The Final Boss

What are you doing Louie?

In the last couple months, the allegations of sexual misconduct against some of the most powerful people in the world have been astounding. Charlie Sheen has been accused of raping Cory Haim?

But the most surprising and disappointing has been the new Louis C.K. story that broke so hard and so penetrating that he was forced to cancel the premiere of his new movie and an appearance on Late Night with Colbert. Now I turn on the radio less than 12 hours later and the gooey details of what he's allegedly done in front of five female comedians is so sticky and gross - well, first off, I don't want to hear about that on news radio when I'm eating my burrito. Second, I've lost all respect for him simply on the story of the allegations. I mean, in the world of lewd sex acts - what he's been accused of just sounds limp and stupid. It's something a homeless guy would think twice about doing.

To think he blew his entire career on the wall like that. Disgusting. Take a Kleenex, Lou.

It's worth noting that quite out of no where the court of public opinion has toppled quite a few powerful men lately. I make the note that it's historically, and unfortunately, been the burden of the women to convince anyone of what horrible thing had transpired. And even then, she was either 'asking for it', or it's 'a normal part of that business', or 'boys will be boys.' I wonder if those excuses are gone - and that the tolerance for the locker-room bad-boy behavior is going to be corrected.

But I do warn that pushing the guillotine out too often and without any questioning of the facts will eventually be as dangerous as silence. Perhaps if in just a few years we'll see a headline where a young man is accused of sexual misconduct for merely asking his neighbor to the prom?

House of Cards

Rex you've been a bad, bad boy

Road Runner Politics 2017

What a Dick

Yep. It was his crotch.

Rep. Anthony Weiner appeared before the press to tearfully confess a series of “inappropriate communications”with six women he met online. He stressed that his relationship with these women had no physical component whatsoever, but refused to elaborate on the exact nature of the exchanges.

Weiner further admitted that the now-infamous underwear pic was in fact tweeted by him, and the hacking fabrication his used to cover it up was meant to protect his loved ones.

Calling his behavior “a destructive thing,” Weiner offered the media no clear-cut explanation for his actions, but said he knew what he was doing was a mistake. The congressman said he has no intention of resigning his post, believing he did not violate any law nor break the oath to his constituents.

Asked about how his marriage would fair in light of his admission, Weiner said he loves his wife “very much” and they two “have no intention of splitting up over this.” He later added that his wife had knowledge concerning some of these relationships “since before we were married.”

Meanwhile, ABC News posted an interview it conducted with Meagan Broussard, a 26-year-old woman who claims to have been one of the women with whom Rep. Weiner engaged in “a sexually-charged electronic relationship.”

Read More

Nancy Pelosi says she's "deeply disappointed," and has called for Ethics Committee investigation; Perhaps she forgot that she's not running the place and there actually WILL be an investigation. Its about the lies and the cover-up. The ridiculous, half-assed, cover-up.

Ben Smith: “Can Weiner keep his seat?”; The Hill‘s Ballot Box: Weiner’s seat “unlikely to fall to GOP.” Hell, he'll still probably run for mayor of New York, and he'll probably still win.

My comment - Even after he is caught, continued to lie, (poorly) and then only until pictures OF HIM came out did he even consider owing up to it. It was probably the worst cover up I've seen since Senator 'Wide Stance'. Like IL's Blago - Weiner has unchecked political ambition without anything to back it up, meaning no ideas or actual ability in the political arena.

Anthony Weiner's Weinergate

"Anthony Weiner hires attorney in Twitter incident"

New York Rep. Anthony Weiner has retained an attorney to advise him “what civil or criminal actions should be taken” after a lewd picture was sent from his Twitter account.

Weiner, who has represented part of New York City since 1998, says online hacking led to a close-up shot of a man’s underwear being sent from his official Twitter account Saturday night.

Dave Arnold, a spokesman for Weiner, said the Congressman’s staff is “loathe to treat” this incident as more than a prank “but we are relying on professional advice.”

“At a time when the GOP is playing games with the debt limit, a member of the Supreme Court is refusing to recuse himself from matters he has a financial interest in, and middle class incomes are stagnant, many want to change the subject,” Weiner said in a statement emailed to POLITICO by his office. “I don’t. This was a prank, and a silly one. I’m focused on my work.”

Weiner’s office did not answer specific questions about the photograph, whether he has contacted authorities or the Seattle woman who received the photograph. He has said that his Facebook was hacked and if his Twitter had the same password, that too could be vulnerable.

Also, check the #Weinergate hashtag on Twitter, where the essential coverage has been developing.

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

Ensign Signs Out

"Rule of the Beltway: Never trust a man in politics whose hair is prettier than his wife's." ~Michelle Malkin, 2009.

I'm not one to quote Michelle Malkin, but that's a pretty good rule. It applies to Rod Blagojevich, Gary Hart and also John Edwards.

Enmeshed in an ethics and sex scandal, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) announced that he is resigning his seat. Nevada's governor is expected to name US Rep. Dean Heller as his replacement. Heller will be the new incumbent.

So, what's up? Well, two years ago it was revealed that Ensign had an affair with a campaign aide who was married to his best friend and Senate chief of staff, Dean Hampton.

Wait, it gets worse. Or funnier, depending how you look at these things.

Hampton received a gift of $96,000 from Ensign's parents, and there are allegations that the senator used his influence to get Hampton a job. No! That's illegal? I had no idea!

Now Hampton faces serious legal problems -- he was indicted for improperly lobbying his old boss.

Great hair, though. And for the record, I don't trust any of them. Pretty hair or not.

And another parting shot (see what I did there?) at least the Republican will quit once caught. Democrats have a tendency to linger after they're caught in the cookie jar. I guess that's the only real fundamental difference between the two parties?

Thanks to Marathon Pundit for the majority of the content.

Saturday Morning Cartoons - Favre's Pecker

If there is a scandal in need of animation, you can bet Taiwan’s NMA will be there. Up now: “Brett Favre’s Pecker is the talk of the town.”

Pope's Commandments

Scandals on Both Sides

The GOP "Young Eagles" are caught up in scandal because they dropped in to check out the lesbian bondage themed Club Voyeur 'hottest spot' in LA and the cost was billed to the GOP.

The Republican National Committee has fired a staffer who helped organize a $1,946 visit last month to a sex-themed Hollywood club, and the GOP says it will recoup the money from a donor who also participated. Yahoo News

No dead hookers or live male children involved? Not a scandal. Sorry. This just doesn't have legs. Not when the Pope personally knew about child abuse, and may have had a hand in the cover-up. Not when there are 200 deaf boys being abused in Wisconsin. So you went to the club? Sure, if I had donated 2K to the GOP and didn't get to go to Club Voyeur to spend it with the Young Republicans, hell yeah I'd be pissed too. But then I'd have to spend my night with a group of fuggin' Young Republicans. Who the hell would want to be at that table?

"With them? You're kidding right? Oh, the bad blue suit and flag pin? Just a terrible coincidence. Can I have my lap dance now?"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the isle, let's not forget just how low the bar has been set. The Democrats are awash in ethics and corruption scandals in Congress and among the nation’s biggest governorships too.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged the Democrats would “drain the swamp” of corruption” in Washington, but much of the available evidence shows that the Democrats’ ethical record is noticeably worse. In many cases involving Democrats, investigations into wrongdoing have been swept under the rug or slowed to a snail’s pace and penalties have been just a slap on the wrist.

“Instead of draining the swamp of corruption in Washington as Pelosi promised, Democrats are now swimming neck-deep in it,” said Brian Walsh, chief spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“Whether it’s powerful committee chairs flouting tax laws, rampant earmark abuse, or a Senate nominee in Illinois who was a former banker to the mob, this isn’t change any American can believe in. Republicans will be running on returning accountability and checks and balances to Washington this November, and we are intent on earning back the trust of the American people while the Democrats continue to flout it,” Walsh said.

The House ethics committee, has more than half a dozen investigations pending into Democratic wrongdoing on everything from tax evasion to trading pork-barrel projects for campaign contributions.

At the same time, the independent, outside Office of Congressional Ethics, created in 2008 and headed by former Justice Department attorney Leo J. Wise, who won convictions against Enron executives, reports that 36 House members were under investigation, the most in more than a decade. And that's just Congress, we aren't discussing the Administration.

But Democratic majority leaders aren’t happy with OCE’s aggressive investigations of its members and have rejected most of its findings. Among 12 cases OCE referred to the House Ethics Committee in December, all but one were cleared of any wrongdoing, and three were pending.

The biggest scandal at the ethics committee came late last month when two lawmakers were cleared of allegations they had traded earmarks for campaign donations.
Wise’s report in this case was the product of dozens of interviews and some 200,000 pages of documentation of the little-seen insider trading between lobbyists and congressmen over earmarks. They put Martha Stewart away for less.

Wise’s stepped-up actions have angered House lawmakers and there has been talk in Democratic circles of limiting OCE’s authority.

But if anyone wants evidence of how hollow is Pelosi’s promise to drain the swamp, one need look no further than the scandals that have been long-swirling around Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York.

Rangel was forced to step down from the chairmanship of the powerful, tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee in early March after being admonished—the lightest “penalty” possible—for accepting corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean.

But even then he was allowed to say his action was only “a leave of absence” as chairman, though few Democrats think he will be allowed to return to his post. He faces far more serious charges in an investigation that has dragged on for more than a year.

The ethics committee is still digging into allegations he used his House office to raise money for a building named in his honor at a New York college; failed to pay taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic; had to amend his congressional financial disclosure reports to show more than $500,000 in wealth that he had not reported, and that he improperly used his rent-controlled apartments for his campaigns. But other than that, what a swell guy.

Then the Democrats were hit by another scandal when New York Democratic Rep. Eric Massa suddenly resigned his House seat in the wake of allegations that the freshman congressman had sexually harassed a male staffer and had groped other male staffers in multiple incidents that triggered warnings to Democratic leaders last year. A Pelosi spokesman said concern over Massa’s inappropriate behavior was relayed to Pelosi’s office in October and was referred to the ethics committee. Yeah, I guess everyone just assumed he was a Republican.

The House Ethics Committee decided to drop its inquiry because of Massa’s resignation. But Republicans want an investigation into how—or even whether—House Democratic leaders responded to the earlier complaints, asking “what did they know and when did they know it?”

Pelosi, who aggressively went after Republican transgressions when the GOP was in control of the House, has been supremely indifferent to the Massa sex scandal, dismissing it as a minor matter. “It’s another subject people would like to make into a distraction,” she said in an interview on MSNBC.

Many other House Democrats were also facing ethics investigations, including Representatives Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, Alan Mollohan of West Virginia and Laura Richardson and Maxine Waters of California. But these, as well as other inquiries into House members, have been lingering for months, if not years, without any resolution.

And lest we forget two of the Democrats’ most far-reaching scandals in this election cycle have been among their governors.

In Illinois, a state notorious for its political corruption, Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office last year for trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama to the highest bidder. Blagojevich, who now faces charges that include fraud and solicitation of bribery, goes on trial June 3.

Obama’s Senate seat, seemed safely in Democratic hands. But then, troubling questions were raised by Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to temporarily fill Obama’s remaining term, and the Democratic nomination was eventually captured by state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias who has a notoriously checkered banking background that includes financial transactions with underworld figures who have heavily contributed to his campaign.

One of Giannoulias’ top donors is Nick Giannis who was arrested and charged with writing $1.9 million in bad checks from Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias family business. Giannis gave about $114,000 to Giannoulias’ campaigns for state treasurer and the Senate.

Huh? What? Is that wrong?

... and in New York, Gov. David Paterson, accused of interfering in a domestic-violence investigation, abruptly ended his gubernatorial campaign last month –the state’s second recent Democratic governor (Eliot Spitzer was first) to be snared by scandal.

Democratic scandals have also rocked several Senate races that have given Republicans a shot at major upsets in some of the country’s bluest states.

The fact anyone bothered to start to question Connecticut Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, scared him in enough to stop seeking reelection. As the Senate Banking Committee chairman, with oversight over the U.S. financial industry, he benefited from two sweetheart (4.5% and 4.25%) home mortgage loans in 2003 from former Countryside chief executive Angelo Mozilo.

The mortgage deals reportedly saved Dodd $75,000 over the life of the loans, according to an analysis by Portfolio magazine. “The savings came from rock-bottom interest rates and a free ‘float-down’--the right to borrow at a lower rate if interest rates fall before you’ve closed on the loan,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Dodd was not the only Democrat to benefit from Countrywide Financial’s VIP mortgage program. Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee, was one of several other government officials who received favorable loans after making a personal phone call to Mozilo.

The scandal caused Dodd’s approval polls to plummet in the midst of the housing meltdown and foreclosure crisis, forcing him to give up his bid for re-election to a sixth term, and giving Republicans a shot at the open Senate seat.

And that's just what we know about. No doubt there's a whole field of dirt under the rug. And let's be perfectly clear that I mean BOTH SIDES. This isn't a score card of the GOP ethics vs the DNC's... I am merely pointing out that a cleaning of the oligarchy of elitist entitled windbags with zero ethics must be taken out at the ballot box - All of them! It's time to start a campaign of Dump Your Incumbent. They're all crooks. They only get to that position because they owe so many favors the only way to pay them back is to be your Senator or President, to paraphrase Gore Vidal.

"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy". ~Edwin Washington Edwards

Guess we'll have to see about that? Let's put them in their place, and remind them that they are our employees. And, let's show them how bad the job market is out in the real world.

My source for text and research

The Week In Review/Sunday Comics

This isn't news. Stop looking at it, maybe it'll go away. Everyone is sorry that they got caught.

Dirty Cheater Olympics.
Mrs. Obama is tackling the obesity problem. Part of that 'freedom' take-away they're instituting. Free to be a fat ass. The best part is, the cost of food has fallen, but the price of medical care is skyrocketing? Correlating evidence? You bet.



Epic Beard Man took on some dude on a bus. Seth MacFarlane Responds to Sarah Palin's Attacks after having a down syndrome character on Family Guy.

Meanwhile, the Marines are taking Afghanistan, one mile at a time - (no one seems to have noticed) and the CIA is striking the Taliban senior leadership one #2 at a time. (no one seems to have noticed this either).

There's a Blaspheme's Convention, and I've disappointed the host by not attending. I can give excuses and real reasons why I was unable to attend, but no matter what I say - it's nothing more than a lousy excuse.

So instead I'll complain that humanity isn't reaching for the stars anymore.

Accenture Cuts Woods

Technology outsourcing and consulting firm Accenture Plc said it was ending its six-year sponsorship arrangement with golfer Tiger Woods, who is embroiled in a scandal involving extra-marital affairs with numerous women.

"Given the circumstances of the last two weeks, after careful consideration and analysis, the company has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising," Accenture said in a statement.

Accenture, once the consulting side of Arthur Andersen - Arthur Andersen who cooked the books for Enron, and led to one of the most corrupt collapses in American business history... you'd think they'd give Tiger a break? I mean, he only admitted to sleeping with a couple women who weren't his wife. You'd think Accenture would be used to having crooked friends hanging out?

Accenture is in line for BLASPHEMES HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK, already, and it's only Monday.

Meanwhile, commercials featuring Woods have disappeared from prime-time TV. I wouldn't have noticed - I have TiVo. I haven't seen an advertisement since 2003.

Woods has won 14 major titles and 71 PGA Tour events and is the first athlete to earn $1 billion. He is believed to be the wealthiest sports personality in the world.

Nevertheless, several of Woods' biggest celebrity endorsement sponsors, which include Nike, PepsiCo's Gatorade and Electronic Arts, recently said that they continue to support their commercial icon. That is, until they pull the "morality clause" in their endorsement contracts.

A morals clause is a provision in a contract or official document that prohibits certain behavior in a person's private life. They deal with behavior such as sexual acts and drug use. They were commonly used in the contract between actors/actresses and film studios to uphold the public image sought to be portrayed by the studio. Morals clauses are included today in certain contracts of public figures, such as athletes, actors/actresses...

Expect the morals clause to be enacted when Woods is no longer a positive image for selling their wears.

Uh... Santa?

Hey Santa, that's not your sack of toys, okay?

Todd and Sarah Palin to Divorce?

Blasphemes has learned today that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage (including a former Palin staffer) have confirmed the split.

A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage and the stress from that led to Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska last week.

The Palins were noticeably not speaking to each other for most of last Sunday's resignation speech in Fairbanks. Sarah ditched Todd (MSNBC) right after the speech and left without him. Sarah removed her wedding ring.

Okay - THAT makes sense. I can finally sleep knowing why she REALLY quit the State House.

Scandal!

D.C. cop enforces Washington's decency code. No more than 6 inches above the knee may be exposed. Meanwhile, 1922 was the year that a senate investigation into illegal cash payoffs for oil leasing rights began in what became known as the Teapot Dome scandal.

David Carradine's "Mysterious" Death

The former 'Kung Fu' TV star David Carradine was found dangling from a cord in a Bangkok hotel room

The details are trickling out about actor David Carradine's death. A maid in a Bangkok hotel found Carradine dangling naked in his closet. Bangkok Police say it looks like Carradine, 72, hanged himself. Hotel staff disagree, and said that Carradine appeared in good spirits the last time he was spotted in the lobby. Acting?

Thai police are looking into whether Carradine hanged himself accidentally, said Tim Johnston in The Washington Post. The actor, 72, was found with a cord wrapped around his neck and genitals. Investigators say Carradine "most likely died of asphyxiation, possibly when an auto-erotic sex game went wrong."

David was a Scientologist and is now one with Xenu, and Michael Hutchens of INXS.

Goths Sack Italy

An Italian cathedral will have to be purified after a couple of goth rock fans had sex in a confession box.

The cathedral, in the northern city of Cesena, is no longer considered fit as a place of worship and requires a special Mass to restore its sanctity, church officials said.

The act which desecrated the church took place during a seven o'clock service on Saturday morning.

A parishioner heard ''rustling and groaning'' coming from the box and called the Carabinieri, who whisked the curtains aside to find the pair of goths engaged in oral sex.

''We're atheists. Having sex in church is the same as doing it anywhere else,'' said the pair, aged 31 and 32.

Cesena Archbishop Antonio Lanfranchi, who has scheduled a 'reparatory' service for Friday, described the couple's act as ''an outrage of notable proportions which bespeaks unutterable squalor and a complete lack of respect towards other people''.

A source said: “One of them was kneeling but neither was praying.”

Holy Election Day News, Batman!

*most links cutn'pasted from NewsMax at 11:00 PM (officially before 'election day')

• McCain Tied in Key States
• Backtrack on Obama Remarks
• McCain Sues to Ensure Military Vote Count
• McCain Defies Age in 22-hour Sprint
• Obama, McCain on What to Change in Sports
• Palin Cleared in Troopergate Probe
• Coal Officials Blast Obama Over Remarks
• Early Voting Pays Off for Obama Team
• Reid Says Stevens Cannot Stay in Senate
• AP Warns: McCain Could Win Electoral College
• Beleaguered Murtha Loses Ground in Pennsylvania
• Don King Backs Obama, Praises Bush (wut?)
  
• Bob Barr Eyes Swing States for 'Real Impact'
• Suits Loom if Key Ohio Presidential Vote Is Close
• IBD/TIPP Tracking Poll: Obama Up 4.5 Points
• Bush Out of Sight Until After Election
• 'O'Biden' Plays Up Working-class, Catholic Roots
• Zogby Poll: Obama Close to Win
• Obama, McCain Eye Administration Teams
• California Prepares for Showdown on Gay Marriage
• Al Franken: Reagan Administration 'Racist, Sexist'
• Schumer: 60 Senate Seats Possible but Unlikely
• Danforth: Democrats 'Cry Wolf' on Vote Schemes
• IBD Poll: McCain Only 2 Points Behind
• Poll: Obama Fails to Gain Among Churchgoers
• Karl Rove predicts Obama landslide.
  
• Bonus: Despite the fact that Rove calls deadheat states for McCain

Just a side note: Obama was winning NH for an entire 3 days before the election.

Personally, I think the 8-10% "undecided" are actually people who voted for Bush the second time and don't want to admit it to a pollster or an Obama canvaser knocking at their door. Especially in a swing state. Every single ad is for a politician in those places. They're REALLY sick of the election and being asked what or who they're voting for. In fact, some of them will make stuff up on purpose. No, really.

Bottom line: In an election year that's defied conventional wisdom time and again, remember that anything can happen.

Dominatrix Beats Down the Credit Crunch

Since you're probably sick and tired of reading my assessment of the 'Crisis'... The Cap'n presents a sensible explanation of the economic crisis and reasonable bailout plan written by a professional dominatrix...

The Bailout Plan: A New Deal for the 21st Century
by Mistress Rowena

We’ve been warned ad nauseam that if we give Wall Street the paddling it so richly deserves, it’s our asses that will be red and bloody. How does that work? Well, it seems that the last time an American purchased something with actual money rather than on credit was sometime in the early 70s. Increasingly easy access to credit has built up an immunity to the toxic effects of an overdose better than the Dread Pirate Roberts did with iocaine powder.

And boy, have we overdosed. Unlike Sarah Palin, credit isn’t inherently bad. It can cover your ass in an emergency, it allows businesses to get started, and it enables people to pay over time for big purchases, like a house, that it would be virtually impossible to pay for in cash up front. Credit at the general store was how great-grandpa got basic necessities until the crops were sold each year. He’d pay his account in full after the harvest and the cycle would repeat. Except that now the general store is Wal-Mart and grandpa is charging groceries because he can’t pay for his prescriptions, his property taxes and his food with his job as a greeter. Credit no longer tides us over temporarily; it has become a way for Americans to live beyond their incomes, to spend much more than they earn, consistently, year after year. Some Americans are slapping down the plastic because they have to have that $800 prescription drug or they will die, others because they have to have those $800 Manolo Blahniks or they will simply DIE. In either case, we never expected a day of reckoning when we’d have to cough up some of this hypothetical money.

At least, we thought we were immune, until the 21st century’s first Black Monday. Sure, the market is rallying on Super Duper Jewish New Year Tuesday, but this could be eye-of-hurricane stuff, it could be like the zaftig yet supposedly consumptive diva rising from her deathbed for one last aria before she abruptly and inexplicably expires. Now, those of us who have had our coffee and are able to shift our focus from our Wiis or wee-wees for a millisecond, are asking ourselves the following questions:

WTF is going on?

Here is the Readers’ Digest condensed version: People got loans who couldn’t afford to pay them back. The financial institutions—that’s such a dignified name, we’ll just call them Credit/Risk Analysis Professionals (CRAP)—that issued these loans sold them before the ink was even dry on the contracts, passing the risk onto some other piece of CRAP that was gullible enough to buy them, leaving the issuing CRAPper with no incentive to give a shit if the loans were repaid and every incentive to keep making more sh*t-stupid loans. The CRAP that was buying these loans eventually got a farking clue that they weren’t worth the bog roll they were printed on, and stopped buying, leaving the last CRAP purchaser holding a smelly bag of sh*t.

These steaming piles are preventing the CRAPs that are holding them from issuing any more credit until they can offload this shite. Without credit, no one buys sh*t. Without people buying shit, the people selling sh*t go out of business. Which means that their employees and suppliers no longer have any money (or credit) to buy sh*t. Which means that the economy gets stopped up like your toilet from too much sh*t not moving through the pipes and then we are all in deep sh*t.

And we should add that sh*t travels globally these days. The CRAPs that are left holding these steaming piles of American shite could be located in London, Beijing or Auckland. So when we say we could be up sh*t’s creek without a paddle, we mean the Danube as much as the Hudson.

Why should I care if these stupid pieces of CRAP drown in a cesspool of their own making?

Because going cold turkey on credit will mean that they flush us down with them.

But don’t we need to get our heads out of our asses and end this crappy cycle of endless credit?

It wouldn’t be a bad idea. But think of it like anal sex: would you rather take it up the ass suddenly, with no warm-up fingering, no lube, or would you rather work up to it slowly and gently?

Ok, I see your point, how do we relax our sphincters then?

With the three R’s: Regulations, Relief and Rectitude
Rrrrregulations: You loan it, you own it

The feds need to get their finger out and restrain the issuing of credit and the international trade in debt. From now on, loans can not be sold by the original lender. If they’re stuck permanently holding the bag, it just might put a damper on the CRAPs making totally dumbsh*t loans. Debt-to-income ratios and credit worthiness should be matters of national policy, not individual judgment calls by the CRAPs. The CRAPpers will whine that big daddy government shouldn’t tell them how to run their business, but they’ve already proven that, like toddlers who reach into their nappies and smear shit on the walls, they cannot be left unsupervised.

These restrictions should be phased in to avoid a cold enema-like shock to the system. Credit should become progressively harder to obtain over a 15 year period, to prevent the massive recession that would occur if suddenly no-one could buy shit.

For example, it used to be the norm that you had to put 20% down on a house purchase. That was gradually whittled to 10%, then 5%, then 3%, then 0% down and 100% mortgages became the stupendously moronic norm. That process needs to occur in reverse. If the law were changed overnight to require at least 20% down on all house purchases, the real estate market would collapse. So, the % down needs to be increased incrementally so buyers and sellers have a chance to adjust and plan accordingly. The same concept should be applied to other types of credit, such as auto loans, credit cards, business loans, etc., with a gradual tightening of standards. Credit card limits should be lowered as each payment is made, and credit worthiness standards for auto and other loans should be tightened slowly, to strike a balance between people getting loans they can’t possibly pay back and every auto dealership and other credit-dependent business in the country suddenly going belly up.

Relief: Taking an enormous collective credit dump

Most existing loans need to be forgiven, with no tax liability, to wipe the toilet bowl clean. Why? Because individuals and businesses are spending most of their incomes on debt payments. This effectively prevents everyone from adjusting to the new world order of no easy credit in the future. I know this is difficult for many of today’s Americans to grasp, but paying for sh*t in the future with real currency instead of Monopoly money is going to mean actually having some of it around. Like, in a savings account—remember those? Americans’ savings habits were better in the Great Depression than they are today. The savings rate is a negative number, folks. Do you grasp what that means? It means we are, in the aggregate, spending more than we earn every year, getting deeper into debt doodoo. Most Americans are making the minimum monthly payments on their particular steaming pile o’debt, and then continuing to live on credit, not just because we can, but because we have no real money left after each paycheck is divided up amongst our creditors. The only way to get off this sorry-go-round and start saving for purchasing in a world of drastically reduced access to credit is to eliminate that pile o’debt. Think of it as a collective declaring of bankruptcy. To whit:

Student debt:
- All extant federal student loans should be forgiven.
- Private student loans should be paid off by the feds.
- Higher education should be free to eliminate the need for future student loans.

Medical debt:
- All existing medical debt should be forgiven—i.e., paid off by the feds, not the patient.
- Universal health care should be implemented so no future medical debt is accumulated.

Housing debt:
- There should be a moratorium on all foreclosures.
- All subprime mortgages should be refinanced to make the payments affordable for the homeowner.
- All future foreclosure action should be vetted with heavy oversight to ensure that the homeowner is genuinely at fault rather than a victim of predatory lending or circumstances beyond their control. Legitimate foreclosures would be allowed to proceed, but eliminating illegitimate foreclosures would reduce the number to almost 0.

Rectitude: the formal, dignified air assumed by a proctologist just prior to an exam
That’s right, no whinging. We are all going to have to suck it up, drop trou, and take our financial pessary. It isn’t going to be any easier for the Blaspheme's staff than it is for you. In fact, it’s going to be harder for us because we live in New York, where there is all this neat sh*t to buy. We hoped the chickens wouldn’t come home to roost for another few generations but, since they have, look on the bright side: farm fresh eggs for everyone.

-This was cutn'pasted from, what I thought was the shutdown, Corporate Mofo site.