The Respectfully Republican Conversation

Rockermom--Sorry about the shingles.  Are you taking Acyclovir or Valtrex? --It should shorten the intensity and duration...........I was on it for a very long time (ten years on and off) due to autoimmune problems which included shingles- a long term toxic drug reaction to NSAIDs. It really helped.

How high-risk mortgages crept north

By JACQUIE McNISH AND GREG McARTHUR,  From Saturday's Globe and Mail

In the first half of this year, as the subprime mortgage crisis was exploding in the United States, a contagion of U.S.-style lending practices quietly crossed the border and infected Canada's previously prudent mortgage regime.

New mortgage borrowers signed up for an estimated $56-billion of risky 40-year mortgages, more than half of the total new mortgages approved by banks, trust companies and other lenders during that time, according to banking and insurance sources. Those sources estimated that 10 per cent of the mortgages, worth about $10-billion, were taken out with no money down.

The mushrooming of a Canadian version of subprime mortgages has gone largely unnoticed. The Conservative government finally banned the practice last summer, after repeated warnings from frustrated senior officials and bankers that the country's financial system was being exposed to far too much risk as the housing market weakened.

Just yesterday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty repeated the mantra that the government acted early to get rid of risky mortgages. What he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper do not explain, however, is that the expansion of zero-down, 40-year mortgages began with measures contained in the first Conservative budget in May of 2006.

At the time, Mr. Flaherty announced that the government was opening up the market to more private insurers.

"These changes will result in greater choice and innovation in the market for mortgage insurance, benefiting consumers and promoting home ownership," Mr. Flaherty said.

The new rules encouraged the entry of such U.S. players as American International Group - the world's largest insurance company - and Triad Guarantee Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C. Former Triad chief executive officer Mark Tonnesen, who spearheaded his company's aborted push into Canada, said the proliferation of high-risk mortgages could have been mitigated if Ottawa had been more watchful.

"There was a lack of regulation around the expansion of increased risk," he said.

Virtually unavailable in Canada two years ago, high-risk mortgages proliferated in 2007 and early 2008 and must now be shouldered by thousands of consumers at a time when the economy is sinking quickly and real-estate prices are swooning. Long-term mortgages - designed to help newcomers get into the housing market sooner - are the most expensive in terms of interest costs, and least flexible when mortgage-holders cannot meet their payments and need extensions.

The Bank of Canada this week warned that the perilous economy could lead to a doubling of so-called "vulnerable households" - those unable to meet their debts - and perhaps cost thousands of Canadians their homes. The central bank, which is always cautious with its words, said in a report that there is the potential for "a substantial increase in default rates on household debt."

The federal government waited until June of this year to slam the regulatory door on 40-year mortgages. In October, as the global financial crisis erupted, Mr. Harper lauded his government for its "early" response to the mortgage dangers.

"In the U.S., they are still responding to the fallout of the subprime mortgage mess. In Canada, we acted early over the past year," Mr. Harper said in a speech to the Empire Club in Toronto.

He didn't say that, not only did his own government open the sheltered Canadian mortgage market to U.S. insurers, but it also doubled to $200-billion the pool of federal money it would commit to guarantee their business. The foreigners unleashed what one U.S. insurance executive described as a fierce "dogfight for market share" that prompted rivals, including the giant federal agency Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, to aggressively push such risky U.S.-style lending.

An investigation by The Globe and Mail found:

- AIG's Greensboro, N.C., mortgage subsidiary launched a quiet lobbying campaign in 2004 with senior U.S. executives and a former CMHC official to push open the doors to Canada's mortgage insurance market, where some of the world's highest insurance rates are charged. Two years later, on May 1, 2006, AIG's mortgage insurance division registered with the lobbying commissioner's office. It was the day before the federal budget revealed new players would be allowed into Canada.

- Banking and insurance officials were so concerned about the alarming rush to 40-year mortgages at the beginning of 2008 that one bank executive warned the Bank of Canada's chief financial stability officer, Mark Zelmer, in a meeting that "the government has got to put an end to this."

- Critics, including former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, say the lax mortgage policies only further stoked soaring house prices. As for mortgage insurance premiums, industry officials say rates remain virtually unchanged and could potentially rise as troubled U.S. players begin to retreat from Canada.

The story of how the U.S. housing crisis spread to Canada is a tale of carefully orchestrated U.S. corporate lobbying, failed public-policy promises and government inaction to numerous private and public warnings about reckless mortgage practices.

Few of these consequences appear to have been anticipated by either the government or the financial institutions pushing high-risk mortgages on the public.

"Quite honestly I was surprised [the 40-year mortgage] was seized upon so eagerly by the Canadian banks and borrowers," said a U.S. insurance executive who asked not to be named. "You hear all the usual excuses: ‘It's a cash-flow management tool, people will pay off their mortgage ahead of time.' But in reality it just becomes a mechanism for borrowing more than you probably should have."

A FOOT IN THE DOOR

How did the staid world of mortgage insurance become the cradle of so much financial risk in the Canadian housing sector? It started almost by accident.

For nearly 40 years after CMHC was founded in 1954, the business of mortgage insurance was about as exciting as an actuarial table. The agency was set up by the federal government as a kind of financial cushion to encourage the country's conservative financial institutions to open their vaults and lend more money to homeowners.

If a home buyer couldn't pony up a 25-per-cent down payment on a house purchase, CMHC shouldered the risk of default by insuring the mortgage and charging the buyer an insurance premium. Backing CMHC's insurance policies was a 100-per-cent federal guarantee. In bad years, Ottawa piped money into CMHC; in good years, the agency added to the federal treasury by paying taxes.

The smooth working system hit a pothole in late 1988 when Canada's only other mortgage insurer at the time, Toronto-based MICC, was nearly wiped out by new international bank capital rules. The rules threatened to shutter MICC because they effectively made it cheaper for banks to use CMHC's government-guaranteed mortgage insurance.

Faced with the imminent collapse of Canada's only private-sector mortgage insurer, the then Conservative government went to a place that few other industrialized countries have gone by agreeing to guarantee the policies of a non-government mortgage insurer. According to people involved in the crisis, Ottawa "hesitantly" agreed to "taking on an enormous liability" of guaranteeing 90 per cent of MICC's insurance policies.

The government's worst fears about a massive liability materialized in 1995, when MICC's risky insurance bets in the construction sector threatened to torpedo the company. As Ottawa wrestled with the grim prospect of losing the insurer for millions of dollars in mortgages, the world's largest non-bank financial company came knocking with a rescue proposal.

The company was General Electric. The U.S. conglomerate was offering to take over MICC's mortgage insurance portfolio provided Ottawa met one condition: It would bless GE's planned new Canadian mortgage insurance subsidiary with a federal guarantee.

"It was a bit of a slam dunk," recalls one former Ottawa official. "GE was one of the strongest companies in the world."

Ottawa agreed to GE's offer, thereby shifting the federal government's 90-per- cent guarantee from a small Canadian mortgage insurer to a unit of a global giant with aggressive Canadian ambitions. GE's mortgage subsidiary, later spun off and renamed Genworth Mortgage Insurance Co., rapidly carved out a major presence in Canada, capturing about 30 per cent of the market and reporting $205-million of profits in 2005.

Other U.S. insurers took notice.

THE DOOR WIDENS

The days of a CMHC-Genworth duopoly were numbered. In the fall of 2005, a tiny paragraph buried in a 280-page federal government estimate of expenditures signalled a new era of competition in the industry.

The Finance Department's provision was considered so insignificant at the time that many staffers of the minister, Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, didn't recall it when contacted by The Globe. A current spokesman for the Saskatchewan MP insisted that the provision was not designed to open the market to riskier products.

Another federal official who declined to be identified said the wording of the provision was eased because Genworth's name had changed and the government wanted to leave room for additional switches.

Despite these explanations, executives and advisers to a number of U.S. insurers and Canadian players said the paragraph was widely interpreted as a signal that Ottawa was opening the country's mortgage insurance sector to outside competitors.

Intended or not, the shift followed years of mobilizing by U.S. insurance companies, all hungry for a piece of what is regarded as one of the most lucrative and the second-largest mortgage insurance market in the world. At the forefront of this movement was mammoth AIG, now in near ruins as a result of its role in the U.S. subprime crisis.

U.S. competitors had envied premium rates on Canadian mortgage insurance policies for years. With only two players competing in the space, Triad's Mr. Tonnesen said CMHC and Genworth were so profitable that they were "basically printing money."

Eyeing the rich northern market, representatives from at least three U.S. insurers made regular trips to Ottawa for meetings with the Finance Department and Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, the insurance regulator. But AIG created a strategic advantage by hiring Bill Mulvihill, a Canadian mortgage expert who had spent years as the chief financial officer at CMHC. Mr. Mulvihill, who is still a director of AIG's Canadian operation, declined to comment.

"The difference that Bill Mulvihill made was that he was able to connect into the policy folks with OSFI and at Finance and convince them that we were for real," said a former AIG executive who asked not to be identified. Following in AIG's footsteps were such U.S. insurers as PMI Group Inc., Triad and the Milwaukee-based Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Company.

Ultimately, Parliament did not vote on the Finance Department's proposal, thanks to the 2006 federal election and the Conservatives' rise to office. But the U.S. insurers' efforts weren't for naught; the new Harper government quickly embraced the idea of them coming north.

On May 2, 2006, in his first budget, Mr. Flaherty announced that not only would Ottawa guarantee the business of U.S. insurers, it was doubling the guarantee to $200-billion.

Twenty-four hours before Mr. Flaherty's announcement, AIG's mortgage subsidiary first registered with Canada's lobbyist commissioner, according to a federal registry. At the time, companies who spent more than 20 per cent of their time lobbying the government for changes in policy were required, by law, to register. It is not known how much time AIG spent promoting its cause to the government.

In a statement, AIG's Canadian chief executive officer, Andy Charles, said the company began a "preliminary investigation" of Canadian opportunities years ago. He said the company "did not engage in discussions with elected officials until we became aware that our market entry was being debated." Until that point, he said, the companies' "interactions were with the Department of Finance and Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions."

The lobbyist AIG hired was John Capobianco, a former aide to various MPPs in the Ontario government of Mike Harris and a defeated candidate for the federal Tories in the 2006 election.

Mr. Capobianco said in an interview he wasn't familiar with any of AIG's negotiations with the federal government before he was retained in May. He was brought aboard to promote AIG's argument that more competition was good for consumers and massage the proposed policy through the finance committees of the House of Commons and Senate.

By the time he was hired, Mr. Capobianco said, "the rubber was on the road."

LENDERS STEP THROUGH

Although new U.S. insurers didn't generate any press coverage or public concern from the opposition parties, there was at least one lawmaker who had misgivings.

Garth Turner, the former financial journalist turned politician who has bounced between the Conservative and Liberal parties, urged the finance committee to hold a day of hearings on the new U.S. insurers. He was a Conservative MP at the time, but was wary of his party's proposal.

"We had a fairly stable market at a time when the American market was already starting to go to hell," Mr. Turner said in an interview. "I was quite concerned that mucking around with our mortgage fundamentals would have the potential for chaos."

During a day of hearings, executives from the new U.S. insurers all pledged to make home ownership more affordable for people on the cusp of being approved by a traditional lender. AIG's new Canadian mortgage insurance chief, Mr. Charles, promised to service the neediest - immigrants, the self-employed and those with blemishes on their credit scores - who were mostly ignored by CMHC and Genworth.

Peter Vukanovich, Genworth's Canadian chief, fought to protect his profitable turf during the hearings and warned the government that it hadn't conducted any studies about the threat of disruption posed by new competitors.

Shortly after the hearing, Mr. Turner said he was approached by Mr. Flaherty's parliamentary secretary, Diane Ablonczy, in the House of Commons. "She came to my desk where I was computing away on my laptop," Mr. Turner said, recalling that she told him to "get onside."

In the end, no one raised a single question about the prospect of 40-year or zero-down mortgages. The bill sailed through the committee - including a vote of support from Mr. Turner.

"At the end of the day I sadly acquiesced," he said, adding that he regrets voting the way he did. "At the time it was politically difficult."

(He has since written and published a book, The Greater Fool, predicting a Canadian real-estate market crash similar to the one in the United States.) The provision later passed through the Senate committee, but not without one ominous exchange.

Senator Terry Stratton, a Conservative, had a prophetic inquiry about the potential that AIG might engage "higher risk" mortgage insurance practices, "thereby increasing the potential for forfeiture, which would place an additional burden on the federal government."

Mr. Charles, AIG's top executive in Canada, waved off the concerns. "In terms of exposure to the government, the practical likelihood of AIG, an organization with $800-billion in assets, ever coming to the government for anything as it relates to a claim is not nil, but it is as close to nil as it possibly could be."

Two years later, Washington has had to pump $150-billion into AIG after its business was shattered by reckless financial gambles.

A STEP TOO FAR

In February, 2006, as AIG was still trying to establish itself in Canada, CMHC moved to protect its coveted spot and announced a pilot project to insure 30-year mortgages.

For the industry, it was a declaration of war.

Two weeks later, Genworth announced it would do the Crown corporation one better, saying it would insure 35-year mortgages. CMHC matched that with its own 35-year product and raised the stakes by announcing it would insure interest-only loans that effectively required no down payment. The aggressive new mortgage products alarmed Mr. Dodge, the Bank of Canada governor, who scolded the president of CMHC, Karen Kinsley, in a letter for "very unhelpful" mortgages that he said would inflate prices and ultimately make homes less affordable.

In October, Genworth struck again, announcing Canada's first 40-year mortgage insurance policy. AIG and CMHC later added their own 40-year insurance products.

Industry officials repeatedly said in interviews that they were shocked at the frenzied escalation of risk. "It was fast and furious," said one AIG executive.

Mr. Vukanovich, the head of Genworth, declined repeated interview requests. In a statement, Genworth said it introduced 40-year mortgage insurance policies "as a continuation of global lending practices and trends at that time." The company added the policies were "prudently underwritten and not used to bring unqualified borrowers into the housing market."

In an interview yesterday, CMHC vice-president Pierre Serré repeatedly pointed to the behaviour of his competitors when asked about the agency's riskier products, explaining that CMHC's rivals were the first to introduce the 40-year products.

Asked if he thought that the new U.S. insurers pushed CMHC into riskier policies, Mr. Serré paused. "It' s a tough one for me to answer. In retrospect you can look at all the individual things happening and you can link them together, but it's a hard one to tell."

"We think we've done a prudent job of introducing these products and managing these products," he added, declining to explain how many 40-year and zero-down mortgages the public agency now has on its books. Unlike in the United States, such figures are not made publicly available in Canada.

Two-and-a-half years after Ottawa launched its mortgage insurance initiative, the promise of increased competition has all but died. Three of the entrants, PMI, Triad and Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Co., have retreated. Genworth and AIG are still operating, but, as financial woes mount for their U.S. parents, their future in Canada remains uncertain. Industry sources said most banks have become so cautious in the wake of global financial crisis that they have sharply reduced their use of private insurance in Canada.

The retreat by international insurers means that CMHC's dominant grip on the mortgage insurance market is expanding again, possibly beyond the 70-per-cent market share it enjoyed prior to the arrival of the bigger U.S. competitors.

An adviser to one of the U.S. insurers, who declined to be identified, summed it up this way: "It's a failed experiment."

For all person not from America out there it is important to remember the American citizens are NOT to blame for the abuses of some in power, and remember ALL countries have suffered abuses of power....don't make me list them.

Just wanted to insert a joke my dad sent:

When the local church found out their small town was going to get a new tavern, they started a petition campaign and regular prayers to block the bar from opening.
Work progressed uneventfully until the night before the bar was set to open, when a huge storm blew through and a lightning bolt struck the bar and it burned to the ground.
The church folks were quite "smug" until the bar owner sued them on the grounds that they were responsible for his building's demise, either through direct or indirect actions or means.
In court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise.
As the case concluded, the judge looked over the paperwork and commented, "I'm not sure how I'm going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and an entire church congregation that doesn't!"

Maybe his birth certificate says he's white. 

Actually, there was an article about the uproar regarding his race.  Very sad that race has come up again ...  now it seems some white people are mad he is not saying that he is white ... or that he is denying his "whiteness" ... and some blacks are mad that this great moment is being infringed upon.

here it is ...

A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama's racial saga: Many people insist that "the first black president" is actually not black.

Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial - or, in Obama's own words, a "mutt" - has reached a crescendo since Obama's election shattered assumptions about race.

Obama has said, "I identify as African-American - that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it." In other words, the world gave Obama no choice but to be black, and he was happy to oblige.

But the world has changed since the young Obama found his place in it.

Intermarriage and the decline of racism are dissolving ancient definitions. The candidate Obama, in achieving what many thought impossible, was treated differently from previous black generations. And many white and mixed-race people now view President-elect Obama as something other than black.

So what now for racial categories born of a time when those from far-off lands were property rather than people, or enemy instead of family?

"They're falling apart," said Marty Favor, a Dartmouth professor of African and African-American studies and author of the book "Authentic Blackness."

"In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois said the question of the 20th century is the question of the color line, which is a simplistic black-white thing," said Favor, who is biracial. "This is the moment in the 21st century when we're stepping across that."

Rebecca Walker, a 38-year-old writer with light brown skin who is of Russian, African, Irish, Scottish and Native American descent, said she used to identify herself as "human," which upset people of all backgrounds. So she went back to multiracial or biracial, "but only because there has yet to be a way of breaking through the need to racially identify and be identified by the culture at large."

"Of course Obama is black. And he's not black, too," Walker said. "He's white, and he's not white, too. Obama is whatever people project onto him ... he's a lot of things, and neither of them necessarily exclude the other."

But U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield, a black man who by all appearances is white, feels differently.

Butterfield, 61, grew up in a prominent black family in Wilson, N.C. Both of his parents had white forebears, "and those genes came together to produce me." He grew up on the black side of town, led civil rights marches as a young man, and to this day goes out of his way to inform people that he is certainly not white.

Butterfield has made his choice; he says let Obama do the same.

"Obama has chosen the heritage he feels comfortable with," he said. "His physical appearance is black. I don't know how he could have chosen to be any other race. Let's just say he decided to be white - people would have laughed at him."

"You are a product of your experience. I'm a U.S. congressman, and I feel some degree of discomfort when I'm in an all-white group. We don't have the same view of the world, our experiences have been different."

The entire issue balances precariously on the "one-drop" rule, which sprang from the slaveowner habit of dropping by the slave quarters and producing brown babies. One drop of black blood meant that person, and his or her descendants, could never be a full citizen.

Today, the spectrum of skin tones among African-Americans - even those with two black parents - is evidence of widespread white ancestry. Also, since blacks were often light enough to pass for white, unknown numbers of white Americans today have blacks hidden in their family trees.

One book, "Black People and their Place in World History," by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, even claims that five past presidents - Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge - had black ancestors, which would make Obama the sixth of his kind.

Mix in a few centuries' worth of Central, South and Native Americans, plus Asians, and untold millions of today's U.S. citizens need a DNA test to decipher their true colors. The melting pot is working.

Yet the world has never been confronted with such powerful evidence as Obama. So as soon as he was elected, the seeds of confusion began putting down roots.

"Let's not forget that he is not only the first African-American president, but the first biracial candidate. He was raised by a single white mother," a Fox News commentator said seven minutes after Obama was declared the winner.

"We do not have our first black president," the author Christopher Hitchens said on the BBC program "Newsnight." "He is not black. He is as black as he is white."

A Doonesbury comic strip that ran the day after the election showed several soldiers celebrating.

"He's half-white, you know," says a white soldier.

"You must be so proud," responds another.

Pride is the center of racial identity, and some white people seem insulted by a perception that Obama is rejecting his white mother (even though her family was a centerpiece of his campaign image-making) or baffled by the notion that someone would choose to be black instead of half-white.

"He can't be African-American. With race, white claims 50 percent of him and black 50 percent of him. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," Ron Wilson of Plantation, Fla., wrote in a letter to the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

Attempts to whiten Obama leave a bitter taste for many African-Americans, who feel that at their moment of triumph, the rules are being changed to steal what once was deemed worthless - blackness itself.

"For some people it's honestly confusion," said Favor, the Dartmouth professor. "For others it's a ploy to sort of reclaim the presidency for whiteness, as though Obama's blackness is somehow mitigated by being biracial."

Then there are the questions remaining from Obama's entry into national politics, when some blacks were leery of this Hawaiian-born newcomer who did not share their history.

Linda Bob, a black schoolteacher from Eustis, Fla., said that calling Obama black when he was raised in a white family and none of his ancestors experienced slavery could cause some to ignore or forget the history of racial injustice.

"It just seems unfair to totally label him African-American without acknowledging that he was born to a white mother," she said. "It makes you feel like he doesn't have a class, a group."

There is at least one group eagerly waiting for Obama to embrace them. "To me, as to increasing numbers of mixed-race people, Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president ... a bridge between races, a living symbol of tolerance, a signal that strict racial categories must go," Marie Arana wrote in the Washington Post.

He's a bridge between eras as well. The multiracial category "wasn't there when I was growing up," said John McWhorter, a 43-year-old fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Center for Race and Ethnicity, who is black. "In the '70s and the '80s, if somebody had one white parent and one black parent, the idea was they were black and had better get used to it and develop this black identity. That's now changing."

Latinos, whom the census identifies as an ethnic group and not a race, were not counted separately by the government until the 1970s. After the 1990 census, many people complained that the four racial categories - white, black, Asian, and American Indian/Alaska native - did not fit them. The government then allowed people to check more than one box. (It also added a fifth category, for Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders.)

Six million people, or 2 percent of the population, now say they belong to more than one race, according to the most recent census figures. Another 19 million people, or 6 percent of the population, identify themselves as "some other race" than the five available choices.

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the census, specifically decided not to add a "multiracial" category, deeming it not a race in and of itself.

"We are in a transitional period" regarding these labels, McWhorter said. "I think that in only 20 years, the notion that there are white people and there are black people and anyone in between has some explaining to do and an identity to come up with, that will all seem very old-fashioned."

The debate over Obama's identity is just the latest step in a journey he unflinchingly chronicled in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father."

As a teenager, grappling with the social separation of his white classmates, "I had no idea who my own self was," Obama wrote.

In college in the 1970s, like millions of other dark-skinned Americans searching for self respect in a discriminatory nation, Obama found refuge in blackness. Classmates who sidestepped the label "black" in favor of "multiracial" chafed at Obama's newfound pride: "They avoided black people," he wrote. "It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around."

Fast-forward 30 years, to the early stages of Obama's presidential campaign. Minorities are on track to outnumber whites, to redefine the dominant American culture. And the black political establishment, firmly rooted in the civil rights movement, questioned whether the outsider Obama was "black enough."

Then came the primary and general elections, when white voters were essential for victory. "Now I'm too black," Obama joked in July before an audience of minority journalists. "There is this sense of going back and forth depending on the time of day in terms of making assessments about my candidacy."

Today, it seems no single definition does justice to Obama - or to a nation where the revelation that Obama's eighth cousin is Dick Cheney, the white vice president from Wyoming, caused barely a ripple in the campaign.

In his memoir, Obama says he was deeply affected by reading that Malcolm X, the black nationalist-turned-humanist, once wished his white blood could be expunged.

"Traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction," Obama wrote. "I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border."

___

Black, white..who cares.  I realize this is a historical moment in history.  But to me it was about electing a president who I thought could do a better job.  I'm sorry that I cannot get excited over this "historical" election of a black or black/white man.  Like one radio show host says, I'm an American who happens to be Black.  I believe that's how blacks, African/Americans are look upon in Europe.

About the birth certificate..just show the darned thing!  Open your records about your health.  Release your transcripts from college.  I thought this was going to be a "transparent" way of governing.  It sure is not starting off that way.  When first asked about Blago...no comment.  Obama chooses his words very carefully...very, very carefully.  He had to think about his comment before giving one.  He probably knows his Chicago Buds knew about all of this mess...and Obama certainly could not have known about the workings of the Chicago machine.  Geez!  How stupid does he think we are.  Oh, I forgot...meany people are stupid because the didn't ask questions..NO NEGATIVITY!...and the MSM should be ashamed of themselves!  If we can't get truthful news who the heck is going to buy or read their crap.  That's why I like Fox News.

Shirley

Here is an article with pictures of Obama's birth certificate. 

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

The Supreme Court of the United States recently declined to hear the law suit alleging that Obama was not a citizen.  The question is settled as far as I am concerned.  Of course FOX news is probably disappointed.  The same individual who brought the suit about Obama was also claiming that McCain was not a citizen because he was born in Panama. 

Sherri, I just don't see the big deal about showing one's birth certificate.  Do you have to when you run for president?  How would anyone know whether you are born here in the states if you don't show a birth certificate.  And I don't understand why he won't release his transcripts.  My thinking is he ran with the took courses that we may not approve of or was in organizations we may not approve of.  As far as health records..that's plum silly.  He's a young mand and I would think he's healthy so what else would he be hiding.  Ya know, there may be NOTHING at all wrong with any of his records, but he's the one who has US questioning his truthfulness.  It's not our fault.  It's his fault.  $!  $$

The oldest evidence of humans so far found is almost 400 thousand years old.  (Correct me if I am wrong please, but as far as I could see that was it).  People need to remember that we all come from a gene pool many thousands of years old, and no one can go back even a thousand years as far as I know.

Here is an interesting article.

Blue-eyed Humans Have A Single, Common AncestorScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2008) - New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.

What is the genetic mutation

"Originally, we all had brown eyes", said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. "But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a "switch", which literally "turned off" the ability to produce brown eyes". The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin. The "switch", which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris - effectively "diluting" brown eyes to blue. The switch's effect on OCA2 is very specific therefore. If the OCA2 gene had been completely destroyed or turned off, human beings would be without melanin in their hair, eyes or skin colour - a condition known as albinism.

Limited genetic variation

Variation in the colour of the eyes from brown to green can all be explained by the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. "From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor," says Professor Eiberg. "They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA." Brown-eyed individuals, by contrast, have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production.

Professor Eiberg and his team examined mitochondrial DNA and compared the eye colour of blue-eyed individuals in countries as diverse as Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. His findings are the latest in a decade of genetic research, which began in 1996, when Professor Eiberg first implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye colour.

Nature shuffles our genes

The mutation of brown eyes to blue represents neither a positive nor a negative mutation. It is one of several mutations such as hair colour, baldness, freckles and beauty spots, which neither increases nor reduces a human's chance of survival. As Professor Eiberg says, "it simply shows that nature is constantly shuffling the human genome, creating a genetic cocktail of human chromosomes and trying out different changes as it does so."

So I am new here and I am amazed at what I am reading between this thread and the Obama - democrat thread.  Wow!  I am a bit confused as there seems to be a common theme with democrats called "entitlement". They, of course, do not use this word, but it is painfully obvious many of them feel that the government should "take care of them". 

I dont know about everyone else, but looking at how the government has taken care of what it has control over, I shudder to think if I wanted them to "take care of me" too!  I am of course referring to mortgages and bailouts and bankruptcies, etc.

There is one lady who I think started the thread who definately is "milking" the government!  She said she has fibromyalgia and because of it. she cannot work and is on disability!  I have never in my life heard of anyone getting disability for fibromyaglia!  I belong to a LARGE fibro support group (yep, I too have fibromyalgia) and I was sharing her "story" with them at the last meeting (there are about 75 - 100 average attendance and 2 pain mgnt doctors) and NONE have heard of anyone getting disablility for fibro, nor would any WANT disability for it.

The thing we all know and understand (it isn't rocket science, but perhaps the poor girl was "too sick" to go to school too...) ) is that the WORST thing someone who has fibromyalgia can do, is to do nothing!!!!  Exercise is KEY to pain management.  Laying around collecting a government check is NOT the way to handle this dibilitating disease.  Now CHEMO deserves temporary disability, but not fibro!

As a woman, who has endured the pain of fibromyalgia for 6 years AND CONTINUES TO WORK FULLTIME, I am so offended to see democrats boast of their "disability"!  I have pain 24/7, I see pain specialists, I have done trigger point injections, accupuncture, muscle relaxers, Lyrica, Neurontin, massage therapy, chiropractors, physical therapy, theraputic whirlpools, muscle stimulators, TENS units, bio-feedback, anti-depressants, facet injections, 2 epidurals and one denervation, and NOT ONCE would I have ever run down to the government office and tell them I hurt too much to work.

That is a COP OUT and sorry if this offends anyone, but I got so furious reading how that girl on the democrat thread has been bleeding MY paycheck for HER "disability"!!!!!!  If she would get off her A$$ and WORK, she might could keep her mind off the pain.

Exersice and my TENS unit are the only things that give me relief.  If I can exercise, if I can go SHOPPING, if I can go on vacation, clean my house, cook my food, wash my clothes, I can CERTAINLY work!!!!!!!

Whew- I fill better now!!!! 

Crooked Carol Browner: Obama's ethically-challenged energy czar

My syndicated column today puts the screws on Clintonite Carol Browner, rumored to be Obama's choice for energy czar. She's not so fresh and so clean. And conservatives should raise their voices for, you know, real change.

***

Same old, same old.

The trouble with Obama's energy czar
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

Yet another Clintonite has been wheeled out of the political morgue to serve in the Obama administration. Carol Browner, a neon green radical who headed the Environmental Protection Agency from 1993-2000, is widely rumored to be the president-elect's choice for "energy czar." But an ethical cloud still hangs over Browner's EPA legacy. It doesn't take a team of Ivy League-degreed lawyers to figure out that this is one more headache the Hope and Change crew doesn't need.

In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, let me dust off the cobwebs and help out all the smarty-pants vetters on the Obama team with a little background on Browner's stained past:

On her last day in office, nearly eight years ago, Browner oversaw the destruction of agency computer files in brazen violation of a federal judge's order requiring the agency to preserve its records. This from a public official who bragged about her tenure: "One of the things I'm the proudest of at EPA is the work we've done to expand the public's right to know."

Asked to explain her track-covering actions, the savvy career lawyer Browner played dumb. Figuratively batting her eyelashes, she claimed she had no clue about a court injunction signed by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on the same day she commanded an underling to wipe her hard drives clean. Golly gee willikers, how could that have slipped by her?

According to testimony in a freedom of information lawsuit filed against EPA by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a Virginia-based conservative legal watchdog group, Browner commanded a computer technician on Jan. 19, 2001: "‘I would like my files deleted. I want you to delete my files." Not coincidentally, the Landmark Legal Foundation had been pressing Browner to fully and publicly disclose the names of any special interest groups that may have influenced her wave of last-minute regulatory actions. Two days before she told her technician to purge all her records, EPA had gone to court to file a motion opposing the federal court injunction protecting those government documents.

Plausible deniability? Not bloody likely.

Incredibly, Browner asserted that there was no work-related material on her work computer. She explained she was merely cleaning the hard drive of computer games she had downloaded for her son, and that she wanted to expunge the hard drive as a "courtesy" to the incoming Bush administration. How thoughtful. Later, her agency admitted that three other top EPA officials had their computers erased despite the federal court order and ongoing FOIA case (the record is silent on whether Browner's son was playing games on their desktops, too). A further belated admission revealed that the agency had failed to search Browner's office for public documents as required by Landmark's public disclosure lawsuit.

Not only were all the top officials' hard drives cleared and reformatted, but e-mail backup tapes were erased and reused in violation of records preservation practices.

After a two-year legal battle, Judge Lamberth finally held the EPA in contempt of court for the systemic file destruction - actions Lambert lambasted as "contumacious conduct" (obstinate resistance to authority). As is typical in Washington, Browner weaseled out of any serious repercussions. Lamberth inexplicably decided that slapping the agency as a whole with contempt - rather than any individual - would deter future cover-ups.

Is this a gamble the Obama administration wants to take? Browner has crossed the line and violated public trust before in her capacity as eco-chief. Early in her first term as EPA head, Browner got caught by a congressional subcommittee using taxpayer funds to create and send out illegal lobbying material to over 100 grassroots environmental lobbying organizations. Browner exploited her office to orchestrate a political campaign by left-wing groups, who turned around and attacked Republican lawmakers for supporting regulatory reform. These are the very same groups - anti-business, anti-sound science, pro-eco-hysteria - that Browner would be working arm in arm with as Obama's "energy czar."

This is regression we can't afford.

Here is an article with pictures of Obama's birth certificate. 

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

The Supreme Court of the United States recently declined to hear the law suit alleging that Obama was not a citizen.  The question is settled as far as I am concerned.  Of course FOX news is probably disappointed.  The same individual who brought the suit about Obama was also claiming that McCain was not a citizen because he was born in Panama. 

//////////////

The reason why the Supreme Court declined to hear the case is because it was filed with wrong legal verbiage.  There is another case pending and Justice Scalia has asked for it to go into their Friday conference when they meet to see which cases they'll take for a full hearing.. 

No the issue is not dead.  If that birth certificate that is pictured on Obama's site has a seal from the State of Hawaii, then the Court wouldn't be considering this new case, would they?  If it really is the original, then bring it to the Court with proper documentation from Hawaii.

Why this has to get into a full blown hearing is beyond me.  Just send a bench warrant to Hawaii, and get the original birth certificate.  Either he was born in Hawaii or he wasn't.

DD you sound like you have some kind of "beef" with that woman over there..............I do not need to defend Amy and I may be wrong but unless you are a medical doctor and are fimilar with her case personally I don't think you have the knowledge to comment on her condition........and/or give her medical advice........just because your fibro is controlled with exercise and medication does not mean that all cases of fibro can be controlled that way............you seem to be hypersensitive about someone you say you don't know..........Summer may know you but it looks like you are brand new here and this thread is not about fibro.......there is a separate thread where that condition is being discussed.......maybe you should make your comments there..........

Rocky it is suppose to be a great insult for someone to call you a dog and then throw their shoes at you.......if you remember when then pulled down that statue of Insane and all those people were beating it with their shoes that is why..........thought Bush handled himself very well but his secret service weren't handling the situation very well.........

Sherri it amazes me the time that parents as well as members of the community that volunteer their time to the "Arts"............there are moms and dads and then former students that do this full time.......what is amazing is that you were President for three years.......you must have been very good in that position because as you probably well  know there are always parents that are unhappy and complaining about this and that...........you know that is how Sarah Palin got started.......becoming president of her kids pta........being president of a state music society truly is a great feat.......maybe you should think about running for political office in your town........hmmm just a thought............

Aide says Illinois governor may allow special election

Updated Mon. Dec. 15 2008 11:43 AM ET

The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich hasn't ruled out signing a bill creating a special election to fill president-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat, his spokesman said Monday, the first hint the embattled governor may loosen his grip on the seat.

Blagojevich was arrested last week on charges he tried to profit from his power to choose Obama's replacement and shook down businesses seeking state deals.

While Blagojevich hasn't seen a proposed special election bill he hasn't ruled out the possibility of signing such a bill, spokesman Lucio Guerrero said early Monday without elaborating.

The governor, meanwhile, remained defiant and returned to work Monday to sign a tax credit bill after earlier seeing off his wife, Patti, and the couple's two daughters.

The state legislature was to meet Monday afternoon to consider special election legislation, but legislators also were likely to discuss impeaching Blagojevich.

"The General Assembly must move to impeach Rod Blagojevich immediately," said DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett, a potential Republican candidate for governor in 2010.

"We should have started yesterday," agreed Representative Jack Franks, a Democrat.

Guerrero hasn't responded directly to whether the governor could or would do anything to slow down the legislature's move toward impeachment.

"The governor has indicated in the past there is more to this story that he's wanting to tell at an appropriate time," he said.

The calls for impeachment put the spotlight on House Speaker Michael Madigan, who ultimately will decide the timing of any impeachment effort.

Madigan, a Democrat representing Chicago, hasn't taken any public position beyond saying Sunday that he would talk to the House Republican leader about the issue Monday.

David Dring, spokesman for House Minority Leader Tom Cross, said Republicans will step up the pressure on Democrats to remove Blagojevich, perhaps raising the issue on the House floor.

"If they won't work with us, you'll probably see some good theatre," Dring said.

The Republicans also plans to run television ads pressuring Democrats to approve a special election to replace Obama. If Blagojevich resigned, the power to appoint a new senator would go to Democratic Lt.-Gov. Patrick Quinn.

Illinois Republican party chairman Andy McKenna told reporters the ads will "make the point that this is the people's seat, and the people deserve a special election."

Madigan often has clashed with the Democratic governor, and his office produced a memo this year outlining all the arguments legislative candidates could make in favour of impeachment.

But spokesman Steve Brown wouldn't say Sunday whether Madigan was even considering impeachment proceedings. Brown said Madigan wants to "maintain some neutrality" in case he winds up presiding over an impeachment.

Madigan's daughter, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, has asked the state Supreme Court to remove Blagojevich from office, claiming he is unfit to serve. Madigan said Sunday she expects word on whether the court will hear her request "probably just in a few days."

Lisa Madigan is considered one of the top Democratic candidates for governor in 2010.

The state constitution gives legislators broad authority to impeach a governor for any reason they consider sufficient. The House would decide whether to file charges against the governor, and the Senate would ultimately rule on them.

Democrats first made the call for a special election, but some are now having second thoughts.

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, for instance, was an early supporter, but is now calling for Blagojevich to resign so that the lieutenant governor would make the appointment.

Opponents of a special election cite the time and expense. It would cost tens of millions of dollars and not produce a new senator until April.

Republicans claim Democrats are wavering because they don't want to risk a Republican candidate winning the special election.