Posted by AllTappedOut2 (anonymous) on February 3, 2010 at 9:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I kinda agree with you Mr. Miller. We do need to vote, and i do. But too many who don't follow God, voted last presidential race and now we got a Muslin for a President and the County is headed downhill faster than a bobsled on hardpacked ice. Yeah he inherited a mess, but when the dust settles GW will look like an excellent president by comparison to this one.

Posted by keta (anonymous) on February 3, 2010 at 9:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Muslin is a kind of cloth made from cotton. The president is a member of the United Church of Christ. The opinion that he was elected by people who "don't follow God" is ridiculous and offensive, almost as ridiculous and offensive as "now we got a muslin for a president". But not quite.

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 9:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Keta could you tell me.... why were thousands of Muslims dancing in the streets of Muslim countries praising Allah for delivering the United States of America to them through Barrack Obama when he won the presidency? It sure wasn't because he was a member of the United Church of Christ.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 1:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Probably because they were tired of their innocent women and children being blown up in a pointless, criminal war waged on them at the hands of Dubya. They saw it as a sign of someone with an open mind, and less likely to say "kill now, ask questions later."

You people really need to find something better to do with your time. the President is a Christian. Has been, will be. However, what difference would it make if he WERE Muslim? Are you all so racist in believing that the Muslim race is all evil? God have mercy on your souls. The SAME God, by the way.....(oh, and try arguing that point....show what a buffoon you are)

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 1:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Why is it jonferguson you assume people are racist? You seem to have a chip on your shoulder for some reason. You always put your own twist on posts that you disagree with and belittle others' comments, views and beliefs. The Muslims were dancing in the streets because it was a victory to them as Muslims, nothing to do with the war. How do I know this, I have asked many Muslims why they love Obama. Their answer is that he is one of "them". Take that how you wish. You see jonferguson, I ask questions before I shoot off at the mouth, unlike some other posters on here. I won't mention any names. I just had a conversation with a Muslim this past weekend and was given the same answer about Obama as I had received from the other Muslims I have consulted. I was also told that he has Muslim in his heart and he will never turn his back on them if push comes to shove. Now, there is no way for you to twist this jonferguson, this is straight from the horse's mouths and these people are not radical extremists, just plain ordinary Muslims. I also know about God and Allah, I have asked about that too, so why would you "ass"ume I would want to argue that point with you. Seems to me the only buffoon here is you!

Posted by mikehaney (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 3:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Leslie.
Very, very good article, especially the last part.

we need to keep our hands to the plow in being wise citizens, voting wisely, and trust our God to fulfill his will.

Leslie V. Miller Ironton

Posted by keta (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 6:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)

why were muslims dancing in the streets

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People all over the world were dancing in the streets. And how remarkable that there's an Ironton Tribune forum poster whose friends are all Muslims. Get outta here.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 6:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)

"Are you all so racist in believing that the Muslim race is all evil?"

Muslim race Jonferguson??? I thought Muslim was a religion? Is Christianity a race also Jonfergeson?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 6:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jonferguson, "Probably because they were tired of their innocent women and children being blown up in a pointless, criminal war waged on them at the hands of Dubya."
-------------------------

A criminal war? I'm pretty sure he was authorized by the U.N. and by Congress.

And it's funny that you don't mention that way more innocent woman and children are blowen up by religious zealots than by American forces.

And... Obama sure showed them didn't he... killing all those innocents using predator drones in the tribal regions.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 6:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Hey Keta, they sure aren't dancing in the streets anymore. The chants have turned to "Overrated"... even the Obama girl has soured on him.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 6:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Speaking of racists... lets see what our liberal friends have been up to:

Questlove, the leader of the band for the late-night Jimmy Fallon show, complained to his more than 1 million followers on Twitter that NBC's cafeteria at 30 Rock in New York offered fried chicken, collard greens, blacked-eyed peas and cornbread "in honor of Black History Month."

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 4, 2010 at 7:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I am afraid the "dancing in the streets" may have been a bit premature regardless of race, religion or creed. The ballot is still out. Time will tell.

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 4, 2010 at 7:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis; By posting that menu you sure made me hungry. The only thing missing is a mess of fried potatoes, in lard, of course. You talk about good eaten!!!!. We all should give honor and respect to the great contributions that the various ethnic groups have given to this country. May God Bless And Enlighten Us All.

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 7:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)

keta, you know nothing about me and you would be wise not to assume things you know nothing about. Also, the word friend was never used in my post, an assumption on your part. I don't know any Muslims who live in Ironton, so once again, another assumption on your part. You would be wise to quit "ass"uming.

Another thing, they weren't dancing in the streets for the same reasons you were. Frankly, I find their reasons very frightening, as well as you should also. Haven't you figured out yet that most Muslim countries would like to wipe us off the map.

One more thing keta...never assume anything, especially who you are talking to.

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 4, 2010 at 7:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You know, I have a concern and fear of Muslim's. Am I justified in this feeling? It appears their goal is control of the world. Their actions and beliefs in countries under their control is less than charitable to say the least. Thanks crackerjack for bringing this to the fore.

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 8:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)

mickakers, you bring so much to this forum. You are well spoken and bring a sense of integrity to the discussions. You teach us that it is OK to disagree and you do it with class; you don't belittle others or use name calling just because they don't think the same as you do. Maybe everyone should take some lessons from you.

And Noesis....thank you for all you bring to the table. You never cease to amaze me. I always enjoy your posts, they are full of useful and beneficial information. You never let me down!!!

Posted by keta (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 8:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Crackerjack, I assume you just learned the word "assume" today - that would explain why you use it in every sentence. I'm not surprised that you have aquaintances instead of friends, and I know what I'm talking to. Keep polling those muslims. Excuse me, muslins.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 10:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Crackerjack, pay no attention to Keta, she's a teacher. Spelling errors is her specialty. Get her out of her area of expertise and she starts flailing.

Mickakers, the bible also has us killing the unbelievers:

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; ... Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
-- Deuteronomy, Chapter 17:2-3,5

Christians no longer preaches violence though. Have you heard any preacher calling for the death to non-believers, Buddists, Muslims or others? The Bible is mostly a book of peace.

The Koran however is full of death and intolerance. Whereas Jesus was a man of peace, Mohammed was a warrior and the Koran reflects that. Imams and others require a strict adherence to the Koran. So when it says kill the Jews, Christians and all infidels, they mean it.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 10:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Here you go Crackerjack:

My Muslim President Obama
Asma Gull Hasan, 02.25.09, 12:00 AM EST
Why members of the Islamic faith see him as one of the flock. (Hey Keta, looks like Crackerjack is right)

In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama.

...Since Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, "I have to support my fellow Muslim brother," would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice.

...Of the few Muslims I polled who said that Obama is not Muslim, even they conceded that he had ties to Islam. These realists said that, although not an avowed and practicing Muslim, Obama's exposure to Islam at a young age (both through his father and his stint in Indonesia) has given him a Muslim sensibility. In my book, that makes you a Muslim--maybe not a card-carrying one, but part of the flock for sure. One realist Muslim ventured that Obama worships at a Unitarian Church because it represents the middle ground between Christianity and Islam, incorporating the religious beliefs of the two faiths Obama feels connected to. Unitarianism could be Obama's way of still being a Muslim. (And let's not forget that the church Obama worshiped at for so many years had a minister who reminds most Muslims of their own raving, excitable ministers. Even if Obama really is Christian, he picked the most Muslim-esque minister out of the bunch to guide him.)

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/muslim-...

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 10:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Mickakers, yes, that menu did sound good. Thank goodness that Fox News didn't make that error. It would have made the front page of the N.Y. Times, lead story on CNN, NBC and Huffington Post.

Posted by mikehaney (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 11:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis--I know you know better.

Quote:
Mickakers, the bible also has us killing the unbelievers:

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; ... Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
-- Deuteronomy, Chapter 17:2-3,5

Christians live by the new testament.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 11:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Wow, I'm astonished.

Didn't I read somewhere that President Obama and Dubya were related? Uh-oh.....I bet Dubya must be muslim too. Yikes.

And wait! There's more! He is also related to Cheney, and Harry Truman. Man, All these durn Muslim presidents....how did we ever make it through?

What a nonsensical "assumption" people are making about the President. Pretty pathetic.

The main thing Noesis left out of the bible is that Jesus taught tolerance. Something that seems to be in short supply these days. Everybody is quick to try to find some ridiculous connection that doesn't exist.

Personally, I'm glad we have a president who represents more of a cross section of AMERICA. This isn't the land of the free, and the home of the white, anglo-saxon protestants. There have also been a LOT of muslims that have defended your rights to get on here and bash their religion. So instead of calling them assumptions, I'll go with generalizations.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 11:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)

And they say democrats are the conspiracy theorists. Geez...

Read this article:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl...

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 11:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Also,

I just watched a special on the History channel about the large contingency of Muslim tribal leaders who risked their own deaths, and the deaths of their families to meet with U.S. special forces in an attempt to oust the radical extremists in their land.

To generalize a group of people based on religion is completely against what are country is about.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 11:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Here's another for the conspiracy theorists:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/bir...

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 11:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

And they say democrats are the conspiracy theorists. Geez...
---------------------
They are... 60% of them think that Bush was involved with 9/11.

"To generalize a group of people based on religion is completely against what are country is about."
--------------------------
2009 had a couple of thousands attacks by muslim fanatics that killed people Jonferguson http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attack...

How many murders were committed by fundamentalist Christians Jonferguson?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 4, 2010 at 11:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Mikehaney, The old testemant is still part of the bible that we worship even though we live by the new testamant.

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 5:22 a.m. (Suggest removal)

keta...I bet you are the teacher parents request their children DON'T have! You are also probably the one with the longest line at parent teacher conferences. The worse the teacher the longer the line!!!

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 7:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Crackerjack,

Was it you who was talking about personal attacks?

"you don't belittle others or use name calling just because they don't think the same as you do"

How about taking some of your own advice, and sticking to a topic.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 9:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)

How about taking some of your own advice, and sticking to a topic
---------------------------------------
Pretty funny coming from the guy who thinks we are racist because we don't agree with the Muslim religion.

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 10:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)

jonferguson....you can only back me in a corner so long. I will not let anyone walk all over me; especially when I am accused of being a liar.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 11:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Get some thicker skin...Noesis calls EVERYONE who thinks differently than him a liar, repeatedly. I don't recall anyone on here calling you a liar. I do however, see that there are different opinions on the topic, which is healthy debate.

A liar is someone who blatantly diregards the truth. Everything posted here is each persons opnion. As much as Noesis, myself, or Keta or anyone else profess things to be the "truth" it is obvious that there are varying opinions of what the truth is. That's what makes our country great. If everyone believed like me, A large section of the country would be left out. If everyone believed like you and Noesis, another large part of the country would be left out.

The true patriot is the one who tries to find the middle ground. The acceptable middle. May not be the best for individuals, but for the betterment of the many.

No disrespect intended

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 11:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis,

I didn't say you were racist because you don't agree with a religion. I asked if you were. You have every right to say your not. Your generalizations about an entire group of people are ridiculous. The radicals in their religion hate us because we are all ungodly, gun toting rednecks with no morals. Is THAT generalization a fair statement? Christians are all corrupt, and want to kill all muslims?

There are at least two sides to every story. this one is more of a polygon.

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 1:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

jonferguson, read keta's comments. Contrary to what keta may think, I do know Muslims. Just because she doesn't know any she thinks nobody else does either.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 1:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The fact that you "know muslims" doesn't make you an expert on the entire population though. Again, I'm not disrespecting you. Simply stating facts.

Not all muslims feel the way the one's you know do. They are, as well, individuals. They all have their own beliefs, especially those who are U.S. citizens. Imagine how hard it would be to be a muslim U.S. soldier right now. But they do it, because they love their country, and the fact that they are free to worship as they please, without fear of retribution. Just a shame they can't shake the stigma that has been placed on them by the radicals.

That's like saying catholics are child molesters because a few priests had inappropriate relationships with alter boys. It makes no sense.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 3:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jonferguson, I call those that make things up liars. You don't do it very often but Keta does it all the time. Saying that the Bush tax cuts only affects the rich is a lie. Saying that 2 million people claim bankruptcy a year due to medical claims is a lie. Claiming a million people a year die because they don't have medical insurance is a lie, claiming that Bush fought an illegal war when he had U.N. and Congress approval is also a lie... It might be your opinion but, it's still a lie.

As far as Muslims go, it is their religion that is causing all the problems even if the majority in America don't follow the Koran's teaching to the letter of the law. There are still plenty here and an even greater majority in England, France, Germany and other nations that are radicalized and believe that those countries should eventually become Muslim.

You want discrimination Jonferguson, try taking a bible openly into a Muslim country. Try building a Church there.

Here's some passages from the Koran and other Muslim guidebooks:

# "O ye who believe! Murder those of the unbelievers. . . and let them find harshness in you." [Koran, Repentance:123]
# "Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute." [Koran, Repentance:29]
# O believers do not treat your fathers and brothers as your friends, if they prefer unbelief, to belief whosoever of you takes them for friends, they are evildoers. [Koran, Repentance:20]
# A well-known saying of Mohammed is "Do not meet Jews or Christians with greetings. If you ever meet them in the street, force them to the narrowest part of it." (refer to Sahih of Muslim, "Interpretation of Nawai," vol. 5, p. 7)

# According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are the enemies of Allah, the Prophet (Mohammed) and his angels (2:97-98).
# A Muslim's life is spared even if he kills a Christian intentionally, while a Muslim may only be required to die if he kills another Muslim. On the other hand, if a non-Muslim merely curses a Muslim, he must either be sentenced to death or be converted on the spot. The reason, as Mohammed said is that "only Muslims' blood is regarded equal."

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 4 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis,

I'm not saying you have to agree with their teachings.

And isn't it great to live in a country that doesn't persecute you for practicing whatever religion you wish to practice?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 5:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Yes Jonferguson I do think it's great that we live in this country but, once again, it's the teachings of the Koran that leads to all this terrorist violence.

Posted by crackerjack (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 5:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)

jonferguson...in no way am I an expert on Muslims, nor do I claim to be. All I was trying to say was the ones I know say Obama is one of "them", he has Muslim in his heart and will never turn his back on them. From the small percentage I have met, you know if they feel this way there are many more who think and feel the same way they do. I have a friend who lives in Yemen and she says they love Obama.....for the same reasons I have just stated. They refer to him as a Muslim or "one of them". So I truly don't believe it is a small minority who believe this way, just as I don't believe that all Muslims are radical extremists who want to kill me because I am an American. Someday I would like to read the Koran to see just exactly what it does say. The things Noesis has quoted in his post cause me great concern. As Americans, I think we should all educate ourselves more on this religion, if anything, so we will know what we are up against.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 6:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Crackerjack, here's some others:

Qur'an:9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

Ishaq:587 "Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."

Qur'an:8:65 "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding."

And if you would like to read a lot of others like these:
http://prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Quotes....

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 5, 2010 at 6:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Now, time for some happier news:

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Still reeling from the loss of the late Edward Kennedy's Senate seat to Republicans in Massachusetts, Barack Obama's Democrats now face the prospect of losing the president's old Senate seat in Illinois.

The Democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias is trailing Republican Mark Kirk in opinion polls ahead of November's election in which Republicans are aiming to erase Democratic majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Giannoulias(D) is trailing Kirk(R) 46 percent to 40 percent in the latest opinion poll ahead of their November showdown.

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 5, 2010 at 8:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis; Your posts concerning the Koran are enlightening. I am not familiar with the teachings of the Koran. Actions speak louder than words. The countries controlled by Muslims, their treatment of their citizens and their denial of Religious freedom I think speaks for itself, a very infantile and biased mentality. Although I must confess, in the past Christians and their actions and beliefs have been no better (Death To The Infidel). I don't think Jesus Christ would have approved of this belief. I think Christians have advanced and progressed in their beliefs whereas Muslims have become moribund in the past

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 5, 2010 at 8:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis; Edward Kennedy is not one to present as an example of moral leadership. Like all of us there were points of moral integrity, but in the final analyst there was something lacking.

Posted by keta (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 12:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Cluck about Ted Kennedy all you like, there's never been a U.S. senator who did as much for human beings as Ted Kennedy.
The Koran contains nearly as much violence and bloodshed, vengeance and war as the Old Testament. Like the Old Testament, it's also about redemption and peace. Noesis is confusing Muslims with Muslim extremists, who've hijacked Islam and perverted it to pursue their own agendas, which are political, not theological. Allowing yourself to be convinced that Muslims are your enemy is the opposite of enlightenment.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at noon (Suggest removal)

Keta, Mickakers came real close when he said: "I think Christians have advanced and progressed in their beliefs whereas Muslims have become moribund in the past."

Actually, I think it's worse than "Muslims have become moribund in the past". What I think it is, is that Muslims actually believe in the Koran. That is their blueprint for life. Like... praying seven times a day... real devotion. Not like going to church once a week.

It's not that their religion has been "hijacked" by militants, it's just that some of the Muslims will actaully act on their beliefs... follow the Koran as written.

Surveys consistently reveal that between 10-15% of all Muslims sympathise with the aims and methodology of this radical strain of Islam which has been “hijacked”. This means, that within an estimated world population of 1.2 billion Muslims, there are 120-180 million people prepared to fund, facilitate and in general, give moral and financial assistance to the jihadists….. “a small minority"?

"The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: hey, O Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of Jews."

KORAN [5.51] O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.

"You (i.e. Muslims) will fight with the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O 'Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.'

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 12:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)

OK Noesis, how about these:

“And good and evil deeds are not alike. Repel evil with good. And he who is your enemy will become your dearest friend.” (41:33-34)

Those who believed and led a righteous life are the best creatures. [98:7]

"And if you punished, let your punishment be proportionate to the wrong that has been done to you; but if you show patience, that is indeed the best course. [16:126]

Hold to forgiveness, command what is right; but turn away from the ignorant." [7:199]

"Allah is with those who restrain themselves." [16: 128]

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 12:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The great drunken Kennedy was the one who started the recent polarization of our politics:

"The tone of the Bork battle changed the way Washington worked – with controversial nominees or candidates now experiencing all-out war waged against them – and the ramifications of it were still being felt two decades later."

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 12:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jonferguson, I believe those quotes started at the beginning of the Koran while Mohammad was trying to emulate the bible. Once he began his conquest of other lands, the Koran turned violent.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Koran 5:57
Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels and those who were given the Book before you, who have made your religion a jest and a pasttime...

Koran 9:29
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last day, nor hold the forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and his messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jiziyah with willing submission. And feel themselves subdued.

Koran 9:30
The Jews call 'Uzayr-a son of God', and the Christinas call 'Christ the Son Of God'. That is a saying from their mouth; (In this) they but intimate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are decluded away from the Truth.

Koran 98:1-8
The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of all creatures.

Koran 22:19-22:23
Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Sclading water shall be poured upon their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. They shall be lashed rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they try to escape from Hell, back they shall be dragged, and will be told: 'Taste the torment of the Conflagration!'

Koran 4:144
Believers, do not choose the unbelievers rather than the faithful as your friends. Would you give Allah a clear proof against yourselves ?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 12:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)

OK Noesis, how about these:

“And good and evil deeds are not alike. Repel evil with good. And he who is your enemy will become your dearest friend.” (41:33-34)
----------------------------------------
Infidels are evil accourding to the Koran. Fight them (which is a good deed) to convert them to Muslim... and when you are muslim, you can be best friends;

Qur’an:8:39 “Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 12:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Looks like the last Kennedy in Congress won't be staying too much longer:

A poll released Thursday night by WPRI-TV (Channel 12) showed 62 percent of voters statewide gave the eight-term congressman an unfavorable job rating.

Just 35 percent of respondents in Kennedy’s district said they would vote to reelect him.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 1:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis is confusing Muslims with Muslim extremists, who've hijacked Islam and perverted it to pursue their own agendas, which are political, not theological. Allowing yourself to be convinced that Muslims are your enemy is the opposite of enlightenment.
------------------------------------------------

The BBC reported on a study of Muslims in England. What they found:

Almost nine out of 10 said that their faith was the most important thing in their lives. Some 35% said they would send children to an Islamic school if they had a choice

Some 37% of 16-24-year-olds said they would like to live under Sharia (Islamic) law. Some 7% of the same age group said they "admired organisations like al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West".

Some 31% believe that anyone committing apostasy (leaving the Muslim faith) should be killed.

So Keta and Jonferguson, when you guys say that the Muslim faith is being hijacked... It's not. A large portion of the Muslim faithful have these beliefs. It's only a few that act on them.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 5:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

7% admire al-qaeda is a "large portion?"

63% of Americans believe in Alien life form. Does that mean its for sure true?

24% of American christian church goers believe in evolution, according to a gallup poll. Is that evidence that God doesn't exist?

18% of parents think we should not tell kids that santa brings them gifts for christmas. Adios to Ol' St. Nick?

Polls are nothing but a bunch of garbage. There is a poll to prove anything you want to prove, any way you want to prove it.

Posted by keta (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 8:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)

True. What was it last week, the poll all the talking heads were exclaiming over - 33% of Republicans believe Obama isn't a citizen. Think about that. Only 30% of Americans are Republicans, and only 33% of them believe it. That's probably about right - southerners, elderly people who mostly depend on word of mouth to inform their views, and people who are appalled that someone who looks like Obama is their leader. The only strange thing is that it was a big story. It amazes me that cable news stations decide, day after day, what most people care about. Tiger Woods' girlfriends, Sarah Palin, Governor Mark Sanford's girlfriend, which politicians wear flag pins, meaningless crap 24/7. None of it has the slightest connection to the problems we're facing. News is corporate, and tends to give us mostly bread and circuses instead of substance.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 9:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Polls are nothing but a bunch of garbage. There is a poll to prove anything you want to prove, any way you want to prove it.
-------------------------
I think the 2,000+ muslim attacks last year pretty much proves the poll.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 10:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Hey Keta, how about the 60% of democrats who think Bush was involved in the 911 plot?

And are you sure that the birthers aren't from Missouri? After all, they are the "Show Me" state and Obambi has spent millions of dollars to hide his original birth certificate... maybe they think something is fishy with that.

Posted by keta (anonymous) on February 6, 2010 at 10:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

For someone who's always accusing others of exaggerating, you're an outrageous liar. Even Rasmussen's number is in the thirties, not the sixties. About 33% of Americans believe Bush was involved. More interestingly, about 49% of us believe Saddam Hussein was involved! Now there's an enduring testament to the Bush-Cheney misinformation machine.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 7, 2010 at 8:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)

OK, my bad... I went back to the source and they had 60% as Bush COULD have been involved. (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, and 26% are not sure.

And don't blame Bush-Cheney for people (even 32% of democrats) that Saddam was involved in the 911 plot. They never said that he was involved (OK once when Cheney corrected himself).

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 8:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)

spent millions of dollars to hide his original birth certificate.

What an outrageous fabrication. Where is your proof? Got a copy of it? No, you don't, because its an outright lie.

Experts have checked his birth certificate, and its valid. Look it up. I already posted this once. Exactly what Keta was talking about. A non-issue used to deter from real problems.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/bir...

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 9:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Bush quote:

"The terrorists have lost a sponsor in Iraq. And no terrorist networks will ever gain weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein's regime. "

Powell Quote:

"We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after 11 September, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. Some citizens wonder, after 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now? And there's a reason. We've experienced the horror of 11 September. "

Cheney Quote:

"We will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who've had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Rice Quote:

"[Saddam Hussein posed a risk in] a region from which the 9/11 threat emerged."
___________________________________________________________

No, they never directly said it, but they sure coached and fostered it. Made sure the American public believed it. What better reason to go to war than a recent disaster?

Immediately after 9/11, about 3% of people who were asked the open ended question "Who is responsible for the attacks?" stated Saddam Hussein.

After endless Bush speeches, in September of 2003, 40 plus percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was PERSONALLY involved in the attacks. I'm sure they felt that way because they know him and his connections personally. They probably talked to some of his buddies, right??

No, they were listening to the shadowy "almosts" from Dubya and his cronies.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 9:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)

He wasn't involved in the "plot," but he sure was involved in the following war of lies, that he should be held criminally responsible for. I don't care who's approval he had. When you LIE to get that approval, you should be punished.
"Mommy, can I have a candy bar? Daddy said its ok?"
"Daddy's not even home son....."

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 12:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Posted by jonferguson
spent millions of dollars to hide his original birth certificate What an outrageous fabrication. Where is your proof? Got a copy of it? No, you don't, because its an outright lie.

There have been 13 separate court cases seeking to see his original birth certificate. One going all the way to the Supreme Court. Here is a picture of the forms that the birthers want to see but Obama refuses to release:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.vie...

Federal Election Commission records for "Obama for America" show that the lobby organization has paid international law firm Perkins Coie (who handles the birther cases) exactly $1,352,378.95 since the 2008 election.

What you think lawyers are cheap? Thirteen case that go up the ladder, appeals and all that paperwork for free?

Like I said before, it doesn't matter to me where he was born. His mother was American so he's eligible for president. It doesn't matter to me if he was born in Russia, France or Kenya... even though, if he was, his Hawaiian birth certificate still would have said that he was born in Hawaii.

Even Camille Paglia a known and respected liberal writer had this to say about the birthers:

Yes, there were ambiguities about Obama's birth certificate that have never been satisfactorily resolved. And the embargo on Obama's educational records remains troubling. http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009...

If there is nothing to hide, then why..

Hawaii's Gov. Linda Lingle has placed the candidate's birth certificate under seal and instructed the state's Department of Health to make sure no one in the press obtains access to the original document under any circumstances.

The anonymous source made clear the Hawaii Department of Health would immediately release Obama's original birth certificate, provided Obama requested the document be released, but the Department of Heath has received no such request from the senator or from anyone acting officially on his behalf.

What is he hiding?

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 12:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)

So I suppose the birth announcement in the newspaper was a cover up, since they knew then that he would one day be the first African American president of the U.S.

This one has been so disproved its stupid to breathe air into again. Can't you nutjobs find some other conspiracy plot for us to disprove?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 12:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Posted by jonferguson
He wasn't involved in the "plot," but he sure was involved in the following war of lies, that he should be held criminally responsible for
-----------------------------

Back at ya bud:

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

And Bush's lies? Do I need to copy all the statements by democrats who said that Saddam had WMD? Even Hans Blix thought they had them:

The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel, and—yes—France all agreed with this judgment. And even Hans Blix—who headed the UN team of inspectors trying to determine whether Saddam had complied with the demands of the Security Council that he get rid of the weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had in the past—lent further credibility to the case in a report he issued only a few months before the invasion:

The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 12:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Posted by jonferguson
So I suppose the birth announcement in the newspaper was a cover up, since they knew then that he would one day be the first African American president of the U.S.

This one has been so disproved its stupid to breathe air into again. Can't you nutjobs find some other conspiracy plot for us to disprove?
--------------------------
When my daugher was born in South Carolina while I was in the navy, my parents put the birth announcement in our hometown newspaper the next day... that's your proof???

No Jonferguson, the only way it will be disproved would be for Obama to give permission for reporters to view his original birth certificate.

What is he hiding?

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 3:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)

So reporters are qualified to determine a birth certificate's authenticity? Since when? Must be those durn geniuses at Faux news again.....

The truth is, they were given a copy of the birth certificate, and, as mentioned in my article, which you obviously haven't read, it was examined by several people, and it was proven to be authentic.

But again, this is one of the dumbest arguments I have ever heard. You wing nuts actually think if there was ANY shred of truth to it, that it wouldn't have been publicly scrutinized and pursued by the RNC?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 4:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Posted by jonferguson

So reporters are qualified to determine a birth certificate's authenticity?
-----------------------
Who said that they wanted to look at it to see its authenticity? They wanted to look at it to see what information is on it. Like what hospital, what doctor. They want to see the long form birth certificate: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.vie...

What Obama has presented is the short form.

What is he hiding?

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 4:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)

What is it that makes you think anything is being hidden? He submitted to the same requirement that McCain had to go through, and he won the election. You guys need to get over it.

What could be on a longer form that would make ANY difference? What could possibly change the current circumstances? Nothing. At all.....

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 4:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The law requires him to be a Natural U.S. citizen, which, through wasted tax payers money, has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in the court of law.

There is nothing else pertinent.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 4:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)

WND.com? really? the best you could do Noesis? Man, you are slipping.....

Posted by keta (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 8:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Behind-the-scenes people at the convention in Nashville report strict instructions to avoid the birther nonsense. They're trying to be taken seriously, dammit. Well, as seriously as a Palin speech allows. Those elites and their smarty books, and their hopey changey, and their thinking, and their professors......(BOOOOO!) ....I'm for freedom! And safety! And the Bible, and little kids! (YAYYY!)

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 8, 2010 at 10:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Hawaii's Gov. Linda Lingle has placed the candidate's birth certificate under seal and instructed the state's Department of Health to make sure no one in the press obtains access to the original document under any circumstances
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another lie. Hawaii state law states that birth records are not to be released. It wasn't HIS specifically. They can't release anyone's birth certificate without consent. You've got to get away from those "Obama is a muslim.com" websites Noesis.....

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 9, 2010 at 12:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)

What could be on a longer form that would make ANY difference? What could possibly change the current circumstances? Nothing.
-----------------------------------------
Doctor's name, Hospital's name... And a copy of McCain's original Birth Certificate was shown to reporters... Obama still refuses to release his:

A senior official of the McCain campaign showed a reporter a copy of the senator's birth certificate issued by Canal Zone health authorities, recording his birth in the Coco Solo "family hospital." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

You guys need to get over it.
-------------------------------------------
Us??? Berg who has had most of the major birther court cases is a democrat.

The birther movement was started by the Hillary camp:

In the first week of August 2008, as the Democrats were getting ready for their convention in Denver, Starr called Philadelphia attorney Philip Berg and offered a challenge. Berg recalled the conversation for me: "She called me up and said, 'Have you heard about Obama not being national born?' I said, 'Yes.' She said, 'Well, now it's for real, and you're the only attorney in the country with brass balls enough to sue Obama.'"

Berg also had been a Clinton supporter, but he was best-known as a former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania and a serial unsuccessful Democratic campaigner for statewide office. He also had a reputation as an enthusiastic litigant: In 2004, he filed a 9/11 Truther lawsuit against Bush, alleging that the government allowed the terrorist attacks to happen and that the World Trade Center was destroyed from within. Now he had a new conspiracy to push.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 9, 2010 at 12:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Another lie. Hawaii state law states that birth records are not to be released. It wasn't HIS specifically. They can't release anyone's birth certificate without consent.
-----------------------
And why won't Obama give his consent?

What is he hiding?

And the "copy" that Obama released only indicates that he's a Hawaiin citizen. If his mother who was a legal resident of Hawaii goes to Kenya, gives birth... guess what, his birth certificate lists him as being a Hawaiin citizen.

That's what the birthers are saying. The long form would have where he was actually born at.

Why won't Obama sign the release form so reporters can actually see what hospital he was born in?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 9, 2010 at 12:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)

WND.com? really? the best you could do Noesis? Man, you are slipping.....
--------------------------
When you can't go after the facts, go after the meessenger... Show me where the long-form that they show is incorrect. Oh wait, you can't. Unlike your raw story link about Palin that I easily refuted.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 9, 2010 at 8:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You didn't refute anything. You pulled another right wing website out of your butt, and tried to pass it off as the truth. That doesn't equal refuted.

Of course you go after the messenger, when the messenger is where you are getting your lies. Since you have trouble making up your own lies, who else is there to go after?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 9, 2010 at 9:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Of course you go after the messenger, when the messenger is where you are getting your lies.
----------------------------------------------
But you haven't proven anything is a lie. All you do is claim that it's a lie so you don't have to face reality. Prove that the long-form birth certificate is false... You already know you can't...

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 9, 2010 at 9:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You pulled another right wing website out of your butt, and tried to pass it off as the truth.
----------------------------
Oh, wait... you mean like the time that I used the Washington Examiner article that Coakly went and met with a bunch of lobbyists? The flack I got about using a right-wing site... until I linked to a Washington Post article that had the exact same information... Yeah, the Examiner article sure was full of lies wasn't it Jonferguson?

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 9, 2010 at 9:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I could post a dozen articles on here that refute your posts Noesis. That's not why I get on here. You have a real inferiority complex. A sick need to be right. Its sad. I worked in psych for years, and on this, I KNOW what I'm talking about. Counseling isn't for the weak. Look into it.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 10, 2010 at 10:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Back to the original point of this article. Doesn't just about everyone "mortgage" their future? We take out mortgage loans, invest in stocks and bonds, and CD's, Go to college and spend tuition money to plan for a better life. Seems to me, when we are broke, jobless, losing our homes, and hoping to better ourselves as a nation, we probably do need to invest in a new direction. Just as baby boomers have gone back to school to get a piece of the hi-tech pie, so should our nation. We HAVE to move forward again, and yes, doing so is going to cost money....just like it would you or me personally.
America has to start thinking big. Penny ante solutions have gotten us no where. We are quagmired in the status quo. Making steel isn't the future. Burning fossil fuels isn't the future. Building monopolized industries isn't the future. The future lies in what isn't here yet. What we haven't had the guts to explore. The future lies in renewable energy, resources, materials, and fuel. Its what the world wants. Since when did American ingenuity thumb its nose at what the populations demand called for? If we want to REALLY think capitalistically, we need to look at those products and services that will move us ahead in a global market, not stalemate in the ideals of yesteryear. That ship has sailed.

Just as this area boomed from the pig iron industry, it has also declined by the short-sightedness of those determined to make old industry timeless.

Can anyone honestly argue that we shouldn't be moving forward in our quest for things such as energy independence, technology, and global market reconciliation?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 10, 2010 at 12:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Posted by jonferguson

I could post a dozen articles on here that refute your posts Noesis.
-----------
Actually you can't Jonferguson. The basic question is why won't Obama sign paperwork allowing reporters to see his long-form original birth certificate.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 10, 2010 at 12:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jonferguson, until "clean" energy can be cost effective and reliable, we'll go with what is cheaper... it's the capitalistic way. And actually with the large natural gas deposits that are being found, fossil fuels are in our future until wind and solar can be made cheaper.

And the American people AREN'T going to demand clean fuel if it comes at a cost of double or triple fuel/heating prices.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 10, 2010 at 12:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You have a real inferiority complex. A sick need to be right. Its sad. I worked in psych for years, and on this, I KNOW what I'm talking about. Counseling isn't for the weak. Look into it.
----------------------
Actually Jonferguson, I do it to refute the numerous liberal lies that you guys put out. And... it's soooooo easy.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 10, 2010 at 3:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You do it because you are a shallow old man....void of fulfillment in life. You are probably looked upon at work as the one no one wants stuck on a shift with because they get tired of hearing how this country is "going to hell in a hand basket." Your wife surely runs the household(s) and your overweight by at least 40 pounds. You were picked last in gym class, and you were bullied by the football team. Your mom packed your lunch, and secretly, you liked eating your own boogers, and sometimes still do. You breast fed until you were four years old, which you still think is normal, but others see as very strange.

I wish people knew how spot on I was about this.

Ever heard of bio fuel? cheaper, cleaner....but of course, its hard to see other things outside the box your head is in, isn't it?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 10, 2010 at 6:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jonferguson, as usual, you got everything wrong but, that's normal for such a loser like yourself. I hope you don't gamble or play the lotto, as often as you are wrong, you might as well roll down your car window and toss the money out.

And in our entire department, we have one liberal and one conservative democrat... so we are all bitching (except the liberal... and he doesn't say much) that the country is going to hell in a handbasket.

And bio-fuel, yes, I have heard of it. That's where we took a good portion of our corn production to turn it into fuel which resulted in the costs of food significantly increasing... great idea... Now we want to use more of our crop lands to plant sugar cane and sugar beets to make more biofuel. Better stock up on food!

Lets see how Biofuels are doing:

The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it expects the biofuels industry to produce 6.5 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol this year, a fraction of the volume anticipated by Congress.

The announcement suggests that government goals for turning inedible crops into transportation fuel have been unrealistic and too optimistic about the private sector's ability to advance existing technology and finance new refineries for biofuels.

In 2007, Congress had mandated that 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol—a fuel additive to gasoline made from switchgrass, sugar cane bagasse and other plants—be blended into the nation's fuels this year. By next year, the mandate was for 250 million gallons, heading up to 16 billion by 2022. (wow, they mandated 100 million gallons and we produced 6.5 million?)

"It is certainly going to be a challenge," said Michael J. McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuels Association, a trade group that represents companies working on cellulosic ethanol and other technologies.

The failure of the cellulosic ethanol industry to even come close to meeting the mandated goals could give a boost to advocates and lawmakers who believe setting goals for individual fuel technologies is the wrong approach.

Other problems also cropped up. In April, the EPA said Alabama-based Cello Energy would generate about 70 million gallons in 2010. A federal jury ruled last summer that the company had defrauded investors...

The EPA also noted that Range Fuels Inc.'s Georgia wood-to-ethanol plant, despite $150 million in federal grants and loan guarantees, would produce only a quarter of the anticipated 10 million gallons...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 10, 2010 at 6:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)

How the rising price of corn made Mexicans take to streets

Mexico was ablaze in late January. Just two months after the election of Felipe Calderon as Mexico's President, protests had broken out across the country.

Thousands of people were marching on the main cities calling on their pro-free trade businessman President to halt a phenomenon threatening the lives of millions of Mexicans.

In their hands the protesters clutched cobs of corn, the staple crop that makes tortillas and for many of Mexico's poor the main source of calorific sustenance in an otherwise nutritionally sparse diet.

Over the past three months the price of corn flour had risen by 400 per cent. Despite being the world's fourth largest corn producer and a major importer of supposedly cheap American corn, millions of Mexicans found the one source of cheap nutrition available to them was suddenly out of reach.

Poor Mexicans, who normally expect to set aside a third of their wages for corn flour, had always been particularly vulnerable to price fluctuations in the corn market, but a four-fold increase was both unheard of and potentially catastrophic.

The reason for such a substantial increase in the price lay north of the border. In order to wean itself off its addiction to oil, the US was turning to biofuels made from industrial corn like never before. Farmers in Mexico and America had been replacing edible corn crops with industrial corn that could then be processed into biofuels, leading to a decrease in the amount corn available on the open market.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 10, 2010 at 7:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)

jonferguson; Your post of February 10, 2010 at 10:17 am was excellent!, and in actuality the truth of the matter. Noesis; Your post of February 10, 2010 at 12:29 pm was a reality check. My compliments.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 10:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Again, your heqd is stuck in that tiny little box....and use a hanky....

There are other bio-fuels out there besides crops. But those are the ones that you can make your argument with, so you stick to those. Do a little more research, then "cut and paste" I didn't read past the word "corn"

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 12:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Again, your heqd is stuck in that tiny little box....
--------------------

Jonferguson, I'm in the energy producing field. You're in medical. I know waaaay more about biofuels than you do. Our company is committed to using 10% renewable energy resources by 2015. We get constant updates on how that is going. Here's one example:

Team Algal Scientific Wins Inaugural Clean Energy PrizePRNewswire
ANN ARBOR, Mich.
(NYSE:DTE)
Mar 23, 2009

DTE Energy and University of Michigan clean energy business competition designed to move new energy technology from the laboratory to the marketplace

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- A plan to use algae to simultaneously treat wastewater and produce the raw materials for biofuels won the inaugural Clean Energy Prize on Friday.

The competition was established by DTE Energy and the University of Michigan along with sponsors, Masco Corporation Foundation and The Kresge Foundation, to encourage entrepreneurship in Michigan and the development of clean energy technology...
----------------------
And regardless of the other methods besides corn, most of them are going to require growig "crops". This means less available area for food.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 1 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Ok Jonferguson, I'll agree that switchgrass is 5 times better at producing energy than corn is.

Here was a study done on corn. We'll just multiply the results by 5:

Say you were able to cultivate every acre of Illinois for corn-based ethanol. This is purely hypothetical as it would involve bulldozing Chicago and other cities and towns in the Prairie State. As an Illinois resident surrounded by cornfields, fleeing demolition is not my relocation fantasy.

One of the potentially most productive corn-growing states on the planet would yield about 5.7 billion bushels of corn and 16 billion gallons of ethanol, according to Charles Washburn, professor emeritus at California State University in Flagstaff, Arizona. He has researched the subject over the past 45 years.

Illinois Not Enough

The Illinois mega-crop would provide only 0.8 percent of annual U.S. gasoline and diesel-fuel use, Washburn estimates, subtracting the energy it takes to create ethanol.
----------------------------
So, lets multiply that by 5 and it could produce 4% of our energy needs.

So in other words, to get our energy needs from biofuels, we would have to plant switchgrass everywhere East of the Miss. river. Where are we going to get all our food from?

I can already hear you sputter.... but what about algea? OK, say that it's 100 times more energy efficient than corn. Do you seriously think that they can cover an area the size of Illinois in growth tanks? Out West in the desert you say? Where would they get all that needed water in the desert?

See, that's the difference between you pie-in-the-sky liberals and reality based conservatives. You deal in the fantasy world and we live in the fact based world.

Yes we can get a small portion of our energy needs from biofuels but that's all it will ever be... a small percentage.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 2:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Geez man, you ALMOST touched on it yourself, but you ran right past it to get back to corn!

Not only is methane, algae, corn HUSKS, cobs being used, but also, used cooking oil! Yep, that's right...what used to sit in vats, in California, is being explored as a new useful, green energy source.

Nothing is going to be less expensive right now. Oil companies have had how many years to refine their processes? No start up can compete with that immediately. Personally, I think some government mandates and tax abatements and such should be doled out in the clean energy field....NEW exploration...not twists on the same old same old.

I don't think Exxon, BP, Ashland, ANY big oil company should be allowed anything in the clean energy discussion.

Thats like Marlboro being the leaders in Lung cancer research. Makes no sense at all.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 2:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

"reality based conservatives"

That's your way of saying "don't change anything...everything works fine as it is"

No, it doesn't. Talk about mortgaging your childrens' future.....staying stagnate in the current ideology is the best way to ruin our childrens futures.

Basically what you are saying is "we can't do it."

"Liberals" say "yes we can" We are America. We put a man on the moon for pete's sake. What if everyone listened to the "reality based conservatives" that said we could never make THAT happen? Now granted, I'm not sure what more we got from the moon besides that hard block of neapolatin ice cream, but I guess that's important too.

My point is, the "can't" attitude is what has our nation in the economic default we are in now. That's why Obama is President. People were tired of hearing how we need to "stay the course." The course SUCKS. It needs to be changed, and changed BIG.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 3:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Not only is methane, algae, corn HUSKS, cobs being used, but also, used cooking oil!
-----------------
LOL, dream on... that's still a drop in the bucket... and cooking oil? One of my co-workers spent his life savings to buy equipment to make bio-diesel commercially. Problem is, all the used cooking oil is already being claimed by other bio-diesel producers.

I really have to laugh about your "we can do it" statement... Democrats are.... OK, we went to the moon so lets slash NASA's budget so we can feed the poor!

And typically, how democrats get things done... regulate it or subsidize it. Did you here about this clean energy scam:
Why is our government providing us free golf carts?

BY JOHN STOSSEL
December 21, 2009

I just got a free golf cart.

Actually, it cost me $6,490 – but the dealer, Colin Riley of Tucson, Ariz., points out that there’s a $6,490 federal tax credit on such vehicles. Riley runs ads that say: “FREE ELECTRIC CAR … !”

Some consumers probably assume it’s a car-dealer scam, but it’s not. It’s an Uncle Sam scam.

The tax code is outrageously complex and damaging in many ways, but it is made especially complex and damaging when congressmen use it “creatively” to manipulate us into doing things they deem “socially constructive.” These are things that always bestow advantages on some politically connected manufacturers at the expense of others. After all, you were either planning to buy a golf cart or you weren’t. If you were, the policy is unnecessary. If you weren’t, you were induced to spend money on that product rather than something else. The unseen victim is whoever would have sold you the alternative product.

Such manipulation is at the heart of the entire “green” strategy.

The Wall Street Journal reports that business is busy taking advantage of the tax credit. “Is that about the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?” Roger Gaddis of Ada Electric Cars in Oklahoma said.

I thought “free” golf carts were outrageous enough that the publicity would embarrass Congress into killing the tax credit. I thought the media would be all over it. But even though Riley has received thousands of calls for cars – and sold hundreds – he hasn’t seen much media attention. The Journal commented, “You can’t blame a guy for exploiting loopholes that Congress offers.”

In Florida, Tony Colangelo also sells subsidized cars. He said the golf-cart credit is – good for politicians:

“It’s all (about) going green. They want all those gas vehicles off the street. They’d rather have the electric than anything.”
http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.p...

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 4:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)

My point is, the "can't" attitude is what has our nation in the economic default we are in now.
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Riiiiiiiigghhhttt! Just keep drinking that kool-aide Jonferguson. It was the liberal feel-good policy of forcing banks to make loans to the poor people that got us into this economic mess.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 5:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh and Keta... you know how you always say that Obama is a professor? Well, according to other liberals, that means you are a racist:

Ogletree, founding and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, says he sees the "professor" label as a thinly veiled attack on Obama's race. Calling Obama "professor" walks dangerously close to labeling him "uppity," a term with racial overtones that has surfaced in the political arena before, Ogletree said.

You just have to love liberals and their nutty ideas.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 5:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Yeah, that John Strossel, real "middle of the road" kinda guy...

Appearing on FOX & Friends, a program so unabashedly conservative that host Steve Doocy cheered on "the party of hell no," John Stossel promoted his segment about how the nation is on a course toward "serfdom." He claimed that "growth of government is making us into serfs," an assertion he underscored with a theatrical ball and chain.

and just why would someone promote the gaming of the system?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 6:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Lol Jonferguson, I see you're up to your old trick of attacking the messenger. Are you saying that he made it all up? That the government wasn't allowing you to buy electric golf carts for free? If he's telling the truth, why do we need a history lesson on him?

And you see it as promoting the gaming of the system? He's trying to stop it:

"I thought "free" golf carts were outrageous enough that the publicity would embarrass Congress into killing the tax credit. "

Only you Jonferguson could interpret that as meaning that he's promoting it... Sort of like when you said that Palin believes there's "no women in politics".... no, wait, wait... "women shouldn't be in politics

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 6:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Proctorville man arrested for rape
http://irontontribune.com/news/2010/feb/...
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Jonferguson: and just why would someone promote rape?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 11, 2010 at 6:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh and Jonferguson... those "clean" electric golf carts... Where do they get their electricity from? Burning coal? What's the less polluting energy source for golf carts, natural gas or coal?

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 11, 2010 at 10:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis; Your comment, "It was the liberal feel-good policy of forcing banks to make loans to the poor people that got us into this economic mess", I find rather narrow minded and uninformed. The cause of this "economic mess" is not quite that simplistic, although that is what many of the Financial Gurus would like us to believe and they have done a decent job of convincing the less perceptive members of our society that this is the crux of the problem. On second thought, there is a simple explanation. Greed and Self Grandeur!!!

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 1:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Mickakers, I already proved to you that it was democrats who forced Freddie and Fannie to make a large portion of its loans to the poor people. The ONLY way they could do that was to lower the lending standards. No down payments was the biggest contributer. This fueled the housing bubble and allowed people to buy homes that they couldn't afford.

Lets review mickakers what the NY Times said in 1999:

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people...

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''
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Now... here comes the important part of the article Mickakers:

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
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And what did the New York Times not know? That Freddie and Fannie would misrepresent these bad loans and sell them as triple A rated housing loans throughout the financial markets...

So as you can see Mickakers, even the NY Times stated back in 1999 that the democratics interference in making Freddie and Fannie make bad loans could cause Freddie and Fannie to fail.

I hate to say this mickakers but on this issue, it's you who are narrow minded and uninformed.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 1:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Greed and Self Grandeur!!!
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Actually mickakers I find that the "less perceptive members of our society" tend to have a knee jerk reaction to just about every problem. It's the CEO's fault!!! He made $30 million!!! That's why our health insurance costs were so high!!! I think we should take his $30 million salary and give rebates back to his 30 million customes, that would lower their health bills by..... Oh wait... that's only $1. Um.... Um... It's the fault of the profit mongering insurance companies!!! They have 7% admin costs and the government only has 2% (we won't talk about the rampant fraud that occurs in the government program because there's not enough people to catch it all). We should take that 5% and give it back to the people!!! If people's health insurance cost for the year is $10,000 they would get.... um... um $500 back.... dang, that's all? Health insurance costs are still too high!!! It's all the fault of the drug companies CEO!!! Did you see how much money they made...

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 9:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis,
You're the only one I've heard correlate CEO income with health insurance costs. No one has said that.

The uninsured, charity care performed in this country is why our insurance costs are so high.

Oh, and when your messenger is a nutjob...yeah, he deserves the "attack" Just like all the rest of the right winged nut job "journalists" you quote because you can't come up with your own answers.

Your "proof" of the democrats destroying the economy is laughable. You wish it were that simple. But sadly, your one track brain won't allow you to see the vastness of the economic downturn. If housing was the only player, then what about the auto industry? Commercial airlines? manufacturing? Gaming? Tourism? PC industry?

Just admit that this is bigger than what your tiny little steel trap mind can comprehend.....

Posted by mikehaney (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 11:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)

If it weren't for unions we wouldn't have the minimum wage we have today,or safety in the workplace, or descrimination due to age or ethnic background,etc.etc.

But; millions of dollars go from unions to politicians. why do the members allow this? NEA,auto workers,wine growers,and on, and on.

The single vote is worth about 2 cents nowadays.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 11:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis,
You're the only one I've heard correlate CEO income with health insurance costs. No one has said that
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Really, lets see what Keta has to say about the subject of CEO pay and health care costs. Maybe it will refresh your selective memory:

Posted on December 6 at 7:26 p.m.
Something that actually matters IS happening today - the senate is discussing an amendment to change the deductibility of CEO salaries. They're talking out loud about the number of health care dollars that end up in the pockets of executives...

Posted on October 13 at 7:43 p.m
The insurance industry gave health care reform a big boost yesterday when it threatened to raise everybody's premiums if the bills being considered become law....They've got shareholders to satisfy, CEOs waiting for bonuses...

Posted on October 1 at 4:41 p.m.
Homer obviously thinks it's A-OK to let insurance companies skim a few hundred billion off the top every year to pay their CEOs. Yep, that's the way to deliver health care.

Posted on August 22 at 5 p.m.
Whether you're sick or well, Noesis, you'll be spending half your income on your health in another decade. I hope you stay well, because our system isn't designed to care for the sick. It's a mechanism for bonuses and $100,000-per-hour CEO salaries.

Posted on August 28 at 5:35 p.m.
where the CEO of United Health Care gets to pocket close to a billion dollars over the course of his career. Think of that - nearly a billion health care dollars. Sweet.

Posted on August 10 at 10:23 p.m
If the insurance industry had to compete with that, they couldn't pay their shareholders, or pay their CEOs $30 million per year.
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OK, Jon, in your defense, you weren't on here when most of those statements were made. But after reading the above, you still can't say that no one has correlated CEO pay with health care costs.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The uninsured, charity care performed in this country is why our insurance costs are so high.
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Yeah, you keep on drinking that kool-aid my friend. Your belief is that if we just insure just about everybody that the cost will go down? Riiiight... except that's been tried and has failed:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...

Massachusetts is proud of its landmark 3-year-old health insurance law. It has brought the state's proportion of uninsured down from around 10 percent in 2005 to only 2.6 percent — the lowest in the nation.

But the achievement is in jeopardy. Massachusetts has the highest health costs in the country...
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But Jonferguson, I thought you said the cause of the high cost was due to the uninsured? Massachusettes has almost the same plan that the democrats wanted and yet their costs went up!

Like I said before... there's the pie-in-the-sky belief and then there's reality.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 12:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Mikehaney, " descrimination due to age or ethnic background,etc.etc"
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You should read about the history of the union... they fought tooth and nail to prevent minorities from joining unions.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 12:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh, and when your messenger is a nutjob...yeah, he deserves the "attack" Just like all the rest of the right winged nut job "journalists" you quote because you can't come up with your own answers.
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You call him a nutjob just because you don't like his message. Again prove what he said was factually wrong... Oh wait, you can't.

Posted by mikehaney (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 12:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Biofuels will make a dent in energy needs by 2050.

Private company uses methane from Ohio waste treatment plant to eventually pay the three million yearly electric bill for the city. Windmill energy company uses off peak production to pump compressed air into the ground for peak demand. Biofuel made from wood chips. Tinkerer makes methane from chicken and pig poop to operate his personal vehicle. These are private entreprenuers, if the epa and government would just get out of the way, withen reason of course.

Then Obama gives billions to a foreign company to drill for oil off Brazillian coast but China has exclusive rights to production. Guess who gave towards Obama's campaign.

Lets kick all their butts out of washington and start over.

In the meantime--DRILL BABY DRILL.

Posted by mikehaney (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 12:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis

An experienced driver knows when to speed up or hit the breaks. Experience from history if digested well, will tell you to combine all the points of history and make a better future. To pull out one negative point from history made by a few to make a biased point will not move us forward.

Posted by mikehaney (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 1:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)

And now folks:(H.R. 413/S.1611)

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 1:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jonferguson, I'll try to explain it so even a pea brain like yourself can understand it.

Freddie and Fannie were buying high risk loans and selling them to banks and other financial institutions as prime loans. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...

Prime loans have little chance of defaulting... Good credit score and usually a downpayment. High risk loans are those that have lousy credit or no down payment. They have a higher default rate. With me so far?

Democrats mandated that Freddie and Fannie make 50-60% of their loans to low income people.

Now, lets talk about risk... There's always risk of losing money but you try to keep it to a minimum. Everybody knows that there are occasionally people who are going to default on loans. That's a fact of life.

Now say that you are a bank and you have $1 million to invest. You look at the housing market, see that the market as a whole is doing pretty good. Lots of prime mortgages out there and the housing market should keep going strong.

Since you can leverage up to $30 million, you buy $30 million in home loans. You figure as long as only a couple of those default you can still make a profit.

What you don't know is that Freddie and Fannie have been flooding the market with sub-prime loans that default at a much higher rate.

Then the economy starts slowing down. Instead of 1 or 2 people defaulting on their loans like you expected, 10+ are defaulting. The housing market crashes due to the excessive supply.

Your $30 million investment is now down to $20 million. The $1 million you invested is now worth $600,000. Since nobody wants to buy your housing loans, you have hardly any money to lend.

Since most local retailers borrow money from banks to buy their produce and goods, sell it and pay the banks off on a monthly basis (friend of mine who owns a store told me this is the industry wide practice) they now have problems getting loans. If their credit is shakey or has been late... sorry, can't afford any more losses. Grocer.... sorry guys, have to shutdown, can't get any money. I have to lay you off and close the store. Need a new car? Sorry, your credit score is just a tad too low.. can't afford any more banking losses. Car dealers.... sorry guys, banks aren't lending money, have to close the dealership and lay you off. Car manufacture, sorry, were not selling cars, got to lay you guys off.
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So in recap, Freddie and Fannie flod the market with subprime mortages. When a slight economic downturn occured, the subprime mortgages that Freddie and Fannie flooded the market defaulted at a higher rate than the industry expected causing the market to crash.

Banks and other financial institutions failed and had hardly any money to loan to other companies or people to buy things that kept this economy going... like cars...

Simple enough for you jonferguson?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 4:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)

And here jonferguson is a NPR article stating most of what I showed above... That the bank failures were involved in the economic mess:

Fewer banks are erecting new hurdles for people and businesses to get loans, a fresh sign credit problems are easing.

In a quarterly survey released Monday, the Federal Reserve found that "commercial banks generally ceased tightening standards on many loan types" at the end of last year. The one exception: commercial real-estate loans.

Even though banks aren't imposing new restrictions on most loans, they aren't ready to ease the tough loan standards put in place during the financial crisis. Banks "have yet to unwind the considerable tightening that has occurred over the past two years," the Fed said.

Meanwhile, demand for home mortgages and other consumer loans weakened, a sign consumers are leery of making big-ticket purchases given double-digit unemployment and the fragile economic environment.

Consumers will help support economic growth, but they won't lead it by going on spending sprees. That's one main reason why the recovery this year is supposed to be modest rather than booming.

"The recent contraction in bank credit formation may owe more to weak demand, than weak supply, a story which might not resonate politically but which nonetheless seems to be supported by the data," said Michael Feroli, economist at JPMorgan Chase.

Last week the Federal Reserve decided to hold interest rates at record lows near zero to nurture the recovery. In doing so, Fed policymakers noted that bank lending continued to shrink. The White House has prodded banks to step up lending.

Looking ahead, "significantly fewer" banks expected widespread deterioration in the value of the loans they hold this year, the Fed said. That's an improvement from the prior two years, the Fed said.

On the consumer end, some banks indicated that the credit quality of home equity loans and home mortgages held by prime borrowers would likely erode further in 2010. But many banks expected little deterioration in the value of other types of consumer loans.

Furthermore, banks are anticipating further erosion in the value of commercial real estate loans this year. Small banks have been especially hit by soured commercial real-estate loans. That's crimped lending to small businesses.

Normally during economic recoveries, small businesses play a key role in job creation. But problems getting credit have made it more difficult for small businesses to get the financing to expand operations and hire.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 5:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

demand for home mortgages and other consumer loans weakened, a sign consumers are leery of making big-ticket purchases given double-digit unemployment and the fragile economic environment.

"The recent contraction in bank credit formation may owe more to weak demand, than weak supply, a story which might not resonate politically but which nonetheless seems to be supported by the data," said Michael Feroli, economist at JPMorgan Chase.

Small banks have been especially hit by soured commercial real-estate loans.
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Demand has weakened? I thought it was that loans were being made to those who don't deserve it?

Commercial real estate loans? But people can't live in commercial property can they?

Of course poor loan decisions was a player, but it wasn't the only factor. And if you think for one minute that lobbyists weren't in D.C. trying their best to get loan requirements lowered, and to get "urged" as it is put, to make loans to people who really can't afford it, you must have your head buried in a hole.

Freddie and Fanny weren't "forced." They were "urged" because they lobbied for looser rules. Of course the Republicans signed on to the idea, because it was a boom for big business. Democrats signed on because it was helping those less fortunate. And, as always, big business wins over the poor. Its the golden rule theory....he who has the gold...makes the rules....

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 5:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)

WASHINGTON — For years, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tenaciously worked to nurture, and then protect, their financial empires by invoking the political sacred cow of homeownership and fielding an army of lobbyists, power brokers and political contributors.

New attention is being focused on the bruised mortgage companies as the Bush administration presses its rescue plan to Congress. Some lawmakers have challenged the plan's open-ended nature and expressed fears of a potential big taxpayer bailout in an election year.

Over the past decade, both Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) made the list of Washington's top 20 lobbying spenders. They spent a combined $170 million to cultivate allies during that period, a bit less than the American Medical Association and a bit more than General Electric. At the same time, their executives have consistently led the mortgage-banking sector in campaign giving to members of Congress, contributing a combined $16.2 million since 1997.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 5:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)

If you want to know how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have survived scandal and crisis, consider this: Over the past decade, they have spent nearly $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions.

But the political tentacles of the mortgage giants extend far beyond their checkbooks.

The two government-chartered companies run a highly sophisticated lobbying operation, with deep-pocketed lobbyists in Washington and scores of local Fannie- and Freddie-sponsored homeowner groups ready to pressure lawmakers back home.

They’ve stacked their payrolls with top Washington power brokers of all political stripes, including Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis; Democrat Barack Obama’s original vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson; and scores of others now working for the two rivals for the White House.

Fannie and Freddie’s aggressive political maneuvering has helped stave off increased regulation and preserve special benefits such as exemption from state and local income taxes and the ability to borrow at low rates.

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But yeah, they were forced huh? Get real

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 5:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Seems Freddie and Fannie disagreed with you Noesis:

Indeed, in a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing covering its activities in 2004, Fannie Mae stated (report available here): "We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005." In the report, Fannie Mae also noted the growth of subprime lending and reported, "These trends and our decision not to participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages contributed to a significant loss in our share of new single-family mortgage-related securities issuances to private-label issuers during this period."

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But it was all because dems forced them to wasn't it? Whatever....

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 12, 2010 at 5:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh, and the insurance thing:

Reason for 39% Health Insurance Hikes: Customers Are Likely to Use Their Insurance
Posted by Brad Tuttle Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 2:19 pm
2 Comments • Related Topics: health care , WellPoint

WellPoint, which raised health insurance premiums by 39% for many customers in California, explains that the price hikes are due to demographics. Their customers, you see, are now more likely to be older and sicker. You know, they're the type of people who actually need insurance.

The story:

In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, WellPoint Inc. tells Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that because of the weak economy, healthy people are dropping coverage or buying cheaper plans. The decline in premium revenue means there's less money to cover claims from sicker customers who are keeping their coverage. That resulted in a 2009 loss for the unit. The insurer says its 2010 rates aim to cover the shortfall expected from the continuation of that trend.

So: The ideal customer is someone who is healthy and never makes claims. That's a pretty good business model. You pay me, and get nothing in return.

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/02/11/r...

So see, it is the fact that people either don't have insurance, or they are getting cheaper insurance. Revenue is the bottom line, and as mick says, greed. I mean, hey, they have big bonuses to pay!

And nowhere in Keta's comments did I see where she said Healthcare costs went up due to CEO bonuses. Looks like to me she was portraying the audacity of their acceptance of it being ok. Do you think they would leave premiums alone and not take their bonuses for a few years? Doubt it. Jack the premiums up....mommy wants a new yacht....this 2008 model is getting ragged

Posted by mickakers (John Michael Akers) on February 12, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)

mikehaney; Your comment; "An experienced driver knows when to speed up or hit the breaks. Experience from history if digested well will tell you to combine all the points of history and make a better future. To pull one negative point from history made by a few to make a biased point will not move us forward". My compliments and respect. Without a doubt, one of the most perceptive and wise comments I have read on this forum.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 11:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Freddie and Fanny weren't "forced." They were "urged" because they lobbied for looser rules.
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Again, reality doesn't match up with your false statements jonferguson:

In 1992, Congress mandated (sounds like they are being Forced Jon) that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains. It has aimed extensive advertising campaigns at minorities that explain how to buy a home and opened three dozen local offices to encourage lenders to serve these markets. Most importantly, Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more loans with very low down payments--or with mortgage payments that represent an unusually high percentage of a buyer's income. That's made banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have rejected.

The two companies are now required (again, forced) to devote 42% of their portfolios to loans for low- and moderate-income borrowers; HUD, which has the authority to set the targets, is poised to propose an increase this summer. Although Fannie Mae actually has exceeded its target since 1994, it is resisting any hike.(What Jon, I thought you said that they lobbied for looser rules?) It argues that a higher target would only produce more loan defaults by pressuring banks to accept unsafe borrowers. HUD says Fannie Mae is resisting more low-income loans because they are less profitable.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/31/...

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 11:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Jonferguson, I'm still waiting to see your explanation of why Insurance rates are so high in Mass. where they have just about everybody covered.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 11:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Indeed, in a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing covering its activities in 2004, Fannie Mae stated (report available here): "We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005."
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Except that it wasn't "non-traditional" mortgages that caused the crash. It was the "no-down payment" that was the cause:

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer.

Foreclosure Crisis Caused By Zero Money Down, Not Subprime Loans: Study
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/03...

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 1:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I'm still waiting on your explanation as to why F&F spent hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby congress for those same rules you say they were "forced" into.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 3:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Please show me what that lobby money was spent on. Obama got $120,00 from them. Does that mean it's all his fault?

You're just tossing out a red herring. You have zero proof and you're just embarrassed that I've proven you wrong once again.

This statement here, proves you don't know what you are talking about:

Although Fannie Mae actually has exceeded its target since 1994, it is resisting any hike. It argues that a higher target would only produce more loan defaults by pressuring banks to accept unsafe borrowers. HUD says Fannie Mae is resisting more low-income loans because they are less profitable.

Any more red herrings that you would desperately like to toss out?

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 4:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I gave you $200 million reasons why above, but you like to call facts that don't bode well for your point of view "red herrings"

Sorry Noesis, but you will never "prove me wrong" by your little right wing nutjob so called journalist articles.

What part of "Fannie and Freddie’s aggressive political maneuvering has helped stave off increased regulation and preserve special benefits such as exemption from state and local income taxes and the ability to borrow at low rates." don't you understand?

And please, if you are too inept and simple minded to know what they spent their lobbying money on anyway, its pretty pointless for me to argue such ignorance. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or Nuclear engineer for that matter.....

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 4:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

* Wall Street firms, homebuilders and the GSEs [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] used money, power and influence to block attempts at reform. Between 1998 and 2008, Fannie and Freddie spent over $176 million on lobbyists. [“They paid lobbyists to influence members of Congress to block legislative proposals that would have stripped them of their preferential advantages. The GSEs (Fannie and Freddie) even paid lobbyists just so they would not lobby against them.”]

* In 2006, Freddie paid the largest fine in Federal Election Commission history for improperly using corporate resources to hold 85 fundraisers for congressmen, raising a total of $1.7 million.

But I'm sure they were "forced" to spend that 176 million, right? And probably the 1.7 million too.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 4:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I'm starting to enjoy this topic.....

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) said in a July 15 CNBC appearance that a taxpayer bailout of Fannie and Freddie would also amount to socialism: "[T]he administration is absolutely wrong in bailing out Bear Stearns and/or Freddie and Fannie," Bunning said. "And the Secretary of the Treasury and the complicity of the Fed Chairman [Ben Bernanke] to these two things - you're absolutely right, we have socialism in the Republican Party and this administration."

WOW! Republican Socialists? Yikes! Bet that stings a little....

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 4:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Ha! The very next line from your little "statement"

Barry Zigas, who heads Fannie Mae's low-income efforts, is undoubtedly correct when he argues, "There is obviously a limit beyond which [we] can't push [the banks] to produce." But with the housing market still sizzling, minority unemployment down and Fannie Mae enjoying record profits (over $3.4 billion last year), it doesn't appear that the limit has been reached.

This was in 1999. They were wanting MORE of this......just didn't want to be on the hook for it when it got yanked up to the boat.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 4:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Red herring:

Something that draws attention away from the central issue.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How does the fact that F&F lobbied for looser regulations, and paid off politicians become a red herring?

The central issue is, according to you, a democratic congress "forced" them to make risky loans. The truth is....they WANTED this out of sheer greed, but couldn't stomach the consequences they saw coming. They were cooking their books in 2004 because they knew they were about to eat crow.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 5:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Sorry Noesis, but you will never "prove me wrong" by your little right wing nutjob so called journalist articles.
---------------------------
Oh, so the New York Times and LaTimes are right wing nutjobs? You sure are cute when you hit desperation mode.

Again, you FAIL to show that the lobbying had ANYTHING to do with them lending to the poor...
---------------------

"stave off increased regulation and preserve special benefits such as exemption from state and local income taxes and the ability to borrow at low rates."
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OK, How does lobbying for exemption from sate and local taxes have to do with the subject... oh wait, it doesn't.

The "ability to borrow at low rate"??? Nada either.

Now we're down to "increased regulation".... That's pretty general term. Could be anything from filling out forms in triplicate to having to using black ink on their forms.
--------------

So let me get this straight... F&F are publically opposed to being mandate by Congress to make more loans to poor people because they default at a higher rate and cause them to lose money but in reality they were secretly lobbying Congress because they wanted to make more bad loans.... riiiiiight... And Halliburton was making off the book payments to Cheney... And the New York Times and the LaTimes are secretly right wing sites...

Are you sure you're not a Truther Jon???

Keep on pounding that kool-aid down....

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 5:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Frank 'no crisis.' The New York Times reported on Sept. 11, 2003:

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
----------------------

So Jon, are you saying F&F paid off Barney Frank?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 5:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Lets see what President Clinton had to say on the subject:

"I think the responsibility the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 5:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Barry Zigas, who heads Fannie Mae's low-income efforts, is undoubtedly correct when he argues, "There is obviously a limit beyond which [we] can't push [the banks] to produce." But with the housing market still sizzling, minority unemployment down and Fannie Mae enjoying record profits (over $3.4 billion last year), it doesn't appear that the limit has been reached.

This was in 1999. They were wanting MORE of this......just didn't want to be on the hook for it when it got yanked up to the boat.
---------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT???

What he's saying is that they don't want to make the loans but Congress is MANDATING that they do and since the banks are stilll able to make the loans that "limit" - (buyers that meet the requirements) hasn't been reached yet.

Jeez, your interpretational skills are pretty pathetic.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 5:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)

...and paid off politicians become a red herring?
----------------------------

McCain was paid something like 7.1 million by F&F lobbyists and yet he was the one that wanted to stop the madness. When his 2005 proposal went to the banking committee, every democrat voted against it. Are you saying that all the democrats are corrupt?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 13, 2010 at 8:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Sorry Noesis, but you will never "prove me wrong" by your little right wing nutjob so called journalist articles.

Jonferguson, I saw the below quote and thought of you :)

To anger a conservative, lie to them...

To anger a liberal, tell them the truth...

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 14, 2010 at 11:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Go figure:

Poll: Bush still blamed for economy
Posted: February 12th, 2010 05:52 PM ET

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney
More Americans blame the Bush administration for the nation's economic troubles than the Obama administration, according to a new poll.
More Americans blame the Bush administration for the nation's economic troubles than the Obama administration, according to a new poll.

(CNN) - More than a year after President George W. Bush left office, more Americans continue to blame his administration over any other entity for the nation's economic woes, according to a new poll.

In a New York Times/CBS News survey out Friday, 31 percent of Americans said the Bush administration is at fault for the current state of the economy while only 7 percent pointed their finger at President Obama and his team.

An additional 23 percent said the fault lies with Wall Street institutions while 13 percent assign the blame to Congress. Nearly 10 percent said the blame lies with all of them.

In a CNN/Opinion Research poll released last November, the public appeared split on who should be blamed if economic conditions don't approve: 47 percent said Bush and congressional Republicans while 45 percent said Obama and congressional Democrats.

"The public still tends to blame the Republicans for current economic conditions," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "But looking forward is another matter. Americans think the GOP is responsible for getting us into this mess, but they think both parties are responsible for getting us out of it."

The poll, conducted February 5-10, interviewed 1,084 Americans and carries a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points
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I'm sure F&F lobbied to use red ink....don't choke on that kool aid Noesis.....

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 14, 2010 at 11:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh, so the New York Times and LaTimes are right wing nutjobs

They didn't write the articles, they published them....the writers are the nutjobs....something you should know quite a bit about

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 14, 2010 at 12:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis,

where's the proof that money wasn't used to pander for looser lending regulations?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 14, 2010 at 2:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh, so the New York Times and LaTimes are right wing nutjobs They didn't write the articles, they published them....the writers are the nutjobs....something you should know quite a bit about
-------

You know Jon, if you weren't so lacking in intelligence, it wouldn't be so d*mn easy to embarrass you constantly... So the writer of the LaTimes article is a right-wing nut job??? Lets look at other articles he has written:

Stealing healthcare from babies
By Ronald Brownstein

Is the president so antsy for a fight with Democrats that he'd deny coverage to millions of children?
Does president Bush really believe what he's saying about the effort from congressional Democrats and some leading Senate Republicans to provide health coverage for millions of uninsured children? He's portraying it as the first step on a slippery slope toward "government-run healthcare," as if senior senators in both parties were conspiring with Michael Moore to import Cuban doctors to inoculate and indoctrinate American children....
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/comm...
--------
On Sunday’s This Week, fill-in host Terry Moran, along with Ron Brownstein and Cynthia Tucker, took swipes at Rush Limbaugh for his contention that his good experience at a Honolulu hospital demonstrated the U.S. health system doesn’t need repair.
“What Rush was saying, Limbaugh was saying was great, except for the 47 million people who don't have health insurance and don't have access,” former Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein
---------
Obama's Reagan Moment Is Now
The crisis-induced demand for action may suspend the normal laws of political gravity.
by Ronald Brownstein
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazin...
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Blue-Collar Deja Vu

Democrats' struggles among working-class whites are reminiscent of 1994.
Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010
by Ronald Brownstein

Economically speaking, the George W. Bush years were miserable for working-class white Americans.

Even during the economic expansion that ran through the heart of his presidency, whites with less than a college education lost ground: In constant dollars, the median income for families headed by white men with only a high school diploma fell from 2000 through 2007 after rising modestly during the 1990s, mostly under Bill Clinton. When Bush left the White House, the poverty rate for white Americans without college degrees was higher than when he arrived.
---------------

Yeah, he's some right wing nut job isn't he?

Man, you're as bad as Keta with making stuff up.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 14, 2010 at 2:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh and Jon... ready to feel even more stupid (if that's possible?) The New York Times article I referenced:

Was written by STEVEN A. HOLMES.

Here's a Bio:

Steven A. Holmes is an editor in the Washington Bureau of “The New York Times” where he supervises coverage of a wide range of issues. Prior to becoming an editor, he was a reporter in the bureau for 11 years, during which time he covered race and demographic issues, Congress, the Presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan and H. Ross Perot, and the State Department. He is the author of “Ron Brown: An Uncommon Life,” a biography of the late Commerce Secretary and Chairman of the Democratic Party. He wrote on the articles and helped edit many of the others in the Times’ 15-part series “How Race Is Lived In America,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001.

And here is a picture of him... http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/29...

Yes, this guy sure sounds like a right-wing nut job.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 15, 2010 at 12:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I love how your stuck on who wrote an article, and making yourself sound completely stupid.

The FACTS are that F&F worked hard and paid big to get the regulations loosened up, and now they have to pay the piper. Tough crap...who cares...move on....

The only way I'm embarrassed by you Noesis, is that I continue to argue with such a MORON.

Good day sir.....

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 15, 2010 at 4:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jon, you are the one who has denial problems with the truth and facts. When something is presented to you that you don't like, you go into denial mode and make all sorts of childish statements... oh, it's a right wing site.... or when you see how that's such a ludicrous statement, your knee jerk reaction is to call the authors right-wing nut jobs... even if they are liberals. You have zero credibility.

So, lets get this straight... you believe that by F&F lobbied Congressmen, that it's all F&F's fault..... Just because democrats took money, they couldn't do the right thing?

So, who was doing the "bribing":

Fannie Mae:

James A. Johnson (1991–1998) is a United States Democratic Party political figure. He was the campaign manager for Walter Mondale's failed 1984 presidential bid and chaired the vice presidential selection committee for the presidential campaign of John Kerry. He was involved in the vice-presidential selection process for the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama.

Franklin Raines (1999–2004) He served in the Carter Administration as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget and assistant director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff from 1977 to 1979. In 1991 he became Fannie's Mae's Vice Chairman, a post he left in 1996 in order to join the Clinton Administration as the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he served until 1998.

Freddie Mac:

Jamie Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General to President Clinton, and Vice-Chairman from 1998 to 2003.

Several Democrats who served as executives of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac include Franklin Raines, former Budget Director for President Clinton and current Housing Policy advisor to Barack Obama, CEO from 1999 to 2004; James Johnson, former aide to Democratic Vice-President Walter Mondale and ex-head of Obama's Vice-Presidential Selection Committee, CEO from 1991 to 1998; and Jamie Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General to President Clinton, and Vice-Chairman from 1998 to 2003. In his position, Johnson earned an estimated $21 million; Raines earned an estimated $90 million; and Gorelick earned an estimated $26 million. All three top executives were also involved in mortgage-related financial scandals.

The top five recipients of campaign contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae during the 1989 to 2008 time period are Christopher Dodd, (D-CT) $133,900, John Kerry, (D-MA) $111,000, Barack Obama, (D-IL) $105,849, Hillary Clinton, (D-NY) $75,550, and Paul Kanjorski,(D-PA) $65,500.
-----------------------

So let me see if I have your logic straight Jon: Democrat CEO's bribe democrat Congressmen for a program that democrats are already for (making housing loans to the poor). Republicans want to reform F&F but democrats in Congress vote against it... and it's not the democrats fault.

Seriously dude, how much kool-aid do you drink a day?

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 9:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)

At least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, netting at least $12.3 million in fees over the past nine years

Fannie’s government relations operations dramatically expanded in the mid-1990s, when then-CEO Johnson recruited Washington A-listers Robert Zoellick, who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Johnson spearheaded an aggressive campaign to create a local grass-roots network of company advocates. Under his leadership, Fannie opened more than 50 partnership offices in cities and rural communities. At the same time, the Fannie Mae Foundation, a private nonprofit financed by the mortgage giant, contributed generously to local charities, arts institutions and housing organizations, giving Fannie influence in lawmakers’ home districts.

Both Fannie and Freddie made large and visible commitments to low and moderate-income housing, quieting criticism from advocacy groups. With the companies in trouble, their political ties are under new scrutiny.

MARCY GORDON, AP Business Writer
AP Online
04-20-2005
Dateline: WASHINGTON
The heads of embattled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told Congress Wednesday that a severe reduction of their multibillion-dollar portfolio holdings could hurt the U.S. housing finance market and cut off billions of dollars from foreign investors that help make housing more affordable for moderate-income Americans.

The government-sponsored companies, long two of the most politically influential in the capital, now face a legislative onslaught that could bring a tighter government hand…

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 9:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)

It’s hard to overstate the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s lobbying machine before they collapsed into government hands. Taken together, Fannie Mae and Freddie spent $174 million on lobbying since 1998; only the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Medical Association spent more in that time. They spent millions more on campaign contributions.

But that only captures part of the effort. Working off of Freddie Mac’s internal documents, the AP reports on the true scope of Freddie’s effort to stymie efforts at greater regulation. In 2006 alone, Freddie paid $11.7 million to 52 outside lobbyists and consultants. (Federal lobbying laws don’t require consultants or even all lobbyists to register, so many of these were never disclosed.)

The documents show that "17 of the lobbying firms and consultants paid in 2006 were specifically directed to focus on Republicans and four on Democrats, with varying targets for the rest." With Democrats largely opposed to Republican efforts to crack down on the government sponsored enterprises, winning Republican friends was key.

It was a wide-ranging effort, the AP reports: In 2005, the company hired Republican consultant/wordsmith Frank Luntz. It’s not clear what the coiner of "death tax" and "climate change" coined for Freddie. In 2006, Freddie paid former Justice Department official Viet Dinh $300,000 to write "a legal analysis of private property rights that viewed a hypothetical government-enforced sale of Freddie Mac assets as constitutionally suspect." Former Speaker Newt Gingrich also got $300,000 to espouse the benefits of Freddie’s business model.

The lobbying effort had bipartisan appeal, to be sure. In 2005, two lawmakers, Ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) and Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) got seats near the dugout for the Washington Nationals’ home opener – right next to Freddie’s CEO and four lobbyists. Ney was recently released from prison after serving a sentence for accepting bribes from lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Kanjorski declined to comment to the AP.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 9:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)

The Republicans tried to get regulation but the Democrats in Congress shot down this piece of legislation and so now here we are.*

* Correction- So I did more research on this piece of legislation and found the bill that was introduced. Only one person sponsored it and it never even made it to the house. The bill was H.R. 2803 The Housing Finance Regulatory Restructuring Act of 2003. So I’m sorry if I had accused just the Democrats of shooting this down, it is both Republicans and Democrats faults

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 9:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)

In 2006, Freddie Mac paid the former House Speaker $300,000 to help
fight off potential regulation. "Gingrich talked and wrote about what
he saw as the benefits of the Freddie Mac business model,"

Internal Freddie Mac budget records show $11.7 million was paid to 52
outside lobbyists and consultants in 2006. Power brokers such as
former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were recruited with six-figure
contracts. Freddie Mac paid the following amounts to the firms of
former Republican lawmakers or ex-GOP staffers in 2006:

--Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York, at Park Strategies, $240,000.

--Rep. Vin Weber of Minnesota, at Clark & Weinstock, $360,297.

--Rep. Susan Molinari of New York, at Washington Group, $300,062.

--Susan Hirschmann at Williams & Jensen, former chief of staff to
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, $240,790.

Remember back in September when Congress was debating the bailout
package, Gingrich was all over the media yapping about the iniquitous
and corrupt influence wielded in Washington by mortgage giants Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac?
One of the provisions that I wanted to put into any kind of financial
package is that no company that gets money from the Treasury in this
process be allowed to hire a lobbyist. I mean, what you have today is
that the rich in Wall Street and the powerful at Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac had so many politicians beholden to them that, in fact,
nobody was going to check them. And so they got away with things that
were absolute bologna, and it's a tragedy.

Newt Gingrinch's ties to Feddie/Fannie go back even further than first
thought: A July 1999 story in the American Banker, a banking trade
publication (via Nexis), reports that the former House Speaker had
recently been hired by Freddie "to provide strategic counsel on a
range of issues," according to a company spokesman.The same story adds
that Gingrich's former chief of staff, Arne Christenson, was hired
that year by Fannie Mae as senior vice president for regulatory
policy.

Where's the Republican so-called "librul media"? Why isn't Newt
Gingrich's hypocrisy and double-speak on every front page or the lead
story on news programs? This latest example of Gingrich's hypocrisy
and sleaze should be blaring on every cable news show, yet it isn't
even mentioned. So much for the "librul media"...

Ya know..I'd love to see a Gingrich/Palin ticket in 2012, so that we
can finally embarrass the two lying hypocrites in a national
referendum.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 10:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)

As for the CRA, that was an act passed in the late 70s to deal with the problem of banks refusing to lend money within certain undesirable neighborhoods. Thus, the CRA "encourage[s] [US-regulated commercial banks] to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions." (Emphasis added.) Importantly, the CRA does not require any lender to make any loan. It merely "encourages" broader lending, with the sole penalty for not doing so being that the applicable regulatory authority will "take[] into account" that failure "among other factors" when making certain decisions relating to depository facilities. The CRA does not require any bank to reduce its lending standards. In fact, its implementing regulations provide that banks are "permitted and encouraged to develop and apply flexible underwriting standards for loans that benefit low- or moderate-income geographies or individuals, only if consistent with safe and sound operations."

Not only do the terms of the CRA squarely contradict the contention that the CRA encouraged risky lending, but also the facts on the ground contradict that contention. As the article notes:

In a speech last March, Janet Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, debunked the notion that the push for affordable housing created today's problems.

"Most of the loans made by depository institutions examined under the CRA have not been higher-priced loans," she said. "The CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."

In a book on the sub-prime lending collapse published in June 2007, the late Federal Reserve Governor Ed Gramlich wrote that only one-third of all CRA loans had interest rates high enough to be considered sub-prime and that to the pleasant surprise of commercial banks there were low default rates. Banks that participated in CRA lending had found, he wrote, "that this new lending is good business."

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)

It is easy to see why Republicans want to blame the current situation on Fannie and Freddie--since both parties had a hand in their regulation over the years, it is easy to deflect and diffuse blame. However, given the plain text of the CRA and the evidence that it has not led to any riskier lending, it is more difficult to understand why some conservative commentators would jump to the conclusion that the CRA played any negative role. Unless, of course, they are relying for their basis on something other than the evidence . . .

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 11:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Posted by jonferguson

At least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, netting at least $12.3 million in fees over the past nine years....
-----------------
And it was McCain who sought to heavily regulate Freddie and Fannie... Oh well, there goes that stupid theory of yours.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 4:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?...

Featuring Frank: Symbol of failure

Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008

...The party announced Barney Frank as the keynote speaker on Sept. 11 -- three days after the U.S. government took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, costing taxpayers untold billions. That takeover probably could have been prevented had Frank not worked to thwart every attempt to limit the risks taken on by the two government-sponsored mortgage giants.

For 16 years reformers in Congress have tried to improve oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and prevent the government-chartered companies from putting the housing market and the whole economy at risk. All that time, Frank was involved in efforts to block those attempts, and in the last eight years he was a leader of those efforts.

In 2002, shortly before accounting irregularities were exposed at both companies, Frank said, "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems," The Wall Street Journal reported. After the Freddie Mac accounting scandal in 2003, Frank said, "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis."

But there was a crisis, thanks in large part to Frank, Sen. Charles Schumer and others on the leash of these companies. In Congress, they made sure there was no additional oversight, no additional limit on executive behavior and compensation, and no further restraint on the growth of the companies' mortgage-backed-securities portfolios, among other changes.

(All of these needed reforms, by the way, have been championed for years by Sen. John Sununu.)

In fact, Frank & Co. made matters worse by pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to take on greater risk. They wanted more loans to people who might not qualify for traditional bank financing. And, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, Frank "pressured regulators to ease up on their capital requirements -- which now means taxpayers will have to make up that capital shortfall."

Even now, after the government took the companies over (which Frank repeatedly said over the years was not a possibility), Frank opposes limits on the amount of money they can risk on mortgage backed securities -- the one reform that might have done the most to prevent the current meltdown and probably would do the most to keep it from happening again.

Barney Frank is the very symbol of Washington's deliberate refusal to prevent the collapse -- the predicted collapse -- of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And this is the guy the New Hampshire Democratic Party showcases at its most prestigious annual event. That ought to tell you a lot right there.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 4:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)

As for the CRA, that was an act passed in the late 70s to deal with the problem of banks refusing to lend money within certain undesirable neighborhoods.
-------------------
Talking Points Memo??? You HAVE to be kidding!!! Does that mean I get to use Rush?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 4:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

It is easy to see why democrats want to blame the current situation on Bush instead of Fannie and Freddie... It's just another one of their feel good programs that had good intentions but had unintended consequences. Welfare, Ethanol, DDT ban leads to millions dead because of Malaria, Social work led to higher crime rates, appeasement of foreign countries leads to aggression, abortion leads to disproportionate amount of minorities being aborted, and now, housing for the poor leads to lower lending standards and a collapse of our economy.

Yeah, I understand why you wouldn't want to take the blame.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 16, 2010 at 5:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Jon, here's McCain's 2005 Bill: S. 190: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd...

It never made it to Congress because every single democrat on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee voted against it indicating that it would be filibustered.

Don't the American people deserve to know that Democrat Barney Frank, then ranking member and now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said, "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing"? Isn't the fact that the ranking Democrat in charge of oversight of Fannie Mae was in a sexual relationship with a high-ranking Fannie Mae executive a glaring conflict of interest? Isn't it worth noting that Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters insisted, "we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines"? Shouldn't the American people know that Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks insist that "there's been nothing that was indicated that's wrong with Fannie Mae"?

If nothing else, shouldn't we salute Democratic Rep. Artur Davis for saying, "Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong."

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 18, 2010 at 8:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Here's a "Guess who said that!" Quiz for ya:

"I'm not surprised when in capitalist systems that there's greed and excess. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said unfettered capitalism leads to corruption or something like that..."

This sounds about right for the effort he put into that bill:

To the extent that McCain offered any specific "solutions" at all, it was to encourage mortgage lenders to reach out to distressed borrowers - something that banks working with Secretary Paulson under the Hope Now alliance are supposedly doing already. His other bright idea was "to convene a meeting of the nation's accounting professionals to discuss the current mark to market accounting systems."

Great. Just what homeowners and the economy need: the formation of a committee of accountants.

McCain has buried his head in the sand all along about the role of the federal government in the foreclosure crisis. In December 2007 he told the editorial board of New Hampshire's Keene Sentinel that he is "not smart enough" to offer a "specific solution". While this might qualify in McCain's book as "straight talk", it's also shockingly weak-kneed and irresponsible.

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 18, 2010 at 4:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)

This sounds about right for the effort he put into that bill:
-----------------------------

Jon, go back and read the article. http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2008/04/...

Nowhere was he referencing "that bill".

Jeez, at least try to read the stuff that you cut and paste.

It's no wonder your arguments are so incomprehensible.

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 18, 2010 at 10:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Noesis, go back and read when his bill was written....1995?

And when did he say he wasn't smart enough to offer a specific solution? 1997? So the bill was a piece of garbage?

Yep, thought so....

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 18, 2010 at 10:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)

My arguments are incomprehensible to you because of your comprehension level....can't blame that on me.....

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 19, 2010 at 8:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

And when did he say he wasn't smart enough to offer a specific solution? 1997? So the bill was a piece of garbage?

Yep, thought so....
--------------------------
Well, lets see what the article said: "McCain has buried his head in the sand all along about the role of the federal government in the foreclosure crisis. In December 2007 he told the editorial board of New Hampshire's Keene Sentinel that he is "not smart enough" to offer a "specific solution". While this might qualify in McCain's book as "straight talk", it's also shockingly weak-kneed and irresponsible."
---------------
It says 2007 and yet you claim it was in 1997? Jeez, you really do have problems reading don't you?

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 19, 2010 at 8:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Oh and Jon, McCain's 2005 bill was to regulate Freddie and Fannie so this crisis wouldn't happen... His 2007 comment was that he didn't know how to put the toothpaste back into the tube... The "role of the federal government in the foreclosure crisis".

Dude, why don't you try some of those brain pills... or something!!! Please! Isn't there some sort of brain food you can try?

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 20, 2010 at 11:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)

They were all sold out....said McCain ordered a whole shipment, so I'm pretty sure they don't work anyway......

Posted by jonferguson (anonymous) on February 21, 2010 at 4:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)

His 2007 comment was that he didn't know how to put the toothpaste back into the tube... The "role of the federal government in the foreclosure crisis".

Funny, it says nothing like that in the article....wonder why? Oh, because that's NOT what he said......

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on February 22, 2010 at 5:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)

No, what he was talking about was the "role of the federal government in the foreclosure crisis" which is completely different than trying to regulate F&F so that the crisis didn't happen.

Like I said, his 2005 bill was to prevent F&F from getting into trouble. His 2007 comments was saying hey, that horse has already left the barn (or dufuss, you can't get the toothpaste back into the tube).

You are the one that tried to tie his 2007 comments to his 2005 bill.

Sorry, the only thing they had in common was F&F.