A Few Notes from the Last Month

Okay G5, this is not a war this a blog with a comment section, so offering a truce to stop name-calling is a bit on the playing war area.

I'm not asking for a truce of anything, if you disagree with me than by all means tell me you disagree. I'm asking that the flame-throwing on both sides stop.

And with you saying that the only reason you will stop is if someone else stops is a bit on the odd side.

I mean honestly G5 I just read through your post again and it's like you are playing war.

Either you stop insulting people and actually make definitive arguments or you keep insulting people. That's up to you. There's no truce here, just a good will towards other posters.

G.I,

I was just in the middle of expressing the exact same sentiment, but you beat me to the punch. Still, a brief 2 cents worth.

While I appreciate the views of the founding fathers and many of the ideals they expressed in the constitution, I feel their biggest accomplishment was the creation of a living document. One that could be interpreted in the context of the time, and could be amended when necessary. Without the ability to amend the constitution, it would become outdated and irrelevant long ago.

But by creating a document that can change, and one that can be interpreted in context (and also provides a court to do the interpreting), the framers were able to construct a document that can remain relevant indefinitely.

Clearly the signs of the times coming from G5. "I won't stop unless you stop first". I hear this argument from my 16 and 14 yr old sons except it's closer to "He started it".

Do what makes you feel better G5. I was directing my last post at everyone on this blog not just the Republicans.

Oh and by the way G5 since you decided to play the blame game and assign who started the name calling, the barrel points at you my friend as the responses on here were civil until you posted and called every Democrat some little cutesy ugly name.

And once again you are caught in another lie when you state that Guillermo is at fault because he "started it". If you take the time to actually go through the posts you will see quite easily that you started the berating of posters.

Another just cause of the last eight years is the infamous quote "if you don't like what I have to say then shut up".

G5, you routinely show up and criticize others for the crap that you pull. It would seem to me, however, that you are the troll.

And to answer your question, though I don't have to, my students say the pledge every day and even have a moment of silence. Boy I bet that stings doesn't it?

Unless your porch is clean G5 don't pretend to clean someone else's.

Wow I was wondering when this conversation would be completely watered down by insults and really horrible attempts at humor. Didn't take as long as I thought.

Ladies and gentlemen, G5 in yet another glorrifying examply of Republican hypocrisy (noticed I said Republican not conservative). What you said about Ted Kennedy was disgusting, hateful, and unneeded. You will undoubtedly come back and "claim" that it was a joke and we need to relax.

But I have a feeling if one of us liberals or moderates or what the heck any of us came on here and attacked oh let's say Ronald Reagen the way you went after Ted Kennedy you'd be all up in arms angry about it.

By the way G5 let me remind you of what it says right above the comments section, "Please be respectful of others". I ask that you and anyone else on here that is solely on here to insult the beliefs of others and hope for already sick people to die to please find another website to do it on..You are not welcome here.

Thanks but my father passed when I was five. Maybe you can deface his tombstone. Better yet, the next time I think about posting something, I'll just make fun of your mother.

You are the embodyment of class G5. You represent the right so well.

About that story/blog/email-forward you stole and posted without credit to the original author...you could easily sub in W's name in almost all of those "stories"...riding the coat-tails of his last name...bad Ivy League student...shady military record...criminal history.

Maybe I was wrong about Animal House conservatives...

Walli (any relation to Wall-E?):

Neither Obama nor his budget is good for anyone. The man was elected to alleviate our white guilt and expedite the rapture. Ask your paster/priest/shaman, it's true.

Better question:

What exactly is an Animal House liberal? I've tried to do some research myself, but I fear using anymore of G5's links for fear that I'll wind up on another porn site.

I can understand the definition of an Animal House conservative (Kevin Bacon's character), but who in that movie exemplifies the liberal ideal? Flounder? Otter? Bluto? Because to me, none of those characters personify the liberal movement (no liberal I know can hold their liquor like that).

Please explain so I can quickly find other classic movies to twist and contort to better signify my hatred for other political parties.

billyjb,

lol

G5,

Sorry if you don't like labels. But every word is a "label". We create words to describe things. The word we've created to describe people with your political points of view is "conservative". Just like the word we've created to describe people with my point of view is "liberal".

OK. So your stance on abortion is: It is always murder. However, it is still sometimes justified and/or necessary.

My next question to you is, as a conservative, do you want the government making those decisions? If a woman is raped, should she have to get government approval to have an abortion? What if the baby is going to be born disabled? Who defines HOW disabled the baby has to be to justify the abortion. A panel of government "experts"?

I just don't think the government should be sticking its nose in to something that personal at all. Which is why I do not think it should be made illegal.

"We find ourselves compelled to make dreadful decisions due to circumstance, or weakness"

??This sounds exactly like what pro-choicers say! That abortion is a difficult and painful decision to make. That women are put into circumstances and feel they have no other options. And the government has no place sticking it's nose in.

And I appreciate that you love and respect animals and the environment. And I wouldn't consider you part of the "animal rights movement", because you do not speak out vocally about animal rights (at least I have not seen you do that). But if you spoke out loudly, if you made your positions known, and argued vehemently against people who are anti-animal rights, you WOULD be part of the animal rights movement. Because you would be a vocal public proponent of animal rights.

And we have already gone over your strange definition of reification. Using terms like "society listens to..." and "the government does..." are NOT reification. They are ways of simplifying speech. You are technically correct in saying that "Society can't listen to viewpoints", however things become alot more wordy when I have to say "the people that collectively live and work in the United States listen to viewpoints"

And it's easier to say/understand "the government makes the laws" than "the individuals that are duly elected by the citizen population of this country are responsible for proposing, discussing, and drafting legislation, then voting on said legislation to pass it into law."

Your "fallacy" that you are pointing out is simply a question of convenient semantics

The people at a construction site are not united by ideas/ideals/points of view, but of a common goal of creating something for reward. Pro-lifers, pro-choicers, liberals, conservatives, etc. These are all groups of people united by similar ideas. People that share the same points of view, and who have united to make the rest of society aware of them (or should I say "make the rest of the citizen population within the borders of the united states aware of them).

You can't just change the connotation of the word "movement" to a negative one and then selectively apply it to movements you disagree with. Well, I suppose you can, because you did. But it really doesn't make any sense.

By it's definition a movement is "a diffusely organized or heterogeneous group of people or organizations tending toward or favoring a generalized common goal". Does groupthink happen? sometimes. But it is not reasonable to insinuate that it happens in every movement. And that every movement requires you to give up your concept of self(unless of course you change your definition of "movement" to include only movements that do this).

And I notice that you decided to bring up Kennedy Maher, etc. I also notice that I was not condoning or defending any of their attacks, nor did anyone else bring them up. If you want to have so much fun calling out every fallacy, this would be a "red herring fallacy". You have brought a separate issue into the argument to distract from the initial argument, which is that Rush Limbaugh says hateful, inflammatory, and flat out incorrect things. You may be correct in asserting that the people listed above do too, however that has NO bearing on the discussion at hand.

And did we take him out of context?

Here is the video of him mocking Michael J Fox:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpFC9uziV...

and the one of him talking about the edwards affair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pvyC5_51...

Both of those statements seem to be needlessly vile and inflammatory. And I completely understand. He has to get ratings, and that is what his listeners want to hear. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call him hateful and inflammatory.

And for the record, I was vehemently against the personal attacks committed against Sarah Palin. Not because I cared for her and didn't want to see her attacked, but because the unnecessary personal attacks were consistently used as a smokescreen for the VERY legitimate criticism brought against her. During the election, many times I saw someone bring legitimate criticism against her (for her lack of experience, policy positions, judgment, etc.) and I hear a Republican counter with "These personal attacks need to stop. Did you hear what Bill Maher said about her family? Absolutely vile and hateful". And then, not wanting to look like a jerk, the criticizer would back off because they don't want to appear like they were making a personal attack or condoning the personal attack.

I am part of the "liberal movement" and you are part of the "conservative movement". We both hold our respective positions and speak about them (and debate them) publicly and vocally. That makes both of us part of our respective "movements". Don't get scared, you don't have to sacrifice your "self-concept" to the conservatives. A movement can be a HETEROGENEOUS group of people that doesn't turn people into mindless drones.

G5,

Without even looking anything up. I can remember these things that Limbaugh has said/done.

-He made a joke at Chelsea Clinton's expense calling her a dog (she was still a child at the time)

-He insinuated that Michael J. Fox was exaggerating or faking his Parkinson's symptoms to gain support for stem cell research. (going as far as to parody the symptoms by shaking himself)

-He attempted to run "operation chaos", inciting republicans to temporarily switch parties to interfere in the democratic primaries (not illegal, but anti-democratic and sleazy)

-Using racist terms to describe Obama (magic negro, halfrican-american)

-I have seen him spout outrageous statistics that were completely contrived to make him look right. For instance, he claimed that a very high percentage (i forget the number, want to say 80%) of people earning minimum wage were teenagers at their first job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded a higher percentage (well over 50%)of people making min. wage as 20 years or older.

-After John Edwards' affair was made public, Limbaugh insinuated that he had the affair because his wife (also a cancer victim) talked too much, and that he was looking for someone who's mouth did "something other than talk"

Now, please. Honestly ask yourself. If Keith Olberman called the Bush twins "dogs", or if he tried to unethically change the outcome of the republican primary, wouldn't you be pissed about it? Wouldn't you consider him a despicable person?

Certainly, he has the right to say whatever he wants on the air. But Kurt (and myself) find many things he says to be unintelligent, bigoted, derogatory, and just plain wrong.

Rush Limbaugh is a bloviating fool who has nothing positive to offer this country. Anyone who takes this guy seriously needs to step back and reevaluate your life. I guess if you are looking for entertainment and want to laugh at the stupidity spewing from his mouth then ok...listen to him all you want. If he is the intellectual force of the Republican party then the Democrats will be in power for a long time. Here is some information to help you understand how we got to our state of financial meltdown. Please ponder for a few seconds the number $5BILLION.

12 Deregulatory Steps to Financial Meltdown

Wall Street's Best Investment - Part II

by Robert Weissman

What can $5 billion buy in Washington?

Quite a lot.

Over the 1998-2008 period, the financial sector spent more than $5 billion on U.S. federal campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures.

This extraordinary investment paid off fabulously. Congress and executive agencies rolled back long-standing regulatory restraints, refused to impose new regulations on rapidly evolving and mushrooming areas of finance, and shunned calls to enforce rules still in place.

"Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," a report released by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation (and which I co-authored), details a dozen crucial deregulatory moves over the last decade -- each a direct response to heavy lobbying from Wall Street and the broader financial sector, as the report details. (The report is available at: www.wallstreetwatch.org/soldoutreport.ht... Combined, these deregulatory moves helped pave the way for the current financial meltdown.

Here are 12 deregulatory steps to financial meltdown:

1. The repeal of Glass-Steagall

The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 formally repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and related rules, which prohibited banks from offering investment, commercial banking, and insurance services. In 1998, Citibank and Travelers Group merged on the expectation that Glass-Steagall would be repealed. Then they set out, successfully, to make it so. The subsequent result was the infusion of the investment bank speculative culture into the world of commercial banking. The 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall helped create the conditions in which banks invested monies from checking and savings accounts into creative financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps, investment gambles that led many of the banks to ruin and rocked the financial markets in 2008.

2. Off-the-books accounting for banks

Holding assets off the balance sheet generally allows companies to avoid disclosing "toxic" or money-losing assets to investors in order to make the company appear more valuable than it is. Accounting rules -- lobbied for by big banks -- permitted the accounting fictions that continue to obscure banks' actual condition.

3. CFTC blocked from regulating derivatives

Financial derivatives are unregulated. By all accounts this has been a disaster, as Warren Buffett's warning that they represent "weapons of mass financial destruction" has proven prescient -- they have amplified the financial crisis far beyond the unavoidable troubles connected to the popping of the housing bubble. During the Clinton administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sought to exert regulatory control over financial derivatives, but the agency was quashed by opposition from Robert Rubin and Fed Chair Alan Greenspan.

4. Formal financial derivative deregulation: the Commodities Futures Modernization Act

The deregulation -- or non-regulation -- of financial derivatives was sealed in 2000, with the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. Its passage orchestrated by the industry-friendly Senator Phil Gramm, the Act prohibits the CFTC from regulating financial derivatives.

5. SEC removes capital limits on investment banks and the voluntary regulation regime

In 1975, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) promulgated a rule requiring investment banks to maintain a debt to-net capital ratio of less than 15 to 1. In simpler terms, this limited the amount of borrowed money the investment banks could use. In 2004, however, the SEC succumbed to a push from the big investment banks -- led by Goldman Sachs, and its then-chair, Henry Paulson -- and authorized investment banks to develop net capital requirements based on their own risk assessment models. With this new freedom, investment banks pushed ratios to as high as 40 to 1. This super-leverage not only made the investment banks more vulnerable when the housing bubble popped, it enabled the banks to create a more tangled mess of derivative investments -- so that their individual failures, or the potential of failure, became systemic crises.

6. Basel II weakening of capital reserve requirements for banks

Rules adopted by global bank regulators -- known as Basel II, and heavily influenced by the banks themselves -- would let commercial banks rely on their own internal risk-assessment models (exactly the same approach as the SEC took for investment banks). Luckily, technical challenges and intra-industry disputes about Basel II have delayed implementation -- hopefully permanently -- of the regulatory scheme.

7. No predatory lending enforcement

Even in a deregulated environment, the banking regulators retained authority to crack down on predatory lending abuses. Such enforcement activity would have protected homeowners, and lessened though not prevented the current financial crisis. But the regulators sat on their hands. The Federal Reserve took three formal actions against subprime lenders from 2002 to 2007. The Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which has authority over almost 1,800 banks, took three consumer-protection enforcement actions from 2004 to 2006.

8. Federal preemption of state enforcement against predatory lending

When the states sought to fill the vacuum created by federal non-enforcement of consumer protection laws against predatory lenders, the Feds -- responding to commercial bank petitions -- jumped to attention to stop them. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision each prohibited states from enforcing consumer protection rules against nationally chartered banks.

9. Blocking the courthouse doors: Assignee Liability Escape

Under the doctrine of "assignee liability," anyone profiting from predatory lending practices should be held financially accountable, including Wall Street investors who bought bundles of mortgages (even if the investors had no role in abuses committed by mortgage originators). With some limited exceptions, however, assignee liability does not apply to mortgage loans, however. Representative Bob Ney -- a great friend of financial interests, and who subsequently went to prison in connection with the Abramoff scandal -- worked hard, and successfully, to ensure this effective immunity was maintained.

10. Fannie and Freddie enter subprime

At the peak of the housing boom, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were dominant purchasers in the subprime secondary market. The Government-Sponsored Enterprises were followers, not leaders, but they did end up taking on substantial subprime assets -- at least $57 billion. The purchase of subprime assets was a break from prior practice, justified by theories of expanded access to homeownership for low-income families and rationalized by mathematical models allegedly able to identify and assess risk to newer levels of precision. In fact, the motivation was the for-profit nature of the institutions and their particular executive incentive schemes. Massive lobbying -- including especially but not only of Democratic friends of the institutions -- enabled them to divert from their traditional exclusive focus on prime loans.

Fannie and Freddie are not responsible for the financial crisis. They are responsible for their own demise, and the resultant massive taxpayer liability.

11. Merger mania

The effective abandonment of antitrust and related regulatory principles over the last two decades has enabled a remarkable concentration in the banking sector, even in advance of recent moves to combine firms as a means to preserve the functioning of the financial system. The megabanks achieved too-big-to-fail status. While this should have meant they be treated as public utilities requiring heightened regulation and risk control, other deregulatory maneuvers (including repeal of Glass-Steagall) enabled them to combine size, explicit and implicit federal guarantees, and reckless high-risk investments.

12. Credit rating agency failure

With Wall Street packaging mortgage loans into pools of securitized assets and then slicing them into tranches, the resultant financial instruments were attractive to many buyers because they promised high returns. But pension funds and other investors could only enter the game if the securities were highly rated.

The credit rating agencies enabled these investors to enter the game, by attaching high ratings to securities that actually were high risk -- as subsequent events have revealed. The credit rating agencies have a bias to offering favorable ratings to new instruments because of their complex relationships with issuers, and their desire to maintain and obtain other business dealings with issuers.

This institutional failure and conflict of interest might and should have been forestalled by the SEC, but the Credit Rating Agencies Reform Act of 2006 gave the SEC insufficient oversight authority. In fact, the SEC must give an approval rating to credit ratings agencies if they are adhering to their own standards -- even if the SEC knows those standards to be flawed.

From a financial regulatory standpoint, what should be done going forward? The first step is certainly to undo what Wall Street has wrought. More in future columns on an affirmative agenda to restrain the financial sector.

None of this will be easy, however. Wall Street may be disgraced, but it is not prostrate. Financial sector lobbyists continue to roam the halls of Congress, former Wall Street executives have high positions in the Obama administration, and financial sector propagandists continue to warn of the dangers of interfering with "financial innovation."

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action.

G5,

"Most abortion is murder"

I'm curious. Which abortions are not "murder" in your opinion?

I honestly want to know.

Question: President Obama's current budget proposal really burdens farmers. Would you please explain how that is going to be helpful. I am referring to President Obama's budget.

Wow let's talk about twisting words. Not once did I ever say socialism is a good system, but you said I did so it's fact. Nice.

When the only people in power are white Americans of course they are going to end slavery.

America was one of the last countries (developed countries) to end slavery and it took a civil war to do it. And if I had to bet there is a large contingent of people in the South that wish we still had slavery today.

America treats women better than any other country in the world? Really? I'd like to know where you get those "facts".

It takes a good American to love this country. It takes a great American to realize its faults and try to fix them. Not "whitewash" them and hope no one sees them.

But it's nice to see the same mantra that persisted for the last eight years still in force today (not). "If you don't like the way your country is being run leave." I prefer to stick around and help fix it. But thanks for the invite to leave.

I'd like to share something I just read that makes perfect sense about what is happening to us right now.

"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From great courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to selfishness;

From selfishness to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependency;

From dependency back again to bondage."

Think about every line...our Christian ancestors coming here from bondage, overthrowing the British government for liberty, then to great abundance that we captured with individual freedom and the American spirit. Then came selfishness and complacency, and now liberal apathy is driving this country right back into the socialist bondage of Barack "Hover" Obama that we have been fighting for 230 years!

I fear now for our individual freedom as socialism creeps closer and closer to the USA. If this parable is true, as it sure looks insightful to me, then we have mcuh to fear.

Do we need socialism? Ask your average Venezuelan. How do they like 30% inflation? How do they like the fact that their only means of income is state run oil industry which is in the tank right now. Hugo looked pretty good when oil was fetching $147/barrel, but now who's the man? Not him.

Do they like not having electricity when the power grids go down because their nation's infrastructure is third world? They must be proud that their dictator is buying billions of dollars in Russian military junk so he can stroke his ego.

Friends...I think it's inevitable that we will call Barack Obama one of the worst presidents in US history. Keep your eyes on the liberals as they will try to take the fire away from him by trying to turn your attention to any republican misdoings. Take our own main blogger here. He cried during the immaculate inoguration, now the rest of the country is crying as he tears down our country one private industry at a time. Yet the blogger is not upset by this, but by what a conservative tv host is doing. The honeymoon will soon be over and sooner or later Barack will have to do something positive to ALLOW the economy to regain it's losses.

Meanwhile, he'll continue to attack private industry to champion his class envy platform that got him elected while the Dow continues it's Titantic retreat into the stone age.

This phony is so full of himself and his Chicago sewer politics that he can't even see that everytime he opens his big mouth, 1000's of people lose their jobs as he tanks another industry. SCORE ONE FOR THE FEDS, THEY TOOK OUT ANOTHER INDUSTRY THAT CATERS TO THE RICH! YEAH! Let's get the rich, those bastards, how dare they have money while poor single mothers keeps having baby after baby with one unemployed man after another to stay on wellfare!

I find it interesting that I don't recall you blogging about the hypocrisy of Democrats who said about 3 years ago that there was "no problem" with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and that they should not face more stringent regulation. Fast forward to today and they can't shut up about how the Republicans didn't pass that same regulation 3 years ago. Where was all your interest about hypocrisy there? Don't try assigning something like hypocrisy to one party or the other. You're guaranteed to lose every time. Remember MAD? Same concept. I thought you were smarter than that but I stand corrected and I apologize for misjudging you.

Just to get this straight... you want the pork out of the bill but you have a problem with Republicans opposing the pork in the bill? So, you obviously don't care about the policy as much as you care about the politics. That is exactly what is wrong with our leadership in Congress, especially in the White House but that's the strategy you continue to champion. I guess, changing Washington from a place where policy trumps politics was never part of your plan for "change".

And you bring up universal healthcare. You want to talk about wasteful spending? Per Capita, the US pays almost DOUBLE what other developed countries do. And our care ends up just being as good or WORSE (on average). THAT is wasteful spending. Somewhere between the insurance companies and the hospitals and the drug companies, we are getting suckered.

The thought that the omnibus spending bill has "only 1% or 2%" pork in it is ludicrous. When you actually think about what the federal government is allowed to spend money on according to the constitution it's more like 1% or 2% isn't pork. Where exactly is the government given the permission by the constitution to manage health care, social security, or any of the million things it spends our money on? When are people going to realize that Washington has run amuck and will only stop when there are no more people to take money from? I've said it before and I will say it again, this ain't a republican versus democrat thing, it's a "Us" versus "Them" thing. We need to take control of the beast by electing officials who understand and follow the constitution.

I think the pork in the omnibus bill has been really overstated in the past week or so.

All estimates i have heard put the pork at anywhere from less than 1% to 2% of the bill. Certainly that doesn't make it "right", but it is almost certainly not as pressing a problem as people make it out to be.

Additionally, the republican's criticizing the democrats for the pork rings a little hollow. CNN reported that about 60% of the pork came from democrats, and 40% from republicans. That is pretty much equal to the percentages of dems and repubs in the House.

So please republicans, if you are reading, don't stop criticizing the pork in the bill! But please don't focus all of your ire on the democrats.

Oh, and also don't grossly misrepresent the spending in the bill by picking and choosing ridiculous projects that the bill will actually not likely fund.

And, unfortunately, I don't think Obama will veto the bill. This omnibus is essentially a leftover from last year, and the administration came out to say that they weren't going to screw around with last year's spending plans.