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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Threshold who wrote (78287)	9/16/2008 10:06:43 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 89467

Sure beats the muslim in the empty suit

To: Threshold who wrote (78287)	9/16/2008 10:11:37 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 89467

Politics and the Fannie Mae Piggy Bank Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and some very cooked books. Editor’s note — The impending federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has shed light not only on the seriousness of current housing market conditions but also on the mismanagement and corruption that helped cripple the mortgage giants. Although political figures from both parties have profited mightily from Fannie Mae, it has been a particular favorite of former officials of Democratic administrations, as NR’s Byron York found out when he looked into the situation in the summer of 2006. In 1999, Raines announced a new goal to double Fannie Mae’s EPS in five years, from $3.23 per share to $6.46. It was an audacious goal, and reaching it, according to OFHEO, became Fannie Mae’s reason for existence: “$6.46, the EPS goal, became the corporate mantra — everything else was secondary to hitting that target.” To convey an idea of just how obsessed Raines had become, and how he passed on that obsession to his top managers, the OFHEO report quotes at some length from a speech given in 2000 by Sampath Rajappa, head of the Office of Auditing, to his accounting team: By now every one of you must have 6.46 branded in your brains. You must be able to say it in your sleep, you must be able to recite it forwards and backwards, you must have a raging fire in your belly that burns away all doubts, you must live, breathe and dream 6.46, you must be obsessed on 6.46. . . . After all, thanks to Frank, we all have a lot of money riding on it. . . . We must do this with a fiery determination, not on some days, not on most days but day in and day out, give it your best, not 50%, not 75%, not 100%, but 150%. Remember, Frank has given us an opportunity to earn not just our salaries, benefits, raises . . . but substantially over and above if we make 6.46. So it is our moral obligation to give well above our 100% and if we do this, we would have made tangible contributions to Frank’s goals. It worked. Fannie Mae met its EPS goals, and Raines rewarded his top executives — and most of all himself — with unheard-of amounts of money. Even though his salary never topped $1 million, Raines’s total compensation shot from $6.48 million in 1998 to $8.52 million in 1999, to $13.89 million in 2000, to $18.86 million in 2001, to $18.20 million in 2002, to $24.15 million in 2003, all on the strength of EPS bonuses. Investigators found that of the $90.12 million Raines was paid in that six-year period, more than $52 million came from EPS bonuses. Gorelick’s situation was similar. OFHEO found that she took home $26.46 million in the period from 1998 to 2002 (she left in that year, so she wasn’t there for the entire period under investigation). Of that figure, nearly $15 million came from EPS bonuses. article.nationalreview.com

To: Threshold who wrote (78287)	9/16/2008 10:14:17 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Lucifer, Saul Alinsky and Barack Obama by Erick Erickson, humanevents.com Posted 09/16/2008 ET The Devil and Barry Obama Most people have not heard of Saul Alinsky. He was a radical of the first order. His tactics, strategies, and thinking influenced a number of modern leftist politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. According to the Washington Post, a group of Alinsky’s “disciples hired Barack Obama, a 23-year-old Columbia University graduate, to organize black residents on the South Side, while learning and applying Alinsky's philosophy of street-level democracy.” In 1990, an article Obama had written on community organizing appeared in the book "After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois." What frequently is ignored in all of this is Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals. The book is an instruction manual for left wing agitators and breaks down the core components of community organizing. Both Clinton and Obama were students of the book. Clinton wrote a college thesis on the book. Obama lived the book, applying its principles to organizing communities in Illinois. At a time when the left’s new slogan is “Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor,” it is helpful to remember that Alinsky dedicated Rules for Radicals to Lucifer -- that is, Satan. Alinsky considered Satan the first radical. The opening chapters of Genesis make clear Satan was the first community organizer. He convinced Adam and Eve that the man put them down. To empower them, Satan encouraged them to eat the apple. The results speak for themselves. Is ACORN Using Barry’s Lessons? During Barack Obama’s stint as a community organizer, he worked for ACORN, the radical group that directly applies Saul Alinsky’s tactics to agitate for a more socialist America. In 1996, when Obama received the communist New Party’s endorsement, a local Chicago socialist writing in New Ground, the newsletter of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, noted, “As the single 800 pound gorilla in the Chicago New Party, it doesn't leave a lot of room for newcomers to participate except on ACORN's terms. This will make it difficult for the New Party to have a life apart from ACORN.” Barack Obama had, at the time, a very tight relationship to ACORN. That makes this story from the Detroit Free Press all the more interesting. It turns out ACORN has been turning in “fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications.” The article quotes Kelly Chesney, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, saying, “There appears to be a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications . . . . And it appears to be widespread.” This is not the first time ACORN has done this. Back in 2006, ACORN got caught on tape actively engaging on behalf of Claire McCaskill’s campaign in Missouri. With Barack Obama refusing to release his bar application, his college transcripts, and a host of documentation relating to his past, it is a fair question to ask if Obama ever encouraged ACORN to engage in nefarious voter registration schemes. It fits with Saul Alinsky’s advice and it fits with ACORN’s pattern and practice. humanevents.com