Arkansas Blog

McClatchy picked up the Edwards story (at my name, clicky)

Happy Eclipse Day tomorrow morning, 5:21 AM, CDT. It will not be visible in America. The eclipse path (shadow) crosses China.

The House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1338) this afternoon. Now off to the Senate for some serious slicing and dicing.

Voting results not reported on Library of Congress' website yet.

Presidents Cheney and Bush are still up to seriously questionable manipulations of out Intel community.

New Executive Order here:

Executive Order: Further Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/07/20080731-2.html

Pretty good quick analysis of it here:

http://bestofbothworlds.blogspot.com/2008/07/fourth-branch-of-government.html

As Attackerman points out:
http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2008/07/31/inteloverhaul/

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the last time covert operations were run out of the NSC, the result was Iran-Contra. After that, the intelligence community -- and Congress -- swore Never Again would the NSC be, as it's known, "operationalized." I've sent emails to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to see if there's anything further to be released here.
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Bush will veto the so called 'paycheck fairness act' if it ever gets to his desk. 'Comparable worth' is hadly a new idea. It has been around since the 70s. Fair pay for equal work is already law. demos are just playing games. Equating the pay of a coal miner with a secretary is nonsense. The market dictates the pay of vaious jobs. Having big daddy government decide is beyond common sense.

Pure and Simple.

Jimmy Carta' was the last President to try to talk truth to power (the electorate.)

Reagan created the "Spin the Crap" and was hailed by those in denial as a great President.

Are we ready for the truth?

Not yet? Maybe?

Jimmy Carter was all about truth? Really!!!!!! All I remember is an electorate (demos included) who couldn't wait for him to leave. They were tired of the double digit inflation and double digit mortgage rates. His being impotent when dealing with enemies who held our fellow countrymen as hostages probably didn't help.

Thank you. My point exactly.

Which of those issues has been solved? Which is still around?

Thank you. My point exactly.

Which of those issues has been solved? Which is still around?

The country that I live in doesn't have double digit inflaction and double digit morgages. The country that I live in doesn't have any hostages in the hands of the Iranians.

By what standard do we evaluate a president? Do we expect her/him to be "right" 100% of the time? He was powerless and didn't know what to do about it; true. Had he been able to convince us about reliance on oil, etc. we would NOT be in this mess today; FACT. "Good Bad" "Conservative Liberal" "Trogdolyte Progressive" WTF does that have to do with being "right" or fixing problems? Since all of our societal/political decisions are made via a binary decision menu, it's now 2 steps forward, THREE steps back.

The country I live in has an ineffective Legislative branch which allowed, and even enabled, an uber-ideological cabal Executive branch to run amok and screw up everything they touched by politicizing the professional bureaucratic system and so on...and Scooby Dooby Dooby! The "saviors" (Dem's) all suck from the same teat; there will be different priorities and the corporations will still write all the legislation!
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Fletch,
I'm a Carter fan. If you can withstand a great deal of profanity (done in humor) this piece from the Onion about what Jimmy Carter COULD say may give you a wry smile. Of course, he would never actually say this. Link at my name.

The country you live in HOLDS millions hostage (for hundreds of wasted billions a year).. and is about to go through a housing crisis (already entering it now) which very likely dwarfs what you witnessed in the 70's.

What Carter was trying to do when we went through that economic difficulty was make sure we didn't end up where we are heading now. just because R, B, C, and B jr.. put off the inevitable doesn't make Carter wrong.

Carter, an honest man with vision, peace and prescient energy independence on his mind.. and a very healthy respect for the rule of international and US law.. yeah he made some honest mistakes.

Or Criminal fascist Bush crime syndicate in GOP today ... lied us into needless war and into being a country of torturers.. ran our debt up higher than all other presidents combined.. and oil through the roof. Bush never conducted his presidency honestly, not for one moment.. he intended to take America to the dark side and he did.. that's Bush's only honest success.

My point is only about reality or telling people what they want to hear. Jimmy wasn't perfect by a long stretch but he tried to play the game. Reagan was the first guy in the modern era to sell out to telling people what they wanted to hear. He created Rush Limbaugh, or, at least, Rush's audience. Strange and others here are just the latest batch of throwbacks, happy in their denial that SUVs and 4000 square foot houses will turn into Hummers and 6000 square foot houses, while we can rape the land without consequence and turn the arabs in Jefferson and Lincoln while they sell their oil to Shell and Exxon if only sicko liberal will curl up and die.

That's all.

Strange,

Keep a good thought. Stagflation is on the way. You can't get a mortgage soon, and the whole country is now held hostage for another 50 years if we choose to stay.

Will we ever have an ear for the truth again? That is my only question. Liberal and Conservative.

The whole financial system has fallen apart due to a great extent because of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. In 1995 Clinton pushed the loosening of credit requirements so that more low income people could get loans. It also allowed loans to be securitized including subprime loans. Does any of this sound familiar. You are paying for loans being made to people that couldn't afford them and were high credit risks. Several years ago no financial institution would have dared to make loans to people without even obtaining documentation of their income. There is a lot more to this story than you have been told.

Yeah, those silly banking people never worried about whether the loans could be repaid. Once congress told them to sink the country they patriotically went right along with no thought to the gigantic profits that they were going to make while sticking the taxpayer with the loss.

Those damned liberals. If only they understood business practices.

strange may have some points.. but what I've read lately, economist wonks seem to point towards Clinton Gramm Rubin and others repeal of Glass Steagall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act

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Repeal of the Act

On November 12, 1999, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. One of the effects of the repeal was to allow commercial and investment banks to consolidate. Some economists have criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis.[6][7]
Losses at financial firms from the mortgage collapse may eventually triple to $600 billion as defaults on home loans grow, says Zurich-based UBS AG. One reason banks are losing money is the repeal nine years ago of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking after excessive risk- taking contributed to the Great Depression, Eveillard said.
The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities.
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Nothing political tonight, folks.

In fact, I feel the hermit right now. It's so darn hot, you can feel it permeating everything. Our dog Jeffro goes over to the door from time to time, making as if to go out -- but by the time one of us gets there, he'll sigh heavily and retreat to somewhere cooler. I suppose if I were a 12 year old Great Dane I'd be feelin' about the same.

Actually, I suppose I do feel the same. This time of year I'd rather be typing along during the day and do my errands after dark. Thank goodness for 24 hour Kroger stores.

Thank you. My point exactly.

Another sign of the continued sliminess of John Edwards.

What a tool he is becoming!

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/edwards-scholar-program-ends/

Dang, Drew, you got me all worked up to see some *wolf whistle* sliminess and all I got was financial decisions. You call that sliminess? I want Spitzer stuff with accompanying photos, please.

What an insight regarding the Decatur situation....thanks for pointing it out Max - I would have completely missed it.

That scenario likely plays out in more small Towns/Cities here in Arkansas than we probably realize. The 'old guard' in the smaller communities help to ensure that outside influences are kept to a minimum with little to no room for dissenting opinions to be observed in public.

"Another sign of the continued sliminess of John Edwards."

Why is this 'slimy,' Drew? Because you disagree with it?

"...You are paying for loans being made to people that couldn't afford them and were high credit risks. Several years ago no financial institution would have dared to make loans to people without even obtaining documentation of their income."--strange

No doubt that's part of the equation...and, no doubt those people are or will be paying a high price for their poor decisions. I can only hope that the financial goobers behind this crap...the ones who made billions...will have the same accountability-hammer brought down on them. But they won't. Heck, give the thieves a few years and they might be running for president...like McSame; or have a brother who is president, like Neal Bush. This is just a rewrite of the Savings/Loan crap...therefore the 'little' people will suffer the most, us taxpayers will foot the bill and the Republican thugs at the top will go on to bigger better thievery careers.