Thoughts of an Aspiring Poet and Paladin [entries|friends|calendar] A Poet and a Paladin [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

[21 Jul 2008|07:36am]   Remember a while back I posted about the government's plan to increase the amount FHA would loan, so that those with "low income" could afford houses in the $700,000 range? Well, a few months back, the government (specifically the OFHEO - Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight), loosened the reserve requirements of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In other words, in a time of credit crunch and concerns about the ability of banks to continue doing business, the government gave these two banks free reign to keep LESS money in reserve in order to make MORE loans. This allowed banks to continue to sell even more of their loans to these two companies. Of the $12 trillion in total residential mortgage debt in the U.S., some $5.3 trillion is currently held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Together, these two banks now buy over 80 percent of all mortgages in the U.S. How much of that is worthless? Well, as we now know, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now in trouble. Their stocks have gone down in value, the government is considering taking them over in order to keep them from going under, buying their stock, etc. Only July 13 (a Sunday), the Fed announced it will allow these two banks to borrow money from the U.S. government in the same way it allowed investment banks to borrow money earlier this year: using their bad loans as collateral. For anyone who is upset that our federal government is taking on more debt and more risk at a time when our economic future and our children's economic future is being bled dry by liabilities and debts like Social Security, Medicare, Congressional pork, Executive no-bid contracts, and (of course) the Iraq War... Well, it's really sad.   2 generous benefices | make thy offering

FDIC May Not Have Enough To Bail Out Banks § [14 Jul 2008|06:50am] [ mood | concerned ]   IndyMac Bank failed and the government has taken over. Your money up to $100,000 is insured. If you have a joint account, it's up to $200,000. IndyMac account holders with higher balances will only get a partial amount of the money above the FDIC-insured level. However, news sources are reporting that IndyMac Bank's failure will use up somewhere between 7.5% to 15% of the FDIC's entire $53 billion insurance fund (paid into by banks). A few more large bank failures (or a lot of smaller ones), and the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) will be wiped out or will have to turn to us taxpayers yet again. Like the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) was wiped out back in the 1980s due to the savings and loan crisis, contributing to federal budget deficits throughout the 1990s. Right now, according to analyst Richard X. Bove, a number of small banks are in the danger zone. (Other industry watch dogs are concerned about many more banks.) One local bank in major danger is Downey Financial: almost 14 percent of their outstanding loans are bad loans, late loans, or foreclosed assets. One major bank that you should be concerned about is Washington Mutual. According to Bove, it is not in the danger zone, but on the very edge of it. Personally, I think Washington Mutual already is in danger. Might not be a bad idea to do some research to see if your bank is okay. However, don't just rely on ratings. The information may be dated. Update: 05:04pm PST, Tue 07/15/2008 Here's Richard X. Bove's list in PDF. There are two charts listing banks. On the first, watch for banks with percentages in the last column above 5 percent. On the second, watch for numbers above 40 percent. http://dealbreaker.com/images/thumbs/Bovecommentarywhoisnext.pdf   7 generous benefices | make thy offering

Dow Briefly Below 11,000 [11 Jul 2008|11:00pm]   Just more than two weeks ago, I remarked on the Dow dropping below 12,000. And today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped briefly below 11,000 in intra-day trading before clawing back to 11,100.54. The last time it was this low, was August 2006. And a far cry from the heady days at 14,000 back in October of 2007, from where the long slide began. Year-to-date, the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 all have clocked drops of roughly 16 percent. Most people's 401(k) and IRA plans have taken a pounding as well. (Have yours?) What Losses Really Mean Basically if the average person saving for retirement had $10,000 saved, losing 16 percent means they lost $1,600, bringing them down to $8,400. To get back to $10,000, their $8,400 investment will have to almost 20 percent. But the above calculation is in nominal dollars. To factor in realistic inflation at, say, 7 percent, you really have to get back to $10,700. That's 26 percent. (I will ignore the idea of taxes on earnings for the moment.) Makes you feel like you're falling off a treadmill, don't it? I certainly feel it.   10 generous benefices | make thy offering

Rest In Peace - George Carlin, May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008 § [23 Jun 2008|12:11am] [ mood | reverent ]   Man, you were the best. About life or current events, you often said it better than anyone could. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY "Bullshit! I'm getting old. And it's okay. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country, I won't have to die... I'll pass away..."   make thy offering

Government To Bail Out Sub-Prime Loans [22 Jun 2008|12:10am] [ mood | blah ]   One part I don't agree with Obama on is some of the pending housing legislation in Congress. Some Background The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lost $4.6 billion dollars last year. That's because the federal government guarantees home loans for low-income families, and low-income families are more likely to be delinquent on their loans. In fact, while delinquency rates amongst all mortgages from 2002 hovered around 5% or under until rising to an estimated 6.4 percent for this year, delinquencies on FHA loans hovers around 12%. Okay, I can understand the need to help low-income families. After all, the majority of them are NOT delinquent and home ownership and community stability are good social policies. But why raise the limit on an FHA loan to almost $750,000 when the average house in the U.S. is $220,000?!? Even here in Irvine, California, a very nice home can be had for $750,000 and requires a minimum household income of over $150,000 a year. That's certainly not low-income. Melanie and I make nowhere near that stupendous an amount and no one would consider us low-income. And Now... And now Congress wants the FHA to back even more loans and make it even easier for those with bad credit to buy? Do you know the lenders themselves have admitted that they will hand off their worst (most likely to default) loans to the government to guarantee? This means we, the American taxpayer, will be paying for the stupid mistakes of greedy lenders and mortgage brokers and buyers who signed up for no-income loans with adjustable rate mortgages that they knew would reset to a higher rate. It's bad enough already that we, the American savers, are enduring a falling dollar and rising commodity prices in oil and gas and food as a consequence of the Fed lowering interest rates to shore up investment banks and keep adjustable rate mortgages from resetting even higher. (I'm not including their attempt to forestall recession, as it only delays the inevitable truth of a business cycle.)   4 generous benefices | make thy offering

A Tale of Two Candidates § [15 Jun 2008|11:27am]   John McCain's Front Page http://www.johnmccain.com/ If you scrolled down further, you would see a link to John McCain's statement on the Midwest Floods. Click on it and the full statement reads as follows: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those impacted by the flooding throughout the Midwest. Cindy and I would like to extend our sympathies to all those who have lost loved ones, and stand ready to help those in the Midwest to recover and rebuild." There is no further information, no link. I write this so you can see the contrast below. Barack Obama's Front Page http://www.barackobama.com/index.php http://www.barackobama.com/index.php The Midwest Floods topic is at the very front page. Click the prominently displayed "Learn More" link to find out more. The next "Learn More" link goes straight to the American Red Cross webpage at http://www.redcross.org/ In addition, Barack Obama's campaign has sent out e-mails to those of the 1.5 million donors to his campaign who happen to live in the affected states, giving them specific directions on what they can do and where they can go to help. Enough Talk! Grab A Shovel And Get To Work! Barack Obama was in Quincy, Illinois, helping fill sandbags. Sure, some may call it a publicity stunt. But he was there and helping draw attention to the seriousness of the issue. He was also calling for massive government help at the federal, state, and local levels to help farmers and residents in the area. Some places will see flood surges to a record level of 32 feet by Wednesday - the last time it seriously flooded was 1993, when it surged to 19 feet. Millions of people will be affected. With farm fields devastated, potentially hundreds of millions of people will be affected globally. Supporters of Obama have been saying things like, "I live on the Gulf Coast... I know who I want to be President during the next hurricane... and I know who I want picking the leader of FEMA." Where Are You, John? Now, John McCain is disabled. He can't raise his arms above his shoulders. He would likely hurt himself shoveling sand into bags. So no one expects him to go shovel. But he could hold the bag, right? Or he could help pass out water bottles or serve food. Or, hey, just visit the area and have your campaign help coordinate.   3 generous benefices | make thy offering

Food And Home And Oil Prices [14 Jun 2008|01:50am]   The less processed the food, the better Water-soluble vitamins B, C, and polyphenolics often gets drastically reduced by cooking. Studies show that after six months, frozen cherries have lost as much as 50 percent of their antioxidant anthocyanins. Cooked spinach has only a third of the vitamin C of fresh spinach. Canned peas and carrots have only about 10 percent of the vitamin C of fresh peas and carrots. But only raw foods is not the best way to go People who ate an almost 95 percent raw foods diet were found to have high levels of vitamins like A and C, but low levels of lycopene, an antioxidant more bioavailable in processed (cooked) foods like stewed tomatoes than in raw foods. Eat vegetables with good fats for nutrient absorption Researchers at Ohio State measured blood levels of subjects who ate servings of salsa and salads. When the salsa or salad was served with fat-rich avocados or full-fat salad dressing, the diners absorbed as much as 4 times more lycopene, 7 times more lutein and 18 times the beta carotene than those who had their vegetables plain or with low-fat dressing. Almost one in ten Americans now late on mortgage or in foreclosure About 8.8 percent of homeowners are late on their monthly mortgage payments or on the path to foreclosure. In 5 Midwestern states, it's 9.7 percent. This isn't just about sub-prime borrowers. It's the regular folks. With the economy getting worse, the above number will only get worse. Some can even afford the payments, but are walking away because their home loans are underwater. They still have their jobs - it's just cheaper to walk away from their home, give the house back to the bank, and rent. As more houses go on sale, downward price pressures will continue, making even more homeowners willing to walk away. People who want to sell to move for a job elsewhere may find themselves stuck. People who want to sell to fund a retirement or to get out from under an oppressive loan, won't necessarily be able to. Your tax dollars will bail out those homeowners Sadly, the government is working to bail out troubled homeowners with tax dollars collected in the past, and tax dollars that will be collected in the future from everyone. This effectively punishes Americans who didn't buy a house because they couldn't afford it and didn't want to get suckered into an adjustable rate liar-loan buying an grossly overpriced house, and punishes Americans who have faithfully bought only as much house as they can afford. (Yes I know, I still support Obama.) Real inflation is over twice the official rate, so plan accordingly According to ShadowStats.com, using the pre-Clinton era measure of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) gives a value of 7 to 8 percent. Health care costs have risen 9 to 10 percent or higher annually. Gasoline cost have nearly doubled in the last 8 years. Rent typically rises more than 5 percent per year. The purchasing power of your income is not keeping up unless you're getting raises higher than true inflation. This ALSO means your savings and your retirement money are not keeping up unless your earnings are higher than true inflation. The "miracle" of compound interest can't help you meet tomorrow's costs if taxes and inflation are eating away at it faster. In such an environment, you have to work harder, spend less, save more, and invest/manage your money even more wisely. Rising oil prices is NOT due to American oil companies gouging you Gas stations only make pennies per gallon. They try to make it up with convenience store sales. What's really causing the rise in oil prices? 1.) The dollar's purchasing power is declining rapidly due to our economic woes, to our rising inflation, to the rising strength of other economies and their currencies, and to the Fed lowering of interest rates to below inflation levels. This leads to people investing in commodities in an effort to keep their assets from going down in value. As the money required to buy something keeps increasing, it starts making more sense to have that something than to try to come up with money to afford that something. 2.) The Fed lowered interest rates and allowed investment banks to borrow VERY easily. AND, also let these banks put up even the worst of their mortgage-backed securities as collateral for borrowing. Together that allows hedge funds and investment funds to speculate in commodities for profit with high leverage - a.k.a. using investor money to borrow even more money at low interest rates to buy big stakes in commodities that are rising in price at higher percentage rates. (Just like hedge funds used leverage to speculate in mortgage-backed securities.) 3.) Demand in the rest of the world is increasing. Other countries are have booming economies with consumers who want cars. That demand is increasing even as gas price increases because hundreds of millions of people worldwide are trading up to fuel-efficient scooters and motorcycles and sub-compact cars. Many governments like have price controls that shield their citizens from feeling the effects of higher prices at the pump. In China, gas is still about $2.80 per gallon for the typical consumer. Their state-owned refinery companies are losing profits. In Venezuela, 19 cents. 4.) Oil supply concerns due to regional tensions like in Nigeria and the Middle East play a role. Whenever the threat of conflict rears its ugly face, oil prices skitter higher. 5.) Peak oil is real. The era of easily found, easily extracted oil is gone. The Saudis can still pump out oil at under $10 or per barrel but they're keeping a tigher grip on their reserves. They've invested billions in new technology like water and steam injection to get to the bottom of their reserves, but they're also not keen on pumping it out faster all out when prices are high. New oil deposits have been found, but they're harder to extract - extraction from Canadian oil sands costs about $60 per barrel and leaves an environmental mess, while the vast new ocean deposits found are in much deeper waters that will require more expensive means of drilling and extraction that are still being developed. Russia and Mexico and some other governments are using windfall oil profits from their national oil companies to fund their nation's power and social spending, not investing in the new costly technology to develop their harder-to-get reserves to bring them on-line as their current production declines. Think the U.S. can't handle $5 gas? After taxes, in England, gas runs about $8.50 per gallon and in German, about $9.20 per gallon. Europeans drive less and tend to make use of mass transit. Their cars tend to be smaller, too. Here in the U.S., the Ford F-150 pickup truck, top-selling vehicle for the last 17 years straight, lost it's crown to the Honda Civic last month. It fell to 5th place behind the behind the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, and Toyota Corolla. But the country will suffer. The poor and those in the country who travel the most easily pay more than 16 percent of their income on transportation. The rural poor are especially hard hit. make thy offering

Michael Moore's Sicko § [12 Jun 2008|07:59pm]   Last night and tonight, Melanie and I watched Michael Moore's Sicko. I think everyone needs to watch it. EVERYONE. I'm not saying that we necessarily need to go to the extremes that Britain or France go to. But I think the current American way of doing health care isn't working, and we need to explore new ways. Just imagine. Suppose health care were a public good, just like policing, firefighting, public roadways and public schools. Imagine how much more entrepreneurial our nation would be. Imagine how many more small businesses could thrive. Imagine how many more productive, contributing members of society would be alive and healthy today. Comments and experiences and stories welcome. But criticize ONLY if you've watched it.   7 generous benefices | make thy offering

Don't Be Fooled By The "Equal Representation" Rhetoric § [31 May 2008|09:52pm] [ mood | annoyed ]   Don't be fooled by all the rhetoric being tossed in the air over the whole "equal representation" issue for the Florida and Michigan delegates that the Clinton campaign is trying to use. Delegates aren't apportioned according to fair representation in the first place. Here are the facts: 1. Pledged delegates are apportioned based on general electoral turnout back in 2000 and 2004. So with two states otherwise equal in population, one that had low turnout may have far fewer delegates to the convention than one with high turnout. Does there appear to be a one-person, one-vote system here? 2. Each state has rules for apportioning delegates, based on primary and caucus events. But even there, it's tricky. In a primary race with two candidates, a district with an even number of delegates, like 4, may split their delegates 2/2 even when the votes are 55%/45%. A district with an odd number of delegates, like 3, may split 2/1 even when the votes are 51%/49%. Isn't that funny? 3. Caucuses involve people actually going to meeting places, talking it out, and separating into different groups. Some states have "viability rules" where, if a group of 50 people turn out to have 25 supporting Candidate A, 20 supporting Candidate B, and 5 supporting Candidate C, the last 5 must join up behind either A or B. They then select delegates amongst themselves to go to the district or county level convention, and from there they'll select delegates to go to the state convention, where delegates to the national convention are selected. In such situations, it's easy for no-shows to get replaced on the spot by vote or committee selection. (It also happens in states with primaries, by the way.) 4. Superdelegates are party elected officials, bigwigs, staffers, former presidents and DNC chairs and the like - their votes don't represent people at all. Yet superdelegates make up roughly 1 in 4 delegates. And with the way Hillary Clinton is going after these superdelegates because she's behind in the elected/caucused pledged delegates - it appears she doesn't really care about the voters, does she? 5. Clinton campaign staff member Harold Ickes and the rest of the Rules & Bylaws Committee themselves OVERWHELMINGLY voted back in 2007 to strip Michigan and Florida of delegates for trying to change the dates of their primaries. The two states went ahead and did it anyway. I don't think "equal representation" was on the agenda then, was it? Sounds more like hypocrisy to me. 6. Clinton has said repeatedly that not only superdelegates, but also pledged delegates - those delegates who are pledged due to primary and caucus voting results - are fair game and are free to decide. She's said that because she intends to go after them. Does that sound like fighting for the voters to you? Because of the above, for someone to say that this seating issue is about requiring "equal representation", or for someone to compare slavery in the Constitution (the 3/5ths rule) to Florida and Michigan's delegate apportionment made today by the Rules & Bylaws committee - compromises brought up by, supported by, and accepted by both Florida and Michigan delegations, mind you! - such a person is plainly lying to you and hoping they won't notice. If someone is lying to you, it's sickening when you find out, isn't it? Note: Despite all this, the Democratic Party is still VERY GENEROUS in their manner of apportioning delegates. Candidates who don't get the majority of votes in a state still can get delegates. That's how both Clinton and Obama have been able to get delegates in every contest. Some Republican state rules offer a "winner take all" system - do you think that is fair treatment of the will of almost half the voters? And yet some Clinton campaign staffers bemoan the fact that the Democratic Party doesn't do that, because they would have won all of delegates in certain states lke California, Ohio, etc. Isn't that hypocrisy?   3 generous benefices | make thy offering

Keith Olbermann on Hillary's "Assassination" Comment § [23 May 2008|10:27pm]   Keith Olbermann says it better than anyone else can. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24798368#24798368 Transcript Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on Senator Clinton's "assassination" remark to the editorial board of the Argus-Leader newspaper of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Once again, it was this: Asked if her continuing fight for the nomination against Senator Obama hurts the Democratic party, she replied, quote... "I don't. Because again, I've been around long enough. You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in **June** in California. You know, I just don't understand it. You know, there's lots of speculation about why it is. " The comments were recorded and we showed them to you earlier and they are on-line as we speak. She actually said those words. **Those** words, Senator? You actually invoked the nightmare of political assassination. You actually invoked the spectre of an inspirational leader, at the seeming moment of triumph, for himself and a battered nation yearning to breathe free, silenced forever. You actually used the word "assassination" in the middle of a campaign with a loud undertone of racial hatred - and **gender** hatred - and **political** hatred. You actually used the word "assassination" in a time when there is a fear, unspoken but vivid and terrible, that our again-troubled land and fractured political landscape might target a black man running for president. Or a white man. Or a white woman! You actually used those words, in **this** America, Senator while running against an African-American against whom the death threats started the moment he declared his campaign? You actually used those words, in **this** America, Senator, while running to break your "greatest glass ceiling" and claiming there are people who would do anything to stop **you**? You! Senator - never mind the implications of using the word "assassination" in any connection to Senator Obama... What about **you**? You cannot say this! The references, said her spokesperson, were not, in any way, weighted. The allusions, said Mo Elleithee, are, quote: "...historical examples of the nominating process going well into the summer and any reading into it beyond that would be inaccurate and outrageous." I'm sorry. There is **no** inaccuracy. Not for a moment does any rational person believe Senator Clinton is actually **hoping** for the worst of all political calamities. Yet the outrage belongs, not to Senator Clinton or her supporters, but to every other American. Firstly, she has previously bordered on the remarks she made today... Then swerved back from them and the awful skid they represented. She said, in an off-camera interview with **Time** on March 6th... "Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual. We will see how it unfolds as we go forward over the next three to four months." In retrospect, we failed her when we did not call her out, for that remark, dry and only disturbing, in a magazine's pages. But somebody obviously warned her of the danger of that rhetoric: After the Indiana primary, on May 7th, she told supporters at a Washington hotel: "Sometimes you gotta calm people down a little bit. But if you look at successful presidential campaigns, my husband did not get the nomination until June of 1992. I remember tragically when Senator Kennedy won California near the end of that process." And at Shepherdstown, West Virginia, on the same day, she referenced it again: "You know, I remember very well what happened in the California primary in 1968 as, you know, Senator Kennedy won that primary." On March 6th she had said "assassinated." By May 7th she had avoided it. Today... she went back to an awful well. There is no **good** time to recall the awful events of June 5th, 1968... Of Senator Bobby Kennedy, happy and alive - perhaps, for the first time since his own brother's death in Dallas in 1963... Galvanized to try to lead this nation back from one of its darkest eras... Only to fall victim to the same scurge that **took** that brother, and Martin Luther King... There **is** no good time to recall this. But certainly to invoke it, two weeks before the exact 40th anniversary of the assassination, is an insensitive and heartless thing. And certainly to invoke it, three days **after** the awful diagnosis, and heart-breaking prognosis, for Senator **Ted** Kennedy, is just as insensitive, and just as heartless. And both actions, open a door wide into the soul of somebody who seeks the highest office in this country, and through that door shows something not merely troubling, but frightening. And politically inexplicable. What, Senator, do you suppose would happen if you withdrew from the campaign, and Senator Obama formally became the presumptive nominee, and then suddenly left the scene. It doesn't even have to **be** the 'dark curse upon the land' you mentioned today, Senator. Nor even an issue of health. He could simply change his mind... Or there could unfold that perfect-storm scandal your people have often referenced, even predicted. Maybe he could get a better offer from some other, wiser country. What happens then, Senator? You are not allowed **back** into the race? Your delegates and your support vanish? The Democrats don't run **anybody** for President? What happens, of course, is what **happened** when the Democrats' Vice Presidential choice, Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, had to withdraw from the ticket, in 1972 after it proved he had not been forthcoming about previous mental health treatments. George McGovern simply got **another** Vice President. Senator, as late as the late summer of 1864 the Republicans were talking about having a **second** convention, to withdraw Abraham Lincoln's re-nomination and choose somebody else because until Sherman took Atlanta in September it looked like Lincoln was going to **lose** to George McClellan. You could theoretically **suspend** your campaign, Senator. There's plenty of time and plenty of historical precedent, Senator, in case you want to come back in, if something bad should happen to Senator Obama. Nothing serious, mind you. It's just like you said, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." Since those awful words in Sioux Falls, and after the condescending, buck-passing statement from her spokesperson, Senator Clinton has made something akin to an apology, without any evident recognition of the true trauma she has inflicted. "I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968," she said in **Brandon**, South Dakota. "I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact. "The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy. I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive, I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever." "My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to and I'm honored to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate in the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family. Thanks. Not a word about the inappropriateness of referencing assassination. Not a word about the inappropriateness of implying - whether it was intended or not - that she was hanging around waiting for somebody to try something terrible. Not a word about Senator Obama. Not a word about Senator McCain. Not: I'm sorry... Not: I apologize... Not: I blew it... Not: please forgive me. God knows, Senator, in this campaign, this nation has **had** to forgive you, early and often... And despite your now traditional position of the offended victim, the nation **has** forgiven you. We have forgiven you your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls had been few. We have forgiven you your misspeaking about Martin Luther King's relative importance to the Civil Rights movement. We have forgiven you your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia. We have forgiven you insisting Michigan's vote wouldn't count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic. We have forgiven you pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote. We have forgiven you the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad... We have forgiven you fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer. We have forgiven you accepting Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement and then laughing as you described his "deathbed conversion." We have forgiven you quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove. We have forgiven you the 3 A-M Phone Call commercial. We have forgiven you **President** Clinton's disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson's. We have forgiven you Geraldine Ferraro's national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man. We have forgiven you the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility. We have forgiven you your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not. We have forgiven you exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. We have forgiven you exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC. We have forgiven you for boasting of your "support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"... We have even forgiven you repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your **own** expense, and the Democratic **ticket's** expense. But Senator, we cannot forgive you this. "You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." We cannot forgive you this - not because it is crass and low and unfeeling and brutal. **This** is **un**-forgivable, because this nation's deepest shame, its most enduring horror, its most terrifying legacy, is political assassination. Lincoln. Garfield. McKinley. Kennedy. Malcolm X Martin Luther King. **Robert** Kennedy. And, but for the grace of the universe or the luck of the draw, Reagan, Ford, Truman, Nixon, Andrew Jackson, both Roosevelts, even George Wallace. The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton, you cannot and must not invoke that imagery! Anywhere! At any time! And to not appreciate, immediately - to **still** not appreciate tonight -- just **what** you have done... is to reveal an incomprehension of the America you seek to lead. This, Senator, is too much. Because a senator - a politician - a **person** - who can let hang in mid-air the prospect that she might just be sticking around in part, just in case the other guy gets shot - has no business being, and no capacity **to** be, the President of the United States. Good night and good luck.   5 generous benefices | make thy offering

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