Obama Administration Announces Yet Another Mortgage Assistance Program

The Obama Administration keeps attempting to come up with some kind of program to stabilize the real estate markets around the country, and most of these efforts have fallen well short of their goals.

The FHA is now giving jobless homeowners one year of grace time to miss mortgage payments. That's up from four months.

Starting Aug. 1, the Federal Housing Administration will extend the period for unemployed homeowners to miss mortgage payments to a full year from three or four months. That will allow qualified homeowners to go without making a monthly payment for 12 months before the foreclosure process begins.

The extended grace period only applies to FHA-backed loans, which are usually given to low- and middle-income borrowers and represent about 14 percent of all active mortgages and roughly 25 percent of new mortgages, and homeowners in the government's foreclosure-prevention program. About 10,000 homeowners in the foreclosure program and 3,500 FHA-backed homeowners per month would be eligible, officials said.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Thursday that administration officials hope private lenders and government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which back 90 percent of all new mortgages, will adopt a similar policy.

"Our hope is that this will have broader effects," Donovan said during a conference call.

The government launched its chief foreclosure program in 2009 to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly payments. Borrowers start with lower payments on a trial basis. But the program has struggled to convert them into permanent loan modifications.

More than 1.6 million troubled homeowners received trial modifications over the past two years. But a majority of the applicants, about 854,000 homeowners, have dropped out of the program entirely.

In recent weeks, administration officials have acknowledged that housing has become a significant drag on the economy. President Barack Obama said the housing market has "been most stubborn to us trying to solve the problem," during a town-hall-style meeting Wednesday on Twitter.

This latest program will do little to stem the tide of foreclosures because so many properties are underwater and so many people are underemployed or out of work altogether. It will take years for inventory in some parts of the country to reach healthy levels, meaning these programs will have little impact.

Yet, there are a few programs that are worthwhile - and among them is one that actually reward those people who have been making their mortgage payments on time and are current on their obligations.

This past week, I received a FedEx notice from my bank that they want me to refinance my mortgage for free. It's part of a little known program called the Making Home Affordable HARP program, though the bank didn't actually state it was part of that program. I had to dig around to make sure that this wasn't a scam, and I called the bank to confirm that this was a legitimate offer. After all, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

The program allows you to refinance your mortgage and take a lower rate along with either reducing your term or extending your mortgage back to a 30 year. After going through the details, I will be getting a mortgage that is 5/8 points lower than my existing rate.

It's for homeowners who are current on mortgage obligations but whose property may have lost some value. The way I see it, I'm getting a mortgage at a rate I should have gotten when I last refinanced.

As it is designed for those homeowners who are current on their mortgages, this frees up additional money to either pay down the mortgage faster or to spend on other purchases or to save the money for a rainy day fund.

That compares with other parts of the MHA program that have been far less successful, especially when it comes to getting homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure to get new terms within their means. The Administration has made multiple attempts to engage in a loan modification program to assist those homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure, but more than half of the people who have entered the program have dropped out or have required still more modifications with little effect.

The market has to work through the inventory and some areas are in much better shape than others because speculation didn't drive up prices and spur a housing boom that quickly went bust along with the credit markets. That's going to take time - and time is one thing that politicians don't want to think about when they're standing for reelection.

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The Final Rollout of the Space Shuttle

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Scott Andrews, his son Philip Andrews and Stan Jirman used 15 cameras and shot 120,000 still images to create a 3-minute time-lapse video showing the 4-day process of preparing the shuttle for its trek to the launch pad.

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EPA Promulgates New Smokestack Emission Rules

The EPA has promulgated new rules that should improve air quality for 240 million people, which will take effect beginning in 2012. It is a rewrite of a rule that the EPA passed during the Bush Administration but was invalidated by a federal judge in 2008.

The new regulation, known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, is essentially a rewrite of a rule issued by the administration of President George W. Bush that was invalidated by a federal judge in 2008. The regulation, known popularly as the transport rule because it involves emissions that are carried eastward by prevailing winds, is a significant toughening of an acid rain program that was part of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act.

The agency said that utilities could meet the new standards at a modest cost using commonly available technology like smokestack scrubbers. Under some E.P.A. projections, the new rule would create jobs in pollution-control business and significantly improve labor productivity by reducing the number of workdays lost to respiratory and other illnesses.

The utility industry and many Republicans in Congress, however, contend that the new rule, along with other pending E.P.A. air quality regulations, will require the closing of dozens of aging coal plants and impose heavy financial burdens on power companies and their customers.

“The E.P.A. is ignoring the cumulative economic damage new regulations will cause,” said Steve Miller, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a group of coal-burning utilities. “America’s coal-fueled electric industry has been doing its part for the environment and the economy, but our industry needs adequate time to install clean coal technologies to comply with new regulations. Unfortunately, E.P.A. doesn’t seem to care.”

An industry-financed study found that new air pollution rules would cost tens of thousands of jobs and raise electricity rates by more than 20 percent in some parts of the country.

Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, called the new rule an impediment to economic growth and job creation.

“True environmental progress will not come from these costly, heavy-handed regulations that harm the very people E.P.A. claims to protect,” Mr. Inhofe said in a statement. “Real progress on clean air is best achieved through common-sense multipollutant legislation that streamlines the Clean Air Act’s many redundant and overlapping mandates.”

“The bottom line,” he added, “is that reducing emissions does not have to be this expensive — the Obama E.P.A. just wants it to be.”

Supporters of the new rule said that any costs would be more than offset by health and other benefits. The E.P.A. estimates the annual benefits of the cross-state pollution rule at between $120 billion and $280 billion a year by 2014.

The Obama Administration and the EPA believe that the costs for improving the emissions to be less than $1 billion, and that it would save $120 to $280 billion a year based on fewer health-related issues downwind of the emitters (estimated at 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks, hundreds of thousands of cases of asthma and other respiratory ailments every year.)

That's a 120-1 benefit to cost ratio using the most conservative savings figure. Even if the Administration overstated the savings by a factor of 10, and the savings would be $10 billion a year, it would be considerable for a limited expenditure of $1 billion. Heck, even if the costs were underestimated by a similar margin, we'd still see benefits outweighing the costs.

The main reason the opponents consider that power costs would rise is that the energy generated by coal-plants is typically cheaper than other sources. Those regions most heavily reliant on coal power would see those energy costs rise while those relying on alt-energy, hydropower, or nuclear power would see far less costs.

It would also affect the economy of states like West Virginia, which are home to significant coal industries. Needless to say, those states are likely to fight back against the rules and seek to have them watered down.

Instead of fighting to water down the rules, the states that rely on coal power should be using this as an opportunity to push alt-energy opportunities and to pitch their states as havens for manufacturing solar or wind power generators and their technologies. What we are seeing is these states are trying to hang on while jobs continue to hemorrhage from those industries.

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Democrats Choose Mark Weprin To Run For Weiner's Vacated Seat

New York City Democrats have chosen former state assemblyman Mark Weprin to run for the seat vacated by disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced there would be a special election earlier this month and there has been much speculation over who would run.

Weprin is heavily favored to win the seat, which covers parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

A former New York City councilman, Weprin ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to be comptroller in 2009.

He was elected to the Assembly in 2010 after serving in the City Council for eight years.

Weprin is the son of former Assembly Speaker Saul Weprin (who took over that position when then Speaker Mel Miller was convicted on mail fraud charges).

So, there is a certain amount of symmetry to this decision.

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Assad's Continuing Crackdown

Tanks are poised around Hama to suppress ongoing protests against the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad but protests continue nonetheless. Some residents have fled ahead of what is likely to be a bloodbath should Bashar unleash his military here as his father did 30 years ago.

Syrian protesters hurled stones and set roadblocks of burning tires against government forces trying to enter a key opposition city Thursday, nearly a week after a massive protest against the regime of President Bashar Assad, activists said.

Earlier, dozens of families fled the central city of Hama fearing a full-scale crackdown by Assad's troops.

The central Syrian city has become a center of resistance in the four-month-old uprising and poses a potential dilemma for Assad's government. A major offensive could make the city a fresh rallying cry for the opposition, but Assad's regime also does not want a repeat of last Friday's stunning rally, when an estimated 300,000 people protested.

Hama also holds deeper symbolism for opposition to the rule of the Assad family. In 1982, the late Hafez Assad ordered troops to crush a rebellion by Islamist forces, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights activists say.

The Syrian regime has used a mix of fierce violence and promises of reform to try quell the uprising. Some 1,400 people and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say.

Promises of reform are nonsense when Assad continues brutally cracking down on protesters at every opportunity, including during funeral processions for those slain in earlier protests.

Amnesty International has apparently found its voice to denounce Assad and that the cases should be referred to the International Criminal Court because of widespread attacks on civilians and the murder of people taken into custody by Assad's thugs:

Crackdown in Syria: Terror in Tell Kalakh documents deaths in custody, torture and arbitrary detention that took place in May when Syrian army and security forces mounted a broad security sweep, lasting less than a week, against residents of the town near the Lebanese border.

“The accounts we have heard from witnesses to events in Tell Kalakh paint a deeply disturbing picture of systematic, targeted abuses to crush dissent,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director.

“Most of the crimes described in this report would fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. But the UN Security Council must first refer the situation in Syria to the Court’s Prosecutor.”

The paper’s findings are based on interviews carried out in Lebanon and by phone with more than 50 people in May and June. Amnesty International has not been allowed to enter Syria.

Syrian parliamentarian elections have been postponed, but they are little more than a rubber stamp to whatever Assad deems necessary. The spin put out by the Assad regime is that the postponement is necessary to allow for a new constitution and laws to make the government more pluralistic. However, this also gives Assad more time to crack down against the very protests and opposition leaders that would presumably be brought into a new government.

There is absolutely no reason to trust Assad at his word that he's engaging in reforms - not when he's busy murdering Syrians protesting his regime on a daily basis.

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People Have Been Convicted Of Murder On Far Less Evidence

Everyone seems to be reacting fairly badly against the jury that found Casey Anthony not guilty of murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee. There's a media frenzy to boot, which borders on the insane.

I haven't written about the case because I didn't find it particularly fascinating or interesting - parents are charged with the murder of their children all too frequently and this seemed like a pretty cut and dry case. There appeared to be enough circumstantial evidence to find her guilty.

It's entirely understandable that there's so much anger against the jury and Anthony. She might actually go free despite being found guilty on the lesser charges of lying to law enforcement (a judge may find that she should be released on time served from the point of arrest until the verdict yesterday is more than sufficient to cover the sentence for those charges).

Apparently some in the jury wanted to know how Caylee died. It's a natural question, but one that the prosecutors couldn't answer because the medical examiners and investigators couldn't pin down a cause of death.

That shouldn't have stopped a jury from reaching that decision. After all, there are people convicted of murder all the time and no one has recovered a body. In those cases, prosecutors have the task of first proving that the victim is in fact dead, before they can go ahead and prove that the defendant was responsible for the victim's death.

So, this wasn't a case where the jury simply decided that they couldn't find that Casey killed Caylee because she would have faced the death penalty. That calculus doesn't come up in this portion of the trial - the jury considers the punishment separate from the conviction. Had the jury found her guilty of murder, they would have then had to separately decide whether to sentence her to life in prison or the death penalty.

No, I think the real reason that the jury found as it did is the CSI/NCIS/Law and Order'ing of the American jury pool. People have come to expect so much from crime investigation services that they can pinpoint every last detail. This is a case where the jury thought that they should have had more information than they were provided.

This isn't always a bad thing - juries should be discriminating and demanding the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that individuals are guilty of the crimes charged. But it also seems that this particular jury was substituting a burden far higher than even that in demanding more proof that Anthony killed her daughter.

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The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 142

There's been a minor setback on the site of WTC 2, which is located on the northeast corner of the site. Inspectors discovered that the tower crane that was being installed there had a crack in a structural member. It hasn't been put in service and the public is not affected by the crane; it was discovered during routine inspections put in place following a series of high profile crane accidents that killed several people a few years ago.

The crane may be repaired on site, but if that isn't sufficient, an alternative plan is being submitted to the Department of Buildings.

Meanwhile, the retail real estate business in Lower Manhattan is booming ahead of the rebuilding at Ground Zero. Part of that is due to the expected opening of 1WTC and pent up demand for retail space and an improving real estate and business environment in Lower Manhattan. Rents are up and businesses are looking at new expanded and renovated space in the World Financial Center in coming years as well as the retail space inside the World Trade Center's transit hub and connectors.

Work is also progressing on the N/R train station at Cortlandt Street. It was heavily damaged in the 9/11 attacks and was briefly reopened for a time before being closed again to accommodate construction of the Dey Street connector between the PATH Transit Hub and the Fulton Street Transit Hub. Workers hope to have the station reopened in time for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this September as they expect the station to handle 300,000 customers daily. To put that number in perspective - that number is more than double the number that uses the Cleveland transit system handles (300,000x365 gives 10.65 million versus 5.2 million customers), but puts it in the middle of the pack among top stations in the NYC subway system.

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Sadat Assassination Plotter Released; Unrepentant

Aboud Al-Zomor, a military intelligence officer and one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (and a forerunner to al Qaeda) who was tried and convicted for his role in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, was released without fanfare in the wake of Hosni Mubarak being forced from power.


Now, out of prison, he's treated as a celebrity.

He's quite unrepentant about the assassination - that the peace deal with Israel was proof that Sadat needed to be removed from power at any cost. Or at least the straw that broke the camel's back. He and his fellow EIJ terrorists wanted to usher in an Islamic state and saw Sadat as a roadblock; and yet Zomor also doesn't find Sadat to be nearly as bad as Mubarak, who was far more corrupt in his power.

When Zomor was imprisoned, Ayman al Zawahiri took over. You might have heard of Zawahiri.

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Assad Continues Crackdown as Hama Protests Ongoing Brutality

Bashar al Assad's regime continues brutally cracking down against protesters throughout Syria, but it can't seem to crush the opposition in Hama.

You can expect Bashar to turn to his dog-eared copy of the Hama rules any day now to bring on the pain, misery, and murder of those who dare oppose his regime. The city of Hama is the focus of the crackdown because they continue protesting Assad's regime and brutality.

With more than 300,000 people taking to the streets there, this isn't some passing fancy demonstration. It's self-sustaining, and it's growing precisely because Assad's brutality in attempting to thwart further protests is leading to still more protests; his security thugs attack funeral processions for those killed in previous clashes between the security forces and those opposition protesters.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted media coverage, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events on the ground. But witness accounts, including interviews with refugees who have fled to neighboring countries, indicate that the regime is cracking down hard on the protest movement.

Also Tuesday, a Syrian activist said buses carrying security forces had been spotted heading to restive, mountainous areas near the Turkish border. Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, which track the protests in Syria, said witnesses told him the vehicles were rushing to the area where the military has been trying to prevent the opposition from establishing a base.

About 10,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey amid the crackdown.

The exodus has been a source of embarrassment to Syria, which has tried to tightly control coverage of the revolt. It also has strained ties with Turkey.

On Tuesday, the head of the Syrian Red Crescent, Abdurrahman Attar, urged all Syrian citizens in Turkey to return home, Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency said. Attar visited the Turkish city of Hatay along the countries' border but did not visit the refugee camps, the report said.

Rep. Dennis (the Menace) Kucinich could not be reached for comment.

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Unraveling the Causes of Autism - A SSRI Link?

Forget about vaccines. One of the culprits behind the rise in autism may be the use of SSRI (anti depressants) taken by women while they are pregnant.

Children whose mothers take Zoloft, Prozac, or similar antidepressants during pregnancy are twice as likely as other children to have a diagnosis of autism or a related disorder, according to a small new study, the first to examine the relationship between antidepressants and autism risk.

This class of antidepressants, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), may be especially risky early on in a pregnancy, the study suggests. Children who were exposed to the drugs during the first trimester were nearly four times as likely to develop an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with unexposed children, according to the study, which appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study included fewer than 300 children with a diagnosed ASD and does not prove that taking SSRIs during pregnancy directly causes ASDs, which affect approximately 1 percent of children in the U.S. The findings will need to be confirmed in larger studies, and should not dissuade women from starting or continuing to take SSRIs, experts on prenatal drug exposure and mental health say.

One study by itself doesn't give an explanation, but it does raise serious questions over if and how these medications should be dispensed during pregnancy.

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Officials Ponder $25 Fee For Visiting WTC 9/11 Memorial and Museum

Last week, there was a report that the WTC September 11 Memorial was several million dollars short on funding to have the site ready for receiving guests once it opens this year.

Now, there comes word again that officials are contemplating a $25 fee for visiting the September 11 Museum and Memorial. That's outraging victims' families and local politicians as it should. It's abhorrent that someone should have to pay to visit the site of the nation's worst terror attack to memorialize and commemorate the lives taken on that fateful day.

A proposal that could hit visitors to the Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum with a fee of up to $25 is fueling outrage among families, tourists and elected officials.

"This was supposed to be a place of valor, remembrance and reverence," said retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, whose firefighter son, Jimmy, 29, died in the north tower.

"They might as well sell lemonade and T-shirts if they're going to become a(n) ... admission-charging tourist attraction."

Memorial & Museum President Joe Daniels vows the memorial will always be free, but says it must find permanent funds to cover costs of up to $60 million a year.

Lobbyists are trying to get Congress to establish a fixed annual federal donation. If that happens, there could be no charge or a modest $10 or $15 fee.

If Washington nixes the bid, a $25 "suggested donation" or $20 mandatory fee could be imposed.

Putting the arm on museumgoers sends the wrong message, said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the powerful Democrat who represents downtown.

"I had hoped there would be no charge," he said. "We want the whole world to see this place - so all generations can know the terrorists did not win."

Other critics note that salaries for the nonprofit's 87 staffers total $5.5 million - or almost 10% of operating costs.

The memorial pays more than $100,000 to 16 employees. Eight of them earn more than $200,000 and four make more than $300,000, tax filings show.

One way that the fee could be avoided is if Albany and/or Washington puts aside partisan political differences and passes a supplementary bill to fully fund the museum and memorial so that it is free. At the same time, a closer look at the costs incurred by the nonprofit organization that is overseeing the project is overdue. This is a site of national significance and it should be free and open to the public just as other locations of national significance, including Federal Hall in Manhattan, the Washington Mall, Pearl Harbor, and Mount Rushmore (though there is a parking fee there).

Perhaps a parking fee could be the way to ensure that the memorial and museum are free for future generations - since many people visiting the site will be coming by tour buses, fees for those buses making stops in Lower Manhattan should be imposed and an additional $1 per vehicle fee imposed on parking garages below Canal Street to help fund the project and to provide additional local services. That would make more sense than imposing entry fees even if they are a suggestion and not a mandatory fee.

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Pakistan Still Cultivating Terrorists

Despite their claims that they aren't supporting militant groups and terrorists, the fact remains that the Pakistani military and security services are constantly in contact with a wide array of groups, including those that operate in the frontier provinces with Afghanistan and in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistanis are double dealing when it comes to the US, NATO, and claims that they're doing all they can to stop terrorists from operating within their territory.

The former commander said that he was supported by the Pakistani military for 15 years as a fighter, leader and trainer of insurgents until he quit a few years ago. Well known in militant circles but accustomed to a covert existence, he gave an interview to The New York Times on the condition that his name, location and other personal details not be revealed.

Militant groups, like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen and Hizbul Mujahedeen, are run by religious leaders, with the Pakistani military providing training, strategic planning and protection. That system was still functioning, he said.

The former commander’s account belies years of assurances by Pakistan to American officials since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that it has ceased supporting militant groups in its territory. The United States has given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid over the past decade for its help with counterterrorism operations. Still, the former commander said, Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment has not abandoned its policy of supporting the militant groups as tools in Pakistan’s dispute with India over the border territory of Kashmir and in Afghanistan to drive out American and NATO forces.

“There are two bodies running these affairs: mullahs and retired generals,” he said. He named a number of former military officials involved in the program, including former chiefs of the intelligence service and other former generals. “These people have a very big role still,” he said.

Maj. Gen. Zaheer ul-Islam Abbasi, a former intelligence officer who was convicted of attempting a coup against the government of Benazir Bhutto in 1995 and who is now dead, was one of the most active supporters of the militant groups in the years after Sept. 11, the former commander said.

He said he saw General Abbasi several times: once at a meeting of Taliban and Pakistani militant leaders in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province as they planned how to confront the American military in Afghanistan; and twice in Mir Ali, which became the center for foreign militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, including members of Al Qaeda.

There were about 60 people at the Taliban meeting in late 2001, soon after the Taliban government fell, the former commander said. Pakistani militant leaders were present, as were the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, and Muhammad Haqqani, a member of the Haqqani network.

Several retired officials of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, were also there, he said, including a man known as Colonel Imam but who was actually Brig. Sultan Amir, a well-known trainer and mentor of militants, and General Abbasi. The militant groups divided Afghanistan into separate areas of operations and discussed how to “trip up America,” he said.

The Pakistani military still supports the Afghan Taliban in their fight to force out American and NATO forces from Afghanistan, he said, adding that he thought they would be successful.

Some Pakistanis will say that these kinds of linkages were severed and these groups are no longer operating with the sanction of the government, but that's highly suspect.

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Independence Day 2011

Today is a day we give thanks that there were men willing to risk everything for the proposition that men are ruled by law, and not by kings. They believed that all men were created equal, and endowed with inalienable rights.

It began with the courage of their convictions to write and then sign their names to a document that changed the course of history.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

These men became the Founding Fathers of the American experiment. It has been an experiment that has seen tremendous ups and downs, but has persevered even though the most trying of times for the past 235 years. While we strive to uphold the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence today, not only here in the United States, but around the world, it is a day we should be thankful that we have progressed so far in such a short time, and that our Founding Fathers had such brilliant optimism about the future.

Happy Birthday America!

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Oil Pipeline Breach Fouls Yellowstone River

A pipeline running underneath the Yellowstone River ruptured and dumped up to 1,000 barrels of oil into the river in Montana that runs from the national park of the same name into North Dakota. It's fouled a 25 mile stretch and it will be up to Exxon Mobil to clean up the mess (they operate the pipeline).

An Exxon Mobil spokeswoman, Pam Malek, said the pipe leaked an estimated 750 to 1,000 barrels of oil for about half an hour before it was shut down. Other Exxon officials estimate up to 42,000 gallons (158,982 litres) of crude oil escaped.

Duane Winslow, Yellowstone county director of disaster and emergency services, said the plume was dissipating as it moved downstream.

"We're just kind of waiting for it to move on down while Exxon is trying to figure out how to corral this monster," Winslow said.

"The timing couldn't be worse," said Steve Knecht, chief of operations for Montana disaster and emergency services. "With the Yellowstone running at flood stage and all the debris, it makes it dang tough to get out there to do anything."

He said the plume was measured at 25 miles near Pompeys Pillar national monument.

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Assad Sacks Governor; Licks Wounds While Brutalizing Syrians

Bashar al Assad continues his brutalization of Syria and making half-hearted measures at reform - a carrot and stick approach to dealing with months of protests against his regime.

He sacked a governor of a province that includes the city of Hama. That has as much to do with the governor allowing protests to continue as it does with anything else that Assad might say. Assad has been continually embarrassed by the protests in the heart of his country, and he's not going to tolerate dissent except when he allows it for his propaganda purposes. This isn't the first governor who has been sacked, and those moves haven't stopped the protests either:

The protests took place while Assad's troops, backed by tanks and helicopters, pursued a military campaign in the northwestern province of Idlib where a prominent rights lawyer said 14 villagers were killed on Friday.

Another 10 people were shot dead by security forces who confronted demonstrators in the central city of Homs, Damascus suburbs and the Mediterranean city of Latakia, activists said.

State news agency SANA agency said Assad issued a decree dismissing Ahmad Khaled Abdulaziz, governor of Hama province, without giving details.

Hama was the site of an armed Islamist uprising against Assad's father, Hafez Assad, who sent the army to crush the revolt in 1982. At least 10,000 people were killed and part of
the old city was flattened in the military operation.

One month ago, activists said Syria forces killed at least 60 protesters in the city, in one of the bloodiest days of the uprising against Assad. Residents said security forces and snipers had fired on crowds of demonstrators.

Assad has already sacked the governors of Daraa, where the protests first broke out on March 18, and Homs, but neither move halted the momentum of protests in those provinces.

The protests continue unabated despite the ongoing crackdowns:



Assad is embarrassed by the ongoing protests and the failure to quell the protests despite weeks of crackdowns. Assad is desperate to hold on to power and is not going to give up without a fight.

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Triple Five's American Dream Already Turning Into A Nightmare

Triple Five, which operates the Mall of America entered into an agreement to take over the moribund and never-opened Xanadu project that is full of the stench of failed development policies in New Jersey. The company is likely to benefit from a number of tax measures to entice the company to take over the project, but the whole enterprise seems to be a money pit just waiting to happen. One can only hope that Triple Five can turn things around but they're going to have to overcome issues with the design and structure itself.

In fact, it looks like some of the work done on the original project was shoddy and will need significant repair before the site can be readied for an open (a date has still not been set for when that will happen). Costs were cut in order to attempt to open the project, and when the money ran out, everything was left as it was.

Elevators and escalators that have been installed on site will need to be refurbished or replaced because of rust or corrosion.

Perhaps more costly is the fact that one of the parking garage decks is sinking and needs to be stabilized. Triple Five says that the structures are stable, but soil underneath needs to be compacted and brought up to level. This particular issue appears to be similar to one that faced the developers for Palisades Center in Nyack, New York, where the underground garage was shut down for months as the developers worked to repair the garage levels because it became impossible to safely navigate the area due to potholes, sinkholes, and subsidence.

The company also plans on completely revamping interior and exterior finishes. Those changes to the exterior can't come fast enough as everyone recognizes just how ugly and awful the design was.

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Israeli Tech Company Figures Out Way To Harness Wasted Energy From Trains

An Israeli company has figured out a way to harness the power of moving locomotives by placing pads underneath the train rails to capture the power as the train glides by.

Israeli-based technology developer Innowattech specializes in the development of patented IPEG Piezo Electric Generators, which use the piezoelectric effect–the ability of a material to produce electricity when under mechanical stress–to retrieve the wasted energy vehicles create along roads, runways and rail.

This kind of technology would help build a generating capacity using energy lost from other sources - such as driving down roads or bridges.

Their proof of concept is an operational system on Israel's rail network. The piezoelectric system also can provide health data about the mode of transportation such as speed, weight, direction, and track condition among other things.

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How Twilight Should Have Ended

Because enough can't be said of how vapid and supremely stupid this teen romance/vampire series is; everything could have been resolved after one teeny weeny change in the first book:



This movie series has been on Showtime pretty much 20x a week and it's impossible to miss one of the broadcast times. The movies are a train wreck of suck. The acting is bad. The story is awful. The movie literally sucks the life out of the Olympic Peninsula where much of the movie takes place; I've actually driven through Forks and those vistas and backdrops are spectacular - yet they've been turned in to drab and featureless.

Oh, and there's more romance between Edward and Jacob than anything shown in the film between Bella and those two.

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Thai Islamists Strike Again With Multiple Bomb Attacks

The Thai Islamists who are trying to establish an Islamic state in Southern Thailand have struck once again. This time, one of the bombs detonated and when bomb techs were studying another vehicle believed to be carrying a bomb, that bomb detonated. Photos captured that bomb as it blew up.

These Islamist separatists continue attacking police and civilians alike; there were bomb attacks again last week.

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Kucinich Can't Be Reached For Comment as Assad's Thugs Continue Brutal Crackdown

If it's Friday in Syria that means that protesters again have taken to the street demanding that Bashar al Assad leave and Bashar al Assad's thugs are busy with their brutal crackdown, including murdering still more Syrians in northern towns.

About 1,000 anti-government demonstrators gathered before they were attacked and dispersed by pro-government demonstrators.

T[h]anks and helicopters opened fire and reportedly killed a number of civilians as military forces swept through several northern villages. The crackdown comes just days after the government allowed a small gathering of opposition activists in Damascus. Around 1,700 people have been killed in Syria's violence so far, and around 10,000 have fled to refugee camps in Turkey.

Assad's troops keep murdering protesters at funerals for those slain previously by the regime.

These protests aren't going away, including in the Damascus suburbs, but Assad's crackdown hasn't subsided either.

Recall that Democrat Dennis Kucinich was busy claiming that Assad was withdrawing troops from cities as proof he was really showing some kind of respect for human rights and Syrian rights to protest.

Assad's security forces continue murdering Syrians opposed to the regime - just in different towns than the ones his security forces were in just a few days ago. Those forces simply redeployed to deal with opposition groups elsewhere in the country. They haven't stopped the brutality.

There's a term for people like Kucinich - useful idiot - and he wears that term well.

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New Jersey Has a Budget; Christie Vetoed Unconstitutional Spending Added By Legislature

There will be no budget shutdown in New Jersey as is the situation developing in Minnesota. Gov. Chris Christie signed the budget presented to him by the Democratic-controlled Legislature, but not without slashing spending by $900 million. The new $29.7 billion budget is $100 million more than the budget he originally presented to the Legislature, but the Democrats will spin mightily to complain that Christie slashed spending and made harsh cuts.

The problem for Democrats is that they propped up their spending with nothing more than wishful thinking. The state was already being forced to use a borrowing plan to tide the state over until it can present a bond measure in a couple of weeks because it lacked revenues on hand to do so. Democrats added hundreds of millions more in spending than they could ever hope to expect from their millionaires tax that they further added. Christie vetoed the millionaires tax and the spending. Besides, the millionaires tax had to be law before the budget was enacted in order to claim that the revenues were available and present - and it wasn't:

Little mattered until Thursday — Democrats could pass what bills they wished on Wednesday, but if they did not survive the Christie cut, the bills were almost certainly dead. The budget as sent to Christie was doomed. The only question was whether it would be cut in a way that would allow the state to not shut down or force legislators into a marathon session over the holiday weekend.

Christie's one gift to Democrats was that he chose the former. There will be no missed barbecues this July 4. The Democrats' budget was unconstitutional; it was not balanced as required by law. It may have included some dandy stuff, but there were insufficient funds. To borrow an oft-quoted phrase: Democrats were writing checks the state could not cash.

The first problem was that the budget only could be balanced if there were a millionaire's tax. And there wasn't. And there wasn't going to be one. But even if Christie had supported such a tax, it needed to be law before the Democrats' budget went to the governor.

It is not an easy time for legislators or the governor. They are all political creatures with agendas. Democratic legislators sold out to non-elected Democratic power brokers and agreed to transform public employees' lives, changing formulas for pensions and workers' contributions toward health care benefits. In the wake of that big sellout, there was a new kind of fire sale in which everything that could be salvaged from those ashes was put up for a vote.

I have not absorbed all the Christie cuts. Most of the increased school funding toward the so-called non-Abbott school districts has been cut. So has the Earned Income Tax Credit increase. And the millionaire's tax was axed like a tree in the Koch brothers' forest. None of this is particularly surprising. Nor will it be surprising to see Democrats try to override some of these vetoes next week.

To date, Christie has been brilliant at holding together the Republican caucus. I doubt few, if any, will defect. And the bottom line is that the budget has to be balanced by law. There is only so much revenue. The debate should be about priorities, and it has never been about that. Democrats added on without taking other things out. The only way to win with Christie is to force him to transfer one item for another. Instead, he was able to say the budget increased spending beyond certified revenues. It did.

Democrats in the Legislature have screwed the state for so long that their song and dance about how budget increases being cuts are getting stale (well, it's a common song and dance - especially in New York). A budget that spends more on education than the prior year is considered a cut because the spending is less than what the Democrats demanded even though there's no revenues to back up the plan.

New Jersey's Constitution requires a balanced budget, and that means that spending must require sufficient revenues. When those revenues aren't expected or can't be reasonably expected to materialize, something has to give. The Democrats' spending spree had to be cut.

The new budget will also provide $468 million in pension obligation payments, which is something that the state had not done in recent years and is part of the deal to overhaul the pension system in the state. There's also a slightly expanded homestead property tax rebate/credit. In all, the state is spending $30 million more than last year on education spending, including $450 million as required by the State Supreme Court following its misguided decision about those districts not getting a thorough and efficient education.

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Chavez Admits To Cancer Surgery in Cuba; Venezuela Wonders What Comes Next

It's taken [T]hugo Chavez a couple of weeks, but he's finally come out and admitted that the reason he has been missing in action from the airwaves and media appearances for the past month has been the result of cancer surgery and recovery in Cuba.



It's rather telling just how serious the situation is that he has been silent for so long and that the military has had to come out and say that they will guarantee the ongoing safety and security.

General Henry Rangel Silva said on Friday the military would guarantee constitutional order during Chavez's absence for treatment in Cuba. The president, he said, would be home "soon" and was still in charge.

"We have seen our comandante thinner than usual but still standing. The truth is he is getting better, he's fine," Rangel told state television. "The country is calm."

The usually vivacious Chavez, 56, confirmed in a stern speech on Thursday he had surgery in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumor and was receiving more treatment. He said he needed time to recover before returning to Venezuela to run his self-styled revolution.

A fiery critic of the United States, Chavez will miss events marking Venezuela's 200th anniversary of independence from Spain. He had to cancel a regional summit planned for the momentous July 5 date.

Markets have generally reacted positively to news of Chavez's health problems, on the presumption they improve the chances of a more business-friendly government.

It's a sad day for democracy in Venezuela that everything has to hinge on Chavez's health; there's no line of succession and his underlings try to put on a veneer of calm when they have no idea what comes next.

It's also telling that Chavez had to go to Cuba for treatment; does Venezuela not have doctors and cancer care? Perhaps that was the result of Cuba being far more secretive about Chavez's condition and that he could get treatment without the prying eyes of media outlets. However, his prolonged absence spurred questions about his health condition.

I don't know, but this seems to be the position being taken by Chavez's apparatchik's and military:

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