 2005 House Interior Pork Contact: Mark Carpenter or Tom Finnigan, 202-467-5300 both of Citizens Against Government Waste WASHINGTON, June 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Even though Congress has not passed a budget resolution, the House last week passed the fiscal 2005 Interior Appropriations Act, H.R. 4568. Picking up where they left off from last year, members stuffed the bill with enough pork to fill the Grand Canyon. While the House only approved $19.7 billion of the nearly $20 billion requested by the Department of the Interior, it could have saved millions of...

Updated: 2:16 p.m. ET May 14, 2004NEW YORK/WASHINGTON - As NASA sets course for the moon and Mars, the space agency's finances are in disarray, with significant errors in its last financial statements and inadequate documentation for $565 billion posted to its accounts, its former auditor reported.

Terrorist Arafat Clings to Power (Same Old, Same Old) By Andrew L. Jaffee, September 7, 2003 Home   Search   Forum   Terms Yasser Arafat today named Palestinian Authority (PA) parliamentary speaker Ahmed Qurei as new prime minister. Qurei will replace Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned yesterday. The BBC describes Qurei as: ...a leading member of the mainstream Fatah faction who helped to negotiate the Oslo peace accord with Israel 10 years ago. ... Palestinian officials describe him as an Arafat loyalist who's unlikely to challenge the veteran leader. "Arafat loyalist" means he's tainted by terror, and will continue the PA's rampant mismanagement and corruption. Same...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Postal Service's retiring inspector general hired a team-building consultant at $3,000 a day, held ‘‘mind-numbing'' eight-hour working lunches and erupted in anger at a staff-produced ‘‘inspirational'' film that she thought would upstage her presentation of accomplishments, a government report says. The conduct of Karla Corcoran, whose retirement was announced Tuesday by the Postal Governors, was criticized in a 274-page report filled with employee accusations of mismanagement and waste. Corcoran, in an interview, strongly disputed the allegations. Much of the criticism involved team-building meetings, with employees charging that a major investigation was almost jeopardized because it conflicted...

Still, blaming the recall on anyone but Davis and his party misses the point. We would not be in this sorry place had the governor paid more attention to his duties than his ambitions. Conducting the people's business with fingers crossed behind one's back has diminished confidence in government and stripped old-fashioned terms like "voter choice" of their meaning. As a liberal, I am appalled. For myself and the many others who felt misled and cast an uninformed vote, and for those who must suffer the consequences of political gamesmanship, the recall hardly seems an assault on democratic values. On...

State in need of major reformREFORM: Public is fed upBy Rick Orlov Staff writer LOS ANGELES -- The last time Californians got this fed up with their state government, Hiram Johnson rode a wave of public discontent to the governor's mansion, reined in the special interests and created a progressive constitution allowing initiatives and recalls. Now, nearly a century later, the energy crisis, the budget crisis, political gridlock and the recall campaign against Gov. Gray Davis have angered the public once again and encouraged reformers to find opportunity in chaos. "Ideally, you would like to have discussion over government reform...

<p>A U.S. Energy Department investigation into University of California mismanagement of the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico will widen to include Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area, a federal official confirmed Friday.</p> <p>And, under mounting federal pressure, UC announced Friday it would reinstate two investigators who were fired after alerting officials of possible credit card misuse and $2.7 million in missing computers and other equipment at the Los Alamos lab.</p>