The bill also would increase the borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to $100 billion from $30 billion, a move that will save banks billions of dollars by reducing the extra premiums that they would have had to pay to shore up the deposit insurance fund.
The new Senate bill does not include additional money to aid mortgage borrowers, but it does draw $2.3 billion from the Treasury’s $700 billion financial bailout fund for various provisions.
This is a joke:
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee, said at a news conference after the vote. “The bill does other things, but certainly, a major target is to deal with peoples’ housing issues and try to stem the tide.”
Another $70,000,000,000.00 giveaway to the banks and measly 2.3 Billion dollars taken from the already pissed away 700 billion is about helping homeowners? And no cramdown either.
Note to the NY Times and Sen. Chris Dodd: A fine fuck you to you two, too!
Approval had been expected in the Senate, where the vote was 23 to 5.
But the outcome in the House of Representatives was not clear until the final moments of a long roll call, when Rep. Jeff Young, a Democrat who voted against the bill last week, reversed his position. In the end the vote was 100 to 49, just slightly more than the required two-thirds majority of members present.
[udate deux] The Iowa Senate Majority leader, Mike Gronstal, is effectively blocking efforts to undo the recent decision of the Iowa Supremes:
One of my daughters was in the workplace one day, and her particular workplace at that moment in time, there were a whole bunch of conservative, older men. And those guys were talking about gay marriage. They were talking about discussions going on across the country.
And my daughter Kate, after listening for about 20 minutes, said to them: You guys don't understand. You've already lost. My generation doesn't care.
I think I learned something from my daughter that day, when she said that. And I've talked with other people about it and that's what I see, Senator McKinley. I see a bunch of people that merely want to profess their love for each other, and want state law to recognize that.
Is that so wrong? I don't think thats so wrong. As a matter of fact, last Friday night, I hugged my wife. You know Ive been married for 37 years. I hugged my wife. I felt like our love was just a little more meaningful last Friday night because thousands of other Iowa citizens could hug each other and have the state recognize their love for each other.
No, Senator McKinley, I will not co-sponsor a leadership bill with you.
The video:
Good day for equal rights. Daughters and sons of miscegenation legal arguments past can cry me a river.
What should be avoided in all of them is any hint of racist, sexist or religious bias, or any suggestion of nasty, snide, sarcastic, or condescending tone — “snark.”If something could easily fit in a satirical Web site for young adults, it probably shouldn’t go into the news pages of nytimes.com. Our ethics code promises that in all dealings with readers, “civility applies.”
A quote from my application cover page:
“It has always been my dream to work alongside the great snark writers of our time. Judy Miller, Bill Kristol, Joe Klein, David Broder, Gordon Smith, and a long list of the many leaders in snark that grace the pages of the NY Times on a regular basis. Sadly, they are all so good at what they do that their snark is seriously misunderstood by the unwashed masses, who honestly think they should be taking those writers seriously.
I know the NY Times are a little shy when it comes to admitting this fact, but it is truly award winning high brow snark, indeed. The void I would hope to fill is in providing the everyman's snark so the little people can begin to understand that the Op Eds or articles printed in jest in the NY Times, and clearly misunderstood by the readers, should never be used to justify wars or for making any serious policy decisions at all. It is, after all, only printed in one of the many infotainment sections.”
The client, Steven Michael Rubinstein, an accountant, was arrested in Boca Raton, Fla., and charged with one criminal count of filing a false and fraudulent tax return, according to court papers unsealed on Thursday.
The arrest is the first of a major American client of UBS, which has been under criminal investigation for helping scores of wealthy Americans evade taxes through secret offshore accounts that went unreported to the Internal Revenue Service. It signals that federal authorities are making good on a promise to pursue American clients suspected of tax evasion, and in some cases to make indictments.
The money hidden away for him by UBS? Around $6,000,000.00.
Mr. Rubinstein had an account with UBS worth at least $6 million, including stock and gold coins worth $2 million, according to court papers filed in Federal District Court in Fort Lauderdale. He holds both United States and South African passports.
The gold coinage were South African Krugerrands.
There only about 19,000 more tax delinquents to go.
They often sandpaper over the names and file off the registry numbers, doing their best to render the boats, and themselves, untraceable. Then they casually ditch the vessels in the middle of busy harbors, beach them at low tide on the banks of creeks or occasionally scuttle them outright.
The bad economy is creating a flotilla of forsaken boats. While there is no national census of abandoned boats, officials in coastal states are worried the problem will only grow worse as unemployment and financial stress continue to rise. Several states are even drafting laws against derelicts and say they are aggressively starting to pursue delinquent owners.
Some are doing it because they can no longer afford the upkeep (mooring fees, maintenance, etc.) and others are doing it to collect on the insurance, as well.
Citigroup — the mega-bank that managed its own finances so badly that it has required three taxpayer bailouts totaling at least $45 billion so far — is preaching fiscal responsibility to young people
Now, I am quite willing to cut the NY Times a lot of slack here because they aren't doing this on my dime. Others don't appear to be so forgiving on that and hilarity ensued in the comment threads there.
But Citi trying to sell My Space credit cards to kids with interest rates that can go as high as 29.99% as some kind of responsible thing to do is the height of irony.
And I am so sure "Generation Forward" is looking forward to the nationalized Citi bank.
National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW) highlights consumer education efforts across the nation. NCPW 2009 can help people get the most for their money, whether they are trying to stretch their paychecks, improve their credit history, or tell the difference between a real deal and a potentially fraudulent product or service. For more information about this program visit: http://www.consumer.gov/ncpw/index.html.
The FDIC is a major sponsor of NCPW (...snip...)
(emphasis mine) It would be funnier if it were coming from the Treasury Dept. or the FED, but still pretty funny as is.
h/t to suburban guerrilla, The ever wrong and eternally warmongering neoconservative Bill Kristol's wingnut welfare provided by the NY Times runs out. I guess they were tired of him making the Times a punching bag?
I wonder what tired, old right wing media gas bag will replace him? Or will they pick a screecher from the over fertilized - and full of it - young republiCON crops?
[update] Sadly, I must note that Kristol will be peddling a monthly pile of crap at the WaPo. If we are lucky he will explode having to hold it in that long. Note to Kristol's friends: Keep a lot of baby wipes handy if get near him, just in case.
According to a report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “the Internet overtook print newspapers as a news source this year.” The popularity of newspapers did not decline, but rather, the number of people naming the internet as their primary news source nearly doubled.
The inerrant ability to fact check instantaneously on comment threads as well as the real clash of ideas that happens there surely added to the internet numbers but there is more to it than that:
Michael Dimock, the Pew Center’s associate director, credited the presidential election, which he said lent itself to online coverage. “People often don’t want the general overview of an election,” he said. “They may want to follow their candidate, picking and choosing what they’re looking at in a way that mainstream media doesn’t allow.”
If I want fluff and fiction I'll buy a tabloid at the supermarket.
As long as we have to suffer through the fact free garbage put out there by the fanatical likes of the Kristols, Coulters, Novaks and Millers of the world they are not producing a product that is even worthy of lining a bird cage with.
We have all heard that Greg Sargent (TPM Media) was just picked up for a new Blog by the WaPo. Now that he has to deal with editors that may refuse to print the truth does anyone here think his work may suffer? I hope not BUT the reality is that the entire newspaper industry structure is, now, a failed one. Adding a few decent and savvy voices and tagging stories on the net with WWW3 compliant tags does not change their structure enough.
