A Marxist Tidal Wave ...

Barry's support and influence goes way beyond Oprah. Since Barry's connections to radicals like Tony Rezko, William Ayers, and Chicago politics in general, are of no interest to ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, or the New York Times, I thought I'd conveniently provide an enlightening compilation right here for your review. (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Fannie and Her Friends

My, my...who'd have guessed? Sweetheart deals for those with conflicting interests. Compliments of the Wall Street Journal (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Short Sellers to Blame? Short Sellers?

A Violation of Public Trust
By Tim McCormack, A professional investor from Santa Barbara, CA

There is nothing wrong with Government coming to the rescue of financial institutions where mismanagement has caused risk of failure in a way that jeopardizes the stability of the entire financial system. What is wrong, and is both a violation of public trust and a display of professional incompetence, is to contribute taxpayer money in a way that enriches management and the owners of these mismanaged companies rather than the taxpayers.

Additionally, it is also a violation of public trust when government officials deliberately manipulate markets on behalf of certain market participants at the expense of others. The recent market manipulation executed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission by banning short selling of financial stocks is all the more outrageous due to that fact that it was specifically designed to enrich the very individuals who mismanaged their companies into near bankruptcy, and who are the underlying root cause of the larger systemic financial crisis by manufacturing, distributing, and inventorying toxic debt.

It is now well known that these financial firms manufactured, distributed, and inventoried near-fraudulent debt (financial widgets) at 30:1 leverage. Investors do not want these widgets at the current offer price, and if the widgets were priced and offered at a realistic market clearing price, it would likely bankrupt the vendors.

Hank Paulson (in concert with Ben Bernanke and Christopher Cox) has just orchestrated a plan that provides huge sums of taxpayer money to his old colleagues and buddies at Goldman Sachs, along with various others, including Morgan Stanley, to purchase the unwanted widgets in a manner that directly enriches the management and shareholders of these nearly bankrupt companies. Rather than demanding that taxpayers be rewarded with any profits of the rescue, as just occurred with AIG, this latest proposal appears deliberately struck to stick taxpayers with the downside, while management, creditors and shareholders of these firms instantly reap tens of billions in stock and bond appreciation.

Such actions cross the line not only into the arena of professional incompetence and negligence, but steps right up to the line where an open society stares official tyranny in the face.

These government officials could have rescued the financial system in a way aligned with their core responsibilities to the American taxpayer. If they had done so, as they did with AIG, they would deserve a pat on the back. They chose a different path. Rather than rescue the financial system in a responsible way, they have rescued their rich buddies that created the mess and left the taxpayer holding the bag. The American people deserve better.

Additionally, the same Gang of Three government officials simultaneously executed a massive market manipulation specifically designed to further enrich their Wall Street cronies — the very same individuals who mismanaged and nearly bankrupted these firms — by banning the short selling of financial stocks.

The management of these mismanaged companies — including John Mack, of Morgan Stanley, Richard Fuld, of Lehman Bros, and before them senior executives of Bear Stearns — have loudly spread rumors that the decline in their stock was caused by rumor-mongering and improper short-selling without offering an iota of evidence. Zero evidence has been presented to back up these allegations.

The market manipulation executed by Cox last week occurred without offering a single shred of evidence of the alleged improprieties. This behavior is eerily similar to the allegations of WMD in Iraq made by others in the Bush administration while absent of evidence. The administration at least went to the trouble of manufacturing evidence to support its claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Worse, was their professional incompetence in responding to the impending Lehman and AIG bankruptcies over the weekend of Sep. 13-14, and on Monday, Sep. 15. Their behavior and public announcements greatly intensified the crisis, and seriously elevated the systemic risk in global financial markets.

Some background on this issue is helpful. Financial professionals have always feared the "domino effect" of the failure of one large financial firm taking down many others through counterparty exposures. Since the failure of Bear Stearns and Northern Rock, market participants have had the clear impression that Government officials in the US and UK were not going to let this happen.

On Sept 13-15, the Gang of Three sent dramatically different signals into the market. Their abandonment of Lehman and AIG had dramatic negative consequences. At a press conference on Sep. 15, Paulson clearly said, in paraphrase, that "while the Government is concerned about the health and stability of the markets, it would not act to save these firms."

This news changed the landscape. Now, the domino effect not only seemed possible, it appeared imminent and all eyes were on the insurance giant AIG. Global stock markets reacted instantly, and rationally, as investors fled financial stocks generally, and the stocks of riskier financial firms (like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) in particular.

Rather than pouring water on the fire, Paulson pumped gasoline in a move that will now cost the US taxpayer several hundred billion dollars more than if proper actions had been taken in a timely fashion. Yet, after the dramatic global selloff, the AIG fire was doused in government water, but the global fire had become an inferno.

Rather than admitting to this blunder and learning from it, those who committed the blunder are now attempting to divert blame and attention to short sellers. Credit should be given where credit is due. The SEC is now complicit in falsely pointing the blame for the near-demise of these financial institutions at short sellers (a convenient scapegoat) in what appears to be a blatant attempt to divert attention from:

1. The real cause of the demise of these firms: mismanagement, in applying 30:1 leverage to volatile illiquid mortgage assets that these firms manufactured, distributed, and inventoried;

2. The failure of regulatory oversight, in allowing these firms to use 30:1 leverage on collateral known to occasionally suffer 30% to 50% downside fluctuations (real estate);

3. The failure to respond properly to the fires at Lehman and AIG; and

4. The real reason for the SEC market manipulation: to artificially inflate the share prices of distressed companies in a way that enriches management and shareholders, and simultaneously strengthens the company balance sheet (the new riches coming at the direct expense of innocent market participants, at the direct expense their financial competitors who were prudent in avoiding overexposure to leveraged toxic debt, and at the expense of free market principles).

Absent evidence of wrong-doing, the SEC is complicit in spreading lies and rumors, and engaging in market manipulation on behalf of their wealthy buddies. To date, rather than asking pointed questions, the press has bought the story and is guilty of rebroadcasting it rather than questioning its validity. With no evidence of improper short selling the most rational explanation for stock price declines is that natural investors (from mutual funds, pension funds, retail investors, etc) were selling or hedging long positions due to lack of confidence in these firms, and due to the new risks that sprang into existence by the reversal of position taken by US regulators.

While the SEC says that it is opposed to market manipulation, it has just engaged in market manipulation of the highest order on behalf of John Mack at Morgan Stanley and the gang at Goldman Sachs. This market manipulation has instantly resulted in the management and owners of these two firms receiving tens of billions of upside stock profits (and hundreds of billions among the 799 financial stocks) in just two days.

The SEC should be held accountable to defend its WMD claim with evidence that was in its possession at the time it manipulated these markets. It should not be allowed to manufacture an after-the-fact witch-hunt. Key questions are: What evidence was in the hands of the SEC regarding both mismanagement and short-selling at the time that this market manipulation occurred? Also: Were government officials at the SEC, Treasury and/or the Federal Reserve (specifically Cox, Paulson, and Bernanke) speaking with market participants who would be enriched by the market manipulation just prior to the manipulation? If so, what was the nature of these communications?

When small businesses take risks that don't work out, they fail. Farmers, bakers and widget-makers are not enriched by government for their failure.

Goldman Sachs is known as one of the most opportunistic and predatory firms on the street. When Goldman identifies companies in distress it has a long history of rushing in and providing assets in return for majority equity stakes, rightly earning the upside for this risk ahead of the existing management or owners. Hank Paulson was the direct recipient of this behavior while CEO at Goldman and it is important to note that he was able to sell more than $500 million in Goldman stock, tax-free, when he accepted the job as Secretary of the Treasury. Now that Goldman is in distress (and Paulson is employed by US taxpayers), Paulson wants to hand Goldman taxpayer money without demanding a controlling equity stake from Goldman Sachs in return. Who does Paulson work for? This is not rocket science.

No private company or public company would stand for similar behavior of their directors risking shareholder assets in ways that deliberately benefited others at shareholder expense. Such behavior would be rewarded with immediate dismissal for dereliction of duty and personal lawsuits seeking damages for negligent behavior.

Rather than getting an honest explanation about what has just occurred, the American people are now being sold a story manufactured by government officials who have been complicit in this irresponsible behavior. The open question remains: Are the American people gullible enough to buy it?

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When Will Biden Pony Up?

Jumpin' Joe Biden said we should all be patriotic and pay more taxes. Well, Joe, show us the way! And, while you're at it, how about dumping some of those earmarks that you and Barry have selfishly demanded?! (Click on bold headline for complete story)

...As if Capitalism is the Culprit!

The absolute outrage about this "bailout" is that those responsible for this mess are those investigating it. Congress. Whaddaya say all campaign contributions made by Fannie Mae be immediately returned by congressional recipients! Sounds fair to me. You've got five years to pay up. We can wait. ' Nuff said. Read on. (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Ten Questions For Henry Paulson

Found this on one of the financial blogs, Agora Financial, “After blowing over $900 billion of taxpayers’ money trying to bail out the misfeasance on Wall Street, Paulson’s new plan is to spend a few trillion to buy all the garbage off of banks. As a taxpayer, what do I get for picking up the tab?

“Since these Fed clowns have their hearts set on spending trillions of taxpayers’ dollars bailing out the bankers, why don't they just pay our mortgages off for us? That would reward their rich banker buddies, plus free up lots of cash for us consumers to buy more Chinese stuff we don't need. Hey, the banks could even raise our credit card limits in order to further enslave us. Seems like a win-win to me. But first, let's all go out and leverage our homes by 30 or 40 times their value. This could go on non-stop, right? Right? Isn't that right?”

Welcome to Bailout City.

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Unethical Rangel Gonna Skate?

Pelosi just can't pull rank on her cohort and clean up her "most ethical house in history." Despite temples dedicated to self at taxpayers expense, and $75,000 in unreported income, Rangel survives any inquiry...all this as the head of the House Ways and Means Committee. You see, they don't have to follow the law, but all of us do. Once again, Charlie Rangel proves Congress is great work if you can get it. (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Market Woes Not Only Hit USA

Just in case you thought the US Stock Market was the only one taking losses for the past 52 weeks...take a look at the rest of the world's markets. We're only down 21% over the past 52 weeks while China's only down 64%!
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Disgusting ABC Editing Again!

Classic attempt by ABC to shape our impressions as Newsbusters brings us the unedited version. My suggestion: ban ABC from airing anything within your own household. Their news agency is literally worthless!! (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Why Is Our Oil Up Hurricane Alley?

The United States has a conservatively estimated 115 billion barrels of available oil which, with unleashed domestic production, would supply all our needs for 15 years without importing one drop from foreign nations. Eventually, not one dollar would have to be spent on foreign oil if Congress allowed drilling now. We could be self-sufficient for at least 15 years. So, the question is, what are we waiting for? (Click on bold headline for complete story)

40ish, hunter, young governor, takes on the establishment...

Who Am I? Well, I am under 45 years old, love the outdoors and am an avid hunter, am a Republican reformer as I have challenged the Republican establishment, I'm a family member with many children, and was given a VP spot on the national ticket for McKinley's second run at the White House after only serving in the governor's office for less than two years. Unique? Pishaw!

Take a look at this below ...

Chicago - August, 1912 in an address before the National Progressive Party.

I believe in a larger use of the governmental power to help remedy industrial wrongs, because it has been borne in on me by actual experience that without the exercise of such power many of the wrongs will go unremedied. I believe in a larger opportunity for the people themselves directly to participate in government and to control their governmental agents, because long experience has taught me that without such control many of their agents will represent them badly. By actual experience in office I have found that, as a rule, I could secure the triumph of the causes in which I most believed, not from the politicians and the men who claim an exceptional right to speak in business and government, but by going over their heads and appealing directly to the people themselves. I am not under the slightest delusion as to any power that during my political career I have at any time possessed. Whatever of power I at any time had, I obtained from the people. I could exercise it only so long as, and to the extent that, the people not merely believed in me, but heartily backed me up. Theodore Roosevelt
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Public Employee Union Members Pad Own Pensions

State governments and municipalities are in need of adult supervision. They've handed out pension benefits as if no one with a calculator would ever notice. George Will provides this eye opener via the IBD.

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We will not forget!

The Fallacy of 'Green Jobs'

The map oughta settle that BBC poll regarding which candidates are preferred by foreign countries. Lest we forget, all of Europe has less electoral votes than...Alaska!

Now, about this green job creation...
If "green jobs" make so much sense, the market will create them. They will be created by private entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are eager to profit from winning investments. The best ideas will rise to the top, and green energy will gradually replace coal and oil. Just get government OUT of the way says John Stossel. (Click on bold headline for complete story)

The Vision Of The Left

Writer's don't come much brighter than Thomas Sowell. Here he explains why the utopian view of the liberal left just doesn't fit in to today's hostile world. My, my, what a wonderful world this would be if, instead of bombs, we could build libraries. The Nazi war machine and Imperial Japan could have thrived had we done so back not too long ago. The result? Quite a different world... (Click on bold headline for complete story)

All Hail, Cedarburg!

The mainstream media has become worthless.  They are of no worth ... no value.  Until they prove some worth, I won't shop there anymore.   They are NOT a necessity.  And it took the fine folks of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, via protesting of the media to lead the way.  All hail, Cedarburg!

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Sign, sign ... everywhere a sign!

The University of Virginia, (of Thomas Jeffersonian flavor), has some very restrictive ideas about what is and what isn't acceptable signage at sporting events.  Wasn't it Jefferson himself who said occasionally the roots of freedom must be watered with blood?  (Click on bold headline for complete story)

McCain's Night

Neal Boortz sums up John McCain's speech right here. No need for further comment. I believe John and Neal got it right!

Substance topped eloquence last night in St. Paul. It's what you actually say, not how you say it ... and John McCain got quite a lot said last night. Watch it yourself here, or read it here.

Here are just some of the excerpts from his speech that I particularly liked:

• I understand who I work for. I don't work for a party.
• We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us.
• We believe in low taxes; spending discipline, and open markets. We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor.
• I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it.
• His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.
• We will drill new wells offshore, and we'll drill them now
• My grandfather came home from that same war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home with me. I hate war. It is terrible beyond imagination.
• The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you.
• Russia's leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power. They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world's oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions of reassembling the Russian empire.
• I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.

I particularly liked it when McCain addressed government schools. The teacher's unions must have been throwing things at the TV.

Education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained. But what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity.

Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucracies. I want schools to answer to parents and students. And when I'm President, they will.

And then there was McCain's story of Vietnam. Compare this narrative to John Kerry's endless repetitions of his Swift Boat escapades ... and his band aid purple hearts and hasty run back home:

On an October morning, in the Gulf of Tonkin, I prepared for my 23rd mission over North Vietnam. I hadn't any worry I wouldn't come back safe and sound. I thought I was tougher than anyone. I was pretty independent then, too. I liked to bend a few rules, and pick a few fights for the fun of it. But I did it for my own pleasure; my own pride. I didn't think there was a cause more important than me.

Then I found myself falling toward the middle of a small lake in the city of Hanoi, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and an angry crowd waiting to greet me. I was dumped in a dark cell, and left to die. I didn't feel so tough anymore. When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn't set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. When I didn't get better, and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life.

I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners. Our Code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn't in great shape, and I missed everything about America. But I turned it down.

A lot of prisoners had it worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before. For a long time. And they broke me.

When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn't know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me. Through taps on a wall he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for our country and for the men I had the honor to serve with. Because every day they fought for me.

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's.

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Victory In Anbar

The Media's been busy lately.  With pettiness.   All the while ignoring the Anbar Awakening.

"Well, it was the terrific work or our troops that provided the security umbrella under which Sunnis and Shiites could reconcile and turn their wrath on the jihadists and not each other.  We love the smell of victory in the morning." (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Eloquence Is No Substitute For A Record

Joe Lieberman addresses the Republican Convention in St. Paul and effectively eviscerates little Barry.   "Country first," says Joe.  (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

Here's great news for the Global Cooling crowd - those who doubt the piffle from any "Warmer" Zealots!

In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called a "mini ice age". For a society dependent on agriculture, cold is more damaging than heat. The growing season shortens, yields drop, and the occurrence of crop-destroying frosts increases.

Like I've said, whatever you're working on, get it done before the sun burns out. (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Obama at Columbia a Mystery - Graduated Without Honors

We can't seem to obtain Barry's birth certificate, find anything he wrote for the Harvard Law Review, or find his college transcripts from Columbia. What's up with that? (Click on bold headline for complete story)