Obama to Nationalize Student Lending with Pending Budget Bill

There is a silver lining here: Obama wants government to take this business… it tells me something good. It tells me that he “believes” I will be able to pay my loans back because work will come. The same way he tried to nationalize the banks… because the reality was that they knew they could further the hand of government over the private sector. I may not like his motives, but you can read his inside knowledge in this move… and it is a very good thing that he thinks he can profit off of student loans.

A bill currently before the Senate would empower the Obama administration to nationalize the student lending industry, eliminating the federally subsidized private loans millions of university students rely on to finance their educations.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act – currently being considered by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee – would eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. FFEL loans are federally subsidized and make up approximately 80 percent of the student lending industry.

According to the Department of Education, 14.3 million of the 17.5 million student loans were federally subsidized for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Under Obama’s plan, the government would consume the entirety of this industry – a total of $103 billion in 2009-2010.

Under the current system, the federal government subsidizes private financial institutions in order to entice those institutions to provide low-interest loans to students.

Under this arrangement the government sets the interest rates lenders may charge students. In return, the government reimburses lenders if market interest rates rise above the interest rates on the loans – in essence, the government reimburses private lenders if they begin losing money on the loans.

In return, the lenders agree to return any windfall profits made from the loans to the government. In other words, if market interest rates fall below the interest rates of the loans, the lenders pay the government the difference.

The government also agrees to reimburse the lenders should a student default.

Under the system proposed by Obama, the government would cut private lenders out of the picture entirely, setting the interest rates and collecting payments directly for all student lending.

Whether or not the government saw a profit or a loss from the new, federal loans would depend on the rate at which the government borrows money. For instance, the law currently sets the interest rate for direct loans at a maximum of 6.8 percent.

Under Obama’s proposal, if the government can borrow money at a rate lower than 6.8 percent, it would realize the difference as profit. If the government’s borrowing rate were to fall in the future, its profit on student loans would grow.

The idea to nationalize student lending was first put forth in President Obama’s fiscal-year 2010 budget and marketed as a way to save the government billions of dollars. According to a CBO estimate, the proposal would save the government $87 billion over 10 years.

The savings estimate results from the fact that the government believes it will collect more in interest payments from students than it would otherwise have to pay in fees to lenders.

The plan has met Republican opposition, passing the House on a party-line vote in September – 253-171 – and has stalled in the Senate, where HELP Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has said he plans to pass the measure using budget reconciliation.

“We’ve already been instructed by the Budget Committee to do this, so we’re going to do it,” Harkin told The Hill Oct. 19 when asked about using the controversial budget maneuver. Reconciliation allows budget-related items to be passed with a 51-vote majority, eliminating the threat of a filibuster.

The government’s savings estimates have also come into question. In a July 27 letter to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the Congressional Budget Office admitted that its original figure of $87 billion in savings over 10 years did not include an estimate of losses the government would incur from defaults. When that risk was added in, the estimated savings dropped to $47 billion.

The original estimate “does not include the cost to the government stemming from the risk that cash flows may be less than the amount projected (that is, that defaults could be higher than projected).

CBO found that after accounting for the cost of such risk, as discussed below, the proposal to replace new guaranteed [subsidized] loans with direct loans would lead to estimated savings of about $47 billion over the 2010-2019 period,” CBO reported.

The plan’s fate, however, is determined largely by Obama’s other major initiative – health care reform. Because reconciliation may only be used on one bill per year, Democrats must wait to see if it is needed to pass health care reform. If it is, they will have to combine both the student loan and health care proposals into one bill before using reconciliation to bypass an inevitable Republican filibuster.

via cnsnews.com

inviting Barack Obama to Barack Hussein Obama II – Terrorist Sympathizer in the White House

http://friendfeed.com/barackhusseinobama

appointed tranny

President Obama has now appointed a transsexual to a lofty position in the Commerce Department.

via ihatethemedia.com

…she is better looking then most women in politics. I might get into bed with her before I have to with Clinton, Pelosi, or Baxter. yikes… I had to think about this.

I will still stick to my guns and hope to get it on with Sarah Palin

What Obama could of learned from Nixon about Asian Diplomacy

It isn’t only White folks who are good old boys…

Obama: “I am greatly dishonored Emperor Akihito, for owing you so much money!”

Obama didn’t get what he wanted in China because (1) Jimmy Carter is partly right (it is racism, but not American, rather Chinese racism towards Africans) (2) Obama bowed to the Japanese Emperor and that really pissed off the people we owe a lot of money to. Global Warming science might be a sham, but industrial cooperation between nations is important for other reasons. Polution is a problem that effects more then Carbon Monoxide levels. Carbon and Petroleum based burning could polute water and cause all kinds of illnesses. It is a shame that Obama couldn’t learn how to handle actual diplomacy which has nothing to do with popularity on TV and has a lot to do with how you effect people in an intimate relationship. Obama is a failure at talking man to man. For a guy who has been touting diplomacy, Obama failed to understand that real diplomacy was done by men like Richard Nixon who might of not been great mass media stars, but certainly knew how to relate to people in a small room of educated elitist minds. Only Nixon could of gone to China. We would of all been dead if they sent Obama there in the 70s.

Why did Chinese premier Wen Jiabao choose to publicly humiliate Barack Obama at Copenhagen? In their eyes, and those of much of the world, he has lost face, and with it, power and influence. While getting widespread play overseas, this story has been kept very quiet by our disinterested, nonpartisan media (I haven’t seen it mentioned in any major U.S. outlet).

After promising to meet the Messiah at 7:00 p.m., Premier Wen stiffed him in favor of a meeting with the leaders of India, South Africa, and Brazil. Rather than wait, a no-doubt infuriated Obama stalked into the room in question and demanded, “Are you ready to see me, Premier Wen?” No word on Wen’s reaction, though he did submit to a discussion on the spot that evidently sealed the release of the immortal and glorious Copenhagen Quasi-Agreement on Climate Change.

So with Barack Obama, we’ve reached the point where the leader of record of the most powerful state in history has become a man you can casually stand up. But the question remains, why?

There are a number of reasons why the Chinese might take a cavalier attitude toward an American leader. China is the chief foreign holder of American debt, which may well have created an impression of the U.S. as a beggar nation on the level of a failed African republic. (I strongly suspect that words were exchanged on this topic during Obama’s recent visit to China, though we’re unlikely ever to learn about them in detail.)

There’s also the matter of race. As is true of most Asians, the Chinese sense of racial superiority is cultural and innate. This is a people who refer to Caucasians as “ghost shadows”; what they think of American blacks is probably best not dwelt upon.

Then there’s the deep aura of unseriousness that Obama has generated around himself. Though essentially incalculable, this factor is undeniable and will grow in importance and impact as time passes.

But there’s one event in particular that very likely played a part — the fact that, only a few weeks before, Obama publicly and notoriously bowed to the emperor of Japan.

Japan and China have a lengthy history, very little of which can be termed benign. They have always been rivals, often acting at cross purposes and usually at sword’s point. But the past century of Sino-Japanese relations has been little short of horrendous.

Japan’s militarist government occupied Manchuria in 1931 and proceeded to menace the Republic of China for several years afterward. In June 1937, as a result of a contrived confrontation known as the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident”, Japan escalated to open conquest. Occupying Nanking in December of that year, the Japanese army carried out a city-wide massacre that in little more than a month resulted in over 250,000 deaths. So brutal were Japanese actions that they could not, in a pre-Auschwitz world, be referred to directly in news accounts. Sixty years passed before the story was completely told in Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking(Chang, a less than stable personality in the first place, was so deeply affected that she later committed suicide, after telling friends that she could not get the images of the killings out of her mind.)

For nearly a decade Japan occupied vast areas of China, a period marked by further massacres, atrocities, and casual violations of the human spirit. It’s safe to say that, but for the even viler activities of the Nazis, the Japanese occupation would stand as one of the peak moments of human cruelty in the modern era. (It’s undeniable that Japanese human experiments in their Chinese and Manchurian prison camps were fully as loathsome as those of the Nazis.)

Though the Chinese don’t discuss the matter, their attitude toward Japan and the Japanese can easily be imagined. Particularly since Japan, unlike Germany, has only in recent years reached the point of admitting to “irregularities” in its occupation, much less issuing an apology or offering reparations.

So here comes Obama, as ignorant of all this as a little lamb.

Many will recall the uproar that surrounded Ronald Reagan’s 1985 visit to a German cemetery at Bitburg, instigated by the existence of SS graves within line of sight of the ceremony. The attitude of the Chinese to Obama’s bow must be similar. From that point of view, Wen’s behavior should be taken as a rebuke, not to the United States so much as to Obama personally.

Which only goes to underline the reason why diplomatic protocol exists in the first place — to exclude through ritual actions all possibilities that error, misunderstanding, or personal pique might interfere with matters of state. Obama has yet to learn this. His insistence on winging it, on reinventing established practice on his own terms, is potentially far more than simply embarrassing. It could be actively dangerous. His refusal to go by the rules may well have cost him the opportunity to pose as Savior of Gaia in Copenhagen. It may cost him — and the country — far more at some future time.

via americanthinker.com

The press is going buck wild about Obama bowing to Emperor Akihito. Make what you want of it. Some say that Obama was showing a sign of respect, others say it was totally inappropriate and it was Obama showing the weakness of the USA. But I know the truth! Obama was thanking Emeror Akihito for buying MORE US government debt. As Bloomberg reported, Japan had bought AN ADDITIONAL $105 billion dollars of US Treasuries this year, which exceeded this year’s amount of US debt that China bought. Hell, if I loaned someone $105 billion dollars, they better bow before me! Hahaha.

Check out this funny video that compares the Obama-Akihito meeting with Akihito shaking hands with politicians and royalties of other nations. Notice how the other politicians and royalties did not bow?

via asianrapworldwide.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon’s posterous

National Journal Online – Obama Gets Low Marks On Foreign Policy

My Grade for Obama :F

Obama fights the wars the Muslims want him to fight. I posted the Obama speech in Copenhagan and it didn’t impress me at all. Obama angered the Chinese and others whose money we are borrowing. You can’t convince others to make sacrifices if you do your part unilaterally without their commitment. Strategically poor wisdom. The only bright thing is he has been lucky as far as actual tragedy… comparitively, but there is probably hell to pay for enabling Iran and the Palestinians. Posted via web from noahdavidsimon’s posterous

CORRECTION: The original version of this report misidentified which group of National Journal Insiders was taking part in this poll.

via nationaljournal.com

What is David Kopel smoking?

U.S. cruise missile strike targets al-Qaeda in Yemen – Jihad Watch

Obama is attempting to seem serious about fighting the war against terrorism, but this is the same war his friends the Saudis are fighting. Obviously they are probably America’s enemy too, but don’t get excited about a change of heart from the Obama administration. They are still in the pocket of Faisal

Obama turns his attention to the jihadist “bus station” that is Yemen. “Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists,” by Brian Ross, Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole, Luis Martinez, and Kirit Radia for ABC News, December 18:

via jihadwatch.org

On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

ABC’s Brian Ross details missile strike on al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan.

One of the targeted sites was a suspected al Qaeda training camp north of the capitol, Sanaa, and the second target was a location where officials said “an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned.”

The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration’s campaign against al Qaeda.

via abcnews.go.com

Copenhagen FAIL

On the final day of UN climate talks Barack Obama tells world leaders: ‘I come not to talk but to act’ Link to this video

Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit today saying he was convinced the world could act “boldly and decisively” on climate change.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort — and a 10-day meeting — from ending in total collapse.

Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.

He offered no further commitments on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries beyond Hillary Clinton’s announcement yesterday that America would support a $100bn global fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

He did not even press the Senate to move ahead on climate change legislation, which environmental organisations have been urging for months.

The president’s speech followed the publication of draft text, obtained by the Guardian this morning, that reveals the enormous progress needed from world leaders in the final hours of the Copenhagen climate change summit to achieve a strong deal. The draft says countries “ought” to limit global warming to 2C, but crucially does not bind them to do so. The text, drafted by a select group of 28 leaders – including UK prime minister, Gordon Brown – in the early hours of this morning, also proposes extending negotiations for another year until the next scheduled UN meeting on climate change in Mexico City in December 2010.

In his address, Obama did say America would follow through on his administration’s clean energy agenda, and that it would live up to its pledges to the international community.

“We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say,” Obama said.

But in the absence of any evidence of that commitment the words rang hollow and there was a palpable sense of disappointment in the audience.

Instead, he warned African states and low island nations who have been resisting what they see as a weak agreement that the later alternative — no agreement — was far worse.

“We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years. But here is the bottom line: we can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation,” he said.

“Or we can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year – all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible.”

He also took a dig at China, drawing attention to its status as the world’s biggest emitter and reinforcing America’s hardline on the issue of accountability for greenhouse gas emissions.

The lacklustre speech proved a huge frustration to a summit that had been looking to Obama to use his stature on the world stage – and his special following among African leaders – to try to come to an ambitious deal.

The president was drawn into the chaos within minutes of his arrival at Copenhagen, ditching his schedule to take part in a meeting of major industrialised and rapidly emerging economies.

Responding to Obama’s speech, a British official said: “Gordon Brown is committed to doing all he can and will stay until the very last minute to secure a deal… but others also need to show the same level of commitment. The prospects of a deal are not great.”

Many reactions were strongly critical of Obama. Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, described Obama’s speech as “ridiculous” and the US’s initial offer of a $10bn fund for poor countries in the draft text as “a joke”.

Tim Jones, a spokesman for the World Development Movement, said: “The president said he came to act, but showed little evidence of doing so. He showed no awareness of the inequality and injustice of climate change. If America has really made its choice, it is a choice that condemns hundreds of millions of people to climate change disaster.”

Friends of the Earth said in a statement, “Obama has deeply disappointed not only those listening to his speech at the UN talks, he has disappointed the whole world.”

The World Wildlife Fund said Obama had let down the international community by failing to commit to pushing for action in Congress: “The only way the world can be sure the US is standing behind its commitments is for the president to clearly state that climate change will be his next top legislative priority.”

The extent of crisis in the talks has taken leaders by surprise. The Brazilian leader, Lula da Silva, told the conference that the all-night negotiating sessions took him back to his days as a trade union leader negotiating with his bosses.

via guardian.co.uk

I think Barry Rubin said it best: http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2009/12/madness-and-lessons-of-copenhagen.html “isn’t this a new form of imperialism in which smug rich people congratulate themselves as wonderfully virtuous by telling poorer countries they cannot develop because it’s bad for the planet? To put it bluntly, after decades of failing to be moved by ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-schooled children, the West has been galvanized into action by concern over polar bears.” …”The main reason why poverty and oppression exists in so many parts of the world is not due to Western evil imperialism but to local political culture, lack of democracy, anti-pragmatic ideas, and dictatorships. Until this is thoroughly understood and beneficial change takes place within other societies, their situations won’t improve. What happened with all the massive financial aid provided over past decades? “

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon’s posterous

PageOneQ | Man to take polygraph to answer claims that he had gay sex, did cocaine with Senator Obama

Larry Sinclair, the man who claims to have done cocaine and fellated Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), will be paid $10,000 to take a lie detector test to substantiate it.

If the test indicates he is telling the truth, the amount will jump to $100,000. The payment and reward are being offered by political commentary website WhiteHouse.com (not affiliated with WhiteHouse.gov).

“My motivation for making this public is my desire for a presidential candidate to be honest,” Sinclair, of Duluth, Minnesota, tells right-wing publication WorldNetDaily. “I didn’t want the sex thing to come out. But I think it is important for the candidate to be honest about his drug use as late as 1999.”

In November of 1999, Sinclair charges, he snorted cocaine, while Senator Obama smoked crack, in the back of Sinclair’s limousine. Sinclair then says he performed oral sex on the Senator in a hotel room in Chicago, and later in nearby Gurnee.

After attempting to make contacts within mainstream media, Sinclair instead took his story to YouTube last month. The video, embedded below, has been viewed nearly 350,000 times.

Claiming harassment in an effort to supress his story, Sinclair has filed a federal lawsuit against Senator Obama, Obama campaign consultant David Axelrod and the Democratic National Committee. In the pages, available below, Sinclair claims slander, Internet harassment, including physical threats, and attempts to suppress his speech in violation of his First Amendment rights.

via pageoneq.com

perhaps on the Polygraph lie detector test or whatever, Larry Sinclair would like to describe the first penis?

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon’s posterous

Are these Jews in Jerusalem in 1948 the occupier?

Looting in burning Jerusalem, John Phillips. June 1948

An Israeli NGO has sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatening a class action lawsuit if she continues to call Jewish cities and towns in Judea and Samaria ‘illegal settlements.’ The letter, which was also sent to Prime Minister Netanyahu, argues that the ‘settlement freeze’ is illegal under a 1924 treaty in which the United States recognized that Judea and Samaria were part of the British Mandate for ‘Palestine.’

The Office for Israeli Constitutional Law, a non-governmental legal action organization, sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, warning that by labeling Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal, she is violating international law
via
israelmatzav.blogspot.com
“The little-known Anglo-American Convention, a treaty signed by the US and British governments in 1924, stipulated that the US fully accepted upon itself the Mandate for Palestine, which declared all of the West Bank within its borders.”

Jewish girl, Rachel Levy, 7, fleeing from street w. burning bldgs. as the Arabs sack Jerusalem after its surrender. May 28, 1948. John Phillips

Jewish families leaving the old city through Zion’s Gate. June 1948. John Phillips

Jewish people attempting to leave portion of city surrendered to Arab forces. Jerusalem, Israel. June 1948. John Phillips

Israel should build the tallest building in the world in Jerusalem

Click to Play

The little-known Anglo-American Convention, a treaty signed by the US and British governments in 1924, stipulated that the US fully accepted upon itself the Mandate for Palestine, which declared all of the West Bank within its borders.

Israeli Settlements are legal and legitimate under US law

by JACOB KANTER , THE JERUSALEM POST

The Office for Israeli Constitutional Law, a non-governmental legal action organization, sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, warning that by labeling Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal, she is violating international law.

The little-known Anglo-American Convention, a treaty signed by the US and British governments in 1924, stipulated that the US fully accepted upon itself the Mandate for Palestine, which declared all of the West Bank within its borders.

“The treaty has been hidden,” said OFICL director Mark Kaplan. “But if you look at the House [of Representatives] deliberations during World War I, people are saying, ‘Look, we’ve invested a lot of money in Palestine, and we expect that this treaty will be upheld.’”

Though the United Nations’ 1947 partition plan declared the West Bank an Arab territory, the mandate’s borders still hold today.

“The mandate expired in 1948 when Israel got its independence,” Kaplan said. “But the American-Anglo convention was a treaty that was connected to the mandate. Treaties themselves have no statute of limitations, so their rights go on ad infinitum.”

“The UN partition plan was just that-a plan,” said OFICL chairman Michael Snidecor in a statement. “The General Assembly has no authority to create countries or change borders.”

Clinton’s rhetoric, according to Kaplan, has become more and more troubling.

“Our letter was sent as a result of so many comments that have been made by the secretary of state,” he said. “It’s part of a process that we’ve been involved with for a number of months, but we’re speeding things up because of the acceleration of recent events.”

A few days after praising Israel for its “unprecedented” actions in freezing settlement activity, Clinton reemphasized the supposedly illegal status of the settlements.

“The United States believes that settlements are not legitimate,” she said. “That has been the policy of our government for 40 years. That is the policy of President [Barack] Obama today and going forward.”

According to Kaplan, the IDF presence in the West Bank has added to this misconception of illegal activity.

“Israel chose to adopt a policy of military rule in 1967, which makes it smell of occupation,” Kaplan said. “And the world says it is illegal occupation because of all the propaganda that’s been out there. Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria does not qualify as an occupation under international law because of the Anglo-American Convention, and if you look at the Hague and Geneva conventions.”

The OFICL letter also warned Clinton that if her office does not comply with the civil rights recognized in the Anglo-American convention, OFICL will file a class-action suit in a US district court.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared a 10-month settlement freeze last Wednesday, but the letter, which was also sent to Netanyahu’s office, states that under the legal principle of estoppel – which precludes someone from denying the truth of a fact which has been determined in an official proceeding or by an authoritative body – any demand on Israel to freeze construction within the mandated borders is illegal under US law.

According to one adviser, Netanyahu’s staff is reviewing the documents and will discuss the issues before replying to OFICL’s planned actions.

via thejidf.org