Lockerbie terrorist should be locked up until death
If I had a family member killed in the Lockerbie attacks, I’d be one angry guy right now.
In fact, even without a personal connection to the victims, it sounds crazy to me.
LONDON, — The Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was released on compassionate grounds by Scottish authorities on Thursday, allowing him to return to Tripoli to die with his family.
Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent who is terminally ill, was convicted in 2001 for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The plane exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people, 189 of them American.
Speaking at the Scottish government’s ministerial headquarters in Edinburgh, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said that humanity was a defining characteristic of the Scottish people, and that “our belief dictates that justice be served but mercy be shown.”
He said that Megrahi should “be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya to die.”
No, he should be allowed to die in a prison cell.
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233 comments Add your comment
Jefferson
August 20th, 2009
4:23 pm
Let his family visit him, during visiting hours only.
HavingMySay
August 20th, 2009
4:30 pm
I’ve had several members of my family murdered, including my own father. This guy being released doesn’t bother me at all. It’s not going to bring them back. Nothing but faith in God and a since of peace within yourself can bring closure.
The best thing anyone can do is pray that God will have mercy on his soul.
Bosch
August 20th, 2009
4:31 pm
So he gets to go home and die – although he denied the right of 270 people to do the same. Can we start hating Scottish people now instead of the French?
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
August 20th, 2009
4:33 pm
Well, this is what you get when a country gets rid of the Death Penalty. If this guy went and bombed a plane in Texas or GA, he would of been rotted down to bones in some prison graveyard right now. But no, Scotland had to go and give him a life sentence. Which as we see is not a life sentence at all. I don’t care if the guy was eat up with cancer. He done the crime, now he needs to do the time to the end of his days.
Not that the Death Penalty will do any good if a place won’t use it. Just look at this CA Gov. that went along with letting a woman murderer out of prison today just because she has cancer and won’t live much longer. She give out some story about the husband she kilt beating her up and making her be a Woman of the Night. I say she should of been made to die in prison and then be buried there so there wouldn’t be any escape even in death.
Anyhow, us Conservatives don’t never forgive. You got to have Law and Order no matter what. People are just bad to the bone and you can’t never trust them again.
I don’t want people to think that I’m unChristian, tho. I can see cases where the Death Penalty shouldn’t never be used. For example, I think a couple years in jail for @@ going 82 in a 55 zone would straighten her up and make her a better citizen.
Have a good night everybody.
Mrs. Godzilla
August 20th, 2009
4:33 pm
I know I am supposed to turn the other cheek, but I am an imperfect being and would feel better with him behind bars.
Perhaps Scotland’s NHS is just rationing care?
jconservative
August 20th, 2009
4:34 pm
Yes BOSCH. As I said this am “the hell with Scotland”.
md
August 20th, 2009
4:35 pm
Scotlands politicians are no different than ours. If you listen to the english media, its all about the oil.
DebbieDoRight
August 20th, 2009
4:39 pm
At first I didn’t know what Jay was talking about and had to google it. I was amazed at what I’d found. Perhaps the scottish government, whose people historically have been known to hold grudges a long time; would’ve felt different if a few more scottish people had been killed by the bombing.
Kim, Nottingham
August 20th, 2009
4:39 pm
Despite what the politicians up in Scotland have said, I don’t think he would have been released if there wasn’t considerable doubt surrounding his guilt.
Taxpayer
August 20th, 2009
4:42 pm
That’s a tough one, Jay. He deserves to be imprisoned for life and if he were not terminally ill, this issue likely would not have even been raised because he’d still be serving time. So, if he stays in jail as his condition degrades, the government has to pick up the tab for some sort of extra care and if he goes home, then he and his family are responsible, unless they have universal health care. I don’t know enough about the Scots and their healthcare system.
josef nix
August 20th, 2009
4:44 pm
“No, he should be allowed to die in a prison cell.”
That says it all,
Mrs. Godzilla
August 20th, 2009
4:45 pm
Taxpayer
I looked it up….Scotland has it’s own NHS.
FrankLeeDarling
August 20th, 2009
4:46 pm
Life in prison means till you die, should have left him there
RW-(the original)
August 20th, 2009
4:47 pm
Mrs G,
That’s what I figured too. The NHS was tired of paying his medical bills so they sent him back to Libya.
/slight sarc….
Gotta love all the righteous indignation after it’s too late though.
George American
August 20th, 2009
4:47 pm
HE SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN HANGED!!!
Kim, Nottingham
August 20th, 2009
4:48 pm
“I don’t know enough about the Scots and their healthcare system.”
Health care in Scotland has been the responsibility of the Scottish Government since devolution, although it still runs on the same basic principles as the rest of the UK.
getalife
August 20th, 2009
4:49 pm
Guess the Scots reached an oil deal.
He is getting a “hero’s” welcome in his country.
Oil trumps life these days.
Bosch
August 20th, 2009
4:49 pm
Hey joseph nix!!
People have really missed you here – you have left a gap! How’s school?
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator :-) You Whine :-(
August 20th, 2009
4:50 pm
Haul them before Obozo’s Death Panel.
Then we’ll know they suffered too, hehehe.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
4:50 pm
“HE SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN HANGED”
They don’t have the death penalty in Scotland.
Mrs. Godzilla
August 20th, 2009
4:51 pm
Kim, Nottingham
did a little digging and look what I found?
“” al-Megrahi’s release was conditioned upon his having dropped an appeal of his conviction, an appeal that his family could have continued on his behalf after his death; he has maintained his innocence all along and the family could well want to clear his name posthumously. And it seems like there was good reason for his appeal: The key piece of evidence against him, testimony that he bought the shirt the bomb had been wrapped in, may well be contradicted by evidence that was not presented at his trial, leading the appeals commission that ordered the new trial to say “there is no reasonable basis” to believe it was his shirt at all.
In other words: He may well have been the wrong guy.
By letting him go home to die as a convicted but humanely released man, Scottish authorities can bury any mistakes and pretend that they got justice, rather than face the embarrassing prospect of a re-trial that could show just how badly they screwed up.”"
Hef
August 20th, 2009
4:53 pm
Put him on a plane & smile. Off topic-Cash for Clunkers to end Monday “It’s been a thrill to be part of the best economic news story in America” Transportation Sec Ray LaHood. Ha tell that to the many dealerships that have yet to be re-imbursed. How much of a stimulus jolt does the auto industry need/get? You wanna see economic recovery,how bout giving paying taxpayers a flat dollar amount (not the $500 bs) say maybe $100,000.00 grand and watch things turn around. Credit will be paid down,mortgage payments will be caught up,homes will be bought & sold, vehicles will be purchased, the list is endless. Simple solutions even the left would love. Instead we give taxpayers monies to the same brain surgeons that failed in the first place-BRILLIANT!
RW-(the original)
August 20th, 2009
4:57 pm
Ran that 100 grand times 300 hundred million people through my calculator and the thing is still smoking.
Hef must be a calculator salesman.
Kim, Nottingham
August 20th, 2009
4:58 pm
“Guess the Scots reached an oil deal.”
Scotland has considerable oil reserves of it’s own!
Hef
August 20th, 2009
5:00 pm
RW-I said paying taxpayers,big difference.
George American
August 20th, 2009
5:01 pm
“They don’t have the death penalty in Scotland.”
WHO SAID THEY DID?
RW-(the original)
August 20th, 2009
5:03 pm
Hef,
Want to run those numbers?
Brad Steel
August 20th, 2009
5:03 pm
Seems appropriate to show some compassion to an area of the world that seems to have so little.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
5:03 pm
“Ran that 100 grand times 300 hundred million people through my calculator and the thing is still smoking”
It wouldn’t be 300 million. Leave out the children.
Personally, I had a different take on it. Since the stimulus packages passed by Congress were based on the “toxic” assests based on mortgages, I thought they should have required every bank that took the money to pay off the mortgages on their books.
That would have eliminated the toxic part of it: no mortgages, no defaults, no longer toxic. And it would have put more money in the hands of the consumer, because they would no longer have mortgage payments.
That way the banks would have been saved AND the taxpayers would have gotten something for all that money. And yes, I already realize it would have mean paying off overpriced mortgages, but it’s my opinion it would have been worth it in the long run…and maybe even in the short run too.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
5:06 pm
“WHO SAID THEY DID?”
Oh, I get it. You want us to think you’re a big tough guy. Try again, that one failed.
USinUK
August 20th, 2009
5:06 pm
Bosch –
“Can we start hating Scottish people now instead of the French?”
dude. if the US gave up Scotch and Golf, the business world would collapse.
Kim, Nottingham
August 20th, 2009
5:07 pm
The verdict is questionable in my opinion for a few reasons.
1. The only witness to identify Megrahi did so in an identity parade, moments after reading a magazine which pictured Megrahi and speculated about his involvement in the bombing. Coincidence and a genuine identification or one made as a result of reading that magazine?
2. Why was this witness paid a considerable sum of money by the prosecutors for his testimony, which up until that point hadn’t been consistent?
3. The CIA withheld documents to the defense at the trial. What did they say that stopped them from being submitted to Megrahi’s lawyers?
4. Why has his release been made on conditional on the appeal against his conviction being dropped?
I’m not convinced and I don’t think the Scottish Government are sure of his guilt either. Unfortunately it isn’t within their remit to hold a public inquiry to establish the true extent of his involvement, that lies with the UK Government and I think they have too many vested interests in Libya to want to the actual truth to be revealed.
pat
August 20th, 2009
5:09 pm
HE arrived to cheers in Lybia…
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
5:11 pm
“The verdict is questionable in my opinion for a few reasons”
I don’t remember the details, but I do remember thinking at the time that all that was wanted was SOMEONE in jail for the bombing. The desire for revenge is a poor base for a trial.
Hef
August 20th, 2009
5:12 pm
It would not be 300 million. How many PAYING taxpayers are there in the U.S.? Possibly 100 million? How much have we alotted for all stimulus packages as of today? How much has been sent towards the auto industry? What was the figure the Gov stated each household would be responsible for all of the above? And of course,that’s if they don’t need any more of our monies!
George American
August 20th, 2009
5:17 pm
HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANGED. DOGGONEGA SHOULD BE STIFLED!!!
DOGGONEGA DOESN’T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THE ENGRISH LANGUAGE. THINK WHATEVER YOU LIKE, LIBERAL!!!
Kim, Nottingham
August 20th, 2009
5:19 pm
“DOGGONEGA DOESN’T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THE ENGRISH LANGUAGE.”
Ho, and moreover, ho.
Hef
August 20th, 2009
5:19 pm
All companies would be immediately affected by stimulting the taxpayers. I’ve seen how my Gov can screw up my tax monies on a yearly basis,how bout given us a shot to turn things around. KISS system really does work.
RW-(the original)
August 20th, 2009
5:20 pm
Hef,
I found a number for 2005 that said there were 98 million US taxpayers. Multiply that by 100 grand and you get 9,800,000,000,000.00 You’re an even bigger spender than Obama!
/Somebody needs to check my zero count. I went blind counting but I think it’s 11 before the decimal point, but if I’m right that’s a nearly ten trillion dollar “stimulus” plan.
USinUK
August 20th, 2009
5:25 pm
RW –
“Multiply that by 100 grand and you get 9,800,000,000,000.00 ”
you say that like it’s a bad thing
Kim –
I guess the thing that bothers me so much about the Lockerbie bomber is that his release is right on the heels of Ronnie Biggs who went home and, lo and behold, started feeling SO much better!! I’m sorry, but this whole “compassionate release” thing just bugs the stuffing out of me — as the saying goes, you do the crime, you do the time.
and, with this bomber, unlike the question recently put before the Supreme Court where you had numerous witnesses recanting their testimony, none of these witnesses have stepped forward and said “weeelll, maybe I was mistaken” … could he be a scapegoat? possibly. but it’s not like the state is taking the life of an innocent man – he’s dying anyway. and until he does, he should serve out the term he was given.
Dusty
August 20th, 2009
5:26 pm
The man is dying. What’s he going to do? Hike over to Afghanistan ?
I thought you folks were against torture. Dying without your love ones is probably torture.
josef nix
August 20th, 2009
5:26 pm
BOSCH–Thanks…a couple of folks here got in touch with me otherwise and demanded that I not be such an a** and at least go and read the comments y’all had posted me. I had to admit that with so many compliments from such a wide range of posters and from people I really have come to like and from whom I have learned so much, I ought to give up and “go home again!”
School’s been taxing but things are beginning to fall into place and take on a rhythm. The kids of course are a joy, I’ve got a great principal, and the initial round of stupid meetings conducted by stupid people out to validate their position at the slop trough of the public coffer has slacked off. Got a good one today. One of the kindergarten teachers was telling me about a little one in her room. Seems they “color code” behavior (green, yellow, red). She was having to correct the little bugger again and he looks at her and says, respectfully enough according to her, “hell, Lady, I’m already on red.”
USinUK
August 20th, 2009
5:27 pm
and with that, I bid you good night …
hasta la pasta!! tomorrow’s friday!! yay!
josef nix
August 20th, 2009
5:30 pm
DUSTY–no Coot tonight, having to prepare an observation report of potential special needs child for the meeting tomorrow a.m. Will be bouncing back and forth between that potential special needs child and the confirmed ones here. Best I keep sober, I wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing on the wrong post!
N-GA
August 20th, 2009
5:30 pm
Jay,
I rarely address you directly. However, your opinion piece forces me to ask you this: How do you feel about Lt. William Calley? The last I heard, he was a jeweler down in Fort Lauderdale.
GreenJeans
August 20th, 2009
5:31 pm
My partner was a steward (old school!) for Pan Am and was in Europe when Lockerbie happened. He knew the crew.
A few days later he walked through the door looking like a rag…scared, fatigued and mourning with only a few days to get it together before heading back.
Maybe he was speaking to the voices in his head, but out of the blue he would say “They don’t win.” And I knew what he meant.
It took courage to fly back over that ocean again.
Hef
August 20th, 2009
5:32 pm
RW-How much has been alotted for the stimulus packages already? About the same? And the bet here is we will need more if history show’s how well the govnmnt can estimate. If we have to pay it back regardless, why not just give it to us. Can’t do any worse. Many would waste it-yes, but so does the govnmnt on a daily basis. But just think of the flow it would create.
Kim, Nottingham
August 20th, 2009
5:33 pm
“I’m sorry, but this whole “compassionate release” thing just bugs the stuffing out of me — as the saying goes, you do the crime, you do the time.”
I quite agree with that.
But the question is did he do the crime? I got the impression listening to the Scottish Justice Secretary on the news earlier that he wasn’t convinced, and in fact he challenged the UK Government to hold a public inquiry to establish the actual extent of his involvement. That’s not going to happen though – Libya is no longer an international pariah and UK companies have too big a stake in the country now for the government to want to risk the truth coming out.
Megrahi will die a convicted man but the safety of that conviction is just too questionable in my eyes.
Dusty
August 20th, 2009
5:34 pm
josef. 5:26
Poor ol’ Thomas Wolfe. He thought “You Can’t Go Home Again”. I am so glad you proved him wrong.
Taxpayer
August 20th, 2009
5:37 pm
“paying taxpayers”
Is that sort of like the right wing nutter butter’s calculations of the unemployed? Start with 47 million and, using GOP math, magically convert it into a negative number or something equally as absurd.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
5:40 pm
“THINK WHATEVER YOU LIKE”
Methinks he doth protest too much. Trust me, I will think what I like.
RW-(the original)
August 20th, 2009
5:41 pm
Hef,
If you add up all the tarp and stimulus funds and even lump in the extra pork in the last continuing resolution you get to about 20% of your idea and we don’t even have that money.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
5:45 pm
“ENGRISH”
I missed that one!
Hef
August 20th, 2009
5:48 pm
Serious question, Why is it absurd? The money was going to be spent regardless of who got it. The idea was to stimulate the economy,what better,faster way than the private sector. Unless you believe that the Govnmnt knows better how to spend tax dollars.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator :-) You Whine :-(
August 20th, 2009
5:49 pm
hef- Didja spend your fat $250 already?
Hef
August 20th, 2009
5:52 pm
What ever the figure was (my bad i thought it was at least 10 trill), use the same idea. Still beats the slap in the face checks they sent out to whoever got them.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
5:53 pm
“Serious question, Why is it absurd? ”
Serious answer: because simply giving money to people to spend wouldn’t address the underlieing (sp?) problem of the toxic assests that brought our financial system to it’s knees. It be an even more artificial stimulus than the infrastructure spending that is planned.
That’s why I prefer MY take on it: because it would BOTH eliminate the toxic mortgages AND put more money in peoples hands to spend.
Dusty
August 20th, 2009
5:55 pm
josef,
I am also glad you don’t DUCK your duties (boot that COOT)…
.Uh huh……”bouncing back and forth between the potential special needs child and the confirmed ones here”…..oh, that’s a good one, josef !!! ….roll:……We are going to make you mean yet.
Hope you can help the little one.
And now”give them cake”. Gotta go stir up something,,
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
5:57 pm
“It be an even ”
My Engrish ain’t so good either! That’s supposed to be: “It would be an even “
Dusty
August 20th, 2009
5:57 pm
Sorry. My smiley “rolls” don’t work sometimes..
Hef
August 20th, 2009
6:00 pm
DoggoneGA-”put more money in peoples hands to spend” is that all people’s hands or just the ones with bad mortgages?
RW-(the original)
August 20th, 2009
6:01 pm
Hef,
The government doesn’t have 10 trillion of our dollars to send to us so they would have to just print up the money. You don’t even want to look at the consequences of that. If they ever want to do a meaningful stimulus they’ll suspend tax collections for a year or so letting the people keep and spend that money.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator :-) You Whine :-(
August 20th, 2009
6:02 pm
When I open a url from Outlook or some other external source it always chooses Firefox as the browser, for whatever reason, and of course Firefox pops up and immediately stops responding.
Do these idiots at Mozilla even know what they are doing?
Safari has it’s quirks but I do not miss the old days.
Curious Observer
August 20th, 2009
6:05 pm
I’m skeptical of his guilt. I think he was the sacrifical lamb in exchange for Libya’s better relations with the United States and Great Britain. He was thrown to the wolves, so to speak, and certainly this bombing was not a one-person operation. I’m not saying he was a saint–no intelligence operative is. But his conviction rested on the testimony of a tainted witness and a common shirt used to wrap the arming device. But one citizen means nothing in a country like Libya, especially if better relations are to be derived from disposing of him. You can bet that no one in the Libyan government shed any tears or expressed any outrage about his conviction. While he might have been a skunk, he wasn’t necessarily a guilty skunk. He probably did participate in worse atrocities than he was convicted of, but I’m not convinced he was guilty of this one.
Crushing the pubt's
August 20th, 2009
6:09 pm
The guy killed 189 people by blowing up a plane–I don’t see the compassion there. The cheers in Lybia were because they weren’t on the plane.
Kamchak
August 20th, 2009
6:09 pm
Dusty
You must leave a space before the first colon, and after the last colon.
Hef
August 20th, 2009
6:13 pm
RW-ok,makes sense. I like your plan as well. Anything that puts our dollars in our hands instead of the buffoones that continue to get us into these problems i’m all for it.
DebbieDoRight
August 20th, 2009
6:18 pm
Hef: Why is it absurd? The money was going to be spent regardless of who got it. The idea was to stimulate the economy,what better,faster way than the private sector
Hef, do you remember the Bush tax cuts of 2007 and 2008? Do you remember what people did with them? Some paid off bills, then saved the leftover money. Some splurged a little, then saved the left over money. Some just saved the money without buying anything. In this economy AND the economies of 2007 and 2008; it makes more sense, from a single taxpayer point of view and by the rising unemployment; to SAVE any extra money that you have instead of spending.
According to top economists, Americans are in trouble now because they lived their lives “on credit” and didn’t save anything for the future. Well, Americans are a lot of things; but we LEARN form our mistakes — savings have gone up and credit card use down since Summer of 2008.
Is Hef short for Hugh Hefner? Just asking……no harm…..just curious.
TnGelding
August 20th, 2009
6:21 pm
Vilolence begets violence:
“The motive that is generally attributed to Libya can be traced back to a series of military confrontations with the US Navy that took place in the 1980s in the Gulf of Sidra, the whole of which Libya claimed as its territorial waters. First, there was the Gulf of Sidra incident (1981) when two Libyan fighter aircraft were shot down. Then, two Libyan radio ships were sunk in the Gulf of Sidra. Later, on 23 March 1986 a Libyan Navy patrol boat was sunk in the Gulf of Sidra,[54] followed by the sinking of another Libyan vessel on 25 March 1986.[55] The Libyan leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi, was accused of retaliating to these sinkings by ordering the 5 April 1986 bombing of West Berlin nightclub, La Belle, that was frequented by U.S. soldiers and which killed three and injured 230.[56]”
“The second appeal was expected to be heard by five judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh. However, on 12 August 2009, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi applied to have his appeal dropped. This was done as a response to his imminent release from prison on “compassionate grounds.” This is likely because Megrahi, who is terminally ill with prostate cancer, would need to drop his appeal to be considered for repatriation under British-Libyan prisoner transfer agreements. Prior to his dropping the appeal, a procedural hearing at the Appeal Court took place on 11 October 2007 when prosecution lawyers and Megrahi’s defence counsel, Maggie Scott QC, discussed a number of legal issues with a panel of three judges.[45] One of the issues concerned a number of documents that were shown before the trial to the prosecution, but were not disclosed to the defence. The documents are understood to relate to the Mebo MST-13 timer that allegedly detonated the PA103 bomb.[46] Maggie Scott is also asking for documents relating to an alleged payment of $2 million made to Maltese merchant, Tony Gauci, for his testimony at the trial, which led to the conviction of Megrahi.[47]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
6:28 pm
“DoggoneGA-”put more money in peoples hands to spend” is that all people’s hands or just the ones with bad mortgages?”
anyone who had a mortgage with any bank/financial institution that took rescue money. Basically, yes, the government would pay off (not buy) the mortgages.
TnGelding
August 20th, 2009
6:29 pm
Duh, folks, we’re sitting on $55 trillion in household wealth. Why can’t we just spend some of that or at least invest in U.S. treasuries so China won’t have to? I redistributed my $250 several times over and my wife’s as well. I’d buy a new car if I had a clunker to trade in. My clunker gets too good of gas mileage.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
6:30 pm
“Anything that puts our dollars in our hands instead of the buffoones that continue to get us into these problems i’m all for it.”
Well, yes…but if they had done something like my idea, they WOULD have gotten the money too. It’s just that WE would have gotten something concrete out of it too.
md
August 20th, 2009
6:31 pm
“Since the stimulus packages passed by Congress were based on the “toxic” assests based on mortgages, I thought they should have required every bank that took the money to pay off the mortgages on their books.”
Of which, many were sub-prime no-docs granted to folks who knew their ratios never would have allowed them to buy a house under “normal” standards. So, you plan to reward those that couldn’t afford the house or bought more house than they could afford and to top it off you give THEM more money to spend at their leisure.
Don’t think so.
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
6:34 pm
“So, you plan to reward those that couldn’t afford the house or bought more house than they could afford and to top it off you give THEM more money to spend at their leisure”
You can’t make omelets without breaking eggs. So I take you prefer it the way it is: the fat cats got the money and WE got the recession. At least under MY idea we would get our homes free and clear of mortgages. And yes, so would the sub-prime owners. Why do you think that’s bad? Without the sledge-hammer of a mortgage over their heads (and ours) they can spend (or save) that money. Instead of going into default and losing their homes, and their credit.
RW-(the original)
August 20th, 2009
6:39 pm
Andy,
If Firefox is popping up to open links then you’ve got it set as your default browser.
md
August 20th, 2009
6:43 pm
“At least under MY idea we would get our homes free and clear of mortgages.”
How many “free” homes you plan to give away? Where is your threshold?
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator :-) You Whine :-(
August 20th, 2009
6:44 pm
“There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee weed up!”-Obozo
“Wee weed,” eh?
What a remarkable upgrade in presidential communications you pinkos have bestowed upon us.
Just letting us know who you are.
Pogo
August 20th, 2009
6:44 pm
Jay, you’re only saying this because Obama said this. If he would have agreed with Great Britain, you would have agreed with Great Britain. You parrot only those talking points the libs have for the day. Do you really have a viewpoint of your own or are you a biological tape recorder?
Let’s drill offshore in Brazil with American dollars! God forbid we drill in the US. But hey, at least it is not in our “back yard”. Right Jay? Obama + Liberal Democrats = Corruption and liars. Soros, the God of all the progressives sure want’s this to go through, doesn’t he? Pitiful.
TnGelding
August 20th, 2009
6:45 pm
Rethink Afghanistan?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjE2wMWMJwI&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmichaelmoore%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
DoggoneGA
August 20th, 2009
6:48 pm
“How many “free” homes you plan to give away? Where is your threshold?”
How much would the banks have had to accept in order to sell those mortage based securities? Whatever discount they would have had to take to get all their mortgages off their books. And if the rescue money wasn’t enough to fairly pay them off, they could still have paid them down…which would leave room for the banks to refinance the remaining amount, which would lower the mortgage payments and/or shorten the length of the mortgages.
I’m look at this from a purely selfish point of view: the government borrowed money in my “name” to pay off the fat cats that CAUSED this mess. Why in the heck couldn’t they have done the same thing, except paid off or paid down MY mortgage? It wouldn’t have hurt the fat cats enough to matter, but it would have meant a LOT to ME.
getalife
August 20th, 2009
6:49 pm
Yeah, Firefox 3.5 rocks.
md
August 20th, 2009
6:49 pm
“There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee weed up!”-Obozo”
Flashback to his experimentation days?
GreenJeans
August 20th, 2009
6:52 pm
DDR @ 6:18: “Americans are a lot of things; but we LEARN form our mistakes.”
Sister, would you join me in a nightly, mighty prayer for that one?
DebbieDoRight
August 20th, 2009
6:53 pm
md: Of which, many were sub-prime no-docs granted to folks who knew their ratios never would have allowed them to buy a house under “normal” standards. So, you plan to reward those that couldn’t afford the house or bought more house than they could afford and to top it off you give THEM more money to spend at their leisure
md — that’s a falsehood that’s been going around long enough. Some Joe Schmoe who took out a $150K loan at 7.5 for 15 years; that, in the fine print had a balloon mortgage attached to it at 15% was/is not the only problem of how mortgages got so out of control. Those people, and there are some, are few and far in between. The housing crash started firstly because of how mortgages were sold and packaged throughout the world. they were chopped up like cattle and different parts sold to different brokerage houses who then repackaged them and sold them overseas to their investors at a substantial interest. That meant when Joe got into trouble and went down to his local bank for help, he couldn’t find any. Mainly because his local bank no longer held the full mortgage only a piece of it and was beholden to the other investors on that mortgage.
Secondly, subprime lending was A CAUSE of the crash but not THE CAUSE. There were multiple ones. Also remember that the biggest borrowers of properties were not home owners, BUT the home development companies that went to banks asking to borrow millions of dollars in order to fiance their venture. They mostly affected the small banks, (hence a lot of georgia banks went under because they were too small fiscally to handle it when the development companies went belly up and couldn’t pay the note on THEIR loans).
I find it amazing that when things go bad in this country it is always automatically assumed to be caused by “the little guy’ who’s just trying to make it. The big developers and investors NEVER get the blame although they’re the ones who pushed the banks into approving subprime mortgages, mortgage repackaging and mortgage distributions in the first place. Some guy who works at FEDEX for a living didn’t think that stuff up; guys like Bernie Madoff did. Guys who were only concerned with enhancing their companies bottom dollar and not worried about the full picture of what they were doing and how it was affecting not only this country; but the world.
END OF SERMON…….
Paul
August 20th, 2009
6:57 pm
Tough question.
But he cold-bloodedly killed 270 people.
Let him die alone.
DebbieDoRight
August 20th, 2009
6:59 pm
GreenJeans: Sister, would you join me in a nightly, mighty prayer for that one?
LOL!! Funny!!! Well, we DO learn from out mistakes sometimes. Notice after 9/11 that we didn’t automatically intern Arab Americans like we did Japanese Americans during WWII? So, we may be a little slow, but we’re not that dumb!!! Here’s a quote from my FAVORITE OF ALL TIME movie (this might be too old for you; but if your folks used to love B&W movies you might remember):
Major Strasser: You give him credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he’s just another blundering American.
Captain Renault: We musn’t underestimate “American blundering”. I was with them when they “blundered” into Berlin in 1918.
Priceless!!!
Paul
August 20th, 2009
7:00 pm
DDR
From below: Pres Bush didn’t have an exit plan from Afg, so didn’t leave Pres Obama with one.
But Obama went into mach mode in Afg. It’s his now. And he ain’t leaving.
md
August 20th, 2009
7:00 pm
“I’m look at this from a purely selfish point of view: the government borrowed money in my “name” to pay off the fat cats that CAUSED this mess”
For starters, the “fat cats” had a hand in the mess, but they hardly “caused” it. Our good ole gov’t CAUSED the mess. Social engineering, relaxed regulations, poor oversight, etc etc. Had the ratios for homebuying stayed in place as they did for most of my lifetime, there more than likely would not have been a mess. No toxic debt, nothing for the fat cats to exploit, no collapse.
md
August 20th, 2009
7:08 pm
Sorry deb, but it started with fundamentals. Just like sports, no fundamentals the team sux.
Had very little to do with how they were packaged. Had the loans been on sound footing with the proper ratios (fundamentals), they would have never been “toxic”. No toxic mortgages and the derivatives are just fine.
It starts at the bottom. Had the ratios been left in place, no mortgages to those that didn’t meet the ratios, no housing boom, no greedy developers/speculators/etc, and no bust.
Fundamentals.
mike
August 20th, 2009
7:13 pm
And we are supposed to care about what Europeans think about our terrorism detention policies? What a joke.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator :-) You Whine :-(
August 20th, 2009
7:13 pm
RW- Not anymore, it isn’t.
~~~~~
md- He was talking about other people’s, uh, thingies.
~~~~~
al-gitmo: I’ve got Firefox 3.5.1 and it is a rag. I’ve never seen anything like it. It will lock itself down for 5 minutes at a time. Scripts is the problem, why Mozilla can’t figure this out on their own is beyond me.
DebbieDoRight
August 20th, 2009
7:28 pm
Paul — True. But admit it — if Bush would have done the job of securing the country so that the Taliban and Al Queada would not have resurfaced and took back over the land that we had originally taken from them; Obama would’ve been out of Afghanistan on January 31, 2009.
md: Admit it. The little guy did not MAKE lenders lend him a subprime mortgage. He didn’t think of it and he didn’t even know about such a thing. If I go to Macy’s and I’m over my credit limit the computer says “AHHHHH,……..warning over limit decline, decline, decline” and I have to either put back what I was about to buy OR pay for it another way. Investment firms, banks, and YES, lackadaisical government regulations are the cause of our downfall; and you forgot one other entity corporate GREED.
Michael Phillips of the Wall Street Journal tells the story of a shack in Arizona owned by a woman who hasn’t worked in 13 years that was valued at $130,000 two years ago by a crooked appraiser and mortgaged by a broker who was paid $10,000 in fees and took no loan risk.
Then Phillips tracks the loan through Wells Fargo to HSBC, where it was packed into a mortgage-backed security, rated Triple-A by Moody’s and S&P, and sold to, among others, the Oklahoma Teachers pension plan and PIMCO.
Two years later, after the foreclosure, the shack was recently sold for $18,000. The current owners of the loan might get 10 cents on the dollar. By the time the house went into foreclosure in August, Integrity had sold that loan to Wells Fargo & Co., which had sold it to a U.S. unit of HSBC Holdings PLC, which had packaged it with thousands of other risky mortgages and sold it in pieces to scores of investors.
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/the-mortgage-crisis-explained
Dave R.
August 20th, 2009
7:28 pm
I wonder what misdirection Jay will have for us tomorrow?
You know, he has to keep anything negative about Hope & Change’s administration off the opinion pages.
Will he resurrect the Bush “regime” again? Nah, too easy.
Go after the governor? Too local.
Take on one of the bumbling members of the U.S. Senate? So many to choose from, and from both parties, even
Oh, the suspense is killing me!
getalife
August 20th, 2009
7:30 pm
I am running 3.5.2 and the only problem is slow connect to yahoo mail but it is the fastest browser on my computer.
No lockups.
DebbieDoRight
August 20th, 2009
7:33 pm
md didn’t want to make one HUGE post, so I split it up. Below’s the second half to your response, md: Had the loans been on sound footing with the proper ratios (fundamentals), they would have never been “toxic”. No toxic mortgages and the derivatives are just fine.
Two Words. Corporate GREEEEEEEEDDDDD.
he Heavy Demand for More Mortgage Backed Securities
The demand for those great, safe mortgage backed securities was really high. In fact, so high, that there was a point somewhere in 2003 when everyone who qualified for a mortgage got one, and still the global pool of money wanted more.
Thus, things needed to change. And they did. The mortgage qualification guidelines did.
At first, the stated income, verified assets (SIVA) loans came out. People didn’t have to prove their income any more. They just needed to “state” it and show that they had money in the bank.
Then, the no income, verified assets (NIVA) loans came out. The lender was no longer interested in what you do for a living. People just needed to show some money in their bank accounts.
This wasn’t enough to satisfy the huge appetite of global investors. The qualification guidelines kept going looser in order to produce more mortgages, more securities.
This leads us to NINA. Have you heard of NINA?
NINA is an abbreviation of No Income No Assets. Basically, NINA loans are official loan products and let you borrow money without having to prove or even state anything. All you needed to have in order to get a mortgage was a credit score.
Why would a bank loosen its criteria for lending money so much? Well, banks didn’t keep these mortgages. They didn’t care whether they are risky and the borrower will ever pay them back simply because they sold the mortgages to Wall Street. The Wall Street then sold them to global investors … as low risk investments.
http://www.stock-market-investors.com/stock-investment-risk/the-subprime-mortgage-crisis-explained.html
N.J.
August 20th, 2009
7:35 pm
Well, the U.S. has lost a lot of credibility in this arena, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only have innocent civilians been killed in these two places, but the citizens of other nations who have been involved in giving humanitarian aid, journalists covering the war, and so on. If I remember correctly an Italian journalist and her driver were gunned down by Americans at a checkpoint, and of course they were protected by our government. The U.S. also shot down an Iranian civilian passenger flight killing almost 300 men, women and children and yet all involved never even saw the inside of a`courtroom. What about the civilians killed in Libya itself when targets in that country were bombed.
Another problem with the Libyan who was just released, is every bit of evidence used to convict him was circumstantial. So circumstantial that the other Libyan on trial with him was acquitted. What is also not mentioned is that in 2007, a judicial review by the same court that convicted the man released today determined that he may have been wrongfully convicted and that he was entitled to appeal the conviction. This was currently in process when he was released. To put it more simply, he was released for “humanitarian” reasons largely to avoid an appeal that appeared to be headed towards a decision that would likely have held that he had been convicted erroneously,
Back when Mr Maghrebi was convicted, Libya and Muammar Ghadafi were the worlds Muslim bad boy. It was a bit too convenient to find and convict a Libyan for the event. There was never any direct evidence linking Maghrebi to the bombing.
In 2007, the Lockerbie case was referred back to court, highlighting six areas in which his first trial could have been considered a miscarriage of justice. The first hearings to allow him to be released on bail due to the massive amount of errors that occurred in the first trial were placed before the court in Scotland 8 months ago. Letting him go as an act of compassion created a rather better picture for the western world than a new trial which ended up with a decision that they convicted the wrong man in 2001, which is where the case seemed to be heading. Now the point is moot.
Paul
August 20th, 2009
7:36 pm
DDR
Problematic. They had a safe haven in Pakistan. That, and we would still have been dealing with a tribal society with a fundamentalist Moslem basis. I kinda think we’d have still been there, regardless.
Ever heard of Kosovo? The little adventure wherein the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff said ‘we’ll be out by Christmas’ and some astute wiseasses asked “which Christmas?”
DebbieDoRight
August 20th, 2009
7:36 pm
A good sound fundamental is to make SURE that the person applying for the loan has the money to pay for it. NOT letting someone borrow money without having to prove that they can pay it back. That’s Economics 101 — that’s a fundamental.
As the saying goes, they were letting hungry folks in the back door of the bakery and told them to be careful, just lock the door when they’re done. No sensible business would do that; unless their ultimate goal is to make sure that they can claim the loss as a result of “the other guy” and pocket the insurance/payout money.
md
August 20th, 2009
7:38 pm
“Investment firms, banks, and YES, lackadaisical government regulations are the cause of our downfall; and you forgot one other entity corporate GREED.”
Don’t restrict that to corporations, and you are on the right track. Just plain greed by all parties involved.
Its basically another unintended consequence of our wonderful gov’t, regardless of their intentions. There are folks that can’t afford homes, there are fat cats looking for a quick buck, and when it looks to good to be true, it probably isn’t.
Had the ratios been maintained and applied to all financial institutions, there would be no mess. And both parties are buried deep into the relaxing of those ratios.
Disgusted
August 20th, 2009
7:41 pm
Can you imagine the inflation that would have occurred if the government had put $100,000 directly into the hands of taxpayers–all that money chasing limited quantities of goods? And I’m not naive enough to believe that even a third of them would have used it to pay down mortgages.