The Story of "O", Hope and Change nothing more than Tax and Spend

Foreclosures advance, unemployment over 10% in fifteen states, housing values shrinking, there is a real fear developing in place of hope. Change, what change? Obama and the Democrats followed the banker's lobbyists, giving $700 billion to the banks and getting nothing, absolutely nothing in return.

Desperate families, having lost their jobs, their equity, their 401k's, are sinking fast and the Democrats, party of the working common man, have done nothing, absolutely nothing of value and consequence.

Obama, the elitists, the academic, the showman has neither the fire of indignation nor the empathy of any of the old time Democrats. Democrats should be livid. They have been had by the towering bullshit artist of the ages.

Disillusion and anger rises. It will get butt ugly.

________________

Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues
Approval Rating on Health Care Falls Below 50 Percent
By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 20, 2009

Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama's stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Obama's approval ratings on other front-burner issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped over the summer, as rising concern about spending and continuing worries about the economy combine to challenge his administration. Barely more than half approve of the way he is handling unemployment, which now tops 10 percent in 15 states and the District.

The president's overall approval rating remains higher than his marks on particular domestic issues, with 59 percent giving him positive reviews and 37 percent disapproving. But this is the first time in his presidency that Obama has fallen under 60 percent in Post-ABC polling, and the rating is six percentage points lower than it was a month ago.

Obama has taken on a series of major problems during his young presidency, but he faces a particularly difficult fight over his effort to encourage Congress to pass an overhaul of the nation's health-care system.

The legislation has run into problems in the House and Senate, as lawmakers struggle to contain spiraling costs and avoid ballooning the deficit.

Since April, approval of Obama's handling of health care has dropped from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent. Obama still maintains a large advantage over congressional Republicans in terms of public trust on the issue, even as the GOP has closed the gap.

The erosion in Obama's overall rating on health care is particularly notable among political independents: While positive in their assessments of his handling of health-care reform at the 100-day mark of his presidency (53 percent approved and 30 percent disapproved), independents now are divided at 44 percent positive and 49 percent negative.

At the same time, there is no slackening in public desire for Obama to keep pressing for action on the major issues of the economy, health care and the deficit. Majorities think he is either doing the right amount or should put greater emphasis on each of these issues.

On health care, the poll, conducted by telephone Wednesday through Saturday, found that a majority of Americans (54 percent) approve of the outlines of the legislation now heading toward floor action. The measure would institute new individual and employer insurance mandates and create a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Its costs would be paid in part through new taxes on high-income earners.

There are sharp differences in support for this basic package based on income, as well as a deep divide along party lines. Three-quarters of Democrats back the plan, as do nearly six in 10 independents. More than three-quarters of Republicans are opposed. About two-thirds of those with household incomes below $50,000 favor the plan, and a slim majority (52 percent) of those with higher incomes are against it. The income divide is even starker among independents.

Republicans have hammered the president and congressional Democrats over the cost of an health-care overhaul and its potential impact on the federal deficit, twin issues that have emerged as a possible brake on any new package.

Obama's approval rating on his handling of the deficit is down to 43 percent, as independents now tilt toward disapproval (42 percent approve; 48 percent disapprove).

More broadly, 55 percent of Americans put a higher priority on holding the deficit in check than on spending to boost the economy, compared with 40 percent who advocate additional outlays even if it means a sharply greater budget shortfall. This is a big shift from January, when a slim majority preferred to emphasize federal spending.

Independents, who split 50 percent to 46 percent for more spending in January, now break 56 percent to 41 percent for more fiscal discipline. But a larger shift has been among moderate and conservative Democrats, who prioritized more spending by about 2 to 1 in January and March. Now they are about evenly divided in approach.

Nearly a quarter of moderate and conservative Democrats (22 percent) now see Obama as an "old-style tax-and-spend Democrat," up from 4 percent in March. Among all Americans, 52 percent consider Obama a "new-style Democrat who will be careful with the public's money." That is down from 58 percent a month ago and 62 percent in March, to about where President Bill Clinton was on that question in the summer of 1993.

Concerns about the federal account balance are also reflected in views about another round of stimulus spending. In the new poll, more than six in 10 oppose spending beyond the $787 billion already allocated to boost the economy. Most Democrats support more spending; big majorities of Republicans and independents are against the idea.

Support for new spending is tempered by flagging confidence on Obama's plan for the economy. Fifty-six percent are confident that his programs will reap benefits, but that is down from 64 percent in March and from 72 percent just before he took office six months ago. More now say they have no confidence in the plan than say they are very confident it will work. Among independents and Republicans, confidence has decreased by 20 or more points; it has dropped seven points among Democrats.

Approval of Obama's handling of the overall economy stands at 52 percent, with 46 percent disapproving, and, for the first time in his presidency, more Americans strongly disapprove of his performance on the economy than strongly approve. Last month, 56 percent gave him positive marks on this issue.

More than three-quarters of all Americans say they are worried about the direction of the economy over the next few years, down only marginally since Obama's inauguration. Concerns about personal finances have also abated only moderately since January.

Obama declared ownership of the economic recovery, but the public still places far more blame on President George W. Bush's regulatory policies than on Obama's efforts for the state of the economy. But in the first read of a measurement that will be closely watched in coming years, nearly three in 10 say they are personally "not as well off" financially as they were when Obama took office.

Obama's leadership attributes remain highly rated, despite some slippage. Seven in 10 call him a strong leader, two in three say he cares about the problems of people like themselves, and just over six in 10 say he fulfilled a central campaign pledge and has brought needed change to Washington. However, he has dropped 10 points on the empathy question since April.

Obama still holds wide advantages over Republicans in Congress on the economy and the deficit, although the GOP has rebounded marginally from earlier in the year. The overall approval rating for congressional Republicans has increased six points since April, to 36 percent (compared with 47 percent approval for Democrats), and they have picked up five points vis-à-vis Obama on the deficit. They have gained seven on health care.

Beyond partisan shifts in Obama's ratings, sharp declines have occurred among those with household incomes above $50,000. And those with incomes above $50,000 now are split evenly between Obama and Republicans on dealing with health care. In June, they favored Obama by a 21-point margin.

A total of 1,001 randomly selected adults were interviewed for this poll; the margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.



Here was a real Democrat , who the elitists detested. Francis Lazarro "Frank" Rizzo, Sr. took care of business.

The Forgotten Man of Apollo 11, Michael Collins

How Michael Collins became the forgotten astronaut of Apollo 11

As Armstrong and Aldrin took their famous walk on the moon, a third member of the team sat alone in the mothership plagued by terrors of returning to Earth alone. Robin McKie reports

The Observer, Sunday 19 July 2009

It was the secret terror that gripped astronaut Michael Collins throughout the Apollo 11 project 40 years ago. As his spacecraft, Columbia, swept over the lunar surface, Collins - the mission's third and largely forgotten crewman - waited for a call from fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to say their lander craft had successfully blasted off from the Moon.

The message would banish Collins's deepest fear: that he would be the only survivor of an Apollo 11 disaster and that he was destined to return on his own to the United States as "a marked man".

The realisation that the normally icy-cool astronaut was so obsessed by such an outcome puts a fresh perspective on the celebrations that will, this weekend, absorb the United States as it commemorates the moment, on 21 July 1969, that an American first walked on another world. Apollo 11 will be presented as a flawless technological triumph at jamborees across the nation, including a special reception at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, which all three Apollo 11 astronauts are scheduled to attend.

Yet at the time, worries that the mission would end in disaster consumed nearly all of those involved in the programme - despite their apparent calm. And no one was more stressed than Collins, it appears.

In his case, the astronaut was obsessed with the reliability of the ascent engine of Armstrong and Aldrin's lander, Eagle. It had never been fired on the Moon's surface before and many astronauts had serious doubts about its reliability. Should the engine fail to ignite, Armstrong and Aldrin would be stranded on the Moon - where they would die when their oxygen ran out. Or if it failed to burn for at least seven minutes, then the two astronauts would either crash back on to the Moon or be stranded in low orbit around it, beyond the reach of Collins in his mothership, Columbia.

All three astronauts believed there was a real chance such a disaster would occur. Armstrong thought his prospects were only 50-50 of making it back to Earth. And so did Collins, the pilot of Columbia and one of the world's most experienced aviators.

Nor were the astronauts alone. Richard Nixon, then US president, had even prepared a speech that he would deliver in the event of the Eagle's engine failing. "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace," it ran. "These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice."

Thus Collins - alone in Columbia as the world focused on Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the lunar surface - fretted about his two companions below him on the Moon and revealed, in a note written at the time, that he was now "sweating like a nervous bride" as he waited to hear from the Eagle.

"My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone; now I am within minutes of finding out the truth of the matter," he wrote. "If they fail to rise from the surface, or crash back into it, I am not going to commit suicide; I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life and I know it."

Then Armstrong and Aldrin prepared their lander for its launch. Armstrong pressed the engine's firing button and Eagle soared perfectly above the lunar surface towards the waiting Collins. His worst fear had not materialised and he returned safely to Earth in the company of Armstrong and Aldrin, unmarked by the experience. He would not suffer a fate of global notoriety.

In fact, the opposite happened. Collins was forgotten. Today most people still know the names of the two first men on the Moon and recall the words, delivered by Armstrong, about taking a giant leap for mankind. But the name Michael Collins is rarely recalled, despite his critical role in the historic flight of Apollo 11. Not that he holds grudges. "It was an honour," he said last week.

In fact, he was - in many ways - the unsung hero of the Apollo 11 mission, a point that was underlined at the time by the great American aviator Charles Lindbergh. He wrote to Collins, not long after his safe return, to tell him that his part of the mission was one of "greater profundity ... you have experienced an aloneness unknown to man before".

It is an intriguing remark and an apposite one, it turns out - a point that can be appreciated by looking at the very set-up of the mission. Apollo 11 consisted of a spindly lunar lander, Eagle, and an orbiting mothership, Columbia, that were both blasted into space on a giant Saturn V rocket on 16 July 1969. For three days, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins cruised towards the Moon inside Columbia and spent their time gazing "out the window at the Earth getting smaller and smaller and checking the spacecraft", according to Aldrin.

Then, on 20 July, Armstrong and Aldrin crawled into Eagle and flew it down to the Moon's surface. "Keep talking to me, guys," radioed an initially panicky Collins as the pair drifted away from his ship.

Minutes later, Columbia swept behind the Moon and Collins became Earth's most distant solo traveller, separated from the rest of humanity by 250,000 miles of space and by the bulk of the Moon, which blocked all radio transmissions to and from mission control. He was out of sight and out of contact with his home planet.

"I am now truly alone and absolutely alone from any known life. I am it," he wrote in his capsule. Lindbergh's remarks were certainly accurate.

Such solitude would have unnerved most people. But not Collins. He says the emotion that he experienced most during his day alone in lunar orbit was that of exultation. And certainly he appears to have relished his time as the loneliest member of his species. He also emerged from the post-Apollo years relatively unscathed. Aldrin lapsed into alcoholism and depression, while Armstrong became a virtual recluse. Both men subsequently divorced. By contrast, Collins - shaded from the glare of publicity - has avoided such personal traumas and is still with his wife, Patricia, whom he married in 1958. The couple have three grown-up children.

Collins was born in Rome on 31 October 1930. His father, Major-General James Lawton Collins, was then serving overseas with the US army. Collins later graduated from West Point and joined the US air force. An early assignment was to the 21st Fighter-Bomber Wing at George Air Force Base, where he learned how to drop nuclear weapons. He joined the astronaut corps in 1962 and flew on one of America's two-man Gemini capsules with veteran astronaut John Young, who flew on a later Apollo mission. Then came his selection for Apollo 11.

After his return to Earth, Collins gave up space travel and pursued a career in bureaucracy and business. He was director of the National Air and Space Museum until 1978, before being appointed vice-president of LTV Aerospace in Arlington, Virginia. He resigned in 1985 to start his own business.

Today he remains cheerful about his role on Apollo 11, although he describes himself as becoming increasingly grumpy. "At age 78, some things about current society irritate me, such as the adulation of celebrities and inflation of heroism," he said last week. Neither description fits him, he added. "Heroes abound, but don't count astronauts among them. We worked very hard, we did our jobs to near perfection, but that is what we had been hired to do."

He describes himself today as moderately busy, "running, biking, swimming, fishing, painting, cooking, reading, worrying about the stock market and searching for a really good bottle of cabernet for under $10".

As to his claim to fame, that was simple fate, he added. "Neil Armstrong was born in 1930. Buzz Aldrin was born in 1930, and Mike Collins, 1930. We came along at exactly the right time. We survived hazardous careers and were successful in them.

"But in my own case at least, it was 10% shrewd planning and 90% blind luck. Put Lucky on my tombstone."

Hey, they were fighter pilots, not poets.

US soldier captured by Taliban speaks

The video is not a continuous recording. It appears to stop and start during the questioning.

Suspend Your Credulity All Who Enter Here

ht: Doug or someone (Seems like I saw this reference somewhere in the last few days...whit)

Speaking of cramdowns; Why would anyone want to cram this kind of system down our throats? Underfunded, understaffed, underpaid employees and Physicians. Long waits, rationing through delays and bureaucratic shuffling which serves to frustrate the patient into giving up on getting medical attention.

Obama says that you can keep your current insurance if you prefer it to his plan but talk radio has been referring to page 16 of the plan where Insurance companies are prohibited from writing new policies. That sounds like a deathknell for the private insurers who survive the mass exodus of business switching over the Government plan.

I realize that we have no utopia here in the US but why would anyone think that the current bunch in DC will be able to craft a better system by August of this year or any year? As Hillary said, one would have to suspend credulity to believe that. Unfortunately, too many already have.

People get the leaders they deserve.

Dongfan "Greg" Chung, convicted spy and China's fortune

Video predates the trial but good background info.


Boeing engineer passed secrets to China
• 20 years' jail likely for economic espionage
• Trial shows increasing protection for US interests

Ed Pilkington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 July 2009 19.40 BST

A former Boeing engineer accused of passing trade secrets to the Chinese government for more than 30 years has been found guilty in the first big economic espionage trial in America.

The conviction of Dongfan "Greg" Chung marks a stepping up of US attempts to protect commercial and national security interests against overseas spies. After a 10-day trial in Santa Ana, California, the judge, acting without a jury, found Chung guilty of six counts of economic espionage, as well as acting as a foreign agent and making false statements to the FBI.

Prosecutors presented evidence of contact between Chung and the Chinese aviation industry dating back to 1979, six years after he joined Rockwell International, an aerospace company taken over by Boeing in 1996. He was arrested in 2006 after federal agents searched his home and found more than 300,000 pages of documents relating to development of the space shuttle, the fuelling system for the Delta IV rocket, and several jewels in Boeing's crown including the F-15 fighter, B-52 bomber and Chinook helicopter.

One letter found at his house dating from 1987 from a Chinese official said: "It is your honour and China's fortune that you are able to realise your wish of dedicating yourselves to the services of your country."

The judge, Cormac Carney, wrote in a 31-page verdict that "the trust Boeing placed in Mr Chung to safeguard its proprietary and trade secret information obviously meant very little to Mr Chung. He cast it aside to serve the PRC [People's Republic of China], which he proudly proclaimed to be his 'motherland'."

The conviction highlights the peculiar nature of the US-Chinese relationship. On one hand, the US is increasingly dependent on Chinese loans to prop up a deficit which last week rose above $1 trillion (£612bn). On the other, US companies are increasingly concerned about Chinese commercial spying. As the world's engine room of research and development, the US is vulnerable to espionage, especially in the technology-rich aerospace and military industries, telecommunications, cars and pharmaceuticals.

The Economic Espionage Act, passed in 1996, made spying on private companies a federal crime punishable by lengthy prison sentences and fines of up to $10m. At the time, Louis Freeh, then director of the FBI, warned that "economic espionage is the greatest threat to our national security since the cold war".

The 9/11 attacks changed the landscape of national security, pushing economic spying to the sidelines. But for US companies it remains a very real drain.

Steven Fink, president of the corporate crisis management company Lexicon Communications and author of Sticky Fingers: Managing the Global Risk of Economic Espionage, said that all countries engage in such spying, but the Asian region was predominant, with China the main perpetrator. There had been prosecutions under the 1996 law, but the American legal system was "woefully inadequate faced with the theft of trade secrets from American businesses".

The Chinese government says it is also a victim of economic spies. As global economic strife puts businesses and governments under pressure, tit for tat accusations are starting to mount. In the latest case, Beijing has accused the Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto of bribery and arrested one Australian and three Chinese employees.

Chung faces more than 90 years in prison when he is sentenced on 9 November, although the US government is expected to recommend the minimum sentence of up to 20 years.

Chung, 73, was born in China and moved to Taiwan and then the US in 1962. He became a naturalised US citizen and spent 40 years working for Boeing and related companies.His high-level security clearance lasted from 1973 to 2002.

The FBI became interested in him in 2006 after the arrest of Chi Mak, an engineer in L-3 Communications, a hi-tech surveillance equipment firm. Last year, Mak, who Chung had been using as a conduit to Chinese officials, was jailed for 24 years for passing on military secrets.

Rocket Men, Americans, 1969, Any Questions?

Commander - Neil Armstrong.

Command Module Pilot - Michael Collins.

Lunar Module Pilot - Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin.

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

-President John F. Kennedy

joint session of Congress May 25, 1961

Americans

July 16, 1969 at 13:32 UTC, Apollo11 was launched. It entered orbit 12 minutes later. About 30 minutes later the command service module pair separated from this last remaining Saturn V stage and docked with the lunar module. After the lunar module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the third stage booster was directed toward the Sun. America was on the way to the moon.

On July 19 Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. On Monday it will be 40 years. Repeat, forty years.

CIT and the Economic Ignorance of the Obama Administration

Nothing demonstrates to this writer the depth of real world ignorance of the academics running the Obama Administration than CIT. The media is almost as bad as none of them has a clue about how an old line factor even works. I heard Senator John Sununu pontificating about the market and the thousand of local banks that do account receivable financing who will supposedly step in and do what CIT seems to be failing at. I heard some other geniuses saying that CIT just did not get it done. Bullshit on both counts. CIT is the canary in the coal mine.

CIT is one of the last of a breed. Factoring is the buying of a receivable the day it is created by a wholesaler or manufacturer. A factor can advance 80%, 90%t or 150% on a receivable accelerating the cash flow of a company. A local bank can provide receivable financing but that is not factoring. The bank takes the receivable as collateral, a factor buys the receivable. When a customer of a "factored" company receives an invoice, the invoice tells him that he owes the money to the factor and not the manufacturer or seller of the goods.

You see, CIT is not just a bank to the thousands of job creating small businesses that it serves, it is their credit department. It is their accounts receivable department. It controls the arteries of commerce in some businesses, especially to retailers. CIT determines which department stores get approved for credit in the goods that they purchase and receive. Let me give you an example.

Suppose a furniture manufacturer, if there are any left, in North Carolina wants to sell patio furniture to Wal-Mart. Manufacturing is a year round operation, selling it is not. Big department stores get to be big , not because they pay promptly, but because they don't. They pay on time but on their stated terms, not the manufacturers. They work off of their suppliers working capital.

A factor sits down with a manufacturer, examines their business plan and the credit worthiness of the manufacturer's customers and creates a financial plan to finance the manufacturing cycle and take care of the credit decisions for the company. Once a company is factored, the company sells the invoice to the factor when the goods are shipped, and the burden of collection shifts to the factor. Credit losses now belong to the factor. No local bank does anything remotely related to factoring.

CIT is a huge reserve of knowledge and experience of the retail trade in the US. Those retailers depend on the credit decisions made by CIT on their ability to get suppliers to ship to them. The suppliers depend on CIT to provide the financing. The customer list of a factored company is almost more important than their financial sheets.

CIT is more important to the US economy than Chrysler. It takes months for a company to get set up with a factor, years to establish a relationship. It is a tough business at the best of times. Criticizing CIT for getting in trouble durning this crisis is like assigning blame to fire fighters for going into burning buildings. That is what they do.

Let this one go down at your own peril.

When asked about CIT, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters that President Barack Obama had set high standards for granting aid to companies. "A lot of that had to do with whether or not they could show themselves to be sustainable in the long term," Burton said.

Got it.