WHO/Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR)

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Only in those two areas are you going to find truth about the swine flu and or any other information dealing with disease control.

Save your self the panic – get the truth!

In January Huckaby has been listed in a 4 hour missing 7 year old from the same trailer park. The 7 year old was found and appeared to have been drugged with a strong muscle relaxant. The child’s speech was slurred, she could barely walk or stand. Unfortunately the police couldn’t prove that Huckaby was the cause and no arrests were made.

Also in 2007 where she resided in Southern California she is a person of interest in two deliberately set fires. The two fires were deliberaly lit during an 8 day period. Further investagtion or possible arrest had been dropped due to the Cantu murder trial.

Ok, that ‘sounds’ good on paper, but, (and there always is), what happens to the already over crowded dockets? Now judges have a ‘day off’ and that will add 5 times more to their work load to which they are having trouble with now.

So I’m thinking in theory, Overloaded dockets, a rush to justice, clean out the files, run the ‘bad guys’ through fast today due to the day off, there is going to be more human error and those who are innocent may be awarded the wrong sentence, which means lawsuits. which means more cost to the tax payers in the long run.

Then there is the human error of allowing a criminal to run free, well we all know what that means.

At any rate Vermont Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Reiber says all nonunion employees of the judiciary who make more than $60,000 a year will be subject to the furloughs.

A half-day-a-week court closing plan imposed earlier this year will remain in effect, except in weeks when the courts close completely for the day. In those cases, the furlough day will replace the half-day closing.

We will see how this all pans out.

Top Republican lawmakers on Friday unveiled a plan for tax cuts and other steps meant to pull the battered US economy out of its slump after White House talks with President Barack Obama.

The blueprint, anchored on a series of tax-cut proposals and an effort to prop up sagging US home values, came with the Senate and House of Representatives looking to send Obama a stimulus bill by February 16.

Republicans have fiercely opposed a Democratic bill that comprises 550 billion dollars in spending and 275 billion dollars in tax cuts, charging it is too big, would do little to restore growth, feeds too many pet projects, and kicks in too late.

But “there’s unanimity that our economy needs help,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said at the White House after laying out the Republican initiative before Obama.

The Republican plan relies on cutting lowest individual tax rates from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to five percent, tax deductions for small businesses, and a ban on tax increases to pay for new spending — which they say should be paid for by cutting spending in other areas.

It would also make unemployment benefits tax free, and offer a home-buyers credit for those who make a minimum down payment of five percent, according to a statement from the Republican leadership.

“At the end of the day, government can’t solve this problem. The American people have to solve it. And the way they can solve it is if we allow them to keep more of the money that they earn,” said Boehner.

Republican leaders were expected to meet with Obama next week to discuss the plan, as the House prepares to vote Wednesday on the Democratic plan and any Republican amendments.

Monday morning Vermont Governor Jim Douglas will sit down with President Obama for a one-on-one meeting in the oval office.

Douglas is scheduled to speak with the President about the Federal Economic Recovery Package at 11 o’clock. The Governor is expected to stress the importance of this package as states struggle to balance budgets and the need for greater flexibility so that Governors and state leaders can determine how to best use the funds.

Governor Douglas is also scheduled to meet with Vermont’s Congressional Delegation. The Senate is expected to start debate on the bill Monday.

Though the U.S. economy had gone into depression six months earlier, the Great Depression may be said to have begun with a catastrophic collapse of stock-market prices on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929. During the next three years stock prices in the United States continued to fall, until by late 1932 they had dropped to only about 20 percent of their value in 1929. Besides ruining many thousands of individual investors, this precipitous decline in the value of assets greatly strained banks and other financial institutions, particularly those holding stocks in their portfolios. Many banks were consequently forced into insolvency; by 1933, 11,000 of the United States’ 25,000 banks had failed. The failure of so many banks, combined with a general and nationwide loss of confidence in the economy, led to much-reduced levels of spending and demand and hence of production, thus aggravating the downward spiral. The result was drastically falling output and drastically rising unemployment; by 1932, U.S. manufacturing output had fallen to 54 percent of its 1929 level, and unemployment had risen to between 12 and 15 million workers, or 25-30 percent of the work force.

The Great Depression began in the United States but quickly turned into a worldwide economic slump owing to the special and intimate relationships that had been forged between the United States and European economies after World War I. The United States had emerged from the war as the major creditor and financier of postwar Europe, whose national economies had been greatly weakened by the war itself, by war debts, and, in the case of Germany and other defeated nations, by the need to pay war reparations. So once the American economy slumped and the flow of American investment credits to Europe dried up, prosperity tended to collapse there as well. The Depression hit hardest those nations that were most deeply indebted to the United States, i.e., Germany and Great Britain. In Germany, unemployment rose sharply beginning in late 1929, and by early 1932 it had reached 6 million workers, or 25 percent of the work force. Britain was less severely affected, but its industrial and export sectors remained seriously depressed until World War II. Many other countries had been affected by the slump by 1931.

Almost all nations sought to protect their domestic production by imposing tariffs, raising existing ones, and setting quotas on foreign imports. The effect of these restrictive measures was to greatly reduce the volume of international trade: by 1932 the total value of world trade had fallen by more than half as country after country took measures against the importation of foreign goods.

The Great Depression had important consequences in the political sphere. In the United States, economic distress led to the election of the Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in late 1932. Roosevelt introduced a number of major changes in the structure of the American economy, using increased government regulation and massive public-works projects to promote a recovery. But despite this active intervention, mass unemployment and economic stagnation continued, though on a somewhat reduced scale, with about 15 percent of the work force still unemployed in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II. After that, unemployment dropped rapidly as American factories were flooded with orders from overseas for armaments and munitions. The depression ended completely soon after the United States’ entry into World War II in 1941. In Europe, the Great Depression strengthened extremist forces and lowered the prestige of liberal democracy. In Germany, economic distress directly contributed to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. The Nazis’ public-works projects and their rapid expansion of munitions production ended the Depression there by 1936.

At least in part, the Great Depression was caused by underlying weaknesses and imbalances within the U.S. economy that had been obscured by the boom psychology and speculative euphoria of the 1920s. The Depression exposed those weaknesses, as it did the inability of the nation’s political and financial institutions to cope with the vicious downward economic cycle that had set in by 1930. Prior to the Great Depression, governments traditionally took little or no action in times of business downturn, relying instead on impersonal market forces to achieve the necessary economic correction. But market forces alone proved unable to achieve the desired recovery in the early years of the Great Depression, and this painful discovery eventually inspired some fundamental changes in the United States’ economic structure. After the Great Depression, government action, whether in the form of taxation, industrial regulation, public works, social insurance, social-welfare services, or deficit spending, came to assume a principal role in ensuring economic stability in most industrial nations with market economies.

The total number of jobs lost in the recession now totals 2.59 million, counting upward revisions for October and November, with many more job losses expected in coming months.

Speaking in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said a report written by his economic advisers concludes that the vast majority of the new or saved jobs affected by the stimulus measure, which could be as much as $800 billion, would be in the private sector.

“The report confirms that our plan will likely save or create three to four million jobs,” Obama said. “Ninety percent of these jobs will be created in the private sector. The remaining 10 percent are mainly public sector jobs we save, like the teachers, police officers, firefighters and others who provide vital services in our communities.”

Attempting to refute Republican criticism that too many of the jobs created under the stimulus measure would be short-term, “make-work” positions, the president-elect said, “They’ll be the kind of jobs that don’t just put people to work in the short term, but position our economy to lead the world in the long-term.”

Obama also pointed out the bill would extend unemployment insurance and healthcare coverage

WASHINGTON – Saying “it is altogether likely that things may get worse before they get better,” President-elect Barack Obama laid out the case today for a huge economic stimulus plan to get the U.S. economy going again, saying 2009 promises to be one of those “years that come along once in a generation, the kind that mark a clean break from a troubled past and set a new course for our nation.”
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In the speech, his first major address since his election night victory speech in Chicago, Obama laid out a few new details of the plan, calling for a doubling of alternative energy production and investment in the fuel-efficient cars of the future, expanding broadband Internet access across the country, and computerizing medical records. Those aspects of his plan come on top of those already described publicly, including billions of dollars for infrastructure like roads, bridges and schools, tax credits for individuals and businesses and an extension of unemployment benefits.

He also said there will be help for struggling states – with Michigan almost certain to be among them – to avoid “harmful budget cuts, as long as they take responsibility and use the money to maintain essential services like police, fire, education and health care.”

Gov. Jennifer Granholm was among the public officials attending the speech at Virginia’s George Mason University, not far from Washington, D.C. Obama’s inauguration is set for Jan. 20 at the nation’s Capitol.

While the speech was not intended to deliver all the specifics of the plan, it served to describe the need and rouse the newly convened Congress to quick action on the recovery plan, which were likely to come soon. The Associated Press reported that Obama’s economic advisers were on Capitol Hill today briefing Democratic lawmakers on the plans as Obama delivered his speech.

Still, there have been critics who have argued that the plan – which could cost upward of $775 billion at a time when the deficit is already expected to top $1 trillion – costs too much with too few guarantees of success. It appeared those critics were the focus of Obama’s speech, as he said, “If nothing is done this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits.”

“In short,” he said, “a bad situation could become dramatically worse.”

But the president-elect, while criticizing both government and the private sector for allowing an anything-goes attitude to destroy trust and confidence, said “the very fact that this crisis is largely of our making means that it is not beyond our ability to solve.”

“It will take time, perhaps many years,” he said, “but we can rebuild that lost trust and confidence.”

He added: “It is time to trade old habits for a new spirit of responsibility.”

The pace of talks on Capitol Hill has already accelerated. Obama met with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders early this week and both chambers have been holding forums to decide what should be done, with one among Senate Democrats set for today. Meanwhile, all sorts of groups from unions to trade associations, have been clamoring for their own plans to be part of the stimulus package.

Reacting to the speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said he was heartened to hear that Obama “wants to include Republican ideas.” But he also signaled that there could still be battles over the plan, including aid for the states, which McConnell said should be made in the form of loans rather than grants that don’t have to be repaid.

“The question is, how will the money be spent,’ McConnell said of the state aid. “I think the way to make sure it is spent judiciously is to make it a loan.”

Just when you think that she is back where she belongs, and the old fad of Palinitis is gone. Heres yer sign… for all of 2009!

Troubled Chrysler LLC late Friday received an initial $4 billion loan from the U.S. Treasury Department, part of the $17.4 billion it and General Motors Corp. had sought to help the companies stay afloat.

Chief Executive Robert Nardelli said the loan will allow the automaker to continue its restructuring and pursue “our vision to build the fuel-efficient, high-quality cars and trucks people want to buy, will enjoy driving and will want to buy again.”

The Auburn Hills automaker, which is privately held by Cerberus Capital Management LP, is nearing the minimum level of cash — $2.5 billion — it needs to operate, and is fending off parts suppliers and other vendors demanding cash payments on delivery.

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“We recognize the magnitude of the effort by the Treasury Department to complete the multiple financial arrangements and appreciate their confidence in Chrysler,” Nardelli said. “We would like to thank the many constituents who worked with us to meet the loan requirements. This initial loan will allow the company to continue an orderly restructuring.”

On Wednesday, GM received its first $4 billion government loan. The Detroit automaker is to receive another $5.4 billion next month and another $4 billion on Feb. 17, if Congress approves opening the second half of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund.

GM and Chrysler must obtain significant cost-saving concessions from the United Auto Workers, suppliers, creditors and other stakeholders by March 31 to show they can be profitable, or the loans could be called back for repayment by the government — a step likely to force the firms into bankruptcy protection. In exchange for the loans, the federal government will become the owner of a large chunk of both automakers and will have veto power over any transaction over $100 million, among other provisions.

In testimony before Congress in November, Chrysler said it needed $8 billion to fully restructure. Additional money could be approved later if the company meets requirements set out by Congress and legislators approve an additional request for the remaining $4 billion.

Chrysler lost at least $1.08 billion through the first half of 2008. The company burned through $3 billion in cash in the third quarter, leaving it with $6.1 billion at the end of September. It needs $3 billion to operate, Nardelli said in Congressional testimony.

Ford Motor Co. has not sought immediate government aid but has said it would like access to a $9 billion line of credit in case the economy worsens further.

WASHINGTON — The Center for a New American Security, a small think tank here with generally middle-of-the-road policy views, is rapidly emerging as a top farm team for the incoming Obama administration.

When President-elect Barack Obama released a roster of his transition advisers last week, many of the national-security appointments came from the ranks of the center, which was founded by a pair of former Clinton administration officials in February 2007.

The think tank’s central role in the transition effort suggests that its positions — which include rejecting a fixed timeline for a withdrawal from Iraq — will get a warm reception within the new administration.

Richard Danzig (above) and James Steinberg and Susan Rice (below), who all have ties to the Center for a New American Security, are contenders for key positions in the Obama administration.
Michele Flournoy, who co-founded the center with Kurt Campbell, a former Clinton National Security Council and Pentagon official, now serves as its president. She is one of two top members of Mr. Obama’s defense transition team and is likely to be offered a high-ranking position at the Pentagon. Some Obama advisers say she could eventually be tapped as the nation’s first female defense secretary.

Wendy Sherman, co-head of the Obama State Department transition team, also serves on the center’s board of advisers and is expected to land a high-ranking post. Richard Danzig, a front-runner for defense secretary, is on the think tank’s board of directors. Susan Rice and James Steinberg, both of whom are on Mr. Obama’s short list for national security adviser, serve on its board of advisers.

Although most of the center’s staffers are Democrats, its boards include prominent Republicans, and its policy proposals have largely sought to find a middle ground between standard Democratic and Republican positions. On Iraq, for instance, Ms. Flournoy helped write a June report that called for reducing the open-ended American military commitment in Iraq and replacing it with a policy of “conditional engagement” there.

Significantly, the paper rejected the idea of withdrawing troops on the sort of a fixed timeline Mr. Obama espoused during the campaign. Mr. Obama has in recent weeks signaled that he was willing to shelve the idea.

At least half a dozen of the think tank’s policy experts — including John Nagl, a retired Army colonel and a counterinsurgency specialist — are expected to get tapped for midlevel national security positions.

The potential departures mean that the center could be a victim of its own success. “The challenge will be convincing our board, our funders and our staff that we are a going concern and will remain that way into the future,” said Jim Miller, its senior vice president.

Mr. Miller said he is confident the center would weather the departures. Other officials said the center is planning to recruit departing Bush administration officials to fill some vacancies. The center’s budget comes mainly from foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and it also gets some government money to study particular issues.

New presidents regularly raid Washington think tanks for experts and policy ideas. The Reagan administration drew heavily from the right-leaning Heritage Foundation after the 1980 election, while the Clinton administration hired from the left-leaning Brookings Institution.

More recently, staffers at the conservative American Enterprise Institute took senior positions in the Bush administration and drafted some of its signature policies, including the “surge” strategy for Iraq.

The success of conservative think tanks sparked the creation of some left-leaning counterparts, most prominently the Center for American Progress. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta started it in 2003 with tens of millions of dollars from wealthy liberals.
“The success of Brookings begat AEI. The success of AEI begat Heritage. And the success of Heritage begat CAP and CNAS,” said Murray Weidenbaum, an economics professor at Washington University in St. Louis who wrote a book on Washington think tanks.

Mr. Podesta is now running the Obama transition effort. He also serves on the CNAS board of directors of the Center for a New American Security, which Ms. Flournoy founded along with Kurt Campbell, a former Clinton National Security Council and Pentagon official.

The security center remains a relatively small player, with an annual budget of less than $6 million and about 30 employees including support staff. By comparison, Brookings has more than 200 policy experts, while AEI has nearly 100 scholars and fellows.

Nonetheless, the security center enjoys an outsize public profile here, a function of its media savvy and ability to regularly attract high-profile public figures to its events. In September, it hosted Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, James Baker and two other former secretaries of state at a roundtable event that was carried on CNN. The event made news when all of the officials endorsed talks with Iran, an idea backed by then-candidate Mr. Obama but opposed by Republican challenger Sen. John McCain.

Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator from New York and former First Lady, will serve as Secretary of State.

Secretary Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense, will continue to serve in that role.

Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General and a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, will serve as Attorney General.

Janet Napolitano, Governor and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, will serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Dr. Susan E. Rice, a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Obama for America campaign, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, will serve as Ambassador to the United Nations.

General Jim Jones, USMC (Ret), former Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander of the United States European Command, will serve as National Security Advisor.

Its been a hard and at times difficult race but I think the United States will be just fine now. It took years to get us into the cluster mess we now see, and its going to take time to get us out of it.

Congratulations to our next President

Barack Obama!