Tag Archives: Senator Elizabeth Warren

Refusing To Learn The Lessons Of History

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about California Governor Gavin Newsom’s support for a wealth tax. You would think that with all of the people moving out of California because of its high taxes, he might have observed a pattern. Remember, this man may be a presidential candidate.

The article reports:

Gavin Newsom has, until now, opposed wealth taxes, or so-called “Billionaire” taxes. 

No longer. Joining Ro Khanna, Elizabeth Warren, and the more radical left-wing in his party, he is jumping on board the crazy train,  calling for an “economic reset” by seizing a fraction of the wealth—almost all of which is unrealized capital gains, and hence the ownership of companies and not actual cash money—and transferring to the government to spend on…whatever. Making the world poorer but “fairer.”

To quote Thomas Sowell:

What exactly is your ‘fair share’ of what ‘someone else’ has worked for?

There is also the matter of the Laffer Curve:

On Friday, CNN reported:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday proposed a national tax on billionaires that he says is the first part of an “economic reset for America” agenda, which aides explicitly say is part of his considering to launch a presidential campaign.

“The system America’s founders built was designed to prevent the concentration of power in a few hands, but we have allowed that concentration to happen anyway, slowly, in plain sight, over decades,” Newsom writes. “We can reverse it together, as a country.”

It is extremely early in the presidential campaign cycle for a policy proposal — but comes as Democrats continue to embrace economic populism and moves against the wealthy. It also comes as California voters in November will decide on a billionaires’ tax after the governor and opponents of the tax late Thursday failed to reach a deal to keep it off the ballot.

Class envy and greed are ugly, but they are often useful in political campaigns.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Other First World countries have committed economic suicide. Argentina used to be the 7th largest economy in the world. Then it became fascist/socialist, and it has taken decades to just get back on the right track. Europe has been committing economic suicide.

America could too.

Newsom’s move shows that at least some, and probably many, Organized Crime Democrats are going to try to throw the babies and old people to the ravening wolves, and you and I are those babies and old people.

This is one of many reasons I am urging common-sense Americans to vote Republican in the mid-term elections. The Democrats are very scary right now.

Policies Have Consequences

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On Monday, Issues & Insights posted an article about the end of Spirit Airlines. We need to give credit where credit is due. The credit for the bankruptcy of Spirit Airlines goes to then Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

The article reports:

If there’s a lesson to be learned from the collapse of Spirit Airlines, it is that today’s Democratic Party should never be in charge of anything.

Does that seem like a stretch? Not when you consider the facts.

Four years ago, Spirit and JetBlue started talking about merging operations. Spirit was struggling to stay afloat, thanks in part to the massive run-up in inflation under President Joe Biden. The merger would have been a lifeline to Spirit and would have ensured low-cost competition survived.

But Democrats — led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren — decided that they knew better. Warren pressured then Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the Biden administration to stop it, “expressing serious concerns about the proposed merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines.”

She bragged in early 2024 that she “has led the fight to ensure antitrust laws are enforced across the economy to prevent mergers that will reduce competition, jeopardize fair markets, and harm consumers.”

Her leadership paid off. Biden’s Transportation and Justice Departments teamed up to block the merger — claiming it would cost travelers $1 billion a year. Then a district judge in Boston sided with Biden.

All of them claimed the same thing. That they were doing this on behalf of air travelers.

Buttigieg said in 2023 that “it’s important to make sure that passengers have choices” and that they “have access to low fares.”

When the companies dropped the merger plans in the face of these assaults, Warren cheered, calling it “a Biden win for flyers.”

A win? Tell that to the 17,000 employees who just lost their jobs, the travelers who have paid for Spirit flights they’ll never take, and those families faced with a huge spike in travel costs.

The article notes:

Not surprisingly, these same Democrats are trying to pin the blame for Spirit’s collapse on President Donald Trump, saying, as Warren put it, “spiking fuel prices from Trump’s war was the nail in the coffin for twice-bankrupted Spirit airline.”

But that’s a lie. Anyone not blinded by leftist ideology could see at the time that killing the merger was the nail in Spirit’s coffin.

Here’s how the Heritage Foundation’s EJ Antoni put it back in March 2024:

Without the merger, Spirit is all but condemned to death, and investors know it, selling off the company’s stock, which hit a record low after the plug was pulled on consolidating with JetBlue. The ratings agency Fitch downgraded Spirit’s credit rating, citing default as a real possibility, meaning the airline may soon be unable to pay its bills.

With operational losses, over $1 billion in bonds coming due soon, and the evaporation of available equity from the stock plummeting, Spirit’s collapse seems like a fait accompli.

(Besides, even if we disagreed with his plan, Trump at least tried to find a way to keep Spirit afloat.)

This can, however, be a clarifying moment for voters before the midterms — if Republicans are smart enough to seize it.

Voters, take note!

Gaslighting At Its Best

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President Biden’s pardons caused a bit of controversy. The concept of preemptive pardons is rather unique. However, the Democrats’ and the media’s response to the preemptive pardons is interesting.

On Wednesday, PJ Media posted an article about Senator Warren’s explanation of why President Biden had to issue the preemptive pardons.

The article reports:

..But at some point, Anderson Cooper asked her about the familial pardons Joe Biden issued about 15 minutes before leaving the White House and heading off to Shady Pines or wherever they sent him. 

“The last-minute pardons by then President Biden to his family members, you know there were pardons earlier this morning which were reported on, but these last-minute pardons, he chose to, I mean, make it last minute when there wouldn’t be as much attention, obviously, and they wouldn’t kind of overshadow the ride to the capitol — was that a mistake?” Cooper asked. 

Initially, Warren replied with a simple statement: “The president — President Biden — should answer for himself.”  

Fair enough. But she couldn’t leave it at that. Not only did she not leave it for Biden to “answer for himself,” but she also went on to blame someone else for these sneaky, last-minute pardons: Donald Trump. 

Warren explained that poor Biden is just a kind-hearted old family man who had no choice but to make these pardons out of fear that Trump might try to use his sweet little family against him just because Trump doesn’t like him. 

The media and the political left seem to forget that President Trump has been in office before. During his time in office, he did not use the Justice Department to go after his political enemies–that is something President Biden did.

There is, however, a new twist in the story. President Biden did not pardon himself, and there are reports of a $240,000 bank deposit going directly to him with no explanation. This could get interesting.

Be Careful When You Donate

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On Sunday, The New York Post posted an article about some of the donation sites collecting money for the victims of the California wildfires. When you donate to anything, be sure to read the fine print.

The article reports:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sparked fierce outrage for soliciting donations to victims of the deadly Los Angeles wildfires via his super PAC, which pushed users to add their personal information to a Democratic fundraising site.

Newsom, 57, posted a link on X to californiafirefacts.com, a website set up by his campaign committee, in response to what he claimed was misinformation on the wildfires. 

But the site urges users to give money to the California Fire Foundation and links them to a module from ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s fundraising platform. The ActBlue donation box says the money is being raised by Campaign for Democracy, Newsom’s super PAC. 

…The California Fire Foundation, which helps firefighters, their families and victims, allows users to donate directly without relying on a service like ActBlue to make those transactions. 

Users who donate via Newsom’s fundraising appeal are also automatically signing up for text messages from his super PAC, if they provide their phone numbers.

ActBlue isn’t doing this for nothing:

Observers online also quickly pointed out that ActBlue takes a portion of all donations as a processing fee. ActBlue claims to “charge a flat rate of 3.95% on each donation” to “cover the processing cost.” The Post has contacted ActBlue for comment. 

The article notes:

“Both Gavin Newsom and Elizabeth Warren were exposed for using the California fires to push Democrat fundraising efforts. It doesn’t get much worse than this. Americans, remember these receipts when you head to the polls,” X user Jack wrote.

“Getting a great preview of how a President Newsom would handle a national emergency—hop on a left wing podcast, have the hosts use Act Blue for relief donations (where $ will ultimately get funneled to Dem causes), and then retain the donor lists for future Dem fundraising,” user Vanessa wrote on X, referencing Newsom’s appearance on the liberal “Pod Save America” podcast.

“Newsom….never let a fundraising opportunity go to waste,” user Andrew Laing wrote on X.

Donations directly to The California Fire Foundation, Operation Blessing, Samaritan’s Purse of the Salvation Army might be more effective.

Coincidence?

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On October 21, three Senators, Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Robert P. Casey, Jr., all Democrats, wrote a letter to Chris Kempczinski, President and Chief Executive Officer at McDonald’s. We are to assume that is was pure coincidence that the letter came the day after the campaign appearance of President Trump working the Fries Station. This is how government intimidation works. The letter questioned McDonald’s price hikes in recent years, questioning whether they were engaged in price-gouging. (Somehow it didn’t mention how inflation might have impacted these prices.) Bur there is a more interesting aspect of the letter.

The source of this information is an article posted at The Conservative Treehouse on October 24th.

Some excerpts from the letter:

2. Earlier this summer, in an effort to combat lagging sales, McDonald’s announced a $5 Meal Deal.15 Although initially introduced as a limited-time offer, Mr. Erlinger recently said the company is extending the deal because its availability has helped shift “sentiment towards the brand around value and affordability.”16 Apart from the $5 Meal Deal, has McDonald’s lowered prices on individual menu items? If no, please explain why not.

…5. Did McDonald’s executives receive bonuses or other incentive-based compensation between 2020 and 2024? If yes, please provide the total dollar amount of these bonuses or other incentives for each year, and the specific reason these bonuses or incentive payments were awarded. Were any of these bonuses or incentives based upon executives’ ability to increase per-customer revenue or per-customer profits? Does McDonald’s award any bonuses based upon reducing prices or increasing value for customers?

That is between McDonald’s and its stockholders. That is none of the government’s business.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse concludes:

The leftists are now railing against private sector price increases they created with government policy. Of course, in order to advance their ideological agenda, they must pretend not to know things.

Additionally, remember Elizabeth Warren is the person who constructed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a quasi-legislatively authorized targeting silo established to threaten, blackmail and ultimately coerce payments from the private sector. Warren is essentially the secretary of the CFPB fund, constructed inside government that reaches outside government, to assemble funds that are then repurposed back to leftist community activist groups.

President Trump’s move to showcase the McDonald element of his political attachment to the ‘common working person’, the ordinary American, shattered the well-organized construct and fabrications of him by the leftist deep state. Trump caught them completely unprepared to counter this “blue collar billionaire” move.

They are lashing out desperately against President Trump as he continues to crush their fabricated Kamala Harris construct.

The CDC also released a report of e-coli in McDonald’s quarter-pounders. I wonder if the report is true, and if it is, how long they sat on it.

If You Really Are Pro Women…

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On Wednesday, The Independent Journal Review posted an article about some recent comments by Senator Elizabeth Warren.

The article reports:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was blasted for her comment about crisis pregnancy centers.

Warren told reporters, “In Massachusetts right now, those crisis pregnancy centers that are there to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help outnumber true abortion clinics by 3 to 1.”

She added, “We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts, and we need to shut them down all around the country. You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that.”

Wait a minute. Let’s look at some of the things crisis pregnancy centers do. First of all, crisis pregnancy centers generally inform their clients about the medical risks of abortion and the development of the baby in the womb  (something abortion clinics do not do). Crisis pregnancy centers often do a sonogram for the expectant mother so that she can see her baby (abortion clinics do not do that). Crisis pregnancy centers provide diapers, baby equipment, and financial assistance when needed to women in crisis pregnancies. I don’t see any of that as torture. Abortion clinics are essentially assembly lines. You come in, have your abortion, are given a short time to recover, and then are sent home. There is not a lot of physical or psychological aftercare provided.

I am sorry that Senator Warren sees helping a pregnant woman as torture. I would think that if the Senator was truly interested in providing good healthcare for women she would welcome the crisis pregnancy centers. I would also think that the Senator would be grateful to these centers for the assistance that they provide for women in need. I don’t see how shutting down crisis pregnancy centers helps women at all.

It should be noted here that many Democrats in Congress and across America receive large campaign donations from Planned Parenthood (the largest abortion provider in America). Might that be the reason Senator Warren would like to shut down the crisis pregnancy centers?

A Law Preventing A Ludicrous Idea

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Some Democrats who are absolutely horrified by the overturning of Roe vs. Wade have suggested that the government set up abortion tents on federal land in states that outlaw abortion. Before we consider this, let’s remember the money aspect of abortion, which I think explains why the Democrats are so upset. For example, in 2018 Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren received $128,407 from Emily’s List, a political action committee that aims to help elect Democratic female candidates in favor of abortion rights to office. Most Democrats receive substantial campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a million dollar business that makes money from performing abortions and selling aborted baby body parts. Corporations like abortions because they are cheaper than healthcare and maternity leave. There are a lot of financial interests in keeping abortion as a million-dollar industry. Those efforts have begun (in spite of the Supreme Court ruling).

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported:

Despite demands from several prominent Democrats, the federal government is prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.

The Hyde Amendment, first included in federal appropriations bills in 1976, prohibits the federal government from funding abortions unless “the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or where the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.” Activists estimate that the Hyde Amendment prevents at least 60,000 abortions every year.

The amendment is named for Republican Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who championed it.

Although support for the amendment was initially bipartisan, Democrats in recent years have attempted to pass federal budgets that do not include the provision. President Joe Biden flip-flopped on support for the amendment during his 2020 presidential campaign, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attempted to jettison the provision for an early COVID-19 relief package. Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s demand that the Hyde Amendment be included in a social spending package was a key factor in the breakdown in Build Back Better negotiations.

The article concludes:

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rejected the congressional Democrats’ suggestion Monday, but two cabinet members did suggest that they would use their agencies to promote abortion access.

“Nothing is more important to me or to this Department than the health and well-being of our Service members, the civilian workforce and DOD families,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a Friday statement shortly after the ruling. “I am committed to taking care of our people and ensuring the readiness and resilience of our Force.”

“The Department is examining this decision closely and evaluating our policies to ensure we continue to provide seamless access to reproductive health care as permitted by federal law,” he added.

When contacted for comment, a Department of Defense (DOD) spokesperson cited a memorandum released Tuesday by Undersecretary of Defense Gilbert Cisneros. The memorandum stressed that the DOD will comply with the conditions laid out by the Hyde Amendment, and “will continue to follow existing departmental policy.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra promised to “increase access” to abortifacients, claiming that his agency has been planning for “every action necessary to protect women’s access to reproductive healthcare.”

A spokesperson for HHS did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment on compliance with the Hyde Amendment.

Just for the record, abortion is not healthcare. It will be interesting to see if the Biden administration simply chooses to ignore the Hyde Amendment.

I Really Love This Idea

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On Thursday, The New York Sun posted an editorial by Larry Kudlow about the Federal Reserve.

The editorial states:

Can we please get a Federal Reserve with a backbone? Here are a couple thoughts on today’s wussy Fed announcement that it is going to move faster on tapering bond purchases and there might be three little bitty rate hikes next year. And, oh yeah, Jay Powell told the press conference he was confident inflation would drop to two percent by the end of next year.

Wanna bet? On that bet, I’m taking the under. Know who the best inflation forecaster in the country is? Senator Manchin. Numero uno. I don’t even know if he talks to economists, but since last winter when the $2 trillion Democrat so-called relief package was implemented, Joe Manchin has been warning about inflation.

That’s why he has argued consistently all year that President Biden’s big government socialist bill should be paused until inflation is clearly falling. Which it is not. CPI up 7 percent, PPI up 10 percent, and today we got another whopper, with an 11.7 percent rise in import prices. How about that?

Joe Manchin, by the way, in his original memo to Senator Schumer, called last summer for the end of quantitative easing.

Mr. Manchin makes me feel proud to be a former Democrat, as were both of my presidential bosses — Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

The editorial continues:

Finally, I have another idea for a new Fed chairman if Joe Manchin won’t take the job. How about Elon Musk? Time Magazine’s man of the year. How can I say such an outrageous thing? Several reasons. I worked with him several times in the White house and he’s very smart and savvy.

The mere fact that socialist Senator Warren is attacking him for not paying his “fair share” of taxes is by itself a fabulous endorsement of Mr. Musk’s philosophy, business prowess.

Am I saying anybody Mrs. Warren opposes gets my stamp of approval? Yes. I’m tired of her left-wing progressive woke whining. And her desires to tax and regulate anything that moves in business and the economy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Musk, who’s the biggest E-V car seller in the country, has said publicly he does not want E-V auto or battery subsidies from the federal government. Indeed, he has come out against the entire reckless tax, spend, and regulate Biden policies.

Unlike GM and the unionist car-makers, Mr. Musk is non-union and will not put his nose into the public trough.

My kind of guy. I doubt if he ever talks to economists. That’s probably why he’s such a good conservative, libertarian thinker.

And incidentally, Mr. Musk has been selling about $3 billion worth of stock at the prevailing capitalist gains tax rate of 23.8%. The Musk stock sale would generate $714 million of revenues to the federal government.

Mr. Kudlow also notes that the Federal Reserve is continuing Quantitative Easing, the practice of buying up the debt and pumping up the money supply, at a time when inflation is rapidly increasing. We need someone at the Federal Reserve that will put the brakes on that practice so that we can being to rein in inflation.

Incredible Coincidence?

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Yesterday The New York Post reported the following:

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sold between $1 million and $5 million in stocks at the beginning of October 2020 — a month that turned out to be the worst for Wall Street since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The transaction, which is noted on a public disclosure form Powell signed off on in May and was first reported Monday by The American Prospect, is an uncomfortable echo of activities that led to the recent resignations of two regional leaders of America’s central bank.

The disclosure form indicates that Powell sold the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund shares on Oct. 1, 2020. Ten days earlier, a separate sale of shares from the same fund netted the Fed chair between $50,000 and $100,000.

As Powell played the market, he was calling on Congress to pass a second COVID-19 relief bill even as negotiations between lawmakers and the Trump administration were in a stalemate. The American Prospect, citing Powell’s public schedule, reported that he had spoken with then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin four times on Oct. 1, as well as with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The article concludes:

Separately, Bloomberg News reported on Oct. 1 of this year that Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida had moved between $1 million and $5 million out of one mutual fund and into two other funds on Feb. 27, 2020, the day before Powell signaled a potential interest rate cut due to the pandemic.

The disclosures have drawn the ire of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who wrote to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this month to ask for an investigation into whether Rosengren, Kaplan or Clerida had violated insider trading rules. In a Senate floor speech Oct. 5, Warren called out Powell and said he had “failed as a leader.”

However, other lawmakers have lined up behind Powell as President Biden nears a decision about whether to nominate him for a second four-year term that would begin in February. Fox Business Network reported Monday that at least eight Republican senators have said they would vote to confirm Powell for a second term.

The Federal Reserve did not respond to requests for comment about Powell’s transactions.

Mr. Powell’s biography notes that he is a lawyer who has worked in the investment banking field. I suppose this would give him the knowledge to make the kind of stock trade he made at the time he made it. However, I do think we need to take a really good look at the financial transactions of those in government. It seems as if there are a lot of people in government who seem to have an uncanny knack for buying and selling stock and stock options at exactly the right time.

Our Justice System Has Become Political

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article telling the story of the people who were arrested in Washington on January 6th. It’s not a story that aligns very well with the constitutional rights of Americans.

The article reports:

Many participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots are being held in solitary confinement in Washington, D.C.’s city jail, a situation that’s drawing scrutiny from Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Department of Justice has charged 510 individuals in connection with the Jan. 6 breach, which began when supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol with the intent of trying to stop the certification of Electoral College votes for Joe Biden as president.

After Jan. 6, Washington, D.C., jail officials decided that all Capitol riot detainees be held in “restrictive housing” as a safety measure for the accused. However, the accused found themselves in solitary confinement 23 hours a day before their trials even started.

“I do not believe in solitary confinement for extended periods of time for anyone,” Warren, a Massachusetts senator and former Harvard Law School professor, said of the Jan. 6 rioters when asked by the Washington Examiner.

I very rarely agree with Senator Warren, but she is right in this case.

Even the ACLU has weighed in:

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has recently drawn criticism for favoring liberal causes over its tradition of representing unsympathetic clients and causes, is also weighing in on the side of Trump protesters being held alone.

“Prolonged solitary confinement is torture and certainly should not be used as a punitive tool to intimidate or extract cooperation. We’re pleased to see that message is getting through to Senators,” Tammie Gregg, deputy director of the ACLU National Prison Project, told the Washington Examiner in a statement.

If you remember, Paul Manafort, President Trump’s campaign manager was kept in solitary confinement. He was put in jail for mortgage fraud, not usually considered a crime worthy of solitary confinement. Our Justice Department has become politicized in recent years. If that does not change in the near future, living in America will be like living in a dictatorship–if you hold the wrong political views, your civil rights will not be respected.

Much Needed Legislation

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Being elected to Congress is a wonderful thing–the prestige, the recognition, joining a very select group of people, and seemingly the opportunity to increase your net worth significantly.

The following Tweet by ZeroHedge was tweeted on September 28, 2020:

Wow! An amazing increase in personal wealth that didn’t actually involve inventing or marketing a product! Unfortunately this is not an isolated example.

The article includes a few more examples from Business Insider:

Burr (North Carolina Senator Richard Burr), who endured a months-long federal investigation into his personal stock trades, last week reported making several recent stock sales along with his wife, Brooke Burr.

The Burrs sold up to $165,000 worth of stock in Enterprise Products Partners, a natural-gas and crude-oil pipeline company, between April 28 and April 30. The company’s stock price has remained effectively level since then.

Brooke Burr also reported selling up to $100,000 in MetLife Inc. floating-rate noncumulative preferred stock and up to $100,000 in US Bancorp depository preferred shares.

Burr, who wasn’t charged, made a flurry of stock sales on February 13, 2020, six days after cowriting an opinion article on FoxNews.com that sought to ease public concern over the threat COVID-19 posed to the US.

“Thankfully, the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration,” Burr wrote along with then-Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.

But on February 27 of last year, Burr — then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee — told a more dire story to a small, private luncheon gathering at Washington’s tony Capitol Hill Club.

“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” Burr said, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR’s Tim Mak. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

The Justice Department’s investigation of Burr’s February 2020 stock trades, together valued at more than $1.7 million, centered on whether the senator made his trades based on insider information obtained during senators-only briefings about the COVID-19 threat.

Burr says he is not planning to run for reelection in 2022.

Business Insider also mentions Jim Inhofe:

An aviation enthusiast who announced his 2020 reelection bid by piloting a propeller plane upside down, Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican of Oklahoma, has regularly made news over the years for close-call incidents while flying.

More recently, Inhofe sought to remedy another aircraft situation — this time on paper.

In a May 17 letter to the US Senate Secretary Julie Adams, Inhofe acknowledged understating the value of the assets — most notably, airplanes — held by The Padre Company LLC, a limited-liability company that the senator controls.

As of 2019, Inhofe’s LLC held three aircraft together valued at up to $1 million: a 1979 Grumman Tiger, a 1999 RV-8, and a 1979 Cessna 340. It also included real estate.

Inhofe wrote that his letter provided a “total reconciliation of the life of my assets” within The Padre Company LLC, which formed in 1999.

In short, Inhofe had not been previously factoring in the value of the real-estate property as part of his public disclosure of the LLC. Now he is, which is why the reported value of the LLC has increased.

“Ahead of filing his annual disclosures each year, Senator Inhofe discusses it with the Ethics Committee to maximize transparency and ensure he is adhering to the spirit of the law, not just the letter of it,” the spokesperson Leacy Burke told Insider. “Previously, it had been understood that these were considered personal properties and exempt, unreportable assets. This year, in the interest of greater transparency, he was encouraged to file the amendment and include them, as you can see he did.”

It pays to be in Congress, and an attempt to end the insider trading that seems to be rampant there is coming from a rather unlikely source.

Zero Hedge reports:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to end what is effectively legalized insider trading by members of Congress by barring them from trading individual stocks ever again.

Warren first attempted to push through similar legislation with the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act she introduced in 2018 and then again in 2020. Both bills unsurprisingly died in the Senate Finance Committee, which Warren sits on.

The renewed push comes as several members of Congress have come under recent scrutiny for profitable stock trades in recent months, according to Business Insider. The include Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) and former Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia.

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.

 

Was This Really What You Had In Mind?

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Liveaction posted an article today about one member of Joe Biden’s cabinet if Joe Biden officially becomes President.

The article reports:

On Monday, former Vice President Joe Biden’s team announced the members of his presumptive Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, which includes former Obama health care advisor Ezekiel Emanuel. Emanuel, 63, who currently chairs the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, previously served on Biden’s Public Health Advisory committee during the primary and has been outspoken in his support for rationed health care, discrimination against the elderly in health care, and abortion.

“The advisory board will help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations,” Biden said in a statement.

Emanuel’s addition to this board comes with added concerns, as hospitals have already considered rationing health care for patients with COVID-19.

While Emanuel has said that he does not support legalizing assisted suicide or euthanasia, he does support rationing health care for the disabled and the elderly. To ration care in order to save money, he believes, “will require changing how doctors think about their patients.” In other words, doctors should assess the value they place on individual patient’s lives to determine if they are worth living or not — a process often colloquially referred to as “death panels.”

Emanuel advocates the use of “The Complete Life System,” a method which “prioritizes younger people [not including infants or the preborn, as Emanuel supports abortion] who have not yet lived a complete life.” To put it simply, the system prioritizes health care for who have lived just 25 years over people who have lived 65 years. However, Emanuel would not necessarily include a 25-year-old with intellectual disabilities on the list of people who should receive priority over the elderly.

Yesterday Yahoo News posted an article about other possible Biden cabinet picks. The article notes that Susan Rice is a candidate for Secretary of State. You remember Susan Rice–she went on all of the Sunday talk shows and lied about Benghazi. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is a candidate for Secretary of Housing and Development. On June 12, 2020, The New York Times reported that there were 41,290 homeless people in Los Angeles. Senator Bernie Sanders is a candidate for the Department of Labor. Senator Elizabeth Warren is a candidate for Secretary of the Treasury. Jeh Johnson is a candidate for Secretary of Defense. Jeh Johnson is one of the people who propagated the Russian Hoax that wasted so much time and taxpayer’s money.

These are just a few of the leading contenders. Good luck to America if Joe Biden becomes President.

Who Runs This Agency?

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that the Supreme Court has agreed to take up a dispute over the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a case that could dramatically scale back the agency’s authority to police financial markets or eliminate it altogether. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), considered to be the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren, was created in 2010. It was one of a few misdirected responses to the housing bubble that burst in 2008.

Just for the record, I want to review a few facts about the financial collapse of 2008 that the mainstream media somehow missed.

The following video was posted at YouTube in September 2008. The video was essentially a campaign ad, but the information in it is important. The CFPB never addressed the actual problem. (For that matter, neither did Dodd-Frank). The video below tells a story you might not be familiar with:

 

The article reports:

The court said Friday it will hear a challenge from a California-based law firm that argues the CFPB, the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is unconstitutionally structured.

Opponents of the CFPB, created in 2010, argue that its structure violates the separation of powers, as Congress gave it broad authority to regulate mortgages, credit cards, and other consumer products, and is helmed by a single director who can’t be removed by the president except for cause.

The court said it will also address whether the entirety of the law that created the CFPB, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that re-ordered the financial regulatory system, should be struck down.

The Trump administration said in a filing with the Supreme Court it concluded the “statutory restriction on the president’s authority to remove the director violates” the Constitution, and “the director of the bureau has since reached the same conclusion.”

Trump tapped Kathy Kraninger to replace Mick Mulvaney, the acting CFPB director, last year.

Congress set up the CFPB as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform package, and its director is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The director serves a term of five years.

Cases challenging the constitutionality of the agency have been weaving their way through the lower courts. In 2016, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said in a ruling in a similar case the CFPB is a “gross departure from settled historical practice.”

Stay tuned. A decision is expected by the end of June.

Ignoring The Economic Implications

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about some recent comments by Senator Elizabeth Warren about immigration. Senator Warren is either unaware of the impact of unskilled immigrant workers on American workers’ wages or she is simply ignoring the facts.

The article reports her comments:

We need a pathway to citizenship for the people who are here and here to stay. They are our neighbors; they are our brothers and sisters. They are here. We need a path — not just for DREAMers — but also a path for grandmas, and for little kids, and for people who came here to work on farms, and for students who overstayed their visas. We need a path that is fair and achievable. Bring people out of the shadows. It is good for all workers, and we need to get them into our unions. [Emphasis added]

The article notes:

Similarly, Warren is promising to expand legal immigration levels, which are already at historically record-high rates. About 1.2 million mostly low-skilled legal immigrants are admitted every year, not including the hundreds of thousands who arrive on temporary visas to compete against Americans for jobs.

…Research by analyst Steven Camarotta has found that every one percent increase in the immigrant portion of American workers’ occupations reduces their weekly wages by about 0.5 percent. This means the average native-born American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by perhaps 8.5 percent because of current legal immigration levels.

While Warren seeks to increase foreign competition against American workers in the labor market, President Donald Trump has pursued policy initiatives to decrease competition, increasing U.S. wages and giving American workers leverage over businesses.

I would like to see people who came here illegally ‘come out of the shadows.’ They need to have some sort of way that they can work to support themselves. However, I don’t want people who came here illegally to be put ahead of people who are going through the legal process to become citizens. That is simply unfair. I am willing to let people who come here illegally have access to legal employment, but I think people who came here illegally should be put in line to become citizens–at the end of the current line. Breaking the law should not result in special privileges.

A New Face

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The Washington Times reported on Thursday that Kathy Kraninger has been confirmed as the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and will serve for the next five years.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile the CFPB is still facing major legal hurdles.

Some federal judges have ruled that by placing so much power — including an independent budget that Congress doesn’t control — in a single director, the CFPB violates the Constitution. But a ruling earlier this year by the full U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the singe-director structure.

Let’s take a look at the inception of the CFPB. The CFPB is the brainchild of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. It was passed as part of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Dodd-Frank Act was Congress’ way of dealing with the housing bubble that caused the recession of 2008. However, the congressional solution was aimed at banks and Wall Street. It made no mention of the role that Congress had played in creating the housing crisis and made no effort to take responsibility for their actions or prevent a repeat of the problem.

In 1995 The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was changed, allowing Fannie Mae to purchase $2 billion of “My Community Mortgage” Loans, pilot vendors to customize affordable products for low and moderate income borrowers. Some of the things done to make the loans more affordable were low (or no) down payments and variable interest rates. Fannie Mae guarantees mortgages and then sells them to banks and investors. Banks were forced to issue sub-prime mortgages or pay large penalties. As more people took out mortgages, the price of houses rose quickly.  In 2005, 91 percent of Fannie Mae loans were variable rate loans. In 2004, 92 percent of Fannie Mae subprime loans were variable rate loans. Interest rates rose, gas prices increased, and people could not pay their mortgages. The subprime market collapsed, and foreclosures increased rapidly. Banks stopped making mortgage loans.

There were efforts made to stop this train. On September 11, 2003, The New York Times reported:

Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

…a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision  on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The Democrats opposed the reform. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said that it would mean less affordable housing. Melvin Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, said that it would limit the ability of poor families to get affordable housing.

In 2005, John McCain warned of a coming mortgage collapse. He sponsored S.190 (109th), Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005. The Democrats blocked it. It was again brought up and blocked in 2007.

Opensecrets.org lists campaign contributions to politicians. Fannie Mae gave generously to insure that it would not be regulated. Some Democrats and Fannie Mae executives had ‘sweetheart’ loans from mortgage companies that were heavily involved in sub-prime mortgages.

So where am I going with this? The housing bubble was created by bad legislation. Bad legislation continues. In August 2016, The New York Post reported:

The Obama administration is doing its best to give the nation another mortgage meltdown.

As Paul Sperry recently noted in The Post, Team Obama has pushed mortgage lenders to offer home loans to folks with shaky credit, setting up conditions for another housing-market collapse.

Wasn’t the last one bad enough?

Credit scores of approved borrowers, for example, have been trending down, even as their debt levels have grown.

The Federal Housing Administration and government-sponsored “independent” lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been demanding lower credit standards — just as the feds did starting under President Bill Clinton, in pursuit of the same “affordable housing” goal.

Some borrowers need only put 3 percent down to get a Fannie Mae loan — even if the downpayment is a gift. Fannie also has started up a new subprime lending program.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently warned that mortgage underwriting standards have slipped and now reflect “broad trends similar to those experienced from 2005 through 2007, before the most recent financial crisis.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Board (and Dodd-Frank) were not related to the cause of the 2008 recession–the recession was the result of bad laws. Both the CFPB and Dodd-Frank need to go away. They are nothing but a blatant example of government overreach.

Opposing Honest Elections

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It kind of makes me wonder what in the world is going on when I see someone opposing a voter integrity group. Does the group oppose the idea of honest elections?

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about group that is opposing voter integrity lawsuits. Oddly enough, one of the leaders of the group is Senator Elizabeth Warren‘s daughter. The group is funded by George Soros.

The article reports:

Demos, a New York City-based progressive public policy organization, is assisting unions in pushing back against election lawsuits filed in North Carolina and Florida. The group is also writing letters of interest in another lawsuit in Pennsylvania. Amelia Warren Tyagi, Warren’s daughter, chairs the board of Demos.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based legal group that litigates to protect election integrity, filed a lawsuit against Wake County, N.C., on behalf of Voter Integrity Project NC, a research organization dedicated to fair elections, after the county had failed to accurately maintain their voter rolls.

…”According to publicly-available data, Wake County has more registered voters on the rolls eligible to cast a ballot than it has citizens who are alive,” PILF wrote. “The complaint states that ‘voter rolls maintained by the Defendant for Wake County contain or have contained more registrants than eligible voting-age citizens. The number of registrants in Wake County, North Carolina has been over 100 percent of eligible voting-age citizens.”

A motion to dismiss the lawsuit was filed February 21 by the Wake County Board of Elections and three attorneys. Senior U.S. Judge W. Earl Britt ruled in favor of the Voter Integrity Project and denied the request.

Cameron Bell, a legal fellow at Demos, is assisting the attorneys on the case. One of the main goals of Demos is to reduce the role of money in politics and to guarantee “the freedom to vote,” according to its website. Demos received hundreds of thousands in funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Individuals from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a progressive nonprofit in North Carolina, are also assisting on the lawsuit. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice has also received funding from Soros.

I will admit to being a fairly simple person, but it seems to me that if a county has more registered voters than it has live citizens, there might be a problem with the voter rolls. It would also be interesting to know what the percentage of actual voters was. I would like to note that in the 2016 presidential election, the early voting turnout in Wake County broke all previous records (story here). Since most voter fraud occurs in early voting and same-day registration, that is an interesting statistic.

The article further reports:

Broward County (Florida), like Wake County, has more registered voters on their rolls than the number of eligible citizens who can vote in 2014, PILF said.

Cameron Bell, the Demos attorney who is involved in North Carolina, also interjected in Broward County. In addition to Bell, Scott Novakowski and Stuart C. Naifeh, counsel from Demos, are involved in Florida.

Individuals from Project Vote, a nonprofit that formerly teamed up with the scandal-plagued and now defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), are also in Broward County.

Demos and Project Vote additionally wrote amici in a Philadelphia lawsuit but has not intervened.

“Just like when leftist financiers tried and failed to block voter ID laws from coast to coast, the checkbooks are open again to preserve the status quo were poor record maintenance is concerned,” Logan Churchwell, PILF’s spokesman, told the Washington Free Beacon. “When you view vulnerability as currency, it must come natural to want to protect not only the weaknesses in a system, but the actors who exacerbate them.”

Democrats have scrambled to build up a massive network to counter voter integrity efforts after Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

Voters are disenfranchised when there is voter fraud. It is time for Americans to take action to protect the integrity of their elections. Voter ID laws are needed. When an area reports 105 percent turnout, there is a problem.

Did You Know That Today Was “Equal Pay Day?”

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Equal Pay Day is a day invented by those who still believe that women are paid less than men.

A website called nolo.com reminds us:

A federal law, the Equal Pay Act (EPA), requires employers to pay men and women equally for doing the same work — equal pay for equal work. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963 as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act and can be found at 29 U.S.C. § 206. Although the Equal Pay Act protects both women and men from sex discrimination in pay rates, it was passed to help rectify the wage disparity experienced by women workers, and in practice, this law has almost always been applied to situations where women are paid less than men for doing similar jobs.

If you are a woman who believes you are being paid less than a man for equal work, you have legal recourse.

Today The Washington Free Beacon reported the following:

The gender pay gap in Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s (D., Mass.) office is nearly 10 percent wider than the national average, meaning women in the Massachusetts Democrat’s office will have to wait longer than most women across the country to recognize Equal Pay Day.

Last year, Senator Warren tweeted out the following:

Evidently, the rule of equal pay does not seem to apply to Democrats:

“The game is rigged against women and families, and it has to stop,” Warren continued. “It is 2016, not 1916, and it’s long past time to eliminate gender discrimination in the workplace.”

Historically, 1995 was the last year where the national pay gap was comparable to the 2016 gap in Warren’s office, according to data collected by the group that founded Equal Pay Day.

Warren is far from the only politician who pays women less than men.

Most notable on the list is failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who paid women less than men first as a senator, then as secretary of state, and as a presidential candidate. Her campaign viewed her tendency to pay women less than men as a campaign vulnerability.

Former President Barack Obama regularly spoke out about the gender pay gap, but women working at the White House were paid less than men.

Also paying women less than men were Democratic Govs. Jon Bel Edwards (La.), who last month held an “equal pay summit,” and Andrew Cuomo (N.Y.), who has signed two executive orders this year to eliminate the wage gap.

It seems odd to me that the political party that makes such a fuss over women’s issues accepts the fact that some of its leaders choose to ignore the law that say women should receive equal pay to their male counterparts.

Sometimes The Internet Just Makes Politics Difficult

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On Sunday, Lifezette posted an article about Senator Elizabeth Warren‘s plan to obstruct the firing of U.S. Attorneys. Evidently Senator Warren has a short memory. Yesterday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article quoting California Democrat Representative Maxine Waters complaining that Barack Obama did not get rid of Bush-era U.S. Attorneys fast enough in May of 2009.

The Gateway Pundit quotes Representative Waters:

Maxine Waters: “As we understand it, the protocol has been that U.S. attorneys hand in their resignations and would give the new administration an opportunity to make new appointments, we don’t see that happening quite fast enough.”

Lifezette posted some tweets from Senator Warren:

Lifezette further reminds us:

While it is true that the Senate confirms any U.S. attorney appointees that a president names, neither the act of firing nor the appointment of replacements is something unusual in the transfer of presidential power.

I guess Senator Warren has forgotten recent history. Please follow the link to read the entire Lifezette article. Senator Warren’s tweets are totally over the top.

 

 

 

George Washington Didn’t Have These Problems

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When George Washington became President, he was a very wealthy man. He had been a successful land surveyor who used his profits to buy land in Virginia. He was a successful farmer, and eventually grew his Mount Vernon farm from 2,000 acres to 8,000 acres. Because America was a very different place then, he was allowed to enjoy the profits of his farm by putting other people in charge of it during his time in the White House. Class warfare had not yet reared its ugly head, and Americans were working together to build their country. Unfortunately, we seem to have lost that spirit.

On Thursday, Townhall.com posted an article about the Senate Confirmation Hearings for Ben Carson as Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren spent a large part of her questioning wanting to make sure that no company connected with Donald Trump would be involved in any HUD projects during the time that Donald Trump was President. I agree that no company connected with Donald Trump should be given preferential treatment, but should they be discriminated against if they are the lowest bidder on a project?

The article reports:

Warren repeatedly pressed Carson over whether he could assure the American people that not a single taxpayer dollar would go towards contracts with any real estate companies linked to the president-elect.

“Can you assure me that not a single taxpayer dollar you give out will financially benefit the president-elect or his family?” Warren asked Carson.

The retired neurosurgeon promised he would not “play favorites.”

“I can assure you that the things that I do are driven by a sense of morals and values,” he said.

“It’s not about your good faith,” she replied. “My concern is whether or not, among the billions of dollars you will be responsible for handing out in grants and loans, can you just assure us that not $1 will go to benefit either the president-elect or his family?”

The article concludes:

“The problem is that you can’t assure us that HUD money — not of $10 varieties but of multimillion-dollar varieties — will not end up in the president-elect’s pockets,” Warren responded.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the lead Democrat on the banking panel, echoed concerns raised by Warren.

Trump has an interest in at least one low-income hosing development — Starrett City — which Brown said posed an inherent conflict for the new leader of HUD.

Starrett City is a massive development in Brooklyn that sends Trump millions in revenue through rent. In his financial disclosures filed as president, Trump lists his 4 percent share in the asset as being worth between $5 million and $25 million. 

Brown pressed Carson to stay in contact with the committee if he — or anyone at HUD — has communications with anyone in the Trump Organization or the White House about development projects.

Carson said he would be happy to set up a process that identifies conflicts.

This is an example of why Ben Carson, as smart and honest as he is, should never be President. He was just too nice to this awful lady. I am not supporting corruption, but if Trump Enterprises can do a job better and cheaper than another company, Trump Enterprises should get the job. All you need is a blind bidding process. This is much ado about nothing.

One thing we all need to remember about having Donald Trump in the White House is that he is very rich. He doesn’t need to cheat to get rich. He doesn’t need to take donations to a foundation from foreign countries that want favors. He doesn’t need to take million dollar vacations on the taxpayers’ money. He doesn’t need to take items out of the White House when he leaves (if you doubt that the Clintons did that, read the GAO report (link and article here). There are also enough Trump resorts around the world to accommodate his vacations.

Senator Warren wasted her time during the confirmation hearings. She should have asked Dr. Carson how he plans to help poor families escape poverty. He is certainly an example of the fact that it can be done. If the government were more concerned about helping people escape poverty rather than simply adding to the bloated bureaucracy that only continues if they remain in poverty, the federal deficit would be considerably lower. It will be refreshing to see a HUD Secretary who wants to decrease the number of people dependent on government rather than grow the government infrastructure that benefits the government more than the poor.

Removing Common Sense From The Small Business Loan Department

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about a new regulation on small business lending. Before leaving office, President Obama is attempting to recreate the mortgage bubble that led to the crash of 2008. This time the crash will be created in the area of commercial loans to small businesses.

The article reports:

The White House complains minority-owned firms don’t have the same access to credit as others. But the result of this new political scrutiny is easy to see: Commercial lenders will be pressured to lower standards, leading to riskier lending and higher defaults (see: mortgage bust, ’08).

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has carved out a new executive-level position: “assistant director of small-business lending markets,” which will lead an unprecedented collection of race-based data about loans to “minority-owned businesses.”

Meanwhile, CFPB Director of Fair Lending Patrice Ficklin said the bureau is starting its first fair-lending-focused exams of business lenders. Specifically, regulators will look at “small-business loan underwriting criteria” to see if it has a discriminatory “disparate impact” on minority business owners applying for credit. Marketplace lending will also be under the microscope.

The move is a result of a letter written by 84 House Democrats and 19 Senate Democrats (comprised mostly of Congressional Black Caucus members) to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Cordray asking him to require all lending institutions to disclose the race of small-business owners who apply for loans and the outcome of loan applications. The supposed outcome of this is to remove ‘barriers to small-business creation.’ The actual outcome of this will be that risky loans will be required and banks and institutions that make small business loans will begin to lose money and threaten the economic health of the nation.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked Director Cordray to collect the data to make it easier to enforce fail lending laws. Again, we are going to be divided according to race rather than encouraged to work together.

Statistically African-American business owners are more likely to default on business loans. Banks and commercial lenders have to consider that when they make loans. This sort of interference with free market economics can only hurt the economy–not help it. I am against denying anyone a loan because of their race, but I am also against giving someone a loan because of their race. There can be some flexibility in granting these loans, but there also has to be some common sense in protecting the lenders and the people who finance the loans.

The article concludes:

Yet as with mortgages, the assumption is that underwriting standards are racist and must be made more flexible, risks be damned. Since business loans default at higher rates than mortgages, another government-sponsored financial crisis won’t be far behind.

Hold on to your hat.

Improving Your Image On A False Premise

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On Friday, Investors.com posted an article about Elizabeth Warren‘s objections to the budget bill because of bank risk.

The article reports:

Warren last week took to her socialist soapbox to try to torpedo the “cromnibus” spending bill. She warned legislators they would be blamed for another financial crisis if they dared to vote for any appropriations legislation that includes anti-Dodd-Frank provisions.

Pontificating from the Senate floor Thursday, Warren railed against Republicans and fellow Democrats alike for adding a provision to the bill to restore to banks the right to use derivatives to hedge risks for customers.

She claimed repeal of the regulation “would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system.”

Added Warren: “These are the same banks that nearly broke the economy in 2008 and destroyed millions of jobs. The same banks that got bailed out by taxpayers and are now raking in record profits.

“A vote for this bill is a vote for taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street,” she continued.

But where was she three days earlier, when Fannie and Freddie unveiled new low-income mortgages with just 3% down payments? The move encourages the kind of risky lending that actually caused the crisis, yet she didn’t say a peep.

The taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street go back to the Community Reinvestment Act, passed by Jimmy Carter and revised in 1994 to repeal some restrictions on interstate banking.

The article explains what actually happened:

The “main culprit” in the housing crisis was Fannie and Freddie and their mission regulator, HUD, which was cheered on by affordable-housing zealots in the House like Warren’s pal Barney Frank.

HUD pressured Fannie and Freddie to make high-risk loans to “underserved” borrowers, and to do that they had to lower their underwriting standards to the point where they were buying as many subprime loans as prime. While HUD was enforcing its affordable-housing quotas, down payments plunged along with credit scores.

When the housing price bubble burst, those loans were the first to default. When the music stopped, a whopping 77% of all the bad loans ended up on the books of Fannie and Freddie and other federal agencies — not Wall Street banks.

The evidence of government guilt in the crisis is overwhelming. Yet Warren keeps up the false narrative.

Unfortunately, that false narrative has been used for so long that uninformed voters believe it. Part of what is needed to change the politics of Washington is an educated voter. Until voters learn to look past what the mainstream media is telling them, the government will continue to make reckless decisions that result in taxpayer money being used to correct government mistakes.

Where Are The Young Leaders In The Democrat Party?

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Dan Balz posted an article at the Washington Post on Saturday about the lack of young leaders in today’s Democrat party. In the last two mid-term elections, many of the younger Democrats who would have been future leaders of the party have been defeated by their Republican opponents.

The article reports:

The more serious problem for Democrats is the drubbing they’ve taken in the states, the breeding ground for future national talent and for policy experimentation. Republicans have unified control — the governorship and the legislature — in 23 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Democrats control just seven. Democrats hold 18 governorships, but only a handful are in the most populous states.

In California, Gov. Jerry Brown won again at age 76, his fourth, non-consecutive term in the governor’s office. His victory means that younger Democrats will have to wait until 2018 to compete for one of the nation’s most high-profile political jobs. In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo won a second term, but can’t get out of Clinton’s shadow. The only other state among the top 10 in population held by the Democrats is Pennsylvania, newly won by Tom Wolf.

One of the largest groups of active voters in the country is senior citizens. However, I don’t think there are enough of them to continue electing aging Democrats to office. One of the problems in the recent mid-term was that the youth vote has been disillusioned with the Obama Administration and either did not turn out to vote in large numbers or did not vote for Democrats. The Republican party was known for a while as the party of white-haired old people, but that image is changing, and the Democrats are rapidly earning that label.

The article concludes:

But a political party cannot be constructed around two individuals (Obama and Clinton), as Democrats seem to be today. Winning the presidency and taking back the Senate will be the Democrats’ top priorities in the next two years. The bigger challenge of rebuilding the party in the states and nurturing a new generation of leaders should be just as urgent.

The author mentions Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as someone he does not think will run for president. I am not convinced of that. I believe Senator Warren will challenge Hillary for the nomination from the left. Senator Warren made a number of visits in support of candidates who were running in the mid-terms and will have favors to call in during the next presidential campaign.

I believe the 2016 presidential campaign on both sides will be very interesting. I also believe that it is also well underway.