A Radiant Cage Of Thunder

*FUTURECAST* OBAMA LANDSLIDE!!!

I just got back from the Re-election Victory celebration for Barack Obama (the "Last Trip Date" counter on my time machine reads 0012/06/2012/0020/003/3400).

That's November 6th, 2012... Barack Obama... re-election LANDSLIDE.... you heard it reported here FIRST!

Now I'm off to to November 4th, 1980 to see another historical Presidential election...

Catch ya later... er.. sooner?

- Professor Bendai

Posted at 05:02PM Oct 27, 2008 by Douglas Lee Bryenldson in General  |  Comments[1]

HOW REPUBLICANS STOPPED HELP TO MORTGAGE BORROWERS

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page A25

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

The writer is governor of New York.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

Posted at 10:36PM Oct 13, 2008 by Douglas Lee Bryenldson in General  |  Comments[2]

REPUBLICAN (STEPFORD) WIVES

SAD BUT TRUE -

On the radio, I was listening to an interview with a woman who was attenting a Barack Obama Rally, listening to his speech and cheering him on because she BELIEVED in his message and BELIEVED in him as a leader... while, the NPR reporter got a flash of insight and asked, "So, it goes without saying you're going to vote for Obama this November then, huh?"

To which the lady hesitated and answered, "Well... no... my husband... my husband and I are card carrying Republicans. If I voted for Obama - he'd probably DIVORCE ME!"

The interviewer - too staggered by her clulessness to speak clearly choked, "But your husband would never have to know HOW you voted... it's a secret ballot, just you in private..."

To which she replied, "Yeah but... he'd ASK me who I voted for!!!" (implying the thought of lying to HIM to maintain her own personal identity NEVER EVEN OCCURRED TO HER.... OMFG... I wouldn't want a tropy Republican (Stepford) Wife like that if she came with a dowry of a hundred million dollars like John McCain's wife did.

*GAG*

- Doug

Posted at 10:45AM Oct 11, 2008 by Douglas Lee Bryenldson in General  |  Comments[1]

REPUBLICANS ARE NO BETTER THAN ISLAMIC MILITANTS

I was recently disgusted to hear the Republican crowd at (Insane in the Brain) McCain's pep rally today chanting "OFF WITH OBAMA's HEAD!"

It was certainly chiling to hear this sick and twisted Republican crowd referencing the the gruesome and all too recent scenes of Fundamentalist Islamic barbarians cutting people's heads off (like Daniel Pearle).

This just demonstrates that a great number of Republicans are cut from the same sadistic block of shit as these barbaric Islamic militants are. They are bloodthirsty and losing their collective sanity.

I'm sorry if you're a Republican and you feel offended by this - but now you know how I felt when I heard these sadistic Republican chants of "Off With OBAMA's HEAD!"

Oh, and I wasn't too impressed hearing McCain refer to Sen. Obama as "THAT ONE" last night during the debate - as though Sen Obama were some kind of sub-human non-entity that we should all fear and loathe, simply because he was RIGHT about the Iraq war being a total waste of time, money and lives.

How clueless McCain/Palin are... how perverted and twisted and just plain sickening their consituency are. McCain still lives in a fantasy world where he thinks our illegal invasion of Iraq was anything short of criminal. How out of touch with reality can you get?

And now today - there comes word that a special investigative task force is going to start looking into how Karl Rove used politics to make sure certain U.S. Attorney's got fired for refusing to harass Democratic leaders and Democratic voters and indict them on false charges just to scare them out of campaigning for and voting for Democratic candidates.

Although Rove thinks he himself invented this kind of sick, perverse political blackmail - he is totally unaware that it was first employed by Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany to great effect.

Hopefully, this sick, perverse abuse of authority by Republicans will be fully exposed and those responsible like Rove will be indicted and arrested for firing U.S. Attorneys who would not become slaves to Republican Party's morally bankrupt activities. My dream is to see Rove, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Wolfowitz all end up in a FEDERAL PRISON, rotting away in the darkness they so love, serving out multiple life sentences for corruption and treason.

It has also been recently uncovered that Rove had a plan to illegally get ALL branches of Government empowered by Republicans so that there would no longer be onjective checks and balances and oversight - but he didn't count on whisteblowers who didn't appreciate that the Republicans actually wanted to set up a ONE PARTY system under CORPORATE RULE - which is just another way of saying an American Fascist Government.

Rove, sick bastard that he is - wanted all branches of the Government - Executive, Legislative, Judicial, the House, Senate, all the various departments (Interior, Education, Pentagon, etc.) ALL ruled exclusively AND PERMANENTLY by Republicans who would work together to make America a totalitarian theocratic Government(ruled by Republican Christian Fundamentalists which are just as sick and perverse as Islamic Fundamentalists). Under a hostile Republican take-over and subsequent monopoly of all branches and office, Rove argued this would prevent anyone from being able to investigate them and hold them accountable by insuring that Democrats could never have a majority in any branch or office or state ever again.

That's TREASON in my book - and TREASON is punishable by death - and so I think Karl Rove should be packing his bags real soon and fleeing to Argentina to hide out with all the other Nazi war criminals.

BOTTOM LINE - REPUBLICANS ARE CORRUPT AND CRIMINAL. IF YOU WANT MORE OF THE SAME - VOTE FOR MCCAIN. IF YOU WANT REAL CHANGE - VOTE OBAMA.

Hell, if you write in SATAN's name on the ballot - at least that's a better choice than any REPUBLICAN.

- Doug

p.s. Matt - you are certainly free to respond to this post - but you are so imbedded in the "Cult of Republicans" that you clearly don't have an objective persepective and everyone knows this but you. But go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot if you so please. Everything you say just reinforces my argument that most Neo-Republicans are nothing but arrogant, smug, self-righteous militant fascists motivated by GREED and in love with the idea of WAR.

(By the way - I am NOT a Democrat. I am an Independent and have voted Republican and Democrat in the past. In fact, my candidate of choice this year for President would have been a Republican - RON PAUL - but his own party knew how right and on target he was so they ostracized and shunned him like the perverse, sick bastards they are.

Posted at 06:42PM Oct 08, 2008 by Douglas Lee Bryenldson in General  |  Comments[1]