In the Still of the Night: Dems pass through first HCR vote at 1:00am….
Happy Solstice, Congress has a little gift for us, excise taxes, fines, penalties and Medicare cuts! This Dem majority are like thieves in the night; 1:15 am they cast this vote. Maybe the big O borrowed China’s weather machine to have a blizzard and trap these fools to get their votes ….they all go on the Naughty List. Byrd should be familiar with COAL, despite his recent bashing of his state W VA….
And MAC agrees Hillary was more bipartisan in her approach to HCR in 93, he notes they tried to negotiate openly with the GOP on that bill. Unlike Mr Post Partisan Unity Schtick….
PS Now that Obama KILLED Pharma reimportation, he has Axelrasputin go out and claim they will work on it later, AS IF!! HA!!!! The safety issues were all addressed and paid for in Dorgans bill already. What utter liars, and what contmpt they have for the American people.
BSGcast: Avatar Review
From the ever-awesome Matt and Nat at BSGcast/YourGeekNews
Unemployment Update: Senate passes Defense Bill – includes extension of eligibility for UE emergency bens and extends eligibility and duration of COBRA subsidy
I am strenuously ignoring what is happening on the Hill today with HCR. Politico has the Dem ‘Highlight’ document up and it proudly announces CHILDREN will be exempt from pre existing condition limits in the bill, which of course means ADULTS are not. What a POS this thing is. Anyway. Happy talk dammit! The Senate managed to do something good on health care, and it is NOT in this POS bill. It was attached to the Defense Bill, a COBRA extension.
The bill contained the Patriot Act renewal so the lamestream media, in their constant attempts to ‘protect’ O from anything they view as negative, is not reporting all the details of what was in the bill.
They actually extended the COBRA subsidy, as the House did earlier in the week.
…The legislation makes some key changes to programs which were set to expire. For instance:
•The congressional stimulus bill passed in February created a program that paid 65% of monthly insurance premiums for people who lost their employer-based health care coverage because they were laid off. But that program was only open to people who lost their jobs – and their coverage – by the end of 2009. The new bill extends that eligibility deadline by two months, until the end of February 2010.
•It also adds six months to what was a 9-month period that the federal government would make the 65% of payments through the COBRA health plan, extending the period of payments to 15 months.
•The legislation also extends the deadline to qualify for additional unemployment benefits. Last month, Congress passed legislation adding 14 more weeks of emergency benefits – and six more on top of that for people in hard-hit states like Michigan. But they were only available to people exhausting all their other unemployment benefits by the end of December. The new bill extends that deadline to the end of February.
•It also maintains 2009 federal poverty guidelines – which if reset could have moved some people off food stamps and Medicaid – and adds additional funding to the food stamp program.
•Finally, the legislation authorizes the Small Business Association to continue programs to make loans more attractive to borrowers and lenders, in order to free up credit for businesses…
‘Shrek Forever After’ Trailer
Love Shrek. Courtesy of HollywoodStreams
The wisecracking green-tinged ogre returns in Shrek Goes Fourth, the newest installment in the successful DreamWorks Animation series.
Jack Bauer interrogates Santa
h/t SciFiWire:
The video is from the brilliant people at Rebel Christmas Card. ’24′ returns Sunday, Jan. 17, 2009 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Clash of the Titans Trailer 2
Courtesy of HollywoodStreams
Fannie Mae is back and they want 400 billion….
UPDATE: WSJ provides an interactive map of ‘strategic defaults’ here
A-HA!!!! I FRAKKING KNEW IT!!! $%^y&*u(*(&^%&$&^!!!!! Frakkiing Fannie and Freddie will NOT MODIFY frakking loans but they want BILLIONS MORE!!! ARRRRRGLEEE!!!!! Our previous rants on this here. People are not talking about this much and this is THE NUMBER ONE OBAMA FAILURE – HOUSING.
As we have said over and over and over – DO THE DAMN HOLC ALREADY!! We are bailing out the losses on the short sales and these homes are being bought by investors who are making another damned housing bubble!!! (and the big bank servicers get a hefty fee) Just write down principal for the 4 states sooo far underwater and keep the homeowners in, this way we take the loss ONCE and have saved a family. Jeebus it is not that hard.
If anyone doubts the cycle of DOOM this lack of action is creating, see WSJ front page again today a piece about peeps here in AZ walking away – ‘strategic default’. It is getting less and less ‘stigmatic’ lol, to walk away. It is a cycle of DOOM that will drag the economy back down to its damn knees if they do not take MEANINGFUL action. And this move by FAN FRED to get HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS MORE IN TAXPAYERS BAILOUTS PROVES MY DAMN POINT.
Anyone who thinks folks cannot just walk away, you are wrong. In non recourse states like AZ CA you CAN walk away, jingle mail. They cannot come after you for the loss AND the Congress passed the 2007 Mortgage Debt Relief Act so no folks the IRS is NOT sending 1099s to these people. Stop the freefall or it will spread across the country, AZ, CA FL, NV represent 21% of our national GDP folks.
I am doing all I can to stay and the damned FAN and servicer will not make any offer, we have lost income and are underwater, it is like they WANT us to walk away, they likely do, the investors have hyped prices back up to 2004 levels here, it is another bubble happening before our eyes and no one will stop it.
…Fannie Mae recently warned, for example, that it could not pay the dividends it owes the Treasury, so “future dividend payments will be effectively funded with equity drawn from the Treasury.”
All the companies have recently drawn new government money or are in talks to do so:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy and resell mortgages, have used $112 billion — including $15 billion for Fannie in November — of a total $400 billion pledge from the Treasury.
Now, according to people close to the talks, officials are discussing the possibility of increasing that commitment, possibly to $400 billion for each company, by year-end, after which the Treasury would need Congressional approval to extend it. Company and government officials declined to comment….
Reminder, Fannie Mae % of loans ‘seriously delinquent per total number of loans since 1998:
Unemployment Update: House passes COBRA Subsidy Extension…
Finally!!!! Now we need action in the Senate. It feels like the first time the House has done something for the real people doesn’t it?? How about some Lou Gramm Foreigner-Unplugged
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday, December 16, that would extend the federal subsidy of COBRA health insurance premiums for employees who are involuntarily terminated.Embedded in H.R. 3326, a measure appropriating funds for the Department of Defense, the nine-month, 65 percent premium subsidy would be extended by six months to a total of 15 months. It would apply to those who lose their jobs through February 28, 2010. Under current law, employees who lose their jobs after December 31 are ineligible for the subsidy.
The measure, approved on 395-34 vote, also would provide an additional six months of subsidized coverage for beneficiaries whose nine-month COBRA premium subsidy has run out.
In addition, the legislation would give beneficiaries whose subsidy ran out and who didn’t pay the full premium a second chance to opt for coverage. For example, a beneficiary whose nine months of subsidized coverage ran out November 30 and who didn’t pay the regular unsubsidized December premium could pay the 35 percent premium share in January and receive coverage for December.
The House is also expected to take up another appropriations bill, H.R. 2847, with a provision that would extend the premium subsidy to those who lose their jobs through June 30, 2010.
More on COBRA and other available resources for those who may have lost it, are losing it awaiting the Senate to take action, or cannot afford it courtesy of the WSJ:
…a companion bill has been introduced in the Senate that also would extend the Cobra subsidy for six months, up to a total of 15 months, and increase the subsidy to 75%. But it’s not known if the legislation will pass or even come to a vote….
…Many unemployed workers who first started receiving the Cobra subsidy in March lost it as of Nov. 30, and many more will start losing the subsidy this month. Workers whose Cobra eligibility begins on or after Jan. 1, 2010 won’t get the subsidy even if they’re terminated by Dec. 31, unless Congress extends the law (UPDATE from MiM: HOUSE has extended, waiting on Senate)
CONTINUES AFTER THE BREAK:
ginaswo
