NO TO HIGHER TAXES.
NO on Prop 1A.
STOP THE PHONY SPENDING CAP.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE          
April 20, 2009    
Contact: Jennifer Kerns
No on Proposition 1A

Kris Vosburgh
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association


NO ON PROPOSITION 1A ANNOUNCES NEW STATEWIDE RADIO CAMPAIGN

Two 60-second advertisements call out Proposition 1A as a “Wolf in Sheep’s clothing” – a massive tax increase with no budget reform

Sacramento – Today the “No on Proposition 1A” campaign announced that it is prepared to fund a Statewide radio advertising campaign.The campaign released two ads, entitled “Sheep” and {Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President} “Jon Coupal.” Both are 60-second spots that highlight the deceptive tax increases and lack of reform in Proposition 1A.

“Sheep” portrays Proposition 1A as “warm and fuzzy budget reform—like a sheep.” However, voters are warned not to be fooled because the sheep masquerading as budget reform quickly turns into a $16 billion wolf—referring to 1A’s extension of February’s tax increases.

In the second ad, HJTA President Jon Coupal presents an “urgent warning” to voters, while hammering the Legislature for increasing sales, gas, and income taxes. It also references Prop 1A’s extension of these taxes. He notes, “Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Proposition 1A is not what it appears to be.”

The ads are the beginning of a Media campaign that will continue through the May 19th election.

“Sheep” ad: http://www.hjta.org/media/HJTA_Prop-1A-Sheep.mp3?rev=1

“Coupal” ad: http://www.hjta.org/media/HJTA_Prop-1A-Coupal-Message.mp3?rev=1

Proposition 1A is opposed by No New Taxes Committee, a Project of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, FPPC No. 922117.  For more information on Proposition 1A, go to www.hjta.org.

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The Obama Administration continues to shock and awe me.  Before giving a Keynote Speech at Georgetown University, Barack Obama ordered the symbol of Jesus be covered before he would speak.

Is this the same man who visited Turkey last week, and made the symbolic gesture of taking his shoes off before entering a Mosque? And bowed to Kings who were leaders of other Nations? And did his first Live interview with the Arab street on Al Jazeera, rather than his own country?

So, Jesus is bad… Mosques are okay.  Got it.  I wonder if Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano knows about this?

While I heard the news on the radio through Michael Savage first, this news has since been posted on NBC Washington News, Fox News, and even the left-leaning Huffington Post.  Check it out:

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46667

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Jesus-Missing-From-Obamas-Georgetown-Speech.html

http://digg.com/politics/Georgetown_Univ_Covers_Up_Jesus_Name_At_Obama_s_Request

One gaffe a week.  That’s all we ask.

Last week, it was the Special Olympics.

This week, it was boyish snickering about Marijuana during a national online Town Hall meeting.

Barack Obama just cannot seem to get it right.

But one thing is clearly wrong: it is highly inappropriate for the President of the United States to be giggling on national television about an ILLEGAL substance. I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise, following his campaign disclosures about cocaine use... and who could forget the racy YouTube video of the former male prostitute who signed an affidavit during the 2008 Elections sharing his story of that night in the Limo.  And, as for as 'weed' goes... well…he DID go to Punahou High in Hawaii.

What is utterly distasteful is that Obama would joke about illegal drugs as a violent drug war is waged in our border towns, and on the very night that a U.S. Marshal was found beheaded, Taliban-style just across the Texas border.

When on camera, perhaps Obama should leave the one-liners to Jay Leno… and focus on more, ahem, “substance” during his Administration.

File this under "you can’t make this stuff up.”

As if he wasn’t annoying enough stirring up messes on TV, the ShamWow guy has created a mess of his own.

SmokingGun.com is reporting that the infomercial star, Vince Shlomi, has been arrested on charges of beating a Prostitute after she bit him in a South Beach, Miami hotel room.

What do you expect from a guy named “Shlomi”?

Full story below:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0327092sham1.html

MARCH 27--Meet Vince Shlomi. He's probably better known to you as the ShamWow Guy, the ubiquitous television pitchman who has been phenomenally successful peddling absorbent towels and food choppers. Shlomi, 44, was arrested last month on a felony battery charge following a violent confrontation with a prostitute in his South Beach hotel room. According to an arrest affidavit, Shlomi met Sasha Harris, 26, at a Miami Beach nightclub on February 7 and subsequently retired with her to his $750 room at the lavish Setai hotel. Shlomi told cops he paid Harris about $1000 in cash after she "propositioned him for straight sex." Shlomi said that when he kissed Harris, she suddenly "bit his tongue and would not let go." Shlomi then punched Harris several times until she released his tongue. The affidavit, a copy of which you'll find here, notes that during the 4 AM fight Harris sustained facial fractures and lacerations all over her face (she is pictured here in mug shots snapped following busts in 2008 and 2005). After freeing his tongue, a bleeding Shlomi ran to the Setai lobby, where security summoned cops. Harris refused to cooperate with officers, who recovered $930 from her purse. "Both parties had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from their persons," police reported. In a brief telephone interview, Harris declined to answer TSG questions about her run-in with Shlomi, though she did say she is considering a lawsuit against the pitchman. Asked if she worked as a hooker, Harris declined comment. As seen in the below mug shot, Shlomi was also injured during the fracas and, court records show, was treated at Mount Sinai Medical Center. While Shlomi and Harris were both arrested for felony aggravated battery, prosecutors this month declined to file formal charges against the combatants. Police records list Shlomi's occupation as "Marketing," but make no mention of his affiliation with the ShamWow or the Slap Chop, both of which sell for $19.95 (plus shipping and handling).

 

We’ve all been there.  On business travel at a Hotel, you’re thirsty but you don’t want to spend the $4.00 on that small bottled water.

So you reach for that crystal glass. But not so fast. You might be shocked to learn about the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of the drinking glasses found in your Hotel room.

Years ago, a friend of mine – a flight attendant for Singapore Airlines and world traveller extraordinaire – informed me that most Hotels go no further than wiping down the glasses with the same rag that they clean the rest of the room with. 

Surely she must have been exaggerating.  Right?

The thought of it haunted me for years.

So, I finally mustered up the courage (and the stomach) to dig around and ask the question myself.

Turns out, an on-camera investigation last year by ABC 7 in the San Francisco Bay Area confirmed it.  Camera crews caught Housekeeping staff at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel in San Mateo simply “toweling off” dirty glasses and replacing the paper lids over them.

Good Morning America performed a similar undercover investigation last year which revealed that Housekeeping staff at an Embassy Suites in Phoenix simply rinsed the glasses in the bathroom sink and dried them with a towel before replacing them for guests.  And, at the Millenium Hotel in Cincinnati, housekeeping was caught on tape spraying dirty glasses with a spray bottle, which turned out to be Mildew remover.  On the bottle, it clearly says “harmful if swallowed.”

By law, glasses are required to be processed through a dishwasher or by a manual disinfection process. (And no, rinsing the glass in the bathroom sink doesn’t count.)  The good news (we hope) is that most major Hotels claim to have policies which now include strict requirements to remove the glasses completely from the room and to send glasses through the dishwasher. This includes Hotels such as the W Hotels, The Marriott, Four Seasons and others.

My motto in Hotel glasses, as in life, is to Trust but Verify.  I now swear by this rule: if you pick up a glass and it shows traces of lint, there is a good chance it has only been wiped down by a Housekeeping rag.  If it is entirely clean and free of lint or other spots, then there is a decent likelihood that it has actually been run through a dishwasher.

Hmmm. Maybe the Holiday Inn had it right all these years. Plastic cups, wrapped in sanitary paper, untouched by the human hand.  Maybe some things in life are better when you live the simple life.

Or, maybe it’s worth it to pay the extra $4.00 for the bottled water after all.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting today that Rohm Emanuel worked for mortgage giant Freddie Mac during the buildup to the mortgage crisis, accepting a posh $320,000 fee for a 14-month stint at the firm. 

But the Tribune says what Rohm Emanuel did at Freddie Mac remains a mystery. And, it comes as no surprise that Rohm ain't talkin'.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Rohm Emanuel was most likely hired to open doors on Capitol Hill for the lender.  He is clearly what I call a “Pusher” – one of the many Liberals over the past five years who pushed Washington to grease the financial systems to lend to people who couldn’t afford loans.  The “Pushers” included a brigade of Liberals which included Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others who specifically threatened to sue major Banks and, in fact, cried foul (or racism, class discrimination, or insert-your-favourite-threat-of-choice) if this nation’s major financial institutions didn’t lend to low-income, not-so-credit-worthy Americans.  We now know that these activities specifically led to the current mortgage crisis.

For those of you keeping score at home, add Rohm Emanuel to the list of Democrats, including Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who steered the bus directly off this cliff.  The fact that Rohm Emanuel is now the right-hand man to Obama is enough to make me tighten my seat belt. Or eject from the bus entirely.

The silver lining to this story: The fact that Rohm’s (and Obama’s) home-state Newspaper had the intestinal fortitude to uncover the truth and print a story that hasn’t seen the light of day anywhere else.

According to The San Francisco Chronicle, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina underwent surgery for breast cancer yesterday at Stanford Medical Center.  Fiorina, a resident of Los Altos Hills in Silicon Valley, reportedly has an excellent prognosis and is expected to fully recover, although her Chief of Staff cautioned that Fiorina "is expected to begin a regimen of chemotherapy at Stanford and intends to restrict her activities and air travel over the next few months to recover."

The Chronicle reported that Fiorina learned of her diagnosis on February 20 - just one day before she gave an articulate and inspiring speech at the California Republican Party Convention in Sacramento.  If the circumstances of her diagnosis and her rousing speech are any indication of this woman's steel, she'll make a formidable competitor to Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010.

We wish her a speedy recovery.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/02/BA8D1685C9.DTL

Kerns Appointed to Community Resources Commission
Tapped to advise Officials on Development, Environmental and Public Safety Issues

Napa Valley --- Jennifer Kerns, founder of K Street Communications, has been appointed to the Community Resources Commission in Napa Valley to serve in an advisory capacity to the Planning Commission and local governments.

Among the pressing issues for 2009 are Development, parks and recreation, Environmental issues, Water, youth and senior services, Hispanic workforce outreach, and Public Safety matters before the Commission. 

Kerns was appointed by the Mayor and unanimously approved by the City Council.  She was asked by the City to serve on the Commission.  She also serves as a Commissioner for the Public Library System of Napa County. Kerns works in Sacramento and throughout the State, and resides in the Napa Valley.

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I try to live by the Ronald Reagan rule of speaking no ill of fellow Republicans.  But with this morning's GOP support for a nearly $15 Billion Tax Increase on you, the People,  it is high time to "Name Names." 

No one else has the guts to do it, so we will.

You can thank the following spineless GOP Legislators for caving in on Taxes:

Senator Abel Maldonado Capitol: (916) 651-4015  District: (408) 277-9461
Senator Roy Ashburn  Capitol: (916) 651-4018  District: (661) 323-0443
Senator Dave Cogdill  Capitol: (916) 651-4014  District: (559) 253-7122

Assembly Leader Mike Villines  Capitol: (916) 319-2029  District: (559) 446-2029
Assemblyman Anthony Adams  Capitol: (916) 319-2059  District: (909) 625-1038
Assemblyman Roger Niello  Capitol:  (916) 349-1995  District:  (916) 319-2005

I encourage each of you to call their Capitol AND District Offices to express your disappointment that they voted to sock it to the people of California.  And for those of you attending this weekend's California Republican Party Convention in Sacramento, I ask you not just to give them the evil eye in the hallway (trust me, they're not that bright...they won't get it); Rather, take a moment to walk up to them, and calmly and politely, express to them your utter disgust and dismay for selling out the People of California.

It is our God-given responsibility to "Speak Truth to Power."  And because K Street Communications believes in equipping the average Joe SixPack on "The Street," we'll even provide a suggested script for your 30-second conversation with them:
 
"Hi, Assemblymember/Senator, I simply wanted to take a moment to let you know how utterly disappointed we are that you Voted for the Largest Tax Increase in California History. Because of your Vote, it will be harder for me to buy groceries, put food on the table, and earn my own paycheck.  We Republicans may disagree on social issues, but never did we expect our Leaders to vote for a massive Tax increase. I just thought you should hear it from a real human being who will be affected by your Tax increase. I appreciate your time."

Think we're done Naming Names?  Not even close.  In the coming days, we'll name the 16 - yes, the 16 - GOP Legislators who blindly voted for the Open Primary even though it was not necessary to close the deal.  We will also "Name Names" of the GOP Freshman Assembly class who have refused to call for Assembly Leader Villines' ouster because they were given plush appointments in the Republican Caucus.  And because we're post-Partisan, we'll be calling the Dems on the carpet, too...after all, they're the ones who got us into this Mess.

This just in..... As the CA Budget vote enters a very painful Day 3, Senator Abel Maldonado (R-Monterey) is reportedly negotiating a deal to swap a "Yes" vote for Taxes in exchange for personal gain.

Now, a group has scooped up the URL RecallMaldonado.com, a possible site to be used for a Recall campaign if the Senator supports the Largest Tax Increase in the History of California.  Web registries list a group called "MAPA" swooping in to reserve the URL.  No word yet on what MAPA is, but they'll undoubtedly have their finger on the trigger as the Dems roam the Building looking for that last GOP holdout.