A few years ago I mentioned on BccList.com that investors should consider buying Ford stock. If you heeded to my advice, please paypal 10% of your earnings so that I can retire.
I’m back. This time I’m speculating – and it’s solely my point of view – that shorting coal stocks is a good idea. Specifically, a few of the largest coal manufacturer stocks such as ARLP, ANR, ACI, etc. Why?
Obama backed offshore drilling earlier today – link – in order to force republicans to vote for an upcoming climate bill. Why force? There’s no republican that wants to be known as the Senator who didn’t vote for offshore drilling. The climate bill’s sole intention will be to reduce the United States’ carbon emissions. The largest source of carbon emissions = coal companies. With a few republican votes, a bill will pass. Great politicking by the administration.
As of 3/31/2010, Arch Coal (ACI) is trading at $23 a share, Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) is trading at $50 a share, and Alliance Resource Partner (ARLP) is trading at $42 a share. I expect at least a 10% drop from these prices within a year AFTER the climate bill passing. You can paypal me (eventually after the bill passes) at bcclistblog@gmail.com – hahaha.
The Obama administration loves taking their time…chilling…as the right takes political jab after jab after jab. Is the administration unknowing that these tactics – as disgusting as they are – work really well? Yup…
So, here’s what the administration has still not addressed effectively. Hopefully they’ll get these points across in the upcoming healthcare reform tour but it doesn’t matter…the right has already convinced the sheep the bill is evil.
Healthcare Reform Clarifications:
If you like your current insurance plan, you keep it.
The bill is deficit neutral. While it costs money, it saves money.
Your taxes only go up if you make over $200,000. If that’s the case, nobody feels too bad for you since you had your way for 8 years under bush.
This isn’t a government takeover of healthcare. 30-40 million people not insured by medicare, medicaid, or an employee plan can now BUY into a PRIVATE plan… on a healthcare exchange.
Everybody is required to have insurance – smart idea…see bullet point 2 – so that the insured don’t have to pay for the uninsured when they need medical services.
Stay tuned…I’ll undoubtedly be adding to this list as the talking points continue to get spewed by the right and the administration does nothing to discredit their garbage.
Transcript (the really good stuff is in bold font):
Finally as promised, a Special Comment in the wake of the passage of Health Care Reform and it’s a first step, there’s a lot wrong with it, but the penalty for not paying the fine for not buying the mandatory insurance has been reduced to nothing.
So, blessings nonetheless on those who took this first step, pat yourselves on the back, and, tomorrow morning, get back to work fixing what is still wrong with our American Health Care system. These remarks are about our political climate in the wake of the bill’s passage.
Eight days ago, a 16-year old kid picked up a courtesy phone at a store in Washington Township, New Jersey, and announced over the public address system, quote “Attention, WalMart customers: All black people leave the store now.” The boy has been arrested and charged with harassment and bias intimidation.
Two days ago, a Tea Party protestor shouted the “n” word at Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, one of the heroes of 20th Century America, and Congressman Andre Carson of Indiana and another shouted anti-gay slurs at Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts.
Capitol Hill Police confirm no arrests were made and there were no serious efforts to identify the vermin involved. Television, print, and radio news organizations will not be asked to turn over their tapes and images of the event, nor subpoenaed if necessary. This is not to dismiss what the 16-year old did in New Jersey.
But it would seem that what was shouted at the Congressmen merits at least as much investigation and hopefully as much prosecution. After all, it did occur inside the halls of Congress, a place at least as crowded as, and as sanctified as a WalMart.
In a backwards, sick-to-my-stomach way, I would like to thank whoever shouted at Mr. Lewis and Mr. Carson for proving my previous point. If racism is not the whole of the Tea Party, it is in its heart, along with blind hatred, a total disinterest in the welfare of others, and a full-flowered, self-rationalizing refusal to accept the outcomes of elections, or the reality of Democracy, or of the narrowness of their minds and the equal narrowness of their public support.
On Saturday, that support came from evolutionary regressives as Michele Bachmann and Jon Voight. On a daily basis that support comes from the racists and homophobes of radio and television: the Michael Savages and the Rush Limbaughs. Shockingly, that support even came, on a specific basis, from another Congressman, Republican Devin Nunes of the California 21st.
“When you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy,” he said on C-SPAN. “And I think, you know, there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it.”
Congressman Nunes? You should resign. You have no business opening a door for a man like John Lewis, let alone serving alongside him. And if you shouldn’t resign for your endorsement, your encouragement, of the most vile, the most reprehensible, and the most outdated spewings of the lizard-brain of this country, you should resign because of your total disconnect from reality.
There have been no “totalitarian tactics,” Congressman. People, these few, sad, people, have begun to act crazy, because it has been the dedicated purpose, the sole method and sole function, of the Republican party, to entice them to act crazy.
Those shouts against the Congressmen, Mr. Nunes, were inspired not by what people like John Lewis have done in their lives. They have been inspired by what people like you have done in the last year.
And so the far right escalates the rhetoric and the level of threat, just a little more. And worse still, it escalates the level of delusion. The election of a Democratic president is socialism. The election of a black president is an international conspiracy. The enactment of any health care reform is an apocalypse. And the willful denial of reality by the leader of the minority party in Congress is the only truth.
A willful denial, incidentally, that includes the leader of the minority party in Congress ignoring the fact that his is the minority party, and that he represents the minority, and that despite having broken all the rules of decorum in place in this nation since the end of the Civil War that despite having played every trick — mean and low, despite having the limitless financial backing of one of the biggest cartels in the world, he and his cronies and the manufactured outrage of the Tea Party failed to derail Health Care Reform.
Failed Mr. Boehner. You lost. You blew it. “Shame on each and every one of you who substitutes your will and your desires above those of your fellow countrymen,” you said last night just before the vote. The will and desire of your countrymen, Mr. Boehner?
If you’re one of the leaders of a party that in four years, coughed up the Senate Majority, coughed up the House Majority, coughed up the White House, coughed up Health Care Reform, and along the way ignored every poll, and every election result, I would think the “will and desires of your fellow countrymen” should be pretty damn clear by now: Your countrymen think your policies are of the past, and your tactics are of the gutter.
But Boehner’s teary “shame on you” over the tyranny of the vast majority taking a scrap back from the elite clueless minority — that’s just an isolated incident. Just as Congressman Neugebauer shouting “Baby-Killer” at, or ” It’s a Baby-Killer” during, Congressman Stupak’s laudable speech last night was just an isolated incident.
Just as the shouting of “n” words at Congressmen Lewis and Carson was just an isolated incident. Just as the spitting on Congressman Cleaver was just an isolated incident . Just as the abuse of Congressman Frank was just an isolated incident. Just as the ethnic slurs shouted at Congressman Rodriguez of Texas was just an isolated incident. Just as the oinking by Congressman Wilson during the President’s address was just an isolated incident.
Just as whatever’s next will be just an isolated incident. You know what they call it when you have a once-a-week series of isolated incidents? They call it two things. They call it a “pattern” and in the United States of 2010 they call it “The Republican Party.”
American political parties have disappeared before. They are never forced out by their rivals. They die by their own hands, because they did not know that the hatred or the myopia or the monomania they thought was still okay wasn’t okay, any more. And so I offer this olive branch to the defeated Republicans and Tea Partiers.
It is a cold olive branch, and scarred, and there aren’t many olives on it, but it still counts.You are rapidly moving from “The Party of No,” past “The Party Of No Conscience,” towards “The Party of No Relevancy.” You are behind the wheel of a political Toyota. And before the mid-terms, you will have been reduced to only being this generation’s home for the nuts.
You will be the Flat-Earthers, the Isolationists, the Segregationists, the John Birchers. Stop.
Certainly you must recognize the future is with the humane, the inclusive, the diverse— it is with America. Not the America of 1910, but the America of 2010. Discard this dangerous, separatist, elitist, backward-looking rhetoric, and you will be welcomed back into the political discourse of this nation. Continue with it, and you will destroy yourselves and whatever righteous causes you actually believe in, and on the way you will damage this country in ways and manners untold.
But even that damage will not be permanent. Faubus, and the MacNamara Brothers, and Bull Connor, and Lindbergh, and Joe McCarthy damaged this nation. We survived and they were swept away by history. You cannot destroy this country, no matter how hard you seem to be trying to nor can you destroy this country’s inexorable march towards the light.
The Belgian Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck once wrote that, quote, “at every cross-roads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10-thousand men to guard the past.” Last night those 10,000 men fell.
I did alright last year (link)…my goal this year is to pick the winner. Below are my picks…Duke as the National Champion.
Side note: Fortunately I don’t have to worry about MSU being in the final game in my bracket like last year so my goal of picking the winner shouldn’t be all that difficult. Hahaha.
Can’t wait until Fox News says Obama is responsible or deserves this – all the rage their network has stirred up. And I quote from Joe Stack’s .PDF manifesto or suicide note…
“If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless…especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Click here to access/download the .pdf suicide note/ manifesto by Joe Stack …
I’m not sure how racially motivated this fight was – as the MSM keeps promoting – but, I’m pretty sure the young guy learned his lesson. Lesson being: don’t fck with a 67 year old man that looks fit enough to beat your ass.
The young guy kept talking about bus segregation and taunting grandpa…pretty sure he’s to blame for the ass kicking he took.
UPDATE:
Gramps then beats up a newspaper stand. Mother fcker is a BAAAADDD man!
UDPATE 2:
This guy is awesome – here’s grandpa getting tasered at an A’s game!!! Andy, thank you.
Obama and the House GOP members had an excellent conversation today – question time like. While some House members looked like fools, it was actually a constructive chat and I sort of earned respect for a few GOP members of Congress. Oh my god, imagine that. Enjoy…
Vodpod videos no longer available.
P.S. Fox News cut away from the conference very early on. I assume Drudge will bury the story. This is exactly what is wrong with America. I also assume Rush Limbaugh will blast the GOP for opening a dialogue. So, this is likely and unfortunately the last time we’ll see something worthwhile get done between Obama and House GOP members.
What most people thought was a link to Major Garrett’s analysis of Obama’s 1st State of the Union address actually ended up being a link to an Escort site.
As presumed, Major (Fox News) insists that bit.ly is to blame for posting the wrong link. Garrett – stop yanking it (or trying to line up a whore) during the State of the Union address….that is, unless google is wrong too.
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