Jerry Brown and his people DID NOTHING WRONG by recording conversations with reporters, the story is much ado about nothing.

I have never heard of a dumber, more inane story than the one the conservatives are trying to flout about Jerry Brown and the "secret" recordings his employees made when they were being interviewed by news reporters.

The same republican conservatives who complain that the media is biased against them, now complain if someone being interviewed decides to protect themselves by recording the interview.

This Jerry Brown "controversy" is completely politically motivated. If anyone thinks for a moment that it is or should be illegal to protect oneselves when being interviewed by a reporter by recording the interview, they are morons.

To be clear, reporters are neither perfect, nor will a reporter always take all the time they need to properly do a story because they have deadlines. Were a reporter to ever misreport or incorrectly quote an interviewee, who protects the person being interviewed? What if the reporter didn't make a proper recording of the interview so it is simply their word against the person they interviewed?

This is a republican smear campaign against Jerry Brown and I am sick and tired of BOTH SIDES always trying to make the other side look bad.

If everything that is said between a reporter and the person they are recording is "on the record" it becomes ridiculous to somehow imply that the actual recording of an "on the record" interview is illegal.

Please Download the Chase Bank Protest Flyer for FREE, and then all that needs to be done is just give a few copies out, it is really that simple.

Simplifying the Barack Obama Citizenship Issue even as Media Matters Attacks Lou Dobbs for bringing the discussion up on his Television Show.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MEDIA MATTERS ARTICLE.

Apparently, Media Matters is outraged that Lou Dobbs brought up the Barack Obama citizenship issue. "How dare he", Media Matters is complaining, "time to shut up Lou Dobbs" they chortle.

I propose a different idea. Can we talk LESS about WHERE Barack Obama might or might not have been born, and focus some discussion on the citizenship status of Barack Obama's FATHER? Can anybody explain what Barack Obama's father's role is in determining whether or not his son can be natural born or not?

Is there any behavior or action that a father can do that would negate his child being considered a natural born citizen even if the child was born in the United States? Think about all of our past presidents.

How many past presidents had fathers who became US citizens BEFORE their sons ran for Vice President or President, the fathers REMAINING US citizens for the rest of their lives, or until their son ran for president? If the answer is ALL OF THEM, until Barack Obama, then "Houston, we have a problem".

If Osama Bin Laden had been a US citizen earlier in his life, then recently snuck back into the United States and fathered a child, and then snuck back out, leaving the child behind, would that child still be considered a natural born US citizen?

If the answer to Osama Bin Laden fathering a child on US soil and the child is declared a U.S. citizen, but NOT a natural born citizen, then other scenarios, involving ALL FATHER'S behavior and motivation, exist as well, and some of these scenarios may relate to Barack Obama's own father as well.

A lot of energy is being spent on where Barack Obama was born and almost none appears to be being spent on Barack Obama's father's path in life.

HOW YOU CAN HELP! MAKE A DAILY-PROTEST.com sign and put it where others will see it. Daily-Protest.com signs can be placed in a storefront window, a bulletin board at work, or a countertop. Raise curiosity and awareness about how Chase Bank is harming a LOT of of their BEST customers by making a Daily-Protest.com sign.

How Come the Biggest Consumer Blogs fall short of condemning condemnable actions by JP Morgan Chase Credit Card?

I have a friend with a Chase credit card. Approximately 2 years ago Chase Bank offered this person a 5.99% balance transfer offer until their loan was paid off. They were required to make a 2% monthly minimum payment. They have good credit and had reduced the loan from 13,500 to 10,000 by dutifully making their monthly payments on time.

Their monthly minimum payment on the 10,000 dollar debt is presently 200 dollars. Chase Credit Card is now going to raise the monthly minimum payment on this account from 2% to 5%. Chase's latest gambit preys on customers who had a good deal with them will probably help ruing their credit rating while robbing them of food to feed their families with. My friend's monthly minimum payment with Chase Bank is set to go from 200 dollars, to 500 dollars!

A three hundred dollar monthly increase is probably going to lead to default for my friend. The problem is not that Chase wants their money nor that they want their money back sooner rather than later. The problem is that Chase set up the rules, the customer completely abided by the rules, and now Chase wants to change those rules WITHOUT GIVING THE CUSTOMER THE RIGHT TO OPT OUT before the changes are made.

Citibank and many if not all other credit card companies have opt out clauses in their credit card policy that protect the consumer. I fear that if Chase is allowed to destroy the concept of "OPT OUT, other credit card companies will follow suit.

My friend can keep their 2% minimum payment option if they agree to have the interest rate raised from 5.99% to 7.99%. This creates the equivalent of an escalating monthly penalty that starts at around 18 dollars a month. However, when we factor in that each and every month 18 extra dollars goes towards interest and 18 less dollars is applied to the PRINCIPLE, the penalty will continue to escalate and extend the life of the loan.

After one year, we are looking at a loss of 500 dollars, and each year forward it will increase at least 100 dollars per year. So this one move by chase will cost my friend 500 dollars this year, 575 dollars next year, 650 dollars the following year. By the time this card is paid off, I am estimating it will cost my friend over 4,000 dollars in extra payments.

Prior to this latest move, Chase began, then eliminated a 10 dollar a month usage fee to anyone using their credit cards. Now Chase has figured out a way to replace a one fee for all with another fee for those who had solid credit that Chase trusted enough to give them a solid loan offer. Is it Chase's goal to first lure, then destroy every tier of middle class customer that presently exists with their bait and switch credit card tactics?

Chase credit card company already had the option of raising my friends rates for a late payment. If JP Morgan Chase Bank wants to so violently change the rules, then please allow your customers the right to OPT OUT and keep the existing agreed upon rules in place. It is the respectful, rightful, and ethical thing to do.

If somebody from the government does not step in and stop what Chase Bank is doing, even as the US Government is giving these same banks billions upon trillions of dollars, then we can all be sure that nothing has "changed".

Disney's Escape to Witch Mountain has controversial scene in it.

Years ago, a movie came out in which drunken college kids lay out in the middle of a roadway and attempted to prove their manhood by not flinching as unsuspecting cars drove by them. Of course, in real life a few drunken college kids tried this out as well.

As I recall, at least one person lost their life, and another person was badly injured.

In the Disney Movie Witch Mountain, we have a much younger person standing in front of a fast moving car. The fast moving car obliterates upon impact with the young person, aka a witch.

Just curious if this scene was necessary to the making of this movie, and I hope that nobody out there believes it is possible to stop a fast moving car by standing in its way.

Is this the kind of stuff that should be censored since it can influence the mindset of minors in a way that can be fatal?

Google News Search Option, just who is "newsworthy" to be listed, and who is the decider?

I am trying to figure out how Google knows the difference between a news article, and a newscraping article. In general, many blogs are of the newscraping variety.

Newscraping means the blog writer reads an already existing news story, or watches a program on television, and then writes about it. This would be considered "newscraping". The blogger didn't create the news story, instead they re-interpreted an existing story from their own viewpoint.

But wait a minute. What if you or I actually do come up with a news story? What if we are the first to report something of note? Will Google News know to include the blog on their Google News search service? I suggest fellow PUMA bloggers do some google research. Write a story about something that you personally witnessed, and then use search words from your article and search Google "news" to see if your story appears.

Daily PUMA wrote an article about the KFI Tax Protest and the content was based on what was being said on a radio program. In many respects this is no different than a press conference in which a reporter never gets to ask a question but uses the responses from other reporters questions to write their own story.

Even though Daily PUMA reported key facts from the radio show that were NOT reported by anybody else anywhere on the internet, the Daily PUMA article DID NOT appear on Google News Search.

Example. KNBC reported that hundreds showed up to the KFI Tax Protest Rally in Fullerton, California. Based on estimates from police officer estimates, it is believed that as many as 15,000 people actually showed up. Daily PUMA was reporting on how inaccurate the television news station was in reporting the attendance, this IS a news story worthy of being on Google News.

Most subscribers to google's key word service are actually subscribing to google news, which appears to mean that our blogs may never be worthy of inclusion to the millions of internet users who use google key word search.

Decoding the New York Post Chimpanzee Cartoon.

Some people view The New York Post Chimpanzee Cartoon by Sean Delonas as racist, others seem to think that calling the cartoon racist is just another example of people looking for publicity.

Perhaps what is throwing people off is not the cartoon, but the cartoon caption. The cartoon caption "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," does not fit the cartoon images.

The cartoonist appears to have juxtaposed three completely unrelated events while creating the cartoon, and strangely enough, forgot to actually add one of those three elements into either the cartoon or the caption. Those three elements include the stimulus bill, the chimpanzee that was recently shot and killed, and the Geico Caveman slogan, "So easy even a caveman could do it."

Where I think the cartoonist went wrong was thinking of the Geico Caveman commercial slogan, but forgetting to incorporate it into the caption or the cartoon. If the chimpanzee on the ground had instead been the Geico Caveman with a stimulus document on his chest, and the caption read, "So easy even a Caveman thought he could write it", there probably would have been far fewer complaints of racism, because we've all seen the Caveman commercials.

Or, keeping the cartoon exactly as is, the caption could be changed to, "his stimulus bananas never arrived"... The powerful message being that the stimulus package is not going to reach anywhere near enough people to be useful. Again, no racism message. Or, the caption could have read, "He got his stimulus package check today, but all he really wanted was bananas". Whats the point of fixing the roads if the cars driving on them aren't made in america, aka, the chimp got his check, but could not find local bananas to buy.

The fixation over the IMAGE within the cartoon, rather than the CAPTION, points to a disturbing societal trend of caring more about image rather than verbal content. If simply changing the caption can eliminate the cartoon's presumed racist angle, then why isn't anybody up in arms over the lack of verbal cleverness and clarity by the cartoonist?

Am I upset, yes, because I can't draw. I'm upset that I get ideas but can't draw them, yet someone who knows how to draw, but can't think cleverly, is able to get their sterile and unfunny message out to a big audience.

Jessica Simpson is in the news for gaining a few pounds, but is that the real story here?

There is linkage to Jessica's past which may have caused her alleged weight gain to become a news story today. When Jessica Simpson was first announced as Daisy Duke of the Dukes of Hazzard movie, her body became her number one ally.

Slow motion shots of Jessica with her bare midrift fully exposed as she slow motion sauntered towards the camera were regularly shown on television, and then in the movie, and were money shots designed to both legitimize Jessica Simpson as a sculpted princess, and create buzz for the Dukes of Hazzard movie at the same time. When the Dukes of Hazzard movie went to DVD, even more slow motion shots of an abful Jessica could be seen in the commercials promoting the Dukes of Hazzard DVD.

Since then, Jessica has been linked with professional football quarterback Tony Romo, another reminder that Jessica is indeed a jock, or a jockette. Jessica used her body to power ahead her movie career, and therefore it becomes inevitable that when there is a change in her physique, it will become news.

I am curious if Jessica ever paid any kind of a significant homage or appreciation to the original Daisy Duke, Catherine Bach. Catherine Bach's performance as Daisy Duke in the original Dukes of Hazzard's television show no doubt helped keep the embers burning all these years. Of all the characters on the original Dukes of Hazzard TV show, perhaps it was Daisy Duke, Boss Hoggs, and Enos that were the most popular characters.

I am pretty sure Catherine Bach, just 25-30 years removed from the original Dukes of Hazzard television series, received a mere pittance of compensation back then compared to what Jessica Simpson received for her part in the movie version of the Dukes of Hazzard. I presume that Catherine Bach was probably not involved in the movie version, other than for a possible opportunistic photo op or two to promote the movie, and Jessica Simpson. It is a bit twisted that the original Daisy Duke can do no better than hype the new Daisy Duke. Dare I suggest that actor reparations are in order?

If Jessica didn't feel it necessary to tithe back to Catherine Bach in any way, (and I don't know if she did or not), then why should I feel sorry for a financial opportunist's weight gain being publicized in the media? Especially when the media plays down Catherine Bach's real contribution involving the creation of the Daisy Duke character.

As time goes on, I believe it's less and less about who is in the news at any given moment in time, and more and more about who is being forgotten. Is the story of Jessica's weight gain the real story here, or is the real story how Catherine Bach blazed a financial trail for Jessica Simpson to strut through. Will Jessica Simpson ever properly thank Catherine Bach for making the Daisy Duke role so memorable that Jessica could make a LOT of money 25 years later?

Catherine Bach, take a bow for helping get Jessica Simpson super rich, I wish there was something in it for you to.