Hard to believe it has been a year since Barack Obama was elected President of the U. S. of America.  Tomorrow evening, President Obama will stand before a joint session of Congress and deliver his first State of the Union address outlining where he thinks we are and where we’re going as a Nation.  In preparation for this annual address, he asked his Cabinet to take a moment to prepare a similar report for the American people. Continue Reading »

This is a great way to make history fun for the whole family and it’s FREE.  Get your own little piece of history by visiting the California State Capitol Museum 10th & L Streets State Capitol, Room B-27, Sacramento, CA 95814.  Continue Reading »

THE GREAT GARAGE SALE IS OVER

On Friday when the State of California Garage Sale started there were no parking places and the line to get in the door to buy all the junk treasures snaked past the building for several blocks.  It was quite an event; there were people directing traffic, TV camera crews, vendors selling food and even porta-potties.  I wasn’t sure if I was at the wrong place and maybe I had wandered into the circus instead of a giant garage sale. 

I guess in these economic times everybody is looking for a bargain and a lot of people found one this weekend at the State of California Great Garage Sale.  Probably not even a dent in the budget deficit, but the big Garage Sale is over and the final results are in, over $1.5 million in sales.

•  $1.2 million in vehicle sales
• $237k in warehouse items
• $58k on EBay

You only thought “Cash for Clunkers” was over; the State of California sold a lot of clunkers pre-owned vehicles for a cool $1.2 million dollars cash at the garage sale this weekend.  Click on this link to see a list of cars and the sale prices.  The Governator signed the sun visor of a few of the vehicles hoping star power would up the price.  I heard a couple of people wanted a discount because of the graffiti in some of the cars; I’m not saying it had anything to do with signatures on sun visors but who knows. 

If you measure it by the amount of people who came then the Great Garage Sales seems like a Great Success.  If this isn’t enough to balance the budget maybe we could all bring our extra stuff and meet our state legislators over at Arnold and Maria’s house and have another one of these.  Everybody check your closets for extra stuff.

The State of California needs some quick cash.  So what’s a state to do?  They do just what the rest of us would do, raise the garage door, stick a sign in the yard, drag all the junk out and sell it cheap.  You know what they say, “One state’s junk is another man’s treasures”.  That may not be exactly how the saying goes, but we will all get a chance to find out for ourselves this weekend.

Starting Friday, August 28, 2009, from 8:00AM to 6:00PM and Saturday, August 29, 2009, from 7:00AM to 12:00PM the State of California is having a giant garage sale at 1700 National Drive, Sacramento, CA.  Cars can be previewed on Thursday, August 27, 2009, from 8:00AM to 4:00PM.  

For all the details visit the special website for the State of California garage sale dgs.ca.gov/garagesale

Cash for Clunkers Running out of Money

Cash for clunkers may be out of money after just one week.  The White House said Thursday it was reviewing the wildly popular program because of concerns that the budget for rebates for new auto purchases may have been exhausted in only a week. The program, called the Car Allowance Rebate System, known as CARS, offers owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

Dealers have been submitting the rebates at such a fast pace the government already has a backlog and isn’t sure how much money is left to fund the program and thus the program may have to be suspended until the processing catches up and the government can figure it out. 

Maybe we should just take back a few of those billions the government used to shore up Wall Street and just let everybody that is driving a clunker get a new car.  Seems that might give those banks a little business to keep them going and help people get a new car as well as keeping a few more dealerships from closing their doors.

The White House said auto dealers and consumers should have confidence that transactions under the program that already have taken place would be honored.  So if you have a clunker and want to get in on the cash better hurry!

Email from Obama

I’m feeling important again today.  You guessed it; I got another personal email from Barak Obama.  It’s a pretty fancy message too with a video right in the middle; they must have a cracker jack tech team at the white house.  No invites to a cabinet meeting yet, but I’m on the email list.  I also got a notice that I won the Canadian Lottery, an offer for a free cell phone, and a message from a widow in Africa that needs my help getting her money out of the country and away from all the corrupt people trying to cheat her out of her fortune, it’s so bad she has offered me half her money if I will just help her.  I’ll deal with those other opportunities later, but first I need to tell you what the President wanted in his email. Probably the easiest way to do that is just to share it with you, (notice it starts “Dear Friend”, I must be important to be friends with the president) so here it is: Continue Reading »

We really try to avoid talking about the pros and cons of government spending because it is an issue that will never be resolved, but this issue affects lots of people here in Sacramento.  Whether you agree or disagree with it, Congress has approved a “cash for clunkers” program, bill H. R. 2346, Thursday to provide government incentives of $3,500 to $4,500 to motorists who trade in their gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient vehicles after Senate Democrats narrowly defeated a Republican effort to kill the plan. 

Cash for Clunkers

In the Sacramento area numerous dealerships have closed in the last couple of years Continue Reading »

Laura Ling, who grew up in Carmichael and graduated from Del Campo High School, was one of the journalists along with her colleague Euna Lee arrested in North Korea in March for illegally crossing the border.  The two have been convicted and sentenced to 12 years in labor prison. 

 The Obama administration said it would pursue “all possible channels” to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV media venture.

Washington’s former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson called the sentencing part of “a high-stakes poker game” being played by North Korea. He said on NBC’s Today show that he thinks negotiations for their “humanitarian release” can begin now that the legal process has been completed.  Richardson has been involved previously in this type of negotiation.

We are all hoping the negotiations will be successful and Laura Ling will soon be able to visit her Sacramento family and friends.

Courtesy of YouTube this is a report from CNN about the prison sentence for Laura Ling and Euna Lee:

President Obama had an internet town hall meeting today.  I tuned in and was impressed to see the newest version of the FDR fireside Chats.  There were almost 100,000 questions submitted and over three and a half million votes from all over the country to decide what Americans want to talk with their president about.  In case you missed it but are interested you can go to whitehouse.gov to read their blog entry about the town hall meeting which even has a full transcript if you want detail.

One of the questions that hit home for us here in California was about legalizing marijuana to create revenue.  Last month Democratic State Assemblyman, Tom Ammiano, introduced a bill that would legalize pot and allow the State of California to regulate and tax its sale.  His thought was that it would bring billions of dollars to our cash strapped state.  President Obama didn’t agree with that theory.

Courtesy of YouTube here is his response to the question about legalizing marijuana:

Tonight, February 26, 2009, from 7:00PM to 8:00PM at Samuel Pannell Meadowview community Center, 2450 Meadowview Road, Sacramento, CA, Mayor Kevin Johnson will Join Sacramento Councilmember Bonnie Pannell for a community Town Hall meeting.  This meeting is for District 8 residents to come and share their concerns with their council and the mayor.  This is the second in a series of town hall meetings that will be held in each council district throughout the year.