Thursday, December 08, 2011

Theodore Roosevelt signed 82 Presidential Vetoes in his eight years.

Forty-two regular vetoes, forty pocket vetoes and only one was overridden.
Veto Number 881 on April 4, 1902. (click title to entry - thank you)
S. 4363 : Granting the Central Arizona Railway Company right-of-way for railroad purposes through San Francisco Mountains Forest Reserve. The veto message was laid before the Senate, referred to the Committee on Public Lands, and printed as S. Doc. No. 315. (35 Cong. Rec. 4578).

Women over 16 years old can purchase "Plan B" over the counter and I am fine with that.

The Secretary is correct, girls as young as eleven years old can become pregnant, but, there is a lack of worldliness to allow this decision and self administration to take place.  Besides there are issues with a pregnancy that young or even at 13 and 14 years old.  Girls at such young ages should not be getting pergnant nor should they be expected to continue a pregnancy.  It is ridiculous idea.  Where were the parents in the first place and was the pregnancy due to harassment by others that pimp these girls from the school yard.  There are too many questions regarding a pregnancy of women that young to allow them to simply think they can take a magic pill to make it all go away.

I don't consider the Secretary's decision a matter of politics.  Besides younger girls can have their older piers purchase it for them.  It will happen, so why expose pharmacists to the liability of the irresponsible acts of others?  Age 17 and older are worldly enough to making these decisions for medication they take over the counter.

I really believe the Secretary should assign a task force to better understand why young girls/women become pregnant and seek to find intervention to stem the behavior.  There was the incidence of the girls that became pregnant as a matter of being in the same social circle.  It is not prudent to place young hearts and minds at such risk so young as it sets them up for failure and hardship in life along with their children if they are forced to be raised in poverty without common comforts.

Sensenbrenner has a hissy fit at the House Judiciary Committee for PR purposes.

And FOX News is stating the hearing for Attorney General Holder will resume shortly so look up the link on their website.  That was stated at 11 AM and the hearing doesn't resume until 1:15PM

Quite frankly it is very obvious Murdoch is running the Republican circus in the House Judicial Committee.  Sensenbrenner stated if he didn't receive accountability from the Justice Department stating Congress was lied to an impeachment would follow and he abruptly closed his microphone and questioning.. 

Rep. Conyers stepped in along with another Congressman for clarification on Sensenbrenner's statement about impeachment on procedural grounds and Committee Chair Lamar Smith refused the procedural clarification.  It was manipulation by Smith.

The Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are having a difficult time facing facts, because the fact is Attorney General Holder is conducting an exemplary Justice Department and to quote Committee Member Bermin the most transparent Department ever witnessed.

The Republicans on the Justice Committee are character assassinating anyone within reasonable PUBLIC RELATIONS attention, including Justice Kagan.  The focus on Justice Kagan is due to the heat on Clarence Thomas and his political exploits.  I suppose Scalia is in there somewhere too for their coziness with the Health Insurance Industry.  Basically, the Republicans are wasting their salaries on campaign strategies of character assassination rather than doing the people's business.

Both Representative Conyers and Representative Berman asked Attorney General Holder what Congress could and should do to work with the Justice Department for securing the southern border of the USA.

Attorney General Holder stated, the Justice Department needed funding for Border Programs including 'Boots on the Ground' (my words, not his) that was suppose put 14 teams into service, but, due to budgetary problems only 7 or 8 have been deployed.  Attorney General Holder also stated, legislation honoring the Second Amendment needed to be crafted to provide better legal leverage and tools to the efforts at the USA southern border.  AG Holder stated there were four border states that would require tighter gun laws on "Long Guns" that would allow for the processing of their sales as if they were handguns.  AG Holder also asked for productive dialogue with the members of Congress to be sure the laws were strengthened in any legislative effort and the Justice Department could provide that expertise.

I thought the morning meeting of the House Judiciary Committee went fairly well and AG Holder is unflappable even when harassed by Republicans for their 'news bites' for FOX.

The committee convenes again at 1:15 PM.

The work Mr. Cordray will do as Consumer Protection Director will return liquidity to the economy.

Richard Cordray is sworn in at the beginning of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Captiol Hill September 6, 2011 in Washington, DC. Former Ohio Attorney General Cordray has been nominated by President Barack Obama to be the first director of the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Once he is confirmed as Director there will be significant regulation of "Loan Sharks."  Make no doubt about it, if the Republicans filibuster his confirmation vote they will be protecting Loan Sharks.

The Loan Sharks are also known as "Pay Day Lenders."  The entire dynamic surrounding this draconian lending causes hardship and not functioning to a family or home budget.  It facilitates 'self-abuse' by consumers. 

The concept of Pay Day Lenders/Loan Sharks is fairly straight forward.  The person with the cash loans the person without the cash.  And I emphasise CASH.  The person with the cash loans the person without the cash a percentage of their anticipated pay check based on personal identificication and pay stubs and three to four personal references.  Once a 'reputation' of who a borrow is they literally have carte blanc to not only receive one loand but to perpetuate that loan into the future.

The pay day loan goes like this.  I earn $500 per week.  Let's say there are deducations of $100.  My application to the Loan Shark allows me to borrow 50%, a full one half of my take home pay.  The loan is only good for at the very most 15 days and then it has to be paid back.  For that loan of 15 days (if a borrow is paid twice a month on the 15th and 30th) I pay $15.00.  Now, while that seems like a convenient thing to have especially around Black Friday; it gets out of control almost immediately.

The day I have to pay back the $200 I borrowed and the $15.00 interest I know have a take home pay of $185.00 until my next paycheck.  Let's say that after Black Friday I had to pay the rent.  Well, heck I don't have it.  So, I am faced with paying late fees and risking eviction notices and paying court costs to remain in my rental or I go get another loan from the local and LEGAL Loan Shark.  Once again I pay the $15.00 to have a full paycheck less the $15.00 I just paid, plus the $15.00 I will pay again in 7 days.  So far I am into the Loan Shark for their profit of $30.00.  Still not bad considering all the neat stuff I got on Black Friday.

So, I figure by the time my next paycheck rolls around I'll be able to sustain the net take home pay of $185.00 and I'll be good for Christmas.  Well, 7 days goes by and the rent has been paid, but, the utilities and the groceries have to be paid and the price of gas went up by ten cents a gallon and things ain't looking so good.  So, back to the Loan Shark and after one month I have now spent $60.00 I could have used for gas and groceries and here comes Christmas.

The practice is draconian, it sequesters people into a corner they never can manage to get out of and the $15.00 fee now becomes anywhere from 300% to 600% or more in interest charges on an annual basis.  It becomes a chronic loan they should have never received in the first place because the people that frequently take these loans have very poor credit ratings.  And why do they have very poor credit ratings, because they were foreclosed on or evicted due to the downturn in the economy.

So, a confirmation vote of Richard Cordray will facilitate the regulation and quite possibly the elimination of legalized Loan Sharking.  This is the man the Republicans won't confirm because they are breaking the law.  The new Consumr Protection Director is LAW now.  There is a position for Director in the department created when the new law to regulate banks was passed.  Effectively, the Republican Senate will again filibuster a vote to stop the confirmation of a highly respected Former Attorney General of Ohio and in doing so they will be breaking the law.  The Republicans are instead pandering to cronies that literally rob people into unmanageable debt.

Oh, one other thing.  When the borrower finally has a check that bounces because there comes a point where all the money they paid in interest has shortened their purchasing power by a full pay check, then there are charges filed with the local law enforcement to arrest the borrow to obtain the monies and the real fun begins.  So, the confirmation vote today of Richard Cordray will serve the people in the USA greatly and should not be delayed.  The really odd thing is that borrowers will continue to be arrested but the Republican Senate won't.