Friday Funnies: Politician’s Edition

Jay Leno: "There was an embarrassing moment for Rick Perry. He announced that it was the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Jam."

"Joe Biden visited Greece last week on the debt crisis. I don't want to say the vice president doesn't know much, but he kept asking for John Travolta."

"Herman Cain dropped out. Our writers and I were despondent. But sometimes when God closes a door He opens a window. And standing outside that window is a circus peanut wearing a badger. Donald Trump will moderate a Republican debate Dec. 27. Thank you, Jesus."

"Cain says that he and his wife...everything is fine between them. Though it's not certain this wife still trusts him 100%. Like today Mrs. Cain called Michele Bachmann and asked if she could pray him gay. Does it work that way? Can you pray a guy gay?"

"Newt Gingrich met with Donald Trump yesterday. There's a good combination – two guys, 6 wives, 0 chance of either one of them ever becoming president of the United States."

"The head of the Federal Aviation Administration … has been arrested on charges of drunk driving. I don't want to say how much the guy drank, but when they pulled him over, he was driving the beverage cart.'"

"The good news: unemployment is down and people are out looking for work. That's good news. In fact today Herman Cain applied at Domino's, Pizza Hut, Round Table, and Little Caesars..."

David Letterman:  "Rod Blagojevich is going away for 14 Years in prison. His barber got the death penalty."

"Newt Gingrich did not make it on the Most Fascinating People list. He made it on another list of 2011 though: Most Fascinating Newts."

"Herman Cain, the Herminator, said 'I will not be silent, and I will not go away.' Then he shut up and left."

Technorati Tags: Political Humor,Humor,Late Night Talk,Jay Leno,David Letterman,Newt Gingrich,Mitt Romney,Herman Cain,Current EventsEvents,An American Gothic,Politicians

Friday Funnies 1: Republican Debate Hosted By Donald Trump?

   This will be the one debate that I will not miss and you can bet that his comedy will not need a laugh-track. Speaking of laughs.

It's On!! Donald and the 7 Dwarfs Get Ready to Rumble!    Thu Dec 08, 2011   by cassandracarolina

Question: What’s the difference between Donald Trump and the Pope?
Answer:  You only have to kiss the Pope’s ring.

The Donald is once again jonesing for relevance and ratings. Undecided on his next course of action, he’s torn between the roles of Kingmaker and King. If only there was some way to do both. Now, as the “moderator” of the upcoming debate on December 27th, The Donald has found the answer! He can do both!

As if the GOP campaign had not already degenerated into  a gladiatorial spectacle, it’s about to take a turn for the more absurd as The Donald sets the stage for a verbal brawl with the 7 Intellectual Dwarfs. In this race for the lowest of common denominators, we’re headed for the Marianas Trench. Follow along below the curious life-form of the deep for more on each of our contenders.

Michele “Squeeky” Bachmann, doubling down on her hateful pronouncements, has declared that yes, gay people can marry! Hallelujah!! Oh… wait. They have to marry someone of the opposite sex! Well, that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? I mean, who in the world would enter into a marriage like that, where one (or both) of the participants was clearly not committed to that sort of a heterosexual “lifestyle”? You’d have to be batshit cra… Oh. Sorry. Well, at least she can rely on her sham spouse for fashion advice. Judging from her recent debate outfits, it looks like he’s been playing a cruel joke on little Squeeky. No worries, though. She puts on a good face (a colorful one, anyway) and soldiers on.

Newt “Meanie” Gingrich has dashed the Christmas hopes of many a child with his Dickensian vision of child labor as a pathway to continued poverty. No gifts for you kids! In fact, Christmas morning, since school’s out, it’s the perfect time to get down on your bloody and bruised hands and knees and give those school floors the thorough scrubbing they deserve. Then back home to your miserable hovel for some macaroni and cheese for the big day. Meanwhile in a mansion far, far away, Stepfordian wife-du-jour “Blingy” will try in vain to force her Botoxed face into some semblance of a smile as she unwraps Newt’s holiday appeasement gift from Tiffany’s.

Jon “Smarty” Huntsman has wisely declared that he would not kiss the ring – or any other portion – of the Donald. Smarty knows that there’s nothing to be gained by bringing a supercomputer to a knife fight, so he’s diligently working the Granite State retail politics circuit in hopes of a strong showing with the denizens of Dixville Notch. 

Ron “Grampy” Paul, the voice of reason in this field of policy lightweights, continues ambling along with a respectable showing, particularly among young people (with the promise of legalized marijuana) and aging adherants of Ayn “Icy” Rand, who see in this quirky septuagenarian the chance to get all those young people off their lawns, once and for all.

Rick “Goofy” Perry continues reminding late-night comedy audiences of his aw-shucks inability to remember more than two things at a time. His latest stream-of-unconsciousness advertisement equates gays in the military with the demise of school prayer. In his spare time, he’s studying his own team’s polling, which shows him with a “nice path” in Iowa. Turn the paper around, Rick. His latest gaffe: referring to the New Hampshire primaries as “caucuses”.  Um, Rick… it’s the “Granite State”, not the “take it for Granite State”.

Mitt “Floppy” Romney, no longer clinging to his low-profile “prevent defense” strategy of remaining aloof as other contenders fall by the wayside, has kicked his campaign into second gear. He has even deigned to meet with (gasp) Fox News and other lower life forms to endure insipid interviews, where he has allowed the “real Mitt” to emerge: an irascible, petulant man, seething at the growing probability that he is not actually the “inevitable” nominee despite nearly a decade of campaigning.

Rick “Creepy” Santorum`remains concerned, very concerned, that America’s moral values are falling like glitter off a cheap Christmas card. He, and he alone, stands between American families and the horrific prospect of people sharing the holidays in some unnatural way with their – gasp! – loved ones. He’ll continue his campaign until conditions improve or he runs out of cash. Can you guess which will happen first?? Good for you!

In Memoriam:  Herman “Gropey” Cain has dropped off the radar and through the trap door of oblivion, recovering somewhere from his pivotal meeting with Gloria, and probably in hiding away at a rehab clinic for people addicted to inappropriate workplace behavior. With the onset of winter, he’ll at least be able to keep warm burning the now-useless copies of his epic autobiography.

Originally posted to cassandracarolina on Thu Dec 08,

Also republished by Community Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Donal Trump,Michele Bachmann,GOP,Debates,Ron Paul,Herman Cain,Mitt Romney,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

A New York Spider Gave Me an Insight into US Private Healthcare

Published on Sunday, December 4, 2011 by the Sunday Observer/UK

Written by Laurie Penny

Occupy Wall Street is right – a rash of bites showed me how private healthcare keeps Americans cowed and compliant

It started with a spider. Someone with a taste for narrative justice might call it retribution, but there's really no moral correlation between the wisdom of absconding with a relative stranger after a party and waking up the next morning in Brooklyn with a rash of poisonous bites on your arm. When the angels of sexual continence want to punish you, they send crabs not spiders.

I assumed, at first, that the maddeningly itchy marks were the work of common-or-flophouse New York bedbugs, but 12 hours later, with my right arm swollen to the width and purplish color of a prize turnip, my friend identified the hallmarks of the brown recluse spider, and uttered words I had hoped never to hear on this side of the Atlantic: "You should really get that checked out by a doctor."

I first came to New York to write about the emerging social justice movements associated with Occupy Wall Street. Through my conversations with the protesters in Zuccotti Park, I began to understand how profoundly the stranglehold of American private healthcare keeps ordinary people cowed and compliant in the land of the notionally free.

It's not just the 59 million Americans living without health insurance and unable to access treatment for everyday maladies without crippling expense. It's the millions more who dare not risk a dispute with their boss for fear of losing their medical cover, who expect to remortgage their homes in old age to meet the costs of failing health, or who live in fear of bankruptcy should they develop a chronic condition or have an accident.

The notion of a society that sanctions companies to profit from sickness feels barbaric enough, without then forcing ordinary people to choose between medical treatment and the financial future of their families. President Obama's attempt to reform the system in 2009 roundly failed to remove healthcare as a source of perennial anxiety for most American citizens, or to lighten the dead hand of the market on medical provision in the US.

Socialized healthcare is in my blood but, unfortunately last Wednesday, so was a hefty dose of spider venom and several billion extra bacteria – the unfriendly sort that make an infected limb sweat and swell like a rotten root vegetable. I had travel insurance, but no idea if it stretched to the snacking habits of urban arachnids. So I uttered the words familiar to any uninsured or precariously insured American: "I'll just wait for a little bit and see if it gets better."

Had I waited another 24 hours, I might have lost my arm. By the time I was persuaded to go to the emergency response unit at Beth Israel hospital I could no longer move the limb, which was developing worrying purple track-marks. The triage nurse sent me straight through to ER, where I was given a bunk next to a groaning man in his mid-30s who, like me, had been so worried about the cost of treatment that he had allowed an infection to spread, in this case from a rotten tooth. He was already missing several teeth. He told me he was a postal worker with no health insurance, and that he wouldn't have come for treatment had his girlfriend not driven him to hospital when he collapsed with a fever.

Compared to the accident and emergency unit at my local London hospital, the waiting period was civilized; it was a mere hour before a stern-looking registrar arrived to take my money. He explained the covering clauses of my travel insurance and showed me where to sign on several complicated forms. When I explained I was unable to do so because my arm wasn't working, he gave me a look that suggested I'd have had to find a way to sign even if I'd come in with all four limbs off. I signed with my left hand.

After that, the service was exceptional. I was whisked off to intensive care for intravenous antibiotics. I was put in a quiet bed near a window, with no cracks or mildew in the walls, and brought cool water and a clean towel. And when, in the middle of the night, I went into near-fatal anaphylactic shock, the staff's reaction was swift and efficient. I felt, in other words like a valued customer. But it also meant that, at 2am and thousands of miles from home, I was already wondering how I would afford the prescription for all the antibiotics I needed.

This is the difference that social medicine makes to the fabric and quality of life in a civilized country. When I finally wobbled out of the shiny lobby of the Beth Israel, clutching a bag of drugs, follow-up advice and complimentary hospital toiletries, I understood what it really means to be without means in America. Those who are wealthy enough to afford decent healthcare have their needs met in relative luxury, while those who are poor live in fear of getting ill, worrying that one misadventure might leave you with yet more debts to pay off.

No amount of fresh towels and edible breakfasts can make up for the feeling that your health is less important than the capacity of your checkbook. Which is why children and pensioners are still standing in Manhattan's financial district with placards telling the world they cannot afford healthcare, as police patrol the perimeter. And why, when I got out of hospital, I went straight back down to Liberty Plaza to stand with them.

© 2011 Guardian/UK

Laurie Penny is a journalist, author, feminist, reprobate. Lives in a little hovel room somewhere in London, mainly eating toast and trying to set the world to rights. Drinks too much tea. Has still not managed to quit smoking.

Technorati Tags: Occupy Wall Street,Health Care,Current Events,An American Gothic,United States

Newt Gingrich: The View From Overseas

       The truest piece of shit that the Republicans  have in the run for the nomination to face off against President Obama in November 2012, has finally risen to the top. That piece of crap would be none other than life-long politician, serial  adulterer, and lobbyist Newt Gingrich from the state of Georgia.

  From Neue Zurcher Zeitung, a Switzerland paper:

Again, a New Front-Runner
for America’s Republicans

By Peter Winkler
Translated By Lisa Probst
27 November 2011

Edited by Jen­nifer Pietropaoli

Switzerland - Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Original Article (German)
Former Speaker Gingrich’s surprising high flight
Newt Gingrich, a dinosaur of American policy, has surprisingly swung himself to the top of the list of Republican presidential hopefuls for next presidential election. The question is: How long will he be flying high?
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and a conservative opponent of President Clinton for many years, has swung to a surprising high in Republican polls in his candidacy for the presidential elections of the United States.
However, the edgy dinosaur of the Washington political establishment has been his own worst enemy, often damaging his own reputation, as in the first TV debate in his new role. In addition, Gingrich is dragging along some pretty bulky baggage from his past, with many commentators asking just how long the high flight of this controversial, sharp-tongued, bullying politician, who is often perceived as arrogant, will last.
The latest “anti-Romney”
The media is already describing Gingrich as the newest ”anti-Romney.” The Republican base seems to be testing him as an alternative to the former governor of Massachusetts, who appeared to be too slippery smooth for many conservatives.
Before Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain were already in the same boat. Their numbers in the polls fell as quickly as they rose. They had to go through the bitter experience of being the front-runner, whose words and histories are being watched much more closely than those of other candidates. Gingrich, after his Nov. 25 performance, experienced much the same thing.
In the debate about homeland security, which was organized by CNN and the conservative think tanks, the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, Gingrich pleaded for amnesty for those illegal immigrants who came a long time ago, started families and have integrated themselves into society. The Republican Party, as the party for family values, would certainly not be swayed to destroy families, he assumed. Gingrich called his suggestion humane; his rivals immediately spoke against it, calling it a “magnet for illegal immigrants” and “back door amnesty.” For many conservatives, these are the two brightest red flags in regards to immigration policy.
It’s still too early to determine the effect on voters’ favor. It was noticeable how badly Gingrich’s comments were received by the Republican base in Iowa, where the first primary elections will take place on January 3. Aside from that, Gingrich is not exactly without guile. Religious conservatives could be opposed to the fact that he is on his third marriage. His present spouse was his mistress at the time that he was up in arms against Clinton’s extra-marital escapades. Gingrich had to resign from his post as speaker after getting penalized with a record-high fine for unethical behavior in a business transaction of expense claims.
More damaging, although a more recent development, is that his consulting firm was receiving a monthly honorary sum of roughly $30,000 from mortgage giant Freddie Mac until September 2008, which obviously came for political lobbying. Freddie Mac, along with affiliated company Fannie Mae, had to be put under state control during the mortgage crisis and now belongs among the favorite targets of Republican critics of the Obama administration’s crisis management.
Miraculous recovery
“The Newt,” as Gingrich is often called, put a damper on his newly announced candidacy in May when he criticized Republican Paul Ryan’s budget proposal “right-wing social engineering,” which he said was no better than a “left-wing social engineering.” Although he apologized to Ryan, the damage was done. In June he appeared to get suffocated by his campaign bills and almost his entire election campaign staff left. Until recently, nobody thought it possible that he could ever recover from that.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,2012 Elections,Republican Party,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic

$7.7 Trillion Rip-off Of The Taxpayer

   This is a huge issue which you are not seeing on the front pages of to many newspapers, if any, as has been noted by the author in the following article.

A $7.77 Trillion Call to Arms

by akadjian      Mon Dec 05, 2011

Bloomberg broke the biggest story of the year this past week by revealing that the Federal Reserve secretly committed 7.77 trillion dollars to bailing out banks.

7.77 trillion is more than 11 times the cost of the TARP program. Yeah, this is big. And this number was only through March 2009. 

So I think it's worth taking a few minutes to break down the importance of this story and what it means.

What does the $7.77 trillion secret program mean?

1. Any talk about being broke is bullshit.

Allen West:

I'm just not sold on this payroll tax extension, this unemployment extension. Because we're broke.

Bullshit.

Rush Limbaugh:

So what are your ideas, Candidate A? Which agencies are you gonna just wipe out? We can't go on as we are; we don't have the money.

Bullshit.

John Huntsman:

The fact of the matter is we're broke as a country, and we're going to have to look very, very carefully at foreign aid.

Bullshit.

John Boehner:

We're broke. And the American people know we're broke.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

We have plenty of money when it comes to bailing out banks. Anyone saying we're broke is saying this to try to justify their own agenda.

2. We have the resources.

We can:

Fund job creation programs

Rebuild our infrastructure

Put money into education

Continue social safety net programs (as is)

Invest in energy independence

All we need is the political will. Anyone who says we can't do these things means they don't want to do these things.

If the government can come up with a $7.77 trillion secret program for banks, quit telling me we can't help out actual people.

3. You are being asked to shoulder the cost.

That's right. Why the call to pull money from Medicare, defense, Social Security, education, pensions, pay, etc?

You didn't think the banks should have to pay for their failures, did you?

This is the strategy known as privatize the profits, socialize the risks. It is the strategy behind the "too big to fail" banks.

In a nutshell, the strategy goes like this: Banks make risky trades using your deposits and, if they fail, they know they will be covered by the government because these assets are insured by the FDIC (at least up to a certain point).

Covering bank bets costs lots of money. How do we cover these bets?

Guess what? You're going to have to make do with less.

4. Our government is willing to lie to us.

This story didn't just happen.

Bloomberg had to fight in court for 2 years to get the Federal Reserve to release these details.

Why wouldn't they release the details?

Could it be because they knew no one would have gone along with this if it had been known?

The other shock is the magnitude of the lie. This is a $7.7 trillion lie.

5. The mainstream media does little to expose these lies

Much of the media continues to "back page" this story.

Ask yourself, with the exception of Bloomberg, if you've seen this story on any front pages. I haven't. 

Doesn't this sound like a front page story? Federal Reserve spent $7.7 trillion to bailout banks? Without telling anyone?

Sure sounds like front-page news to me. Yet it's vastly under reported in the media.

Would anyone in America go along with this continuous bailout if they knew about it?

6. Occupy Wall Street is right.

Say what you want about Occupy Wall Street, but this doesn't change the fact that the biggest challenge still facing our nation is our broken financial system and our government which is in bed with this system.

It's clear that very little has changed since the financial crisis. Very few new rules have been put in place.

Opponents of the Dodd-Frank reforms are trying to "block appointments of new leadership to key oversight positions, cut funding, alter policies, use cost- benefit analysis as a roadblock to reform, and make other efforts to slow the pace or water down regulations."

7. You can't get a loan at 0.01% interest

Yes, that was the rate at which we lent money to some of these banks.

In other words, free.

Of course, at the same time, we had politicians screaming that we couldn't help out people who were foreclosed upon.

If you're a person, it's your "responsibility," if you're a bank, then you're "too big to fail".

Only banks could get loans at 0.01%.

We have a double standard in our country. One set of rules for average people, another set for those with the right lobbyists.

8. The problem is not fixed. It will happen again.

The banks are still engaging in risky derivatives trading. And they're even bigger than before when they were "too big to fail".

Almost nothing has been done in the way of regulation and lobbyists are already fighting the little that has been done.

There is no incentive for banks to do anything differently and, with the government backing their bets, no risk to them.

Under these conditions, it is only inevitable that this will happen again.

9. Why is this the biggest story of the year?

It exposes everything that is wrong with our current system:

Secret government programs for banks.

The "we're broke" lie - anyone who says "we're broke" is saying it to justify some other goal.

One set of standards for banks, an entire different set for the rest of us.

The failure of the media to "front page" these issues. I bet you know what's happening with the Kardashians though.

Most importantly, we have the resources to do what's right for our country.

We just need those in office to work for our country instead of for the largest corporate donors and lobbyists.

So what can you do?

Tell anyone who will listen. It doesn't matter what political affiliation you are, this should make you angry.

Write, call, or e-mail your Congressman and ask him or her what they are doing to investigate. They should be angry too. 

Write your local paper or TV news affiliate and ask them how they're covering the story. Why isn't this news?

Support groups who are bringing these types of stories to light. Bloomberg deserves a huge amount of credit for pressing the government to release these documents.

Move your money. Banks have shown they are poor gamblers. Take away the deposits they're using to gamble.

Do whatever you can. Convince your friends. Support limiting corporate influence on Washington. Join those protesting in the streets if you can.

If this sounds like the beating of a drum you've already heard, apologies. But it's a drum that badly needs beating or nothing is ever going to change.

 

Technorati Tags: TARP,The Bailouts,Wall,Bloomberg,Occupy Wall Street,The Economy,Federal Reserve,Current Events,An American Gothic,Tax Payers

Cain Is Gone? Newt’s At The Top?

   I am happy to see that Herman has left the game, at least for now. of course, the GOP still has nothing but human ( ? ) jokes as candidates for the White House with Newt Gingrich being the man at the top of the list for the time being. That, my friends, is a sad state of affairs not only for the Republican Party, but for America also.

Robyn E. Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times notes the statements that the Newtser made at a gathering of GOP assholes at the debate in Iowa, concerning the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Gingrich's statement on the Occupy movement, offered with self-satisfied gusto during the "Thanksgiving Family Forum" Republican presidential candidate debate in Des Moines, Iowa, says all you need to know about the man who wants the reins of the economy. Gingrich's prescription for reversing the nation's record-breaking long-term joblessness and the shrinking of the middle class is a little shoe-leather and deodorant soap.

"All of the Occupy movements start with the premise that we all owe them everything," Gingrich said. "They take over a public park they didn't pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn't pay for, to beg for food from places they don't want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue for which we owe everything.

"Now that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them: 'Go get a job right after you take a bath.' "

      Newt has no clue about the ills that many Americans face in this current economic disaster, or either he does not give a shit. As a candle-holder for the 1% who have screwed this country, I’d bet that he does not care.

   Fox News and the rest of the media will now push the Newt as the savior of both the Republican Party and America. When you start hearing how great Newt is, just remember his Contract On With America.

This is the Republican presidential hopeful who is rising in the polls. A man whose bloated ego is only matched by his antipathy for the plight of others. Every Republican who is unemployed, underemployed or knows and respects someone who is, should commit the phrase "Go get a job right after you take a bath" to memory. Then vote.

   America most certainly does not need a Newt sitting in the White House if only because the Newt is the prince of immorality.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Republicans,GOP,Contrat With America,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic,2012 Elections

Friday Funnies: Mixed Bag

  Todays list comes from many site from all over the Internet and are not necessarily political, for a change of pace

Council flat (social housing apartments) tenants complaints
These are genuine clips from British Council flat (apartment) tenants
Complaining to the Council about problems with their apartments/ flats.

1. My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has
fungus growing in it.

2. He's got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just
can't take it anymore.

3. It's the dog's mess that I find hard to swallow.

4. I want to complain about the farmer across the road; every morning at
6am his cock wakes me up and it's now getting too much for me.

5. I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please
do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.

6. And their 18-year-old son is continually banging his balls against my
fence.

7. Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy
my wife.

8. My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?

9. I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the
wall.

10. Will you please send someone to mend the garden path? My wife
tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.

11. I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen

12. 50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster and 50% are
plain filthy

13. I am still having problems with smoke in my new drawers.

14. The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is
cleared.

15. Will you please send a man to look at my water, it is a funny colour
& not fit to drink.

16. I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt
my knob off.

17. The man next door has a large erection in the back garden, which is
unsightly and dangerous.

18. Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a
third so please send someone round to do something about it.

19. I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he
put his foot in the hole in his back passage.

20. I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet
roof. I think it was bad wind the other night that blew them off.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I recently turned 65 and had to choose a new primary care physician for my Medicare program.
After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age.

A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him, "Do you think I will live to be 80?"

He asked: Do you smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages?"

"Oh no," I replied. "I don't do drugs, either."

"Do you have many friends and entertain frequently?"

"I said, "No, I usually stay home and keep to myself".

"Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?"

I said, "No, my other doctor said that all red meat is unhealthy!"

"Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling?"

"No, I don't," I said.

"Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?"

"No," I said. "I don't do any of those things."

He looked at me and said, "Then why do you care?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Dead Cow Lecture!
This is the best example for paying  attention that I have ever heard.

First-year students at the Ohio State Vet   School were attending their first anatomy class with a real dead  cow. They all gathered around the surgery table with the body  covered with a white sheet.
The professor started the class by  telling them, "In Veterinary medicine it is necessary to have two  important qualities as a doctor. The first is
that you not be  disgusted by anything involving the animal's body." For an example,  the professor pulled back the sheet, stuck his finger in the
butt of  the cow, withdrew it, and stuck his finger in his
mouth.

"Go ahead and do the same thing," he  told his students.
The students freaked out, hesitated  for several minutes, but eventually took turns sticking a finger in  the butt of the dead cow and sucking on it.

When everyone finished, the Professor  looked a them and said, "The second most important quality is  observation. I stuck in my middle finger and sucked on my index  finger. Now learn to pay attention. Life's tough but it's even  tougher if you're stupid."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Honeymoon Train!!
After returning from his honeymoon
in Florida with his new bride, Virginia, Luigi stopped by his old barbershop in Jersey to say hello to this friends.
Giovanni said, "Hey Luigi, how wasa da treep?"
Luigi said, "Everyting wasa perfecto except for da train ride down."
"Whatayou mean, Luigi?" asked Giovanni.
"Well, we boarda da train at Grana Central Station. My beautiful Virginia , she pack a biga basketa food. She bringa da vino, some nice cigars for me, and we were lookina forward to da trip, and open upa da luncha basket .
The conductore come aby, waga his finger at us anda say, 'no eat in disa car. Musta use a dining car..'
So, me and my beautiful Virginia, we go to da dining car, eat a biga lunch and starta at open da bottle of a nice a vino!
Conductore walka by again, waga his finger and say, 'No drinka in disa car! Musta use a cluba car.' So, we go to cluba car.
While a drinkina da vino, I starta to lighta my biga cigar. The conductore, he waga is finger again and say, 'No a smokina in disa car. Musta go to a smokina car ..'
"We go to a smokina car and I smoke a my biga cigar. Then my beautiful Virginia and I, we go to a sleeper car anda go to bed. We just about to go badaboom badaboom and the conductore, he walka through da hallway shouting at a top of his a voice..
'Nofolka Virginia !
Nofolka Virginia !'
"Nexta time, I'ma just gonna taka da bus."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry teacher
Attendance call on the first day at school in Birmingham
The teacher began calling out the names of the pupils:
"Mustafa El Ekh Zeri?"
"Here."
"Achmed El Kabul?"
"Here."
"Fatima Al Chadoury? "
"Here."
"Abdul Alu Ohlmi?"
"Here."
"Mohammed Ibn Achrha?"
"Here."
"Mi Cha El Mey Er" Silence in the classroom.
"Mi Cha El Mey Er"
Continued silence as everyone looked around the room. She repeated,
"Is there any child here called Mi Cha El Mey Er ?"
A boy arose and said, "Sorry teacher. I think that's me.
It's pronounced Michael Meyer."

Technorati Tags: Friday Funnies,Poltics,Humor,Jokes,Current Events,An American Gothic

Florida Facts

  I bring to you a couple of statistics concerning life in the 3rd-world state of Florida.

   While consumer confidence rose sharply in most of the United States this month, it was not so great in Florida, remaining at the same level as last month.

    The Conference Board’s Index rose up 56 from a previous reading of 409 in October. This was the biggest monthly gain since April of 2003.

   Florida uses a different confidence index ( naturally ) which stayed stuck at 65 in November, barely above the record low  according to a phone survey done monthly  by the University of Florida. The record low ( 59 ) was set back in June of 2008.

    On an even sadder note:

    47% of Tampa Bay homes are underwater with their mortgages as of the end of September. Your mortgage is labeled as being underwater when you owe more on it than the home is worth.

   That 47% comes out to some 311,511 homes being not worth the prices paid for them.          Source

   The really sad part is that many of these homeowners would not be in this predicament if they had used some common sense ( lacking in Florida ) and had not gotten greedy in the first place. Many of the owners bought their homes for the express purpose of selling later on after the value had doubled or even tripled in a few cases. Borrowing against the home as the value rose put many people on the chopping block when the bubble burst, and they now cry about having to make payments on a product that has become somewhat worthless.

    Greed will screw you over at every chance that it gets to do so. Have you homeowners learned anything?

Technorati Tags: Tampa Bay,Florida,Housing,Current Events,An American Gothic,Unemployment,Jobs,The Economy

   

$700 Billion TARP Bailout? Not Even Close….

   … as Hunter at Daily Kos points out. Let’s try trillions instead.

Fed commitments to financial sector topped $7 trillion      Mon Nov 28, 2011

Bloomberg News sorts through how the Fed handled the banking crisis. It isn't pretty:

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.” It dwarfed the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.

“TARP at least had some strings attached,” says Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, referring to the program’s executive-pay ceiling. “With the Fed programs, there was nothing.”

One of the underlying themes of the article is that almost nobody contacted for the story, whether in government or in the large banks, was willing to comment on it. And during the debates over both TARP and bank regulation, the scale of secret government assistance to the largest banks was unknown even to Congress:

Lawmakers knew none of this.

They had no clue that one bank, New York-based Morgan Stanley (MS), took $107 billion in Fed loans in September 2008, enough to pay off one-tenth of the country’s delinquent mortgages. The firm’s peak borrowing occurred the same day Congress rejected the proposed TARP bill, triggering the biggest point drop ever in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (INDU) The bill later passed, and Morgan Stanley got $10 billion of TARP funds, though Paulson said only “healthy institutions” were eligible. [...]

Byron L. Dorgan, a former Democratic senator from North Dakota, says the knowledge might have helped pass legislation to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which for most of the last century separated customer deposits from the riskier practices of investment banking.

“Had people known about the hundreds of billions in loans to the biggest financial institutions, they would have demanded Congress take much more courageous actions to stop the practices that caused this near financial collapse,” says Dorgan, who retired in January.

Now that the information is coming out, will that make a difference in future discussions over regulating too-big-to-fail banks? Color me skeptical. Lawmakers might grumble a long while about the Fed committing the United States to seven freaking trillion dollars in loans and guarantees to the financial industry, but government is still quite thoroughly captured by the top banks:

At the meeting with [Sen. Ted] Kaufman, [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner argued that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex for Congress and that people who know the markets should handle these decisions, Kaufman says. According to Kaufman, Geithner said he preferred that bank supervisors from around the world, meeting in Basel, Switzerland, make rules increasing the amount of money banks need to hold in reserve. Passing laws in the U.S. would undercut his efforts in Basel, Geithner said, according to Kaufman.

Technorati Tags: Federal Reserve,The Economy,Bank Bailouts,TARP,Timothy Geithner,Congress,Morgan Stanley

Would Jesus Join the Occupy Protests?

Published on Saturday, November 26, 2011 by Consortiumnews.com

by Rev. Howard Bess

When the Martin Luther King Jr. monument was dedicated recently in Washington DC, I was reminded that the civil rights movement in America was led not by a politician fulfilling campaign promises, nor by a popular evangelist bent on saving souls, but by a highly trained theologian who put his religious teachings into practice with a demand for justice for those who had suffered at the hands of the rich and the powerful.

The Rev. King was a Baptist preacher who took his religion into the arena of racism, economics and social disparity. However, hatred caught up with him, and he was killed.

Now, nearly a half century later, there is another broad-based protest that is gaining momentum. The Occupy Wall Street protests echo some of King’s complaints about economic inequality and social injustice – and the message can no longer be ignored.

The significance of this latest public protest movement, erupting all over the country, may eventually rival the impact of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, yet when comparing the two movements, there is one glaring difference: priests, pastors and clergy of every stripe are rarely in the forefront of Occupy protests.

Instead, secular young people are doing the very work that Jesus from Nazareth would urge us to do. Just as Jesus condemned the injustices of his own day – and overturned the money-changing tables at the Temple – the Occupy protesters are challenging how Wall Street bankers and today’s rich and powerful are harming the masses of people.

This week, religious people have felt proud of giving turkeys to the poor, but they should be joining the protests against the haughty rich. I maintain that Jesus would be a part of the actions in Portland, Denver, New York and many other cities. For Christians, the crucial issue should be “what would Jesus do”?

Today, Christian theologians and Bible scholars agree that the Jesus trip to Jerusalem at the end of his life is essential to understand what Jesus was about. Yet, Christian tradition has brainwashed followers of Jesus about the realities of his trip south to Jerusalem. We have all been exposed to the worship services in which children march waving palm branches and singing “Hosanna.”

Traditionally we have called the event “the triumphal entry.” However, put into the political and social context of Jerusalem in the early first century BCE, Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was probably more like a protest march that mocked every leader in the city.

Political and religious “leaders” of the day probably would have ridden into town on a prancing horse, certainly not a humble donkey. So, Jesus’s choice of transportation was more street theatre than triumphal entry. It triggered a week of confrontations and arguments with the leaders of state and Temple.

The key event of the week was the incident in the Temple. Once again church tradition has given us a special name for the incident, “the cleansing of the Temple.” But It was more likely another piece of street theatre that became a bit physical.

To better understand the Temple incident, we need to understand its context. The Temple had become a lot more than a religious temple. It had become a tax collection agency and a bank. The Temple held large sums of money accumulated by collecting tithes from the faithful.

In reality, the tithe was a tax, not a freely given gift to God. In addition, fees were charged for participation in the Temple’s religious exercises.  So, the Temple collected lots of money.

With that fat treasury, the Temple had entered the banking business and regularly made loans, primarily to poor people. Poor people were the victims not only of a flat tax, but also high-interest loans. So, the gap between the haves and the have-nots was growing rapidly. The poor were getting poorer, and the rich were getting richer.

Yet, equity was a key concept in the Israelite tradition. Torah (the law) had very specific rules demanding systematic redistribution of wealth. But those who controlled the Temple operation completely ignored their own religious teachings. The banking operation that had developed was very good to those who controlled the system.

Christians believe that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world. However, from the perspective of history, Jesus died because he challenged a banking system that passed itself off as being righteous.

Today, bank buildings are the temples of America and the financial industry is a key pillar of an increasingly inequitable economic system. Although banks and their controlling officers claim to be upholders of orderly American life, a growing number of people know better.

Recent surveys have asked people “who in the banking business do you trust?” Credit unions came out on top, followed by locally controlled banks. Then, came regional banks. Large national banks came in dead last.

Christians should thank the current Occupy Wall Street protesters for their message and their activism. They are doing our justice work for us. The current crop of national bank leaders are being shown to be just as corrupt as the Temple bankers were in Jesus’s day.

If Jesus were present among us today, he would be moving from Portland, to Los Angeles, to Kansas City, to Dallas, up to Chicago and on to Wall Street in New York City.  He would join the protest in every city. He would be demanding an overhaul of our financial and banking system. He would be standing with the poor and their allies — and against the rich and their protectors.

When Jesus pursued the corruption of his own day, the representatives of the religious and political status quo killed him. And Jesus said to his followers “take up your cross and follow me.

© 2011 Consortiumnews.com  

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

Technorati Tags: Jesus,Christ,OWS,Occupy Wall Street,Wall Street,Bankers,Howard Bess,Current Events,An American Gothic

For Thanksgiving Fox News instructs us: "Let's Give Thanks for the One Percent"

by Lefty Coaster     Wed Nov 23, 2011           Source

Leave it to Fox News to use something like Thanksgiving to push back against the overwhelming tidal shift brought about by the Occupy Wall Street Movement but this preposterous.

WARNING This syrupy ode to the Oligarchs made me want to gag. 

Let's Give Thanks for the One Percent

By Alex Epstein
Published November 23, 2011

In a country mired in recession and unemployment, it may seem hard to find things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. But there are many. Because we live in America, even those of us who are going through hard times have access to abundant food, racks of clothing, secure shelter, heating and air-conditioning, and an amazing array of learning and leisure activities.

This is important to remember, not just to keep our spirits up, but to avoid a tragic mistake societies often make: taking the good for granted. It is all too easy to fixate on our problems without appreciating the good in our lives. Societies that make this mistake are easy prey for scapegoating charlatans--such as those who tell us that our salvation lies in redistributing the wealth of “the 1%.”

In this past year, it has become popular to collectively blame the most financially successful Americans, “the 1%,” for America's economic problems.

I'll skip over some of the Randian BS that follows.

We should not take for granted that we live in a country that fosters and rewards productivity like no other. There is a reason why we are the destination for the “brain drain” from other continents. In no other country are high achievers as free to have a vision, to act on it, to reap the rewards, and to accumulate and reinvest capital--even when they are unpopular, even when “the 99%” disagree or are resentful or envious.

We mustn't be resentful or envious of the one the percerters.

One percerters like former CEO of A.I.G. Maurice Greenberg who is suing the U.S. government for $25 billion to cover the drop of HIS A.I.G. stock during the bailout. The same bailout that cost taxpayers $182 billion, and saved Maurice Greenberg's stock from becoming completely worthless.

And lets not forget to give thanks for the futures speculators who make both the food for Thanksgiving dinner, and travel that brings us together more costly.

Yes! Lets all bow our heads and give thanks for these greedy arrogant ones who have found some way to shake down the rest of us.

Let us prey

Technorati Tags: Fox News Channal,Occupy Wall Street,!%,Current Events,An American Gothic

Bill O'Reilly’s Fictional “ War On Christmas “ Rants Getting Early Start

   Bill O'Reilly is on the prowl, seeking out those businesses who tell their employees to say “ Happy Holidays “ instead of “ Merry Christmas “ to their customers.

Then Bill got to his Christmas holiday threat: “Am I an extortionist for telling merchants and companies that if you refuse to say ‘Merry Christmas’ or tell your employees you are not allowed to that I will put you on the air and hurt your business. Am I an extortionist?”

I'd say yes. But Carlson thought not. “That’s giving your personal opinion,” she insisted.

O'Reilly warned his audience, “If any retailer tells their employees you’re not allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ that, that’s gonna be on The Factor and that’s gonna cost ‘em, there’s no doubt about it.”

   Mr. Bill, since more viewers are now watching something other than “ The Factor “, will anyone even care about your rants and raves over who says what in their Christmas greeting to customers or to their friends? I think not.

   Typical Republican supporter who always wishes to start some kind of war over nothing.

Technorati Tags: Christmas,Bill O'Reilly,The Factor,Current Events,An American Gothic,Fox News Channal

 

The “ Not So Super “ Congress…

  … is basically throwing in the towel and calling it quits since none of the members can reach any type of agreement on budget cuts and spending. I’m shocked, aren’t you? Oh, I want my money back.

    Many of us who actually pay attention to our screwed-up, bought and paid for government officials from both of the parties, did not expect to much to come out from the congressional super-zeros in the first place, and we have not been disappointed.

   It has been fun over the last 2 days watching the circus on the Sunday news shows pointing their fingers at the guy across the aisle. Politicians are much like hard-core drunks and drug addicts as they never accept blame for anything, it’s always someone else’s fault. The Republicans share most of the fault with coming up with no bills because of the usual squabbling over tax increases. The Kochpublican Party is not going to allow those wealthy “ job creators “ to pay higher taxes just to help with the deficit.

Sen. John Kerry was on Sunday’s Meet the Press and had this to say:

DAVID GREGORY: In The Wall Street Journal, editorializing, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, wrote this on Friday: "How could Democratic leaders defend deep reductions in the military and cuts in the domestic programs as they are vital investments, when they block reforms that would reduce the growth rate of the major entitlements, which, even under the House GOP plan, would still grow by more than 50 percent over the next decade? Sooner or later, Democrats must confront the reality that their unwillingness to slow entitlement spending will require shrinking everything else the government spends money on." Senator, my reporting tells me that, in fact, Republicans offered Democrats to miens [sic] test Social Security and Medicare as part of this discussion, that would actually hit the rich, and Democrats said, "We don't want to do that."

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Not true. Not true. We accepted. We not only accepted that, David, we put every single sacred cow on the table. They know, they know, that they could have had many things that a lot of us, you know, hate to even talk about publicly, because we're going to get—people are going to say, "What? You guys were thinking of doing all those things?"

       The blogs are adding their 2 cents worth to the continuous smack-down of the super-congress’s failure to fix anything despite not having to put up with filibusters, added amendments, and the like.

The congressional “super committee” stumbled its way toward failure Sunday, with final staff-level discussions focusing mostly on how the panel should publicly admit that lawmakers could not meet their mandate of shaving $1.2 trillion from the federal debt.

Rather than making a final effort at compromise, members of the special deficit-reduction committee spent their final hours casting blame and pointing fingers...

David Waldman:

But one thing about this fiasco that has so far gone mostly unmentioned in the traditional media is that under the statute that created the Super Committee, missing the November 23 deadline doesn't break up the band, nor does it absolve it of its charge. It only removes their "super" powers, that is, their ability to shield their bill from amendments and the filibuster—which, we might note, they were able to magically(1) eliminate when they wanted to.

Among the many faults of the filibuster is that it distorts our ability to hold legislators accountable. If, going into a vote, everyone knows there's little or no chance of getting 60 votes in the upper chamber, the votes cast by Representatives and Senators alike are difficult to read, since they're all cast in a context in which no one really expects the bill to become law. It's an easy thing to vote to pacify certain constituencies at home by supporting a bill you're personally less than thrilled with if you know it isn't going anywhere. Similarly, it's easy to take a "bold" stance athwart history if you know "doing the right thing" won't get you anywhere, anyway.

So it's very interesting to me that even when the Very Serious People of Washington clear a pathway through the Conventional Wisdom for the Congress to take extraordinary measures to remove the menace of the filibuster, it still doesn't work. How strange that the Congress, stripped of the familiar shield of impenetrable process that usually deflects culpability in cases of failure and given the opportunity to take the tough votes openly and accountably, has opted not to produce any bill at all.

  So basically, the super congress is just one more waste of taxpayer dollars by the morons in Washington, D.C. Since we have paid for this fiasco, can we write it off on our 2011 taxes since the product was deformed and non-productive?

Technorati Tags: Super Committee,Republicans,Democrats,John Kerry,Taxes,Bush Tax Cuts,1%,The Economy,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

The Republican “ Flock Of Fools”

The Republican presidential candidates are so very inept, especially when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, that even the news agencies in France have taken notice of the GOP idiots during their debates.

The World According to the
Republican Presidential Candidates

By Laure Mandeville        Watching America
The adversaries of the current president have countered that Reagan also had simple ideas but won the Cold War. They have pointed out that Obama himself was an amateur and has had to water down his wine on counterterrorism matters.
Translated By Kathleen McClure
14 November 2011

Edited by Rica Asuncion-Reed

France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
On China, on Iran and on aid to Israel, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and Rick Perry compete with each other in simplicity and ignorance.
Can an America weakened by the economic crisis manage in a complex world with simple ideas and simplistic views? Listening to the Republican presidential candidates, voters might think so. For several days, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Rick Perry and others have increased their thunderously loud declarations and shortcuts on foreign policy matters, traditionally a Republican strong point. On China, on Iran, on aid to Israel, catchy phrases — often not backed up — have burst forth.
Mitt Romney, the best placed in the race for the nomination of the Grand Old Party threatened to drag the Chinese before the WTO and to interrogate them for being currency manipulators, a growing theme in an America exasperated by the migration of entire sections of its industry to Asia. It’s just too bad if this sets off a trade war, he said. Jon Huntsman, Obama’s ex-ambassador to China and the only candidate to have a sophisticated foreign policy vision, nearly choked, face-to-face with an attitude that “panders” to emotions. He called for muscular but constructive dialogue with Beijing (Obama’s current position). But Huntsman, who is stagnating at the bottom of the polls, remains inaudible.
Like Reagan
Similarly, Romney promised military strikes on Iran if sanctions fail to stop its nuclear program. “[I]f we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon… if you elect me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon,” he boasted. He also promised to increase military aid to Israel, and accused Obama of failing to carry out his obligations to this partner.
The entrepreneur Herman Cain, the second-placed candidate, revealed an embarrassing ignorance of the issues. Recently, he called for countering the Chinese military threat because Beijing is “trying to develop nuclear capability,” apparently ignorant of the fact that China has had atomic military power since 1964! Texan Gov. Rick Perry, who supports Israel and wants strikes against Iran, said he was ready to engage the U.S. Army in Mexico against drug cartels. The use of torture against suspected terrorists, banned by Obama in 2009, has been advocated by Cain, Perry and Michele Bachmann. We are far from 2008 Republican candidate John McCain, a heavyweight in foreign policy.
The adversaries of the current president have countered that Reagan also had simple ideas but won the Cold War. They have pointed out that Obama himself was an amateur and has had to water down his wine [by making concessions] on counterterrorism matters. They insist (with reason) on the failure of his naïve negotiations with Iran, of the precipitous departure of the “boys” from Iraq and of dilly-dallying in Libya, labeling him weak.
But the attack is not so easy. The public has a rather positive assessment of Obama’s national security [policy], which has eliminated bin Laden. Since Iraq, the public has been distrustful of military interventions that lead to stalemates. And by arguing that we need to reconstruct America economically to revive its leadership, Obama hits closer to the mark.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

© 2010 Watching America and WatchingAmerica.com. All Rights Reserved

Technorati Tags: Republican Debates,Rick Perry,Herman Cain,Michele Bachmann,Foreign Policy,Iran,Iraq,Current Events,An American Gothic,Barack Obama

Saturday Satire: Dumb And Dumbest Edition

    What a week this has been if you are a real human, and have been keeping up with the  “ GOP Comedy Show “ known as the Republican “ Pick me, please “ tour. Of course, Rick Perry and Herman Cain have been the stars of the series, proving that even a higher education can still make one an A+  stupid.

David Letterman: "One by one the Republican candidate potentials have been shooting themselves in the foot making huge, horrible gaffes and they just look silly. It's gotten so bad that President Obama is now worried he may actually be re-elected."

"Newt Gingrich is so confident about his chances that he's already working on his concession speech."

"If we have to sit through any more of these Republican debates, I'm ready for a dictatorship."

"I'm thinking Herman Cain doesn't get it. He brought a date to the debate."

"Today it's 61 and foggy, like Rick Perry. But it's nice to see a guy running for President who's only groping for words."

"I'm worried about Rick Perry. For one, I'm worried that maybe he's too conservative. Two, I worry a little bit about his debating skills. And three, I — Oh, what was three?"

Bill Maher: "Someone told Rick Perry today that Obama, as he did, laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And Rick Perry said 'See, he blanks on names too.'"

"Rick Perry forgets his own talking points, Herman Cain forgets every woman he ever groped, Mitt Romney forgets he used to be for everything he is now against; they don’t need debates, they need ginkgo biloba."

"It has gotten so bad in the party that Newt Gingrich is now starting to surge, which is never good news for Mrs. Gingrich."

Conan O'Brien: "Paris Hilton is more popular than Congress. And, like Congress, Paris's maximum capacity is 500 members."

"There was an awkward moment when Herman Cain turned to Michele Bachmann and asked her what she was willing to do to get the job."

Jay Leno: "Cain's only real foreign policy experience is from when he ran the National Restaurant Association and had to deal with the manager from the International House of Pancakes."

"People attending a Rick Perry event in New Hampshire had to prove they were American citizens. They asked a math or science question and if you get it wrong, you were born here."

Technorati Tags: Political Humor,Friday Funnies,Late Night Talk,Occupy Wall Street,Herman Cain,Rick Perry,Jay Leno,David Letterman,Current Events,An American Gothic,Humor

Feds: All Commodity Traders To Be Audited

November 11, 2011 02:00 PM

By Susie Madrak           Crooks & Liars

Get out the popcorn! You know how they got Al Capone on tax evasion? Maybe we're finally going to see a some Wall Street bankers go to jail for something, even if it's not for crashing the economy. But if we're going to audit futures trading, it could break the backs of food and oil speculators who are driving up the cost of food worldwide:

Federal regulators have ordered an audit of every American futures trading firm to verify that customer money is protected, a move that comes after roughly $600 million in client funds were discovered to be missing from MF Global, the bankrupt brokerage firm once run by Jon S. Corzine.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator searching for the missing money at MF Global, will audit many of the nation’s largest futures commission merchants, according to a person briefed on the decision. Exchanges like the CME Group will examine smaller firms to ensure they are keeping customer money separate from company money, a fundamental rule on Wall Street.

The futures commission also announced on Thursday that it had formally opened an investigation into MF Global, a largely symbolic move that indicated the seriousness of the case. The agency has already issued subpoenas to MF Global and its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, but the commission had to vote before announcing a full-scale investigation.

“The commission has determined it is in the public interest to confirm the existence of this particular investigation,” the agency said in a statement.

Now, I happen to think they'd be investigating MF Global anyway, but the fact that they're going to audit all the futures traders has to be sending a tremor down Wall Street and I'm going to give some credit to the Occupy movement. Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: Wall Street,Commodity Traders,Commodities,The Commodity Futures Trading Commission,Current Events,An American Gothic

Perry Challenges Pelosi To A Debate….

…. which would have been a major Pay Per View event if something like this were to take place. Perry lucked out, as Pelosi had some mercy and declined the invitation to embarrass Perry as he has done to himself over the past few weeks.  

Hahahahahahahahahahaha:

Dear Leader Pelosi [...]

I am in Washington Monday and would love to engage you in a public debate about my Overhaul Washington plan versus the congressional status quo. I think it would be a tremendous service to the American public to see a public airing of these differences. Let the people decide. If Monday doesn't work, perhaps we could find a time in Iowa over the course of the next month to discuss these issues in front of the people of America's heartland.

Should you choose not to respond or engage in such a healthy discussion, I will take it to mean you will continue your obstructionist ways in the face of much needed Washington reform.

Sincerely,

Rick Perry
Governor of Texas

Oh Rick. Oh, you poor dumb bastard. After all of your astounding debate FAIL against the brain trust that is the Republican presidential field, after considering skipping future debates because you suck so much at them, you think challenging former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to a debate is going to save you?

Seriously, Rick? Seriously?

Aside from the fact that (a) Nancy Pelosi is not running for the Republican nomination for president, (b) you're not running for the 8th Congressional District in California, and (c) uh ... um ... EPA ... Do you really think that you can take on Nancy freakin' Pelosi when you can't even stand on a stage with Michele "Vaccines makes you retarded" Bachmann without looking like a drooling idiot?

And Rick? That closing paragraph—that if Nancy doesn't agree to meet you behind the gym after school waste her time debating you, it means she's a big ol' meanie obstructionist—is just painfully embarrassing. For you. Because—and this is probably news to you—Rep. Pelosi is actually a member of the party that is trying to work with the president to bring about that "much needed Washington reform" you mentioned. It's the Republican Party, your party, the party of No To Everything, that is obstructing said reform. And it's pretty hard to see how spending time debating a guy who can't even count to three is supposed to reform Washington.

So, no, Nancy Pelosi won't be meeting you for a debate on Monday:

"He did ask if I could debate here in Washington on Monday. It is my understanding that such a letter has come in," Pelosi said in the Capitol Thursday. "Monday I'm going to be in Portland in the morning, I'm going to be visiting some of our labs. I'm in California in the afternoon, that's two. I can't remember what the third is."

Sorry, Rick, guess you'll just have to settle for embarrassing yourself with your fellow Republicans.

9:46 AM PT: Hahahahahahahahahahaha, take two:

Perry's campaign fired back at the Dem leader, writing on their official twitter account Thursday: "@NancyPelosi Perhaps the third activity that you have forgotten is the ongoing insider trading?"

Oh, Rick. So funny. So funny, I forgot to laugh. Also, your mom.

Originally posted to Kaili Joy Gray on Thu Nov 17, 2011

Also republished by Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Rick Perry,Nancy Pelosi,Debates,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic

God Told Gingrich To Run…

    … and he had better run quickly.

Bloomberg News drops this campaign-ending bomb on Newt Gingrich tonight.

Newt Gingrich made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in consulting fees from two contracts with mortgage company Freddie Mac, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

The total amount is significantly larger than the $300,000 payment from Freddie Mac that Gingrich was asked about during a Republican presidential debate on Nov. 9 sponsored by CNBC, and more than was disclosed in the middle of congressional investigations into the housing industry collapse.

Gingrich’s business relationship with Freddie Mac spanned a period of eight years. When asked at the debate what he did to earn a $300,000 payment in 2006, the former speaker said he “offered them advice on precisely what they didn’t do,” and warned the company that its lending practices were “insane.” Former Freddie Mac executives who worked with Gingrich dispute that account.

Gingrich’s first contract with the mortgage lender was in 1999, five months after he resigned from Congress and as House speaker, according to a Freddie Mac press release.

Originally posted to Scarce on Tue Nov 15, 2011

Also republished by ClassWarfare Newsletter: WallStreet VS Working Class Global Occupy movement.