Democrats Caused the Financial Meltdown

Democrats Caused the Financial Meltdown
By Alan Caruba

There is something genuinely sickening about seeing Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and others trying to stick President Bush and the Republicans with the blame for the financial meltdown that has put the American taxpayer in hock for the problem they created.

One need only read The New York Times, September 30, 1999 article by Steven A. Holmes, headlined “Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending.” Only it didn’t aid anything. Instead, it abandoned rational, prudent, established guidelines for lending; not the least of which is that you don’t make loans to people who are unlikely to repay them.

“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.”

Holmes reported that, “Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among law and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.”

The man in charge of Fannie Mae in 1999 was Franklin D. Raines, a name that has come up in connection with Sen. Barack Obama as an “advisor” on housing issues. Another former Fannie Mae CEO, Jim Johnson, led Obama’s vice president search team.

In 2008, after a civil suit revealed that Raines had “manipulated earnings over a six-year period” with two others to enrich themselves. Raines agreed to pay $24.7 million, including a $2 million fine. In addition, he also gave up company stock options valued at $15.6 million. Between 1998 and 2004, according to a New York Times article, Raines and two others pocketed “hundreds of millions in bonuses.”

This makes the political campaign funding Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac gave Sen. Obama even more shocking given the fact that he reaped more than any other politician, $42,116 for every year he was in the Senate. It is worth asking why Sen. Obama received roughly four times more money than any other politician during the four years he was in the Senate.

Sen. Obama’s close ties to both Raines and Johnson are being largely ignored by the mainstream media as efforts are being made to make it appear that this is a Bush Administration scandal. It isn’t.

In 1999, Peter Wallison, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, predicted that, “If they (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.” If you believe the media, however, you would think this was the fault of the banking and investment communities, but both were responding to significant changes in loan arrangements introduced during the Clinton Administration.

As the 1999 New York Times article noted, “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.”

This was clearly a political ploy to secure the votes of Blacks and Hispanics by deliberately lowering loan requirements. Banks and mortgage loan companies were required to show that they had made these bad loans, thus undermining the stability of the entire financial network.

Why Sen. John McCain is not shouting this from the rooftops is another one of those campaign mysteries, but it is undeniable and is just one more reason why neither Sen. Obama, nor his fellow Democrats should be allowed to retain control of Congress and, potentially, gain control of the White House.

This bailout is necessary to restore confidence in the nation’s banking and investment communities, but it started well before the Bush Administration and is grounds by itself to remove all those associated with it from public office. That can be done in part on Election Day.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5261

GovernMINTS On Our Pillow...

Obama's Pledge to Gut Our Military

No wonder muslim leaders support his presidency...

Tough Truths About Obama's Character

Tough Truths About Obama's Character
IBD

... Some media reports have alleged that McCain's charges in another ad regarding Obama's vote for kindergarten sex ed are false. "Learning about sex before learning to read?" the ad asks incredulously.

But a before-and-after examination by National Review's Jim Geraghty of what Obama supported as a member of the health and human services committee of the Illinois state senate reveals that the language "comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades 6 through 12" would indeed have changed to "comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12" had the measure become law.

Finally, a third commercial cites a Wall Street Journal report of "30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers" sent to Alaska to dig for dirt on Gov. Palin. "As Obama drops in the polls, he'll try to destroy her," the ad says.

Democrats deny sending operatives to the state, but consider that a July 30 posting on Obama's campaign Web site features a photo of a beaming Democratic State Sen. Hollis French, who leads the investigation into Palin's firing of the state's public safety commissioner, standing amidst numerous Obama for President placards.

Also in the photo is fellow Democratic State Sen. Kim Elton, head of the Alaska Legislative Council, who is refusing to replace French in spite of accusations that French is using his probe for optimum negative effect on Election Day.

Sen. Obama touts himself as a new kind of politician, who refuses to take the low road. In reality, he is a product of the leftish cadres of South Side Chicago, where cutthroat political tactics are just as ugly as the left's radical vision of the government replacing parents.

more...

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306112219259742

TOONTIME!

Sarah Palin Speaks at Fairfax City Rally

Pentagon Memorial to 9/11 Victims to Be Dedicated Thursday

Pentagon Memorial to 9/11 Victims to Be Dedicated Thursday
By Cynthia Dizikes

Two years ago, Tom Heidenberger led a team of amateur cyclists 3,800 miles, from Los Angeles to Washington, to raise money for memorials honoring the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Biking 180-mile days, through blistering desert heat and thin mountain air, he often considered giving up. At those times, the former airline pilot hunched his body lower over his handlebars and thought about his wife, Michele, a flight attendant with American Airlines.

He thought of the last evening they had spent together -- their daughter's 20th birthday -- and the way the setting sun had made Michele's hair glow. He thought about the last words they had said to each other, early the next morning, right before her flight took off from Dulles International Airport near Washington. She had called to remind him to pack their son's lunch; he said he'd talk to her when she got to L.A.

Within hours, terrorists had commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the west side of the Pentagon.

Today, President Bush will lead the ceremony dedicating the first national memorial to the victims of that tragic day when four planes were hijacked and nearly 3,000 people were killed. The memorials at the site of the World Trade Center towers in New York and in Shanksville, Pa., where one plane crashed in a field, have been delayed by arguments over construction costs and design.

The two-acre memorial at the Pentagon -- with 184 steel-and-granite benches, each engraved with a victim's name -- is about 200 feet from the crash site, oriented along the plane's flight path.

For Heidenberger, 62, the project's completion is a complicated moment.

"Do I consider this a conclusion? No, not at all," he said. "I was there yesterday, and what gave me the greatest satisfaction was watching three or four kids sitting on a bench, and it could have been their grandparent or a relative, but they had an opportunity to remember. In a very happy sense, you remember."

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-memorial11-2008sep11,0,7903581.story?track=rss

Barack Obama’s Cruel 9/11 Message

Barack Obama’s Cruel 9/11 Message
By John Lillpop

America is about to commemorate the seventh anniversary of 9/11. We do so while embroiled in a hotly contested national election.

Under the circumstances, one would expect candidates from both major political parties to deliver inspirational eulogies on behalf of the 3,000 victims and their families, and to remind Americans of the urgent need to remain ever diligent in fighting Islamofascism.

Unfortunately, delivering uplifting cries of patriotism is simply not in the DNA of most liberals, including the erstwhile community coordinator now serving as standard bearer for the Democrat Party.

Rather than working to unify Americans in remembrance of that awful September morning and of the wars that must still be waged and won in order to preserve American independence and freedom, Democrat Barack Obama has made statements which suggest that he sides with terrorists.

As reported by Aaron Klein at wnd.com,

“Obama’s comments about legitimate causes’ of terror groups and ‘root problems of causes and dangers’ seems to echo little-noticed remarks the presidential candidate made eight days after 9/11 in which he said the attacks were carried out because of a lack of “empathy” for others’ suffering on the part of al-Qaeda, whose terrorist ideology ‘grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.’

“Obama went on to imply the Sept. 11 attacks were, in part, a result of U.S. policy, lecturing the American military to minimize civilian casualties in the Middle East and urging action opposing ‘bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle-Eastern descent.’

“Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we, as a nation, draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy,” Obama wrote in a piece about 9/11 published Sept. 19, 2001, in Chicago’s Hyde Park Herald.”

more...

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4932

Fake ebay Listing Selling Palin's Baby Trig as 'Political Prop'

Outrageous: Fake ebay Listing Selling Palin's Baby Trig as 'Political Prop'
By Warner Todd Huston

This one was all over the net yesterday. Apparently, a poster at the radical nutroot site, Democratic Underground, created a fake listing for someone pretending to sell baby Trig on ebay. The faux listing read "Baby used prop newborn boy 3-6 months special needs," and included a description that called Governor Palin a "pushy social climber, unwilling to let pregnancy and children stand in the way of ambition." It also listed baby's Trig's father as "unknown."

Originally appearing at the Democratic Underground at around 1PM on September 4, by DU poster Bob Weaver, the thread was soon locked by DU moderators and the image scrubbed from the site. But not before a screen shot was taken...

more...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/09/09/outrageous-fake-ebay-listing-selling-palins-baby-trig-political

The posters at Democrat Underground are just as low-class and tasteless as we knew they were. They easily jettison any small scrap of decency they might've had. Exploit a baby? They don't care, they'll do anything--hurt anyone--IF they think it will put them ahead.

"Pushy social climber"? So much for championing women's rights, being enlightened, and promoting change. The kind of 'change' this description implies you can find around 1955!

What Did Obama Do As A Community Organizer?

What Did Obama Do As A Community Organizer?
By Byron York

And is it really a qualification to be president?

Barack Obama often cites his time as a community organizer here in Chicago as one of the experiences that qualify him to hold the nation’s highest office. “I can bring this country together,” he said in a debate last February. “I have a track record, starting from the days I moved to Chicago as a community organizer.”When Obama says such things, the reaction among many observers is: Huh?Audiences understand when he mentions his years as an Illinois state legislator, or his brief tenure in the U.S. Senate. But a community organizer? What’s that?

(snip)

Perhaps the simplest way to describe community organizing is to say it is the practice of identifying a specific aggrieved population, say unemployed steelworkers, or itinerant fruit-pickers, or residents of a particularly bad neighborhood, and agitating them until they become so upset about their condition that they take collective action to put pressure on local, state, or federal officials to fix the problem, often by giving the affected group money. Organizers like to call that “direct action.”

Community organizing is most identified with the left-wing Chicago activist Saul Alinsky (1909-72), who pretty much defined the profession. In his classic book, Rules for Radicals, Alinsky wrote that a successful organizer should be “an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions.”

Once such hostilities were “whipped up to a fighting pitch,” Alinsky continued, the organizer steered his group toward confrontation, in the form of picketing, demonstrating, and general hell-raising. At first, the organizer tackled small stuff, like demanding the repair of streetlights in a city park; later, when the group gained confidence, the organizer could take on bigger targets. But at all times, the organizer’s goal was not to lead his people anywhere, but to encourage them to take action on their own behalf.

more...

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWMxNGUxZWJjYzg1NjA0MTlmZDZmMjUwZGU3ZjAwNmU=

So. Bammie knows how to get people to increase their identity as a minority group around something (which makes people draw apart from one another, their community, and only identify with their own--the opposite of unity) and he can get them to agitate, work-stop, picket, protest, holler and yell, engage the media etc. until they get the government to give them some money.

Sure, they have a main target--a job center, street lights fixed, a bus route established, various 'outreach' efforts, but there is no mention of cost effectiveness and accountability; who knows into which pocket the government money is going? Who really knows if it fixed the 'problem' it was supposed to fix?

Teaching people to see themselves as perpetual victims--that the government is supposed to continually assuage--is NOT 'bringing communities together', nor is it teaching any useful skill except how to be loud--and stay loud--until Washington pays you to hush up. This is what Bammie did for three years--until he found a way, by his own admission, to get more power and make more money.

He's the original Slide-By Man. He obtained an Affirmative-Action college career--and an Affirmative Action-salaried wife to match. He traded his senatorial influence for his wife's bonuses and high salary. He spent his life in a church telling him this was all his due (they'd help him meet the right people and get the right numbers).

Now, what's he going to trade America for the highest seat in the land?

Obama Asserts: 'My Muslim Faith...'

Good Morning!

DEAR MR. OBAMA...

Why Liberals Hate and Fear Conservative Women

Why Liberals Hate and Fear Conservative Women
By John Hawkins

Since Sarah Palin exploded onto the national scene a week ago, the American Left, including Obama's press team AKA the mainstream media, has engaged in a bizarre orgy of sexism, misogyny, and grotesque attacks on her family.

(snip)

Is the sort of treatment Palin has received a surprise? Regrettably, not to anyone who has been paying attention to how liberals attack women on the Right. Let me tell you what happens if you are a conservative woman who catches the attention of the American Left.

You are going to have liberals openly discuss gang raping you. You'll be photoshopped with a fishhook in your mouth while liberals publicly call you the worst, most obscene things you can imagine.

You will be photoshopped into pornography, you will receive death and rape threats, you'll get strange stalkerish emails, you'll receive demeaning, sexualized hate mail, and if they can find out where you live and where your children go to school, the info will start showing up on left wing blogs, comment sections, and forums before you can say, "We know where you live, lady."

These sort of attacks are not unusual or out of the ordinary; to the contrary, they are standard operating procedure on the Left when they go after strong, conservative women.

But, what about the liberal feminist blogs? Don't they stick up for the conservative women? Oh, sure they do -- just like they stuck up for Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey.

To the contrary, the thing I have heard again and again from female bloggers is that the "feminist" blogs at best, turn a blind eye to the most grotesque smears aimed at conservative women and at worst, are leading the pack.

more...

http://townhall.com/Columnists/JohnHawkins/2008/09/05/why_liberals_hate_and_fear_
conservative_women

Friends Like These

Friends Like These
By Keith Naughton

How the Detroit mayor's fall hurts Obama.

Long before sex, lies and texting caused Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to plead guilty to two felonies and resign on Thursday, he and Barack Obama shared a warm man-hug before a huge Motown crowd.

It came 16 months ago, as Obama was launching his campaign for president with a scalding speech to the Detroit Economic Club upbraiding Detroit's automakers for not building more fuel-efficient cars. But while that speech gave Obama green street-cred, his praise of Kilpatrick as a "great mayor" who will do "astounding things for many years to come" backfired.

As Kilpatrick now heads to jail for four months, for obstruction of justice, two attack ads have already appeared on the Web replaying Obama's Kwame moment. One, produced by the conservative Freedom's Defense Fund and soon going into heavy rotation on Detroit TV stations, shows Kilpatrick's mug shot, as the 10 felonies he faced scroll down the screen while Obama says, "I'm grateful to call him a friend."

The ad ends ominously with the line: "You should know who Obama's friends are."

more...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/157274/

Reporters’ Fuzzy Math (and Outright Lies)

Reporters’ Fuzzy Math (and Outright Lies)
By Jon Ham

I wrote the other day about two reporters for the Politico Web site breaking a rule you should learn in Journalism 101. Now, two other news outlets have made the kind of mistake that, in a normal world, would send a beginning reporter to duty on the nighttime obit desk.

Yesterday, Paul Kane of The Washington Post reported that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had “slashed funding for teen moms.” Kane based his story on a page from Alaska’s budget, which had hand-written line-item changes showing the amount going to Covenant House had been changed from $5 million to $3.9 million.

You can probably tell where this is going. It turns out that $5 million is the highball request for Covenant House and the $3.9 million is what Palin felt the agency deserved. As it happens, the $3.9 million actually represented a three-fold increase over the previous year. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “slash” in the budget.

The Washington Post has not yet corrected this mistake, which resulted in The New York Times running the same mistake today.

As an editor for many years, I can tell you that reporters are notoriously poor at math, but this is getting ridiculous. It’s happened again.

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien reported that Palin had cut the budget for special needs children by 62 percent. Was it her intrepid reporting that uncovered that “tip”? No, it was taken from a far-left Web site, which has apparently become the mainstream media’s new source for story ideas.

But did Palin really "cut" the budget, as O’Brien alleges? You guessed it:

more...

http://carolinajournal.com/mediamangle/display_story.html?id=4977

Megyn Kelly Destroys Us Weekly

Heeeeeeeeeeeere's Barney!

Barney Fife Rides Again!

She Shoots, She Scores!

She Shoots, She Scores!
By John Fund, WSJ

Twenty years after Ronald Reagan left office, Republicans who have long missed him may have found a future Margaret Thatcher. If John McCain wins, conservatives may find one of the most enduring accomplishments of his term will have been what he did before it started: helping to fill the Republican Party's future talent bench with such a fresh and compelling figure.

Sarah Palin is a conviction politician, a naturally compelling speaker and someone who can relate to her audience on very human terms. America has just learned why Mrs. Palin enjoys the highest approval ratings of any governor in America.

Liberal commentators glumly noted the thunderous applause in the convention hall last night. But they could do precious little to attack. Even Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's official attack dog, could muster only this as commentary on Mrs. Palin's performance: "People who like this sort of thing will find this ... the sort of thing they like."

more...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122050113197098419.html?mod=todays_columnists

PALIN BABY: Cutest Thing I Ever Saw!

Obama Versus Palin - And The Winner Is ...

Obama Versus Palin - And The Winner Is...
By Herb Denenberg

The Obama campaign, trying to sell the most inexperienced and unqualified presidential candidate of a major party in history, is pointing to the inexperience of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. That's the definition of chutzpah.

This column will show that Mrs. Palin has a record of courage, bi-partisanship, reform, change and accomplishment unmatched by perhaps any other governor in the United States. In contrast, Sen. Barack Obama gives speeches, but has accomplished virtually nothing, has displayed no evidence of bi-partisanship, and has talked reform and change, but has been nothing more than a purveyor of pompous platitudes, and is deep in the quagmire of the old style, corrupt politics of Chicago's Cook County machines.

He came out of the Chicago political machine, one of the sleaziest in the U.S., and has always gone along with that machine, never raising even a finger to bring about proposed reforms. He goes along with corrupt political machines and a bigoted anti-American reverend for many years, as if all was right and rosy.

This column will show that even the Republican nominee for vice president is far more qualified to be president than the Democratic nominee for president.

more...

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20102935&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

Newt Gingrich Slams Reporter Ron Allen About Sarah Palin

HOW THE LEFTIST 'PROTEST':

Leftist Protesters Attack, Throw Poison & Spit On RNC Delegates

Gateway Pundit

Republican Delegates were spat on and sprayed with poison today as they arrived at the RNC convention at the Xcel Center. The protesters were able to get into the area unopposed.

One 80 year old delegate had to be hospitalized from the violence by the Leftists.The Alabama delegation was one of the busses that was attacked today in Minnesota. The Leftist, anarchist, Obama-supporting radicals attacked RNC delegates today at the Xcel Center and sprayed them with a toxic substance. An 80 year old RNC delegate had to be hospitalized!

MyFOX Twin Cities reported:

As the Connecticut delegation was getting off a bus near the Xcel Center, a group of protesters broke free from authorities and attacked the delegates.

Connecticut delegate Rob Simmons told FOX 9 that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance. The unknown substance burned their eyes and stained their clothes.One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing.

The Everyday Republican has a report on the monstrous attacks on the elderly delegates.One of the victims was an elderly woman who was spat on. The Pioneer Press wrote about more attacks on Republican delegates:

Protesters harassed two state delegations in St. Paul to attend the Republican National Convention Monday. Someone threw a rock through the window as delegates from Alabama rode their bus to the Xcel Energy Center, where RNC events took place. And masked protesters confronted and harassed the Connecticut delegation — several of them were spat upon, roughed up and doused with a mixture of water and bleach.

Heath Fahle, director of the Connecticut Republicans, said the incident happened on Kellogg Boulevard about 2 p.m. "It was frightening," said Fahle.

He said the delegation of more than 100 got off their chartered buses near the Xcel Energy Center. As they walked on the sidewalk, a group of masked protestors chanting anti-war slogans appeared in front of them. They linked arms, attempting to create a human barricade. As police on horseback arrived, Fahle and other members of the group tried to push through. Most of them escaped unscathed, but the protesters splattered the last group of delegates with the liquid. "Two got doused, and several more got sprayed with it," said Fahle. Former U.S.

Congressman Rob Simmons was hit on the face with the liquid. Washington State's delegation was also attacked today when Leftists threw cement bags and sandbags from the overpass onto the busses traveling down the interstate.The cement bag attacks were not picked up by the local or national news.

Much more at Gateway Pundit!

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/09/leftist-protesters-attack-rnc-delegates.html

Les, and the animals he runs with, can be SOOOOOOOOOO proud. They lived up to every babyish, self-centered, and anti-American tag that was ever thrown their way.

Contrast them with the class-act that was every move the Republicans made: they took care of America during the hurricane Gustav, they took on a vice presidential candidate that lives what she preaches--one that talks the talk and WALKS the walk--with a true war hero, John McCain, who puts the men and women in his care first; he let Sarah Palen have her own moment in the sun: he didn't try and grab it for himself (listen up, Obamination...) nor did he, when in Hanoi, choose to be the first to come home.

The McCain/Palin ticket shines so brightly now that, by November 4th, people will be asking, "Obama who?" (Mr. Half-Sheet Resume Man! LOL!)

GOOD JOB JOHN! We're behind you all the way!