Please Cut the Crap!

An Open Challenge to Limbaugh! I'll Debate You! Come on, Ya Chicken!

Dear Rush Limbaugh.

You know what?

The only people dumber than you have to be the dittobots you call your audience. I know you go home and laugh at their idiocy daily, just as we laugh at yours.

You're not even in a league to match wits with me, let alone the President of the United States, and yet he wants a debate. Yeah, the asshole in the following thinks he's in a league to debate the President of the United States. Watch this, folks; this has to be one of the flat stupidest things he's ever said, and that's going some:






Look, idiot. If you can't see that health insurance costs are one of the keys to any economic recovery, you're hopeless. As of 2005, General Motors reported health care costs of $5.6 billion, and that was up from $5.2 billion the year before; if you think they can continue to foot a bill like that, and recover, think again.Small businesses have increasingly been forced to drop health care coverage as a benefit, as well. With unemployment reaching 8.1% as of the end of last month, and expected to go a lot higher over the next few months, if not longer, and a recovery expected to take at least a few more years beyond that, the 46 million people currently not covered by health insurance could skyrocket, especially if companies like GM and Ford end up going under. If the number of uninsured doubles, the insured could be looking at premium increases of around 20% per year for the next three or four years, which would effectively double premiums by that time. With the average family premium currently sitting at somewhere around $1300 per month, who's going to pick up the tab for premiums of about $2600 per month? This is a crisis, and it's crippling businesses both large and small, and the expense of higher premiums will have a major impact on the quality of our recovery.

Therefore, President Obama is NOT changing the subject. It's the same damn subject!

See how easy that was? It took me about two minutes and an Internet connection.

Here's what I propose, although you'll be too chicken to take me up on it.

I offer to debate your sorry ass on national radio for one hour, with only one condition; the debate is carried on YOUR SHOW, and simulcast on a progressive talk show, as well. It can either be the Ed Schultz Show or The Thom Hartmann's show, as long as one of them is willing. If they are not willing, I will insist that the show be carried live over the Internet, so that people I trust can make sure I can be heard the entire time.

I am just a regular guy, with a background in political science, a paralegal degree, with experience as a paralegal, and as a writer. I was a single parent for eighteen years, and my son now in Army Basic Training. Although I have some radio experience in my deep, distant past, I am not a professional radio announcer. But I know I have the intellect to take you on; it won't be that hard. You have no clue what's actually going on out here in the real world; none whatsoever.

Come on,  blowhard. Prove you have some stones. Before you take on the President of the United States, I think you should warm up with me. What are you afraid of?


Milt Shook

Republicans: The Party of Drug Addled Gas Bags? Works For Me...

The kerfuffle surrounding Rush Limbaugh (who tied with Ann Coulter with the most times as our Right Boob of the week) is absolutely priceless. It’s also proof that Barack Obama has political instincts that are absolutely unparalleled.

If you’re paying attention, President Obama actually started this by suggesting to the Congressional  drooling class idiots – which is most Republicans – that they had a choice – they could follow Limbaugh, or they could do the right thing by the American people. Of course, they chose Limbaugh. Obama knew they would; it’s in their political DNA. You could see it during the presidential election, when they forced the chosen GOP candidate, John McCain, to go against his better angels and embrace their right wing claptrap, or risk losing the "Republican “base,” which every Republican seems to think is a guarantee of victory in any election.

Until recently, Rush Limbaugh had actually spent 20 years flying just below the radar. Most people had heard the name but they knew nothing of the man himself. Most people don’t listen to AM radio much anymore, and they would rarely happen upon him, unless they were driving through one of the areas in the west and midwest in which there are no FM stations. Face it, folks; as radio programs go, his and Hannity’s are the most popular, and they make a lot of money for advertisers, but theirs is a niche market. As we have proven time and time again on these blogs, more than 90% of radio listeners do NOT listen to either Limbaugh or Hannity.

Jon Stewart Rips Rick Santelli and Business News "Experts" a New One

Seriously, check this out... it's sad that a comedian seems to have a better eye for news than most journalists.

Why do we keep looking at these idiots as "experts" anyway?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Making Money From the Messes They Made, When They Should be on the Way to Jail

This has to stop, folks.

Apparently, a couple of former executives at Countrywide have gone into business for themselves. Now, for those of you who have really short memories, Countrywide was pretty much at the epicenter of the mortgage meltdown, and had to go out of business because of the billions and billions of dollars in bad loans they made with their customers' money. In other words, they were irresponsible with others' money.

Can you guess what they're doing now?

This is from today's NYTimes.com.

Whether they deserve to be or not, Countrywide Financial and its top executives would be on most lists of those who share blame for the nation’s economic crisis. After all, the banking behemoth made risky loans to tens of thousands of Americans, helping set off a chain of events that has the economy staggering.

So it may come as a surprise that a dozen top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess.

Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president, and his team of former company executives have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect.

(...)

PennyMac was born last spring after Mr. Kurland received a phone call from a childhood friend, Lawrence Fink, now the chief executive of BlackRock, which along with other investment groups is trying to figure out how to profit from the decline by buying up distressed loans at fire-sale prices. Mr. Fink lured him back in business, and BlackRock invested.

PennyMac, whose full legal name is the Private National Mortgage Acceptance Company, also received backing from Highfields Capital, a hedge fund based in Boston. Other investors include Atlantic Philanthropies, based in Bermuda and created by the billionaire former owner DFS Group, a chain of airport duty free shops. PennyMac makes its money by buying loans from struggling or failed financial institutions at such a huge discount that it stands to profit enormously, even if it offers to slash interest rates or make other loan modifications to entice borrowers into resuming payments.

Its biggest deal has been with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which it paid $43.2 million, or the equivalent of 38 cents on the dollar, for $560 million worth of mostly delinquent residential loans left over after the failure last year of the First National Bank of Nevada. Many of these loans resemble the kind that Countrywide once offered, with interest rates that can suddenly balloon.

Under the initial terms of the F.D.I.C. deal, PennyMac is entitled to keep 20 cents on every dollar it can collect from borrowers, with the federal government receiving the rest. Eventually that will rise to 40 cents.

Telephone operators at PennyMac’s offices — working in shifts — spend 15 hours a day trying to reach borrowers whose loans the company now controls. In many cases, they offer drastic cuts in the interest rate or other deals, which PennyMac can afford, given that it paid so little for the loans.

PennyMac hopes to achieve a profit of at least 20 percent annually, and it is actively courting other investors in an effort to build its portfolio, which now consists of $800 million in loans, to as much as $15 billion in the next 18 months, executives said. For the borrowers whose loans have ended up with PennyMac, it can translate into an extraordinary deal.

You know what? There was a time when financial people who were irresponsible with other people's money were shunned by society, or forced to pay restitution and banned from the industry, or even thrown in jail, if the negligence was bad enough.