HuffPo points out that some GOPers are not making an issue out of Rangel’s corruption:

…there were those in the Republican tent who expressed caution about suddenly becoming ethical crusaders.

“Just shut up,” the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked what Republicans should do about Rangel. “There is a bipartisan ethics committee. Let the process go forward they don’t need jump on this — they will just get questioned. Believe me there are plenty of congressman in both parties who have been imperial and arrogant and who have centers named after them … The idea that republicans should go around throwing stones at Charlie Range; is just foolish on their part.”…

Which attitude is just wrong, wrong, wrong. It is the same, old story of insider politics – don’t rock the boat; after all, some of ours are vulnerable, too! To which I answer – if any of ours are vulnerable, then I’ve got extra tar and feathers for them, too…plenty to go ’round.

There are two things keeping corruption strong in DC – Democrat unwillingness to discipline their own, and GOP unwillingness to call Democrats on it. Its like there’s a segment of the GOP – and the larger right – which accepts the Democrat premise that the normal course of events is for Democrats to be in charge, and thus it isn’t for us to hit them very hard and where it hurts the most. This is the sort of spinelessness, combined with eager GOP imitation of Democrat corruption, which made the last 4 years of the GOP Congress so disgusting – and which led to our well-deserved defeat.

We must hit out at every element of corruption in government. From top to bottom, all of those who have used the American nation for personal profit and political advancement must be condemned and punished. Don’t get me wrong, I feel for Charlie Rangel – I really do. The man fought with incredible bravery for our nation in Korea and, while a liberal, he was once upon a time a voice for the common man…the pity is that he stayed in office too long and got too wrapped up in power and wealth. Now, he’s disgraced himself and its painful to see – but he must pay the price.

This is not mercilessness – it is simply what must be done. The higher a man rises, the more swift and severe must his punishment be when he strays from the straight and narrow. The worst thing we can do – for Charlie Rangel and for America – is to soft peddle this and try to pretend its not that bad and, perhaps, maybe Rangel should just be allowed to gracefully retire in his Congressional pension and all the wealth political corruption has brought him. This would be a hideous deformity of justice, and also quite merciless…to those who would follow after Rangel and who would think that its ok, you can get away with it – go ahead, take the bribe.

Day in and day out, any time such things come up, we must talk about them, condemn them – hound the miscreants out of office and make extreme examples of them. For their own sakes, for the sake of those who come after and for the safety and liberty of the people of the United States, we must shout to the heavens about corruption, where ever we find it – most certainly we should not “shut up” and let the political class just look after things, themselves.

Do we want a government of, by and for the people? Then we, the people, will have to be watch dogs – and never let the slightest thing get past us.

From Mish, regarding Greenspan’s comment that we may see a “quasi-recession”:

…this all depends on your definition of recession as well as the meaning of “quasi”. A quick dictionary check of “quasi” shows the meaning is “resembling; seeming;”

This sure does seem like a recession. However, please note that the NBER has still not proclaimed the end of the recession that started in 2007. Thus, it is quite likely that the US is still in recession and “quasi” needs to be dropped.

At least Greenspan minced words in the proper direction. For example “Quasi Recovery” would mean something that “seems like a recovery” even though it isn’t…

Slowly but surely the elite are swinging ’round to admitting that all is not well in the post-TARP, post-stimulus economic world. Truth is being doled out to the American people in little doses – trouble for the elite, here, is that while they’ve been talking up recovery for 9 months, the American people never really bought it. It is a hard sell, isn’t it, when you’re trying to convince people “underwater” on their mortgages and in fear of losing their jobs that things are getting better…

My belief remains that at the end of the day, when the numbers are all crunched a couple years from now, it will be revealed that we never experience any recovery, at all: that ever since the start of the recession in 2007, the private economy has continued contract. Slower at some times than others, but always ever less wealth – our ability to create new wealth destroyed by a mountain of debt and a tax and regulatory system which rewards the establishment and punishes the entrepreneur.

The climb out will be long and hard, and won’t start until we have a fundamental change in government policy.

From Atlanta’s channel 11 news:

…The President will fly into town Monday morning.

If you think this will be a time for Democrats running for office to rally around the chief executive- -you probably haven’t been following the campaigns this summer.

Former Governor Roy Barnes will not be available to meet Mr. Obama. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate will be somewhere in Georgia- – far from Atlanta…

Two years ago it was August of 2008 and Democrats around the nation would beg for even the least Obama appearance – now, they don’t want to be within a country mile of him. Fellow Republicans, we do actually owe Obama a vote of thanks here: due to his diligent liberalism, we on the right now have more hope for more change than we ever thought possible.

From Pajamas Media:

…On July 26, Reuters reported that only three cargoes of gasoline had arrived for the month — coming from Turkey and China — and a fourth was expected to arrive soon from Venezuela. Between 11 and 13 cargoes of gasoline normally arrive during this time of year, so this is a major drop.

Security forces have been deployed to major gas stations to prevent them from becoming scenes of discontent. On July 23, there were clashes in Tehran when those waiting in a long line at Roosevelt Gas Station greeted the security forces by shouting “Death to dictatorship.”…

The corrupt regime in Tehran is suffering the normal fate of such things – increasing inability to provide the basic needs of the people. Some last longer than others, but all regimes which are not at least to some extent free eventually have this problem. And this problem for Iran presents us with our best opportunity in at least a decade to bring the Iranian regime to heel – and perhaps even engineer its destruction.

This is the pressure point for Iran – they must import most of their gasoline. Plans have been set afoot by the Iranian regime to end this vulnerability (which plans may or may not work – corrupt regimes also have a problem in getting things done even in emergency situations), but for right now and for at least many months, we can exert huge pressure on the Iranian regime without having to engage in direct, military confrontation. We can hold up all gasoline shipments to Iran – we control the seas, absolutely – and no gas, no ability of the regime to continue suppressing the Iranian people.

We can force them to give up their nuclear program in return for allowing gasoline to arrive. We can force them to cease supporting the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can pretty much make the leadership of Iran dance to our tune – but only if we act swiftly and firmly.

And I’m afraid that “swift and firm” just doesn’t exist in our government right now – we could be blowing a golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

From Reuters:

Foreclosures rose in three of every four large U.S. metro areas in this year’s first half, likely ruling out sustained home price gains until 2013, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Unemployment was the main culprit driving foreclosure actions on more than 1.6 million properties, the company said…

It is a strange thing – I know people who have essentially not done anything (no payments, no discussions with lender, etc) for nearly two years, and no action has been taken against them. I also know people who got foreclosed on very fast. The thing I see in the home lending business, from my point of view, is a complete lack of understanding coupled with rank incompetence – at the banks, it does appear that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.

Be that as it may, the problem is so large that even with banks using “extend and pretend” as much as possible with home loans, the number of foreclosures continues to sky rocket. I bet that if everyone who was 90 days or more late got a foreclosure notice, it would amount to millions of people.

There is no cure for this in the sense of any expectation of swiftly stabilizing prices, followed by a steady increase. Until we really allow things to fall flat – or work out alternative methods of essentially sending our housing market through bankruptcy reorganization (“cram down” or my more recent idea of working out a leasing program for foreclosed homes) – we won’t reach the bottom on housing prices. But here’s the really bad news: once we reach bottom, we won’t climb out any time soon – perhaps not for a decade or more.

The reason for that is pure demographics – even if the economy improves, it’ll be several years before wealth and credit are rebuilt to the point where the pool of eligible buyers is sufficient to clear out existing inventory. And even at that point, there will still be a negative drag on home price increases as the Boomers retire and start to die off. Such people will not be looking for big, new homes – if anything, they’ll be looking to downsize…and as they die of old age, the upcoming generation will prove too small to make up the difference in demand.

All is not gloom and doom – this situation will keep homes cheap for people just starting out in life, provided they can get jobs – but it is a harsh situation and we should meet it squarely. No more illusions about a rapid recovery; no more idiot theories that home prices will rebound towards 2006 levels; no more price supports for a dead housing market.

Amazing one one gets in the mail – especially if a friend of yours is registered as an Independent in Nevada.

Someone else picks up on it – only a short 16 months after I first noted this:

The Internet is a large-scale version of the “Committees of Correspondence” that led to the first American Revolution — and with Washington’s failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

People are asking, “Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?”…

Or, as I put it:

… We don’t want our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor destroyed to placate the false gods of group-think, environmentalism and grievance-mongering.

Liberalism won the 2008 election, but it did not win the right to dictate to the whole nation how it shall live…we didn’t vote once and for all for Obama’s vision of America…

The fundamental flaw in the Obama Administration – and liberalism as a whole – was the presumption that the 2008 result was definitive. They really thought that the majority had voted for liberalism. The fact of the matter is that the people who gave Obama his victory voted not for liberalism, but against a worn-out GOP and in favor of fundamental change in the way government does business.

“Change” didn’t mean “spend even more money on a failed governing theory”. It also didn’t mean “in the first non-white Administration, harp endlessly upon racism”. It further didn’t mean “hey, now we can be even more corrupt than before!”. Most importantly, it did not mean “the people a ticked off about Bush’s TARP, so lets do even more of it!”.

It is our good fortune – such good fortune as can easily be classed as God’s grace – that our Founders set up a system where by even in our current condition, we can have a revolution at the ballot box. And we will have one – its starts this November, and it will go on for a generation. We will restore America – we will be free, now and forever.

So, what does having a root canal have to do with either the price of tea in China or whether or not you get a good blog entry for the AM? Nothing with the former; for the latter, it just means my jaw hurts and I’m tired – so no good entry.

On the other hand, there were a lot of great subjects to cover:

FDIC Friday – bank failures hit 106 for 2010.

Democrats are raking in lobbyist cash.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) joins Rangel in ethics hot water.

59% still back the Arizona immigration law.

And Iowahawk takes on that creepy birthday card for the President thing.

From CBS:

While BP took a $17 billion loss in the second quarter, the financial news isn’t all bad for the beleaguered oil giant.

That’s because the amount the oil company set aside to cover the costs of the oil spill will end up saving the oil giant $10 billion in U.S taxes, according to an msnbc.com report…

This just goes to my point about corporate taxes – they are utterly pointless. Corporations don’t pay them – even if you manage to get a dollar from a corporate bank account in to the Treasury, it is just going to be taken out of the pockets of consumers or employees, or both. Better to just give it up and seek revenues elsewhere.

This should make our liberals have a hissy fit – both in the fact that its humorous as well as having a kindness to Sarah Palin they are incapable of: