Rick Santelli Rips CNBC Guest For Calling Tea Partiers ‘Freaked Out White Men Who Are Unemployed

By Noel Sheppard| August 10, 2011 | 12:54

Banking analyst Meredith Whitney made a big mistake on CNBC Wednesday calling Tea Party members “freaked out white men who are unemployed” when Rick Santelli was about to come on the program.

Not surprisingly, Santelli after his pre-market interview with Steve Liesman went right after Whitney’s foolish comments even making it personal (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MEREDITH WHITNEY, BANKING ANALYST: I would suggest that the debate is really around unemployment, and I think that, you know, call the Tea Party whatever you will, the fringe element is, you know, I characterize freaked out white men who are unemployed and have been unemployed for three years and they’re scared to death. And three to four million of them are just about to roll off of unemployment benefits in the next three months. So, this is only going to get worse. For this reason, you have to deal with structural issues. So, if you are a Machiavellian Democrat, you want to deal with this issue and defuse the Tea Party as fast as you possibly can, because this poses the biggest threat to their reelection I think in ’12.

A few minutes later at the end of a subsequent segment, Santelli had to respond:

RICK SANTELLI, CNBC: You know, Joe, I’m surprised you don’t want to ask me anything.

JOE KERNEN, CNBC: I never know, Rick, I never know how to get you going. Sometimes I ask you the most loaded questions and you blow it off. Other times I think I’m asking the most innocuous thing.

SANTELLI: No, I just had a few e-mails about a comment that one of our guests made today. I’m surprised you didn’t ask me, that’s all.

KERNEN: Which comment?. Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, you are white and you are angry.

SANTELLI: Well, you know what? The last person that said that was King George and he said it about the colonists, you know? That’s all I can say.

KERNEN: That’s, it could be another, another YouTube moment. All right, all right. I’m, I hear you.

SANTELLI: I don’t need to rant about that. You know, those were our Founding Fathers.

KERNEN: Yeah, they were angry.

SANTELLI: How many muni areas have actually defaulted, by the way? Just a question.

WHITNEY: Why is he so angry? What have I done to you?

KERNEN: He’s an angry white man.

WHITNEY: I was empathizing with people who are unemployed.

SANTELLI: Oh come on. Think about it. Think about it. Stick with munis.

WHITNEY: I don’t know where that came from, but okay.

Ouch.

For those unfamiliar with Santelli’s muni reference, Whitney has recently come under fire for having predicted eight months ago there would be widespread defaults by municipal bond issuers around the country this year.

As Bloomberg reported in July, during the first six months of 2011, muni defaults are down 60 percent compared to the same period last year.

Obviously aware of this, Santelli chose to pull that scab off in order to get back at the banking analyst.

Suffice to say CNBC guests should be warned not to utter anything negative about the Tea Party when Santelli is around.

Bravo, Rick! Bravo!

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/08/10/rick-santelli-strikes-back-cnbc-guest-calling-tea-partiers-freaked-ou#ixzz1Ugc4JVlb

Group Pushes To ‘Let Bert And Ernie Get Married’ On Sesame Street

Sick friggin’ world we live in!

August 10, 2011 1:57 PM

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Will the Children’s Television Workshop give way to same-sex puppet love?

An online campaign is calling for the producers of TV’s “Sesame Street” to allow characters Bert and Ernie to get married in an attempt to “put an end to the bullying and suicides of LGBT youth”, according to the group’s Facebook page.

The petition letter adds that “[w]e are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful by allowing Bert & Ernie to marry”, suggesting that the show “even add a transgender character to the show…in a tasteful way”.

While over 900 people have “liked” the group’s Facebook page so far, the comments from visitors are fueling the controversy over whether children should be exposed to homosexuality at such an early age — echoing a similar battle over proposed gay-oriented curriculum in California schools.

“This is not ‘Desperate Housewives’…this is a baby’s program people!” said one commenter.

The group’s Facebook page also includes a photo mocking Christians for their opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

The two characters — which first debuted in the original “Sesame Street” pilot episode in July 1969 — have long been depicted as bickering best friends who sleep in the same room together.

Gerald Celente on Brian Sussman KSFO 560 – 09 August 2011

This is part 2 and really lays it out what’s what with the market and the budget crisis.

ACORN Gets Slapped With Voter Fraud Fine

Nevada Judge Calls ACORN ‘Reprehensible,’ Slaps Group With Maximum Fine for Voter Fraud

By Eric Shawn

Published August 10, 2011

A Nevada judge on Wednesday gave ACORN, the defunct grass-roots community organizing, the maximum fine for its illegal voter-registration scheme in that state.

District Court Judge Donald Mosley was blunt and unsparing in his criticism of the discredited activist group. Citing the long history of voter registration fraud allegations that engulfed ACORN across the country, he slapped the group with a $5,000 fine for violating Nevada election law during the 2008 presidential election.

Mosley, reading the pre-sentence report, listed a series of voter registration fraud allegations against ACORN workers. He said that if the claims have been true, then “It is making a mockery of our election process. If I had an individual in this courtroom…who was responsible for this kind of thing, I would put that person in prison for 10 years, hard time, and not think twice about it,” he said. “To me this is reprehensible. This is the kind of thing you see in some banana republic, Uruguay or someplace, not in the United States.”

In Nevada, ACORN pleaded guilty to one felony count of unlawful compensation for registration of voters, stemming from an illegal voter registration scheme in its Las Vegas office during in the 2008 race.

The group paid a bonus to workers to sign up 21 or more voters per shift, calling the program “21,” or “Blackjack.”

It is illegal in Nevada to pay bonuses to register voters.

The case was the first and so far only prosecution of ACORN itself. The previous ACORN cases that made headlines nationwide, included numerous convictions of ACORN employees for voter registration fraud.

Allegations ranged from trying to register dead people and making up fictitious voters, to plucking names out of the phone book.

“This is not a voter registration fraud case, it is an improper compensation case,” countered Lisa Rasmussen, the ACORN attorney, who argued that the fine should only be $1,000.

She told the court that “ACORN registered some tens of thousands of people to vote in the 2008 election, who would not have otherwise registered or voted.”

She claimed that the Las Vegas bonus program was “not something that was implemented with the permission of ACORN’s corporate management.”

ACORN’s Nevada field director, Christopher Edwards, had previously pleaded guilty, cooperated with prosecutors, and testified against the organization in court.

In November, ACORN’S regional director, Amy Busefink, who also worked for the nationwide group Project Vote, pleaded no contest to charges and was also sentenced to probation.

The Nevada Secretary of State, Democrat Ross Miller, told Fox News that the case shows voter registration fraud will be prosecuted.

“The message out there is that we are not just going to look the other way, when we see these type of violations. We are going to aggressively pursue them, and I think that will deter people from engaging in that type of activity.”

Court papers claim that ACORN is essentially out of business. Its lawyer, Arthur Schwartz, claimed that as of April of last year, it has no more employees, maintained only “one small office in New York,” and “had real assets of less than $4,000,” and “liabilities of more than $4 million.”

“ACORN does not exist,” Schwartz simply claimed.

But critics like Matthew Vadum, author of the new book about the group, Subversion, Inc., warn that “this is not the end of ACORN.”

“ACORN state chapters have been reorganizing under assumed names,” says Vadum, noting that new groups have popped up in former ACORN offices.

He predicts that former ACORN workers will be back on the streets conducting voter registration efforts for the 2012 presidential election.

“I expect ACORN will run voter drives under the new front groups…I have no doubt that this new election season will spawn new charges.”

After the sentencing, ACORN’s attorney denied that the group tried to subvert the electoral process and said that she is not aware of any plans for ACORN to reorganize in time for the 2012 elections.

In an interview with Fox News, Rasmussen said: “They were not convicted of submitting false voting registration petitions. They were not convicted of voter registration fraud.”

She said she does not think the conviction “has any impact on the voter registration process.”

But prosecutor Patrick Ferguson, senior Nevada deputy attorney general, told Fox News that: “The practices that occurred in this case will have the effect of subverting the election process, and that is why we have these laws on the books, to make sure that these practices don’t lead to voter fraud.”

He called the $5,000 fine “an appropriate sentence,” and said that “It sends the message to know and follow our voter registration laws and our election laws here in the state of Nevada.”

Fox Voter Fraud Unit Producer Meredith Orban and Pete Griffin contribute to this report. If you suspect voter fraud or election problems where you live, e-mail: Voterfraud@Foxnews.com. Fox News has investigated charges of voter illegalities ranging from faked absentee ballots to the alleged exploitation of vulnerable adults.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/10/judge-gives-maximum-and-fines-acorn-5000-for-illegal-voter-registration-scheme/#ixzz1UgLdf6Ax

 

Group Of Teens Randomly Attack Man in Philly

Group Of Teens Randomly Attack Man On Kelly Drive

August 9, 2011 7:00 PM

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – On the same weekend that two men were beaten by violent mobs of teenagers in Center City spurring a police crackdown, another man now says he was randomly attacked on Kelly Drive.

Christopher Dean says he was biking along the drive around 6 p.m. on Sunday evening, July 31. It was a sunny day and plenty of people were out. He was between Boathouse Row and the Girard Avenue bridge heading west, he says, when he saw a group of four or five teenage boys standing by the side of the path. Suddenly, one of them stepped out toward his bicycle and punched him in the face.

Dean was hit so hard, he says he blacked out. Dean says the teens appeared to be between 15 and 18.

“It felt literally like a blunt force nose of an airplane smacking into me full force. I think it was as hard as he could possibly hit somebody,” Dean said. “You don’t know what’s hit you when something like that happens. It takes me three or four seconds probably to realize I’ve just been punched.”

Dean says he managed to pedal another hundred yards before he was helped by two people having a picnic. Pictures show his face bleeding profusely. He needed stitches and his skull was fractured in three places, he says.

“The doctors … said that’s brass knuckles, the only way your skin can be opened up that way, that’s brass knuckles,” he said.

Police confirmed Dean’s story and said there have been no arrests.

Dean’s incident happened just two days after two other violent attacks by teenagers in Center City. On Friday night, July 29, one man was beaten at Walnut and Juniper, and another man was attacked at 15th and Sansom.

Dean says he is speaking out now because he doesn’t believe the city is doing enough to combat the random violence.

On Monday, Mayor Nutter laid out a plan to prevent the so-called flash mobs, mostly by imposing a tougher curfew in Center City and University City on Friday and Saturday nights. The city is also keeping 20 recreation centers open later on those evenings to give kids something to do.

But none of that would have prevented Dean’s incident, which occurred early in the evening and outside the new curfew zone.

Dean says he believes the city needs to install more cameras, especially along Kelly Drive. Unless the violence is put in check, Dean says the biggest victim might be the city’s reputation.

“If they [tourists and visitors] get wind that this is a dangerous place, this city – generations of work to make this city what it is – and it is a gem of a city, is ruined,” he said.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/08/09/third-flash-mob-attack-reported/

FBI: Explosive Device Found On Okla. Gas Line

FBI: Explosive Device Found On Okla. Gas Line
Device Found Near Okemah, Disarmed Soon After

POSTED: 1:44 pm CDT August 10, 2011
UPDATED: 5:44 pm CDT August 10, 2011

OKEMAH, Okla. — The FBI says a suspicious device found on a natural gas line and disarmed Wednesday afternoon in Okfuskee County appeared to be a pipe bomb.

A timing mechanism was attached to the device, which was fastened to a gas line two miles southeast of Okemah.

Authorities closed state Highway 27 while they investigated. The device was removed from the gas line and placed in a remote area for further examination, according to the FBI.

Federal investigators said the device was rendered safe and that the area was checked for additional devices. No other devices were found.

The device was described as a one-inch-by-one-inch pipe bomb.

Stay with KOCO for more information as it becomes available.

Read more: http://www.koco.com/news/28825504/de…#ixzz1UfcijYMn

Nice gig if you can get it

Too funny, sell the same product over and over again.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-0…fishing-vessel

Released lobsters retaken, group says
Caught at site of Buddhist ritual

August 09, 2011
by John M. Guilfoil, Globe Staff

Talk about bad karma.

On Thursday, a group of Buddhists traveled to Gloucester and purchased 534 lobsters, about 600 pounds worth, from a wholesaler and dumped them back into the sea in a prayer ceremony in which the crustaceans’ bands were cut and blessed water was sprayed on them.

Freedom. But it may have been short-lived.

Yesterday, lobstermen from the fishing vessel Degelyse said they had traveled to the site of the ceremony, laid their traps, and hauled up exactly 534 lobsters, according to a local blog, Goodmorninggloucester.org.

And then they brought their haul right back to market.

“It’s really not meant as a slight toward Buddhism at all,’’ said Joe Ciaramitaro, who runs the blog that broke the story and co-owns Captain Joe and Sons Dock, where the boat and several others offload their catch. He also runs Captain Joe and Sons Wholesale Lobster Co. in Gloucester. “We’re just having fun.’’

“Even if they get captured again, they’ve had a longer life,’’ Wendy Cook, who helped lead the ceremony, told Reuters.

In a video on Ciaramitaro’s blog, the lobstermen joke that the Buddhists are welcome to re-purchase the lobsters and release them again.

Cook did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

Dow loses yesterdays gain plus some

Dow    10,719.03    -520.74    -4.63%

Nasdaq    2,381.05    -101.47    -4.09%

S&P 500    1,120.68    -51.85    -4.42%

10 Yr Bond(%)    2.1370%    -0.0450

Oil    81.86    +2.56    +3.23%

Gold    1,785.50    +45.50    +2.61%

Gov’t considers turning foreclosures into rentals

Yeah, we can turn them all into Section 8 rentals.  Oh, the irony!

Gov’t considers turning foreclosures into rentals

By DEREK KRAVITZ
Aug 10, 1:18 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration may turn thousands of government-owned foreclosures into rental properties to help boost falling home prices.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday it is seeking input from investors on how to rent roughly 250,000 homes owned by government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration. All of the homes are foreclosures.

The U.S. government rescued the two mortgage giants in September 2008 and has funded them since the financial crisis. Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of the nation’s mortgages and nearly all new mortgages.

Converting the homes into rentals may reduce “credit losses and help stabilize neighborhoods and home values,” said Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie.

Homes in foreclosure sell at a 20 percent discount on average, which can hurt prices of surrounding homes.

It also might meet the growing demand for rentals. Since the housing meltdown, nearly 3 million households have become renters. At least 3 million more are expected by 2015, according to census data analyzed by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and The Associated Press.

A federal “request for information” released Wednesday included an option for previous homeowners to rent out the homes or for current renters to lease to own. Private investors could also be allowed to oversee the conversions. Officials are also mulling whether to implement a program in metro areas hit hardest by foreclosures and in those with high demand for rental housing.

The homes include single-family homes and condominiums. The deadline for responses is Sept. 15.

Gold shoots past record $1,800 an ounce

Aug 10, 1:28 PM EDT

Gold shoots past record $1,800 an ounce

The price of gold surpassed $1,800 an ounce Wednesday for the first time as investors pulled their money out of stocks and snapped up precious metals contracts.

Gold is fast becoming a favorite port in a storm of uncertainty. Investors are clinging to what they see as a hedge against volatile stock and currency markets.

December gold contracts backed off their highs, and traded around $1,785 an ounce during midday trading after reaching a record $1,801 an ounce earlier in the day on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold prices have shot past a series of milestones over the past two years on an uninterrupted climb. Gold was trading at about $900 in the summer of 2008, before the financial crisis unfolded that year.

Resulting turmoil in currency and stock markets has burnished gold’s luster.