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BOSTON — The treasurer of Massachusetts has asked the federal government about lending Massachusetts money under the same favorable terms it has given banks and firms during the financial crisis.
Treasurer Timothy Cahill’s requests to the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank of Boston this week were prompted by the state’s inability to borrow from the short-term debt markets, The Boston Globe reported Saturday. The financial turmoil has caused credit markets to stop lending, or to charge prohibitive rates.
California has made a similar request, saying it would run out of money by the end of the month if the short-term debt markets do not ease. The state asked whether it could not obtain loans from the Fed.
Massachusetts has enough money to cover its expenses for the coming weeks, Cahill said. But a low-rate loan would ease a cash shortfall if the credit problems persist.
“That’s all we would ask them to do: Treat us like the investment banks,” Cahill said.
Federal officials have not responded to his request, Cahill said Friday.
The state’s borrowing problems come as it deals with a $223 million shortfall in projected tax collections during the first quarter of the state’s fiscal year. On Thursday, Gov. Deval Patrick announced the first of what could be a series of cuts to programs and operations to deal with the sagging collections.
Fox News
————————————————
I bet there will all sorts of hands out with 700 billion dollars on the table.
Plagiarism, Insults, Gun Control and Racism. Biden quotes abound.
• “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”
• He seems to agree with Alcee Hastings (D-Fl), a man impeached, convicted and removed from office as a federal judge who said; “Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.” He has not denounced Hastings.
• Way back in 1988, Biden ran for president but was forced to quit for a unique reason: he simply copied parts of a speech by a British politican, Neil Kinnock, and changed some parts to make it sound like it was about him.Saying “Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go a university?…”
• Insulting a fellow American when a gun owner asked where the candidates stood on gun control, saying he wanted to know if his “babies” would be safe. “This is my baby,” the man said on the video, showing off his Bushmaster AR-15. “I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Biden replied. “If that is his baby, he needs help.”
Alan Gottlieb President of CCRKBA said of Biden “And now we are supposed to believe that Joe Biden is a gun-toting defender of the Second Amendment, after years of trying to dismantle it,” Gottlieb concluded. “This guy has spent a career in Washington, D.C. assaulting the civil rights of gun owners. Now he’s insulting their intelligence.”
A Republican activist has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Sarah Palin in an attempt to access official correspondences sent with Palin’s private e-mail accounts, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
The activist, Andree McLeod, filed the suit in Alaska Superior Court and publicized it with a press release that criticized the Republican vice presidential candidate.
More at:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Activist_slaps_Palin_with_lawsuit_over_1004.html
Republicans are coming out the woodwork to show their disapproval of Miss Alaska. But Palin thinks she’s an elitist so she doesn’t have to respond to lawsuits or subpoenas.
Andree McLeod, the stalker with her hand out for personal favors from those in power
According to Kyle Hopkins at the Anchorage Daily News, in an interview with Governor Palin about the complaint she said, “This is the same Andree McLeod that follows us around at public events and camps herself out in our waiting area and hounds us for a job, asking us if there’s a way she can go around Workplace Alaska and not have to go through the system to get a job with this administration,”
The name Andree McLeod and Ethics do not go hand in hand. This is another insidious act by Andree, because she did not get what she wanted. Unfortunatley, I know Andree too well, and the Governor is correct in her assesment of her. After the election, I know Andree followed the Governor and her staff, as well as constantly calling her office trying to secure a position within her administration. Andree is a vindictive and self serving woman when she doesn’t get her way or what she wants. She is also the last one to speak of truth, it is not in her.
I too was a former state employee, and would have loved to be a part of the new administration, but things did not work in my favor, but that is the chance you take in an appointed position. But I am not bitter as she is.
I have met the Governor, Mike Nizich, Frank Bailey and Kristine Perry and have the utmost respect for them and the positions they hold.
Andree needs to get a life and move on or maybe one day, practice what she preaches in the area of ethics!!!
aklady8
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/128527
“Andree is a vindictive and self serving woman when she doesn’t get her way or what she wants. She is also the last one to speak of truth, it is not in her.” — from Regular’s cut and paste.
——–
Hmmm. The sentence would read accurately if the first word was Palin. At least the two are beginning on equal footing.
Well, on a lighter note, WoofStock was a great success this year. It really is a big deal each year. They expected 15,000 attendance and I think they probably exceeded that this year.
The ladies that organize the event basically work on it all year. The amount of preparation and planning that goes into WoofStock can only be appreciated by some body that has been involved in putting on an event of that magnitude.
Goat herding on the other hand was less than we hoped for. I brought some little nanny goats instead of sheep because I thought they could handle the stress a little better. They could, they beat up the dogs.
I have a few billy goats that can only be moved by Samson, they are capable of killing a dog and would if they got a chance. The little nannies I have aren’t as rude. They work nice off a dog, sheepdogs, that is. My sheep dogs.
They decided that yesterday they weren’t going to put up with any crap from a dog. We shut down the instinct part of the day around noon. After that Samson and I would do occasional demos and talk to the people.
Next year, ewes.
We didn’t make as much for the Humane Society this year as in past years but I think they still exceeded their goals.
If you haven’t had a chance to see WoofStock I highly recommend that you put it on your calender next year. It would be a great place to take the kids for a while even if you didn’t have a dog!
$700,000,000 bailout is on shaky ground at best and will be useless without new industry and jobs.McCain throughout his campaign has been a Bush”stay the course” nothing new approach.
Extending the war money hole for 50 years has been a highlight of his campaign. When McCain says we’re going to win this war that spells ignorance and fiscally reckless. Bush/McCain attacked Iraq not the other way around
which means Bush/McCain need to pull out. This war has killed more Iraq people than Saddam did at a cost of $3 trillion thus far.
If Bush/McCain have money for consuming the mideast then there must be money
for new industry, jobs and Health Insurance for All = growing and stabilizing the economy. YES let’s spend money wisely to make money and tons of jobs!
VOTE OBAMA 2008 YES! VOTE NOVEMBER 4 2008
Somehow an image of HLP weighted down with concealed weapons and protected by a wedge of killer billy goats doesn’t scare me.
HLP
Posted October 5, 2008 at 7:35 am | Permalink
Next year, ewes.
========================================================
Awww, come on Hank. How about two groups. One consisting of Liberals; one consisting of Conservatives. Which group is easily herded by Samson.
You know which group my monies on:=)
Today is a great day to put out those Obama/Biden yard signs and help keep the momentum going..
Obama For President Headquarters has sign and bumpers stickers for you at:
1725 Douglas, Wichita
Phone: 316.262.7534
Other Kansas candidates working for change have free materials available, too.
Here’s how great this $700+ Billion Bailout Plan is – CA, MA, and soon all 50 States will be holding their hands out saying: “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme”.
WORD OF ADVICE TO THE STATES: Cut Spending and/or Raise Your Taxes! Don’t make people in other states pay for YOU!
Socialism is spreading everywhere!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432841,00.html
Mass. Asks About Federal Loan Amid Market Worries
Saturday, October 04, 2008
BOSTON — The treasurer of Massachusetts has asked the federal government about lending Massachusetts money under the same favorable terms it has given banks and firms during the financial crisis.
GIMMIE! GIMMIE! GIMMIE!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/04calif.html?bl&ex=1223179200&en=9a2bc36dfc35487b&ei=5087
LOS ANGELES — California, the nation’s most populous state and the world’s sixth-biggest economy, has warned the Treasury Department that it may need a $7 billion emergency loan from the federal government because it is running out of cash and has not been able to borrow more.
State officials said they hoped that the $700 billion federal bailout of the financial system approved by the House of Representatives on Friday would help open credit markets that have balked at providing the kind of short-term financing California and other states and local governments routinely rely on to keep operating.
But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said at a news conference on Friday that the state “is not out of the woods yet” and in a few weeks could run out of cash to pay for basic services.
What happens when all 50 States hold their hand out for Cash?
Who winds up paying for all this Free Money?
Socialism – The quickest way for all Americans to screw eachother simultaneously, and get to complete economic collapse.
Better be able to grow your own food, or have some marketable skill that allows you to barter for food.
Or you will be hungry.
Hey Rox there’s your sign.
I’ll write to you later as I am headed that way. If you need me to pick up a sign for you I can run it by.
Heh.
How ABOUT that Tina Fey huh? Too bad for the cons, she is on the good side. Otherwise they could have her stand in fol lil’ Sarah Palin and make her look suddenly intelligent.
And SNL NAILED the expectations for the debate too.
“Unless Governor Palin, faints, cries, runs from the stage, or vomits, she WILL be seen as scoring a tie in this debate”.
earthdoctor
Posted October 5, 2008 at 7:40 am | Permalink
YES let’s spend money wisely to make money and tons of jobs!
===============================================================
Spend money to make money. Hellofa scam deal!
VOTE NOBAMA!
The Libs actually think Saturday Night Live is a News Report.
Really bright, ain’t they?
“all 50 States hold their hand out for Cash?”
I wonder if the law was written with this as an intended result? I suppose this was the substitution agreement worked out as a compromise for throwing out the 250 Billion for ACORN?
Today is a great day to gather up free Rifle Targets!
You’ll find the targets stacked up in the yards of Socialists, who are giving away the Big O targets for free!
It’s all Free Money Amway.
Why shouldn’t the States get as much as they want too?
DavidB
Posted October 5, 2008 at 8:23 am | Permalink
Other Kansas candidates working for change have free materials available, too.
==================================================================
Working for Change. WTF does that mean?
You been drinking koolaide boy?
I bet Tina Fey even wrote some of the stuff she acted.
Heh.
“I support marriage for unwilling teenagers.”
Yuk Yuk BJ B Funny. Ha Ha Ha.
John McCain’s Pensacola proving ground
By Alex Leary, Times staff writer
In print: Sunday, October 5, 2008
PENSACOLA — The young pilot had a reputation, and it was nothing to be proud of. Fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis. Bratty. A carouser. Fellow officers called him “the Punk.” ¶ On July 27, 1959, he was at the controls of a propeller-driven T-28 Trojan, flying in patchy skies near Pensacola. ¶ His mission: land the 4½-ton aircraft on a 150-foot long strip of the Antietam, itself a moving target as it steamed into the wind, heaving in the swells of the Gulf of Mexico. ¶ Few pilots have the skill or the nerve to land a plane on a carrier. Some die trying. Others wash out, their egos left on deck with the skidmarks. ¶ On this sweltering day, John Sidney McCain III faced the biggest challenge of his 22 years.
Cruising at 100 mph, he lowered the landing gear, opened the canopy (easier to swim out if the plane crashed) and aimed the T-28 at the ship, his left hand hugging the throttle, his right on the stick, quadriceps straining against the rudder pedals. Below, a sailor waved flags across his chest, signaling McCain to cut the throttle.
The plane slammed down on the Antietam, its tailhook grabbing a thick cable strung across the deck. It lunged forward, barreled toward the end of the ship, then stopped dead. Success.
…
Fellow aviators say the ability to react quickly, using your gut and what information is available, is a decided asset for any line of work. Landing on the carrier involved not only individual skill, they say, but the skills of those on the ship. Teamwork and delegating authority is key. So is enduring intense scrutiny of your performance.
Larson, McCain’s Navy buddy, harkens back to those carrier landings in Pensacola, a half century ago.
“Some people tend to walk away from challenges and we were never able to,” he said. “It teaches you that sometimes you’ve got to do something that may not be fun but it’s your duty. You have to suck it up.”
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/article839753.ece
#
MaxGrobnik
Posted October 5, 2008 at 8:49 am | Permalink
The Libs actually think Saturday Night Live is a News Report.
Really bright, ain’t they?
=====================================================
‘mornin’, Barb, still can’t figure out what the word, humor, means?
I signed up for an Obama sign too.
They are actually delivering it to me!
Lil do they know what I’ll be doing with it.
(Wonder how many others have signed up for the free targets?)
Great idea Max! Make them spend their money giving signs to red people.
Save time and gas going out at night and stealing them out of yards.
And now, a small piece of history.
The measure, considered by many the most important banking legislation in 66 years, was approved in the Senate by a vote of 90 to 8 and in the House Thursday night by 362 to 57. The bill will now be sent to the president, who is expected to sign it, aides said.
It would become one of the most significant achievements this year by the White House and the Republicans leading the 106th Congress.
“Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. “This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”
The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation’s financial system. The original idea behind Glass-Steagall was that separation between bankers and brokers would reduce the potential conflicts of interest that were thought to have contributed to the speculative stock frenzy before the Depression.
Thursday’s action followed a rich Congressional debate about the history of finance in America in this century, the causes of the banking crisis of the 1930’s, the globalization of banking and the future of the nation’s economy.
Administration officials and many Republicans and Democrats said the measure would save consumers billions of dollars and was necessary to keep up with trends in both domestic and international banking. Some institutions, like Citigroup, already have banking, insurance and securities arms but could have been forced to divest their insurance underwriting under existing law. Many foreign banks already enjoy the ability to enter the securities and insurance industries.
“The world changes, and we have to change with it,” said Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who wrote the law that will bear his name along with the two other main Republican sponsors, Representative Jim Leach of Iowa and Representative Thomas J. Bliley Jr. of Virginia. “We have a new century coming, and we have an opportunity to dominate that century the same way we dominated this century. Glass-Steagall, in the midst of the Great Depression, came at a time when the thinking was that the government was the answer. In this era of economic prosperity, we have decided that freedom is the answer.”
In the House debate, Leach said, “This is a historic day. The landscape for delivery of financial services will now surely shift.”
But consumer groups and civil rights advocates criticized the legislation for being a sop to the nation’s biggest financial institutions. They say that it fails to protect the privacy interests of consumers and community lending standards for the disadvantaged and that it will create more problems than it solves.
The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.
“I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930’s is true in 2010,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. “I wasn’t around during the 1930’s or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980’s when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.”
Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had “seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.”
“Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,” Wellstone said. “Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.”
Supporters of the legislation rejected those arguments. They responded that historians and economists have concluded that the Glass-Steagall Act was not the correct response to the banking crisis because it was the failure of the Federal Reserve in carrying out monetary policy, not speculation in the stock market, that caused the collapse of 11,000 banks. If anything, the supporters said, the new law will give financial companies the ability to diversify and therefore reduce their risks. The new law, they said, will also give regulators new tools to supervise shaky institutions.
“The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown,” said Senator Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska.
Others said the legislation was essential for the future leadership of the American banking system.
“If we don’t pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “There are many reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain competitive.”
But other lawmakers criticized the provisions of the legislation aimed at discouraging community groups from pressing banks to make more loans to the disadvantaged. Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, said during the House debate that the legislation was “mean-spirited in the way it had tried to undermine the Community Reinvestment Act.” And Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said it was ironic that while the legislation was deregulating financial services, it had begun a new system of onerous regulation on community advocates.
Many experts predict that, even though the legislation has been trailing market trends that have begun to see the cross-ownership of banks, securities firms and insurers, the new law is certain to lead to a wave of large financial mergers.
The White House has estimated the legislation could save consumers as much as $18 billion a year as new financial conglomerates gain economies of scale and cut costs.
Other experts have disputed those estimates as overly optimistic, and said that the bulk of any profits seen from the deregulation of financial services would be returned not to customers but to shareholders.
These are some of the key provisions of the legislation:
¶Banks will be able to affiliate with insurance companies and securities concerns with far fewer restrictions than in the past.
¶The legislation preserves the regulatory structure in Washington and gives the Federal Reserve and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency roles in regulating new financial conglomerates. The Securities and Exchange Commission will oversee securities operations at any bank, and the states will continue to regulate insurance.
¶It will be more difficult for industrial companies to control a bank. The measure closes a loophole that had permitted a number of commercial enterprises to open savings associations known as unitary thrifts.
One Republican Senator, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, voted against the legislation. He was joined by seven Democrats: Barbara Boxer of California, Richard H. Bryan of Nevada, Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, Dorgan and Wellstone.
In the House, 155 Democrats and 207 Republicans voted for the measure, while 51 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 1 independent opposed it. Fifteen members did not vote.
Tucked away in the legislation is a provision that some experts on Thursday warned could cost insurance policyholders as much as $50 billion. The 20 provision would allow mutual insurance companies to move to other states to avoid payments they would otherwise owe policyholders as they reorganize their corporate structure. Many states, including New York and New Jersey, do not allow such relocations without the consent of the insurer’s domicile state. But the legislation before Congress would pre-empt the states.
Both the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the Prudential Life Insurance Company are in the midst of reorganizing into stock-based corporations that are requiring them to pay billions of dollars to policyholders from years of accumulated surplus. In exchange, the policyholders give up their ownership in the mutual insurance company.
The legislation would permit any mutual insurance company to avoid making surplus payments to policyholders by simply moving to states with more permissive laws and setting up a hybrid corporate structure known as a mutual holding company.
The provision was inserted by Representative Bliley at the urging of a trade association. It attracted little opposition because it was attached to a provision that forbids insurers from discriminating against domestic-violence victims.
In a letter sent to Congress this week, Summers said that the provision “could allow insurance companies to avoid state law protecting policyholders, enriching insiders at the expense of consumers.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20010829224239/cyber.law.harvard.edu/rfi/press/congpass.htm
I think the Democratic party and its various candidates are well enough funded to make up for such shenanigans.
But every McCain sign struck down is John going to his wife for more money.
socialism in action
great chart p@rn from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7644238.stm
McCain Yard Signs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC4PF58BY-s
Bailout caused by Congress pressuring Freddy and Fanny to handout risky loans:
“Mr. Syron and the Fannie Mae chief executive, Daniel H. Mudd, defended their choices, saying in interviews that they did not anticipate that the housing market would decline so quickly and that they were buffeted by conflicting pressures.
“This company has to answer to shareholders, to our regulator and to Congress, and those groups often demand completely contradictory things,” Mr. Syron said in an interview.
Indeed, executives of both companies maintain that one of the reasons the firms hold so many bad loans is that Congress has leaned on them for years to buy mortgages from low-income borrowers to encourage affordable housing. In 2004, Freddie Mac warned regulators that affordable housing goals could force the company to buy riskier loans.”
NYTimes
Hank,
It was good to meet you yesterday,and you did look me in the eye
From the Vice Presidential Debate in St. Louis, Missouri…. iiiiiitttt’s .Saturday Night!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/04/tina-fey-as-sarah-palin-i_n_131964.html
“I don’t support same sex marriage. Marriage should remain a sacred union between two unwilling teenagers.” Faux Palin
JMWalker
Posted October 5, 2008 at 9:16 am | Permalink
#
MaxGrobnik
Posted October 5, 2008 at 8:49 am | Permalink
The Libs actually think Saturday Night Live is a News Report.
Really bright, ain’t they?
=====================================================
‘mornin’, Barb, still can’t figure out what the word, humor, me
———————
JM ‘humor’ is funny when it is balanced. The Tina Fey skit wasn’t even funny it was so over the top. And yes there are some libs like BJ who think this is a news report.
“BlueJay
Posted October 4, 2008 at 11:04 pm | Permalink
Give Tina Fey an Emmy AND a Pulitzer.
She outPalin’s Palin.
Yes, I do think Palin is destined to become a verb.”
———————–
He thinks a comedy skit deserves a Pulitzer! Pathetic!
DavidB what did Biden say about same sex marriage?
Yep.. big time socialist that George Bush, huh! WAAHHAAHAAAAA!!!!
No, it was the “free market, get the governement off the backs of business” philosophy in action.
McCain wants to apply the same free market philosophy to the health care industry AND employers for tax health benefits as if it was income being paid to employees…
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
Some people think Fox News is a news organization, instead of a propaganda machine for the Bush/McCain.
Saturday Night Live does parodies.
Say, by the way. Did Dick Cheney die or something? Why isn’t he out stumping for his party??????????
“Why isn’t he out stumping for his party??????????”
Well, hell, SOMEONE has to stay at home and run the country! Even if it is from an “undisclosed” location.
heeheehee.. “not funny”
No, the SNL skit hits too close to home… the fact that Palin’s real speeches are so much like the parody – now THAT is what is not funny…
There may not be enough secret service agents to adequately protect cheney in public. And, remember, cheney and Palin share that whole increased power of the vice presidency sorta thinking.
okobserver
Posted October 5, 2008 at 10:21 am | Permalink
———————
JM ‘humor’ is funny when it is balanced. The Tina Fey skit wasn’t even funny it was so over the top. And yes there are some libs like BJ who think this is a news report.
________________________________________________
okobserver introduces socialism to humor. So what, we need equal funniness? Sorry, but it’s just the nature of conservatives to be funny (ridiculous).
okobserver= just another cranky, dour old republican woman.
I thought she was gonna ignore me.
NOW croakieokie is bonedigging me from posts gone by to prove what?
That she KNOWS Palin is a joke and would rather not be reminded of the fact that John McCain’s first, most important decision was a flat out failure?
KFG,
Just wondering are you receiving hate mail or acts of vandalism since your column started?
Governor Palin is as smart as a Twinkie is nutritious.
She said she believes dinosaurs co-existed with humans. (She saw the photo!)
What is a great role model for students who need to know science and technology to help move America into the future.
Governor Twinkie!
Palin wants to rewrite the founding documents of the nation to give the Vie-President more power, she said in the debate.
Maybe, the VP can rewrite science books.
Kansas – 2008
U.S. SENATE
(R) *PAT ROBERTS A
(D) JIM SLATTERY F
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
District 1
(R) *JERRY MORAN A
(D) JAMES BORDONARO F
District 2
(R) LYNN JENKINS C
(D) *NANCY BOYDA C
District 3
(R) NICK JORDAN A
(D) *DENNIS MOORE F
District 4
(R) *TODD TIAHRT A+
(D) DONALD BETTS D
http://www.nrapvf.org/Elections/State.aspx?y=2008&State=KS
Man, are the McCain shills out in force today or what? They have gone from sometimes discussing issues to full blown shill. Is shill money taxable, or is it treated like per diem?
Max, bless her neutered little heart, brings up some century old story about McCain being a maverick and almost crashing his plane on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Never mind he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class; what do you expect? Okobserver wants to know what Biden said about same sex marriage. Hint: The same thing Sarah said.
Franklin is still on groundhog day, repeating it over and over again. Regular is visiting Franklin today, and I assume he will be for the rest of the campaign, or until he has to pay taxes on his 3 pieces of silver shill money.
And the McCain camp, itself, has decided issues don’t matter as long as they can bop the Barrack. Really makes that old tune, Paranoia strikes deep, even more meaningful today. As McCain’s numbers continue to drop, his campaign will dive even deeper into the cesspool they call “Gotcha” sound bites. And Palin will play queen gotcha b**ch.
Don’t Wait for Barack Obama to Ban Your Guns – Register to Vote Today!
Barack Obama Has Supported:
A Total Ban on Handguns
A Ban on the Sale or Transfer of All Semi-Auto Firearms
A Ban on Right-to-Carry Permits
A Ban on Firearms Kept in the Home
And More —
“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them….”
– Barack Obama, April 2, 2008
Barack Obama has made it clear – he believes gun owners are dangerous and that guns should be banned. If he is elected President, he could name new Supreme Court Justices who will try to overturn the recent court decision and strip our rights away.
http://www.gunbanobama.com/
“JM ‘humor’ is funny when it is balanced. The Tina Fey skit wasn’t even funny it was so over the top. And yes there are some libs like BJ who think this is a news report.”
So over the top? I could hardly tell the difference between the parody and the real thing! OMG, Palin’s a riot!
MaxGrobnik
Posted October 5, 2008 at 11:12 am | Permalink
Kansas – 2008
U.S. SENATE
(R) *PAT ROBERTS A
(D) JIM SLATTERY F
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
District 1
(R) *JERRY MORAN A
(D) JAMES BORDONARO F
District 2
(R) LYNN JENKINS C
(D) *NANCY BOYDA C
District 3
(R) NICK JORDAN A
(D) *DENNIS MOORE F
District 4
(R) *TODD TIAHRT A+
(D) DONALD BETTS D
===================================================
. . . and the Jeopardy answer is: Which Kansas reps got the best grade for sucking up to the Bush Administration!
JM…you are such a hypocrite. You spew your blind support for a candidate endlessly, and that is “reasoned conversation”. But if anyone speaks in favor of an apposing candidate, then then are “shills”?? what ever happened to freedom of speech?
Or in your closed little mind, nobody else is entitled to an opinion if it differs from yours?
hypocrite.
“Barack Obama has made it clear – he believes gun owners are dangerous and that guns should be banned. If he is elected President, he could name new Supreme Court Justices who will try to overturn the recent court decision and strip our rights away.”
Sounds like he has my vote for sure :):):)
Oh, here are just TWO of Obama’s votes against the right to use a gun for self-defense IN YOUR OWN HOME!!!!
Barack Obama’s Slippery Oratory
by Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President
NRA Standing Guard – April 11, 2008
To understand Barack Obama on the Second Amendment, you have to know about the clash of character between the then-Chicago state senator and an ordinary citizen who exercised his right to armed self-defense in violation of a local gun ban.
That citizen was a 52-year-old resident of Wilmette, Illinois, who, on Dec. 28, 2003, woke to find that, during the night, his home had been invaded by a career criminal; a thief who stole household items, keys and the homeowner’s car.
The victim, Hale DeMar, described his fear in a letter to the Chicago Sun- Times: “For me, the seconds until I found my children still safely tucked in their beds were horrifying . . . The police were called and in routine fashion they came, took the report and with little concern left, promising to increase surveillance. Little comfort, since the invader now had keys to our home and our automobiles. The police informed me that this was not an uncommon event in east Wilmette and offered their condolences . . .” Not 24 hours after the first burglary, the thief returned. Using DeMar’s house keys, the man entered the home, this time setting off the alarm system, automatically notifying the security company. Given the previous night’s lackluster response by police, DeMar was prepared, armed with a handgun–legally purchased years before and kept in a safe. But under Wilmette’s gun ban, that firearm in the home was illegal.
DeMar confronted the criminal, and believing his children were in danger, shot the burglar, who then fled the home.
“Until you are shocked by a piercing alarm in the middle of the night and met in your kitchen by a masked invader as your children shudder in their beds, until you confront that very real nightmare, please don’t suggest that some village trustee knows better … “If my actions have spared only one family from the distress and trauma that this habitual criminal has caused hundreds of others, then I have served my civic duty and taken one evil creature off of our streets, something that our impotent criminal justice system had failed to do, despite some thirty odd arrests, plea bargains and suspended sentences.” The burglar, who was arrested after driving DeMar’s stolen SUV to a hospital, had an extensive criminal record.
Cook County prosecutors ultimately declared DeMar’s use of a firearm to be justified. But Wilmette village officials pressed nonetheless to prosecute him for illegal possession of his handgun–a charge punishable by a huge fine and jail time. A town official was quoted in Reason magazine saying, “We need to set the example that we’re trying to protect our citizens.” And he said, DeMar–by possessing a legally purchased handgun–”is endangering innocent civilians.” The outcry of the Illinois public was heard all the way to the state capitol.
As a result, the Illinois House and Senate passed legislation in May 2004 to protect citizens who use handguns in self-defense in their homes or businesses despite local handgun bans.
The House accepted the DeMar selfdefense bill by a vote of 86-25 and the Senate moved the legislation on a 38-20 vote.
And here lies the seminal moment for state Senator Barack Obama. When Obama turned thumbs down on the bill, he voted against the most basic element of the Second Amendment– the right of defense of self and family– the reason that millions of Americans own firearms.
When the governor vetoed the bill, Obama once again voted against a citizen’s right to self-defense.
Despite his vote, the veto override passed the Senate and the House by overwhelming majorities, thereby enacting this bill into law.
Now, fast forward to today’s slippery oratory of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama just three years from being an unknown state senator–now morphed by the media into a spellbinding u.s. senator seeking to be president of the United States.
Using words like “protecting sportsmen,” Obama is now saying that he believes in the Second Amendment … but with almost universal exceptions, all of which he lists under the heading of “common sense gun safety laws.” “Common sense gun safety” and the Second Amendment? Like endorsing the D.C. gun ban, which outlaws armed self-defense in the home–now being challenged before the u.s. Supreme Court. Obama, who as president would be in the position to nominate justices to that high court, has declared that the d.c. ban doesn’t violate the Second Amendment.
“Common sense gun safety” and the Second Amendment? In a “1998 National Political Awareness Test,” he pledged to support a “Ban [on] the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons”–meaning most handguns and many rifles and shotguns that you and I own.
“Common sense gun safety” and the Second Amendment? Like demanding that the federal government preempt the 40 hard-won state laws creating Right-to-Carry.
Here’s how the Chicago Tribune put it: “Obama said he opposed allowing ordinary citizens to carry concealed weapons and that a federal law banning concealed carried weapons except for law enforcement is needed.” “Common sense gun safety” and the Second Amendment? Like the draconian proposals funded to the tune of $18,000,000 by the rabidly anti-gun Joyce Foundation while Obama was an activist member of its board of directors.
Obama’s alleged support of the Second Amendment is utterly cynical and false. Barack Obama is not for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms; he`s out to destroy it.
http://www.nodakoutdoors.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=418899
typo..”then THEY are shills”
Just what Mary wants in the Whitehouse, a President who DOES NOT support your right to defend your own life, even in your own house!
What rights of Freedom does Obama support?
One Thing Obama did in Chicago:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/06/27/grim_proving_ground_for_obamas_housing_policy/?page=full
Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy
The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.
Great Community Organizer, huh?
One Thing Obama did in Chicago:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/06/27/grim_proving_ground_for_obamas_housing_policy/?page=full
As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers.
As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.
But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies – including several hundred in Obama’s former district – deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.
**Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters.
**Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama’s constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.
Some of the residents of Grove Parc say they are angry that Obama did not notice their plight. The development straddles the boundary of Obama’s state Senate district. Many of the tenants have been his constituents for more than a decade.
“No one should have to live like this, and no one did anything about it,” said Cynthia Ashley, who has lived at Grove Parc since 1994.
“During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen while doing everything he could to protect children — including his own two daughters — from illegal gun violence.” From http://fightthesmears.com/articles/17/NRAflyer
Barack has clearly spelled out his position on guns to Field & Stream:
“I am very mindful of the fact that sportsmen in America may have gone hunting with their fathers, their grandfathers, their mothers, their grandmothers, and that this is part of a tradition and a way of life that has to be preserved. And there’s nothing that I will do as president of the United States that will in any way encroach on the ability of sportsmen to continue that tradition.”
“I believe there is a Second Amendment right. I think it is an individual right. I think people have the right to lawfully bear arms.” [SOURCE: OFA policy statement; Obama press conference, Watertown SD 5/16/08; CBS News 9/05/08; Obama on CNN 6/25/08; Obama Bloomberg Interview, 6/26/08]
We are nearly to the part of the lying smear cycle when the “secret Muslim” stories start being posted again…. Stay tuned…
JM you wrote “Okobserver wants to know what Biden said about same sex marriage. Hint: The same thing Sarah said.”
If that is the case and it is why did DavidB make a point of saying what Palin said. You guys are so over the top it is ridiculous.
Both parties say ‘no’ to same sex marriage. That makes it a non issue doesn’t it. Lets move on to the things we disagree on.
Say JM,
The NRA is non-partisan. Look across the country and you will find their ratings are based on a candidate’s position and record on the 2nd Amendment.
There are many D’s endorsed, as well as R’s.
Drink some more koolaide JM.
BJ you are just like a weed in the garden. If you let it grow unbothered it begins to choke out the good stuff. You are that weed.
I lived in Chicago when there places in pubic housing high-rise “warehouses for the poor” that the POLICE would not dare to enter.
Obama tried to do something to create better and safer conditions? GOOD!
DavidB desparately tries to follow his koolaide urge, to find something proving Obama supports the 2nd Amendment.
But don’t look at his voting record. You won’t find it there.
Words. You can find words. But no actions.
Obama is lying about his 2nd Amendment view and it’s not hard to figure that out.
But DavidB, oh do try. Please continue your search for something you won’t find.
#
okobserver
Posted October 5, 2008 at 11:25 am | Permalink.
Both parties say ‘no’ to same sex marriage. That makes it a non issue doesn’t it. Lets move on to the things we disagree on.
====================================================
Gee, ok, that WAS my point, but obviously your partisan perspective disallowed you from seeing that.
Obama ‘tried’.
Good.
He failed misearably, but at least he tried.
Not much being said about McCain’s positions here… hrmmmm…..
Obama was able to make some developers (fat-cat rich businessmen) rich in Chicago.
Good job Obama!
Change the subject David, since you can’t defend your gun-banner Obama.
You a rich developer too David? Ahhh, that’s why you are on Obamaman’s side.
#
MaxGrobnik
Posted October 5, 2008 at 11:26 am | Permalink
Say JM,
The NRA is non-partisan. Look across the country and you will find their ratings are based on a candidate’s position and record on the 2nd Amendment.
There are many D’s endorsed, as well as R’s.
Drink some more koolaide JM.
=====================================================
As I said, sweetcheeks, you still haven’t quite got down that humor thing, have ya. ‘Coures your brand of humor starts with releasing kittens in a yard full of dogs, so I understand why you can’t understand real humor.
Drink some more ’shine: trust me, the coppers good for you. Hell, might even make you eligible for recycling.
How many “fat cats” have made millions profiting from the Bush economic policies?
In the debate, Biden supported full constitutional rights for gays. Governor Twinkie refused a direct request to agree or disagree with his answer. (She had to just stick to her previous pre-authorized, pre-written memorized answer.)
And McCain want to give the “fat cats” even bigger tax breaks! To heel with the middle class, as long as his peers make out.
“to HELL” is what I mean’t!
Does hangin out with an Iraqi citizen count as going to Iraq?
Obama’s millionairre buddy REZKO is from Iraqi and now a dual US/Iraqi citizen.
OBAMA HAS CLOSE TIES TO IRAQ!!!!!!!
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/499796,CST-NWS-rezko07.article
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — “, whose links to Sen. Barack Obama have brought his name into the national spotlight, was arrested Monday morning, an FBI spokesman said.
Rezko was taken into custody by the FBI at his Wilmette, Illinois, home just outside Chicago following a government motion to revoke his bond, said FBI spokesman Tom Simon.
Rezko — whom Sen. Hillary Clinton referred to in a debate as having run a “slum landlord business” — has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, influence peddling and demanding kickbacks from companies seeking Illinois state business.
Obama, speaking Sunday to ABC’s “This Week,” described Rezko as “a friend of mine, a supporter, who I’ve known for 20 years.”
Rezko has contributed to the campaigns of numerous Democrats, including Obama — though the Illinois senator has vowed to give up all funds connected to Rezko. Obama said in a debate that as an attorney he did just about five hours of work for a Rezko project.
Shortly after his election to the U.S. Senate, Obama bought a house for $300,000 below the asking price. The same day, Rezko’s wife bought the lot next door for full price. Months later, Obama bought a sliver of the Rezko land to expand his yard.
As a state senator, Obama wrote letters supporting some Rezko deals.”
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/28/rezko.arrest/index.html
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/10/989
Guns and Suicide in the United States
Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc.D., and David Hemenway, Ph.D.
This past June, in a 5-to-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on handgun ownership in the nation’s capital and ruled that the District’s law requiring all firearms in the home to be locked violated the Second Amendment. But the Supreme Court’s finding of a Second Amendment right to have a handgun in the home does not mean that it is a wise decision to own a gun or to keep it easily accessible. Deciding whether to own a gun entails balancing potential benefits and risks. One of the risks for which the empirical evidence is strongest,1 and the risk whose death toll is greatest, is that of completed suicide.
In 2005, the most recent year for which mortality data are available, suicide was the second-leading cause of death among Americans 40 years of age or younger. Among Americans of all ages, more than half of all suicides are gun suicides. In 2005, an average of 46 Americans per day committed suicide with a firearm, accounting for 53% of all completed suicides. Gun suicide during this period accounted for 40% more deaths than gun homicide.
Mary,
Perhaps you should focus more on your failed attempt at banning guns in your own home before you start supporting efforts elsewhere.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION CONTINUES
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/04/politics/main4155315.shtml
Obama Fundraiser Found Guilty Of Fraud
Tony Rezko Convicted Of 16 Of 24 Counts In Corruption Case
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3433485.ece
Obama’s friend Rezko was born in Syria.
Obama’s billionaire friend Nadhmi Auchi was born in Iraq.
Obama has been bought. A $2.6 Million house on a US Senator’s salary? Hmmm……
Salary for a US Senator is $169,000 per year.
Obama must be one of the victim’s of the sub-prime loan scandals to be able to afford a house that is 15 TIMES his annual salary.
How many average Joe’s out there making $30,000 per year are living in a $450,000 house?
A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama’s fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.
The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3433485.ece
And the kicker is that so many really conservative writers who really care about America are saying that Governor Palin is not qualified to hold the position of Vice President.
Gun owners more often kill themselves than others
In the high court’s ruling on gun ownership, the dissenting opinion cited suicides as a reason to uphold a firearms ban.
By Mike Stobbe
The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 07/01/2008 01:53:51 AM MDT
ATLANTA — The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens’ ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners. use the weapons on themselves.
Suicides accounted for about 55 percent of the nation’s nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There was nothing unique about that year. Gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the past 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 2.6 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.
Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.
Studies have also shown that homes in which a suicide occurred were three to five times as likely to have a gun present as households that did not experience a suicide, even after accounting for other risk factors.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court on Thursday struck down a handgun ban enacted in the District of Columbia in 1976 and rejected requirements that firearms have trigger locks or be kept disassembled. The ruling left intact the district’s licensing restrictions for gun owners.
D.C.’s suicides dropped
One public-health study found that suicide and homicide rates in the district dropped after the ban was adopted. The district has allowed shotguns and rifles to be kept in homes if they are registered, kept unloaded and taken apart or equipped with trigger locks.
The American Public Health Association, the American Association of Suicidology and two other groups filed a legal brief supporting the district’s ban. The brief challenged arguments that if a gun is not available, suicidal people will kill themselves using other means.
More than 90 percent of suicide attempts using guns are successful, while the success rate for jumping from high places was 34 percent. The success rate for intentional drug overdose was 2 percent, the brief said, citing studies.
“Other methods are not as lethal,” said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.
Gee, Maxine, do photos catching McCain celebrating birthday with indicted con man mean anything? Or is that okay by your limited standards:
Although John McCain has made condemning the influence of lobbyists in Washington one of his signature issues, his own campaign is largely run by high-powered lobbyists, including his campaign manager, Rick Davis.
The connection with Davis appears to be behind McCain’s having spent his 70th birthday partying on the yacht of Italian conman Raffaello Follieri — who hired Davis’s business partner to lobby for him just a few months later — along with Follieri’s then-girlfriend, actress Anne Hathaway. The date was Aug. 29, 2006 and the place was Montenegro, where McCain had traveled with a delegation of US senators to celebrate that nation’s independence.
Although the meeting has been reported previously, the Nation has now confirmed it with a photo of John McCain preparing to board Follieri’s yacht. Rachel Maddow offered an exclusive preview of the photograph on her new MSNBC program on Wednesday, noting that it “appears to undercut the well-crafted, focus group-tested image of John McCain being pushed on the American people.”
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Photo_catches_McCain_meeting_with_indicted_0911.html
See! I can pull rabbits out of my a** just as well as you can pull all the Obama crap out of yours.
JM, the NRA is non-partisan.
No amount of whining or attempts at name calling or diversion, can change that fact.
And you can’t weasle out of the fact that Obama is a gun-banner.
But have fun trying.
Max, you know why Follieri was indicted and convicted? For claiming he was the CFO of the Vatican. Now there’s a fellow Christian Republican for ya!!!
And John & Cindy McCain’s EIGHT houses? Not exactly Joe six-pack…
CNN to show a clip if SNL debate skit after the break…. warning: It is not funny. So it is written.
#
MaxGrobnik
Posted October 5, 2008 at 11:49 am | Permalink
JM, the NRA is non-partisan.
No amount of whining or attempts at name calling or diversion, can change that fact.
And you can’t weasle out of the fact that Obama is a gun-banner.
But have fun trying.
====================================================
Where did I try to weasel out of, or even defend Obama’s position on gun control? Besides not having a funny bone, it appears you have a logic problem as well. Does your husband tie your shoes in the morning also?
Mary_Caruso
Posted October 5, 2008 at 11:31 am | Permalink
We will never stop global warming because humans as a whole would not be willing to do what it takes to reverse it. It would require much more than lowering speed limits and recycling plastics. The biggest thing we’d need to do is cut the world’s population by about 75%.
==================================================================
Are you willing to go first Mary? Or are you advocating SOMEONE ELSE?
Since you don’t have a gun Mary, you’ll have to hang yourself, jump off a cliff, OD on pills, or a number of other things that thousands of people think up every year. You don’t need a gun for suicide you know.
Perhaps some combination of methods would ensure the desired results.
OD on some pills, tie a rope around a tree and your neck, then run off a cliff.
It has always been said that a Presidential candidates first presidential decision is the choosing of a VP.
DavidB
Posted October 5, 2008 at 10:12 am | Permalink
“I don’t support same sex marriage. Marriage should remain a sacred union between two unwilling teenagers.” Faux Palin
————–
JM actually I addressed that post to DavidB in response to the above. When you post what he did it implied that she differed with Biden. Guess you missed that post. I’ll forgive you because I don’t hold grudges.
NRA PUT ON NOTICE: HUNTERS ONTO YOUR BAIT AND SWITCH
AMERICAN HUNTERS AND SHOOTERS ASSOCIATION (AHSA) EXPOSE DETAILS HOW NRA KINGPINS SPEND MEMBERS’ MONEY ON CONSERVATION OPPONENTS
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Ray Schoenke, President of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), released its expose on where the National Rifle Association (NRA) dues money actually goes in a report called “Slash and Burn: Why Does the National Rifle Association Leadership Support Congress’s Biggest Opponents of Conservation?” The scathing report and accompanying website can be found at http://www.realhuntersrealconservation.org.
Schoenke stated “The NRA has long claimed to represent hunters and shooters, but today’s alarming report — the first of its kind ever produced—pulls the curtain back on the ugly truth: The NRA has overwhelmingly supported the biggest opponents of conservation. We want America’s 70 million gun owners, most of whom, like me, consider themselves conservationists, to have the opportunity to learn about the NRA’s dismal record on conservation”
“With research from the League of Conservation Voters and the assistance of former Congressman Pete McCloskey, we launched this effort today but will keep fighting until the NRA starts working for hunters and shooters instead of against them,” Schoenke continued. In 2006, former Rep. McCloskey worked to unseat one of the NRA’s leadership’s favorite anti-conservation critters, now former Congressman, Richard Pombo. “Given Pombo’s terrible record on conservation issues,” McCloskey stated, “that for the NRA to have given Pombo any money was an outrage.”
From conservation issues of protecting public lands and wildlife habitats, key issues for hunters and shooters everywhere, the NRA has overwhelmingly supported Members of Congress who received sub-standard and poor ratings from respected conservation organizations. Since 2000, the NRA has given $4,085,277 in campaign money to support the 193 Members of Congress who received poor conservation ratings from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) and only $390,897 – 10 times less – to the 245 Members of Congress who have received high conservation ratings from LCV.
“This report is based on solid data compiled by many respected groups including the League of Conservation voters,” said David Sandretti, LCV communications director.
· On the issue of protecting public lands, in 2005, the House of Representatives considered the “Pombo-Gibbons Amendment,” which would have allowed the sale of public wilderness lands to corporate interests at prices far below market value. While conservation groups across America came out against the Pombo-Gibbons Amendment, the NRA stayed silent. And what kind of ratings has the NRA given to the 172 House Members who voted for the Pombo-Gibbons Amendment? An A- average. For those Members who stood up for conservation and against Pombo-Gibbons, the NRA gave out an average rating of a D.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION CONTINUES
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432501,00.html
Lawmaker Accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest
Friday, October 03, 2008
By Bill Sammon
WASHINGTON — Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.
So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank’s relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. “He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
“If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have – or at least what’s not in the stock market – that this would be considered germane,” added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. “But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”
Frank helped CAUSE the problem, then blames Republicans for it. What a frickin liar!
And Frank’s boyfriend worked at FannieMae. Hmmm…
Yeah, my Fannie is sound, my boyfriend said so!
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view/2008_10_04_Barney_Frank__Bill_O_Reilly_turn_nasty_in_on-air_battle/srvc=home&position=also
“I believe that Congressman Frank has hurt a lot of people,” O’Reilly said. “It seemed to me that the congressman was being extremely unreasonable in the face of the evidence.”
During Thursday’s show, O’Reilly played a July 2008 TV clip of Frank when he was asked about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: “I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.”
O’Reilly drove the point that Frank “still went out in July and said everything was great. And off that, a lot of people bought stock and lost everything they had.” The Democratic rep argued that he said, “It wasn’t a good investment.”
I’ve never made any efforts to ban guns, Nathan. I just express my opinion about them. You’re the one obsessed with guns, Nathan…not me.
American Hunters And Shooters Association: The Ultimate In Political Camouflage
When it comes to political discourse and campaign rhetoric on Second Amendment Rights, there are two events that have shaped the current landscape more than any others: the 1994 mid term elections and the 2000 Presidential election. In 1994, gun owners turned out in record numbers to send a message to the Clinton Administration that the gun bans and the anti-gun laws they had pursued were unacceptable. And in 2000, Vice President Al Gore lost because his position on guns was unacceptable to voters in states that had been reliable for his party for decades.
The result was a watershed change in American politics, and a change in the way many anti-gun politicians campaign. Rather than talk openly about their desire to ban guns, register gun owners and regulate firearms sales, anti-gun politicians talk about their “support” for sportsmen. Rather than admit they oppose the individual right protected by the Second Amendment, they claim they “support firearms ownership for hunting.”
This is all an effort to mislead and divide the gun owning community and to dilute gun owners’ political impact. Anti-gun activists want to ensure that 1994 and 2000 never happen again. To achieve their goals they have created new organizations with names designed to confuse gun owners and hide the real agenda. The American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) is one of those groups.
AHSA was created with the specific intent to provide political cover for anti-gun politicians by allowing them to claim support from a “sportsmen’s” group. In truth, the anti-gun credentials of AHSA’s leadership is well documented. For instance, AHSA president Ray Schoenke has a long history of giving political donations to some of the most anti-gun politicians, including Al Gore, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Bill Clinton, Dianne Feinstein and Ted Kennedy. In 2000, Schoenke donated $5,000 to Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign) and the Ray and Holly Schoenke Foundation also made donations to the Brady Campaign. AHSA Board member John Rosenthal remains the leader of Stop Handgun Violence, the Massachusetts anti-gun group. And one of the leading organizers of AHSA is Bob Ricker, who has been a paid expert witness against gun manufacturers in a number of reckless lawsuits. (For more information, see Anti-Gunners Don Camo As Elections Loom.)
AHSA’s political activities are predictable when you consider its primary goals are to discredit the NRA and advance the interests of anti-gun politicians. AHSA`s first effort was in the 2006 Missouri Senate race. AHSA used direct mail to mislead sportsmen and distort the landmark work NRA was doing to protect millions of acres of wetlands in Missouri. While NRA was working with legislators to protect the 100-year flood plain in Missouri from development and ensure that land would be available to hunters, AHSA produced direct mail falsely claiming the NRA had “sold out hunters” so that they could mislead sportsmen into voting for anti-gun candidate Claire McCaskill (See Who Needs Another Alternative To NRA for more information.) Unfortunately, AHSA’s lies were at least partly to blame for McCaskill’s election and the loss of Sen. Jim Talent, a valuable friend of gun owners and sportsmen.
While the NRA counts membership in the millions, AHSA can only claim a few hundred members and has done nothing to advance the issues important to sportsmen. On top of that, in its first foray into Second Amendment issues, AHSA chose to stand alongside one of the leading anti-gun politicians in America: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. AHSA supported Bloomberg’s effort to repeal the law that protects confidential law enforcement data from disclosure that threatens the privacy of gun owners and the safety of law enforcement officers—all so that Bloomberg could use the information in reckless lawsuits against the firearms industry (for more information, see: The “Tiahrt Amendment” on Firearms Traces: Protecting Gun Owners` Privacy and Law Enforcement Safety). By standing with Bloomberg, AHSA President Ray Schoenke made his claims that “we are a gun rights organization” impossible to defend.
AHSA has also attempted to use the District of Columbia v. Heller case as an opportunity to create false pro-gun credentials, but its effort reveals the group’s real agenda. In its friend of the court brief—ostensibly in support of the challenge to D.C.’s gun ban—AHSA claims to support the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, but a complete reading shows a different story. The AHSA brief actually makes the case that the D.C. gun ban is mainly improper because D.C. is not a state, and the gun ban has not been authorized by Congress, saying “as a federal district, D.C. enjoys none of the indicia of statehood absent congressional legislation to the contrary and, therefore, basic notions of federalism cannot logically or semantically apply to the District.”
If AHSA’s position were adopted, it would strengthen the ability of states to pass more restrictive gun laws and lessen the impact of a pro-Second Amendment ruling in any of the fifty states. Unsurprisingly, in its conclusion, the brief states:
The argument advanced by [AHSA] would in no way prevent the D.C. Council from enacting reasonable regulations relating to possession, safety, and registration of firearms in the District. Indeed, it has a responsibility to the public to do so. [AHSA believes] that the District’s Gun Law was a laudable effort.
“Reasonable regulations,” “a responsibility to the public to do so,” a “laudable effort”?
No organization that claims the D.C. gun ban is a “laudable effort” or claims the gun regulations supported by the D.C. Council are “reasonable” can be described as pro-Second Amendment by any stretch of the imagination. And the claim that the gun ban’s primary flaw is that is was not enacted by a state eliminates any doubt that AHSA opposes a true individual right to keep and bear arms. If AHSA’s view were adopted, states would largely not be subject to the ruling—and to the extent they were, would not be prevented from enacting a broad range of laws as “reasonable regulations.” In fact, they would say, it would be their “responsibility to the public to do so.”
AHSA would be more correctly called the “American Association for the Protection of Anti-Gun Politicians.” No gun owner or sportsman should fall prey to its carefully crafted lies and deceptions.
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=232&issue=011
“the NRA is non-partisan.”
NRA is a code word for wingnut approved
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0907/Poll_Bush_NRA_have_clout_among_Republicans.html
Poll: Bush, NRA have clout among Republicans
President Bush’s ability to motivate Republicans was the most significant force among five conservative-leaning people or groups tested for their influence among GOP voters in a new poll. The survey showed that 55 percent of Republicans would be “more likely” to back a candidate if he had the endorsement of the president. Only 12 percent said “less likely,” but 31 percent did say that the preference of the incumbent president would have “no affect”
The data showing the impact of endorsements or opposition was provided to Politico.com by Fabrizio & McLaughlin, the GOP firm that conducted the poll. They surveyed 1,000 Republican voters between September 21-23.
Of the other entities tested — the NRA, Chamber of Commerce, James Dobson and Pat Robertson — the gun-rights organization rated the next most powerful among Republican voters. Forty-four percent of those polled said they would be more inclined to back a candidate who had the support of the NRA. Fifteen percent would be less so and 38 percent indicated it would have no impact. Notably for Rudy Giuliani, 40 percent of those surveyed said they would be “less likely” to vote for a candidate who was opposed by the NRA.
http://www.gunlawnews.org/asha.html
American Hunters and Shooters Association
Thursday, 22 September 2005
History – It Is Pretty Short
The huntersandshooters.com website was licensed April 25, 2005. The majority of the site seems to have been written in June 2005. So they are new.
The licensing company is DCS Congressional.
Update: August 7, 2005 – As of August 3,2005 the registration information for huntersandshooters.com has been updated to reflect the AHSA as the owner of the site name. There is no change in the blatant anti-gun rights positions expressed on the site.
Who Is DCS?
They are a collection of Democratic operatives that have worked for some of the country’s leading gun grabbers.
Gerry Kavanaugh – President
From the AHSA website:
… a close advisor to the John Edwards for President campaign. Prior to working for John Edwards, he was the Policy Director for the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Kavanaugh served as Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Chief of Staff and worked with him through both his 1994 and 2000 re-elections.
David Bonior – Founding Principal
Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976 serving for 26 years. A reliable voter for gun control.
What DCS Says About Itself?
From What We Do:
DCS utilizes cutting edge technology to create a winning Internet strategy for elected officials, campaigns and organizations. Our experienced political and Internet team will work directly with campaigns, political organizations, and their strategic partners to develop a plan that combines creative, research-driven messages with aggressive online advocacy. We will work with your fundraising, press and issue teams in their earliest stages to develop effective Internet strategies, full media plans, and fundraising strategies that can be turned into potent and powerful solutions.
My favorite part is: “research-driven messages”. What they are really saying is that they find out what you want to hear so that their client can tell you that.
Who Does DCS Work For?
From Clients:
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Congressman John Conyers (D-MI)
Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO)
Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)
Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA)
This is a who’s-who of gun grabbers. They also list a slew of other Congressman. Every Congressman that DCS lists is a Democrat. That should tell us something.
AHSA Leadership
Ray Schoenke, President of AHSA
Major Donator to Gun Control Politicians & Groups
Al Gore 1991 $ 1,000
Barbara Boxer 1991 1,000
1995 1,000
1996 3,000
Barbara A. Mikulski 1991 1,000
1997 2,000
2000 2,500
Bill Clinton 1996 1,000
Constance Morella 1992 1,000
David Bonior 1996 800
1997 1,000
Mar 2000 500
Jul 2000 500
Diane Feinstein 1996 1,000
Edward Kennedy Apr 1994 1,000
Oct 1994 1,000
John Kerry 1996 1,000
Robert G. Torricelli 1996 1,000
Handgun Control, Inc. 2000 5,000
America Coming Together 2004 10,000
Total Found So Far $36,300
http://www.saysuncle.com/archives/2008/02/29/american_hunters_and_shooters_association_screech-2/
American Hunters and Shooters Association Screech
Posted by: SayUncle
You see, they are the righteous pro-hunting, pro-conservation, pro-gun group! The NRA betrays hunters at every turn. At least, that’s what they tell us. Behold Ray Schoenke’s screed at The Daily Kos. It’s so disjointed I can’t really fathom the point other than tooting the AHSA’s horn. Which is amazing, since they have no significant accomplishments nor significant membership that I know of. Only a screed with zero actual evidence about why they’re good and NRA is bad. So, let’s look at the American Hunters and Shooters Association record on guns:
The NSSF has a fact sheet on them here:
Reported in an article by Bill Schneideri that the operating budget for AHSA is $500,000. Where did this money come from? With only a handful of members (paying $25 dues) – who is bankrolling their operation?
When you follow the money, they read like a who’s who of gun grabbers. They are a front for the anti-gun Democratic Leadership Council so that anti-gun politicos can say they belong to a group that sounds pro-gun.
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080908/DC5/809080322
NRA supports gun owners’ rights, not radicals
By JAY PRINTZ • September 8, 2008
The American Hunters and Shooters Association is once again trying to confuse hunters into believing two bold lies: that the NRA does not support hunting, and that AHSA and the Sierra Club do.
In a report printed in the Tribune Aug. 22, AHSA makes the ridiculous argument that NRA is anti hunting because NRA does not support the same candidates that Sierra Club and other environmental groups support.
The problem is these groups rate candidates on their radical environmental record, not on their support for hunting or for gun owners’ rights. In fact, the politicians endorsed by the Sierra Club are a “Who’s Who” of the most anti-gun politicians in American history. Gun-ban advocates like Barack Obama, John Kerry, Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Frank Lautenberg, Jack Reed and Teddy Kennedy have been endorsed by the Sierra Club.
NRA just another group shillin for the pubes
Wow Annie, so most Democrats are anti-gun!
But not all. The NRA endorses those who are pro-gun, regardless of their party.
I dunno.
I think the SNL sketch went after Biden as well as the Moose-Dresser.
Thing is, she was so absurd in reality on Thursday night it was hard to parody her.
So they just transcribed her “don’chas” and “dag-gummits” and “Can I call ya ‘Joe?’” and it was just as funny and absurd as reality was.
annie_moose doesn’t believe in amendments, unless they apply to fornicating with a flag while burning an effigy of Bush.
#
Monkeyhawk
Posted October 5, 2008 at 12:26 pm | Permalink
I dunno.
I think the SNL sketch went after Biden as well as the Moose-Dresser.
Thing is, she was so absurd in reality on Thursday night it was hard to parody her.
So they just transcribed her “don’chas” and “dag-gummits” and “Can I call ya ‘Joe?’” and it was just as funny and absurd as reality was.
===================================
Yes, it was refreshing to hear people talk normally and not in “Senate speak” wasn’t it?
Non partisan my big fat hairy ass
2008 Candidate Grades and Endorsements
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“. . .you did look me in the eye. . .”
?
Glad you’re doing well, Freebird. Good to meet you and your grandson. You came at a time when I was a little busy, we’ll do lunch sometime. We’ll have the boy buy, he’s making more money than I am nowl.
#
okobserver
Posted October 5, 2008 at 11:58 am | Permalink
JM actually I addressed that post to DavidB in response to the above. When you post what he did it implied that she differed with Biden. Guess you missed that post. I’ll forgive you because I don’t hold grudges.
===================================================
Ok, I know what the post was in response to. Part of my point was why respond to an obvious joke, and the other was that both parties in the (real)debate said the same thing. So why is this a problem anyway?
Personally, I though SNL did an excellent skit on the debate, giving equal time to prankin’ all three: Palin, Biden and Iffy. But Tina does do a scary Palin copy.
annie_moose
Posted October 5, 2008 at 12:29 pm | Permalink
Non partisan my big fat hairy ass
———————–
Well, at least we know now you’re not a female.
That is, at least not one of this species.
annie_moose doesn’t believe in amendments, unless they apply to fornicating with a flag while burning an effigy of Bush.
___________________________________________________
Hehehe I probably own more guns than you do old man
Annie gets her panties in a wad, when her AHSA group is proven to be a bunch of Brady Gun-Banning Democrats.
Maybe you can find some wench to pull your panties out.
#
annie_moose
Posted October 5, 2008 at 12:33 pm | Permalink
annie_moose doesn’t believe in amendments, unless they apply to fornicating with a flag while burning an effigy of Bush.
___________________________________________________
Hehehe I probably own more guns than you do old man
——————
That’s probably true as I’ve never purchased a gun, besides “BB” guns in my entire life. All my guns were passed down as inheritance and quite old.
I did pop “60 out of 60″ with some .223 rounds when I was required to take proficiency training in the military though. :)
Maybe you can find some wench to pull your panties out.
——————————————————-
What are you doing about 3 o’clock maxine?
the people claiming the financial mess is a Republican induced disaster are ignoring the facts. The following was published in New Yok Times:
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990’s by reducing down payment requirements,” said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive officer. ”Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.”
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan 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 rescuesimilar 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.”
Under Fannie Mae’s pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 — a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990’s. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University ’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.
In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
Scary article Raptor,
How many houses and what was the average cost?
1999 – HA! and nothing has happened since then….
Check a poll Raptor.
MOST American place the blame for the financial crisis right where it belongs.
With the party of greed Republicans.
Spin and spin again. The GOP owns the financial melt down and will be punished in the November election.
3 out of 10 blame bush and his admin.
http://www.propublica.org/article/flawed-sec-program-failed-to-rein-in-investment-banks-101/
Flawed’ SEC Program Failed to Rein in Investment Banks
by Ben Protess , ProPublica – October 1, 2008 6:01 pm EDT
Tags: Christopher Cox, SEC, Wall Street, Wall Street Bailout
The Securities and Exchange Commission last week abolished the special regulatory program that it applied to Wall Street’s largest investment banks. Known as the “consolidated supervised entities” program, it relaxed the minimum capital requirements for firms that submitted to the commission’s oversight, and thus, in the view of some experts, helped create the current global financial crisis.
But the SEC’s decision to ax the program currently affects no one, since three of the five firms that voluntarily joined the program previously collapsed and the other two reorganized.
So, because the ’spin’ says the Republicans caused it, the FACTS don’t matter? The pressure by the Clinton Administration and the policies of a certain Mr. Raines, who is now on Obama’s staff are immaterial because of polls?
Nice spin. Doesn’t change the FACTS.
I like these facts better Raptor
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/
Fannie Mae and the Financial Crisis
Posted by Barry Ritholtz on Sunday, October 05, 2008 | 12:30 PM
in Bailouts | Federal Reserve | Real Estate | Short Selling | Taxes and Policy
The Sunday New York Times has a very interesting article on Fannie Mae and the current financial crisis. They do a decent job at delving into the complexities of the GSEs, and the many factors that went into the decision making at the senior level of the company. This includes pressure from clients such as Coutrywide CEO Angelo Mozilla, pressure from Congress, and the demands from investors for the company to be more aggressive. Most of all, it looks at the ongoing competitive demands of the market place that Fanny was in.
The key to understanding the GSE story is grasping their role within the bigger picture of the economy and housing sector. While there are some pundits who prefer talking points over reality (Charlies Gasparino, Lawrence Kudlow, James Pethoukoukis, all toed the GOP line) I prefer to keep all of my analyses based on the data and facts. Rather than creating historical revisions for partisan reasons, I prefer to keep it reality based. (I’m an independant, and that’s how I roll).
The current housing and credit crises has many, many underlying sources. Its my opinion there were two primary causes leading to the boom and bust in Housing: A nonfeasant Fed, that ignored lending standards, and ultra-low rates.
This nonfeasance under Greenspan allowed banks, thrifts, and mortgage originators to engage in all manner of lending standard abrogations. We have detailed many times the I/O, 2/28, Piggy back, and Ninja type loans here. These never should have been permitted to proliferate the way they did.
The most significant element were the 2/28 APRs, and their put back provision. Just about all of these gave the securitizer/repackager the right to return the loans within 6 (or 12) months if they went into default. Hence, our proposition that the 2002-07 period was unique in the history of finance. If any of these mortgages went bad within 6 months, the undewriter was on the hook.
HOW DIFFERENT WERE LENDING STANDARDS IF YOU ONLY NEED TO ENSURE THE BORROWER WOULDN’T DEFAULT FOR 6 MONTHS VERSUS FINDING BORROWERS WHO WOULDN’T DEFAULT FOR 30 YEARS.
In a rising price environment, 99% of the mortgages were not returned by the securitizers to the originator. From 2001 to 2005, the mortgage firms thrived. However, once prices peaked and reversed, things changed. From 2006-08, Wal Street began putting back mortgages to originators in greater numbers. This led to nearly 300 mortgage firms imploding.
We can blame the lenders, the securitizers, the borrowers, amd Fannie/Freddie, but it doesn’t matter much.By the time Fannie and Freddie began changing their mortgage buying rules, the Housing boom was already in full gear, and the crash was all but inevitable.
What about the ultra low rates? Consider that the Greenspan Fed maintained a 1.75% Fed fund for 33 months (December 2001 to September 2004), a 1.25% for 21 months (November 2002 to August 2004), and lastly, a 1% Fed funds rate for 12+ months, (June 2003 to June 2004). That was fuel for the fire, and fed the boom even more, sending prices skyward.
How incredibly ignorant of palin to cite nyt, and then omit the conclusion drawn from her cite:
“Palin cited a New York Times story on Saturday that examined Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Vietnam War-era militant Weather Underground organization who is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Times concluded they were not close.
I thought Franklin reported back the Ayers slander wouldn’t fly.
The SEC also allowed the investment banks to certify compliance through the firms Internal Auditor, SEC did not even review financial statements in a timely order.
Repbubs did away with oversight and regulation, and the global economies are paying the price.
Looks like the brits are waving the ‘white flag of surrender’ in Afghanistan. British Gen. says the war cannot be won.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081005/ts_nm/us_afghan_taliban_britain_5
#
Raptor
Posted October 5, 2008 at 12:59 pm | Permalink
So, because the ’spin’ says the Republicans caused it, the FACTS don’t matter? The pressure by the Clinton Administration and the policies of a certain Mr. Raines, who is now on Obama’s staff are immaterial because of polls?
Nice spin. Doesn’t change the FACTS.
_________________________________________________
Rap, sorry to say it, but you wouldn’t know a “fact” if it bit you in the a$$.
Americans blame republicans for the current financial crisis by a margin of 2 to one. We know who deregulated banking. We know what crooked politicians gave away everything to their big-business buddies. We know what party favors less regulation and deregulation. This mess is a republican mess. You caused it; you own it.
We’re gonna get into some really silly Republic Party lies over the next four weeks.
Maybe they’ll even try “Franklin’s” line about “Obama is 44% Arab.”
We’re gonna have to live through stuff like “Obama is a bomb-throwing Muslim terrorist socialist pinko commie left-wing vegetarian latte-drinking Volvo-driving playground predator.”
We have 29 days to watch it, and it’ll be a slow-motion Republic Party train wreck.
When it’s over, just who will be the leader of the Republic Party?
The Moose-Dresser?
Good luck with that.
Y’all check this one >>>>
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/325.html
#
XXX
Posted October 5, 2008 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
#
Raptor
Posted October 5, 2008 at 12:59 pm | Permalink
So, because the ’spin’ says the Republicans caused it, the FACTS don’t matter? The pressure by the Clinton Administration and the policies of a certain Mr. Raines, who is now on Obama’s staff are immaterial because of polls?
Nice spin. Doesn’t change the FACTS.
_________________________________________________
Rap, sorry to say it, but you wouldn’t know a “fact” if it bit you in the a$$.
Americans blame republicans for the current financial crisis by a margin of 2 to one. We know who deregulated banking. We know what crooked politicians gave away everything to their big-business buddies. We know what party favors less regulation and deregulation. This mess is a republican mess. You caused it; you own it.
———————————
Evidently you don’t know XXX and your ignorance is glaring.
Jimmeh Carter signed into law, the community readjustment act which allowed low income people not normally eligible for loans to them.
This was expanded and in 1999, Clinton signed the Graham-Steagel Act which opened the flood gates on abuse with deregulation of markets and uncontrolled control on who gets loans.
Every year since 2001, Democrats have obstructed attempts by Bush and the Republican Senate to pass tighter controls on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
There are videos of Democratic Congress people resisting any change to tighter regulations, so don’t even try to weasel out of this one.
The Democrats created, fed and grew this monster, they own it lock, stock and barrel.
On November 12th, 1999, Bill Clinton signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. What that did was allow commercial and investment banks to consolidate. Now, banks began trading and underwriting assets called mortgage backed securities, CDOs, and SIVs, all of the toxic waste that’s coming home to roost today. That was after a one-year, $200 million lobbying effort by the Democrat lobbyists to put this thing through and it was done in opposition to the Congressional Research Service’s own report, the information is out there, all anyone has to do is go do a Web search for Glass-Steagall and repeal. It is unbelievable that the Democrat Party is trying to lay this at the at the foot of the Republican Party when it was Bill Clinton and Democrat lobbyists that pushed this thing through.
http://therightperspective.com/wordpress/?p=80
Bill Clinton admits that he and Democrats resisted efforts to tighten up on regulations for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFwv0FgtebI&feature=related
Must be easier to “keep your word,” when you’ve covered all the bases, taken every side of every issue and aren’t even sure which word you intend to keep today! McCain, the old coot, has many words and the ones he uses today contradict those he used yesterday.
Reg you sound like the guy ordering the fries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hm0aXynhK0
Video: Democrats insist “nothing wrong” at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in 2004
posted at 9:50 am on September 29, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
By 2004, all of the elements of the current financial collapse had been in place for several years. The aggressive approach to enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) started under Bill Clinton in 1998, and the seemingly endless appetite for paper by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had turned massive amounts of bad loans into mortgage-backed securities to spread their cancer throughout the system. In 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten regulation and oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress was told yet again that disaster loomed. The Democratic response is instructive to seeing who really sat back and allowed this collapse to occur (via Power Line):
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/29/video-democrats-insist-nothing-wrong-at-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-in-2004/
=========================================
Highlights of this eight-minute video:
Maxine Waters(D): Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines. [Raines would barely avoid prosecution for fraud.]
Gregory Meeks(D): … I’m just pissed off at OFHEO [the regulators trying to warn Congress of insolvency at the GSEs], because if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think we’d be here in the first place. … There’s been nothing that indicated that’s wrong with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac has come up on its own … The question that then comes up is the competence that your agency has with reference to deciding and regulating these GSEs.
Lacy Clay(D): This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines.
Barney Frank(D): I don’t see anything in this report that raises safety and soundness problems.
————————————–
In 2005, Fortune published a lengthy anaylsis of the impending crash of Fannie Mae, and included this altercation between OFHEO and Congress:
Analysis:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/01/24/8234040/index.htm
Two weeks later Falcon and Raines faced off against each other in a hearing before the House subcommittee on capital markets, which was chaired by Baker. Consider the circumstances. Falcon was Fannie’s regulator and had leveled serious charges, amounting to fraud, against Fannie Mae. Most CEOs would have seen the wisdom of humility at this point, but Raines showed little. “These accounting standards are highly complex and require determinations on which experts often disagree,” he said, adding that “there were no facts” that supported OFHEO’s charge that Fannie executives had deferred an expense in 1998 to earn bonuses.
And most of the Democrats present agreed with him. “This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines,” said Congressman William Lacy Clay of Missouri. Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank said, “I see nothing in here that suggests that safety and soundness are an issue.” Other Democrats complained that the mere fact of releasing the report could increase the cost of home-ownership.
“Is it possible that by casting all of these aspersions … you potentially are weakening this institution in the market, that you are potentially weakening the housing market in this country?” Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama demanded. When Falcon tried to answer, Davis acted like a prosecutor grilling a hostile witness. He wanted a one-word answer: yes or no. “Is that possible?” he asked again.
“I have never seen anyone treated as disrespectfully as Armando Falcon was by the Democrats and by Franklin Raines,” recalls one congressional aide. Adds Andrew Cuomo: “I credit him for not folding and not caving and not running, because he took a tremendous beating.”
Unfortunately for the Democrats at this hearing, Raines then doubled down and demanded that the SEC give a second opinion on his business practices. After an investigation, the SEC agreed with Falcon and demanded that Fannie Mae restate its earnings all the way back to 2001 — at which point Raines’ fraud got uncovered. OFHEO had been correct, and the Democrats in this committee meeting had done their level best to interfere with the regulator to cover up for Raines’ fraud.
The Democrats attacking the regulator here didn’t do so out of some deep conviction against government regulation. They wanted to keep the gravy train rolling on questionable mortgages in order to endear themselves to the working class, and didn’t mind smearing the OFHEO regulator as a racist in order to succeed. The Republicans who wanted more oversight didn’t demand it as socialists looking for a government takeover of the financial sector, either, but because they saw the impending disaster looming for Fannie Mae.
Democrats distorted the market through the CRA and through Fannie and Freddie’s massive securitizing of bad debt, and then blocked regulators from doing their jobs. That’s the real story of this collapse.
Hot Air Website and Blog Archive
Raptor,
Do you enjoy being conned by right-wing lies?
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/fanniemae.asp
It appears loons like Annie Moose ignore the facts even when presented them.
The Democrats own this financial crisis and it has been proven by video, official documents and Congressional record.
“We’re gonna get into some really silly Republic Party lies over the next four weeks.”
No doubts that Monkeyhawk.
As it becomes increasingly clear that McCain is sinking in place, he’ll start stinking the place.
We already see the desperate frustration here.
Posters like outlander and Raptor who have always been marginally rational even in opposition are beginning to post and glom onto stuff they wouldn’t have touched before. Will we end up with a blog where all the cons are Franklin I am personally hoping against.
Well, maybe THIS will shut up the Anti-American Reich Wingers >>>>
“I believe there is a Second Amendment right. I think it is an individual right. I think people have the right to lawfully bear arms.” [SOURCE: OFA policy statement; Obama press conference, Watertown SD 5/16/08; CBS News 9/05/08; Obama on CNN 6/25/08; Obama Bloomberg Interview, 6/26/08]
Hmm.
Link is too long to cut and paste.
Or at least I’ll confess I’m not clever enough to do it.
This is worth a look.
Google “Poll”+”Inidana”+”McCain”
The first hit you get goes to Rasmussen reports polling.
It is an older poll, but it shows McCain slipping and Obama gaining in Indiana.
If McCain is in trouble in Indiana, he is in SERIOUS trouble.
I’m happy to tell friends, and even happier to tell cons…
it gets worse.
McCain’s campaign has bought ad space ON that poll site!
Straddling the news of McCain’s slide are two big McCain/Palin banners.
Message I get?
HELP!
Hehehe,
the cons have been conned so they want to blame it on the libs and mexicans. If you masters of the universe knew in advance what was going to happen why did you let it?
Why couldn’t Palin answer Couric’s questions? Why does she insist that being Gov of Alaska enhances her foreign policy creds?
Because she lost her “patience”?
‘Palin walking point for McCain’
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkpCxPShAoQW_1-Ip_nXika_IZzgD93KG6KO0
“And though she conceded that her interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric last month was “not too successful,” she feels a need to explain why her some of her answers seemed befuddled.
“I just kind of lost my patience,” she told a gathering of California donors.
————–
If Palin became president, what would happen if she lost her “patience” during a major crisis?
With 30 days until Nov. 4, Karl Rove projects that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would get at least 273 electoral votes – three more than are needed to win – if the presidential election were held today.
The remarkable forecast from the architect of the last two nationwide political victories underscores the straits that have rapidly enveloped Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as the banking and credit crisis spread.
Rove writes on Rove.com: “39 new state polls released in the first three days of October have given Barack Obama his first lead over the magic number of 270 since mid-July. Minnesota (10 EV) and New Hampshire (4 EV) both moved from toss-up to Obama, giving him 273 electoral votes to McCain’s 163, with 102 votes remaining as a toss-up.
mxyzptlk must be an older person or a collector of ‘Superman comic books.’
Uhm. . . could someone explain to me how the Bush administration’s proposed overall of the GSEs would have changed anything?
The administration’s proposal, which was endorsed in large part today by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would not repeal the significant government subsidies granted to the two companies. And it does not alter the implicit guarantee that Washington will bail the companies out if they run into financial difficulty; that perception enables them to issue debt at significantly lower rates than their competitors. Nor would it remove the companies’ exemptions from taxes and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
How did we get here?
Human Events
Obama’s Hands are Dirty in the Financial Crisis by helping ACORN to get funding
FOLLOW THE MONEY AND CORRUPTION! A Lending Policy created by democrats for democrats run by democrats monitored by democrats enforced by community organizer democrats and profited from by democrats.
The following information is condensed from an article by Stanley Kurtz. O’s Dangerous Pals.
Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster. ONE key pioneer of ACORN’s subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott – an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae’s mortgage policies.
It would be tough to find an “on the ground” community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.
When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.
He returned to Chicago in the early ’90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN’s up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott’s drive against Chicago’s banks.
More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago’s Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation’s board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers – and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.
That committee’s report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama’s organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott’s ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.
More, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report acknowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN – whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.
Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public’s eye. The Woods Fund’s claim to be “nonideological,” it says, has “enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government ‘establishments’ without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship.”
The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN’s Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.
And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott’s way – ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN’s overall efforts.
In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama’s first campaign for state Senate, saying, “We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer.”
In short, to understand the roots of the subprime mortgage crisis, look to ACORN’s Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.
“We missed a golden opportunity that would have avoided a lot of the problems we’re facing now, if we hadn’t had such a firm ideological position at the White House and the Treasury and the Fed [in 2005].
…
All the handwringing and bedwetting is going on without remembering how the House stepped up on this. What did we get from the White House? We got a one-finger salute.”
former Congressman Mike Oxley (R-Ohio), Sept 9, 2008
“mxyzptlk must be an older person or a collector of ‘Superman comic books.’”
ralugeR :eR
TTFND
Hey, look at the right-wing wackos! (points)
http://arkansasgopwing.blogspot.com/2008/09/obama-acorn-root-causes-of-mortgage.html
‘Barack Obama Never Organized with ACORN’
http://fightthesmears.com/articles/20/acornrumor
The Financial Times (the source of the ‘one-finger salute’ quote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8780c35e-7e91-11dd-b1af-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
The House bill, the 2005 Federal Housing Finance Reform Act, would have created a stronger regulator with new powers to increase capital at Fannie and Freddie, to limit their portfolios and to deal with the possibility of receivership.
Mr Oxley reached out to Barney Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the committee and now its chairman, to secure support on the other side of the aisle. But after winning bipartisan support in the House, where the bill passed by 331 to 90 votes, the legislation lacked a champion in the Senate and faced hostility from the Bush administration.
Adamant that the only solution to the problems posed by Fannie and Freddie was their privatisation, the White House attacked the bill. Mr Greenspan also weighed in, saying that the House legislation was worse than no bill at all.
“We missed a golden opportunity that would have avoided a lot of the problems we’re facing now, if we hadn’t had such a firm ideological position at the White House and the Treasury and the Fed,” Mr Oxley says.
But back in Chicago, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is more important than Iraq or Washington. ACORN and its associated Midwest Academy, both founded in the 1970s, continue to train and mobilize activists throughout the country, often using them to manipulate public opinion through “direct action.” It’s sometimes a code for illegal activities.
Prior to law school, Barack Obama worked as an organizer for their affiliates in New York and Chicago. He always has been an ACORN person — meeting and working with them to advance their causes. Through his membership on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago and his friendship with Teresa Heinz Kerry, Obama has helped ensure that they remain funded well.
Since he graduated from law school, Obama’s work with ACORN and the Midwest Academy has ranged from training and fundraising, to legal representation and promoting their work.
Today, Barack Obama’s conduct and “misgauging appearances” are the responsibility of his Democrat colleagues. In two years, it might be yours and mine.
Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/datelinedc/s_488184.html
Blue Jay,
Re; Indiana
posted from Fort Wayne
Hoosiers like to send messages. We are angry about Bush. But we will not allow Obama to take the state. We will make our anger known, but when the curtain closes Indiana votes Republican, and especially when the alternative is as liberal as Obama/Biden.
Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.
Who was that masked man?
“In his capacity as an attorney, Barack represented ACORN in a successful lawsuit alongside the U.S. Department of Justice against the state of Illinois to force state compliance with a federal voting access law. For his work helping enforce the law, called “Motor Voter,” Barack received the IVI-IPO Legal Eagle Award in 1995.”
That was it. He didn’t organize people for ACORN to browbeat banks, etc. He organized workers to get blacks involved in voting, and in turn, government. Ain’t that something: Americans getting involved in their government. My guess is if was about whites getting involved, we wouldn’t be hearing a peep from the right.
Only the right-wing could see this as bad.
THE POLL: A South Bend Tribune/WSBT poll of 600 likely voters in the presidential election in Indiana (11 electoral votes).
THE NUMBERS: John McCain 46 percent, Barack Obama 45 percent.
OF INTEREST: The results mirror those of other recent Indiana polls that showed the presidential race tight or McCain with a slight lead. Obama’s campaign has said the state is in play despite its history as a Republican stronghold.
DETAILS: Telephone survey conducted Monday and Tuesday by Research 2000 with 600 likely voters. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 4 percentage points.
MORE: http://www.sbtinfo.com/
GodFather of Wignuttia,
Regs source of bullsh$t
Richard Mellon Scaife (born July 3, 1932) is an American billionaire and newspaper publisher.
Scaife owns and publishes the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. With $1.2 billion, Scaife, a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, is No. 283 on the 2005 Forbes 400.
Scaife is particularly well known for his financial support of conservative public policy organizations over the past two decades. Scaife has provided support for conservative and libertarian causes in the U.S., mostly through the private, nonprofit foundations he controls: the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Carthage Foundation, and Allegheny Foundation, and until 2001 the Scaife Family Foundation, now controlled by his daughter Jennie and son David.[1][2] Scaife also helped fund the Arkansas Project, which ultimately led to the impeachment proceedings of President Bill Clinton.
Contents
[hide]
Aaron Bacon, a 20-year-old student at Emerson, says college students can get wrapped up in their everyday busy work, and voting may not be a priority. That is why he, along with six friends, created a website, BeAbsentee.org , pushing absentee voting as the right way to vote.
Last spring, Bacon and his friends were talking about the upcoming election and about the reasons young people don’t go out to the polls as much in comparison with older people.
“So many times people register to vote, and Rock the Vote is good about registering people, but you can’t expect them to show up at the polls. It’s one day a year, and a narrow window of time for college students who still wake up at noon,” Bacon said.
After Google-searching about absentee voting, Bacon came to realize that the information was not readily accessible. BeAbsentee.org has gathered all of the information needed and broken it down by state.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/10/05/absentee_voting_101_emerson_student_writes_college_primer/
http://beabsentee.org/
Rage,
South Bend and Gary are the rare Democrat strongholds in Indiana (with any population size). The former is old Catholic immigrants, the latter are voters of color.
Indy is the largest city. Ft Wayne and Evansville are big, too. How do they look on your polls?
Our current Governor is Republican and Evan Bayh is a Clintonesta.
Rage, Thus if the Indiana race is close in South Bend, it is Red on balance.
Pretty good info on the crisis below, from wilki:
‘Government policies
Several critics have commented that the current regulatory framework is outdated. President George W. Bush stated in September 2008: “Once this crisis is resolved, there will be time to update our financial regulatory structures. Our 21st century global economy remains regulated largely by outdated 20th century laws. Recently, we’ve seen how one company can grow so large that its failure jeopardizes the entire financial system.”[65] The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has conceded that self-regulation of investment banks contributed to the crisis.[66]
Economist Robert Kuttner has criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 as possibly contributing to the subprime meltdown, although other economists disagree.[67][68] A taxpayer-funded government bailout related to mortgages during the savings and loan crisis may have created a moral hazard and acted as encouragement to lenders to make similar higher risk loans.[69] Additionally, there is debate among economists regarding the effect of the Community Reinvestment Act, with detractors claiming it encourages lending to uncreditworthy consumers[70][71][72][73] and defenders claiming a thirty year history of lending without increased risk.[74][75][76][77] Detractors also claim that amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s, raised the amount of home loans to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers and also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages.[78][79] A study by a legal firm which counsels financial services entities on Community Reinvestment Act compliance found that CRA-covered institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when they did the interest rates were lower. The banks were half as likely to resell the loans to other parties.[80]
Some have argued that, despite attempts by various U.S. states to prevent the growth of a secondary market in repackaged predatory loans, the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at the insistence of national banks, struck down such attempts as violations of Federal banking laws.[81]
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s mortgage policies fueled the trend towards issuing risky loans.[82][83][84] In 1995, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began receiving affordable housing credit for purchasing mortgage backed securities which included loans to low income borrowers. This resulted in the agencies purchasing subprime securities.[85] Subprime mortgage loan originations surged by 25% per year between 1994 and 2003, resulting in a nearly ten-fold increase in the volume of these loans in just nine years.[86] As of November 2007 Fannie Mae held a total of $55.9 billion of subprime securities and $324.7 billion of Alt-A securities in their portfolios.[87] As of the 2008Q2 Freddie Mac had $190 billion in Alt-A mortgages. Together they have more than half of the $1 trillion of Alt-A mortgages.[88] The growth in the subprime mortgage market, which included B, C and D paper bought by private investors such as hedge funds, fed a housing bubble that later burst.
A September 30, 1999 New York Times article stated, “… the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans… The action… will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough… Fannie Mae… has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people… borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough… Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk… the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble… prompting a government rescue… the move is intended in part to increase the number of… home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings…” [89]
On September 10, 2003, U.S. Congressman Ron Paul gave a speech to Congress where he said that the then current government policies encouraged lending to people who couldn’t afford to pay the money back, and he predicted that this would lead to a bailout, and he introduced a bill to abolish these policies. [90]
[edit] Conflict of interest
Gerald P. O’Driscoll former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas stated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had become classic examples of crony capitalism. Government backing let Fannie and Freddie dominate the mortgage-underwriting. “The politicians created the mortgage giants, which then returned some of the profits to the pols – sometimes directly, as campaign funds; sometimes as “contributions” to favored constituents.”[91]
On April 18, 2006 home loan giant Freddie Mac was fined $3.8 million, by far the largest amount ever assessed by the Federal Election Commission, as a result of illegal campaign contributions. Much of the illegal fund raising benefited members of the United States House Committee on Financial Services, a panel whose decisions can affect Freddie Mac.[92]
Some lawmakers received favorable treatment from financial institutions involved in the subprime industry. (See Countrywide financial political loan scandal). In June 2008 Conde Nast Portfolio reported that numerous Washington, DC politicians over recent years had received mortgage financing at noncompetitive rates at Countrywide Financial because the corporation considered for the officeholders under a program called “FOA’s”–”Friends of Angelo”. Angelo being Countrywide’s Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo.[93] On 18 June 2008, a Congressional ethics panel started examining allegations that chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Christopher Dodd (D-CT), and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad (D-ND) received preferential loans by troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp.[94] Two former CEO of Fannie Mae Franklin Raines and James A. Johnson also received preferential loans from the troubled mortgage lender. Fannie Mae was the biggest buyer of Countrywide’s mortgages.[95]
[edit] Policies of central banks
Central banks are primarily concerned with managing the rate of inflation and avoiding recessions. They are also the “lenders of last resort” to ensure liquidity. They are less concerned with avoiding asset bubbles, such as the housing bubble and dot-com bubble. Central banks have generally chosen to react after such bubbles burst to minimize collateral impact on the economy, rather than trying to avoid the bubble itself. This is because identifying an asset bubble and determining the proper monetary policy to properly deflate it are a matter of debate among economists regarding whether this is the optimal strategy.[96][97]
Federal Reserve actions raised concerns among some market observers that it could create a moral hazard. Some industry officials said that Federal Reserve Bank of New York involvement in the rescue of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 would encourage large financial institutions to assume more risk, in the belief that the Federal Reserve would intervene on their behalf.[98]
A contributing factor to the rise in home prices was the lowering of interest rates earlier in the decade by the Federal Reserve, to diminish the blow of the collapse of the dot-com bubble and combat the risk of deflation.[96] From 2000 to 2003, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate target from 6.5% to 1.0%.[99] The central bank believed that interest rates could be lowered safely because the rate of inflation was low and disregarded other factors. The Federal Reserve’s inflation figures, however, were flawed[citation needed]. Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, stated that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy during this time period was misguided by this erroneously low inflation data, thus contributing to the housing bubble.[100]
re: bjb
DNFTT — friggin Indiana SHILL..
What’s the code word for damned lies and smears????
WAHAHAHHAA!!!!!
Sarah Palin can’t even read a coffee cup?
And Palin seems to be saying that women who don’t vote for McCain/Palin will go to hell. She’s playing both the gender and religion cards.
‘Palin Misquotes Albright: “Place In Hell Reserved For Women Who Don’t Support Other Women”‘
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/05/palin-misquotes-albright_n_131967.html
“Albright responded to Palin’s remarks in a statement to the Huffington Post on Sunday. “Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics.
This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden.” “
Which one, DaviB… There would appear to be many!! LOL
X–why is such vularity part of your means of “discussion”? I pasted a verfied story form the New York Times, and your response is a personal and vulgar insult about how I wouldn’t know my A$$ from a fact.
Why do you resort to such immaturity? Are you the only person here allowed to have an opinion and you will insult anyone who dares to have a separate thought?
Why is this such typical lib tactics? That and accusing anyone with a thought other than theirs as a ‘troll’ or a ’shill’ and therefore after making that judgment you feel that the facts/opinions expressed are worthless?
Is it possible to get an answer to my question other than “THEY STARTED IT” which is the norm for such mentally immature people.
We could be discussing POLICY.. but they want us to waste time discounting smears, lies and innuendo…
Raptor,
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/fanniemae.asp
A new CNN Poll of Polls in Colorado suggests the battle for the state’s 9 electoral votes is a dead heat. In the survey, compiled Sunday, 47 percent of likely voters in Colorado back Barack Obama for president, with 46 percent supporting John McCain. Seven percent of those questioned are undecided.
I pasted a verfied story form the New York Times, and your response is a personal and vulgar insult about how I wouldn’t know my A$$ from a fact.
Rap, your own link emphasizes this:
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
These, of course, are the folks who were deregulated with the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
The genesis of this mess is complicated, of course. I think the point XXX was making is that happened largely on the watch oF Republicans (notwithstanding the helpful gladhandling of people like Lawrence Summers and Chuck Shumer). The point is not the Democrats bear no responsibility (or shouldn’t be, anyway), but rather that it was to a large a deregulatory approach to the financial markets (endlessly championed by most conservatives) that got us into this mess.
As far as “shill”iness goes, you don’t helo yourself with factually groundless crap like this:
The pressure by the Clinton Administration and the policies of a certain Mr. Raines, who is now on Obama’s staff are immaterial because of polls?
Nice spin. Doesn’t change the FACTS.
P.S. I should probably point out that Shumer was a freshman Senator. Though he had been in the House for several years, he had zero seniority at the time.
P.P.S. If you’ll notice at my link above, the people in the story predicting this mess were the fairly liberal folks like Wellstone, Feingold and Dorgan.
Rage–thanks for your reply. My response on the polls was meant to emphasize that just because a lot of people think it is a purely Republican responsibility, that doesn’t make it true.
Personally, I think both sides share blame in this mess, but the emphasis now should focus on restoring stability instead of trying to place blame. I found it incredibly scary to read that the sub prime mess was forecast by the NYT almost 10 years ahead of time.
I didn’t realize I was hitting you so close to home there bjb.
Your take is noted. But the fact is?
Indiana should not even be close. At the link I referenced, it is mentioned that McCain was losing ground while Obama is gaining it. They are separated by only a point or two.
THAT was two almost 3 weeks ago. What good news has John McCain had since then?
You cons have to know how bad it really is. McCain abandoned Michigan. As bad as that news is, it is not nearly so bad as noting that that news came out so easily.
Abandoning a major state like Michigan is NOT something you want the whole world to know about. If your campaign is still strong, confident, and organized, you conduct a skilled and silent retreat.
That didn’t happen. Michigan was abandoned and the whole world knew about it almost immediately. This speaks to a campaign that is disorganized and faltering. They can’t keep their bad news in the family.
Biden cancels events after mother-in-law’s death
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden has canceled his campaign appearances Monday and Tuesday after the death of his mother-in-law Sunday.
Biden spokesman David Wade said Bonny Jean Jacobs, the mother of Biden’s wife, Jill, died Sunday after a long illness.
Jacobs was 78 and lived in Willow Grove, Pa. Wade described her as a “homemaker and avid gardener with a lifelong love of reading.”
“We appreciate everyone’s respect for the family’s privacy during this difficult time,” Wade said.
Do you know where Sarah Palin is this afternoon?
She is defending a congressional district in Omaha Nebraska.
I’ll just leave that right there.
And I’m gonna ride into Omaha on a horse
Out to the country club and the golf course.
Carry the New York Times, shoot a few holes, blow their minds.
.
annie_moose
Posted October 5, 2008 at 3:43 pm | Permalink
GodFather of Wignuttia,
Regs source of bullsh$t
Richard Mellon Scaife (born July 3, 1932) is an American billionaire and newspaper publisher.
———————–
Have something against the free press?
Or is the freedom of the press only for the far left jackals?
This poll wont make McCain/Palin very happy.
‘Women Voters Prefer Hillary Clinton to Sarah Palin in 2012 By a 2-to-1 Margin‘
National Poll Finds Broad Support for Hillary On Politics, ‘Trust,’ ‘Role Model’ and Other Values.
Use google to find links — the blog seems to be “moderating” posts that contain links.
BlueJay,
I don’t think it’d be possible for McCain to make a “silent” retreat from Michigan — the media would quickly note the lack of ads, etc.
The amount of money, time, etc spent by each campaign in each state is part of the electoral estimate.
And other GOP races in Michigan complained about McCain’s retreat.
That said, Palin isn’t helping the campaign by keeping the story alive, by complaining to the MSM that Michigan should not be abandoned.
McCain quitting Michigan also gives Obama more $ and time to fight in Nebraska, N. Carolina, and other contested states.
“Or is the freedom of the press only for the far left”?
Yes, that is why the Far Right ACLU is always having to defend freedoms!! WHAHAHAHHAHAH
Just type any unsupportable, ridiculous sentence you want. It enhances your reputation….
DavidB
Posted October 5, 2008 at 7:14 pm | Permalink
Just type any unsupportable, ridiculous sentence you want. It enhances your reputation…
——————-
Providing videos of Democratic Congress people defending Fannie Mae and its corrupt executives is not proof enough for you eh?
Showing the Congressional record of how the Democrats voted time and again against any reform for control over sub prime mortgages is not factual enough for you?
I have a good idea who is not living in reality in this case and I’m not in that number.
Far right ACLU…what is that, the NRA?
Because, yes, they are always having to fight for our freedoms.
Maybe Obama should run for President 12 years from now… after the youth are brainwashed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08BAfKCfu74&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUEQz5dltmI
The latest in T-Shirts for all my fellow Conservatives:
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/hitler-gave-great-speeches-too-dark-tshirt/274269666
60 min. tonight said the real problem wasn’t the mortgaged default, it was all the cds, money bet on the sidelines which had the recent mortgages as their base.
Totally unregulated markets, est. at around 60 tril. I believe that is causing all the angst and bankruptcies. They said even the people playing at the top had no idea what they were speculating with, but saw their chance to enrich themselves.
The Supreme Court upheld the Second… you can stop crying.. no one will take your guns away….
The Supreme Court upheld the Second… you can stop crying.. no one will take your guns away….
Phantom,
I missed 60 minutes. Were they talking about the “derivatives” that avtolle and ksfarmgrrl explained to us this past week? Is that what you mean by the “unregulated markets?”
“…you can stop crying…”
—-
They’re not going to quit crying! Guns, guns, guns, guns. There are a few who must stroke, hold, caress, cherish to a point I don’t ever want to understand! Honestly! I don’t ever in my entire life want to understand that kind of obsession!
Yeah… LOL
The supreme court upheld a womans right to privacy over her own body.
So you guys can quit crying about abortion too.
Linda,
Well, if everytime the Demcorats got enough votes in Congress to keep restricting my gun rights, I wouldn’t be making such a big deal out of it.
Same thing in every city, state, and other local governments.
When the left takes over, they try to restrict gun rights more and more.
And you say I am obsessed?
“Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.”
Diane Feinstein
“If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an out right ban,
picking up every one of them… “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in,”I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t here.”
Diane Feinstein
Why won’t Obama debate me? What is he scared of?
What a coward.
Are you in the race for president, Nathan?
You may keep your guns, Please. Quit belly-aching! LOL. Has anyone come around to take your guns away?
Hillary has the black helicopters (with stealth mode) in storage. Relax. Relax.
The Second Amendment was recently upheld, remember?
Obama is for common sense gun controls. Aren’t you?
Now. A greener energy policy. Economic policy. Foreign policy. Iraq. Afghanistan. Darfur. National debt. Middle class tax relief. Health care.
These are the issues Americans talk about around the dinner table.
Senator Obama:
“Senator McCain and his operatives are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. … I want you to know that I’m going to keep on talking about issues that matter.”
Ditto.
Nathan you do believe in gun bans too. You do believe that criminals should be banned from posessing arms, right?
We all agree on weapons bans, its where the line is drawn on the details that we disagree on. And the propaganda used on each side as well.
Political_mama
Posted October 5, 2008 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
Nathan you do believe in gun bans too. You do believe that criminals should be banned from posessing arms, right?
—————————–
Convicted felons are already banned in purchasing, buying or using fire arms.
Criminals use illegal firearms, stolen or purchased illegal.
You’re right, DavidB. Except for those who are obsessed with their guns. Or with abortion. Or same-sex marriage. All things that shouldn’t be another’s business, definitely not government business!
BUT, it does change the subject, doesn’t it!?
Palin says voters don’t know ‘the real Barack Obama’
She also laughed off her roundly criticized interviews with CBS anchor Katie Couric, joking that she’s been repeatedly asked, “Why do you do so lousy in that Katie Couric interview?”
Her answer sent the entire room into laughter: “What I should have said was, ‘It’s just job security for Tina Fey.’
http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_10645486
Sarah Palin’s serious answer to the question is funnier than her Tina Fey answer.
“And though she conceded that her interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric last month was “not too successful,” she feels a need to explain why her some of her answers seemed befuddled.
“I just kind of lost my patience,” she told a gathering of California donors. “
After eight years under a Democrat President: Budget surplus.
After eight years of Bush: ten trillion dollar debt.
’nuff said.
I really don’t expect her to come out and truthfully say, “I am not well informed, I am not curious about things outside my interests, my interests to this point have been decided by what I needed to know to exploit my ambitions, being on the ticket as the VP is beyond my wildest dreams (but I don’t want anyone to know that, I really am not well-qualified but I am ambitious to a fault so will hide that fact with all due diligence.”
From Linda’s link…
“Palin said she would take back to McCain advice she heard from her two-day California swing: “Enough of you have whispered in my ear”… ‘John, take the gloves off.’ Americans have to start hearing about the real Barack Obama.”
In other words, the nutjobs who show up to love Sarah want John McCain to take off the gloves.
Well? I want the media to take off the gloves on McCain and Palin.
Obama was interviewed by con Bill O’Reilly.
An invitation is out for Sarah Palin to be interviewed by Keith Olberman or Rachel Maddow.
Has she got the guts to accept? I mean after John McCain punked out on David Letterman and all?
Sooo we all agree with Senator Obama. Common sense gun ownership laws are okay!
Common ground!
I’m all in favor of having ALL the cameras pointed to both McCain and Palin, a microphone catching their every word. ;-)
Reg asks earlier,
Have something against the free press?
Only when they print lies and spin
—————————————-
Or is the freedom of the press only for the far left
jackals?
That’s your definition of freedom, making sh%t up?
#
annie_moose
Posted October 5, 2008 at 10:23 pm | Permalink
Reg asks earlier,
Have something against the free press?
Only when they print lies and spin
—————————————-
Or is the freedom of the press only for the far left
jackals?
That’s your definition of freedom, making sh%t up?
————————–
What you just wrote is all you got?
What specifically did I make up?
Or are you just flapping your arms trying to get your large hairy butt off the ground?
Or are you just flapping your arms trying to get your large hairy butt off the ground?
————————————
Hehehe,
I’m airborne circling North Oliver as I type… look outside Reg I got a present for you. Get it while it’s still warm.
mxyzptlk,
More news on the CNN polls…
CNN now has Obama leading in Florida.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/map/polling/
Florida blue! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Oh, sorry, it just struck me as funny.
You’re next James McCluer.
I’m busy just now.
“The party line is that Mr. Dole’s resignation from the Senate will kick-start a campaign that will lead to the White House. “I expect to have President Dole, so I would trade two senior Senators for a President any day,” said Paul Rosell, the state Republican Party’s treasurer.”
Huh guess that didn’t work out so well.
#
BlueJay
Posted October 5, 2008 at 10:38 pm | Permalink
You’re next James McCluer.
I’m busy just now.
“The party line is that Mr. Dole’s resignation from the Senate will kick-start a campaign that will lead to the White House. “I expect to have President Dole, so I would trade two senior Senators for a President any day,” said Paul Rosell, the state Republican Party’s treasurer.”
Huh guess that didn’t work out so well.
———————————-
Next for what?
Personal attacks from you because you can’t discuss the issues without lying your ass off or attacking other posters?
What else is new?
#
annie_moose
Posted October 5, 2008 at 10:37 pm | Permalink
Or are you just flapping your arms trying to get your large hairy butt off the ground?
————————————
Hehehe,
I’m airborne circling North Oliver as I type… look outside Reg I got a present for you. Get it while it’s still warm.
———————–
Why don’t you post your street location as well?
Or do you have the courage?
Or do you have the honesty of giving your real street name?
annie_moose posted October 5, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Reg asks earlier,
Have something against the free press?
Only when they print lies and spin
————
Multi-nic’d Regular loves lies and spin.
He added acompletely fictional paragraph to his copy/paste about the New Orleans levees.
Multi-nic’d also regularly posts lies about climate science, what other posters believe, etc.
The other things he loves as much as his lies and spin are his stupid insults, and ad hominems.
Catch me in one lie James. That should keep you busy while I am after similar game.
#
BlueJay
Posted October 5, 2008 at 10:47 pm | Permalink
Catch me in one lie James. That should keep you busy while I am after similar game.
————————-
When your lips move or when you type is when you lie.
That was easy.
Next!
Why don’t you post your street location as well?
Or do you have the courage?
Or do you have the honesty of giving your real street name?
——————————————————
Reg
Cuz I’m a scared of getting my tires slashed
http://money.cnn.com/data/premarket/
looks like a rough ride for Mr.Markets tomorrow.
LOL Annie!!
Hey James?
The cons are planning a meetup.
I don’t see you being invited.
Like when Nathan did not show up for lunch?
Now? Folks on my side have tried to help you. We have forgiven you your….whatever and encouraged you to seek help. Steven even came to meet you. Where was Nathan that day?
Remember when XXX told me to back off of you?
You are being used James. The cons don’t care about you. They don’t invite you to their meetings.
As I say, I have better things to do. But at least I dignified your presence here. Try getting a con to do that.
#
BlueJay
Posted October 5, 2008 at 11:02 pm | Permalink
Hey James?
The cons are planning a meetup.
I don’t see you being invited.
Like when Nathan did not show up for lunch?
Now? Folks on my side have tried to help you. We have forgiven you your….whatever and encouraged you to seek help. Steven even came to meet you. Where was Nathan that day?
Remember when XXX told me to back off of you?
You are being used James. The cons don’t care about you. They don’t invite you to their meetings.
As I say, I have better things to do. But at least I dignified your presence here. Try getting a con to do that.
————————–
Cry me a river Junior.
You really don’t know me at all do you?
last one for me
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/10/05/weekinreview/20081005marsh_grfk.html
the futures so bright i gots ta wear shades
I know you are not invited to the con meetups there James.
But for me, like you are for them, you are just noise.
I’ve better things to do.
“# Paul Rosell Says:
September 30th, 2004 at 1:14 am
Pennsylvania residents, we need YOU: Either go to the Secretary of State of Pennsylvania — sorry, I think they call it the Pennsylvania Dept of State, Elections office, physically, or go to the Philladelphia Election Office. I was told by someone in the State Election Office to “call the Philly Election Office” at (215)686-1500 or at (215)686-1505 to get the Party Affiliation and voting records of the Cocco family. It would be interesting if her college age child has recently registered. I am sure MS Cocco is a Dem or a Green. She can’t possibly be a Republican. This is PUBLIC information. You can look at her current party affiliation, if she has ever switched parties, and how often she votes. Again, try to get the entire “Cocco PUFF PAD” bunch.
Pennsylvania, you are the key (STONE) to this story. WE NEED THIS INFO AND GAS IS EXPENSIVE OR I WOULD DO IT!
It might be a month through the mail.
Someone get to the court house or state house and get the goods on Cocco!”
Hey Regular!
Explain how a tiny correction of the international CO2 standard by 0.16 ppb proves that the scientists, who properly used the standard before the correction, did sloppy work.
Isn’t that what you claimed, when you posted as “JM”?
Yawn…
Like flies looking to lay their eggs hoping to hatch in to larvae maggots, duh Libs come out at night.
Predictable…boring…
Looks like the Reich Wing is laying low tonite… They gotta figure out which Obama Lies to tell tomorrow… Takes time to remember which ones have already been debunked!!
on that note —————
good night; good luck; god bless —-
whatever you conceive god to be!!
blessings ALL!!
so mote it be!!
Multi-nic’d Regular oosted October 5, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Yawn…
Like flies looking to lay their eggs hoping to hatch in to larvae maggots, duh Libs come out at night.
——————-
Like I posted earlier,
“The other things [Regular] loves as much as his lies and spin are his stupid insults, and ad hominems.”
Sarah Palin wants the gloves off?
They’re off.
Finally: One story was of a protestor who encouraged *kids* to lie down across Kellog Street, *easily* one of the busiest avenues in the city. While this link verifies that such an incident did indeed occur, it unfortunately doesn’t tie it to the Wichita protests. Still, I’m convinced that the incident referred to in this webpage *did* take place in Wichita… I’ll do a bit of research in the local library to confirm this in the next few days — “The Democratic Party focused on a group of The Extreme Team All Stars — 15 extreme delegates who include … Paul Rosell, Kansas Republican Party treasurer who was convicted of child endangerment for leading children to lie in front of moving cars during an abortion clinic blockade.”
DavidB,
Don’t worry. No one wants to ever stop any abortion at all.
We are for “common sense” pro-life measures. Aren’t you?
Regular,
If there has been any con meeting I have either not been invited or have not been.
I don’t know what BlueJay’s problem is, but he is obsessed with not only flaunting how he doesn’t invite anyone to his activities, but how others are left out as well.
He must have been truly traumatized when he was in Jr. High School.
My father and I have been talking about trying to go to lunch with you some time, but they have been out of town for most of the last month and a half.
I am planning on trying to go that Tiahrt thing to see okobserver. Perhaps we could do dinner after. What date was that? The 16th?
“My father and I have been talking about trying to go to lunch with you some time”
A real LONG time now. I’m sorry “Regular” that they treat you so. I have been many times offered the dignification of lunching with the Price’s. I turned it down.
“I am planning on trying to go that Tiahrt thing to see okobserver. Perhaps we could do dinner after. What date was that? The 16th?”
In other words, they don’t want you along for the main event.
You’re embarrassing.
But Nathan will acknowledge your existence after.
Now James don’t take this as an invite to the progressive side.
We don’t want you. But we would not use you as the cons do.
Nathaniel posted October 5, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Regular,
If there has been any con meeting I have either not been invited or have not been.
…
I am planning on trying to go that Tiahrt thing to see okobserver. Perhaps we could do dinner after. What date was that? The 16th?
———–
Nathaniel posted October 4, 2008 at 8:58 pm
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/10/is-it-all-about-palin-in-2012/#comment-439829
Okobserver,
I am not sure about the answer to the riddle, but I would come regardless of you having enough food.
I would help out as well.
————
okobserver posted October 4, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Well that sounds like an idea. Name the time and place. I really enjoyed your dad and so did my grandson. I am working down at Tiahrts office one night next week. They always feed pizza to the volunteers. Lets name a night and have a weblog meeting and do our good deed for the week.
…
Get back to me about the meetup. I’m game.
Cosmos,
Guess you forgot to read:
“has been”
Idiot.
Nathaniel,
If you go to the “weblog meeting” to see okobserver, make sure that she knows that Sarah Palin said that there’s a “place in hell reserved for women who don’t support other women”.
The threat of going to “hell” should help motivate okobserver to vote for McCain/Palin, if the weather is bad election day, etc. . .
‘Palin Misquotes Albright: “Place In Hell Reserved For Women Who Don’t Support Other Women”‘
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/05/palin-misquotes-albright_n_131967.html
So…
Palin uses the word “support” instead of “help” and that has you all upset?
Nevermind that support is a synonym for help.
Idiot.
I’ve always known that the media has a liberal bias, even though they claim to be fair and balanced. But this year, they have gone overboard, and it’s obvious that there is one candidate of choice that they are really trying to help into the White House – and that is Barrack Obama. I have nothing personal against Obama, though I am a die-hard Republican and am backing McCain and Palin 100% all the way to the White House. What I AM irked at is the media’s strong bias toward him. Sean Hannity referred to 2008 as “The Year Journalism Died.”, and seeing how biased and unfair the networks have been in their treatment of the candidates, I believe he is right.
Obama has been the darling of the liberal media for quite some time now, and Hollywood seems to be swooning all over him as well. During the time between the period that Hillary Clinton stepped down and Sarah Palin arrived on the scene, Obama had no real competition. His face was everywhere you looked, and you couldn’t watch the cable news shows for five minutes without hearing something about him. John McCain was pretty much in the background during this time, until he brought out his wild card – Sarah Palin, who neatly swiped the limelight from Barrack Obama – for a time, anyway.
Obama is the only presidential candidate who has not received ruthless, intense scrutiny from members of the press – and the only one whom nobody in the liberal media really makes fun of. Let’s face it, there are no real punch lines in the media about Obama, though there are plenty about the other three candidates. People have picked on John McCain about his age, for Joe Biden about his numerous gaffes, and Sarah Palin for just about everything (she’s gotten it the worst of all four of them). But you hardly ever hear a negative word against Obama – it’s almost like he’s a king that’s about to be crowned. I’m almost surprised that, when he goes on his campaign tours, no one rushes forth to place a diadem on his head, throw a velvet cape around his shoulders, and then escort him along a red carpet to a gilded coach drawn by gleaming white horses. In the eyes of the media, Obama can do little wrong. Yes, there was that flap about his pastor, but compared to the flak that the other three candidates are getting (in particular the slams against Sarah Palin), that seems like a minor complaint, especially since Obama realized that his associations with his controversial pastor were harming his image and he quickly distanced himself from Jeremiah Wright).
Obama actually has less real leadership experience than Sarah Palin, who has been a governor AND a mayor. His only major claim to fame in this area is as a community organizer. Now, I know that CO’s are wonderful things to be, and I’m not knocking them, but I’m sorry, that alone does not qualify someone to be the POTUS. Obama also has a record of voting “present” numerous times in the Senate, without actually voting on anything. Yes his record seems to get little more than a nod and a glance, while Sarah Palin gets mercilessly picked to pieces. And the national polls that say which candidate is leading? Many of these polls have been skewered in Obama’s favor (which is actually very easy to do when you don’t disclose the total number of people you actually polled, and mention how many of those people were actually Obama supporters).
Obama is a great speaker – provided that he has a speech written out for him and a teleprompter to help him along. Then he stumbles and stutters around. There are a few clips where he does say “uh. . . uh. . .uh” quite a few times within the same speech. But does the media show these clips of him on national TV? Hardly ever. They want to present him as an eloquent, exciting speaker. If it were any of the other three candidates falling all over their words, the media has a field day with them.
Another example of playing favorites within the media: there is a sharp contrast between Sarah Palin’s interviews and Barrack Obama’s. The people interviewing Obama are usually very pleasant with him, smiling and asking him fairly easy questions. But these same people, namely Gibson and Kouric, are positively horrible to Sarah Palin. They fire off questions at her like rounds from an uzi, rarely, if ever, smiling at her; they frequently interrupt her, attempt to trap her in a “gotcha” moment and put words in her mouth, never letting her relax for an instant. Fair journalism? I don’t think so. Thank God for people like Sean Hannity, whose interview with Sarah Palin proved that you can still ask serious questions of a presidential candidate without making them feel like they’re being interviewed by a gestapo agent.
For some reason, no one dares to dream of using the kind of interviewing tactics on Obama that have been mercilessly applied to Sarah Palin. It’s almost as if he’s sacred to the media and no one wants to offend him. Just once I’d like to see someone give Obama a REALLY tough interview, complete with the rapid-fire questions and the evil eye treatment that Sarah Palin got from Kouric and Gibson. And it’s not because I hate Obama and want to see him squirm – I don’t. I just want to see how well the guy holds up under pressure, because I have never seen him in the hot seat yet. One reason among others that I find Sarah Palin so appealing is that she’s already proven to me that she’s capable of withstanding intense pressure without buckling at the knees. I really don’t know how long Obama would last in the presidential race if he has had to put with the kind of scrutiny that Sarah has endured for the past five weeks. Obama needs to learn, if he hasn’t already, that being a presidential candidate is NOT part of a popularity contest, and there will be times that people will not only disagree with you for the decisions you make, they may even outright despise you. If Obama cannot put up with that kind of pressure, and cannot handle not being the political equivalent of a pop star when he stops being a novelty to the American public, then he should NOT be running for office. Plain and simple.
Phantom,
I missed 60 minutes. Were they talking about the “derivatives” that avtolle and ksfarmgrrl explained to us this past week? Is that what you mean by the “unregulated markets?”
Yes.
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