The banks own the place.

The banks "own the place." What place? Congress. Who would say such a shocking thing? Someone relatively trustworthy: Dick Durbin. Consider this from Huffpo:

Only 45 Senate Democrats voted Thursday to oppose the banking industry and pass legislation aimed at stemming foreclosures. The bill would have allowed bankruptcy judges to allow homeowners who met strict conditions to renegotiate mortgages -- a process known as cramdown. It would have only applied to mortgages entered into before 2009.

Earlier in the week, the measure's lead proponent, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), concluded that banks "frankly own the place."

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Congressman John Shimkus: The Bible says don’t worry about global warming

Illinois Representative John Shimkus knows all he needs to know about climate change. It's all in the infallible Bible. Here he is demolishing all of that silly science with a few phrases out of Genesis. Based on his expressions, he's a hero in his own eyes. He's got that look that he knows he will go to heaven. Don't worry. There's only going to be one worldwide flood and we've already had it. Case closed. Proceedings from the March 25, 2009 hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment: If you want to learn a lot more about the nonsense Shimkus spouts, visit Progress Illinois.

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The hypocrisy of charging that the American flag has been desecrated

You hear many conservatives yelping about "flag desecration," as though the torture of hundreds of prisoners conducted by the U.S. is not flag desecration. Here is a post pointing out further hypocrisy, expecially the cherry-picking done by conservatives.   The  sections of U.S. Code cited by this article suggest that even…

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Keep NASA independent of the U.S. Military

One of the “trial balloons” of the incoming Obama administration is a proposed consolidation of NASA with US military programs for space. The ostensible reason is “national security,” but insecurity about our military’s capabilities to keep up with Chinese efforts to explore and exploit space are at the core of…

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Making numerical sense of the “bailout”

I’m sitting here, stunned by the amount of money that is about to be casually taken out of the U.S. Treasury to “save” the economy.  I’m highly suspicious.  I’m not sure this taxpayer revenue is needed or that it is any more than a band-aid.  Surely, Wall Street (or other…

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