An Experiment in Deregulation: why you should worry about John McCain

Take the link below to read the entire story, I have put part of it here, but you should read the whole thing to really grasp the importance of the information. Electing John McCain could have disastrous effects.
The Subprime Mess and Phil Gramm: An Experiment in Deregulation

In 1933, a few years following the stock market crash, Congress passes the Glass-Steagall Act, in hopes that regulating banks will help prevent market instability, particularly amongst Wall Street banks. The purpose of the act is to separate commercial banks that focus on consumers from investment banks, which deal with speculative trading and mergers.

The Glass-Steagall Act provided the proper oversight and entity separation that would prohibit banks and other financial companies from merging into giant trusts (conflict of interests) -- giant trusts or corporations being more powerful, naturally, and having the seemingly limitless capital to lobby their corporate interests, however, with a very myopic scope (particularly when it comes to factoring in potential losses -- most banks, as seen in contemporary times, chose not to anticipate losses in the mortgage market; they presumed home prices would continue to appreciate).

In 1999, former Senator Phil Gramm (who is, incidentally, Senator John McCain's economic adviser and cochairs his presidential campaign) set out to completely gut the Glass-Steagall Act, and did so successfully, replacing most of its components with the new Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: allowing commercial banks, investment banks, and insurers to merge (which would have violated antitrust laws under Glass-Steagall). Sen. Gramm was the driving force behind the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, as he had received over $4.6 million from the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate donations) over the previous decade, and once the Act passed, an influx of "megamergers" took place among banks and insurance and securities companies, as if they had been eagerly awaiting the passage of Gramm's Act. Everything in between Glass-Steagall and Gramm-Leach-Bliley (i.e. Savings and Loan crisis/bust) was, in large part, the incubation period for what would take place over the nine years that would follow the passage of Gramm's Act: an experiment in deregulation.

Now, Gramm has a second chance of extending his out-of-touch and ill-performing policies, as Senator John McCain appointed Gramm to be his "economic expert" and cochair of his presidential campaign, last year. Also, it is likely that if Senator McCain were to win in November, Gramm would be our next Treasury Secretary, which means more of the same deregulatory mess and the continuation of failed and insidious economic policies.

Palin is Ready? Please!!!

From Newsweek:

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.
Domestically, the bailout and reform of the financial industry will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. Health-care costs, unless curtailed, will bankrupt the federal government. Social Security, immigration, collapsing infrastructure and education are all going to get much worse if they are not handled soon.
Click Here
And the American government is stretched to the limit. Between the Bush tax cuts, homeland-security needs, Iraq, Afghanistan and the bailout, the budget is looking bleak. Plus, within a few years, the retirement of the baby boomers begins with its massive and rising costs (in the trillions).
Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.

Palin’s Words Raise Red Flags
By BOB HERBERT

The country is understandably focused on the financial crisis. But there is another serious issue in front of us that is not getting nearly enough attention, and that’s whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be vice president — or, if the situation were to arise, president of the United States.
History has shown again and again that a vice president must be ready to assume command of the ship of state on a moment’s notice. But Ms. Palin has given no indication yet that she is capable of handling the monumental responsibilities of the presidency if she were called upon to do so. In fact, the opposite is the case.

Palin "Clueless"

Breaking News from Big Eddie:

McCain Camp insiders say Palin "clueless"
Capitol Hill sources are telling me that senior McCain people are more than concerned about Palin.
The campaign has held a mock debate and a mock press conference; both are being described as "disastrous." One senior McCain aide was quoted as saying, "What are we going to do?" The McCain people want to move this first debate to some later, undetermined date, possibly never. People on the inside are saying the Alaska Governor is "clueless."

GOP concerned about Palin

A growing number of Republicans are expressing concern about Sarah Palin’s uneven — and sometimes downright awkward — performances in her limited media appearances.
Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, a former Palin supporter, says the vice presidential nominee should step aside. Kathryn Jean Lopez, writing for the conservative National Review, says “that’s not a crazy suggestion” and that “something’s gotta change.”
Tony Fabrizio, a GOP strategist, says Palin’s recent CBS appearance isn’t disqualifying but is certainly alarming. “You can’t continue to have interviews like that and not take on water.”

WAMU's CEO made out like a bandit when Washington Mutual went bust.
Nice work — if you can get fired from it.

That's just what one Alan H. Fishman might have thought when he woke up Friday morning.
Fishman was the new chief executive officer for Washingon Mutual — WaMu — the nation's largest savings and loan, which was taken over Thursday night by federal bank regulators and quickly dumped in a fire sale to JPMorgan Chase for the Wal-Mart-like price of $1.9 billion.
But don't cry for Fishman, who reportedly was sky-high — literally — last night, on a flight from New York to Seattle, when WaMu collapsed. Even though he's only been on the job for less than three weeks, he's bailing out with parachute worth close to $20 million, according to an executive compensation analysis conducted for the New York Times by James F. Reda Associates.

And remember, folks, THIS is the man who pushed for deregulation in the S&L crisis...the same one who now promises to clean up Wallstreet? Like, incredulous!
Keating 5 ring a bell?
McCain's past collides with the present Wall Street debacle.
Rosa Brooks
September 25, 2008

Once upon a time, a politician took campaign contributions and favors from a friendly constituent who happened to run a savings and loan association. The contributions were generous: They came to about $200,000 in today's dollars, and on top of that there were several free vacations for the politician and his family, along with private jet trips and other perks. The politician voted repeatedly against congressional efforts to tighten regulation of S&Ls, and in 1987, when he learned that his constituent's S&L was the target of a federal investigation, he met with regulators in an effort to get them to back off.
That politician was John McCain, and his generous friend was Charles Keating, head of Lincoln Savings & Loan.

Here's a Man who KNOWS what we should do to survive!

Bill Clinton on the Letterman show on September 22, 2008

The Wall Street Robbery Was Planned

Planned for months and NOW they want the Congress to pass it in a heartbeat---I don't think so!!!
Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

Wall Street: I have a plan

We are going about this all wrong, and here's what we should do:

1. Refinance the defaulted mortgage loans at a reasonable fixed-rate.
2. Give the $700 Billion to the taxpayers. It would amount to somewhere around $10,000 per family. The taxpayers will be able to get caught up on most of the loans or get caught up on their finances in general. Ergo, the money goes into circulation and people keep their homes to boot.
3. Regulate Wall Street like a super-max to keep the crooks honest.

I mean, really, if we are going to have to borrow and spend $700 billion due to failed mortgages, why not give the money to people who will spend it and put it in circulation. That little $600 stimulus check was merely a drop in the bucket, let's give people some REAL MONEY!

Hell, $700 billion is $700 billion any way you borrow and spend it, let's let the people who will have to pay the tab do the spending. At least that way, we know where the damned money goes. It's a whole lot better than bailing out the fat cat Wallstreet tycoons.
And believe me, we the people WILL put it in circulation!!!

Kommissar Paulson wants absolute power

Let's take an objective look at this: Kommissar Paulson, who was supposed to be in charge of the Treasury, who evidently did NOT see this train wreck coming---this same man wants us to give him $700 billion OR MORE to play with, with NO accountability, NO review, and NO limits on what he can spend or how he spends it. Does this sound like good fiscal policy to you?

Section 8 of the proposed legislation says it all:
"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Senator Bernie Sanders has a good idea. Make the rich pay for their mistakes.
And do remember this: Bernanke said just 2 months ago that the sub-prime bailout could cost $1 billion. (That's correct, he said ONE billion dollars, NOT one trillion dollars.)
And he's supposed to be savvy to our money?

And here's the culpability of our president, from a 2003 speech:

President Bush Signs American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003
(excerpt)
Last year I set a goal to add 5.5 million new minority homeowners in America by the end of the decade. That is an attainable goal; that is an essential goal. And we're making progress toward that goal. In the past 18 months, more than 1 million minority families have become homeowners. (Applause.) And there's more that we can do to achieve the goal. The law I sign today will help us build on this progress in a very practical way.

Many people are able to afford a monthly mortgage payment, but are unable to make the down payment. So this legislation will authorize $200 million per year in down payment assistance to at least 40,000 low-income families. These funds will help American families achieve their goals, and at the same time, strengthen our communities.

And there's more to do, as well. We'll continue to pursue a broad agenda to help people own a home. There are three steps I want to describe to you right quickly about what we intend to do. First, those who apply for mortgages should be made aware of all the costs http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gifand warned about predatory lenders who take advantage of inexperienced buyers. So we've doubled the funds for housing counseling services, including those run by faith-based and community groups.

We understand that buying a home for the first time is complicated, and we want to simplify the process. We want to help people understand the pros and cons of buying a home. We want people to be fully aware of what it means to buy a home and what it takes. And we want people as best protected as possible from those shysters who would take advantage of first-time buyers. (Applause.)

Second, we need to make the home-buying process more affordable. Some of the biggest up-front costs in a home purchase are the closing costs. Sometimes they catch you by surprise. (Laughter.) Many home buyers do not have the time to shop around looking for a better deal on closing costs. You're kind of stuck with what you're presented with. And so they end up paying more than they should. So we've proposed new rules to make it easier for buyers to shop around and to compare prices on closing costs, so they can get the best deal and the best service possible.

And thirdly, we want to make buying a home simpler. Many first-time buyers look at the paperwork from a loan application, and frankly, get a little nervous about all the fine print. Those forms can be intimidating to the first-time home buyer. They can be intimidating to the second or third-time home buyer, too. (Laughter and applause.) So this administration has proposed new rules to simplify the forms home buyers and homeowners fill out when they apply for a loan or close on a mortgage.

And here's who profited, at least one of them....
Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million

David D. Kirkpatrick and Charles Duhigg, The New York Times: "Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say."

Best Idea Yet for Wall Street Bailout

Here is a blogger with the best idea I've read for the Wall Street Bailout: Tax the rich to pay off the bailout cost. I mean, after all, THEY are the ones who profited from this fiasco, let them now pay for it.

"The most important condition to put on any bailout proposal is to impose a tax surcharge on the incomes of the wealthiest Americans to pay the bailout's cost.
Moreover, we should leave that tax surcharge in place for as long as it takes to recoup the total bailout costs, which are still undetermined. If, for example, Paulson gets another $700 billion, to add to the $800 billion increase in the debt limit Congress gave him last July, we're up to $1.5 trillion that needs to be recovered.
Tying the surtax to full bailout repayment will provide a strong incentive for those who don't like taxes to insist on bailout approaches that actually work and minimize taxpayer exposure. They'll insist on effective oversight and accountability for any bailout approaches and actions, as opposed to the Bush/Paulson approach of giving Paulson a blank check to spend at least $700 billion with no accountability whatsoever."

And BE SURE to read my post that explains just how we got into this mess in the first place. It was a crime, basically.

McCain: Too old?

ABC roundtable discussion about McCain
Someone finally said it. It's what I've been saying all along. He is too old. Period. It's the elephant in the room that no one has talked about up til now. It must be bad when people actually start discussing it.

What a week!

The financial markets---how do I begin?
Well, suffice it to say, my worries first began several years ago when I moved my 401K out of mutual funds into money markets. NO, I haven't made much over the past few years, but at least I haven't lost anything.....
My worries escalated a couple of years ago, when my daughter bought her first house. Now, understand, my daughter did not even have a credit card at that time. She always paid in cash. Poor, but debt-free, would describe her, with an income of around $25K/year. So she finds a house she likes, and applies for a loan. Nada, zilch, they won't give her a loan. You see, she had NO credit rating, never having bought on credit.
And THEN, here is what the loan company did to give her the loan: they allowed her to get a statement from her UTILITY companies, that she had always paid her bills on time, and they used THAT for her credit score! How inventive!
Top that off, they told her that she could borrow up to $190,000! For 100% of the value of the home!!!
God, what a miracle!
Hell, I saw so many red flags I nearly choked. I told her to be damned sure she got a FIXED-RATE loan, and she was wise enough to listen to my counsel. (Now fortunately, my daughter was bright enough to know that she did not want to borrow that $190K and instead chose a cheaper house, and to her credit, she always paid her mortgage payments on time and even paid extra on some months.)
But in the larger picture of things, I did some reading and decided that no way was this kind of lending practice safe for the lenders. I remember a time when you had to put 20% down on your home to get a loan, then that dropped to 10% and finally in about 1975 my husband and I got one of the first 5% down loans, which at the time you could only get if you had a really SUPER credit rating.
But I digress....

It's shoddy lending practices like these that put us in the fix we are in now. One VERY SIMPLE thing could have prevented this entire fiasco: make the lender who sells the loan, HOLD that loan and worry about getting his money every month. That ONE THING would have stopped this foolishness. But NO, our free-wheeling, "home-in-every-family" president GUTTED our safe lending practices with de-regulation, and VOILA!

Loan peddlers were selling loans to anyone who could sign his name. Literally. People got loans withOUT any proof of income, without any proof of credit rating, without basically anything except the ability to say YES and sign their names. The loan sellers turned around and SOLD those mortgages for A-1 Rated Securities, and they sold them all over the world. It was like a dog pissing on every lamppost he could saddle up to.

At any rate, logically knowing this was going to go down the tubes big time, somewhere down the line, I kept my 401K money in money markets, and then this week, the OTHER SHOE dropped:

One of the biggest and oldest money market funds announced that they would give LESS than $1 per share for the fund. Well, that put me in a total sweat. I went to my 401K's website, with the intent to switch mine over to US Treasuries, and guess what? That Option no longer existed!!! Now sweat is pouring off me like a prostitute in church!
However, reading the announcements from my 401K provider, I found that they publicly declared that their money markets were in NO danger of being devalued. (Let's hope they are honest!)
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So now, Treasure Secretary 'Kommissar Paulson' (catchy name, don't you think?), the Kommissar has decided that the US taxpayer has to pony up the money to help every soon-to-be-failing bank in the entire country. Thank you, O Great One! Just what I wanted to do, absorb another $1 Trillion or so in US debt! I believe that puts us up to something like $10 Trillion in debt now, isn't that impressive? We've just gone from the capitalist society to the socialist society in one fell swoop, and guess who we thank? We thank the republican party! How wonderful!
And what, you say, brought this on?

Well, DE-regulation....aka letting the people with money spend it any way they want. And the prime problem with this deregulation involved the Sub-prime Mortgage crisis.
Because, you see, when MONEY is involved, people will do ANYTHING to make MONEY. Politics and religion don't mean crap to them, and I don't mean that disrespectfully, but people have NO MORALS when it comes to money, abso-f*cking-posi-lutely NONE. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT!! We NEED regulation, and we needed it about 20 years ago.
Eliot Spitzer nailed Bush on predatory lending practices, and he took a big fall for doing it. But nobody listened to him.
The president of these United States PREVENTED the states from STOPPING predatory lending. You heard me, he not only allowed predatory lending, he made it IMPOSSIBLE to stop predatory lending.


AND NOW, "MY FRIENDS", HERE IS THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY, AND I WANT YOU TO READ CAREFULLY AND STUDY THIS, BECAUSE IT'S THE BIGWANA...THIS IS WHAT SHOULD BE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF EVERY NEWS ORGANIZATION OUT THERE RIGHT NOW!!

FIRST, read this article:
And here's Spitzer's original article on Bush's treasonous act in the sub-prime mess, just prior to getting outed on the call girl episode that brought Spitzer down.


NOW, read this page to see how the Bush admin **caused** the sub-prime mess that Eliot Spitzer was getting ready to expose. Bush **stopped** the US States from preventing predatory lending.

Now, bear in mind that the OCC claims it's innocent in all of this, and one of the big talking points is that the states have control over state banks, but NOT over national banks. However, several in the State of New York accused the OCC of being complicit in the lack of national bank oversight regarding predatory lending.

Because the OCC was charged with organizing and administering a uniform system of banking, the OCC employed "Federal preemption," arguing that any other approach simply led to chaos. In short, the states could not oversee or regulate national banks, regardless their suspicions of predatory or dangerous lending practices.

A similar situation occurred in the now infamous "Keating 5" Scandal, one of whom involved was.....(get ready).....(drum-roll.........)........
Yep, your "friend" and (not) mine--->>> Mr. John McCain.(ta-DUM!!)

Go to this page to read the following:
A somewhat similar preemption occurred during the Keating Lincoln Savings and Loan Association scandal of the 1980/s. This preemption involved the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. San Francisco examiners suspected that Lincoln was engaged in high risk investments. Keating asked that the examiners be removed in favor of Seattle based examiners. At first the FHLB objected the removal of the San Francisco examiners. Then, oddly enough, by a vote of 2 to 1, it removed them, recommending that "oversight of Lincoln be handed either to the bank board's Washington, D.C., office or to examiners from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle."
Keating, apparently, had squealed long and loudly about the San Francisco examiners. His voice was heard.
A year later, that scandal finally broke with the bank board taking "over Lincoln, with $5.5 billion in assets, saying it posed a threat to the banking system. Losses at the institution, which has vast holdings of undeveloped land in Arizona, are expected to exceed $2 billion. "
The FHLB's handling of the Lincoln case was cause for much Congressional scrutiny. Guess who worked for the FHLB during this time. Yup, Julie L. Williams, soon to be Chief Counsel at the OCC.

To update you on Julie Williams: Julie Williams has been the acting comptroller of the currency since October 2004. [The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the federal agency that charters, regulates, and supervises all national and foreign banks in the U.S. (National banks such as Chase, Citibank, and MBNA issue most of the credit cards in the U.S.).] Yes, this SAME Julie Williams who was involved in the Keating scandal, it looks suspiciously like she's probably involved this one too. Gee, who woulda thunk it?

And who funds the OCC, you might ask. Well, guess what? The BANKS fund the OCC budget!!!
Banks are subject to annual fee assessments by the OCC, which since 1914 have been asset-based. They also pay fees to cover the cost of processing corporate applications. Those two sources together account for nearly 97 percent of the OCC's $413 million annual budget.

Yeah...that's right...these same banks who participated in predatory lending, these banks who fund the OCC who made an "exception" to the normal rules...these banks PAY for the OCC who MAKES THE RULES. Doesn't that just make you all warm and snuggly?WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE GET OUT MY HIP BOOTS, THIS SH*T IS REALLY, AND I MEAN *REALLY* DEEP!!!!!

What we have here is a blatant transfer of wealth: the government prevented oversight of the banks, which resulted in shoddy lending that caused bank defaults, which now is being bought with taxpayer money, except we don't have that money so it's borrowed money, and which will result in devastation of the middle class due to debt for the foreseeable future. Your dollars are almost worth as much as pesos at this point. Welcome to the New World Order.

ADDENDUM: Now WE get to bail out foreign banks too. Isn't that just too chummy....
In a change from the original proposal sent to Capitol Hill, foreign-
based banks with big U.S. operations could qualify for the Treasury
Department’s mortgage bailout, according to the fine print of an
administration statement Saturday night.

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And that is why I will never vote republican again, and I do not care WHO is running for office from that ticket. Because frankly, the president is merely a figurehead and it's the party that runs the office. But at this point, it probably makes no difference how I vote, we are totally screwed.

YIKES! IT'S IKE!!

Well, the tree-trimmer is gonna be smilin' when he stops by our house....we had some really impressive wind this morning about mid-morning. Here are some pix to demonstrate what I'm talking about.
(click a pic to see a really big version)
This first one is from my own back yard, two trees next to each other, each one lost a big branch.

Next, the house to the right of my house, lost an entire tree in his front yard, and took out the power line of the house next to it.

Here's the house on the left side of my house, she lost a smaller one in the front yard.

Here's the house across the street from my house, another one bites the dust.

And these were NOT small branches for the most part, pretty hefty ones in fact. I cannot ever remember our neighborhood losing this many branches from one storm.

So, like, if it was this bad here, just think of how bad it was in Texas!

Palin: We definitely need more information on this candidate!

I'm not very convinced that Ms. Palin is the candidate I want with her finger on the button if John McSame does a deep-six. Oh sure, she does a good speech, however when you get down to REAL ISSUES, she's coming up pretty short:
*From an economic standpoint, she left her little town steeped in debt.
*She still thinks that you can, in the words of Nancy Reagan, "just say no" and girls won't get pregnant. (And of course they've coddled Levi "I don't want no babies" Johnston into marrying her daughter, so that makes it all warm and snugly, doesn't it? I mean, as long as you are "saved", you can sin all you want and everything's still hunky-dory...is that right?)
*She's short on transparency in the troopergate scandal. (but has managed to fanagle her way out of that one, probably thanks to some serious party pressure)
*(Most importantly) Her handlers evidently KNOW that she's not up to snuff for an interview, because they have not allowed her to do any. (Could they be worried that she lacks the experience to give the correct "party line" answers, or are they trembling over what tom-cats she might let out of the bag?)
From this page:

During her term in office, Palin cut property taxes and other small taxes on business. But as the Anchorage Daily News points out, “She wasn’t doing this by shrinking government.” During her tenure, the budget of Wasilla (population 5,469 in 2000) “apart from capital projects and debt, rose from $3.9 million in fiscal 1996 to $5.8 million.”
Palin also successfully pushed through a sales tax increase in Wasilla, which went to fund a $15 million sports complex. However, a land dispute over the sight of the complex led to “years of legal wrangling” and cost Wasilla almost $1.7 million, “a lot more than the roughly $125,000 the city would have paid in 1998 if it had closed a deal to buy the property outright.” Wasilla is still facing budget shortfalls from the case today.
When Palin left office in 2002, Wasilla had “racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt,” or roughly $3,000 of debt per resident.

And from this page:

The religious mission is still front and centre of her politics. She opposes abortion in all cases other than those in which the mother would die if she were to give birth. She is a vocal opponent of gay marriage, and advocate of the teaching of anti-evolutionary creationism, or "intelligent design", in schools.
Her religious beliefs extend to a conviction that the Iraq war is God's will. When she returned to Wasilla in June to pray with her old congregation, she said of the troops being posted to Iraq, including her own son, Track: "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task from God. We have to pray there is a plan and that it's God's plan."
Most poignantly, she will not countenance sex education for teenagers, preferring instead to preach that abstinence is the only complete protection against pregnancy or venereal disease. It would be a cheap shot to suggest that this week's bombshell revelation that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is herself pregnant was Palin's comeuppance.
But it would not be unfair to point out that Alaska has the highest per capita incidence of chlamydia in the country, and that the rate of teenage pregnancies across the US, including within her state, has just risen for the first time in 14 years - a trend many blame on George Bush's preferment of abstinence-only education. "It's frustrating we aren't doing more to inform our children," said Brittany Goodnight of the Alaska branch of Planned Parenthood.

And from this page:

The largest paper in the state, the Anchorage Daily News, today opens an editorial, "Gov. Sarah Palin is taking the wrong approach to Troopergate. She should be practicing the open and transparent, ethical and accountable government she promised when running for governor and boasts about now that she's on the national stage.
"Instead, Gov. Palin has begun stonewalling the Legislature's attempt to get the bottom of allegations that she, her family or staff violated ethical or state personnel rules. As a result, the Troopergate allegations hang over Palin's future and cloud her candidacy for vice president."

And from this page:

Yesterday, McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace dismissed the fact that Gov. Sarah Palin has yet to take any questions from the press. “So what?” she scoffed. Today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, campaign strategist Rick Davis suggested Palin might never sit down for an interview if, he said, it’s “in our best interest” to keep her away from the media:
SCARBOROUGH: Yesterday Nicolle Wallace suggested that she was sitting right there and told Jay Carney of Time magazine ‘Sarah Palin doesn’t have to talk to you, she doesn’t’ have to talk to the press.’ … Can we expect Sarah Palin on Meet the Press and other one on one interviews throughout the course of this campaign?
DAVIS: We’re going to do whatever we think is the best to win. We have 60 days left and if we think it’s a good idea to go out there and do those shows, we’ll do them.
SCARBOROUGH: Can you avoid it? Meet the Press?
DAVIS: We can afford anything we want to do. … We’re going to do what we think is in our best interest. If that means access to the press, we’ll give it to you.

Wrought Iron Railing

I have wrought iron railing at the top of my stairs and also down the side in the den. It's old and dated, and certainly needs painting. However, I'm trying to decide whether it could be modified to remove the scrollwork without too much trouble.
Here is the pic, and any suggestions would be welcomed. I would like to keep the railing, I just don't know what to do with it exactly other than painting it.
You can click the picture to get a really big closeup of the railing.

Pentecostal Palin's Predilection to Problems

I couldn't have said it better myself:

"Ms. Palin has an honesty problem. She seems to have found a Pentecostal church that believes there are only nine commandments, the one about not bearing false witness having been eliminated. She flat lied in her first speech as prospective nominee [when she said she told Congress to stuff it on the bridge to nowhere. She didn't and is on record as supporting the earmark strongly], and she has had to back-track about dishonest statements involving her role in trying to get the Alaska state police commissioner to fire a trooper at odds with her family [that too is all on the record]."

Sara Palin: Not much respect for her baby's life

Here's a plan to describe Governor Palin's crazy events leading up to the birth of baby Trig. Click the graphic to see the big version. What she actually did is reading straight down, by the way. The side events are what a logical god-fearing baby-crazed expecting parent would do. So I ask myself, is this the person I want running my country, based on her judgment? So is it? Not in the wildest stretch of my imagination!!!

OH, and by the way: no obstetrician on the face of the earth would have recommended flying in this particular situation, and if she really cared about the baby, wouldn't she have gone to the hospital instead? Is this what they mean by "right to life"? I didn't think so either.

PORTABLE LAPTOP DESK FOR $38 SHIPPED

Meritline has this laptop desk for $38 shipped, if you use the coupon code "AC20835116OFF". My husband actually has this same laptop desk and he loves it. The top DOES tilt to the angle you need, and there are bars on the edge to keep the laptop from sliding off the table, plus the larger table and smaller table adjust height. I've seen this one at $50 and up to $75 for the exact same product. I actually don't think you can beat this price.

Palin comparison picture: 7 months versus 7 months

This composite pic on the left side shows the governor during a previous pregnancy at 7 months, and on the right it shows her during the famous 5th child pregnancy at 7 months. Gee, is it my imagination or is she smaller the last time?