Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
GOD I HOPE THIS FRANKEN LOSER DOESN'T WIN
Fight Over Absentee Ballots Continues in Franken-Coleman Race
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:30 AM
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- When it comes to votes in Minnesota's drawn-out Senate election, five are particularly crucial.
That's how many people sit on the state Canvassing Board, which was to gather Wednesday to decide what to do about Democrat Al Franken's request to count absentee ballots his campaign says were wrongly rejected by poll judges.
Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's team is arguing that the board lacks the power to include those ballots in the high-stakes recount.
Coleman entered the recount guarding a 215-vote lead out of 2.9 million ballots cast. Through Tuesday night, state figures showed his lead stood at 238 votes when Nov. 4 tallies are compared with new counts in precincts where the recount is done.
That doesn't factor in the nearly 3,600 challenges that will get sorted out later, meaning the absentee fight could prove critical.
Franken's advisers say they know of more than 6,400 disqualified absentee ballots. Not all of the ballots would be fair game if the Franken push prevails.
Many were turned away because the voter wasn't properly registered. Other voters showed up in person after submitting a mail ballot, canceling the first ballot.
The Franken campaign has been pressing hardest for information on voters whose absentee ballots didn't count because there were problems with their signature or where possible clerical errors occurred.
The attorney general's office - run by a Democrat - has recommended against opening the rejected absentee ballots as part of the recount.
Both campaigns offered legal arguments to the canvassing board, which is made up of the secretary of state, two Supreme Court justices and two district judges.
Lawyers for Franken, an ex-"Saturday Night Live" personality, are citing a 1962 Supreme Court decision to argue that ballots should not be excluded because of technical mistakes or "an innocent failure" to comply with voting statutes.
His lead attorney, Marc Elias, said Tuesday he hopes the board will approve the counting of votes where the ballot rejection is debatable.
"It has the opportunity to do that and it has the authority and indeed I would say it has the obligation to do so," Elias said.
But Coleman's campaign sees its case as bolstered by 1858 and 1865 decisions by the Minnesota Supreme Court that discuss the "purely ministerial" role of canvassing boards in disputed elections.
"Boards of canvassers have no authority to pass upon the regularity of an election or the qualifications of persons voting thereat," reads the 1858 opinion in a disputed state Senate race.
Fritz Knaak, Coleman's lead recount lawyer, said including the rejected absentees would be "an unprecedented step, one that has never been done before in Minnesota and one that we believe undermines the legitimacy of the overall process that's been created."
Knaak said it's also unclear who would analyze those ballots and decide on them if they were included. He said the issue is best left to a lawsuit that could follow the recount if the losing party contests the result.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:30 AM
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- When it comes to votes in Minnesota's drawn-out Senate election, five are particularly crucial.
That's how many people sit on the state Canvassing Board, which was to gather Wednesday to decide what to do about Democrat Al Franken's request to count absentee ballots his campaign says were wrongly rejected by poll judges.
Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's team is arguing that the board lacks the power to include those ballots in the high-stakes recount.
Coleman entered the recount guarding a 215-vote lead out of 2.9 million ballots cast. Through Tuesday night, state figures showed his lead stood at 238 votes when Nov. 4 tallies are compared with new counts in precincts where the recount is done.
That doesn't factor in the nearly 3,600 challenges that will get sorted out later, meaning the absentee fight could prove critical.
Franken's advisers say they know of more than 6,400 disqualified absentee ballots. Not all of the ballots would be fair game if the Franken push prevails.
Many were turned away because the voter wasn't properly registered. Other voters showed up in person after submitting a mail ballot, canceling the first ballot.
The Franken campaign has been pressing hardest for information on voters whose absentee ballots didn't count because there were problems with their signature or where possible clerical errors occurred.
The attorney general's office - run by a Democrat - has recommended against opening the rejected absentee ballots as part of the recount.
Both campaigns offered legal arguments to the canvassing board, which is made up of the secretary of state, two Supreme Court justices and two district judges.
Lawyers for Franken, an ex-"Saturday Night Live" personality, are citing a 1962 Supreme Court decision to argue that ballots should not be excluded because of technical mistakes or "an innocent failure" to comply with voting statutes.
His lead attorney, Marc Elias, said Tuesday he hopes the board will approve the counting of votes where the ballot rejection is debatable.
"It has the opportunity to do that and it has the authority and indeed I would say it has the obligation to do so," Elias said.
But Coleman's campaign sees its case as bolstered by 1858 and 1865 decisions by the Minnesota Supreme Court that discuss the "purely ministerial" role of canvassing boards in disputed elections.
"Boards of canvassers have no authority to pass upon the regularity of an election or the qualifications of persons voting thereat," reads the 1858 opinion in a disputed state Senate race.
Fritz Knaak, Coleman's lead recount lawyer, said including the rejected absentees would be "an unprecedented step, one that has never been done before in Minnesota and one that we believe undermines the legitimacy of the overall process that's been created."
Knaak said it's also unclear who would analyze those ballots and decide on them if they were included. He said the issue is best left to a lawsuit that could follow the recount if the losing party contests the result.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
BAD CHOICE FOR OBAMA ADMIN?
Napolitano Bad Pick as Security Chief, Minutemen Say
Arizona Governor Napolitano has been nominated for Barack Obama's new White House administration. She is criticized on illegal immigration by the Minutemen. Napolitano vetoed a border wall and ending tuition aid for illegals.
Monday, November 24, 2008 6:29 PM
By: Dave Eberhart
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano pushed into law the nation’s harshest penalty for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. But that’s not a good enough credential for her to lead the Department of Homeland Security — at least for the border guard watch group Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
Minuteman President Chris Simcox doesn’t hesitate to lambaste Napolitano, who reportedly is president-elect Barack Obama’s top choice to head homeland security.
“I’m dubious at best," Simcox said. "This is a situation where you might as well put Barney the purple dinosaur in charge of homeland security.”
Simcox contends that problems associated with illegal immigration and drug smuggling pose the greatest threats to America’s security. But Napolitano, he says, hasn’t done nearly enough as governor of a state bordering Mexico to combat them. She would not be any more proactive as homeland security chief, he says.
“Miss Napolitano has no credentials when it comes to security, national security issues, military or law enforcement,” Simcox said during a report on KOVA-TV in Tucson.
On the other hand, Napolitano's signature law is a harsh measure that would take away the business license of a company on its second violation.
At the time of its passage last year, the second-term governor referred to it as the “business death penalty.” She also took the opportunity to slam the federal government for failing to act on rigorous immigration reform.
“The states will take the lead, and Arizona will take the lead among the states,” she said at the time.
Napolitano, who was Arizona’s attorney general and also U.S. attorney for the state, faces skepticism from the zero-tolerance Minutemen because of her willingness to compromise on items considered sacred icons by the border watch group.
For instance:
She vetoed a bill in 2005 that would have cut off in-state tuition aid to students who are in the country illegally. “This bill goes too far by punishing even longtime residents of this state who were brought here as small children by their parents,” she said, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
She vetoed bills that would have required the local police to enforce the immigration laws by arresting people in the state illegally.
She has not supported the border fence that is being constructed: “You show me a 50-foot wall, and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder,” she has said.
She also proposed a temporary worker program that would help employers fill quotas for workers. “Foreign labor should not be a substitute for U.S. workers, but it is critical that we bring foreign workers out of the shadows, put the clamps on the underground labor market and bring greater stability to our workforce,” she has said.
Yet, along the way, she has been unrelentingly tough as well, according to the LA Times. Consider:
Last year, she outlined a series of measures to control immigration, including an enhanced national employer verification system that would use Social Security data.
She has advocated a streamlined visa process and “tamper-proof immigration documents” that would reduce the use of fraudulent identifications.
She was the first governor to call for stationing the National Guard along her state’s 376-mile border with Mexico.
But Brett Farley, executive director of the Arizona-based Minuteman PAC, said his organization has its own calculus, and Napolitano fails.
“Obama’s selection of Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary could be the biggest attack on our security and sovereignty in our nation’s history,” Farley said.
“The only worse pick for such a position would have been John McCain. This is a slap in our faces.”
Farley lists some of the perceived grievous trespasses perpetrated under Napolitano’s administration. Under her watch, he said, Arizona has:
Become ground zero for illegal trafficking of drugs, weapons, humans, and money.
Seen a spike in violent crime and gang warfare.
Become the headquarters for an international crime syndicate run through Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia.
Seen the highest influx of illegal immigrants along the southern border.
Become known to the criminal world as the “open gate” to the U.S.
In any event, if Napolitano passes the Obama vetting process and runs the gauntlet through Senate confirmation, the 50-year-old will be taking charge of the nation’s third biggest department. She will be responsible for a whole host of security hot spots such as aviation and maritime security, disaster response, protecting the president. She’ll be in charge of a virtual army composed of the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Border Patrol, Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to a report in USA Today.
“The fact that she is a governor from a border state is extremely important,” says Randall Larsen, a terrorism and homeland security expert and former National War College professor.
But Farley rejects the border-state governor argument, as he and his organization maintain that she has abused that very position.
“Janet Napolitano has spent more time in Mexico coddling the Mexican government and working deals for amnesty than she’s spent working with the legislature in her own state!” Farley said.
“Never mind that, as a state governor, Napolitano has no — zip, zilch, nada — constitutional authority to negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of the United States.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Print Page
Forward Page
E-mail Us
Arizona Governor Napolitano has been nominated for Barack Obama's new White House administration. She is criticized on illegal immigration by the Minutemen. Napolitano vetoed a border wall and ending tuition aid for illegals.
Monday, November 24, 2008 6:29 PM
By: Dave Eberhart
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano pushed into law the nation’s harshest penalty for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. But that’s not a good enough credential for her to lead the Department of Homeland Security — at least for the border guard watch group Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
Minuteman President Chris Simcox doesn’t hesitate to lambaste Napolitano, who reportedly is president-elect Barack Obama’s top choice to head homeland security.
“I’m dubious at best," Simcox said. "This is a situation where you might as well put Barney the purple dinosaur in charge of homeland security.”
Simcox contends that problems associated with illegal immigration and drug smuggling pose the greatest threats to America’s security. But Napolitano, he says, hasn’t done nearly enough as governor of a state bordering Mexico to combat them. She would not be any more proactive as homeland security chief, he says.
“Miss Napolitano has no credentials when it comes to security, national security issues, military or law enforcement,” Simcox said during a report on KOVA-TV in Tucson.
On the other hand, Napolitano's signature law is a harsh measure that would take away the business license of a company on its second violation.
At the time of its passage last year, the second-term governor referred to it as the “business death penalty.” She also took the opportunity to slam the federal government for failing to act on rigorous immigration reform.
“The states will take the lead, and Arizona will take the lead among the states,” she said at the time.
Napolitano, who was Arizona’s attorney general and also U.S. attorney for the state, faces skepticism from the zero-tolerance Minutemen because of her willingness to compromise on items considered sacred icons by the border watch group.
For instance:
She vetoed a bill in 2005 that would have cut off in-state tuition aid to students who are in the country illegally. “This bill goes too far by punishing even longtime residents of this state who were brought here as small children by their parents,” she said, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
She vetoed bills that would have required the local police to enforce the immigration laws by arresting people in the state illegally.
She has not supported the border fence that is being constructed: “You show me a 50-foot wall, and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder,” she has said.
She also proposed a temporary worker program that would help employers fill quotas for workers. “Foreign labor should not be a substitute for U.S. workers, but it is critical that we bring foreign workers out of the shadows, put the clamps on the underground labor market and bring greater stability to our workforce,” she has said.
Yet, along the way, she has been unrelentingly tough as well, according to the LA Times. Consider:
Last year, she outlined a series of measures to control immigration, including an enhanced national employer verification system that would use Social Security data.
She has advocated a streamlined visa process and “tamper-proof immigration documents” that would reduce the use of fraudulent identifications.
She was the first governor to call for stationing the National Guard along her state’s 376-mile border with Mexico.
But Brett Farley, executive director of the Arizona-based Minuteman PAC, said his organization has its own calculus, and Napolitano fails.
“Obama’s selection of Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary could be the biggest attack on our security and sovereignty in our nation’s history,” Farley said.
“The only worse pick for such a position would have been John McCain. This is a slap in our faces.”
Farley lists some of the perceived grievous trespasses perpetrated under Napolitano’s administration. Under her watch, he said, Arizona has:
Become ground zero for illegal trafficking of drugs, weapons, humans, and money.
Seen a spike in violent crime and gang warfare.
Become the headquarters for an international crime syndicate run through Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia.
Seen the highest influx of illegal immigrants along the southern border.
Become known to the criminal world as the “open gate” to the U.S.
In any event, if Napolitano passes the Obama vetting process and runs the gauntlet through Senate confirmation, the 50-year-old will be taking charge of the nation’s third biggest department. She will be responsible for a whole host of security hot spots such as aviation and maritime security, disaster response, protecting the president. She’ll be in charge of a virtual army composed of the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Border Patrol, Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to a report in USA Today.
“The fact that she is a governor from a border state is extremely important,” says Randall Larsen, a terrorism and homeland security expert and former National War College professor.
But Farley rejects the border-state governor argument, as he and his organization maintain that she has abused that very position.
“Janet Napolitano has spent more time in Mexico coddling the Mexican government and working deals for amnesty than she’s spent working with the legislature in her own state!” Farley said.
“Never mind that, as a state governor, Napolitano has no — zip, zilch, nada — constitutional authority to negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of the United States.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Print Page
Forward Page
E-mail Us
Monday, November 24, 2008
More on MEDIA BIAS in Support of Obama
Disgusting' Bias for Obama, Time Writer Admits
Sunday, November 23, 2008 5:40 PM
The mainstream media's support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign was so biased that even major insiders are now admitting they were shocked by its depth and depravity.
Last week, Time magazine's Mark Halperin called the media's performance during the campaign simply "disgusting."
Halperin told a panel of media analysts at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election, "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war."
He added, "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."
According to the Web site Politico, Halperin, who edits Time's political site "The Page," zeroed in on two New York Times articles near the end of the campaign that profiled both Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama.
"The story about Cindy McCain was vicious," Halperin said. "It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it cast her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn't talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that's ever been written about her."
But the Times gave Michelle Obama red carpet treatment, "like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is."
Halperin, a former ABC News political director, allowed that some of the press coverage simply reflected the extreme efficiency of Obama's presidential campaign.
"You do have to take into account the fact that this was a remarkable candidacy," Halperin said. "There were a lot of good stories. He was new."
Obama also had a lot of money and outspent Republican John McCain by more than 2 to 1.
The press never bothered to hold Obama accountable for reneging on his promise to use public financing. McCain kept his promise to do so.
During the campaign, conservatives criticized the pro-Obama coverage, but it had little effect.
Columnist David Limbaugh noted: "Never has that been clearer than in the 2008 presidential election, during which they are covering up rather than covering Barack Obama's shady past and alliances, his knee-deep involvement in corrupt practices threatening the very core of our democratic system, and his many policy misrepresentations."
Limbaugh noted that the press went into a tizzy over Sarah Palin's wardrobe, but ignored extravagances like Obama's "obscenely idolatrous million-dollar Greek coliseum mirage."
Now that the election is over, Halperin is not alone in admitting the bias. The Washington Post's ombudsman recently conceded that the paper’s coverage was skewed strongly in favor of Obama and against the McCain-Palin ticket.
[Editor's Note: See "Washington Post Admits Bias for Obama, Against McCain, Palin."]
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Sunday, November 23, 2008 5:40 PM
The mainstream media's support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign was so biased that even major insiders are now admitting they were shocked by its depth and depravity.
Last week, Time magazine's Mark Halperin called the media's performance during the campaign simply "disgusting."
Halperin told a panel of media analysts at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election, "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war."
He added, "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."
According to the Web site Politico, Halperin, who edits Time's political site "The Page," zeroed in on two New York Times articles near the end of the campaign that profiled both Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama.
"The story about Cindy McCain was vicious," Halperin said. "It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it cast her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn't talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that's ever been written about her."
But the Times gave Michelle Obama red carpet treatment, "like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is."
Halperin, a former ABC News political director, allowed that some of the press coverage simply reflected the extreme efficiency of Obama's presidential campaign.
"You do have to take into account the fact that this was a remarkable candidacy," Halperin said. "There were a lot of good stories. He was new."
Obama also had a lot of money and outspent Republican John McCain by more than 2 to 1.
The press never bothered to hold Obama accountable for reneging on his promise to use public financing. McCain kept his promise to do so.
During the campaign, conservatives criticized the pro-Obama coverage, but it had little effect.
Columnist David Limbaugh noted: "Never has that been clearer than in the 2008 presidential election, during which they are covering up rather than covering Barack Obama's shady past and alliances, his knee-deep involvement in corrupt practices threatening the very core of our democratic system, and his many policy misrepresentations."
Limbaugh noted that the press went into a tizzy over Sarah Palin's wardrobe, but ignored extravagances like Obama's "obscenely idolatrous million-dollar Greek coliseum mirage."
Now that the election is over, Halperin is not alone in admitting the bias. The Washington Post's ombudsman recently conceded that the paper’s coverage was skewed strongly in favor of Obama and against the McCain-Palin ticket.
[Editor's Note: See "Washington Post Admits Bias for Obama, Against McCain, Palin."]
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
SOMETHING FROM NEWT....
Crony Capitalism, Predatory Politicians, and the Detroit Three
By Newt Gingrich
There's a term that's commonly applied to the economic systems of some Asian and Latin American countries. It's "crony capitalism."Crony capitalism is when government controls significant parts of the economy. Under this kind of bureaucratic micromanagement, politicians - not the free market - call the shots. And that means that the decisions that control the economy are of necessity political decisions, not economic ones.Crony capitalism is bad for government. Economic power in the hands of politicians breeds corruption.Crony capitalism is bad for democracy. Individuals and businesses outside favored industries have an unequal voice in self-government.Crony capitalism is bad for business. Politicians wedded to the status quo stifle growth and innovation.And there's one more thing about crony capitalism: It's come to America.
OUTRAGE!! Billion-dollar drug company hides astounding discovery of a natural cancer killer.
One pharmaceutical company actually made the 'discovery of the century' - a miracle breakthrough that could save you or someone you love from the ravages of cancer. But...
They hid the secret for SEVEN FULL YEARS...with no plans to tell anyone about it ever! Why? Because the substance they found is completely natural... so they couldn't take out a patent on it. Until one brave researcher came forward to break the silence-and tell the world about this true cancer cure. Click here to read the full story
Predatory Politicians Practicing Crony Capitalism Created the Economic CrisisIt's the nature of crony capitalism to expand; for government to acquire more and more of the economy.The agents of this expansion are elected officials. Call them "predatory politicians."Crony capitalism practiced by predatory politicians is at the root of the current financial meltdown.In exchange for campaign cash and support for favored constituents, predatory politicians aided and abetted the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they created and fed the subprime mortgage market
By Newt Gingrich
There's a term that's commonly applied to the economic systems of some Asian and Latin American countries. It's "crony capitalism."Crony capitalism is when government controls significant parts of the economy. Under this kind of bureaucratic micromanagement, politicians - not the free market - call the shots. And that means that the decisions that control the economy are of necessity political decisions, not economic ones.Crony capitalism is bad for government. Economic power in the hands of politicians breeds corruption.Crony capitalism is bad for democracy. Individuals and businesses outside favored industries have an unequal voice in self-government.Crony capitalism is bad for business. Politicians wedded to the status quo stifle growth and innovation.And there's one more thing about crony capitalism: It's come to America.
OUTRAGE!! Billion-dollar drug company hides astounding discovery of a natural cancer killer.
One pharmaceutical company actually made the 'discovery of the century' - a miracle breakthrough that could save you or someone you love from the ravages of cancer. But...
They hid the secret for SEVEN FULL YEARS...with no plans to tell anyone about it ever! Why? Because the substance they found is completely natural... so they couldn't take out a patent on it. Until one brave researcher came forward to break the silence-and tell the world about this true cancer cure. Click here to read the full story
Predatory Politicians Practicing Crony Capitalism Created the Economic CrisisIt's the nature of crony capitalism to expand; for government to acquire more and more of the economy.The agents of this expansion are elected officials. Call them "predatory politicians."Crony capitalism practiced by predatory politicians is at the root of the current financial meltdown.In exchange for campaign cash and support for favored constituents, predatory politicians aided and abetted the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they created and fed the subprime mortgage market
Friday, November 21, 2008
Folks facing foreclosure get Holiday Hail Mary from Lenders
Holiday Gift From Fannie, Freddie: Foreclosure Halt
Kathryn Glass
The holidays could spell relief for many troubled homeowners, as two mortgage giants have decided to keep people in their homes a little longer.
Mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) have announced they will suspend foreclosures between November 26 and January 9. The government-sponsored entities will use the time to determine if borrowers are eligible for a loan modification plan.
The loan modification program restructures mortgage loans so that primary payments do not exceed 38% of borrowers’ monthly income before taxes.
The program applies to homeowners whose loans are held by Fannie and Freddie that are at least three months behind on their mortgage payments, in an effort to slow the increasingly dire mortgage crisis
Kathryn Glass
The holidays could spell relief for many troubled homeowners, as two mortgage giants have decided to keep people in their homes a little longer.
Mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) have announced they will suspend foreclosures between November 26 and January 9. The government-sponsored entities will use the time to determine if borrowers are eligible for a loan modification plan.
The loan modification program restructures mortgage loans so that primary payments do not exceed 38% of borrowers’ monthly income before taxes.
The program applies to homeowners whose loans are held by Fannie and Freddie that are at least three months behind on their mortgage payments, in an effort to slow the increasingly dire mortgage crisis
Their hearts are certainly in the right place...
BESMAYA RANGE COMPLEX, Iraq, Nov. 20, 2008 –
A group of Iraqi soldiers stepped up to help California residents victimized by recent wildfires raging throughout the state.
Iraqi army Col. Abbas Fadhil, Besmaya Range Complex commander, and his team of “Abbas’ Eagles” raised $500 for wildfire relief.
“We want to send a message to the American president and the American people,” Abbas said.
“We feel that we are a family — one body. When one part of the body suffers, the other parts suffer, too.”
This is the fourth donation the soldiers of Besmaya have sent to the American people recently. In September, they raised $1,500 for victims of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The Eagles also donated $500 to the National Sept. 11 Memorial.
A group of Iraqi soldiers stepped up to help California residents victimized by recent wildfires raging throughout the state.
Iraqi army Col. Abbas Fadhil, Besmaya Range Complex commander, and his team of “Abbas’ Eagles” raised $500 for wildfire relief.
“We want to send a message to the American president and the American people,” Abbas said.
“We feel that we are a family — one body. When one part of the body suffers, the other parts suffer, too.”
This is the fourth donation the soldiers of Besmaya have sent to the American people recently. In September, they raised $1,500 for victims of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The Eagles also donated $500 to the National Sept. 11 Memorial.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Prop 8 opponents.... extremely bad behavior
My Stance on this issue is... there is no reason to be changing the traditional terminology and meaning of marriage. Same sexers have the same RIGHTS already that heterosexuals do regarding marriage. They can marry anyone of the opposite sex. They are free to live with and protect whoever they pick as a partner legally already. To change Marriage in name in Tradition is wrong. Many states this year passed Marriage protection laws because of liberal judges overstepping their boundaries and giving Gays the right to call their Relationships "MARRIAGES"
Before Election Day, national media handwringers forged a wildly popular narrative: The right was, in the words of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, gripped by "insane rage." Outbreaks of incivility (some real, but mostly imagined) were proof positive of the extremist takeover of the Republican Party. The cluck-cluckers and tut-tutters shook with fear.
But when the GOP took a beating on Nov. 4, no mass protests ensued; no nationwide boycotts erupted. Conservatives took their lumps and began the peaceful post-defeat process of self-flagellation, self-analysis and self-autopsy.
In fact, in the wake of campaign 2008 there's only one angry mob gripped by "insane rage": left-wing same-sex marriage activists incensed at their defeat in California. Voters there approved Proposition 8, a traditional marriage initiative, by 52 percent to 48 percent.
Instead of introspection and self-criticism, however, the sore losers who opposed Prop. 8 responded with threats, fists and blacklists.
That's right. Activists have published on the Internet an "Anti-Gay Blacklist" of Prop. 8 donors. If the tables were turned and Prop. 8 proponents created such an enemies list, everyone in Hollywood would be screaming "McCarthyism" faster than you could count to eight.
A Los Angeles restaurant whose manager made a small donation to the Prop. 8 campaign has been besieged nightly by hordes of protesters who have disrupted business, intimidated patrons and brought employees to tears. Out of fear for their jobs and their lives, workers at El Coyote Mexican Cafe pooled together $500 to pay off the bullies.
Scott Eckern, the beleaguered artistic director of California Musical Theatre in Sacramento, was forced to resign over his $1,000 donation to the Prop. 8 campaign. Rich Raddon, director of the Los Angeles Film Festival, is next on the chopping block after the anti-Prop. 8 mob discovered that he had also contributed to the "Yes on 8" campaign. Calls have been pouring in for his firing.
Over the last two weeks, anti-Prop. 8 organizers have targeted Mormon, Catholic and evangelical churches. Sentiments like this one, found on the anti-Prop.8 website "JoeMyGod," are common across the left-wing blogosphere: "Burn their [expletive] churches to the ground, and then tax the charred timbers."
Thousands of gay-rights demonstrators stood in front of the Mormon temple in Los Angeles shouting "Mormon scum." The Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City received threatening letters containing an unidentified powder. Religion-bashing protesters filled with hate decried the "hate" at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif. Vandals defaced the Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills, Calif., because church members had collected Prop. 8 petitions. One worshiper's car was keyed with the slogans "Gay sex is love" and "SEX." Another car's antenna and windshield wipers were broken.
In Carlsbad, Calif., a man was charged with punching his elderly neighbors over their pro-Prop. 8 signs. In Palm Springs, Calif., a videographer filmed unhinged anti-Prop. 8 marchers who yanked a large cross from the hands of 69-year-old Phyllis Burgess and stomped on it.
In San Francisco, Christians evangelizing in the Castro District needed police protection after the same-sex marriage mob got physical and hounded them off the streets. Enthusiastically shooting themselves in the foot, anti-Prop. 8 boycotters are now going after the left-wing Sundance Film Festival because it does business in Mormon-friendly Utah.
Also targeted: Cinemark Theaters across the country. The company's CEO, Alan Stock, donated just under $10,000 to the traditional marriage measure. Never mind that Cinemark theaters are hosting the new biopic about gay icon Harvey Milk. They must pay for the sins of the company head who dared to exercise his political free speech.
Corporate honchos, church leaders and small donors alike are in the same-sex marriage mob's crosshairs, all unfairly demonized as hate-filled bigots by bona fide hate-filled bigots who have abandoned decency in pursuit of "equal rights." One wonders where Barack Obama -- himself an opponent of Proposition 8 -- is as this insane rage rages on. Soul-Fixer, Nation-Healer, where art thou?
NOT THE PLACE FOR TEACHER'S PERSONAL OPINION
'Browbeating' teacher still employed
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 11/20/2008 8:55:00 AM
School officials in Fayetteville, North Carolina, have completed their investigation of a teacher following a classroom incident captured on film.
The Independent Women's Forum says the video shows an elementary school teacher browbeating a student for her support of John McCain in the school's mock presidential election. (See previous article)
"What do you all know about that war in Iraq? Talk to me because your daddy's in the military; talk. It's a senseless war," the teacher says on the video. "And by the way, Kathy, the person that you are picking for president said that our troops could stay in Iraq for another hundred years if they need to, so that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years."
Following outcry and media coverage of the incident, Cumberland County School Superintendent William Harrison launched an investigation. School officials refused to give OneNewsNow any details of the investigation results, citing a law that protects teachers in cases like this. But officials did say that the teacher, Diantha Harris, is still employed as a teacher in the Cumberland County School district.
According to media reports, the school district has received hundreds of phone calls about the incident, and the teacher involved has also received dozens of phone calls at home concerning the video. The Associated Press reported that Harris has said she regrets making the comments and that the student involved, along with her parents, has expressed support for the teacher.
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 11/20/2008 8:55:00 AM
School officials in Fayetteville, North Carolina, have completed their investigation of a teacher following a classroom incident captured on film.
The Independent Women's Forum says the video shows an elementary school teacher browbeating a student for her support of John McCain in the school's mock presidential election. (See previous article)
"What do you all know about that war in Iraq? Talk to me because your daddy's in the military; talk. It's a senseless war," the teacher says on the video. "And by the way, Kathy, the person that you are picking for president said that our troops could stay in Iraq for another hundred years if they need to, so that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years."
Following outcry and media coverage of the incident, Cumberland County School Superintendent William Harrison launched an investigation. School officials refused to give OneNewsNow any details of the investigation results, citing a law that protects teachers in cases like this. But officials did say that the teacher, Diantha Harris, is still employed as a teacher in the Cumberland County School district.
According to media reports, the school district has received hundreds of phone calls about the incident, and the teacher involved has also received dozens of phone calls at home concerning the video. The Associated Press reported that Harris has said she regrets making the comments and that the student involved, along with her parents, has expressed support for the teacher.
Is this what is in Store for other Large liberal Cities?
SAN FRANCISCO GOING TO POT? HOPE NOT BUT WITH THE "ANYTHING GOES " LIBERAL attitude and Agenda, this is where we are headed. NO THANKS! I like rules and regulations better.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
HOW OBAMA GOT ELECTED...
AS the informed people already know cause we voted for McCain... Stupid people voted for Obama because they were misinformed or uninformed about him through the media. He was promoted as their SAVIOR... The man who is going to save our ailing country.
Because obviously interviewing a relative handful of Obama voters, while interesting, is hardly scientific proof of anything, we also commissioned a Zogby telephone poll which asked the very same questions (as well as a few others) with similarly amazing results.
Zogby Poll
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet.....
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Because obviously interviewing a relative handful of Obama voters, while interesting, is hardly scientific proof of anything, we also commissioned a Zogby telephone poll which asked the very same questions (as well as a few others) with similarly amazing results.
Zogby Poll
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet.....
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
A Grilling for the Treasury Secretary... I should hope so.
WASHINGTON — The two top salesmen for a $700 billion financial bailout are in for a grilling by Capitol Hill lawmakers just one week after the administration officially ditched the original strategy behind the rescue.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are expected to provide greater insights into the shift when they testify Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee.
In a profile published Tuesday in The Washington Post, Paulson, who is overseeing the bailout program for the Bush administration, said he was also working on a proposal that would allow the government to take over a wide range of financial institutions — not just banks — that are in danger of collapse.
Last week, Paulson changed course and announced that the government would not use any of the $700 billion to buy rotten mortgages and other bad assets from banks. That had been the centerpiece of the plan when Paulson and Bernanke originally pitched it to lawmakers.
"Our assessment ... is that this is not the most effective way" to use the bailout money, Paulson said at that time.
In an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times, Paulson wrote: "If we have learned anything throughout this year, we have learned that this financial crisis is unpredictable and difficult to counteract. We decided it was prudent to reserve our (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money, maintaining not only our flexibility, but also that of the next administration."
Still, Paulson said that "recovery will happen much, much faster than it would have had we not used TARP to stabilize our system."
Paulson said last week the department would focus on rolling out a capital injection program to pour $250 billion into banks in return for partial ownership stakes in them. In the Times on Tuesday, he explained that "stronger capitalization is essential to increasing lending, which is vital to economic recovery."
Treasury would also search for new ways to boost the availability of auto loans, student loans and credit cards, which have been become harder to get due to the credit crisis, he said earlier.
Specifically, the department, along with the Federal Reserve, is exploring using some of the bailout money to bankroll a new loan facility. The aim: helping companies that issue credit cards, make student loans and finance car purchases.
The idea behind the capital injection program is for banks to use the money to rebuild reserves and lend more freely to customers. However, banks do have the leeway to use the money for other things, such as buying other banks or paying dividends to investors. That has touched a nerve with some lawmakers.
Locked-up lending is a prime reason why the United States is suffering through the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. All the fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises have badly hurt the economy, which is almost certainly in recession, analysts say.
The administration, however, has remained opposed to using some of the bailout money to help troubled U.S. automakers or to provide guarantees for mortgages at risk of falling into foreclosure, another huge source of distress for the economy.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the panel, has been tapped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to draft an aid package for Detroit. The auto companies are seeking $25 billion for emergency loans.
In a break with the administration stance, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., who also will testify Tuesday, recently proposed using $24 billion of the bailout money to help some American households avoid foreclosure.
So far, Treasury Department has pledged $250 billion for banks and has agreed to devote $40 billion to troubled insurer American International Group— its first slice of funds going to a company other than a bank. That leaves just $60 billion available from Congress' first bailout installment of $350 billion.
Congressional officials said Paulson indicated he is unlikely to tap the remaining $350 billion before the administration leaves office on Jan. 20. That would mean the incoming Obama administration would decide whether and how the money should be spent. The congressional officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to disclose the developments.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are expected to provide greater insights into the shift when they testify Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee.
In a profile published Tuesday in The Washington Post, Paulson, who is overseeing the bailout program for the Bush administration, said he was also working on a proposal that would allow the government to take over a wide range of financial institutions — not just banks — that are in danger of collapse.
Last week, Paulson changed course and announced that the government would not use any of the $700 billion to buy rotten mortgages and other bad assets from banks. That had been the centerpiece of the plan when Paulson and Bernanke originally pitched it to lawmakers.
"Our assessment ... is that this is not the most effective way" to use the bailout money, Paulson said at that time.
In an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times, Paulson wrote: "If we have learned anything throughout this year, we have learned that this financial crisis is unpredictable and difficult to counteract. We decided it was prudent to reserve our (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money, maintaining not only our flexibility, but also that of the next administration."
Still, Paulson said that "recovery will happen much, much faster than it would have had we not used TARP to stabilize our system."
Paulson said last week the department would focus on rolling out a capital injection program to pour $250 billion into banks in return for partial ownership stakes in them. In the Times on Tuesday, he explained that "stronger capitalization is essential to increasing lending, which is vital to economic recovery."
Treasury would also search for new ways to boost the availability of auto loans, student loans and credit cards, which have been become harder to get due to the credit crisis, he said earlier.
Specifically, the department, along with the Federal Reserve, is exploring using some of the bailout money to bankroll a new loan facility. The aim: helping companies that issue credit cards, make student loans and finance car purchases.
The idea behind the capital injection program is for banks to use the money to rebuild reserves and lend more freely to customers. However, banks do have the leeway to use the money for other things, such as buying other banks or paying dividends to investors. That has touched a nerve with some lawmakers.
Locked-up lending is a prime reason why the United States is suffering through the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. All the fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises have badly hurt the economy, which is almost certainly in recession, analysts say.
The administration, however, has remained opposed to using some of the bailout money to help troubled U.S. automakers or to provide guarantees for mortgages at risk of falling into foreclosure, another huge source of distress for the economy.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the panel, has been tapped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to draft an aid package for Detroit. The auto companies are seeking $25 billion for emergency loans.
In a break with the administration stance, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., who also will testify Tuesday, recently proposed using $24 billion of the bailout money to help some American households avoid foreclosure.
So far, Treasury Department has pledged $250 billion for banks and has agreed to devote $40 billion to troubled insurer American International Group— its first slice of funds going to a company other than a bank. That leaves just $60 billion available from Congress' first bailout installment of $350 billion.
Congressional officials said Paulson indicated he is unlikely to tap the remaining $350 billion before the administration leaves office on Jan. 20. That would mean the incoming Obama administration would decide whether and how the money should be spent. The congressional officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to disclose the developments.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Example of Barack's Inaugural Address
FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR OWN. I WILL COPY AND PASTE FROM COMMENTS AND PLACE THEM ON THE BLOG.
The following was my version of Barack's speech.
My Fellow Americans. My Black Brothers and Sisters who overwhelmingly voted for me just because I am half black, and to white stupid, rich supporters... Please do not riot and burn down your neighborhoods but.... I cannot accept the office of the Presidency of the US. I wanted to see how far I could actually go with this. The "Rumors" you have heard about me... (if you watch Fox and not the mainstream media) are true. I was not born in the US. I was born in Kenya. I Still have poverty stricken relatives there but do not help them in anyway. I took illegal funding. I thought this would have been discovered, but the media just gave me a free pass pretty much. I took loads of illegal funds which aren't even tracable. I am good buddies with William Ayers. Playing that relationship down just seemed like a smart thing to do. If I actually took over as President I would appoint him as my secretary of State. I cannot be your President and nearly all of the Democrats in Congress will be going to jail with me for taking bribes and being in everyone's pockets for years now. The Country will be freed and handed back into the Capable Republican Hands of John McCain. The American people however will help him chose his VP. IT won't be Sarah Palin. America isn't ready for her.
It is with great Sadness and relief that I step down now and turn myself into authorities.
Thank you for the Opporunity to pull off this enormous Fraud. It's been real.
The following was my version of Barack's speech.
My Fellow Americans. My Black Brothers and Sisters who overwhelmingly voted for me just because I am half black, and to white stupid, rich supporters... Please do not riot and burn down your neighborhoods but.... I cannot accept the office of the Presidency of the US. I wanted to see how far I could actually go with this. The "Rumors" you have heard about me... (if you watch Fox and not the mainstream media) are true. I was not born in the US. I was born in Kenya. I Still have poverty stricken relatives there but do not help them in anyway. I took illegal funding. I thought this would have been discovered, but the media just gave me a free pass pretty much. I took loads of illegal funds which aren't even tracable. I am good buddies with William Ayers. Playing that relationship down just seemed like a smart thing to do. If I actually took over as President I would appoint him as my secretary of State.
It is with great Sadness and relief that I step down now and turn myself into authorities.
Thank you for the Opporunity to pull off this enormous Fraud. It's been real.
SHOWDOWN IN CONGRESS OVER AUTO BAILOUT PLANS
WASHINGTON — Hardline opponents of an auto industry bailout branded the industry a "dinosaur" whose "day of reckoning" is near, while Democrats pledged Sunday to do their best to get Detroit a slice of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue in this week's lame-duck session of Congress.
The companies are seeking $25 billion from the financial industry bailout for emergency loans, though supporters of the aid for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC have offered to reduce the size of the rescue to win backing in Congress.
Senate Democrats intended to introduce legislation Monday attaching an auto bailout to a House-passed bill extending unemployment benefits; a vote was expected as early as Wednesday.
A White House alternative would let the car companies take $25 billion in loans previously approved to develop fuel-efficient vehicles and use the money for more immediate needs. Congressional Democrats oppose the White House plan as shortsighted.
Majority Democrats will need at least a dozen GOP votes in the Senate to prevent opponents from blocking their measure — assuming all Senate Democrats support it. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky questioned whether there was sufficient Democratic support for an auto bailout in a statement released Sunday.
"The silence from the Democrat rank and file on this matter has been deafening," McConnell said.
So far two Republicans publicly have voiced support for the idea. Several others, included Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman on Sunday, have indicated they might accept a rescue under strict conditions.
Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Jon Kyl of Arizona said it would be a mistake to use any of the Wall Street rescue money to prop up the automakers because a bailout would only postpone the industry's demise.
"Companies fail everyday and others take their place. I think this is a road we should not go down," said Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "They're not building the right products," he said. "They've got good workers but I don't believe they've got good management. They don't innovate. They're a dinosaur in a sense."
Added Kyl, the Senate's second-ranking Republican: "Just giving them $25 billion doesn't change anything. It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said over the weekend the House would aid the ailing industry, though she did not put a price on her plan. "The House is ready to do it," said Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. "There's no downside to trying."
Frank's committee has scheduled a Wednesday hearing on an auto bailout.
It is a more difficult fight in the Senate, given the Democrats' slim edge and President George W. Bush's opposition. Bush wants to speed the release of $25 billion from a separate loan program intended to help the automakers develop fuel-efficient vehicles and have that money go toward more urgent purposes as the companies struggle to stay afloat. The loan program was approved by Congress last year, but more legislation would be necessary to change its purpose.
"That should be done this week," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said. He said reopening the Wall Street bailout and including automakers could attract other industries looking for bailouts.
"If you start that, where do you stop?" he asked. "There's a line of companies of industries waiting at Treasury just to see if they can get their hands on those $700 billion."
The disagreement raises the possibility that any help for automakers will have to wait until 2009, when President-elect Barack Obama takes office and the Democrats increase their majority in the Senate.
At least two Republican senators support an automaker bailout — George Voinovich of Ohio and Kit Bond of Missouri. But if the Republicans are seen as neglecting an industry that inevitably collapses, they risk lasting political problems in Midwestern industrial states that can swing for either political party.
Obama won most of the manufacturing states in the presidential race, including Ohio, a perennial battleground, and Indiana, which had not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964. Obama easily won Michigan after Republican John McCain publicly pulled out weeks before Election Day.
Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich said young voters, who overwhelmingly supported Obama over Republican John McCain in the presidential election, could get turned off by expensive corporate bailouts that they will eventually have to pay for.
If "those 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds start to figure out they're going to pay the taxes, they're not getting the billions, I think you might find a lot of dissatisfaction by next summer," Gingrich said.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said automakers are working to adapt to a changing consumer market, but they need immediate help to survive the current economic crisis. "This is a national problem," Levin said. "The auto industry touches millions and millions of lives."
The companies are lobbying lawmakers furiously for an emergency infusion of cash. GM has warned it might not survive through year's end without a government lifeline.
"It's not the General Motors we grew up with. It's a General Motors that is headed down this road to oblivion," said Shelby. "Should we intervene to slow it down, knowing it's going to happen? I say no, not for the American taxpayer."
United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger would not flat-out reject further concessions by members on top of the two-tiered wage system and other concessions the union gave the automakers last year, but he bristled at calls for further sacrifices by his members.
"Let's go to AIG, Bear Stearns, active and retired workers: Did anybody go in and ask them to give back wages and benefit levels?" Gettelfinger said on WDIV-TV in Detroit. "What about the bond traders? Did anybody ask them? What about the cleaners in the building? Why would the UAW be any different?"
"We made an agreement, and we made major concessions," he said. "So how can you blame the autoworkers?"
Obama said he believes aid is needed but that it should be provided as part of a long-term plan for a "sustainable U.S. auto industry" — not simply as a blank check.
"For the auto industry to completely collapse would be a disaster in this kind of environment," Obama said in a "60 Minutes" interview airing Sunday night on CBS. "So my hope is that over the course of the next week, between the White House and Congress, the discussions are shaped around providing assistance but making sure that that assistance is conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all of the stakeholders coming together with a plan — what does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like?"
Lawmakers opposed to the bailout say Chapter 11 might be a better option than government loans and they cite the experience of airlines that have gone through the process of reorganization.
But GM CEO Rick Wagoner, also appearing on Detroit's WDIV, said: "This idea that you just go into Chapter 11 and hang around for three months ... this is a fantasy. This is not going to work. Most important to what is going to happen is most people will stop buying the cars of a bankrupt company."
Shelby and Levin were interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press" and Shelby also appeared with Frank on CBS' "Face the Nation." Kyl spoke on "Fox News Sunday" and Gutierrez was on "Late Edition" on CNN.
The companies are seeking $25 billion from the financial industry bailout for emergency loans, though supporters of the aid for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC have offered to reduce the size of the rescue to win backing in Congress.
Senate Democrats intended to introduce legislation Monday attaching an auto bailout to a House-passed bill extending unemployment benefits; a vote was expected as early as Wednesday.
A White House alternative would let the car companies take $25 billion in loans previously approved to develop fuel-efficient vehicles and use the money for more immediate needs. Congressional Democrats oppose the White House plan as shortsighted.
Majority Democrats will need at least a dozen GOP votes in the Senate to prevent opponents from blocking their measure — assuming all Senate Democrats support it. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky questioned whether there was sufficient Democratic support for an auto bailout in a statement released Sunday.
"The silence from the Democrat rank and file on this matter has been deafening," McConnell said.
So far two Republicans publicly have voiced support for the idea. Several others, included Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman on Sunday, have indicated they might accept a rescue under strict conditions.
Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Jon Kyl of Arizona said it would be a mistake to use any of the Wall Street rescue money to prop up the automakers because a bailout would only postpone the industry's demise.
"Companies fail everyday and others take their place. I think this is a road we should not go down," said Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "They're not building the right products," he said. "They've got good workers but I don't believe they've got good management. They don't innovate. They're a dinosaur in a sense."
Added Kyl, the Senate's second-ranking Republican: "Just giving them $25 billion doesn't change anything. It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said over the weekend the House would aid the ailing industry, though she did not put a price on her plan. "The House is ready to do it," said Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. "There's no downside to trying."
Frank's committee has scheduled a Wednesday hearing on an auto bailout.
It is a more difficult fight in the Senate, given the Democrats' slim edge and President George W. Bush's opposition. Bush wants to speed the release of $25 billion from a separate loan program intended to help the automakers develop fuel-efficient vehicles and have that money go toward more urgent purposes as the companies struggle to stay afloat. The loan program was approved by Congress last year, but more legislation would be necessary to change its purpose.
"That should be done this week," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said. He said reopening the Wall Street bailout and including automakers could attract other industries looking for bailouts.
"If you start that, where do you stop?" he asked. "There's a line of companies of industries waiting at Treasury just to see if they can get their hands on those $700 billion."
The disagreement raises the possibility that any help for automakers will have to wait until 2009, when President-elect Barack Obama takes office and the Democrats increase their majority in the Senate.
At least two Republican senators support an automaker bailout — George Voinovich of Ohio and Kit Bond of Missouri. But if the Republicans are seen as neglecting an industry that inevitably collapses, they risk lasting political problems in Midwestern industrial states that can swing for either political party.
Obama won most of the manufacturing states in the presidential race, including Ohio, a perennial battleground, and Indiana, which had not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964. Obama easily won Michigan after Republican John McCain publicly pulled out weeks before Election Day.
Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich said young voters, who overwhelmingly supported Obama over Republican John McCain in the presidential election, could get turned off by expensive corporate bailouts that they will eventually have to pay for.
If "those 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds start to figure out they're going to pay the taxes, they're not getting the billions, I think you might find a lot of dissatisfaction by next summer," Gingrich said.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said automakers are working to adapt to a changing consumer market, but they need immediate help to survive the current economic crisis. "This is a national problem," Levin said. "The auto industry touches millions and millions of lives."
The companies are lobbying lawmakers furiously for an emergency infusion of cash. GM has warned it might not survive through year's end without a government lifeline.
"It's not the General Motors we grew up with. It's a General Motors that is headed down this road to oblivion," said Shelby. "Should we intervene to slow it down, knowing it's going to happen? I say no, not for the American taxpayer."
United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger would not flat-out reject further concessions by members on top of the two-tiered wage system and other concessions the union gave the automakers last year, but he bristled at calls for further sacrifices by his members.
"Let's go to AIG, Bear Stearns, active and retired workers: Did anybody go in and ask them to give back wages and benefit levels?" Gettelfinger said on WDIV-TV in Detroit. "What about the bond traders? Did anybody ask them? What about the cleaners in the building? Why would the UAW be any different?"
"We made an agreement, and we made major concessions," he said. "So how can you blame the autoworkers?"
Obama said he believes aid is needed but that it should be provided as part of a long-term plan for a "sustainable U.S. auto industry" — not simply as a blank check.
"For the auto industry to completely collapse would be a disaster in this kind of environment," Obama said in a "60 Minutes" interview airing Sunday night on CBS. "So my hope is that over the course of the next week, between the White House and Congress, the discussions are shaped around providing assistance but making sure that that assistance is conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all of the stakeholders coming together with a plan — what does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like?"
Lawmakers opposed to the bailout say Chapter 11 might be a better option than government loans and they cite the experience of airlines that have gone through the process of reorganization.
But GM CEO Rick Wagoner, also appearing on Detroit's WDIV, said: "This idea that you just go into Chapter 11 and hang around for three months ... this is a fantasy. This is not going to work. Most important to what is going to happen is most people will stop buying the cars of a bankrupt company."
Shelby and Levin were interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press" and Shelby also appeared with Frank on CBS' "Face the Nation." Kyl spoke on "Fox News Sunday" and Gutierrez was on "Late Edition" on CNN.
Friday, November 14, 2008
ED Koch on the Botched Bailout (long but a good read)
Bailout Bunk: We've Been Had
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:07 AM
By: Edward I. Koch
The more I think about it, the more I believe we were had when the federal government proposed that $700 billion bailout to primarily deal with the liquidity crisis.
At the time, nobody seemed to know what to do. When Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke jointly proposed the bailout in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression, nearly everyone threw up their hands and concluded there was no alternative.
At first, some members of Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — balked at the huge bailout package. They said at the very least there should be some minimal safeguards since the legislation was drawn to give the secretary of the Treasury what appeared to be total power to determine how the bailout would be structured.
These concerns were addressed to some extent in the revised bailout bill which, among other things, staggered the bailout payments and provided for some congressional lending oversight for half of the $700 billion rescue package. Congress apparently assured that having waited and then passing the legislation on the second time it was presented to the House, it was in fact improved and would prevent our being ripped off by Wall Street for a second time.
We were told over and over by the experts in the news media and government that the real problem was in fact liquidity — banks were just not willing to lend, even to creditworthy applicants. I decided to write a letter to both Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke stating my concerns about the use of the federal guarantees and loans.
The letters follow:
October 9, 2008
Henry M. Paulson, Jr. SecretaryDepartment of the Treasury1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20551
Ben S. BernankeChairmanFederal Reserve System20th & Constitution Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20220
Gentlemen:
As you have pointed out, the meltdown occurring in the United States is taking place in large part because of a lack of available liquidity, meaning that lenders — commercial banks in the lead — are not lending to applicants seeking to borrow in order to purchase housing, cars and other big ticket items that the economy relies on to flourish, as well as denying loans to small businesses and local governments seeking to borrow to pay their bills with municipal bond markets largely closed to them.
One of the purposes of the $700 billion recently made available as a result of legislation enacted by the Congress is to give additional liquidity to commercial banking institutions so that they can once again perform their leading raison d’etre — lending money.
The major reason for lack of liquidity — availability of loans — is fear, as you have stated, fear that the money will not be repaid either by individuals, governments or institutions, e.g., other banks.
Again, as you have stated, another reason offered by the banks for not lending monies is that much of their assets are now labeled “toxic.” It is these assets which, as a result of your efforts, the newly-enacted legislation addresses, freeing the banks of them by having the federal government buy them at a price below their original value, substituting cash to the banks.
If I have accurately stated the facts, why not by order of the United States Treasury and Federal Reserve direct the commercial banks to immediately commence loaning money to “creditworthy” applicants and at a scale comparable to loans individual banks entered into last year?
If the banks refuse to abide by such order, they would not be eligible among other punitive measures to sell their “toxic” securities to the Treasury. If the banks require a definition of “creditworthy,” your offices will supply it for the various situations that apply.
If the proposal makes sense, it can immediately be implemented and provide the credit needed. If it does not, I would appreciate knowing the reasons why.
All the best.
Sincerely,
Edward I. Koch
Chairman Bernanke’s response, dated Oct. 16, is as follows:
Dear Mr. Koch:
I am responding to your letter of October 9, 2008, in which you recommended that the Treasury or bank regulators direct commercial banks to lend to creditworthy borrowers. You further suggested that banks that did not comply with such a directive would be ineligible to participate in the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
We at the Federal Reserve firmly agree that an unfreezing of financial markets and a resumption of lending activity is essential. Credit is the lifeblood of an economy, and continued economic growth will require that substantial credit flows be restarted.
But requiring directly that banks extend specified amounts of credit to creditworthy borrowers would entail many complications.
For example, bank regulators would need to create an objective definition for determining which borrowers were creditworthy.
Moreover, because the volume of banks’ credit activities can fluctuate over time for a variety of reasons, including those over which they have no control (such as the rate of economic growth in their geographical regions), determining appropriate targets for individual banks’ lending activities would be complex and potentially arbitrary.
In addition, because of the very large number of banking institutions in the country — ore than 8,000 — administering such a program would be extremely resource intensive.
However, we believe that the plans recently announced by the U.S. Treasury, the FDIC, and the Federal Reserve to bolster the capital of banking institutions and to guarantee certain liabilities of banking firms will be effective in strengthening the banking system and in fostering the extension of credit to sound borrowers.
The purchases of mortgage-related assets under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program will also contribute to a recovery of the credit intermediation process by reducing the amount of opaque and difficult-to-value assets from the balance sheets of financial institutions.
Moreover, the Federal Reserve continues to provide large amounts of liquidity to the financial system through its standard lending program as well as through a wide range of new liquidity facilities, and these activities should further support credit intermediation.
To be sure, even with these substantial actions by the government, the recovery of our financial markets will take time.
Strains on financial markets and institutions are likely to remain considerable and will act as a drag on economic growth for the foreseeable future.
However, I believe that the government has now put in place an important array of tools that will enable us to address over time some of the most significant difficulties in our financial system.
As a result, with continued focus and effort to resolve these issues, we can look forward to a gradual restoration of lending activities and sustainable economic growth. I hope these comments are helpful.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Chairman Bernanke responded, but Secretary Paulson has not. On Nov. 7, The New York Times, in its masterful style, published an article authored by Steven Erlanger and Katrin Bennhold putting into context the problems we and other countries are facing.
The article states, “But there is a fundamental problem that is not easily solved by the usual economic policy tools: how to persuade rattled banks to start lending again — an essential first step to restoring economic health.”
It was shocking to learn, “Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had to gather the chief executives of the nine biggest American banks and cajole them into accepting about $25 billion each in new capital. But having pleaded with the banks to take the money, and putting no government officials on bank boards, the government had little power to tell them how to spend it. Treasury officials also refused to tell banks to reduce their dividends or to increase their lending by any specific amounts.”
I find it incredible that this is happening and no one is calling foul.
Where are all the hotshots who supported Paulson in his psyching us all out by conveying that if we did not follow his plan, we would find ourselves in another Great Depression?
Why aren’t they at the very least denouncing what is now happening? We are keeping alive, in addition to banks, other institutions that have done a terrible job and were greedy.
Those companies should be permitted to declare bankruptcy so that someone in the private sector can buy them at a discount, if they are worth purchasing.
Everyone is lining up to get their federal handout.
AIG has come back for more and is to receive a total of $150 billion. The three American car companies, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford, have received $25 billion and want another $25 billion of taxpayers’ money.
Why not let them be bought by others in bankruptcy? There are those who say we are bailing out companies in order to prevent massive layoffs. In my view, those layoffs will come sooner or later anyhow because those companies are run by incompetents and no longer able to compete, while foreign companies like Toyota, manufacturing their cars in the U.S., are selling them and not seeking to be bailed out.
They make cars Americans want to buy.
In the meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans have lost upwards of 50 percent of their savings including in the stock market and their 401(k)s. Particularly heartbreaking are the financial futures of those already in retirement who are dependent on their now lost or greatly reduced savings, as well as the millions more who hoped to retire soon.
Plans should be made to bring to Washington hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans? We should carry pitchforks to scare the hell out of government, particularly the newly-elected members of Congress as well as all of those re-elected recently, for failing us so miserably.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:07 AM
By: Edward I. Koch
The more I think about it, the more I believe we were had when the federal government proposed that $700 billion bailout to primarily deal with the liquidity crisis.
At the time, nobody seemed to know what to do. When Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke jointly proposed the bailout in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression, nearly everyone threw up their hands and concluded there was no alternative.
At first, some members of Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — balked at the huge bailout package. They said at the very least there should be some minimal safeguards since the legislation was drawn to give the secretary of the Treasury what appeared to be total power to determine how the bailout would be structured.
These concerns were addressed to some extent in the revised bailout bill which, among other things, staggered the bailout payments and provided for some congressional lending oversight for half of the $700 billion rescue package. Congress apparently assured that having waited and then passing the legislation on the second time it was presented to the House, it was in fact improved and would prevent our being ripped off by Wall Street for a second time.
We were told over and over by the experts in the news media and government that the real problem was in fact liquidity — banks were just not willing to lend, even to creditworthy applicants. I decided to write a letter to both Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke stating my concerns about the use of the federal guarantees and loans.
The letters follow:
October 9, 2008
Henry M. Paulson, Jr. SecretaryDepartment of the Treasury1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20551
Ben S. BernankeChairmanFederal Reserve System20th & Constitution Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20220
Gentlemen:
As you have pointed out, the meltdown occurring in the United States is taking place in large part because of a lack of available liquidity, meaning that lenders — commercial banks in the lead — are not lending to applicants seeking to borrow in order to purchase housing, cars and other big ticket items that the economy relies on to flourish, as well as denying loans to small businesses and local governments seeking to borrow to pay their bills with municipal bond markets largely closed to them.
One of the purposes of the $700 billion recently made available as a result of legislation enacted by the Congress is to give additional liquidity to commercial banking institutions so that they can once again perform their leading raison d’etre — lending money.
The major reason for lack of liquidity — availability of loans — is fear, as you have stated, fear that the money will not be repaid either by individuals, governments or institutions, e.g., other banks.
Again, as you have stated, another reason offered by the banks for not lending monies is that much of their assets are now labeled “toxic.” It is these assets which, as a result of your efforts, the newly-enacted legislation addresses, freeing the banks of them by having the federal government buy them at a price below their original value, substituting cash to the banks.
If I have accurately stated the facts, why not by order of the United States Treasury and Federal Reserve direct the commercial banks to immediately commence loaning money to “creditworthy” applicants and at a scale comparable to loans individual banks entered into last year?
If the banks refuse to abide by such order, they would not be eligible among other punitive measures to sell their “toxic” securities to the Treasury. If the banks require a definition of “creditworthy,” your offices will supply it for the various situations that apply.
If the proposal makes sense, it can immediately be implemented and provide the credit needed. If it does not, I would appreciate knowing the reasons why.
All the best.
Sincerely,
Edward I. Koch
Chairman Bernanke’s response, dated Oct. 16, is as follows:
Dear Mr. Koch:
I am responding to your letter of October 9, 2008, in which you recommended that the Treasury or bank regulators direct commercial banks to lend to creditworthy borrowers. You further suggested that banks that did not comply with such a directive would be ineligible to participate in the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
We at the Federal Reserve firmly agree that an unfreezing of financial markets and a resumption of lending activity is essential. Credit is the lifeblood of an economy, and continued economic growth will require that substantial credit flows be restarted.
But requiring directly that banks extend specified amounts of credit to creditworthy borrowers would entail many complications.
For example, bank regulators would need to create an objective definition for determining which borrowers were creditworthy.
Moreover, because the volume of banks’ credit activities can fluctuate over time for a variety of reasons, including those over which they have no control (such as the rate of economic growth in their geographical regions), determining appropriate targets for individual banks’ lending activities would be complex and potentially arbitrary.
In addition, because of the very large number of banking institutions in the country — ore than 8,000 — administering such a program would be extremely resource intensive.
However, we believe that the plans recently announced by the U.S. Treasury, the FDIC, and the Federal Reserve to bolster the capital of banking institutions and to guarantee certain liabilities of banking firms will be effective in strengthening the banking system and in fostering the extension of credit to sound borrowers.
The purchases of mortgage-related assets under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program will also contribute to a recovery of the credit intermediation process by reducing the amount of opaque and difficult-to-value assets from the balance sheets of financial institutions.
Moreover, the Federal Reserve continues to provide large amounts of liquidity to the financial system through its standard lending program as well as through a wide range of new liquidity facilities, and these activities should further support credit intermediation.
To be sure, even with these substantial actions by the government, the recovery of our financial markets will take time.
Strains on financial markets and institutions are likely to remain considerable and will act as a drag on economic growth for the foreseeable future.
However, I believe that the government has now put in place an important array of tools that will enable us to address over time some of the most significant difficulties in our financial system.
As a result, with continued focus and effort to resolve these issues, we can look forward to a gradual restoration of lending activities and sustainable economic growth. I hope these comments are helpful.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Chairman Bernanke responded, but Secretary Paulson has not. On Nov. 7, The New York Times, in its masterful style, published an article authored by Steven Erlanger and Katrin Bennhold putting into context the problems we and other countries are facing.
The article states, “But there is a fundamental problem that is not easily solved by the usual economic policy tools: how to persuade rattled banks to start lending again — an essential first step to restoring economic health.”
It was shocking to learn, “Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had to gather the chief executives of the nine biggest American banks and cajole them into accepting about $25 billion each in new capital. But having pleaded with the banks to take the money, and putting no government officials on bank boards, the government had little power to tell them how to spend it. Treasury officials also refused to tell banks to reduce their dividends or to increase their lending by any specific amounts.”
I find it incredible that this is happening and no one is calling foul.
Where are all the hotshots who supported Paulson in his psyching us all out by conveying that if we did not follow his plan, we would find ourselves in another Great Depression?
Why aren’t they at the very least denouncing what is now happening? We are keeping alive, in addition to banks, other institutions that have done a terrible job and were greedy.
Those companies should be permitted to declare bankruptcy so that someone in the private sector can buy them at a discount, if they are worth purchasing.
Everyone is lining up to get their federal handout.
AIG has come back for more and is to receive a total of $150 billion. The three American car companies, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford, have received $25 billion and want another $25 billion of taxpayers’ money.
Why not let them be bought by others in bankruptcy? There are those who say we are bailing out companies in order to prevent massive layoffs. In my view, those layoffs will come sooner or later anyhow because those companies are run by incompetents and no longer able to compete, while foreign companies like Toyota, manufacturing their cars in the U.S., are selling them and not seeking to be bailed out.
They make cars Americans want to buy.
In the meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans have lost upwards of 50 percent of their savings including in the stock market and their 401(k)s. Particularly heartbreaking are the financial futures of those already in retirement who are dependent on their now lost or greatly reduced savings, as well as the millions more who hoped to retire soon.
Plans should be made to bring to Washington hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans? We should carry pitchforks to scare the hell out of government, particularly the newly-elected members of Congress as well as all of those re-elected recently, for failing us so miserably.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
CONGRESS RE EXAMINES BAIL OUT PACKAGE
WASHINGTON — While the Bush administration shifts course on its $700 billion rescue plan, Congress is examining whether even bigger changes should be made in the program in light of the deteriorating economy and soaring mortgage foreclosures.
The debate may not be resolved until President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20 and pursues policies for administering the rescue program that are likely to be more closely aligned with his Democratic allies in Congress.
In anticipation of the change of administrations, Democrats were holding hearings in both the House and Senate on Thursday examining various aspects of the most serious financial crisis to hit the country in 70 years.
The House Oversight Committee was examining the role that hedge funds may have played in recent market turbulence. Among those scheduled to testify was billionaire investor George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management.
Meanwhile, the Senate Banking Committee will hear from executives of a number of financial institutions including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on the issue of how the government's $700 billion rescue effort is operating and particularly whether the government should be requiring more commitments on the use of the money to address rising mortgage foreclosure problems.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced Wednesday that the administration had decided to scrap what had originally been the centerpiece of the program — a proposal to buy troubled assets to get them off the books of banks as a way of promoting increased lending.
Instead, Paulson said the administration will proceed with an alternative plan to spend $250 billion to buy stock in the banks as a way of bolstering their financial situation and accomplishing the same goal — getting the institutions to return to more normal lending.
However, critics contend the administration should be imposing more restrictions on the stock purchases as a way of insuring that the banks will use the government resources to increase lending rather than just hoarding the cash or using it to acquire other banks or boost dividends for stockholders.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said even with the changes in the rescue plan he was still disappointed in the administration's unwillingness to issue strict guidelines to ensure that participating firms use the funds to increase lending.
"In these difficult times, fear is still overwhelming confidence," Schumer told reporters on Tuesday.
More reports detailing the difficulties facing the economy were expected on Thursday with the Labor Department releasing its latest look at weekly applications for unemployment benefits, the Commerce Department reporting on the trade gap for September and the government reporting on the budget deficit for October.
The level of jobless claims was expected to remain at levels indicating the labor market is under severe strains, reflecting what many economists fear could be a deep and prolonged recession.
The government reported last Friday that the unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as businesses cut another 240,000 jobs.
The trade deficit was expected to show some improvement, declining to $57 billion in September, compared to $59.1 billion in August, reflecting a big drop in the price of imported oil and a weakening economy, which is dampening demand for other imports.
The budget deficit, however, was expected to show a big increase in October, the first month of the new budget year, rising to $101.5 billion, compared to $57 billion in October 2007. The soaring costs of the bank rescue and the weak economy are expected to put the country on track to run up a record deficit for the current budget year of between $700 billion and $1 trillion, a staggering sum for a single year.
Despite its new flexibility, the administration said Wednesday it remains opposed to using the rescue fund to bail out the ailing auto industry or to provide guarantees for home loans, an idea that supporters contend offers the greatest hope for helping legions of Americans who are facing foreclosure.
Congressional Democrats felt otherwise on autos, and strongly. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were pressing for quick passage of a major package for carmakers during a postelection session that begins next Tuesday, and one key House Democrat was putting together legislation that would send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies.
Paulson told reporters Wednesday that the administration was exploring the possibility of setting up a program in conjunction with the Federal Reserve that would provide support for the $1 trillion market in securities that fund such vital consumer products as credit cards, auto loans and students loans. About 40 percent of consumer credit is supplied through the sale of these securities that are backed by payments consumers make on their credit cards and other loans.
The administration has already spoken for all but $60 billion of the initial $350 billion supplied by Congress, including the $250 billion for direct stock purchases from banks and $40 billion for a new loan supplied on Monday to help stabilize troubled insurance giant American International Group.
The debate may not be resolved until President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20 and pursues policies for administering the rescue program that are likely to be more closely aligned with his Democratic allies in Congress.
In anticipation of the change of administrations, Democrats were holding hearings in both the House and Senate on Thursday examining various aspects of the most serious financial crisis to hit the country in 70 years.
The House Oversight Committee was examining the role that hedge funds may have played in recent market turbulence. Among those scheduled to testify was billionaire investor George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management.
Meanwhile, the Senate Banking Committee will hear from executives of a number of financial institutions including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on the issue of how the government's $700 billion rescue effort is operating and particularly whether the government should be requiring more commitments on the use of the money to address rising mortgage foreclosure problems.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced Wednesday that the administration had decided to scrap what had originally been the centerpiece of the program — a proposal to buy troubled assets to get them off the books of banks as a way of promoting increased lending.
Instead, Paulson said the administration will proceed with an alternative plan to spend $250 billion to buy stock in the banks as a way of bolstering their financial situation and accomplishing the same goal — getting the institutions to return to more normal lending.
However, critics contend the administration should be imposing more restrictions on the stock purchases as a way of insuring that the banks will use the government resources to increase lending rather than just hoarding the cash or using it to acquire other banks or boost dividends for stockholders.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said even with the changes in the rescue plan he was still disappointed in the administration's unwillingness to issue strict guidelines to ensure that participating firms use the funds to increase lending.
"In these difficult times, fear is still overwhelming confidence," Schumer told reporters on Tuesday.
More reports detailing the difficulties facing the economy were expected on Thursday with the Labor Department releasing its latest look at weekly applications for unemployment benefits, the Commerce Department reporting on the trade gap for September and the government reporting on the budget deficit for October.
The level of jobless claims was expected to remain at levels indicating the labor market is under severe strains, reflecting what many economists fear could be a deep and prolonged recession.
The government reported last Friday that the unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as businesses cut another 240,000 jobs.
The trade deficit was expected to show some improvement, declining to $57 billion in September, compared to $59.1 billion in August, reflecting a big drop in the price of imported oil and a weakening economy, which is dampening demand for other imports.
The budget deficit, however, was expected to show a big increase in October, the first month of the new budget year, rising to $101.5 billion, compared to $57 billion in October 2007. The soaring costs of the bank rescue and the weak economy are expected to put the country on track to run up a record deficit for the current budget year of between $700 billion and $1 trillion, a staggering sum for a single year.
Despite its new flexibility, the administration said Wednesday it remains opposed to using the rescue fund to bail out the ailing auto industry or to provide guarantees for home loans, an idea that supporters contend offers the greatest hope for helping legions of Americans who are facing foreclosure.
Congressional Democrats felt otherwise on autos, and strongly. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were pressing for quick passage of a major package for carmakers during a postelection session that begins next Tuesday, and one key House Democrat was putting together legislation that would send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies.
Paulson told reporters Wednesday that the administration was exploring the possibility of setting up a program in conjunction with the Federal Reserve that would provide support for the $1 trillion market in securities that fund such vital consumer products as credit cards, auto loans and students loans. About 40 percent of consumer credit is supplied through the sale of these securities that are backed by payments consumers make on their credit cards and other loans.
The administration has already spoken for all but $60 billion of the initial $350 billion supplied by Congress, including the $250 billion for direct stock purchases from banks and $40 billion for a new loan supplied on Monday to help stabilize troubled insurance giant American International Group.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Why Won't funds be investigated? Why the Double Standard?
Audit of Obama Fundraising Unlikely
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 5:18 PM
By: Jim Meyers
The Federal Election Commission is not likely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of Barack Obama’s record-breaking fundraising campaign despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting.
That’s the disclosure from Politico.com, which reports that Obama will probably escape scrutiny in large part because unlike John McCain, he declined to accept $84 million in public financing.
Accepting that money automatically triggers an audit, meaning that the FEC is obligated to thoroughly audit the McCain campaign’s coffers, which will take months and cost McCain millions to defend.
Another factor that will discourage an Obama audit by the FEC is the sheer size of his fundraising haul — more than $650 million — which minimizes the significance of any errors.
“If a House campaign makes a $100,000 error, that’s huge and they’re likely to get audited,” David Mason, a former GOP appointee to the FEC, told Politico.
“If a campaign the size of the Obama campaign has a $100,000 error, then maybe not.”
Another factor: The FEC is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans, and “is prone to deadlock on partisan issues,” such as “approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president,” the Web site observed.
Nevertheless, over the course of the campaign FEC analysts have written more than a dozen letters to Obama citing hundreds of cases in which the campaign did not supply adequate information regarding contributors or accepted donations exceeding the legal limit.
“The media — first conservative outlets then mainstream publications — seized on the FEC letters to Obama, singling out donations from apparently fictitious donors as well as from foreign addresses,” Politico reported.
One of the first to focus on the Obama campaign’s questionable fundraising tactics was Newsmax correspondent Kenneth R. Timmerman.
As long ago as Sept. 29, Timmerman first disclosed that more than half of the $426.9 million Obama had raised at that point came from small donors whose names the Obama campaign would not disclose — making it impossible to verify that donors were not surpassing the $2,300 an individual can contribute to a candidate for the general election.
The Federal Election Commission cited a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Tex., and a Newsmax analysis of the master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, totaling $17,375.
Timmerman also disclosed at the time that the FEC compiled a database of potentially questionable overseas donations totaling $3.38 million. The funds came from such places as Abu Dhabi, Beijing, and Ethiopia.
Timmerman published a new report on Oct. 8, disclosing that an investigation of Obama’s campaign finance reports turned up more than 2,000 cases in which individuals made donations far above the legal limit of $2,300 per election.
He followed up with a new report on Oct. 19, disclosing that more than 37,000 Obama donations appeared to be conversions of foreign currency, totaling as much as $63 million.
On Oct. 21, Timmerman revealed among other things that the Obama campaign had accepted contributions from donors identifying themselves as King Kong, Daffy Duck, and Bart Simpson — without any apparent effort by the campaign to screen them out as suspect donors.
Then on Oct. 29, Timmerman reported: “A Newsmax investigation of Obama/Biden campaign contributors, undertaken in conjunction with a private investigative firm headed by a former CIA operations officer, has identified 118 donors who appear to lack U.S. citizenship.”
According to Politico, FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger declined to comment on the likelihood of an Obama audit.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 5:18 PM
By: Jim Meyers
The Federal Election Commission is not likely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of Barack Obama’s record-breaking fundraising campaign despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting.
That’s the disclosure from Politico.com, which reports that Obama will probably escape scrutiny in large part because unlike John McCain, he declined to accept $84 million in public financing.
Accepting that money automatically triggers an audit, meaning that the FEC is obligated to thoroughly audit the McCain campaign’s coffers, which will take months and cost McCain millions to defend.
Another factor that will discourage an Obama audit by the FEC is the sheer size of his fundraising haul — more than $650 million — which minimizes the significance of any errors.
“If a House campaign makes a $100,000 error, that’s huge and they’re likely to get audited,” David Mason, a former GOP appointee to the FEC, told Politico.
“If a campaign the size of the Obama campaign has a $100,000 error, then maybe not.”
Another factor: The FEC is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans, and “is prone to deadlock on partisan issues,” such as “approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president,” the Web site observed.
Nevertheless, over the course of the campaign FEC analysts have written more than a dozen letters to Obama citing hundreds of cases in which the campaign did not supply adequate information regarding contributors or accepted donations exceeding the legal limit.
“The media — first conservative outlets then mainstream publications — seized on the FEC letters to Obama, singling out donations from apparently fictitious donors as well as from foreign addresses,” Politico reported.
One of the first to focus on the Obama campaign’s questionable fundraising tactics was Newsmax correspondent Kenneth R. Timmerman.
As long ago as Sept. 29, Timmerman first disclosed that more than half of the $426.9 million Obama had raised at that point came from small donors whose names the Obama campaign would not disclose — making it impossible to verify that donors were not surpassing the $2,300 an individual can contribute to a candidate for the general election.
The Federal Election Commission cited a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Tex., and a Newsmax analysis of the master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, totaling $17,375.
Timmerman also disclosed at the time that the FEC compiled a database of potentially questionable overseas donations totaling $3.38 million. The funds came from such places as Abu Dhabi, Beijing, and Ethiopia.
Timmerman published a new report on Oct. 8, disclosing that an investigation of Obama’s campaign finance reports turned up more than 2,000 cases in which individuals made donations far above the legal limit of $2,300 per election.
He followed up with a new report on Oct. 19, disclosing that more than 37,000 Obama donations appeared to be conversions of foreign currency, totaling as much as $63 million.
On Oct. 21, Timmerman revealed among other things that the Obama campaign had accepted contributions from donors identifying themselves as King Kong, Daffy Duck, and Bart Simpson — without any apparent effort by the campaign to screen them out as suspect donors.
Then on Oct. 29, Timmerman reported: “A Newsmax investigation of Obama/Biden campaign contributors, undertaken in conjunction with a private investigative firm headed by a former CIA operations officer, has identified 118 donors who appear to lack U.S. citizenship.”
According to Politico, FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger declined to comment on the likelihood of an Obama audit.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
My Letter to the Editor of MSNBC
Dear Sir/Madam,
I just wanted to say that your network certainly holds the title for most liberal slanted coverage of politics on Television. I couldn't believe how unfair your reporting was to the republicans. I saw the surveys and the negative coverage your network alone gave McCain/Palin was 73 percent to negative coverage of Obama/Biden of 14 percent. That certainly is very unobjective reporting wouldn't you say? What happened to the days where viewers didn't know the political affiliation of the staff reporting the news? It's very sad that both parties couldn't have gotten a fair shot with the media. Barack was pushed through, protected at all cost because Media is liberal and he was their candidate of choice. That isn't fair to the American People or this country. Media needs to get back to the days of objective, FACTUAL reporting. We are sick of hearing reporters pit one party against the other and favor one party over the other. It's sickening and not the job of a journalist to report in that manner. WE watch these debates or anything political then we have to listen to journalists put their spin on things until we are confused and forget what the heck we had just watched. Olbermann has to be the most liberal mean spirited Host I have ever seen . Why a sports caster is given such Carte Blanche is beyond me anyway. He hates republicans no matter who they are and will delight in smearing them at any cost. Hateful hateful reporting. The media, printed, Radio and Television needs to clean up their act and return to the way it used to be when the journalist or reporters could be trusted and respected and didn't add their own slant or opinion to the stories they reported.
Thank you
Deb S.
Palm Beach, FL
I just wanted to say that your network certainly holds the title for most liberal slanted coverage of politics on Television. I couldn't believe how unfair your reporting was to the republicans. I saw the surveys and the negative coverage your network alone gave McCain/Palin was 73 percent to negative coverage of Obama/Biden of 14 percent. That certainly is very unobjective reporting wouldn't you say? What happened to the days where viewers didn't know the political affiliation of the staff reporting the news? It's very sad that both parties couldn't have gotten a fair shot with the media. Barack was pushed through, protected at all cost because Media is liberal and he was their candidate of choice. That isn't fair to the American People or this country. Media needs to get back to the days of objective, FACTUAL reporting. We are sick of hearing reporters pit one party against the other and favor one party over the other. It's sickening and not the job of a journalist to report in that manner. WE watch these debates or anything political then we have to listen to journalists put their spin on things until we are confused and forget what the heck we had just watched. Olbermann has to be the most liberal mean spirited Host I have ever seen . Why a sports caster is given such Carte Blanche is beyond me anyway. He hates republicans no matter who they are and will delight in smearing them at any cost. Hateful hateful reporting. The media, printed, Radio and Television needs to clean up their act and return to the way it used to be when the journalist or reporters could be trusted and respected and didn't add their own slant or opinion to the stories they reported.
Thank you
Deb S.
Palm Beach, FL
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Trying to make peace with America's Choice isn't easy...
ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY DIDN'T DO THEIR HOMEWORK AND THE MEDIA ELECTED HIM PRESIDENT AND HID HIS FAULTS TO PROTECT THEIR CANDIDATE OF CHOICE.
But then again... I see the mess Mr. Obama has gotten himself into. Now he gets into the secret meetings and can really see just how scary and messy things are and I am wondering if it's sinking in just what exactly all his money and fake power actually bought him. I certainly wouldn't want the job. I wasn't worried that John McCain would die from the stress because of his military experience and especially his time he endured as a POW. I am worried that Barack had no idea and he doesn't have the RAW GUT OR TRUE GRIT you need to take on such a job.
I worry about Gas prices going through the roof and him not wanting to drill to get supplies up. That alone put the brakes on THIS FAMILY. No trips farther than an hour was pretty much the rule. If supplies aren't brought to market faster It isn't going to make that hill any easier to climb. I am worried about the Unemployment numbers going into double digits as they did in the Carter years as well as the interest rates. Money can't keep being printed out to bail out every bankrupt company or individual in the country and it seems to be heading that way. Our dollar has to increase in value, not decrease and pumping more money into the system just decreases or value and credibility. I hope that Barack will shelf his health care plan until the immediate financial crisis is over with.. However long it takes. I hope that he will also hold off on taxing ANYONE more for the moment and just leave things be. You can't tax business and people more that are already hurting and don't have enough of their money as is to pay their own bills presently. Freeze spending. Stop the bail outs. People need confidence again to invest and spend and can't be putting in their money and pulling it out the next day.. That practice is making more and more business fail and more and more people are losing their jobs. Barack you have to let people know, even the well off that you aren't going to take more of their money right now. If you can be a middle of the road President and not just cater to one class or another... I will be more apt to accept you and call you my PRESIDENT. If you cater to the left and just do everything Pelosi and Reid want you to and tax the businesses and people more that make this country prosperous... I will never call you Mr. President or respect you in that office.
But then again... I see the mess Mr. Obama has gotten himself into. Now he gets into the secret meetings and can really see just how scary and messy things are and I am wondering if it's sinking in just what exactly all his money and fake power actually bought him. I certainly wouldn't want the job. I wasn't worried that John McCain would die from the stress because of his military experience and especially his time he endured as a POW. I am worried that Barack had no idea and he doesn't have the RAW GUT OR TRUE GRIT you need to take on such a job.
I worry about Gas prices going through the roof and him not wanting to drill to get supplies up. That alone put the brakes on THIS FAMILY. No trips farther than an hour was pretty much the rule. If supplies aren't brought to market faster It isn't going to make that hill any easier to climb. I am worried about the Unemployment numbers going into double digits as they did in the Carter years as well as the interest rates. Money can't keep being printed out to bail out every bankrupt company or individual in the country and it seems to be heading that way. Our dollar has to increase in value, not decrease and pumping more money into the system just decreases or value and credibility. I hope that Barack will shelf his health care plan until the immediate financial crisis is over with.. However long it takes. I hope that he will also hold off on taxing ANYONE more for the moment and just leave things be. You can't tax business and people more that are already hurting and don't have enough of their money as is to pay their own bills presently. Freeze spending. Stop the bail outs. People need confidence again to invest and spend and can't be putting in their money and pulling it out the next day.. That practice is making more and more business fail and more and more people are losing their jobs. Barack you have to let people know, even the well off that you aren't going to take more of their money right now. If you can be a middle of the road President and not just cater to one class or another... I will be more apt to accept you and call you my PRESIDENT. If you cater to the left and just do everything Pelosi and Reid want you to and tax the businesses and people more that make this country prosperous... I will never call you Mr. President or respect you in that office.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
YAY! She finally was sent packing
DANCING WITH THE STARSWELL I am a Dancing with the Stars Fan and now that the Election is over I will be more on other topics, not giving up the political topics but I am still very sad and depressed about the way this country is going.. Anyway.. Back to Dancing with the Stars. The Orange team or Team Cha Cha had a horrible night Monday. They were out of sync and really just were irritating to watch. Susan Lucci should have gone home before now because they lost better dancers than her but her fans kept her in the game just as Cloris Leachman's fans are to blame for keeping her in there while a wonderful contestant that could have won (Toni Braxton) was sent home before her. Susan was very stiff in her dancing and never let her self go but I doubt she actually could let herself go. She just seems anal and a perfectionist in her personality mannerisms. Maybe they should have given her a few drinks before sending her out there... Who knows. Anyway The other Team did really well and Looks like Brooke Burke will take the Celebrity crown or the Mirror Ball I mean, this year from what I see so far.
Dancing with the Stars is a TV program that generations can enjoy together. There are always B-D celebrities of all ages so everyone has someone they can identify with and vote for if they wish. I have watched the program since it's first year.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Sad day for Conservatives... A Naive, Socialistic, Racist takes the White House by Purchasing the Election
Yes, it is a sad day for the Republicans today. So much of the all important military vote will not be counted yet Acorn's fraudulent registrations go unchecked. I know there was voter fraud and intimidation at the polls. Will there be investigations or has the Obama camp bought everyone off? I normally look at the other side like they are nuts stating their claims of Conspiracy , voter fraud, voter suppression but this time... This election was just totally unfair. I worry. I can see why democrats have been so pissed. They haven' t had a win in some time. I am not rich or a big investor on Wall street but no matter what Obama says he's going to do.. Our family is one that goes pretty much unaffected or the situation gets worse under Democrats. Money tightens because of higher taxes, inflation, food prices, gas prices which the people like us always feel the brunt of much worse than the wealthy or the poor. I hope that Obama follows through with his tax cuts for at least some... But I dont' think it's possible for him to pass all his socialist programs if he doesn't raise taxes across the board, which will raise prices and so on and so on and we all will pay more in the end. Life goes on though.. tomorrow is my youngest son's birthday. We will have a nice celebration day of his birth and the fact that we are blessed with him. We can take a time to be a bit down but we will come out of it and fight on to see what can be done to get the liberals out of there again and some values put back in.I hope that John McCain and Cindy get to take a nice long rest. He's worked so hard. I do think Palin and the Economy, maybe even in that order, are what derailed the man that should have won the White House and truly deserved it. I like Sarah Palin but I don't think the entire Republican base is ready for her. It's a just a sad day.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
SAD Day... A beloved pup is slipping away.
Today is a sad day for me.. not only because we will most likely have a Socialist in office by the end of it and the country is in trouble but because our family's beloved Rosie is in her final hours, if she hasn't already passed. Rosie would have been 16 in December. She was such a great little dog. She was super friendly to everyone. Took herself for walks. Could do some neat tricks like catching food and objects from 15 feet away and just being a super little addition to my family when my kids were small. 2 of my kids are with her now in her final time. They are very sad. This will be hard. Good bye Sweet Lady Rosebud Valentine. I sure loved you and you made my life better for sure
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
.
UPDATE: Lady Rosebud Valentine passed away at approx. 2 pm this afternoon. She was surrounded by lots of people and family who loved her.
ROSIE
December 15 1992- November 4, 2008
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
.
UPDATE: Lady Rosebud Valentine passed away at approx. 2 pm this afternoon. She was surrounded by lots of people and family who loved her.
ROSIE
December 15 1992- November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
My take on this Election
Tomorrow is D day.
It's the day we will find out who will be taking the reigns of the Presidency. Personally, I don't know why anyone would want the job. You always are going to have someone mad at ya. You can't Please everyone. I am hoping and praying that Barack Obama will not win this thing, even with all his Acorn Election fraud and early voting.. It would be so wonderful to see the Election actually be pulled away from the media and the left and put in the most capable hands. Those would be John and Sarahs. Will it happen? Who knows? John is moving up in the numbers now.. That is good. Will it be enough? If it is. If he wins.. There will be mass riots. Democrats will be totally pissed and they don't temper their anger well from what I have seen this nasty nasty election. From stealing supporters of McCains signs to shooting up their homes... It's just a nasty bunch of people who are really sheep in all this following an unproven, young, naive, racist Black senator who has only been a US Senator a very short time. If he didn't have all the money. If the Economy hadn't tanked... There is no question that McCain would be the President tomorrow. All this other STUFF got thrown into the mix though. For some unGodly reason Barack supporters think he can deal with the financial situation better than McCain. WHY? The Democrats are just as much to blame for this mess if not more with the deeds of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd helping the Fannie/Freddy mess to grow and explode. Barack himself was the 2nd higest recipient of Fannie money doled out. It's ridiculous that the SHEEP think Barack will do better with this financial mess than the guy that actually brought it to the attention of the Govt. and tried to do something about it.
The media has been all for Obama since day one. They refuse to put their Candidate of choice in a bad light but more and more BS is slipping out about Obama and what he REALLY is about and it's not a pretty picture. That is why I believe Obama wanted to get the vote out early, Before all these news items came to the surface. Now people that have found out some of these disgraceful things, people that voted early for Barack are most likely having second thoughts.
We are in for some very hard times if Barack takes the helm I believe. As my wise Grandpa said though just last week.. No matter who gets in there... We will be okay. We will weather their storm and if it's bad... We throw them out in 4 years. Grandpa is wise. He also made sure he voted for McCain . He's 95.
It's the day we will find out who will be taking the reigns of the Presidency. Personally, I don't know why anyone would want the job. You always are going to have someone mad at ya. You can't Please everyone. I am hoping and praying that Barack Obama will not win this thing, even with all his Acorn Election fraud and early voting.. It would be so wonderful to see the Election actually be pulled away from the media and the left and put in the most capable hands. Those would be John and Sarahs. Will it happen? Who knows? John is moving up in the numbers now.. That is good. Will it be enough? If it is. If he wins.. There will be mass riots. Democrats will be totally pissed and they don't temper their anger well from what I have seen this nasty nasty election. From stealing supporters of McCains signs to shooting up their homes... It's just a nasty bunch of people who are really sheep in all this following an unproven, young, naive, racist Black senator who has only been a US Senator a very short time. If he didn't have all the money. If the Economy hadn't tanked... There is no question that McCain would be the President tomorrow. All this other STUFF got thrown into the mix though. For some unGodly reason Barack supporters think he can deal with the financial situation better than McCain. WHY? The Democrats are just as much to blame for this mess if not more with the deeds of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd helping the Fannie/Freddy mess to grow and explode. Barack himself was the 2nd higest recipient of Fannie money doled out. It's ridiculous that the SHEEP think Barack will do better with this financial mess than the guy that actually brought it to the attention of the Govt. and tried to do something about it.
The media has been all for Obama since day one. They refuse to put their Candidate of choice in a bad light but more and more BS is slipping out about Obama and what he REALLY is about and it's not a pretty picture. That is why I believe Obama wanted to get the vote out early, Before all these news items came to the surface. Now people that have found out some of these disgraceful things, people that voted early for Barack are most likely having second thoughts.
We are in for some very hard times if Barack takes the helm I believe. As my wise Grandpa said though just last week.. No matter who gets in there... We will be okay. We will weather their storm and if it's bad... We throw them out in 4 years. Grandpa is wise. He also made sure he voted for McCain . He's 95.
Sarah Palin doesn't have enough Experience?
Sarah Palin Not Experienced Enough??Question: What is America 's first line of missile
interceptor defense that protects the entire United States ?
Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard. Question: What is the ONLY National Guard unit on
permanent active duty?
Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard
Question: Who is the Commander in Chief of the 49th Missile
Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard?
Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
Question: What U.S. governor is routinely briefed on
highly classified military issues, homeland security, and
counter terrorism?
Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
Question: What U.S. governor has a higher classified
security rating than either candidate of the Democrat Party?
Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska
According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain
in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used
to keeping secrets. She can be entrusted with our national
security, because she already is.
Now you know too, please, pass it on!
Commander....
49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard
My Kind Of Lady!!!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Forwarded Bulletin Barack Obama
----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: SUPPORT TROOPS,The Diesel and Michael & Susan
Date: Nov 1, 2008 11:37 PM-------
Subject: Barack Hussein Obama
I know that many of you are sick and tired of all this political BS but if you read just one more thing between now and next month's election, I urge you to read the following editorial. I don't know who "Michael Masters" is or what he does, but he does write cogently and well. A Google search turns up a Michael Masters who is a lawyer in Philadelphia, but I don't believe that he is the author of this open letter. There is a "Michael C. Masters" who lives in McLean, VA – I presume, but do not know, for sure, that he is the author. However, he didn't show up in any Google searches that I conducted, so I guess he isn't "notorious" enough to be found. I look at that as a good thing, however. On the surface, that suggests he is just another citizen like the rest of us and has no particular ax to grind. However, he HAS done his homework before writing this editorial.To Barack Hussein Obama,The New York Times carried a story on Saturday, October 4, 2008, that proved you had a significantly closer relationship with Bill Ayers than what you previously admitted. While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.The Chicago Sun reported on May 8, 2008, that FBI records showed that you had a significantly closer relationship with Tony Rezko than what you previously admitted. In the interview, you said that you only saw Mr. Rezko a couple of times a year. The FBI files showed that you saw him weekly. While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.Your speech in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, about "race" contradicted your statement to Anderson Cooper on March 14 when you said that you never heard Reverend Wright make his negative statements about white America. While your attendance at Trinity Church for 20 years is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on March 14.In your 1st debate with John McCain, you said that you never said that you would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea without "preparations" at lower levels ... Joe Biden repeated your words in his debate with Sarah Palin ... while the video tape from your debate last February clearly shows that you answered "I would" to the question of meeting with those leaders within 12 months without "any" preconditions. While your judgement about meeting with enemies of the USA without pre-conditions is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America in the debate with McCain.On July 14, 2008, you said that you always knew that the surge would work while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you stated that the surge would not work. While your judgement about military strategy as a potential commander-in-chief is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on July 14.You now claim that your reason for voting against funding for the troops was because the bill did not include a time line for withdrawal, while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you voted against additional funding because you wanted our troops to be removed immediately ... not in 16 months after the 2008 election as you now claim. While your judgement about removing our troops unilaterally in 2007 is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about your previous position.You claim to have a record of working with Republicans while the record shows that the only bill that you sponsored with a Republican was with Chuck Lugar ... and it failed. The record shows that you vote 97% in concert with the Democrat party and that you have the most liberal voting record in the Senate. You joined Republicans only 13% of the time in your votes and those 13% were only after agreement from the Democrat party. While it is of concern that you fail to include conservatives in your actions and that you are such a liberal, the greater concern is that you distorted the truth.In the primary debates of last February, 2008, you claimed to have talked with a "Captain" of a platoon in Afghanistan "the other day" when in fact you had a discussion in 2003 with a Lieutenant who had just been deployed to Afghanistan. You lied in that debate.In your debates last spring, you claimed to have been a "professor of Constitutional law" when in fact you have never been a professor of Constitutional law. In this last debate, you were careful to say that you "taught a law class" and never mentioned being a "professor of Constitutional law." You lied last spring.You and Joe Biden both claimed that John McCain voted against additional funding for our troops when the actual records show the opposite. You distorted the truth.You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted against funding for alternate energy sources 20 times when the record shows that John McCain specifically voted against funding for bio fuels, especially corn ... and he was right .... corn is too expensive at producing ethanol, and using corn to make ethanol increased the price of corn from $2 a bushel to $6 a bushel for food. You distorted the truth.You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted like both of you for a tax increase on those making as little as $42,000 per year while the voting record clearly shows that John McCain did not vote as you and Joe Biden. You lied to America.You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time when you know that Democrats also vote 90% of the time with the President (including Joe Biden) because the vast majority of the votes are procedural. You are one of the few who has not voted 90% of the time with the president because you have been missing from the Senate since the day you got elected. While your absence from your job in the Senate is of concern, the greater concern is that you spin the facts.You did not take an active role in the rescue plan. You claimed that the Senate did not need you while the real reason that you abstained was because of your close relationships with the executives of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Countrywide, and Acorn ... who all helped cause the financial problems of today .. and they all made major contributions to your campaign. While your relationship with these executives and your protection of them for your brief 3 years in the Senate (along with Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd) is of concern, the greater concern is that you are being deceitful.You forgot to mention that you personally represented Tony Rezko and Acorn. Tony Rezko, an Arab and close friend to you, was convicted of fraud in Chicago real estate transactions that bilked millions of tax dollars from the Illinois government for renovation projects that you sponsored as a state senator ... and Acorn has been convicted of voter fraud, real estate sub prime loan intimidation, and illegal campaign contributions. Tony Rezko has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to your political campaigns. You personally used your political positions to steer money to both Tony Rezko and Acorn and you used Acorn to register thousands of phony voters for Democrats and you. While your relationships with Rezko and Acorn are of concern, the greater concern is that you omitted important facts about your relationships with them to America.During your campaign, you said: "typical white person." "They cling to their guns and religion." "They will say that I am black." You played the race card. You tried to label any criticism about you as racist. You divide America.You claim that you will reduce taxes for 95% of America, but you forgot to tell America that those reductions are after you remove the Bush tax reductions. You have requested close to $1 billion in earmarks and several million for Acorn. Your social programs will cost America $1 trillion per year and you claim that a reduction in military spending ($100 billion for Iraq) can pay for it. While your economic plan of adding 30% to the size of our federal government is of concern, the greater concern is that you are deceiving America.The drain to America's economy by foreign supplied oil is $700 billion per year (5% of GDP) while the war in Iraq is $100 billion (less than 1% of GDP). You voted against any increases to oil exploration for the last 3 years and any expansion of nuclear facilities. Yet today, you say that you have always been for more oil and more nuclear. You are lying to America.Mr. Obama, you claimed that you "changed" your mind about public financing for your campaign because of the money spent by Republican PACs in 2004.The truth is that the Democrat PACs in 2004, 2006, and 2008 spent twice as much as the Republican PACs (especially George Soros and MoveOn. org). You are lying to America.Mr. Obama, you have done nothing to stop the actions of the teachers union and college professors in the USA. They eliminated religion from our history. They teach pro gay agendas and discuss sex with students as young as first grade. They bring their personal politics into the classrooms. They disparage conservatives. They brainwash our children. They are in it for themselves ..... not America. Are you reluctant to condemn their actions because teachers/professors and the NEA contribute 25% of all money donated to Democrats and none to Republicans? You are deceiving America.Oh, Mr. Obama, Teddy Roosevelt said about a hundred years ago that we Americans should first look at the character of our leaders before anything else.Your character looks horrible. While you make good speeches, motivating speeches, your character does not match your rhetoric. You talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.1. You lied to America. You lied many times. You distorted facts. You parsed your answers like a lawyer.2. You distorted the record of John McCain in your words and in your advertisements.3. You had associations with some very bad people for your personal political gains and then lied about those associations.4. You divide America about race and about class.Now let me compare your record of lies, distortions, race baiting, and associations to John McCain: War hero. Annapolis graduate with "Country first." Operational leadership experience like all 43 previously elected presidents of the USA as a Navy officer for 22 years. 26 years in the Senate. Straight talk. Maverick. 54% of the time participated on bills with Democrats. Never asked for an earmark. The only blemish on his record is his part in the Keating 5 debacle about 25 years ago.Mr. Obama, at Harvard Law School, you learned that the end does not justify the means. You learned that perjury, false witness, dishonesty, distortion of truth are never tolerated. Yet, your dishonesty is overwhelming. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty that caused the impeachment and disbarment of Bill Clinton. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty of Scooter Libby. You should be ashamed.Mr. Obama, it is time for us Americans to put aside our differences on political issues and vote against you because of your dishonest character. It is time for all of us Americans to put aside our political issues and vote for America first. It is time for America to vote for honesty.Any people who vote for you after understanding that you are dishonest should be ashamed of themselves for making their personal political issues more important than character. Would these same people vote for the anti-Christ if the anti-Christ promised them riches? Would they make a golden calf while Moses was up the mountain? Would they hire someone for a job if that someone lied in an interview? Of course not. So why do some of these people justify their votes for you even though they know you are dishonest? Why do they excuse your dishonesty? Because some of these people are frightened about the future, the economy, and their financial security .... and you are preying on their fears with empty promises ... and because some (especially our young people) are consumed by your wonderful style and promises for "change" like the Germans who voted for Adolf Hitler in 1932. The greed/envy by Germans in 1932 kept them from recognizing Hitler for who he was. They loved his style. Greed and envy are keeping many Americans from recognizing you .. your style has camouflaged your dishonesty .... but many of us see you for who you really are ... and we will not stop exposing who you are every day, forever if it is necessary.Mr. Obama, you are dishonest. Anyone who votes for you is enabling dishonesty.Mr. Obama, America cannot trust that you will put America first in your decisions about the future.Mr. Obama, you are not the "change" that America deserves. We cannot trust you.Mr. Obama, You are not ready and not fit to be commander-in-chief.Mr. Obama, John McCain does not have as much money as your campaign to refute all of your false statements. And for whatever reasons, the mainstream media will not give adequate coverage or research about your lies, distortions, word parsing, bad associations, race baiting, lack of operational leadership experience, and generally dishonest character. The media is diverting our attention from your relationships and ignoring the fact that you lied about those relationships. The fact that you lied is much more important than the relationships themselves .... just like with Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon ... Monica Lewinski and Watergate were not nearly as bad as the fact that those men lied about the events .. false witness ... perjury ... your relationships and bad judgements are bad on their own .... but your lies are even worse.Therefore, by copy of this memo, all who read this memo are asked to send it to everyone else in America before it is too late. We need to do the job that the media will not do. We need to expose your dishonesty so that every person in America understands who you really are before election day.Mr. Obama, in a democracy, we get what we deserve. And God help America if we deserve you.Michael MasterMcLean, VirginiaIf you forward just one more thing to those in your address book between now and then, I ask that you forward this
From: SUPPORT TROOPS,The Diesel and Michael & Susan
Date: Nov 1, 2008 11:37 PM-------
Subject: Barack Hussein Obama
I know that many of you are sick and tired of all this political BS but if you read just one more thing between now and next month's election, I urge you to read the following editorial. I don't know who "Michael Masters" is or what he does, but he does write cogently and well. A Google search turns up a Michael Masters who is a lawyer in Philadelphia, but I don't believe that he is the author of this open letter. There is a "Michael C. Masters" who lives in McLean, VA – I presume, but do not know, for sure, that he is the author. However, he didn't show up in any Google searches that I conducted, so I guess he isn't "notorious" enough to be found. I look at that as a good thing, however. On the surface, that suggests he is just another citizen like the rest of us and has no particular ax to grind. However, he HAS done his homework before writing this editorial.To Barack Hussein Obama,The New York Times carried a story on Saturday, October 4, 2008, that proved you had a significantly closer relationship with Bill Ayers than what you previously admitted. While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.The Chicago Sun reported on May 8, 2008, that FBI records showed that you had a significantly closer relationship with Tony Rezko than what you previously admitted. In the interview, you said that you only saw Mr. Rezko a couple of times a year. The FBI files showed that you saw him weekly. While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.Your speech in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, about "race" contradicted your statement to Anderson Cooper on March 14 when you said that you never heard Reverend Wright make his negative statements about white America. While your attendance at Trinity Church for 20 years is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on March 14.In your 1st debate with John McCain, you said that you never said that you would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea without "preparations" at lower levels ... Joe Biden repeated your words in his debate with Sarah Palin ... while the video tape from your debate last February clearly shows that you answered "I would" to the question of meeting with those leaders within 12 months without "any" preconditions. While your judgement about meeting with enemies of the USA without pre-conditions is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America in the debate with McCain.On July 14, 2008, you said that you always knew that the surge would work while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you stated that the surge would not work. While your judgement about military strategy as a potential commander-in-chief is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on July 14.You now claim that your reason for voting against funding for the troops was because the bill did not include a time line for withdrawal, while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you voted against additional funding because you wanted our troops to be removed immediately ... not in 16 months after the 2008 election as you now claim. While your judgement about removing our troops unilaterally in 2007 is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about your previous position.You claim to have a record of working with Republicans while the record shows that the only bill that you sponsored with a Republican was with Chuck Lugar ... and it failed. The record shows that you vote 97% in concert with the Democrat party and that you have the most liberal voting record in the Senate. You joined Republicans only 13% of the time in your votes and those 13% were only after agreement from the Democrat party. While it is of concern that you fail to include conservatives in your actions and that you are such a liberal, the greater concern is that you distorted the truth.In the primary debates of last February, 2008, you claimed to have talked with a "Captain" of a platoon in Afghanistan "the other day" when in fact you had a discussion in 2003 with a Lieutenant who had just been deployed to Afghanistan. You lied in that debate.In your debates last spring, you claimed to have been a "professor of Constitutional law" when in fact you have never been a professor of Constitutional law. In this last debate, you were careful to say that you "taught a law class" and never mentioned being a "professor of Constitutional law." You lied last spring.You and Joe Biden both claimed that John McCain voted against additional funding for our troops when the actual records show the opposite. You distorted the truth.You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted against funding for alternate energy sources 20 times when the record shows that John McCain specifically voted against funding for bio fuels, especially corn ... and he was right .... corn is too expensive at producing ethanol, and using corn to make ethanol increased the price of corn from $2 a bushel to $6 a bushel for food. You distorted the truth.You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted like both of you for a tax increase on those making as little as $42,000 per year while the voting record clearly shows that John McCain did not vote as you and Joe Biden. You lied to America.You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time when you know that Democrats also vote 90% of the time with the President (including Joe Biden) because the vast majority of the votes are procedural. You are one of the few who has not voted 90% of the time with the president because you have been missing from the Senate since the day you got elected. While your absence from your job in the Senate is of concern, the greater concern is that you spin the facts.You did not take an active role in the rescue plan. You claimed that the Senate did not need you while the real reason that you abstained was because of your close relationships with the executives of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Countrywide, and Acorn ... who all helped cause the financial problems of today .. and they all made major contributions to your campaign. While your relationship with these executives and your protection of them for your brief 3 years in the Senate (along with Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd) is of concern, the greater concern is that you are being deceitful.You forgot to mention that you personally represented Tony Rezko and Acorn. Tony Rezko, an Arab and close friend to you, was convicted of fraud in Chicago real estate transactions that bilked millions of tax dollars from the Illinois government for renovation projects that you sponsored as a state senator ... and Acorn has been convicted of voter fraud, real estate sub prime loan intimidation, and illegal campaign contributions. Tony Rezko has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to your political campaigns. You personally used your political positions to steer money to both Tony Rezko and Acorn and you used Acorn to register thousands of phony voters for Democrats and you. While your relationships with Rezko and Acorn are of concern, the greater concern is that you omitted important facts about your relationships with them to America.During your campaign, you said: "typical white person." "They cling to their guns and religion." "They will say that I am black." You played the race card. You tried to label any criticism about you as racist. You divide America.You claim that you will reduce taxes for 95% of America, but you forgot to tell America that those reductions are after you remove the Bush tax reductions. You have requested close to $1 billion in earmarks and several million for Acorn. Your social programs will cost America $1 trillion per year and you claim that a reduction in military spending ($100 billion for Iraq) can pay for it. While your economic plan of adding 30% to the size of our federal government is of concern, the greater concern is that you are deceiving America.The drain to America's economy by foreign supplied oil is $700 billion per year (5% of GDP) while the war in Iraq is $100 billion (less than 1% of GDP). You voted against any increases to oil exploration for the last 3 years and any expansion of nuclear facilities. Yet today, you say that you have always been for more oil and more nuclear. You are lying to America.Mr. Obama, you claimed that you "changed" your mind about public financing for your campaign because of the money spent by Republican PACs in 2004.The truth is that the Democrat PACs in 2004, 2006, and 2008 spent twice as much as the Republican PACs (especially George Soros and MoveOn. org). You are lying to America.Mr. Obama, you have done nothing to stop the actions of the teachers union and college professors in the USA. They eliminated religion from our history. They teach pro gay agendas and discuss sex with students as young as first grade. They bring their personal politics into the classrooms. They disparage conservatives. They brainwash our children. They are in it for themselves ..... not America. Are you reluctant to condemn their actions because teachers/professors and the NEA contribute 25% of all money donated to Democrats and none to Republicans? You are deceiving America.Oh, Mr. Obama, Teddy Roosevelt said about a hundred years ago that we Americans should first look at the character of our leaders before anything else.Your character looks horrible. While you make good speeches, motivating speeches, your character does not match your rhetoric. You talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.1. You lied to America. You lied many times. You distorted facts. You parsed your answers like a lawyer.2. You distorted the record of John McCain in your words and in your advertisements.3. You had associations with some very bad people for your personal political gains and then lied about those associations.4. You divide America about race and about class.Now let me compare your record of lies, distortions, race baiting, and associations to John McCain: War hero. Annapolis graduate with "Country first." Operational leadership experience like all 43 previously elected presidents of the USA as a Navy officer for 22 years. 26 years in the Senate. Straight talk. Maverick. 54% of the time participated on bills with Democrats. Never asked for an earmark. The only blemish on his record is his part in the Keating 5 debacle about 25 years ago.Mr. Obama, at Harvard Law School, you learned that the end does not justify the means. You learned that perjury, false witness, dishonesty, distortion of truth are never tolerated. Yet, your dishonesty is overwhelming. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty that caused the impeachment and disbarment of Bill Clinton. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty of Scooter Libby. You should be ashamed.Mr. Obama, it is time for us Americans to put aside our differences on political issues and vote against you because of your dishonest character. It is time for all of us Americans to put aside our political issues and vote for America first. It is time for America to vote for honesty.Any people who vote for you after understanding that you are dishonest should be ashamed of themselves for making their personal political issues more important than character. Would these same people vote for the anti-Christ if the anti-Christ promised them riches? Would they make a golden calf while Moses was up the mountain? Would they hire someone for a job if that someone lied in an interview? Of course not. So why do some of these people justify their votes for you even though they know you are dishonest? Why do they excuse your dishonesty? Because some of these people are frightened about the future, the economy, and their financial security .... and you are preying on their fears with empty promises ... and because some (especially our young people) are consumed by your wonderful style and promises for "change" like the Germans who voted for Adolf Hitler in 1932. The greed/envy by Germans in 1932 kept them from recognizing Hitler for who he was. They loved his style. Greed and envy are keeping many Americans from recognizing you .. your style has camouflaged your dishonesty .... but many of us see you for who you really are ... and we will not stop exposing who you are every day, forever if it is necessary.Mr. Obama, you are dishonest. Anyone who votes for you is enabling dishonesty.Mr. Obama, America cannot trust that you will put America first in your decisions about the future.Mr. Obama, you are not the "change" that America deserves. We cannot trust you.Mr. Obama, You are not ready and not fit to be commander-in-chief.Mr. Obama, John McCain does not have as much money as your campaign to refute all of your false statements. And for whatever reasons, the mainstream media will not give adequate coverage or research about your lies, distortions, word parsing, bad associations, race baiting, lack of operational leadership experience, and generally dishonest character. The media is diverting our attention from your relationships and ignoring the fact that you lied about those relationships. The fact that you lied is much more important than the relationships themselves .... just like with Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon ... Monica Lewinski and Watergate were not nearly as bad as the fact that those men lied about the events .. false witness ... perjury ... your relationships and bad judgements are bad on their own .... but your lies are even worse.Therefore, by copy of this memo, all who read this memo are asked to send it to everyone else in America before it is too late. We need to do the job that the media will not do. We need to expose your dishonesty so that every person in America understands who you really are before election day.Mr. Obama, in a democracy, we get what we deserve. And God help America if we deserve you.Michael MasterMcLean, VirginiaIf you forward just one more thing to those in your address book between now and then, I ask that you forward this
Saturday, November 1, 2008
HUGE VOTER TURN OUT EXPECTED
WE can attest to this one.. I am so glad that I voted by mail absentee ballot but Mike has gone by the early voting places a couple times now and the lines are just too long to make him stay. We figure with 2 million in Florida having already voted in Early voting.. The polls will be busy Tuesday but for the actual election, the number of polls and voting machines should be much better and shouldn't be such a long process. Hopefully anyway. For the Kerry/Bush election however.. Polling places lines were pretty long, which is why after that election.. I started voting by absentee.Predictions of the highest voter turnout in decades on Tuesday have led the Justice Department to help election officials bracing for problems and spurred a civil rights group to fight for more voting machines in minority polling places.
To prepare against Election Day issues, the Justice Department will deploy more than 800 federal observers and monitors to voting sites in 23 states.
"The Department of Justice will do all it can to help ensure that elections run as smoothly as possible and, equally important, that the American people have confidence in our electoral process," Attorney General Michael Mukasey said in a written statement.
Among the states that DOJ lawyers will observe are Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, which are all crucial battlegrounds that both candidates want to win.
"On Nov. 4, hundreds of Department of Justice lawyers, monitors and observers will be working throughout the country to help make sure that all Americans who are entitled to vote are able to do so, and that the elections accurately represent the will of the people," Mukasey said.
In Virginia, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will go to federal court on Monday to demand more voting machines in minority polling places.
The NAACP filed a lawsuit last week alleging the state was unprepared for what is expected to be a huge turnout in Tuesday's presidential election.
A hearing in a Richmond federal court has been set for Monday afternoon. The organization also wants voting hours extended and paper ballots made available in some precincts.
State Republicans plan to oppose the NAACP's request on the grounds that altering voting procedures on the eve of the election would be disruptive and could unfairly disadvantage their candidates.
Record turnout is expected as Obama tries to win 13 electoral votes in a state that has backed Republican presidential candidates since 1968.
Obama would be the nation's first black president if elected.
The NAACP alleged the state failed to provide enough voting machines to handle the crowds, particularly in majority black precincts. The lawsuit in U.S. District Court asked for paper ballots to be provided as one option if lines got too long.
More than 436,000 new voters registered since Jan. 1, a 10 percent increase that pushed voter rolls past 5 million for the first time in Virginia, a state of 7.7 million residents. Much of the increase is the result of the Obama campaign's aggressive registration drive.
At the close of the first fiercely contested presidential race in Virginia in generations, several polls show Obama slightly ahead.
The NAACP had withdrawn its request for a hearing on Thursday after receiving new information from state officials about the placement of Election Day resources. At the time, NAACP officials said a new hearing before the election was unlikely.
But after assessing the updated information, the NAACP concluded preparations were still insufficient and on Friday requested a new hearing.
"We went back and looked at the numbers, and it's still the same old bad news. We're still seeing disparities between black and white precincts," said national NAACP president Ben Jealous.
A spokeswoman for Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat and Obama ally, said the administration was surprised to see the lawsuit renewed. She said state law gives the governor no authority to extend poll hours.
"We feel confident that we'll be prepared," said Delacey Skinner. "I think that voters who are going to the polls on Election Day should go early and be prepared for the line, but we're not anticipating any kind of major problems."
Several Virginia Republicans have filed to intervene in the lawsuit, arguing that last-second changes at selected precincts the NAACP seeks could give the Democrats an unfair advantage.
Cleta Mitchell, attorney for the Republican Party of Virginia, said the GOP particularly opposes a longer voting day and paper ballots at select polling places.
"You just can't have a situation 24 hours before the election where you go to court and start rewriting state law," she said.
Robert D. Holsworth, a professor of government and political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, said some of the steps the NAACP suit wants taken, such as extending the poll closing time from 7 p.m. Tuesday to 9 p.m., might be possible on short notice. But an overnight shuffle of voting machines would be extremely difficult at best, he said.
"The enthusiasm and interest in this election -- that in itself has introduced the potential for chaos and confusion," Holsworth said. "The substantial reallocation of resources at the last minute adds one more element of uncertainty."
In Chicago, election officials expect more than 3 million voters to form unprecedented lines at the polls on Tuesday, despite seeing record numbers of area residents vote early.
Cook County Clerk David Orr says the election is off the charts. Orr noted Friday that some towns had a difficult time handling the lines of people who voted early last month.
Although the extraordinary early turnout -- predicted to be 80 percent -- certainly will make the lines shorter than they otherwise would have been on Election Day, officials say they still expected that issues will arise.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
