i guess beggars CAN be choosers

as i'm writing this, congress is nearing a deal on wall street's bailout. i don't really know what it will be yet, and i have no clue whether president shit-for-brains will even sign it, and (not if) what signing statements he'll tack on.

but here is what we do know: what data is in indicates that it wasn't the community reinvestment act,(read the pdf from the link- it's only 12 pages and very informative) or clinton's efforts to enforce it. multiple studies (michael barr's report especially has some great info) have shown that a little over half of all subprime mortgages came from banks that had no obligations under the CRA, another quarter came from banks only partially covered by the CRA. only about one quarter of subprime mortgages are even made from financial institutions fully under the CRA to loan back to communities they take deposits from (which is the key requirement of the CRA). on top of that, banks reported low costs to even comply with the law, and that banks didn't consider CRA loans "overly risky" (see michael barr's report). to enforce this law, the federal government posts information on lending to low-income communities for the public, and reviews the percentage of credit to poor areas of banks trying to merge (clinton and reno's change in 1995). if there's a period of low-merger activity, the law just doesn't get as much enforcement.

the data coming in looks bad for lenders. consider what michael barr's report goes on to say- that borrowers, especially non-white borrowers, were "steered" to subprime mortgages, even when they could have qualified for a regular mortgage. flipping, packing, and huge fees that were very profitable made these loans a nightmare for borrowers. lenders sold existing borrowers refinancing loans they didn't need, and maybe even falsely reported the conditions of these loans to underwriters. the problems were so bad, state attorneys general started getting interested. however, the bush administration literally blocked them using the OCC, and a banking law from 1863, with some additonal regs thrown in. the attorneys general of all 50 states objected to and unsucessfully fought this. on top of that, 2005 changes in the CRA (which administration would that be) actually made predatory lending easier, as it changed what could be used as collateral to offer/price a mortgage. even jon stewart can see the bullshit. ("you have a casino!")

so spare me blaming this on blacks, hispanics, or poor people. lenders found easy targets with little financial knowledge, sold them loans they didn't need, suspected greatly they couldn't pay them back, priced them so the borrower would have trouble paying them back, then maybe fudged a few facts to a bunch of other people so they would buy the mortgages, then pocketed the profits. these initial mortgage buyers, including fannie mae and freddie mac, then resold these mortgages with mortgages that haven't failed to other investors, and pocketed their own profits. but this caught up with investors as the income from foreclosed mortgages dried up. by then, a few people had profited greatly, while borrowers lost their homes, small-time investors (read: me and you) lost their retirement savings, and now taxpayers just lost a shitload of government money that could have gone to schools, roads, hospitals, and mass transit. this was (is) the greedy preying upon the ignorant.

others have noted that we socialize loss and not profit in this country. i'll let them expound on this. for now, i'm just going to ask a question- WHY THE FUCK DO WE PUT UP THIS?!?!?!?!?!? where did we put our fucking pitchforks? and torches? where are the tar and feathers? we can complain, and blog, and email jack cafferty all we like, IT HASN'T MADE JACKSHIT BETTER. so here's my answer to my question: we put up with this, ultimately, because to demand change would make us reflect a little on the mistakes in thinking that led to this catastrofuck. we would have to wonder to ourselves why we let wall street police its own when history has shown it can't and won't. we would have to wonder to ourselves why we let living wages fall and be replaced with poverty wages and easy debt. we would have to wonder whether $700 billion could be better spent on things people could actually use, like trains, bridges (to more than 50 people), and schools. we would have to wonder why we actually fall for trickle down economics and free market myths every 20 years or so. and i don't think we'd like the answers to those questions.

the lowness of sarah palin

here's how much sarah palin holds her own fellow women in utter contempt. here's how much sarah palin wants to screw (and not the good way) american women. here's how much sarah palin finds rape victims revolting and dirty.

there's been a few things over the last few weeks that demonstrate sarah palin's disdain for all things that smack of actually helping women or improving their lives. she allegedly thought she'd make her sister's divorce easier by trying to get her ex-brother in law fired. she decided that a group that helps pregnant single women could make do with less for their expansion. she only recently decided that equal pay for equal work is right. and, of course, her hallmark: she thinks that even women who have been raped should be forced to continue their pregnancies and give birth to their rapists' children. how nice. how sweet.

what's the difference between fred phelps and sarah palin? fucking lipstick. maybe if fred puts some on, people will like him as much as they do her.

holy shit, small town america has gone full retard

well, small town america, it turns out you really are motherfucking retards. . dan hoyle, a reporter for salon.com, has filed two reports that solidify my disrepect for the "heartland", and everything it represents.

dear small town america,
let me try to explain something to you. the presidency is not a male version of miss teen usa. it's not a congeniality, superficial talent, bikini contest pageant. it's a campaign to determine who is savvy, who has the right temperment, and even (dare i suggest it?!?!?) the BRAINS, to handle a job that requires all three. hmm, let me see if i can further make this easier for you. i can't right the do-re-mi song, but maybe i can come close. the presidency- you know, of the fucking united states of america- is a job that requires actual brains. you actually do have to know some things (like who the different world leaders are, and the countries that they lead), and you definitely need to know a little something about a piece of paper called the constitution. i am, truly, sorry that you yourselves don't know enough either about the constitution, policy, or even what religion obama is. i'm truly sorry our media sucks enough that you actually still think saddam's weapons are out there, somewhere (would someone please make a video of the asshats who promote this set to the song from an american tail? fucking pretty please?) i am truly sorry that opportunities for living wages and education have passed you by. i know that the loss of opportunities in your communities is not entirely your fault. i know how discouraging it is that you feel less and less relevant to the country overall everyday.

but, have you ever considered that your relevance to the country might be tied to how knowledgable you are? let me see.... yes, i know the manufacturing jobs left, the darkies got to the lunch counter, and you've basically lost every big cultural fight, from women's rights to open homosexuality. i know what a blow to your sense of moral superiority those losses must still be. but don't you think that wallowing in ignorance and insisting your leaders do the same is the wrong way to strike back? have you ever considered that your refusal to keep up with the rest of class left you all alone in the classroom, when everyone else moved on to the next grade? do you actually think that urban americans, with their educations both in knowledge and critical thinking, should respect that you insist on believing things with no evidence, or with amazingly debunked evidence? do you think that, possibly, your jackassed insistence to see a presidential campaign as a search for a BFF might color how urban americans see you? do you really think that urban americans should respect your demand that the president "relate to you"? it's a presidential campaign, not a fucking "sex in the city" marathon. try to keep that in mind when you "evaluate" candidates. and happy moosehunting.

john-boy: stay the fuck away from ground zero!!!!!

dear fuck-face,

since you obviously think the attack on the u.s. is nothing more than a political propaganda device, why don't you spend the day watching and rewatching that fucking video with rudy giuliani and dick cheney in one of dick's underground bunkers, maybe even the one dick actually spent 9/11 in. stay the fuck away from the place where those poor people died! you don't deserve to be there. you're not worthy to suck the cocks or eat the pussies of those who died there, or those who helped others that day.

or better yet, why don't you use your super-duper senator powers to actually do something to capture the fucker who brought this on us? remember that guy? the one who keeps making the videos?!?!? when you see another one of those, don't you hang your head in shame? do you think you could, just once? you're in the political party that keeps yammering that iraq is some "central front" in the war against a feeling, can't you at least pretend to care about finding that camel-fucker?!?!? i guess that war against a feeling keeps you busy and occupies all your time, especially after feeding people video of 9/11 to keep that feeling alive and well. i presume it's so you can keep pretending to fight it.

sincerest wishes of you shitting your pants in public,

culuriel

back-alley abortionists for palin!

what? you thought we'd be for mccain? come on. he's been through skin cancer, and he's 71. he's croakin'. soon.

and that's fine with us! we've been out in the cold for 35 fucking years. you see, republicans know what happened when those fucking liberals won roe v. wade. those motherfuckers put an entire industry out of business. just like those liberals. and what a good, republican business back-alley abortions are!

what- you don't believe me? back-alley abortions, like drug smuggling, is the ultimate republican-style business. first, illegal businesses don't pay taxes. my clients, all good republicans, each and every one of them, didn't pay a dime of taxes on the cash payments that desperate women paid them. the liberals screwed them. starting in 1973, abortionists had to report these payments to the government as income! and pay taxes on them! second, back-alley abortionists solved our reliance on insurance companies, without government poking its nose into a problem it should stay the fuck out of. you didn't report a back-alley abortion to your insurance company. before 1973, you had to pull yourself up by the stirrups and use your own money before my clients shoved something up your pussy. so, back-alley abortions are a great lesson in self-reliance, especially when it comes time to get to the emergency room. third reason, don't get me started on all the stupid rules of professional practice and public health regulations my clients are now unfairly and ridiculously burdened with! painkillers!? my clients just used gags. complications were the "patient's" responsibility, my clients just did abortions. consent forms? hippocratic oath? socialist burdens imposed on hardworking americans.

fourth, and most important, is the sheen of respectability we give any society that employs my clients. back-alley abortionists give everybody the ability to condemn abortion- hell, people don't even talk about abortion when it's illegal, they don't even have to admit tolerating my clients. but they do, because back-alley abortionists give people who hate abortion the satisfaction of knowing that getting rid of junior is dangerous, and can be punished in ways the law can't. those dirty whores deserve us! those sluts who were happy to spread ther legs for their own pleasure- let 'em suffer and bleed for not taking the consequences. back-alley abortionists put the fear back into abortion, and well they should- women who don't pop out every kid they conceive are fucking with god's plan, depriving another woman of a kid to adopt, committing genocide, making a choice for men (when we all know it should be the other way around)! why, the fate of women who go to my clients should actually be much worse than what it is!

so governor palin, i hope you are just as flattered and humbled at my clients' endorsement of you for (vice) president as you were when you accepted the nomination. you are, after all, going to bring us back, and we look forward to the happier, more prosperous, more moral days coming under you. to god's will!

bribery and ass-kissing aren't appeasement if they're done by petraeus

i've said it before (sort of), and i'll say it again: re-boosting our troop levels to 160,000 in 2007 and thinking it would reduce the violence, when we had about 160,000 troops in iraq to begin with and that didn't stop the violence then, is not what reduced violence in iraq. are people aware that we've been literally bribing the sunni insurgents to stop attacks, and sucking up to moqtada al-sadr to keep up his truce? that's why the attacks went down. for fuck's sake, it was the occupation of iraq that sunni and shia insurgents were attacking u.s. troops and each other over. and what's more, there are few mixed areas for sunni and shia to fight each other in anymore. and on top of that, where's the goddamned political progress of teary-eyed, hug inducing reconciliation between sunni and shia? is baghdad suddenly getting along better with the kurds?

republicans are dislocating their shoulders patting themselves on the back for getting violence levels down to what they were in 2005, 2004. excuse me, but those years sucked too. maybe they sucked a little less for those of us whose suffering was from watching it on tv. or maybe they sucked a little less because the shitty deceptions of the bush administration to justify this exercise in shittiness hadn't yet sunk in. i don't know.

however, unless you've been living in a cave, the iraqi government finally did what its people have been demanding and told the u.s that it's time to get its troops out. turns out, those permanent military bases the bush administration wanted ain't gonna happen. turns out, the iraqis don't really like the idea. who'dve thunk it? if these bases were for what i think they were (staging grounds for future wars against middle eastern countries), then i can hardly blame the iraqis for saying "FUCK NO!" and if the bush administration is threatening iraq with the loss of $20 billion dollars in its money for not signing the SOFA, then iraqis should kick someone in the nuts. there's a phrase for that tactic- it's called a protection racket.

and here's the kicker. here's what gets me pissed about iraq. let's say that we actually leave things there right as rain. let's say the sunnis and shias and kurds find some other group they can all hate together so they stop fighting each other. let's say that women can realistically leave their homes for jobs, socializing and educations. let's say the oil is flowing and gas is back down to $2 per gallon. WE STILL HAVE TO GO BACK TO AGHGANISTAN AND DEFEAT THE TALIBAN! remember that war?!?!? no?!?!? here's a hint: it's the one john mccain thinks just needs some tweaking. maybe we could even, dare i suggest it, capture bin laden?

in other words, we've lost more than 4,000 members of the u.s. armed forces, over 150 other armed forces from our "coalition" "partners", and anywhere from 86,000 to 1,000,000 iraqi civilians- but "winning" here means we're right back where we started. in 2003. with no bin laden, more opium, and a taliban/al quaeda force that still hasn't gone away. except that now, iraq's leadership won't be a neutralizing force against iran- because of the shia/shia thing, and because of iran's new relationship with iraq. and remember, iran is still in the axis of evil. (i think- i haven't heard that phrase in a few years. it may have died the quiet death "stay the course" did. finally.) we don't want iraq to suddenly start thinking that maybe they should side with iran over us (even though they're supposedly a sovereign nation). at least, not until iran is a trading partner, and they've given us the good trade agreements first. or at least some oil.