Tag: Politics

Mum

McCain has spoken about the financial crisis at length, in a couple of places I do disagree with him. Much of the fault here does lie with Congress, and John seems unwilling to assign their portion of blame. Perhaps he’s saving that for the debates however, you’ve seen plenty of material here. One thing I do know: Capitalism works best with less regulations. This whole mess is because of a crazy quilt of financial regs including CRA that work at counter purposes and which result in two socialist government backed housing lending agencies both ripe for corruption and abuse.

Enough is Enough

;”>”Today, he claimed that the Congressional stimulus package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote.

Before you view this remember that the Dems have been in control of congress in the two years leading up to the latest financial debacle. Remember that Joe Biden’s committee should have prevented this, but instead encouraged it. Remember that Barack Obama’s favorite housing advisor is Franklin D. Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae who got out before the community outreach bad loan stack of cards collapsed. Remember that when the bad news hit Wall St yesterday that Obama was enroute to hobnob with Hollywood Highrollers.

John McCain’s 8 part economic plan, “Jobs for America” can be found here.

Here’s John speaking in Ohio today:

Transcript:

John McCain
Remarks
Vienna, OH
September 16, 2008

John McCain: “We’ve seen a telling moment in this campaign today. Senator Obama saw an economic crisis, and he’s found a political opportunity. My friends, this is not a time for political opportunism; this is a time for leadership.

“Too often, we hear people say America’s in decline. I reject that. I believe America’s best days are ahead of us. Governor Palin and I are going to reform Wall Street. We’re going to reform Washington. I’m going to fight for you, and I’m going to lead our nation forward in the greatest periods of prosperity in its history.

“And let’s have some straight talk. Senator Obama is not interested in the politics of hope, he’s interested in his political future and that’s why he is hurling in insults and making up facts about his record.

“Today, he claimed that the Congressional stimulus package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote.

“He talks a tough game on the financial crisis, but the facts tell a different story. Senator Obama took more money from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac than anyone but the chairman of the committee they answer to, and he put Fannie Mae’s CEO, who helped create this problem in charge of finding his Vice President. That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington.

“He talked about siding with the people, siding with the people, just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbara Streisand and his celebrity friends. Let me tell you, my friends, there’s no place I’d rather be than here, with the working men and women of Ohio. I’m going to fight for you and together we’re going to win in November.”

More on who really created the crisis at Hot Air
UPDATE: Here’s Chuckie Schumer and Jesse Jackson teaming up back in 2001 to help create this mess can you say “community organizer?”
Under the guise of stopping “predatory lending practices” Obama also participated in legislation like this in 2000. These programs supposedly stiffened controls, but at the same time took away all profitability from higher risk loans. By making it mandatory to treat risky borrowers just like borrowers with good credit through neighborhood HOME and HELP projects they created this crisis.
From the Chicago Tribune, 10-1-2000:

The senator believes that these inclusions will help reduce the number of foreclosures that have occurred in the state. The senator stated that “foreclosures started by subprime lenders in the Chicagoland area increased from 131 in 1993 to 4,958 in 1999, an increase of more than 3,600 percent.”

The senator obtained his foreclosure information from the National Training and Information Center, a non-profit organization in Chicago that does research on housing and other community related issues, including lending and neighborhood safety. It also provides training for those interested in how to do community organizing.

The NTIC currently also works with several affiliate groups, including the Indianapolis-based Organization for a New Eastside which compiles information that it receives from borrowers about their particular lending issues, as well as provides them with education, counseling and advocacy. O.N.E provides no funding to borrowers, though it refers them to local lenders and credit unions after counseling.

O.N.E recently took on the plight of a local family that felt it had been victimized during the purchasing of its home. The organization went to the local branch of the lender for a protest rally, demanding that the loan be looked at again.

So how can I say that when supposedly they were just worried about predatory lending practices and protecting borrowers? One of the things they enforced against was mandatory credit insurance for high risk loans. Without that they guaranteed more foreclosures even though they were supposedly preventing them.

UPDATE: Boston Globe reminds us of the other housing iniatives of Barack Obama
UPDATE: Who Supports Barack Obama’s Amazing fund raising abilities? Investment Bankers.
UPDATE: McCain Called for reform two years ago, See HERE.
UPDATE: Just a reminder that Republicans were calling for oversight of Freddie and Fannie five years ago but were blocked repeatedly by Democrats in Congress:

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

Obama’s Marxist Roots

I highly recommend this post at Neocon Latina — it’s the best collection of the known Marxist influences in Barack Obama’s life that I’ve seen. From the post:

3. Then there is the issue of Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, who was an open member of the Communist Party USA. In his autobiography “Dreams From My Father,” Obama describes Mr. Davis as “a poet” who was full of “hard-earned knowledge.”

4. Next there is Obama’s time as a “community organizer” — a “profession” invented by the Marxist, Saul Alinsky. The Wikipedia entry on Alinsky notes that in his seminal work, “Rules For Radicals,” Alinsky explained that “community organizing” was actually the first step towards Marxist revolution:

Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system . . . .

And make no mistake, Obama was a devotee of the Alinsky method, as was recently confirmed by Alinsky’s son. Obama also contributed a chapter to a book entitled, “After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois.” You can view it here. And Obama also taught workshops on the Alinsky method.

Entrusting the future of the US economy to someone with those roots would be disastrous at this time.

Obama Tried to Delay Troop Draw Downs Until Post Election

In a fully politically motivated move in July Barack Obama used his trip to Iraq to try extending the negotiations and troop draw downs in Iraq according to Amer Taheri. Full Story at New York Post:

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”

This demonstrate’s Obama’s willingness to say one thing in public and campaign for something entirely different behind closed doors. In other words he’s a coldly calculating machine politician more interested in Party Power than any other cause. It also shows his clear lack of appreciation for separation of powers. The executive branch becomes Commander in Chief exactly so our troops and wars do not become political footballs. It’s neither in Congress’ purview nor powers to manage theater tactics but that’s exactly what Senator Barack Obama was trying to do here.

Another damning conclusion from the story:

Thus, the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.

Murtha Mouthing Off Against the Marines Backfires: Political Ad

 

Moonbat Murtha used Kerry’s tactics to try to convict our Marines before they had been tried. He went before the press and made many outrageous statements without basis in fact, and essentially disproven in the seven cases so far since all cases so far clear our fine Marines of the charges. The state of Pennsylvania needs to see Murtha mouthing off again before the election.

Wasilla Public Library on Sarah Palin: No banned books … EVER

On the left they are trying to paint Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as a warmongering end-of-days rabid Christian dominionist, and one of their sallies is to say that she tried to ban books. I happen to know who and where the Christian dominionists and rabid Christian Identity movement people are since we’ve been actively fighting them over their attempts to get creationism into public schools. (See here.) I can tell you that Governor Sarah Palin is not one of them.

If you look at the records of asks to ban books (and the Wasilla Public library records them all,) there aren’t any from Sarah. Here’s the table of requests, and the actions the library took from their records:

If this is the best the left can come up with, they better get ready to weep November 3rd.
Resources: PDF file Link in Wasilla

Some Humor From the Campaign Trail

From John McCain speaking in Chicago last night:

“We don’t pay any attention to polls,” when they show him behind, McCain said. “Now we’re up in the polls, 5 points up in Gallup. So those polls are always exactly right … right on the mark, totally accurate. It’s funny how life is with polls.”

Also it’s funny how the latest Obama ad gets things exactly wrong, from the McCain Campaign site:

It appears that two of the citations that the latest Obama ad uses are actually examples of John McCain voting for education funding and Joe Biden voting against it:
John McCain Voted For The Concurrent Resolution That Recommended “Increases In Defense And Education Spending.” “Adoption of the conference report on the concurrent resolution to set broad spending and revenue targets for the next 10 years. The report would reserve Social Security surpluses to shore up the program, call for $777.9 billion in tax reductions over 10 years, recommend increases in defense and education spending and reduce federal debt.” (H. Con. Res. 68, CQ Vote #86: Adopted 54-44: R 54-0; D 0-44, 4/15/99, McCain Voted Yea)

Joe Biden Voted Nay.
In 2000, John McCain Voted For The Labor, Health And Human Services, And Education Department Appropriations Bill, Which Provided $354.6 Billion. “Passage of the bill that would appropriate approximately $354.6 billion for the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education departments and related agencies, including $99.8 billion in discretionary spending.” (H.R. 4577, CQ Vote #171: Passed 52-43: R 44-10; D 8-33, 6/30/00, McCain Voted Yea)

Joe Biden Voted Nay.

Obama and Biden Voted for the Bridge to Nowhere Instead of Katrina Aid

Obama and Biden Voted for the Bridge to Nowhere Instead of Katrina Aid

From the Chicago Daily Observer:

Now that Alaska is front and center in the news again, it is a good time to catch up on a favorite story, The Bridge to Nowhere, using the Washington Post US Congress Votes Database.

Though Gov. Palin originally supported the earmark spending on the Ketchikan bridge (“to nowhere), she eventually killed the project, chosing to spend Federal money on other infrasturcture programs.

However, Sen. Biden and Sen. Obama voted for funding the Bridge, even when given a second chance by Sen. Tom Coburn, who proposed shifting earmark funds to Katrina relief.

Sen. McCain did not vote on the Coburn Amendment, though he is on record as opposing the Ketchikan bridge earmark.

Also a reminder: Biden voted for the bridge to nowhere, but he voted against the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which has brought 15 billion barrels of oil to market since it was finished. What would the price of oil be without that pipeline?

For great discussion on this topic, please stop by Little Green Footballs.

Newt Gingrich Grills MSM Reporter Over Sarah Palin

This is really must see TV — watch about 2:30 into this interview when the reporter brings up the experience question.

The list and litany of things Sarah Palin has done that Obama has not could go on a long, long while. It has always been the case for most of our history that the best apprenticeship for a high level Executive position isn’t a legistlative career, but rather another executive postion. Our stronger presidents and vice presidents have almost always come from Governorships or Mayorial positions. It stands to reason that Sarah is much more qualified than Barack Obama.