Other Important Issues and News

Those fine folks that brought you so many wonderful picketing events at
soldiers funerals,holding up signs that say “God loves dead soldiers", and God hates Fags are at it again, going after a much bigger target.

Yep, they are claiming the Chinese brought the earthquake upon themselves for being godless
and ungrateful subhumans…

Really… I don’t make this stuff up….

Of course they are disregarding all the innocent elementary school children (hundreds) that were killed when their schools collapsed on top of them…

Hey how about this… lets take up a collection and send all these lovely Hate filled idiots over to China during the upcoming Olympic games so they can picket the Chinese directly. That way the Chinese can give them the proper and warm welcome they deserve…

I mean hey, if you want to spread this kind of stuff, come on, stand up for it in the first person, oh wait they ARE going to go the games and protest… (I can’t wait to see that).

More here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-standaert/chinese-hacker-challenge_b_101808.html

and here.
http://china.notspecial.org/archives/2008/05/aim_your_fury_a.html

In case you haven’t surmised it already the GOP brand is taking a beating pretty
much everywhere in America. In the latest primaries (indiana and North Carolina) John McCain garnered just 75 perecent of the vote of loyal Republicans, even as the already
designated GOP nominee, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul divided up the rest.

So in effect this is saying there are GOP supporters that WON’T vote for John McCain
in November, and would perhaps stay home… or even vote for Obama. All of which bodes very badly for the GOP brand.

Not only to mention that ANY party to have a mjorioty needs independant voters to support them, and the indy’s are fleeing the GOP like lemmings this year.

To put it in perspective read the following…

Losses in two recent special elections combined with prospects for a tough contest next week sent House Republicans scrambling for change — both in words and deeds.

Minority Leader John A. Boehner told his caucus behind closed doors Tuesday that Americans won’t vote for Republicans until they fix their “brand” and convince voters they will fix Washington, according to members who were present

He told reporters that a campaign message for the caucus would be developed in the next few weeks.

“I think it’s clear this election is about change,” Boehner said. “If we’re going to do well in this election, if we’re going to win back our majority, we have to prove to people that we are in fact the agents of change.”

“I’ve been saying it for a year and a half,” Boehner told his colleagues, according to the Ohio Republican’s written talking points and those inside the room. “Some of you have been listening. Others I’m not so sure about.”

Boehner cited the need to stick with presumed presidential nominee Arizona Sen. John McCain and aggressively criticize Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif.

House Republicans will hold a rally with President Bush on Wednesday morning, with all 199 members invited to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to show solidarity with the president, according to GOP sources.

WOW! Nice agenda Mr. Boehner, going for more of the same instead of anything remotely like REAL CHANGE….

From 2001 to 2006 the GOP had it’s way with everything in Washington DC, and what they did was gut our economy, raise the national debt to unheard of levels, and get us into a war that seems to have no plan to ever end, and make the top ten percent of Americans richer than their wildest dreams, all while working class Americans saw their paychecks buy less and less, and their homes get foreclosed on.

If there is a poster boy for what’s WRONG in Washington DC these days it is John Boehner,
Mr. Clueless himself.

Well except for the local version, located in Omaha which blogs as Street Sweeper on
http://leavenworthstreet.blogspot.com/
Which is the primary kool aid drinking, head in the sand site for those that are so divorced from reality they still think GWB and his cronies are actually making things better.

Any blog that touts Lee Terry or Mike Johanns as effective politicians is highly suspect to using the BS rule on….. Since neither of them has done a damn thing in DC except draw a paycheck and breathe for their entire time in DC.

That’s ok, sweeper, you and all your simple / single minded buddies that post there, keep at it, while your agenda, and your brand slowly dies.

America has problems and they need to be addressed and worked on, and since you can’t even TALK about them, let alone come up with a plan to fix things, the rest of your neighbors will just move on without you….

It is time to get rid of politicians that are going to give us, “more of the same"….

Ya Think?

Paul

THIS is reality..

http://www.redlasso.com/ClipPlayer.aspx?id=abc238bd-7e27-4ee7-ac64-b54b86b9ace3

There’s a very good diary up on the KOS…

About where our economy went, why it is not working
and gives the run down on the current state of affairs on wall street.

Here - http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/222049/728

We are starting a new series here on NE Blue.

The truth.

We are going to take issues and people that are up front in the minds
of middle class Nebraskan’s and try and put some perspective
and facts into a story here.

They will be posted once a week on the “Other News” section.

I hope you will read along.

The international Monetary Fund has floated the idea that the US should set up a taxpayer funded bailout for the banks that are stuck with all the bad paper causing the credit / trust problems all ove the globe.

You might have caught it on NPR yesterday (I did), well the little known fact is this idea is being pushed by the G7 actually, although they are doing it in an underhanded way so they won’t get the heat for the idea.

Basically what they are saying is to set up a RTC (Resolution Trust Corp) EXACTLY like the savings and loan debacle from the 80’s, where the US taxpayers got stuck with the bill for the bad choices made by bankers back then.

The problem with this is that it would have to be an international fund, because even in Iceland, Austrailia and New Zealand banks are experiencing problems and there are mortgage defaults going on there as well, not to mention other countries.

AND - the fact that this pile of debt is too large for even the US to buy up in total.

But OUR Fed is trying, they have bought up MASSIVE amounts of this crap over the last 4 months, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/10/202233/415/811/493461
(Thanks to GJOHNSIT for that)

The Fed does not have the resources to buy up all the bad mortgage paper that is out there, no single body does.

It is devaluing its resources with every purchase of bad mortgage debt, which is a pretty perilous road to be going down if you are the lender of last resort.

We, the taxpayers, are actually underwriting that debt, so, when it goes bad (which a lot of it already has), the budget deficit increases, so more money is printed and borrowed to cover it. This further devalues the currency and causes more inflation.

The Fed is playing Chicken with the countries that own our debt and betting they will buy the Dollar and keep it afloat at more or less the same rate as the Fed devalues it. The Fed is right in this, they have little or no choice but to buy the Dollar right now. At some point, however, the law of diminishing returns kicks in and they will decide to cut their losses, which is where you get a currency crisis.

The sub-prime crisis can only be turned around by making the sub-prime debt viable. The only way to do that is to fix distressed mortgages at low enough interest rates for the next couple of years so that the mortgage holders will not default, which will reduce the number of repossessions and lead to a housing market recovery.

The fastest and BEST way for our elected Representatives in DC to help fix this mess would be to do two things.

1. Pass a law stopping ALL foreclosures for 9 months, and require all hybrid and adjustable loans to reissued as fixed rate loans at lower interst rates with a cap on the upper rates of say 8 percent. This would have the effect of keeping people in their houses
and would stop the bleeding in the housing sector. It would also set a bottom for the securities issued as debt so they could be valued more easily, to something closer to reality.

2. Stop the Fed from assuming the extraordinary powers they seem to be asking for, and remind the FED and the Bankers that money coming from the FED is a LOAN and must be paid back with interest. The financial wizards on wall street will scream bloody murder about it
because right now they are doing everything possible to offload their steaming piles of bad paper onto the US taxpayers as fast as possible.

The problem with where these snake oil salesmen are taking us, is a massive devaluation of the US dollar if the FED (Which is our US Central Bank) keeps buying this crap to prop up
the house of cards Wall street built.

But the Fed is running out of money and idea’s really fast, and nothing has been done to stop the housing meltdown, or even slow it.

So in effect our government is just juggling all that debt keeping it in play until the balls drop and someone pays the bottom line price for this mess.

Of course George Bush wants the next person occupying the White House to deal with it,
that and the GOP is scared as hell the economy will tank before the November elections
meaning they will be hammered at the ballot box for their grossly bad stewardship of the last 8 years.

And DC keeps juggling, hoping to keep the status quo for a little while longer anyway.

Stay tuned in for more about the FED and the Dollar, none of which will be good news, well
unless you are rich and all your money is in Euro’s.

Paul

Today, Monday, April 7, is the 75th anniversary of the day that Prohibition was first breached in 1933 by allowing 3.2 percent beer. The 18th Amendment was not fully repealed until December, giving beer an eight-month head start.

Back then, the American beer companies had been suffering from more than a dozen years of Prohibition. It was the genius of the Busch family to dramatize the fact that “beer is back” 75 years ago by yoking together a team of Clydesdale horses to carry beer down Fifth Avenue to the Empire State building, where the horses and beer were met joyfully by the “wet” former New York Governor Al Smith.

So now you know the history of AB using those horses in their Commercials, so lift a glass
to the Anniversary of the repeal of prohibition.

John Soltz has a great post up today about the war in Iraq.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/why-the-administration-wo_b_93843.html

What does it mean if violence goes down in Iraq?

“Success of the surge,” says the administration.

What does it mean, then, if the violence goes up in Iraq?

“Success of the surge,” they say.

What? How can you manage to say that? Well, that’s what the Pentagon did yesterday, claiming that the exploding violence in Iraq is a sign of progress.

For years, we’ve been asking “What is success” in Iraq? How do we know we’re making progress? And, for years, we’ve gotten nothing but a vague answer from the administration, with no hard metrics.

Now, admittedly, for years I assumed it was because the administration and its proponents simply had no answer - that they couldn’t figure out what the end-state was.

Now, today, it’s become painfully clear: It’s not that the administration CAN’T define success, it’s that they WON’T.

If you want to get a better sense of where Iraq is today
Read this report “2008 STATE OF THE WARS, MILITARY, AND VETERANS".

http://www.votevets.org/pages/?id=0004

Oh and George Bush isn’t the decider anymore, he is the DENIER…..
Denying reality because he can’t deal with it.

The next President is going to have to deal with it instead.

Which means we had all better work really hard so John 100 years McCain
doesn’t get the job.

Because McCain also has no frigging clue on how to end this war,
and bring the troops home.

With it becoming more apparent to even the Main stream Media that Hillary
has very little chance of winning the Nomination without divine intervention,
or stealing it by rustling pledged delegates, ABC news coined a new term for her
latest attack plan.

“The Tanya Harding” option… where she kneecaps her opponent since she can’t actually
win the gold on her own merit. Which is pretty accurate of where Hillary is right now.

Getting back to the reason for my post, I am making up a D list… a list of D bags..

People that are throwing the truth and Democratic values under the “Tanya Clinton” bus as it careens along destroying everything in it’s path.

First up Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, Husband of CIA Agent Valerie Plame who was outed by the Bush Regime. In his post here - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/smears-and-tears-how-oba_b_93525.html

He goes all in for Hillary, up to the point of blatantly showing he has no frigging clue
about what Real Americans (that aren’t joined at the hip to the Clintons like he is) think.

Joe wants the Clintons back in power because that’s the only way he will get a nice fat post somewhere useful again. Also Joe would like us all to NOT MIND the fact that Hillary’s campaign is powered by the elite triangulators that live, eat, sleep and breathe
lobbying for power, or just buy it. But never try and earn it the decent way by asking real
Americans to vote for and support them. not without having to make up fake war stories anyway, or have their donors threaten the party leadership.

Joe claims Obama has thin experience, while overlooking Hillary on her also thin experience, and he convieniently forgets all her lack of transparency, and her outright lies
about her so called experience. Up to and including lying about her cheerleading for NAFTA, and most of her trips as first lady.

Sorry Joe your agenda is showing and it ain’t pretty… Or even fair…. try it again with some reality stirred into it would ya…

Next up… Some of Hillary’s attack dog lobbyist DONORS went after Nancy Pelosi for her statement
That it wuld be harmful for the super delagates to not support the candidate with the most pledged delagates.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/26/clinton-donors-object-to-_n_93552.html

They sent a letter in rebuttal, Clinton’s supporters said superdelegates “must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party’s strongest nominee in the general election.”

The letter also noted the donors “have been strong supporters” of the House Democrats’ fundraising apparatus.

So in other words these D bags want to say that the votes of real Americans don’t matter, and they want the rich elite lobbyists to pick the Democratic Candidate. With the veiled threat of “Don’t piss us off, or we will pull our money out of the party".

Gee why didn’t you just tell us all that in advance, I mean we could have saved how many MILLIONS of dollars wasted on all those Primaries and Caucuses we have been having?

We could have just let a bunch of unelected, unaccountable Super Delagates decide it all for us!

So at the bottom line, the people supporting Hillary just gave the middle finger to all those voters out there that want their voice heard, and a say in how their country is run..

Thank you for showing how much you all really care about the average person in this country.

And welcome to the D Bag List.

Douchebags one and all.

Full list of those wonderful influence buyers Here - link.
Paul

The Hubris and elitism in Washington DC as led by George Bush and
Dick Cheney and rest of the Motley Crew of GOP Neocons just became crystal clear…

Here’s the exchange between Whitehouse Spokesperson Dana Perino and the press.

Full story below - link;

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080320-7.html

Q Dana, can I just follow on our colleague Martha Raddatz’s interview with the Vice President? Let’s set aside the meaning of the word “so” for a second, and get to something the Vice President then said about fluctuations in the public opinion polls: “You can’t be blown off course by fluctuations in public opinion polls.” That would suggest that at any point in recent memory that the American public has been behind the war. It’s not that there’s been fluctuations in polls; it’s been different degrees of opposition to the war. So is the Vice President saying it really doesn’t matter what the American public thinks about the war?

MS. PERINO: No, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying, and obviously I haven’t spoken to the Vice President since he’s traveling today and was in Kabul visiting with President Karzai a the request of the President. But what he went on to say is that President should not make decisions based on polls. And we fully recognize that people across America are unhappy with the war; possibly they didn’t agree with the decision in the first place. They might have been unhappy with the conduct of the war. They might have disagreed with the President’s decision to send in more troops, which was a very unpopular decision across the board.

But what the President has said is that while people might not like the decisions that he makes, he has to do what he thinks is right for the country, and he cannot try to chase an opinion poll and try to make things better that way. He has to act on what he thinks is right, and that’s what he’s done.

Q So at what point – I mean, I guess I just – there is the impression that the Vice President doesn’t care about what the American people think in policy like that. Is that a wrong impression? And does the President share that impression?

MS. PERINO: I think that is the wrong impression. I think that the Vice President and the President both, together, all of us across the administration, would like for people to support the President’s decisions. We realize that that’s unrealistic, especially in a time of war – and in particular this war. And while we’re not able to change public opinion, we also have to follow a principle and stand on principle. And you have to ask yourself, what kind of a person do you want in the Oval Office? And America will have this choice to make in November of 2008 – before I get ahead of myself.

So we believe that the President stood on his principle. He hasn’t chased public opinion polls. He’s aware of them, but he hasn’t made decisions because of them, and I think there’s a distinction. Just because you don’t make decisions based on opinion polls doesn’t mean you don’t care what people think. We are all Americans. We care deeply about what people think.

Helen.

Q The American people are being asked to die and pay for this, and you’re saying they have no say in this war?

MS. PERINO: I didn’t say that, Helen. But, Helen, this President was elected –

Q Well, what it amounts to is you saying we have no input at all.

MS. PERINO: You had input. The American people have input every four years, and that’s the way our system is set up.

Q Every four years.

MS. PERINO: And we listen to –

Q It sounds familiar.

MS. PERINO: – different points of view. The President, in fact, had many meetings with members of Congress leading up to his decision about the surge.

Q Supposed to be a government for the people, of the people, by the people?

MS. PERINO: I would submit to you that people across America, if asked what type of a President do you want: one that stands on principle or that one that chases polls? And I think that they would want –

Q What’s the principle of going to war against the people who did nothing to us?

MS. PERINO: Helen, the President went to war to remove Saddam Hussein. He talked all about this yesterday in his speech. I’ll refer you to that.

Perhaps someone in the DC press Corps will act like they have a backbone and start
calling Dana by the new nickname she has earned. Baghdad Bobbi….

(My Apologies to the original Baghdad Bob, The Iraqi Minister of Information).
http://www.davidstuff.com/bagdad-bob.htm

Sorry Dude you have a pretender trying to take your place.

More on this at link below.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/22/123942/085/887/482190