Democratic Congress: 2008 Archives

The Wall Street Journal reported on a new poll on what voters think of Republicans. Steve Moore for the WSJ reports with our italicized comments interspersed:

The first comprehensive poll on why voters voted the way they did in November has just been released by the communications firm Target Point Consulting. I received a full briefing from the pollster Alex Lundry on what these 1,000 voters think of Republicans. The short answer is: not much.

The GOP is "in great disfavor with the electorate right now. Republicans are blamed for fiscal mismanagement, overspending, and the bad economy," says Mr. Lundry.

Fiscal mismanagement when in office. Absolutely. Overspending. Absolutely. The bad economy. The burden of the party with executive power, the prior "good" economic times forgotten -- and the media never even acknowledged those good times when they were happening. As for the worldwide financial crisis we are experiencing, this was triggered by Democrats and Democratic policies on housing that Republicans unsuccessfully tried to change, but the media didn't report it that way and the fast-talking Democrats were quicker and better at pointing the finger than the Republicans -- a key Republican failing.

"Democrats are seen as a center-right party, while Republicans are seen as dominated by the right." That's a big problem because even though 84% of voters say they are center or right on the ideological spectrum, the 48% in the middle, i.e., independents, are tilting heavily toward Democrats.

This view is so hilariously wrong but nonetheless extremely disturbing. That voters think Democrats are "center-right" seems impossible, considering they nominated the most far-left senator in the party who advocates a "spread the wealth around" policy is astounding and fast-talking liberals like Barney Frank are praising expanded welfare. It shows the skill of Democratic PR aided by the left wing mainstream media. For example, the myth that man is responsible for climate change, a concept embraced by the Democratic Party, and will require actions that will thrust millions into poverty, is deemed reasonable and mainstream by the media. The Republican position that growth of the world economy is paramount and man's impact on climate is either minimal or altogether unproven is deemed by the media as extreme far-right thinking. That such false impressions have developed is proof of Republican ineptness in the age of instant media.

The fairly narrow victory by Barack Obama in the popular vote disguises an "enthusiasm gap" among Democratic and Republican voters. Some 65% of Obama voters "strongly supported" him, whereas only 33% of John McCain voters "strongly supported" the Arizona Republican. This helps explain the river of money for Mr. Obama and the massive grassroots advantage for the Democrats.

This isn't such a big problem for the long run. Voters "wanted" the first black president to show they weren't racist and Obama fanned that feeling skillfully if despicably by unfounded but effective charges of racism against Clinton and McCain. Also, McCain wasn't much of a conservative and left too many in the base sitting on their hands.

Issue by issue, when the issues are clearly understood, the Republican positions are held by a substantial majority. Telling the story well with credible spokesmen is what's needed. The handicap of the left-wing media -- and what Sam Huntington called the "de-nationalized elites" in academia and elsewhere -- is a fact that has to be addressed in all communication plans. For example, when Democrats and the elites belittle traditional American ethics and morality, patriotism and military service, and Republicans allow them to get away with it, they are missing huge opportunities. Republicans have not been forceful enough in standing up for positions that a majority of Americans agree with, fearing the backlash from the leftwing media. For example, the left wing attacks aggressively on the extreme position on gay marriage, crying "bigotry" and "denial of civil rights," and conservative spokesmen cringe instead of issuing forceful rejoinders, even though the majority of people vote for the traditional concept of marriage. But if conservaties allow the one-sided debate to continue as it is, conservative positions will be eroded, to the vast injury of American society. "Anything goes" is not an American value.

But the biggest problem revealed by the poll for Republicans is that "voters no longer believe that the party cares about the middle class in a meaningful or credible way," Mr. Lundry explains. "Democrats cleverly frame every issue as for the middle class."

Most everybody thinks they belong to the middle class. Democrats though are aiming to solidify their voting support among Americans who will be delighted with handouts from the government. The more they can make people dependent on government, the larger their support base. This is the age-old struggle between Marxist equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity that this nation was built on. Rob Peter to pay Paul. The nation is very close to having more Pauls than Peters, since so many now pay no income tax. Consequently, they have no regard for Peter, who is the middle class person footing the government bills. This is a huge problem and Obama with his pledge to "spread the wealth" will make it worse. He would transform our society into a European-style one, which is already staggering under its unsustainable socialist burdens.

What issues have Republicans hurt themselves most on? Three that jump out are immigration, where Republicans are seen as too strident; the War in Iraq, where voters are eager for closure; and bailouts, where voters have become angry and resentful at throwing money at failing giant corporations. Furthermore, as economic anxieties have escalated, independent voters are now more favorably inclined toward protectionist trade policies. Free marketeers need to make a better case for the positive benefits of international trade or more restrictions are certainly on the way.

The statements here are questionable. Overwhelmingly, Americans disapproved of all the proposed immigration plans, including McCain's and the President's. No sensible conservative proposal entered the debate; conservatives only operated at the margins or, with Tom Tancredo, at the extreme. The borders must be made secure, first and foremost. Any path to citizenship must include English and thorough Americanization and assimilation, so that the kinds of separatism and hostility shown by La Raza and the pro-Mexico rallies in Los Angeles would be disqualifying for citizenship and permanent residency. Legal immigration should be based on what America needs by way of skills rather than on family relations.

As for the economic problems and the bailouts, again it is Republican failure to characterize the situation accurately that allowed the Democrats and the media to blame the Republicans, especially the Bush Administration. Democrats instantly blamed Bush and Wall Street, when it was Democrats like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and, yes, Barack Obama, who brought on the subprime loan failure fiasco that triggered the world financial panic. To this day how many average voters knew of Bush and Senate Republican efforts to reverse Clinton subprime loan policies and rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that were blocked by Democrats led by Frank and Dodd and supported by Senator Obama? As for pinning Wall Street on the Republicans, that's a joke: Obama raised several times more money from Wall Street than McCain did. Republicans are for small business and entrepreneurship, not "Wall Street greed," greed that feeds Democratic coffers very generously. President Bush has often been faulted for not responding forcefully to criticism, fair and unfair, and in that respect he did serve the country and conservatism well. Unfortunately, Congress at this time doesn't have impressive Republican spokesmen to make the case, either.

Democrats and the leftwing media did a disservice to the country by politicizing the Iraq war. However, it will fade as any kind of positive issue for the Democrats and should emerge as a success that Republicans can take credit for - a tyrant and his threat to his neighbors and America removed, a democratic country functioning in the Middle East assisting in the war against violent Islam and, soon, substantially more oil in the world supply. A more aggressive response by the White House to the avalanche of Democratic criticism would have helped.

The good news is that voters are very fearful that Democrats will go too far with their liberal agenda. When voters are asked what they "like least about the Democrats," the most common answers volunteered were: "taxes going up," "big government," "liberal," "raise spending," and even "socialism." These broad economic and fiscal principles appear to present the GOP with its biggest opening.

Again, these Democratic positions will not become the albatrosses they should be unless Republicans are forceful and aggressive. They must find their voices and their spokesmen. Also, the damage that the global warning myth and the economically disastrous Democratic plans to counter it will do to the average citizen must be aggressivley exposed and discredited. This is a major issue to get on the side of the middle class against the environmental elites who own the Democratic Party.

The poll also reveals that Republicans can win back voters by opposing Democrats on several specific policies coming down the pike in 2009: card-check labor union elections, bailouts for banks and auto makers, welfare expansions and affirmative action.

Denying workers the vote in union elections is outrageous. Bailing out the auto unions, which is what will happen, is outrageous. Explaining why getting a hand up instead of a handout is better for the individual, the family and America is a challenge but must be done. As for affirmative action, the voters have just elected the first affirmative action president, so, who knows how big an issue that will be.

The key for the months ahead is for Republicans to posture themselves, advises Mr. Lundry, "not as obstructionists, but as a check on the Obama agenda."

Too many are being lulled by Obama's excellent appointment for defense and economics into thinking he will go mainstream. He will show his extremist side very soon: His pro-abortion agenda is breathtaking in its scope. He intends to expand abortion far beyond Roe v. Wade. Even some of his backers are arguing that infanticide is just an extension of abortion. His "spread the wealth" plan has the potential to expand the handout class into a majority for the Democratic Party. There are many, including minorities, particularly Hispanics, who may rebel against his cultural policies who can be captured for the conservative cause. Obama says he wants to transform America and what he is proposing, based on his Marxist socialist background and associations and his support for abortion without limits, is an ugly America.

Obama's Illinois Democratic governor has been arrested for peddling Obama's Senate seat for personal benefit. Prosecutor Fitzpatrick said he stepped in to arrest the governor to stop a crime spree. Illinois and Chicago are interrelated centers of political corruption. Convicted felon Tony Rezko, who raised more than $250,000 for Obama and made it possible for him to buy his Hyde Park mansion, was a big fundraiser for Blagojevich. The 16 counts Rezko was convicted on all involved political corrupution.

Obama had a candidate which he discussed with the governor, but she withdrew her name just before Fitzpatrick struck. Hmm. Did Fitzpatrick or somebody else tip Obama off? It turns out David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist and, like Obama, an alumnus of the Chicago Democratic machine, said about a month ago that Obama had discussed the vacancy with the governor. Today Obama seemed to say he hadn't spoken to the governor about it and an Obama spokesman said Axelrod had "misspoke."

It also was learned today that the Chicago Tribune had dug out the story last October about the Democratic governor's shakedowns of campaign contributors and state contractors as well as the parent company of the Tribune itself, but had not published the story at the request of the prosecutor, who said it would interfere with the ongoing investigation. What effect might this sordid story of political corruption have had on the presidential election if published in October?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrested, charged

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said today that federal authorities arrested Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich today because the governor went on "a political corruption crime spree" that needed to be stopped.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said today that federal authorities arrested Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich today because the governor went on "a political corruption crime spree" that needed to be stopped.

Fitzgerald said secret tape recordings showed Blagojevich was attempting "to sell the U.S. Senate seat" that President-elect Barack Obama recently vacated. The governor has the sole power to pick Obama's replacement under the state constitution.

"The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave," Fitzgerald said, quoting Blagojevich as saying the Senate seat is "a bleeping valuable thing. You just don't give it away....I've got this thing and it's bleeping golden."

Blagojevich wasn't against the corrupt deal for the Senate seat, he was against "being stiffed in the corrupt deal," Fitzgerald said.

more ...

And read the whole Criminal Complaint here. It's amazing.

The fiscal crisis will be on everyone's minds for quite awhile.

The world financial network hangs together because of confidence.

What shattered that confidence was the bursting of the housing bubble and the defaults beginning with the subprime loans encouraged, indeed, required by Democrats in Congress led by the likes of Massachusetts' own Congressman Barney Frank. Frank and other Democrats also twisted arms at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy the risky loans and package them up and send them around the world with the implicit U.S. guaranty behind them. Frank, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives on financial matters, kept telling concerned Republicans that Fannie and Freddie were in great condition and that no reform or new regulation was needed. Frank convinced fellow Democrats in the Senate this was the case and together they blocked reform legislation in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

What percent of Massachusetts -- and U.S. -- residents know that Democratic policies and actions cost them 30-50% of their life savings?

"Who blew that hole in your IRA?" Barney Frank. But he wasn't alone.

Of course, the voluble Frank is on the airwaves regularly blaming everyone else but himself and his colleagues, The Democrats in Congress worked hard to get their constituents who couldn't afford homes to get "subprime" (that is, very risky) mortgage loans. They got the loans all right, they got their homes, but when the housing bubble burst their mortgage defaults caused them agony and in many cases the loss of their homes.

The collapse of the subprime market triggered the financial panic that has cost the world trillions and frozen the credit system, leading to job as well as financial losses.
Democrats are now once again hard at work, this time figuring out how much of taxpayers' money will be poured into the black hole they created in the hope they will avert the Depression that their good intentions and bad judgment has hurtling towards us

After all, as Frank says, there are plenty of rich people out there to tax.

The whole sorry tale of Democratic responsibility is still being written, but a good start would be here and here.

President Bush signed and sent to Congress two years ago the Colombia Free Trade Act, which the law requires Congress to have an up-or-down vote on within a short period of time. Speaker of the House Pelosi, to please her union supporters, twisted House rules, to take it out of the required process. Michael Barone called Pelosi's action the most despicable act of this Congress.

Colombia is our closest ally in the hemisphere and a valiant partner in the fight against drug trafficking. President Uribe has done a superb job weakening the drug cartels and making Colombia safer. One couldn't ask for better cooperation.

Democrats, including President-Elect Obama, have supported Pelosi in her determination to let the trade agreement die, despite the fact it is beneficial to American exporters.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, after many months of silence, the New York Times editorialists tell Congressional Democrats they should approve the Colombia agreement now. They cite all the positive reasons and also accurately describe the progress that has been made on some of the troubling history in Colombia. Bottom line: The Times said approving the agreement is in the nation's interest.

Let's see if this is sufficient cover for Obama and Pelosi to put the nation's interest before the wishes of their union supporters.

New York Times
November 18, 2008
Editorial
Pass the Colombian Trade Pact
We don’t say it all that often, but President Bush is right: Congress should pass the Colombian free-trade agreement now.

Mr. Bush signed the deal two years ago. The Democratic majority in Congress has refused to approve it out of a legitimate concern over the state of human rights in Colombia and less legitimate desires to pander to organized labor or deny Mr. Bush a foreign policy win.

We believe that the trade pact would be good for America’s economy and workers. Rejecting it would send a dismal message to allies the world over that the United States is an unreliable partner and, despite all that it preaches, does not really believe in opening markets to trade. There is no more time to waste. If the lame-duck Congress does not approve the trade pact this year, prospects would dim considerably since it would lose the cover of the rule (formerly known as fast track) that provides for an up-or-down, no-amendment vote.

Because of trade preferences granted as part of the war on drugs, most Colombian exports already are exempt from United States tariffs. The new agreement would benefit American companies that now have to pay high tariffs on exports to Colombia.

It also would strengthen bonds with an important ally in a volatile corner of South America — that also is the main source of cocaine shipped into this country and where the United States has very few friends these days.

In neighboring Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez spouts fierce anti-American rhetoric to distract attention from his autocratic policies. Last month, Bolivia expelled the United States ambassador and accused Drug Enforcement Administration agents of conspiring against his government. Ecuador has refused to renew a lease on an airbase used by American counternarcotics flights in the coastal city of Manta.

We, too, have strong concerns about human-rights violations committed by the government of President Álvaro Uribe. But Democrats opposing the trade pact on these grounds are ignoring undeniable improvements. Violence has abated considerably during the Uribe administration as it has taken on the left-wing guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and right-wing paramilitaries. The number of trade unionists killed, a major Democratic concern, is still too high but has dropped sharply.

Washington must keep pressing Bogotá to reduce abuses by Colombia’s Army, ensure the prosecution of paramilitary thugs and further rein in violence against union members. It has a powerful tool to do that: $600 million a year in mostly military and anti-narcotics aid.

Failing to approve this trade agreement would do nothing to improve Colombia’s human-rights record. Walking away from it now would alienate many people in Colombia and undermine Washington’s credibility.

Dr. Sowell looks ahead to what he fears will happen when Democrats take control of the White House with strong majorities in both Houses of Congress.

Wars, economic crises and other disruptions all provide opportunities for the left to seize on current problems to create enduring changes in the institutions of society. That is what we are witnessing today. . . .

It is not just a question of being able to put scare headlines on newspapers or alarmist rhetoric on television. Such things are just the prelude to massive political "change" in fundamentally sound institutions that have for more than two centuries made the American economy the envy of most of the world.

If the left succeeds, it will be like amputating your arm because of a stomach ache.

To add to the painful irony, many of those who are most eager to have a massive government intrusion into the market are among those whose previous intrusions into the market are largely responsible for the current financial crisis.

It was the left-- the "liberals" or "progressives"-- who led the charge to force lending institutions to lend to people whose credit history made them eligible only for "subprime" loans that were risky for both borrowers and lenders.

Read it all.

Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. Over the past three decades, Sowell has taught economics at
various colleges and universities, including Cornell, Amherst, and the University of California at Los Angeles, as well as the history of ideas at Brandeis University. He has also been associated with three other research centers, in addition to the Hoover Institution. He was project director at the Urban Institute from 1972 to 1974, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 1976–77, and was an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute in 1975-76.

Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002. In 2003, Sowell received the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement. Sowell received his bachelor’s degree in economics (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1958, his master’s degree in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

Democratic policies promoting mortgage loans to those who couldn't afford them created the housing boom and bubble and its collapse that was at the heart of the worldwide financial panic that has cost American savers hundreds of billions of dollars of losses in their life savings. There was a chance to head off disaster in 2005 and 2006 but Democrats in the Senate led by Harry Reid and supported by Barack Obama and other Senate Democrats blocked the Republican bill to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. House Democrats led by Pelosi and Barney Frank backed them up. The Democrats who pushed such policies deserve to be rejected. They sought to "spread the wealth" and instead impoverished tens of millions.

However, the most important decision on November 4th is electing our Commander-in-chief.

These are dangerous times, it is a dangerous world. Many don't want to think about it, but Islamic radicals are waging a world war against Western Civilzation targeting first and foremost the United States. Battlefronts are in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, Israel, Nigeria, across all of Western Europe and in the United States, Canada and Australia. In some places it's active warfare, in others, terrorism, in others, subversion of our values and way of life to replace them with Islamic law. And Russia and China are building military strength while Iran seeks nuclear warheads for its long-range missiles.

Only John McCain is qualified and fit for the job of Commander-in-Chief. 69% of our military polled agree. McCain loves America and will do his utmost to protect it. Obama finds it difficult to say a good word about America. He constantly disparages America, it's bad and it needs to be changed.

Not only is Obama unqualified, he denies the importance of these threats, has pledged to slash our military to help fund new welfare programs and seems to believe appeasement and a weakened military will bring us peace in our time, just as Neville Chamberlain did in 1939. What prize would he offer up to Iran as Chamberlain offered (and gave) the Sudetenland to Hitler? No wonder Israelis polled prefer McCain by a wide margin.

The media is now joining Obama is playing the race card. And here. Simply put, if you don't vote for Obama, you're racist. You have no legitimate reason not to.

1. That you're troubled by the elite media's attempt to force you to vote for Obama to prove you're not a racist, is no reason.

2. That you're troubled by Obama’s constant playing of the race card, first against Hillary Clinton, then against John McCain and now against anyone who raises a question or a criticism, is no reason.

3. That you're troubled by his fixation on black power and dislike of whites as revealed in his own books in which he approvingly refers to "white men's greed" as the cause of the world's problems, is no reason.

4. That you're troubled by his attraction to Marxist socialist principles that began in high school and continued through college where he “hung out” with black power advocates and Marxist socialists and distanced himself from whites, as he describes in his books, is no reason.

5. That you’re troubled that he put his Marxist socialist principles into practice by becoming a community organizer of blacks against the white establishment in Chicago working with communist/socialist ACORN and other community organizers, is no reason.

6. That you're troubled by his attraction to and absorption of the communist Alinsky method of community organizing (studied in Chicago and while at Harvard Law School) in which socialist purposes are carefully hidden by sticking to platitudes like "hope" and "change" to solve every human dissatisfaction, is no reason.

7. That you're troubled by his telling Joe the Plumber he was going to impose higher taxes on him to "spread the wealth," that is, to take money away from people who pay taxes to give to people who don't pay taxes, which is pure socialism, is no reason

8. That you're troubled by his long association (as trainer, lawyer, collaborator and employer) with the communist/socialist community organization ACORN that has been involved in vote registration fraud controversies, including convictions, across the country, including this year, is no reason.

9. That you're troubled that Obama hired ACORN this year to do voter registration, knowing as he did about its record of voter fraud registration accusations, investigations and convictions (investigations of ACORN fraud are under way right now in at least 12 states), paying $320,000 to ACORN and then covering up the payment, is no reason.

10, That you're troubled that every day there are new stories of fraud involving ACORN workers in states across the nation and all the Obama campaign can say is that such reports are "a distraction" from the real issues, is no reason.

11. That you're troubled that he was an early pioneer, working with ACORN, in showing how to intimidate banks and bankers into making uncreditworthy mortgage loans to minorities and low-income people who could not afford them, which pressure tactics spread and ultimately led to the housing bubble, its collapse and the present world financial crisis and loss of hundreds of billions for investors and tens of thousands of jobs, is no reason.

12. That you're troubled that Obama, having worked closely with the communist/socialist organization ACORN throughout his entire career, recently said his views are still pretty much the same as when he helped ACORN force banks to make risky mortgage loans they never should have made and ran a voter registration drive with ACORN, is no reason.

13. That you're troubled that Obama has vowed to the communist//socialist group ACORN and other such organizations will be called in to work with him, if he's elected president, even before inauguration to shape the agenda of his administration,, is no reason.

14. That you're troubled that in just a few months in the U.S. Senate Obama was able to become the second biggest recipient, some $126,000 -- over a 20-year period -- of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sources, is no reason.

15. That you’re troubled that when John McCain and others were proposing reforms in 2005 and 2006 to prevent a collapse of the out-of-control practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying up far too many risky subprime mortgage loans, Obama instead sided with Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd in opposing reform, thus bringing on the present world financial crisis, indeed being quoted saying subprime loans were a good thing, is no reason.

16. That you're troubled by his association with people who hate America such as white hater Jeremiah Wright, unrepentant admitted terrorist bomber and self-described communist William Ayers (who said in 2001 the mention of America "makes him want to puke"), Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan, former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi and nutcase Father Michael Pfleger, is no reason.

17. That you're troubled that he was attracted in the first place to black power, white-America hater, anti-Semitic pastor Jeremiah Wright and stayed with him for 20 years, knowing he was a follower of black liberation theology that preaches that any god that is not exclusively on the side of the blacks against whites must be killed, is no reason.

18. That you're troubled that he lied about never in 20 years hearing Jeremiah Wright make any of his anti-America and anti-white speeches, but then admitted he had when his campaign advisors realized the lie could be easily disproved, is no reason.

19. That you're troubled that he brought his young children to Jeremiah Wright's sermons Sunday after Sunday to listen to his bigoted tirades against whites and his hateful harangues against America, is no reason.

20. That you’re troubled that he helped Nation of Islam’s anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan organize the Million-Man March in Washington and that Farrakhan has called Obama the messiah for black Muslims, is no reason.

21. That you're troubled that, working for years jointly with unrepentant terrorist bomber William Ayers, who describes himself as a communist, Obama funneled $150 million to fund programs to turn Chicago teachers and students into socialist revolutionaries who hate America, is no reason.

22. That you're troubled that, working jointly with America hater William Ayers, Obama directed charitable funds to separatist Afrocentric, America-hating programs designed by allies of Jeremiah Wright, while denouncing “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” is no reason.

23. That you're troubled that, working jointly with America hater William Ayers, Obama, "to change America," directed charitable funds to the communist/socialist ACORN that was intimidating banks to make unsafe mortgage loans and engaging in voter registration fraud, as he well knew, is no reason.

24. That you're troubled that Obama continued his collaboration with Ayers after Ayers allowed himself to be photographed for the cover of Chicago magazine in 2001 standing on the American flag and telling an interviewer the thought of America made him "want to puke," is no reason.

25. That you're troubled that, working jointly with admitted terrorist bomber William Ayers, he steered charitable funds to an Arab-related organization that handed money over to a Palestinian terrorist organization, is no reason.

26. That you're troubled by Obama’s decision to go inside the Chicago Daley Democratic patronage and payoff political machine (often called by Chicago newspapers the “corrupt” Daley Democratic political machine) and become a go-along, loyal member of the machine, which is now running his campaign, is no reason.

27. That you're troubled that as an Illinois state senator Obama refused to support reformers against the Daley patronage and payoff machine, but supported the Chicago Democratic political machine at all times, is no reason.

28. That you’re troubled that in his first run for public office he was able to force all three Democratic opponents off the primary ballot to run unopposed, which if not unprecedented is so highly unusual as to raise questions about the objectivity of Democratic election officials beholden to the Daley political machine which Obama supports, is no reason.

29. That you're troubled by the fact that he is the most extreme advocate of abortion in public life, having pledged to Planned Parenthood as president he would like his first act as president to be signing a bill removing all restrictions on abortion, including partial birth abortion which 75% of all Americans oppose, is no reason.

30. That you're troubled by the fact that he engineered the defeat of a bill in the Illinois senate to protect babies who survive a failed abortion (and then lied about it), a bill that was identical to one that passed Congress unanimously, is no reason.

31. That you're troubled by his callous statement that, if either of his girls made a mistake, he wouldn't want them "punished with a baby," is no reason.

32. That you're troubled by his wife's statements that only now, for the first time in her adult life, she's proud of her country, is no reason.

33. That you're troubled by his wife's view of America as “just downright mean,” is no reason.

34. That you're troubled by his view of America as having done harm to the world for which he must apologize (in Berlin, to Germans no less), is no reason.

35. That you’re troubled that he so often seems ashamed of America, speaking ill of it, as in Berlin, is no reason.

36. That you're troubled that Obama didn't put hand to heart during the national anthem until his advisors told him to, is no reason.

37. That you're troubled that Obama left injured servicemen and women waiting at a military hospital in Germany when he canceled a scheduled visit to work out at a gym, is no reason.

38. That you're troubled that he is so naive that he can say tear down the walls between Muslims and Jews (as in Israel?) and there will be peace, is no reason.

39. That you're troubled by his statements in support of the Palestinian cause and his support by a former member of the terrorist-listed PLO Rashid Khalidi, who is now the director of the most rabid anti-Israel Middle East Studies department in the U.S, is no reason.

40. That you're troubled by his lukewarm and equivocal statements about Israel (for an undivided Jerusalem one day, opposed the next), is no reason.

41. That you're troubled by his vocal support by leaders of Hamas and the lack of support by a leading Israel statesman and author such as Natan Sharansky, is no reason.

42. That you're troubled that Obama's running mate Biden is reported to have told Israelis they had just better get used to the idea of a Iran with nuclear warheads on missiles that can destroy Israel, is no reason.

43. That you're troubled that Obama declined to appear at an anti-Iran rally sponsored by Jewish organizations and made sure that Sarah Palin was disinvited, is no reason.

44. That you're troubled that all Obama wants to do is talk and talk with the leader of our deadly enemy Iran and do nothing of consequence to stop their development of nuclear weapons, is no reason.

45. That you're troubled by his position well over a year ago to withdraw troops from Iraq on a fixed timetable regardless of conditions and to oppose the surge that was not only dangerous for our troops but would have resulted in al-Qaeda taking over Iraq as its new world headquarters, with riches like oil and gas that Afghanistan cannot even dream of, is no reason.

46. That you're troubled by his opposition to doing what is necessary to make America independent of hostile and unstable overseas energy suppliers by drilling for gas and oil domestically and by supporting nuclear power and clean coal along with all other alternatives, is no reason.

47. That you're troubled that Obama naively wants to cut defense spending in an increasingly dangerous world, and that Obama refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Islamic supremacist war against the non-Muslim world, is no reason.

48. That you're troubled that Obama actively and openly spoke in favor of his Muslim cousin Raila Odinga in his recent campaign for president of Kenya, during which he reportedly pledged to decree Islamic law for all Kenyans and ban Christian missionaries throughout the country, is no reason.

49. That you're troubled by his protectionist statements supporting unilaterally repealing NAFTA and opposing the free trade agreement with our hemishere's closest ally Colombia, and his lying about the facts to justify his opposition, is no reason.

50. That you're troubled that he wants to end secret ballots in union elections so as to increase the power of union intimidation, is no reason.

51. That you're troubled that he is so obsessed with himself, appears to be such a narcissist, that he can tell a campaign gathering that light will come down from above and convince them to vote for The Obama, is no reason.

52. That you're troubled that when you look at his record of accomplishment you only see that he has written two books about himself (partially fictionalized, possibly ghost written), graduated from college and law school, spent four years in socialist community organizing, and years in the Illinois senate (voting present 130 times) toeing the Democratic machine line -- and gave a nice speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, is no reason.

53. That you're troubled that he had for years as a major fundraiser (at least $250,000) Syrian-born political fixer and slumlord Tony Rezko, who has been convicted on 16 counts of political corruption, is no reason.

54. That you're troubled that while Rezko was being investigated on corruption charges and reportedly in debt for more than $10 million, Rezko's wife (said to have no assets of her own and income of only $37,000 as a city worker) somehow made it possible for him to buy his dream house in the upscale Hyde Park section of Chicago by buying an adjacent empty lot for full price ($625,000) while Obama purchased his house and lot for a $300,000 discount ($1.65 million) from the same seller on the same day, is no reason.

54. That you're troubled that Rezko's wife shortly thereafter sold a strip of land from the adjacent empty lot that Obama wanted for one-sixth her purchase price, paid for a fence Obama wanted between the properties, then sold off the lot to one of Rezko’s attorneys for an undisclosed price, is no reason.

55. That you're troubled by his plan to give $50 billion of American taxpayer money to the corrupt United Nations for a new anti-poverty program, is no reason.

56. That you’re troubled by his socialist “tax cut” plan to take more money from those who earn it – including imposing higher taxes on hundreds of thousands of small businesses -- and make welfare payments to the 44% (63 million) of American’s who pay no income tax, is no reason.

57. That you're troubled that Obama is hiding so much of his record, that he has refused to allow access to information or has blocked research about his past, such as his joint socialist programs with William Ayers in Chicago, the official State of Hawaii birth records, his Columbia College and Harvard Law School records and years and his ideological affiliations before joining Jeremiah Wright's church, is no reason.

58. That you’re troubled that his campaign has apparently raised tens of millions of dollars from sources outside the country in deliberately small sums (under $200) to avoid federal reporting requirements and the campaign has no controls to identify such sources, some of which are clearly fraudulent, whereas the McCain campaign can track every dollar, is no reason.

59. That you're troubled by what Michael Barone calls the thug tactics of the Obama campaign to silence all criticism with cries of “lies,” “discrimination,” racism,” including even discussion of Obama's socialist and machine partisan activities in Chicago, and that Barone fears an Obama Administration "thugocracy" stifling First Amendment rights, is no reason.

60. That you’re troubled that Obama’s socialism smacks of totalitarianism, as his campaign’s efforts to shut down free speech shows, is no reason.

61. That you’re troubled that Obama is rated the most far left senator in the U.S. Senate, a radical with a socialist agenda "to change" an America he is not proud of to something we will not like, and who is blind to the defense needs of the United States, is no reason.

62. That you're troubled that Obama is so "flexible" and evasive when it comes to telling the truth and just plain lies, is no reason.

63. That you're troubled that he could coldly dismiss the legitimate fears of the white grandmother who raised him as those of a "typical white person," is no reason.

64. That you're troubled that the Chicago Democratic machine that is running his campaign may be intending to take its patronage and payoff operations onto the national stage, at staggering cost to American taxpayers, is no reason.

65. That you're troubled by his elitist attitude towards simple working people, sniffing at them for clinging to their God and their guns, is no reason.

66. That you're troubled by the many, many times that Obama misstated historical facts to suit his own agenda, including misdescribing his past positions, and that the mainstream media did not challenge Obama’s statements, is no reason.

67. That you're troubled by the hypocrisy and double standard of the elite media that can proudly report that 95% of blacks now say they're voting for Obama, but can express horror that some white Americans might vote for McCain, which they assert can only be for racist reasons, is no reason.

68. That you're troubled that the elite media, which has decided it wants a Democratic black president now, whoever it is, qualified or not,, has deliberately avoided its obligations to the American public by refusing to do any detailed investigation into who Obama really is, his alliances, involvement in sleazy machine politics and his history, so that all that exists is the fictionalized narrative contrived by the Chicago Daley Democratic machine that is running his campaign, which leaves too many questions unanswered and voters still wondering "Who is Barack Obama?", is no reason.

69. That you're still troubled about who Obama really is though you are deeply troubled about what you know already and wonder what else he may be hiding, is no reason.

70. That you're troubled that Obama appears to be cleverly hiding who he is, presenting a false image to the world as postpartisan, moderate and a healer, when he is none of those, as his record shows, is no reason.

71. That you're troubled that Obama, if elected, may have a Democratic House and Senate, to implement his extreme socialist agenda of higher taxes, trade protectionism, stifling free enterprise, stifling free speech, enacting extreme pro-abortion policies such as reviving partial-birth abortion, relaxing our defense vigilance, cutting defense spending and increasing taxpayer funding to subversive organizations such as ACORN, is no reason.

72. That you're troubled that foreigners see things so much more clearly than our media and view the president candidate Obama as having a "nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters," is no reason.

73. That you're troubled that, as Professor Thomas Sowell notes, John McCain and Sarah Palin have not spent "decades working with people who hate America" and Obama has, is no reason.

74. That you're troubled that, as Professor Thomas Sowell also notes, the values of John McCain and Sarah Palin "are the values of this nation, whose loyalty and dedication to this country’s fundamental institutions are beyond question" and this cannot be said about Obama, is no reason.

75. That you're troubled by reports that as much as $63 million in campaign contributions to the Obama campaign in amounts smaller than the $200 required to be reported federally are from foreign sources, may be illegal, are not tracked by the Obama campaign though McCain tracks ALL his contributions, and more than 80% of all Obama contributions are not identified and may not be identifiable, is no reason.

76. That you're troubled that the Obama campaign had deliberately collected tens if not hundres of millions of illegal contributions by disabling all security settings on online credit card systems so as to facilitate fake and foreign contributions and contributions over the limit and have no controls for contributions under $200 though the McCain campaign has all such controls, obviously seeking to steal the election and disenfranchise American voters, is no reason.

77. That you're troubled by the Gestapo tactics against Obama critics like the attacks on Joe the Plumber and throwing reporters off the campaign plane whose organizations endorse McCain, is no reason.

That you're troubled that if you don't vote for McCain/Palin you will be doing a dangerous disservice to your country and generations of Americans is no reason, either.

The following is a copy of an ad placed by the Chatham Republican Town Committee, Walter Bilowz, Chairman, in this coming Thursday's Cape Cod Chronicle:

DOES YOUR RETIREMENT MONEY BELONG TO YOU OR THE GOVERNMENT? PREDATORY POLITICS -- or ROBIN HOOD REDUX

This campaign has brought up two major issues, the redistribution of income and the redistribution of wealth.

Joe the Plumber said to Obama "your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?"
Obama replied "I think that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

With this, Obama declared his intention to redistribute the tax dollars which you paid on the income which you earned. Currently, if the Earned Income Tax Credit (E I TC) exceeds a taxpayer's tax liability, the IRS refunds the difference. That is, the government takes your tax money and gives some of it to someone who qualifies for the EITC. This is a redistribution of the tax money which you paid on the income which you earned. Obama would expand this with his tax plan to further distribute more of your tax money in order to "spread the wealth around". Obama calls this a tax cut for 95% of workers! He does not stress that approximately 40% of these workers pay no taxes and thus would be receiving a cash benefit (an entitlement).

However, Obama's intent to redistribute does not end with redistribution of your income. He is on record as favoring redistribution of your wealth, which includes your retirement funds. On a Chicago program, Odyssey, station WBEZ, in 2001, he stated that redistribution of wealth was a …”basic issue of political and economic justice in the society.” He indicated that redistribution of wealth could be accomplished by legislation.

The US News and World Report published a story on October 23, 2008, when they uncovered consideration of potential legislation to eliminate 401(k) plans (retirement plans) and take control of the retirement plan savings of Americans. This was in the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support which is chaired by Representative James McDermott, Democrat of Washington. Under the plan, your retirement money would be transferred into a government account invested in government bonds and paying around 3%. In addition there would be a loss of preferential tax treatment and a mandatory contribution imposed on workers. There is approximately $4.5 trillion invested in 401(k) plans in the US. This would be the largest loss of wealth and seizure of private assets in world history. It would far exceed the amounts recently seized by the government of Argentina in their nationalization of pension funds. The leftist government wanted to use the funds for their agenda.

If we elect Obama, a Democrat, as president, and a Democratic Congress, what is it that would stop a radical assault on the income that you earn, and on the retirement wealth which you accumulate? It happened in Argentina!

Three Democrats stand out as responsible for costing Americans much of their life savings in the name of putting more people into affordable housing that turned out to be not affordable at all.

The three Democratic politicians who, not accidentally but deliberately, undermined the American financial system and caused this global catastrophe are Barack Obama, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.

What is driving the world collapse of the stock markets? What is causing the savings of Americans to shrivel up? Democratic policies.

Yes, it's the world financial credit freeze-up. But what triggered the freeze-up? Democratic policies.

It was the defaults of subprime mortgages packaged and sold by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac around the world. But what caused the defaults? Democratic policies.

Who made banks make unsafe mortgage loans? Well-intentioned Democrats who thought it would be "fair" for people who couldn't afford houses to get them.

Who made Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up those bad loans and palm them off on the world? Democrats in Congress pressured by interest groups such as Obama's ally ACORN.

The cost to investors so far has been hundreds of billions of dollars. American workers who have invested in mutual funds and 401(k)s have suffered badly. People are losing their jobs because of this crisis.

The following account is the story the mainstream media will not tell the American people because they fear it would jeopardize an Obama victory. It will be a travesty and a tragedy for Americans if Democrats capture the White House and Congress after their policies brought on this worldwide catastrophe.

It will be too late after the election to document the involvement of Obama and his Democratic colleagues, whose zeal to change America into a socialist state brought disaster to the world. You know what will happen: Democrats will convene hearings with their favorite witnesses to blame anybody but themselves. Democrats don't like the free enterprise system they meddle with and in this case brought crashing down.

Democratic policies brought on the housing bubble and its collapse, the default of U.S. backed obligations all around the world and panic everywhere. Democrats are pointing the finger at Wall Street, but that doesn't wash. Wall Street was packaging and selling Fannie and Freddie mortgage loans for years. What happened was Fannie and Freddie started buying up so many subprime loans that the packages they were now sending around the world were junk, but still backed by the implicit guaranty of the U.S. government so people, banks and governments bought.

Fannie and Freddie abandoned their obligation to protect the taxpayers of the United States to please the Democratic congressman who were pressing them to expand the subprime mortgage loan market by buying risky loans and giving banks and mortgage companies more money to make more risky loans.

President Bush and Senate Republicans including Senator McCain pleaded with Congress in 2005 and 2006 to pass legislation to get Fannie and Freddie under control. Senate Republicans even got a bill to do just that out of the Senate Banking Committee (S. 190), but Senate Democrats led by Senator Harry Reid and Christopher Dodd, with the vocal backing of Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, said there was no crisis and blocked a vote on the Senate floor. As a Democratic U.S. Senator Obama supported their action.

How key was Obama's role? Obama helped train ACORN operatives in the early 1990s how to bully and intimidate banks and bankers into making risky mortgage loans to those who couldn't afford them, shouting cries of "discrimination" and "racism." Obama was one of the very first pushing for such unsafe loans to be made. Those cries kept building through the '90s and into this decade. As a result, riskier and riskier mortgage loans were made and Fannie and Freddie was pressured more and more by Democrats in Congress to buy the unsafe mortgage loans and send them off in packages to the world as if they were of the same quality they had been in the past. They weren't. Obama lived to see the colossal damage done by his policy of intimidation of banks and indeed to help give the final push to disaster by opposing reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a senator in 2005 and 2006. Despite the world chaos and massive losses to American investors, Obama as late as 2007 was still insisting subprime mortgages were a "good idea."

To read about the roles of the other two principal destroyers of savings, click here. Also, look for the heading Categories on the right side of this website and click on Democratic Financial Crisis.

Who are the fathers of today's world financial meltdown?

Who has cost investors hundreds of billions and workers hundreds of thousands of American jobs? Who has put the world on the edge of a Depression?

Three Democratic politicians who, not accidentally but deliberately, undermined the American financial system: Barack Obama, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.

The following account is the story the mainstream media will not tell the American people because they fear it would jeopardize an Obama victory. Maybe after the election they will document the involvement of Obama and his Democratic colleagues, whose zeal to change America into a socialist state brought disaster to the world.

Obama's tax plan, he says, will give 95% of Americans an income tax cut. That's odd; 44% of Americans don't pay any income tax at all. What will happen is that the 44% will get a check from the government paid for by those who do pay taxes -- you. In other words, Obama is using his tax plan for welfare. He just wants to, in his words, "spread the wealth around." At the heart of Obama's "change for America" is socialism and increased reliance on the government for more handouts.

Since Obama believes, along with anti-white America Jeremiah Wright and self-described communist Willam Ayers, that America oppresses its non-white low income minorities, it is only just and fair that those who have earned enough to pay taxes hand some of their money over to those who haven't.

Power Line has the video of Obama's retort to a plumber who has figured out he's going to pay more under Obama's "tax cut" plan. Power Line also excerpts the Wall Street Journal's explanation of how Obama is undoing welfare reform as a first step to his new socialist society to replace the free enterprise system that has created the world's most successful economy.

Obama's "tax" plan would in effect undo the greatest accomplishment of the Republican Congress, welfare reform. It would reinstate the federal welfare system that we thought was gone for good with the repeal of AFDC. Not only a welfare system: a welfare system that would rapidly grow from more than a half trillion to over a trillion dollars a year.

ACORN is a communist/socialist organization whose mission is to "change America.,"

Barack Obama has been allied with ACORN since at least 1992 in its efforts to "change America." He has trained ACORN workers in how to intimidate banks and bankers into making mortgage loans they should not make and how to register voters. Obama ran a voter registration drive himself with ACORN in the early 1990s. Obama has represented ACORN in suing to "change America."

The kind of unsound loans that ACORN forced banks to make in its mission to "change America" are at the heart of the housing bubble, its collapse and the financial wreckage now destroying the savings of Americans and costing American jobs.

ACORN also has been working to "change America" by massive voter registration fraud to register Democratic voters. This year it claims it has registered 1.7 million new voters; one can guess the percentage of Democrats. Voter registration fraud investigations involving ACORN are ongoing in 12 states right now. Obama paid ACORN over $800,000 this year for voter registration despite its long and notorious involvement in voter registration fraud complaints, investigations and convictions. One recent report is of a young man bribed by ACORN with "cash and cigs" to sign up 72 times.

ACORN did not stop with intimidation of mortgage lenders to force them to make bad loans. Stanley Kurtz details how ACORN moved on to Congress to get Democratic support for throwing sane lending standards out the window and authorizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy up these unsound loans from mortgage lenders. The present world financial crisis is the result. As Kurtz notes, "the bad seed that started it all was ACORN."

HOW does Barack Obama fit into all of this? Obama has been a key ally of Chicago ACORN going back to his days as a community organizer.

Later, as a young lawyer, he offered leadership training to the activists who were forcing Chicago banks into high-risk subprime loans. And when he made it on to the boards of Chicago's Woods Fund and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he channeled money ACORN's way.

Obama was perfectly aware of ACORN's intimidation tactics - indeed, he oversaw a Woods Fund report that boasted of managing to fund the radical group despite its shocking behavior.

And as a lawmaker, in Illinois and in Washington, he has continued to back ACORN's legislative agenda.

And allied with ACORN in Congress in pushing to loosen mortgage lending standards was none other than Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank. And later, in 2005 and 2006, it was Barney Frank, Senators Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama who blocked efforts of the President and John McCain and other Republicans to stop Fannie's and Freddie's dangerous subprime mortgage purchase programs that brought on this world financial crisis.

The kind of change Obama's bad judgment has already brought to America has cost the nation dearly in dollars, lost jobs and the integrity of the voting system. Will voter fraud nonetheless win him the election?

Read the appalling story in its entirety.

It isn't often that one can identify with precision the principal culprits who cause a disaster, but that is not the case with this financial crisis. We know who. It's Frank, Obama and Dodd.

At its heart is the housing bubble and its collapse largely due to the explosion of subprime loans to those who reality has proven couldn't afford them.

Democrats and community agitators like Barack Obama pushed -- intimidated and terrorized -- banks to make mortgage loans they would never make in their sound business judgment. Subprime loans rose from 2% of total loans to 30% in just four years -- 2002 to 2006. And Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought most of them, to the relief of the banks who made the loans under pressure from Clinton-era Community Reinvestment Act rules, urged on by Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.

Barack Obama, fresh out of college, learned the practices of intimidation as a community organizer. He soon realized he could accomplish more working for his socialist goals inside the system rather than from the outside. So he went to law school to learn how to wield power on higher levels. During his time at law school, he learned even more about the Alinsky community organizing tactics of intimidation by moonlighting at the Industrial Areas Foundation. On his return to Chicago, Obama, working for ACORN, was a pioneer in forcing unsound loans to be made, training those who terrorized banks, bankers and public officials into making loans they shouldn't have. (He also ran a voter registration drive for ACORN, which has been implicated in voter registration fraud time and time again.)

Meanwhile, Frank and Dodd in the U.S. Congress were pushing Fannie and Freddie to buy up those shaky loans, stamp them with the U.S. guaranty and sell them to buyers around the world. As a consequence, subprime loans mushroomed.

Frank and Dodd blocked Bush and McCain efforts to restore sanity to Fannie and Freddie. When the Bush Administration together with Senate Republicans, including John McCain, tried to rein Fannie/Freddie in in 2003, 2005 and 2006, Democrats led by Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd blocked all those efforts, scoffing that there was no Fannie/Freddie crisis. Obama, who in earlier years had worked to force banks into subprime lending, of course did nothing and remained silent, while collecting over $100,000 in campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. In fact, as a senator he was quoted as saying that a subprime loan was a good thing.

The inevitable collapse occurred. Fannie and Freddie had spread so much subprime debt around the world, panic resulted.

As Obama's Reverend Jeremiah Wright said in another context, the Democratic chickens have come home to roost, but these three haven't suffered, It's average Americans who have lost hundreds of billions in their savings because of the reckless policies of Frank, Obama and Dodd.

Socialist agitators such as Saul Alinsky, whose methods Obama studied and applied in his community organizing and lawyer days in Chicago, believed the best way to get to a Marxist socialist society is to create chaos and bring the free enterprise system down, while blaming it for all the problems his followers helped to create. Was financial chaos in the Obama vision as a prelude to a socialist society? If so, Marxist revolutionary change is at hand. That hundreds of millions have suffered in the process is just an unfortunate side effect of creating a more humane, more just socialist society. Obama made it clear that higher taxes will be the start of Obama's socialist program of wealth redistribution, taking what's yours to those who claim it should be theirs.

Those who could not afford their mortgages and now face foreclosure, the government will not only give them interest relief, it will reduce the mortgage principal (that is, the money borrowed in the first place) and stretch out payments for up to 50 years. If the house wasn't affordable before, it certainly will be now. (Section 110 of the bailout bill.) If you are struggling but making your payments to protect your home, you get no relief from section 110. Only the deadbeats benefit.

It may seem complicated, but it's really simple.

Subprime loans created the housing bubble. When the housing bubble broke, the crisis spread throughout the world since Fannie/Freddie obligations were held by central banks and commercial banks in all countries. They bought because the obligations were sold by government-sponsored agencies, so of course the U.S. government stood behind them. Rating agencies agreed and rated the paper AAA, triple-A, the highest and safest rating there is.

But those at Fannie/Freddie were working to please their Democratic sponsors in Congress and ignored the lack of creditworthiness that was increasing in the portfolios they were selling. The much maligned Wall Street firms relied on Fannie and Freddie to assemble creditworthy packages that protected the credit of the U.S,, which was their prime responsibility. Fannie and Feddie officials such as Raines and Johnson, both advisors to the Obama campaign, are the ones at Fannie who failed to protect the American people.

Now Barney Frank is trying to deflect criticism of his socialist profligacy by claiming that any criticism of the subprime loan explosion is a Republican slam at black borrowers. In other words, criticism of the disaster they created is racist.

How pathetic.

Investor's Business Daily does an excellent job of summarizing the sorry saga.

Barney Frank's Bankrupt Ideas
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY |Tuesday October 07, 2008

Financial Rescue: Democrats created the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to give loans to people who couldn't afford them. Now Obama and Biden want bankruptcy judges to bail out the same deadbeat homeowners.

It's been said that history is a lie agreed upon. Democrats are trying to rewrite history by blaming the Bush administration for the current crisis and claiming that the rescue bill is necessary to save the economy from Republican mismanagement.

More blarney from Barney.

Last Thursday on Fox News, when Bill O'Reilly tried to suggest that both parties might share the blame, House Finance Committee Chairman Frank, in a not atypical meltdown, disowned any responsibility for his lack of oversight over the last two years and his complicity before that.

Frank also claimed: "The fact is, it was 1994 that we passed a bill to tell the Fed to stop the subprime lending. We tried to get them to do it." In other words, those rascally Republicans did it all when they took control of Congress that November.

More...

As Democrats aided by the media have been doing all they could to blame eight years of the Bush Administration for the financial panic now circling the globe, it was Congressional Democrats who allowed the housing bubble to get out of control, leading to the inevitable collapse that was so big it has shaken the entire financial system.

It started with local agitators across the country demanding banks make loans they never should have to people who couldn't afford them. In the forefront was ACORN, the national socialist organization, terrorizing and intimidating banks, bank and public officials into loosening lending standards. The ACORN chapter in Chicago was one of the national leaders in blackmailing banks; their people were trained in their intimidation tactics by none other than Barack Obama.

Then Democrats in Congress urged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy up all these risky loans that banks were more than happy to get rid of; they didn't want to make them in the first place. Then Fannie and Freddie had Wall Street package the loans and sell them around the world. With the assumed guaranty of the U.S. government behind the securities of these public sponsored agencies everyone bought relying on the credit of the U.S.

Efforts to slow down and stop the incredible expansion of subprime loans made possible by Fannie and Freddie (from 2% of total loans in 2002 to 30% in 2006) were blocked by Democrats in Congress led by Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. John McCan was urging reform; Obama was not. Instead, Obama in just his very short time in the Senate became the second biggest recipient over 20 years of Fannie/Freddie campaign contributions (second only to Senator Dodd).

As a result of the Democrats' "do good' socialism, taxpayers will wind up paying hundreds of billions of dollars. Investors have already lost hundreds of billions of dollars and it could get worse if the bailout doesn't succeed. Warren Buffet thinks the $700 billion bailout may not be enough to stave off recession or worse.

Before the bailout bill to rescue the financial system from Democratic excess passed, Fox News presented an excellent short summary of how it all came about.

So put the blame where it belongs -- on Obama-type Marxist socialism pushed along by Democrats in Congress.

ACORN finally is getting the attention it deserves. It is a symbol of corruption that is taking place in our banking system that has led to today's financial crisis and the corruption of the voting process. But it's more than a symbol, it is one of the major players in such corruption. And Democrats in Congress want to give it taxpayer money.

As Mona Charen points out, Democrats and Congress added a slush fund to the bailout bill to give tens of millions to ACORN to continue its "community organizing" work. Republicans reacted in disbelief and stripped the provision out.

Stanley Kurtz has reported in detail how ACORN proudly touted "affirmative action" lending and pressured banks to make subprime loans. Madeline Talbott, a Chicago ACORN leader, boasted of "dragging banks kicking and screaming" into dubious loans. And who trained those ACORN recruits who stormed banks and directors' meetings, intimidating bankers and public officials to make unsound mortgage loans? Barack Obama.

ACORN's pioneering work in forcing mortgage loans to be made that never should have been made led to the housing bubble, its collapse, the loss of homes and investments by milliions of innocent Americans and world financial chaos.

Voter registration is also one of ACORN's specialties. And despite rules about nonpartisanship being required for those receiving tax money for registration drives, ACORN somehow seems to only register Democrats.

Because they are on the side of righteousness and justice, they aren't especially fastidious about their methods. In 2006, for example, ACORN registered 1,800 new voters in Washington. The only trouble was, with the exception of six, all of the names submitted were fake. The secretary of state called it the "worst case of election fraud in our state's history." As Fox News reported:

"The ACORN workers told state investigators that they went to the Seattle public library, sat at a table and filled out the voter registration forms. They made up names, addresses, and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book. One worker said it was a lot of hard work making up all those names and another said he would sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out the forms."

Several ACORN workers went to jail. But reports like these on vote fraud involving ACORN are coming in from all over the country in this election, including from so-called swing states such as Ohio and New Mexico. Obama's campaign paid ACORN some $800,000 for work during the primary campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton (and tried to hide the payment).

[ACORN's] philosophy seems to be that everyone deserves the right to vote, whether legal or illegal, living or dead.

Barack Obama has supported ACORN since the 1980s, not only training staff in Marxist socialist tactics, but representing them as a lawyer in their campaigns of intimidation and steering charitable (and tax?) money to them to fund their radical activities. And they are going all out to elect him.

Obama was not just sympathetic -- he was an ACORN fellow traveler.

Now you could make the case that before 2008, well-intentioned people were simply unaware of what their agitation on behalf of non-credit-worthy borrowers could lead to. But now? With the whole financial world and possibly the world economy trembling and cracking like a cement building in an earthquake, Democrats continue to try to fund their friends at ACORN? And, unashamed, they then trot out to the TV cameras to declare "the party is over" for Wall Street (Nancy Pelosi)? The party should be over for the Democrats who brought us to this pass. If Obama wins, it means hiring an arsonist to fight a fire.

Are you aware of how Obama and his campaign supporters are encouraging violations of the First Amendment and using threats and intimidation -- even by public prosecutors --to silence all criticism -- indeed, all discussion -- of his associations with haters of America, his Marxist socialist involvement in the creation of the housing bubble and collapse and the world financial crisis, his use of the race card, his extremist postions on abortion and infanticide and his constant misuse of the truth (which some call "lying")?

Andrew McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who sent the blind shiekh who mastreminded the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 to prison, details how Obama and his supporters are doing exactly that right now.

Sen. Obama and his supporters despise free expression, the bedrock of American self-determinism and hence American democracy. What’s more, like garden-variety despots, they see law not as a means of ensuring liberty but as a tool to intimidate and quell dissent....

The Prophet of Change is only to be admired, not questioned. In the stretch run of an American election, there is to be no examination of a candidate for the world’s most powerful office — whether about his radical record, the fringe Leftism that lies beneath his thin, centrist veneer, his enabling of infanticide, his history of race-conscious politics, his proposals for unprecedented confiscation and distribution of private property (including a massive transfer of American wealth to third-world dictators through international bureaucrats), his ruinous economic policies that have helped leave Illinois a financial wreck, his place at the vortex of the credit market implosion that has put the U.S. economy on the brink of meltdown, his aggressive push for American withdrawal and defeat in Iraq, his easy gravitation to America-hating activists, be they preachers like Jeremiah Wright, terrorists like Bill Ayers, or Communists like Frank Marshall Davis. Comment on any of this and risk indictment or, at the very least, government harassment and exorbitant legal fees.

In his narcissism and his inability to abide any perceived criticism, the Prophet of Change resembles an earlier prophet, Muhammad. Anyone criticizing Muhammad, even in poetry, was to be killed. That certainly put a chill on criticism.

For example, in St. Louis,

local law-enforcement authorities, dominated by Democrat-party activists, were threatening libel prosecutions against Obama’s political opposition. County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, abetted by a local sheriff and encouraged by the Obama campaign, warned that members of the public who dared speak out against Obama during the campaign’s crucial final weeks would face criminal libel charges — if, in the judgment of these conflicted officials, such criticism of their champion was “false.”

McCarthy cites several other disturbing incidents in which Obama supporters have sought to squelch discussion about Obama and then analyzes how those using their offices to threaten free speech can be prosecuted. Federal fraud laws are one way:

[F]ederal law (Section 1346 of the penal code) prohibits schemes to deprive citizens of their “intangible right of honest services” from their public officials. Prosecutors and police who abuse their enormous powers in order to promote the election of their preferred candidates violate their public trust.

But the main problem, McCarthy points out, with what Obama and his supporters are doing is their assault on our American way of life.

Regardless of the legal landscape, however, it is the political consequences that matter. Day after day, Obama demonstrates that the “change” he represents is a severing of our body politic from the moorings that make us America. If we idly stand by while he and his thugs kill free political debate, we die too.

McCarthy has it right: "Stifling political debate with threats of prosecution is not the “rule of law” — it’s tyranny."

Dr. Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution in economics and public policy, points out how crazy it is to look to Congress to develop a solution for the financial crisis when they were the people who caused it in the first place. Special mention is given to the two chief culprits Democratic Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

Whatever is done, Dr. Sowell says, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be wound down and put out of our misery as soon as practicable. No more private corporations with federal "implicit" guaranties. Brilliantly right, as always.

Bailout Politics Thomas Sowell Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Nothing could more painfully demonstrate what is wrong with Congress than the current financial crisis.

Among the Congressional "leaders" invited to the White House to devise a bailout "solution" are the very people who have for years created the risks that have now come home to roost.

Five years ago, Barney Frank vouched for the "soundness" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and said "I do not see" any "possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury."

Moreover, he said that the federal government has "probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing."

Earlier this year, Senator Christopher Dodd praised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for "riding to the rescue" when other financial institutions were cutting back on mortgage loans. He too said that they "need to do more" to help subprime borrowers get better loans.

In other words, Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd wanted the government to push financial institutions to lend to people they would not lend to otherwise, because of the risk of default.

While Democrats in Congress were pressuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to plunge deeper and deeper into the subprime swamp, there were activists on the frontlines doing all they could to force banks to make loans that in the ordinary course they wouldn't make. Why not? Because those not getting mortgages had bad credit histories, not enough money for reasonable downpayments or lived in areas where housing values were deteriorating.

One of the hotbeds where forcing banks to make loans sane bankers wouldn't make was Chicago, about the time Barack Obama came back from law school to take his community organizing to a higher level.

Since Obama has said he learned more as a community organizer than he did in college and law school many have wondered just what a community organizer does.

Stanley Kurtz has done an astonishingly thorough job of recreating how one community organization ACORN, playing the race card charging discrimination, using intimidation and confrontation and pressure on regulatory officials, forced banks to make mortgage loans they otherwise would not make. His report is also a devastating exposé of Obama's Marxist socialism in action. Wealth redistribution is his goal: Take from the haves and give it to the have-nots.

Read it all and you will see how ACORN and Obama worked the levers of black power to undermine sound financial policies. The result of their efforts, along with similar ones throughout the nation, has been a financial disaster of historic proportions.

Key Kurtz excerpts:

Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit. In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers. In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.

By September 1992, The Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott's program as "affirmative-action lending" and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities.

And Talbott continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks "kicking and screaming" into high-risk loans.

What made this [pilot] program different from others, the [Chicago Sun-Times said], was the participation of Fannie Mae - which had agreed to buy up the loans. "If this pilot program works," crowed Talbott, "it will send a message to the lending community that it's OK to make these kind of loans."

Well, the pilot program "worked," and Fannie Mae's message that risky loans to minorities were "OK" was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history.

IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

[Obama] returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama's legal services for a "motor voter" case and partnered with him on his 1992 "Project VOTE" registration drive.

In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.

More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts. And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts.

IN short, to understand the roots of the subprime-mortgage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.

Then you'll truly know what community organizers do.

Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC.

So the rescue bill failed and the media immediately began babbling about how the Republicans in the House didn't come through. In fact, the majority Democrats have all the votes they need to pass a bill without a single Republican vote. Democrat Speaker of the House Pelosi did not crack the whip of party discipline and 95 Democrats voted no, when if only 11 more of them had voted yes the bill would have passed.

Much has been made of Pelosi's highly partisan pre-vote speech ladling blame for the financial crisis on the Bush Administration and Republican policies. Is that the way to build a coalition on a must-pass bill?

Some have speculated that Members of the House may have decided Pelosi knew something they didn't know, that perhaps the bill wasn't all that do-or-die or else she wouldn't have leveled such a partisan shot against Republicans. Calls to Congress were running 40 or more to 1 against the bailout bill, so many Members were nervous about voting yes. Well, if Pelosi didn't think the bill was all that important, it's not surprising that a number of Republicans (who despised the bill) and 95 Democrats voted no.

Such reckless Democratic incompetence in economic matters -- and governing -- is taking a savage toll on the American economy and the life savings of all Americans.

Those who track such figures note that the losses in the U.S. stock markets at the close of business after the bill's defeat were $1.1 trillion, some $400 billion more than the rescue bill would have authorized be spent to stabilize the financial markets.

Principally responsible for the housing bubble and its collapse is of course Democratic House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, who blocked the many demands for reining in Fannie and Freddie by the Bush Administration and Republicans, including Senator McCain, going back to 2003 and continuing into 2007. Now Pelosi has added one trillion dollars to the Frank-induced losses as American savers watch in horror as their life savings shrivel.

More losses are almost certain to follow as rescue proponents regroup and the clock ticks on without a solution. No official business is expected in Congress till Wednesday or, more likely, Thursday.

UPDATE: A Karl Rove analysis of the vote and other sources indicate that Speaker Pelosi allowed several of her senior colleagues, including House Chairmen, and 16 vulnerable freshmen to vote no. Republicans saw and heard this and concluded that Pelosi apparently had some inside information and didn't think the vote was such a big deal. So many Republicans voted what they felt: It was a bad bill, representing too much government intervention in the economy.

Also, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Obama campaign co-chairman, from Chicago, voted no. A subcommittee chairman on Barney Frank's committee voted no.

SECOND UPDATE: A Republican on Capitol Hill explains why the bill is viewed as bad by Republicans and offers a few alternatives that would be more in keeping with a market economy:

And as for alternatives:

- how about reinforcing FDIC to give people confidence in their savings? Maybe more support for money markets?

- How about cutting corporate taxes or cap gains taxes?

- How about buying up (or financing the purchase of) the AAA securities that currently are having trouble moving but are not “toxic,” in order to increase liquidity and help with possible insolvency for healthier institutions rather than the old line investment banks?

- How about doing something about the silliness of the $62 Trillion Credit Default Swap market (e.g. the margin requirements, etc…)?

- How about immediately changing mark-to-market rules?

- And – heaven forbid – how about belt-tightening in Washington? Don’t hold your breath – but imagine what a signal that would send – a freeze in discretionary spending, a moratorium on earmarks and a real plan to educate America about entitlements and talk about the need to get our fiscal house in order.

THIRD UPDATE: It now appears that Pelosi planned it all. She gave her people a pass, figuring the Republicans would provide enough votes to put the bill through anf then the Democrats would use their votes to beat them over the head in the November election. Too clever and her cynical politicizing cost the nation's markets one trillion dollars.

In late 2004 there was a hearing in the House of Representatives about the fraudulent accounting, excessive executive compensation and increasing risks at Fannie Mae. This video shows how Democrats and Republicans responded to the warning contained in the regulator's report calling for reforms to be enacted by Congress. Needless to say, Republicans supported reforms, but House Democrats, led by ranking committtee member Barney Frank of Massachusetts, dismissed the report of dangerous risk as fiction, maintaining that in fact there were no problems at Fannie Mae.

It is Democratic opposition to reining Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in that created the housing bubble and its inevitable collapse and the worldwide financial meltdown that has followed. All of the money lost in 401(k)s and other savings is due to the dereliction of duty on the part of Congressional Democrats more interested in currying favor with their special interest constituencies and obtaining campaign contributions and other goodies from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than protecting the economy of this country and the life savings of hard-working Americans. Even former president Clinton agrees that Democrats in Congress blocking Republican attempts at reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are responsible for this financial crisis.

To round out the sorry picture of Democratic malfeasance, the ten-minute video included in our earlier entry "History of the "Affordable Housing" Bubble and Collapse" is a fitting companion to this video.

At a press conference today it was announced that an amended rescue plan (which was significantly improved by House Republicans over the original plan, which they had rejected) had been agreed to,

In announcing the agreement, Democrats House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid and House Financial Services Committee Frank railed at Wall Street greed and acted as if the financial collapse was Wall Street's fault (which the media will echo, as it already has). It wasn't. Blame lies squarely with those very same Congressional Democrats.

It can't be said often enough the fault lies with Congressional Democrats who constantly pushed government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy up every subprime loan offered to them -- and to issue their own as well, regardless of the credit of the borrower. Democrats had loosened requirements so much that virtually everyone could get a mortgage loan for "affordable housing," which in many cases is turning out to be unaffordable.

To raise money for new mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac packages mortgage loans up and sells them to the world. As has been the case since 1968, the loan packages are rated AAA, triple-A, the highest quality rating there is, because of the "implicit" guaranty of the U.S. government. Buyers rely not so much on what is in the package but on the backing of the U.S. government. That the packages sold over the past few years weren't creditworthy was the fault of Fannie and Freddie and their Democratic backers in Congress. (Subprime mortgages skyrocketed from 2% of total mortgages in 2002 to 30% in 2006.)

It was Fannie and Freddie that bought and assembled the uncreditworthy mortgages into packages; when the housing bubble (created by the demand for housing fueled by all the new folks who "qualified" for mortgage loans) started to deflate, the worst mortgages began to default, wiping out the value forf those who had bought those parts of the packages; naturally, those buyers demanded that they be protected because of the backing of the federal government.

The situation rapidly deteriorated and the Bush Administration had to step in and take over Fannie and Freddie, firing their top executives who were responsible for the lax standards and jeopadizing American taxpayes as a result. As one of those executives told a newspaper just weeks before the takeover, it was Democrats in Congress who constantly pressured them to relax standards and do more for "affordable housing."

In 2003 and 2005 the Bush Administration and Alan Greenspan called on Congress to tighten standards immediately and stop the out-of-control growth of subprime lending, warning of danger to the financial system and the economy. Democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts, ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, led the opposition, saying there was no crisis and the Administration was crying "wolf."

Legislation prepared by Senate Repubicans in 2005 and backed by the Administraton and John McCain to rein in Fannie and Freddie was rejected by Democrats and died. Again, Barney Frank was in the lead, accompanied by Democrats Dodd of Connecticut, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, and Reid of Utah, Minority Leader. The Bush Administration made more than 15 appeals to Congress to act before it was too late.

The collapse of the overheated housing market has caused the entire financial system to come close to a total halt, so drastic action is required. Secretary of the Treasury Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke immediately proposed a plan, which has now been strengthened considerably by House Republicans and will have bipartisan support in Congress. It stands an excellent chance of stabilizing the world financial system and over the long run, several years, it may well prove to be profitable for American taxpayers

The nation is fortunate that President Bush appointed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve and as Secretary of the Treasury two such highly-qualified individuals who have the intelligence, experience, vision and creativity to deal with this financial crisis.

It can be hoped that the worst is past, but there no doubt will be rough days ahead. But there is a rescue plan in place that should do the job.

Here's the top five recipients of campaign contributions (all Democrats) from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the period 1989-2008.

What's amazing is that Obama collected so much money in such a short time in the U.S. Senate to be number 2 on the list that covers 20 years.

Oh, and Massachusetts' Barney Frank, who was perhaps the major figure in blocking efforts to rein Fannie and Freddie in in 2003 and later, was 16th, with $40,100 in campaign contributions.

1. Dodd, Christopher J
S
D-CT
$133,900

2. Kerry, John
S
D-MA
$111,000

3. Obama, Barack
S
D-IL
$105,849

4. Clinton, Hillary
S
D-NY
$75,550

5. Kanjorski, Paul E
H
D-PA
$65,500

No one can say the financial collapse that $700 billion of taxpayer money is being asked for to fix wasn't seen coming. Trouble is those who could have stopped it, didn't want to change their ways and blocked proposed reforms.

Soon after taking office, Bush had his hands full with the Clinton recession and 9/11. But by 2003, he proposed what the New York Times called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago."

The plan included a new regulator for Fannie and Freddie, one that could boost capital mandates and look at how they managed risk.

Even after regulators in 2003 uncovered a scheme by Fannie and Freddie executives to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost bonuses, Democrats killed reform.

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Rep. Frank, then-ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.

North Carolina Democrat Melvin Watt accused the White House of "weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing."

In 2005, then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress: "We are placing the total financial system of the future at substantial risk."

McCain Urged Changes

That year, Sen. John McCain, one of three sponsors of a Fannie-Freddie reform bill, said: "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole."

Sen. Harry Reid — now Majority Leader — accused the GOP of trying to "cripple the ability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out their mission of expanding homeownership."

Saddest Thing About This Mess: Congress Had Chance To Stop It

Here is more information on the Democratic effort to slide money from the bailout bill into the hands of socialst activists such as ACORN, which has a long history of working with Barack Obama, as well as a long history of involvement in voter registration fraud. Some 20% of any "profit" from the rescue bill will go into a Housing Trust Fund to be tapped by ACORN and its ilk.

Who is ACORN and why should we care?

Key info:

ACORN routinely commingles funds from its housing arm into political projects such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives. Money is fungible. Any taxpayer money that ACORN gets for housing makes it easier for the group to put its other funds into voter drives.

"These are taxpayer funds, in an indirect method, being used to subsidize political activism," says Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican and chairman of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. "I'm sure they're not going out and registering any Republicans."

Obama cut his community organizer teeth with ACORN. As a young lawyer he represented the group in a suit against the state of Illinois, which was concerned that postcard registration and a new motor voter law might invite fraud. ACORN later invited Obama to train its staff in leadership seminars.

ACORN has a political arm that endorsed Barack Obama for president in February and has stepped up its registration efforts to help elect a future benefactor. The Obama campaign admits to failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as payments to a front group called "Citizen Services Inc." for "advance work."

Consumer Rights League official Jim Terry says: "ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain. Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama's political gain."

A major part of ACORN's sordid history is vote fraud. ACORN has been implicated in voter fraud and bogus registration schemes in Missouri, Ohio and at least 12 other states. Last July, ACORN settled the largest case of voter fraud in Washington state history, involving nearly 2,000 bogus voter forms. In Ohio in 2004, ACORN submitted forms for the likes of Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and someone named Jive Turkey.

ACORN uses taxpayer money to elect people like Barack Obama who will work to get them more taxpayer money. Democrats are willing to rip off taxpayers in a national crisis to make it happen.

Read it all.

There is a lot to absorb about the financial crisis that the nation finds itself in. No one can be certain what the best remedy is to get the credit markets unstuck and to keep the economy from falling into recession. Hopefully, what is hammered out this weekend will start moving things in the right direction.

However, how we got into this mess is not so difficult to understand -- good intentions and venality run wild. Democratic housing programs for the low income and minorities spun out of control and Democratic supporters of the programs successfully blocked efforts to rein them in and keep them from exploding. "Affordable housing" was not affordable.

This ten-minute video tells the story. There is a lot in it. To read some of the quoted articles, just push the pause button. Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank is of course a featured participant, since he was a key player in blocking reform in 2003 and later.

As for accuracy, the maker of the video invites one and all to check the facts by googling or however else one wishes to proceed.

The so-called bailout bill being worked on already has had Democratic pork shoved into it. There is a provision that 20% of any "profits" coming out of the deal will go to housing community organizers, including the most notorious of them all ACORN, which has been linked to vote registration fraud on behalf of Democrats in more than a dozen states. Last year in Washington State, for example, ACORN settled a massive vote fraud suit and several of its workers went to prison. This year there are ongoing investigations of fraud by ACORN in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Mexico. We have reported on ACORN's fraudulent activities several times this year, wondering if fraud might win the election for Obama. ACORN is working nationally for Obama's election and it's political committee has endorsed Obama for president. It has 850 offices in 70 major cities, including, for example, Philadelphia, where it is being investigated for voter registration fraud.

While he was in Chicago as a community organizer, Obama trained ACORN workers and later represented the organization as a lawyer. He is fully aware of its tactics, its Democratic orientation when it is supposed to be nonpartisan and its extensive hilstory of voter fraud cases. Obama hired ACORN in his run for the state senate in Illinois and has used ACORN in his primary campaign for president.

That some of the taxpayer money that is supposed to go to unfreeze credit markets is going to wind ou with ACORN is unconscionable and unacceptable.

Here is the first public report last night that money for ACORN had been stuck into the bailout bill.

For a great deal more on ACORN, click here.

The folks at Power Line remind us of this 2003 article in the New York Times, once the respected newspaper of record:

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. ...

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session. ...

''The current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,'' Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. ''We have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,'' the independent agency that now regulates the companies. ...

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." (emphasis added)

The New York Times is no longer respected and House Democrats didn't support the reforms for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

At least one financial expert Andy Kessler thinks that the Bush Administration financial system rescue plan developed by Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, working together with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, is brilliant and will in the long run prove immensely profitable for American taxpayers, That's not to say there will not be a lot of heartache and suffering for people who bet too much on housing prices rising to the sky. There are many details to be worked out, but the outlines of the Paulson plan appear to have been adopted by Congress, so this expert's view might provide some comfort at this time of gloom.

Is there a simple way to describe how the world financial crisis started and unfolded? Stephen Schwartzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, did that at a roundtable of 20 financial experts in New York sponsored by the Yale School of Management this Tuesday:

"It's a perfect storm. It started with Congress encouraging lending to lower-income people. You went from subprime loans being 2% of total loans in 2002 to 30% of total loans in 2006. That kind of enormous increase swept into the net people who shouldn't have been borrowing.(emphasis added)

Those loans were packaged into CDOs rated AAA, which led the investment-banking firms [buying them] to do little to no due diligence, and the securities were distributed throughout the world, where they started defaulting.

It all started during the Clinton years when new regulations pressured banks to make loans to less creditworthy people, often living in neighborhoods that bankers considered too risky. Traditionally, many if not most banks held mortgage loans for the life of the loans and relied on their deposits for new money with which to make new mortgage loans.

Now banks became uneasy with the new loans they were making and wanted to get them off their books. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they would take those subprime loans off their hands and subprime loans skyrocketed from 2% to 30% of all mortgage loans in just four years. Such receptivity of Fannie and Freddie to subprime loans encouraged nonbank mortgage companies to accelerate their subprime loan business and to sell their loans to Fannie and Freddie, too.

As the Democrats in Congress scramble to get their buddies in the media to blame "Wall Street" and the Bush Administration for the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac meltdown, there are some who see the picture clearly. It was them (we know: they).

That capitalist broadsheet Investor's Business Daily has a crystal clear view. It will be publishing a series of analyses and this one is the first. Knowing what we know already, it's all too accurate.

Was this a crisis that surprised everyone? Not at all. There are culprits.

President Bush, reviled and criticized by Democrats, tried no fewer than 17 times, by White House count, to raise the issue of Fannie-Freddie reform. A bill cleared the Senate Banking panel in 2005, but stalled due to implacable opposition from Democrats and a critical core of GOP abettors. Rep. Barney Frank, who now runs the powerful House Financial Services Committee, helped spearhead that fight.

Barney Frank was most recently quoted as saying this:

"The private sector got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it."

The truth is indeed the first casualty when those who are responsible are running for cover.

September 22, 2008
'Crony' Capitalism Is Root Cause Of Fannie And Freddie Troubles
By TERRY JONES in Investor's Business Daily

In the past couple of weeks, as the financial crisis has intensified, a new talking point has emerged from the Democrats in Congress: This is all a "crisis of capitalism," in socialist financier George Soros' phrase, and a failure to regulate our markets sufficiently.

Well, those critics may be right — it is a crisis of capitalism. A crisis of politically driven crony capitalism, to be precise.

Indeed, Democrats have so effectively mastered crony capitalism as a governing strategy that they've convinced many in the media and the public that they had nothing whatsoever to do with our current financial woes.

Barack Obama has repeatedly blasted "Bush-McCain" economic policies as the cause, as if the two were joined at the hip.

Funny, because over the past 8 years, those who tried to fix Fannie Mae(FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE)— the trigger for today's widespread global financial meltdown — were stymied repeatedly by congressional Democrats.

This wasn't an accident. Though some key Republicans deserve blame as well, it was a concerted Democratic effort that made reform ofFannie and Freddie impossible.

The reason for this is simple: Fannie and Freddie became massive providers both of reliable votes among grateful low-income homeowners, and of massive giving to the Democratic Party by grateful investment bankers, both at the two government-sponsored enterprises and on Wall Street.

The result: A huge taxpayer rescue that at last estimate is approaching $700 billion but may go even higher.

It all started, innocently enough, in 1994 with President Clinton's rewrite of the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act.

Ostensibly intended to help deserving minority families afford homes — a noble idea — it instead led to a reckless surge in mortgage lending that has pushed our financial system to the brink of chaos.

Subprime's Mentors

Fannie and Freddie, the main vehicle for Clinton's multicultural housing policy, drove the explosion of the subprime housing market by buying up literally hundreds of billions of dollars in substandard loans — funding loans that ordinarily wouldn't have been made based on such time-honored notions as putting money down, having sufficient income, and maintaining a payment record indicating creditworthiness.

With all the old rules out the window, Fannie and Freddie gobbled up the market. Using extraordinary leverage, they eventually controlled 90% of the secondary market mortgages. Their total portfolio of loans topped $5.4 trillion — half of all U.S. mortgage lending. They borrowed $1.5 trillion from U.S. capital markets with — wink, wink — an "implicit" government guarantee of the debts.

This created the problem we are having today.

As we noted a week ago, subprime lending surged from around $35 billion in 1994 to nearly $1 trillion last year — for total growth of 2,757% as of last year.

No real market grows that fast for that long without being fixed.

And that's just what Fannie and Freddie were — fixed. They became a government-run, privately owned home finance monopoly.

Fannie and Freddie became huge contributors to Congress, spending millions to influence votes. As we've noted here before, the bulk of the money went to Democrats.

Dollars To Dems

Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie also became a kind of jobs program for out-of-work Democrats.

Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, the CEOs under whom the worst excesses took place in the late 1990s to mid-2000s, were both high-placed Democratic operatives and advisers to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick also got taken care of by the Fannie-Freddie circle. So did top Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel, among others.

On the surface, this sounds innocent. Someone has to head the highly political Fannie and Freddie, right?

But this is why crony capitalism is so dangerous. Those in power at Fannie and Freddie, as the sirens began to wail about some of their more egregious practices, began to bully those who opposed them.

That included journalists, like the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot, and GOP congressmen, like Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Fannie and Freddie actively lobbied against in his own district. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who tried to hold hearings on Fannie's and Freddie's questionable accounting practices in 2004, found himself stripped of responsibility for their oversight by House Speaker Dennis Hastert — a Republican.

Where, you ask, were the regulators?

Congress created a weak regulator to oversee Freddie and Fannie — the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight — which had to go hat in hand each year to Capitol Hill for its budget, unlike other major regulators.

With lax oversight, Fannie and Freddie had a green light to expand their operations at breakneck speed.

Fannie and Freddie had a reliable coterie of supporters in the Senate, especially among Democrats.

"We now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years," wrote economist Kevin Hassett on Bloomberg.com this week.

Buying Friends In High Places

Over the span of his career, Obama ranks No. 2 in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie, taking over $125,000. Dodd, head of the Senate Banking panel, is tops at $165,000. Clinton, ranked 12th, has collected $75,000.

Meanwhile, Freddie and Fannie opened what were euphemistically called "Partnership Offices" in the districts of key members of Congress to channel millions of dollars in funding and patronage to their supporters.

In the space of a little more than a decade, Fannie and Freddie spent close to $150 million on lobbying efforts. So pervasive were their efforts, they seemed unassailable, even during a Republican administration.

Yet, by 2004, the crony capitalism had gone too far. Even OFHEO issued a report essentially criticizing Fannie and Freddie for Enron-style accounting that let them boost profits in order to pay their politically well-connected executives hefty bonuses.

It emerged that Clinton aide Raines, who took Fannie Mae's helm as CEO in 1999, took in nearly $100 million by the time he left in 2005. Others, including former Clinton Justice Department official Gorelick, took $75 million from the Fannie-Freddie piggy bank.

Even so, Fannie and Freddie were forced to restate their earnings by some $3.5 billion, due to the accounting shenanigans.

As we noted, those who tried to halt this frenzy of activity found themselves hit by a political buzz saw.

President Bush, reviled and criticized by Democrats, tried no fewer than 17 times, by White House count, to raise the issue of Fannie-Freddie reform. A bill cleared the Senate Banking panel in 2005, but stalled due to implacable opposition from Democrats and a critical core of GOP abettors. Rep. Barney Frank, who now runs the powerful House Financial Services Committee, helped spearhead that fight.

Now, with the taxpayer tab approaching $1 trillion or more, we're learning the costs of crony capitalism.

Warnings about the mushrooming problems being created by the unrestrained lending of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were delivered to Congress many times.

Here is a chronology.

The Administration's Unheeded Warnings About The Systemic Risk Posed By The GSEs

For many years, the President and his Administration have not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) but also put forward plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties. President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President's repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems. Many prominent Democrats, including House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, opposed any legislation correcting the risks posed by GSEs.

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe does an excellent job of taking apart Pelosi's phony Democrat energy bill that is her idea of how to save the planet while hoping Joe voter would be conned into seeing it as a pro-drilling bill, which it sure isn't.

The drilling bill that bans drilling

By Jeff Jacoby | September 21, 2008
The Boston Globe

Q: Says here the House of Representatives approved a bill to allow offshore oil drilling, but nearly all the Republicans voted against it. Weren't Republicans the ones chanting "Drill, baby, drill!" at their convention last month?

A: Yep. That's why they voted against this bill. It isn't a drilling bill, it's an anti-drilling bill. If it becomes law, nearly all the oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf would be off-limits forever.

Q: Huh? The story says the bill "would allow offshore drilling as close as 50 miles from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts." It quotes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "It's time for an oil change in America, and this bill represents that." That's anti-drilling?

A: C'mon: A few weeks ago, Pelosi was implacably opposed to letting the House vote on lifting the offshore drilling moratorium. "I'm trying to save the planet!" she told Politico. "I'm trying to save the planet!" You really think someone so sanctimoniously hostile to drilling just six weeks ago is all for it now?

Q: But this bill -

A: This bill permanently bans all drilling within 50 miles of the US coast, which just happens to be where most of the recoverable oil and gas reserves are. It permits drilling between 50 and 100 miles out only if the adjoining states agree - which they won't, since the bill denies them any share in the royalties the oil companies would have to pay, thereby eliminating any financial incentive for a state to say yes. Virtually all the oil off the California coast and beneath the Eastern Gulf of Mexico would be locked up for good. Don't be fooled: The only offshore drilling this bill really opens the door to would have to be 100 miles or more out to sea, where the oil companies have no infrastructure.

Q: But the Democrats claim they are "expanding the availability of oil by at least 2 billion barrels."

A: Do you know how much oil is out there? According to the Interior Department, the offshore areas where drilling is restricted contain more than 19 billion barrels - that's equal to 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia. The bill would deny Americans access to as much as nine-tenths of that oil. A good deal? I don't think so.

Q: So what are you saying? The Pelosi bill is a sham?

A: Call it a political maneuver. Democrats don't really mind high gasoline prices; more pain at the pump means reduced consumption of fossil-fuel, which they and their environmental allies blame for global warming. But with millions of constituents growing increasingly upset over $4-a-gallon gas, and with polls showing the public heavily in favor of lifting the drilling ban, they had to do something. Voila - Speaker Pelosi's bill: a feint of supporting offshore exploration that would actually make drilling more difficult.

Q: Well, I can't fault Pelosi for thinking about the planet. Maybe we need more energy, but do you really think drilling more oil wells in the ocean is good for the earth?

A: Here's a news flash: The less oil we pull out of the ground ourselves, the more we have to import from abroad. Now who do you think is more likely to injure the planet - the United States, which uses the world's most advanced and environmentally sensitive drilling technology? Or Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and other exporters that aren't nearly as fastidious about oil leaks and pollution? Think of the American oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. They're so well-built that not even Hurricanes Rita and Katrina caused a significant oil spill.

Q: OK, but isn't our addiction to oil the root of the problem? Don't we need to wean ourselves off oil and move to greener sources of energy?

A: In theory, sure. In reality, we'll be running on oil for decades yet. Listen:

Well, the winds of change are blowin'

And we recognize that need

But tractors, trucks, cars, and planes can't run on tomorrow's dreams

So while we're workin' on the future, we can't ignore today

'Cause who knows how much time the alternative might take?

Q: Nice - where's that from?

A: Aaron Tippin's new single.

Q: What's it called?

A: "Drill Here, Drill Now.

Speaker Pelosi pushed a sham energy bill through the House that on its face appears to authorize drilling offshore. It also has lots of money for wind and sun. But the main thing the bill does is permanently prohibit offshore drilling where the oil is, in waters within 50 miles of the coast. For example, Governor Palin of Alaska has pointed out that there are rich deposits of oil and natural gas jus off the Alaskan coast that could be providing energy to the nation in one to two years.

The good news is that there aren't 60 votes in the Senate to pass this cynical Pelosi attempt to make it look as if Democrats were doing something for energy when in fact they are doing the bidding of the environmental extremists who have a stranglehold on their party. (The president said he would veto the bill, anyway.)

Misguided Republicans in the Senate have teamed up with Democrats to sponsor a "compromise" that will ensure that the U.S. can never use the vast majority of its existing resources to achieve energy independence. That bill, too, will not be able to muster the 60 votes to pass, since Senate Minority Leader has vowed to use all his skill and power block it.

In fact, the solution to the public's demand to "drill now" is less than two weeks away. The principal ban on drilling has been renewed annually for decades. If it not renewed by September 30, it will expire. If renewal of the ban were put to a clean up and down vote, it would lose by substantial margins in both houses of Congress, because Democrats would be exposed as enemies of national energy security if they were to vote for a continuation of the ban.

You can be sure that Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid are feverishly working up an omnibus budget bill that must pass before the start of the government's fiscal year on October 1 or the government will be shut down in the midst of a financial crisis. Buried in the bill will be the renewal of the drilling ban.

Democrats intend to defy the Republicans and the President, daring them to shut the government down and take the blame for it. (How stark an example can one ask for to demonstrate why the President should have the same line item veto that governors of states have.)

Since there will be a party line Democratic vote to approve the omnibus bill in the House, the showdown will come in the Senate. Senate Republicans and the President must stand firm. This is a matter of vital national security and Democrats working against the interests of the nation must be exposed and defeated. Not only are these Democratic leaders working to keep the U.S. dependent on oil producers who wish us no good, they are willing to put the nation's economy in jeopardy by paralyzing the government with a shutdown.

The drive for energy independence can start on October 1.

With access opened up to our rich resources of oil and natural gas offshore and in Rocky Mountains shale (a separate Democratic moratorium running to December 31), dependence on hostile and unstable oil producers will be dramatically cut. Legislation to authorize and provide incentives for nuclear power, clean coal, coal gasification, wind, solar, thermal and all feasible energy alternatives can then be put together. McCain and Palin, Congressional Republicans in the House by their summer-break energy information sessions on the House floor and President Bush have all made it clear that years of saying "no" must end now. (Obama sides with the environmental extremists in supporting the fakery -- and risks to the nation -- the Democrats are perpetrating.)

The showdown is at hand and the public wants, needs and deserves "All of the Above."

Who's responsible for the high price of gas? Pure and simple, Democrats in Congress. They made most of the U.S. off limits to drilling years ago and as a consequence U.S. reserves have been dwindling and our dependence on hostile and unstable foreign oil producers has increased.

It's in America's interest for world oil production to increase. One of the most promising untapped source -- beside the U.S. itself -- is Iraq. With violence down and attacks on antiquated pipelines and other oil faciliites mostly a matter of the past, it was time, the Iraqi govenment thought, to start rebuilding its oil infrastructure. So it drafted no bid contracts to hire Western oil companies -- Exxon Mobil and Chevron (American), BP (British), Shell (British/Dutch) and Total (French) -- to put their expertise to work to help increase its oil production.

A good deal for everyone, right? Well, not everyone thought so. Three Democratic senators John Kerry of Massachusetts, Chuck Schumer of New York and Claire McCaskill of Missouri objected, created a public uproar in the U.S. and Iraq and as a result Iraq canceled the contracts with the Western oil companies. Now, months later Iraq hired the Chinese to do the job.

The partisan meddling by Kerry, Schumer and McCaskill in foreign affairs in an attempt to dicate foreign policy and to punish American oil companies has delayed any increase in the production of oil from Iraq and cost these oil companies revenues, jobs and the chance to be at the head of the line for future work.

That's disgusting. Jeff Beatty, running to unseat John Kerry this November, released an ad today pointing out that Kerry has done nothing in his years -- decades, actually -- for oil indepedence. In fact, Kerry has repeatedly voted to ban drilling in the U.S. along with his fellow Democrats, which is a major reason why the U.S. now faces this grave national security risk. Now add in this latest blow to world oil production by his meddling in Iraq. Like Obama privately seeking to get Iraq to hold off working out a timetable for American troop withdrawal until after "he's" elected, the Kerry/Schumer/McCaskill meddling, in the words of Fred Kagan, is "harmful to American interests and our prospects in Iraq.

Below is Jeff Beatty's new ad and Fred Kagan's report on how Kerry,Schumer and McCaskill's meddling gave China the first big new oil contract in Iraq.

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No Oil for Blood

By Frederick W. Kagan
The Weekly Standard | 9/17/2008

Yesterday morning, I had the honor of testifying before the House Budget Committee on the situation in Iraq. The discussion was polite and civilized, and was a reminder that even now it is possible for people who disagree about what to do in Iraq to argue without raised voices and disagreeable language (apart from the Code Pink women, yelling for those who think that shouting opponents down is preferable to arguing with them). Congressman Brian Baird once again demonstrated that it is possible even for those who bitterly opposed the war to recognize the importance of doing the right thing now--as well as the possibility of crossing the Republican-Democrat sectarian divide on this issue. One question came up repeatedly in the hearing that deserves more of an answer than it got, however: Why, after all the assistance we've given to Iraq over the past five years, was the first major Iraqi oil deal signed with China and not with an American or even a western company? The answer is, in part, because three Democratic senators intervened in Iraqi domestic politics earlier this year to prevent Iraq from signing short-term agreements with Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, Chevron, and BP.

The Iraqi government was poised to sign no-bid contracts with those firms this summer to help make immediate and needed improvements in Iraq's oil infrastructure. The result would have been significant foreign investment in Iraq, an expansion of Iraqi government revenues, and an increase in the global supply of oil. One would have thought that leading Democratic senators who claim to be interested in finding other sources of funding to replace American dollars in Iraq, in helping Iraq spend its own money on its own people, and in lowering the price of gasoline for American citizens, would have been all for it. Instead, Senators Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, and Claire McCaskill wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rice asking her "to persuade the GOI [Government of Iraq] to refrain from signing contracts with multinational oil companies until a hydrocarbon law is in effect in Iraq." The Bush administration wisely refused to do so, but the resulting media hooraw in Iraq led to the cancellation of the contracts, and helps to explain why Iraq is doing oil deals instead with China.

Senators Schumer, McCaskill, and Kerry claimed to be acting from the purest of motives: "It is our fear that this action by the Iraqi government could further deepen political tensions in Iraq and put our service members in even great danger." For that reason, presumably, Schumer went so far as to ask the senior vice president of Exxon "if his company would agree to wait until the GOI produced a fair, equitable, and transparent hydrocarbon revenue sharing law before it signed any long-term agreement with the GOI." Exxon naturally refused, but Schumer managed to get the deal killed anyway. But the ostensible premise of the senators' objections was false--Iraq may not have a hydrocarbons law, but the central government has been sharing oil revenues equitably and there is no reason at all to imagine that signing the deals would have generated increased violence (and this was certainly not the view of American civilian and military officials on the ground in Iraq at the time). It is certain that killing the deals has delayed the maturation of Iraq's oil industry without producing the desired hydrocarbons legislation.

Nor is it entirely clear what the senators' motivations were. Their release (available along with their letter to Secretary Rice at the New York Observer quoted Senator McCaskill as follows: "'It's bad enough that we have no-bid contracts being awarded for work in Iraq. It's bad enough that the big oil companies continue to receive government handouts while they post record breaking profits. But now the most profitable companies in the universe--America's biggest oil companies--stand to reap the rewards of this no-bid contract on top of it all,' McCaskill said. 'It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect these dots--big oil is running Washington and now they're running Baghdad. There is no reason under the sun not to halt these agreements until we get revenue sharing in place,' McCaskill said." So was this about what's best for Iraq and American interests there or about nailing "big oil" in an election year?

Either way, like Barack Obama's asking the Iraqi foreign minister to hold off on a strategic framework agreement until after the American election, it was nothing but harmful to American interests and our prospects in Iraq.

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Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

The financial crisis shaking the world is serious, but the govenment has drawn the line correctly: No bailouts of private companies. The pain of adjustment will be borne by the companies themselves, their creditors and their shareholders, not the taxpayers.

While there was criticism of the federal rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they had to be saved because, uniquely, they carried for decades the "implicit" guaranty of the U.S. government. Based on that assurance, Fannie and Freddie bonds are owned around the globe. Uncle Sam could not walk away.

The implicit guaranty was a bad policy that Congress after Congress left in place, because it made mortgage lending possible to marginal borrowers that otherwise would never take place. Indeed, the recently deposed president of Freddie Mac, the very capable Dick Syron, admitted that they were under constant Democratic pressure from Congress to do even more to help make home ownership possible. Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank was at the forefront pressing such expansiveness on his fellow Massachusetts citizen. (Indeed Frank fattened the recent mortgage bailout bill to include funds for voter registration, knowing that ACORN, chronically involved in vote fraud, would be early in line for the money to register Democrats.)

President Bush several years ago asked Congress to rein in the federally-backed mortgage agencies, but nothing happened. So the house of cards finally collapsed and the taxpayers are picking up the tab.

McCain/Palin's new ad addressses the issue.

Unfortunately, the Democratic desire to make the federal government the mortgage lender of last resort to those who had no assets justifying home ownership has proven very costly to taxpayers. Rational lending standards must be reimposed and Fannie and Freddie must be weaned away from the government's backing. Any question who is more likely to do that, McCain or Obama?

Back on July 13th we published a chart showing that the oil deposits in Rocky Mountains shale would vault the U.S. into a commanding lead in the world as a producer of oil, far ahead of Saudi Arabia. Today Power Line reported that oil shale development is about to get underway -- in Jordan! Jordanian sources say Jordan can become oil-independent, become an oil exporter and satisfy its own needs for 700 years.

But Pelosi-Obama-Reid are preventing the U.S. from achieving energy independence with their ban on exploration and development offshore and in the Rocky Mountains.

Their stubborn disregard for national security and the distress high energy prices are causing average Americans is shocking, Their proposal -- to slap a profits tax on oil companies -- will punish the companies we need to produce oil and not deliver one new barrel of oil to the United States. Their environmental arguments are hogwash, since producing oil in the United States is done with more technoligical expertise and environmental sensitivity than anywhere else on the planet. Is is better for the U.S. to rely on oil production in Nigeria where oil platforms and pipelines are attacked almost daily with resulting oil spoilation of coastal waters?