So Ya Want the Gubmint To Run Things?

Is there anyone out there who is disposed towards letting the government take care of business? If so, then this is what you can expect from bureaucrats.

It happened this morning.

We have a retired trooper working in our office, a BCI Senior Investigator who now works as a part time investigator for us. He tracks down deadbeat dads so the Court can force them to pay child support. If this work isn't done, the families of these deadbeats end up on public assistance and we have to support them. He's been finding deadbeats for over eight years now and has brought in well over a million dollars in child support to the County. He does this for 20 grand a year provided by a NYS grant that reimburses the County for his services. The annual return on investment for his salary is about 1100%.

Until now.

His contact expired because New York State refused to renew the funding. After months of inquiries and red tape, the County finally stopped the program and with that, the deadbeat dad enforcement came to an end. This was the most successful child support enforcement program in Upstate New York and ... kaput. No one could figure out how such a successful program that more then paid for itself could be allowed to die on the vine.

At any rate, the Office planned a final retirement party for the investigator. He cleaned out his desk this morning and we had quite a spread for him in the law library. There was lots of comfort food and we all got a chance to say goodbye.

I went back to my office and shortly thereafter I heard one of the other investigators use the PA to announce that his contract was approved and that we were stuck with him for another year.
I thought they were just busting his balls; they do that often. They weren't.

This morning a person at the Department of Social Services called the state (I won't say what department) and asked what they should do with some open cases now that we no longer had an investigator to manage them. The state bureaucrat asked what happened and when told that the funding had dried up, responded that it is a mistake, the funds were approved and have been available. Our DSS clerk got off the phone with the state and called our office immediately.

One hand has no idea what the other is doing. Months of misinformation because no one at the state level cared enough to let someone else know what was going on, too lazy to make a phone call or fire off an email.

So who wants bureaucrats to handle your health care, the banking industry, the automobile industry, or anything else? You should handle your own affairs because you the only one that really gives a damn about the end results. Some idiot in Albany or New York City or DC is not going to go out of their way to help you.

Not all bureaucrats are useless; but I still remember about seven years ago trying to get the IRS to tell me what happened to my $1,000 tax over payment check that I never received. I spent three days, between two and two and a half hours each day, being put on hold for thirty-forty minutes at a time, getting hung up on, having rude idiots cut me off in mid sentence with senseless suggestions, dealing with touch tone menus that went no where before I finally got a young woman who eventually did help me. After that I never, ever let the IRS owe me a dime.

Jackasses sitting behind a desk will ultimately be the ruination of this country in concert with the politicians who created these jobs.

Spain, The New Fwance

Spain is considering whether or not to indict six American advisors under the Bush administration for ... advising the people in charge, elected officials. These men were not decisionmakers, these were men who may or may not have agreed with foreign policy decisions made by the people they were hired to advise. WTH?

This story was from a NY Times source but I refuse to link to it because the flaming useless asshats at the Slimes refused to acknowledge that the Spanish human rights lawyer pushing this abortion prosecution, Gonzalo Boye, served eight years in a Spanish prison for:

collaboration with the ETA (Spanish terrorist Group) for his participation in the kidnapping of a Spanish well know businessman (Emiliano Revilla). At the time He was a member of the Terrorist group MIR from Chile!

There you go. A terrorist trying to get American anti-terrorists indicted. And a Spanish judge says "Sure, go for it." News Daily reports that the judge Baltasar

Garzon has accepted the case and sent it to the prosecutor's office for review, the newspaper said, citing an official close to the case.

Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy, is one of those being considered for criminal charges. He was on the O'Reilly Factor tonight and considers the whole thing to be nothing more than Spanish grandstanding. Feith was the one who came out with the eight year prison sentence for Boye.

It seems that Spain shat itself after the Madrid train station bombing and is still running scared.

Boycott Spain. We did it to Fwance and we can do it to the turd eating Spaniards. We have a huge naval base in Rota, Spain. Let these idiots know that the location of this base is now in play.

Grandpa Redux

Our oldest daughter just told us tonight that she is pregnant again.
Number 4.

We are all tickled pink. She is a little nervous as she will be 39 next month and this was not planned, but she is in very good physical health and is an RN - she knows the risks and how to take care of herself.

Her husband will be the the same age as I was when my last daughter was born almost seventeen years ago. May God be praised!

Our New Deputy Treasury Secretary

From the DC Examiner:

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry owed the federal government $277,688 in back taxes as of Jan. 8, according to a new court filing from federal prosecutors, who are seeking jail time for the former mayor.

Prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service on Thursday documented for the first time the amount of taxes that Barry, D-Ward 8, has failed to pay over the course of the past nine years. The IRS is currently garnishing Barry’s paycheck of $1,350 every two weeks, but he still owes more than a quarter million dollars, including penalties and interest.

He can start tomorrow and his philosophy of personal responsibility will fit right in with the present Secretary of the Treasury Geithner. The former Mayor of Washington, DC, just has to get permission from his probation officer to change jobs.

[...] Barry is currently on probation for failing to file from 1999 to 2004. He has failed to file his federal and D.C. returns on time in eight of the last nine years.

Our New Deputy Secretary of the Treasury

Afghani Style Aloha

From Reuters:

KABUL, March 26 (Reuters) - A would-be suicide bomber accidentally blew himself up on Thursday, killing six other militants as he was bidding them farewell to leave for his intended target, the Interior Ministry said.

"The terrorist was on his way to his destination and saying good-bye to his associates and then his suicide vest exploded," a statement from the ministry said.

I hope it was a group hug that did it.

This Legislator Gets it

Unfortunately he is not an America politician, he is English.



UPDATE
He was just on tonight's Hannity Show. He really has some incredible insight based on England's destructive experience with socialist economic decision making.

Money line: "You can't borrow your way out of debt."

A Letter Sent To My Elected Representatives

Sen. Chuck Schumer

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

Rep. Dan Maffei

Enough is enough. You people just can't print money fast enough so you can piss it away. The programs sought in Senate Bill 277 (your HR 1388) are nothing more than another welfare give away disguised as a "competitive" (which means directed towards whatever groups you decide to direct the taxpayer's largesse) award.

What we need is the private sector producing jobs, generating capital/wealth and then producing more jobs rather than you amateurs in DC deciding to penalize the most productive people in our great nation and then penalizing my children and grandchildren with exorbitant taxes long after I'm in the grave.

YOU politicians caused the current economic crisis with your insistence on giving loans to the people most likely to default on them, accepting campaign contributions from these greedy financial institutions, refusing to regulate them, ignoring laws written after the Great Depression to prevent a return of economic ruin and then ignoring the warning signs that the whole lousy deck of cards was falling down.

You think I am unaware of Rep. Frank's ringing endorsement of Fannie Mae, his poohpoohing of dire warnings about its imminent collapse? You indeed must think me a fool, a dunderhead, just another jackass that will swallow whatever you feed me.

Now you lie and point fingers at each other while approving the appointment of tax cheats and frauds to promulgate more destructive economic policies in your never ending quest for votes. Damn you all to hell! Damn you!

You make me sick. I am out of patience with your profligate spending with no end in sight. You are disgusting and insulting - you think we are all idiots - your hubris, your incompetence, your corrupt stench reaches to the Heavens. You're like juvenile fools in a toy store, dropping and breaking and expecting the adults to clean up and pay for your mess.

What are you going to tell the taxpayers when all this public debt forces the US to become a begger among nations? That the dog ate your economic policy?

For years my wife and I scrimped and saved on a single salary - a policeman's salary - doing without in order to be fiscally responsible, to make sure we had the time to be good parents to our children. And praying to God that nothing broke that I couldn't fix. I worked two, sometimes three jobs.

We went out to a nice dinner when someone gave us a restaurant certificate as an anniversary gift. It was well worth the sacrifice and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But only for my family! Not for the army of deadbeats, dropouts, criminals, fellow politicians, cronies and your campaign contributors that you want me to support! No more!

I contrast what I and many others like me have put up with in order to live quiet, productive lives. And by quiet I mean invisible to the likes of you. I am not a rabble rouser, not a right wing radical. I just want my government to leave me alone and let me take care of my own. I do not want your help! Your intrusive "help giving" is what started this mess!

Over the decades I have witnessed the never ending parade of pork that flies out of the Treasury and I have reached the conclusion that YOU are the greatest threat this Country faces. Not the Arabs, not the Islamists, not the Persians, not the illegals; neither warming nor cooling nor the commies nor carbon nor the criminally insane.

You and you alone are the greatest threat to the freedoms I am guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. And I do not view your threat lightly.

I demand you stop this insane spending and the social experimentation that is ruining this land!!I am at the end of my patience.

Make This Go Viral

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault.

They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red .

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ . If they
do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

Thanks and a big H/T to Black & Right

Pond Scum Alert

This piece of excrement deserves to be tormented in the lowest, foulest dungeon cell before he is lead away to be slowly disemboweled - piece by piece. This man preyed on men and women dying from various diseases and scammed them in to giving him tens of thousands of dollars to arrange for organ transplants that never took place.

From Syracuse.com:

Syracuse, NY -- A Canadian woman whose husband was dying of liver failure wired $70,000 to a DeWitt bank to pay for a life-saving transplant in the Philippines. But when he flew to the hospital, he learned that the doctor who was to perform the surgery didn't exist. The husband died in the Philippines several weeks later, after piling up an additional $20,000 in legitimate medical bills at another hospital.

That was one account that helped a grand jury in Syracuse indict Jerome Feldman, who was captured recently in the Philippines and should arrive in Central New York within a few weeks.

At least $400,000 was wired to Feldman's account at Chase Bank in DeWitt by people duped into believing they were paying for organ transplants, federal investigators said.

Feldman has Central New York ties, they said. While living as a fugitive in the Philippines, Feldman was trolling the Internet for more victims needing transplants, the FBI said.

The critically ill victims would wire him money and fly to the Philippines, where some died waiting for surgeries that were never scheduled to be performed by doctors who didn't exist.

When victims' family members pressed Feldman for refunds, he would cut off contact, investigators said.

My sister died while awaiting a liver transplant. Words fail me at the depths to which some people will go in order to make a fast buck.

We Were Warned

I don't know how long this will remain up. Per Lucianne.com it may already been pulled down by YouTube.

We're told this video was removed from YouTube. Now it's routed through Canada but not for long.

Okay Jon Stewart, you smug hypocrite.
On September 24, 2008, Barney Fwank is recorded as defending the financial stability of Fannie Mae while Republican leaders are warning of the consequences of bad investment policies. Where are you on this? When is Frank showing up on your show to get slapped around like that fool Cramer?

You can email Stewart at this address
http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtml

Let him know how much you appreciate his efforts in watching our backs.

And there's more. Here is a damning video that shows the special relationship with Fannie Mae and the Black Congressional Caucaus. They are called the "conscience of Fannie Mae."



I've gone back in and removed the cuss words from this post. There is nothing new here that I haven't heard before but I get so upset listening to it again and realizing that most people just don't care and that most of the media chose to ignore it completely while transmitting democratic lies about the causes of the current crisis and blaming Bush.

Then again, McCain and Bush never made the Democratic contributions to this crisis a campaign issue so they're idiots too.

I am soooo disgusted. Today is the second day I have taken off from work this week because of a bad chest cold. I should have gone to work hacking up lougies instead of getting my BP all crazy. And then, oh sweet Jesus, there is more...



And this crop of bullshit from the current NYS attorney general who in 1998 was working for Clinton defending the practice of aggressively pursuing bad loans to minorities...



I gotta go outside before I blow a gasket.

History Repeats Itself

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe takes Barney Frank to task for his role in the current economic crisis that is punishing millions of Americans. Barney Frank and a host of politicians, including Republicans, are attempting to throw a smokescreen around their role in this continuing debacle. What they refuse to admit is the government's insistence that bankers and other financial institutions make high risk loans to people who were most likely to default on them.

Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits -- many of whom have been learning lately just how pitiless the private sector’s discipline can be -- they weren't the ones who "got us into this mess." Barney Frank's talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn't wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so - or else.

The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.

I remember these same kinds of allegations being directed at local banks here in Central NY. And my reaction was the same as it is now. Are you kidding? You cannot make loans to people who probably will never pay you back. A gift is one thing; a loan is another. [Also, make sure you either go to the BG article or at least follow the links that Jeff makes~sig]

The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued.

With impeccable logic, Jacoby maintains that Rep. Frank's fingerprints are all over this fiasco.

Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.

Comedy Channel's John Stewart,the "Daily Show", humiliated Jim Cramer, "Mad Money," for not telling his viewers about investing companies that shortly went belly up. Why isn't Stewart all over Frank and Dodd and Geithner?

Look at the massive intrusion of the federal government into our economy since last September. And all of it was panic driven. And they were wrong.

The role the media has in protecting the bumbling architects of this mess is the same role played by the 1930's German media in protecting Hitler's NDAP - the National Democratic Worker's Party. Let's look take a few of them:

Boersin Zeitung-"Stock Exchange Journal"
Similar to our "Wall Street Journal", the Nazis took over the formerly Jewish run and owned Boerson Zeitung, which carried daily information about stock trading, business and economics. Editor, Walther Funk, had been appointed by Hitler's favor: he had been Hitler's 'economic tutor.'

Frankfurter Zeitung- The Frankfurt Times
With the Jewish owners dismissed, the Zeitung was taken over as an 'International' newspaper with German news, to please the Office for Foreign Affairs, although the Propaganda office and Foreign Affairs office where often in dispute regarding what to present to the foreign press.

The Völkische Beobachter
Edited by Rosenberg, the most popular paper overall in Nazi Germany was the Volkische Beobachter, or 'People Watcher'. It was completely submitted to Nazi Philosophy and attitude and because of the approval and sponsorship of the Reich, grew to be Munich number one daily newspaper. The VB had its inceptions before the rise to power of the Third Reich, but grew in eminence and along with Der Sturmer shared a paradoxical position: the two Hitler favored and the two Goebbels did not. Goebbels main complaint with the Vokische Beobachter was 'bad editing'.

How did the Nazi's do this? Someone asked the same question at a military forum sponsored by All Experts.com:

Expert: Paul Sutton - 8/6/2007

Question

hi paul can you answwer this for me. how did the hitler and the nazis control news, media and propaganda. can i have at least 4 control methods thanks bye

This question was posed a year and a half ago. The answer is troubling because you can clearly see the same things happening as a result of political correctness in American today. Of particular notice under the last election cycle, the Obama administration's handling of the economic crisis and the recent democratic push for the Fairness Doctrine. Then consider the activities of union thug vandalism, tire slashings and shots fired at Republican headquarters during the 2004 elections. These activities received almost no media attention compared to the negative media blitzkrieg surrounding Gov. Palin's nomination as vice president.

Answer

Greetings

There were many tactics to deal with newspapers, media and other propaganda. Once Hitler had power in 1933 a law was passed called the Reich Press Law of 1933. This law ordered editors not to publish (among other things) anything which tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich . . . or offends the honor and dignity of Germany. Using this law made Nazi actions legal under German Law. The how was Fear. Before the Nazi took over if a newspaper printed an article that was deemed not supporting the Nazi movement the Brown Shirts or SA would attack the newspaper. They would breaking and destroy equipment; they would harass paper boys and beat-up reporters of Newspaper not supporting the Nazi cause. This was before the Nazis had total power. Many Businessmen supported and they would put their advertisements in Nazi newspapers or Nazi supportive newspapers. Some Nazi supporters stopped selling supplies to non Nazi supporting newspapers. Without paper and ink it is hard to publish a newspaper. Once the Nazi took over many smaller newspaper were merged with larger papers. This made it easier to monitor and control the existing paper. After 1933 any Jewish papers were either shut down by force or taken over after the old owners were forced out. Radio is even easier to control. Radio needs electricity to operate. Shut off the power you can make no money. Movies could only be made with the official Nazi okay. Hitler’s master of propaganda Goebbels used Radio and TV and moves to drive home ideals of the Nazi to the German people. Either people went along or they were killed put in camps or just fired. The Nazi appealed to the German people to join in their crusade. Many Germans believed and stopped listening to other ideas. Joseph Goebbels the Nazi propaganda minister was a very good talker or oratory. He had a way of speaking to the fears of the German people and it helped the Nazi party to gain control.

In summery the Nazi used thugs to intimate the papers before taking power. Two once the Nazi had power they shut down and merged most of the Newspapers of Germany. They would threaten to shut off power to Radio stations and had their own speakers such as Goebbels bend the will of the people. Movies were censored so that only the ideals of the Nazi party would be portrayed in a positive light.

I hope this helps and enjoy the links.

Not all of the links are still active.

There is no need to intimidate the main stream media as it is nothing but Obama's Glee Club singing praises to his glorious leadership.

Where are the camps you say? Terrorist Bill Ayers, one of Obama's political mentors and a supporter, planned exactly that. Read a political treatise written by Obama buddy Ayers and his terrorist cop killing associates; "Praire Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism." In part on the dedication page, this bit of commie filth, this socialist rant, was dedicated to the murderer of Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, who was viewed by Ayers as a political prisoner. None of this was properly vetted by the media before or since the 2008 presidential election. Instead, Ayers enjoys mild notoriety as a former 60's radical now turned congenial college professor. All because of favorable media attention. Again, compare this to the media treatment of Sara Palin and her family.

Go to this reproduction of a Dec. 11, 1933, Time magazine article (one of the links from Expert.com) describing how the German news services were co-opted and used to pollute other international news services such as the AP in the years leading up to WWII. German newspapers became party organs, much like today where the Democratic Party dictates what we will read through the news services used by local papers.

We can see the self censorship in movies and television that portray religious or politically conservative characters and businessmen as tyrants, perverts, and generally unpleasant and/or deluded persons. On the other hand the media portrays queers, liberals, illegal aliens, etc. as righteous victims of religious perverts, commercial interests and right wing government officials.

Public opinion is molded by the media and the battle to control the media is relentless. The liberals have for the most part won this fight. The fruits of victory include the incompetent terrorist-trained manipulator in the White House today.

The internet and talk radio are the last bastions of independence. If these are also swallowed up in government regulation and the thought police are given free rein, we have no choice but to go to underground communications networks.

Welcome to 21st Century Amerika. I am clinging like a crazy son of a bitch to my Bible and boomsticks.

R.I.P. Natasha Richardson

Natasha Richardson has died. She is the wife of Liam Neeson and her untimely death is such a shame, breaking the hearts of her husband of 14 years and two young sons.

Actress Natasha Richardson has died, a family spokesperson announced Wednesday evening. The 45-year-old mother of two and wife of actor Liam Neeson, succumbed to a head injury sustained during a skiing accident at Mont Tremblant.

"Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha," a statement issued by the family Wednesday evening said. "They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."

The New York City medical examiner's office reported on Thursday that Richardson died of blunt impact to the head and that her death was ruled an accident.

Her fatal head injury was incurred as a result of falling on the bunny slope; that is so sad.
The bunny slope ... nothing sounds safer than the bunny slope.
It should be illegal to die on a bunny slope.

Remember Sonny Bono's skiing death? In 1998 he died from head injuries suffered on an intermediate slope after hitting a tree.

Obama Backs Off

Vets across the country are relaxing after Obama and his puppet VA Cabinet minister have backed off from their demands that some vets pony up to pay for service related disabilities.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday abandoned a ontroversial plan to make veterans who have private insurance pay for treatment of combat-related injuries. Stung by the angry reactions of veterans, lawmakers and others, the White House made the decision after top administration officials met Wednesday with 11 veterans advocacy groups.

"Our voices were heard," said Norbert Ryan, the president of the Military Officers Association of America. "They made the right decision on this."

The smartest man in America? Not.
Even a drooling idiot would have seen that this was a no go from the get go.

The plan would have reversed a longstanding policy of providing government health care coverage for all service-related injuries. Most veterans now use private insurance only for health problems that are unrelated to their military service.

"This is a moral issue for us," said Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Leave it to a man who has never put his own checkbook on the line, much less his personal safety, to attack those who have given their all. This is outrageous; backstabbing American's war wounded in an area where many of them are weakest - personal finanaces. On top of that, most new insurance policies specifically preclude preexisting conditions and/or work related injuries.

And what did the red headed excrement have to say from the Presidential podium?

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the the plan had been intended to "maximize the resources available for veterans." But he said that Obama recognized the veterans' concerns that the proposal "might, under certain circumstances, affect veterans and their families' ability to access health care."

The Obama bean counters wanted to save about $540 million, so they went after community organizers? No.
Corrupt politicians? No.
Tax cheats? No.
Wounded vets? Yes.

Now that's change we can believe in.

It's Starting

HR 45 notwithstanding, the socialists in charge of the government are slowly turning the screws on gun owners by tightening the supply of ammunition. From Commentary:

Every year, the federal government buys massive amounts of ammunition, primarily to meet the needs of the military. For years, the government has been recouping part of its ammunition expenses by reselling the used casings to remanufacturers. In turn, these private companies take the used brass, clean it up, re-load it with powder and bullets, and sell it on the private market — largely to police departments, but to private individuals as well.

I used to "roll my own" so to speak, I reloaded my own ammo. Reloads are cheaper then new ammo as you don't need to buy the cartridge casing. Just punch out the old primer, resize it, and add new components.

Well, all that is changing. The Obama administration is changing the rules on re-selling used bullet casings. From now on, they cannot be sold for remanufacturing, but rather must be liquidated at scrap value. To guarantee used bullet casings cannot be re-used, they must be deformed beyond functionality.

These scrap items are small and cheap, but add up in bulk. Remanufacturers pay about five times what salvagers offer for the casings. The government is taking an 80% cut in revenues with this new rule — and that doesn’t count the extra effort and expense of mutilating the casings in the process.

The consequences of this change? Quite a few remanufacturers are cutting back business drastically, if not closing up shop entirely. In a time of economic crisis, this change of policy could destroy an entire industry.

Obama doesn't care about the economy, he cares about his agenda.

By removing a key element in the ammunition supply chain — the used casings — the Obama administration can, by a simple and unpublicized tweak in Defense Department policy, drive down the supply of ammunition. Even the most devout socialists must concede that the law of supply and demand is at work here: by drying up the supply of ammunition, the cost will go up. And guns with no ammunition are useless.

It isn’t just civilians who buy remanufactured ammunition. Police departments also buy and use it. So communities all across the nation will soon notice their police budgets going up as they have to purchase brand-new ammunition, at a significantly higher price.

In pursuit of his anti-firearm agenda, Obama did not need to pass any legislation. Just give some bureaucrat an order. The Shootist has more detail.

It is an end-run around Congress. They don't need to try to ban guns--they don't need to fight a massive battle to attempt gun registration, or limit "assault" weapon sales.Nope. All they have to do is limit the amount of ammunition available to the civilian market, and when bullets dry up, guns will be useless.

Think we jest?

The Shootist then lists copies of letters from the DoD to businesses that have a contract to buy the used military brass. This is one of two letters received by Georgia Arms, effectively cancelling it's contract to purchase 30,000 rounds of expended brass.

Dear Valued Customer:

Please take a moment to note important changes set forth by the Defense Logistics Agency:

Recently it has been determined that fired munitions of all calibers, shapes and sizes have been designated to be Demil code B. As a result and in conjunction with DLA's current Demil code B policy, this notice will serve as official notification which requires Scrap Venture (SV) to implement mutilation as a condition of sale for all sales of fired munitions effective immediately. This notice also requires SV to immediately cease delivery of any fired munitions that have been recently sold or on active term contracts, unless the material has been mutilated prior to sale or SV personnel can attest to the mutilation after delivery. A certificate of destruction is required in either case.

Thank you,

DOD Surplus
15051 N Kierland Blvd # 300
Scottsdale, AZ
85254

I guess Georgia Arms is no longer a "Valued Customer" under the Obama business plan. Georgia Arms. is the fifthest largest manuafacturer or pistol/rifle ammunition in the US. They will now probably lay off half of their workforce.

WHOA! Go here! It appears that we made enough noise to make a difference!

Dear Loyal Customers,
Thanks to your voice, DOD has rescinded the order to mutilate all spent cases as of 4:30 pm on 3/17/09. We appreciate the time and effort that you expended, together we all made a difference. We will be posting the email we received from DOD as well as any additional information within the next 12-16 hours. Thanks so much and lets get to work!!!
Georgia Arms

American Idol and Domestic Terrorism

By Doug Patton
March 16, 2009

This is the eighth season of “American Idol.” Knowing that it was nothing but vacuous eye candy, I resisted watching it for the first three years. Then, during season four, I got caught up in watching country singer Carrie Underwood, who turned out to be my favorite Idol contestant of all time other than Katherine McPhee, who should have won the season five Idol crown instead of the overrated Taylor Hicks. (Obviously, now I’m hooked. Pray for me.)

Imagine my disappointment when I read that American Idol and Carrie Underwood were supporting domestic terrorism. That’s right. Ms. Underwood is now donating money to an organization that supports groups the FBI has described as “eco-terrorists.”

Since winning Idol, Carrie Underwood has recorded such hits as “Just a Dream,” “All-American Girl” and “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” More recently, she has recorded her own version of Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home,” a tune American Idol producers thought would be appropriate to play for the remainder of this season whenever a contestant is eliminated.

The problem is that Carrie Underwood has announced that she is donating part of the proceeds from that song to the Humane Society of the United States. But isn’t this a good cause? Hardly.

This is not your grandparents’ Humane Society. Don’t mistake these people for a legitimate affiliate of your local or state organization of the same name, which does good work sheltering, caring for and finding homes for animals. In fact, search your local Humane Society web site. You won’t find a link to the radical HSUS. This organization, along with “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” (PETA), supports violent groups that have been named as “domestic terror threats” by the FBI.

In testimony before a Senate committee on May 18, 2005, FBI spokesman John Lewis stated that extremist environmental activist groups, including animal rights groups, are the nation’s top domestic terrorism threat.

“The FBI estimates that the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and related groups committed more than 1,100 criminal acts in the United States since 1976, resulting in damages conservatively estimated at approximately $110 million,” Lewis testified. “There is nothing else going on in this country over the last several years that is racking up the high number of violent crimes and terrorist actions.”

David Martosko, research director for the Center for Consumer Freedom, echoed Lewis’ concerns: “When most Americans hear about environmental activists, they think about picket signs and street corner protests,” Martosko said. “But there is a disturbing underbelly to these activist groups that believes that detonating bombs, making death threats, physically assaulting people, and terrorizing through stalking are justified means of confronting people with whom they disagree. The public must realize that terrorist groups such as ELF and ALF receive support and funding from groups like PETA and the Humane Society of the United States.”

Rick Story, senior vice president of U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, also criticized Underwood’s decision to support HSUS.

“Carrie Underwood has decided to use her talents to benefit an organization dedicated to destroying the rights of thousands of her fans,” Story said. “HSUS does not operate or oversee animal shelters; it is a radical organization that seeks to end hunting and other responsible uses of animals in America.”

Story points to companies such as Iams, General Mills, Pet Safe, Sears and Ace Hardware, to name just a few, which have ended relationships with HSUS after thousands of sportsmen expressed strong protest.

I intend to contact Fox Broadcasting to protest the use of Carrie Underwood’s song on the show as long as she intends to direct the proceeds to the Humane Society of the United States. If you, too, would like to contact them, you can do so via e-mail at askfox@fox.com; by phone at 310-369-3066; by fax at 310-369-1283; or via snail mail to Mr. Peter Liguori, Chairman of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company, 10201 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90064-2606.

Carrie Underwood may think she is supporting puppies and kittens, but she needs to understand that she is supporting domestic terrorists instead.
____________________________________________________________________________

© Copyright 2009 by Doug Patton
Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor to conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him here.
____________________________________________________________________________

I do not watch American Idol. I can't stand the senseless idiots that try to get on the show and I easily tire of the wanna bes that do get on. They all sound the same. This is a show for people who enjoy drama queens. I do not.

... And Let Slip The Pucks Of War

We're going to a hockey game tonight.
The Syracuse Crunch plays Rochester.
If we're lucky we'll take home a souvenir tooth.
This is exciting.

I remember the very first hockey game my Dad took my brother and I to see; It must have been around 1961 or '62.
The Long Island Ducks played the Johnstown Jets in a home game at in the Commack Arena, a ten minute drive from our house. There was a fight about every 30 seconds. Some lady got smacked in the face with a puck and had to be carried out.

I saw my first concert in the Commack Arena in 1965. Somewhere along the line it got changed to the Long Island Arena.
The Commack Drive In movie was right next door. I got something there for the first time also.

The Arena was torn down in 1996. The entire area is now strip malls and stores. I was there four years ago and couldn't recognize it.

Sure, That'll Work

I was never sure that Nelson Mandela ever did these people a favor. Now I am sure of it.

First, South African men appear to think that having sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS.

Now this:

South African men are 'raping women to cure them of being lesbians'

Lesbians living in South Africa are being raped by men who believe it will 'cure' them of their sexual orientation, a report has revealed.

Women are reporting a rising tide of brutal homophobic attacks and murders and the widespread use of 'corrective' rape as a form of punishment.

The report, commissioned by international NGO ActionAid, called for South Africa's criminal justice system to recognise the rapes as hate crimes as police are reportedly failing to take action over the spiralling violence.

I never knew rape came in prescription form. Does the local pharmacist participate? What about finding a parking space at a rape scene; is this deductible?

What a screwed up culture, what a messed up country. Ann Coulter almost had it right:"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Just convert them. Let the converts do the heavy lifting after that.

I wish I had saved the url to a blog about life in Nigeria that I read lover a year ago. An American was taking a boat ride and commented to the local guide what had happened to all the abandoned towns and businesses on the river. The guide replied that since independence his country was rife with conflict and corruption that had killed the economy and reduced citizens to beggars. The guide then gave a curious observation, something on the order that if a European country wanted to colonize them again, he'd welcome it because ti would be a return to order and sanity.

Read this:

There are many unresolved problems in Nigeria, but the issue of the upsurge of corruption is troubling. And the damages it has done to the polity are astronomical. The menace of corruption leads to slow movement of files in offices, police extortion tollgates and slow traffics on the highways, port congestion, queues at passport offices and gas stations, ghost workers syndrome, election irregularities, among others. Even the mad people on the street recognize the havoc caused by corruption - the funds allocated for their welfare disappear into the thin air. Thus, it is believed by many in the society that corruption is the bane of Nigeria. Consequently, the issue keeps reoccurring in every academic and informal discussion in Nigeria. And the issue will hardly go away!

Some writers say that corruption is endemic in all governments, and that it is not peculiar to any continent, region and ethnic group. It cuts across faiths, religious denominations and political systems and affects both young and old, man and woman alike. Corruption is found in democratic and dictatorial politics; feudal, capitalist and socialist economies. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures are equally bedeviled by corruption.

[...]Since corruption is not new, and since it is a global phenomenon, it is not peculiar to Nigeria. However, corruption is pandemic in Nigeria (and in many other African and Asian nations); the leaders as well as the followers are corrupt. Consequently, it has defied all the necessary medicines. If there is a lack of control of corruption in every sphere in the nation, it is then like the old saying: When water chokes you, what do you take to wash it down? (The Philosophy of Aristotle, 451-ME2783, p.355).

I fear that the same kind of corrupt mentality is affecting our own country. Let's piss away spend money that we don't have in order to get ourselves out of financial difficulty that was directly caused by improper spending.

Sounds like Obama and his tax cheating Cabinet as well as the Democratic asspuppet Congress are raping virgins and lesbians, doesn't it?

Maybe we need to be converted. I'm about ready for some heavy lifting.

Ain't It The truth

A 31 year old Swedish chimpanzee named Santino has behavorial scientists all atwitter because he is demonstrating a very human trait - he plans for the future. He has somehow managed to open up a 401k ... No. He stockpiles weapons (rocks and pieces of concrete) during hours when the zoo is closed and then waits for humans to approach his compound so he can throw these objects at them.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday.

Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.

[...] However, he rarely hit visitors because of his poor aim, and no one was seriously injured in the cases when he did, Osvath said.

He also displays human attributes in that his aim stinks. He couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle.

"It could be that he is a genius, only more research will tell. On the other hand our research showed the same in orangutans and bonobos so he is not alone," Call said.

Osvath said the chimpanzee had also been observed tapping on concrete boulders in the park to identify weak parts and then knocking out a piece. If it was too big for throwing, he broke it into smaller pieces, before adding them to his arsenal.

"It is very special that he first realizes that he can make these and then plans on how to use them," Osvath said. "This is more complex than what has been showed before."

The fact that the ape stayed calm while preparing his weapons but used them when he was extremely agitated proves that the planning behavior was not based on an immediate emotional drive, Osvath said.

And, true to life, whenever someone displays talent above and beyond his peers, he receives attention. Sometimes unwanted attention. For all his efforts, Santino suffered the same fate as other low-potential, high-achievers.

He had his balls cut off.

For a while, zoo keepers tried locking Santino up in the morning so he couldn't collect ammunition for his assaults, but he remained aggressive. They ultimately decided to castrate him in the autumn last year, but will have to wait until the summer to see if that helps.

Right. Maybe he'll think his nuts went south because he kept missing. Now his aim will improve.

It stands to reason that monkeys would demonstrate the same ability to plan ahead like other animals. Bears gorge themselves in preparation for winter hibernation, they learn to pop open car doors to get at food. Even ants store provisions, they make slaves of other insects. Given the proper circumstances/motivation, animals are capable of rather amazing things.

When Santino starts casting lead bullets and collecting sulphur, charcoal and saltpeter for making black powder, give me a call.

Divorce American Style

Got this from LC Forger:

I Want A Divorce

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters,We've stuck together since the late 1950s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know that we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and just will not ever agree on what's right. So let's just end it right now while we can do it on friendly terms. We can smile, shake hands, chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and each go our own way.

So here's a model separation agreement.Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by land mass, each taking a portion. That's going to be the difficult part, but I'm sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy. Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate taste. We don't like redistributive taxes so you can have those. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. And since you hate guns and you hate war, we'll take the firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. But you are going to be responsible for finding a biodiesel vehicle big enough to haul them around.

We'll keep the capitalism, the greedy corporations, the pharmaceutical companies; we will keep Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have the homeless, the homeboys, the hippies and illegal aliens. We will keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, the greedy CEOS and all of the rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and we'll let you have NBC and Hollywood.

You can be nice to Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer anybody that threatens us. You can have the peaceniks and the war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we will provide them with security. You won't have to worry about it. We will keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley Maclaine. You can also have the UN, but we will no longer pay the bill.

We will keep the SUVs, the pickup trucks and the oversize luxury cars. You can have the compacts, the subcompacts and every Subaru station wagon you can find. You can give everybody healthcare, if you can find any practicing doctors. We will continue to believe that healthcare is a privilege and not a right. We will keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the national anthem, and I am sure you will be happy to substitute in their place "Imagine." I'd like to teach the world to sing "Kumbaya" or "We are the world." We will practice trickle-down economics and you can give trickle-up poverty your best shot. And since it so offends you, we will keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots. And if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the friendly spirit of parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in about 15 years.

Sincerely,

John J Wall

Law student and an American

P.S. You can also have Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda.

It Needs To Be Said

H/T to AR15.com

At Long Last

For years I have obsessed over a physical condition for which I could not find a solution. I have tried ointments, creams, jellies and emollients. Over the course of several decades I submitted myself to various doctors who examined me; prodding, poking, probing to no avail.

The embarrassing questions and the stares tried my patience. Each time I sought help the verdict was the same; there was nothing that medical science could offer me in the way of relief.

I then tried metaphysical "cures" only to find myself taken advantage of by hucksters and charlatans. After years of searching and thousands of dollars, I finally gave up and resigned myself to my fate.

Until today.

From the Chicago Tribune:

A chemist in Vienna has taken the term "navel gazing" to its logical extreme and guaranteed himself a curious epitaph: Unraveler of the mysteries of belly-button lint.

I would literally swell up with this stuff within a few hours.
And the stink...

Georg Steinhauser discovered that there is a certain type of body hair responsible for directing lint into the navel. The researcher spent three years studying 503 pieces of schmutz from his own belly button, then published his conclusions in the journal Medical Hypotheses under the title, "The nature of navel fluff."

Among other gems, the article notes: "Accordingly, and to the author's personal experience, navel lint seems to be a phenomenon that affects primarily male adults."Steinhauser found that hairs around the belly button have a scaly structure that pulls fibers from clothing and then directs those fibers—along with dead skin, fat, sweat and dust—into the belly button.

Finally an answer. It's called schmutz. The man's a genius.

This is not a joke; I once had a favorite flannel shirt that I could only wear for three hours. I would then pull a cubic yard of schmutz from my navel. My wife used it to knit Christmas doilies for the Salvation Army. During the winter we would burn it to heat the house.

He wrote that scales on the hair act like "barbed hooks," catching a "melange of foreign materials" and coalescing them into easily removed clumps of lint. Thus, Steinhauser posits, men with abdomen hair likely have "cleaner and more hygienic belly buttons than those who do not"—provided, of course, they go to the trouble of actually removing the lint lumps.

The "Schmutz Horizon" is the area around the navel where lint, dead midgets and slow asteroids are gathered by belly hair (AKA Satan's Schmutz Hounds) to make its way inexorably into the depths of the umbilical remnant scar, also known as the Inney Sanctum.

For those who don't want to deal with the lint altogether, Steinhauser recommends a good belly shaving.

I have already started a regimen of daily abdominal filament removal. I lost sixteen pounds the first day and went down two belt sizes. I wept.

Wake Me When It's Over

I guess widdle Obami needs his widdle nappie time or he gets a widdle cwanky when the big meanie Engwish Pwime Minister comes over to play. Seriously, what did this assclown think would happen when he was elected President of the most powerful nation on the planet?

From the UK Telegraph:

Barack Obama's offhand approach to Gordon Brown's Washington visit last week came about because the president was facing exhaustion over America's economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told.

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

It's like, dude, he's the Prime Minister. Of England. Give him a few DVD's and some Movietime popcorn and send him home? What the hell?

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".

A British official conceded that the furore surrounding the apparent snub to Mr Brown had come as a shock to the White House. "I think it's right to say that their focus is elsewhere, on domestic affairs. A number of our US interlocutors said they couldn't quite understand the British concerns and didn't get what that was all about."

The American source said: "Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

It's just too embarassing to go on.
This guy is all show and no go.

Educational Stumulus Package

Looking for love in all the wrong places doesn't even begin to touch this. This middle school kid could probably get a job as an air traffic controller or a Fed Ex sheduling agent.

Two Bountiful Jr. High teachers accused of sex with same student

Two Bountiful Junior High School teachers are accused of sexually assaulting the same 13-year-old student, after their separate relationships with him spiraled from personal conversations to the exchange of sexual text messages and phone sex, authorities said.

On Friday, the Davis County Attorney's Office filed first-degree felony charges of rape and sodomy on a child against Linda R. Nef, 46, and Valynne Bowers, 39.
Nef, a Utah studies teacher and cheerleading adviser, and Bowers, who teaches math, each confessed to having sex with the student, said Bountiful Police Lt. Randy Pickett. Until recently, the two teachers did not know about each other's relationship with the same boy, [emphaisis mine ~Sig94] Pickett said.

One of these teachers, Nef -on the left, was screwing the kid since he was twelve.


Much, much closer to home, a probationary science teacher in my school district was arrested last Friday for having a relationship with a 16 year old high school junior.

Kolbee R. Kearns, 24, of 178 Sunhill Terrace, Syracuse, was charged with rape in the third degree and criminal sex act, both felonies, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

The charges followed an investigation by the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office Abused Persons Unit that began Feb. 26 after the unit was contacted by school officials about a teacher's inappropriate activity with a Solvay High School student.

Kearns established a relationship with the girl in January and February, the sheriff's office says. The two engaged in sexual contact on several occasions in the city of Syracuse, said Sgt. John D'Eredita, speaking for the sheriff's office. There
appears to have been no sexual activity occurring on the school grounds, D'Eredita said.

Kearns resigned his teaching position on Monday, deputies said. Kearns is expected to be arraigned Saturday morning in City of Syracuse Criminal Court.

Kearns looks no older than 16 himself.

Apparently teachers like to give themselves stimulus packages also.

Idiots.

Blowin' Smoke

The use of smoke as a device to cloak tactical manuvers from observation by an enemy is a time honored practice that has been in use for over two thousand years. The Obama administration is now doing the same.

This recent spate of media BS about Rush Limbaugh v Michael Steele, truth commission on Bush crimes, naming the Obama mutt, swing/jungle jim sets for the Obama heirs, congressional investigation on terrorist interrogations, Michele's arms, Michele's shoulders and Michele's ass is nothing more than blowing smoke at the US citizenry. The media is trying to get our attention away from the 3 trillion dollar gorilla in the elevator.

Who is responsible for our economy going south?

I see this as an act of war. Economic war perhaps, but war nonetheless.

Where. Did. 550. Billion. Dollars. Go. In. 2. Hours.

Let's break it down.
A billion people did not withdraw $550 each after receiving phone calls from their broker.
A million people did not withdraw $550,000 each after receiving secret email instructions.
Ten thousand people did not withdraw $55,000,000 each after attending a seance.

But a hundred or so? Maybe a hundred financial managers responsible for an average of $5.5 billion each? Maybe even less. What finally spooked them?

Why is there so little interest in this by the media? Not only was the system spooked, it was swindled.

Then there's this. I am interested in any feedback by someone who knows markets and how this can happen so quickly. Was the $550 billion just a mistaken number given out by a frightened, confused Congressman?

From the Congressional Joint Economic Committee - September 2008

Introduction. During the week of September 13-20, 2008, the United States confronted the worst global financial crisis in almost a century. Credit markets, which are the circulatory system of the U.S. economy, seized up. The Federal Reserve was unable to revive credit markets through massive liquidity injections. Share prices plummeted, and a run began on money market mutual funds.

[...] Secretary Paulson asked Congress to authorize the Treasury to purchase and liquidate up to $700 billion of impaired financial assets from financial institutions. Both credit and equity markets had a favorable initial response, but the subsequent reaction was less positive.

Underlying Causes. The primary cause for this global financial crisis was the popping of the U.S. housing bubble in the second quarter of 2006 and the subsequent steep decline in U.S. housing prices. Falling housing prices revealed speculative excesses and unsound lending practices in housing markets. During the bubble years, the federal government encouraged depository institutions and mortgage bankers through various affordable housing and community reinvestment regulations to extend subprime residential mortgage loans to low income families. Investment banks securitized these subprime mortgage loans into
subprime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) and subprime collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs). Investment banks sold subprime RMBS and tranches of subprime CMOs to financial institutions around the world. After the U.S. bubble popped, many subprime borrowers could not refinance their existing loans. Default and foreclosure rates on these subprime mortgage loans skyrocketed.

A number of mistaken government policies and misaligned private incentives helped to inflate the U.S. housing bubble and contributed to vulnerabilities of the alternative financial system. Two previous Republican JEC studies documented these policy mistakes and private incentive factors in detail.

[The first study is "The U.S. Housing Bubble and the Global Financial Crisis: Housing and Housing-Related Finance", JEC Study, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., May 2008, found here. The second study is "The U.S. Housing Bubble and the Global Financial Crisis: Vulnerabilities of the Alternative Financial System", JEC Study, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., May 2008, found here.]

During the last three decades, financial services deregulation increased competition and eroded the excess profits that independent investment banks had traditionally earned from brokerage services and the underwriting of debt and equity securities. To increase fee income, independent investment banks began to underwrite increasingly complex structured credit products, including subprime RMBS and CMOs.

Independent investment banks also sought to increase their spread income (i.e., the difference between the income from financial assets in proprietary portfolios and the interest expense on borrowed funds). From the early 1990s through 2007, independent investment banks funded a large increase in the size of their proprietary portfolios through short-term debt (i.e., repurchase agreements, commercial paper, and secured and unsecured lines of credit with commercial banks).

[...]To achieve the high returns on equity to which independent investment banks were accustomed, the leverage ratios at independent investment banks ballooned relative to the average leverage ratio at commercial banks and saving institutions. At the end of the first quarter in 2008, the leverage ratios at Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs were 31.8, 30.7, 27.5, and 26.9, respectively, compared with an average of 8.8 for all U.S. commercial banks and savings institutions. [emphasis mine ~Sig94]

Okay, I can grok this. It's the old greed factor. These bastards were not satisfied with industry standard profits; that wasn't good enough to justify big seven figure bonuses. And of course the government regulators whores who were tasked to keep an eye on these bastards did not do their jobs. The ex-Congressmen and ex-government officials hired by the finacial industry as lobbyists saw to that.

From 1998 to 2008 over $2.5 BILLION DOLLARS was spent by insurance companies, commercial banks, securities companies, accounting forms and private equities firms in lobbying activites and campaign contributions.

I want names!
Where are the names?
Why aren't the names of these bastards sitting on the front page of the newspaper in front of me during breakfast so I can dream about finding them and kicking their greedy asses into mudholes?
Why aren't reporters from ABCNBCCBSFOXCNN dancing around these greedy bastards like fruit flies around a rotten bananna?
Why aren't reporters and TV camera crews taking video footage of these greedy bastards running to their Lexus' with their heads tucked under the collars of their expensive cashmere coats like fat bloated turtles?
I want names! Not smoke! Names!

This report goes on for 12 pages. AIG flounders, Lehman bites the dust, Bank of America acquires Merril Lynch, yada yada. Credit dries up big time. Financial institutions start hoarding whatever liquidity they have. Within a few days the interest rates charged between banks increases by over 200%, from 2% to 6.4%. Interest earned by short term treasury notes drop precipitiously as banks scramble for stable funds - from 1.37% on 12 SEP 08 down to 0.75% on 18 SEP 09 with a stop at 0.07% in between.

On the first day of trading in 2008, the Dow opened up at 13,264.82.
Today it closed at 6,594.44.

I want names!

How We Got Screwed

This report may shed some light on the current financial crisis and how government regulations designed to prevent fraud were circumvented.

The financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse, according to a 231-page report issued today by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation.

The report, "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," shows that, from 1998-2008, Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance conglomerates made $1.725 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists, a financial juggernaut aimed at undercutting federal regulation. Nearly 3,000 officially registered federal lobbyists worked for the industry in 2007 alone. The report documents a dozen distinct deregulatory moves that, together, led to the financial meltdown. These include prohibitions on regulating financial derivatives; the repeal of regulatory barriers between commercial banks and investment banks; a voluntary regulation scheme for big investment banks; and federal refusal to act to stop predatory subprime lending.

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." 1 Tim. 6:10

I think we have a fairly good notion that America has been betrayed by greedy corporate and government officials. You can't have disasters like this without the cooperation and the collusion of government regulatory officials.

"The report details, step-by-step, how Washington systematically sold out to Wall Street," says Harvey Rosenfield, president of the Consumer Education Foundation, a California-based non-profit organization. "Depression-era programs that would have prevented the financial meltdown that began last year were dismantled, and the warnings of those who foresaw disaster were drowned in an ocean of political money. Americans were betrayed, and we are paying a high price -- trillions of dollars -- for that betrayal."

Why am I not surprised...

[...]These companies drew heavily from government in choosing their lobbyists. Surveying 20 leading financial firms, "Sold Out" finds 142 of the lobbyists they employed from 1998-2008 were previously high-ranking officials or employees in the Executive Branch or Congress.

Let's make a bet. No one, not a single, solitary, greedy soul goes to jail. There won't even be an investigation. That's the hopey change we have.

There are twelve primary manipulations that lead to the economic meltdown of American. Here are just the first three:

1. In 1999, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which had prohibited the merger of commercial banking and investment banking.

2. Regulatory rules permitted off-balance sheet accounting -- tricks that enabled banks to hide their liabilities.

3. The Clinton administration blocked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating financial derivatives -- which became the basis for massive speculation.

4. Congress in 2000 prohibited regulation of financial derivatives when it passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

5. The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 adopted a voluntary regulation scheme for investment banks that enabled them to incur much higher levels of debt.

6. Rules adopted by global regulators at the behest of the financial industry would enable commercial banks to determine their own capital reserve requirements, based on their internal "risk-assessment models."

7. Federal regulators refused to block widespread predatory lending practices earlier in this decade, failing to either issue appropriate regulations or even enforce existing ones.

8. Federal bank regulators claimed the power to supersede state consumer protection laws that could have diminished predatory lending and other abusive practices.

9. Federal rules prevent victims of abusive loans from suing firms that bought their loans from the banks that issued the original loan.

10. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expanded beyond their traditional scope of business and entered the subprime market, ultimately costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

11. The abandonment of antitrust and related regulatory principles enabled the creation of too-big-to-fail megabanks, which engaged in much riskier practices than smaller banks.

12. Beset by conflicts of interest, private credit rating companies incorrectly assessed the quality of mortgage-backed securities; a 2006 law handcuffed the SEC from properly regulating the firms.

Here's another bet. How much attention will this report get from the media? When will the President and/or Congress and/or fiscal regulatory agencies reinstate the controls needed to prevent these abuses from occurring again?

And if you're not eating nails and spitting tacks, read this:

Financial Sector Political Money and 3000 Lobbyists Dictated Washington Policy

During the period 1998-2008:
Commercial banks spent more than $154 million on campaign contributions, while investing $363 million in officially registered lobbying: Accounting firms spent $68 million on campaign contributions and $115 million on lobbying;

Insurance companies donated more than $218 million and spent more than $1.1 billion on lobbying; Securities firms invested more than $504 million in campaign contributions, and an additional $576 million in lobbying. Included in this total: private equity firms contributed $56 million to federal candidates and spent $33 million on lobbying; and hedge funds spent $32 million on campaign contributions (about half in the 2008 election cycle).

The betrayal was bipartisan: about 55 percent of the political donations went to Republicans and 45 percent to Democrats, primarily reflecting the balance of power over the decade. Democrats took just more than half of the financial sector's 2008 election cycle contributions.

This Can't Be Happening In America

Where in the world can you read that a 13 year old teenager murders his 16 year old brother in order to take over the family narcotics trafficking business? Mexico? Boliva?

How about a few miles away from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

The 13 year old, Mykel Mendes, killed his big brother, Jordan, so he could take control over the drug ring that their father had started. The father, Manual Mendes, is currently serving a 35 federal sentence year for - what else - drug trafficking.

Jordan was found shot, stabbed 27 times and dumped into a pit, where his body was torched. Another 13-year-old friend and a 20-year-old cousin also are charged with murder.

Madness. Utter madness.

From Sporting Goods To ... Sport

A frustrated businessman in trendy downtown Alexandria, VA, Michael Zarlenga, got so fed up with government regulations that he rented his store to a hoochy-koochy dealer.

Now the City Fathers are up in arms because after they rammed it up Zarlenga's smokestack, Zarlenga rented his property to a business that caters to people who perhaps like it that way.

To many in Old Town Alexandria, the sex shop that opened recently on King Street is nothing short of scandalous, a historical desecration just blocks from the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee.

But to Michael Zarlenga, it's justice.

Zarlenga spent $350,000 on plans to expand his hunting and fishing store, the Trophy Room. He worked with city officials for almost two years and thought he had their support -- until the architectural review board told him he couldn't alter the historic property.

Furious and out of money, Zarlenga rented the space to its newest occupant, Le Tache.

"I can't say I didn't know it would ruffle feathers," said Zarlenga, 41. "Actually, I was hoping for a fast-food chain because I thought that would be more annoying to the city."

Ruffled feather boas perhaps?

Le Tache is a bit racy, it is not a premise that I would frequent. But the idea of pissing off the government sits rather well with me. If I had just blown well over a quarter million just to have the City of Alexandria spit in my face, nasty window dressing would be the least of their problems.

In the windows of Le Tache, which means the spot, scantily dressed, voluptuous mannequins beckon. Peekaboo lingerie, adult movies and sex toys are displayed throughout the three-story building, which has the original hardwood floors and beams dating to the early 1800s.

The city cannot act because the store is complying with the law. "There's nothing I can do to encourage its demise," the mayor said.But he added that city staff is drawing up proposed changes to zoning laws in hopes that future adult entertainment stores can be regulated. Le Tache would be grandfathered in.

Alexandria Commonwealth's Attorney S. Randolph Sengel said his office has received enough complaints about the store that he is looking at legal options. Virginia law allows for courts to declare sexual material obscene and to ban its sale, he said.

"What is acceptable in one community might not meet the standard in the neighboring community," Sengel said.

What is not acceptable in any community is the willful misconduct of public servants who lie to citizens and run them out of business. This whole thing sounds like someone was expecting a bribe that would have smoothed the entire approval process.