I want Lou Dobbs fired. He is a giant scrooge!

My wife Gillian called me today from downtown Denver, excited that Barack Obama was in town and had spoken to a large crowd (estimated at 100,000 people by Gillian). I searched in vain today for any news regarding the event, but failed.

Anxiously, I waited for the 6:00 PM news on CNN. For sure CNN would show the event. But not today! I really think Lou Dobbs is doing everything he can to influence the election and not accurately report the key events of the day. Instead, Lou pontificates and editorializes. How can his "news" hour be news? It's nothing more than Lou's page of opinion. And frankly, I'm sick of it!

At the top of the hour the following words were used to describe today's news on Lou Dobbs Sunday news show: staggering, fear, severe recession, soaring, hardest hit, war, terror, struggle, crash, in the tank, rebuilding trust, debacle, worthless, broken bones, voter fraud, and democracy at risk.

This is not news. This is nothing more than fear-mongering.

I took a break and went back to watching the football game. (My fantasy football quarterback, Roethlisberger and running back Jacobs were playing). I couldn't resist in my quest to see Barack in Denver, so at 6:16 PM, I surfed back to CNN. Again, nothing on Barack's historic visit in Denver. More of the same fear-mongering.

I am not kidding. Get the tape and listen for yourself. Here are the key words I heard from 6:15 to 6:23 on the alleged news show: concerns, disturbing, highly vulnerable to hackers, e-voting machines are fraudulent, hacked, democracy at risk, fight us, safeguard the votes, too late, major problems, bitter, voter registration fraud, 20 to 30 thousand blacks deterred from voting, blacks waited on average 1/2 hour longer, skeptical, poorly engineered systems, slow federal certication, not gonna work, e-voting concerns, problematic, worse than 2004, machines switching votes, problems, problems in Ohio, political manipulation, disputes, voter error, recession fears, tough talk, our borders are far from secure...

I am sick of it. The Lou Dobbs show just keeps piling it on with negative news. (if you can call it negative news).

When will Americans demand a better attitude from its mainstream newscasters?

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The 2008 campaign has just ten days left. Everything is on the line. Elected officials and candidates are pushing and giving it their all. My wife Gillian is in Aurora, Colorado, working the last two weeks of the election cycle to make Colorado a blue state.

One of her co-workers, Chi Wright, wrote an engaging piece on Hillary Clinton's visit to Aurora this last week. Click here for the full read: Lucky Eleven: HRC

I particularly like Chi's quote embedded in her email to my wife - “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” -- Mahatma Gandhi

Gillian is being the change Mahatma Gandhi spoke so eloquently about. I am proud of her!

And the world will see the change on November 4!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are falling far behind in broadband capacity in this country. Without broadband capacity, it's hard to be a technology leader. Today, Geof Lambert sent me an email with great news. Barack Obama has pledged to name a cabinet-level CTO to oversee a job-creating national broadband buildout if he's elected.
One more reason to vote for Barack...he gets it!

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For nearly a year, I have been on a journey. Today, my journey reached a significant milestone.

The trip began last November with the passing of my brother Varick Cutler. I found out at the funeral that Varick was a big supporter of Barack Obama. And so were Gillian and I. We never discussed this with my brother. Gillian and I made a pact and decided to give our full support in getting Barack elected.

We got involved in our local precinct and were both elected as Obama delegates to the senatorial district convention. Gillian worked hard with Obama Dallas, a grassroots campaign organization and was elected a delegate to the Texas state convention. Her tireless efforts were rewarded when the Texas Democratic Party nominated her as an at large delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

At some point in the spring, we set a goal of registering 500 new voters. Gillian was deputized and proceeded to deputize hundreds of new deputies. Day after day, she worked, attending or leading many voter registration drives. I helped where I could.

We walked the neighborhoods, knocking on doors. We went to high schools, signing up first-time voters. We went to football games, super markets, fairs, and even a circus. Gillian and her friend Wendy would frequent the taxi stands at Love Field and DFW. Soon they became known among the cabbies as the Obama ladies. They deputized the cab drivers. One of the cab drivers even invited us to his Ethiopian church to register his fellow worshipers.

Gillian designed and sold campaign buttons and bumper stickers - hundreds and hundreds of them. She even appeared in a Barack Obama movie. I am in awe at her endless energy. I am a bachelor now, as Gillian is in Colorado, working through the election day to make a difference in the swing state.

We passed our goal to register 500 new voters. My hunch is that our efforts have produced several thousand new voters in Dallas County.

Today, I took advantage of early voting. I voted for peace. I voted for prosperity. I voted for unity, hope, and change.

Today, with honor and pride, I voted for Barack Obama.

And tonight I celebrate the journey - America's journey, Barack's journey, and my brother's journey.

Here's to you Varick! We made your vote count big time this year! May peace be with you.

Pierre Cutler

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What is Sean "P. Diddy" Combs up to these days? Well, he has a website and I found this little Sarah Palin diddy on his blog. It is funny!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday. What does he have to say about the stock market and what is he doing about it?

Click here to read his editorial.

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday was a typical Saturday. Wake up around 8:00 A.M. Shower. Walk the dogs. Retrieve the newspaper from the driveway. Make a pot of coffee. Eat breakfast. Settle down to read the newspaper.

And guess what? The news was the same. Nothing had changed since last Saturday. It reminded me of Anne Murray's song ... "A Little Good News".

There's a local paper rolled up in a rubber band
One more sad story's one more than I can stand
Just once how I'd like to see the headline say
"Not much to print today, can't find nothin' bad to say", because

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD'ed, nobody burned a single buildin' down
Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today

• High School football scores
• Ethics inquiry
• Financial meltdown
• Crisis
• Gays can marry
• Golden Gate Bridge may get suicide net
• Voter fraud in Texas
• Suicide bomber kills 30
• Schools look to make cuts
• GM-Chrysler merger odds 50-50
• Stocks end mostly lower
• Cost to taxpayers could be high
• Credit crisis hits home
• Teens discuss crisis
• Texas driver violation - $815 million owed
• Fight against Barack Obama
• DNA exonerations
• Victory in sight
• Oh, and today's weather - "partly sunny"

Just a little good news, please!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets reported Friday.
So Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives, your talking points are completely wrong, as proven by our own Federal Government's statistics. Another reason to choose your news sources carefully for accuracy and honesty.

You can read an article by McClatchy to get the full details.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Seems that 7-11 have predicted correctly the last 2 Presidential election outcomes based on their customers' selection of red or blue cups for their coffee.

See what the results are saying for this year.

You can even check the results by State.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Senator McCain:

Senator Obama never took on his party on one single issue.

Not surprisingly, not true:

Taking On His Party
by hilzoy

One of the things that has annoyed me during this campaign is how easy it has been for candidates to simply make things up about one another's records, even when they are talking about topics that are relatively easy to check. Last spring, people kept saying that Obama had no real accomplishments in the Senate, even though that was not true. More recently, McCain has said that Obama has not reached across the aisle to work with Republicans. That's not true either: he has worked with Dick Lugar on securing Russian loose nukes and small arms, and on avian flu, with Tom Coburn on ethics reform and openness in government, and so on.

The latest charge is this:

"Sen. Obama has never taken on his leaders of his party on a single issue."

Oh, really?

"part of the Senate's ethics reform bill deals with earmarks -- lawmakers' often abused practice of inserting items in legislation to direct funds to special interests (a la Duke Cunningham). According to current rules, lawmakers can attach earmarks anonymously, a state of affairs inviting abuse. Reform efforts have sought to change that. Republicans and good government types have criticized Reid's version of earmark reform legislation, which is weaker than the version passed by House Democrats, saying that it doesn't go near far enough in terms of disclosure.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered an amendment today that mirrored the tougher legislation passed by House Democrats.

According to Craig Holman of Public Citizen, Reid's version, if it had been applied to earmarks as part of legislation passed last year, would have disclosed the sponsor of only approximately 500 earmarks. DeMint's amendment would have forced sponsors to be known of roughly 12,000. (...)

But Democrats sought to block DeMint's amendment, with an effort led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). They failed, due mostly to nine Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and freshmen Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA), who crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT)."

And guess what? It worked. CQ (quoted by TPMMuckraker):

"After losing a critical floor vote Thursday and scrambling in vain to reverse the decision, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., found the spirit of bipartisan compromise more to his liking Friday morning.

Reid offered an olive branch to Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., agreeing to embrace his amendment to a pending ethics and lobbying overhaul (S 1) with some modifications. DeMint’s amendment, which Democratic leaders tried but failed to kill on Thursday, would expand the definition of member earmarks that would be subject to new disclosure rules."

More generally: Obama was the Senate's point person for ethics reform. Ethics reform is never a particularly good way to endear yourself to your colleagues, since working for it consists in large part of trying to convince them to give up various goodies. For some of the ethics reform debate, Obama had the Senate leadership behind him. But he was working for stronger legislation than they wanted. Sometimes he won, as in the case just described. Sometimes he lost: he was pushing for an independent commission to oversee Congressional ethics cases, and lost.

But the idea that he never took on his party's leadership is just wrong.

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How many American voters proclaim Barack Obama doesn't have the experience to be President of the United States? A lot. What experience does he need to have under his belt in order to quell these claims?

Is it because he's too young? Is eight years in the Illinois state legistature coupled with his three years as U.S. senator not enough? Oh, what about his twelve years as a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, or his tenure as editor of the Harvard Law Review, or his board duties on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (seven years), the Joyce Foundation (eight years), the Woods Fund of Chicago (nine years), and the Lugenis Burns House Center, and the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago? And don't forget his community organization job on the south side of Chicago (fresh out of Harvard Law School).

Or just maybe his "lack of experience" is code for "I can't vote for a black man".

Well, perhaps we should examine his predecessors and their qualifications. Let's start with Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the U.S. What were his credentials?

Harry Truman's biography (source: www.Wikipedia.org):

College Degree: none;

Early Years: Graduated from high school in 1901; worked as a timekeeper on the Santa Fe Railroad, sleeping in hobo camps near the rail lines; moved on to cleircal jobs, returning to the family farm in 1906; spent nine years on the farm until joining the military in 1917; served in World War 1, achieving rank of Captain;

Business Experience: farmer and owner of a haberdashery, which went bankrupt in 1921;

Professional Memberships: Ku Klux Klan, dues paying member 1922 ($10);

Political Office: elected Jackson County Judge, 1922-1934, U.S. Senator 1934-1945; Vice President 1945 (82 days); President 1945 - 1953;

Wikipedia Observations: Truman had been vice president for only 82 days when President Roosevelt died on 12 April, 1945. He had had very little meaningful communication with Roosevelt about world affairs or domestic politics after being sworn in as vice president, and was completely uninformed about major initiatives relating to the successful prosecution of the war—notably the top secret Manhattan Project, which was about to test the world's first atomic bomb;

Miscellaneous: known to frequently use racial slurs to include the "N" word; only person in the history of the world to use nuclear weapons;

Personal Letters: A few days after his presidential swearing in, he wrote to his wife, Bess: "It won't be long until I can sit back and study the whole picture and. . . there'll be no more to this job than there was to running Jackson County and not anymore worry."

How does Truman's experience compare to Obama? Can you see any Sarah Palin in this story line?

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

John McCain is stooping very low in his bid to overcome Barack Obama's lead. The GOP is running this ad on Google Adsense. I found it on my website.

Despicable! (according to Merriam/Webster - so worthless or obnoxious as to rouse moral indignation).

That's my opinion! Do you agree?

I'm outraged! And indignant!

Pierre Cutler

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In May of 2006, Fortune Magazine and I predicted home prices were about to fall in Sacramento with the following words:

Real estate, real estate, real estate. Location, location, location. Sacramento, according to this month's Fortune Magazine, is a Dead Zone. One of seven Dead Zones, Fortune is projecting the price of a home in Sacramento will decline this year. Other dead zones are Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Washington D.C., Phoenix, and San Diego.

What's going on in the California real estate market? Affordability is the key issue. The median priced home is $561,000. On average, it takes a $134,000 salary to qualify for the medium priced home. How many people in California make this kind of money? Not many.

My own barometer - Bob Shallit of the Sacramento Bee. For the past six months, Bob's column has been full of real estate stories. This no doubt is a strong signal that the local real estate market is poised for a downturn. How big of a downturn are we looking at? My research shows that in the early-nineties, the Sacramento region endured six years of declining prices. If you bought a house in 1990, prices tumbled and it was not until 2000, ten years later, that the medium price of a home in Sacramento returned to the 1990 levels.

Have Sacramento home prices hit bottom yet? No one knows. But, if history is any predictor of the future, it will take years for the market to recover to the prices of May 2006. Maybe more than ten years. (see my report California Housing Affordability Index Indicates More Decline In Home Prices). Prices have been falling for less than three years. The downward spiral is probably not done.

My advice? Don't chase a falling market! Sit tight and wait out any aggressive buying until prices stablize and begin to recover.

Our friend Jim York is likely not to take my advice. I hear he is buying up foreclosures in Sacramento like there's no tomorrow. Perhaps he has been listening to the sage of Wall Street - Warren Buffett - who's mantra is "be fearful when people are greedy, and be greedy when people are fearful."

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This past week Gillian and I hosted a voter registration drive at a high school in Dallas. The school is a member of the beleaguered Dallas Independent School District (DISD), where Superintendent Michael Hinojosa is fighting for his job as he faces a $64 million budget shortfall, the pending layoff of over 700 teachers this month, unchecked staff who allegedly purchased millions of dollars of personal goods on school credit cards, and a dropout rate of 55.6%.

The school is predominantly made up of Hispanic and African-American students. We were situated in the computer lab, which also serves double duty as a ninth grade English classroom. While we waited for the drive to begin, we browsed around the classroom. We were appalled at the surroundings - grade school sized chairs and tables (more suitable for kindergarteners) with many broken legs being propped up by mountains of text books, cast-off computers (i.e., hand-me-downers) circa 1980's, well-worn text books that appeared to be more than twenty years old, and bulletin boards that displayed dated materials from the 1990's.

And then there were the English teacher's classroom rules for behavior. The rules were typed on a single sheet and contained many grammar and punctuation errors. But perhaps the most shocking visual was yet to come, as Seniors' Night began. The halls and classrooms were filled with teenagers with their children in tow - high school senior after high school senior, proudly carrying their little ones from classroom to classroom. Dads carrying car seats under one arm and their baby in the other arm. Moms pushing strollers.

Oh, they were proud of their offspring. At one point I noted to Gillian, "It's as if they are carrying their trophies or showing their badge of honor."

The scene made me pause and think as I asked myself, "How are these kids going to succeed? The parents and their children - what do their futures hold as they leave school in June?"

And then I was reading today's Sunday paper - the Parade Magazine - and found out the shocking news. The U.S. teen-pregnancy rate is about 7.5%. One in three teenaged girls in the U.S. will get pregnant. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the U.S. teen-pregnancy rate is almost twice as high as Britain and four times higher than Sweden and France.

Why these startling statistics? Because U.S. teenagers are less likely to use contraception than their European counterparts. And the Alan Guttmacher Institute's study found no strong evidence that abstinence programs work.

Well just maybe we need to rethink our programs and adopt European programs that do work!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night the U.S. Senate passed their version of the bailout plan. I see the bailout as more of the same. Here's why -

The intended result of the bailout is to ease the credit crunch we are experiencing in the markets. How did we get to this credit crisis? By issuing high risk loans, resulting in too many home owners not being able to pay their mortgages, thereby mortgage-backed securities investors ended up holding a lot of bad debt.

News alert:

Credit is debt!

So, by bailing out Wall Street, the Government will ease the credit crunch and Wall Street will issue more debt. Is this not dumb? Will the cycle never end?

Let's face it - Americans love debt. Our economy thrives on it and relies on it.

What's going to change with this bailout? Nothing. I see more of the same.

And Wall Street will be laughing all the way to the bank, while working class folks pay through their noses for the Street's greed and mistakes!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 6:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

America is in the midst of several crises - economy, environment, energy, healthcare, education, and the war on terror. Tonight the U.S. Senate is voting on the $700 billion bailout plan. Two days ago the House of Representatives voted down the plan. I hope the Senate does too!

Why? Because I don't believe our government has clearly defined our priorities. And until they do so, we should not agree to spend $700 billion for the plan. We can't afford to bail out Wall Street, and at the same time, spend $10 billion a month for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, continue with another $500 billion annually for DoD business as usual, maintain our current entitlement programs, make our ongoing interest payments on the mountain of national debt, and attend to all the other pressing programs that need funding.

This wild spending spree has to stop. Haven't we learned anything about the national calamity that we are going through right now? The kind of debt we have is bad. The kind of debt we are about to take on is bad. Homes are being foreclosed on because of the massive debt load home owners have accumulated. What will happen to America with our ever increasing load of debt?

We won't be able to address the really important issues like education, which should be our number one priority. The lack of education is the root of most evil throughout the world.

Did you know that according to Christopher B. Swanson, director of the Education Research Center, the high school graduation rates for the principal school districts of the following cities are all below 50 percent: Detroit (24.9%); Indianapolis (30.5%), Cleveland (34.1%), Baltimore (34.6%), Columbus (40.9%), Minneapolis (43.7%), Dallas (44.4%), New York (45.25), Los Angeles (45.3%), Oakland (45.6%), Kansas City (45.7%), Atlanta (46.0%), Milwaukee (46.1%), Denver (46.3%), Oklahoma City (47.5%), Miami (49%), and Philadelphia (49.6%)?

Folks, theses are big cities. That's a lot of children not getting educated! I contend the failure of our schools to educate its students is the number one crisis in our country. And we are about to approve the expenditure of $700 billion to bail out the failures of Wall Street firms! How dumb is that!

I think we have our priorities upside down. Education leads to good paying jobs, healthcare insurance, tax revenue and big contributions to society. The lack of education more likely leads to entitlements, time in jail, poverty, and big drains on society.

How can we allow 1.4 million kids drop out of high school each year? Because we continue to spend $10 billion a month on ill-conceived wars, and plan to bail out Wall Street.

Does this make sense? Continuing to spend $700 billion a year on defense and taking on another $700 billion as a handout to Wall Street are bad investments. In fact, they are no investments at all.

I think educating our children will provide the best return on investment. Take that investment advice from someone off Wall Street!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)