Dems Are All About "Pay-or-Play" Politics

(We Need the Same)

Obama got big contribution from Richardson pay-for-play scandal figure

We know from that stories of Obama receiving very questionable donations from overseas were valid fears. So too are the “pay-for-play” politics that most likely run through Republican and Democratic parties. Especially the Democratic party though. The Democrats have already given up the “Pay-As-You-Go” idea that the Republican Congress under Newt stuck to... allowing Clinton to reap the fiscal harvest. (It is interesting to note that we had a Democratic Congress the last two years of the fiscal crisis - which was the last two years.) It should not be “Pay-to-Play” politics... it should be “Pay-as-You-Go” politics!

The last two years of a Democrat Congress. Is it time to vote them out?

October 19, 2008

The Last Two Years

By Randall Hoven

The Obama/Biden ticket's entire campaign theme is based on "the last eight years." Maybe we should really look at "the last two years," or the time period when both the House and the Senate were run by Democrats.

In December 2006, after six years of Bush and the last month before the Democrats took over both houses of the national legislature, a snapshot of our economy looked like this.

• Unemployment stood at 4.4%.
• Real GDP growth over the previous four years (under a Republican President, House and Senate)
• averaged 3% per year.
• A gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.30.
• The S&P; 500 stock index stood at 1418, or 84% above its post-911 low and more than 7% higher than when Bush took office.
• Every year of Bush's Presidency, real (inflation-adjusted) disposable income per person went up. By the end of 2006, the average person was making 9% more in real terms than before Bush became President

If you recall, that 2006 election was considered a referendum on Iraq. The people wanted change, so they threw out the Republicans and replaced them with Democrats. Welcome Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Here is how they handled Iraq once in office: Harry Reid told us that the Iraq war was "lost" and the surge was not "accomplishing anything." Senator Obama introduced legislation that would have prevented the surge and would have taken all US troops out of Iraq by March 2008 (that would be seven months ago, as you read this).

Were they right?

Barack Obama now admits that "the surge succeeded." So much for that change. And as the surge succeeded, Congress's approval ratings plummeted. The latest CBS/New York Times poll has it at 12%, well less than half of the already low level it stood at when the Republican Congress was being tossed out in 2006.

The Democratic Congress did a great job, if what you're looking for in a Congress is continual investigation of Republicans. Did the White House out CIA agent Valerie Plame? No, it was the anti-White House Richard Armitage at State, but Congress investigated anyway. Did Alberto Gonzalez, with White House urging, fire nine prosecutors for political reasons? Probably not, and it wouldn't be a crime anyway, but Congress investigated, and is still investigating. Did the CIA, under orders from the White House, "torture" prisoners? No evidence of that yet, but Congress is on the case.

What Congress would not investigate was anything about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, they fought against such investigations and cast aspersions against anyone who would even doubt the soundness of those institutions. Here is what Barney Frank said:

These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.

You can also see on YouTube how Democrats treated the regulators trying to reign in Fannie and Freddie.

But now we know what happened. Fannie and Freddie were run corruptly and ineptly and went bankrupt. Their $1.5 trillion portfolios had to be rescued by the government this year. Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed CEO of Fannie Mae who was vigorously defended by Congressional Democrats, was sued by government regulators for cooking the books to the tune of $10 billion to increase his own bonuses to the tune of tens of millions. He settled his suit for an estimated $25 million.

On the other hand, here is what the New York Times had to say in 2003.

The Bush administration is rightly pushing for the Treasury Department to regulate the two giants, along with the network of federal home loan banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide financing to lenders by creating a secondary market for mortgages. All told, these two institutions' debt portfolio exceeds more than $1.5 trillion. Their current regulator is ill equipped to keep tabs on Freddie's and Fannie's sophisticated hedging strategies and the other financial moves they use to manage their huge investments.

And here is what John McCain said on the Senate floor:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. 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.

So on the big things, the surge in Iraq and the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to our recent financial mess, the Democrats were wrong. Dead wrong. One hundred eighty degrees out wrong.

On the other hand, who supported the surge? George W. Bush and John McCain.

Who tried to strengthen the oversight and regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? George W. Bush and John McCain.

In the case of the surge, Bush and McCain got their way. The result? Apparent victory in Iraq, a country that is now a democracy, at peace with its neighbors, no longer a WMD threat, no longer a terrorist sanctuary, and no longer filling hundreds of mass graves with hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.

In the case of Fannie and Freddie, Bush and McCain did not get their way - Barney Frank did. The result? The failure of Fannie and Freddie, law suits against their executives and the spark that sent banks failing and stocks falling across the globe to the point of threatening a Great Depression.

Let's vote for change. Let's undo what we did in 2006.

Just in case people forgot:

And The Winner Is:

Bill Clinton Blaming Democrats for Sub-Prime...

... crisis. This disappeared from the web, but I have put it back on. I will update my old blog with this new video.

American Spectator (letter to the editor)

Fanny, Freddie, and Obama
By The Prowler 9.8.08

When President George W. Bush nominated Henry Paulson to serve as Treasury Secretary, Republicans raised a red flag that Paulson, who, along with his wife, has strong ties to the Democrat party, would not be an honest broker with Republicans.

That seems to have been borne out, with sources inside of Treasury reporting that Paulson briefed Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign advisers on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout plan before offering such a briefing to the McCain campaign.

In fact, the McCain campaign had sought a similar briefing several days ago as word spread that a bailout plan was to be unveiled and had been turned down by Paulson's senior staff.

The next question is: Why was the Obama campaign so keen on getting advanced word about the bailout?

"They have a huge problem with the mortgage and housing market story, and everyone is missing it," says a Republican political media consultant with ties to the Obama campaign due to the bipartisan nature of the firm he does work with.

"You look at Obama's economic advisers, the guys he has counted on from day one and who have raised him a ton -- and I mean a ton -- of money: Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both of them are waist to neck deep in the mortgage debacle."

Both Raines and Johnson have served as CEO of Fannie Mae, with Raines taking over from Johnson. Both are key political and economic advisers to Obama.

"How can Obama go out with a straight face and saw it was Republicans who made this mess, when it is his key advisers who ran the agencies that made the big mess what it is?" says a Democrat House member who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "It's his people who are responsible for what may well be the single largest government bailout in history. And every single one of them made millions off the collapse that are lining Obama's campaign coffers. If the McCain campaign lets this one go, they deserve to lose."

It isn't just Fannie Mae where Obama has a problem. Another close political adviser, in fact the one man responsible for rallying support for Obama early on among Congressional Democrats, is Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who served on the Board of Directors for Freddie Mac after leaving the Clinton White House. According to Freddie Mac insiders, Emanuel during his time on the board opposed every reform proposed by the Bush Administration that would have impacted Freddie and Fannie Mae.

Emanuel claimed to be neutral in the primary race between the wife of his old boss and his longtime Chicago acquaintance, Obama. But the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, who would be first in line for the vacated Senate seat of Obama should he win the presidency, quickly dumped Clinton when it was clear Obama had a head of steam for the nomination.

"We ought to be able to -- rightly -- hang the Fannie and Freddie scandal around the neck of Obama, if they can get out in front," says a House Republican. "Middle-class folks' mortgages are probably safe, but the American taxpayer will also be paying for this scandal for years to come."

(Import) New Party: Radicals, Redistribution, and ACORN

(Hot Air)

Stanley Kurtz continues his efforts to be proclaimed an Enemy of the State in a prospective Barack Obama presidency with his essay today on Chicago’s New Party. While the Tanning Bed Media continues to report on Joe the Plumber’s driving record, only a handful of journalists appear interested in the record of an actual politician. Kurtz discovers that Obama’s affiliation with the New Party brought him into alliance with hard-Left progressives, Socialists, and into a partnership with ACORN:

During his first campaign for the Illinois state senate in 1995-96, Barack Obama was a member of, and was endorsed by, the far-left New Party. Obama’s New Party ties give the lie to his claim to be a post-partisan, post-ideological pragmatist. Particularly in Chicago, the New Party functioned as the electoral arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). So despite repeated attempts to distance himself from ACORN, Obama’s New Party ties raise disturbing questions about his links to those proudly militant leftists. The media’s near-total silence on this critical element of Obama’s past is deeply irresponsible.

Stanley, Stanley, Stanley … stop being such a racist. Don’t you know that the media has more important tasks than to inform the electorate about the candidates for the Presidency? I hear Joe Wurzelbacher may have belonged to something called the Natural Law Party over twenty years ago. That’s obviously much more important than Obama’s political record!

In any case, the New Party was clearly far to the left of mainstream Democrats, and according to Sifry, the party explicitly thought of itself as made up of committed “progressives,” rather than conventional “liberals.” That is entirely consistent with a famous 1995 profile of Obama by Hank De Zutter, which portrays him as closely tied to ACORN, and holding a world-view well “beyond” his mother’s conventional liberalism.

To get a sense of where the New Party stood politically, consider some of its early supporters: Barbara Dudley of Greenpeace, Steve Cobble political director of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coaltion, and prominent academics like Frances Fox Piven coauthor of the “Cloward-Piven strategy” and a leader of the drive for the “motor-voter” legislation Obama later defended in court on behalf of ACORN, economist Juliet Schor, black historian, Manning Marable, historian Howard Zinn, linguist Noam Chomsky, Todd Gitlin, and writers like Gloria Steinem, and Barbara Ehrenreich. Socialist? Readers can draw their own conclusions. At one point, Sifry does describe the party’s goals as “social democratic.” In any case, the New Party clearly stands substantially to the left of the mainstream Democratic party.

Come on, Stanley. Try to keep up. Joe the Plumber isn’t licensed in Ohio! Do you know what that means? Unless the government officially declares you a plumber, you can’t be one. Why aren’t you joining the masses of your colleagues in exposing Joe as a fraud?

Unquestionably, ACORN was one of the most important forces behind the creation of the New Party. According to Sifry: “Wade Rathke, ACORN’s lead national organizer, was in on the founding discussions that led to the New Party, and the group’s political director, Zach Polett, also came to play a big role in guiding New Party field organizing for the party [in Chicago and Little Rock].” In fact, Sifry portrays ACORN’s leading role in the New Party as the result of a conscious decision by the organization to move into electoral politics in a more substantial way than they had been able to solely through their political action committee. In addition to Rathke and Polett, a key early supporter of the New Party was Obama’s closest ACORN contact, Madeline Talbott.

Psst, Stanley. Did you know that Joe’s real first name is Samuel? He’s not even a real Joe. Well, except for his middle name, which he’s used consistently, but that’s not the point.

Obviously, Stanley Kurtz is not satisfied with membership in the Tanning Bed Media — and thank goodness. Kurtz takes a measured approach in this essay, refraining from labeling the New Party as Socialist. As Kurtz points out, it included socialists, but also many more people from the Left. It gave socialists and redistributionists their best opportunity to enter mainstream politics by influencing the direction of the Democrats in Chicago, and one of their stars in this effort was Barack Obama.

Tellingly, Kurtz’ best source for the New Party and its ties to ACORN is Micah Sifry. The progressive writer first committed the history of the New Party in his book Spoiling for a Fight, written in 2002 detailing the history of independent parties in the US. Using this history, Kurtz can easily draw the lines of alliance between Obama, ACORN, and the radicals and redistributionists who sought to pull the Democrats harder to the Left in Chicago — and who succeeded with Obama.

Why haven’t the national media done the same research? They’re too busy reporting on tanning beds and Joe the Plumber’s divorce records to spend any time vetting an actual presidential candidate.

Friends of Obama -- Just a Few...

...if you want to know about more, buy the book The Case Against Barack Obama. It is a great read!

Sen. John Glenn - Part of the Keating Five, and a Democrat. He is doing surrogate work for Obama? Like McCain, Glenn was also found not guilty of violating any Senate rules.” Attorney John Dowd, who represented McCain during the Senate Ethics investigation, said Senate Democrats conducted a "classic political smear job" on McCain in the Keating Five scandal.

"When it was discovered Keating was pushing too hard, he [McCain] threw Keating out of his office and ended all relations with him," Dowd said. Jack Abramoff: While he was convicted of a crime that at the time McCain didn’t know he was committing, Ayers however was “a leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group responsible for countless bombings against targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and numerous police stations, courthouses and banks. In recent years, Mr. Ayers has stated, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs … I feel we didn’t do enough.’

“The question now is, will Barack Obama immediately call on the University of Illinois to release all of the records they are currently withholding to shed further light on Senator Obama’s relationship with this unrepentant terrorist?”

Tony Rezko - He has been called an influence peddler while others call Abramoff a convicted felon? Rezko was found guilty on 16 of 24 counts. I think that is 13 felonies. At any rate, he is making a purported deal with the Chicago Tribune to give up info on Obama:

Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a convicted influence peddler who was once one of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s most trusted confidants, has met with federal prosecutors and is considering cooperating in the corruption probe of the governor’s administration, sources told the Tribune.

Rezko’s possible change of heart—after years of steadfast refusal—has sent ripples through a tight circle of prominent defense attorneys who represent dozens of potential witnesses and targets in the wide-ranging probe.

His cooperation would give prosecutors investigating the governor and his wife access to someone they have described as an ultimate political insider at the center of a pervasive pay-to-play scheme.

James Johnson - CEO Fannie Mae and long-time Democrat that Obama used as an advisor that vetted running mates, and in fact led it. Johnson was forced to step-down because of some fishy dealings... but he left with multiple millions. Had dealings with Countrywide, biggest offender in sub-prime lending market. Shady dealings with multiple loans from Countrywide (7-million dollars).

Franklin Raines - CEO Fannie Mae also an advisor on housing for Obama. He likewise has some shady dealings with Countrywide worth a few million dollars

Jamie Gurlich - Vice Chair of Fannie Mae was Jamie Gurlich when Raines was CEO. She is known as the author of the “Wall of Separation” which stopped the CIA and FBI from sharing information with each other that most likely would have abated 9/11. She made 26-million while at Fannie Mae... another high ranking Democrat.

Barney Frank - chairman of the House Financial Services panel had oversight for this very issue the past two years. He had a homosexual affair with Herb Moses, an executive at Fannie Mae while on the House Banking Committee.

ACORN - played a key role in pressuring banks to offer loans to those who were unlikely to be able to pay them back. ACORN has taken credit for pressuring banks to accept undocumented income as a basis for offering loans, for offering loans without using credit scores, and for making 100% financed loans available to low-income people. He was its lawyer in several pivotal ACORN cases. Obama funded a number of its activities, as well. When he sat on the board of the prestigious Woods Fund for Chicago alongside former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, he oversaw and approved many grants for ACORN.

“Mr. Good Will” and “Mr. Doodad Pro” - And that 11,500 donations to his campaign – totaling almost $34 million – may have come from overseas? Or that two Palestinians living in a Hamas-controlled refugee camp spent $31,300 in Obama’s online store?

Jeremiah Wright - More than a race batter, he was on Obama’s campaign staff. He went with Louis Farrakhan and met Momar Khadafy. He taught a Marxist form of theology that also incorporated the same ideology first found in Nicaragua with a dash of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism for good measure. They warped the Bible to say that the true Jewish people were the blacks and that even God was black and that all white people were not true Christians. Could you imagine if Bush went to a church for twenty years and was married by and had all his kids baptized by a guy who invited David Duke into his fold and said all white people were the only true Christians and that Jews were devils? How disingenuous Kimba to merely say he is merely a “race-baiter.”

People's Weekly World - the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the USA – has rhapsodized about Obama’s presidential campaign, calling it a "transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term"? Obama concedes that he attended “socialist conferences” and encountered Marxist literature.

Louise Farrakhan - introduced to him at his church and went to the “Million Man March” with Wright and also met Farrakhan there. Obama’s church gave a lifetime achievement award to this man as well as front-page spreads on their magazine. Farrakhan believes a UFO picked him up and took him to a man-made planet where God (Wallace D. Fard) spoke to him and said that Elijah Muhammad was a little messiah. Elijah and Farrakhan teach that a mad scientist made the white man 6,000 years ago. Again, black people are the only true Jews and the Jews in Israel and the whites must be destroyed.

Ayers - (Terorrist) Ayers was credibly accused, in classified testimony before a Senate subcommittee in 1974, of involvement in the murder of a police officer in San Francisco, as well as an attempted (and unsuccessful) anti-personnel bombing in Detroit. Obama was Vetted by Ayers and the two served on a 6-person board together where both tried to radicalize students by passing “education reform.”

John L. McKnight - renowned disciple of the late socialist agitator Saul "The Red" Alinksy wrote a letter of recommendation for Obama when he applied to Harvard Law School. He read communist Richard Wright’s writings. W.E.B. DuBois, who eulogized Joseph Stalin, was also modeled. Read Malcolm X approvingly as well.

- who calls himself a “progressive socialist,” has said that “Marxist thought is “an indispensible tradition for freedom fighters. West is on Obama’s “black advisory board.”

Saul Alinsky - Saul Alinsky, who died in 1972, at the age of 63, was a Chicago Marxist. Among his many books was one titled "Rules for Radicals," in which he explained to his acolytes, "The most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired results." It took Alinsky 11 words to paraphrase Karl Marx's far more succinct "The ends justify the means."

Alinsky, by the way, dedicated that particular book to Lucifer, whom he coyly referred to as "the first radical."

The reason I'm bringing up Alinsky 26 years after he wound up in a place where he could personally autograph his book for Beelzebub is because his disciples are still very much with us. For instance, he just happened to be the subject of Hillary Rodham's senior honors thesis at Wellesley College. It was such a glowing homage that, in 1968, a most appreciative Alinsky offered her a job in Chicago, but Ms. Rodham, as we all know, had bigger fish to fry. However, when she became America's first lady, the White House asked Wellesley to restrict access to the paper, and Wellesley wisely obliged, just as Princeton did when the Obama’s requested that Michelle's racist creed be removed from circulation.

Many people, once they grow up, would be embarrassed if people knew what they were drinking or smoking during their college days, but leftists don't even want us to know what they were thinking.

But it wasn't just young Ms. Rodham who had a connection to the late, unlamented Saul Alinsky. Thirteen years after the Chicago radical died, a group of his most devoted disciples hired 24-year-old Barack Obama to be a community organizer in South Chicago.

Top Three - top three people getting money from Fannie and Freddie were Chris Dodd, Obama, and John Kerry. Obama was new however and was on his way to setting records.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama: Of Air Raids and Loans

Thomas Sowell on Bailout

Photos Found on Dispatches From a Far Gone World

Bailout Politics

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.

The idea that politicians can assess risks better than people who have spent their whole careers assessing risks should have been so obviously absurd that no one would take it seriously.

But the magic words "affordable housing" and the ugly word "redlining" led to politicians directing where loans and investments should go, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and various other coercions and threats.

The roots of this problem go back many years, but since the crisis to which all this led happened on George W. Bush's watch, that is enough for those who think in terms of talking points, without wanting to be confused by the facts.

In reality, President Bush tried unsuccessfully, years ago, to get Congress to create some regulatory agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

N. Gregory Mankiw, his Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, warned in February 2004 that expecting a government bailout if things go wrong "creates an incentive for a company to take on risk and enjoy the associated increase in return."

Since risky investments usually pay more than safer investments, the incentive is for a government-supported enterprise to take bigger risks, since they get more profit if the risks pay off and the taxpayers get stuck with the losses if not.

The government does not guarantee Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, but the widespread assumption has been that the government would step in with a bailout to prevent chaos in financial markets.

Alan Greenspan, then head of the Federal Reserve System, made the same point in testifying before Congress in February 2004. He said: "The Federal Reserve is concerned" that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were using this implicit reliance on a government bailout in a crisis to take more risks, in order to "multiply the profitability of subsidized debt."

Chairman Greenspan added his voice to those urging Congress to create a "regulator with authority on a par with that of banking regulators" to reduce the riskiness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a riskiness ultimately borne by the taxpayers.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do not deserve to be bailed out, but neither do workers, families and businesses deserve to be put through the economic wringer by a collapse of credit markets, such as occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Neither do the voters deserve to be deceived on the eve of an election by the notion that this is a failure of free markets that should be replaced by political micro-managing.

If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were free market institutions they could not have gotten away with their risky financial practices because no one would have bought their securities without the implicit assumption that the politicians would bail them out.

It would be better if no such government-supported enterprises had been created in the first place and mortgages were in fact left to the free market. This bailout creates the expectation of future bailouts.

Phasing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would make much more sense than letting politicians play politics with them again, with the risk and expense being again loaded onto the taxpayers.