Clinton and journalists leave N. Korea (photo essay)
August 4, 2009
The run-up to the pardons:
Meeting with Kim Jong Il:
The Task at Hand:
Deal or NO Deal?:
YES, DEAL!!!!
…and there you see an elated President extremely pleased to announce an agreement.
Freed American journalists Laura Ling, left, and Euna Lee, shown in a screen capture image from video with an unidentified companion, board a plane to leave North Korea on Tuesday.
Earlier, North Korea's leader pardoned Americans Laura Ling and Euna Lee, seen boarding a plane with Bill Clinton, following a meeting with the former U.S. president.
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Bill Clinton:what a beautiful gift to humanity. What a travesty that Republicans, MSM, and yes, even his own party have all worked so hard to discredit him.
The world remembers, and the world mocks us for what we did to him.
And for Hillary: Ditto.
I agree.
The POTUS also deserves kudos for utilizing his stongest envoy to effect the release of our citizens.
International diplomacy is a wonderful thing.
I almost forgot what it was like.
When Obama actually keeps a promise he made during the campaign and does something that will improve people’s lives; he will get his just desserts.
Otherwise, I look forward to his regularly scheduled ‘reality series’… “Big O’s Bamboozler” show
on every network in prime time.
I guess you didn’t get a taxcut then, or an extension on your unemployment insurance if you’ve lost your job.
Why isn’t that improving the lives of people?
It is difficult to adhere to campaign promises when
job #1 was keeping the economy & our industrial base from slipping into the economic abyss.
Bu$hCorp really improved some people’s lives, but he eviscerated the majority.
just the opposite of Obama’s utilitarian approach to healthcare reform, et cetera.
Bu$h gave $8 billion to the banks because he didn’t see the impending financial crash. His compassionate conservative proclivity to deregulate & ignore oversight, allowed Wall St. to create the house of cards.
Dubya gave $1.7 trillion to the richest 1% w/ his imprudent topheavy taxcuts that favored his “base, the Haves & the Have-Mores”.
He threw BigPharma a bone w/ his Medicare Part- D boondoggle.
He declared war on Iraq w/o notifying the UN, as he had promised to do.
Scott Ritter was still in-country w/ the UN, finishing the inspection to prove that Sadam had no WMD.
Bu$h couldn’t allow the inspectors to prove that Iraq was free of WMD, if the P.N.A.C. was to come into fruition.
G.W. Bu$h threw a big bloody hunk of meat to the private contracters by farming-out the duties that have been military billets since the the inception of our armed forces.
The cost-plus, sole source contracts were kickbacks
for Cheney’s Halliburton buddies.
His installation of Paul Bremmer to the position of Viceroy of Iraq cost the US taxpayers @ least $9.7 billion in stolen untraceable bills.
Bu$h committed exponential generational theft on the grandest scale, because he didn’t pay for any of it.
He left the bill to hobble Barak.
In the past, Poppy Bu$h had always bailed Jr. out of his financial binds, even well into adulthood.
George blew through the Clinton suplus & recklessly put the rest on credit, ignoring everyone who warned him of the moral hazard & danger that he was creating for our national security.
Bu$h didn’t even have the courage to include it all in the budget.
He tried to hide the true fiscal cost of his war of choice, by using supplementals so the true cost didn’t appear on the budget per se.
Figures lie & liars figure.
Blaming Bush is really getting old… Obama has been at the helm for more than 6 mos and hasn’t done a thing for Homeowners… People are inconsequential to Obama, even you, as a donor and faithful follower would get thrown under the bus when it comes to a show down between Banks and you…
Find another excuse for Obama’s rampant failures; the ‘Blame Bush’ whine has run it’s course…
Also you can take a lesson here. Just as Hillary predicted Obama’s naivte and inexperience to the challenges we face, will eventually sink America.
You are very foolish to believe that just because Obama has taken the helm, there would be no repurcussions for 8 yrs. of borrowing & spending, cronyism, nepotism, intentional neglect, deregulation, privatization, corporate welfare, class warfare, zenophobia, belligerent nationalism, pre-emptive shock & awe diplomacy, occupation & general ineptitude that Bu$h & Cheney employed
It can’t be swept under the rug aka the U.S. Costitution, after Bu$hCorp was finished w/ it.
The only thing that will sink America is if Obama stops bailing out the ship of state, that isn’t exactly seaworthy after Bu$h & Cheney turned it into their own personal Grand Old Party party-barge.
About half of U.S. mortgages seen underwater by 2011
August 6 2009
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The percentage of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will nearly double to 48 percent in 2011 from 26 percent at the end of March, portending another blow to the housing market, Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday.
Home price declines will have their biggest impact on prime “conforming” loans that meet underwriting and size guidelines of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bank said in a report. Prime conforming loans make up two-thirds of mortgages, and are typically less risky because of stringent requirements.
“We project the next phase of the housing decline will have a far greater impact on prime borrowers,” Deutsche analysts Karen Weaver and Ying Shen said in the report.
Of prime conforming loans, 41 percent will be “underwater” by the first quarter of 2011, up from 16 percent at the end of the first quarter 2009, it said. Forty-six percent of prime jumbo loans will be larger than their properties’ value, up from 29 percent, it said.
“The impact of this is significant given that these markets have the largest share of the total mortgage market outstanding,” the analysts said. Prime jumbo loans make up 13 percent of the total market.
Deutsche’s dire assessment comes amid a bolt of evidence in recent months that point to stabilization in the U.S. housing market after three years of price drops. This week, the National Association of Realtors said pending home sales rose for a fifth straight month in June. A widely watched index released in July showed home prices in May rose for the first time since 2006.
Covering 100 U.S. metropolitan areas, Deutsche Bank in June forecast home prices would fall 14 percent through the first quarter of 2011, for a total drop of 41.7 percent.
The drop in home prices is fueling a vicious cycle of foreclosures as it eliminates homeowner equity and gives borrowers an incentive to walk away from their mortgages. The more severe the negative equity, the more likely are defaults, since many borrowers believe prices will not recover enough.
Homeowners with the riskiest mortgages taken out during the housing boom have seen the greatest erosion in equity, in part because they were “affordability products” originated at the housing peak, Deutsche said. They include subprime loans, of which 69 percent will be underwater in 2011, up from 50 percent in March, Deutsche Bank said.
Of option adjustable-rate mortgages — which cut payments by allowing principal balances to rise — 89 percent will be underwater in 2011, up from 77 percent, the report said.
Regions suffering the worst negative equity are areas in California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Las Vegas and parts of Florida and California will see 90 percent or more of their loans underwater by 2011, it added.
“For many, the home has morphed from piggy bank to albatross,” the analysts said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090805/bs_nm/us_usa_housing_deutschebank
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It appears Obama is bailing out America with an eyecup if the ( non) economic recovery is still going on 2 yrs from now. According to the latest projections from financial experts projecting no end in sight if people are still underwater 2 yrs from now.
Obama doesn’t care about the suffering of Americans. Why would he? He’s spent 20yrs listening to a Pastor degrading America and Americans seeing racial bias in every sector of America.
If Obama did a little soul-searching, he may realize it’s him and his SO projecting ‘racial bias’ where there is none.
The perfect example is his recent reaction to the Gates-Crowley incident. Taking a side before he is aware of all the facts, screaming RACISM from the rooftops, protecting his friend Henry Gates, insinuating Sgt Crowley arrested Gates because he is black.
Being a lawyer, shouldn’t he be acutely aware of how facts are gathered before rudimentary decisions of guilt or innocence are made? Sgt Crowley voted for Obama just as Gates did. Obama based his decision solely on race… and not on facts. Obama is clearly a racist. Didn’t he play the race card on Bill Clinton during the Primarys?
And why we all feel Obama is unfit to govern America. He neither has the knowledge and the expertise to get us out of this mess OR he is following a game plan crafted by others, hence the teleprompter for following a message scripted by his handlers.
When the scales finally fall from your eyes, you will see you made a mistake supporting him. He conspired with the DNC to steal the election from Hillary Clinton, who should have been the Democratic nominee, and the next president sitting in our WH; not the thief in charge of “his” WH.