And, as always, Democrats are inconsistent with their platitudes by claiming the administration wasted/mismanaged money through "lenient" lending standards with the SBA--yet introducing legislation to block the SBA from cost recovery thereby forcing the government double-pay people (which is currently against the law).
Last September, the Small Business Administration, which provides most long-term rebuilding aid to disaster victims, accelerated its lending to homeowners and businesses in the Gulf Coast, responding to criticism that it had been slow to respond to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005.
But now federal investigators are looking into accusations that in speeding up its work, the agency made thousands of loans without following its own rules to avoid fraud. Current and former employees of the agency have told investigators that agency workers failed to secure proper proof that borrowers owned the houses they were supposed to rebuild or had the required insurance.
Caroline Pankove, who worked as a lawyer for the disaster-loan program at the agency from June through December of last year, complained to the agency's managers and its inspector general that employees were improperly pressured to approve loans quickly. [emphasis mine]
..."I'm worried that there may have been too much of a focus on quotas over quality of service for disaster victims," Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a statement.
"And if that's true, it's unacceptable," Mr. Kerry said. "If in a rush to get paperwork off their desks the S.B.A. shifted the burden to borrowers who have lost everything to Katrina, that's not a policy, that's an abdication of responsibility."
Now, you will recall the media and the Democrats caterwauling that the administration was not doing enough fast enough (and the Bush hates black people). Anderson Cooper and Shepherd Smith would have only been satisfied if the government started dumping buckets of cash from helicopters over the New Orleans. Are the Democrats actually becoming fiscally responsible with the emotional sensationalism of the disaster further in their memory?
Two Louisiana Democrats filed legislation Tuesday to bar the Small Business Administration from forcing hurricane victims to repay recovery loans with federal grants they receive for rebuilding their homes.
As of Tuesday, the SBA had requested $18.8 million in low-interest loans be repaid and $4.7 million more be reduced because victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have gotten money through Louisiana's Road Home grant program.
"Hurricane victims will be unable to rebuild if they are forced to use their federal grants to pay off their federal loans," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said in a written statement. "To recover and rebuild after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, recovery money must be kept in Louisiana, not sent back to a different agency in Washington."
Not all Road Home grant money must be used to pay down SBA loans. But to the degree the two outlays together exceed the value of the loss, the SBA considers it a "duplication of benefits" prohibited under federal law. Of 3,432 cases considered by the agency, 22.6 percent have required repayments or loan reductions, a Small Business Administration spokeswoman said.
Bills filed by Landrieu and Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, seek to reverse that policy. The identical legislation would retroactively waive the "duplication of benefits" prohibition of the Robert T. Stafford Act, which guides U.S. disaster response.
Say it with me now:
Mo' money! Mo' money! Mo' Money! That's the Democrat budget strategy. People who got more money than they needed get to keep the overpayment of benefits.
How on earth did I miss this??? I hope Rush has the sound to play on his show today. Boo hoo. Kerry had his feelings hurt and wants revenge on anyone who exercised their free political speech rights during the 2004 campaign.
A Senate hearing that began with glowing tributes to a St. Louis businessman and his qualifications to become ambassador to Belgium turned bitterly divisive Tuesday after he was criticized for supporting a controversial conservative group.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., grilled nominee Sam Fox about why he donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential race. The group of Vietnam veterans made unsubstantiated allegations against Kerry -- then the Democratic presidential nominee -- and charged that Kerry did not deserve the medals he won in the Vietnam War.
"Might I ask you what your opinion is with respect to the state of American politics as regards the politics of personal destruction?" Kerry asked near the end of the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term "winter soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776, when he spoke of the "sunshine patriots," and "summertime soldiers" who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel, because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.A bunch of wartime heroes went on a political campaign against a man they thought was a fraud and who personally maligned hundreds of thousands of troops. Now Kerry is just so offended that a group called him on it and his other lies (like Christmas in Cambodia, his magic CIA hat, fake metals toss) that he has to whine and snivel at a hearing. Boo hoo.
You want this guy fighting terrorists? Leading the battle in Iraq?
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez ordered by decree on Monday the takeover of oil projects run by foreign oil companies in Venezuela's Orinoco River region.
Chavez had previously announced the government's intention to take a majority stake by May 1 in four heavy oil-upgrading projects run by British Petroleum PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP) Co., Total SA (TOT) and Statoil ASA. (STO)
He said Monday that has decreed a law to proceed with the nationalizations that will see state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, taking at least a 60 percent stake in the projects.
"The privatization of oil in Venezuela has come to an end," he said on his weekday radio show, "Hello, President.""This marks the true nationalization of oil in Venezuela."
Gosh, all those greedy oil companies with those dirty, nasty profits are going to have to take it in the neck and lose tens of billions of dollars. Will the Dems in congress hold hearings on that? Doubtful.
In fact, Hugo Chavez is implementing the Hillary Rodham Carter plan for when her thighness is elected...
She and the Democrats know what needs to be done! Nationalize all industry (for the children, of course).
If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security--meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.
He states two important facts. Firstly, he knows that there is a difference in what we hear here, than what is actually happening in Baghdad. Secondly, he recognizes that only within the past year (beginning with the bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque), that reality actually caught up with the hyperventilating left. Before that, it was tough and bloody, but there was marked progress and many, many tremendous successes.
The lie is that Iraq has always been a failed policy. The policy until 2006 met every benchmark, every deadline and had momentum moving forward. Only in 2006, did the Democrats get their gift of American and Iraqi blood which they used to paint their path to power.
Charles (Christopher as he was once known) has been a tremendous addition to this site. I love reading his legal opinions, posts on geeky gamers and his ultra-orthodox Jewishness.
This week Charles will be taking the Illinois Bar Exam--which is one of the easiest in the nation to pass. Most tier three law school students tend to go to Illinois to practice law since it's pretty much a joke. I mean, there's always Mississippi, but no self-respecting Jew would settle even that low.
Seriously, I think each morning we should make a post of prayer that he kicks some major arse and becomes a real attorney!
We would then have REAL legal counsel here at LLP and Charles can start helping me write up my will, dispute my taxes, get me off on some felonies, etc.
Then I'll ask my friend that's an immigration judge (and worked with the Bush WH and is good friends with Rove as well), if he's looking for some help. I figure Charles will be perfect for working in immigration - he's cheap and available.
We love ya, you dirty Heeb. Now kick some Bar butt.
I saw his "Exodus" special and was thoroughly unimpressed with the scholarship involved. But now, James Cameron, the man who brought you DiCaprio on the stern of the titanic proclaiming "I am king of the world," believes he found the body of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And he has DNA to PROVE it!
Oh, my! This is going to be fun to watch every archaeologist from around the world slam him once they get their hands on his research. Or, it could be a repeat of the Cult of Darwinism where people will make this a political agenda instead of science (like Global Warming).
And what will the reaction be of Democrats who scream from the hills that they are believers?
In the end, however, you will have to ask yourself this: why, of all the men and women who have sought to make such a discovery over the centuries, that James Cameron, who just finished a project on the Exodus, just found all this proof within a year? He just stumbled upon Christ's tomb?
I am all for dumping the UN for an Anglosphere alliance with the Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, India and (if we can lose the jihadists) Pakistan. Throw in our brothers in Japan and South Korea and my dreams would come true.
Would everyone who stops by today leave a comment. Something happened to the site when I migrated another account and I think a lot of features went back into default mode.
Your comments should post immediately. If they do not, post another comment saying it didn't.
Taylor, 38, is accused of raping four men and attempting to rape two other men. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of all the charges against him. The charges are two counts of attempted sodomy, four counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of kidnapping and one count of unlawful entry.
''This case is about homosexual activity that is not approved of by the military services in our country at this time. Every one of these individuals but one is either in the military service or wants to be in the service,'' Regan said.
And this guy could be black. So we have black man who is gay (ultimate US victim according to the Democrats victimhoodology scale). The left is in a dilemma. Do they rally around the gay black man and accuse the Army of gay discrimination? Or do they use this incident to slime our soldiers as a bunch of Bush's raping mercenaries?
Some of the men were not raped but were doing drugs and having hot tweak/G sex. However, they were either going to be busted for the partying or the screwing around so they joined in with other guys who were almost raped. These two guys are probably straight with tendencies and the dude thought if he just slipped them some GHB they would want to get down.
Lesson? Fags who like to tweak, swirl and fuck always get it in the ass in the end.
Yes, there is an eye-candy factor (the men are terribly good looking and in shape, but not too bulky like boxers), but I also love the raw aggression. It reminds me of the Greek Games of old where people would harness the male warrior instinct. The only think that would make UFC better is if the prize were a woman.
Many wanted Romney to be something he's not: a Reagan conservative. He's got the looks, but this video will end his bid as the Republican nominee in 2008. He may truly have had a conversion from a pro-abortion to anti-abortion position, but he's really looking like a slick operator and he could be the Republican version of a Bill Clinton.
With news that the Democrats' strategy on the Iraq war is falling apart, they are cranking up their gears to revisit the destruction and aftermath of Katrina (they love to revel in death and destruction).
Not quite. Senator Mary "Punch Bush in the Face" Landrieu has introduced legislation that would allow people who received double compensation (which is against the law) to keep all the money.
