Oh you have got to admire the ability of the media to shift gears from unquestioned and unbridled love to suddenly becoming a million microscopes of check and balance. You’ve also got to admire Pres-elect Obama’s ability to find quality people-people who will CHANGE Washington-not.
President-elect Barack Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot “red flags,” according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com. According to a complaint later filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Freddie Mac, known formally as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, misreported profits by billions of dollars in order to deceive investors between the years 2000 and 2002.
Emanuel was not named in the SEC complaint but the entire board was later accused by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)of having “failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.”
My favorite posts and articles are ones where political lemmings have an epiphany and realize they’ve been had. I don’t like them because of the pain and/or embarassment the person(s) have, but rather because they’re posts and articles proving that the TRUTH DOES COME OUT. It cannot hide forever.
An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President’s Men and thinking: That’s journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration. It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
…
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was … the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was … the Republican Party.
Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!
The page is from the children’s indoctrination book, Why Mommy is a Democrat. They have a new one that is so unimaginative, it looks like it was written by a 5 year old.
“I’d rather lose an election than lose a war.”- John McCain
The Harry Reid quote could today read: “I believe…that this election is lost”
- Kathleen Parker, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, George Will, Peggy Noonan
Such pessimism. It’s not like our Party hasn’t found itself in this predicament before. Remember: “My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.”
Of course, McCain needs an election surge strategy, buttressed by an Ohio State Awakening. He needs to start fighting for American votes like it’s a war. (“I’d rather win an election, than lose a war.”). He needs to win the hearts and minds of those American voters who have not gone so far off the deep end that they are willing to hand the steering wheel to this country’s future over to Obama, Nancy, and Reid.
Barack Hussein Obama states at a December 2007 community organizer forum that he will invite ACORN to “shape the agenda” during transition period and he will allow them to be actively involved during the first 100 days of his administration.
Got that?
The people who helped facilitate the mortgage mess and the people who have been engaging in voter fraud for years will play a direct role in an Obama Administration.
Social Security tax would be 12.4% for income from zero to $102,000; 0% for income from $102,000 to $250,000; and 4% from $250,000 and up, effective 2018.
Sorry to make you have to clean your monitor as I’m sure that title made many a reader snarf all over. Yes, you read that correctly, but (sit down, swallow hard, and prepare…) Alec Baldwin blamed the Democrats like Barney Frank for the financial crisis while he was on the Bill Maher show.
Ok, there’s someone out there who just snarfed again. Clean it up, and check this out… link
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:
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
blast Barry James Seawright, I HAVE PERSONALLY WITNESSED SOME FOUL PLAY AND I AM ABOUT TO SHOW EVERYBODY WHAT CHANGE IS REALLY LIKE…. this sounds like some sort of threat…...
--------------
Steve Rowland I’ll be going to the polls in Cobb County tomorrow. Saxby it is. May be too little too late though.
--------------
Barry James Seawright I am a U.S. Soldier and I am against the war or terror becuase I know it is a BIG FRAUD..I HAVE PERSONALLY WITNESSED SOME FOUL PLAY AND I AM ABOUT TO SHOW...
--------------
Hard Right Those sandals better not be Birkenstocks…. BTW, my previous post is awaiting moderation for an edit. I was in brass knuckle mode whe I wrote it so keep that in...
--------------
blast Hard Right Now maybe you aren’t a moonbat blast and I’m wrong about you well, I wanted to be sure what you meant by “moonbat” so I googled the definition and had...
--------------
sanjay But as Newsbusters notes, much of the MSM is still in its “sky is falling” mode….at least until Bush is out of office. Nope. Don’t even need to have the MSM to...
--------------
MataHarley blast, I tend to think that conversations with different people in the US is just like learning another language. Some of us are especially adept at expressing our thoughts...
--------------
SoCal Chris Hope this works! It’s not the entire video of the event, but at least some!! Sarah Palin in Savannah: http://community.adn.com/mini_ apps/vmix/player.php?ID=245...
Hard Right I will never understand why “moderates” have problems with strong, intelligent, women with religious values. I know a fair number of men think Sarah is...
BTW, my previous post is awaiting moderation for an edit. I was in brass knuckle mode whe I wrote it so keep that in...
