Susan Rice to Be Obama's National Security Adviser. Wonder of wonders!

Verne Strickland USA DOT COM June 5, 2013

Obama paraphrased: So if any of you big bullies want to jump on cute little Susan Rice over Benghazi, you can jump on me. Or if you just want to jump on her, me first. I am the President.

Jun 05, 2013

Associated Press| by Julie Pace

 

 

 

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's top national security adviser Tom Donilon is resigning and will be replaced by U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, marking a significant shakeup to the White House foreign policy team.

A White House official confirmed the personnel changes Wednesday morning ahead of a planned announcement by the president later in the day.

Donilon has been a key foreign policy adviser to Obama since he first took office. But the 58-year-old had been expected to depart sometime this year, with Rice seen as the likely candidate to replace him.

Rice, a close Obama confidante, came under withering criticism from Republicans as part of the investigations into the deadly attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Rice, relying on talking points from the intelligence community, said in television interviews that the attacks were likely spontaneous, which was later proven incorrect.

Obama considered nominating Rice as his second-term secretary of state, but she withdrew amid the GOP criticism, saying she didn't want her confirmation fight to be a distraction for the White House. The president instead nominated John Kerry, who easily won confirmation from his former Senate colleagues.
Rice's new post as national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation.

Obama will also name Samantha Power, a human rights expert and former White House adviser, to replace Rice as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Power left the White House earlier this year, though she was considered the president's likely pick to move to the U.N. should Rice be promoted to the White House.

Power won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for her book "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," which examined U.S. foreign policy toward genocide in the 20th century. She is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.

The White House official said Donilon is expected to stay on the job until early July, after Obama wraps up overseas trips to Europe and Africa, as well as an unusual summit in California later this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the personnel changes before they were publicly announced.

Donilon has overseen a foreign policy agenda at the White House that put increased emphasis on the U.S. relationship with Asia. He's also played a key role in the administration's counterterrorism strategy, including the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, and in managing the complex U.S. ties with Russia.

Rice, who first started working for Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, has a close relationship with the president and many of his advisers. She's known for being outspoken on human rights issues and also pushed for a more interventionist strategy in Libya.

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Barack Obama

TEMPERS FLARE, HEATED COMMENTS FLY AS NORTH CAROLINA GOP CONVENTION NEARS.

You have given new meaning to my life – skewering your secretive ways, lame expressions of protests, and flat-out denials of your record – which, incidentally, is documented by mainstream media. 

A POLITICAL COMMENTARY BY VERNE STRICKLAND -- NC CONSERVATIVE June 3, 2013

Note: Before or after you read this, please see the post on 
NORTH CAROLINA CONSERVATIVE.COM to learn what this is all about: 
http://northcarolinaconservative.net/special-report-unmasking-hidden-agendas/

To those of you who wrote in to commend me on my first post for North Carolina Conservative.com, I can’t thank you enough. Wonderful to welcome all you new fans.Please continue to stay in touch, and speak what’s on your “minds”.

I’ll be sending out some new stuff on your zany antics. Your people are really entertaining. You have given new meaning to my life – skewering your secretive ways, lame expressions of protests, and flat-out denials of your record – which, incidentally, is documented by mainstream media.

As for Mr. Geoffrey Haulburt’s new fashion statement, our precious American flag, (below) I’d like to suggest the proper way to display it – on a flagpole. But what would you care? Or, as Hillary so famously stated: “At this time what difference does it make?”

You’ll be pleased to know that I hope to get out at least one more post before the NCGOP convention, apologizing in your behalf for your boorish behavior, absence of character, and false conservatism.

I want to urge you to supplement your education by visiting me on my USA DOT COM blog and my Facebook page – dedicated to skewering and deflating ultra-liberals, atheists, socialists, radical Muslims, President Obama, Eric Holder, Nancy Pelosi, Mao Tse Dong, and rubes like you with your weird agenda and lack of conscience.

Now that the GOP has smoked you out, your days of polluting this organization with undesirables is over. No offense, you understand.

I know it’s been lonely for you, not having a recognized political base. You’ve really made a spectacle of yourself with the Republican Party in South Carolina. News does travel across state lines, if you hadn’t figured that out.  You and your agenda were roundly rejected in the Palmetto State, and it should come as no surprise that you have quickly ramped up the same kind of hostile reception in North Carolina. After you guys have flopped here, maybe you’ll want to test the winds in Virginia. Or, better yet, Montana?

in North

 GLEN BRADLEY MAKES PIT STOP TO FUEL UP FOR THE BIG RACE . . .


Have a good time at the convention. Separate seating has been arranged for your people, mostly so the rest of us can identify you quickly and accurately. Mr. Bradley, since the news of who you really are has hit the street, I wouldn’t count on a standing ovation if I were you.

As to my friend Mr. SOURCE, who was cruelly pilloried in many of your comments, I have to point out that he is more sensitive to hate mail and I am. Was Mr. SOURCE telling the truth? Oh yeah. If you didn’t agree with what he said, which was more than evident, there was plenty of documentation to prove his point. He’s a stand-up guy in my book.

IN ANSWER TO QUESTIONS ABOUT WHO "MR. SOURCE" ACTUALLY IS, I WILL SAY FLAT OUT THAT HE IS NOT MAJOR DAVE GOETZE. I UNDERSTAND THERE WAS SOME SORT OF DUST-UP IN WHICH  MR. BRADLEY HAD SOME UGLY THINGS TO SAY TO A PERFECT STRANGER -- THINKING THE MAN WAS ACTUALLY MAJOR DAVE. OOPS! HE WASN'T. GOT TO PICK YOUR FIGHTS WITH MORE CARE, BUBBA.

Want to make clear that most of these comments from me are directed at our detractors, who are legion, and who certainly know how to rant and bluster. We also got some good response on our article, if you can believe that. But to your credit, Mr. Bradley and your Occupy roughnecks, the negative stuff far outnumbered the positive. We’ll be getting trashed more in the future, I suspect, as more of the emperor’s clothes are ripped off. Wow, that’s gotta be embarrassing.

Anyway, gotta go. Stay in touch. I’ll leave the light on for you. So you won’t fall into the crocodile moat.

Your pal and fan, Verne Strickland.

Medicare Exhausted In 2026, Trustees Say -- Social Security Also Wobbling

                  


PROGRAM'S GIANT FUND NOT GIANT ANYMORE


Verne Strickland USA DOT COM  June 3, 2013

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and ALAN FRAM 05/31/13 04:23 PM ET EDT    June 2, 2013

WASHINGTON — Medicare's long-term health is starting to look a little better, the government said Friday, but both Social Security and Medicare are still wobbling toward insolvency within two decades if Congress and the president don't find a way to shore up the trust funds established to take care of older Americans.
Medicare's giant fund for inpatient care will be exhausted in 2026, two years later than estimated last year, while Social Security's projected insolvency in 2033 remains unchanged, the government reported.
An overall slowdown in health care spending is helping Medicare. Spending cuts in President Barack Obama's health care law are also having a positive impact on the balance sheet, but they may prove politically unsustainable over the long run.
The relatively good news about two programs that provide a foundation of economic security for nearly every American family is a respite, not a free pass. Program trustees urged lawmakers anew to seize a current opportunity and make long-term changes to improve finances. Action now would be far less jarring than having to hit the brakes at the edge of a fiscal cliff.
Politically, however, Friday's positive report and the absence of a crisis could make legislative action less likely, especially in light of the lack of trust between President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress. No end is in sight for the partisan standoff over what to do about Social Security and Medicare, two of the government's costliest programs, and the mammoth budget deficits they help fuel.
Still, fresh warnings were sounded.
"Under current law, both of these vitally important programs are on unsustainable paths," said economist Robert D. Reischauer, one of two independent public trustees overseeing the annual reports.
The window for action "is in the process of closing even as we speak," said his counterpart, Charles Blahous III, also a prominent economist.
Social Security provides monthly benefit checks to about 57 million people, including 40 million retirees and their dependents, 11 million disabled workers and dependents and 6 million survivors of deceased workers. Medicare covers nearly 51 million people, mainly retirees but also disabled workers.
If the funds ever become exhausted, the nation's two biggest benefit programs would collect only enough money to pay partial benefits.
Social Security could cover only about 75 percent of benefits, while Medicare's fund for hospital and nursing rehabilitation care could pay 87 percent of costs.
With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, America's aging population is straining both programs.
While the combined Social Security fund was projected to be depleted in 2033, the trustees warned that the threat to one of its component trust funds that makes payments to workers on disability is much more urgent. They projected that the disability trust fund would deplete its reserves in just three years, in 2016. That date is unchanged from last year's report.
Blahous said he hoped that would prod lawmakers to act on the broad challenges facing Social Security.
The remaining trustees are senior administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. While acknowledging the need for long-term changes to improve program finances, they used the occasion of the annual report to assert that Obama's policies are working, particularly his health care overhaul.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest saw validation in the reports, too. The Medicare numbers showed Obama's health overhaul "is having a positive effect on the deficit," he said, while the Social Security report supports the president's contention that the retirement program is "not driving our short-term deficit."
Motivation for both sides to tackle federal spending deficits _always risky because of the pain that could cause voters – has already declined because the improving economy has also pushed projected federal deficits downward. This year's shortfall is now expected to be $642 billion, down from $1.1 trillion last year.
Obama has proposed significant changes to both benefit programs, in the context of budget talks. Those include a formula change that would pare cost-of-living increases for retirees, and nearly $400 billion in Medicare savings, mainly from cuts to service providers. Congressional Republicans want to do more, particularly on Medicare, by converting the program into a private insurance system.
Social Security is financed by a 6.2 percent tax on the first $113,700 of workers' wages, paid by both employers and workers. Congress temporarily reduced the tax on workers to 4.2 percent for 2011 and 2012, though the program's finances were being made whole through increased government borrowing.
The Medicare tax rate is 1.45 percent on all wages, paid by both employees and workers.
Blahous said if Social Security's shortfall were to be fixed immediately by boosting the payroll tax alone, that rate for workers and employers together would have to be increased from its current 12.4 percent to nearly 15.1 percent. If action were delayed until 2033 – the year of insolvency – the tax would have to rise to 16.5 percent.
If the savings were to come only from reducing benefits and were made immediately, the benefits would have to be cut 16.5 percent for both current and future recipients.
Targeting future beneficiaries alone would mean benefit cuts of nearly 20 percent.
Waiting until 2033 to impose the changes would mean benefit cuts of 23 percent for current and future recipients. If policymakers wanted to limit the cuts to future beneficiaries, even wiping out all of their benefits would not close the shortfall, said Blahous.
"The window of opportunity to deal with Social Security closes well before the early 2030s," he said.
Not all the news was bleak.
The trustees projected a 2 percent Social Security cost-of-living increase for 2014. And the monthly Medicare Part B premium for outpatient care was projected to remain the same as this year. That's generally $104.90, although upper-income retirees pay more.
The good news for Medicare may not last. The program's future costs are difficult to estimate, subject not only to economic fluctuations and the aging society but also to the impact of the latest blockbuster drug or technological breakthrough.
Nonetheless, the trustees said the overall slowdown in health care spending is providing relief for Medicare. It was the main reason for extending the life of the trust fund by two years. The report said there was a particularly sharp drop in spending on nursing home care. Medicare pays for limited nursing home stays while patients recuperate from hospitalization.
Also cited were reductions in payments to popular Medicare Advantage plans, the private insurance alternative within the program. About 1 in 4 Medicare beneficiaries are in such plans, which offer lower out-of-pocket costs usually in exchange for limitations on the choice of hospitals and doctors. The plans had once been overpaid when compared to the cost of care in traditional Medicare, but Obama's health care law cut back those payments.
Public trustee Reischauer, who specializes in health care economics, said he's hopeful and cautiously optimistic that the slowdown in health care costs will continue.
HHS Secretary Sebelius said the health care overhaul "has helped put Medicare on a more stable ground without eliminating a single guaranteed benefit."
But the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, said the report "shouldn't give anyone comfort" because Medicare's slower spending reflected the country's weak economy, even as the program faces rapidly growing numbers of recipients.
"Reforming Medicare and Social Security is a national imperative that policymakers on both sides of the aisle and at the White House must embrace if we are going to protect those programs for our seniors and for future generations, while simultaneously bringing down our sky-high debt," Hatch said
AARP, the seniors lobby, said it will continue to fight cuts in either program.
___
AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report.

Also on HuffPost:

Health Care Reform Efforts Throughout History

APNewsBreak: Tillis says he'll run for US Senate

Thom Tillis commits to Senate bid

Verne Strickland USA DOT COM May 24, 2013

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By GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press

 

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina state House Speaker Thom Tillis said Thursday he plans to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan next year, making him the first high-profile Republican to announce a bid.
Tillis, a four-term legislator from suburban Charlotte who has led the chamber since 2011, told The Associated Press in an interview he will file campaign committee paperwork in Washington early next week.
Tillis, who had been considered a potential candidate for months, said he's seeking the GOP nomination because he's proved he can work with Democrats to get things done in Raleigh. He said he can do the same thing in Washington, even as a first-termer, should he win in November 2014.
"I see a government that's broken. They're not making any progress and the president is taking us in the wrong direction," Tillis told the AP. Tillis said wresting the seat from Hagan is needed to help create a Republican majority in the chamber and help "turn the country in the right direction."
Hagan has sounded the clarion for bipartisanship, meeting frequently with Senate Republicans to find consensus. But Tillis said gridlock in Washington continues. Tillis said he proved with the passage of state budgets in 2011 and 2012 — approved over Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue's veto objections with the help of House Democrats — that he can make significant changes in government.
"The difference between Sen. Hagan and me is that she has tried and failed, and I have tried and succeeded," he said.
Several well-known Republicans are eyeing the race, including state Senate leader Phil Berger; U.S. Reps. Virginia Foxx and Renee Ellmers. So is Southern Baptist leader the Rev. Mark Harris of Charlotte. Only tea party favorite and physician Greg Brannon of Cary had publicly joined the race.
Tillis, 52, was one of the architects of the 2010 campaign that gave Republicans control of both chambers of the state legislature simultaneously for the first time since 1870.
A prolific fundraiser for legislative races, the former IBM consultant traveled the state for more than a year recruiting candidates, bringing with it loyalty and his election as speaker in 2011. He held dozens of town hall meetings statewide in late 2011 and early 2012, which raised his own profile among grassroots Republicans.
Tillis is viewed as a moderate within his party, someone more aligned with North Carolina's business community than social conservatives. But he won allies by working with conservative Democrats and Republicans to pass abortion restrictions in 2011 and place on the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions. Voters passed the amendment by a wide margin in May 2012.
"I'm a free market, 'limited government first' conservative," Tillis said, but "I embrace social conservative values. I'm pro-family. I'm pro-life."
Democrats and liberal-leaning advocates have blamed Tillis and other Republican legislative leaders for policies they say have eroded public education and moved North Carolina far to the right. They also point to the General Assembly's refusal to, mostly with federal dollars, expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of uninsured people through the Affordable Care Act.
Tillis criticized Hagan on Thursday for her 2010 vote for the federal health care overhaul.
The House speaker "has made a mess in Raleigh — imagine what he'd do in Washington," state Democratic Party spokesman Ben Ray said in a release. "Tillis has ignored North Carolina job creation and the middle class."
For weeks, the state NAACP has been leading protests in Raleigh against what it considers the legislature's extreme conservatism. Tillis called such accusations "predictable political theater" from opponents about legislation that received bipartisan support.
Hagan, a former state senator from Greensboro, received 53 percent of the vote in 2008 in unseating Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole, an upset attributed in part to the strong showing of then-candidate Barack Obama in North Carolina. Hagan's seat is one of four held by Democrats in states that Republican Mitt Romney won last year that national GOP leaders are aiming to pick up to take control of the Senate in 2015.
It's likely to take more than $10 million of fundraising by a successful candidate to win next year. A super PAC already has been organized by Tillis' supporters.
Tillis said Thursday he will remain in his House seat and the speaker's post for the rest of his two-year term through 2014. He had already announced this term would be his last in the chamber. Paul Shumaker, a consultant for Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, will serve in the same capacity for Tillis.
Tillis, who is married with two adult children, spent two or three months examining a potential bid. Tillis said he finalized his decision over the Memorial Day weekend.

A Letter to Michelle Obama . . . about that guy you married? He's now our president.

Verne Strickland USA DOT COM May 30, 2013

June 30, 2012 by Becky Smith

inShare212

Dear Michelle,
On the day that your husband was elected, you said that you had never been proud of the United States until that day. For the last three and a half years, I have been observing your husband and you, and I feel that it is time I share my thoughts with you. The day your husband was elected was the first time I was ever ashamed of this country, and today I am even more ashamed.

I was ashamed then because your husband was not elected because he was the best qualified to do the job, or because he was the most intelligent, or even because anyone really thought he could get anything worthwhile done. The reason your husband was elected, the only reason, is because of the color of his skin. Your husband was chosen by the Democratic Party to be their “token black”, and that is the shame of the American public. We deserve better than a community organizer who seems to look down on his fellow Americans while bowing to an Arab leader. We deserve a president who was thoroughly vetted by his party and the media, not someone whom the DNC now admits was never even eligible for the job. There are many other men, Black, Hispanic, of Asian descent, Native American, and even Caucasian who are many times more qualified and eligible to be the president. If he had even a shred of self respect, Barack would resign and convince Joe Biden to do so as well, so that someone with a backbone could fix the mess your husband (NOT George Bush) has made much worse.
Your husband said he would bring unity to the country; instead, he has brought class warfare and fanned the flames of racism by saying that his son would look like Travon Martin. When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’” “This is the greatest foremost commandment.” “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”(Matt.22:37-40 NAS). Notice that there is no modifying clause in the second commandment “You shall love thy neighbor as yourself.” NOT “You shall love your neighbor as yourself, so long as his skin is the same color as yours or he does not make more money than you.” In our home, race is not an issue; everyone is welcome and treated respectfully. My mother raised me right; she taught me these verses and the golden rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I have lived this way all my life and never judge others; it is God’s job to judge, not mine. There is a big difference between loving the person and accepting the sin; I can love the person and still hate the things they do. The media was quick to condemn Sarah Palin’s daughter for getting pregnant (or was it because she chose to have the baby?), but at least she owned up and took responsibility for her actions, which is something your husband has said publicly he would not make his daughters do in that same situation. No, he would rather have them murder their baby should they be so shortsighted as to get pregnant before they were ready.
Make no mistake here, please; through Christ, I love you and your family, but I hate what Barack has done to this wonderful country of ours. He has no need to apologize for an accidental burning of the Quran anymore than they would apologize for a deliberate burning of the Bible or our Constitution. In fact, as a nation, there is nothing he needs to apologize for on our behalf, but instead much he needs to apologize to us for. He needs to apologize to us for his blatant disregard for the Constitution, the very foundation of our government, and the freedoms guaranteed to us by that document. I have family members who fought to protect that document and what it stands for; yet you and your husband treat it like toilet paper for all the respect you show.
You are fond of quoting the Scripture in Luke that tells us that “To those to whom much has been given, from them much shall also be expected”, but then you take it out of context and tell us that means that the federal government has the right to take what one man earns and give it to the man who sits on his butt all day doing nothing. Sorry, but I do not think that is what Christ meant when he said “take care of the widows and orphans.” He also told us that God loves a cheerful (or willing) giver. He did not want to force us to do what we so willingly do out of love. In case you had not noticed, when there is a crisis (i.e. Katrina) the American people pull together to help each other faster and better than the government (i.e. FEMA) could.
The recent decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the individual mandate of the “Affordable” Care Act was equally shameful and has added one hundred-fold to the stress of my daily life. Stress that was not a part of my life until Barack took the office that by rights does not belong to him. My husband has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the treatments are expensive, and how long now before the committee decides that because he is not a “productive citizen” he cannot access the treatments he needs to stay alive? I clench my teeth at night wondering if he will be here when our daughter (now fifteen) walks down the aisle on her wedding day. When I had a heart attack last year, it was a Catholic-run hospital that picked up the greatest portion of the cost, allowing us to make payments on the rest when we could, not the government. Through the contraception mandate, Obamacare will shut down that hospital and hundreds like it, leaving people like me to fall between the cracks of your “perfect healthcare”.

I am also ashamed that the first family sees the Presidency as a lottery they won (how many vacations do you need in a year, really?) I have not had a job in two years, and our family would love to have a vacation in Europe, just one, someday. Yet your family has taken over seventeen vacations, at my last count, on the taxes people like me have paid. So, in effect, the middle class of America has been paying for you and your entourage of secretaries and secret service personnel to run around the world, shopping and sightseeing, when we cannot afford to go visit relatives who live in another state. Your husband’s policies have not created any jobs worth talking about, but they have kept businesses from creating jobs. Even a low-paying job would allow us the luxury of going to visit family.
So tell me Michelle, just what are you proud of? Are you proud of the fact that you are living in the White House because people did not want to be called racist? Or perhaps you are proud that your husband has chipped away at the civil liberties of the American taxpayers? Or perhaps you are proud of the race riots your husband instigated when he said that if he had a son he would look like Travon Martin, instead of keeping his mouth shut and letting the police handle the situation? The truth (whatever it is) will come out. I do not think there is anything that your husband has “accomplished” while in office that you should be proud of. Oh wait, I forgot all that golfing he has done that must have improved his game; I guess you can be proud of that.
In Christ Always,
Becky Smith

UPDATE : U.S. senators aim for bill to replace Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

Verne Strickland USA DOT COM May 30, 2013





Wed May 29, 2013 6:03pm EDT

 

* Bipartisan group wants to shutter Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
* Government-run firms are largest mortgage finance sources
* Some investors speculate firms could be re-privatized
By Margaret Chadbourn

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators hopes to introduce a bill in the coming weeks to overhaul the housing finance system and wind down government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, people familiar with the matter said.
The plan being crafted by Senators Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, and Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, would seek to build a single entity to guarantee mortgages, according to these sources.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were taken over by the government in 2008 as they teetered on the brink of insolvency, own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages. Given the dominant role they play in the mortgage market, it could take years for Congress to settle on how best to replace them.
A Corker-Warner bill could mark the beginning of that effort, if the senators are able to piece together a large enough political coalition. While Democrats and Republicans agree on the need to shrink the government's housing finance role, they are divided over where a new line should be drawn.
"What Senators Corker and Warner are doing is laudable. They are wading into a highly partisan fight and trying to put forward an initial approach," said Jaret Seiberg, a senior policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities. "They are looking at a problem and coming up with a practical solution. It is not going to be the solution that is finally enacted into law, but it will be the solution that gets the reform process moving."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge lenders a fee in return for guaranteeing principal and interest on mortgages, a system designed to boost lending by banks and home ownership.
Since being placed into government conservatorship, they have draw almost $190 billion in taxpayer aid. But both of the so-called government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, have returned to profitability, and the swing in their financial fortunes has intensified the debate over how much of the risk of mortgage lending taxpayers should ultimately bear.
"There seems to be an increasing desire in Congress to do something bipartisan and to take action on the GSEs," said David Stevens, president and chief executive officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association. "If it is bipartisan, that would make it unique. Clearly, the broader the coalition, the better chance a reform bill will be heard and considered."
EXPLICIT GOVERNMENT GUARANTEE
The Senate group, which is being led by Corker, is expected to propose a newly chartered institution that guarantees principal and interest payments on mortgage-backed securities. Lawmakers would likely create an explicit federal guarantee or employ a government insurance structure.
Corker's office declined to offer details. "Discussing specifics of legislation would be premature at this point, but we hope to find something that materially improves from the past system where gains were privatized, losses were left for the taxpayer to clean up, and the system was way too thinly capitalized against downturns," said Laura Herzog, Corker's communications director.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are congressionally chartered. While they operated without explicit government before they were taken over in 2008, investors assumed the government would make good on their guarantees if they ran into trouble.
"Corker and Warner are signaling the Senate is going to tackle this issue. That is why their effort is significant and material, even if the ultimate solution will not exactly mirror their bill," Seiberg said.
Many conservative Republicans want the private sector to absorb the roles Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play, while a few moderate Republicans and most Democrats argue a government backstop is needed for the mortgage market.
When the government took over the companies, the U.S. Treasury received an 80 percent stake in each. They have also been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and their stock now trades over the counter.
The improvement in their financial fortunes has led some investors to speculate that they could be re-established as private firms, even though the terms of their bailout do not allow them to buy out the government stake and future congressional action could wipe out the existing equity.
Fund manager Bruce Berkowitz's Fairholme Capital Management is among firms that have invested in the preferred stock of the companies, according to CNBC. The cable network reported on Thursday that Berkowitz had taken a roughly $500 million stake.
Berkowitz, who was named Morningstar's domestic-stock fund manager of the decade in 2010 and is best known for betting on financial stocks, was not available for comment on the report.
Fairholme is the latest among several investment firms and hedge funds that have been accumulating either the common or preferred stock of Fannie and Freddie. Some hedge funds have also been lobbying Congress to let the companies return to private hands.
Until a roughly 30 percent pullback on Wednesday, the common shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had risen for seven straight days.
Investors have also bid up several issues of their junior preferred shares. Fannie Mae preferred Series S shares have risen from a 2012 low of 46 cents on August 17 to $6.55 on Wednesday. Freddie Mac's preferred series Z shares have risen from a 2012 low of 42 cents on August 17 to $6.66.

ROWAN COUNTY ON CUTTING EDGE OF PRAYER ISSUE SET TO GO BEFORE U.S. SUPREME COURT

 

Verne Strickland USA DOT COM  May 30, 2013



Steve Mensing, Editor

Rowan Free Press

The Independent Voice of Rowan County, NC

 ♦Rowan County 5–Your prayers and the prayers of countless millions across North Carolina and the entire United States were heard on High.  The Almighty saw fit to provide the prayer issue its rightful hearing before the United States Supreme Court.  It has been announced that the United State Supreme Court will review the prayer issue.

The nations highest court agreed to examine whether offering prayer prior to a town’s meeting violates the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.  At issue is the town of Galloway, NY’s prayer practices prior to meetings.  Greece is a suburb of Rochester, NY.  The case being reviewed is Greece v. Galloway (12-696) and whether their town officials violated the First Amendment’s ban on a government’s endorsement of a particular religion when it permitted local volunteers to offer a prayer prior to the town’s monthly meetings.

 The challenge is that while non-Christians delivered a few prayers, the overwhelming majority of volunteers delivered pre-meeting prayers with Christian references.  The prayers have been going on for over 11 years.  Susan Galloway, a practicing Jew, is one of the two who objected.

 Arguments will be heard in the Fall.

Rowan County will likely be spared having to spend a penny on this great undertaking or field its battery of high-profile Christian attorneys as the prayer issue being heard is a pre-existing parallel case.  Money was never an issue for the Rowan County 5 as an organization was in place to take in millions in donations should the need arise.

Rowan County Commissioner Jim Sides told the RFP: “This is great moment for our First Amendment rights and the forward progress for prayer at government meetings.  So glad to be living in Rowan County and have our nation’s highest court to review this very important issue.  Its in God’s hands now and the Supreme Court.  I can’t think of two better places.”