American Thinker:
NBC has pulled the video off the internet and is deleting comments on its message boards asking about it.
Seems as if the players over at Saturday Night live might read American Thinker. This weekend they ran a skit that mentioned the fall of Wachovia, the finance crisis and the roles of Herb and Marion Sandler and George Soros (who they identified as the owner of the Democratic Party).
Michelle Malkin has a theory as to why the video was pulled.
The skit is funny because there’s some actual underlying truth to the humor:
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If Palin’s recent utterance of the Ayers word in her latest campaign trail speeches is a harbinger, the media now anticipates McCain will be going after Obama for his connection to former Weather Underground domestic terrorist, William Ayers in the next Presidential debate.
Conservatives have felt this is a long overdue strategy. Personally, I’ll reserve judgment until I see what McCain’s tact will be. There is the viable and pertinent issue… Obama & Ayers’ culpability in failed education reform, their mismanagement of funds, and their political *and* financial support for organizations that were instrumental in risky subprime loans.
Then there is the (already out there) defense the Obama camp will take… an insistence the relationship between Ayers and Obama is remote, but not close. So they will lessen the villianous appearance of Ayers, and emphasize the “regard” for Ayers in the Chicago area for his educational efforts… or as the info outdated WaPo put it back in Feb 2008, member of the Chicago intelligentsia… and his personal transformation from an unrepentive radical into a more passive, productive IL citizen.
To use Obama’s favorite expression… let me be clear… If McCain attempts to merely use a “guilt by association” strategy , it is a losing endeavor. If the Obama faithful and undecided haven’t been deterred by longevity with the Rev. Wright; Obama’s rapid political rise with the aid of the players of the Chicago political machine (Daley, Rezko, Emil Jones along with Ayers); or his close relationship with Israel hating, Palestine supporter Rashid Khalidi, any relationship with William Ayers will fall on deaf ears, and end up in a negative for the McCain column.
But there is a strategy that is not only a valid issue, but serves as proof that Obama’s severely limited executive leadership is not only an abject failure in both educational reform, but an example of the same old cronyism for economic waste, and highlights Obama’s personal contribution to the subprime crisis.
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MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — There have been four failed pirate attacks in the last 24 hours off the lawless Somali coast despite the presence of six American warships guarding a hijacked ship full of weapons, a U.S. navy spokeswoman said Saturday.
Navy Commander Jane Campbell, from the 5th Fleet in Bahrain, says three attacks were averted because crew members escaped at high speed.
Another attack was foiled because the pirates were badly prepared: The ladder they had brought to climb onto the ship was too short.
The Navy says that three of the attacks were in the heavily patrolled corridor within the Gulf of Aden. The location of another was not precisely known but was somewhere off the Somali coast.
Last week’s attack on a Ukrainian ship laden with 33 Soviet-designed tanks and weapons has focused international attention on piracy in Somalia. American officials have expressed fears the weapons onboard the MV Faina could fall into the hands of Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked Islamic insurgency.
Eight European countries have offered to help form an anti-piracy force. On Friday, Russia called for greater efforts to protect the Gulf of Aden waters, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. There have been nearly 70 pirate attacks this year already and some 26 ships successfully hijacked
link
Today, a gentleman named Larry Weisenthal posted a cogent comment on Mike A’s post, Democrats blocked financial reforms. Mr. Weisenthal presents the common DNC talking points about the events leading to today’s financial fiasco… and with it, the unprecedented giant step towards socializing the American financial system.
I started to reply, and thought I’d rather post this on it’s own. Do read Mr. Weisenthal’s comment in full, but I’m going to pull out the pertinent phrases that summarize his presentation.
McCain/Palin do not attack Obama on CRA as the cause
because it’s an “urban legend”
From Larry’s comment:
Why are these charges not being made by the likes of John McCain and Sarah Palin? Are the latter too polite to resort to negative campaigning? Why didn’t Bernanke or any other economist lay the blame at the door of the Fannie Mae? The whole reason Obama has jumped ahead so fast is because of the financial crisis. Why not turn it back on him and reverse the advantage? If the Democrats did, indeed, “block” sensible regulation in 2005, then why have no Republican Senators made that charge, when it’s looking for all the world that this election could turn into a disaster for Republicans, from the Presidential level on down? How is it that Democrats could really have “blocked” anything in 2005, absent a filibuster? With so many House Democrats having supported similar legislation, how likely is it that the Democrats could have put together nearly unanimous solidarity to sustain a filibuster? I’m just curious; this whole argument of Democrats “blocking” regulatory reform seems somewhat urban legend in character.
Larry then inserts the Bernanke explanation of how relaxed regulations of securitization, or the ability for banks to intersell their porfolios, as the cause. So let me argue this in two points.
First: Why aren’t McCain and Palin hammering Obama on this?
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Europe is coming! Europe is coming!
QUESTION: Why doesn’t this deter pirates (or pretty much anyone)?
An international armada was preparing to head towards the Somali coast yesterday as the stand-off with pirates holding a Ukrainian ship to ransom threatened to escalate.
Amid warnings that an effective blockade by the pirates could spark a famine in the Horn of Africa, European Union defence ministers meeting in Paris agreed to set up a naval taskforce to tackle the threat.
Two Royal Navy frigates, HMS Chatham and HMS Lancaster, are already in the region and could join the proposed fleet.
The pirates who seized the Ukrainian cargo ship MV Faina were in defiant mood yesterday, vowing to fight if there was an attempt to rescue the crew of 20. They also said that they were only prepared to hand over the cargo of tanks and weapons in return for a ransom of £11 million.
“Anyone who tries to attack us or deceive us will face bad repercussions,” Sugule Ali, a spokesman for the pirates, told the Associated Press in a satellite telephone interview. The vessel is surrounded by half a dozen American warships but no moves have been made to board it.
link
Within hours of the House passage, Bush had the more than $700 billion “rescue” bill signed sealed and delivered into the law books.
President Bush says the legislation is meant to keep the Wall Street crises from widening… tho you wouldn’t believe that if you watched the numbers tumble following the bill’s passage. All of which, of course, everyone blamed on the new unemployment numbers.
Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 159,000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 6.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade, while mining and health care continued to add jobs.
~~~
The unemployment rates for adult men (6.1 percent) and blacks (11.4 percent) rose in September. The jobless rates for teenagers (19.1 percent), whites (5.4 percent), and Hispanics (7.8 percent) were essentially unchanged. The unemployment rate for adult women declined to 4.9 percent, partly offsetting an increase in August. The unemployment rate for Asians in September was 3.8 percent, not seasonally adjusted.
I happened to catch a part of the hearing where they said the industries most hit were construction, retail and some financing/real estate industries… all entirely logical with the housing slowdown.
Fat load of good it’s doing so far, right?
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Sarah Palin did something tonight that SHOULD cause a chain reaction of terror in Washington DC. She might not have won on technical points or gotchas or whatever barometer a pundit or spinmeister chooses. However, she did tap into the chord that Americans are pissed off at the finger pointing, at looking back, and doing the same ole same ole. They want a change in Washington, and a hope for a new future. Obama promised that once, but he’s changed. He’s campaigning old school. Instead of making bi-partisanship (something which he has no experience in) his core theme, he’s abandoned it to gotcha politics, name-calling, half truths, etc. Instead of promising real change, he’s put it on a podium and a banner behind him like every other marketed product. He used to talk about how there are no more red states, blue states, just red, white, and blue states.
Tonight, Sarah Palin picked up Obama’s baton. She did it when she said, “Never again. Never again will we…” and the rest was irrelevant. She didn’t say Republicans or Democrats, or Bush, or whatever.
Sarah said, “…we…”
That might sound like nothing to some people, but to the people that matter in the last 4 weeks of the election-people who don’t follow politics with a passion, people who are sick of politics, people who are sick of partisanship, and incumbents, and lobbyist payoffs, and tax loopholes for Puerto Rican Rum makers…to those people “…we…” makes all the difference.
Now we get to see if the campaigns noticed.
Thank you Sarah
When it comes to the Wall Street meltdown, Rep. Barney Frank is considered the engineer of the financial train wreck, a bostonherald.com instant poll shows.
Frank (D-Newton), chairman of the House Financial Services panel, is plastered with blame even more so than President Bush or former fed chief Alan Greenspan.
Some readers argue all you have to do is click over to YouTube and listen to Frank, in the fall of 2003, swear “Fannie and Freddie (are) not in a crisis!” and are “fundamentally sound financially.”
Whoops, guess not.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been taken over by the government and are under a grand jury investigation.
More than 5,000 responders to a bostonherald.com poll posted mid-day yesterday are calling for heads to roll:
36 percent state Frank is out in front.
Bush is second with 29 percent for missing red flags.
Greenspan, now knocked off his guru perch, is third with 19 percent blame.
Former President Bill Clinton falls next with 12 percent responsibility.
Barack Obama, 3 percent, and John McCain, 1 percent, escape mostly unscathed, for now.
Herald Pulse
Who is more to blame for the Wall Street meltdown?
20% - George Bush
53% - Barney Frank
3% - Barack Obama
1% - John McCain
10% - Bill Clinton
13% - Alan Greenspan
Poll Closed: 2008-09-30
Total Votes: 7,657
link
No people, the recent financial crisis in America is NOT a bi-partisan one. It was created by Democrats (some of whom have already had the integrity to admit they were wrong in their well-intentioned actions that created it). We’ve seen it on YouTube, and now the Wall Street Journal has called out the Democrats who have the most responsibility.
It’s time for some accountability. To paraphrase Sen Obama (who took the second more amount of money from Freddie and Fannie)…
Words DO matter
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Putting increasing pressure on the House “no” voters to fall in line, the Senate voted (74-25) overwhelmingly in favor of a $700 bil government purchase of bad debt from Wall Street … with lots of extra caveats.
I’m not going to to into the caveats now. Let’s just say that the 3 page draft has morphed into over 100 400 pages, with new government department for oversight of the Sec’y of Treasury’s decisions (but only via “consultation and recommendations…), and sundry other details (increasing FDIC insurance limits).
The basics remain the same. The government will buy bad assets at whatever the Sec’y of Treasury deems appropriate, hold them until whenever he deems appropriate, then sell them at what he deems appropriate. Who that is? Today, it’s Henry Paulson. After January or thereafter? Serves at will of the POTUS with Congressional approval.
Gee… I feel so much better. NOT! But at least I do know what new job I want….
And it was ironic that, while the Senate vote was going on, the stock market results were on the ticker tape news across the bottom. Goldman Sachs up over 40% from last month’s dive. Gee… that’s the Warren Buffett buyout/rescue. The one where he used a model of preferred stocks that might serve as a better foundation model than we have to choose from today. Certainly it would be at less cost and risk to the taxpayers.
But these options were tossed aside by the elected ones… never to be entertained. Forget the oversight and little extra perks added “to protect Main Street”. The US government has only one fix in mind - and that’s going into the business of buying real estate for the taxpayer…
…and considering they are suspending the “mark to market” authority, and doing one of their famous “studies”, we can safely assume they aren’t even buying in at a wise price.
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Oh, you have just GOT to love this one…
New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill
- Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
- 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)
Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)
HERE’s the bill…
ht Hot Air
The U.S. naval officers leading the anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden has warned shipping companies to take additional precautions, because the fifteen warships in the Gulf cannot possibly protect all the merchant ships passing through the area.
The key problem is that no one wants to go ashore and take on the Somali warlords responsible for the surge in piracy. No wonder, as the natural state of Somalia, over the last few centuries, has been violent anarchy. This would be bloody, mainly for the Somalis, and no nation wants to get accused of war crimes and brutality by the media. Read the rest of this entry »
