A Great Week for America

Thanks to President Obama and the Democrats in Congress this has been a great week for our country, despite Republicans and the Right. After years of the utter destruction of all regulations that protect Americans and our Economy from reckless banking and investment practices leading to a near depression, the President and the Democrats in Congress passed sweeping financial reform regulation to actually solve the problems.

While millions of Americans remain unemployed from the Bush recession, Democrats passed and the President signed a bill restoring unemployment benefits. This not only helps the unemployed but immediately puts more money actively into the economy to continue the Obama recovery.

Also last weekend the oil gushing into the gulf that was caused by lack of any enforcement of regulation during the Big Oil Presidency of the last 8 years, was with the oversight of the President's Man Admiral Than Allen finally brought to a stop.

Meanwhile what have the Republicans and the right been doing? They have clearly with malice and forethought attempted to block any legislation that will help our economy and prevent future economic disasters. Why? Because the worse the economy stays by November, the more votes they think they will get.

They have blocked helping millions of American families keep their unemployment benefits, while making statements blaming these middle class families for their own fate, calling them lazy, dead beats and worse. They claim they only wanted to pay for these benefits, yet they never said a word when they gave tax breaks to the rich that weren't paid for a big part of what lead us into the deficit slide.

In addition they criticized the President's Moratorium on deep water oil drilling as "job killing." Yet clearly the job's killed by the clearly unsafe, unprepared practices of the oil companies in this one incident have killed thousands of jobs not to mention the environment of the area. The Obama Administration has as its responsibility to protect America. Any thing less then attempting to prevent another similar disaster would be negligence.

So yes a very successful week for America, Democrats and President Obama. A week which reminds people why they voted for them. Competence, action, hope, and change. How has the right wing attempted to distract from such success. By trying to divide the country by race baiting, creating white fear, and fanning fires of racism.

Never has it been so clear, who is for action, solutions and change, and who is for greed, political games, and dividing America.

Another Big Win for America and The President

Today President Obama signed Financial reform into law despite the attempt by all but a few Republicans for political reasons to block it. This is another in a series of effective legislation by the Obama Administration and Democrats to not only solve the real issues that have remained stalled for decades, but to come through on his campaign promises.

This financial reform bill includes the biggest consumer protection features since the Great Depression. It ends too big to fail. It prevents taxpayer bailouts to irresponsible organizations. It increased transparency on bank investments, mortgages and bank fees.

This is just another in a series of major successes of President Obama and the Democratic led Congress, even though the Republicans have made it clear they want Obama to fail therefore America to fail on each and every piece of legislation.

This along with the stimulus package that stopped the slide toward depression and the losses of 700,000 jobs a month and the health care reform bill that has been attempted for 40 years makes this the most effective Presidency and Congress since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.

There is so much left to do, and for it to be done the contrasts between Democrats and Republicans being in power is quite clear. Democrats take of the hard problems with real solutions that help 90% of Americans while Republicans make false promises while helping only the rich and the greed of major corporations.

John Boehner Is Their Leader?

Ohio Republican Congressman and Minority Leader John Boehner reminds Americans every time he opens his mouth why they should not vote for Republicans in Congress and Senate. This week alone he has shown his total ignorance taunting the President, with the words "where are the jobs?" in response to the President speaking at a ground breaking of a new factory creating new jobs. A factory by the way made possible by the very stimulus package that Boehner continues to call a failure despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Then yesterday, the long awaited Financial Reform act passed, a bill widely popular among voters. A bill that will prevent the greed and misdeeds by big banks and wall street to throw our economy into a tail spin once again. John Boehner response, he wants a moratorium on all new federal regulations.

Is this man totally clueless to the needs of our nation? Lack of regulation created the economic disaster and the Bush recession. Lack of regulation caused millions of Americans to lose their homes. Lack of regulation created the need for millions of tax payer money to be used to bail out banks and other companies. Lack of regulation cost citizens 8 million jobs under Republican leadership. And now lack of regulation has caused the biggest environmental and one of the biggest economic disasters in the Gulf of Mexico in our nations history.

John Boehner and the Republicans want one thing, the rich to get richer, to hell with the consequences to everyone else. He is not alone, this has been the clear motivation of Republicans for decades. Tax cuts for the rich, let corporations take over our elections, let the oil companies run roughshod while putting our nation at risk, economically, environmentally and national security wise.

It sickens me that John Boehner represents my very own state, and it makes me no less disgusted that the only time we ever seen my own Congressman Steve Austria on Cspan, is usually him standing behind Beohner bobbing his head up and down like a bobble head doll.

The bottom line is this, Republicans caused the damage, they caused the recession, they are responsible for the oil spill, the took our country from surplus to deficit, they cost Americans 8 million jobs, the killed the middle class, while they gave tax breaks to the rich and corporations.

President Obama is being very successful in leading our nation into economic recovery, stopping the hemorrhaging of jobs, creating hundreds and thousands of jobs, saving the auto industry, helping middle class Americans with a tax cut and helping them get more affordable health insurance.

But the damage by the Republicans is deep. It cannot all be corrected over night. Especially when every step of the way, they put roadblocks in front of every positive action this President attempts to take.

It is clear Americans want action, they want improvement. One party and its President is clearly working hard in the right direction. The other is simply the Party of NO and are more interested in political rhetoric then actually doing anything to solve our nations problems.

GOP The Party of BP

It has never been more obvious who Republicans represent. Throughout the gulf spill tragedy while President Obama and the Administration was worked tirelessly to try to protect the lives, the environment and the way of life of the residents of the gulf human and animal, the Republican's primary talking points are complaints about the temporary moratorium on such drilling that caused this great American tragedy.

The party of "drill baby drill" wants us to again believe this was an isolated incident and take the risk of additional such tragedies in order to protect the profits of the oil companies.

Yesterday President Obama in a remarkable sign of his strength and leadership got BP, a major corporation to put 20 billion dollars in a fund to be administrated by a third party to finally effectively and efficiently get financial help to those harmed by this corporate damage to America. How do the Republicans respond? One calls it a fleecing of BP, one calls it an unprecedented shakedown of a private corporation, another calls it a slush fund.

The President is doing what is right, to work to recover from the effects of this horrible corporate attack on America, to make sure that proper safeguards are in place to prevent it from happening again, and to make sure that the people whose very lives have been destroyed by that are helped financially. And the GOP? Wants us to stop picking on BP.

Seriously? Yes America, Vote Republican, Vote BP.

Perhaps when BP rebrands all their stations so people forget this tragedy they will change the name to GOP stations.

Frustration must be turned into action now

The Oil spill in the gulf of Mexico has been like watching someones slow painful death. Many wish something could be done yet but often we feel helpless because only the doctor has the ability to do anything. It is similar with the oil spill. Because it seems BP is the one organization that has the ability to stop the leak so many have had to sit back and watch. Perhaps it is limited on who has the resources and knowledge and ability to actually stop the leak but that is not true when it comes to cleaning up the oil that is already out there damaging the water, coasts and wetlands.

It is clear that it is time to stop worrying about how, when and the amount BP is going to pay for all this and go to all hands on deck. President Obama needs to take ownership of this crisis and put the management and resources in place now. There cannot be enough people on site doing the hard work of cleaning. There cannot be enough boats out there, laying and pulling up the devices to skim the oil. We have thousands of fishermen with boats that can be organized to get work done. We have the military, locals, and hundreds of thousands of environmental volunteers ready to take action. President Obama use them and use them now. Yes we need organization and that can be put in place quickly and forcefully. But there has to be someone in place to pull all the efforts together and cut any red tape to get the job done now.

After the fact the autopsy can be done and the bills paid by BP. But right now, as far as the clean up goes, Just Do it!

What Obama has done to the Economy

Under the leadership of President Obama and his administration a number of significant things have happened to the economy while many were distracted. As we are given endless images of a few thousand sore losers funded by far right organizations and promoted by a fake news channel, things have been happening. While Ohio right wing blogs like Liberally Conservative posts pseudo intellectual pieces trying to prove Obama is a Communist, and nut cases promote endless chain letters purporting everything from Obama is Hitler to the Antichrist, his administration has been at work. As they scream about hanging on to their guns and government takeovers Obama has continued on.

So what has been happening.

The 700 billion Bank bailout that angered many Americans and set them off on screams about government spending and the deficit done during the Bush administration, has under the guidance of the Obama administration has not only saved our banking system from catastrophe but now approximately 620 billion has now been paid back.

We went from losing 700,000 jobs a month during the last year of the Bush administration to less and less each month of the Obama administration to now we are actually gaining jobs once again.

General Motors that was on the brink of disaster which would have lead to millions of job losses and a blow to our economy from which we would have never recovered was saved. People screamed "government motors" and all kinds of knee jerk cute phrases that appealed to the ignorant. But here we are a year later and GM has paid back the government in full with interest.

Investors, including millions of Americans retirement plans and 401k, hit the skids as the stock market reached its lowest point in decades under Bush. Under Obama it has recovered most of its value and the Dow Jones industrial average in the 10,000 range once again.

They screamed things like: "death panels", "government takeover" "socialized medicine" when the Health Care Bill was being debated. Yet what we got was Health Care Reform that maintained the private ownership of insurance companies, makes sure that no one can lose their insurance if we get sick, gets rid of preexisting conditions, keeps the young covered under their parents policies, and covers 30 million uninsured Americans all the while reducing the deficit by reducing costs.

So what has been happening while we all weren't paying attention. The economy and yes capitalism is doing quite well. After 8 years of policies that lead this country almost into depression, an actual competent President has been quite successfully leading us toward prosperity. Oh and the most surprising thing of all, he has done this all while lowering the taxes for 95% of Americans.

So shout all you want tea partiers, draw those crowds of 3-8000 angry old white men. But understand its reality that lead to hundreds of thousands at some Obama rallies last election and will lead to his win by a bigger landslide in 2012.

Obama's stepped up war on Terror

Despite what the RepubLIEcans are saying the fact is President Obama in one year in office has done more to fight Al Qaeda then Bush did in his 8 years. First off there have been more drone hellfire missile attacks on Al Qaeda in Pakistan in one year then in the last 5 years of the Bush Administration resulting in a long list of Al Qaeda leaders being killed.

While for 7 years the Bush Administration used minimal effort to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan turning its attention to an unnecessary illegal war in Iraq, it is President Obama that is sending 30,000 troops to actually do the job not just provide lip service.

In addition instead of chest thumping and pushing away cooperation in the war on terror like Cowboy diplomat Bush, Obama has reached out to work with allies in effective ways to take action against terrorists.

When it comes to terror there is a no error policy, clearly the fact the Nigerian got as far as he did was an error. What is Obama doing? He is calling in all his national security advisers, gaining the facts, and taking action to find out what happened and how to prevent it again. Mean while Yemenis forces are sending out 10,000 troops going after Al Qaeda effectively killing and arresting those behind the attempt.

Unlike Bush Obama has been proactive in fighting terror, the first drone strikes in Yemen were in November almost 2 months before this attempt, why because under his leadership our national security forces acted on good intelligence and took action before an attempt not after.

For Republicans to accuse this President to be weak on terror is clearly hypocrisy and an insult to the intelligence of our citizens. To use terror as a political football and to lie about it, is disgusting at best, giving aid and comfort to the enemy at worst.

Fighting Al Qaeda is not a political game it is about the safety and security of our nation. It is time for the RepubLIEcans to work with this President on our nations security or shut the hell up.

Signs of the Obama Recovery More Clear Every Day

Despite the continued drum beat of RepubLIEcans that the stimulus package has failed, saying it over and over again doesn't make it true. Though less then 50% of the stimulus funds have yet to be spent its clear positive effect on the economy is becoming very clear.

Housing Values are recovering every month.

2009 will be the best year on Wall Street since 2003 with 20% gains.

Gas prices remain significantly lower then previous highs during the last administration.

The Federal tax rate is at its lowest point in 70 years, with 95% of Americans receiving a tax cut in 2009.

And the most lagging indicator is beginning to show signs of recovery. New jobless claims numbers show the lowest amount since 2000, and continuing jobless claims have dropped to the level at the beginning of the year. Finally a survey of employers shows a significant percentage plan to increase their hiring in 2010.

So despite the RepubLIEcans trying to do everything to obstruct and deny the real solutions put in place by the Democrats and the Obama administration, the hard work by our leaders have shown clear positive results.

It may be hard for some to realize real solutions have taken time, as opposed to short term false band aids typical of Republican administrations. So they can try to continue their lies and false claims of higher taxes and economic failure, when it will soon be clear to all Americans that it was Republican leadership and policies that brought our country to the brink of economic disaster and it was democrats who fixed their mess.

A Decade of Failure leads to a Decade of Hope

This decade began with a failure of the basis of our Democracy, elections being in doubt. Despite clear and documented irregularities in the 2000 Presidential election the Supreme Court stopped a recount that could have determined who was actually elected President.

On September 11, 2001 Americans were horrified as we saw that there was a failure in security. We were not protected by the oceans from attack. We found out that our government and President failed to respond to clear warnings that could have prevented this disaster.

In March of 2003 their was a failure of leadership and honesty, as the world and Americans were horrified that a President of the United States lied to its citizens to lead us into war with Iraq. We learned there were no weapons of Mass Destruction, and we had attacked a country that though impudent militarily due to no fly zones and sanctions, who had not attacked us and had nothing to do with 9/11.

In 2004 once again the world and American were horrified as we learned that our Country was torturing Prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Later we sat in disbelief as we heard our President and Vice President defend waterboarding. There was a failure to live up to the morals our nation had always held dear. We would never be looked on the same by the world again.

Election day 2004, our frustration grew as once again our ability to hold fair elections were in doubt. There was clear manipulation by the Secretary of State in Ohio to alter the voting results. Resources were shifted, voting machines were proven to be inaccurate, yet once again a winner was declared without knowing for sure who actually got the most votes.

August 29 2005, perhaps the most clear failure of the decade. We watched in horror as an American City drowned after Hurricane Katrina. We watched as there was a clear inability of our government to respond to a disaster that they saw coming for weeks. We had been lead to believe that our Homeland Security had been improved yet Katrina proved quite the opposite. The world watched in horror as the Country they depended on to help respond to help the world in such disasters couldn't help itself.

September 15, 2007 a failure of disastrous proportions became evident in our economic system. We found that all the protections placed on our financial institutions after the Great Depression had been gutted to allow such a disaster again. We saw banks failing, record foreclosures, jobs being lost at staggering rates, and we saw a President in the waning days of his term trying to wait out the clock to avoid having to deal with the reality of the mess.

November 4, 2008 The decade of hope began. So many believed including myself that this country could not move beyond race to elect an African American President. There was even fear the election system problems would again put the will of the people in doubt. Yet as we sat there in campaign headquarters, or in our homes that night and watched the images from Grant Park in Chicago. The feeling of utter pride and joy in our nation, in our democracy was gushing. I cried that night as all the frustrations about the failures of the previous 8 years felt somehow washed away. My faith was being restored in our nation and the leaders of the future. The America I loved, I believed in, was back.

We have seen in the final year of the decade that restoring hope is not easy. It is not done in one election. The damage of the failures of the previous 8 years was deep, it was going to take a lot of work, a lot of hard decisions to fix it. Americans are understandably skeptical. It will take continued successes by our President to earn their trust once again. We must do what we can to help with that success by continuing to vote for Congress People and Senators that are leaders not obstructionists. We must make our voices heard, we must shout out the successes that are made. When we are not happy with something we also must communicate the desires we have to our leaders to do more.

The 2000's were indeed a decade of failure, but I have belief in the wisdom and the leadership of President Barack Obama. Therefore I have no doubt, the 2010's will be not only a decade of hope, but a decade of success for our nation.

Dick Cheney continues to root for Terrorists

In Cheney's most recent anti American rant he has shown his clear disappointment the attempt by the Nigerian terrorist failed. He once again used it to bash the Obama administration with some dribble that they don't see terrorism a war. But did he condem the attack itself? No.

Cheney says they don't see it as a war, oh really?

Who was it that has finally made the decision to send enough troops to do the job in Afghanistan? Yes that was Obama.

Who was it that ordered drone attacks on Yemen on terrorist bases that killed leaders on November 3, Indeed Obama again.

Under who's administration did a smilier attack get thwarted a month ago in Somalia Yes that too was the the Obama administration.


On the other hand who released from Guantanamo two leaders of al qaeda in Yemen that are taking credit for this attack and may have ties to the Fort Hood shooting. Wait that was the Bush Administration.

Hmm is almost like they not only hope for a terrorist attack for political reasons but assisted. Naw, couldnt be.

Our President Shows his Leadership Once Again

Today our President spoke to leaders of the world showing that finally America has a serious leader that is working to actually solve real problems. After years of Republicans playing political games and denying scientific fact at the peril of our planet, at long last we are working with the rest of the world.

Below is the full remarkable speech by the President that all Americans should be proud of.

Placing the Blame Where it Belongs

There is a lot of frustration in this country right now for various reasons. First of all the economy. Everyone knows without a doubt President Obama inherited a mess. We were heading into a depression, possible bank failures, and the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs. We came within weeks of losing the American Auto Industry. We are impatient, we want things to be fixed overnight. We want our jobs back, we want normalcy and we want change to prevent greed from doing this to us again. Yet it seems little is changing fast enough for our tastes

Then there is Health Care. Thousands are continuing to lose their coverage every day. Those of us that have it are constantly hit with sticker shock as our premiums continue to go up. Then we try to readjust our budgets again and again to cover health expenses that are not covered and that we didn't expect. Yet we grow weary of the seemingly endless debate and are losing hope anything of value will be done.

Then there are the wars. 8 years in Afghanistan, still working to get out of Iraq. We may be getting out of Iraq yet we still hear almost daily of another bombing or troop death. In Afghanistan we are aware of a situation so complicated that its hard to see what can be done.

Then there is the deficit something most of us really don't truly understand yet we try to apply common sense to it and get worried. We know it can't be good, but we want everything solved too, so that costs money.

With all this frustration it is not surprising Obama's poll numbers are showing it. Yet lets look at what is actually happening right before our eyes every day. On one side we have a President that clearly sees and is working to find real solutions to the very real problems that are in his inbox. He is bringing in advisers and the smartest people available to him to work toward solutions.

He put in place a stimulus package that is less then 50% spent. Though we would like instant change, real problems take real solutions that take time. The Health Care Bill is nearing completion. Does it have everything anyone wants? No. Does it have things some don't want, Yes. But this is 40 year battle, it was not going to be easy and it hasn't been. Yet improvement is about to happen. Iraq is coming to an end, no ifs ands or butts. Afghanistan is still a mess that is going to take real effort and real soldiers and real hard work to improve. He is working to do that with thought, with reflection, and with all the information available. He is also doing it with a vision and a plan to bring it to an end.

So what has the other side done. What have they done to improve the economy, what have they done to improve health care, what have they done to solve any problem whatsoever that our Country faces? Nothing. They instead have made political games and sour grapes their purpose. They have clearly no desire to solve our nations problems but instead criticize, obstruct and play partisan games. They are putting their desire for Obama to fail over the needs of their country. They have made health care reform almost impossible, they are fighting to protect the greed of the banks over the needs of a stable economy. They are doing everything from screaming theories about Obama's birth place, to distortions about health care proposals to outright lies.

They scream socialisim and that the government is trying to take over the banks and the auto industry yet remain silent when clearly TARP worked, the banks are paying back the government with a profit even GM says it will pay back its loans by June. Will the Republicans ever give Obama credit for all that has worked? What do you think?

Conservative money and media goes into organizing fake grass roots protests, that are simply racist uniformed dog and pony shows. Based on no facts whatsoever. They protest taxes when taxes are actually at the lowest rate in 70 years, they protest the deficit when its their party that took our nation from surplus to deficit. They shout hate and false attacks daily. This solves America's problems how?

Then there is the left. We had high expectations for Obama. After 8 years of utter frustration finally hope. But were those expectations too high perhaps. But on the other hand are we heading in the right direction? Is Obama broken a single campaign promise? No. Everything he campaigned on he is working toward. There have been no flip flops whatsoever. Yes it is taking longer then we would hope, But again, real problems take real solutions. If they were easy to solve they would have been already.

So where should we place the blame? It's quite clear it belongs in the squarely in the hands of the Republican Party.

Thank God we do have a President of strength and vision that is fighting to actually solve the real problems rather then trying to score short term political points. Because of this, for the first time in a long time, I have hope in a better future for our nation, both in the short and even more so in the long term.

Is it about race?

To try to lump the motives of those behind the poisonous political climate into one package would be wrong and simplistic. It would be as incorrect as the right is when claiming the teabaggers represent a majority of Americans views. From my own experiences working and living in Central and Southeastern Ohio, and my experiences from the actual campaign, I have seen a number of themes behind opposition to President Obama.

Like in the Clinton years, there is this talk radio led trashing of anyone that is a successful democrat that happens regardless of the race of the office holder. Have we forgotten the accusations of the Clinton's being behind everything from fraudulent real estate deals to even accusations of murder? I can remember hearing Rush Limbaugh calling the First Lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton at the time all kinds of things including a bitch on the public airways. This kind of total lack of respect and irresponsible rude behavior continues with the Obama Presidency.

There are those that actually do have real political disagreements with policies. Concerns about taxes, spending, wars and so on. In no way is having a disagreement or criticizing policies race related.

Then there are the others where race is a factor. The night Barack Obama was elected there was such a groundswell of pride and good feeling among many Americans including myself. There were tears of joy, and pure happiness. But among others there was another reaction. Fear. There were those that deep down actually believe either a Black man is not capable of running the country, or that he will lead to some sort of discrimination against whites, or as one person said to me, "here comes all the give aways to blacks now."

The scary part of this is many of these racists don't even know they are. There have been dozens of times that I have had conversations with people about Obama's policies that on the details of the policy they were in agreement, but often the conversation would end with, "But there is something about him I don't trust."

There are many out there that nothing he could do, nothing he could say would they listen to. These are the ones that fall prey to the ridiculous rumors of his birth certificate, his religion and so on. We laugh at times thinking how can they be so stupid. Yet the concerning thing is, they believe these lies because they need to find a reason for their dislike of him other then admitting racism. So they will bite on anything.

There are of course the overt racists at work as well. They see a change they do not like. They know they are losing the hearts and minds of the majority of the American People. But those in control do not give it up easily. So thus the violent words, the hate talk and so on that is so evident on our televisions every night. This explains the growth of hate groups throughout the country, people arming themselves against government headed by a black President, and most concerning it explains the incredible number of death threats against our President. The talk of secession is absolutely racist, when was that last time that was threatened? Over slavery.

What angers me the most is those that are using this racism to promote their own agendas. Limbaugh, Glenn Beck say and do things overtly racist. Beck's attacks on Acorn are blatantly racist. Lou Dobbs using the fear of "illegal Immigrants" to push his books and ratings. Last night he showed a white kid getting beat up on a school bus by a couple black kids on his news show. How many fights are there in schools and school buses every single day in this country? What was his purpose in showing that one, last night. it was for no other purpose other then to stoke racial fear.

Is the climate out there right now all about racism? No, but to deny that it has nothing to do with racism is clearly wrong and dangerous to ignore.

The Wisdom of Obama

After seeing the irresponsible comments made by the GOP Senators and Congressmen regarding Iran, I thank God for the Wisdom of our President. He used restraint and wisdom in his statements about the situation in Iran to avoid giving the "Supreme Leader" any credibility when blaming the United States for the unrest.

The President and in fact even the resolutions passed by the Congress and the Senate state support for the demonstrators rights, free elections and the abhorrence of violence. Yet wisely he did not take sides in the election dispute itself or appear in any way trying to manipulate the situation.

The GOP on the other hand rather then using wisdom in their statements that have as their motive to make things better for the world, for prospects of peace, and for the prospects of change in Iran, they instead want to use George Bush cowboy terms and puff out their chests and saber rattle. This approach would do great harm to the resistance movement in Iran and thus strengthening the existing government, stoke anti American sentiments and make the middle east and the world even less safe.

It is quite clear that the GOP leaders are interested in one thing, criticizing Obama. To that end they put safety, peace and even their country's interests last.

Yesterday we saw supporters of the government in Iran shouting as usual, "Death to America". Today we see people in the streets now shouting "Death to Khamenei." That would not have happened if the anti-American fears of the Iranian people had been stoked by chest pounding by our President.

Class Warfare at its Worst

If you listen to the right, the stimulus package and the housing package is all about the government taking money from "responsible" people and giving it to "losers." Crap! By the right I mean Republicans in Congress, talking heads on cable news, Faux news especially and of course the blowhards on right wing radio.

The biggest problem with their argument is, as usual its not based in fact in anyway whatsoever. If you listen to them, the entire economic crises has been caused by irresponsible people getting loans they didn't deserve or couldn't afford. That any help for people for those having a mortgage crises is just throwing money to dead beats.

Dead beats? Let's look at the bad mortgages for a moment. Yes there are a few that took loans that they could not afford, knew they couldn't afford it and never expected to afford them. Very few. The vast majority of these loans in trouble were in fact given to people that made reasonable careful decisions based on history. They expected, like has been the case for many years, that two things were a given. Those things being that they would have more income in the future, and the value of their home would increase. Until the last year very few people in this country did not operate with that belief. I myself was told more times then I have hairs on my head that it was stupid to rent that its just throwing money away. That I should get into a mortgage any mortgage because I can't lose. Luckily for me I didn't listen. But how many did? Millions. Meanwhile the mortgage brokers, the Realtors, the developers, the banks, the security traders all got rich off these loans with little risk. They used policies not forced on them, not demanded by anyone, but because they could make money. Period. Yet if you listen to the right it's the homeowners at fault, and not the greed of these people.

They love to blame of all things the "community reinvestment act." Let's talk about that act for a moment. It is not as the right would have you believe, an act that forced banks to give loans to poor jobless black people. In fact the purpose of that act few disagreed with. At the time of major bank acquisitions, when the local banks were being gobbled up by major banks, there was genuine concern that money invested in your local bank would be invested no where near where its depositors were. Instead of building homes and businesses in your community, it would be building casino's in Vegas, High rises in New York City, or retirement communities in Florida. The community reinvestment act simply required Banks to invest in the communities they served, where their deposits came from. Period. The use of this as a scape goat by the right is only one of a series of thinly veiled racist accusations.

Another huge group of mortgages in trouble are refinanced mortgages. These are not homes for the poor or the barely solvent. These were to provide additional funds to build pools, take vacations, pay for college, open businesses. Some of these yes were taken out by the unwise without thinking, the vast majority seemed a good risk at the time based on history of property values and income.

The stimulus nor the mortgage recovery plan has a single thing to do with redistributing wealth. It is to stem a tide that began in the Reagen era. A belief that if you allow the wealthy to get wealthier the benefits would trickle down. Instead what happened is that greed led to more greed, false wealth was created, many got rich, yet heaven forbid we blame them as they have money now and are "winners", it's the losers that are losing their homes at "fault". Again I say, Crap!

Before you are quick to blame all these "losers", you better take a quick look at the value of your house. What position would you be in if either you or your spouse lost your job? How quickly can you be suddenly jump from the "winner" category to the "loser" group.

The fact is the stimulus package and the mortgage relief packages as proposed by our President will help everyone winners and losers. It will stem the tide that is leading all of us, yes all of us, toward economic ruin. So put your racist finger pointing in check and realise this is what America needs, and that includes us all.

Austria and Tiberi put politics before jobs and education

As expected Congressmen Steve Austria and Pat Tiberi walked in lock step with fellow loser Republicans to maintain their course of putting politics above the citizens of their districts. The voted no on the stimulus package despite the fact it was the policies and their party that lead this country down this path.

Thank goodness the voters of the this country in most districts have put men like this in the minority in congress and our country can move forward on improving the economy and the lives of Americans despite them.

The whining of the republicans on this bill has been laughable. Tiberi complained it did nothing about the mortgage crisis. Well genius does it address it directly, no this is a jobs stimulus package. The mortgage crises is being dealt with in various other ways and in other bills and he knows this. Regardless Americans losing their jobs by the 10's of thousands is not helping the mortgage crises either. So this will in fact in a indirect way have a positive effect on that.

The other bogus claim is they didn't have time to read the bill. Bull pucky. This bill has been debated and discussed for weeks. They manage to find little pieces of it to take out of context and twist to complain about but somehow don't know whats in the bill? The bill as passed had only a few changes. Each and every congressman and Senator has a huge staff, this is what they are for, to read, analyze and provide the information to their bosses.

President Obama was unbelievably gracious and understanding when it came to getting the input from the Republicans on this bill. The bill was changed in ways not for the good, in my opinion, based on this input. The President reached out and acted in a bi partisan manner as he promised he would. The Republicans chose to still turn their backs on him and the country.

Quite clearly the Republicans didn't learn from their blistering defeat at the polls in November. Perhaps they will learn in 2 years when their numbers decrease even further. American has chosen leadership over partisan political games. Leadership will win.