The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

By Greg Palast
Reporting for Air America Radio’s Clout

March 14th, 2008

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.

Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’

Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 monthly payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. The Grinnings move into their Toyota.

Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s Keep reading →

Ever wondered what life would be like if the Bushtastic Conservatards got everything they ever wanted? Well you don’t really have to stretch your imagination on this one. All you have to do is look at New Orleans for a prelude or Iraq for the complete picture.

Viva La Conservatardism!

5 years after Iraq’s ‘liberation,’ there are worms in the water

Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: March 16, 2008 06:37:35 PM

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Brave New Films tracks how Fox noise starts the distorted talking points about Barack Obama and then the rest of the main stream media picks up on the Fox talking points.

When you have are bunch of spineless sycophants whoring in American media today, I guess its no surprise when all the other monkeys starts imitating the craziest members of tribe.

This one is even better than the previously one. Fox has one Representative Steve King of Iowa saying that if Barack Obama wins, radical Islamics would be dancing in the streets.

My guess that January 21st, 2009 unless a Rethuglican is occupying the White House, the entire world will be dancing in the streets.

I’ll write more later, but this is a really great article from RollingStone.com about what bullshit the Bushtard “Surge” in Iraq has been. If you were to take the president and his cronies at their word, you would think that Iraq is the new Disneyland. However, as Rolling Stone reports, it is anything but a success.

The Myth of the Surge

Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it’s already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq

NIR ROSEN

Posted Mar 06, 2008 8:53 AM

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Great follow up from Keith Olberman proving that Bush is a liar, a cheat and a traitor to us all. Go get em’ Keith..

Mr. C. read in interesting article written by Sara Robinson of ourfuture.org. Ms Robinson’s article called “When Change Is Not Enough: The Seven Steps To Revolution” breaks down the seven conditions that have historically existed in countries that have undergone some sort of revolution in the last 300 years. Some notable examples include Russia, China, France and the United States.

The article is interesting not because it calls for citizens to rise up,revolt against society and stick it to the man. It is interesting because it shows how the last 30 + years of American conservatism have created the ideal conditions for a modern day revolution. The author is not saying a cultural revolution like we had in the 1960’s or an economic revolution like the labor movement created in the 1930’s. No, Ms. Robinson article is saying that the conservatards have created a nation that may turn into a revolution more like the 13 American colonies waged against England.

The seven conditions being the following:

1) Crashing of a soaring economy.

2) Class warfare.

3) Deserted intellectuals.

4) Incompetent government.

5) A gutless ruling class.

6) Fiscal impressionability.

7) Inept and inconsistent use of force.

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, then proceed calmly to the nearest exit and leave the country, and would the last person out kindly turn off the lights? Thank you for flying Conservatard Air!

When Change Is Not Enough: The Seven Steps To Revolution

By Sara Robinson

Created 02/20/2008 - 6:01pm

Summary:

It turns out that the energy of this moment is about who we are, and where we are, and what happens to people’s minds when they’re left hanging just a little too far past the moment when they’re ready for transformative change. Here are the seven criteria for revolution, the reasons why we’re fulfilling each of them now—and how conservative policies conspired to put us on the road to possible revolution.

“Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

— John F. Kennedy

There’s one thing for sure: 2008 isn’t anything like politics as usual.

The corporate media (with their unerring eye for the obvious point) is fixated on the narrative that, for the first time ever, Americans will likely end this year with either a woman or a black man headed for the White House. Bloggers are telling stories from the front lines of primaries and caucuses that look like something from the early 60s — people lining up before dawn to vote [1] in Manoa, Hawaii yesterday; a thousand black college students [2] in Prairie View, Texas marching 10 miles to cast their early votes in the face of a county that tried to disenfranchise them. In recent months, we’ve also been gobstopped by the sheer passion of the insurgent campaigns of both Barack Obama and Ron Paul, both of whom brought millions of new voters into the conversation — and with them, a sharp critique of the status quo and a new energy that’s agitating toward deep structural change.

There’s something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who’ve been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be — at long last — that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government — and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season — the kind we get every 20 to 30 years — or is there something deeper going on here? Do we dare to raise our hopes that this time, we’re going to finally win a few? Just how ready is this country for big, serious, forward-looking change?

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Mr. Conservatard wont even try to compete with Keith Olberman in putting BushCo. to shame.

In the following clip Mr. Olberman basically kicks the Bush regimen’s request of retroactive immunity for the major telecommunication giants to the curb where it belongs.

Too bad the Bustard democrats in congress refuse to understand that retroactive immunity is another word for treason wrapped in a candy coating.

Transcript courtesy of Truthout.org.

Keith Olbermann: Special Comment Regarding FISA
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown

Thursday 31 January 2008

Transcript

And finally, as promised, a Special Comment - of FISA and the telecoms.

In a presidency of hypocrisy - an administration of exploitation - a labyrinth of leadership - in which every vital fact is a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma hidden under a claim of executive privilege supervised by an idiot - this one… is surprisingly easy.

President Bush has put protecting the telecom giants from the laws… ahead of protecting you from the terrorists.

He has demanded an extension of the FISA law - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - but only an extension that includes retroactive immunity for the telecoms who helped him spy on you.

Congress has given him, and he has today signed a fifteen-day extension which simply kicks the time bomb down the field, and has changed nothing of his insipid rhetoric, in which he portrays the Democrats as ’soft on terror’ and getting in the way of his superhuman efforts to protect the nation… when, in fact, and with bitter irony, if anybody is ’soft on terror’ here… it is Mr. Bush. Keep reading →