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Title: Laura Bush: Diary Of A Moonbat Wife With A Truth Deficit
Source:
NY Times via MSNBC
URL Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36818869/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/
Published: Apr 28, 2010
Author: Anahad O'Connor
Post Date: 2010-04-28 12:39:46 by war
Keywords: None
Views: 35646
Comments: 65
Laura Bush has finally opened up publicly about the mysterious car accident she had when she was 17, a crash that claimed the life of a high school friend on a dark country road in Midland, Tex. In her new book, “Spoken From the Heart,” Ms. Bush describes in vivid detail the circumstances surrounding the crash, which has haunted her for most of her adult life and which became the subject of questions and speculation when it was revealed during her husband’s first presidential run. A copy of the book, scheduled for release in early May, was obtained by The New York Times at a bookstore. On several occasions in the book, Ms. Bush admonishes her husband’s political adversaries for “calling him names,” and she pointedly rebuts criticism of some of his key decisions. She suggested that his highly criticized fly-over of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was in the best interests of the victims and aid workers on the ground. Story continues below [5; “He did not want one single life to be lost because someone was catering to the logistical requirements of a president,” she says about the Katrina fly-over. “He did not want his convoy of vehicles to block trucks delivering water or food or medical supplies, or to impede National Guardsmen from around the nation who were arriving to help.” Ms. Bush also suggests, apparently for the first time, that she, Mr. Bush, and several members of their staff may have been poisoned during a visit to Germany for a G8 Summit. They all became mysteriously sick, and the president was bedridden for part of the trip. The Secret Service investigated the possibility they were poisoned, she writes, but doctors could only conclude that they all contracted a virus. After noting several high-profile poisonings, she wrote, “we never learned if any other delegations became ill, or if ours, mysteriously, was the only one.” Later, Ms. Bush takes on Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat who is speaker of the House of Representatives, for calling Mr. Bush “an incompetent leader” and for saying he lacked judgment, knowledge and experience. She also bristles at the insults thrown at Mr. Bush by the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, quoting him as calling her husband a “loser” and a “liar.” “The comments were uncalled for and graceless,” she writes. “While a president’s political opponents, as well as his supporters, are entitled to make what they see as legitimate criticisms, and while our national debates should be spirited, these particular worlds revealed the petty and parochial nature of some who serve in Congress.” Revelations about car crash But it is her description of the deadly accident, and its subsequent impact on her life and her faith, that is the subject Ms. Bush had most shied away from speaking about in her public life. On a November night in 1963, Ms. Bush and a girlfriend were hurrying to a drive-in theater when Ms. Bush, at the wheel of her father’s Chevy Impala, ran a stop sign on a small road and smashed into a car being driven by Mike Douglas, a star athlete and popular student at her school. “In those awful seconds, the car door must have been flung open by the impact and my body rose in the air until gravity took over and I was pulled, hard and fast, back to earth,” she says. “The whole time,” she adds later, “I was praying that the person in the other car was alive. In my mind, I was calling ‘Please, God. Please, God. Please, God,’ over and over and over again.” Scribner via AP In this book cover image released by Scribner, the cover of Laura Bush's memoir "Spoken from the Heart," is shown. The book will be released on May 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Scribner) Ms. Bush concedes that she and her friend were chatting when she ran the stop sign. But she also suggests a host of factors beyond her control played a role — the pitch-black road, an unusually dangerous intersection, the small size of the stop sign, and the car the victim was driving. “It was sporty and sleek, and it was also the car that Ralph Nader made famous in his book Unsafe at Any Speed,” she states. “He claimed the car was unstable and prone to rollover accidents. A few years later, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration went so far as to investigate the Corvair’s handling, but it didn’t reach the same grim conclusions. I was driving my dad’s much larger and heavier Chevy Impala. But none of that would ever ease the night of November 6. Not for me, and never for the Douglases.” Ms. Bush reveals that she was wracked by guilt for years after the crash, especially after not attending the funeral and for not reaching out to the parents of the dead teenager. Her parents did not want her to show up at the funeral, she states, and she ended up sleeping through it. “I lost my faith that November, lost it for many, many years,” she says. “It was the first time that I had prayed to God for something, begged him for something, not the simple childhood wishing on a star but humbly begging for another human life. And it was as if no one heard. My begging, to my seventeen-year-old mind, had made no difference. The only answer was the sound of Mrs. Douglas’s sobs on the other side of that thin emergency room curtain.” Mrs. Bush goes on to say that in her public life, she has encouraged young drivers who have been in serious accidents to speak to loved ones, counselors or spiritual or pastoral advisers. “But while I give this advice in my letters, I didn’t do any of that,” she reveals. “Most of how I ultimately coped with the crash was by trying not to talk about it, not to think about it, to put it aside. Because there wasn’t anything I could do. Even if I tried.”
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#26. To: lucysmom (#25)
I think you, Boofer and Skip are the only ones without Padlcock/50yard line on bozo...
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
Exactly what was Bush's "failed economy"? We had 5 years of solid growth until the Democrats in Congress failed to reform the GSEs as Bush had been pleading them to do for years which caused the collapse.
Mad Dog is the only poster I ever bothered to bozo - that makes him pretty special.
Exactly one person has me on bozo. So I guess I know who that is.
Growth looked solid on paper. Bush had a Republican Congress for six years.
Who cares?
Chuckles...no one...
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
And the economy didn't go into the toilet until the Democrats controlled it. And even when the Democrats were in the minority, they still ahd the power to block legislation.
It was a brittle economy built on dominoes if it could be toppled so quickly. Trial runs happened during the Reagan administration too. Happened later during Poppie's reign too.
It's the war, stupid.
The economy tanked because of the financial markets for one reason...regulators under the purview of the executive branch FAILED to do their job. We don't need new "regulation" we need the regulators to do thir goddam jobs.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
Are you referring to these regulators under this Executive? -- In 1995, the regulators created new rules that sought to establish objective criteria for determining whether a bank was meeting CRA standards. Examiners no longer had the discretion they once had. For banks, simply proving that they were looking for qualified buyers was not enough. Banks now had to show that they had actually made a requisite number of loans to low- and moderate-income (LMI) borrowers. The new regulations also required the use of "innovative or flexible" lending practices to address credit needs of LMI borrowers and neighborhoods. Thus, a law that was originally intended to encourage banks to use safe and sound practices in lending now required them to be "innovative" and "flexible." In other words, it called for the relaxation of lending standards, and it was the bank regulators who were expected to enforce these relaxed standards.
I love it! The adults, the party of responsibility, is out gunned by Democrats whether Democrats are in or out of power. I guess that makes Republicans pretty darn useless.
The GOP is blocking most of Obama's agenda and they are a much smaller minority than the Democrats were.
Only assholes believe that a political party "controls" the economy.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
According to Rachel Maddow, its the threat of pulling an all nighter.
Only an asshole believes George W. Bush controlled the economy.
Since the GOP controlled both houses then how could that be?
It's the war, stupid.
No new laws were passed. Just changes in the ways those laws were enforced.
So how were the changes codified? And why didn't the Contractors on American notify the US public of this?
It's the war, stupid.
How are executive orders codified?
They are either ratified by congress or expire.
It's the war, stupid.
New laws were passed.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
Where are you getting that from? Executive orders do have the full force of law since issuances are typically made in pursuance of certain Acts of Congress, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(United_States) The CRA was the law. The executive has the say so in how that law is enforced. That's what they did; they reevaluated and changed their interpretation of what was necessary to meet CRA standards. No act of Congress was necessary.
Not in 1993-1995 when the Executive took it upon itself to change the way the CRA was enforced, bonehead.
I was getting it mixed up with interim appointments. A sitting president can rescind any previous executive orders though. Or have added it to one of his infamous signing statements. I guess Bush was in favor of his brother's EO.
It's the war, stupid.
EO's affect only the executive branch. Most are in regard to how an agency or agencies will behave regarding certain issues. In 1995, there was an amendment passed to the CRA that deconsolidated reporting so that there was more visibility to whether or not actual lending within designated zones was taking place. IIRC, it also expanded the type of loans that could be made to include loans that benefitted the community as a whole rather than just an individual's ability to get a loan. One of the misconceptions is that it forced a bank to make a loan to a bad credit. It didn't. What it did do was force a bank within a specific community to give the same credit worthiness considerations to an applicant that it gave to applicants outside of a CRA zone. Clinton's EO simply gave enforcement of both the new and old provisions to specific regulatory agents such as FRB, OCC, etc etc etc. These EO's were dismantled under Boy Blunder and the reporting and oversight of banks in general went down the tubes in a very short period of time.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
Wrong. The new regulations also required the use of "innovative or flexible" lending practices to address credit needs of LMI borrowers and neighborhoods. Thus, a law that was originally intended to encourage banks to use safe and sound practices in lending now required them to be "innovative" and "flexible." In other words, it called for the relaxation of lending standards, and it was the bank regulators who were expected to enforce these relaxed standards.
That seems to be a pubby trait, only this time their timing was better, allowing the brunt to come to bear on the next administration.
It's the war, stupid.
I must be driving Bigot Boy on Bozo crazy with the truth here...lots of "black holes" on this thread for me... The Bottom Line is this...study after study has exonerated CRA from any culpability in the financial mess. CRA, in the 90's, did what it was suppsoed to do which was to level the playing field on loan issuance. And, as a parting shot, of the top 25 sub-prime lenders, only 1 was subject to CRA...
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
war has it bass ackwards. It wasn't the lack of oversight by the regulators that caused the problem; it was the oversight by the regulators themselves: The problem is summed up succinctly by Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas at Dallas: From the current handwringing, you’d think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards–at the behest of community groups and “progressive” political forces. . .
As a parting shot, I'll once again point out how you ignore the big picture: The decline in underwriting standards is clear in the financial disclosures of Fannie and Freddie. From 2005 to 2007, Fannie and Freddie bought approximately $1 trillion in subprime and Alt-A loans. This amounted to about 40 percent of their mortgage purchases during that period. Moreover, Freddie purchased an ever-increasing percentage of Alt-A and subprime loans for each year between 2004 and 2007. It is impossible to forecast the total losses the GSEs will realize from a $1.6 trillion portfolio of junk loans, but if default rates on these loans continue at the unprecedented levels they are showing today, the number will be staggering. The losses could make the $150 billion savings and loan bailout in the late 1980s and early 1990s look small by comparison. The GSEs’ purchases of subprime and Alt-A loans affected the rest of the market for these mortgages in two ways. First, it increased the competition for these loans with private-label issuers. Before 2004, private-label issuers–generally investment and commercial banks–specialized in subprime and Alt-A loans because GSEs’ financial advantages, especially their access to cheaper financing, enabled them to box private-label competition out of the conventional market. When the GSEs decided to ramp up their purchases of subprime and Alt-A loans to fulfill their affordable housing mission, they began to take market share from the private-label issuers while simultaneously creating greater demand for subprime and Alt-A loans among members of the originator community. Second, the increased demand from the GSEs and the competition with private-label issuers drove up the value of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, reducing the risk premium that had previously suppressed originations. As a result, many more marginally qualified or unqualified applicants for mortgages were accepted. From 2003 to late 2006, conventional loans (including jumbo loans) declined from 78.8 percent to 50.1 percent of all mortgages, while subprime and Alt-A loans increased from 10.1 percent to 32.7 percent. Because GSE purchases are not included in these numbers, in the years just before the collapse of home prices began, about half of all home loans being made in the United States were nonprime loans. Since these mortgages aggregate more than $2 trillion, this accounts for the weakness in bank assets that is the principal underlying cause of the current financial crisis. In a very real sense, the competition from Fannie and Freddie that began in late 2004 caused both the GSEs and the private-label issuers to scrape the bottom of the mortgage barrel. Fannie and Freddie did so in order to demonstrate to Congress their ability to increase support for affordable housing. The private-label issuers did so to maintain their market share against the GSEs’ increased demand for subprime and Alt-A products. Thus, the gradual decline in lending standards–beginning with the revised CRA regulations in 1993 and continuing with the GSEs’ attempts to show Congress that they were meeting their affordable housing mission–came to dominate mortgage lending in the United States.
No wonder you are so ignorant! Are you a lezzie also? Sneakypete, have you ever been married? Said things you later regretted?
Abso-fookin-lutely brilliant, hagatha! Sneakypete, have you ever been married? Said things you later regretted?
You are a "black hole", Obamabot. Sneakypete, have you ever been married? Said things you later regretted?
I thought they were too busy watching porn. But I'm sure like most problems the blame lies mostly in the middle, negligence from both ends.
It's the war, stupid.
He's out of his fucking mind. CRA was enforced in 90's..wasn't during Boy Blunder's reign of error...
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
As you have probably noticed it is hardly my area of expertise. I only go by results. The results are IMO: during the last two 2 term Pubby presidents we have had devastating banking problems by the end of the second term. During Reagan it didn't quite progress to upsetting the whole applecart, but even then we had a couple of local S and L's all of a sudden being called a US Banks. The VP of one had even bought a racehorse from me and paid for it on his bank's petty cash account. My dad had money in that bank which he quickly he took out when I told him of this transaction. Within three months the bank was insolvent and taken over by the gov, the VP and the president ended up in jail, and the horse had won his first start under a new owner.
It's the war, stupid.
Actually, it did. It killed several banks - especially regional banks and NCNB swooped in and gobbled them up. It also put the Farm Credit at a state of insolvency.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
Yeah, by the regulators relaxing lending standards, which started the whole downfall. Get a clue.
So Bush wasn't in favor of his own ...Executive Summary of "A Home of Your Own". From the Bush WhiteHouse website ? "Buying a home is the biggest single investment most people will make in their lives. Homeownership is a cornerstone of America’s healthy, vibrant communities, and benefits individual families by helping them build stability and long term financial security. But sadly, homeownership is out of reach for many Americans - especially for minority families. For millions of these families, homeownership is a distant, unreachable dream. President Bush has a comprehensive agenda to help increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million before the end of the decade. While the overall homeownership rate has reached an all time high of nearly 68 percent, the statistics show a clear and persistent homeownership gap: Despite increases in minority homeownership during the decade of the 1990s, large persistent gaps between non-Hispanic whites and minorities remain and have narrowed only slightly; According to HUD, in 1994 the minority homeownership rate was 26.8 percent below the rate for white households; The African-American homeownership rate was 27.5 percentage points below the white rate, and the Hispanic rate was 28.8 percentage points below the white rate; The second quarter Census data for 2002 shows that non-Hispanic whites have a 74.3% homeownership rate, while African-Americans have a 48% rate and Hispanics a 47.6% rate; and Asian-Americans and other races have a 53.7% homeownership rate. A new report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - which analyzed the most recent homeownership data from the U.S. Census Bureau - highlights the many barriers that prevent minority families from owning their own home. The barriers include: A lack of inventory of affordable single-family housing available for sale in many areas where a majority of residents are minority families; A need for downpayment assistance, which affects minority families to a greater extent than non-Hispanic whites because they have less accumulated wealth that can be used to help children with downpayments; A lack of access to affordable mortgage credit; A lack of understanding of the homebuying process; Weak credit histories, often arising from a poor understanding of financial matters and where financial counseling is required; A lack of information about available homeownership programs in the community; and Language difficulties or cultural differences. It doesn’t have to be this way. The President’s agenda will help tear down the barriers to homeownership that stand in the way of our nation’s African- American, Hispanic and other minority families by: Providing Downpayment Assistance. The single biggest barrier to homeownership is accumulating funds for a downpayment. The President has proposed $200 million annually for the American Dream Downpayment Fund to help roughly 40,000 families a year with their downpayment and closing costs. Increasing the Supply of Affordable Homes. The President wants to dramatically increase the supply of homes available to low and moderate income families. The President has proposed the Single-Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which will provide approximately $2.4 billion to encourage the production of 200,000 affordable homes for sale to low and moderate income families. Increasing Support for Self-Help Homeownership Programs. The President’s budget triples funding for organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, that help families help themselves become homeowners through sweat equity and volunteerism in their communities. Simplifying the Home Buying Process & Increasing Education. When buying a home today a buyer faces a confusing and complicated process. The President and HUD want to empower homebuyers by simplifying the home buying process so consumers can better understand and benefit from cost savings. The President also wants to expand financial education efforts so that families can understand what they need to do to become homeowners. The President also believes that government alone can’t close America’s homeownership gap. It is critical that our government challenge the private sector to take concrete steps to tear down the barriers to homeownership that face minority families. The President is issuing "America’s Homeownership Challenge" to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to join in his effort to increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million families by the end of the decade. Many organizations have already responded to the President’s challenge by committing to: Substantially increase by at least $440 billion, the financial commitment made by the government sponsored enterprises involved in the secondary mortgage market, specifically targeted toward the minority market; Launching twenty-five different local initiatives across the nation, geared toward eliminating the specific homeownership barriers faced by minority families in those communities; Raising $750 million in below-market-rate investments by 2007, which will work in collaboration with local homeownership initiatives and be targeted to heavily minority program areas; Pursuing strategic partnerships in 20 top housing markets between homebuilders, lenders, local officials, and community leaders to develop approaches that address the local challenges to building homes for minority families living in urban centers; Establishing faith-based housing partnerships between the participants and at least 100 churches, mosques, synagogues, and other faith-based institutions; Aggressively developing new mortgage products so that conventional market alternatives are available to combat the predatory loan products that are disproportionately targeted to minorities; Creating new mortgage products to meet the unique needs of recent immigrants; Dramatically expanding financial education efforts for minorities, providing financial counseling to at least 380,000 minority families, and taking measures at the local level to reduce predatory lending; and Establishing multilingual, consumer-oriented internet Web sites designed to help minorities overcome barriers to homeownership, including creation of a central data bank of affordable housing programs made available to real estate agents when working with clients."
It's the war, stupid.
#27. To: lucysmom (#25)
#28. To: war (#26)
#29. To: lucysmom (#28)
#30. To: no gnu taxes (#27)
#31. To: no gnu taxes (#29)
#32. To: lucysmom (#31)
#33. To: lucysmom (#31)
#34. To: no gnu taxes (#33)
(Edited)
And the economy didn't go into the toilet until the Democrats controlled it. And even when the Democrats were in the minority, they still ahd the power to block legislation.
#35. To: mininggold (#34)
(Edited)
#36. To: war (#35)
regulators under the purview of the executive branch
#37. To: no gnu taxes (#33)
And the economy didn't go into the toilet until the Democrats controlled it. And even when the Democrats were in the minority, they still ahd the power to block legislation.
#38. To: lucysmom (#37)
#39. To: lucysmom (#37)
#40. To: no gnu taxes (#38)
The GOP is blocking most of Obama's agenda and they are a much smaller minority than the Democrats were.
#41. To: war (#39)
Only assholes believe that a political party "controls" the economy.
#42. To: no gnu taxes (#36)
In 1995, the regulators created new rules that sought to establish objective criteria for determining whether a bank was meeting CRA standards.
#43. To: mininggold (#42)
#44. To: no gnu taxes (#43)
No new laws were passed. Just changes in the ways those laws were enforced.
#45. To: mininggold (#44)
So how were the changes codified?
#46. To: no gnu taxes (#45)
How are executive orders codified?
#47. To: mininggold (#44)
#48. To: mininggold (#46)
They are either ratified by congress or expire.
#49. To: war (#47)
New laws were passed.
#50. To: no gnu taxes (#48)
(Edited)
#51. To: mininggold (#50)
(Edited)
#52. To: war (#51)
One of the misconceptions is that it forced a bank to make a loan to a bad credit. It didn't. What it did do was force a bank within a specific community to give the same credit worthiness considerations to an applicant that it gave to applicants outside of a CRA zone.
#53. To: war (#51)
and the reporting and oversight of banks in general went down the tubes in a very short period of time.
#54. To: mininggold (#53)
(Edited)
#55. To: mininggold (#53)
#56. To: war (#54)
#57. To: lucysmom (#40)
According to Rachel Maddow,
#58. To: mininggold, no gnu taxes (#50)
I was getting it mixed up with interim appointments.
#59. To: (#54)
(Edited)
lots of "black holes" on this thread
#60. To: no gnu taxes (#55)
(Edited)
war has it bass ackwards. It wasn't the lack of oversight by the regulators that caused the problem; it was the oversight by the regulators themselves:
#61. To: mininggold (#60)
#62. To: war (#61)
He's out of his fucking mind. CRA was enforced in 90's..wasn't during Boy Blunder's reign of error...
#63. To: mininggold (#62)
During Reagan it didn't quite progress to upsetting the whole applecart
#64. To: war (#61)
He's out of his fucking mind. CRA was enforced in 90's..
#65. To: no gnu taxes (#64)
(Edited)
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