Here is a great piece on our nation’s decline, as well as some advice to turn things around:

A Word From the Wise 

 
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 2, 2010
I was traveling via Los Angeles International Airport — LAX — last week. Walking through its faded, cramped domestic terminal, I got the feeling of a place that once thought of itself as modern but has had one too many face-lifts and simply can’t hide the wrinkles anymore. In some ways, LAX is us. We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification. They save, invest and build. We spend, borrow and patch. 

And this contrast is playing out in the worst way — just slowly enough so the crisis never seems acute enough to take urgent action. But, eventually, infrastructure, education and innovation policies matter. Businesses prefer to invest with the Jetsons more than the Flintstones, which brings me to the subject of this column.

I had a chance last week to listen to Paul Otellini, the chief executive of Intel, the microchip maker and one of America’s crown jewel companies. Otellini was in Washington to talk about competitiveness at Brookings and the Aspen Institute. At a time when so much of our public policy discussion is dominated by health care and bailouts, my public service for the week is to share Mr. Otellini’s views on start-ups.
While America still has the quality work force, political stability and natural resources a company like Intel needs, said Otellini, the U.S. is badly lagging in developing the next generation of scientific talent and incentives to induce big multinationals to create lots more jobs here.

“The things that are not conducive to investments here are [corporate] taxes and capital equipment credits,” he said. “A new semiconductor factory at world scale built from scratch is about $4.5 billion — in the United States. If I build that factory in almost any other country in the world, where they have significant incentive programs, I could save $1 billion,” because of all the tax breaks these governments throw in. Not surprisingly, the last factory Intel built from scratch was in China. “That comes online in October,” he said. “And it wasn’t because the labor costs are lower. Yeah, the construction costs were a little bit lower, but the cost of operating when you look at it after tax was substantially lower and you have local market access.”

These local incentives matter because smart, skilled labor is everywhere now. Intel can thrive today — not just survive, but thrive — and never hire another American. Asked if his company was being held back by weak science and math education in America’s K-12 schools, Otellini explained:
“As a citizen, I hate it. As a global employer, I have the luxury of hiring the best engineers anywhere on earth. If I can’t get them out of M.I.T., I’ll get them out of Tsing Hua” — Beijing’s M.I.T.
It gets worse. Otellini noted that a 2009 study done by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and cited recently in Democracy Journal “ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness — not great, but not bad. Yet that same study also measured what they call ‘the rate of change in innovation capacity’ over the last decade — in effect, how much countries were doing to make themselves more innovative for the future. The study relied on 16 different metrics of human capital — I.T. infrastructure, economic performance and so on. On this scale, the U.S. ranked dead last out of the same 40 nations. … When you take a hard look at the things that make any country competitive. … we are slipping.”

If the government just boosted the research and development tax credit by 5 percent and lowered corporate taxes, argued Otellini, and we “started one or two more projects in companies around the country that made them more productive and more competitive, the government’s tax revenues are going to grow.” With the generous research and development tax credits and lower corporate taxes they receive, Intel’s chief competitors in South Korea basically have “zero cost of money,” said Otellini. Intel can compete against that with superior technology, but many other U.S. firms can’t.

Does the Obama team get it? Otellini compared the Obama administration to a “diode” — an electronic device that conducts electric current in only one direction. They are very good at listening to Silicon Valley, he said, but not so good at responding.

“I’d like to see competitiveness and education take a higher role than they are today,” he said. “Right now, they’re going to try to push this health care thing over the line, and, after that, deal with the next thing. God, I’d just like this [our competitiveness] to be the next thing. Something has to pay for” everything government is doing today.

We had to do the bailouts, the buy-ups and the jobs bills to stop the bleeding. But now we need to focus on the policies that spawn new firms and keep our best at the top. “Having run a company through a major transition, it’s a lot easier to change when you can than when you have to,” said Otellini. “The cost is less. You have more time. I am a little worried that by the time we wake up to the crisis we will be in the abyss.”

Democracy Journal · Intel · M.I.T. · New York Times · Paul Otellini · Thomas L. Friedman · Tsing Hua

The Lt. Governor has announced three public meetings of the Red Tape Review.   Check out the press release and attend one or more of the meetings.

 
 
Meeting of Red Tape Review, Set to Discuss Administrative Rulemaking
 
For Immediate Release                                                             Contact: Michael Drewniak
Wednesday, February 24, 2010                                                                    609-777-2600
 
 
Trenton, NJ – Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno will host the first of three public meetings of the bipartisan Red Tape Review.   They will hear from invited speakers and members of the public on the following topic: “Reforming the Administrative Rulemaking Process in New Jersey.”  The Group will take testimony on ways in which the “Administrative Procedure Act” can be revised in order to make the administrative rulemaking process more understandable, fair and transparent.
 
Members of the public wishing to testify before the group are asked to bring copies of their remarks and submissions for group members.
 
In addition to the Lt. Governor Red Tape Review Group Members are: Senator Barbara Buono, Senator Steve Oroho, Assemblyman John Burzichelli, Assemblyman Scott Rumana, Acting DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa, Acting DEP Commissioner Bob Martin and Chief Counsel of the Governor’s Office or his designee.
 
 
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
 
GLOUCESTER COUNTY
 
WHO:               Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno
                                              
WHAT:             Meeting of the Red Tape Review Group on Reforming the Administrative Rulemaking Process in New Jersey.
 
WHEN:             Tuesday, March 2nd at 2:00 p.m.
                                              
WHERE:           Rowan University, Chamberlain Student Center, room 221
                        210 Mullica Hill Road
                        Glassboro, NJ
 
Please note: All media must present government-issued photo I.D. (such as a driver’s license) as well as valid media credentials. Cameras must be pre-set 30 minutes before event.
 
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
 
MONMOUTH COUNTY
 
WHO:               Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno
                                              
WHAT:             Meeting of the Red Tape Review Group on Eliminating Unfunded Local Mandates.
 
WHEN:             Tuesday, March 9nd at 4:00 p.m.
                                              
WHERE:           Warner Student Life Center
                        Brookdale Community College
                        765 Newman Springs Road
                        Lincroft, NJ
 
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
 
ESSEX COUNTY
 
WHO:               Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno
                                              
WHAT:             Meeting of the Red Tape Review Group on Regulations that should be eliminated or modified based upon the “Common Sense Principles” for Rulemaking.
 
WHEN:             Tuesday, March 23rd at 3:00 p.m.
                                              
WHERE:           The Conference Center at Montclair State University
                        Valley Road & Normal Avenue
Montclair, New Jersey
 
Please note: All media must present government-issued photo I.D. (such as a driver’s license) as well as valid media credentials. Cameras must be pre-set 30 minutes before event.
 
###

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John Stossel writes in Increasing Government Power Threatens Freedom that:

Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn’t just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit.

F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote “The Road to Serfdom” in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom.   [...]

Hayek meant that governments can’t plan economies without planning people’s lives. After all, an economy is just individuals engaging in exchanges. The scientific-sounding language of President Obama’s economic planning hides the fact that people must shelve their own plans in favor of government’s single plan.

This essay shows both how far along we have travelled down the Road to Serfdom and how close we are to going so far that we can no longer turn around.   I encourage you to read the entire essay and then comment below.

F. A. Hayek · John Stossel · Road to Serfdom · Servile State · Welfare State

Following is the Americans for Prosperity – New Jersey Chapter update on the proposed Morgan Stanley / Revel bailout:

____________________________________________________________

Once again, New Jersey taxpayers are being thrown under the bus by Trenton lawmakers in favor of their corporate and big union special interests.

This time, the Trenton politicians are primed to use your money to bail out Morgan Stanley’s failing Revel Casino project in Atlantic City.

Last year, thanks to the federal bailout of the major financial institutions through TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program), Morgan Stanley received a hefty $10 BILLION. On top of that, the firm received $52 MILLION from local taxpayers. Now, they are demanding another $350 MILLION in tax breaks to fund the completion of their failing Revel Casino project.

Morgan Stanley is predicting that their casino will rake in $1.5 BILLION in profits in just the first five years. Yet now they are seeking even more from New Jersey taxpayers – who have had enough of bailouts and sky high taxes in this state – when they should be funding this project themselves.

For more information, visit www.NoMorganStanleyBailout.org.

This is by no means the first time Trenton has sunk tax dollars into AC in misguided attempts to improve the city’s poor financial condition. Seth Grossman of www.LibertyandProsperity.org, in a piece in Shore News Today, highlights past failures that have doomed AC and wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

In 1993, big corporations and big unions got big government to borrow $268 million for a new Atlantic City Convention Center far from the Boardwalk. In 1998, big government borrowed $90 million to fix the old Boardwalk Hall for Miss America and a new pro hockey team ? both long gone.

Then there was $170 million for an eminent-domain-based “corridor” to connect the two projects, followed by millions more in tax breaks, free parking garages, etc. to a private shopping mall developer.

The government borrowed $100 million to improve privately owned stores on the Boardwalk and $14.5 million for a baseball stadium. It “persuaded” three casinos to add $19 million to $11.8 million of taxpayer money for the ACES train fiasco that lost $6 million in just five months.

The baseball stadium is like an old Roman ruin, while the two new convention halls lose millions each year, and together have fewer events than the old one.

Only the corridor stores at The Walk are a “success” ? until you realize that all their business came from all the now-dead shopping malls in the rest of the county.

These projects not only failed, but they caused Atlantic City to fail. The 1.25 percent CRDA “skim” on all casino winnings that paid for these failures could have cut taxes for everyone in the county. But even this money wasn’t enough. Republicans and Democrats hit Atlantic City tourists with a bunch of new “casino redevelopment” taxes that even I can’t follow.

They include a 13 percent tax on hotel rooms, an extra 3 percent liquor tax, a $3 casino garage parking tax, a 9 percent luxury tax on other stuff, another $3 casino hotel tax, etc.

Many travel websites now warn tourists of these Atlantic City “rip-offs” ? another unintended consequence when politicians borrow and tax to “create jobs.”

Atlantic City is in big trouble. Nobody can afford to build anything new. But this is because construction worker unions are too greedy, government permits are too expensive and hard to get, and state and local taxes are too high.

Now, Trenton is poised to repeat the same mistakes yet again. Atlantic City is in such dire straits directly as a result of this kind of government interference and special interest sellouts. Subsidizing the Revel project with our tax dollars will only push other struggling casinos out of business.

Worse yet, the Revel Casino bailout is already being pushed through the Legislature (bill S-920/A-1897). Republicans and Democrats have locked arms on this bill, with a Senate panel unanimously approving the measure 7-0 earlier this week. Members of this panel include Republic Senators Joe Kyrillos (R-13), Robert Singer (R-30), Steven Oroho (R-24) and Democrat Senators Ray Lesniak (D-20), Sandra Cunningham (D-31), Richard Codey (D-27) and Joseph Vitale (D-19).

Other lawmakers are also supporting this bailout, among them are Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo, Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson, and D-rated Assemblymen Vincent Polistina (R-02) and John Amodeo (R-02).

This is not the kind of change the people of New Jersey were expecting with the new Christie Administration now in place. We need to stand up and tell these legislators to stop with this nonsense. We need to tell them we’ve had enough with their spending, borrowing and fiscal mismanagement of our state’s resources and that we expect them to OPPOSE this bill.

CLICK HERE to find the contact information for your legislator.
CLICK HERE to contact Governor Christie.

AFP will be key voting this bill and will let you know when it is coming up before the full Senate and Assembly.

Morgan Stanley Bailout · Revel Bailout · seth grossman · Steve Lonegan

Thank you Nate from Northfield, for bringing this video to our attention.

Tussing Elementary

 

                              453 Shore Road, Somers Point, NJ  08244

609-927-7333 – 609-927-7755(fax) – www.libertyandprosperity.org

Dennis Mahon – President    Seth Grossman – Executive Director

           

Agenda January 30, 2010

1) The Pledge of Allegiance

2) The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

3) Introductions

 

4) Radio shows:

Seth Grossman Show Saturday 8 -9 Am WVLT 92.1 FM on-air number is 856-696-0092                                  

Jesse Kurtz Show Saturday 2 – 4 PM WIBG 1020 AM, on-air number is: 609-398-1020

 

5) Request by Jesse Kurtz for all board members to turn in your profiles for the website

 

6) 8 principles of Liberty:

    1) Do you believe we should enforce immigration laws?

    2) Do you believe government spending should be cut to cut taxes?

    3) Do you believe part-time politicians shouldn’t receive a full-time pension?

    4) Do you believe Eminent Domain should be used only for public use?   (At no time should it be used for private gain)

    5) Do you believe that all public salary and contract information should be posted on the Internet?

  6) Do you believe that all tax and zoning laws should be simple and applied equally to all?

    7) Do you believe that our public highways are ours and they shouldn’t be sold or leased?

    Do you believe that there should be frequent referendum (public votes) on issues of public importance? 

 

7) Events:

     

       a) Street Fight will be our movie for February 10^th   from 6 pm to 9 pm at the May Landing Library. This is a documentary movie concerning the nasty mayoral in Newark.   http://www.marshallcurry.com/video.htm

 

        b)  Liberty and Prosperity will be sponsoring our annual fund raiser on February 21^st at the Carisbrooke Inn from 2:30 to 4:30. Tickets cost 75.00 for single or 100.00 for a couple.

 

Remember Washington and Lincoln

LIBERTY & PROSPERITY

presents:

Paul Mulshine, Conservative Pundit, Newark Star Ledger

At

The Carisbrooke Inn, 105 S Little Rock Ave, Ventnor

Sunday, February 21, 2010 

2:30 to 4:30 pm – Wine and Cheese

Admit One – $75 Couple – $100

 

      c) We are in the planning stages for our candidate’s straw poll to be held at the Walter Edge Theater at Atlantic Cape  Community College Building C, March 4.  5100 Black Horse Pike Mays Landing, NJ 08330. If you are planning on running for any political office, test your strength with a straw poll similar to Ohio’s straw polls. 

  

       d) April 15, 2010 Tea Party Washington DC. We need to double the amount of people that showed up on Sept. 12. We had 1.8 million people. It is not too early to start planning. You can sign up with

           www.teapartypatriotsofsouthernnj.com

 

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION: 

   A) Candidate “basic training” big success.   Roughly 40 people attended.   Daryn Iwicki and Kent Strang of  www.leadershipinstitute.org gave useful advice to  everyone who wants to win an election. Our local daily newspaper  gave excellent coverage on the front page of the region section. Read it at

        http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic/article_2c3bb014-5de0-  5fa4-86a6-bcbb2d01ecdc.html. 

 

       If you missed it, and want to attend a similar seminar, contact the Leadership Institute directly through their website or at (703) 247-2000. Candidate training is given often at their headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and to other groups like ours around the country.   If you can put together a group of more than 20 people, why not invite the Leadership Institute to do the same for you? 

 

B) Revel Casino bail out:  Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo, Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson, Assemblyman Vince Polistina and John Amodeo have joined with Democrats like Jim Whelan and Ray Lesniak (booster of the Corzine toll hike scheme) to bail out the Revel Casino project of Wall Street’s Morgan Stanley. Last summer, city government in Atlantic City agreed to give $50 million to the project.   Last month, it agreed to a scheme that will let the Revel avoid paying $50 million in local and COUNTY taxes. Now state politicians want to let the Revel avoid paying $300 million of STATE taxes. And they want to void the petitions of thousands of  Atlantic City voters demanding voter approval of this deal according to the city’s Faulkner Act charter.  

 

      The Optional Municipal Charter Law or Faulkner Act (N.J.S.A. § 40:69A-1, Et seq.) provides New Jersey municipalities with a variety of models of local government. This legislation is called the Faulkner Act in honor of the late Bayard H. Faulkner, former mayor of Montclair and chairman of the  Commission on Municipal Government.

 

      The Faulkner Act offers four basic plans (Mayor-Council, Council-Manager, Small Municipality and Mayor-Council-Administrator) and two procedures by which the voters of a municipality can adopt one of these plans. The Act provides many choices for communities with a preference for a strong executive and professional management of municipal affairs. Twenty-one percent of the municipalities in New Jersey, including the six most populous cities — Newark, Jersey City, Camden, Trenton, Paterson and Elizabeth — all govern under the provisions of the Faulkner Act. More than half of all New Jersey residents reside in municipalities with Faulkner Act charters.

                             

 In all Faulkner Act municipalities, regardless of the particular form, citizens  enjoy the right of Initiative and referendum, meaning that proposed ordinances can be introduced directly by the people without action by the local governing body. This right is exercised by preparing a conforming petition signed by 10% of the registered voters who turned out in the last general election in an odd- numbered year (i.e., the most recent General Assembly election). Once the petition is submitted, the local governing body can vote to pass the requested ordinance, and if they refuse, it is then submitted directly to the voters.

 

C) Liberty and Prosperity believes that all zoning and tax laws should be fair, simple, and applied equally to everyone. We believe in liberty and justice for all, not special deals for a favored few.  

     Four casinos are already struggling to stay alive.  Why should they pay full taxes, to give their competitor an advantage?   If taxes are too high for the Revel, they are too high for everyone else. 

 

    Why not cut government spending so every can afford their taxes?   If the most powerful and influential people keep getting tax breaks, they will  never work with us to cut spending.  What about  economic development?   When the government gave special tax breaks to build new shopping centers, all we got was too many shopping centers with no customers and empty stores.  Special deals also cause corrupt politics.  Revel attorney Lloyd Levinson,  gave big campaign money to politicians all over the state to get this big favor for his client.  If this kind of pay-to-play politics bothers you, make  your opinion known with a 200 to 350 word letter to the editor or a call to talk radio!

 

 E) Two weeks ago, I said the high yield bondholders, not taxpayers should pay- off the $54 million borrowed by the Atlantic County Utilities Authority  (ACUA) for projects it never built as planned.   Last week, Republican Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson attacked me for not opposing that debt when I was a county freeholder.   But I did oppose that debt, and the old newspaper articles prove it.   Read the whole truth at http://www.shoreenewstoday.com/news.php?id=6951 and www.libertyandprosperity.org.

 

 F) News items:   Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that for the first time, most union members in the United States are employed by the government.  Today, only 7% of people who work for private companies are in unions.  The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that new hires for the second shift at the Ford Motor Company assembly line in Chicago are paid  a “second tier wage” of $14 per hour under its latest deal with the UAW union.  Local 54 is working in Atlantic City with a three year wage freeze?  If taxpayers who don’t work for the government are earning less or the same,  why are their public “servants” entitled to 4.5% pay hikes, pensions, and benefits that make us pay more for taxes, college tuition, etc?

Atlantic County Utilities Authority · Bayard H. Faulkner · Daryn Iwicki · Ford Motor Company · jim whelan · Kent Strang · Leadership Institute · Paul Mulshine · Ray Lesniak · Tea Party · UAW · Wall Street Journal

Thank you Nate Nathanson for sharing this story with us.

Fox News reports that “Thousands From Terror-Sponsoring Nations Entering U.S. on ‘Diversity Visas’.”   They report:

The State Department is planning to welcome thousands of immigrants from terror-watch list countries into the United States this year through a “diversity visa” lottery — a giant legal loophole some lawmakers say is a “serious national security threat” that has gone unchecked for years.

Ostensibly designed to increase ethnic diversity among immigrants, the program invites in thousands of poorly educated laborers with few job skills — and that’s only the beginning of its problems, according to lawmakers and government investigations.

“There are a lot of holes in this program in terms of security and in terms of fraud,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who has written legislation aimed at killing the lottery.

LibertyandProsperity.org advocates that we should be enforcing existing immigration laws and not invite people from terror-sponsoring nations to receive “diversity” visas.

'Diversity' Visas · Immigration Laws

Thank you Meg Vogl for sharing this link with us.

Snopes.com features and verifies a Michael Connelly essay addressing the (un-)constitutionality of the “Health Reform” moving through Congress.   The essay reads, in part:

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.            This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4^th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3^rd and 4^th Amendments may provide.

            If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5^th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.

            So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though. The 9^th Amendment that provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” The 10^th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

Read the Constitution and then use it to determine the constitutionality of “Health Reform” in the Congress.

Read the 27 Amendments to the Constitution, as well.

Health Choices Administrator · Meg Vogl · Michael Connelly

Did you know about the following?   This is yet another reason why all government and school salaries and contracts need to placed online – for every level of government.

From the Canada Free Press :
 First  Lady Requires More Than Twenty Attendants
 July 7, 2009
 
 Written  by Dr. Paul L. Williams
 
 ”In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to
 give back to this country that has given me so much,”
 she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big
 law firm for a career in public service, “… Michelle Obama
 
 No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First
 Lady and she doesn’t perform any official duties. But
 this hasn’t deterred her from hiring an unprecedented
 number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy
 her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
 Just think,  Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china
 for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower
 had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary from her husband’s salary.

 
Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by taxpayers:
Mamie Eisenhower : 1 paid for personally out of President’s salary
Jackie Kennedy: 1
Roseline Carter: 1
Barbara Bush: 1
Hilary Clinton: 3
Laura Bush: 1
Michele Obama: 22

 How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of
 millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning
 less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart
 or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and
 then come to realize that the benefit package for these
 servants of Ms Michelle are the same as members of the
 national security and defense departments and the bill for
 these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU, John Q. Public:
Michele Obama’s personal staff:
 1. $172,200 – Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
 2. $140,000 – Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the
 President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
 3. $113,000 – Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the
 President and White House Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama)
 4. $102,000 – Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to
 the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)
 5. $100,000 – Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the
 President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
 6. $90,000 – Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
 7. $84,000 – Lel yveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)
 8. $75,000 – Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)
 9. $70,000 – Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)
 10. $65,000 – Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
 11. $64,000 – Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
 12. $62,000 – Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events
 Coordinator For The First Lady)
 13. $60,000 – Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)
 14. $57,500 – Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)
 15. $52,500 – Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)
 16. $50,000 – Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
 17. $45,000 – Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)
 18. $43,000 – Tubman, Samanth a (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
 19. $40,000 – Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
 20. $36,000 – Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)
 21. $35,000 – Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
 22. $35,000 – Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of  Correspondence for the First Lady)
 (total = $1,591,200 in annual salaries)

 There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time
 who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties
 are the facilitation of the First Lady’s social life.
 One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense.

 Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid
 Grimes-Miles, 49, and “First Hairstylist” Johnny
 Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air Force One to  Europe .
 
 Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press
 canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652

Barbara Bush · Canada Free Press · Dr. Paul L. Williams · Hilary Clinton · Jackie Kennedy · Jocelyn C. Frye · Laura Bush · Mamie Eisenhower · Michelle Obama · Roselin Carter · Susan Sher

We received the following invitation from Michael Illions:

Conservative Leadership Breakfast:
 
Our next Conservative Leadership Breakfast, and first event of 2010, will be on Saturday,  February 6th  @ 10:00am, at the Omega Diner on Rt. 1 in North Brunswick, NJ.
 
Bill Spadea; Confirmed
 
Additional Speakers T.B.A.
 
The registration remains $10.00 to attend this event, but you must preregister and prepay. 
 
It is simple to register. Please reply back to this email with how many seats  you want reserved.
 
You can pay one of two ways:
 
Make check payable, ($10.00 per person), to GOPUSA-NJ, LLC. and mail to:
 
Michael Illions
2004 Green Hollow Drive
Iselin, NJ 08830
 
OR use PayPal:
 
Click this link and pay your registration through PayPal:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7657449
 
Thanks…..
 
Michael

Bill Spadea · Michael Illions · Omega Diner