Dedicated to providing news, information, and opinions concerning local, state, and national issues that are relevant to, and could potentially impact, the local community.
Blog Archive
Friday, November 25, 2022
Fear, major tool of politics. Who should you fear?
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
The extortion and money laundering just keeps happening.
BANK OF AMERICA FORCED TO FINANCE LIBERAL ACTIVIST GROUPS
EXTORTION USED TO BE ILLEGAL
As home prices skyrocketed, and everyone was convinced that the best investment was real estate, many knew that the end was near. The hysteria over the real estate market came to an end when gas prices rose to $4.00 a gallon and crimped the already tight budgets of many over-mortgaged home owners. It started with the sub-prime mortgages and soon spread to many other mortgages. Investments in mortgage-backed securities plunged in value and the collapse of investment companies began.
After Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Countrywide and Merrill Lynch were the next in line to fail. Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary, and Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, pressured Bank of America to buy Countrywide and Merrill Lynch to stop the implosion. The executives at Bank of America looked at the financials and considered backing out of the deal. The Feds then pressured them so they could not back out and assured them they needed to do this to save the financial system; furthermore, the Fed guaranteed they would help Bank of America with this deal. Bank of America lost an estimated $40 billion on the Countrywide deal alone. But that was just the beginning of their problems. When Barack Obama was elected, he did not feel he owed anyone for deals made by the former administration. His Attorney General, Eric Holder, then indicted Bank of America for fraud in the investments of Countrywide. They threatened criminal charges against the executives if they would not agree to a settlement. Bank of America executives agreed to pay 16.6 billion in August 2014.
It has now been reported by several newspapers that part of this settlement was a side deal arranged by Holder that would allow the bank to make contributions to non profit organizations specified by the administration rather than pay the settlement to the Treasury Department as required by law. The deal would allow Bank of America to take a $2 credit for every $1 they contributed to the list of several hundred qualifying organizations. This required Bank of America to contribute a minimum of $50 million to community development organizations, $20 million to affordable housing groups, and $30 million to legal aid groups. This was the minimum; there is no limit to the amount they can give. The administration claims this is all legal because they allowed Bank of America to choose who on the list that they contributed to. This arrangement is similar to the deals that have been given to CitiGroup and probably other banks.
Now some may say that the banks deserve this ill treatment and these non-profit groups are all good causes. In reality, this is an example of government corruption at its worst. This is the type of behavior seen in third world countries and dictatorships. You have coercion and the threat of government legal and/or criminal suits if you do not lower standards, then when it all goes bust you use coercion to buy the worst companies, and then extortion to take money and give it to the administration's political supporters. This is in effect exactly what has been done. Congress is supposedly investigating this, and those who have asked to see what groups have received these funds have been told it is confidential. These are the acts of lawless politicians who now believe they can do whatever they want and it seems they may be right.
This article was originally published 1/26/16
Monday, November 21, 2022
Twitter, and Musk's vision for the future.
BANKRUPTCY, AND PREDICTED COLLAPSE OF TWITTER IS PREMATURE
IF ANYTHING, DON'T DOUBT MUSK'S ABILITY
Friday, November 18, 2022
Russia, oops, Ukraine strikes Poland
SADLY, DESPERATION RESULTS IN ULTIMATE POWER PLAY
MANY BELIEVE NATO/RUSSIAN WAR WILL BE BIG STORY
The big story of the week was that Russia had struck Poland with a missile attack. The Media quickly ran with the story with the usual "Breaking News" report that Russia had struck Poland with a missile and killed Polish citizens. While it was true that Poland was struck by a missile and yes, Polish farmers were killed, it was made clear within an hour on the internet that the missile was S300 air defense missile. Even the U.S. quickly dismissed the idea that Russia had attacked Poland, but the story continued until finally saner heads prevailed and then claimed that the missile was intended to stop incoming Russian missiles but went astray.
Zelensky continued to claim it was a Russian missile for a few more days, until finally walking it back, probably due to a reprimand from his benefactor the U.S.
Several things to consider about this missile. The S300 missile has around a 100 mile range. Poland to Russia is 714 miles. Then of course the missiles incoming into Ukraine are traveling from east to west. Air-defense missiles would be traveling west to east to intercept incoming missiles. It is very unlikely that any air-defense missile could go astray and travel in the opposite direction.
It seems that the U.S. is capable of tracking any missiles that are flying over, into and from Ukraine. It is very likely that Ukraine intentionally fired this missile into Poland to bring about an article 5 NATO response and possibly WW3.
No matter what, this was a very dangerous move, Poland is not happy, U.S. is not happy and Russia is going to use this as a political weapon against Zelensky. It is likely Ukraine believed that this missile would land in some empty farm field, but sadly some very unlucky farmers were in that field at the time. Many are now worried about the possibility of other such attempts in the future.
It is beginning to appear that all the NATO readiness is meant to intimidate Russia into backing down in this conflict. It may also be now clear that actual NATO entering this conflict is not as imminent as some may have thought, including Ukraine. While victory has been predicted by the WEST for near 10 months, it is becoming clear that will not be the case.
General Miley remarked this week, I am sure with White House approval, that Ukraine will not be able to recapture their lost territory. This message may just be the first that the U.S. and other NATO members are nearing the limit of their ability to change the direction of this conflict without considerable risk to themselves.
This will be a very serious political risk for Zelensky, because he has gone all in, at the direction of the Biden administration in his unwillingness to negotiate both before and after the start of this conflict.
Any compromise will also have political risk for the U.S.,who has led the handling of this crisis and has insisted that Russia must be defeated. While the cost to the U.S. is immense and growing larger, it is mostly money and weapons, which can be replaced. The rest of NATO is most likely becoming increasingly skeptical about the direction of this conflict, their risk is now becoming critical as winter approaches.
