Day: August 13, 2009

Have Gun–Will Travel

Just like the 60’s western, some people travel with their gun to make a point…

I have heard all the news and debate about the guy who was outside the Hew Hampshire townhall….that he was on private property…..that he left before the pres arrived…..that he is a libertarian…….that he was exercising his 2nd amendment right (that I am still working on).  He was also holding a sign that said the tree of liberty needs watering….with a don’t tread on me snake adorning it.  I also heard the argument that he should have never been allowed to a tense situation with a gun.

No matter what the opinion of my reader is about the gun issue there is something that has been left out of the debate.  In an article written by Robert Anglen for the Arizona Republic, there is more to this guy and the story:

William Kostric, 36, formerly of Scottsdale, stood outside the New Hampshire meeting on health care with a gun holstered at his thigh and holding a sign proclaiming that “it is time to water the tree of liberty.” State law permitted Kostric to openly carry a licensed handgun.

The quote, often referenced by those in separatist and militia movements, refers to Thomas Jefferson’s famous call for vigilance: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

Web sites indicate that Kostric is a “team member” of the Arizona chapter of We the People Foundation, which has a stated goal of “returning America to its founding principles.”

On its Web site, We the People’s founder Robert Schulz says, “Our recent initiatives have focused largely on questioning the federal government’s abuse of its Constitutional powers to incur debt, tax labor, create currency by fiat, conduct war and police the peace.”

The group maintains that it is not concerned with politics or personalities in office. But Schulz supports the so-called birther movement, which promotes the idea that Obama wasn’t really born in the United States and shouldn’t be president. We the People joined a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged Obama’s presidency based on the citizenship claim.

So as usual, there is always more to the story than the beltway pundits want to include into the conversation.  This guy may have attacked in a civil and peaceful way, but how will the next gun nut act or recat to the situation?  It has been reported the Obama gets between 20-30 death threats a day….who is to say if the next wingnut will not act on a threat?

More From The Radical Right

We have heard all their, the radical right, BS…….Pres is a Kenyan, Death Panels, Obama is a socialist, Obama is a nazi, yada yada….and most thinking Americans have written them off as right wingnuts and someone who should be ignored.

But people, not all the BS comes from the right wingnuts…there are some respected, and I use the word very loosely, on the Right that are ass deep in the BS being spread.  No I am not talking about dipsticks like Rush or Coulter or Beck; I am sure there is someone somewhere that respects these BS factories, but rather I am talking about Senators and House members.

Just yesterday, Iowa’s Senator Grassley said to a group of 300:

“You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.”

He, Grassley, knows very well that there is no such provision in the bill as it is now.  Let me remind him that his colleague in the Senate, Isakson a fellow Repub from the state of Georgia who co-sponsored 2007’s Medicare end-of-life Planning Act.  Is Grassley accusing his fellow GOP member of wanting to “pull the plug on Grandma”?  BTW, Isakson said in a recent interview:

How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up. […]

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.

Grassley is not alone in the crazy world of Repub BS.  It seems that Repub. Congressman from Georgia said recently to a group of his people:

He also spoke of a “socialistic elite” – Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

“They’re trying to develop an environment where they can take over,” he said. “We’ve seen that historically.”

You see the radical right is not the problem.  They are a fringe group that will be marginalized, but when the members of the Senate and the House start repeating the BS then the GOP has a major problem.

Yes, The Pressure Is On…..

Since I do a lot of writing and reading, I get lots of emails and this is one that I received about the health care debate.  It was sent by a Dr.  Bob Goldberg.

Friend:


Please join us!

Long waits for treatments, fewer choices, more government interference, higher taxes and higher health care costs — does that sound like the kind of health reform you want? Congress’ so-called “public plan” threatens to raise your taxes, bankrupt the country and force millions of Americans out of their current employer-based coverage – and it does nothing to control rising health care costs.


Supporters of the “public plan” say that more government control of health care would inject new “competition” into our health care system. Yet the public “option” is built on government health care programs that are already going bankrupt here in the USA and outright failing patients in Canada and the UK. And incredibly, congressional reform proposals will force more than 119 million Americans from their good, private health care coverage to this new government-run program. That’s almost half of all Americans who already have health insurance coverage.
It’s time to expose the tremendous costs and consequences of government-run health care. There are better ways to make health care coverage affordable and patient-centered. That’s why CMPI Advance has created a Web site that provides policymakers and the public with facts and resources and, more importantly, encourages people like you to tell Congress to keep their hands off health care.

May I suggest that if people would spend a little time checking the facts and the myths, then all this misinformation will disappear because it will be exposed for what it is….BS!  I am guessing that these types of BS artist are hoping that their “facts” will be taken as gospel and not checked.


Homeowners Face A Dismal Future

Bloomberg is reporting on mortgages:

Almost one-quarter of U.S. mortgage holders owed more than their homes were worth in the second quarter and that figure may rise to as much as 30 percent by mid-2010 as job losses and foreclosures climb.

I had heard a report recently stating that by 2011 one half of all mortgages would be considered underwater.  The news and predictions continue to be dismal and the government is looking the other way as the American people sink further and further into the muck of the economic crisis.

The plans and hopes of the Obama admin for the people living on Main Street are falling far short of any substantial help.  In an article written by David Walsh:

According to a US Treasury report August 4, mortgage servicers, under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), have offered to change 406,500 loans and have actually modified, on a three-month trial basis, only some 235,000, just 9 percent of delinquent borrowers.

A number of banks that have received billions in taxpayers’ money, such as Wells Fargo, Wachovia and Bank of America, have modified even a smaller percentage of mortgages (6 percent or less).

These derisory figures come in the face of what a representative of the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), in testimony before a Senate committee July 23, called “a foreclosure tsunami, which threatens to destabilize our entire economy, devastate entire communities, and destroy millions of families.”

A July 30 New York Times article suggested that lenders “have little incentive to help homeowners.” It notes that the main impediments to a greater number of loan modifications are not staff shortages and logistical issues, as the mortgage firms claim, but their reluctance “to give strapped homeowners a break because the companies collect lucrative fees on delinquent loans. Even when borrowers stop paying, mortgage companies that service the loans collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. So the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater the opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenue—fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services.

The Times observes that mortgage companies are paid to manage pools of loans owned by investors and typically collect a percentage of the value of the loans they service. “They extract their share regardless of whether borrowers are current on their payments. Indeed, their percentage often increases on delinquent loans.”

A recent paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston concluded, “The rules by which servicers are reimbursed for expenses may provide a perverse incentive to foreclose rather than modify.”

As usual, Banks and Wall Street are the ONLY ones making out in the econbomic crisis.  Homeowners face a dismal future……and as usual, Wall Street is getting richer at their expense.

On another sour note, Reuters is reporting:

The U.S. Treasury Department should consider expanding programs to cleanse troubled assets from bank balance sheets if current efforts fail to restart markets or if economic conditions worsen, a U.S. bailout watchdog panel said on Tuesday.The Congressional Oversight Panel said in its latest monthly report that toxic loans and securities continue to pose a threat to the financial system, particularly for smaller banks that face mounting losses on commercial real estate loans.

Last October, the entire $700 billion U.S. bailout program was aimed at buying up the toxic assets that threatened to bring down the financial system. But due to the plan’s complexity and with market confidence rapidly deteriorating, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson quickly shifted gears to use the money for direct capital injections into banks.

Since then, Paulson’s successor, Timothy Geithner, announced plans to entice private investors to buy “legacy” securities and whole loans from banks. But accounting forbearance that allowed banks to avoid recognizing losses on these assets combined with large institutions’ ability to raise capital after regulator “stress tests” in May reduced investor angst over toxic assets.

Do not look now but it is sounding like Wall Street will get more of your money and you will get the same song and dance that you got last year.  If money is being shoved at someone it should be Main Street for they will most likely spend it and in doing so create demand for goods and services.  The pursuit of liquidity is not doing much to solve the economic problems that Main Street is facing.  It ius however, making those on Wall Street very happy and a lot richer.