GernBlansten

My sister is 55 and just got unemployed because her company went under. She now has ZERO health insurance. Can't go on COBRA because the company has to still be in business. She has pre-existing conditions so no insurance company in their right mind would take her. How does your solution Brent, handle her case?

Yes, the demoncrats have played this well. They basically said it was unfortunate, but lets talk healthcare. Let the republicans police themselves. The republican leadership (Boehner, et al) demanded he call the whitehouse last night to apologize which he did. Boehner then requested he take to the floor of the house today and apologize the to the rest of congress, which he refused. It will be interesting to see how they eat their own.

Well, using that criteria, the plan also doesn't include coverage for space aliens, yet. So Obama is a liar. I think I see where you are coming from.

It would have been great if Obama responded to Wilson like Cheney did to Leahy on the senate floor. However biologically and mechanically impossible that act is.

Those who resort to name calling have exhausted all constructive responses.

As Ron Burgundy might say: You stay classy, South Carolina.

I've always been in favor of the non-party elections the City of Denver does for mayor. Candidates do not delcare party and all comers run in a general election. The candidate with over 50% wins. If nobody gets over 50%, the top two do a run off election. If this were applied to all public offices, in conservative districts, the top two would be conservative. In liberal districts, the top two would be liberals. But you would have a choice, not who the party chose to run.

Ok, Ok, Ok. I'll throw in federal TORT reform too. Can we just have a public option? Look we've given you guys everything you want. What do we get in return?

In the spirit of compromise, if we give in and say no federally funded abortions, can your side give us a public option? Heck, just to sweeten the pot, I'll toss in keeping illegals from public healthcare and no death panels. OK?

I just hope Obama doesn't read My Pet Goat. Bad things happened one September when a President did that.

Dead on Tokala. Greed. During the heydays in the mid 2000s, I wrote debt consolidation software for mortgage brokers. The software would calculate optimum savings from consolidating 2nd, 3rd, auto, boat, consumer, student loans, revolving debt into refinances of primary mortgages. The savings would then be used for investments. Every month, I had to alter the software because some bank invented a new product for mortgage brokers. Crazy stuff like negative equity loans. 50 year mortgages. Interest only loans. Reverse mortgages. And the brokers would sell them. Get inflated appraisals back and leverage the clients up to 120% of loan to value. Everyone was making tons of money. Even the end clients where flipping homes or using their equity like an ATM. The brokers didn't care, they just wanted the commissions. The bankers didn't care, they wanted the loans and hey, property values won't go down. The banks then bundled all this crap up and sold it to other banks with CDFs as insurance. Regular game of hot potato. And since everyone was making money, nobody called shenanigans on it.

Do you know the percentage of total loans ($) involved in the TARP bailout that were related to low-income mortgage programs? Under 1%. To think that those programs championed by the left toppled our financial markets is absurd. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were bit players. The real culprit was deregulation of the markets, a conservative mantra, started by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. The Act is most widely known for repealing portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had regulated the financial services industry. This led to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which kept derivatives transactions, including those involving credit default swaps, free of government regulation. Everything was fueled by low interest rates, artificially rising property values and unregulated loan products like zero interest and option ARMs. As long as the housing prices increased, the scheme stayed afloat. But the bubble burst and the house of cards came falling down. Who's to blame? Everyone. Wall Street, politicians (certainly Clinton and senators Gramm, Leach and Bliley), Paulson and Greenspan (for not seeing it coming), Realtors, appraisers, bankers, the public. Here's a great show on it. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/

Resistance is futile.

OGE, just trying to keep us fair and balanced. All too often, the conservative leaners think they can denegrate liberals without response. I'm here to keep that from happening. If they take a swing, especially a cheap shot, they should expect a counter punch. Notice who usually starts these threads. It isn't us liberals touting the superiority of our ideas or the failures of the opposition, it is the right wing. And I for one am tired of following my mother's advice and be polite and never discuss politics. Not when the right wing has driven the debate into the mud. They want to get dirty? I'll get dirty. It will not go unchallenged.

I have an explanation for Duff's miracle. He drove home blurry eyed, but believed he was seeing clearly. No one but he can verify his vision during that time. I also find it implausible that he required someone to drive him to the opthamologist after reaching his driveway. Anyone who needs corrective lenses keeps spare/old glasses around the house. Even if he didn't have a replacement pair of contacts at home, he would have had a pair of glasses at home. He is to have us believe that he returned home to not have a supply of contact lenses or a spare pair of glasses. So that last part of the story must be fabricated. That brings into question the former part of the story. Do I call him a liar? No, but a story teller, yes. And an irresponsible one too for driving other people's children without corrective vision.

More revisionist history. It was the Bush Administration that requested, lobbied and enacted TARP. Please don't single out the Democrats for that slice of heaven.

Shorty out of college, I owned a small sail making business (very shortly, tough business), we called it Miracle Sails. Our motto: If its a good sail, its a Miracle!

Why do the defenders of Sowell feel the need to classify him racially? That makes as much sense as making the statement, "Sowell also happens to be a left handed american." or "Thomas Sowell is a short man at Stanford University's Hoover Institute" My question to them is why? Does it make your arguement better? Its as though you put race as a qualifier to competence.

Vol_scouter, why did you feel necessary to describe Sowell's race in defending his credentials? That's seems odd. Do you think race has anything to do with a person's ability to analyse a financial crisis?

So instead of leading by example and allowing the dead to enjoy a few months of peace before being slandered, you choose to engage in the same behavior that you condemn the liberals for.

I'd share your opinion Vol_Scouter if Kennedy had actually been charged, tried and convicted of treason.

Don't know. But I put as much credibility in that book about miracles as another one written by a man named Joseph Smith. Are you calling him a liar or do you believe everything he wrote?

Anything that takes the blame off the party in power during that debacle has got to be a good read. Can I find it in the fiction section?

To me, it seems like it would dilute an already diluted training schedule. The SM returning to his unit at night to do his SM duties would take him away from what we did in the evenings at ITOLS. Our ITOLS ran from Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon, no time to do other things with your unit. Now if your ASMs fill in for you at the camporee, then fine, but at that point why tie ITOLS to the camporee?

Careful there Barry. There's a fine line between the power of prayer and the power of positive thinking.