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Politics : Fair and Balanced-'Duties Of a Democracy' -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ksuave who wrote (1130)	9/16/2008 9:37:46 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

Cuba has more government, it works great there. "We need intelligent government, not less government" lolololol, well Obama will give you more gov alright. but intelligent, lololol

To: ksuave who wrote (1130)	9/16/2008 9:40:51 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

Revoke my feminist card -- I like Palin September 16, 2008 BY MICHAEL SNEED Sun-Times Columnist Hmmm. Maybe . . . I am not a feminist after all. Maybe . . . working in a man's world for 42 years and busting my butt to beat them up the ladder deletes me from the feminist category. Perhaps . . . struggling to be a good single mom in a very married world -- yet meeting my five-day-a-week column deadline -- doesn't earn me a feminist handle either. Certainly . . . because I'm not appalled or sickened or shocked by Sarah Palin's stealing the thunder from Obama the orator, I am not a feminist. Give me a break. I'm tired of women working hard for a hammer that never breaks the glass ceiling; disgusted when Hillary Clinton, an incredibly capable, brilliant woman, lost the fight of her life; disheartened by other countries throughout the free world being led by formidable women before America is. Only this time, it was an amazing orator named Barack Obama who was stealing our thunder . . . and I was . . . well, you know. Pissed. And then along came Palin, a woman of the tundra who could be America's next best frontier story -- and I was pleasantly surprised. Hell, I was delighted. So what if she's a Republican? I tend to vote for Republican presidents. So what if she didn't know the definition of the Bush Doctrine? Her performance was a Western draw. Bravery in tact. But no one shot. So I asked myself -- what fault is there in admiring a woman who is against abortion -- even though I believe in freedom of choice? What's wrong with huge respect for a woman who chose to give birth to a Down syndrome child knowing full well what was in store for her and her family? And if appreciating a woman who chose a husband who supports her ladder-climbing skill puts me in the non-feminist category, well maybe that's where I belong. To be blunt, Palin is like a zephyr blowing across the prairie with a retro hairdo tied back like a sheaf of wheat. She is real. She is rural. She may not be a brilliant tactician, but she's got street sense. Palin is so unlike the very controlled Hillary Clinton, who would never be caught dead in red heels. Thus, it now appears Palin has emerged as "everywoman" to a huge portion of our female population; a woman never really identified with what we thought was our quintessential role model -- a highly educated woman who wears tailored suits, whose voice is never shrill and who has a husband who makes more than she does. I don't know what perfume Palin wears, but to me she smells of the soil. Our huge land once had the call of the frontier for a new start -- and Alaska became the last of it. Palin's kind of grit and savvy is akin to a frontier story: a young woman who was raised in a land of big sky and the midnight sun, a metaphor of sorts for being able to spot trouble a long way away. In the next two months, Palin may be able to forge a hammer big enough to crack the glass ceiling. Maybe not. And no Palin moose gun may be powerful enough to pursue critics of John McCain, who -- rightly or wrongly -- may be tarnished by our economy. But McCain did choose a tough and savvy woman as his running mate . . . and it is refreshing to think, at least for a while, a little air from the Alaskan aerie wafted through America. suntimes.com

To: ksuave who wrote (1130)	9/16/2008 9:43:03 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

Traitor: Obama Betrays Soldiers? By Justin Paulette Sep 15th 2008 6:44PM Filed Under:eBarack Obama, Iraq If this story is true, it is the most important revelation of the election. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has apparently revealed that the centerpiece of Barack Obama's conversation with Iraqi leaders in July was his hope of delaying the draw-down of American military forces in Iraq. Zebari's recounts that Obama "asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington." Obama also reportedly insisted that Congress steer negotiations on the time-table of troops withdrawal, rather than the Bush administration, which he described as being in a "state of weakness and political confusion." Obama's campaign has denied these accounts of his visit to Iraq. Such a private request for delayed troop reductions would run counter to Obama's public statements on Iraq, in which he calls for an immediate withdrawal. Further, an attempt to subvert the executive branch would be contrary to established U.S. foreign policy. If Zebari's statements are discovered to be true, Obama would be guilty of the most unadulterated political profiteering and moral corruption in modern history. To seek electoral gain on the deception of a nation at war and the blood of American soldiers is nothing less than treasonous villainy - for which the offender ought to be tarred and feathered before being expelled from the country. news.aol.com

To: ksuave who wrote (1130)	9/16/2008 10:10:52 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

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: ksuave who wrote (1130)	9/16/2008 10:15:07 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

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

To: ksuave who wrote (1130)	9/16/2008 10:24:38 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

One witch: Democrat Gorelick, Mistress of Disaster directorblue.blogspot.com

To: ksuave who wrote (1130)	9/16/2008 10:47:02 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1262

I guess this is the 'intelligent' Gov. we'll get with Obama and his ACORN buddies. THE REAL SCANDAL HOW FEDS INVITED THE MORTGAGE MESS By STAN LIEBOWITZ February 5, 2008 — PERHAPS the greatest scandal of the mortgage crisis is that it is a direct result of an intentional loosening of underwriting standards - done in the name of ending discrimination, despite warnings that it could lead to wide-scale defaults. At the crisis’ core are loans that were made with virtually nonexistent underwriting standards - no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant’s ability to make payments; no down payment. Most people instinctively understand that such loans are likely to be unsound. But how did the heavily-regulated banking industry end up able to engage in such foolishness? From the current hand-wringing, you’d think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards - at the behest of community groups and “progressive” political forces. In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of “redlining” - claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation. In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications - but the overwhelming reason wasn’t racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances. Yet a “landmark” 1992 study from the Boston Fed concluded that mortgage-lending discrimination was systemic. That study was tremendously flawed - a colleague and I later showed that the data it had used contained thousands of egregious typos, such as loans with negative interest rates. Our study found no evidence of discrimination. Yet the political agenda triumphed - with the president of the Boston Fed saying no new studies were needed, and the US comptroller of the currency seconding the motion. No sooner had the ink dried on its discrimination study than the Boston Fed, clearly speaking for the entire Fed, produced a manual for mortgage lenders stating that: “discrimination may be observed when a lender’s underwriting policies contain arbitrary or outdated criteria that effectively disqualify many urban or lower-income minority applicants.” Some of these “outdated” criteria included the size of the mortgage payment relative to income, credit history, savings history and income verification. Instead, the Boston Fed ruled that participation in a credit-counseling program should be taken as evidence of an applicant’s ability to manage debt. Sound crazy? You bet. Those “outdated” standards existed to limit defaults. But bank regulators required the loosened underwriting standards, with approval by politicians and the chattering class. A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money. Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department. Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with “100 percent financing . . . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . . . even if you don’t report it on your tax returns.” Credit counseling is required, of course. Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed “the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted.” That lender’s $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003. Who was that virtuous lender? Why - Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, recently in the headlines as it hurtled toward bankruptcy. In an earlier newspaper story extolling the virtues of relaxed underwriting standards, Countrywide’s chief executive bragged that, to approve minority applications that would otherwise be rejected “lenders have had to stretch the rules a bit.” He’s not bragging now. For years, rising house prices hid the default problems since quick refinances were possible. But now that house prices have stopped rising, we can clearly see the damage caused by relaxed lending standards. This damage was quite predictable: “After the warm and fuzzy glow of ‘flexible underwriting standards’ has worn off, we may discover that they are nothing more than standards that lead to bad loans . . . these policies will have done a disservice to their putative beneficiaries if . . . they are dispossessed from their homes.” I wrote that, with Ted Day, in a 1998 academic article. Sadly, we were spitting into the wind. These days, everyone claims to favor strong lending standards. What about all those self-righteous newspapers, politicians and regulators who were intent on loosening lending standards? As you might expect, they are now self-righteously blaming those, such as Countrywide, who did what they were told. Stan Liebowitz is the Ashbel Smith professor of Economics in the Business School at the University of Texas at Dallas. This needs to be shouted from the (foreclosed) rooftops. But of course it will not be. (And of course not only is Mrs. Clinton a big ACORN supporter, but Mr. Obama worked for them both before and after attending law school.)