The most powerful man in the world:

Hotel Rwanda

I finally got a chance to see this movie and I enjoyed it alot.


One conclusion I've drawn from watching is that anyone who opposes US military intervention to prevent ethnic cleansing/ genocide has no right to call themselves a bleeding heart liberal.
None.

That is all.

The Truth Hurts

Ann Coulter-

On MSNBC this week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter tried to connect John McCain to the current financial disaster, saying: "If you remember the Keating Five scandal that (McCain) was a part of. ... He's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in the middle of the last great financial scandal in our country."
McCain was "in the middle of" the Keating Five case in the sense that he was "exonerated." The lawyer for the Senate Ethics Committee wanted McCain removed from the investigation altogether, but, as The New York Times reported: "Sen. McCain was the only Republican embroiled in the affair, and Democrats on the panel would not release him."
So John McCain has been held hostage by both the Viet Cong and the Democrats.
Alter couldn't be expected to know that: As usual, he was lifting material directly from Kausfiles. What is unusual was that he was stealing a random thought sent in by Kausfiles' mother, who, the day before, had e-mailed: "It's time to bring up the Keating Five. Let McCain explain that scandal away."
The Senate Ethics Committee lawyer who investigated McCain already had explained that scandal away -- repeatedly. It was celebrated lawyer Robert Bennett, most famous for defending a certain horny hick president a few years ago.
In February this year, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," Bennett said, for the eight billionth time:
"First, I should tell your listeners I'm a registered Democrat, so I'm not on (McCain's) side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five. ... And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him."
It's bad enough for Alter to be constantly ripping off Kausfiles. Now he's so devoid of his own ideas, he's ripping off the idle musings of Kausfiles' mother.
Even if McCain had been implicated in the Keating Five scandal -- and he wasn't -- that would still have absolutely nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis currently roiling the financial markets. This crisis was caused by political correctness being forced on the mortgage lending industry in the Clinton era.
Before the Democrats' affirmative action lending policies became an embarrassment, the Los Angeles Times reported that, starting in 1992, a majority-Democratic Congress "mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains."
Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001.
Instead of looking at "outdated criteria," such as the mortgage applicant's credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named "Caylee."
Threatening lawsuits, Clinton's Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn't a joke -- it's a fact.
When Democrats controlled both the executive and legislative branches, political correctness was given a veto over sound business practices.
In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration's affirmative action lending policies as one of the "hidden success stories" of the Clinton administration, saying that "black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded."
Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn't get out of their loans by selling their houses.
A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it's gone off.
In Bush's first year in office, the White House chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government's "implicit subsidy" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system.
Rep. Barney Frank denounced Mankiw, saying he had no "concern about housing." How dare you oppose suicidal loans to people who can't repay them! The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "under heavy assault by the Republicans," but these entities still had "important political allies" in the Democrats.
Now, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats' two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients.
Political correctness had already ruined education, sports, science and entertainment. But it took a Democratic president with a Democratic congress for political correctness to wreck the financial industry.

Basically, I blame Obama and Clinton for the entire economic mess.

I'll add my own beliefs later, pretty swamped dealing with the economic mess caused by the do-nothing democratic senate; but basically we're in this mess because Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae gambled away trillions of dollars of tax payers money at a time President Bush was demanding tough regulation over both these semi-gov't/semi-private companies. Basically, a small group of Senators; including but not limited to Kerry/Cliton/Obama and others would stall such GOP-sponsered legislation . Why would these 3 Senators always block legistlation requiring tighter regulating? Because all three have been receiving hundreds of thousands of "donations" from these organizations.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102841.html

Seriously, this gets more pathetic every day.

Obama's new ad making fun of McCain's inability to send email might just be the dumbest thing I've ever seen; you can't make up this ineptitude. Seriously? What's next; Obama gonna start making fun of Palin's down syndrome baby? Making fun of someone's short comings due to injuries sustained defending the country in wartime is no way to get ahead in life. Wow; thanks Obama.


(PS, Bill Clinton send exactly 2 emails in 8 years in office)

What the young fail to realize about Obama's Healthcare plans.

Kevin Freking:

Barack Obama's campaign promise should prove irresistible to the millions of uninsured: guaranteed access to affordable health coverage, regardless of illness or condition.
The Democratic presidential nominee is proposing a National Health Insurance Exchange that would be like a government-run shopping mall for health insurance. It would negotiate prices and benefits with private insurers. Among the offerings would be a government-run, Medicare-like plan.
No participating company could turn someone away because he had cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Nor would someone have to pay a higher monthly premium based on those conditions.
The coverage guarantee is not a new concept. But it has had a troubled history in several states that tried it for people seeking coverage through the insurance market. Some states, such as Kentucky and South Dakota, eventually dropped the guarantee after insurers left. In the few states where guaranteed coverage continues, monthly premiums generally are much higher for younger, healthier people than in nearby states.
Among the states with guaranteed coverage, Massachusetts seems to be having the most success at keeping monthly premiums down.
Obama's campaign says his $60 billion plan, paid for mostly by tax increases on the wealthy, really is not comparable to what the states have done.
He is proposing large government subsidies that will pay much of the insurance cost for millions of people. He also would invest in programs, such as electronic health records, that his campaign predicts will lower costs. And the exchange itself should promote competition, among insurers, the campaign contends.
"States are making these insurance reforms in a vacuum. We're looking at this as a systemwide reform effort, so any pressures created are addressed through other elements of his plan," said Neera Tanden, domestic policy director for the Obama campaign.
Health insurance protects people from the cost of an illness or accident by spreading the expense to all of a plan's participants. If Obama's model is to work, he will need to entice younger, healthier people to buy insurance so they will offset the expenses generated by those who are sicker.
At the state level, the guarantee mandate has often had the opposite effect.
"They're very price sensitive. They're healthy. They think they're invincible and getting them to buy coverage is a challenge. If it's expensive, they'll walk away," said Mary Lehnhard, a senior vice president at Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, a trade group.
The guarantee mandate faltered in states that did not do enough to get healthy, younger people to buy coverage, said Kenneth Thorpe, a health care analyst at Emory University.
"They didn't put up new money," Thorpe said. "So, basically, the people who joined were people who had trouble getting coverage and were therefore sick. What Obama is doing is getting a broader cross-section of people enrolled because he's putting a lot of federal money into it."
Obama's chief Democratic challengers in the primaries proposed requiring everyone to have health insurance, much like car owners are required to have auto insurance. The requirement was aimed primarily at the 19 million uninsured people age 19 to 34.
Obama supports such a mandate for children, but not adults.
The insurance industry is wary, but could support a guarantee mandate if politicians step up and get everyone insured, said Karen Ignagni, president and chief executive of America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group.
"That (guarantee) will sound appealing to each and every one of us as citizens, but we have a lot of experience at the state level. Unless you get everyone in, that doesn't work," she said.
A few states began requiring insurers to take on all comers in the 1990s after a run at national health insurance failed during the Clinton administration.
South Dakota enacted the guarantee mandate in 1995. By 2001, claims exceeded the premiums collected by $2 million. By 2003, the state was down to only three major insurers; one, American Family Insurance Group, notified state officials that it was about to leave, too.
"We regret having to take this step, but the losses incurred on our individual major medical products in South Dakota are unacceptable," wrote Jack C. Salzwedel, a company vice president, in April 2003. "Most of our losses are directly attributable to the basic and standard policies that we are forced to write."
Within months, the South Dakota Legislature passed a bill that relieved the private insurers of their most costly customers. Those people are still insured, but as part of a high-risk pool. The state pays expenses that are over and above the premiums collected.
A similar situation occurred in Kentucky, which adopted the guarantee mandate in 1994 and put limits on premium rates.
"Kentucky became a national leader, but an unforeseen consequence was the state also became an island where more than 60 health insurance companies abandoned this market for other states due to income, market size, or regulatory and legislative climate," the state's insurance commissioner wrote in 1999.
Both states focused on protecting consumers having trouble getting insurance because of their age and health status. They did not subsidize the cost of insurance in the way that Obama is proposing.
The guarantee mandate still exists for coverage purchased directly from health insurers in New York, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont. Health analysts say the Obama plan is most comparable to what's used in Massachusetts.
In Massachusetts, a 25-year-old can select health coverage from 23 different plans at rates ranging from $134 a month to $438. The least expensive plans generally require enrollees to pick up more of the upfront medical costs. Lower-income residents can get subsidized coverage at lower costs through a different program.
The latest statistics show about 110,000 additional people in Massachusetts have bought unsubsidized private insurance since April 2006, said Bob Carey, director of planning and development for the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority. On top of that, about 230,000 were covered through the expansion of Medicaid and a program that subsidizes the cost of insurance for those with incomes below three times the federal poverty level _ or $52,800 for a family of three.
The program has cost more than anticipated because considerably more people signed up for subsidized coverage than was anticipated.
"You can't argue with the fact that our uninsured rate is going down, while the rest of the country's is going up," Carey said.

How to lose an election in 10 days

“She’s a truly close personal friend and she is qualified to be President of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be Vice President of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me"


Joe Biden, referring to Hillary.