"Their double-barreled threats to shut down the government and cause the United States to default on its obligations if the Affordable Care Act wasn't repealed or at least delayed was a direct assault on our system of government: If even unpopular laws can be gutted by a majority in one house of Congress holding the rest of government hostage, there's no end to it. No law on the books would be safe. (Their retort that Congress holds the "purse strings" and can therefore decide to de-fund what it dislikes is bunk; appropriation bills have to be agreed to by both houses and signed into law by the president, like any other legislation.)
While most of us distrust government, we're indelibly proud of our system of government. We like to think it's just about the best system in the world. We don't much like politicians but we canonize the Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution. And we revere the fading parchment on which the Constitution is written. When we pledge allegiance to the United States we bind ourselves to that system of government. Anyone who seeks to overthrow or undermine that system is deemed a traitor.
And that's exactly what some Tea Partiers have began sounding like -- traitors to the system, radicals for whom the end they seek justifies whatever means they think necessary to achieve it. They began losing support even among Americans who had bought their view of the Affordable Care Act....
Americans distrust big government, and always will. There's ample reason -- especially given the huge sums now bankrolling politicians, from a relative handful of billionaires, big corporations, and Wall Street. But we love our system of government. That's what must be strengthened.
By using tactics perceived to violate that system, the Tea Partiers have overplayed their hand. If they don't stop their recklessness, they'll be out of the game...."
Democratic mayors to grade gun-makers on safety goals By ALEXANDER BURNS | 1/19/13 12:22 PM EST
If certain gun manufacturers refuse to address public safety concerns about firearms and ammunition, dozens of Democratic mayors intend to take their business elsewhere.
Amid a nationwide push for new gun regulations, members of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors have decided to launch an initiative grading gun manufacturers on their compliance with public safety goals. The companies that are least supportive may find it harder to sell their wares to police departments across the country.
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who heads the Democratic mayors group, said the initiative grew out of an epiphany this week: that cities spend millions of dollars a year as customers of these companies, even while their agendas clash on Capitol Hill.
“When we were lobbying on Capitol Hill, it became clear that our goal of trying to pass laws that make it easier to make our communities safe was going to be opposed by the gun and ammunition manufacturers. We recognize as mayors, we help fund that, because we are one of the largest purchasers of guns and ammunition in the country,” Rybak told POLITICO in an interview Saturday morning.
(PHOTOS: Politicians with guns)
“So at the Democratic mayors meeting last night, we agreed that we would all go back to our communities, gather information from our police chiefs and procurement officers about how many guns and how much ammunition we purchase, bring that in from the Democratic mayors so that we have a common list of how much money we’re spending, what purchases are pending and who we’re buying from.”
Then, Rybak said, he expects Democratic mayors will work through the umbrella group Mayors Against Illegal Guns – the national gun-control advocacy group launched by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg – to rate the manufacturers.
“Then we’re going to do everything we can as mayors to use … the collective buying power of many millions of dollars in guns and ammunition, to support those who will support common-sense laws and oppose those who are fighting us in Congress,” Rybak said. “I am not going to have the people, the taxpayers of Minneapolis, pay for people to stop the Congress from passing laws that keep our people safe.”
He continued: “It’s especially galling, paying money from our police departments to produce loopholes that allow illegal handguns into my communities that could be used against police officers.”
Gun control and public safety have been dominant topics at the U.S. Conference of Mayors gathering in Washington this week, where the Democratic mayors group met Friday night. Rybak said that in the decade-plus worth of USCM meetings he’s attended, “There’s never been an issue that has so dominating the meetings as guns have dominated this one.”
The National Conference of Democratic Mayors passed a resolution Friday night expressing support for the Obama administration’s gun control and public safety proposals, which Vice President Joe Biden described to the mayors this week.
While mayors in different parts of the country have reacted differently to the federal proposals, city executives have been broadly supportive of new measures to crack down on gun crimes and promote information-sharing between state and local authorities.
Rybak said that if Congress were to pass legislation with three broad components – a mandate for universal background checks, a ban on high-capacity magazines and new information-sharing measures on crime and mental health – that would be a considerable help.
Ah yes. The Ugly American thing. I hear they don't travel very well, short shelf life and all that. There will always be those who need to separate themselves from true unity and make a big deal about themselves. I really don't get it but I know it's true.
From one American, I'm sorry world we all have our bad apples...
Happy thanksgiving to you too Tom, and as for the video, the Left are no more scum than the Right, they are just different extremes of the same political spectrum. Portraying this as a tool to get my attention and prove a point proves nothing but a filthy Jim Crow mentality and that is a sin in itself and has no other point than to be nasty.
The new poll also shows more Americans supporting the movement. Thirty-six percent say they agree with the overall positions of Occupy Wall Street, while 19% say they disagree.
That reflects an increase in support since early October, when 27% of those polled said they agreed with Occupy Wall Street's position.
Sorry tea partiers, the drumming, park-occupying Wall Street protesters get more love from New York voters.
A NY1-Marist Poll released Tuesday show 44 percent of voters support the Occupy Wall Street movement while only 21 percent support the tea party. But about half of the 1,030 adults surveyed Oct. 25 through 27 think the tea party movement will have greater influence in the 2012 presidential election.
The support for the two movement splits across party lines, with more than seven in 10 Democrats saying they share the Wall Street protesters' views. Fifty-five percent of Republicans say their views are more aligned with the tea party.
The survey also found that three in four voters said that the Occupy Wall Street movement's main message was about "too much corporate greed."
The Occupy Wall Street movement is not wearing well with voters across the country. Only 33% now say that they are supportive of its goals, compared to 45% who say they oppose them...
Voters don't care for the Tea Party either, with 42% saying they support its goals to 45% opposed. But asked whether they have a higher opinion of the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movement the Tea Party wins out 43-37...
I don't think the bad poll numbers for Occupy Wall Street reflect Americans being unconcerned with wealth inequality. Polling we did in some key swing states earlier this year found overwhelming support for raising taxes on people who make over $150,000 a year. In late September we found that 73% of voters supported the 'Buffett rule' with only 16% opposed. And in October we found that Senators resistant to raising taxes on those who make more than a million dollars a year could pay a price at the polls....
Voters continue to be very unhappy with the new majority in the House. Only 37% of voters think the Republicans have been an upgrade from when the Democrats were in charge, to 41% who believe they've been worse. Among independent voters, whose overwhelming support fueled the new GOP majorities, 26% think the Republicans have been an improvement to 37% who believe they've made things worse. ...
Today, he added that he never extended such an invitation.
Cain denied Monday that he was aware of a settlement between the two accusers and the National Restaurant Association, but his story changed as the day evolved.
“If the Restaurant Association did a settlement, I wasn’t aware of it, and I hope it wasn’t much because nothing happened,” Cain said in a Fox News interview, and repeated the same line at the National Press Club later that afternoon.
But in the interview later in the evening with PBS, the Tea Party star said he was, in fact, aware of a deal.
“I was aware that an agreement was reached. The word ‘settlement’ versus the word ‘agreement,’ you know, I’m not sure what they called it. I know that there was some sort of agreement, but because it ended up being minimal, they didn’t have to bring it to me,” Cain told PBS’ Woodruff.
Cain blamed the discrepancy on the wording and the difference between a “settlement” and “agreement.”
“When I first heard the term settlement I thought the legal term,” Cain said on Fox News today. “My recollection was it was an agreement… I didn’t think there was a legal settlement but an agreement.”
The former businessman has described the story, first reported by Politico, as a distraction and a “witch hunt” created by his competitors. He also accused the left of attacking him because of his race.
“I didn’t change my story. I simply got the wording right,” he told HLN’s Robin Meade today.
The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy."
Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?"
The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!"
The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan. Today's Republican Party may revere Reagan as the patron saint of low taxation. But the party of Reagan – which understood that higher taxes on the rich are sometimes required to cure ruinous deficits – is dead and gone. Instead, the modern GOP has undergone a radical transformation, reorganizing itself around a grotesque proposition: that the wealthy should grow wealthier still, whatever the consequences for the rest of us.
Modern-day Republicans have become, quite simply, the Party of the One Percent – the Party of the Rich.
"The Republican Party has totally abdicated its job in our democracy, which is to act as the guardian of fiscal discipline and responsibility," says David Stockman, who served as budget director under Reagan. "They're on an anti-tax jihad – one that benefits the prosperous classes."
The staggering economic inequality that has led Americans across the country to take to the streets in protest is no accident. It has been fueled to a large extent by the GOP's all-out war on behalf of the rich. Since Republicans rededicated themselves to slashing taxes for the wealthy in 1997, the average annual income of the 400 richest Americans has more than tripled, to $345 million – while their share of the tax burden has plunged by 40 percent. Today, a billionaire in the top 400 pays less than 17 percent of his income in taxes – five percentage points less than a bus driver earning $26,000 a year. "Most Americans got none of the growth of the preceding dozen years," says Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. "All the gains went to the top percentage points."
Looks like a attempted cover up on Cains part, wonder what he is hiding? Why does it look like a lynching if he is clean, then he will be fine. If he is dirty then America surly needs to know that before thy cast their votes.
Oh Dems and Repubs have their own bad boys, once outed they usually loose something because they don't take responsibility they lie. Arnold lost his family.
Edwards lost his political power and his family. Cain will loose his following too I think.
Like I said I'm sure they wouldn't have had such a large settlement to keep their mouths shut, without a very good reason. And Cain is that reason obviously.
Cain is a candidate for president and the male myth that every woman wants it and if she doesn't want her crotch grabbed there is something wrong with her is rather disgusting.
If a woman you fellows loved, wife, friend, sister or mother was treated like that by another man I think you would be singing a different tune.
This is the 4th woman that has come out now, are there any more. How many would it take before Cain bites the dust? His morals are important in a presidential candidate. If these allegations are true than he did all this as a predator and a married man. Not cool at all!
Freddie Mac seeks $6 billion more in aid By Derek Kravitz, The Associated Press
Government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac has requested $6 billion in additional aid after posting a wider loss in the third quarter.
Freddie Mac said Thursday that it lost $6 billion, or $1.86 per share, in the July-September quarter. That compares with a loss of $4.1 billion, or $1.25 a share, in the same quarter of 2010.
This quarter's $6 billion request from taxpayers is the largest since April 2010.
Freddie's losses are increasing mainly for two reasons: Many homeowners are paying less interest because they are able to refinance at lower mortgage rates. And failing and bankrupt mortgage insurers are not paying out as much money when homeowners default.
The government rescued McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae in September 2008 after massive losses on risky mortgages threatened to topple them. Since then, a federal regulator has controlled their financial decisions.
Taxpayers have spent about $169 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, the most expensive bailout of the 2008 financial crisis. The government estimates it will cost at least $51 billion more to support the companies through 2014, and as much as $142 billion in the most extreme case.
Freddie and Washington-based Fannie own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans worth more than $5 trillion. Along with other federal agencies, they backed nearly 90 percent of new mortgages over the past year.
Charles E. Haldeman Jr., Freddie's chief executive, said many homeowners are refinancing at lower mortgage rates or are shortening the terms of their mortgage. While that saves homeowners money, it is pushing Freddie deeper into the red.
"In fact, borrowers we helped to refinance will save an average of $2,500 in interest payments during the next year," he said.
For Freddie, those losses are temporary because interest rates will remain low for the foreseeable future, said Jim Vogel, an interest-rate specialist at FTN Financial.
Still, many homeowners are still defaulting on their mortgages. Unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9.1 percent. The percentage of those who are late by 90 days or more on their monthly mortgage payments was virtually unchanged at 3.51 percent in the July-September quarter....
Most of our politicians from the top to the bottom also have "seed money" as you call it, this movement is also being supported by everyday Americans with donations of clothes, food, medical supplies, money, generators.
I never hear much anger about the $$$ lining and buying the legislation from both sides of the aisle in Washington, only if it is the Democratic side or heaven forbid the OWS.
Left this running while I surfed the web a bit and the occupiers are being urged to get out and vote. There are enough people in OWS to make a real difference in how the voting goes this next election.
I think it is a real mistake to not pay attention to this gathering of the masses. To act like they don't matter and aren't real (which some of them are not) is the utmost foolishness. See a vote is the real voice and the dialog is driving even this forum more than any other. It is a force to be reckoned with, degrade it and you will not be prepared for the results...
On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party. The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
The party is the firm’s big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can’t tell you how people dressed for this year’s party, but I can tell you about last year’s.
That’s because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year’s party. In an e-mail, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners — invariably poor and down on their luck — that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against.
When we spoke later, she added that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm’s mind-set. “There is this really cavalier attitude,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.” Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose. I told her I wanted to post the photos on The Times’s Web site so that readers could see them. She agreed, but asked to remain anonymous because she said she fears retaliation....
These pictures are hardly the first piece of evidence that the Baum firm treats homeowners shabbily — or that it uses dubious legal practices to do so. It is under investigation by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. It recently agreed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the firm had “filed misleading pleadings, affidavits, and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts in New York.” (In the press release announcing the settlement, Baum acknowledged only that “it occasionally made inadvertent errors.”)
MFY Legal Services, which defends homeowners, and Harwood Feffer, a large class-action firm, have filed a class-action suit claiming that Steven J. Baum has consistently failed to file certain papers that are necessary to allow for a state-mandated settlement conference that can lead to a modification. Judge Arthur Schack of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn once described Baum’s foreclosure filings as “operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe.” (My source told me that one Baum employee dressed up as Judge Schack at a previous Halloween party.)
I saw the firm operate up close when I wrote several columns about Lilla Roberts, a 73-year-old homeowner who had spent three years in foreclosure hell. Although she had a steady income and was a good candidate for a modification, the Baum firm treated her mercilessly....
That would have to assume that the other 2/3 are in unity marching in lockstep together, that would be something to see but it probably isn't so.
No I'm pretty sure whenever a bandwagon goes by and catches the public eye, (ie: media coverage) there are a lot of people/groups that are going to jump on it. But I believe the core group was spontaneous, a expression of frustration with our government and wall street collaborating in the market crash of America and all that has happened because of it.
Those who degrade and ridicule the protesters would do better to realize that these people might just be truly inspired to vote and vote in record numbers in the next elections. That is what happened when Obama was elected, unregulated wild card Americans. Unwilling to be fodder for party politics or fooled by talking points anymore and finally rising to be heard.
Are you listening closely or are you blowing it off as unimportant and calling them a ignorant rabble with no message?
Seems to me that if you are than ignorance is pretty catching.
How can it be so different if the song could have been written for today?
The things happening today that have brought not only Americans but people all over the world to protest have not just begun, they have been going on for a long time.
Now that the occupy wall street has gone global I think it is ridiculous to call everybody lazy, or far left liberal, or socialist or communist or anything but hurting too much and using their Voice to protest it.
It's been going on a loooong time for so many and that was in the middle of another War, the Vietnam conflict. It is applicable today too which is a very sad thing to have to say.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is calling attention to the increasing inequality and economic injustice across the country. One frequent grievance is the rise of evictions due to home foreclosures, a trend which has been exposed as caused by banks’ irresponsible manipulation of loans. Many more Americans are now on the precarious edge of living one or two paychecks away from joining the homeless. This is a state of economic emergency which calls out for extraordinary action by governments.
We encourage you to open dialogue with alternative solutions — such as the R2DToo rest area, which is legally leased on private property, and is run by experienced volunteers with support from the community. Such efforts in self-determination and bootstrap self-help cost the City nothing, as they are funded by charity and managed by the hard work of volunteer organizers. Such projects are in the American vein of self-reliance and also strengthen community bonds. We invite you to help such grassroots solutions.
Finally, The Bill of Rights for Children and Youth can be found prominently displayed on the reception desk of Mayor Adams’ office, and is also online at the County website. It affirms what Occupy Portland also affirms: the inalienable right to survive, which requires shelter. Families and individuals who cannot live indoors, for whatever reason, should not be swept out of sight and mind. They deserve the human dignity to be seen and to exist in our city. I hope the best that in in us all will rise to respond kindly to those who have been devastated our economic shutdown and bank malfeasance.
I was talking about the chalk you can buy (it comes with special glasses) and each line you draw floats in a different space. I had a lot of fun with it.
That is why so many people are rising up now to protest, the poor have been joined by the middle class...those who won't acknowledge or see this are out of step and totally self absorbed.
Skybow Forum Posts (1,146)
RE: Republicans Are To Blame
That's right Conrad, can you say big bucks bankroll and corrupted politics?