AT LAST: NEW CURBS ON CREDIT CARD FIRMS

BBC hax written an article stating:  "President Barack Obama has signed into law extensive new restrictions on the ability of US credit card companies to charge fees or raise interest rates."

"The bill is designed to protect credit card users from unexpected fees or increases to their interest rates."   To view the whole article, click  here
"Big changes
The new law, described as a credit card holder "Bill of Rights", is the first of a series of law changes designed to help stave off further financial crises.
Among the main provisions of the new law are ones that:
• stop arbitrary interest rate increases and "universal default" on existing balances. In universal default, a lender can change a cardholder's account to costly "default" terms from normal terms when the lender learns the cardholder missed a payment on an account with another lender, even if the cardholder has not defaulted with the first lender
• stop card issuers from raising rates for a cardholder in the first year after an account is opened, and require that promotional rates must last at least six months
• stop issuers from charging fees for spending beyond their limits, unless the cardholder chooses to allow the issuer to process the excess spending, and restrict any "over-limit" fees
• require penalty fees to be reasonable and proportional to the cardholder's omission or violation
• require that cardholders be told how long it would take, and the interest cost involved, in paying off a card balance if they make only the minimum monthly payments
• require that cardholders must get 45 days' notice of interest rate, fee and finance charge increases

BAIN IS BANE TO ROMNEY

It is widely spoken that the best defense is an offense.  In fact, many of us find it 'offensive;. (see the 2nd and 3rd meaning here).It is offensive to me to hear our President called a liar because he is quoting the data that the media has exposed about Romney's past (SEC statements and a disclosure form given to officials to decide whether Romney was eligible to run for MA governor though he had lived in Utah for a couple of years and paid taxes there for the lower rate. (He is purported to have paid back the the IRS, the fifty-five thousand he had saved by filing in Utah).

The Romney we know, as he has shown us himself today, is that he is the man behind the curtain in OZ.  Now I ask  readers, if the fox in the hen house could speak, would he tell the farmer he was there to eat his chickens?  It is doubtful.  If he behaved in the Rove/Romney fashion, he would probably accuse the farmer of not taking added protection for his hens with a fox around.

If you think this through a little further, you will see why the Republicans feel the solution that follows the outsourcing is to fire teachers, police, firefighters, etc.  They would do to us what has happened in Europe.  We should be smarter than they. 

To compare Romney's promises for solving all out problems with nothing to show for collateral, listen to this video of a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz telling us simply what we should be doing.  It is not what Romney would do.  Romney is making grand promises as though he is still the CEO and sole owner (not of Bain) but the whole USA.  Does he realize that he can do nothing he wants unless he has bipartisan cooperation, he will sail the same boat President Obama is sailing.

Today is Friday the thirteenth...we won't be allowed to forget that.

WHY MUST WE, TAXPAYERS, FUND THE SALARY OF A DO-NOTHING CONGRESS?

It is with deep resentment that I must accept payi9ng the high salaries and the many perks that Representatives will have even if they are only elected for a single term.  In my opinion, had they been on a job anywhere else, they would have been fired for the pitiable performance they have shown.  We have paid for their time and questionable work as they for 33 times (depending on to whom you listen) have presented and voted on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  Furthermore, to get the focus off Romney her first passed a similar bill still operative in Massachusetts, persists on renaming it from Romneycare to Obamacare.

The good members of the NAACP to whom Romney spoke yesterday tried to be courteous but lost control of their polite pose to strongly boo him when he spoke of Obamacare.  Some very close to the members said the boos were not that he wanted to repeal the law as much as they resented demeaning Obama and his office by calling the law in such an insulting fashion, using Obamacare.

It would appear that there is no way for Romney to win the election legally but, in fact, did anyone assume it would be legal and fair?  I know of no one in my personal acquaintance that naive, though there are parts of the country who are fed such propaganda that they remain in the dark about the realities.

Apparently we are now expected, as individuals, to fork over funds to buy our Presidents' who will go to the highest bidding party.  We can only hope that this election will prove that money cannot buy everything, including elections.  Those who are legally entitled to vote will be assisted in paying and proving they may vote.  Hopefully Attorney General Holder will continue to help see to that possibility.

Meanwhile each day spent sees us one day closer to the election.  We have now two or three days under 120 left.  Don't give up on our democracy, my friends.  Vote for the man who is clear on that for which he stands, Barack Obama, and against the Teapartiers who want to move us back several hundred years.

118 DAYS OF ACUTE ANXIETY LEFT TO 'V' DAY

Grover Norquist

Grover Norquist made a joke of Romney before Romney claimed the position for himself by vacillating on every issue, offering nothing and displacing every complaint of him onto Obama.  Romney is only trying to get rid of Obama, having nothing to offer.  Norquist needs offer nothing...he and the people now running the Republican party are just waiting to take over without Obama in their way.

Mitt Romney

There is no fear that Romney will get more votes because people like him.  No, it is because the conspiracy theorists, hate Obama so much they can['t see how terrible for the country he will be.  Norquist made it clear that "they" (those who really run the Republicans as drones (or the equivalent, in Huxley talk,..not Alphas or Betas but third class.  Alcohol is put in their amniotic fluid to make them stupid).  We night as well be ion Brave New World because the alphas,(substitute money and greed for brains) are running the country.

Chris Christie

Wonder of wonders!  Chris Christie has a liberal thought.  He would prefer drug treatment for addicts rather than incarceration.  It is cheaper and has a better chance of helping the addict.  However, the Republicans who push for privatizing the prisons would hardly agree with him.Why would they want to legalize drugs

AN ALTERNATE WORLD

When I listen to the spin by the Republicans, their 'PACS", there negative attacks, I wonder where they are living.  If they have such great solutions to the problems of our economy, where have they been for the last 12 years?  Sometimes, listening to their surrogates, I wonder about male Stepford robots.  I doubt the untruthful man with the funny name, Reince Priebus, who has the delusion that he is running the Republican party, somehow knows how ridiculous he actually sounds.  When he said, (speaking of Obama) he spoke of the head rotting.  Is the head rotting limited to only Democrats, Obama, or was he speaking of all 'heads', which surely should extend to Republicans, as well. Since he is head of the RNC might have been talking about himself, perhaps?


Grover Norquist still holds the Republicans by their most vulnerabled bodily parts.  They have foolishly signed the 'No new taxes pledge".  Getting rid of the tax cut to the rich is not a new tax.but simply goes back to the previous state before the 'temporary tax cut' was put in place..  


Romney, whose favorite Supreme court judge was Roberts before the last decision on the Affordable Care Act, now has everything negative to say about him.  The vacillations of Romney make a joke out of truth and consistency. One has to wonder how long Romney can hide his off shore, Swiss, and Cayman Islands bank accounts.  I'm holding the fan to hear (or see) more about this.  It can't happen soon enough.  We only have about 120 days before the final vote..

 

The FBI plans to shut down the many servers who have hi-jacked personal computers being used as 'botnets'.  This has kept the source of spam out of sight for a long time though the man who masterminded it, Russian Georgiy Avanesov was found guilty of computer sabotage by an Armenian court. and will spend four years in prison for his crime.  It is estimat4ed that 30 million computers were taken over and used by his servers.

If you have been unaware of this problem and you may be affected and not know it, check out your computer, click here. then follow the instructions.  Assuming the instructions are accurate, my picture stayed green indicating I have not been taken over.

You may recall reading about the man's trial a couple of years ago.

India is called 'the spam capitol of the world'  Police in India say they have arrested six foreign nationals suspected of defrauding hundreds of people using text message and email scams. While Romney calls for fewer regulations by our government, he was instrumental in sourcing out to India where many jobs that should have been done in America by Americans now are answered half a world away.  Have we helped reach people the skills to scam us?  To read about India's laws which offer immunity to spammers, click here to read about India..

DOES ANYONE BUT MARTIN BASHIR SPEAK PROPER ENGLISH ON TV ANY MORE?

As a child, I struggled through learning math without a calculator, penmanship that is legible by Palmer Method for hours of drilling; and proper grammar.  I cringe when I hear news casters say things like, "Me and him are going to..."; substituting 'myself' when they mean me or I, and never realizing when to use I, me, who and whom.  I accept that some things have changed since I was in grade school (apparently even history) but it saddens me so many do not seem to even know that the verb 'to be' takes the nominative case....if memory serves me this far.

My morals are less insulted by today's world than the communication being like fingernails scraping a blackboard.    If you've never been trained to hear good music, on pitch, you might not notice the clinkers that a poor musician can make (or you've never been forced to go to a fourth grade recital of musicians in their first year of brass or reed instruments).

It has become so painful to watch faces reflect that they think I am speaking inaccurately when I answer, "This is I".  We have all become so used to saying, "It's me".that it is beginning to sound odd to hear, "It's I'..  There are many things we have to learn today but if we can't learn grammar, we write terrible books because the editors do not know how to correct the grammar.  Since I often re-read books I like, I correct the grammar so I don't cringe as much on the second read.

Please help bring back education to our schools.