Thursday, Reading the News (Oh, me, oh my!)

The shocking lack of news continues.  I’m starting to think someone’s hiding something ::

Barack Obama eases offshore oil drilling ban

The White House says drilling will be allowed off Virginia and considered off much of the rest of the Atlantic coast.

The plans would overturn moratoriums on exploration put in place in the 1980s.

Analysts say the move, designed to cut dependency on foreign oil, is aimed at appeasing Republicans to help pass Mr Obama’s climate-change proposals.

The Democrat-backed climate change bill, which calls for binding emissions’ limits, has been languishing in Congress for months amid Republican opposition.

Or as the BBC said in their intro to this story, “Oil firms could be given the chance to explore for reserves off the US coast for the first time in decades, under plans outlined by President Obama.” — sweet!

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I don’t know about you guys but, speaking for myself, our endless wars make me VERY uneasy.

Shocking Admission on Killing Civilians by Top US General Almost Completely Ignored by Corporate Media

“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” says top American commander.

At the same time, an astonishing open admission of possible US war crimes by Obama’s man on the ground in Kabul, senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan General Stanley A. McChrystal, was reported by Richard A. Oppel Jr. in the New York Times… and then promptly ignored by the rest of the mainstream media.

“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” McChrystal said during a recent video-conference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.

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IPhone-Weary TV Broadcasters Gear Up to Fight FCC for Airwaves

“Why is the iPhone entitled to more spectrum than local broadcasters?” said Nexstar Chief Executive Officer Perry Sook, whose Irving, Texas-based company owns or provides services to 62 stations. “When the snowstorm hit Washington, did people rush to an iPhone app to find out what was going on? No, they turned to their local broadcasters.”

Is that guy kidding?? — Of COURSE we watched the Weather Reports on TV….. But, we were also hammering on any Internet site we could find (our local weatherman has a great blog & THAT’s where we went to find out what was going on — the detail on his blog was incredible!) And I don’t even have an iPhone.

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Frankly, any headline dated April 1st is suspect. But, I don’t think this is a joke:

Job cuts surge 61%

Employers announced plans to cut 67,611 jobs in March, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. That’s up 61% from February, when 42,090 jobs were lost, the lowest level in nearly four years.

“Unfortunately, many people are still jobless and many businesses still shuttered,” said John Challenger, chief executive officer of the firm, in a statement. “This combination is having a significant negative impact on state and local tax revenues and, in turn, leading to continued downsizing in this sector.”

Government job cuts led March’s surge, accounting for nearly 75% of the total jobs shed. Year to date, government job losses have made up about a third of all announced cuts.

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Sung to the tune of Que Sera, Sera ::

Geithner: Disparity in recovery ‘deeply unfair’

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday it’s “deeply unfair” that some financial institutions that got taxpayer-paid bailouts are emerging in better shape from the recession than millions of ordinary Americans.

He acknowledged public outrage over that and said people watched with disdain as Washington protected high-risk banks and investment houses, even as the national unemployment rate was soaring to double-digit levels for the first time in a generation.

But in a nationally broadcast interview, Geithner also argued that President Barack Obama had no choice when confronted with a financial crisis.

“As the president has said, we had to do some very unpopular things,” Geithner said. “People looked at what had happened.”

“It’s not fair. It’s deeply unfair,” he said. “He (Obama) had to decide whether he was going to act to fix it or stand back … and that would have been calamitous for the American economy.”

In the end, even Yahoo News let me down. Either there’s nothing much going on . . . Or they aren’t telling us about it.

What have you been reading this morning?

Eliminating waste, fraud and abuse

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La Cebolla News:

In an effort to reduce wasteful spending and eliminate non-vital federal services, the U.S. government announced plans this week to cut its long-standing senator program, a move it says will help save more than $300 billion each year.

According to officials, the decision to cut the national legislative body was reached during a budget review meeting on Tuesday. After hours of deliberation, it was agreed that the cost of financing U.S. senators far outweighed the benefits they provided.

“Now more than ever, we must eliminate needless spending wherever possible,” President Obama said at a press conference Wednesday. “When we sat down to go over our annual budget, we asked ourselves, where can we safely trim back? What programs can we do away with without negatively impacting the American people? Which bloated and ineffective institutions can we no longer justify having around?”

“The answer was obvious,” Obama added. “The U.S. Senate just needed to go.”

Established in 1789 as a means of overseeing the passage of bills into law, the once-promising senator program has reportedly failed to contribute to the governing of the nation in any significant way since 1964. Last year alone, approximately $450 billion was funneled into the legislative chamber, an amount deemed fiscally unsound considering how few citizens actually benefit in any way from its existence.

In fact, the program has gone unchecked for so long that many in Washington are now unable to recall what purpose U.S. senators were originally meant to serve.

“I’m sure when it was first introduced the U.S. Senate seemed like a worthwhile public service that would aid vast segments of the population and play an important role in the years to come,” said Sheila McKenzie, president of the watchdog group the American Center for Responsible Government. “But in reality, this program has been a complete and utter failure.”

Would I lie to you? Would I lie to you about something important?

Would I lie to you about something important on a day like today?