Do you have money in a big bank that you, as a taxpayer, are bailing out, yet it continues to demand more money—nothing but extortion—from the government so it doesn’t…well, what? They’re not lending money to individuals and businesses, they’re raising credit card rates through the roof in an effort to squeeze an extra dollar out of some while driving others into bankruptcy. They’re not giving homeowners with crushing mortgages a break. But they are giving gigantic bonuses and paying themselves huge salaries for taking that government money. And they’re using the money to buy off legislators with lobbying $$$$$$$$$, all paid for by you and me.
At the same time, small local banks and credit unions that are doing everything they can to help people like you and me are getting squeezed to support these big, profligate institutions that caused their own problems with investments that any fool could have seen would be a bad idea.
That’s the problem. It’s not just fools, it’s a special class of fools that are running these financial giants. They think that you and I are even more foolish than they are.
What the hell do you owe them? Nothing. Stop doing business with them.
Take your money out. Move your money to a local financial institution. You owe it to yourself and to your local economy.
They are trying to destroy us for short-term gain, with the blessing of the government. Don’t let them do it. Starve them.
The more we read about the shadowy “C-Street” religious group, the more questions that are raised.
Rachel Maddow did an interesting interview with an expert on the group, a non-profit that provides cheap rent for religiously like-minded Congressmen, prayer breakfasts, “counseling” for members to assuage their guilty consciences after straying from their marriage vows, and above all, secrecy. Lots of secrecy.
The group is models itself on the Mafia, or on dictators like Pol Pot, Stalin, and Mao. It apparently on a mission to form an international alliance of Old White Christian Men in Power, to turn the world into a neat Christian theocracy where everything is black and white. Of course “rules” only apply to other people.
Members of the group apparently have had no qualms about visiting to meet with leaders of other countries to missionize on the taxpayer’s dollar.
Mark Sanford was a member of this group. He spoke of going abroad with other men recreationally, without his wife, to “blow off steam”. He says that while there he had “inappropriate” relationships with other women besides his Argentine paramour, although he claims he never did anything more serious than “dancing”.
Come on, guys. Did the taxpayers pay for Mark Sanford and other politicians to have international sexual tourism and missionizing trips?
Sarah Palin, woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown for Everyman, has tweeted that she’s going to sue us all for saying unflattering things about her, many of them true.
She’s going to sue everybody who photoshopped her pictures after she whined that her wingnut talk show host supporter ended up on one. Especially the one who put two heads on her body.
The woman has always had issues with the concept of “truth”. Her story changes as often as she needs it to, and she expects us to accept her version with deference. It is disrespectful to question Sarah dearest, or to check the facts. Most often, she does not seem to be aware that people are capable of checking what she says to see if it is reality-based or non-reality-based.
To speculate on Sarah dearest, her shadowy past, her present, her future, her work ethic, her motives, etc., is illegal, or it ought to be. Sarah dearest is the law. There will be no other laws above her. Oops, does that sound like a Commandment?
According to a commenter to the story in the Anchorage Daily News,
Question_Assumptions wrote on 07/05/2009 08:58:12 AM:
If a rumor-monger only writes about and forwards negative rumors and doesn’t make an attempt to prove or disprove their veracity, that should be sufficient to prove “malice”. Slander and libel are not free speech and never have been.
My goodness. It looks like they’d have to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine and eliminate hate radio to satisfy that condition.
Too bad she’s incapable of taking advice, or she might have learned some skills years ago that would help her cope with criticism, which is part of being a public figure—which, by the way, she intends to continue being. Sarah dearest is the gift that will keep on giving and giving…
She might also have attempted to learn some facts about, oh, everything. Knowledge does not seem to be her strong point. And while she was at it, she could have picked up some creative writing skills. That speech Friday was atrociously badly written. She has a degree in journalism? Her alma mater should rescind her degree.
So sue me.
Somethingawful.com has offered a non-apology for making Sarah dearest resign. Warning! Offensive!
Last week, when the case against Ted Stevens was dropped for prosecutorial mishandling, we heard about evidence that was withheld from the defense. It happens all the time, but rarely is it so severe that anything comes of it, at least not influencing the disposition of the case.
As in the Coleman/Franken case, the judge usually finds out about it and chews out the lawyers. Occasionally the judge will throw out a case.
Now if you were one of those defendants who doesn’t have a lot of money for expensive lawyers, you’d never even know it happened to you. They’d probably get away with it every time, which obviously is not the way the justice system is supposed to work in this country.
But for the case to be completely dropped, rather than merely seeking a retrial of some sort had to mean that the case was so ‘poisoned’ by whatever had been done that it could not be retried.
There was even speculation that the Bush administration was responsible for making sure that the case would inevitably be thrown out on appeal, thus being an embarrassment for everyone involved, except of course Ted Stevens, who is claiming that this is proof he never did any of the things that they said he did.
Not hardly.
Well, of course we assumed that maybe somebody would get a slap on the wrist, or some Bush appointee would get pushed out of their job a bit early and end up getting wealthy writing slanted books rewriting history as fiction and giving interviews on hate radio claiming persecution by liberal fascists.
Not so. It seems that we really will find out wtf was happening.
“In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said.
And then he appointed a special prosecutor to figure out exactly what happened and bring the criminals in the department to justice.
YES!
In case there is any confusion about what “justice” might mean in a case like this, they are looking at disbarment and prison time.
The word is that the Bush administration has salted the employment rolls of the current administration with hangovers who are ‘moles’, undercover operatives waiting to take orders from Bush, Cheney, Rove, and the Republican caucus and sabotage whatever the Obama adminstration tries to do.
Note: Sorry I have not been writing lately. I have been distracted by trying to get my site going, and learning all this programming is having an effect on my brain. I will try to be better about it, because there really is so much more to write about.
The FBI and Standard & Poor’s knew that:
The majority of the mortgages they looked at were fraudulent;
80% of the fraud was on the part of the lender;
All of the fraud could have been easily found with due diligence;
The investment firms involved with securitizing the mortgages and repackaging them as top quality investments deliberately avoided scrutinizing them to see what they were;
The Bush administration made a decision not to do anything about this.
Okay, there are a lot more bullet points at the article. It is damning, as well it should be.
What is it with governors? The governor’s office seems to be the high point of political crime and corruption in so many states. Spitzer, Blagojevich, and the ever-ethically challenged Sarah Palin…
The trolls keep droning on about how “we” won’t leave Sarah Palin alone, when she’s the one who keeps putting herself in the news, throwing herself in our faces.
Totally aside from the fact that she’s a publicity whore, the fact that Sarah Palin sees nothing wrong with so many of the sleazy things she does is going to keep her perpetually in the news.
Let’s go back and do a rough chronology of the Levi Johnston thing. All dates are approximate.
September 1: Sarah Palin announces to the entire country that her underage daughter, the one who she pulled out of school for most of last year, is pregnant. It is none of any of our business that her daughter managed to get pregnant, because they are right wingnut evangelicals. If they were liberals, of course, there would be plenty of blame to go around. In fact, the girl was constantly supervised, they are saying, though I’m not sure why whoever was supervising wouldn’t have stopped the two of them if they really were doing the nasty. Levi joins the “family values” tour, which means he had to drop out of school. The criminal investigation into Levi’s mother for dealing Oxycontin is put on hold so as not to embarrass the McCain campaign.
Mid-November: News leaks out that Levi has dropped out and gone to work in the oil fields.
Mid-December: The investigation back into gear, Levi Johnston’s mom gets arrested for selling Oxycontin.
End of December: Bristol delivers. Sarah Palin announces inanely that both of the young parents are working, going to school, and trying very hard to parent, even though Levi is supposed to be hundreds of miles away. I guess that getting the girl married off before the baby arrived wasn’t important.
Beginning of January: It turns out Levi was taking part in an apprenticeship program that requires applicants to have a high school diploma, which he doesn’t have, and has a long waiting list, although he apparently didn’t have to wait, due to influence on dear Sarah’s part. But that’s okay, he’s quit anyway. I guess it was too much like work.
The future: Lots more babies for Bristol and the clan. Wedlock? The odds are going down fast. Little Brisket…er…Trisket…err…Tripp is going to grow up just like the big power-hungry dysfunctional family he was born into.
In perhaps the most incongruous quote of the year 2008, Governor Blagojevich told a reporter last month that he runs because “it keeps love in your heart.” The Chicago Tribune ran a song contest for its readers, and we now have 38 songs on the joint themes of “Blagojevich” and “It keeps love in your heart.” The winner will be announced soon. Click through the photos in the article to hear them all. Enjoy!
The group is models itself on the Mafia, or on dictators like Pol Pot, Stalin, and Mao. It apparently on a mission to form an international alliance of Old White Christian Men in Power, to turn the world into a neat Christian theocracy where everything is black and white. Of course “rules” only apply to other people. 
Mark Sanford was a member of this group. He spoke of going abroad with other men recreationally, without his wife, to “blow off steam”. He says that while there he had “inappropriate” relationships with other women besides his Argentine paramour, although he claims he never did anything more serious than “dancing”. 
