Ahhh its crazy the day has finally arrived! I’m actually leaving for South Africa on a Mission Trip today. We are going to help build a three room school house for the kids in Bukwini a small city near East London.
Trust me its not the London you’re probably thinking of. I had to actually check […]
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BushHumor on August 24th, 2008
It’s bad enough that John McCain doesn’t know how many homes he and wife Cindy own. But does he realize that he lives in subsidized housing?
The McCains, like other wealthy homeowners, can take advantage of American tax laws that provide substantial tax breaks for the rich . The McCains can take deductions on the interest from outstanding mortgages up to a total of $1 million on two homes. Because they are in the top (35%) tax bracket, they can get a tax break of as much as $25,000 a year. (This assumes a fixed-rate 30-year mortgage at a 7% interest rate). In addition, they can get deductions on their property taxes and on capital gains (up to $500,000) when they sell a home. (Since they file separate tax returns, and Cindy’s the wealthy member of the couple, it’s most likely that she gets the tax breaks).
According to recent reports, John and Cindy McCain own at least 10 houses in Arizona, California, and Virgina worth an estimated total $13.8 million. These include two beachfront condos in Coronado, California, a condo in La Jolla, California, a two-unit condominium complex in Phoenix, Arizona, three ranch houses outside of Sedona, Arizona, a high-rise condo in Arlington, Virginia, a rental loft, and a loft they bought for their daughter. Read the rest of this entry »
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BushHumor on August 23rd, 2008
John McCain for President.
Taken directly from John McCain’s website, these are the reasons I support Mr. McCain for President of the United States:
John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.
Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.
However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, “At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level.“
In 1993, John McCain and his wife, Cindy, adopted a little girl from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh. She has been a blessing to the McCain family and helped make adoption advocacy a personal issue for the Senator.
The McCain family experience is not unique; millions of families have had their lives transformed by the adoption of a child. As president, motivated by his personal experience, John McCain will seek ways to promote adoption as a first option for women struggling with a crisis pregnancy. In the past, he cosponsored legislation to prohibit discrimination against families with adopted children, to provide adoption education, and to permit tax deductions for qualified adoption expenses, as well as to remove barriers to interracial and inter-ethnic adoptions.
As president, John McCain would nominate judges who understand that the role of the Court is not to subvert the rights of the people by legislating from the bench. Critical to Constitutional balance is ensuring that, where state and local governments do act to preserve the traditional family, the Courts must not overstep their authority and thwart the Constitutional right of the people to decide this question.
The family represents the foundation of Western Civilization and civil society and John McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It is only this definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation.
As with most issues vital to the preservation and health of civil society, the basic responsibility for preserving and strengthening the family should reside at the level of government closest to the people. In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers reserved for the States the authority and responsibility to protect and strengthen the vital institutions of our civil society. They did so to ensure that the voices of America’s families could not be ignored by an indifferent national government or suffocated through filibusters and clever legislative maneuvering in Congress. Read the rest of this entry »
BushHumor on August 1st, 2008
The Federal Reserve said lending to commercial banks rose to an average daily record while loans to securities firms showed a zero balance for a fourth week.
Loans to commercial banks through the Fed’s traditional discount window increased by $2.47 billion to an average $16.4 billion a day in the week ended yesterday, while lending to Wall Street bond dealers fell to zero from an average $9 million, the Fed reported today.
The subprime-mortgage collapse has taken a toll on banks and other financial companies, which have reported $468 billion of writedowns since the start of 2007. Fed officials have responded to the yearlong credit crisis by narrowing the gap between the discount rate and the benchmark rate and increasing the term of commercial-bank loans to 90 days from overnight.
“It reflects the growing use of the discount window as not just an overnight backstop but as a permanent source of funding,” said Louis Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC, a Jersey City, New Jersey-based research firm. The Fed report shows banks are taking advantage of the lengthened terms, he said. Read the rest of this entry »
BushHumor on July 31st, 2008
Manufacturing in the U.S. stagnated in July as orders slumped to the lowest level in almost seven years, signaling higher raw material costs and slower spending are hurting producers.
The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index fell to 50, a higher reading than forecast, from 50.2 in June, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said today. A reading of 50 is the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
Manufacturers are scaling back to protect profits and prevent inventories from growing as demand weakens. The drop in the value of the dollar has made U.S. goods more affordable overseas, leading to gains in exports that are keeping factories from sinking.
“The economy is essentially stalled,” David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “It will remain that way for the time being. We will see bigger job losses down the road.”
Economists forecast the index would decrease to 49 from 50.2 in June, according to the median of 75 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 47.8 to 52.5. Read the rest of this entry »
BushHumor on July 30th, 2008
The Federal Reserve, looking to spur investment in lenders hit by credit-market losses, is weighing three measures to ease rules for private-equity funds that buy bank stakes, people with knowledge of the deliberations said.One proposal would permit buyout firms to use “silo” funds walled off from their other investments to buy the stakes without subjecting the rest of their holdings to more federal oversight, said the people, who declined to be named because the talks aren’t public. Under another scenario, the Fed would let private equity firms exercise more control of banks they invest in. A third plan would encourage firms to team up on bank deals.
Buyout firms are “hesitant to invest in banks because of the various levels of regulation that would apply to them,” said Thomas Vartanian, a partner at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP in Washington who advises buyout funds and lenders. “The banks need capital, and private equity has it. Necessity is often the mother of invention.”
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has called on banks and brokerages to raise cash as their losses from the collapse of the mortgage market and the ensuing credit-contraction climb to more than $466 billion. Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group, the world’s two biggest private-equity firms, discussed the topic when they met with Paulson this month, say people briefed on the talks. Read the rest of this entry »
