Pelosi, who has warned of “serious unrest” among House Democrats about Afghanistan, said Wednesday that she intends to live up to that vow on the upcoming supplemental bill, which will require $30 billion to $40 billion for the additional 30,000 troops.
“We have to do this for the new president,” Pelosi said Wednesday, recounting her conversation with Democrats in June. “Then he will come up with a plan, and then it’s up to him to ask you for your support. What I’ve told the members is to give the president room, to listen to what he has to say, that we will provide the briefings and they will have the information. But I can’t — this, for members, is a vote of conscience. War votes are votes of conscience.“
I hate that argument. It implies that people who “support” war do so because of their conscience. Pardon my French, but that’s just bull s**t. Pure, utter, bs.
Some people live in fantasy worlds that are totally isolated from reality. Others see the reality for what it is and deal with it. There are those who are convinced that not dealing with aggressors makes the aggression go away. Then, there are people who realize the only way to know peace is to have a bigger gun than the guy who wants to kill you because (insert reason here). Nancy Pelosi is just not going to talk radical terrorists into sipping tea to some Bach and discuss prosperity for all in an economically friendly way. It just ain’t gonna happen. Period. Since I am so thoroughly convinced Nancy’s not going to talk the terrorists into ditching a philosophy they are willing to die for, then she needs a backup plan for my security, I’ve never heard one from her.
Now, ya gotta understand. The US Constitution assures the federal government only does one thing. It can do other things, but Congress must do one thing:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Nancy Pelosi, by urging Congress to surrender Afghanistan and Iraq, with no plan to assure peace, has violated the only thing the US Constitution assures. By urging surrender to an aggressor, she is in effect:
…”assisting its enemies in war.”
That is otherwise defined as “treason”.
Unfortunately, the best she would get would be life in prison. Which, of course, wouldn’t shut her up. Given that, and the fact that Democrats are loathe to prosecute anything a fellow Democrat does, and that the people of San Francisco won’t vote her out, and the fact they can’t blame her on Bush, nothing will ever happen.
Seriously tho, she needs to understand that being a Congressman is not about her. It’s about the welfare of the United States. When someone attacks us, it’s not a matter of whether she can in good conscience do what it takes to prevent it from happening again. She has sworn to protect us from our aggressors. She has abdicated that role. She needs to be held accountable.
But, outside of Fox, it won’t happen.
For a little while now, I’ve been going after Obama and his bunch for attacking big banks when the problem is with regional banks. He’s given them TARP, gotten most of it back, called them names, and begged for their help. All the while, smaller banks have been totally ignored while the Feds have been killing them.
That ain’t pretty. And, it’s getting worse. That’s a hockey stick based on real numbers. In the meantime, Ben Bernanke was made Time’s peep of the year. In that article he talks about coming from a small town. If that’s the case, then he should remember which banks he did business with. In small towns, it’s not Citi or Bank of America. It’s the local regional banks. You wanna kick start the economy, get off their backs and motivate them to make loans.
No one seemed to be listening. Obama continued to hound big banks, big banks started giving out bonuses to spite him, and TARP wound up mostly unused. And the regional bank failures continued.
Finally, I wake up this morning to see that Tom Brown wrote this:
Remember, during the presidential campaign, how we all kept going on and on about how smart Barack Obama is? Remember?
Turns out we were wrong! I can’t speak to topics like foreign affairs or macroeconomics, but I do know about banking. And I will say flat out that Obama’s approach to dealing with bankers and the banking industry has been brainless. It is shocking to see what the guy appears to not know.
On Monday, the President summoned the heads of the country’s big banks to try to jawbone them into lending more. “America’s big banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers,” he said after the meeting. “Now that they’re back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild the economy.”
Really? If the President wants the banks to start lending more, he might spend less time yammering at CEOs and more time talking to his own regulators. They don’t seem to have gotten the memo. Instead, regulators are apparently doing all they can to ensure that banks keep their lending to a minimum. For example, they now seem to be insisting banks maintain minimum capital standards meaningfully above the published, official bogeys. Before the credit crunch hit, for instance, OCC policy said a bank would be considered “adequately capitalized” if it carried a Tier 1 capital ratio of 4%, and “well-capitalized” if it carried a Tier 1 ratio of 6%. It was simple. Right there in print.
And now—who knows? Regulators won’t come out and admit they’ve moved the goalposts but, as multiple conversations I’ve lately had with bank CEOs show, they have. Now, apparently, it takes a 10% Tier 1 ratio to be considered well-capitalized, and regulators don’t mind if banks are even a tad over that…..
Yup.
Drop the Tier One back to where it was, free up six or seven percent capital, use that to make traditional loans, you’ve got a lot of money kicked into the economy by doing basically nothing. The reason they’re not doing that now is FDIC has bankrupted itself and needs both a cash infusion and relief from failing banks. However, by artificially forcing nominal banks into bankruptcy, they’re not helping anyone. Use TARP instead. Simple. It “saved” the big boys and that did nothing to stimulate the economy. Put it in FDIC and it will immediately. What it won’t do however, is make for big headlines with Obama front and center.
Obama laid blame to the entire financial meltdown to the finance industry. He trashed their bonuses as an example of why people don’t like banks right now.
He sang a different tune last year. He gladly accepted parts of their bonuses as the economy was melting down.
| Lehman Brothers | $ 344,609 |
| Bear Stearns | $ 60,754 |
| Citi | $ 440,335 |
| Bank of America | $ 284,286 |
| JP Morgan | $ 364,486 |
| Goldman Sachs | $ 685,305 |
| Morgan Stanley | $ 472,715 |
| American Express | $ 97,375 |
| US Bancorp | $ 1,650 |
| Capital One | $ 30,435 |
| Bank of New York Mellon | $ 13,885 |
| State Street Corp | $ 15,750 |
| PNC Bank | $ 5,750 |
| Wells Fargo | $ 199,988 |
| TOTAL | $ 3,017,323 |
Now that he’s responsible, that money’s suddenly bad. One day after trashing them on 60 Minutes, he’s having a private meeting with several leaders. Wanna guess how many of those companies in the first list are at this meeting? There’s a few on there that won’t be. They went bankrupt. Lehman Brothers gave $344,609 while filing for the largest bankruptcy the country has ever endured.
Bottom line, Citibank is prepared to pay back it’s share of TARP. From what I’ve read, that means it will all be paid back. There is nothing Obama can say these banks have actually done to harm the economy. The ones that did harm the economy, Lehman Brothers for example, got taken care of the way capitalism takes care of bad business practices. It shut them down. It doesn’t matter if they were too big to fail or not, they did.
What we are left with at this point is big banks being TOO conservative because they know the PR hell they’ll have to endure from Obama and Pelosi regardless of how much they are willing to take.
More lunacy from the top. At approximately 11:10 this morning, Obama is scheduled to meet with representatives of the financial industry. Last night he had this to say about them:
“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.”…..
Now, I for one never blamed the “financial services industry” for the meltdown. I put the blame squarely where it belonged. Even people like Paul Krugman are now trying to re-write history to put it in their political agenda. My take on history is a little different than Obama’s and Krugman’s. The meltdown did not start with Lehman Brothers or Citibank or ( insert scapegoat here ). It started very overtly and obviously with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse. Now, the thing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is, and I’ll grant it that it’s just splitting hairs, they are not members of the fiancial services industry. They are a tool created by Democrats for Jimmy Carter that compelled members of the financial services industry to make bad loans. Thirty years later, the very obvious end game came to roost. The concept of forcing banks to make bad loans led to a problem with banks being stuck with too many bad loans. Who woulda thunk it?
Definitely not Paul Krugman or Barack Obama. They got together a couple of weeks ago to discuss how to create more jobs. Their plan was to:
- Insult the banking industry publicly on 60 Minutes.
- Blame them for a problem they know they didn’t create.
- Publicly demand a solution that doesn’t address the root problem.
- Meet privately with them to encourage them to make more bad loans that got them in the shape they’re in now.
What a plan huh?
Now, as has been pointed out, most of the big players are paying back TARP as quickly as possible to get Obama out of their hair. So, the strings aren’t quite what they were a year ago. Additionally, Nancy Pelosi pushed through legislation that enabled Congress to break up large banks, scrutinize their business more closely to identify fraud, and a few other restrictions in the 1,300 page piece of legislation.
Two things you can bet it did not do is repeal the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act or use TARP money to bolster the finances of FDIC. If Obama wants to kick-start lending, he needs to quit going for the headlines and pandering to liberal politics and do what makes some sense. The FDIC is effectively bankrupt. In order to prop up their assets, they are sucking small regional banks dry. Now, small regional banks have to have a certain equity ratio to remain solvent. You take away their equity, they can’t loan money. It really is that simple. That’s exactly what the FDIC is doing right now. Infusing enough capital to get FDIC off regional banks’ backs will do more to kick-start lending and the economy than dicking around with a hand full of fat cat bankers. On main street, bankers don’t get $10 million bonuses. And, they certainly are never too big to fail. Then, as the banking industry returns to normal due to the increased volume, FDIC returns the TARP money.
But, if they’re not going to do anything about the Community Reinvestment Act, then all bets are off that any fix will last very long.
Otherwise, Obama will be dealing with fat cat lawyers next as he tries to explain to his voters why the banks he’s been attacking start failing all over the country. Stretching it? Try this:
Obama’s had more bank failures this year than Bush had the entire eight years. That’s a good reason why some aren’t lending any more. Citibank, Bank of America, etc, make for good headlines, but they don’t do business in most of rural America. It’s the small regional banks that do the lending to the small local businesses. They are the ones hurting right now. They are the ones that need help primarily by getting FDIC off their backs. Strangling them with more regulations while ignoring the cause is a recipe for disaster that we are already experiencing but could only get worse.
I work with a program that provides services to indigent elderly in Kentucky. Mostly in rural Kentucky. Now, by nature, indigent elderly are not the healthiest population. As such, we’ve been very prone to being exposed to every infectious disease known to man. You name it, we deal with it. AIDS, flus, TB. If a human can pass it, we’ll get it. Because of that we’ve had to have a pretty strict policy regarding infectious diseases through the years. Right now it goes something like this:
It is the policy of ******** that an employee who has contracted an infectious disease will not provide any client services until they present a doctor’s statement assuring they are no longer contagious.
Pretty strict if you ask me. Well, the state doesn’t think so. They feel we need to update our policy t reflect the impact of H1N1. It’s that important. I’m kinda balking on this for a few reasons.
- For starters, I don’t see how removing someone from the work place can be improved upon in regards to addressing an infectious disease. This does a lot to deter the spread of the disease.
- If they want to work, they have to see a doctor. I don’t see how you can improve on forcing your staff to seek medical attention. This helps deter the spread of the disease.
- There is an expense incurred in re-writing, re-publishing, and re-training staff in regards to addressing the flu when the procedures will be exactly the same. About the only thing we would be doing is telling the staff H1N1 is an infectious disease. I’m gonna bet they already know that. Since we deal with a fixed funding amount, this simply means our clients will get fewer services for absolutely no benefit.
- Our guidelines regarding protecting our staff were adjusted to reflect the impact of AIDS. AIDS is a lot more dangerous.
- And the kicker for me, the policy we use was originally written in the late 80′s due to a rather virulent flu outbreak. Yup, it was a flu. What’s even more annoying is that flu outbreak was the swine flu. Exactly what it is they’re worrying about now.
This folks, is what people who are demanding public health care want. They’re saying it’s not, but it is. Someone at the federal level decided everyone at the state level needed to specifically address H1N1 because it’s so very special. It’s not good enough right now to protect everyone from ALL contagious diseases, it just has to be that one very special strain of the flu. Now, private industry tends to look at things a lot differently. They wouldn’t be at all concerned about H1N1 IF they knew they already had procedures in place to deal with it. The state knows they had procedures in place, but those procedures didn’t pander to the disease of the day, even if it was the disease of 20 years ago.
This is a huge waste of time and waste of money to make people less safe. That’s your public option at work.
The Republicans are pushing a measure to end TARP and return unspent funds to lower, make that, not increase, the national debt.
I am betting Nancy Pelosi will not allow this subversive effort to limit her ability to spend huge amounts of money to occur. Any takers?
This was the source of some discussion this morning:
Some speculated it was something peaceful, like the large hadron collider creating the black hole that would engulf Earth and obliterate our existance in such a way no alien life form would ever know we existed. However, since there are particules that come from the future to keep that from happening, I knew it wasn’t true.
At this time, Russia is telling the world not to panic, it was simply a Bulava missile that can travel 5,000 miles and carry ten nuclear warheads. These missiles are newer, bigger, and more powerful nuclear missiles than what they used in the past.
While people were scratching their heads trying to figure out what it was, Obama was telling the world this while accepting his Nobel Peace Prize:
Somehow I don’t think Russia is quite as committed to eliminating their stockpile just yet. Call it a hunch if you will.
Harry’s right. There were people who supported these efforts, and those who didn’t.
Slavery’s a given. It was a Republican who freed the slaves in 1862. But, it goes deeper than that. The Whigs supported slavery ( sorry peeps, it wasn’t the Republicans ). The Democrats of the time opposed slavery. However, in 1850, a “compromise” was reached that was hammered down the Whigs throats that split Kansas into two separate states. The premise one being a “Northern” state and the other a “Southern” state. However, laws dictating their annexation pretty well made being a “Southern” state moot. As such, riots, raids, murders, and general lawlessness overwhelmed the new territories. The ensuing debate pretty well signaled the death of the Whig party. People who were anti-slavery BUT anti-federal imposition formed a new party. They called themselves Republicans. So it’s not just enough to say Republicans freed the slaves, they were formed for that very reason. Ending slavery, sorta, in 1862, didn’t make things any easier for Republicans:
The example here? Those who did not support ending slavery resorted to violence, intimidation, harassment, and using the weight of the federal government to compel others. The difference today is Harry Reid is using the weight of the federal government to harass, intimidate, and coerce people to get what they want. And yeah, you can toss in a little violence as well. There definitely are parallels, but I don’t think that’s what Harry had in mind.
Basically, what Harry’s saying here is they didn’t debate, discuss, or even read the Amendments. They did what he wants done now and just passed them because they sounded like good ideas. Let’s look a little closer at the reality:
| Amendment | Proposed | Ratified | Days | Years |
| 1st | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 2nd | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 3rd | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 4th | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 5th | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 6th | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 7th | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 8th | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 9th | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 10th | 9/25/1789 | 12/15/1791 | 811 | 2.22 |
| 11th | 3/4/1794 | 2/7/1795 | 340 | 0.93 |
| 12th | 12/9/1803 | 6/15/1804 | 189 | 0.52 |
| 13th | 1/31/1865 | 12/06/1865 | 309 | 0.85 |
| 14th | 6/13/1866 | 7/9/1868 | 757 | 2.07 |
| 15th | 2/26/1869 | 2/3/1870 | 342 | 0.94 |
| 16th | 7/12/1909 | 2/3/1913 | 1,302 | 3.57 |
| 17th | 5/13/1912 | 4/8/1913 | 330 | 0.90 |
| 18th | 12/18/1917 | 1/16/1919 | 394 | 1.08 |
| 19th | 6/4/1919 | 8/18/1920 | 441 | 1.21 |
| 21st | 2/20/1933 | 12/5/1933 | 288 | 0.79 |
| 22nd | 3/24/1947 | 2/27/1951 | 1,436 | 3.93 |
| 23rd | 6/16/1960 | 3/29/1961 | 286 | 0.78 |
| 24th | 9/14/1962 | 1/23/1964 | 496 | 1.36 |
| 25th | 7/6/1965 | 2/10/1967 | 584 | 1.60 |
| 26th | 3/23/1971 | 7/1/1971 | 100 | 0.27 |
| 27th | 9/25/1789 | 5/7/1992 | 74,003 | 202.75 |
| Failed ( so far ) | ||||
| CAC | 9/25/1789 | 12/9/2009 | 80,336 | 220.10 |
| Titles of Nobility | 5/1/1810 | 12/9/2009 | 109,338 | 299.56 |
| Corwin | 3/2/1861 | 12/9/2009 | 54,246 | 148.62 |
| Child Labor | 3/2/1924 | 12/9/2009 | 31,237 | 85.58 |
| Equal Rights | 3/22/1972 | 3/22/1987 | 5,478 | 15.01 |
| DC Voting Rights | 8/22/1972 | 8/22/1987 | 5,478 | 15.01 |
Fact of the matter is, Harry’s dicking around with history. Only one amendment ever was agreed upon in 100 days or less. One of the quickest to pass (18th) was even more quickly repealed (21st). Women’s suffrage (19th) would never have been an issue if the 14th hadn’t been so sloppy. Maybe if they had slowed down on those two, things would have been a lot better a lot sooner.
Now, there are two differences between then and now:
- The issues Harry compared the health bill to were Constitutional amendments. He’s trying to pass a law. If he truly thinks this issue is on the same par as ending slavery or women suffrage, make it an amendment. Let the people all across the United States decide whether health care is a right. And, if it is, how much it has to cost.
- And to me this is the biggie, there is no health care bill to even debate. As of last night they’re still changing it. If you thought the public option was the cure, well, think again, it’s toast. So, what exactly is it Harry thinks we should rush through the Senate without discussing?
Sometime in 2007 or so, some people decided the US was too polarized. I’m not terribly sure that’s a bad thing. But, it became a political issue that the Democrats used to some success I suppose. Obama was going to fix that polarization problem. It was change you could believe in.
His people didn’t listen. Pretty much as soon as the swearing in was over, the love was as well. It started rather subtly enough:
Bush flunkies trying to argue that Obama is more polarizing than Bush was.
That was in Time Magazine.
Once the health debate got fired up, the love was completely gone. If you questioned anything about the health care “reform”, you were referred to as:
If you objected publicly to Obama, in his presence, you are a white hood wearing racist.
If you didn’t praise Obama daily on your newscasts, you aren’t a real news organization.
If you protested publicly, you’re a Nazi.
If you’re a Republican, you’re a rightwing extremist.
If you’re religious, you’re a rightwing extremist.
If you’re fiscally conservative, you’re a rightwing extremist.
If you believe in the US Constitution, you’re a rightwing extremist.
If you don’t fully buy into Obama’s cap and trade policy, you’re a flat-earther, you’re in denial, you believe man never landed on the Moon, and you believe Area 51 is real.
And, as of today, if you don’t support health care reform, even if you don’t know what it does, you are against freeing the slaves, allowing women to vote, and against civil rights.
Feel the love?
So far, not one single person has recanted any of those statements. This reminds me of McCarthyism. If they’ve got an issue with you, they don’t want an open and honest discussion ( transparency ), they just go for the jugular. The biggest running joke so far is how many bodies are under the Obama bus. So, you don’t necessarily have to be any of the above to draw their wrath.
I truly think it’s the constant assault of insults and demeaning conversation that is costing Obama any political leverage he had with his election, along with the pass he got being the first African-American president. Broken political promises are the norm, he hasn’t bought any favors there. But, he could very easily rein in the nastiness. He hasn’t, he’s participated, and his underlings are out of control. It’s tasteless, it’s trashy, and it makes everyone look bad. If Obama doesn’t rein it in, it will just add fuel to the polarization he claimed was a Bush problem. I think people are already getting real tired of passing the buck on Bush. Especially when it’s obvious its Obama’s baby. Go back and look at how many times Bush demeaned someone, attacked the press, or blamed anything on his predecessor. Bush wasn’t polarizing, people were. In Obama’s case, that can’t be said.
General McChrystal, Obama’s Afghanistan czar, requested 40,000 troops a few months ago. Obama hemmed and hawed, and decided he’d let McChrystal have 30,000 troops if he promised to surrender and withdraw sometime in July 2011.
Now, with confidence, McChrystal asserted:
Now, the situation as it stands now is IF we are doing badly in July 2011, we stay. If we are doing well, we leave.
How much you wanna guess the Taliban will raise hell until about June of 2011 and then take a vacation?
Obama will declare victory in July 2011, and Afghanistan will fall one month later.
