Day: February 20, 2009

2009 Anal-Ocity

I was wondering if this bitch had learned her lesson….and now my question has been answered..NO she has not…but like the good Repub that she is….why be bothered with the facts……

Today’s anal statement is from the lady that thinks liberals are un-American, the Republican Congresswoman from the Great state of Minnesota, Michele Bachmann.

Rep. Michelle Bachman (R- MN) on the Scott Hennen show refer to ACORN getting $2 billion (yes, that’s billion) in new funding from the “economic stimulus” bill Obama and Democrats ram-rodded through Congress with as little debate and scrutiny as possible.

Bachman noted that the payment to ACORN wasn’t a “stimulus,” it was a pay off.  Presumably for ACORN’s efforts in fraudulently registering Democrat voters across the country.

Yes…she is an idiot!

First of all ACORN is NOT named in the stimulus plan to get ANY funds,  second NOT one representative can look the camera in the eye and say they have read the plan before they voted on it, she is just using the GOP talking points of the day.  Second, those voters that the GOP keep thumping their chest about were registered by temporary workers not the mainstream ACORN workers and they are the ones that turned in the fraud themselves.

It seems lies work better for the GOP than the truth and it has for many many years…,it is how they get elected.

The Economy Stinks!

Ya Think!  My first respose to Bernanke’s statement.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a speech in Washington, D.C., said the central bank will begin to publish quarterly long-term economic projections. The outlooks will offer six-year forecasts on unemployment, inflation and economic output. Previously, the U.S. central bank only made public its estimates out to three years.

The first long-term forecast, released Wednesday, said that the economy would grow 2.5% to 2.7% in the several years after 2011. The Fed also predicted that the unemployment rate would fall to 4.8% to 5% and inflation would moderate at about 1.7% to 2% during that time span.

The forecast for 2009 was far less rosy. The Fed expects gross domestic product to decline by 0.5% to 1.3% in 2009, and the unemployment rate to rise to 8.5% to 8.8%. GDP fell by 3.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008, and unemployment stands at a 17-year high of 7.6%.

There’s no question the American consumer is hurting in the face of a burst housing bubble, financial market meltdown and rising unemployment.

But “the worst is yet to come,” according to Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, who believes American’s standard of living is undergoing a “permanent change” – and not for the better as a result of:

  • An $8 trillion negative wealth effect from declining home values.
  • A $10 trillion negative wealth effect from weakened capital markets.
  • A $14 trillion consumer debt load amid “exploding unemployment”, leading to “exploding bankruptcies.”

“The average American used to be able to borrow to buy a home, send their kids to a good school [and] buy a car,” Davidowitz says. “A lot of that is gone.”

Same Song, Different Administration

Rendition….Torture….Bailout…….what is changing?

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laid out a bank-rescue plan that will rely on public and private funds to take $500 billion of bad assets off banks’ books, sources said.

The plan would also extend a Federal Reserve program aimed at shoring up consumer lending to the troubled mortgage sector, allowing the U.S. central bank to extend up to $1 trillion in loans to holders of a wide variety of asset-backed securities, according to sources.

Geithner will outline the Obama administration’s plan to revamp a U.S. financial bailout program that his predecessor, Hank Paulson, persuaded Congress to approve last year. About half of that money has been committed to pump capital into banks and ailing U.S. automakers.

Industry sources said capital injections will continue under Geithner’s plan, but the Treasury is expected to ask banks to show how the money they receive is leading to more lending.

Geithner will also announce an expansion of a joint Treasury-Fed program currently aimed at stimulating consumer and small business loans by allowing it to extend loans with commercial mortgage-backed securities and private label mortgage securities as collateral, sources said.

The program currently allows the Fed to loan up to $200 billion dollars to holders of top-rated securities backed by credit car, education, auto and small business loans. That program would be expanded to $1 trillion, sources familiar with the plan said.

Treasury also is expected to announce $50 billion aimed at stemming home foreclosures, several sources said. On Monday the director of the White House National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, said on CNN more measures to help the battered housing sector will be coming within about two weeks.

In recent days, as Treasury worked to finalize details of its rescue package, attention has shifted to how to draw in private-sector investment to help clean up balance sheets littered with growing numbers of non-performing assets.

While Treasury will keep pumping capital into banks, it also is expected to introduce more rigorous stress-testing of lenders. Banks deal with different regulators, but sources said those regulators will agree on common standards for testing so that markets can have confidence they are safe and sound.

Sources have said the administration is also working on a mortgage rescue program under which government-controlled mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would ease payments for hundreds of thousands of borrowers and offer a model for Wall Street to do the same.

Once again, lots of plans for banks and such and the people continue to lose jobs, homes and meals waiting for the promises of the past to be delivered.  Once again this is all in the name of investors and the greed of the banks.  And Main Street suffers quietly.

He did none of the above….he gave a vague outline and NO specifics….that should instill confidence in the Obama economic team.

Global Treaty On Mercury Use

Now here is a great idea…….. finally.

The United States has shifted its stance to call for a legally-binding global treaty to phase out deadly mercury use that threatens the health of people worldwide, officials said on Tuesday.

Hopes had been high ahead of the conference that the new administration of U.S President Barack Obama would support the European Union’s calls for an international treaty to ban mercury. Some other states favor a voluntary approach.

The new policy was unveiled by the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for environment and sustainable development, Daniel Reifsnyder, late on Monday at the start of a major U.N. gathering of environment ministers in Kenya.

About 6,000 tonnes of mercury — a heavy metal known for more than a century to damage the human nervous system — enter the environment every year. Mercury’s other effects include liver damage, memory loss or disturbances to vision.

It is about time that the US join into the fray to control the use of the killer mercury.  I need to point out one thing and ask a question. What about the new light bulbs that everyone is so gaga over?  You do know that they contain mercury right?  I wrote about this in a earlier post on Info Ink.

Truth About Your New Light Bulbs

Eventually all light bulbs will be these newer ones and eventually all that mercury will make it into the water table and into the food supply…how will the treaty handle that?  Someone, anyone answer that question.

Careless Disregard For The Troops

We have all heard about the troops that had to find ways to buy their own body armor or to armor plate their vehicles and now another violation of the soldiers well being has come to light.

Thousands of GIs have suffered preventable hearing loss because they were not supplied with earplugs to reduce the din of battle. Many have a permanent ringing in their ears they will suffer throughout their lives.

The condition is widespread. In 2006, the Veterans Administration paid out more than a half billion dollars to veterans with tinnitus, a condition which affects nearly half of those troops exposed to blasts.

The US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine conducted a study 141,000 GIs between April, 2003, and March, 2004, that showed tinnitus – ringing in the ears – accounted for more than 30 per cent of post-deployment-related diagnoses.

According to an article in the February 9th issue of The New Yorker, from which the data for this article is taken, author Jerome Groopman writes, “the Pentagon had failed to anticipate the kind of hearing-protection devices that were needed. Even soldiers who were provided with earplugs were given insufficient instruction in their use; mistakenly believing that the earplugs could interfere with low-frequency sounds, like whispered commands during search-and-destroy operations, many chose not to use them.”

When governments want their citizens to fight their wars they appeal to their patriotism. How little some regimes truly care about their people as human beings, though, is shown by the many troops they send into battle with insufficient protection for their bodies and their vehicles, and also if they deny them their deserved care and compensation upon their return home.

Yet more UNACCEPTABLE conduct of the government toward the troops…somewhere, somehow there has got to be a place to stop this blatant disregard of the physical welfare of the troops.  It will be interesting to see how the government worms its way out of being held accountable for the damage it inflicts on its soldiers…make NO mistake if the can…they WILL!

NATO Squirms Over Pakistan

NATO led a growing chorus of international concern Tuesday by warning that a truce between the government of Pakistan and Taliban militants in a restive region near the Afghan border risks giving the extremists a “safe haven.”

A hard-line cleric sent to the battle-scarred Swat Valley to negotiate with the Taliban received a hero’s welcome there by crowds shouting “Long live Islam! Long live peace!”

NATO has 55,000 troops in Afghanistan, and many face attacks by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters believed to find refuge in pockets of Pakistan’s northwest.

In the last few months, Swat has largely fallen to militants who have beheaded opponents, burned scores of girls’ schools and banned many forms of entertainment. Gunbattles between security forces and militants have killed hundreds, while up to a third of the valley’s 1.5 million people have fled.

The truce “is certainly reason for concern,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai said in Brussels. “We should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven. Without doubting the good faith of the Pakistani government, it is clear that the region is suffering very badly from extremists and we would not want it to get worse.”

As part of the deal, the pro-Taliban cleric agreed to travel to Swat and discuss peace with Maulana Fazlullah, his son-in-law and the leader of the Swat Taliban. Muhammad and his convoy of 300 vehicles arrived in Swat’s main city of Mingora on Tuesday as hundreds of jubilant residents lined the roads and shouted slogans. Many of those in the convoy with him wore black turbans — a Taliban trademark.

Pakistan’s inability to regain Swat has embarrassed the shaky civilian government. However, Pakistani leaders insisted the deal was not a concession, but an attempt to fulfill demands by locals for a more efficient justice system.

Some 2,000 militants are believed to operate in the valley, and, in defiance of the presence of some 10,000 paramilitary and army troops, they have already set up their own courts, meting out punishments in line with an exceptionally harsh brand of Islamic law.

Officials said the main changes to the legal system will involve existing — but unenforced — laws that allow for Muslim clerics to advise judges when hearing cases and the setting up of an Islamic appeals court. The rules do not ban female education or contain other strict interpretations of Shariah often adhered to by many Taliban.