Catholics are not the only ones raising cain about the healthcare issue

The Baptists are raising a stink about it too.

There is this:

WASHINGTON (BP) — The issue at the center of the swelling controversy over the Obama administration’s refusal to protect the conscience rights of employers in its “contraceptive mandate” is “about as basic as it gets,” especially for Baptists, says Richard Land.
“Does the government have the right to intrude on the consciences of people to force them to pay for that which they find unconscionable? This goes contrary to our tradition in this country and contrary to our understanding of the First Amendment’s religious freedom protections,” Land said Feb. 9 in explaining what is at the heart of the debate.
“In my opinion, a Baptist needs to take a stand on this issue. Our Baptist forefathers went to prison and died for the freedoms that we have, and now it’s our responsibility in the providence of God to defend these freedoms lest they be taken away by government fiat,” said Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
via Baptist Press – Land: Obama mandate is a Baptist issue – News with a Christian Perspective.

Then there is this, also via Baptist Press:

“I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29,” author and pastor Rick Warren wrote on his Twitter account Feb. 7 before adding, “I’m not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure.”

Like I wrote earlier about the Catholics; my advice to my fellow Baptists, do not settle for anything other than a FULL and Complete exemption to this rule. I have to admire the Baptists and other Christian who are showing their boldness in this very important issue. Although, I really wished they would have shown the same sort of boldness, on the issue of the Iraq War. But, at this point, I will take any kind of boldness I can get. 😀

Retreat: White House to offer ‘Accommodation’ to religious groups on contraception issue

That was quick….

The Video:

Video: New RNC Ad — Five Years Later

(Via InstaPundit)

The real question is this; would America be any better under a big Government statist Republican like Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich…. or a Christian Statist like Rick Santorum?

I tend to believe that not to be the case.

Ed Husain: US must stay out of Syria

A very reasonable argument:

In reality, this would mean the United States would once again carry the heavy burden of war. In NATO’s recent operation in Libya, the United States provided 75% of the reconnaissance data, surveillance, intelligence and refueling planes. Syria is not Libya, and NATO without the United States is not up to the job.
The Arab League is no match for a brutal Syrian regime backed by Russia, China and Iran.
In essence, therefore, we must stop pretending about NATO or the Arab League intervening and accept that it is not “international intervention,” but U.S. military intervention that is being sought in yet another Muslim-majority country. The Muslim dimension is important because the lessons of Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan are that, invariably, intervention leads to occupation, which leads to varying degrees of Islamist radicalization
via West must not intervene militarily in Syria – CNN.com.

I would suggest you go read the rest of that, as it is a very well-reasoned argument against the United States getting involved in the Syria conflict. Now watch the Trotskyite Wilsonian Conservative war hawks tear this man to shreds for daring to say that we should not get involved.

The truth is folks; we are broke as a Nation. We just checked out of one Country and we are trying like heck to get out of another one. Going into this conflict would be, quite bluntly, crazy. Here is hoping that Obama listens to this reason and does not get involved. Syria is not Libya; and it damned sure is not Iraq. Different Nations, Different battles and a bunch of different issues here. Because of this, it would be in our best interest to stay out of it.

Fox Business Network Drops Judge Napolitano

First they got rid of Glenn Beck and now Fox News Channel’s Business network gives Judge Napolitano the axe.

Alternate headline: Fox News goes back to its Neoconservative roots and kicks the Paleoconservative voices out.

The Story:

In a surprise announcement Thursday afternoon, the Fox Business Network announced a major makeover of its primetime lineup. The new look slate will feature re-airs of The Willis Report, Cavuto, and Lou Dobbs Tonight, while ending the runs of FreedomWatch with Judge Andrew Napolitano, Power & Money with David Asman, and Follow the Money with Eric Bolling. In addition, the network will be developing a new show featuring Melissa Francis, which will eventually air at 5 p.m., bumping Gerri Willis‘ live show to 8 p.m. (Willis will air live at 5 p.m. with re-airs at 8 p.m. until the second quarter).
via Fox Business Network Drops Bolling, Napolitano Shows In Primetime Shuffle | Mediaite.

I did not always agree with Judge Napolitano, who is a Ron Paul supporter. But I will say this; he has in the past called out the Wilsonian Trotskyite crowd for what they truly are and I commend him for that. I wish the Judge all the best and if I were him, I would be heading over to Glenn Beck’s network and trying to make a deal. Fox News never was one to stray too far away from they consider to be “Mainstream” Conservative thought. Paleoconservatives and libertarians were only there to be, like liberals, to be made sport of. They do it Bob Beckle and also to John Stossel. If I were John Stossel, I would be making sure my ship was secure, if not; I would be looking elsewhere too.

Again, it is a shame that this is going on, but that is the business of media; they follow the winds and when the winds change, networks have to react.

My thoughts on the mortgage settlement

You can read about this here, here, here and here.

First of all, let me say this; this issue here, above all of the others, is why I packed it in with the Democratic Party. On top of all of the class warfare, class resentment, racial resentment and everything else; was the realization that I made, that the Democratic Party, starting in 1973 and again in 1993 literally rigged the system to fail. This was by loosing credit restrictions to allow people, who had no business even getting loans, to get credit so easily.

Then once the system failed, the Government, started by George W. Bush in 2008 with tarp loans and the bailing out banks that were “Too big to fail.” Not to mention the fact that the Republicans ripped out regulations that made the whole thing like one million percent worse and when the Republican Congress received a warning that the whole thing was going to collapse, what did they do? They held a hearing and the CEO of Freddy and Fannie played the RACE CARD, they retreated! 😡 I won’t even get into the stupidity of the Federal Reserve, which really made some seriously idiotic mistakes.

Then instead of Obama being smart and saying, “We’re not picking favorites, we are going to allow the market to correct itself.” Instead, he continued the bailouts and even spent more on top of that. Not the mention his attempt to destroy our private healthcare system.

Anyhow, this settlement is not perfect; in fact, it stinks and someone has given a bullet-point list as to why.

This is via Naked Capitalism:

Here are the top twelve reasons why this deal stinks:
1. We’ve now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. It’s $2000 per loan. This is a rounding error compared to the chain of title problem these systematic practices were designed to circumvent. The cost is also trivial in comparison to the average loan, which is roughly $180k, so the settlement represents about 1% of loan balances. It is less than the price of the title insurance that banks failed to get when they transferred the loans to the trust. It is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged. It’s a great deal for the banks because no one is at any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over 300 years of real estate law.
2. That $26 billion is actually $5 billion of bank money and the rest is your money. The mortgage principal writedowns are guaranteed to come almost entirely from securitized loans, which means from investors, which in turn means taxpayers via Fannie and Freddie, pension funds, insurers, and 401 (k)s. Refis of performing loans also reduce income to those very same investors.
3. That $5 billion divided among the big banks wouldn’t even represent a significant quarterly hit. Freddie and Fannie putbacks to the major banks have been running at that level each quarter.
4. That $20 billion actually makes bank second liens sounder, so this deal is a stealth bailout that strengthens bank balance sheets at the expense of the broader public.
5. The enforcement is a joke. The first layer of supervision is the banks reporting on themselves. The framework is similar to that of the OCC consent decrees implemented last year, which Adam Levitin and yours truly, among others, decried as regulatory theater.
6. The past history of servicer consent decrees shows the servicers all fail to comply. Why? Servicer records and systems are terrible in the best of times, and their systems and fee structures aren’t set up to handle much in the way of delinquencies. As Tom Adams has pointed out in earlier posts, servicer behavior is predictable when their portfolios are hit with a high level of delinquencies and defaults: they cheat in all sorts of ways to reduce their losses.
7. The cave-in Nevada and Arizona on the Countrywide settlement suit is a special gift for Bank of America, who is by far the worst offender in the chain of title disaster (since, according to sworn testimony of its own employee in Kemp v. Countrywide, Countrywide failed to comply with trust delivery requirements). This move proves that failing to comply with a consent degree has no consequences but will merely be rolled into a new consent degree which will also fail to be enforced. These cases also alleged HAMP violations as consumer fraud violations and could have gotten costly and emboldened other states to file similar suits not just against Countrywide but other servicers, so it was useful to the other banks as well.
8. If the new Federal task force were intended to be serious, this deal would have not have been settled. You never settle before investigating. It’s a bad idea to settle obvious, widespread wrongdoing on the cheap. You use the stuff that is easy to prove to gather information and secure cooperation on the stuff that is harder to prove. In Missouri and Nevada, the robosigning investigation led to criminal charges against agents of the servicers. But even though these companies were acting at the express direction and approval of the services, no individuals or entities higher up the food chain will face any sort of meaningful charges.
9. There is plenty of evidence of widespread abuses that appear not to be on the attorney generals’ or media’s radar, such as servicer driven foreclosures and looting of investors’ funds via impermissible and inflated charges. While no serious probe was undertaken, even the limited or peripheral investigations show massive failures (60% of documents had errors in AGs/Fed’s pathetically small sample). Similarly, the US Trustee’s office found widespread evidence of significant servicer errors in bankruptcy-related filings, such as inflated and bogus fees, and even substantial, completely made up charges. Yet the services and banks will suffer no real consequences for these abuses.
10. A deal on robosiginging serves to cover up the much deeper chain of title problem. And don’t get too excited about the New York, Massachusetts, and Delaware MERS suits. They put pressure on banks to clean up this monstrous mess only if the AGs go through to trial and get tough penalties. The banks will want to settle their way out of that too. And even if these cases do go to trial and produce significant victories for the AGs, they still do not address the problem of failures to transfer notes correctly.
11. Don’t bet on a deus ex machina in terms of the new Federal foreclosure task force to improve this picture much. If you think Schneiderman, as a co-chairman who already has a full time day job in New York, is going to outfox a bunch of DC insiders who are part of the problem, I have a bridge I’d like to sell to you.
12. We’ll now have to listen to banks and their sycophant defenders declaring victory despite being wrong on the law and the facts. They will proceed to marginalize and write off criticisms of the servicing practices that hurt homeowners and investors and are devastating communities. But the problems will fester and the housing market will continue to suffer. Investors in mortgage-backed securities, who know that services have been screwing them for years, will be hung out to dry and will likely never return to a private MBS market, since the problems won’t ever be fixed. This settlement has not only revealed the residential mortgage market to be too big to fail, but puts it on long term, perhaps permanent, government life support.
As we’ve said before, this settlement is yet another raw demonstration of who wields power in America, and it isn’t you and me. It’s bad enough to see these negotiations come to their predictable, sorry outcome. It adds insult to injury to see some try to depict it as a win for long suffering, still abused homeowners.

I have zero to add to this. The only thing I will ask is, who’s paying for all of this? Answer: You and Me — in Taxes. 😡

This is why we need a new political Party to get in there and fix this asinine morass.

Others: (All Liberals BTW…) American Prospect, Washington Post, US Politics, FT Alphaville, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Huffington Post, Swampland, ThinkProgress, Prairie Weather, Firedoglake, Business Insider, Financial Times and Discourse.net, ThinkProgress, The Huffington Post, Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Firedoglake, Rolling Stone, The Big Picture, Business Insider, Hit & Run, The Democratic Daily, Zandar Versus The Stupid, Feministing, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, No More Mister Nice Blog, Blog of New Orleans, Gambit, emptywheel, The Political Carnival, DealBook, The Page, Booman Tribune and Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, FORECLOSURE FRAUD, Business Insider and Calculated Risk, Washington Post, Daily Kos and Firedoglake, The Atlantic Online

Why do Republicans do stupid stuff like this?

…and to think, I supported this guy’s election:

Video:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) does not generally script his speeches, preferring to form his remarks off-the-cuff based on notes. In the case of his State of the State address on Tuesday, that approach appears to have come back to bite the first-term chief executive, as he issued a rambling 100-minute speech that featured a series of bizarre — and potentially offensive — statements and actions.
During the address, Kasich imitated a Parkinson’s patient, cried, insulted the people of California, praised his “hot wife,” gave 14 shout-outs to the same person and played an awards show host while tearfully channeling a famously emotional fellow Ohio Republican, House Speaker John Boehner.
Roughly 70 minutes into the speech, Kasich discussed medical research and its impact on the Buckeye State’s economy. He was highlighting a deep brain massage program at Ohio State University to cure Parkinson’s when he started simulating the shaking actions that mark the disease as a means of highlighting what he and his cabinet saw when they visited the facility.
via John Kasich Parkinson’s Imitation Marks Ad Hoc Speech That Veered Off The Rails.

I know he was explaining what he saw, but still; did he have to do it like that?!

Oh, he wasn’t done there:

Kasich framed the speech as a pep talk for Ohioans, but in order to promote his record on job creation, he took swipes at residents of other states.
“A year ago, Ohio ranked 48th in job creation,” he said. “We trailed only Michigan and California in lost jobs — Michigan, the home of the auto industry that was devastated and California, of course, filled by a bunch of wackadoodles.”
In a break from tradition, the governor moved the speech’s location from the Capitol in Columbus to a school auditorium in the rural town of Steubenville, near the Pennsylvania border. He used the rural location to highlight new investment in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state, which will occur primarily in the areas closer to Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Frank Semple of MarkWest will be investing $500 million in starting new fracking businesses in the state, he announced.
The governor also championed the state’s coal industry.
“We’re the Saudi Arabia of coal. Clean it and burn it,” he said. “Clean it, Gordon, and burn it. Clean it, Battelle, and burn it. Use it.”
At one point, Kasich saluted his wife, Karen, describing her as his “hot wife.”
“And I also want to give a nice comment about my wife, Karen Kasich,” he said. “Sweetie, stand, take a little wave, would you, okay? I remember that cartoon that said, ‘Kasich will still not reveal how he snagged that hot wife.'”

Good luck in the reelection Governor. I mean, I hate to sound like I am whining; but this is the reason that the majority of Americans, who watch the liberal media, think that Republicans are just plain crazy. The sad part, the Republican party really does stand for some great things. Meaning those who actually stand by those things — unlike these two idiots; but yet, the Republican Party has idiots acting like this. It is truly a shame.

I guess what I trying to say here is this; I stopped voting for the Democratic Party back in 2008, because that party was on the crazy bus — headed for the cliff at one hundred miles an hour. (Figuratively, of course.) Now, it seems to me, that the Republican Party is loading up the same kind of a bus and is about to do the same thing. Which is why I am voting libertarian in 2012, because if the crazy, big government conservative wing of the Republican Party takes power again, which it will, if Mitt Romney gets the nomination; I really do not want to be responsible for it.

My feelings on the Josh Powell tragedy

Things like this are never, ever, easy to write about, because if you take a position that is outside of the normal realm of opinion; people tend to think you are someone who justifies murder or crime. Let me say emphatically that I do not condone, justify or even remotely support what justify that which Josh Powell did to his Children or even possibly to his wife.

However, yesterday I wrote a posting on this blog, which shows that something is seriously wrong with our Government. It just so happens that if the Government decides that you have committed a crime, the burden of clearing your name falls on the person accused of the crime; and if you happen to not be a person of great means of wealth, you basically become a slave to the judicial system. Sometimes that judicial system becomes poisoned —- whether by bias, religious discrimination or some other poison. Furthermore, if you marry a woman and that woman’s family and parents decide that they have a vendetta against you, and they have the Government on their side, you are twisting in the wind, my friend. As for Powell’s wife, the authorities have no idea what happened to his wife. All they have are theories. The truth is she could have left the Country or State with another man for all we know. But, it will not be properly investigated; because they have to pin the murder on someone; so, why not Josh? He killed himself and his two kids, did he not? It is an conviction of convenience; something big, intrusive Governments are known for.

Such is the case of Josh Powell — From the Salt Lake City Tribune:

Graham, Wash. • Relatives of Josh Powell blamed government officials, media and Internet media pundits for setting in motion the terrible tragedy that has now rocked two families.
The statement signed by Maurice and Patti Leach said they were “grievously saddened” by the loss experienced by both the Cox and Powell families and that there was no justification for the deaths of Powell’s two innocent sons, Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5.
Patti Leach is Steve Powell’s sister. They attended a September custody hearing to support Josh Powell. In a statement they said that he had asked for their support in helping him as “the next patriarchs of the family” following his father’s arrest on pornography and voyeurism charges.
“We were also asked by Josh if we would offer a safe haven for his sons should the need arise,” the Leaches said. “Our answer was absolutely yes.”
[…]
The Leaches said they had become disillusioned with the legal system during the court proceedings. They said government agencies, religious bias, “Internet kangaroo courts and sensationalized media had circumvented and “completely compromised” due process rights in the case.
“America, this is not only a tragedy, Sunday was a dark day for all of our families,” the Leaches said.

On May 18, 1927 a School in Bath, Michigan was bombed. A man named Andrew Kehoe was the culprit. The media then made him into a monster. The truth is, the man was pushed into foreclosure on his farm, because of excess taxes brought on a levy to pay for a school. The point here is that Andrew and Josh both have one thing in common; they were pushed to the brink of violence and committed these acts of violence because they were pushed; by an intrusive Government that would stop at nothing, to get what it wanted. Sadly, because of this, in 1927 — 45 people; 38 children who never got a chance to grow up and be adults, 2 teachers, 4 other adults and the bomber himself were killed and 58 people were injured. All because the Government just had to have its taxes.

I think we can do better than this — much better.

I leave you all with a picture that was made by Andrew Kehoe before his death:

Such is the case with Josh Powell and Andrew Kehoe

California supreme court strikes down Prop. 8

I have a simple libertarian/Constitutional/Federalist answer to this:

A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year.
The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution. The architects of Prop. 8 have vowed to appeal.
The ruling was narrow and likely to be limited to California.
via Prop. 8: Gay-marriage ban unconstitutional, court rules – latimes.com.

What does this mean? That the United States Government or any Government for that matter —- should not be in the business of marriage.

Anything other than this; is big Government statism.

Others: Washington Post, Hot Air, Poliglot, Firedoglake, Wall Street Journal, PolitiCal, emptywheel, Capitol Alert, ACS Blog, Hit & Run, Show Tracker, The Volokh Conspiracy, The Loyal Opposition, The Daily What, Runnin’ Scared, JONATHAN TURLEY, Towleroad News #gay, PopWatch, Colorlines, Clayton Cramer’s Blog, Feministing, Sky Dancing, Jezebel, Gawker, Truthdig and Angry Black Lady Chronicles (via Memeorandum)

FBI says that “sovereign citizens” are a threat.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….:

(Reuters) – Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday.
These extremists, sometimes known as “sovereign citizens,” believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference.
The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard.
Routine encounters with police can turn violent “at the drop of a hat,” said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director in the FBI’s counterterrorism division.
“We thought it was important to increase the visibility of the threat with state and local law enforcement,” he said.
via FBI warns of threat from anti-government extremists | Reuters.

I said this over at another blog’s comment section and I will say it here; A Government that watches it’s citizens and considers them a threat; fears those people and that is because they are doing wrong. This is nothing more than a police state action; and the American people should vote accordingly in 2012.

Further more, I find it most insulting that the United States Government would rather hunt down its own citizens, rather than hunt down and capture the real terrorists, who truly hate this Country and want to see it destroyed. That would be the radical Islamic Jihad Terrorists; you know like the ones that slammed those planes into the Trade Center, the Pentegon, and the field near Shanksville, Pa? — or people like these here? But no, our Government, see people like me; citizens who disagree with the policies of the socialist President to be a threat.

Having said that, I have an open message to the United States Government, Federal Bureau of Investigation, President Barack Hussein Obama, The United Nations and the rest of the Big Government morass:

Go Fuck Yourselves Sirs!

Which is all the more reason to go here and get armed with one of these:

That is all….

Others: Blogcritics, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, Scared Monkeys, Atlas Shrugs, The PJ Tatler

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