cognitorex

In two recent reported incidents, one where his , ahem, donor friend wanted a favorable communication industry ruling and one where he took money from the non US military air tanker competitor, McCain wrote letters to the committee Chairmen.
He doesn't say make the outcome in favor of his client. He uses a pretext such as this should be concluded soon or this needs a timely yes or no.
Has he then pedaled influence and promoted one side over the other which is ethically incorrect even by Republican committee standards? No. Not in writing, per se. Have the committee' Congressmen and staffers been put on notice that a Senator has a dog in the hunt.
Absotute-ly.

Oh, if you didn't catch this the other night. Pat Buchanan referenced McCain's flip flopping on tax cuts, ethics , religious leaders and using public funds in his Presidential race.
His comment was. "When you talk about the 'Straight Talk Express' you should have a sign on the side of the bus that says" "This bus makes U-turns."

Labels: corruption, influence, K Street, McCain, slick

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What Greenspan (and Paulson) euphemistically call 'mis pricing risk' by the nation's financiers is more aptly described as their collective purchasing of 90% to 100% leveraged commodity accounts.
At the end of the day, homes are a commodity. There are laws regulating the purchase and financing of commodities; there are strict margin requirements and lots of bold print that purchasing a commodity carries a high degree of risk, to wit, you may lose your shirt.
Having thought about this for a moment, the question becomes who in their right mind would set out to purchase someone else's commodity position which had little or no equity, just the position holders' promise to pay interest on the borrowed funds?
If you have access to buyers that accept the premise that housing always increases in value, then by all means, create or buy this type of account, warehouse them and resell them. It's a business plan. I package and sell, you package and sell, just be mighty careful when the music stops because at that point you own these crap assets that you intend to sell off to others. Merrill Lynch got caught and burned warehousing several billions.
Gold is a commodity which has the flavor of always going up but yet there are margin requirements. Housing, given that the number of buyers always increases and they ain't making any more land you know, seems a sure bet "over time." Near term however it's a commodity, subject to rises and falls in interest rates, recessions, speculative fevers and inflation.
The banks, etc are idiots for placing their firms' equity in jeopardy by creating and holding no equity housing accounts.
But. And this is a huge but as we head into an election year. Imagine if Mr. Bush had wooed America into placing social security assets into private accounts (because the stock market always goes up ye brethren.)
What would have occurred is that the housing speculation bubble would have lasted six to eighteen months longer as Wall St. packaged and sold retail strips of near worthless housing accounts to the nation's social security network.
Just, dad gum, think about that. These financial critters move capital back and forth on any pretense as long as they can wet their beaks as they package and sell these often unnecessary products ad infinitum. They're sorta kinda like having a somebody who up and mows your lawn four times a week. If ya don't put some controls on them you're surely headed for the poor house.

Labels: commodity accounts, Greenspan, krug awakes, margin, Paulson, private accounts, social security, sub prime

America's young men and women will now be marching South to the oil important Basra area.
The purpose of the next 200 deaths in this region will be to promote voter suppression against MqSadr's political party.
Maliki and the central gov't are being paid well to follow US policy for gaining control of the oil resources. Sadr represents the nationalist interest for Iraq and our boys and girls must now squash his party. So?, says Cheney.
Sadr has been taking Ayatollah lessons and is emulating Ghandi by calling for nation wide non violent demonstrations.
He is a wily fox from a legendary martyrdom family. Stay tuned. Will Bush/Cheney (McCain?) mow down his followers? Ugh!

Labels: amorality combined with hubris equals Bush country, attacks per day on troops, Basra, bush cheney, Iraq, McCain, mercenary, Sadr, voter suppression

Revote, no revote the Super D's will still be the deciders. The issue is moot.
First I'll say I agree with the general pooh-pooh sentiment regarding Greg Sargent's post on Talking Points Memo about a new plan being floated in Florida.. Why someone would call this a new plan when it is patently unworkable and useless is over my head.
The answer to the Fla and MI issue already exists. Super delegates will each have an opinion at the end of the day what the reasonable probable results of a full out Fla/MI revote would add to Hillary's and Barack's total. For discussion sake say a range of Hillary 4 to 10 delegate uptick and 100,000 to 350,000 vote uptick.
If the high end of these numbers turns out to be crucial to the final national tallies, the super delegates can base their decisions on that perception. Conversely if it's clear that Barack wins the pledged delegate count and the total vote count, the super delegates can base their choices on that perceived data.
The point is, that the candidate who becomes the Democratic nominee will in all cases be selected/elected to compete with McCain by the super delegates. They know today what the probable results of a Fla/Mi redo would be and can cast their votes with an easy conscience. Additional polling which would include the mathematically modeled results that Barack always, always closes any Hillary advantage when he campaigns in a state could be purchased to clarify probable results.
I think that there is a 95% chance that the super delegates have more than enough reliable information on Fla/MI outcomes to cast their support to either Barack or Hillary comfortably and intelligently.
Revote, no revote, the super d's are going to call the eventual outcome with almost exactly the same Fla/Mi data that is presently known to them.. Move on.

Labels: barack, Clinton, fla, florida, Hillary, MI, michigan, next president, Obama, pledged, revote, super delegates, unpledged delegates

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By RAY LILLEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER/3.13.08

View related video

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Most days, Moko the bottlenosed dolphin swims playfully with humans at a New Zealand beach. But this week, it seems, Moko found his mojo. Witnesses described Wednesday how they saw the dolphin swim up to two stranded whales and guide them to safety.

Then along came Moko, ...."Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales," .....

Isn't it so pleasantly gratifying to see a member of the club of species, with man and elephants, that has a three pound brain and is capable of altruism use this capability fearlessly?

Labels: AP story, Dolphin, New Zealand, Ray Lilley, rescue, three pound brain, Wellington, whales

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Without Rush Limbaugh supporters voting for Hillary, Obama would have won the Mississippi primary 64% to 34%. (Registered GOP voters were 12% of Democratic primary voters, going 3 to 1 for Mrs. Clinton.)

Someone should keep a scorecard of the delegates that Rush and his insurgent GOP spoilers ring up for Hillary. Rush exhorts his GOP minions to vote for Hillary in the Democratic primaries as best they can. Pennsylvania is open to only registered Democrats so Rush's advice for Pennsylvanian Republicans is that there are almost two weeks left to go, go, go change party affiliation and vote for Hillary, the gal they love to hate.

A good name for these tampering votes might be the 'Rush hearts' Hill delegates' or simply the 'Limbaugh delegates'. Ann Coulter has expressed her preference for Hillary also so work her into the mix if you choose. And don't leave out John McCain. These are McDelegates and McVotes for Clinton we're talking about here. He'd love to have Hillary and all her negatives as his opponent. I imagine that he goes positively gleeful thinking that he can have Mrs 'Commander in Chief' as his opponent especially particularly especially because she voted for the War in Iraq.

If you rework the Mississippi numbers by backing out the 12% GOP crossovers who hearted the 'monster' candidate 3 to 1, Obama wins by 64% not 61% potentially losing out on one or more McDelegates. Remember Hillary also received many, many Rush loves Hill votes in th Texas primary. In Mississippi, without the GOP cross-over-ites, Obama's percentage of white voters would rise to 39% from 35%, his usual Southern range, as Hillary scores well with her sympathetic senior white women majority.

For those voters who recognize that a goodly portion of Mrs. Clinton's career, her triangulated voting record and her openness to status quo big business campaign offerings do not at their heart represent the change that Obama portends, they might enjoy (or not as the case may be) the verisimilitude in having the GOP cross the aisle to help inveigle her to a primary victory.

Imagine the tense waning minutes at the Democratic convention as Barack and Mrs. Clinton are tied. The chairman loudly casts his question across the hall, "And how do the crossover delegates elected by the McCain/Limbaugh/Coulter faithful cast their deciding ballots?"

These Limbaugh delegates argue heatedly for a moment as to whether they should call out, "We vote for the monster." or not, and then, summoning decorum to the best of their abilities, they cast the the deciding ballots.

As Mrs Clinton wins, Rush and Ann Coulter embrace deeply. Karl Rove hugs Tom DeLay and gives him a peck on the cheek. The GOP anointed go wild. Matt Drudge and Sean Hannity call out, "Who said politics can't be fun? Onward to November"

Labels: Barack Obama, delegates, McDelegates, McVoters, McVotes, monster, pennsylvania, Rush Limbaugh, white vote

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Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—

Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;

To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

_______________________________________________

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Ninevah and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet.
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Labels: bomb Iran, Iraq strategy, Kipling, McCain, temper temper, vainglory

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Rush Limpbaugh has been known to order up a pill or two for that feel good life of the ultra conservative.

The word is that he has recently prescribed to John McCain a cocktail of Bourbon and Viagra to be taken when John has one of his periodic fits of integrity.

"The booze'll numb your pangs of conscience towards your fellow citizens," says Rush, " and the Viagra will stiffen your conservative resolve while also reminding you of the party in which you now profess to reside."

Labels: drug use, Limpbaugh, McCain, Rush Limbaugh, Viagra

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McCain has come out for private accounts.
(Wall St. Journal Bob Davis 3/3/08)
This mechanism will allow the financial types to take a fee out of each person's social security transactions. They will invent new and better accounts and trade the public's assets ad infinitum in a manner quite similar to getting their hands on the mortgage industry.
After they take their cut and their fees out of all social security transactions it will also inevitably occur that they will have hyped certain assets or account types and thus a large percentage of Americans will lose significant chunks of their retirement monies. They will certainly lose money with the steady drip of financial fees but security will also be a victim as asset values will be hyped and then suffer reversals.
This outcome is written in stone. The presumed selling point value of private accounts is premised on the stock market always increasing in value. At it's base, this assumption has the same premise as the defunct premise that housing values would never suffer reversals. The so created private accounts will hugely decrease at various times as will the total (national) asset value under management and the security feature now embodied in social security.
If McCain has a shred of integrity he will not trade aging and elderly American's retirement monies and security to attract the Wall Street votes and financial backing.
He stands for nothing if he perseveres in calling for privatized social security accounts.
cognitorex

Labels: integrity, MCain, private accouts, privatization, sell out, social security, straight talk express