Why we are in the mess we are in

Will trade deficit trigger depression?
Economists: It's de-industrializing America, leading nation toward 2nd-rate power status.
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This article makes so much sense. Adding to the problem, the authors write, was the emergence of a blind ideological commitment across the American political spectrum to "free trade" that really wasn't free at all. I don't think it was blind at all but a concerted effort of the democrate and republican socialists to ruin America economically by helping foreign governments "own" American. This was done in conjunction with the laws governing the environment also. There is no such animal as the so called free trade agreements nor is there any man made global warming. The environmental laws have restricted the US growth and aided the growing deficit. THE ENEMY IS ALSO WITHIN aided by the mass media and false politicians who would sell their own soul for power.
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WASHINGTON – America is selling its birthright not for a mess of pottage, but for a mess of Chinese junk, and the resulting "unsustainable" trade deficit is leading "to the collapse of the dollar, depression and conversion of the United States to a second-rate power," says a new book written by three generations of a family of economists.

"Not only will the United States feel the pain, but other countries will as well," write Raymond, Howard and Jesse Richman in "Trading Away Our Future." "Because other countries are dependent upon the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency and because they are dependent on exports to the United States to sustain their own economies, the eventual collapse of the dollar could wreak havoc on the economies of the whole world."

While some other economists have claimed there is no danger from a trade deficit that has reached nearly $60 billion, and some have even suggested they represent a blessing for Americans, the authors strongly disagree.

"A basic principle of economics is that there is no free lunch," they write. "Those who think that the Chinese, Japanese, Saudis, et al, are giving the United States a free lunch when they sell more than they buy are engaged in short term thinking that ignores huge long term costs."

The book is released at a time when more Americans are searching for answers about the stumbling state of the economy – with the dollar declining, foreclosures rising and credit tightening.

The Richmans tie the growing trade deficit to the "de-industrialization" of America.

"The financial flows that sustained these deficits did not go to expand the U.S. capital stock – they mostly financed consumption of foreign goods," they explain. "Japan and China and other Pacific Rim nations stole industry after industry from the United States. America's manufacturing investment declined so much that by 2004 and 2005, net investment in American manufacturing actually went into negative territory, meaning that U.S. manufacturers were not even investing enough to replace wearing out machinery and plants. The U.S. manufacturing workforce declined steadily, so that by 2007 over a fifth of the U.S. manufacturing jobs that would have existed given balanced trade had been lost. Those losing their manufacturing jobs often took less skilled jobs in the service sector, causing media wages to stagnate. In 2007, the United States was in a much weaker position to compete in world markets and the dollar had nowhere to go but down."

It's not just a lack of foresight by American policy makers that has created the problem, the authors write. It is also a conscious policy of some foreign countries to practice neo-mercantilism – with the U.S. as the target.

"Beginning in the late 1990s, China copied the policy that had converted Japan from a weak and backward economy to a world powerhouse," they say. "In recent years, more and more countries have been joining the bandwagon, with the United States as their primary target. They have been accumulating dollar assets in order to manipulate currency values and preserve the conditions that produce trade surpluses for them and trade deficits for us."

Adding to the problem, the authors write, was the emergence of a blind ideological commitment across the American political spectrum to "free trade" that really wasn't free at all.

"As advocates of free markets, we generally approve of relying on the free play of market forces to provide the highest level of welfare for Americans," they write. "But we discovered that free trade, normally beneficial, had become an ideology blinding the United States establishment from seeing key causes of the trade deficits and their disastrous consequences. The trade deficits are sustained by government policies, both U.S. government tax policies and foreign government mercantilist policies, not by the free play of market forces."

The authors believe the situation can still be reversed, preserving American dominance of the world economy.

"If not, then resolutely non-democratic China will dominate," they say. "The world's future is in the balance."

Man evicted from 'amazing' treehouse

My thoughts are this could be our future if the democrats have their way and tax our homes out from underneath us. We could need to make our home in the trees but then they would just evict us like him. Shades of swiss family robinson. The government are the pirates that steal our booty. What a great view in the trees. :) Nuts
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Under The Needle: Man evicted from 'amazing' treehouse

By MIKE LEWIS
P-I REPORTER

Note to readers: Seattle City Light, facing an outpouring of public sympathy for David "Squirrelman" Csaky, granted the homeless man a 10-day stay before he must abandon his treehouse. Originally, city officials had set Wednesday as Csaky's final day in his home built from scraps. Now he has until April 18.

Squirrelman knows the end is near. A little more than a week ago, city workers arrived unannounced and put pink-ribboned survey stakes around the cluster of trees that hold his home. Then Friday, the city dispatched social workers to tell him about shelters a man with pets can't use and treatment programs a light drinker doesn't need.

They told him officials planned to evict him from his treehouse in the vacant lot under the interstate.

They asked him, "Won't you come down for good?"

But Squirrelman says he doesn't have anywhere else to go. On Monday at 9 a.m., when the Seattle Department of Transportation posted a lime-green 48- hour eviction notice on his hand-cobbled gate, telling him that he and his elaborate platform better disappear, Squirrelman didn't come down. His ladder, counterweighted with sandbags on pulleys, remained pulled up like a castle gate. His tent didn't stir.

A day earlier, he talked about the possibility that for the third time in three years he'd lose a carefully constructed home on other people's property. "I'm tired," he said. "I just want to be left alone. I'm not hurting anyone."

Which is true, neighbors said of David Csaky, also known as Squirrelman, decades ago known as Oral Wayne Branch, when he was born into poverty in Los Angeles on Nov. 24, 1955.

"David's a unique character but a good neighbor," said Janet Yoder, who owns an apartment complex adjacent to the unused City Light-owned lot on the 3100 block of Eastlake Avenue East, where Csaky built his home.

"He's built this amazing treehouse in the middle of a city," said Yoder. "I certainly believe he's not a threat of any kind to anyone."

Other neighbors agree, saying the wiry, weathered 52-year- old actually keeps crime down and the vacant lot clean.

Jim Ross, owner of neighboring Ross Laboratories, loaned Csaky a block and tackle he used to haul beams into the trees. "He works hard," Ross said. "He's kind of become the neighborhood watchdog."

No matter. Workers with the city Transportation Department, acting on a citizen report dated March 12, decided Csaky (pronounced Shacky) must go. There are longstanding policies about encampments, about precedents, about liability on rights of way and Csaky is, without a doubt, in violation of each.

Csaky said he's not looking for pity or a handout. He compared himself to a homesteader who simply is using what wasn't used. "I just need a place where I can live with my animals."

He began construction on his "squirrel's nest" about two years ago. Given better luck, he said, he wouldn't be here at all.

He'd moved to Seattle from Pittsburgh and from there by way of Florida. The abridged version of the story he tells is that he was born to a mom who was a prostitute and a dad who was a drunk. City workers, after finding him and his brother stealing food to survive, remanded them first to relatives in Florida, then split them into foster homes.

Eventually, the Csaky family adopted him and he changed his name. He dropped out of high school, got his GED and started a successful vacuum cleaner and carpet-cleaning business, he said. But a bad marriage, bad luck and despair he won't detail put him on the ropes in his late 40s.

He packed up what little he owned and moved to Seattle, hoping to make it to Alaska. A lost job cost him his Belltown studio apartment four years ago. A lack of money and illegal parking cost him his Jeep Cherokee that he lived in after.

Homeless, Csaky searched. Using scraps, found carpet and building supplies, he modified an empty 6-foot crawlspace under a building owned by Don Kennedy Real Estate. So cleverly hidden -- his entry was attached by Velcro and looked permanently sealed -- the real estate company didn't find out for months.

"We were shocked when a manager found it," said Don Kennedy Jr. "It was a nearly full apartment he built down there. Impressive. But he couldn't stay."

Kennedy and his wife were so impressed with Csaky's work, they hired him to do small jobs and let him live in vacant units. This worked for a while. But in the end, Kennedy said, Csaky was smart, personable, talented -- and unreliable.

Csaky built another place, this time in an apartment complex on Eastlake slated for razing. Then one day he found his small, hidden building bulldozed. "I just got off the bus," he said. "I saw it and dropped my bags. I started crying."

He walked to the lot across the street and made temporary shelter in the bushes. Then he noticed the linden tree on the hillside, the Eastlake side of the lot. He wedged a sheet of plywood into the tree, creating a platform big enough for his tent.

It was midsummer and a dense canopy of leaves blanketed the tree and obscured Csaky's roost. "The platform was too small," he said. "I needed more room so I wouldn't fall off."

So he began searching. The neighborhood construction boom got an unexpected beneficiary.

Next door, Janet Yoder and her husband, Robby Rudine, began hearing hammering sounds. But with the din from Interstate 5 overhead and sound reflecting from Lake Union, it was difficult to pin down. Then came fall and a big windstorm. She looked out her window at the tree.

"It was like a curtain got raised," she remembered. "Suddenly there was this treehouse."

She met Csaky a short time later. So would many in that stretch of Eastlake. He'd introduce himself as "David, the treehouse guy."

Over time, he raised his platform and expanded it to approximately 300 square feet. With the block and tackle, he raised a wood stove, chairs and shelves. On the platform rests his tent, three chairs and shelves. A counter cradles an unplumbed sink. The platform stretches across the branches of three trees and is, he said, "solid as a rock." For a time he had electricity, temporarily donated by neighbors -- even a TV, heater and stereo.

From scraps, it has a million-dollar view of the lake and Queen Anne Hill.

"I was happy as hell," he said.

He's not sure what he'll do now. He lives in the tree with his rat Lucky, his ferret Rainbow and an off-balance squirrel named Tilt.

The name, Squirrelman, comes from the pet squirrels he's had over time, tame enough to sit on his shoulder. He says he understands why the squirrels like the trees. "It's safer up here," he said.

But now, it appears over. Neighbors have talked of trying to find him shelter he can use with the animals. He wonders if the city can just take mercy and leave him alone for a few years.

"How much longer am I going to be able to climb that ladder?" he said. " Just leave me alone for a few years and I'll be gone anyway."

Hillary Clinton Fired For Lies, Unethical Behavior 1974

What a BOMBSHELL! Ms Rodham was fired by Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, who supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the House Judiciary Committee, when she worked on the Watergate investigation. Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman FIRED Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career. Why? “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
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This is solid evidence of a sick woman who lies as easy as she breathes air. If ever there was a story detailing how this witch operates, this is it. It can't be refuted because of the solid facts described by Jerry Zeifman Ms Rodham's former boss. I defy
anyone to explain this story of Ms Rodham and how she hides government documents and hides the truth for her own benefit. She has a pattern of doing this while she was first lady also. A chronic liar and dangerous LIBERAL.
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March 31, 2008

Watergate-Era Judiciary Chief of Staff: Hillary Clinton Fired For Lies, Unethical Behavior

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying.

The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

Why?

“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn’t do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals – including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum – who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.

Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.

The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.

The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.

“As soon as the impeachment resolutions were introduced by (then-House Minority Leader Gerald) Ford, and they were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the first thing Douglas did was hire himself a lawyer,” Zeifman said.

The Judiciary Committee allowed Douglas to keep counsel, thus establishing the precedent. Zeifman says he told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committee’s public files. So what did Hillary do?

“Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred.

The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

Zeifman says that if Hillary, Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar had succeeded, members of the House Judiciary Committee would have also been denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, and denied the opportunity to even participate in the drafting of articles of impeachment against Nixon.

Of course, Nixon’s resignation rendered the entire issue moot, ending Hillary’s career on the Judiciary Committee staff in a most undistinguished manner. Zeifman says he was urged by top committee members to keep a diary of everything that was happening. He did so, and still has the diary if anyone wants to check the veracity of his story. Certainly, he could not have known in 1974 that diary entries about a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham would be of interest to anyone 34 years later.

But they show that the pattern of lies, deceit, fabrications and unethical behavior was established long ago – long before the Bosnia lie, and indeed, even before cattle futures, Travelgate and Whitewater – for the woman who is still asking us to make her president of the United States.

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Oh Dirty Maggie May Has Gone Astray

WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton spends considerable time on the campaign trail bemoaning unscrupulous lenders who have left millions of Americans scrambling to keep their homes but all the while her campaign manager, Margaret “Maggie” Williams, has sat on the board of one of the nation’s once-largest and now-bankrupt sub-prime mortgage lenders.
“They were basically trying to extract whatever blood they could get away with and then sell their loans on the secondary market,” said Irv Ackelsberg, a Philadelphia attorney who assists homeowners in complaints against lenders and brokers.
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Here is another example of hillary "sniper fire" type of lie. Her campaign manager SAT on a board and helped to manage an unscrupulous lender that took advantage of the people she is trying to take advantage of also. Lies, lies and more lies. What a dog!
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WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton spends considerable time on the campaign trail bemoaning unscrupulous lenders who have left millions of Americans scrambling to keep their homes but all the while her campaign manager, Margaret “Maggie” Williams, has sat on the board of one of the nation’s once-largest and now-bankrupt sub-prime mortgage lenders.

Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told FOXNews.com late Sunday that Williams, a longtime Clinton ally, didn’t join Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign as a volunteer until after Delta Financial Corporation — for which Williams is a director — went bankrupt in December 2007.

That’s more than seven years after Williams joined New York-based Delta Financial in 2000. She became a director one month after a federal settlement was reached with the lender over discriminatory lending practices. More recently, Delta has been accused by consumer advocates of pursuing predatory practices throughout the housing boom and bust.

As of September 2007, Williams owned 12,500 shares of Delta’s common stock, and by 2007 had earned at least $175,000 for her board obligations, according to company filings available in the Securities & Exchange Commission online database.

Clinton’s Tough Stand on Housing Crunch

Intently focused on the nation’s housing crisis in recent appearances, Clinton has been clear that sub-prime mortgage lenders, particularly in poor, working class urban neighborhoods shoulder much of the blame for the credit crunch.

“I am reminded every day as I meet with families and listen to their stories that the effective functioning of our financial markets isn’t just about Wall Street. It’s about Main Street,” she said recently.

In a proposal last week, Clinton suggested giving “a $30 billion lifeline to avoid a crisis for Wall Street banks” by providing assistance to at-risk communities and families facing foreclosure. In a speech earlier this week, the New York senator suggested protecting lenders from lawsuits by investors who bought mortgages expecting big profits off high interest rates.

“Many mortgage companies are reluctant to help families restructure their mortgages because they’re afraid of being sued by the investment banks, the private equity firms and others who actually own the mortgage papers,” Clinton said.

“This is the case even though writing down the value of a mortgage is often more profitable than foreclosing,” she said, offering legislation “to provide mortgage companies with protection against the threat of such lawsuits.”

Delta’s Sub-Prime Lending

But as it turns out, Clinton’s top aide is on the board of what had been — until its bankruptcy — the ninth-leading sub-prime lender in the nation, handling almost $800 million worth of sub-prime lending in the third quarter of 2007 alone, according to National Mortgage News.

Delta Financing — and subsidiary Delta Funding — made much of its money by turning around and selling its loans at a profit — either through securitization or straight sale. Financial statements and federal filings indicate that Delta made huge profits between 2004 and 2007 mostly by refinancing loans to homeowners with moderate and middle incomes in urban neighborhoods.

In 2006, it reported a net income of $28.8 million compared to $18 million a year earlier. It also originated a record $4 billion in loans that year, a 5 percent increase over 2005. In 2006, it had increased its line of credit by $500 million to a total of $1.75 billion.

Te average interest rate on a 30-year mortgage is 6.25 percent. Financial sources and the company’s public records show that in the last decade Delta brokered thousands of fixed-rate refinancing loans with rates of anywhere from 11.3 to 13.6 percent.

Reports provided by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), an inter-agency body that proscribes standards for U.S. financial institutions, found that in 2006 the vast majority of Delta’s refinancing loans had rates of around 13.3 percent. The average rate on home mortgages was 14.9 percent.

“They were basically trying to extract whatever blood they could get away with and then sell their loans on the secondary market,” said Irv Ackelsberg, a Philadelphia attorney who assists homeowners in complaints against lenders and brokers.

Industry experts say the company’s demise did not come from its struggle against various lawsuits or foreclosures, but its being a victim of the credit market. The value of its loan-backed securities plummeted at the same time its investors stopped buying new loans. Delta’s creditors soon came calling and the company couldn’t keep up with its own financing agreements.

Delta’s status is in the hands of a federal bankruptcy judge. All operations out of its Woodbury, N.Y., headquarters have ceased.

The Williams Difference

Williams joined Delta’s board less less than a month after one federal official said Delta’s practices were “turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare.”

At the time, Delta had a 5 percent foreclosure rate nationwide — double the industry standard — and was in the midst of settling several state and federal lawsuits that alleged predatory and discriminatory lending practices.

Williams, now 53, was between jobs with the Clintons when she got the overture to join the board at Delta. She had worked as the former first lady’s chief of staff from 1993 to 1997, and had just become president of Fenton Communications, one of the largest public relations shops in the country in 2000. It made her the highest-ranking African-American woman in a top 50 public relations firm in the country. Williams joined Bill Clinton’s Harlem office in 2001. She later became a partner in management consulting firm Griffin Williams.

According to a June 2000 article in Directors and Boards magazine, Williams spent the six months prior to her decision to join the board asking a lot of questions and making a flurry of calls to Hugh Miller, president and CEO of Delta Financial Corp.

It was the period of time when Delta was embroiled in the state and federal lawsuits. According to the magazine, Williams said she was convinced that the company was enabling individuals who would otherwise not qualify for mortgages to get loans.

“There are people who miss payments and have bad credit for all kinds of reasons,” she told the magazine. “It is a very middle-American kind of problem, although I believe it does affect poor people disproportionately.”

Miller told the magazine he was most attracted to Williams’ skill at anticipating “issues and problems before they come up and then develop(ing) a battle plan. It’s something that we’ve previously been remiss in doing.”

Delta company officials would not elaborate on Williams’ role other than to say that “like other board members, Ms. Williams served in an advisory and oversight role and did not have a role in the day-to-day operations and management of the company.” A 2002 annual report, the only one found with this figure, shows Williams attended at least 70 percent of the company’s board meetings.

Wolfson said Clinton “had no involvement in (Williams’) joining the board, and Hillary’s strong set of initiatives to help homeowners at risk of foreclosure — which are the most aggressive and comprehensive in the race — speak for themselves.”

Predatory Practices

Delta, which declared bankruptcy in December 2007, settled lawsuits with both federal and state regulators in 2000, before Williams’ era, but has maintained dubious lending practices, allege consumer advocates in New York and Philadelphia.

“They were one of the worst and most abusive sub-prime lenders in New York City,” said Josh Zinner, co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP).

Zinner helped bring a 1999 lawsuit against Delta Funding through the New York State Banking Department and then-state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office. The case was settled with an agreement that included $12 million in payouts to borrowers. It has been caught up in court ever since over the price tag.

A separate class action suit against Delta by some 67,000 New York borrowers in 1998 is also ongoing, according to attorneys for Lopez v. Delta Funding Corp. In that case, the company agreed to settle on claims that Delta violated federal and state statutes governing fair lending practices. The plaintiffs are appealing for additional restitution.

In March 2000, the federal government charged Delta with violating consumer protection and fair lending laws by approving and funding loans regardless of the borrowers’ ability to pay, paying unearned fees and kickbacks to brokers and disproportionately charging African-American females higher rates and fees than “similarly situated” white males.

The immediate settlement of the suit filed jointly by the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and Department of Housing and Urban Development did not result in restitution to anyone but an agreement by the company to adhere to stricter, fairer lending standards and to submit to greater governmental oversight.

Delta never admitted any wrongdoing in the New York or federal cases, and not everyone believes the company was as nefarious as the headlines made it out to be. Jonathan Pinard, a lending expert and president of the Empire State Mortgage Bankers Association, said Delta “stayed in the agreement” set out in the federal settlement and kept its nose clean. Later, when the sub-prime lending market went sour, Delta was “painted with a broad brush” as one of the bad guys, he said.
But since Williams joined the board, Ackelsburg has assisted clients embroiled in predatory lending schemes that involve Delta.

“(Delta) didn’t have as big a market share as they did in New York,” Ackelsberg said. “But the most unscrupulous brokers tended to work with Delta.”

He pointed to a near million-dollar settlement presided over by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in 2002, in which an African-American brokerage firm linked to Delta was found guilty of predatory lending and discriminatory practices in predominantly black Philadelphia neighborhoods.

In six of the cases named in the Taylor, Poindexter v. McGlawn & McGlawn and Reginald McGlawn lawsuit, the loans were signed with Delta Funding. At least four of the 10 loans had originated in 2000 or afterward.

Each of the individuals who received Delta loans through McGlawn & McGlawn also filed complaints with the PHRC against Delta Funding, according to commission sources. Those cases were all settled, but terms of the agreements are confidential. Delta officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment by FOXNews.com.

“I would say Delta Funding, in the ’90s in particular, sort of epitomized predatory lending,” said Zinner, who worked for the Foreclosure Prevention Project at South Brooklyn Legal Services at the time of the New York suit. After the 2000 settlement, Zinner said his group “didn’t get the high volume of calls (about Delta loans) … but we definitely got quite a few complaints.”

The government makes the gas shortage worse

What I read is the government has pushed this corn shortage on us by mandating ethanol production. This in turn has caused a corn shortage which has driven up food prices. What the government has producted here is nothing but higher costs for food and gas. Ethanol prices will continue to increase as corn prices do and also will food prices. Ethanol has and will not solve the energy shortage of gas and oil. It has added a burden on the public only in higher ethanol prices along with food prices. The solution is for the government to allow drilling of oil offshore and inland and change the laws that make oil production in this country, more open to the production of oil. This will eventually free us from some of the foreign oil we will import. The US government has not solved anything, only increased the cost of living for us all. We also need more nuclear plants. Building more refineries would help the gas shortages and would reduced the price spikes for gas also.
Stop blending so many types of gas to appease the waco environmentalists. This makes gas prices increase also. Ethanol does nothing to help increase gas availability at a lower cost, it only makes it worse.
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Farmers' choice about how much corn to plant key to consumers

By HENRY C. JACKSON | Associated Press Writer
12:51 PM CDT, March 28, 2008

DES MOINES, Iowa - As spring planting nears, farmers are making a choice that could affect what Americans pay for everything from car fuel to chicken wings.

If they choose to plant as much corn as possible, prices that have soared to record highs above $5 a bushel could stabilize. But if many farmers rotate their plantings to other crops such as soybeans, or the season is disrupted by bad weather or drought, the price of this key ingredient could soar even further.

That would leave other food producers -- especially poultry, beef and pork companies, where corn feed comprises up to three-quarters of their operating costs -- with little choice but to raise their prices as well.

Livestock producers typically blame higher corn prices on demand for the crop from ethanol plants, saying the alternative fuel drives up costs for everyone. But ethanol makers say the rising corn prices hurt them as well.

Against all those factors is one fixed point: Farmers are running out of new land to plant crops.

How farmers choose to use the land this year is the focus of the planting report due March 31 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which will offer the first detailed look at farmer's planting intentions for 2008 and give the first indication of this year's corn crop.

"Everybody is looking to see what that report is going to look like," said Bob Dinneen, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association. "Everybody is anxious, us included."

Last year, American farmers produced more corn than ever before, 13.1 billion bushels, as they put more land into corn production and most of the Corn Belt saw ideal weather.

"It's kind of hard to believe we'll even be able to hit that mark again," said Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council. "The amount of land in this country is not infinite. ... Some people think it's entirely possible a bad drought is coming. It's all guesswork, but there are some ominous signs."

The surge in corn prices -- which began in early 2007, when corn was trading for a little more than $3 per bushel -- came despite the higher-than-ever production. If the values hold, the average yearly price per bushel in 2008 will be higher than ever before, according to statistics kept by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Dave Moody, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, said the end result is obvious: "If corn prices stay high or increase, in the long term prices are definitely going to come up."

Even at current prices, meat producers are hurting.

Last month Pilgrim's Pride, the nation's largest poultry company, closed a processing plant in North Carolina and distribution centers in five other states, putting 1,100 people out of work. The company blamed its move on high corn prices caused by the heavily subsidized ethanol industry.

Corn prices are also affecting more boutique products. Maple Leaf Farms, a leading U.S. producer of duck meat, recently announced it would close a meat processing plant in Wisconsin that employs about 200 people because of increase feed costs.

"This is the single biggest issue we face," said Lobb. "The costs are very high historically speaking, but what really bothers people is not so much that they're high but they're sort of locked in at a high level.

"We've had price spikes for corn because of drought or other short-term types of things, but in this case the high costs are locked," because of ethanol demand.

Ethanol plant owners acknowledge they've increased demand for corn. The number of plants has increased dramatically, from 50 in 1999 to 134 now with more being built, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Most rely completely on corn.

An average, 100 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant consumes about 33 million bushels of corn -- about the amount grown in some entire Iowa counties.

While ethanol is highly subsidized by the federal government, wiping out some of the industry's overhead, ethanol proponents say they too will have to pay more for corn, which could push the price of ethanol fuel higher.

There's a roundabout effect as well -- strong demand for the corn to make ethanol has boosted those prices, enticing farmers to plant corn rather than soybeans.

So some farmers could be swayed by soybean prices that have edged even higher due to the dwindling supplies and demand from foreign markets, particularly in Asia.

Among the arguments some farmers see for soybeans are that corn requires more tending and fertilizer costs are generally higher, said Mark Schultz, chief analyst at Minneapolis-based commodity trading firm Northstar Commodity.

"It takes a lot of time to put in and harvest corn," Schultz said. "There's a lot to it physically and cost wise."

The Corn Belt farmers -- who find themselves with strong incomes and plenty of options -- are the clear winners. That income is a primary reason Corn Belt states, such as Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, have largely avoided a national economic downturn, said Ernest Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.

Mindy Williamson, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Corn Growers Association, said the ethanol-fueled demand for corn has changed the dynamics.

"Before we weren't in a demand-driven market," she said. "Now, it's all about demand and you have a choice about where we want to sell (corn) and who you want to sell it to. There are still other things beyond farmers' control, like weather, but it's a good time."

Obama is a liar and a racist

The Daily Mail again presented the underside of the story, reporting Obama senior was a "slick womanizer" who persuaded Obama's mother, a "naïve 18-year-old white girl, to marry him, without disclosing to her that he had left behind in Africa a wife he had not divorced."

This story is similar to Bill Clintons also, both were and are bastards because their mothers did not marry legally. Slick willy and slick hussein are very similar. They both are habitual liars who coverup their true identity and intentions. Both are married to liars who are mirror images of themselves. Both act like underdeveloped teenagers on a quest for glory at any cost. Obama is just like his father and pastor.
He is trying to "marry America" while trying to hide the fact he left behind a radical racist pastor whom he had not divorced but just abondaned recently. They are both illegitimate sons of womanizers, pimps. They are selling themselves as legitimate but both are trash. Illegitimate children are innocent at birth but can be molded and morphed into race haters and slick willy types. Obama's and clinton's environment did flaw their characters and influnce their biased irrational view of the races and how they view women and men. Obama hates whites, clinton abuses women and both are socialists. They are very dangerous.
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Quote:
On p. 94-95 [of his first autobiograpy, obama] describes an effective tactic to deal with White people:

It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved - such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.
............
Now this cat has made a sudden move because the trash can he was sleeping in has been turned over and revealed the garbage of his habitat for humanity. This well mannered black man has sympathy for the devil his pastor and racist mentor. The unpleasant surprise is obama is a closet RACIST who has been mentored by a rabid racist pastor for 20 years and deplores his mother and grandmother because they are white. I am not satisfied with his explanation of why he attended his racist church for 20 years but relieved that his racism has been revealed and his tricks are being exposed. Smile all you want obama I will never be satisfied with you because just by being courteous and making no sudden moves can get you kicked you in your skinny racial butt by the national media when your racism is revealed!
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Shelby Steele calls this sort of behavior "bargaining" in his best-selling book White Guilt. White Guilt Here's what Shelby Steele thinks about obama's racist mendacity:

Quote:
Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

This is how Mr. Obama has turned his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma. Bargainers are conduits of white innocence, and they are as popular as the need for white innocence is strong. Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence. [....]

He was driven by insecurity, by a need to "be black" despite his biracial background. And so fellow-traveling with a little race hatred seemed a small price to pay for a more secure racial identity. And anyway, wasn't this hatred more rhetorical than real?

But now the floodlight of a presidential campaign has trained on this usually hidden corner of contemporary black life: a mindless indulgence in a rhetorical anti-Americanism as a way of bonding and of asserting one's blackness. Yet Jeremiah Wright, splashed across America's television screens, has shown us that there is no real difference between rhetorical hatred and real hatred.
__________________
"To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed . . ." - George Orwell, 1984

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Obama begins his 1995 book "Dreams from My Father" with a scene from 1982, when Obama, having just turned 21, was shaken in his New York apartment by a phone call from Africa telling him his father had been killed in a car accident.

The narrative omits that Obama senior killed himself driving drunk.

A few pages later, Obama traces his father's history in Kenya back to the time he herded goats while attending the local "British colonial school."

Obama claims his father showed such "great promise" that he won a scholarship to study in Nairobi and then, "on the eve of Kenyan independence, he had been selected by Kenyan leaders and American sponsors to attend a University in the United States."

Obama proudly tells the reader his father joined "the first large wave of Africans to be sent forth to master Western technology and bring it back to forge a new, modern Africa."

Again, Obama carefully omits the underside of the story, that his father at age 23 headed off to a university education in Hawaii, abandoning the Africa girl named Kezia he had married at age 18.

Nor does Obama mention that Kezia was then pregnant with his father's first son.

Obama magnifies his father's time in Hawaii, claiming he arrived at the University of Hawaii as the institution's first African student who "studied econometrics, worked with unsurpassed concentration, and graduated in three years at the top of his class."

Obama notes his father's friends "were legion, and he helped organize the International Students Association, of which he became the first president."

He omits any mention of his father's continued success with women.

The Daily Mail again presented the underside of the story, reporting Obama senior was a "slick womanizer" who persuaded Obama's mother, a "naïve 18-year-old white girl, to marry him, without disclosing to her that he had left behind in Africa a wife he had not divorced."

Obama presents a Hollywood version of his parents' romance, claiming his father met his mother in a Russian-language course at the university, "an awkward, shy American girl, only 18, and they fell in love."

"The girl's parents, wary at first, were won over by his [Obama senior's] charm and intellect," Obama continues his narrative, "the young couple married, and she bore them a son, to whom he bequeathed his name."

So, Obama junior was born in August 1961.

Two years later, Obama senior won another scholarship, this time to pursue a Ph.D. at Harvard.

Obama explains his father's decision to abandon his mother and him in Hawaii by arguing that the scholarship from Harvard did not include "the money to take his new family with him."

In the next sentence, Obama intentionally skips over several key details.

After noting his father's decision to leave Hawaii for Cambridge, Mass., Obama explains: "A separation occurred, and he returned to Africa to fulfill his promise to the continent. The mother and child stayed behind, but the bond of love survived the distances …"

The ellipsis omits the fact that Obama's mother divorced his father when she discovered "his bigamous double life," the Daily Mail disclosed.

While at Harvard, Obama senior had an affair with yet another woman, an American-born teacher named Ruth, whom he met at Harvard while yet married to Obama's mother and to his also-abandoned wife in Africa.

Obama returned to Kenya and fathered two more children by Kezia.

Somewhere in that period, he also married Ruth, who followed him to Africa from Harvard.

The Daily Mail quotes a relative of Obama as saying, "We told him [Obama] how his father would still go to Kezia and it was during these visits that she became pregnant with two more children. He also had two children with Ruth."

The Daily Mail further reveals that Ruth finally left Obama senior "after he repeatedly flew into whiskey-fueled rages, beating her brutally."

"Friends say drinking blighted his [Obama senior's] life," the Daily Mail reported, "he lost both his legs while driving under the influence and also lost his job."

There ended Obama senior's brilliant civil service career as a top, Harvard-trained econometrician working in the newly independent government of Jomo Kenyatta, on a mission to bring his economically backward country into prosperity.

According to the Daily Mail, even after losing both legs in the car accident, Obama senior fathered yet another son, his eighth child, by yet another woman, and "continued to come home drunk."

Then, on Obama's 21st birthday, Obama senior put an end to the sad drama by killing himself in yet another car crash, once again driving drunk.

The Daily Mail quotes Kenyan writer Philip Ochieng as saying, "He [Obama senior] was excessively fond of Scotch. He had fallen into the habit of going home drunk every night. His boasting proved his undoing and left him without a job, plunged him into prolonged poverty and dangerously wounded his ego."

"He was a menace to life," Ochieng said. "He had many extremely serious accidents. Both his legs had to be amputated. They were replaced with crude false limbs made from iron."

"He was just like Mr. Toad [from the "Wind in the Willows" story]," wrote Ochieng, "very arrogant on the road, especially when he had whisky inside. I was not surprised when I learned how he died."

"Why didn't my father return?" is a question Obama admits in his autobiography has haunted him since the age of five or six.

In the autobiography, readers learn that Obama's Kenyan father was Muslim, only indirectly, when Obama explains to a girlfriend in Hawaii that his name was not "Barry," as he was then commonly called, but "Barack," a name Barack explains means "blessed" in Arabic.

He further explains that the name was his father's, and that "my grandfather was a Muslim."

In 1986, four years after his father's death, Obama went to Africa for the first time, to be confronted with the truth of his father's life and to meet half-brothers and half-sisters he never knew he had.

In Africa for the first time, Obama admits he was told the truth, perhaps for the first time in his life.

He recounts a conversation with Zeituni, his father's sister.

"Zeituni stopped walking and turned to me," Obama wrote in his autobiography. "'After your father went off to live with his American wife, Ruth … well, he would go to Kezia sometimes. You must understand that traditionally she was still his wife. It was during such a visit that Kezia became pregnant with Abo, the brother you haven't met. The thing was, Kezia also lived with another man briefly during this time. So when she became pregnant again, with Bernard, no one was sure who – ' Zeituni stopped, letting the thought finish itself."

While admitting he had learned the truth about his father when visiting Africa for the first time, Obama still sought to see his father as the victim.

Zeituni, for instance, explains that "the problem [with Obama senior] was that his heart was too big."

She also explains that Obama senior was the first to study abroad, the first who had ever ridden in an airplane, and had taken on too large a burden trying to help his family in Africa and to lift Kenya into a modern economic age.

As the Daily Mail concluded, "for all Mr. Obama's reputation for straight talking and the compelling narrative of his recollections, they are largely myth."

"We have discovered that his father was not just a flawed individual, but an abusive bigamist and an egomaniac, whose life was ruined not by racism or corruption, but by his own weakness,” the Daily Mail wrote. "And, devastatingly, the testimony has come from Mr. Obama's own relatives and family friends."

The Daily Mail suggests Obama chose to present his father in a favorable light as an electoral tactic.

"Indeed, by offering up a conveniently plotted account of his personal history in this way," Churcher wrote, "he [Obama] might even have made a pre-emptive strike on those sure to pose the awkward questions that inevitably face a serious contender for the White House."

Regardless of the motives, in "Dreams from my Father" Obama never states precisely how many wives his father had, or how many half-brothers and -sisters he has from different mothers, whether married to his father or not.

Obama blames racism for breaking up his parents' marriage, not his father's polygamist ways which began when he first left Africa, before he ever met Obama's mother in Hawaii.

In the final analysis, Obama embraces the myth, presenting his father as a victim who suffered because, as Zeituni explains in the autobiography, his "heart was too big" – not that he was a bureaucrat of modest achievement who could not overcome a fight with alcohol that ultimately cost him his life.

Have You Vetted Barack Obama

OPERATION CHAOS IS WORKING!

Operation Chaos seems to be working. It is obvious people don't like hillary but will vote in a primary for her just to see the fish fry. Neither democrate candidates are qualified to do anything but lie about their past and present. Also let me add mccain is also in the mix with them, their buddy. How sick is this. It makes me feel like I want to puke. This election year is a lose lose situation. What is the difference between three types of dead meat?

Is John Mccain a Witch Doctor

A Candidate's Lucky Charms
John McCain Is Hoping Superstition Will See Him Through

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 19, 2000; Page C01

COLUMBIA, S.C.—If John McCain wins today's South Carolina primary, some will credit his tax plan, while others will point to his war record. Those in the know, however, will attribute victory to the Spring Hill Lizard.

The reptile, believed to have mysterious powers, is the property of one Lanny Wiles, McCain's trip director. Wiles used it to help Texas A&M beat Nebraska, and to force a golfing opponent to miss a $100 putt. He employs the lizard (which isn't a lizard at all but a certain spell cast by wiggling the right pinkie) only on rare occasions, such as today. "We use it only if we're at Def Con One," says John Weaver, McCain's political director and occasional witch doctor.

This isn't the first campaign to honor strange superstitions. During Bill Clinton's 1992 run, James Carville was known to wear the same underwear for days at a time when things were going well. But this time, there's a new twist: The candidate himself is the leading shaman. He keeps on his person a lucky compass, a lucky feather, a lucky penny and, at times, a lucky rock. He assigns Weaver to carry his lucky pen--a Zebra Jimnie Gel Rollerball (medium, blue)--at all times. For added luck, he wears his magical L.L. Bean rubber-soled dress shoes.

"I'm wearing my lucky shoes from today till Sunday," McCain says from his bus on Wednesday. At the moment, his pockets contain the compass, feather (from a tribal leader) and penny (flattened, in his wallet). When McCain once misplaced his feather, there was momentary panic in the campaign, until his wife found it in one of his suits. When the compass went missing once, McCain assigned his political director to hunt it down. Weaver found it, and it remains safe, knock wood.

Primary day requires additional rituals. By the time you read this, Steve Dart, McCain's lucky friend, should have arrived in South Carolina from California. He has been present with McCain for every Election Day since McCain first won a seat in Congress. McCain must sleep on a certain side of the bed, particularly before an election (and he never puts a hat on a bed--bad luck). Rain is good for Election Day, as are motion pictures. McCain requires himself to view a movie before the vote is counted. He fell asleep in his hotel room in New Hampshire before he watched a movie on primary day, but his staff didn't panic. "We have superstition fire walls," says Todd Harris, a spokesman.

That's for sure. Even some foods carry special powers. McCain insists that he and his staff eat barbecue--"our lucky food," says Cindy McCain, the candidate's wife--before each debate, sending Wiles out to find ribs or pulled pork even in New Hampshire or Michigan.

"It's in the ancient tradition of slaughtering the hog before you slaughter the opponent," explains Mike Murphy, McCain's strategist.

McCain's staff and family have embraced their candidate's hocus-pocus. Cindy McCain may well don her lucky purple suit today, and Rick Davis, the campaign chairman, will likely sport his lucky tie, with the state of New Hampshire on it. Murphy should bring out his magic Hawaiian shirt and "the lucky khaki socks with the palm trees." And Weaver may even send for his lucky football ("I save it for the big enchilada," he maintains). But one thing is for sure: Mark Salter, McCain's chief of staff, will not shave his beard, grown during McCain's New Hampshire surge, until the nomination battle is over.

McCain's superstitions have origins in the military. His grandfather, during World War II, kept a lucky crushed cap, and the whole crew on his ship believed in its powers. "When it would blow off people would dive for it," says Salter.

McCain himself, when flying during Vietnam, insisted that his visor be cleaned by his parachute rigger immediately before each flight. "A lot of guys are superstitious who are aviators," the candidate says. "It's either a pilot thing or a stupid thing."

Don't tell Jim Merrill it's a stupid thing. Merrill, McCain's South Carolina director, blends secular rituals with the sacred. "I try to hit confession prior to the election--I don't want anything to be blamed on me," he says. Yes, and then what? "I hit one bucket of golf balls in the morning." Merrill didn't observe this superstition during his last race, a gubernatorial campaign, and his candidate lost, needless to say.

Even those who never entertained superstition in their lives succumb to the voodoo. "I've started wood knocking," says John Raidt, McCain's policy guy. "You see everybody else doing it." McCain staff meetings must sound like a game of knock rummy.

McCain and his aides, so absorbed in their supernatural arts, haven't stopped to consider that their practices might seem a bit bizarre to the uninitiated observer. Weaver is surprised such a question would even be asked. "We've never read chicken entrails or anything like that," he says. Pausing thoughtfully, he adds: "Maybe when we get to Michigan . . ."
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John McCain on February 4th:

John McCain, known for his superstitious tendencies on the campaign trail, joked Monday with reporters he's not ready to discuss what he'll do if he wins his party's nomination.

"I am superstitious, as I said earlier, and for me to start talking about what would happen after I win the nomination, when I have not won it yet, is in direct violation of my superstitious tenets," the Arizona senator said to laughter at a campaign event in Hamilton, New Jersey.

John McCain tonight during his victory speech:

Thank you Wisconsin for bringing us to the point where even a superstitious Naval aviator can claim with confidence and humility that I will be our party's nominee for president of the United States. Thank you, Wisconsin.
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Does this strike anyone else as particularly creepy and actually a real liability for a presidential campaign? McCain is fond of mentioning his superstition on the trail and I welcome it, because the more he does so, the more he's going to give the impression that he'll make presidential decisions based on superstition rather than on sound judgment. This could really bite McCain in the ass and in fact, I look forward to making sure it does so. John McCain's Superstition

by Todd Beeton, Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 12:21:50 AM EST
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This is odd and troublesome to me. Mccain must be seeking stange spirits to direct his campaign.

CONJURE:
1.
1. To summon (a devil or spirit) by magical or supernatural power.
2. To influence or effect by or as if by magic: tried to conjure away the doubts that beset her.
2.
1. To call or bring to mind; evoke: “Arizona conjures up an image of stark deserts for most Americans” (American Demographics).
2. To imagine; picture: “a sight to store away, then conjure up someday when they were no longer together” (Nelson DeMille).
3. Archaic. To call on or entreat solemnly, especially by an oath.

v.intr.

1. To perform magic tricks, especially by sleight of hand.
2.
1. To summon a devil by magic or supernatural power.
2. To practice black magic.
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He must be superstitious about confronting Obama and his pal Hillary also. He will not speak about them in a true manner for some reason. It must be Hillary has a hex on him and he is afraid of making a fast move. Obama says this is what white people are afraid of in his book.

Sheriff: Woman sat on toilet for 2 years

This is beyond weird. It is also strange, bizarre and sad. To think her boyfriend would let this go on for 2 years is crazy, even more crazy is what this woman did.
I don't think she would do this on her own. It is more likely she was on drugs and kept in the bathroom by her boyfriend. I wish Hillary was stuck for a couple of years but we are stuck with her and are the virtual toilet she is stuck on. Day after day we are stuck listening to that amazing cackle and shrill voice. Day after day we hear she is ready on day on. Day after day she wants us to believe she has the experience and is qualified for the Presidency. She dumps all this into her virtual toliet that she is stuck to. Like the woman who was stuck for 2 years and could not bring herself to get up so are mindless clinton and obama supporters who believe all the crap they are dumping. I am making a call to rescue you from Ms hillary and Barack Husain Obama. I can only hope you realize you are the can before its to late! Just picture it. :) Democrates are held in the virtual bathroom by the mass media and will be until they are rescued by who? People like me who reveal the facts about the snake oil salesman or saleswoman.

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By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer Mar 12, 08

WICHITA, Kan. - Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years — so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.


Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.

She was reported in fair condition at a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City. Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.

Authorities said they did not know if she was mentally or physically disabled.

Police have declined to release the couple's names, but the house where authorities say the incident happened is listed in public records as the residence of Kory McFarren. No one answered his home phone number.

The case has been the buzz of Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbor.

"I don't think anybody can make any sense out of it," he said.

Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years.

He said she had a tough childhood after her mother died at a young age and apparently was usually kept inside the house as she grew up. At one time the woman worked for a long-term care facility, he said, but he did not know what kind of work she did there.

"It really doesn't surprise me," Ellis said. "What surprises me is somebody wasn't called in a bit earlier."

Client Number 9

The Beatles "Revolution 9" starts with a conversation between George Martin and Alistair Taylor:

Alistair Taylor: ...bottle of Claret for you if I'd realized. I'd forgotten all about it George, I'm sorry.
George Martin: Well, do next time.
Taylor: Will you forgive me?
Martin: Mmmm...yes....
Taylor: Cheeky bitch.

Number 9, Client 9, Number 9, Client 9 .............
Interpose these names:
Kristen: ....bottle of Claret for you if I'd realized. I'd forgotten all about it Eliot, I'm sorry.
Eliot: Well, do it next time.
Kristen: Will you forgive me?
Eliot: Mmmm...yes....
Kristen: I'm a Cheeky bitch.

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NEW YORK (AP)—Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who took office with the vow "Day One, Everything Changes," started day one of his life after allegations of a prostitution scandal with his outlook so changed that many wondered if he could remain in power.

The first-term Democrat was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet a prostitute from a call-girl business, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still going on.

Spitzer allegedly paid for the call girl to take a train from New York to Washington—a move that opened the transaction up to federal prosecution because she crossed state lines.

The governor has not been charged, and prosecutors would not comment on the case Monday. A spokesman for Spitzer said the governor has retained a large Manhattan law firm.

There was no word on Spitzer's plans, but Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco said Tuesday he received a call Monday from Lt. Governor David Paterson, who would assume the governor's office if Spitzer resigned.

Tedisco said Paterson raised the possibility of such a scenario by asking if Tedisco, who has been at odds with Spitzer, would be willing to start fresh with him.

"He called me to ask if we would give him the benefit of the doubt, and go forward," Tedisco said. "I told him we would."

Spitzer was to be in New York City Tuesday, but had no public events scheduled.

At a Manhattan news conference, a glassy-eyed Spitzer, his shellshocked wife Silda at his side, apologized to his family and the people of New York.

"I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my—or any—sense of right and wrong," he said. "I apologize to the public, whom I promised better."

He did not say what he was apologizing for and ignored reporters' shouted questions about whether he would resign—14 months after he boldly proclaimed at the start of his term, "Day One, Everything Changes."

Spitzer, the 48-year-old father of three teenage girls, retreated from his Manhattan offices to his Upper East Side home. Republicans immediately called for him to quit.

"He has to step down. No one will stand with him," said Rep. Peter King, a Republican from Long Island. "I never try to take advantage or gloat over a personal tragedy. However, this is different. This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving."

Attention turned to the state's lieutenant governor, David Paterson, who automatically becomes governor if Spitzer quits. There was no immediate comment from Paterson, who would become New York's first black governor.

Spitzer was elected with a historic margin of victory, and took office Jan. 1, 2007, vowing to stamp out corruption in New York government in the same way that he took on Wall Street executives while state attorney general.

In his previous position, Spitzer uncovered crooked practices and self-dealing in the stock brokerage and insurance industries and in corporate board rooms; he went after former New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso over his $187.5 million compensation package.

Spitzer become known as the "Sheriff of Wall Street." Time magazine named him "Crusader of the Year," and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness." The square-jawed graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law was sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate for president.

But he apparently became embroiled last year in a financial probe by the Internal Revenue Service into a high-end prostitution ring. The investigation into the Emperors Club VIP gathered more than 5,000 telephone calls and text messages, and more than 6,000 e-mails, along with bank records, travel and hotel records and surveillance.

It was unclear whether Spitzer was a target from the start or whether agents came across his name by accident while amassing evidence.

In an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court last week, Spitzer appeared as "Client 9," according to the law enforcement official. Client 9 personally made several cell phone calls to Emperors Club VIP to arrange a Feb. 13 tryst at a Washington hotel, the official said.

Client 9 wanted a high-priced prostitute named Kristen to come to Washington on a 5:39 p.m. train from Manhattan. The door to the hotel room would be left ajar. Train tickets, cab fare, room service, and the minibar were all on him.

"Yup, same as in the past. No question about it," the caller told Kristen's boss, when asked if he would make his payment to the same business as usual, a federal affidavit said. The client paid $4,300 to Kristen, touted by the escort service as a "petite, pretty brunette," according to court papers.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, noted that prostitution customers are often not charged, and said charges against Spitzer might be unlikely.

"Especially if he resigns, he may just be left alone. It may be that the public is satisfied by his resignation as governor," Tobias said.

Spitzer's term as governor has been fraught with problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear his main Republican nemesis.

It would not be the first time that a high-profile politician became ensnared in a prostitution scandal. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana acknowledged in July that his Washington phone number was among those called several years ago by an escort service.

Scandals also recently derailed neighboring Connecticut Gov. John Rowland and New Jersey's Jim McGreevey. And Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after being arrested last June in a Minneapolis airport restroom.

Spitzer's cases as attorney general included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and tourism involving prostitutes. In 2004, he took part in an investigation of an escort service in New York City that resulted in the arrest of 18 people on charges of promoting prostitution and related charges.