Rag Hand

In an interview Wednesday with ABC News, the Alaska governor said she believed she and John McCain would win next Tuesday’s election but indicated she wouldn’t disappear from the national political scene if they lose.

“Absolutely not. I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we’ve taken, that … that would … bring this whole … I’m not doing this for naught,” Palin said, according to excerpts released by the television network.

Besides the interview, Palin also delivered a policy address on energy independence Wednesday and headlined three rallies in Ohio and Indiana, both hotly contested swing states. She planned to campaign Thursday in Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Palin called for a “clean break” from the Bush administration’s energy policies. She said White House plans rely too much on importing foreign oil.

Palin spoke after touring Xunlight Corp., one of a handful of solar technology startup companies in Toledo, a struggling industrial city in northern Ohio. City leaders are hoping the solar companies will create jobs to replace some of those lost by auto-industry downsizing.

The problem is her mantra of “drill baby drill” not only isn’t practical because of a lack of processing facilities, but total reliance on fossil fuels will create more climatic problems and even more air we can’t breathe.

On the other hand, by giving this speech right after touring a solar energy company she solidified her place as a defender of wrong headedness.

March 3 (Bloomberg) — Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a former beauty pageant winner, is succeeding where Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, a former paratrooper and military coup leader, so far has failed.

Palin threatened to evict Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest oil company, and partners BP Plc, Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips from a state-owned gas field, winning their promise to increase Alaska’s natural-gas output 17 percent. She raised taxes on oil profits by $1.5 billion a year and rejected industry ownership of a $25 billion pipeline.

Sounds good but what about this from the Guardian?

In its lawsuit, Alaska said it opposed the endangered label partly because the listing would “deter activities such as … oil and gas exploration and development”. Oil companies recently bid $2.7bn (£1.5bn) for rights to explore the Chuckchi sea, an established polar bear habitat.

Her own Alaskan review of the science drew on a joint paper by seven authors, four of whom were well-known climate- change contrarians. Her paper argued that it was “certainly premature, if not impossible” to link temperature rise in Alaska with human CO2 emissions.

This is the woman who says she can see Russia from her state, even though she’s never bothered to visit the spot where it is visible.

This is the woman who said during an interview with Katie Couric that she is “apologetically pro-life”, would “counsel life” for a 15 year old girl raped by her father.

Palin opposes all rights for gay couples, opposes marriage equality, opposes allowing gays to serve openly in the military, opposes gay-inclusive hate crimes legislation, opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and opposes immigration rights for same-sex spouses of American citizens. We have also yet to find the one lesbian friend she claims she has. —But all that matters is that it was her imaginary friend’s choice to be gay.

“As for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay and I love her dearly. She’s not my ‘gay’ friend, she is one of my best friends who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made. But I’m not going to judge people.”

I would doubt that a pathological liar like Palin actually has any friends except those brown-nosers who expect jobs or contracts.

None of this makes a bit of difference because this nut-job really thinks that she’s important and is on a crusade to be noticed and to make the rest of us believe the way she believes. –Nope. She’s had a taste of the national spotlight and she ain’t goin’ away.
Just another loony that’s going to try to take Sen. Ted Stevens’ place.

Rhode Island leads the nation with 8.8% unemployment and an economy that has not bottomed out. Even the fast food joints are laying off.

The reason I mention fast food is that I consider it to be a major indicator of economic health. –As Americans we have been trained to think that Burger King, McDonald’s and Taco Bell are a substitute for bringing lunch to school or cooking. I haven’t found any statistics but I bet brown-bagging-it has become more common than running over to Carl’s Junior for lunch, whether the person is at school or at work.

When you have food pantries struggling to keep up with the demand you don’t see people splurging on pizza.

The hamburger math is simple average $5 per person x 5 days = $25 per week = $100 per month = $1200 per year / per person.

Who has no job and an extra $100 per month??

As a society we have been well trained in the “have it your way” philosophy. Now reality rears its ugly head… Unemployed people can’t be so choosy and Top Romin bought on sale can be tweaked to provide a reasonably tasty meal for a lot less than $25 per person per week.

NYT: –At least two funds, Greenwich Financial Services and Braddock Financial, have told banks that they may take legal action if loans are renegotiated in a way that hurts the funds’ financial interests.

The clash highlights the type of conflicts that are likely to intensify as government intervention in the mortgage market widens. The Bush administration is working on a plan under which the government would absorb some of the losses resulting from modifying home loans.

These funds don’t want mortgages to be devalued because they have invested in securities backed by mortgages.
If there is a renegotiation of loans at this point it will drive the value down and make the hedge funds less attractive to investors.

On the other hand by using delaying tactics to slow the process down these funds can keep their ratings high which will help keep current investors and attract new money.

Delaying or derailing this latest plan also gives the Hedge Funds a chance to sell off these toxic assets by bundling them with other investments.

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Monday a fresh round of government stimulus is a good idea because there’s a risk the country’s economic weakness could last for some time.

Bernanke’s remarks before the House Budget Committee marked his first endorsement of another round of energizing stimulus, something that Democrats on Capitol Hill have been pushing. The Bush administration, however, has been cool to the notion.

“With the economy likely to be weak for several quarters, and with some risk of a protracted slowdown, consideration of a fiscal package by the Congress at this juncture seems appropriate,” Bernanke testified.

The nation’s unemployment rate — now at 6.1 percent — could hit 7.5 percent or higher by next year, according to some predictions.

Bernanke suggested that Congress design the stimulus package so that it will be timely, well targeted and would limit the longer-term affects on the government’s budget deficit, which hit a record high in the recently ended budget year.

We were already forced into a Trillion dollar financial bailout and this guy is worried about the cost of a few hundred dollars per taxpayer?!?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said an economic recovery bill could be as large as $150 billion. Economists have told leading Democrats the plan should be twice the size.

Earlier this year, Congress enacted a $168 billion stimulus package that included tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses. The rebate checks of up to $600 per person did help to lift economic growth in the spring. However, consumers cut back sharply as rising unemployment, harder-to-get credit, shrinking paychecks and falling home values made people much more cautious.

I don’t know what the fix is. All I know is that we will eventually recover, but it will be due to basic market pressures and in no way due to current policies.

We are in this position because of policies and people that were put in place to allow the rich to get richer. –Most of those people and policies remain in place.

When policies like deregulation and self-regulation of the financial industry failed, the profiteers got bailed out and the few individuals that were forced out left with their multi-million dollar severance and signing packages intact.

The basic problem includes the Democrats, who swore they would change things right up until the day they got the power and who remain proponents of the status quo because that’s where they get their money.

Congress will make impassioned speeches about helping the American family and may adjust a few minor things, but nothing major will change. –Like the committee system, pork and earmarks; our duly elected representatives made a great deal of noise about them, but that’s all it was… noise.

So tell me again how the people who created this problem are going to fix it.

According to the NYT:
Washington
Bush Aides Say Religious Hiring Doesn’t Bar Aid
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: October 18, 2008
–A memorandum concludes it is possible to give taxpayer money to groups that hire staff members of only one faith.

The administration, which has sought to lower barriers between church and state through its religion-based initiative offices, made the claim in a 2007 Justice Department memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel. It was quietly posted on the department’s Web site this week.

The document signed off on a $1.5 million grant to World Vision, a group that hires only Christians, for salaries of staff members running a program that helps “at-risk youth” avoid gangs. The grant was from a Justice Department program created by a statute that forbids discriminatory hiring for the positions it is financing.

But the memorandum said the government could bypass those provisions because of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It sometimes permits exceptions to a federal law if obeying it would impose a “substantial burden” on people’s ability to freely exercise their religion. The opinion concluded that requiring World Vision to hire non-Christians as a condition of the grant would create such a burden.

The Office of Legal Counsel issues interpretations of the law that are binding on the executive branch and often rules on matters that are difficult to get before a court. Under the Bush administration, it has drawn sharp criticism for issuing opinions that provide legal cover for controversial policies preferred by administration officials.

In 2002, for example, the office secretly signed off on the use of harsh interrogation techniques despite a statute and treaties forbidding torture. The memorandum’s legal reasoning was strongly criticized by legal scholars after it was leaked to the public, and the Justice Department rescinded it.

In January 2001, Mr. Bush’s first two executive orders created an Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the White House and in five federal agencies.

Mr. Bush also asked Congress to make it legal for religious groups to win grants even if they discriminate against people of other faiths when hiring for taxpayer-financed posts. He said it was not fair to force them to give up their identities in order to compete for grants. When Congress failed to pass such a bill, Mr. Bush issued an executive order that made the changes on his own for most federal programs.

Since then, some social conservatives have advanced the view that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might be used to nullify such restrictions.

In 2003, Mr. Lupu said, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation for substance abuse and mental health program grants that advanced such a view, and in 2007 — several months after the Office of Legal Counsel memo was secretly completed — the Justice Department quietly changed its grant application rules to reflect that view.

This administration has gutted the regulatory offices of this government by replacing anyone who doesn’t agree with them, and continually chipped away at the separation of church and state.

They have allowed the detention of US citizens without cause or benefit of legal counsel…..Etc.

I guess this means that they’re going to give Muslims lots of government money just so they can exclude Christians and hire lots more Muslims….. No?.. Isn’t that discrimination?

Keep this in mind: Tomas de Torquemada was also absolutely certain he was doing “God’s work.”

When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
–Sinclair Lewis, 1935