AFTER 30 YEARS OF LIVING OFF THE TAX PAYERS MONEY SENATOR HARRY REID (D-NV) HAS HAD ENOUGH WITH SIPHONING TAX DOLLARS FOR THE SOCIALIST AGENDA AND AFTER $15 TRILLION IN DEFICIT SPENDING UNDER HIS TENURE THE DEMOCRAT ARMS HAS HAD ENOUGH DOLING OUT YOUR MONEY IT SEEMS AS HARRY SAYS BYE BYE READY FOR THE FARM

Senator Harry Reid, the tough tactician who has led Senate Democrats since 2005, will not seek re-election next year, bringing an end to a three-decade congressional career that culminated with his push of President Obama’s ambitious agenda against fierce Republican resistance.

Mr. Reid, 75, who suffered serious eye and facial injuries in a Jan. 1 exercise accident at his Las Vegas home, said he had been contemplating retiring from the Senate for months. He said his decision was not attributable either to the accident or to his demotion to minority leader after Democrats lost the majority in November’s midterm elections.

“I understand this place,” Mr. Reid said. “I have quite a bit of power as minority leader.”

He has already confounded the new Republican majority this year by holding Democrats united against a proposal to gut the Obama administration’s immigration policies as well as a human-trafficking measure Democrats objected to over an anti-abortion provision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/us/politics/senator-harry-reid-retire.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=1

SO WHEN CALIFORNIA HAS TO HAVE ITS OWN SPECIFIC BLEND OF GASOLINE FROM THE REST OF THE US COUNTRY THE DEMOCRATS COMPLAIN WHY THE PRICE OF GASOLINE IS EXPENSIVE IN THEIR ZERO ENERGY PRODUCING STATE–CONSIDER THAT NATURAL EARTH MADE ENERGY EXPLORATION HAS BEEN ALMOST BANNED AND THE FREE AND CLEAN FISSION ENERGY INSPIRED BY THE SUN IS NOW ALL BUT BEING CLOSED DOWN AND THE NANNY STATE CAN NOW BE STATED OF CA AS CA IMPORTS ALMOST ALL OF ITS ENERGY FROM NEIGHBORING STATES THUS ITS PRICE OF ENERGY SKY ROCKETS–AND ALL THE DEMOCRATS CAN DO IS COMPLAIN INSTEAD OF BEING VISIONARY ABOUT CHOOSING CHEAP ENERGY FOR ITS CITIZEN BUT THEN THIS IS THE LEFTIST LIBERAL MODEL TO CONTROL WITH EXCESSIVE ENERGY COST AND LACK THERE OF SO THEY CAN CLAIM THE END OF THE WORLD AND THE SKY IS FALLING IS NEAR MENTALITY

State senators investigating a recent surge in California pump prices at a Tuesday hearing grappled with price-fixing accusations and pressure to shift to alternative fuels.

Members of the transportation, housing and energy, utilities and communications committees questioned why retail gasoline prices rocketed past the rest of the country last month and are only gradually floating back down.

Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego) chaired the hearing and returned several times to one suspicion: that the tiny pool of refiners responsible for producing California’s unique fuel blends may be colluding to keep prices artificially high.

“Do we have monopolies on fuel in California?” he asked. “We want to know if we don’t have a competitive-enough market to keep prices low.”

Gas prices soared about $1 a gallon last month in California, making the fuel more expensive than anywhere else in the country. Prices have fallen this month, but at an average of $3.25 a gallon Tuesday, gasoline in the state still costs 82 cents a gallon more than elsewhere in the U.S.

There are no pipelines connecting California to its neighbors; imports come slowly by ship or truck, panelists said. And state regulations require specific, clean-burning fuel blends.

That unique recipe – not recent adjustments to California’s cap-and-trade regulations – is the “fundamental problem” causing the price increase, said Jay McKeeman, vice president of the California Independent Oil Marketers Assn.

“Independent refiners can’t afford to make it, and it further isolates us from outside fuel producers,” he said.

Prices surged in the aftermath of a Feb. 18 explosion at the Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery in Torrance. Tesoro Corp. idled processing at its Martinez, Calif., plant earlier that month in response to a strike.

Tesoro spokeswoman Tina Barbee said Tuesday that the facility will not restart until the local United Steelworkers union ratifies a new labor agreement. The vote is scheduled for this week.

Refineries are generally under contract for 80% to 90% of the fuel they produce, said Gordon Schremp, senior fuels specialist for the California Energy Commission. To meet their obligations after a supply disruption, they tend to draw from their stockpiles, buy from traders and other refineries or turn to imports, all of which drives prices up.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-gas-prices-hearing-20150324-story.html

SO WHEN ITS STEAMING HOT AND SMELLS LIKE CRAP YOU JUST KNOW IT TO BE A BUDGET PROPOSED BY THE DEMOCRAT POTUS BHO AND WHEN IT GETS TAKEN OUT LIKE TRASH THE DEMOCRATS WILL NOT ADMIT WHO OWNS THE DEFICIT SPENDING BUDGET PROPOSED AND REJECTED–AS THE SENATE VOTES 98 TO 1 REJECTING THE DEMOCRAT BACKED POTUS BHO BILL–THE SINGLE YES VOTE WAS FROM A DEMOCRAT SENATOR TOM R. CARPER (D-DE)–SO WITH ALL THE TAX INCREASES IN THE LAST 7 YEARS AND ON TOP OF THAT BUDGET CUTS–THE POLITICAL LEADERS STILL CAN’T BALANCE THE BUDGET–AS THE DEMOCRAT POTUS BHO IS TOO BUSY GOLFING AND SPENDING ALL THE NEW TAXES TAKEN FOR THE DEMOCRAT SOCIALIST AGENDA

President Obama’s budget suffered its latest ignominious defeat when the Senate rejected it on a 98-1 vote Tuesday evening, capping off the first votes of the budget season.

Democrats objected, saying the plan wasn’t really Mr. Obama’s, but Republicans said it had all the same numbers as the president’s blueprint, and so the vote counts as a rejection of his fiscal year 2016 plan.

“This is the president’s proposed budget,” said Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who forced the vote by offering the amendment, complete with the tax hikes, spending increases and deficit targets Mr. Obama had projected in the document he sent to Congress last month.

Rejecting presidential budgets has become standard in recent years. The Senate defeated Mr. Obama’s fiscal year 2011 plan by a 97-0 vote and his 2012 plan by a 99-0 vote.

Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent and Democrats’ point man on the budget, said the plan Mr. Cornyn offered didn’t include a minimum wage increase or some of Mr. Obama’s other policy prescriptions, so it wasn’t a legitimate representation of his budget.

“It is not what President Obama presented to the American people,” Mr. Sanders said.

But that argument was undercut somewhat by Sen. Thomas R. Carper, Delaware Democrat, who was the lone senator to vote for the Cornyn amendment Tuesday, signaling that at least one Democrat backed Mr. Obama.

Both the House and Senate are debating budgets this week. The documents aren’t binding but provide an outline of the legislative agenda for the rest of the year and, at least in the Senate, provide an opportunity for a freewheeling debate.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/24/obama-budget-defeated-98-1-senate-vote/

THE LATE SINGAPORE LEADER A VISIONARY IN CREATING A CAPITALISM MARKET FOR THE SMALL ASIAN COUNTRY AFTER ITS SEPARATION FROM BRITISH RULE AND BREAKING FROM MAINLAND MALAYSIA LEADING THE FRAME WORK THAT WOULD BE MODELED BY THE ASIAN TIGER SUCH AS KOREA, TAIWAN, AND HONGKONG–DIES AT 91 LEE KUAN YEW

Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has died early Monday. He was 91 years old. Lee was Singapore's leader from 1959 until 1990, but remained a highly influential figure and a strategist on the city state's economy.
Lee was hospitalized in Singapore General Hospital in early February with severe pneumonia, and was later placed on life support.
"Harry" Lee Kuan Yew, a fourth generation Singaporean, whose ancestors migrated from China's Guangdong Province in the 1860s, played a primary role in guiding the island state's post-colonial era toward economic  success.
A survivor of the Japanese Imperial Army's occupation of Singapore, Lee studied economics in London after the war and attended Cambridge University, gaining a law degree.

His political life began in 1954 with the formation the People's Action Party (PAP), a coalition of middle class and pro-communist trade unionists. In 1955 Lee was the opposition leader in the legislature. But splits within the PAP with the party's left wing led to arrests of pro-communists in 1957.
The PAP won an electoral landslide in 1959, and Lee Kuan Yew became Singapore's first Prime Minister, a position he held until 1990 before taking a post of senior minister.
Carl Thayer, a political scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, says Lee was pivotal to Singapore's long term future.
"The story of modern day Singapore can't be told without reference to Lee Kwan Yew," said Thayer. "He took the country from colonial rule to independence. He fended off challenges from the socialist left and then he dominated politics."
Lee faced political challeges as prime minister. An early goal was the formation of a Federation of Malaysia bringing together Singapore, Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak.
But differences soon emerged between Peninsular Malaysia's Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and Lee, especially after race riots between Chinese and Muslims in 1964 and again in 1965. And on August 9, 1965 Abdul Rahman called for separation.
"There have been differences between the central government and the leader of the Singapore state government," said Abdul Rahman. "And these differences take so many forms and are so many kinds that it has not been possible to resolve them and so we decided we must part company."
Historians say Lee opposed Abdul Rahman's favoring local Malays over ethnic Chinese. Lee was distraught with news of separation.
"You see the whole of my adult life I believed in the Malaysia merger and the unity of these two territories. You know some connection by geography and ties of kinship... would you mind if we stopped for a while," he said.
At the age of 42 Lee became Singapore's sole leader, driving hard on economic growth to build the Republic and to foster unity. "I am not here to play someone else's game. I have a few million people's lives to account for and Singapore will survive."
Analysts say Lee's strengths lay in setting standards and objectives, a "strategic thinker" promoting Singapore's most valuable resource -- its people.
Foreign investment followed. With economic growth running often at near 10 percent over the decades, Lee helped define a model of capitalist development that was also adopted by the so-called "Asian Tigers" -- Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2015/03/23/2015032300576.html