The State of the Union video feed can be accessed, while available, by clicking on the magical picture below.

For real ?

You go and change shit up !

A much better electoral race for sure…..

Read here:

If the theme of tonight’s State of the Union address is fairness, then President Obama would be wise to steer clear of housing; most of the proposals to fix the nation’s still struggling real estate market are intrinsically unfair to a large majority of Americans.

From a mass refinance plan to mass mortgage principal forgiveness, the supposed “fixes” will reward some at the expense of far more.

Let’s start with that principal forgiveness. Some Democrats have been hounding the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the FHFA and its leader Ed DeMarco) to initiate a program to reduce the value of mortgages where the mortgage is larger than the value of the home, i.e. “underwater”. The idea is that this will keep those borrowers from defaulting on these mortgages.

DeMarco is against this, so Democrats, or at least Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, went so far as to request proof of Demarco’s contention that such a program would do more harm than good. This after the Federal Reserve officials, in a recent “White Paper,” suggested, “some actions that cause greater losses to be sustained by the [GSE’s] in the near term might be in the interest of taxpayers to pursue if those actions result in a quicker and more vigorous economic recovery.”

The losses to Fannie and Freddie, according to DeMarco, would be somewhere around $100 billion, if they were to write down principal on all 3 million underwater mortgages backed by the two. That money, DeMarco noted in a letter back to the Congressman, would come from taxpayers, who have already footed a $150 billion bill from Fannie and Freddie.

Then there’s that pesky refi plan that’s been floating around for a few years now. The idea is that Fannie and Freddie would refinance about 14 million of their own borrowers to 4 percent or less, as long as the borrowers are current on their loans. This would supposedly juice the economy with household savings of about $36 billion a year. Administration officials have already told me they are not considering such a program as it is too expensive in too many ways. And then there’s that fairness issue again, as in why should the government fund refinances for borrowers with Fannie and Freddie loans but not for the other half of American borrowers who don’t have Fannie and Freddie loans?

We can, however, look for the president to say something about the current expansion of the government’s refinance program for underwater borrowers, and we’re eager to hear how he thinks it’s going, given that it has fallen under harsh criticism for helping too few borrowers. Perhaps he might want to change/expand that program, but then again details are not exactly popular in State of the Union addresses historically.

(via NY TIMES)

Newt Gingrich insists his fans will not be silenced.

Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, on Tuesday morning threatened not participate in any future debates with audiences that have been instructed to be silent. That was the case on Monday, when Brian Williams of NBC News asked the audience of about 500 people who assembled for a debate in Tampa to hold their applause until the commercial breaks.

In an interview with the morning show “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Gingrich said NBC’s rules amounted to stifling free speech. In what has become a standard line of attack for his anti-establishment campaign, Mr. Gingrich blamed the media for trying to silence a dissenting point of view.

“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”

Mr. Gingrich soared to victory in the South Carolina last week after back-to-back debates in which he took on the moderators with as much zeal as he took on his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. The audiences, which were far larger and encouraged to participate, cheered him on as he pushed back. First he lashed out at Juan Williams of Fox News for suggesting that Mr. Gingrich’s comments about blacks and welfare were offensive. Then he snapped at John King of CNN for opening the debate with a question about accusations that he had asked an ex-wife for an “open marriage.”

Mr. Gingrich’s performance in the debate in Tampa on Monday night was far more muted. Critics noted that he seemed to be off his game. The National Journal, which co-hosted the NBC debate, compared Gingrich to “a stand-up comedian whose routine suffers without echoes of laughter egging him on.”

Mr. Gingrich clearly noticed something was off, too. “We’re going to serve notice on future debates,” he told Fox. “We’re just not going to allow that to happen. That’s wrong. The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”

For the average American making $40k per year, being taxed at 28%, to match what Romney paid –at 15%–in one year of taxes, it would take them about 400 years to accomplish. The average guy making $40k is paying roughly $8-10k in taxes per annum. If he/she calls the police or fire department once, the gov’t will likely lose money on him. Romney is paying roughly $3 million per annum, which in turn finances all of the federal horseshit people clamor for. The tax rate, in many respects, is irrelevant–actual dollars is what’s important.

Do the math.

Romney’s tax documents are voluminous and extraordinarily complex, and his opponents are sure to comb through them in the coming days. They reflect the far-flung finances of one of the richest men ever to run for president. His 2010 tax return alone runs to 203 pages, crammed with information about foreign holdings, contributions to family trusts — and even a Swiss bank account.

Full article

What an interesting turn of events in blocking the keystone pipeline deal…

Sources tell Gaspirino that regulators pressured MS to cut cash bonuses…

By James Pethokoukis

January 23, 2012, 3:08 pm

A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House. A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, “Sensitive & Confidential” memo written by economist Larry Summers—eventually to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council—to Obama in December 2008. Here’s some of what I learned about Team Obama’s thinking as the financial crisis was exploding, followed by quotes from the memo itself:

1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda.

The short-run economic imperative was to identify as many campaign promises or high priority items that would spend out quickly and be inherently temporary. …  The stimulus package is a key tool for advancing clean energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.

Read the rest here. You won’t believe it!

Is it to take the heat off politicians in general ? Is it just a campaign energizer touching on anger Americans have for the debacle ? Stop blaming two quasi government entities and get tough on the real issue at hand.

Full article

They also pressured scientists  to do the same…

This is the 23rd black listed financial related bank since 2006

Igloo style

What’s up with non prosecution settlements? Should people not go to jail for breaking the law ?

Don’t fade Paul just yet….

In an interview Buffet gave a subtle push for Romney by stating he is not going to pay more than the law requires.

(via ABC NEWS) 

Sen. Rand Paul told his communications director this morning he was being detained by TSA at the Nashville airport.

The Twitter account associated with Paul staffer Moira Bagley, @moirabagley, tweeted around 10 a.m., ET, “Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

A TSA spokesman said the agency was looking into the matter but could not immediately comment.

Paul apparently set off  an airport security full-body scanner “on a glitch,” a spokesman in Paul’s office told ABC News.

The Paul staffer said TSA agents would not let Paul walk back through the body scanner and were demanding a full body pat-down.

The Paul spokesman said his office called TSA administrator John Pistole about the incident this morning.

The Senate is back in session today at 2 p.m., with votes scheduled at 4:30 p.m.

The issue of pat-downs has been an important one to Paul, the son of libertarian-leaning Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Sen.  Paul brought this issue up at a hearing earlier this year.