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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (167868)	8/1/2005 11:29:05 AM
From: bentway	Respond to of 281500

Who Has Tea with the Queen? Elizabeth Warren huffingtonpost.com Newsweek counts eight ambassadorships handed out to $100,000-plus donors since January. Add in Bush's appointee from Friday, billionaire Roland Arnall, and that brings us to a Big Donor Appointment Rate of one every 24 days. Billionaires, get your bids in now. Roland Arnall paid in at least $600,000 to President Bush's causes to earn him an ambassadorship to the Netherlands, but where did he get all that money? Should he have the Ambassadorship -- or should it go to the people his company is accused of cheating? Mr. Arnall is the CEO of Ameriquest, a company under investigation in all 50 states for preying on families in financial trouble. The company is charged with cheating people out of their homes -- plain and simple. On Feb 5, the LA Times told some of the stories. One woman describes how "Ameriquest employees tricked her into signing a mortgage that required her to pay $2,494 a month, more than she earns cleaning houses." All the negotiations were in Spanish, but all the loan documents were in English -- a language in which she's not proficient. "'The only thing she ever got from Ameriquest that was in Spanish was a foreclosure notice,' said her lawyer." A widow explains that company employees qualified her and her late husband for a loan "by fabricating documents showing that he earned $6,800 a month as proprietor of Knox Music Academy. At the time of the loan, the suit says, [her husband] was 79 and suffering from terminal cancer. The music school never existed," and the couple never knew about the falsified mortgage documents. Now the lawsuits are multiplying. The Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and even former employees of Ameriquest have challenged the company. The president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, denounced the company as a collection of "slimy mortgage predators." Drowning in lawsuits and investigations, on Friday Ameriquest set aside $365 million to settle claims in 30 states -- the same day that President Bush rewarded CEO Arnall with an ambassadorship. When billionaire car dealers or manufacturers pay for ambassadorships, at least they pay with money earned by selling something of value. How much of Mr. Arnall's money came from cheating hard-working families, families who were trying to scratch their way out of poverty and into a home, families who turned to refinancing when dad lost a job or mom got sick, and families who answered an advertisement that promised to help them lower their monthly payments -- only to get cheated? If Mr. Arnall paid $600,000 for an ambassadorship, why not make that part of the settlement? Why not let some of the people who lost their homes, who paid hidden charges and inflated prices, and who stripped their savings and borrowed from friends in order to keep making those monthly payments to Ameriquest get a piece of the action? Why not let them take a turn as Ambassador-for-a-Day? After all, when ambassadorships are for sale, why shouldn't the people who really put up the money get their chance to have tea with the Queen of the Netherlands? Posted at 02:17 PM

To: one_less who wrote (167868)	8/1/2005 11:31:30 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Exactly which part do you disagree with?

To: one_less who wrote (167868)	8/1/2005 12:54:27 PM
From: illyia	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I must say that you are right Gemstone, but there is a very good reason for this obsession. Actually there are several. The first is this is smelling like a full blown scandal, with all the trimmings. It is simply fascinating to watch the machinations of these politicos as they try to spin reality their way. The second is that some of us are genuinely scared. We look at the deficits, and we are scared. We look at the borders, and we are scared. We look at the loose nukes, and we are scared. But mostly we are scared that this "utopian Straussian ideology" is not based on rational thinking: That the reason's for Bush's troubles are based in denial, control and ill-thought-out procedures, that have never been tested, thwart long-standing traditions and have historically not worked. We are scared because we've read the same story in history, and it did end very badly. Last, we have burnt our bridges. It is great to have friends when you are riding high on the hog. But when things turn against you, where will your buddies be? The very thing that binds our soldiers (watching each other's backs, as a "Band of Brothers") was once seen as the formula for negotiation between even very different ideologies. But, no more. We have offended everyone we've had access to, and are sending Bolton back to do the job on anyone we missed the first time. For some mysterious reason this White House seems to think that people respond to force. They think punishment works. And, it does for weak minded Sheeple... but not for the true spirits to any cause. Punishment just makes for retribution among the stout of heart, and the attrition from our abuse just raises the value of the "stout of heart." We are creating our enemies. The more USA centric among us probably feel that this is part of the "Grand Scheme" that Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, etc., worked out behind the scenes (in their "Office of Special Plans"). The less faithful probably feel that they are rotten to the core and are selling out to corporate interests, willy-nilly. The truth is probably somewhere in-between. However, the focus on Bush and Company is clearly justified - if only by the strong emotions representing a real threat to health and safety (never mind economic stability) being expressed by the citizens of this nation. This is not some small thing that will go away... and this is not a disgraceful sex scene. This is global, can kill us and cause us to lose everything we hold dear. That is why Bush and Company is getting the focus. imho, i