"Hunter Biden was made president with an annual salary of $1.2 million, despite his inexperience in the hedge fund industry, the lawsuit said. Before that, he had been part of the Washington law firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, which earned $1.76 million in lobbying revenue in the first half of 2006, according to Congressional Quarterly's CQ MoneyLine. One of its biggest clients is the National Association of Shareholder and Consumer Attorneys, a District-based group representing law firms specializing in investment and corporate law.

Hunter Biden is one of many children and relatives of prominent members of Congress who have made their careers as lobbyists. He returned to lobbying after less than a year with Paradigm.

Today we pay homage to Conservative Babes.

Sarah Pain, Governor of Alaska, has been chosen by Presidential Candidate John McCain to be his running mate.

Palin is a true conservative, an economic reformer, a sportswoman, and she doesn’t have to cover her ankles with a pantsuit.

This is going to be a very exciting election, thanks to McCain’s brilliant choice.

 I always knew that it would be the convservatives who put a woman in the White House.

Politicians are so predictable. 

Last evening my husband and I had a date… a lovely dinner and bottle of wine at a cool downtown restaurant. When we first arrived at the restaurant, the hostess tried to seat us in a booth exactly in the middle of the noisy bar. The crowd around our table was three deep with singles celebrating Friday eve.

We asked to be moved. While we were waiting for another table, I leaned against the booth. From the corner of my eye I saw… no, it couldn’t be… there, in the flesh was Papa Don Perata. I nudged my husband and discretely pointed at Godfather Don. As Don and his overall-wearing guest walked by, never one to pass up a great confrontation, my husband said, “Hey! It’s my favorite politician.” Perata looked at both of us, checked out my legs, and then said “Really?” He appeared excited to think he may have had a couple of fans in the bar. But then my husband deflated him. “No, not really,” he said. Don mumbled something about Arnold and turned to leave.  

You gotta love ‘em… Politicians cannot afford to snub anyone. We could have been big donors, or trial attorneys. You never know.

In the 1990’s when Willie Brown was still in power, we were at a downtown restaurant with my husband’s three older boys for a fancy night out. Willie Brown was at the restaurant with a couple of babes. Ny husband spotted him and said to the boys, “Hey, there’s Willie. One of the boys asked if he knew Willie. “OF course. Watch,” he said. As WIllie walked by flanked by blondes, my husband thrust his hand out and said “Willie! How are you?” As Willie gave a hearty handshake and hug, he then turned to our family and chatted up us for a minute. As he walked away all of the boys had looks of shock on their faces. My husband and I couldn’t keep straight faces. We finally explained to the boys that there isn’t a politician alive who would snub someone saying hi out in public - could be a big donor or some lofty Judge. 

You gotta love ‘em.

The Sacramento Community Racial Profiling Commission, at the behest of Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo and the City Council, initiated a “comprehensive study” to analyze traffic stops made by Sacramento police. The “chosen” consultant, Lamberth Consulting, was hired by the city at a cost of $230,000 to do the “study” on Sacramento’s police department.

Unfortunately, the outcome was predictable.  

According to the Web site of the Racial Profiling Commission, “following a renewed commitment to unbiased policing in March 2006, the commission members meticulously chose the Study Consultant, Dr. John Lamberth…” to conduct the study. However, so does every other city in America looking to politically label their police departments as racists.

The Man and the Method
Dr. John Lamberth of Lamberth Consulting, founded in year 2000, has a vested interest in almost always finding the police departments he is hired to “study” as racially biased. He is paid enormously for these specific “findings,” and works with groups such as the ACLU, the NAACP and Amnesty International.

Lamberth has found many cities that have police departments whose police officers stop drivers because of race, including his almost identical reports for the cities of San Antonio, Texas and Grand Rapids, Mich.

Since Sacramento police officers were found by Lamberth to racially profile when making traffic stops, guess who is providing racial sensitivity training to our police department? Lamberth Consulting. The city of Sacramento paid Lamberth $230,000 up front. And now we are paying them for the sensitivity training to fix the problem they found? Can you say conflict of interest? Lamberth Consulting is reminiscent of a Jesse Jackson-style racial shakedown.

Unfortunately, the inevitable fallout will be Sacramento police reducing the number of traffic stops made in largely minority neighborhoods, which would be hit hardest by police backing off traffic stops. It will be Oak Park, Meadowview and Del Paso Heights that suffer. And Dr. Lamberth already knows this. It’s happened before. It is called “depolicing.”

Another View
Dr. Heather MacDonald, a Manhattan Institute scholar and fellow who has studied the fallacy of racial profiling extensively, writes, “Cincinnati is a perfect example of the ‘depolicing’ effect. In 2001, a Cincinnati police officer fatally shot an unarmed teenager, triggering three days of vicious race riots and a tsunami of unjustified media and political charges of racism. In response, the Cincinnati police department pulled way back. Arrests dropped 50 percent in the first three months after the riots; traffic stops fell nearly 55 percent. In the summer of 2001, Cincinnati resembled the Wild West—the city had never seen such violent crime. Drug dealers operated with near impunity on the streets.”

Is this what Sacramento leaders are really looking for?

MacDonald is highly critical of Lamberth for good reason: Two studies, both by Temple University social psychologist John Lamberth, have attempted to create a “violator” benchmark, a “violator” being that individual whom initiated actions warranting police intervention. The ACLU used one study to sue the Maryland state police; a criminal defense attorney in New Jersey used the other study to free 17 accused black drug traffickers.

Lamberth alleged that blacks in Maryland and southern New Jersey were stopped at higher rates than their representation in the violator population would seemingly warrant. But he defined “violator” so broadly – in Maryland, traveling at least one mile over the speed limit, and in New Jersey, traveling at least six miles over the speed limit – that he included virtually the entire driving population.

Lamberth must not have spent much time talking to real cops, for his definition of violator ignores how police actually decide whom to stop. Someone gliding sedately at 56 mph in a 55 mph zone has a radically different chance of being pulled over than someone barreling along at 80 mph down the same street. An adequate benchmark must capture the kind of driving likely to draw police attention.

Lamberth is the latest fad as a racial profiling guru and the new go-to-guy for misguided cities looking to throw money away. 

Obama God! Democrats build a temple for Barack

Finally nominated as the first black candidate for the US presidency, he moved the Democratic Party Convention from the conference hall to an 80,000-seater football stadium for his landmark address.

His challenge was to turn his trademark soaring rhetoric into simple ideas to improve the lives of hard-pressed American families - but the Greek pillars of his backdrop prompted ridicule before he stood up to speak.

Lights, camera, action: The stage is set for Obama's speech tonight

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By Katy Grimes

With the Land Park Community Association Board settling in with 5 new Board members and a couple of meetings under their collective belts, there is still tension and strain amongst the ranks. The issues are many for this board however, a glaring issue seems to still be past versus present and old versus new.

The June 11th meeting was scheduled around a pre-arranged presentation by Target regarding their proposed expansion. With President Elyse Metune starting the meeting late after a pre-meeting Board-only meeting, and Target listed 5^th on the agenda, one audience member suggested that Target make their presentation instead of making them sit through Board business. Discussed, hashed and rehashed, President Elyse Metune finally decided that they could bump up the schedule, but only after sitting through the Treasurers report first.

Target presented their attractive rendering of a greatly expanded (doubled in size) and updated store. The feedback from community members was positive and supportive, many agreeing that the design was not only a great improvement, but also welcome. One audience member asked the Target representative if the Target store slated for the Westfield Mall downtown would present a problem for Land Park’s Broadway Target remodel – i.e. could the area support both stores, or was Land Park in jeopardy of losing our store? The Target representatives insisted that both stores are necessary and justified, especially given that Target owns the Broadway property, and the downtown store will be much smaller at 100,000 square feet - the current size of the current Broadway store.

There were suggestions from Board members on outdoor art on the brick walls of the store, and Land use committee member Roxanne Miller strongly suggested that Target needs to provide a larger outdoor dining and “gathering area,” as well as a more visually pleasant garden center.  This would only be accomplished if Target gave up retail space, which the Target representatives wisely did not comment on. Several of the Board members indicated that Target still needed to make more accommodations to comply with the LPCA urban design goals.

Following the Target representatives’ departure, the Board members discussed balancing the desire for Target to comply with LPCA design wishes, versus the chance that Target could pull-up stakes and leave Land Park given a choice between working with a difficult LPCA Land Use committee or the Westfield Mall, who are extremely desirous of filling empty space at the downtown mall. The opinions were split with the old board members wanting Target to make more concessions, and new Board members concerned that Target will grow impatient with the design nitpicking by the LPCA.

This Board has a great deal of conflict to deal with. It is clear that the old board members feel insecure by the energy and take-charge style of the new board players. Each of the new board members brings many years of diverse board experiences and procedural knowledge; the demand that the meetings are run more professionally and that conflict be dealt with on an expert level, is fueling some of the contention.

With the new board members working to increase membership and neighborhood participation, and several of the old board members voicing opposition, the meetings will only provide more local entertainment instead of getting Land Park business done effectively and efficiently. A strong showing of community and neighbor support at the monthly meetings can only serve to force this Board to do the neighborhood’s business and not continue to pursue their own agendas.