Morning Must Reads: Big Money

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-13/stimulus-traveling-salesman-biden-making-hard-sell-to-middle-class-voters.html
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“It’s just really hard to convince people that when there weren’t, up until the first of the year, when there weren’t net new jobs it’s awful hard to say, ‘It’s working,’” he said at the end of a three-state campaign swing Oct. 7-8 for four Democratic candidates in Wisconsin, Missouri, and Washington. “It’s counterintuitive.”

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Try telling the truth Joe. Maybe people will begin to believe you.

Please don’t trash the rescue capsule!!
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We may need it for the progressives this November when we drive them back underground!!
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http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/13/workers-begin-to-rescue-trapped-chilean-miners/?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
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Eight hours of rescue brings eight miners freedom

“Jim DeMint caused the recession”……”Jim DeMint caused the recession…….”Jim DeMint……….ACK!!…Jim…..Jim…..Jim DID IT!!”

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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/awkward-fail-alvin-greene-recites-his-talking-point-over-and-over/

John McCain must be almost exploding in anger over the new independent expenditure organizations?

Has anyone asked him? I can’t find any comments on the topic, by him, on the internet.

* At the current rate of job creation, the nation would need nine more years to recapture the jobs lost during the recession. And that doesn’t even account for five million or six million jobs needed in that time to keep pace with an expanding population. Even top Obama officials concede the unemployment rate could climb higher still.
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* Median house prices have dropped 20 percent since 2005. Given an inflation rate of about 2 percent — a common forecast — it would take 13 years for housing prices to climb back to their peak, according to Allen L. Sinai, chief global economist at the consulting firm Decision Economics.
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* Commercial vacancies are soaring, and it could take a decade to absorb the excess in many of the largest cities. The vacancy rate, as of the end of June, stands at 21.4 percent in Phoenix, 19.7 percent in Las Vegas, 18.3 in Dallas/Fort Worth and 17.3 percent in Atlanta, in each case higher than last year, according to the data firm CoStar Group.

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http://www.cnbc.com/id/39647980
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Does anyone even wonder why Democrats will lose more seats than ever seen in the past 80 or so years?

Describing the facts, doesn’t presume that the person providing the description has any idea of how to change the facts. That is certainly the case when it comes to the whining Republicans, who have not offered a single rational idea for changing the situation. They would just like us all to assume that they do have some ideas, as they spend their days whining about the present.

Not sure what you complaining about, Rusty. To the extent that the Republican goal appears to have been to ensure that the stimulus would be small enough to be ineffective (and, per Krugman on Monday in the Times, almost entrirely offset by cuts and layoffs at the state and local level) and then to gloat about the continuing economic misery, I would suggest that the statistics you cite above indicate that Republican policies of economic stasis are working quite well indeed.

What did I miss?

Abracadabra.

“Under the stewardship of its boyish chief justice, John Roberts, the court has taken the law for a sharp turn to the ideological right, while at the same time masterfully concealing it. Virtually every empirical study confirms this rightward turn. Yet recent public opinion polls indicate Americans continue to see a bench that is, if anything, a wee bit too liberal.

How to explain the justices shoving the law rightward, while everyone thinks it is dead center or too far left? The answer is that Roberts is a brilliant magician. He and his four fellow conservative justices have worked some classic illusionist tricks to distract us from seeing the truth. Roberts is likely the first chief justice to understand that the message matters as much as the outcome. He has played his role with consummate skill, allowing the law to shape-shift before our very eyes, even as he and his fellow conservatives claim that nothing is happening.

How does the Roberts Court work its magic in that marble mega-mall of the law? Here, revealed, are the top tricks of the illusionist Roberts Court.”

The income gap expands again, likely leading to a further expansion in the wealth gap.

Total money taken home set to rise 4% for wall street execs, when performance at those institutions was down and wages remained flat & unemployment high everywhere else in the nation.

A sustained wealth gap will lead to a weaker economy over time as the unemployed and underpaid decrease the buying power of the U.S. citizen. While this is a political issue, it remains unsolved by congress.

Good Maddow segment on campaign spending and the wisdom of the Beltway crowd.

“American Crossroads met their fund-raising goal of $52 million last week and could raise as much as $70 million on campaign ads. some of which what they raise requires no disclosure whatsoever. What has been disclosed has been hilarious. in the part of their funds that they disclose, more than 90% of their money came from three people, three — count them — three individual billionaires.

The New York Times reporting today that last week Mr. Rove and Mr. Gillespie, quote, received a check for several million dollars from a single donor whom they declined to identify naturally. nor are they required to identify this person. This anonymous funding thing is the same charge that the Obama administration is levying right now against the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce not only does not disclose their donors, but they’re known to receive foreign money and so far the only assurance they’ve offered regarding foreign money doesn’t end up paying for the ads they’re running. [...]

The end result of the sustained White House campaign against the Chamber of Commerce, against this funding stuff, came in a letter from the Chamber obtained by the New York Times today, quote, ‘the Chamber will not be silenced. in fact, for the next three weeks leading up to election day you will see us ramp up our efforts.’[...]

As Democrats start to make an issue out of this, about this thing that is new in American elections, you can see the Beltway common wisdom about it forming. you can see it right now today. You can see this common wisdom form, actually this isn’t an issue Democrats should be talking about. This isn’t a good thing for Democrats to talk about in this election. Keep hearing that today from Beltway pundits. you know, sometimes when they’re giving that advice, it’s not because they think the punch being thrown against them won’t hurt them. It’s because they just want to stop being punched.”

(transcript greatly edited for clarity/brevity – the show segment is 12 mins long)

What bailouts and stimulus dollars can do for you (if you are Barney Frank that is).
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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1288443
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“U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, immersed in one of the toughest political fights of his career, took a free private jet to the Virgin Islands courtesy of a Maine congresswoman’s billionaire fiance — whose company received a $200 million federal bailout, the Herald has learned.

it remains unsolved by congress
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And people remain clueless about the effect this causes in their lives and continue to fall for the falsehoods that make them vote against their best interests. The propaganda points have taken root and the disintegration of the middle class continues.

“”Under the stewardship of its boyish chief justice, John Roberts, the court has taken the law for a sharp turn to the ideological right, while at the same time masterfully concealing it. Virtually every empirical study confirms this rightward turn”
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“Boyish”? I wonder if the NYT will call Santomayor portly when they describe her? Not likely. “Virtually every study” follows that empirical every economist agrees sleight of hand.

Could it be not a sleight of hand or magic but simply interpreting the law? Sleight of hand is finding abortion right in a penumbra of the Constitution. And as Americans seeing it as too liberal, that is no surprise. What is happening is people want to be left alone and tire of laws that give rights or privileges to certain groups where none should exist.
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Not magic just respect for the law and common sense.

It’s voter fraud season, every season!

“It’s that time again, so prepare yourself for a barrage of conservatives carrying claims of voter fraud, and a credulous media repeating each and every claim as fact.

Wisconsin has been a long-time target of conservatives, and now we’ve added Illinois.

There are two kinds of people who care about the actual voting process. There are conservatives, who look for fraud, and there are liberals, who worry about access. Conservatives believe that one fraudulent vote is one too many. Liberals believe just as strongly that one disenfranchised voter is one too many. There’s no middle ground. It’s adversarial.

Major media have completely adopted the conservative view, and there is virtually no mainstream discussion of the fact that conservative efforts to limit fraud disenfranchise voters. We’ve all decided as a country that we will sacrifice a certain number of legitimate voters to mollify conservative fears about fraud. That’s unacceptable to people who care about access, and we’re not rolling over any time soon.”

“So prepare yourself for a barrage of conservatives carrying claims of voter fraud.”

“In a private phone conversation that was secretly recorded, Mark Kirk, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois, told state Republican leaders last week about his plan to send ‘voter integrity’ squads to four predominately African American neighborhoods of Chicago ‘where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat.’

Kirk’s campaign confirmed the candidate was secretly taped last week as he was talking about his anti-voter fraud effort.

‘These are lawyers and other people that will be deployed in key, vulnerable precincts, for example, South and West sides of Chicago, Rockford, Metro East, where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat,’ he said in the audio posted on YouTube.

As TPMMuckraker has reported, accusations from conservatives that ineligible voters are fraudulently stealing elections for Democrats have continued to fly in the 2010 campaign cycle, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud. “Voter fraud” has been the rally cry for conservative groups seeking to make it more difficult to cast ballots and suppress minority voter turnout. In particular this election cycle, Tea Party groups have taken up the issue, and Democratic groups have called for assurances that poll watchers trained by such groups are clear on polling station rules.”

To me, ‘Grifter’ is a perfect descriptor for Palin.

“SarahPAC raised $1.2 million by spending $1 million on fundraising expenses and consultants. Since she can’t raise serious cash, and since she must fly everywhere in a private jet, her endorsees end up paying big bills:

[Georgia candidate for Governor] Handel paid nearly $100,000 to bring Palin to an August rally ahead of a crucial runoff in the race. According to newly filed campaign reports with the state Elections Commission, Handel’s campaign paid $92,000 to an Ohio-based air charter to fly Palin to the Aug. 9 rally. The campaign also paid $13,000 to rent space at a local hotel to house the event. Handel narrowly lost the GOP nomination to Nathan Deal on Aug. 10.

The only logical conclusion is that we need this kind of fiscal prowess in DC to help us cut the deficit.”

(apologies for teh ded kittah)

MURDERER!!!!

Also, too:
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[Enough of Rove's false equivalency nonsense, as well]
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“Rove’s claims passed largely unchallenged, but let’s take them one by one. The comparison to the Center for American Progress is absurd, because it does not and has never run campaign ads. The League of Conservation Voters has only spent a paltry $1.3 million this cycle — an infinitesimal fraction of the right’s spending. It pays for ads out of several committees. Nearly half of LCV’s spending came from a committee that does, in fact, disclose its donors, according to a group spokesman.

LCV does also spend for ads out of a 501 c4, which doesn’t disclose donors, but there’s substantial donor overlap between the two committee, so we already have a very good idea of who they are. The Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund is also a 501 c4, and doesn’t disclose.

But even so, Rove’s assertions about these groups are still absurd, because we already know what their issue positions and agendas are. What’s more, Obama and Dems tried to pass the DISCLOSE Act this summer — which would have forced such organizations to disclose their donors.”

Fenty and Rhee shoulda never thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

“Not sure what you complaining about, Rusty. To the extent that the Republican goal appears to have been to ensure that the stimulus would be small enough to be ineffective”

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Now if I am not mistaken, Pel, the Democrats have had huge majorities in both the House and Senate. The Stimulus was their’s and their’s only to determine, right? The Republicans had little to no say what-so-ever. Your argument is definitely a straw-man argument if we have ever heard one.
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And Krugman, he is an expert on “Krugman is known in academia for his work on international economics (including trade theory, economic geography, and international finance)”. Somehow he isn’t someone we should be consulting on whether a stimulus package was big enough. He simply doesn’t know anymore than I do on this subject, now does he Pel?

Led by that ideological lightweight, Clarence Thomas….
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I could swear, the guy simply takes up bench space.

Tell ol’ Pharoah | Let my people go

“Reflecting on the ACA, [GOP candidate Scott] Bruun told a group of voters a few days ago, ‘You know, when we look at this health care legislation, I would argue that from a fiscal perspective, it’s probably the worst piece of legislation this nation’s ever passed . From a social perspective, it’s right up there, I would argue — probably the fugitive slave law was worse — but still, the health care bill was pretty darned bad.’ [...]

…as far as this congressional candidate is concerned, health care reform is ‘probably’ better than the fugitive slave act.

This is the kind of policy analysis one might expect from an unhinged right-wing blogger, or a deranged radio-show host, but Scott Bruun is currently seeking federal office — and enjoys the enthusiastic support of his party, despite (because of?) his extremism.”

Bringing Chicago politics back to Chicago, Rahm-style!!
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“…but still, the health care bill was pretty darned bad.”

“The four largest U.S. for-profit health insurers on average denied policies to one out of every seven applicants based on their prior medical history, according to a congressional investigation released Tuesday.

Two top House Democrats said the findings covered 2007 to 2009 for Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and WellPoint Inc. In total, the carriers denied coverage to more than 651,000 people due to pre-existing medical conditions over the three-year period.

Under the health-care overhaul legislation, beginning in 2014 insurers can no longer deny coverage because of a pre-existing health condition. [...]

In some cases, customers can enroll in a policy but aren’t covered for ailments that predate the enrollment. During the three-year period, the four carriers together declined to pay 212,800 medical claims for that reason, the report found.

In a separate report released Tuesday, the lawmakers found that women who are pregnant, fathers-to-be and those attempting to adopt children are generally unable to buy policies on the individual insurance market.”

“What did I miss?”
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Tom Coburn on health care reform:

Sen. Coburn Predicts The End Of Private Health Insurance
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Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) — a vocal opponent of health care reform — made several apocalyptic predictions about the U.S. health care system during an appearance at the Republican Women’s Club of Tulsa County on Tuesday:
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“There will be no insurance industry left in three years,” Coburn told the Republican Women’s Club of Tulsa County.
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“That is by design. You’re going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone — which is what they want. Because if there’s no private insurance left, what’s left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care.”
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Coburn apparently based his prediction on reported hikes in private insurance premiums, increases he attributed to the new law. [...]
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Coburn, facing re-election on Nov. 2, said it will be “the beginning of the end of America” if the reform bill’s so-called individual mandate is not revoked or thrown out by the courts.

This is precisely the kind of incompetent incoherence that defines the unreality-based modern GOP.
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1) Say the opposite of the case, i.e. that Tom Daschle and Bob Dole’s “design” implemented by the fiat of centrist, establishment Democrats is specifically meant to end private insurance
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2) Call for a repeal of the one pillar of Obama’s “reform” that the private health insurance industry declares is necessary for their continued existence, i.e. the individual mandate
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3) Proclaim that, if the law that forces people to buy over-priced, inadequate, regulation-gaming insurance from private state-based oligopolies is not revoked, the result will somehow be the extension of Medicare to everybody
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So, if we don’t stop forcing people to buy private insurance, it will inevitably lead to an end to private insurance, at least according to the savant Tom Coburn.
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Only centrist, establishment Democrats could lose to arguments like this. Only ideologues like the ones currently running the Democratic Party could obsess over “bipartisan” compromise with the party of Coburns.
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At this point, liberal Democrats shouldn’t be engaged in the doomed fight to keep their establishment from being routed by the GOP, we should be fighting as hard as we can to replace the Dems we have with those who won’t capitulate to Tom Coburn’s idea of policy when the Republicans win again.
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It’s not keeping the Republicans out of power that we have to worry about. It’s keeping centrist Dems from compromising our country down the toilet when the Republicans inevitably take power that should be our primary concern.

And this is the brilliant Harvard grad who everyone on the left has placed up on a pedestal. Problem is, he’s dumber than a clock.
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“I’ve been surprised by how the news cycle here in Washington is focused on what happens this minute, as opposed to what needs to happen over the course of months, years,” Obama told the crowd at George Washington University. “The 24-hour news cycle is just so lightning fast and the attention span I think is so short that sometimes it’s difficult to keep everybody focused on the long term.”

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Ahhhh….perhaps it is because you, Mr President, dumb-$hit, are on the TV non-stop, everyday, every minute. Did ya ever think of that, Einstein?
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/10/obama-247-media-makes-it-hard-to-focus-on-the-long-term/1

News from the Tea Party!
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The next time you pop open a can of Campbell’s vegetarian soup, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that you are consuming jihadi-sanctified food.
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Campbell’s soup hates America. Go figure.
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http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147499232

In another episode of liberal unintended consequences: The perfect storm is now approaching an already battered US economy. The religious cult of global warming along with farming interests convinced Congress that salvation was available by mandating ethanol (from corn) as an additive to gasoline.
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So we have taken precious acreage for a food and food product and used it in fuels boosting demand and prices of all three. Corn prices in the past 2 days have risen over 11.5% as USDA announced the yield for corn harvest will fall putting the inventories at lowest levels in years. One can now expect cereals, beef (corn fed) and other corn food products to rise. Gasoline prices will rise. Oh and for good measure the weak dollar makes it quite attractive for other countries to come in and buy corn for their use further increasing US price for corn products.

US citizens won’t have to wait to see if global warming is real and will destroy them. They may starve well before then.

‘Shocking’ corn prices: the other rising gold market

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Reformed-Broker/2010/1013/Shocking-corn-prices-the-other-rising-gold-market

“…China, Brazil, and India. They are loving every minute of this.”

“Surely the role of a “smart” government—investing in the infrastructure and social capital necessary for long-term competitive success while setting reasoned rules to insure competition and fair play, and limit risk of over-leveraged excess in the market—would make sense to people. Could we not agree that the current demand-side crisis—with an effective unemployment rate hovering in the low teens and corporations sitting on close to $2 trillion of cash—requires another stimulus of some significant magnitude to put the 20 million unemployed back to work? And could we not also recognize that as soon as the economy stabilized, we would have to take dramatic action to restore sanity to entitlement programs that are simply unaffordable over a 25-year time horizon? Can we not oppose bonus bailouts and bridges to nowhere without opposing building the modern equivalent of the Erie Canal or the interstate highway system—the critical tunnel between New Jersey and New York, for instance?

Unfortunately, it appears not.[...]

We had better face up to a stark and uncomfortable reality: The clock is running out on our status as the world’s dominant political and economic power. Platitudes, make believe, and hoping it will be so are not going to carry us any further.”

As opposed to what the vast majority of Democrats voted into the health care law stuart? You mean the entire Dem Caucus in the Senate is nothing but those so-called Centrist Dems you obsess about? Give me a break.
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The only thing a government, single payer, universal healthcare plan will bring about is another failed government program just like the US Post Office.
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Government health programs around the world are failing. Britain’s programs is ready to collapse. Canada’s program is ready to collapse on itself.
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We need to repeal the current health care program, institute free market based principles and allow competition to bring the cost of health care down.
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We need to abolish the trial lawyers, and make it illegal for them to bring about frivolous lawsuits that have made mega-millionaires out of the likes of John Edwards.
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We can pass legislation which drives down the cost of medications, the single most expensive health care cost in America by opening up our markets to foreign drug manufacturers and distributors.
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America does not need another Post Office. We already have that nightmare of a failure.

Everything old is new again. Looks like the GOP is going with Operation Eagle Eye. Again.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Eye_%28United_States%29

SZ:

It’s keeping centrist Dems from compromising our country down the toilet when the Republicans inevitably take power that should be our primary concern”

Will all respect with the antics of the past 2 years of progressive Democrats we already started circling the drain.
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But let’s be hones about 2 things: the HC bill as written is a bolux and the intent of the left is a government run system. The we can have an honest debate.
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Over the years Obama was for it there not sure then it was politically not viable. Meaning this is a wish list for the left but as we see with these elections not so much for America

Part 5, “Foreclosure Fraud for Dummies”

“Here’s a guess: In one month, the large banks will conclude that there are no problems with its foreclosure processes. The massive fraud that was committed on the courts was the result of a few bad apples, but those are now gone and it’s back to business as normal.

At this point, either as a citizen or as a financial market participant, would there be any reason to believe them? Is there any reason to believe that the servicer and foreclosure mill fraud is over? That securitizations actually have the proper legal documentation necessary? That borrowers and lenders are actually getting a chance to come to mutually beneficials situations? Is there any reason to believe they aren’t lying?

Because servicers aren’t currently regulated. They have a patchwork of state regulators and the OCC may regulate their parent company if it is a bank or thrift, but there’s no current government agent to provide any accountability here. So without action, there’s going to be no one to confirm or deny that anything has actually changed in the housing market.”

Obama’s greatest weakness is his ability to be a poker player/negotiator. He ALWAYS blinks too early. And the Republicans ALWAYS get whatever they want because the Democrats start from a position of “caved to Republican pressure” before they even start.

“During the George W. Bush presidency, marginal rates were cut, the budget was left with a severe structural deficit, only about 1 million jobs were created, and we descended into an economic cataclysm. ”
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Eliot Spitzer should stick to threatening and extorting settlements from firms or calling up hookers than engage in economic analysis. Just as when he was AG he was prolific at making accusations but he never won in court when facts had t be presented.
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In his often repeated liberal diatribe about Bush he manages to leave out 2 minor realities; the recession Bush inherited from Clinton and shortly thereafter the 9/11 attack. And just like liberal lore for the CLinton administration all of the mention is higher taxes not that a Republican Congress restrained the liberal largess.

Apparently, reports on why a criminal illegal aliens that did not have a deportation hearing for over 2 years is a matter of national security.
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There goes that most transparent administration again

“The Obama administration will not release the results of an investigation into why an illegal immigrant with two drunken-driving convictions went almost two years without a deportation hearing before a crash that killed a nun, a senior official said.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101206295_2.html

“As Democrats start to make an issue out of this, about this thing that is new in American elections”

During the 2003-2004 presidential primary season, however, Gibbs worked as the spokesman for a liberal advocacy group that ran attack ads against then-Democratic candidate Howard Dean. The “secretive” group, called Americans for Jobs, Health Care & Progressive Values, spent months organizing scathing ads without disclosing who was paying for them.
The organization’s Treasurer, David Jones, refused.

“We will disclose donors when the law requires,” Jones was quoted as saying in The New York Time

Pot meet kettle

m0mentom0ri:

Folks that work with me often ask why I’m laughing for no apparent reason during lunch break. This time I was laughing so hard, I actually sprinkled the keyboard with Dr. Pepper (no harm done, cleaned up nicely). Thanks for the moment of levity.
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So, does this mean that, as a loyal American, I can still eat Campbell’s Bean with Bacon? Please let me know!

hahahahah mr 19.1 i’m in the same boat! in the same news the zionist conspiracy has it’s hand in the Kosher food certification process!

…Just as when he was AG he was prolific at making accusations but he never won in court when facts had t be presented…
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cases_of_Attorney_General_Eliot_Spitzer
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…the recession Bush inherited from Clinton…
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession#United_States

“Median house prices have dropped 20 percent since 2005. Given an inflation rate of about 2 percent — a common forecast — it would take 13 years for housing prices to climb back to their peak, according to Allen L. Sinai, chief global economist at the consulting firm Decision Economics.”
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I wonder why you publish this considering you are one of the most prolific posters of the mess the housing bubble created. You know all those low income people who purchased housing and drove the price up. All that easy money out there.
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Frankly I do not see higher housing prices as a good thing, for one thing it raises my taxes, for another it prevents some from owning.

“At this point, liberal Democrats shouldn’t be engaged in the doomed fight to keep their establishment from being routed by the GOP, we should be fighting as hard as we can to replace the Dems we have with those who won’t capitulate to Tom Coburn’s idea of policy when the Republicans win again.
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It’s not keeping the Republicans out of power that we have to worry about. It’s keeping centrist Dems from compromising our country down the toilet when the Republicans inevitably take power that should be our primary concern.”
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I would think that our primary concern would be to support our Representative form of Government. You know the one where people elect their representatives.
Just a thought.

I have an honest question for you freeinpa. At some point I recall reading that the USA can produce enough produce to feed the entire world. One statistic I could dig up is we produce 44% of all the corn in the world. Surely we can spare some corn from food production then to augment dwindling fossil fuel supplies? Personally, I would rather a hike in the cost of the food I eat grown right here where the money will go to an American, rather than continue dependence on fuel from hostile nations.

squirmz: I am in my 50s, and what strikes me about the wingers are how old and re-used their most wacky ideas really are. Ideas that I hoped were discredited years ago.
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You are absolutely right, substitute “Kosher” for “Halal” in the article and use the same stupidity to “justify” belief in the “Zionist conspiracy”.

In my opinion, and knowing I don’t have the degrees or background to make this prediction, the trends in wealth distribution are likely leading to an “invisible” American Aristocracy, if we aren’t already there.
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The disillusionment with labor movements and the aftertaste of corruption have robbed the common man of any buying power in the labor market.
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I remain unconvinced that a solution could even come from the government. It would take a push from the bottom & a social awareness at the top that simply doesn’t exist. The government, in the mean time by not doing anything to fix the fundamentals of where these problems arise from is only enabling it & sensationalists only ensure the steady eroding of our economy’s base.

“Ten firms paid fines to settle the case: Bear Stearns, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney, UBS Warburg.”- all NYC based firms that contributed to his elections. no prosecutions

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Spitzer secured more than one billion dollars in fines and remuneration for investors as well as forcing reforms to further enforce pre-existing bans on late trading.
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The court ruled that Grasso was entitled to the entirety of his compensation (lost)
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Spitzer declined to bring any criminal charges against Greenberg, and two of the civil charges were dropped in September 2006.[1] Four civil charges, ‘the heart of the case’, remain outstanding. (lost)
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Spitzer threatened, “Mr. Whitehead, it’s now a war between us and you’ve fired the first shot. I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done. You will wish you had never written that letter. Spitzer has denied the allegation.

Liberal unintended consequences?

Yet even after ethanol has siphoned $7 billion from the federal treasury, the mighty ethanol subsidies still flow. Why? Ethanol’s survival has nothing to do with economics or the environment and everything to do with political muscle. Almost 70 percent of ethanol is produced by America’s premier agri-giant, Archer Daniels Midland. ADM, the self-proclaimed “supermarket to the world,” has spent a small fortune on farming Capitol Hill over the past 20 years. Through programs like ethanol and sugar price supports, it has reaped a profitable harvest from taxpayers. In fact, an estimated 40 percent of ADM’s profits come from government-subsidized products.

I never realized that giant corporate conglomerates such as ADM were liberal. Who knew?
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http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6123

“discredited” and “still used” are not mutually exclusive i guess.

Do any of you folks know anything about a conservative gathering Thanksgiving weekend in Washington DC? I’m thinking it’s a conservative Christian gathering, maybe a demonstration or showing at the Capitol?

Another reason to hate Andy Warhol.

“Surely we can spare some corn from food production then to augment dwindling fossil fuel supplies?”
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See here’s is the problem with that assumption. On the surface it may you leave warm and fuzzy but the hard reality leaves you hungry and poor. To meet these EPA mandated guidelines, we use 1/3 of our corn crop for ethanol which offsets on 3% of our oil consumption. Another drawback of ethanol is that it is not as efficient a fuel which means consumption is higher (more oil). Also the added energy to transport and process corn requires nearly the same energy as as saved. So we deplete the land, save little in the way of energy while increasing the cost of food and energy for consumers.

That is the unintended consequences of liberal policies.
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“I never realized that giant corporate conglomerates such as ADM were liberal. Who knew?”
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diecash1 thank you for another rendition of your knee jerk stupidity. No where did I say ADM was liberal. Yes they were the beneficiary (I guess you could bash ADM now for greed) of the result of pushing for using ethanol. Let;’s face the Dept of Ag. could not issue regulations to force the use of ethanol it was the EPA at the behest of the left.

“Another reason to hate Andy Warhol”

You need more?

Conservative AND Christian? Is this a new development? Did you mean conservative and fake Christian?

Right back to insults and stupidity I see. Do you think that funding for ethanol occurred in a vacuum? ADM et al. lobbied for such largesse and, like many large corporations with powerful lobbies, they got it. How you conclude that that is liberal, we’ll never know.

“we’ll never know”
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The sum and substance of your life.

says the godless liberals LOL

Angry, old and embittered is no way to go through life.
..
This has been a public service announcement. You may now return to your hateful rants.

Anyone connect the dots yet?????

That’s one of the good things about being an admitted atheist. We don’t have to pretend to be christians. We may do things that are christian-like, but we don’t have to dress up on Sunday mornings for the show aspect of seeing and being seen.

“Angry, old and embittered is no way to go through life.
..
This has been a public service announcement. You may now return to your hateful rants.”
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Since I am none I am assuming you are discussing yourself. You should as clueless since you still believe that ADM has sway over the EPA. It must be the corporate conspiracy that has the bat crap crazy left abuzz today.

Yeah but you miss the fried chicken lunches afterward

Some back ground information on the rise of ethanol in the U.S. and ADM’s role in it. Hardly the doing of “liberals.”

Ethanol Subsidies: ADM’s Corporate Welfare Windfall
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Critics say ADM’s controlling position in the ethanol market, and the industry’s overall growth have relied heavily on a complex, multi-tiered subsidy regime. With corn and other commodities subject to volatile price swings, along with thin operating margins, ethanol is a speculative and risky business. The company created a range of political initiatives – including large political contributions to both parties, the placement of allies in key government positions, the creation and support of aggressive trade associations including the Farm Bureau, commodity groups (such as the Corn Refiners Association) and related foundations and connections to important media sectors along with heavy advertising campaigns. (Nicholas Hollis, “Ethanol Subsidies for ADM & Other Corporate Kleptomaniacs Will Not Solve Energy Crisis,” Agribusiness Examiner # 373, 9/30/04. at http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/klepto093004.cfm)
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The push to jumpstart ethanol production began in the late 1970s, in response to rising oil prices. According to a report by the libertarian Cato Institute, then-ADM CEO Dwayne Andreas (a major donor to both Democratic and Republican parties) approached President Carter in 1978 with a proposal to accelerate the country’s energy independence by creating a large tax break for ethanol production. (James Bovard, “Archer Daniels Midland: A Case Study in Corporate Welfare,” Cato Institute, September 26, 1995 – at http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html) With Carter’s support, the Energy Tax Act of 1978 exempted gasohol (gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol) from the 4 cents per gallon federal excise tax.
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In addition, Andreas lobbied Carter for government-backed loans for ethanol plants and a stiff tariff on Brazilian ethanol (derived from sugar) – ethanol’s biggest competitor. Carter did both – announcing $340 million in loans for new ethanol plants. (Tom Philpott, “How cash and corporate pressure pushed ethanol to the fore,” Grist, December 6, 2006. Available at: http://www.grist.org/article/ADM1)

Read the entire article here:
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http://community.corpwatch.org/adm/pages/ethanol_adm.php

“Yeah but you miss the fried chicken lunches afterward”
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You got that right. My wife has a cookbook called “Taste of Home-Church Suppers” and some of the recipes in it are great. They’re mostly down home meals that readers have sent in and I think I could live off the meals. Most are fairly simple to make and are the kind of dishes that you make over and over again. She made one a few days ago (green bean casserole with crumbled bacon on top) that I practically inhaled. I didn’t want a spoon, I wanted a shovel.

19.1 – doddeb,
“Dr. Pepper (no harm done, cleaned up nicely). Thanks for the moment of levity.”
How dare you drink that un-American beverige – and then laugh!
Don’t you know there’s a boycott on?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/undergod.asp