Just a sad goodbye to THE NEW YORK SUN.  I realize that starting a conservative paper in New York City has a few demographic problems, but I admire these people for their courage.  In the movie "The Rookie" someone talks about two nuns praying to the Patron Saint of lost causes, these ladies had nothing on the people who started the SUN.  Today was the last day of publication.  You will be missed.

I am not an economist, but I have run a household for a number of years, and I have a few ideas for Congress on my own personal bailout program.

1.  Slash the Capital Gains tax to almost nothing.  It will spur economic activity.

2.  Drill,  Drill.  Drill.  The exploration and work needed to do this will create jobs and eventually income to American companies to be passed on to Americans.  Eventually, the lower gasoline prices at the pump will also help.

3.  Set up an insurance-type program to help with the bad mortgage paper now infused into our financial structure.  Do not put Congress or any single person in charge of the bailout.  Put a group of financial types --  Warren Buffet, Steve Forbes, Mitt Romney, Michael Bloomberg -- people who know how money works and how to use it in charge of managing whatever needs to be managed.

4.  Approve the trade agreement with Columbia.  It will provide another market for American products and help stabilize that democracy while Chavez tries to topple it.

5.  Send to jail anyone guilty of creative bookkeeping for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Investigate the possibility of quid pro quo in the large amount of campaign donations given to Congress and send the appropriate people to jail.  Put a claim on outrageous bonuses paid to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac directors where the bonuses were based on faulty accounting.

6.  Hold guilty people accountable so that we don't have to do this again!!!!!

Mona Charen has an article in the Jewish World Review today explaining the connections between ACORN, the mortgage meltdown, and Barack Obama.  They are all closely connected (a connection you are not hearing reported on the network news).  ACORN has links to voter fraud in a number of states and in their 'community activism' has often acted as thugs rather than people helping the community.

This is reprinted from Little Green Footballs--

From Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, an email from a reader who works in a mainstream media newsroom:

"Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working." 

This is chilling.  The backbone of a democracy is an informed voter.  If the voters are not properly informed, how can they be expected to make rational decisions?

The Campaign Spot on National Review published the following information this morning--

CBS Asked McCain Why He Voted For a Bill -- That He Didn't Vote For

CNN's  -- "fact check" is way too generous, lets call it a Obama-lie-cheer-leading --assertion about Obama's latest attack on McCain illustrates how the standards for a "fact check" feature have plummeted further than Wachovia's stock price over the past year. 

At a campaign rally Monday, September 29, in Denver, Colorado, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama once again charged his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, with being a supporter of deregulating financial markets that have since collapsed. "He's fought against common-sense regulations for decades ... and he said in a recent interview that he thought deregulation has actually helped grow our economy. Senator, what economy are you talking about?" Obama said...

During a September 21 interview on CBS's "60 Minutes," McCain was asked if he regretted a 1999 vote for deregulating Wall Street. "No -- I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy," McCain said.

In footage of a speech aired during that interview, though, McCain voices support for government now stepping in. "I'm not saying this isn't going to be messy and I'm not saying it isn't going to be expensive," he said, "but we have to stop the bleeding."

The Verdict: True -- although McCain has supported more government oversight of Wall Street as part of the bailout plan.

This is lazy reporting, on the part of both CNN and CBS' Scott Pelley.

For starters, there seems to be this persistent belief that "regulation" is this monolithic concept that you're either for or against. The idea that there are good regulations and bad ones never enters the equation. (Those of us who disdain the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform /First Amendment Limitation will be surprised to hear the claim that McCain doesn't believe in regulation.)

Second, that 1999 vote was Gramm-Leach-Bliley. You would think CNN would bother to mention the bill, so readers could look at it in more detail.

If so, they would learn that McCain missed the vote on final passage. (McCain did vote for an earlier version that did not become law.) But the premise of the question is wrong; McCain did not actually vote for G-L-B. Pelley would have been in the clear had he asked McCain if he regretted supporting the bill. 

You know who did vote for the bill? Joe Biden. And 89 other senators of both parties. In the House, it passed with 210 Republicans and 151 Democrats, and was signed into law by President Clinton. The idea that McCain ought to be singled out for this legislation is rediculous, and CBS and CNN ought to hang their heads in shame at their slipshod reporting and seemingly deliberately evasive wording.

09/30 11:38 AM

 

This is going to be a difficult election if people don't have the facts on the candidates voting records and past work.  It seems that a certain portion of our news organizations are not real interested in checking their facts.

I question the effectiveness of calling my Senators and Representatives about the bailout and what to do now--I live in Massachusetts where many of the people responsible for the problem continue to claim to represent me.  However,if anyone reading this lives in a state that has a two-party system, I stongly suggest that you call your Senators and Representatives and voice your opinion (regardless of what it is).  This bailout is not actually a partisan matter--if it can be successfully done, I would be glad to see both parties take credit for it.  I just know that if it is not successfully done in some form, the American people will pay a large price for a 'do nothing Congress.'  I believe there is a way out of this mess, but I don't trust the people who got us into this mess to make good decisions to get us out.  I also question the wisdom of continually reelecting them.

What Just Happened?

What the hell was yesterday's smiling press conference all about? Why were Hoyer, Frank, Pelosi and the rest of the House Democratic Leadership smiling yesterday? Did they have any sense of their own caucus?

Sure, two-thirds of House Republicans voted against it. But they were always against it, complaining about it from the beginning.  You heard Boehner, he described the bill as a crap sandwich; nobody should have expected a lot of Republican votes for this. But the House GOP Leadership did get on board, and encouraged their rank-and-file to do the same.

Pelosi said she needed political cover. A third of House Republicans ought to be enough cover.

How the hell does Pelosi's bill not carry 40 percent of her caucus?

Earlier today, the Dow was down 700 points, which would have been the biggest single-day drop ever. Now it's down about 500...

UPDATE: A reader asks,

You don't fault Boehner for his less than ringing endorsement.   Yo don't fault him or his cohorts for voting their conscience (or in their perceived political interests, whatever).  Boehner is to be lauded for delivering 1/3 of his caucus for controversial legislation, but Pelosi is to be criticized for doubling that number. 

Because it is a you-know-what sandwich of a bill. I happen to think it's a necessary you-know what sandwich. But the GOP is supposed to be opposed to market interventions in the abstract; what is the Democrats' excuse?

The House Republicans didn't want to buy any of these assets, they wanted to set up an insurance system, and they've been treated like lepers in the negotiations. The party that controls the chamber is ultimately responsible for getting the bill through that chamber. Pelosi could and should have been able to pass this without a single Republican vote. She got 66 yeas from the GOP, and she still couldn't do it.

If this is really the right idea, then it's not republcian or democratic, it's just right.  One side shouldn't be expected to like this more than another.  (Implicit in this crtiicism is that republicans can't claim "fiscal responsibility" anymore.)

House Republicans were never going to to approve spending $750 billion to rescue banking institutions by a wide margin. But what is the Democrats' philosophical objections? They don't oppose the idea in principle; they oppose the details, presumably...  Pelosi, Frank, and Hoyer got to write the bill based on Paulson's template, along with Dodd and Schumer. Judging from this, the House Democratic leadership never had any idea how their caucus felt about the bill, which is a reckless way to negotiate...

likewise, your criticism of the presidential canidates is equally slanted.  Obama could get on the phone and get Dems to support the legislation. John McCain could do the same.  One could argue that J-Mac has more at stake -because of his campaign suspension (I'm goign to washington to lead) and the fact that more republicans are hold outs.  Is this leadership?  If he can't get his party on board, how can he lead the country. 

Be objective.  Are you a reporter or a blogger?

Both. Throughout the negotiations, everybody knew the House GOP hated this rescue in concept and detail; McCain's mission of persuading Republicans was exponentially harder. But last week he did go to Washington to get their ideas included. What, precisely, did Obama do to get the House Democrats on board?

UPDATE: I'm told Chris Matthews is railing against McCain and Republicans for tanking the bill, saying Democrats "overwhelmingly" voted for it. Sixty percent is overwhelming?

09/29 02:19 PM

Pelosi's Excuses Are Garbage

Pelosi, moments ago: "The Democrats more than lived up to their side of the bargain."

Horsepuckey. Pelosi has 235 members. She needed 218. She could spare 17 members and still pass the bill.

The GOP spotted her 65 members, for a bill that made most Republicans' skin crawl in both broad outline and in terms of detail.

That meant Pelosi could afford to lose 82 Democrats.

She lost 95.

Bush and Paulson were never going to pass this bill with House Republican votes. It had to be palatable to the Democrats, and Pelosi and Frank said that it was.

Think about it - the majority party is insisting that the minority party is responsible for the bill not passing with a majority. Do you see the incongruency there? Why is anyone taking that argument seriously?

UPDATE: Hoyer says "we got every gettable Democrat." If so, that's stunning.

Chuck Todd on MSNBC right now: "Every member in a tough race voted 'no'."

ANOTHER UPDATE: I'm not buying this "Pelosi's speech turned Republicans against it" argument. Either you think the bill is worthwhile (or that the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action) and you vote for it, or you don't. Somebody else's speech is a lousy reason to change a vote on an issue as big as this...

09/29 03:13 PM

According to the article in The New York Sun the final vote on the bailout was 207 for and 226 against.  141 Democrats voted for it; 94 Democrats voted against it.  66 Republicans voted for it; 112 Republicans voted against it.  There are a few things that need to be considered in viewing this vote:

1.  The wisdom and foresight of our founding fathers in setting up two branches of Congress still amazes me.  The entire House of Representatives is up for election every two years.  The Representatives have to be conscious of public opinion, and public opinion was overwhelmingly against this bill.  Representatives in solid seats obviously don't have to worry, but many of the southern Democrats ran as conservatives in the last election and cannot afford to vote yes.

2.  Congress will never admit that this downward spiral began with the Community Redevelopment Act in the 1970's which was enhanced in the 1990's.  Any attempts to curb the foolish lending practices stemming from this act were blocked by Democrats receiving large amounts of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Until we hold Congress responsible for bad legislation, we will never get the budget under control.  Incidentally, as I write this, Yahoo Finance is reporting that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are facing a federal grand jury investigation into their accounting practices.

3.  Having said the above, I believe there are ethical members of Congress.  Hopefully, they will lead the way out of this mess.  There were a few alternative plans offered by conservative members of the house.  Hopefully, now that this huge transfer of wealth to the government has been rejected, some of these plans will be looked at.

4.  I don't know what the correct answer to this problem is, but I feel strongly that a bigger federal deficit is not the answer.

I have no comment about this article in Power Line Blog except to say that every voter in America should read it and think about what it means to our right to free speech.  How come charges were only going to be filed against one side?

The outline of the bailout bill, plus the comparison of the compromise and the original ideas from both Paulson and the team of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are available at Power Line Blog.  If you click on the squares with the fuzzy print, they grow to a size that you can read.  The bill is definitely better than what was originally proposed.   Now we need to pay attention to see if any changes are made along the route to passage.  It's not an awful bill, but I still wonder if any bailout is a good thing. 

This is amazing video posted on YouTube of hearings where the Republicans asked for regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Democrats complained that the hearing was a political lynching of Franklin Raines.  The Democrats fought hard to deny the need for regulation and to make sure regulation never happened.

I have not directly commented on the debate last night between Barack Obama and John McCain because I did not watch the whole thing.  I will, however, comment on the parts I watched.

In reference to his statement that the current credit mess is the result of the failed policies of George Bush and that John McCain would continue those policies:

1.  The current credit mess is not the result of the so-called economic policies of the last eight years.  You could fertilize a garden with what that statement is made of.  The Community Redevelopment Act is one of the legs of the stool that is this crisis.  This act was originally passed in 1977 to increase the amount of affordable housing.  It seemed like a good idea, although the majority of bankers opposed it.  Then the changes to the law came.  The following information is taken directly from Wikipedia:

"In 1995, as a result of interest from President Bill Clinton's administration, the implementing regulations for the CRA were strengthened by focusing the financial regulators' attention on institutions' performance in helping to meet community credit needs.

These revisions with an effective starting date of January 31, 1995 were credited with substantially increasing the number and aggregate amount of loans to small businesses and to low- and moderate-income borrowers for home loans. These changes were very controversial and as a result, the regulators agreed to revisit the rule after it had been fully implemented for seven years. Thus in 2002, the regulators opened up the regulation for review and potential revision.

Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage, allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments, vs. 10% for banks. By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market."

2.  Another leg of this stool is the amount of campaign money paid to Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Barney Frank and others to prevent honest regulation of the subprime mortgage market.  Any reforms were bottled up in the banking committee of the Senate by the Democrats.  Also, many of the large bonuses paid to officers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac not only were based on fraudulent accounting practices--they were paid to Democrat party bigwigs.  Many of the "Congressional Overseers" also received sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide Mortgage.  This whole thing is corrupt, and people should be serving jail time for the things they did!

3.  The third leg of this stool is the saga of Alan Greenspan and the interest rates.  It was probably totally correct to cut interest rates after September 11, 2001.  However, keeping interest rates low for as long as they were kept low helped create the housing bubble.  It also weakened the U.S. dollar, driving up the cost of energy.  That was probably an honest miscalculation and should be viewed as such.

These three legs of the stool created the perfect storm that we find ourselves in now.  We don't need to turn more money and power over to the people who are responsible for it--we need to provide insurance to help people with current needs and massive capital tax gains cuts to stimulate the market and begin the revitalize it.

My second comment on the debate has to do with body language.  Barack Obama smirked and did all the things you would send a child to his room for.  Let's send this child to his room.

My third comment is not related directly to the debate, but about the political atmosphere we find ourselves in.  Why is it that all the connections between Barack Obama and the Richard Daley Chicago political machine have been totally ignored by the media?  Why are we not considering the arrangement with Tony Rezko that allowed Barack Obama to buy the house he lives in?  If the 'failed economic policies' of the Bush administration were so bad, how come they allowed Barack Obama and his wife to become millionaires?  Where do I go to find a failed business plan like that?

I am still  not a huge John McCain fan, but at least he is a grown-up.  I believe he will bring some basic maturity and respect to the office of the Presidency.  I'm really not so sure about Barack Obama.  I'm not sure we can afford him, in more ways than one!

 The following is taken directly from the Weekly Standard:

"TWS Exclusive: Kissinger Unhappy About Obama

Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: "Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality."

Posted by Stephen F. Hayes on September 26, 2008 10:55 PM" 

There is an amazing video on the internet concerning our present financial crisis.  It is well documented and backed up with facts.  It's long, but stay to the end, it's worth it:  Here is the link-- Powerlineblog.com.  Enjoy and pass it on!!

The following is taken from the Corner at National Review--

 

Laugh or Cry at Reid/Dodd?   by Victor Davis Hanson

Watching the politicians fight over the "plan" is like watching a lifetime smoker with cancer in his 11th hour questioning the value of his toxic chemotherapy.

Then there is the classical demagoguery--really, one of the most shameful spectacles in recent memory-- of this morning's Reid/Dodd press conference:

After tsk, tsking that presidential politics have not been helpful and should have no role in the loan guarantees, Sen. Reid warms up and immediately in front of the clicking cameras then stoops to, of course, blasting McCain.

Then he rails that neither candidate is a member of the Senate Banking Committee--though in July Obama I think claimed ("my committee") he was. All this is worthy of a Huey Long.

Then Sen. Dodd takes over, waves a paper as his eyes flash and he rails at the Wall Street greed that brought us this mess. He never offers a word that as the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he took $165,000 in contributions from the failing Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac octopus as payback for his long-standing opposition to regulating these out of control institutions that triggered the entire mess, or that he took VIP insider discounted loans from the now long gone Countrywide Financial that did its part to get us to where we are. Pretty shameful. Who will police the police?

Michelle Malken has a piece up on NationalReviewOnline with a slightly different slant on the ant and the grasshopper story.  It's worth reading;  We need to think about the lessions we are teaching by the way we spent taxpayer money.

John Boehner sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi about the debate on the bailout program.  The letter is published at Power Line.  Frankly, I think one of the problems in this situation is that many of our 'representatives' (and I use the word loosely) are too busy collecting campaign money and sweetheart mortgages to pay attention and do what is right.  I heard this morning that the phone calls to Congressmen and Congresswomen about the bailout are running one hundred to one against the program.  The alternative program suggested by conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives involves more of an insurance corporation that holders of questionable mortgage paper pay into and are protected until it all gets sorted out.  It also suggests a sharp cut in capital gains taxes to stimulate economic activity until everything has a chance to settle out.  It's a bill that is much friendlier to the average American than the original proposal, but the average American is not lobbying and making huge campaign donations, so I am not sure how this is going to go down.

For me, the bailout is a matter or trust.  See article below.  Why should I believe anything a politician says, when obviously they will sneak things into a bill and hope to get it through under cover of darkness?  Part of what caused this was corruption--sweetheart mortgages, excessive money paid to campaigns of the 'supposed regulators', and excessive bonuses paid to executives that were cooking the books--most of whom had strong ties to the Democratic party.  Every Senator and Representative who was part of this scam should be voted out of office.  Until then, why should I trust them with more of my money?

One of the reasons for the economic slowdown was the sudden increase in the cost of energy.  Many Americans were living on the edge of paying their mortgages, and had the cost of energy remained constant, they probably could have made ends meet.  When the cost of going to work doubled, that changed the equation, and the house of cards began to fall.  The delay in going after our own natural energy has been part of the whole economic problem.  When the Democrats seemed to be willing to let the ban on offshore drilling expire, there was a ray of hope (watch for the environmental lawsuits--they will slow the process down, but hopefully not derail it). 

To me, the following scenario is a violation of the public trust and should be disciplined in some way. 

 We read at Hot Air that--

"Two days after leaving through the front door he's trying to sneak back in through the side. Jim DeMint is up in arms, as is Heritage:

This comes as both a stunning and ridiculous development; Americans are still coping with high energy prices and coming to grips with a plan to bailout Wall Street, and Senator Reid is denying access to potentially one of America's most abundant energy reserves. Just how much energy you ask?

Dr. Daniel Fine of MIT reported that 750 billion barrels worth of oil shale have been discovered in Colorado alone. That amount is enough to potentially power the U.S. economy for many decades. Furthermore, if full-scale production begins within five years, the U.S. could completely end its dependence on OPEC by 2020...

In essence, Senator Reid is stripping the decision rights away from his colleagues in other states.

Here's a fact sheet from Gingrich's American Solutions group noting that America's oil shale deposits are fully three times the size of Saudi Arabia's proven oil reserves, and here's the contact information for all 100 senators. Go rattle some cages. Exit question: How about a hastily arranged presser for the Barracuda to stress her outrageous outrage at this development?

Update: A reader e-mailed Reid's spokesman for comment and got this reply. I'm not kidding about rattling cages.

There is a possibility the Senate will be asked to vote on reestablishing the moratorium on oil shale extraction. Although Senate Democrats support measures to increase this nation's energy supply, oil shale extraction has not been proven to be economically viable, will produce more greenhouse gases, and will significantly decrease the West's water supply."

 

 

 

This is one of the finalists from the Britain's Got Talent TV show.  She is amazing. Britains Got Talent Video.

As I write this, Congress is debating the $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street.  I am opposed to the passage of this law.  Why in the world do we want the people who created this mess (a mess that a small amount of common sense would have avoided) to have a huge pile of our money to fix it?  It's interesting to me that the $700 billion that is being asked to clean up this mess is the same amount of money we send abroad annually because we refuse to tap our own energy supplies.  If this amount of money were invested in America in homegrown energy programs (private programs--not government programs), it would be a homegrown stimulus package that would turn a lot of this situation around.  Also, if we allow each person in the US to acquire $2300 more in tax liability (under this plan), what happens when Social Security fails (probably within the next ten years)?  Do we just add more taxes on everyone and reach a point where 75% of our income goes to taxes?  We already pay a larger percentage of our earnings to the government in one form or another than the medieval serfs paid to the manor lords of their time.  Congress got us into this mess when they refused in 2003 and 2005 to accept changes in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The reforms were blocked in both cases by the Democrats and a few Republicans.  I refuse to give a Congress that accepted tons of money from these institutions and then blocked reform of them in return a chance to pick my pocket to do the same thing again.

The following article is from Breitbart.com.  Why in the world do we give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad any face time at all in the American media.  It is obvious that he means us no good.  Also, this man has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, another UN member.  Why does the UN put up with that?  The UN was formed with wonderful idealism, but it has become so corrupt in recent years that its founders would not recognize it.  It's time for the UN to find a new home and to turn the New York property back to the city of New York.  Just the end of the unpaid parking tickets the UN diplomats have collected would be a wonderful thing for the city.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iran's president addressed the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday declaring that "the American empire" is nearing collapse and should end its military involvement in other countries.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said terrorism is spreading quickly in Afghanistan and that "the occupiers" are still in Iraq nearly six years after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power in Iraq.

"American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders," Ahmadinejad said.

He accused the U.S. of starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to win votes in elections and blamed a "few bullying powers" for trying to undermine Iraq's nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad's hardline rhetoric came as no surprise and offered little in the way of compromise at the U.N., where he faces a new round of sanctions if no agreement is reached on limiting Iran's nuclear capabilities.

While he reiterated that the country's nuclear program is purely peaceful, the U.S. and others fear it is aimed at producing enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons.

Iran already is under three sets of sanctions by the U.N. Security Council for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. Washington and its Western allies are pushing for quick passage of a fourth set of sanctions to underline the international community's resolve, but are likely to face opposition from Russia.

"A few bullying powers have sought to put hurdles in the way of the peaceful nuclear activities of the Iranian nation by exerting political and economic pressures against Iran," he said.

Ahmadinejad also lashed out at Israel on Tuesday, saying "the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters."

The Iranian president is feared and reviled in Israel because of his repeated calls to wipe the Jewish state off the map, and his aggressive pursuit of nuclear technology has only fueled Israel's fears.

Ahmadinejad accused "a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists ... (of) dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S."

In discussing Afghanistan, he suggested that the presence of U.S. and NATO forces has contributed to a sharp rise in terrorism and a huge increase in the production of narcotics.

He predicted that the war would end in the alliance's defeat.

"Throughout history every force that has entered Afghanistan has left in defeat," Ahmadinejad said.

There is an entry on a small blog called Dagney's Rant written by a native Columbian about what is going on in her country.  As you may recall, Nancy Pelosi blocked the treaty with Columbia which would have helped them and us ecomonically and would have strengthened their democracy.  Anyway, it's an interesting entry.  Just for the record, the name, Dagney's Rant is based on the character from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Why should I trust the people who blocked regulation (Chris Dodd and Barney Frank) and took large donations from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (Chris Dodd and Barack Obama) to oversee billions of my tax money and do it well?  It just doesn't make sense to me.  I don't want to see people evicted or lose their retirement, but I figure my taxes already support a family of four I have no connection to, and I'm not interested in supporting more people I don't know.  I seems to me that the people who walked away with the multi million dollar bonuses during the time when the books were being cooked ought to pay for some of the bailout.  I'm not sure how that could be arranged, but I'm sure it could be.  Other than for political gain, we have forgotten how to hold people responsible for the choices they make.

I have very mixed emotions on the bailout, but I am impressed by what Jonah Goldberg has to say in The Corner on National Review--

"Count me Out of the Bailout   [Jonah Goldberg]

 

Sorry for the radio silence. Among other schedule-busters, I was drafted at the last minute to accompany my daughter on a field trip to an apple orchard. Anyway, not that anyone has been waiting with bated breath to know what I think about the bailout, but I've decided I'm against it. I've talked to a bunch of folks I respect, listened to Mike Pence on C-Span this morning, read various pieces and examined the exposed viscera of a financially literate goat and I've decided there must be a better way. Basically, I think the bad paper should stay with the people who bought it. If we need to further capitalize the banks, create short term rules or cobble together other backstops, fine. But Paulson's plan basically says, "I am the Lord thy God," and that's crazy. Also, it seems to me that Newt and the editors of NR are right when they worry that the Paulson plan essentially opens the door to unending government control of capital markets and that, too,  is just crazy. Even if I completely trusted the wisdom of Paulson and his bureaucrats -- which I don't -- there's no way that I trust the Dodds, Franks or the next Treasury secretary. Every day the markets don't go off the cliff suggests to me that we can do this in stages and that Paulson's do-it-my-way-or-it's-the-Dark-Ages-for-us-all argument doesn't hold water."

Dean Barnett has a great post at The Weekly Standard.  Somehow, it just has a familiar ring to it.  I guess if we didn't laugh at the situation, we'd cry. 

The following is reprinted from Little Green Footballs.  it was posted by The Jawa Report.

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.

It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:

* Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.

* The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.

* Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.

* Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.

* The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.

* This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod's firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as "astroturfing."

* David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief media strategist.

* The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

 

If you follow the link in the article in Little Green Footballs to the Jawa Report, you will find a further explanation of the research done and facts on which the conclusions of the article are based.

The New York Sun today published the speech that Sarah Palin had planned to give today at a rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza to protest the appearance here of President Ahmadinejad of Iran.  Click on the link above to read her speech.  We need this lady.  She has an intuitive understanding of how the world works, and she says what she thinks.

I am not a financial analyst, nor do I claim to fully understand what is happening in our financial markets, but I do have a few observations.

1.  Using the mortgage market as a social experiment was a really bad idea.  People with bad credit and limited income are not good credit risks to buy $600,000 homes.  Banks were forced to give these loans by a Congress who threatened them with not being able to expand if they did not give out a certain amount of subprime mortgages.  This mistake was aggravated by the fact that the local banks were not holding the paper on the loans that they were forced to make--they did not have to carry any risk for the loans they made.  The problem in this case was not a lack of regulation--it was an abundance of bad regulation.

2.  I am not in favor of having the government regulate salaries or bonuses of corporate executives, but I am forced to admit there have been abuses in this area.  Is there any way a law can be passed to say that when a corporate head receives a bonus, an amount equal to half of his bonus has to shared proportionally among all employees?  I would also like to see an investigation into the multiple million dollar bonuses paid to officers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and some of the other players who were cooking their books during the time this crisis was developing.  I would like to see some of this money paid back in the cases where the government (that's us--the taxpayers) has taken over the debt of these companies.

3.  We are back to "follow the money".  The Senators and Representatives who have taken the most money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been the ones blocking any control on these entities since 1999.  The only way to clean up this aspect of the problem is to look at the list of who received the most money and voted against proper controls of these institutions and vote them out of office.  Throw the bums out!!  I am not objecting to campaign contributions, but when contributions align with votes that actually harm the people who are supposedly represented, it it time to get new representatives.

4.  One of the underlying causes of this problem is the psychology of 'instant gratification' that permeates this society.  We teach our children not to wait until marriage to have sex (if it feels good, do it!), and we raise our children with an expectation of having the standard of living right after graduating from school that it took their parents thirty or forty years to earn.  The concept of waiting for something or achieving something over a period of time has been lost in our culture.  The microwave is not evil--but we have become a culturally and financially microwaved society.  I believe that is also part of this crisis.

5.  This is not an original thought, but I have no idea who said it--Democracy is designed to be a three-legged stool--the government, the financial sector, and societal morality.  I think we are missing one leg of the stool. 

Breitbart.com is reporting that Hugo Chavez is buying combat and training aircraft from the Chinese.  For peaceful purposes only, I'm sure.

According to Hot Air, the New York Times printed this statement on September 30, 1999 relating to the changes in lending policies opening up the subprime mortgage market.

"In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

"From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.""

Wow.  Why wasn't anyone listening?

There is an audio link at the bottom of this article to the Mark Levin Show and his comments on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meltdown.  The audio is a little long, but his insight into the history of this problem amazing.

WARNING:  The language on the audio link is a little rough and very passionate.

Just a warning--be aware that the new Barack Obama ad on John McCain and Social Security is not honest.  Fact Check has an article quoting both John McCain and the ad.  This is a basic scare tactic, and we as voters need to be well enough informed not to fall for it.

I have said before that Congress should be forced to live under the laws that it passes.  It was a silly dream, but it was mine, and I held on to it.  You know-- the idea of paying for gas out of their own pockets instead of having it paid for by some fund, being under Social Security for a retirement plan, or having to deal with the real world of the medical care mess they helped create.  But it was only a dream.  However, a small part of it has come true--some of the people who blocked reform on the subprime mortgage mess are now being hurt by it.

Bloomberg News is reporting that Senators Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry are being severly hurt by what has happened to AIG recently along with fifty other members of Congress.  I guess what goes around does come around.  Maybe this will give them incentive to fix it!!.

1.  How come when Congress goes into overtime, it costs the taxpayers bazillions of dollars?

2.  It looks like in the stock market bailout, the federal government is going to wind up with a lot of foreclosed mortgages.  Are they smart enough to sell the related properties and reclaim at least part of the money so that the taxpayers' burden will be a little bit less?

3.  Has it occurred to anyone that opening up offshore drilling and other natural resources would create jobs and income which might allow us to get out of our financial doldrums?  The drilling ban on the outer continental shelf expires September 30--if nothing is done to renew it.  It will be interesting to see what happens with this--opening up drillilng would be a definite boost to our economy--the exploration and preparatory work alone would create jobs, taxes, etc.  We need to be careful to make sure the oil companies have enough profit margin to take advantage of this opportunity when (and if) it happens.  (Just for the record, the oil company's profit margin is about 7 percent--below the average profit margin of an American corporation.)  I would also like to note that American corporations are the most highly taxed and highly regulated in the world, making it extremely difficult to compete in the global market.  That is why many of them have outsourced and moved offshore.  By overtaxing and overregulating them, we have driven them (and their tax revenue) out of the country.  To see an example of this on a statewide basis, look at the states that are gaining industries and jobs and the states that are losing industries and jobs (Michigan is a prime example of high taxes, powerful unions, and overregulation).  People vote with their feet when they can.

I haven't said a lot about the hacking into Sarah Palin's email because I think it's an obviously awful thing to do (to anyone).  But I do like this story from the American Thinker by Ethel C. Fenig--

"Let's not forget Gawker which first published Palin's hacked emails, writing

Now comes word that Anonymous, the fun-loving Internet trouble-makers based loosely around the message board 4Chan, gained access to another Palin email account: gov.palin@yahoo.com. It looks legit! The offending posts, screenshots, heretofore unseen family photos, and emails have all been deleted from Imageshack and 4Chan. But we have them.

 

 

 

"We didn't publish Bristol's phone number. (Tho we did call it. And we did publish shrunk screenshots of the emails.) You know also that we'd have no hesitation in publishing similar info about Obama or Biden. If we're sleazebags, we're equal-opportunity sleazebags."

 

 

 

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, no one's email would be safe from the prying of jackbooted thugs motivated by politics, not national security. And they were right!

 

For everyone out there who is in favor of nationalizing health care, please read this Hot Air article.  The problem with letting the government care for us cradle-to-grave is that eventually the government wants to decide when the 'grave' part of that equation should happen.  Hitler called them "nonproductive eaters" and used that term to take away the humanity of the disabled, handicapped, and elderly so that he could kill them without disturbing the collective conscience of the population.  There were some people in the population who did object, but in a dictatorship, they can be dealt with swiftly.  When health care is under the control of the government, it will be rationed.  If you are over the age of fifty, this should be of great concern to you.

There is an article on the online opinion page of The Wall Street Journal talking about the current financial mess. It's a fairly long article, but its headline is important-- "Taking Revenge on the Rich Will Not Bring Recovery".  It chronicles some of the things that went on during the 1929 depression that were not helpful in ending the depression.  We are not technically in a depression, but we definitely need to learn from past mistakes.

Just for the record, the top line of the DRUDGE REPORT states that the stock market is up forty points this month, 18 per cent over the past five years, and 44 per cent over the past 10 years.  We will come through this.

The National Review Online has an article by Jonah Goldberg that helps sort out some of the financial mess we are currently seeing.  One of his observations:

"The self-proclaimed angels in Washington will tell you they've been working tirelessly to expand the American dream of homeownership by making mortgages available to people unable to plunk down 20 percent on a house. Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed former head of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2004, made it his top priority to make mortgages easier to get for people with poor credit, few assets and little money for a down payment."

Sounds like a great business plan--lend money to people who probably can't pay it back!!! 

Jonah Goldberg continues...

"Of course, there are other important factors at work here, having to do with changing technology among other things. And even if the bad mortgages weren't in the system, we'd still have the hangover from the end of the housing boom. But the financial system could have handled that with the usual corrections. The biggest dose of poison entered the financial bloodstream through Washington. And some people warned us. In 2005, Fannie Mae revealed it overstated earnings by $10.6 billion and that it didn't really know what was going on. The Bush administration pushed for reforms, but those efforts were rebuffed by Congress, with Democrats Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd taking point, because Fannie and Freddie have spent millions in campaign contributions.

In 2005, McCain sponsored legislation to thwart what he later called "the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole."

Obama, the Senate's second-greatest recipient of donations from Fannie and Freddie after Dodd, did nothing.

Meanwhile, Raines, the head of a government-supported institution, made $52 million of his $90 million compensation package thanks in part to fraudulent earnings statements.

But, ah yes, the greedy criminals responsible for this mess must be somewhere on Wall Street."

Joe Biden says that paying more taxes is patriotic Yahoo News.  'Nuff said.

Little Green Footballs has an article about the person accused of hacking into the email of Sarah Palin.  He is the son of a Democratic state representative in Tennessee.

Just for the record, I don't hold parents responsible for the actions of their 20-year old children who are college students.  However, even though this may have been a big joke to David Kernell (the hacker), I would like to see him punished severly.  Hacking is illegal and should not be treated lightly.  Computers and emails are used to communicate a lot of sensitive information, and there needs to be protection on the confidentiality of that information.  I am not a computer geek, so I'm not sure what is in place, but hacking into a public figure's private email is tacky at best and criminal at worst. 

Just a note--the twenty or thirty 'wolves' that headed to Wasilla, Alaska, a few weeks ago seem to be having a difficult time coming up with serious dirt on Sarah Palin.  They did come up with a DUI her husband was charged with twenty years ago, but Barack Obama admits that he was using cocaine at that time, so I'm not sure how much of a deal they can afford to make of this.  They also tried the "troopergate" thing, but Bill Clinton already had a patent on that name; and as the memos relating to the situation are released, the charge of scandal is unraveling.  Sarah Palin is a charismatic, attractive lady, but it seems as if when it is all said and done, she lives a rather average life of balancing work, family, and career..

I'm giving out a few quick chutzpah awards tonight.  They don't need a lot of explaining, but the recipients do leave me shaking my head in disbelief.

1.  According to Power Line:

"The younger son of the Rosenbergs -- Robert Meeropol -- is still on the road peddling the old-time religion. He is scheduled to speak at the University of Minnesota on October 6 on literary representations of the Rosenbergs. Meeropol is director of the Roseberg Fund for Children, which attends to "the educational and emotional needs of both targeted activist youth and children in this country whose parents have been harassed, injured, jailed, lost jobs or died in the course of their progressive activities." I understand that the Rosenberg Fund will be considering grants for children of "activists" suffering adverse consequences of arrests at the Republican convention in St. Paul this month. (Not that there are any such consequences.)"

The fact that his parents have been proven guilty does not get in the way of his fund raising and activism--the chutzpah award goes to Robert Meeropol.

2.  According to the New York Post:

You gotta love Charlie Rangel.  As head of the House Ways and Means Committee, he doesn't pay income tax on the rental income from an out of the country property, he uses a rent controlled apartment for an office (illegally), and now has a car stored illegally in the House of Representative parking garage.

The fact that he is the head of the committee that writes tax law doesn't prevent him from ignoring existing current tax laws--the next chutzpah award goes to Charlie Rangel.

3.  The final chutzpah award goes to any member of the Democrat or Republican party who is currently complaining about the economy while simultaneously blocking any legislation that will allow us to use our own natural resources to provide energy, to create jobs, and to revitalize the economy.

This November, think about the message that we voters need to send to our Congressmen saying that business as usual is no longer acceptable.  All House and Senate votes are listed on the Congressional Websites www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.  Spend a little time on these sites, see how your representative votes, and cast your vote accordingly. 

There is an article in today's The Weekly Standard that should be required reading.  The subtitle of the article is "Thanks to three American senators, China will be pumping Iraqi oil.
by Frederick W. Kagan"  This article is about the kind of political gamesmanship currently going on in Washington that should infuriate all Americans.  The people making decisions in Washington right now are doing much more damage to this country in the long run than most of us realize.  We need to wake up. 

If you want further information on the No Energy Bill the Democrats are proposing you can go the the House Minority Leader's Website, but I found an article in The Virginian Pilot that I felt explained the bill in terms that even I could understand.  There are two main points that make it a 'no energy' bill.

1.  The states would not share in any revenues--therefore they would have no incentive to drill.

2,  There would be no drilling on the outer continental shelf less than fifty miles out--making any oil more difficult to obtain and putting many of the oil fields with the most potential off-limits.

This is a really bad bill, and passing it would be worse than doing nothing.

The democrats in congress today have no interest at all in helping us achieve energy independence.  This is a security issue as well as an economic issue.  If they are so unconcerned with our security and well being, they do not deserve to be in office and should be voted out as soon as possible.  They are definitely not representing the American people.

Accuracy in Media posted an article in February 2008 concerning the Global Poverty Act sponsored by Barack Obama.  This is the opening paragraph:

"A nice-sounding bill called the "Global Poverty Act," sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations."

Does anyone remember what a mess the UN made of 'food for oil' or the peacekeepers raping women in Africa?  This organization needs to be kicked out of the country--not given more money.  The article continues...

"Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has not endorsed either Senator Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. But on Thursday, February 14, he is trying to rush Obama's "Global Poverty Act" (S.2433) through his committee. The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends." 

We have already lost the war on poverty in this country by destroying the family in the black community and by handing out money instead of dealing with the root problems of poverty--lack of education, lack of the guidance of a healthy family unit, and a belief in the inevitability of failure.  Until we can solve our own poverty problems through education (school vouchers to remove children from failing public schools in certain communities) and support of families, we have no business throwing money overseas.

I have one personal story concerning poverty that truly opened my eyes to the difficulty in battling poverty.  I have children and grandchildren who were living in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina.  They came through relatively unscathed, but some of what they saw (and what we saw) was troubling.  For instance, many of the people of New Orleans received checks from FEMA shortly after hurricane Katrina.  New Orleans is to a large extent a miniature welfare state--there is tremendous poverty there (even before Katrina) and many of the people who received the FEMA checks had never seen that much money at one time before.  A fairly large percentage of that money found its way into the gambling casinos and strip joints.  Poverty is not totally about money--there are attitudes that have to be addressed also, and until they are addressed, there will be no improvement.  We have lost the war on poverty in this country--we need a new strategy that deals with the roots--not the symptoms.  Anyway, we don't need to share our failure in this area with the rest of the world while taking money out of our own treasury.

There is an article in today's Los Angeles Times about the confession of Rosenberg co-defendent Morton Sobell that the Rosenbergs were guilty.  Here are two quotes from the article:

"The Rosenbergs were Soviet spies, and not minor ones either. Not only did they try their best to give the Soviets top atomic secrets from the Manhattan Project, they succeeded in handing over top military data on sonar and on radar that was used by the Russians to shoot down American planes in the Korean and Vietnam wars. That's long been known, and Sobell confirmed it again last week."

"Nevertheless, after Sobell's confession of guilt, all other conspiracy theories about the Rosenberg case should come to an end. A pillar of the left-wing culture of grievance has been finally shattered. The Rosenbergs were actual and dangerous Soviet spies. It is time the ranks of the left acknowledge that the United States had (and has) real enemies and that finding and prosecuting them is not evidence of repression.

Ronald Radosh, an emeritus professor of history at City University of New York and an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is the coauthor of "The Rosenberg File."

The actions of these people caused death and injury to Americans in Vietnam and Korea.  In evaluating the case, that needs to be considered.  Are we ready to prosecute the leaks from the state department to certain newspapers that made it more difficult to track terrorist finances?  Just as the Rosenbergs caused the death and injury to our soldiers, the leaks to the New York Times may cost everyday Americans their lives because of terrorist plots that were not stopped.

This is not a post about abortion.  I am not a one issue voter, and although I believe Roe v Wade is not good law, I believe overturning it would simply kick the issue back to the states where it belongs (see the 10th Amendment).  I would like to see abortion end--it has become a million dollar industry, and that bothers me, but that is not what this post is about.

What do you do when a baby survives an abortion?  Can you legally kill it?  Does an unwanted abortion survivor deserve medical attention?  These are issues that we have to deal with.  I also feel that these are issues that will define us as a civilization.  If a baby is not worth medical care and can be put in a supply closet to die, is grandma worth medical attention?  I say this as a senior citizen with a more than vested interest in the answer.

The following is from BornAliveTruth.org.  Draw your own conclusions.

As an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama opposed the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act. The legislation defined any infant born alive as a "person" who deserves full legal protection.

The Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act was modeled after the federal version, with the identical definition of "born alive." The World Health Organization created this definition in 1950. The United Nations adopted it in 1955.

Obama actively opposed the legislation in the Illinois State Senate. In 2001, he voted no in committee, spoke against it on the Senate floor, and voted present on the floor. In 2002, he voted no in committee, spoke against it on the Senate floor, and voted no on the floor. Obama was the sole senator to ever speak against it on the Senate floor.

The U.S. Senate passed the federal bill unanimously, with Senators Barbara Boxer and Ted Kennedy speaking in support of it.

The pro-abortion group NARAL expressed neutrality on the federal bill. On August 5, 2002, President George W. Bush signed it into law.

For four years Obama has said he would have supported the federal version, but that simply isn't true. In 2003, as chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee, Obama voted yes on an amendment that made the Illinois version identical to the federal one. However, he then voted no on the amended bill.

 

This article may or may not be related to the current political situation, but to me it is just interesting.  You have been warned!

I am reading a book by David Stick called GRAVEYARD OF THE ATLANTIC, Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast.  There is a chapter in this book dealing with German submarines operating off the North Carolina and Virginia coast during the World War I.  The story that caught my attention was the story of U-151, which laid mines and torpedoed cargo ships traveling that route.  She was commanded by Korvettenkapitan Von Nostitz und Janckendorf.  The U-151 attacked the British steamer Harpathian bound from Plymouth, England to Newport News.  The sub torpedoed the ship, the captain gave the order to abandon ship, and an injured man from the ship was treated for his injuries on the sub while supplies were passed from the sub to each of the lifeboats from the ship.  After sinking another ship, the Vindeggen, the sub towed the lifeboats with it rather than leaving them adrift.  Later that day, the sub sighted the Norwegian steamship Heinrich Lund stopped her, and gave her the choice of taking aboard the survivors it was now towing from two previous sinkings or being sunk.  They made the obvious choice, and sixty-eight people from two sunken vessels went safely home.

In contrast, U-152 commanded by Kapitanleutnant Franz headed for our coast left for our coast, but before the sub got here, she received orders to return home.  God smiled on us that day.  Although most of the other submarine commanders were concerned about the safety of the people aboard the ships they sank, Franz was not.  On his way to American, he sank two ships.  One he raked with shellfire, ignoring a white flag of surrender, and killing 215 of the 239 men on board.  The second, he attacked against orders and sent the nineteen survivors adrift in mid-ocean.

My point is this, every country has citizens that are noble and principled and citizens that are rogues.  Ninety-nine point nine per cent of our soldiers are honorable men, and we need to remember that when we hear of the occasional incident that occurs in the fog of war.  War is a horrible thing, but there are times when it is necessary to stand up to the bully on the block.  When we do it, even though it may not seem like our fight, we are ultimately protecting our own safety by removing a bully. 

That bastion of right wing reporting (only kidding) The New York Times reported five years ago that the Bush administration was trying to set up a new agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Here is the link, New Agency Proposed to Oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Here is a quote from the Hot Air article recalling the events:

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

"These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

"I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing," Mr. Watt said.

Sounds a little like the Democratic denial of problems in Social Security, doesn't it?  Nothing to see here, no crisis on the horizon.  Everybody just move along, now.  The Democrats had forced lenders to assume more risk at lower interest rates in the 1990s, as IBD points out today, and they didn't want to countenance an end to their populist policies."

This is the reason we need to vote people out of office until we get someone in office who will deal with the issues that face this nation and this nation's economy.

I seem to remember the Democrats taking control of the House and Senate by charging the Republicans with corruption and saying that the Democrats would be much more ethical.  Yeah.  Right.  The man with hundreds of thousands of dollars in his capital hill freezer is still in the house, and now the head of the Ways and Means Committee has tax and income disclosure problems.  Please follow the link to the New York Post to see the further adventures of Charlie Rangel.

What appears below is a direct quote from an article written by The Heritage Foundation on July 14, 2008.  You can link to it at The Heritage Foundation.

"In 2004, after a tip from a whistle blower who was later fired, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) issued a report finding that the government-sponsored entity Fannie Mae had engaged in Enron-like accounting machinations that allowed Fannie to overstate its earnings and underestimate the risk the company faced. The accounting wizardry Fannie engaged in was designed so that Fannie could meet profit targets to maximize bonus payments to company executives like Clinton administration deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and Carter administration assistant director for domestic policy Franklin Raines.

For years, conservatives have been critical of how Fannie, and Freddie Mac, have leveraged their government-sponsored advantages (including exemptions from state and federal taxes, lower capital requirements, and the ability to borrow at rates well below those paid by private companies), to create a co-monopoly in the housing finance sector. When Fannie's accounting scandal came to light in 2004, conservatives pushed hard for reforms to phase out Fannie and Freddie. Led by former Walter Mondale and Barack Obama campaign adviser James Johnson, Fannie and Freddie pushed back hard, raising millions of dollars for members of the relevant oversight committees and opening up "Partnership Offices" that funneled money into various housing projects in districts of key members of Congress.

Fannie also bought off activist groups such as the corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been indicted, multiple times across the country, for vote fraud (Obama worked closely with ACORN as a street organizer in Chicago). Fannie's lobbying efforts paid off as liberal politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) worked to kill any real reform of Freddie and Fannie. The Washington Post reports: "In an internal memo in 2004, Fannie Mae executive Daniel H. Mudd affirmed what the company's critics had long contended: In the political arena, 'we always won' and 'we took no prisoners.'"

Fannie was created during the New Deal to make homes more affordable for lower- and middle-income Americans. Freddie was added years later for the same purpose. Fannie and Freddie have long outlived their purpose as the market for repackaging loans as securities is now well developed. When the housing market is booming, they are not needed, and they have both gone well beyond their original mission and are now backing loans for wealthy (witness Speaker Nancy Pelosi's continued efforts to raise the cap on the size of the loans that Fannie and Freddie can buy).

Many parts of the bill the Senate passed last week only continue the worst aspects of the crony capitalism at the hard of Freddie's success. This is especially true of the Community Development Block Grant funds that have long been a goal of partisan housing activist groups like ACORN. There is an opportunity here to use the recapitalization the White House is now proposing to re-organize housing finance by breaking up Fannie and Freddie and creating several smaller truly private entities that can compete."

It should be noted that the two senators to receive the most money in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie are Chris Dodd and Barack Obama.

 

One of the biggest threats to a healthy democracy is voter fraud.  Here are two stories relating to that problem in the coming election.  First in National Review Online there is an article about fraud in absentee ballots, and second in digital journal there is another example of ACORN being involved in voter registration fraud.  Unless we want to live in a banana republic where elections mean nothing, we need to deal with this problem.  Again, I would like to see some sort of voter identification system to prevent both these types of fraud.

There is an article in today's New York Post relating talks that Obama had with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari during Barack Obama's visit to Iraq this past summer.  The Foreign Minister charges that while Obama was promising the American electorate that he wanted the troops out in sixty days, he was asking Iraq to leave the troops there until after the US elections and also stated that he wanted congress involved in any agreements involving the withdrawal of troops.  This is a direct violation of the Logan Act, which according to Wikipedia is "a United States federal law that forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. It was passed in 1799 and last amended in 1994. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years."  Aside from that, I would not be willing to let congress negotiate anything at this point.  Anyway, this is incredibly stupid on the part of Obama.  It is a strictly political calculation that I hope will badly misfire.  As a military mom, I resent our troops being used as political pawns.

Sometimes it's the little things that go unnoticed that can turn out to make the biggest difference.  Sometime in the last two or three weeks, our policy toward Pakistan changed.  We are no longer letting the Taliban use the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan as a safe haven.  I'm not sure whether this is a result of better cooperation with the new government of Pakistan or frustration with the fact that American, NATO, and Afghani troops and security forces have lost more men in the first nine months of this year than they did in all of last year.  At any rate, this is a game-changer, and may be the prelude to the kind of turnaround in Afghanistan that we have seen in Iraq.  To me, though, one of the main problems in Afghanistan is that other than the illegal poppy crop, these people have no visible means of support.  I know we are building power plants to give them electricity, and that may help, but until we give them an economic alternative to an illegal drug trade that funds terrorism, we will be fighting an uphill battle.

 

Just one more comment about the war in Afghanistan.  The war in Afghanistan has essentially been under NATO, and there have been some problems with that.  Canada has contributed greatly and lost a large number of troops in that war, but some of the European NATO members have not even been willing to allow their troops to go into combat.  Because of what is happening to the demographics in Europe (and the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Spain), many European countries are afraid to fight the war on terrorism openly.  This does not bode well for the future of democracy.

 

There is an article on the war in Afghanistan and a link to an interview with Ollie North concerning the war at CBN News.

I can totally relate to this article in the American Thinker.  I met with a conservative woman's group yesterday in Massachusetts.  There were four of us there!  Anyway, it's a great article.

The website outloudopinion.com has a good editorial from the Friday, September 12, 2008, edition of Investor's Business Daily entitled "Tough Truths About Obama's Character".  The site reads the editorial to you--I have no idea how to link the actual written article.  It takes a minute to load, but is worth listening to.

Michael Yon has been an embedded reporter in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past three years.  He is a former Green Beret.  He raises his own support for the work he does; and, I believe, he is one of the most honest and insightful correspondents of the Iraq war.  His website is michaelyon-online.com and this link will lead you to the home page.  However, there is an article on his website titled The End Game In Iraq that is very interesting.  The article was written by people who know Michael, not by Michael.You have to download the adobe file to get all five pages of it, but it evaluates where we are and what we can expect when on September 16, General Raymond Odierno will succeed General David Petraeus.  

One of the recent problems Barack Obama is having is the fact that he has begun to appear tone deaf.  The comment about lipstick on a pig may have been perfectly innocent, but after Sarah Palin's comment about hockey moms, people were bound to make a connection.  If you listen to the crowd reaction to that comment, you get the feeling that there was no doubt in their minds what he meant.  OK.  We'll give him the benefit of the doubt.  He was tone deaf--not mean, and he didn't realize when he heard the crowd reaction that he needed to clarify his comment.  He needed to be more tuned into what was happening to avoid the charges of sexism.  He does better with a teleprompter.

OK.  Now we have the McCain is old--he doesn't do email commercial.   Jonah Goldberg has an article up on The National Review Online in which he cites a 2000 Boston Globe article that says the following:

:McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball."

If the information gets out about McCain not being able to type, it will make the Obama campaign ad look cruel.  I don't think that's a good idea.

I didn't link to the Boston Globe article.  It was written during the 2000 Republican primary campaign, and other than explaining why John McCain doesn't type, it is somewhat irrelevant, which is generally my opinion of the Boston Globe.

The following was posted on HotAir.com this afternoon by Ed Morrissey.

The outpouring of enthusiasm and support for Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate has been almost unprecedented, an amazing reversal of the political currents for the past two years.  Few believed even two months ago that Republicans could generate widespread enthusiasm for their ticket, let alone approach the fervor seen from Barack Obama supporters.  McCain was simply too well known for that kind of explosive popularity, and the Republican brand too damaged.

At the same time, though, we have to guard against the same kind of cult of personality that arose around Obama and continues to this day.  We want the large crowds, but we need to have them pay attention to the message.  That message can't just consist of "hockey mom" and "pit bull", but a coherent public-policy philosophy along with a demonstration of how Palin's record and experience supports it.  Otherwise, we run the risk of making Palin into a reverse cartoon from the bubble-headed, trailer-trash yokel that the media has begun to paint.

That means being realistic about Palin's experience.  As governor for only 20 months, she has more executive experience than Barack Obama, but that's a quip, not an argument.  McCain chose her because she has a record of real reform, and of risk-taking in cleaning up politics, that includes more than just her term as Governor.  We need to press that message and show how Palin commits McCain to change by outlining her achievements over the last several years, and focus on that rather than the Palin family.  We have to acknowledge that Palin's choice carried risk but that we needed a running mate like Palin to return the GOP and Washington to a path of reform, and the same old players in Washington wouldn't do.  Otherwise, we won't convince anyone of the wisdom of Palin's presence on the ticket.

We've been fortunate in one regard: for some reason, Barack Obama has chosen to run against Sarah Palin rather than John McCain in the last two weeks.  We win that argument every time in two ways: Obama can't beat Palin on experience, and McCain winds up looking like the only person running for President.  However, we can't count on that foolishness lasting forever, and we need to have a real argument for a McCain-Palin partnership as our main message when it ends.  We have less than eight weeks to define Palin as the reformer and political prodigy she proved herself to be in Alaska.

Personality makes a great splash.  Let's get past it to make the real arguments now.

There is a new Obama commercial just out that criticizes McCain for being old.  Evidently John McCain is not computer savvy.  Wow.  How many senior citizens does that apply to?  The only reason I know how to use a computer is because my husband is an 'it' person.  Otherwise there would be no hope.  I live in a house with two people and four working computers.  I had to learn how to use one.  Anyway, the tag is that McCain is out of touch because he's old, and we can't afford another President who is out of touch. 

The current President is not out of touch.  I happen to support President Bush and think that history will treat him very differently than his contemporary liberal media.  The one criticism of George Bush that I feel is totally valid is that he has not successfully communicated the message to the American people that we are at war (not because we invaded Iraq, but because Al Qaeda declared war on us).  The fact that we are at war should create a desire to have our own sources of oil for our military, it should encourage us to pull together instead of constantly playing politics, and it should impact our behavior as people and as a nation much more strongly than it does. 

Anyway, I question the wisdom of saying someone would not make a good President because he is old.  I believe that's called age discrimination.  In the workplace that is illegal!

Charles Krauthammer's column in  today's The Washington Post is a fascinating look at the rise and fall of Barack Obama.  Obama is by no means out of the race, but there is an old expression, 'it's not where you are--it's the direction in which you are moving', at this moment it looks like Obama's momentum is moving in the wrong direction.  The only thing I would add to Charles Krauthammer's comments is that if the media builds you up, but you have no internal foundation, the building will not stand.  Obama may have been a successful community organizer, but if you look at the community he organized, it is in worse shape now than it was before he started.

Everyone over the age of thirteen remembers where they were seven years ago today.  Some children even younger remember because mommy or daddy never came home from work.  Some parking lot attendants in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts remember because they didn't know which cars would ever be picked up.  I remember because I worked with a lady named Sally whose daughter worked in the second tower.  Sally waited for a telephone call telling her that her daughter was safe.  That call never came.  I remember because my own daughter lived a few blocks from the trade center.  She was fine.

My condolences to everyone who lost a loved one on that day.  I stand in awe of the bravery of the fireman, policemen, military personnel, and ordinary people who performed heroic acts and saved lives.  I thank God for the men and women in our military who have done everything they could since that day to see that we are not attacked again. 

We are not invincible.  At some point, something will get through.  We will never know about the attacks that are prevented, and that is probably a good thing.  I only hope that when we are again threatened or attacked in some way, we remember to focus on the big picture instead of our little political squabbles.

Out of respect for the people whose lives were changed irreparably on September 11, 2001, there will be no political posts on this site today.  Tomorrow is soon enough.

The campaign for President seems a little crazy right now.  I'm not even going to deal with the silliness with lipstick on a pig or a pit bull or the abortion comment, but I do have an observation.  Barack Obama seems to be more interested in running against Sarah Palin than in running against John McCain.  The Palin effect seems to have unnerved him.  He reminds me of a baby chick--if you help a baby chick hatch, it will die, because in hatching it develops the strength it needs to survive.  Barack Obama has never run against a strong opponent before--he managed to force any strong opponent out of the race through scandal or questioning signatures until the opposition gave up.  He never reached an actual campaign where he fought a strong opponent.  I think his success in forcing his opponents out of the race before they had a chance is hurting him now.  He has no idea how to run a successful campaign against a strong opponent.

The links have been disabled, but I suspect you can find most of them at American Solutions. 

"I just finished up a radio interview with Sean Hannity and I wanted to share with you some exciting news. I was on Sean's show to debut country music star Aaron Tippin's new single entitled "Drill Here, Drill Now." The song was inspired by our "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" movement and masterfully captures the pulse of Americans who are tired of paying too much for gas while Congress does nothing about it. You can listen to the interview here.

As a country music fan, I've always known Aaron as an outspoken artist who takes a stand for hardworking Americans. And when I first heard his song, I knew it would become the rallying cry for more American-made energy. Just read the opening lines of the song and you'll see why:

Hello.....Is anybody out there listenin' in Washington D.C.
This is the suffering voice of America crying out for relief
Now I don't know what a gallon of gas costs up on Capitol Hill
But we sure know what it costs down here in Realityville

If you're anything like me, once you hear this song you'll immediately want to forward it to your friends and family so they can hear it too.

Can you help us make this song a huge hit by downloading it today and asking your local radio stations to play it?

You can download or preview the song at www.AmericanSolutions.com/DrillSong. A powerful collision between pop culture and politics, this terrific song is sure to take America's airwaves - and Capitol Hill - by storm.

Thank you for everything you do.

Your friend,

Newt Gingrich

P.S. In light of President Bush's July announcement to eliminate the executive ban on offshore drilling, the U.S. Minerals Management Service has decided to initiate a new plan to increase energy production on the outer continental shelf (OCS).  As part of the regulatory process, the agency is calling for public comments on offshore oil and gas development through September 15, 2008.

In the meantime, unfortunately, Congress is planning votes on bills that would actually make all or part of the offshore drilling ban permanent."

Today is September 10, 2008.  Seven years ago, it was the day before.  We were all going about our business, enjoying a beautiful fall, and making plans for the future.  I wonder, if we could have seen into the future, is there anything we would have done differently that day. 

 

There was one man who was living in a different world than the rest of us--even on September 10.  His name was Rick Rescorla.  He was the vice president for security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, a brokerage house with 2,700 employees in the World Trade Center in the south tower on floors forty-four through seventy-four and 1,000 employees in Building Five across the plaza.  Because of the foresight of this man, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter lost only six employees in the bombing of the World Trade Center.  His story is told on his website, RickRescorla.com.

 

Rick felt strongly that the terrorists who had attempted the first World Trade Center bombing would try again.  He asked his company executives to move from the towers, but the company's lease went until 2006.  Rick held evacuation drills on a regular basis in spite of the grumbling of his fellow employees.  Every few months all 2,700 employees would march down the stairs and out of the building in an evacuation drill.  On September 11, 2001, by the time the second airplane hit the second tower, most of the company's employees were already out of the building.  There were three employees missing, and Rick and two other people went back into the building to find them.   All six were killed when the building collapsed.¹

 

I tell this story today for two reasons.  First, Rick Rescorla is a hero whose foresight saved many lives.  Second, Rick Rescorla understood that there were terrorists who wanted to destroy America even before there was a "war on terror".  We need to think back to September 10, 2001, and remember what our innocence was like and the price we paid for it.  Thank God for a man who chose not to be innocent.

 

1.  Most of the information in the above two paragraphs is from the book BREAKDOWN by Bill Gertz (subtitled "How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11").

FactCheck.org has a great article refuting the current charges against Sarah Palin.  I particularly like the one where she is accused of banning books from the town library.  What I really like about this charge is the fact that FactCheck points out that some of these books were not even published at the time she is accused of banning them.  Way to do your opposition research!

I can say that 'cause I live in a town even smaller than Wasilla, Alaska.  Anyway, The Wall Street Journal (John Fund) is reporting that the Democrats have sent 30 lawyers, investigators, and opposition researchers into Anchorage and Wasilla to see what they could find to use against Sarah Palin.  If only they did this kind of research on spending, energy, and government corruption--something might actually get accomplished!  Anyway, get ready.  These are the tactics from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals--the politics of personal destruction.  Watch the front page of your local and national newspaper, and I am sure you will see the results of their efforts.

The American Thinker has an article evaluating where we are 30 years after Camp David.  It's interesting reading; here are the 'money' paragraphs.

 

 

 

 

Just a quick note on the knee injury to Tom Brady.  There are two teams in the AFC East I root for, the Patriots is one of them.  It is always a shame to see a gifted athlete get injured, and Tom Brady is a gifted athlete who has been there for the Patriots through thick and thin.  I wish him a successful recovery and a great season next year.  Meanwhile, moving right along, I think this will make the AFC East a very interesting division to watch this year--any team could take it!

This You Tube Campaign Ad is the best argument I have heard in this campaign.  Watch the whole thing; the end is as important as the beginning.  Thank you, Bill P., for sending me this link.

On August 5, 2008, The Village Voice ran a rather lengthy article on how Andrew Cuomo, as the youngest Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in our history, made a series of decisions that led to our current crisis (and bailout) of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Among other things, the article states

"It all starts, as the headlines of recent weeks do, with these two giant banks. But in the hubbub about their bailout, few have noticed that the only federal agency with the power to regulate what Cuomo has called "the gods of Washington" was HUD. Congress granted that power in 1992, so there were only four pre-crisis secretaries at the notoriously political agency that had the ability to rein in Fannie and Freddie: ex-Texas mayor Henry Cisneros and Bush confidante Alfonso Jackson, who were driven from office by criminal investigations; Mel Martinez, who left to chase a U.S. Senate seat in Florida; and Cuomo, who used the agency as a launching pad for his disastrous 2002 gubernatorial candidacy."  The article is complicated, but worth reading.

I understand that we need to do this bailout, despite the fact that it will cost all of us (and our children) a great deal of money, but we need to find a way to prevent this from happening again.  It's time to tell Washington that they need to be more careful with our money.  It's a shame that the cost of the bailout can't be paid for by the huge bonuses given to mortgage company executives during the time the foundation was being laid for the crisis in which we now find outselves, or better still, we could take the money out of the retirement accounts of the congressmen who passed the laws that allowed this to happen.  The other thing to take notice of in this bailout is which politicians received sweetheart mortgage deals from the mortgage companies being bailed out.

It is definitely the silly season.  If you haven't heard the flap about the flags in Denver (and if you care), see Hot Air for the story (or nonstory, depending on your opinion).  By itself this is nothing more than a campaign worker dropping the ball on one of may details of the convention.  The only reason it even remotely found its way into the press is that it is in harmony with a picture already out there--the picture of William Ayers standing on the American flag.  It also brings up the flip-flop by Obama on wearing a flag lapel pin.  Obama says he loves this country--that is probably true, but he reminds me of the husband who criticizes his wife for twenty minutes while saying he loves her.  He is so focused on her mistakes, he can't see the good in her.  I don't imagine it's fun to be married to someone like that.  Do you want someone who sees America in that light running the country?

Diane West has an editorial in The Washington Times today about the difference in treatment of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama.  I still find it interesting that the media is focusing on Sarah Palin--not John McCain, and very little is being said about Joe Biden.  Hmmm.

Just when the mainstream media thinks it has a lock on opinion (not science) some researcher comes along and confuses things with facts and statistics!

Power Line Blog has an article about Professor Roger Pielke listing the findings of U.S. Climate Change Science Program.  The article is interesting because it states facts based on statistics, not politics. 

For those of you who would rather listen to the internet opinion pages than read them, here is a new web address OutloudOpinion.com.  It is made up of the Investor's Business Daily, The New Republic, and Creators.com.  It's fun to have the articles on as background while you are doing something else.

I watch the Beltway Boys on Fox every Saturday.  I used to watch the McLaughlin Report, but when Eleanor Clift called our soldiers 'mercenaries', I stopped watching.  I am the daughter of a man who landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, the wife of a Vietnam-era veteran, and the proud mother of a Marine.  None of these men are (or were) mercenaries--they loved their country and proudly served (and still serve) it well. 

Anyway,I like Fred Barnes and I like Mort Kondrake.  Generally I think they try to be fair and to give their honest opinions.  It's an opinion show--they are entitled to their opinions.  However--when Mort referred (on the air) to Sarah Palin as 'that wacko right winger', I was offended.  Has he ever referred to Barack Obama as 'that wacko left winger'?  Barack Obama worked as a community organizer with ACORN--you know, that organization that registered fifteen thousand voters in one of our western states, and three of the names turned out to be legal.  That may be a slight exaggeration of what actually happened, but it's not too far off.  That opens up the discussion of the need for voter id of some sort, but that's for later.  Again, The Beltway Boys is an opinion show, and they are entitled to express their opinions, but aren't these the same people who complain about the level of public discourse?  Be careful what you say on the air, please.

Football season is here again.  Yeah!!!!  I love the game--it's like chess with shoulder pads.  But that's not the point.  Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online has a short comment by someone on his staff comparing the nomination of Sarah Palin to Bill Walsh's West Coast Offense.  No one really ever knew what it was, but they knew it when they saw it, and no one ever really learned to defend against it.  Hmmm.

These are excerpts from an article in Front Page Magazine.  It's a very long article, and I have tried to grab just the heart of it.

The article was a rebuttal to an article by Michael Isikoff on the recent book on the Iraq War by David Horowitz (with Peter Collier).  The first part of the article is Michael Isikoff's book review, the second (parts of which are quoted below) is the answer to the charges by FrontPage Magazine.

"The real question for critics like Michael Isikoff, who oppose the war, is this: Do they believe that if the United States withdrew its 150,000 troops from the Iraqi border in 2003 Saddam Hussein would not have proceeded to develop WMDs and use them? The Duelfer Report concluded that Saddam would have developed them as soon as sanctions were lifted. Does Isikoff believe the United States could have kept 150,000 troops on the Iraqi border indefinitely in order to use them when Saddam developed nuclear weapons? Does he think that invading a power that possessed nuclear weapons would be more prudent than invading a power that was planning to get them? Is this the case he wants to make? He should make it then, instead of throwing up red herrings like aluminum tubes and Niger uranium deals - which is precisely what we argued in our book." 

"The real issue is what the Democrats knew about the intelligence debate, not the public. The Democrats voted to use force, endorsed the war, and then within three months - three months! - turned against it and attacked it calling their own country an aggressor nation, their president a liar who sent American youth to die for no reason, and U.S. troops bloody occupiers and war criminals. In defense of this betrayal, the Democrats claim that Bush manipulated the intelligence and deceived them. But this is demonstrably false. It is itself the biggest lie of the war. As the major opposition party in a democratic nation, the Democrats had full access to the intelligence debate and participated in it. Isikoff's confusion of "the public" with the Democratic leadership has the effect of amplifying the confusion that sustains the Democrats' claim that they were duped."

"But unlike the public, the Democrats had access to all the intelligence information the government had. The Senate Intelligence Committee oversees the CIA and America's other intelligence agencies. In other words the Democrats knew, or if they didn't know all they had to do was ask CIA chief George Tenet - a Clinton appointee -- and he would have been required by law to tell them."

To me, the bottom line here is simple.  We are fighting a war on terror, and one political party has consistently undermined OUR Commander-in-Chief and his ability to conduct that war.  If you read the old Communist Party documents on how to defeat a country, their first aim is "if you cut off the head of the snake, the snake dies".  We need to be very careful about what we say and do at this time.  We live in a very dangerous world, and it's not always about us or our politics.

I have linked to the entire article above--it is interesting reading.

I have a few random thoughts on the election coming up in November.  I'm sure this will not be my last post on the subject, but I do have some random thoughts (generally speaking, I have a random brain).

The Republican brand name has been severely damaged by the media coverage of George Bush since he became President.  Go back and look at the press reports on George Bush beginning in December of 2000.  The press has successfully destroyed a number of Republicans who had bright futures--Newt Gingrich, George Allen, Trent Lott, and I'm sure there are others I'm not even aware of.  However, the power of the mainstream news media has been weakened over the past few years because of talk radio and the internet.   That is why Nancy Pelosi is moving to bring back the "fairness" doctrine to kill talk radio.  In the next two months you will see those attacks aimed at Sarah Palin.  Next week I am expecting to see a number of articles in the mainstream media criticizing the Assemblies of God Church (because she is a member).  Church analysis is not my forte (and I can assure you it's not the forte of the mainstream media either), but why is it that religion is an issue with Republican candidates, but rarely mentioned with Democrats (other than Nancy Pelosi's recent dustup with the Catholic bishops)?

One of the important issues in this election (for me) is truth.  The lies are flying fast and furious.  US Magazine has on its cover "Sex, Lies, and Scandel".  As far as I can see, the only lies told were the rumors in the media that Sarah Palin's youngest child was her grandchild, but yet the smear is aimed at Sarah Palin.

The bias continues on Oprah.  She will not invite Sarah Palin onto the show.  I guess that's not a surprise, as she has openly supported Barack Obama, but it's definitely not equal coverage (Oprah is not a news show, but she's an opinion leader).

Our job as voters is the check the facts.  What were the economy figures under Clinton?  Is it better to fight terrorism as a law enforcement matter (as Clinton did after the first World Trade Center attack) or to go after the countries supporting it?  Did you know Saddam Hussein was paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers in Israel?  Why haven't we been attacked since 2001?  What has been stopped by the Patriot Act, etc?  Why wasn't terrorism mentioned at the Democrat convention?

More random thoughts will follow at various times.  Have a good weekend.  Stay safe from the coming hurricanes.

The treatment of Sarah Palin by the media has been unbelievably bad, but there are some interesting aspects of it.  In Politico there is an article about some Clinton aides saying how unfair the treatment of Sarah Palin is by the media.  OK.  Let's look at this. 

 We all know that the Clintons are not going away.  Their political ambitions have simply been put on hold for a short while.  What outcome of this election is best for a Hillary presidential run in 2012?  Let's see.  If Obama wins, what happens?  If he does a good job, he gets reelected and Hillary cannot run until 2016.  If he does a bad job, the chances of another Democrat being elected go down drastically.  If Hillary does not enthusiastically support his campaign (or at least appear to), she loses the support of the Democrats who back him.  Would you like to play chess with the Clintons?  I bet it would be interesting! 

What happens if McCain wins?  Before Sarah Palin, that was Hillary's best bet.  McCain will probably not run for a second term, so his Vice President would be the likely Republican presidential candidate.  Hillary probably does not relish the idea of running against Sarah Palin, but in four years, Hillary can collect enough negative on Sarah Palin to make it work.  Remember, the Clintons play political hardball.  The only reasons Hillary lost in the Democrat Party primaries was that Barack Obama managed to take the financial underwriting of George Soros away from the Clintons because of the war issue.  If you do some reading on George Soros, it will become obvious why it was not part of his plan for us to win the war in Iraq. 

I feel like the little girl in the horror movie who says, "They're back!".  Well, they're not back yet, but they will be. It will be interesting to see which feminists stand up for Sarah Palin.  So far Geraldine Ferraro and Susan Estrich have come forward to point out the double standard being used in the reporting on Sarah Palin; it will be interesting to see if any other leading feminists are honest enough to complain.

The UK Guardian is reporting that Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said earlier this week that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Wow.  Congress has done this since the elections of 2006, and let's look at how successful they have been.  First of all, speaking of investigations, William Jefferson (with his money stored in his refrigerator) is still firmly ensconced in the house, Harry Reed's land deals have never been investigated, and Congress has spent millions of our money investigating things that have already been investigated.  It has not helped their approval ratings--their approval rating is, I believe, in single digits now.  And they have not had time to pass an energy bill.  Do we really want a white house that engages in the same sort of stupidity?

I am not a huge fan of John McCain, but I believe he and Sarah Palin have the maturity to run the country and not play silly games.

 

From the Corner at National Review Online

As National Review's in-house demography bore, I've been struck this last week by the left's fierce hostility to Sarah Palin's fecundity. One gentleman - well, okay, maybe not a "gentleman" but certainly an impeccably sensitive progressive new male - wrote to me from Shelton, Washington:

This abortion prohibitionist hag won't cut it among women with brains.And BTW she is a good example of reproduction run amok. 5 kids; 1 retard. I wonder if the bitch ever heard of getting spayed. 

Each to her own, Mister Sensitive. You can be a 44-year old mother of five expecting her first grandchild and serving as Governor of Alaska. Or you can be, like Martha Stewart's daughter Alexis, a 43-year old single "career woman" hosting a satellite radio show and spending $28,000 a month on "intracytoplasmic sperm injection" in hopes of becoming pregnant. Every woman has the "right to choose" her own path through life, but it's a lazy assumption to take for granted that most Americans find Sarah Palin's choices as freakish as our metropolitan elites do.

What was it the feminists used to say? "You can have it all." Sarah Palin is a mom, and the first female governor of her state. But the enforcers at the National Organization of Women dismiss her as "more a conservative man than she is a woman".

Golly. These days, NOW seems to have as narrow and proscriptive a view of what women are permitted to be as any old 1950s sitcom dad. 

This showed up in my mailbox at AOL.  I have no idea where it is from, but it is true.

 

THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I know that some of you don't like to read long drawn out missives... so here's the executive summary.........
John McCain

Congress: 26 Years   Military: 22 Years

Barrack Obama

Congress: 143 Days    Military: 0 Days

Just think how great a professional of any kind you could be with only 143 days of experience!!!

People want change so badly? . . . . maybe we should lower the experience requirement for doctors, lawyers, airline pilots, etc. This would cause some change!

Obama's 143 Days of Senate Experience: Just how much Senate experience does Barack Obama have in terms of actual work days? Not much.

From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United States Senator, to the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory Committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate.

That's how many days the Senate was actually in session and working.

The one single Senate committee that he headed never even met -- once.

After 143 days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan.

Think about it......143 days -- 20.4 weeks -- 4.7 months

Our children spend more time in pre-school getting ready for kindergarten.

I got this from The Campaign Spot on National Review Online.  I love it.

 

No Word on Whether She'll Discuss Properly Field Dressing a Moose

Someone familiar with Sarah Palin's speech says that one of the themes coming through will be, "you think this [political work] is hard? I grew up on the frontier." Americans will know, after hearing her, that this is "a woman with a commanding presence."

UPDATE: Based on the title of this post, a reader responds, "In all honesty, I believe this is one of those issues where you must show, not tell. I have unavoidable engagements that will keep me away from the TV this evening, but I'm setting the DVR just in case she does."

There is a video of Newt Gingrich talking to MSNBC at newt.org.  The interesting part of the interview is the fact that as soon as Newt asks the reporter to list Barack Obams's accomplishments (after Newt has listed Sarah Palin's), the reporter ends the interview.  Amazing.  I still find it very interesting that the focus is on Sarah Palin's experience--not on anything about John McCain.  I also think her Alaskan background is interesting.   Do these people realize that they are messing with a lady who shoots moose?

I am also concerned about the way the media has decided to target Sarah Palin.  After years of 'women can do anything men can do--even go into combat', we are hearing criticism of the fact that she has chosen to run for public office in the middle of raising a (horrors!!!) less than perfect family.  Those of us who live in the real world (with less than perfect families) are cheering.  Evidently, she has the support of her husband and children who all work together to make this possible.  I'm sure all of us know people from large families or with large families and have seen the lessons the children learn growing up about sharing and helping.

At any rate, I question the wisdom of attacking anyone who shoots moose!

There is an article in The Weekly Standard written by a former legal headhunter about the resumes of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.  It's interesting that the Barack Obama campaign team is comparing her resume to Barack Obama's--not to Joe Biden's.  It's also interesting that they are not comparing Barack Obama's resume to John McCain's.

Thank you, Barack Obama for your statement concerning the media's attack of Sarah Palin's daughter.  You can read his statement in National Review Online along with a brief commentary by Peter Wehner.  Barack Obama has shown more respect for the campaign process than the press that is supposed to be covering it fairly.  We need a discussion of issues, plans to move forward, and things that matter to those of us working, paying our bills, raising children, etc.--not continuing personal attacks.

In the news frenzy to attack Sarah Palin, it was somehow overlooked that we handed Anbar Province back to the Iraqis,  I found the article in The International Herald Tribune of September 1.  The story of Iraq is a major unreported success--Osama Bin Laden called Iraq the central front in the war on terror and hoped to turn it into what Afghanistan was in the 1990's.  Thanks to George Bush, General Petraeus, and the dedication of the amazing men and women in our military, there are no more rape rooms, mass graves, people being sent through chicken shredders, and the other trappings of a totalitarian regime.  There is also another article in The International Herald Tribune today, about the progress being made in Baghdad.  It may be a while before Iraq is a totally safe place, but the daily sacrifices of our military have made us safer and taken a major aggression threat off the map. 

We need to remember to thank our military and their families when we see them.  The price they pay for their dedication is easily overlooked.  If you can afford to buy someone in uniform lunch or dinner, please do.

How is it that Sarah Palin has no experience, but has accomplishments, and Barack Obama has experience, but no accomplishments?  There is an article at Townhall.com talking about the difference in the background and experience of the two candiddates.  It is interesting that generally the media is contrasting her to Barack Obama, not to Joe Biden.  Knowing Joe Biden's love for the spotlight, it's going to be interesting to see what he does to change that.

Just a thought--what impact does growing up in Alaska have on a person's world view?  You live close to nature and in harmony with nature (if you're not in harmony with nature, you may not survive).  You would have to develop common sense, self reliance, independence, and a survival instinct to deal with the winters.  I think, also, that if you made the choice to live there, you would have or develop a deep love and respect for nature.