Larry Johnson tells all

Larry Johnson is not a fan of Bush or McCain, so when he steps forward with a story, you can believe it.

Barack Obama has a major Wall Street and Washington problem that the media so far is refusing to acknowledge or explore. He is in the pocket of the Wall Street firms and mortgage security companies that are at the center of the collapse of the real estate bubble. He is closely tied to at least two of the Fannie Mae principals. As Ricky Ricardo would say, “Barack, you got some splaining to do.”

Let’s start with the numbers. Why is a first term Senator pulling down almost $300,000 a year from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Countrywide Financial, and Washington Mutual? He has not even completed his fourth year in the Senate and received a total of $1,093,329.00 from these eight companies and their employees. (all data from OpenSecrets.org). John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00. In other words, Barack is receiving $273,582.25 (and 2008 is not over) per year while McCain raised a paltry $30,532.44.

Want another shocker? Barack Obama has received more from one source–Goldman Sachs $542,252.00–than McCain has from all of the companies combined. Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists? And why does a junior Senator from Illinois rate this kind of dough?

Why are these firms and their employees showering Barack with their cash? Although the conventional wisdom wants to pin the Wall Street debacle on Republican greed, the reality is that the real estate market and the big players on Wall Street have been a Democratic game. McCain’s hands are clean when it comes to this mess. That is not spin, that is a fact. He proposed legislation back in 2006 to start addressing the abuses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but the Democrats would have none of it.

Why? Here’s the explanation.

To understand you must first appreciate that the largest debt market in the United States is the mortgage market. One of the major players in the market, at least until this month, is Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae was initially established in 1938 in order to provide a secondary mortgage market. What does this mean? It would buy mortgages from one lender and sell mortgages to another. It played the role of a broker who helped make the market work.

Fannie Mae because a private company in 1968 and continued to fund mortgages by issuing mortgage backed securities (i.e., MBS). When Fannie Mae issues the MBS she is guaranteeing the investors a return on their investment and, at the same time, providing a source of funds to supply additional mortgages.

Fannie Mae was not standing on a corner selling mortgages out of a hot dog stand on the corner. She needed help on Wall Street. So, who helped her market the securities and raise the case? The “good” folks at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and AIG, just to name the more prominent ones.

So who was in charge of Fannie Mae for 16 of the last 18 years? Let’s start with James A. Johnson (no relation). Remember him? Barack initially tabbed him to head up the Vice Presidential search team. He was Walter Mondale’s campaign manager in the 1984 fiasco and chaired the search committee for John Kerry. But he started as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae in 1990, quickly moved up to be the CEO, and left Fannie in 1999 as Chairman of the Executive Committee.

And guess where he went? Fishing? Nope. He became one of the outside directors of
Corporate Finance for Lehman Brothers.

The roles of Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers are important to understand if you are to make sense of Fannie Mae’s collapse. When Johnson moved to Goldman Sachs, the main man at Fannie was Franklin D. Raines. Late in 2005 Raines resigned from Fannie Mae, accused of being in charge when the books were cooked. The scheme is fairly simple. Raines and other top executives made bonuses if they hit specific earnings targets for the securities sold by Fannie Mae. They regularly hit those targets until it was discovered by the (SEC) Securities & Exchange Commission’s top accountant Fannie misstated earnings for 3 1/2 years, leading to an estimated $9 billion restatement that will wipe out 40% of profits from 2001 to mid-2004.

Link

Go to the link and finish off the story, but it only gets worse.

And yet, as Johnson says, we hear nothing about this from the media!

Herb Moses, Barney Frank and Fannie Mae

Just when you think it this couldn't get any worse, here comes this.


As with Nancy Pelosi's investment in CNLE this is about a clear case of conflict of interest as can be found. Where is the calls for a Special Prosecutor?

WASHINGTON — Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."

A top GOP House aide agreed.

"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."

Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.

"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover."

The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."

Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.

Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.

Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.

"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently.

Link

Hat tip to mightymom.

Barney Franks, Herb Moses, Bill Clinton, Fannie Mae and Oil Prices

Also known as how the Democrats set the building on fire and then shot the firemen.

By STEVEN A. HOLMES (New York Times)

Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

When I read that Clinton was proclaiming that he had tried to increase oversight of Fannie and Freddie but was unable to because of the Democrats I knew that he was getting out in front on the issue to avoid any personal blame.

The above shows you why. It proves that the disease turned terminal and started to spread in late summer 1999 driven by the Democrats. That would be Barney Franks and all the poverty pimps and community organizers.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's

Now remember. That was September 1999. Re-read that paragraph directly above. It looks like everyone knew what could happen. Then read the following.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Link to New York Times.

Of course in doing this the market has lost around 2000 points in the past 7 market days and we are teetering on the brink of disaster.

So we know what started it, but what was the trip wire that has caused the collapse?

Go back to last April. For the previous six months or so the Fed had been dumping money into the markets to keep them liquid and to stem the foreclosures. And it was working. Things didn't look good, but things looked under control.

Oil prices started the year at around $93.00 and had increased a little bit over $5.00 to $98 at the beginning of April, then $12.00 in April to end at $110 and by the middle of July oil was at $146 and gasoline as $4.00 a gallon.

OPEC oil prices.

Along with increased energy prices, everything that it effects jumped in price. The people who could barely hang on started defaulting and the spiral started.

The dagger that was thrust into America's financial heart is oil pricing.

And there is no doubt that it is Democrats who, by opposing drilling in America supported the speculators belief that shortages would occur and that they could safely bid the price up. And dear hearts, they did.

If you want to know who should be tried for high crimes and misdemeanors, start with Nancy Pelosi, Barney Franks, Harry Reid and Chris Dodd. You may find that I don't mention Hussein. As a Leftie he shares blame with them all, but he gets only 20 years where the other get life with out patrol.

Bush? Bush has proven only that he has been inept and too slow to act. History will judge him harshly. Not for the Iraqi war he has won, but for the financial war he has lost.

The one and only thing that will save us from a Depression of 1929 magnitude is for the Congress to declare a national emergency and direct the oil companies to take all necessary actions to drill and bring oil on line. Just the policy and national commitment should drop oil to $50.00 in 4 to 6 weeks.

Frankly, I don't see much of a chance of happening with a McCain administration.

It damn sure won't happen if Hussien is elected.

Hang on chums, it's going to get much rougher.

How we killed the economy and how we can fix it

One of the solutions to our economic probles that the Left loves is "rebuild the infrastructure." The claim is it will employ people and it will boost the economy.

The problem with the "construction" industry solution is this.

The construction of private homes is not the same as building bridges, roads, etc. The materials required is different. The equipment is largely different. The planning is entirely different. The number of workers is vastly different. And the skill set is vastly different. A rough framing carpenter is useless in bridge building as is a finished carpenter. Plus you have very little need for plumbers and electricians.

And the number of workers needed for home building is much greater than what you need for road building.

Would it employ people. Yes. But not enough to jump start the economy and at a cost we can't afford.

So what you have is another Leftie central planning solution that won't work.

Now, what caused the housing bubble?

Greed. Greed of people wanting more than they could afford and greed of politicians wanting to give them a reason to vote for them.

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders

snip

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

snip


Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.


Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

NYTimes

In case you don't know, the above was published 9/30/1999 and the President was Clinton.

Now Wallison was right. And in 2003 the Bush administration tried to get control.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

But Barney Frank and Chris Dodd stopped it.

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''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.''

Link

That Franks didn't know his rear end from first base is obvious. That he was doing this purely for political reasons doesn't need to be stated.

And the result was as expected. A overheated market. Greed by buyers wanting to speculate. Greed by sellers wanting to sell. Greed by banks who knew that whatever they did they could sell it to, among others, Fannie and Freddie and that the government wouldn't let them fail.

They were right. Read "The Big Short," by Michael Lewis.

Yet as the market imploded the Feds tried to ease the crisis by lowering rates. The economy remained strong and the end of April 2008 the situation, while not good, was somewhat under control.

Then the other shoe dropped. Oil went from around $85 a barrel in May to $145 a barrel by mid July and the economy collapsed. This was driven by speculators who were convinced, wrongly, that an oil shortage existed and that the Democrats would limit drilling. On the latter they were right. The Demos, in control of the House and the Senate blocked all attempts by the Repubs to increase drilling.

Finally Bush acted and issued an EO removing prohibitions. The oil bubble collapsed and the Demos, fearful of being left out, joined in.

By the time Obama was sworn in gasoline was $1.81 a gallon.

What did Obama do? Within days:

Facing gas prices near $4 a gallon and a pivotal national election, congressional Democrats allowed a ban on offshore drilling to lapse in September

But times change, and on Tuesday, the Obama administration - with gas prices roughly half what they were and many Democrats’ having been swept into office - blocked offshore drilling plans put in place at the last minute by the Bush administration, including plans to open the national outer continental shelf for drilling.

Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar also announced last week that his agency would block drilling on public lands in Utah, criticizing the Bush administration for releasing its offshore drilling plan just days before leaving office.

Link

And gasoline prices have since climbed steadily to a high of around $4.50 before falling back to the current $3.66.

And the economy is approaching depression levels.

How to fix it?

Start drilling for oil. Get rid of those regulations.

No charge for the education.



OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

A trillion here, a trillion there...

Can we blame S&P for the downgrade? Well, some say no more than we can blame the Post Office for putting up “Wanted Posters.” Yet we hear that the Regime is investigating S&P.

At the same time they are blaming the Tea Party. A group of loosely organized people who have no elected representatives, no fund raising organization, no nationally recognized leaders and no national means of communications, although as England and Egypt have discovered, perhaps Social Media and the Internet have replaced the Man on a White Horse. Email may have replaced the screaming crowds of worshipers. Indeed, Obama may have been the last “Dear Leader” who will have the capability to appear in front of us and mouth platitudes while draped in self righteousness to a chanting crowd of fainting females.

Email is cooler. Twitter is quick and Face Book commands attention. Yet they all, unlike old political speech, have an ability to be read by millions and a permanence. Just ask the so-called scientists at "East Anglia University" how quickly your “private” emails can effectively destroy a political movement. And, yes that is what the so-called “Global Warming” hoax is. But I digress.

To return to the downgrade, it is interesting that the RINOs of our elected officials and vaunted opinion makers, while making vague remarks intending to damn the Tea Party with faint praise, mutter such things as, “doing their job," etc., etc., etc., about S&P and the downgrade.

Really??? Aren’t these the same people who ignored the impending collapse of the housing market and what that would do to the banks? And it wasn’t like they weren’t warned. When Clinton expanded Freddie and Fannie in 1999:

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Snip

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

NY Times

Was the dog asleep? Not really.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates

NY Times

What the dogs were was unconcerned. They were making tons of money from the industry they were supposed to be watching and if their words suggested that just maybe bundles of mortgages, which previously had 5% trash had morphed into bundles composed of 95% trash, who was going to take the blame for allowing the expansion?? Better to whistle by the graveyard and hope the Feds could stabilize things with interest rate cuts. And if things collapsed, the government would fix it. After all, we had done it before in SE Asia, why not for America?

And it was working. By April of 2008 the housing market, while shaky, was much better and looked to be stabilized. But there was a snake in the bushes just waiting to strike. Oil prices. And they went from around $90 a barrel in April/May to $145 by mid July and the economy started its collapse.

Some blamed the “exploding” demand from China and India. Some blamed the weak dollar being driven into commodities triggering a bubble in oil prices by the speculators. The former was wrong. The latter was correct to a degree. But the icing on the speculators cake was that the Democrats, driven by the EcoTerrists in their base, indicated that they would do nothing to prevent the assumed pending shortage. Note the assumed. In fact, during May the Democrats, in control of both Houses of Congress, stopped all attempts by the Republicans to increase drilling by opening up Federal lands and seas by removing restrictions.

Think I am wrong? Well, Bush issued his EO in August rescinding the previous restrictions and the Democrats followed in the early Fall. Damnably late and neither actually did anything logical like saying that no one can trade commodity futures unless they can demonstrate that they can take or receive the results of the trade. But it did pop the bubble and gasoline prices, slowly following oil, dropped from $4.00 plus in mid July ’08 to $1.81 the day Obama was inaugurated in 1/09. (He immediately took steps to undo what Congress had done, but that’s another story.)

The results speak for themselves.

Gas Prices

Drilling ban reinstated

Now let us fast forward to 2011 from 2007/2008. What is the same and what is different? Well, the banks and corporations were making tons of money from the government. Oil prices had/have been slowly inching upward. Unemployment had/has been slowly inching upwards.

The Feds had/have kept/cut interest rates driving commodity prices up. Check not only oil but corn, soybeans, cotton. (Of course corn has been impacted by our silly energy policy of using it to produce alcohol for 10% of our gasoline.)

In 2008 the Federal Budget was expanding. In 2011 the Federal Budget is expanding.

But in 2008 no one was shouting that we couldn’t keep this up forever and no one was pointing out that the debt was approaching our GDP.

Well in 2010 and 2011, the Libertarian members of the Tea Party were. Some politicians of the Conservative bent were. People started sending emails, twitter was twittering and Face Book displayed the image of our Senior Citizens all agreeing with each other.

The Republicans had actually won the House and were talking about stopping borrowing unless they got big cuts. Even Obama entered calling for a grand scheme with cuts and revenue increases. Bernie starts talking about QE3. The U6 Unemployment rate is around 18%.

What’s a credit agency to do? Well, one thing they don’t want is for their clients to take it in the shorts all at once. The banks, the large corporations and Wall Street were and are hooked on easy money. Let the crazy Republicans get into a fight with the crazier Democrats and who knows?? People are talking about defaults. Worse, the credit agencies can’t ignore this. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me is one of the golden rules of business. If the credit limit was not extended and default happened on just some of the government’s obligations the result would be a helluva market hit.

So S&P decided to enter into politics. It said, you must extend the credit limit. And it even gave a number on how, along with the extension, the debt could be reduced. That was a mistake. They foolishly drew a line in the sand.

The credit limit was raised but S&P’s recommendations were not accepted. They were now trapped. If not doing what they wanted was accepted they would be like a bank credit line manager telling a business it must do certain things or suffer a credit lowering and then doing nothing when the business didn’t do what it was told. A toothless dog is no dog at all.

All S&P has to sell is its reputation and influence. Lose that and it is effectively dead. So they gave us a tongue whipping for not doing what we were told and then dropped us to AA+. Lower than France. Lower than Switzerland.

Has this helped? No. The market has taken a big hit. The future is uncertain and business does not expand to a large degree into an uncertain market

Blame S&P? Does anyone on this planet actually think we are less credit worthy than France? If, as we use to say in the Cold War, the rocket goes up whom do you trust to maintain western civilization? The US or Switzerland?

Blame S&P? Damn right. They had to know what the markets would do and yet they did what they did to try and recover some “face” lost in 2008. A corporation welding that much power and willing to use it for its self interest irrespective of the damage it does to the country should be blamed.

In the final analysis of any situation you are either with us or against us.





OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Bring in more clowns....

Now I freely admit that I got my butt burnt badly yesterday in the market. So I am not a happy camper and today I have been prone to snap at anything that walks by. But when I keep hearing the Hussein minions and their buds in the press blaming Bush for this mess, well I go from hot to boiling hot.

Shall we do something that the MSM can't seem to do? Use Google?

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

And before you say, "About time Bush did something," that was 9/11/2003.

Well, the Demos shot it down.

''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.

NYTimes

Let me spell this out. It was "affordable housing" that brought us the subprime mess. Now, who could have shut down the subprime mess? Why Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac! But they didn't. Instead they jumped in with both feet.

Now, would you care to know who received contributions from Fred and Fannie? Well the No. 1 man is Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Wanna know who was No 2 with about $120,000 over the past two years? Why Senator Barack Hussein Obama...

A fish rots from its head down is an old expression. I have a newer one, one that the Democrats seem to like.

Let's have a Special Prosecutor!!

Frank sues Jessee over who was the biggest pimp.

In a sweeping move, the government on Friday sued 17 financial firms, including the largest U.S. banks, for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic when the housing market collapsed

.

CSM

I wonder how all this got started..........

By STEVEN A. HOLMES (New York Times)

Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

snip

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

1999.... Now who was President??????

And who knew what was going to happen?

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's

snip

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Link

A pox on both of them, I say. Damn their eyes and jail the bunch of them.

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

What caused this mess

While we push and shove over the debt ceiling, I think it helpful to revisit on how the economy was destroyed using the housing market as the car bomb.

First, you have to remember the Community Reinvestment Act. This was a piece of social engineering that said that banks had to loan money to people who lived in certain areas and who had questionable credit.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.[1][2][3] Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.[4][5]

The Act requires the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound operation (Section 802.) To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions (Section 804.)[6]

Link

No doubt a warm and wonderful thing. Of course what happened was that the activists grabbed it and used it to make banks do their bidding.

But even that wasn’t enough. During the Clinton Administration credit was expanded.

Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action.....-- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.

Snip

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

NYT Link

Well, it took 4 years but some people caught on that a problem was looming.

By STEPHEN LABATON

Published: September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan,.....a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac....

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

snip

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''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.''

NYT Link

The new regulations were blocked and almost 6 years later to the day we had the melt down.

We need to keep the above in mind as the Lefties do their “Anybody but Obamie” shake and bake.

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Pin the tail on Barney

The video that had disappeared like magic has reappeared. In it O'Reilly does an admirable job of pointing out to Barney that Barney screwed the pooch in July 2008and recommended Fannie/Freddie going forward, one of the worst, if not THE worst recommendation in the history of the world. Well, ok. Maybe telling everyone how safe the Titanic was safe was a wee bit worse.

What's interesting in this is that in Barney's sputtering defense, he claims that it was he, Barney Frank and his band of Demo donkeys that had the first opportunity to pass a bill to stop the problem after Obamie's Heroes lied enough to win in 2006 and take complete control of Congress.

Link to video. Pay close attention starting at about the 1 minute 50 second mark.

Now, how can you tell a Demo is lying? His lips are moving!

From an earlier post:

Shall we do something that the MSM can't seem to do? Use Google?

(From the source article) "The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates." (End quote from source.)

"And before you say, "About time Bush did something," that was 9/11/2003.

Well, the Demos shot it down."

(From source article)''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.(End quote)

Link to post with further links to NYTimes

You know, what I can't figure out is why the LSM can't do what I just did above and show it to millions? I am one old ROF who does this in my spare time when I feel like it. Look! This is important stuff! This guy sat right their and lied through his teeth! Yet he is in charge of the House Finance Committee and will get re-elected again in 2010 by the unknowing and uncaring voters in MA.

Now Fannie and Freddie are passing out money! Hope Barney's friend gets some!

And the hits just keep on coming!

Fannie Mae plans bonuses of up to $1 million for 4 executives.

Fannie Mae said regulators determined that the bonuses were needed because keeping key employees "was essential to ensure our viability through 2010, which would allow Congress, the administration and other parties involved time to determine what the form and function of the company will be in future years."

Huh? In every company I ever worked for people got fired for doing a lousy job!

You know, after this, watching some TV today and hearing what Shep Smith said... I think it is time to get rid of all of'em! Demos, Repubs and all the others. None of'em are worth keeping, some are merely worse than others. Maybe we can get some action in the primaries in 2010.

And remember this. Barney Frank, who wants names, has a special friend who works at Fannie Mae. Talk about balls, Barney has a pair. Or else he has figured out none of the wussies around him will call him out.

Link to Barney

Hat tip to Edwards1949 at the Tennessean.

How Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac happened... in 1000 words or less

In the early 90's there was a real push for banks and other financial institutions to serve the inner city... mostly minority....market and to stop using the practice of "red lining," which was simply drawing a red line around areas that they would not make loans in.

Was this practice racist? Not in my mind. It was simply "business." The experience with loans within those areas said a rational business person wouldn't loan money in those areas. If you are a bank, loan shark or Freddie and Fannie... if the borrower defaults, you must recover your loss.

But the gov pushed and Freddie and Fannie promised to pay and new ways of financing came into play and "flipping" became the rage and everyone was happy..... except a few old malcontents... as evidenced by Bush in '03 and McCain in '05...

What had started off as a way to improve housing for a small number of marginally "poor minorities" spread because everyone was making money and getting bennie points for being "for the poor." And as the demand went up, the prices went up which meant that the "needs subprime loan" level went up and encompassed more people.

That McCain and Bush were right and Barney and Harry and Nancy and Hussein were wrong is not in question. The Demos created the problem and then refused to let it be regulated properly.

The road to hell is always paved with good intentions driven on by the car of greed and self service.

Now's the time for Hussein to shut up and admit that his side was wrong. That would be a "change," wouldn't it?

Clinton - Democrats resisted tightening up on Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac

Just the facts, mam.

This was said by Bill Clinton. And it speaks for itself.

Two days later, former President Clinton agreed:

CHRIS CUOMO, ABC NEWS: A little surprising for you to hear the Democrats saying, "This came out of nowhere, this is all about the Republicans. We had nothing to do with this." Nancy Pelosi saying it. She signed the '99 Gramm Bill. She knew what was going on with the SEC. They're all sophisticated people. Is that playing politics in this situation?

BILL CLINTON: Well, maybe everybody does that a little bit. I think the responsibility the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Link

Holy Tell the Truth Batman!

Barney Frank insulted!

The Tennessee Tea Party tweeted @tnteaparty at 12:40 p.m. today about the impending retirement of U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a gay Democrat from Massachusetts, with this remark: “Good riddance you perverted sodomite POS!!”

Link

I dislike such comments because all they do is make all the Lefties swoon and throw snit fits. And since they might harm themselves and not be around to see Obamie give his concession speech I am naturally against them.

Besides. I am for gay rights. And if Congress wanted to put up with a gay congressman who had let his lover run a whore house out of his apartment and if the good people of Boston wanted to keep electing him for some 30 years..... who am I to complain?

But I do heartily dislike certain things. One of them is people, such as the insulter, who claims to be with the Tennessee Tea Party.

Well, as the commercial now running every 30 minutes says... "There is no Tennessee Tea Party." (Pardon the paraphrase. Couldn't help myself.)

He is a member, perhaps an official of a Tea Party organization that calls itself the Tennessee Tea Party.

Not to belabor a point, but there is no formal organization of TN Tea Parties.

So what we have here is some person claiming to be an official of a Tea Party with a name of the Tennessee Tea Party has said something nasty about poor Barney.

Actually poor Barney should not have words wasted on him. His actions re the housing bubble speak for themselves, and are the reason for him leaving Congress. He had a difficult 2010 election and he knows that he won't win in 2012. Let us review.

By STEVEN A. HOLMES (New York Times)

Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

Sounded great. But some knew better.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Link

Now that was 9/30/1999. Bubba Clinton was the Prez. And just as Wallison predicted the housing market took off. And tanked. Tanked big time. Of course along the way, the Bush administration took notice and decided something needed to be done.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

snip

And before you say, "About time Bush did something," that was 9/11/2003.

Well, the Demos shot it down.


''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.''

Link

BTW - Note that was 9/11/2003. It can be argued that Barney's despicable actions caused far more damage to the country than the attacks on 9/11/2001.

BTW - There are links within the two links above that will take you back to the source of the information. Use them if you don't believe me. Of course if they say bad things about your hero you  Lefties won't believe them, even though they are the New York Times.


"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“It’s the presumption that Obama knows how all these industries ought to be operating better than people who have spent their lives in those industries, and a general cockiness going back to before he was president, and the fact that he has no experience whatever in managing anything. Only someone who has never had the responsibility for managing anything could believe he could manage just about everything.” - Thomas Sowell in Reason Magazine

The great disappearing act of 2009

Last fall O'Reilly had Barney Frank on his program and flayed him, including playing a video of Barney last July telling everyone that Fannie and Freddie are great "going forward!"

Of course that was wrong and anyone with a lick of sense last July knew that Fannie/Freddie were in huge trouble, but there was Barney "Give me their names" Frank giving a buy recommendation...

A few minutes ago I went to my Fav list to pull the video up and post it in this ....but guess what? Yeah, you know.'

The video has been pulled because of "Violations of Terms of Service." You know, what is happening is plain to see. No evidence of Demo wrong doing shall be left in public view!

Expanded from my comments in the Tennessean.


Hat tip to the Houdini poster. Click here if you are interested.

Will Palin sue?

The Dark Avenger, who though banned keeps returning, has opined in a comment to my previous post:

Actually, the case of Sullivan Vs. the New York Times states that there must be actual malice found before libel or slander against a public official may be found by a court.

Given the hostility so amply demonstrated by the Left I see no problem in demonstrating actual malice. Especially since as a private citizen she can claim a higher level of privacy than as Governor.


He then provides this:

On the Fourth of July, when Americans everywhere were celebrating our most sacred national holiday with parades and barbeques, Governor Sarah Palin was busy having me, Shannyn Moore, declared an Enemy of the State.

No. Palin’s lawyer’s letter threatening legal action appears to be based on his belief that Shannyn has slandered and/or libeled her. There is, as any of the people in Iran who are currently under arrest and waiting Obamie’s words of help, a vast difference between the two actions.


Shannyn’s claim demonstrates a lack of facts and control that she showed in her interview.

Van Flein's letter threatening legal action specifically pointed the finger at Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore as "most notably" claiming as "fact" that Palin resigned under federal investigation.

Van Flein, asked why he singled out Moore, said it's because she went on national television and talked about it. Moore was on with MSNBC's David Shuster on Friday, the day Palin said she will resign.

"There is a scandal rumor here that there is a criminal investigation into some activities and that's been rumored for about, I don't know, probably six weeks or two months," Moore told him.

Shannyn continues:

When Sarah Palin gave her three-weeks notice to the people of Alaska, aborting her term as Governor, a lot of people wondered why she quit. Mid-level managers turn-in their notice, not elected public officials. It didn't make sense. It still doesn't. People have been trying to guess why she really quit, and everyone in Alaska has been playing the guessing game. They're rumors. There are a lot of rumors. And with all the corruption we've had here in Alaska, of course we wonder what's really behind her resignation.

Governors don't just quit. But Governor Palin did.

Well, they could do like Clinton did. Promise to serve the full term, then use the first two years running for President, resigning after he won. I wonder which Shannyn would find the most ethical??

Yes dear chums, I believe that would be a rhetorical question.

We march onward.

Moore said she always characterized it as rumors and never claimed it was fact. She said she has no idea if Palin is under investigation for the construction of her house or anything else, but that the governor's resignation from office was so out of character it's raising questions about what's going on.

"I haven't defamed the governor, I reported on speculation and rumor in Alaska. ... It's not my rumor; it's been out there for 10 months and the First Amendment protects me," Moore said. "Even if I didn't say it's 'rumors and speculation,' I'm still protected -- I would just lose credibility, which I'm not willing to do."

Link

I doubt if Shannyn will be sued so I have no idea as if she would win. But the fact of the matter is that the Left has used “it is rumored that…” “xxxx reports that it is rumored….” As a way to attack Palin. They started it with the false report that Palin’s son was actually her daughter’s, continued it with the “black Sambo” canard and the claim that she had banned books as a mayor, etc., etc.

It morphed into attack comments about her children that have continued almost unabated. I assume all of you are familiar with David Letterman’s very recent comments that her daughter would be “knocked up” by a well known Yankee ball player during the seventh inn stretch….

But back to Shannyn.

Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully. What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind? What's wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from the likes of people like her. Our American Revolution got rid of kings. And queens, too. Am I jacked-up? You betcha.


Sarah Palin, if you have a problem with me, then sue me. Shannyn Moore will not be muzzled!

How cute. Shannyn attacks the victim. And while she has every right to speak her mind, Palin has the right to sue.

But despite Shannyn’s willingness to go to the cross, Palin isn’t going to sue her.

This is all about sending a warning shot across the bow of those news organizations with money and resources. They are being told to do the investigative thing and quit being political lackeys for the Left by reporting on rumors and rumors of rumors.

That would be most welcome. As Shannyn said, we need no Queens.. or Kings… I look forward to her hard hitting article about Nancy Pelosi’s purchase of stock in Boone Pickens wind mill company.. Followed by an expose of Barney Frank’s relationship with an employee of Fannie Mae.

Link

Braney Frank, Fannie Mae and Herb Moses

Pelosi and conflict of interest.

McCain and the Keating Five and William Ayers

Good morning chums. It appears that the McCain campaign woke up last Friday and said, "Gee. Hussein's minions are being mean to us and won't tell the truth about Hussein's paling around with the self-identified terrorist William Ayers, we will.

So they have started the process. And a tangled web it is. Basically it shows that Hussein, early on, started associating with Ayers. Now first, who is William Ayers and why should we care? The following is from:

Link to Wikipedia

Ayers became involved in the New Left and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[7] He rose to national prominence as an SDS leader in 1968 and 1969. As head of an SDS regional group, the "Jesse James Gang", Ayers made decisive contributions to the Weatherman orientation toward militancy......

Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot.[9] The blast broke almost 100 windows and blew pieces of the statue onto the nearby Kennedy Expressway...

In 1970 he "went underground" with several associates after the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, in which Weatherman member Ted Gold, Ayers' close friend Terry Robbins, and Ayers' girlfriend, Diana Oughton, were killed when a nail bomb (an anti-personnel device) they were assembling exploded...

Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972, as he noted in his 2001 book, Fugitive Days

Now you would think that Ayers would still be jail. After all, he was attacking the country in a way that could have killed people. But no, eat up in stupid the criminal justice system let him go.

By 1976 or 1977, with federal charges against both fugitives dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct (see COINTELPRO),....

Much of the controversy about Ayers during the decade since the year 2000 stems from an interview he gave to the New York Times on the occasion of the memoir's publication.[18] The reporter quoted him as saying "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all again" as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility."[14] Ayers has not denied the quotes,

The New York Times interview was published on 9/11/2001. What a day, eh?

And note the comment...

when asked if he would "do it all again" (Ayers) as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility."

So what we have here is a person who committed acts of terrorism, was let off on a technicality and regrets only that he didn't do more and won't say he wouldn't do it again.

Now that alone should be enough to make any patriot not associate with William Ayers.

But it didn't bother Hussein, but then he has never been strong on patriotism. And that's understandable, given his association and conversion to Christianity from his Muslim upbringing by the Reverend Wright and Black Liberation Theology.

Wright himself, after preaching to Hussein and his family for 20 years is best known for his claim that the US invented AIDS to kill blacks and his "God dam America!"

Anyone fed a weekly diet of such poison would be swayed. And since Hussein didn't get up and leave, it is obvious that he was swayed and had no problem with the comments.

Hussein's acts define him, eh?

But let's return to Ayers.

(Ayers)...is an American elementary education theorist and former leading 1960s Marxist. He is known for the violent nature of his activism in the 1960s and 1970s as well as his current work in education reform, curriculum, and instruction. In 1969 he cofounded the radical Marxist organization Weather Underground which was active during the 1960s and 1970s. He is now a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, holding the honor of Distinguished Professor.

Now note this:

His first arrest came for a sit-in at a local draft board, resulting in 10 days in jail. His first teaching job came shortly afterward at the Children's Community School, a preschool with a very small enrollment operating in a church basement, founded by a group of students in emulation of the Summerhill method of education.[6] The school was a part of the nationwide "free school movement". Schools in the movement had no grades or report cards, they aimed to encourage cooperation rather than competition, and the teachers had pupils address them by their first names. Within a few months, at age 21, Ayers became director of the school. There also he met Diana Oughton, who would become his girlfriend until her death in a bomb-making accident in 1970.[2]

He started in radical education, and he continues in radical education. But how does that connect him to Hussein?

Read the following quotes from:

Huffington Post

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district's influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn....

"I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress," said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. "[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor."

The Washington Post also points out that Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's state senate reelection campaign in 2001.

Clinton said she was concerned about Obama's association with Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground.....

Mr. Ayers is listed as a member of the nine-member board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an offshoot of the Woods Charitable Fund, founded in 1941 by a prominent lawyer and telephone company executive. According to the fund's Web site, it has focused in recent years on "issues that affected the area's least advantaged, including welfare reform, affordable housing" and "tax policy as a tool in reducing poverty."

For a time, Mr. Obama was on the board with Mr. Ayers, though he no longer has a formal association with the group. At the debate, he described Mr. Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," but "not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis." Mr. Obama said he was being unjustly linked to "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old."

Note that all of the above comes from the far Left blog, The Huffington Post.

So now we can ask ourselves. Hussein was 8 years old when Ayers was attacking the country, and was just on the board.....and only got $200...and yet the two didn't share common views?? Would you like to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?

Let's look a little further.

Annenberg Challenge

September 23, 2008 – New details culled from the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) reveal that Barack Obama and unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers were “partners” in a radical education program that “poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists” with “no evidence of educational improvement.”

...Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC...

“The CAC's basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda…

“The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism...

“CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with ‘external partners,’ which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).

“Mr. Obama once conducted ‘leadership training’ seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement.”

Now we have all of this, yet some refuse to see the connection. I will add the following.

Link to article quoted.

Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers.

With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore “exchanging ideas on a regular basis”). So when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership. Of course, all of this clearly contradicts Obama’s dismissal of the significance of his relationship with Ayers.

Dear chums, Ayers had Hussein appointed to the chairmanship. You do not have someone appointed to the chairmanship of any board that does not agree with you. And it is stupid for Hussein's minions to deny this.

You know, if it walks like an Ayers, talks like an Ayers, associates with an Ayers, works with an Ayers... it is an Ayers...

And the question is, do you want this man as President???

The title of this post, the most lengthy one I have ever done for Tall Cotton, included the words McCain and the Keating Five.

As we did for Ayers, let's go to Wikipedia to see what the result of McCain's association was.

wikipedia

The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly intervening in 1987 on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association,

To say that this was investigated by the Democratically controlled Congress is like calling cancer the flu. It went on and on and on. Yet when it was done. The results?

The Ethics Committee ruled that the involvement of McCain in the scheme was also minimal, and he too was cleared of all charges against him.[46][45] McCain was criticized by the Committee for exercising "poor judgment" when he met with the federal regulators on Keating's behalf.[7] The report also said that McCain's "actions were not improper nor attended with gross negligence and did not reach the level of requiring institutional action against him....Senator McCain has violated no law of the United States or specific Rule of the United States Senate."[49] On his Keating Five experience, McCain has said: "The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."[

Now while the Democrats deny the conflict of interest by Nancy Pelosi's ownership of CNLE stock, and while the Democrats deny the clear conflict of interest by Barney Frank's, who is the House Chairman of the committee that regulated and oversaw Fannie Mae and Mac, having a Life Partner, Herb Partner as a Fannie executive...

and Hussein denies his close association with Ayers... what do Hussein's minions do?

They whine and claim they'll talk about McCain and the Keating Five.

Be my guest dear Lefties. Please. Do it. I welcome the comparison and the questions it will bring.

Waxman wants to pass GW law....

Stuff you couldn't make up, yet it's true.

WASHINGTON – The chairman of a key House committee says he wants to pass a climate change bill before Memorial Day.

California Rep. Henry Waxman said Thursday the environment and U.S. economy depend on congressional action to confront the threat of climate change. Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, spoke as he opened Congress' first hearing on climate legislation.

Link

That ranks right up there with Barney Frank telling us last July that Fannie and Freddie were okay on going...

These people have no shame....

Wicked: Coldest Temps In Over A Decade
First Day With A Low Colder Than -10 In Chicago Since 1999

Link

But if you want to find dumb in copious quantities.... visit the districts that elected this pair of know nothings... Now that is dumb.

In the meantime we have the following.

Here’s what you need to know: if an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) is directly related, i.e. causes changes in the Earth’s temperature, there would be a direct correlation between the two. As CO2 rose, we would see a comparable rise in the Earth’s temperature. This correlation does not exist.

Global warming liars, however, insist that CO2 builds up on the atmosphere over a 50 to 250 year period, but this is untrue. “Every year around April, increased CO2 absorption by plants in the Northern Hemisphere starts reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere,” notes Ashworth, “and the reduction continues until around mid-to-late August when plants start to go dormant.”

If you want to see the chart that shows CO2 lagging temperature increases, go this source and then click on the "paper on CO2 written by" Robert Ashworth link.

And it shows a simple truth. If CO2 causes global warming, the build up would occur before the warming. It doesn't.

Game. Set. Match. And would the stupid people please leave the stands? The clean up crew needs to clean up the mess you have made before it kills us all.

A call to action

Attention! Attention! The following is a canned and standard response made whenever I find a Demo not wanting to take responsibility for the economy.

The Demos have had control of Congress for over two years. When they took over in 2/2007 unemployment was under 5%, gasoline was around $2.00 and the Dow around 14000…

By mid summer of 2008 the unemployment rate was going straight up, the market was going straight down and gasoline was holding steady at around $4.00-$4.50. All that in a short 17 months. In October the Democrats passed a bank bailout bill with no controls in it so the bankers did what came naturally, they stole their share and called it bonuses. Actually executives of Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac had been doing that for years, but since those guys were Demos no one thought anything about it.

Since Hussein’s election the trend continues with the market going down with unemployment and gasoline prices going up.

But since it only took the Demos 17 months to screw it up and 24 months to absolutely destroy it, maybe we can get back to 2000 levels by the third month of the Pallin administration. That would be April 2009.



But that isn't going to happen if all you Repubs in Washington keep on laying around like a whipped puppy dog whining that ACRON stole the election, that the Lame Stream Media was for Hussein and unfair to you and that McCain ran the worst campaign in history.

So? You boys and girls got fat and lazy and had your head handed to you by the other side who was quicker, faster and meaner. They said what you could say.... Remember the ban by McCain on calling Hussein, Hussein? They ignored the war on terror, and so did you. Think maybe a few reminders of 9/11 and what the radical Muslims want to do would have helped focused folks on the real issues? Worse, you ignored the energy issue, something that was demonstrably the Lefties and environmental wackos fault and hitting everyone in the pocketbook.

Let us face the music dear Repubs and Conservatives of all shades, you didn't man up. You wimped out big time and got your butt kicked and you deserve it, but the country doesn't. A large part of the folks out there don't have a clue and will never have a clue and it is your job to protect them. You failed.

And now all you can do is run around screaming the sky is failing. Well, it is and three of you helped pull it down a few days ago. Tell me. Any of you tell your peers that they screwed the pooch? Hell, on any football team someone will get in a team member's face when they f'up on big plays. Can't find Specter and Friend's telephone number? They are in the book dear Repubs.

You need to start kicking butts and taking names. Any of you who vote for this budget need to be called out in front of God and the world. You have veto power, use it. Be nasty. Be ugly. Start telling the truth. Get the facts out there. Call press conferences. Write editorials. Start blogs.

Show the courage you demand of the people we have sent off to war. Fight.

(The above is an expansion of comments I have written in the Tennessean.)

"Architects of Ruin," an appreciation

I don't call these a "review" because then I'd have to do quotes, give an outline, etc., etc.

What Peter Schweizer writes is a short, 187 pages, summary of just how the Leftes of the world got the Community Reinvestment Act passed under the Second Worst President in history, AKA Carter, and how the expanded it and how they eventually took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the Clinton administration and how the Lefie Boomers decided they should get rich and do good using the tax payer's money.

And how "Too Big To Fail" actually didn't start in 2008, but years and years before in Argentia, Russia, Japan, Thailand, etc., etc. Come to find out the Masters of the Universe weren't masters of anything. The game was as fixed as a card mechanic setting up the mark for the big take down.

And the recurring names in the Clinton and Obama administration will blow you away.

And while it is well written, it is a slow read with some 15 pages of notes and references, probably 300 or so.

It isn't a Right Wing rant on the Internet.

And if you aren't seething with anger after you have read it then there is something wrong.

Buy it here or elsewhere but buy it.

And if you have teenager around, do whatever it takes to get them to read it. That way they will know why their future is mortgaged.

And a hat tip to Mostly Cajun for the pic.
On Twitter I am Lesabre1

Walmart vs the Morons

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this
in only fifteen years.

8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature

It is now official that the majority of you are corrupt morons:

a.. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.

b.. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.

c.. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.

d.. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more..

e. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.

f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.

g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ??

Hat tip to Jimmy M!



"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“It’s the presumption that Obama knows how all these industries ought to be operating better than people who have spent their lives in those industries, and a general cockiness going back to before he was president, and the fact that he has no experience whatever in managing anything. Only someone who has never had the responsibility for managing anything could believe he could manage just about everything.” - Thomas Sowell in Reason Magazine