"We've seen since Meb's win (in the New York City Marathon) that American athletes are standing taller. It was one thing to be tapping on the ceiling. Once one person crashes through, it makes all the difference."
Out: Tea Partiers are a bunch of un-washed and un-read fly-over country rubes being led around by the nose so it's obvious they are not grassroots.
In: Tea Partiers are a bunch of educated and uppper-middle class malcontents, so it's obvious they are not grass roots
When we blogged a few days ago about Fannie and Freddie regulator, Armando Falcon's, testimony before Congress with respect to the attacks unleashed upon him by those GSEs when he had the temerity to suggest that those two GSEs might be on some questionable financial footing because of loose lending practices and Enron-like accounting practices, we left out a minor detail, though, it's one that should not surprise you if you've been a regular reader: Fannie and Freddie are still going to require a wee more bit o' cash.
A pair of former regulators who oversaw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told a panel Friday that the two government sponsored enterprises - which taxpayers have already bailed out to the tune of $125 billion - will likely need even more aid.
Their testimony came on the third and final day of this week's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings on securitization and subprime lending. The panel tasked with determining the factors that contributed to the financial crisis.
Armando Falcon and James Lockhart, former directors of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, said the price tag for taxpayers would almost certainly climb, as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to draw on their credit lines.
The Obama administration pledged on Thursday to back beleaguered mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac no matter how big their losses may be in the next three years.
It also jettisoned a demand that the two companies cut the size of their mortgage-related investment portfolios next year, allowing them to provide even more support in the near term for a housing market recovering from its worst slump in decades.
A substantial number of U.S. heart doctors — about one in four — say they order medical tests that might not be needed out of fear of getting sued, according to a new study.
Nearly 600 doctors were surveyed for the study to determine how aggressively they treat their patients and whether non-medical issues have influenced their decisions to order invasive heart tests.
Most said they weren't swayed by such things as financial gain or a patient's expectations. But about 24% of the doctors said they had recommended the test in the previous year because they were worried about malpractice lawsuits. About 27% said they did it because they thought their colleagues would do the test.
Doctors who treated their patients aggressively were more likely to be influenced by malpractice worries or peer pressure than those who weren't as aggressive, the study determined.
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Medical malpractice was part of the health care reform debate, but didn't make it into the recently approved legislation. The new law does include pilot programs for states to explore alternatives to lawsuits.
Time's tight so we won't waste a lot of time with extaneous buildups.
Ladies and Gentlemen: it's Johnny Cash performing "Rowboat"
"The second way government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment is by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a 'reservation wage'—the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase [the] reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer."
What follows is not going to be one of our beloved Milton Friedman videos because the quote above did not come from him or any of the other usual supply-side suspects but rather one of President Obama's chief economic advisers, Larry Summers.
As Congress is considering pushing the duration of unemployment benefits out to 99 weeks, studies, facts on the grounds and simple human psychology don't support the fact that unemployment benefits actually put people back to work.
Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute has found that the average unemployment episode rose from 10 weeks before the recession to 19 weeks after Congress twice previously extended jobless benefits—to 79 from 26 weeks.
Some pictures and images of the Tax Day rally at the Midway post office here in San Diego, yesterday.
And as for the Tea Party crashers and other assorted infiltrators, we'll give them credit for the extent they went to go undercover... deep undercover. Fortunately, alert Tea Partiers were on the job pointing out these obvious frauds.
And our favorite sign of the day
We hear ya, kid.
W.C. Varones has the goods on the one actual crasher we saw at the rally. In reality, pretty benign.
And B-Daddy's take on yesterday's events, here.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
We need to start keeping a running tally of all the little surprises, or if you prefer, unintended consequences, misrepresentations or outright lies that are revealed from within ObamaCare on a near-daily basis.
Maybe we'll put together a post and we'll update it periodically to reflect just what all is in this wondrous piece of legislation and we'll name it in honor of Madam Speaker who shares our sentiments in this journey of discovery - we'll call it Nancy's Nuances.
Today's find:
Currently, people with massive medical expenses -- more than 7.5 percent of their income -- can deduct them on their taxes. Under Obamacare, the threshold goes up to 10 percent in 2013 for younger taxpayers and in 2017 for older ones.
According to the Hill, this unnoticed tax hike will squeeze $15.2 billion out of 15 million very sick people, 99 percent of whom make less than $200,000 per year.
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A special feature here on Tax Day America. We normally roll out The Beatles' "Tax Man" but wanted to go with something different this year.
We tried to find the Beat Farmers' version of the song because it completely rocks but we didn't get any YouTube love on that front so we just went with the original.
Taking a swipe at the nanny-state of their native England and a dim view of the assumed "progress" of technology while dismissing the notion of modern = better , who knew these guys were such Burkean conservatives?
Ladies and Gentlemen, it's The Kinks, performing "20th Century Man"
P.S. Blogging may be light for the next day or two as we will be down at the post office on Midway for the Tax Day Rally. All this exercising of 1st amendment rights is quite exhausting, don't you know? We'll try to report out on the day's events or link to other sites as time permits.
... because that's how we roll.
It's come to our attention that some lefty Einsteins want to infiltrate the tea party movement and act in a manner that will discredit the movement particularly at rallies like the tax day rally that will be going down tomorrow at the Midway post office here in San Diego.
We say, "come to our attention" because these Einsteins have a website stating their infiltration objectives and goals. If the idea of having a website that openly advertises subterfuge seems oxymoronic, you will know why we have bestowed such a lofty intellectual sobriquet upon these people.
Aside from this towering intellect, though, it's telling that they have resorted to these tactics as evidence of getting their asses kicked in the marketplace of ideas. They have none and they know it, so they fall back on the trusty race card and general smear tactics.
It's sad because these people are so indeed bereft of any ideas, they cannot muster the inspiration to even organize an honest-to-goodness counter-protest.
And that's where we step in, doing the Lord's work of promoting a healthy (and civil!) democracy where ideas are brought to the table and where we let the people decide.
With that in mind and with the infiltrators emphasis on misspelled signs, we have some slogans that we offer up, free of charge, that are in keeping with the political ideology of the infiltrators in order to get their counter-protest off and running.
I (heart) the Baleouts
Keep heeping those laws on my Body
Freedom and Liberty: Highly Overrated
Because I'm just to dam stupid to be left to my own devices
I'm so dun with the Constitution
Too much disposable income!
Yes, I believe I will help myself to mor of your money
Healthcare for all! Everybody In, Nobody Out....
Actually, we did see that on a t-shirt at a pro-Obamacare rally. Liberalism has twisted itself into such a knot that the irony contained in that statement has choked the life out of the good-government liberal, an all-but extinct breed.
You can probably think of some more that are far more clever in an effort to help our statist friends while at the same time assisting them in competing in the marketplace of ideas.
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