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POPSUS Government Takes On Six Trillion Dollars of Bad Debt
This is like a bank robbery. Wall St. & Congress have conspired in the largest stealing of tax dollars in US History. This equals all the other failures of Bush/Cheeney and their cohorts. In comparrison, five (5) years messing over Iraq -- who had nothing to do with 9/11 or WMD's -- has yet to cost a trillion dollars, while this government bailout takes on liability for SIX trillion dollars,,, ... buying all these bad debt mortgage loans to save banker's butts and passing on that debt to tax payers. This should be no surprise. It's like FEMA in New Orleans. It's like starting a war for false reasons. It's like letting bin Laden run around alive and free. It's like running out of money to build and repair roads and bridges. It's like joblessness hitting the highest levels in five years. It's our country going down the tubes, whether for Wall St. bankers, Oil companies, or the interests of Israel. Bend over America, this is the final screw job of evil profiteers dest
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POPSThanks MSM or Olbermann does us a solid By the end of the week, after Palin's tour de force in St. Paul, the liberal media were so befuddled that they were reduced to complaining that conservatives aren't being narrow-minded enough. Thus, Hanna Rosin--who has covered religion and politics for the Washington Post, and has also written for the New Yorker, the New Republic, and the New York Times--lamented in a piece for Slate: "So cavalier are conservatives about Sarah Palin's wreck of a home life that they make the rest of us look stuffy and slow-witted by comparison." I suppose it was ungenerous of conservatives, in our broad-mindedness and tolerance of human frailty, to have let Ms. Rosin down, just when she was counting on us to bring out the tar and feathers. But she gives us too much credit when she suggests we make the liberal media look stuffy and slow-witted. They do that all by themselves.
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POPSPalin was on McCain's Earmark Hit List Now this is embarrassing. As mayor and governor, Palin requested and supported congressional earmarks that McCain called excessive. How, then is she like him? Opportunistic comes to mind. LOL!
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POPSUSA minus Alaska If all you look at is Fox Noise or read is The Washington Times then you may have missed this tidbit. It stands as yet another example in a growing list of examples of poor choices that McCain has recently made.
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POPSTHE WHITER SIDE OF THE COIN ! Dear S.Cramer: the only problem he can't remember where he put it Mr.Jason Rodriguez: I can't agree with you more but haven't we f**ked up the homeland enough,A. Economos &Philp Leiter that party can't be revived until it changes it cold war thinking and in order for that to happen you have to except the light ,G.Nolan while Mr Whitey times change get over it ,same to bible toter & A.Deleforte wait until you get disable & you need that money you paid out & when you paid it out it was worth $1.00 and your getting it back at .35 E.Lamasney :so why be stupid now ?♠♠
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POPSTale of the Tape: Palin vs. Obama Energy: Palin- Believes energy independence is a matter of national security; For drilling in ANWR, which is in her state Obama- Says Americans should "get tune-ups" and "check tire pressure"; Says "we can't expect the world to be okay with" our use of heating and air conditioning Theme: Palin- Change and Clean Government Obama- Hope and Change; "Bringing Change from Outside Washington" What they've done to live that theme: Palin- Replaced entire Board of Agriculture and Conservation because of conflict of interest; Resigned from position of Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in order to expose corruption among members of own party Obama- Selected 36-year incumbent Senator as running mate Family Affairs: Palin- May have removed State Public Safety Commissioner as part of effort to protect sister in messy divorce and child custody battle Obama- Often says, "I am my brother's keeper"; Brother lives in a hut in
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POPSPre-RNC raids: so who hates freedom now? Doesn't look like any evidence has been uncovered thus far of intent to commit anything beyond non-violent protests. Kind of an unnerving story if you ask me, but, hey, it's a post-9/11 world, and the cops are just trying to keep us all safe, right? (It's funny, when I was a kid growing up in the eighties, there used to be after-school specials about how this kind of thing happened in apartheid South Africa.)
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POPSThe Value of Money George Washington was paid a salary of $25,000 a year from 1789 to 1797 as the first president of the United States. The current salary of the president has recently been doubled to $400,000, to go with a $50,000 expense account, a generous pension and several other benefits. Has the remuneration improved? Making a comparison using the CPI for 1790 shows that $25,000 corresponds to over $585,000 today, so the recent raise means current presidents have an equal command over consumer goods as the Father of the Country. When comparing Washington's salary to an unskilled worker, or the measure of average income, GDP per capita, then the comparable numbers are $11 and $24 million. Granted that would not put him in the ranks of the top 25 executives today that make over $200 million. It would, however, be many times more than any elected official in this country is paid today.
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POPSSkunk at the Party Convention Roll Call columnist Stan Collender plays skunk at the garden party by pointing to the immediate governing challenges that President Obama or McCain will face. In essence, with the Bush administration planning to punt on the 2010 budget, the incoming administration faces a scramble to get its budget in by early February 2009. We'd point out that there will be big-ticket bills to attend to as well, such as the highway bill, up for reauthorization in 2009 (for more, click here http://www.forbes.com/beltway/2008/05/21/washington-lobbying-transportation-biz-wash-cz_atg_0521beltway.html)
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POPSInvesting in Obama
Last Friday’s Washington Post offered more information on Blackwell, a former partner in his father’s consulting firm, Blackwell Consulting. The brief Post piece, “Contracts Went to Longtime Donor,” mentions that the firm won contracts totaling nearly $650,000 from the University of Chicago Medical Center. It happened because of a minority-owned business outreach program started by the newly promoted Michelle Obama. The elder Blackwell says that without that program, “ hey might not have ever thought to include Blackwell Consulting.” It also didn’t hurt that the younger Blackwell had been underwriting Obama’s political and personal life. In early 2003, after one of the Killerspin ping-pong tournaments he had helped taxpayers subsidize, Obama was interviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times on the subject of the younger Blackwell’s entrepreneurship. “I would never bet against Robert on one of his ideas,” Obama said. “He’s extremely good at coming up with moneymaking ideas and implementing
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POPSLou Dobbs: Media 'in the tank supporting the Obma candidacy" HANK SHEINKOPF, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good for democrats, not so good for the nation in the long term. Barack Obama is interesting, he's new, therefore he is news. OK. The fact that a black man can reach that pinnacle of success, raise the amount of money, run this kind of organization, beat Hillary Clinton is big news. At some point there has to be some fairness in the discussion. The problem here from the beginning is from day Obama showed up, I was wondering when the reporters will start chiseling his face on to Mt. Rushmore and the guy hadn't even won the nomination yet. That's the danger here, Lou. And people know it and they're not stupid. Average guy says wait a second, I want news and he isn't getting it.
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POPSNeocons Call for War on Russia Writing in the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan goes even further, suggesting that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the start of World War III: Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama. The mood is reminiscent of Germany after World War I, when Germans complained about the "shameful Versailles diktat" imposed on a prostrate Germany by the victorious powers and about the corrupt politicians who stabbed the nation in the back.
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POPSMore Big Pharma, Bad Science - Non-smoking Drug Now, which is worse in your opinion... Smoking or Suicide? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Most would answer ...I THINK I WOULD RATHER SMOKE THAN FOR SURE KILL MYSELF BY TAKING A DRUG TO NOT SMOKE. The saddest part of this is that they (BIG PHARMA) are using our veterans as Guinea pigs in their trial and error tests. Just so they can put on the market more deadly drugs and coerce, we the public to buy into their schemes that make them rich! Video link here: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1417423198/bctid1715728951
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POPSBizarre but true facts about the Earth The oldest living tree is a California bristlecone pine name 'Methuselah'. It is about 4600 years old. The largest tree in the world is a giant sequoia growing in California. It is 84 meters tall and measures 29 meters round the trunk. The fastest growing tree is the eucalyptus. It can grow 10 meters a year. The Antartic notothenia fish has a protein in its blood that acts like antifreeze and stops the fish freezing in icy sea. The USA uses 29% of the world's petrol and 33% of the world's electricity.
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POPSHot Destination: Lagos, Nigeria I haven't read much about travel to Nigeria, save George Packer's great article in the New Yorker (see here: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/13/061113fa_fact_packer) about the city's informal economies. A New York Times reporter recently surveyed the city's nightlife, malls and substandard housing and found a huge gap between the wealthy and poor. I think it will be awhile before it becomes a real destination, but it should be interesting to see how travel there increases in the coming years.
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POPSCigarette Tax Burnout In New York City and State, tobacco taxes have been raised so many times that the retail cost can exceed $9 a pack -- about double the national average. Few budget-savvy smokers in the Big Apple pay that tax. Patrick Fleenor, an expert on tobacco taxes at the Tax Foundation, estimates that there is "now a 75% gap between cigarette sales in the city and cigarette consumption." In other words, three out of four cigarettes are bought elsewhere or are contraband. In New Jersey, about 40% of the Marlboros and Virginia Slims that are lit up escape the $2.57-a-pack tax. In Washington State, evasion was so rampant that the legislature decided in 2005 to lower the 75% tax on cigars and other tobacco products as a way to raise revenue and help state retailers.
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