Hedge fund manager George Soros is one of the world’s richest and most successful market watchers (and market manipulators?). Zakaria reports that Soros’ recent plays have netted him over 2 billion. He’s very controversial for his political views though my take is that great business folks can easily separate their politics from their business decisions.
Consuming more than you produce:/ That game is over.
Houses as piggy bank, instead of savings. [BAM! We are seeing this obvious but profound observation coming up a lot]
Misconception: Markets will correct themselves. They won’t. We have reached the end of a bubble cycle started in the 1980s when massive global markets and deregulation frenzy began.
Mortgages as the “detonator” of the nuclear bomb that is the current global crisis. Stock market in capitulation phase that has followed credit problems.
Can’t predict future because it depends on decisions. He says he was wrong in 1998 to predict some sort of climax to the bubble.
“The cost will be greater, the damage will be greater”.
“You need a government that believes in government”
Paulson bailout plan as ill concieved – same kind of financial engineering that got us into the mess. Paulson as behind the curve “all the way” because he buys into market fundamentalism.
The authorities have lost control of the situation.
Soros recommends: Mobilize private capital to buy into distressed banks and lift minimum reserve requirements to free up lending.
Reduce number of foreclosures by renegotiations to sound mortgages that will not exceed 85% of house value. Loss to be absorbed by mortgage owners (banks?). Govt will then guarantee mortgages to 85% value, which would encourages renters to buy. Some losses, short recession.
Soros: I understand the flaws which allows me to profit, but as a citizen I want better regulation. Markets and Govts are flawed. Less regulation, better regulation.
Soros (like Gates and Buffett?) believes the anti-tax positions are false because supporting infrastructure with taxes is so critical to wealth formation.
Soros said he does have inordinate influence as a rich person on politics but , unlike many other rich folks, does not use it to improve his financial positions. He thinks market fundamentalism abets power abuses in politics.
China built assets while we built debts. Tremendous power shift. But America will remain a leader and could be *the* leader with some changes.
Joe Duck 
Joe I think it will be interesting to review the hedge fund activities over the last two weeks to see who exactly is benefiting from the up and down within the market.
I think it could end up embarrassing for some of the funds to see how much money they have made while taxpayers are taking a bath.
Glenn I think it will be interesting. People who shorted this market in major way are raking in huge returns.
Joe I think about ivy league endowment funds like Yale, Harvard, etc…I don’t know how many people realize how aggressive their hedge funds are.
I knew they had huge money but didn’t know it was in hedge funds. Hey, where’s Chelsea Clinton when we need her to explain this?
Some of it, a decent percentage anyway, is certainly in hedge funds…but who knows? – they just as easily could have been on the losing side of things. Hedge funds have been shuttering their doors at an accelerating pace as the leverage they employ has done many of them in. Which bothers me not in the least – lack of transparency, virtually no regulation, amounts of leverage far beyond anything that existed prior to the Great Depression – they are ticking financial time bombs.
“””George Soros is one of the world’s richest and most successful market watchers (and market manipulators?)”””
One of the world’s most successful White collar criminals, posing as leftist-progressive? Sort of a tradition among many sharkocrats. Soros (or Gates, Buffett, etc.) gives boo-coo to charity; therefore, he’s a progressive. Not exactly.
That said, yes, to more regulation–and controls on speculation, index-trading, short selling, etc.–but the demopublicans are not too keen on that (a few months ago, pre-bailout, Sen. Reid put forth an interesting anti-speculation bill, which was shot down by the GOPers, following orders from petroleum, inc.)
<lack of transparency, virtually no regulation, amounts of leverage far beyond anything that existed prior to the Great Depression – they are ticking financial time bombs
Yes, exactly right…tick…tick…tick
The SEC lifted reserve requirements for investment banks from 12 to 1 to 40 to 1. KaBoom, they blew up the global economy. Deregulation is a wonderful thing – if you like kaBooms.
Anyway, I do think the bailout is starting to take hold – thanks to the changes made to Paulson’s plan by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
(8) You never stop do you…lol.
I hear the government is suing Bank of America now. They want their name.
Keep in mind JCH the bond markets weren’t trading yesterday. I am all for positive rallies -they can only help McCain but I don’t think this is lasting. There is some really bad economic news coming and the market will continue a downward trend for a while.
Even ABC is finally admitting some of the FDR government intervention is partly to blame for the Great Depression and they are questioning whether Paulson, etc is going to have the same affect.
One of the causes of the Great Depression – too much government intervention and it was to arbitrary.
You cannot legislate recovery and you can’t stop the markets from making their corrections, etc…you can only prolong the inevitable.
We had an artificially inflated housing market primarily due to CRA, ACORN, Dodd, Frank and Kennedy, etc and now we are paying for it on all streets in America.
Most economists now blame the artificial housing market boom and not de-regulation. I assume you want to convict a gun when used in a crime and not the shooter.
The market rally will not help McBush. When the President was told BIG GOVERNMENT was the only solution, his Republicans abandoned him and our country. When Paulson made a power grab, the Democrats slammed his fingers in a drawer, and then they fixed his defective plan.
Nice to see your understanding of what has happened has not improved one iota.
There are a lot of lies told about the Great Depression, and it is not surprising the hair units at ABC would fall for some of them.
The bubble was caused by Bush.
To somehow arrive at the conclusion that ACORN, an oorganization comprised of the poorest ans most disenfranchised people in America, caused the housing bubble is just flabbergasting dumb.
ACORN, the poor, versus The President of the United States of America, the most powerful man on the planet, Republican majorities in the house and senate, Republican majorities in the federal judiciary, the lapdog support of the National Association of Home Builders, the National Association of Realtors, The Mortgage Bankers Association, every Wall Street Investment bank, and management authority over every federal department that anything to do with housing.
And you somehow arrive upon ACORN as your suspect. LMAO.
(12) JCH you speak in circles…
First you claim de-regulation (which btw McCain did NOT vote for) caused this…
and yet you defend ALL of those Democrats who blocked regulation (which btw McCain DID call for) when it was most needed.
You would have to be a complete idiot not to understand what the regulators were saying about Fannie Mae two years ago…or you would need to be a bought and paid for politician that was honoring their end of the bargain for all the campaign contributions they received.
Yet for some reason you are ok with this and a lot of honest hard working Americans are paying the prices for these corrupt politicians.
(12)(13) – You two crack me up. Neither one of you will admit the other side shares in the blame. The truth is there is ample blame for BOTH parties and some blame that is non-partisan in nature. There is no “smoking gun” and I will again reference this as one of the better, more thorough explanations of all the various factors that created the current crisis (the list of culprits is at the bottom under the heading “The Real Deal”:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html
To that list I would also add derivatives – specifically Credit Default Swaps – whose growth and origins have roots in deregulation; hedge funds and leverage – ditto; and the ratings agencies being in bed with Wall Street and assigning high ratings to mortgage backed paper that were undeserved.
The partisan bickering and extreme polarity of arguments is what so much of the electorate is fed up with. It’s about as pleasant and productive as standing in the middle of a nasty marital fight. The truth, as is often the case, is somewhere in the middle, but neither side wants to admit it.
(14) Paul I am sure you will be wearing your Rodney King costume on the 31st…lol
I have all along said everyone should be investigated regardless of party. Follow the money trail and prosecute ALL that broke any laws, etc…
Unfortunately none of what our government stands for is bi-partisan Paul. It things were bi-partisan we wouldn’t be in the mess to begin with.
It is time for a very strong independent party that represents the majority of the country not the fringe on either the far left or the far right.
Factcheck.org is a bought and paid for organization and before you mention that the Annebergs were close to Reagan…remember how long they have been dead and they have not had any influence on how their foundation spends their money. But we do know they have a long history of funding far left organizations.
Paul look at the MSM…why aren’t they jumping all over something like his?
http://www.stargazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081014/NEWS01/810140328&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
If that isn’t one of the most offensive things cast about in this campaign then I don’t know what is.
The liberal left claims racism but they are the ones fanning those flames. MLK would not be very supportive today…having his great causes and ideas hijacked by the likes of Malcom X and Rev Wright, etc…
Americans need to learn to refuse handouts and understand that the individual is responsible for their success and failures not the government.
(15) When I read factcheck.org I don’t detect any partisianship, I find refreshing objectivity. They take BOTH candidates to task for stretching the truth with equal enthusiasm and veracity. Neither party seems to like them, which is the highest compliment they could possibly ask for.
Sorry, but the predominance of the blame is on the Republicans, and they are going to get it stuck to them no matter what.
Factcheck is so full of superficial analysis it’s virtually worthless.
For instance, S-190 had a sticking point. Ultra conservatives and the President insisted on one approach. Democrats and several moderate Republicans and even some key Republican lobby groups opposed the President’s position. The President was concerned with two risk factors that could force F&F to be bailed out by the taxpayer. Dodd and Chuckie opposed the President’s approach, so unwitting people in the media and the public think they caused the crisis. He wanted that those risks privatized. The President would not budge. Rather than compromise, he elected to allow the bill to collect dust. If a party does not have 60 votes, the Senate is all about compromise. There was a compromise that would have gotten s-190 passed in a nano second. That compromise included means to privatize the risks to F&F he was concerned about.
The two risks they were trying to mitigate have had zero to do with the collapse of F&F. It was taken out by the risk that was not on their radar, and which was not addressed in S-190. It was the risk that they themselves had promulgated upon the earth – the gigantic glob of toxic lending their CEO buddies in the private sector had created to achieve Bush’s irrational minority housing goal laid out in his Ownership Society.
The truth is not somewhere in the middle. He was attempting to take minority housing from 49% of all minority families to 70% of all minority families in 7 to 9 years, and it appears he came very close. He did it to buy their votes. It was way too ambitious, and it has caused a financial catastrophe.
I rest my case – you both don’t like factcheck; you both still think it’s the other sides fault; you’re both still pointing fingers and jumping up and down mad at the other side. Like the politicians in Washington, you can’t meet anywhere near the middle. It’s an endless, vicious circle of accusations and blame with no victors – just endless counterproductive polarized arguing that sways no one.
(19) Paul I have no intention of swaying anyone. The MSM media refuses to discuss any of this in a thoughtful and in-depth way.
People can vote any way they want in this country and that is a great thing. But I think it is important that people understand who they are voting for.
Barack Obama has deliberately left important parts of his life and history out of the picture – he is hiding a lot of stuff.
We know absolutely everything about McCain, Biden and we know more about Palin in several weeks than we know about Obama.
There are serious things in his past that should be discussed, aired and either proven or dismissed.
As far as the housing crisis – no one doubts it played a major role in the financial collapse. To blame de-reg is not an honest argument – it wasn’t de-regulation that caused the problems it was dishonest and greedy people that took advantage and they should be prosecuted to the heavens!
In regard to CRA, etc that truly was bad policy, badly executed and fraudulently supported.
Doesn’t it surprise you that the same old players are all connected to Freddie, Fannie, CRA, ACORN, etc…think about it – it isn’t a coincidence it was a well organized, well funded criminal organization that completely fleeced the American taxpayer. They should be investigated and if guilty prosecuted BIG TIME.
If ACORN really wanted to help get out the vote and help our political system they should have held bi-partisan education seminars in all these areas, presented the issues fairly and presented without talking points the honest perspective each candidate has and then after the prospective voter is educated they could make an informed decision and exercise the most important right we have in this country.
But what does ACORN do, they storm political events to cause civil disobedience, cancellation of events, terrorize legitimate businesses, bribe the homeless, employ convicted felons and try to deliberately derail our election process.
And they do it with my, yours and all American taxpayers money.
Have you reviewed the economic proposals from Obama and McCain?
Pretty hard to argue with the approach McCain is proposing – directly helps people immediately and is very easy to understand – but still not enough.
Obama’s bait and switch tactics of tax credits and 90 days foreclosure moratorium – a plan which he called a disaster when Hillary proposed it plus a generous heaping of more government intervention and control.
McCain’s plan costs a lot less too…
Glenn I have not reviewed the economic plans in great detail but Obama seems to have much better support from heavy hitters in the economic world who have very good credentials in terms of doing what they think is best for economy and succeeding (Buffett, Rubin, etc,etc). I don’t see many economists or even biz leaders flocking to McCain’s plans though I want to review what Paul Krugman – a critic of Obama’s plans has to say.
A major issue of course is who gets taxed and by how much. I’d really like to see a lot more talk about spending cuts rather than taxing strategies, but that’ll take a new party.
Why do you think Fannie and Freddie gave more to Republicans over the years and hired Davis’ lobby firm?
You can’t use Fannie contributions as a “smoking gun” for Democrat and ignore the *higher levels* of contributions and payouts to Republicans.
I’m wrong: UPDATE BELOW: Dems got 57% of total Fannie Contributions since 1989, Republicans 43%
The financial turmoil is our classic challenge in capitalism: Clever greedy guys acting within a foolish political rule system to undermine the interests of regular Joes.
(22) Joe the money trail does not show that. Democrats by an order of 2:1 received money over Republicans even with lobbyist firms included.
McCain just announced his plan today. I am sure there will be more talk about it.
But we know 97% of the CEO’s surveyed in CEO magazine have put down Obama’s plans and called them disastrous for our economy.
If you think much bigger government is needed to save America then vote for Obama – heck we can all get on the gravy train, sit back and watch Israel start a nuclear war in the middle east…or if you want the government off your back and to stop wasting your hard earned tax dollars then vote for McCain.
Excerpts from their plans
McCain Economic Proposals
— John McCain proposes that withdrawals from tax-preferred accounts — IRAs And 401(k)s — should be taxed at the lowest rate — 10 percent — in 2008 And 2009. This policy will apply to the first $50,000 withdrawn from these accounts each year and will affect the accounts of nearly nine million Americans over the age of 60, permitting them to devote more of their income to retirement needs.
— John McCain will not penalize those forced to sell off in today’s tough markets. John McCain believes that we should increase the amount of capital losses which can be used in tax years 2008 and 2009 to offset ordinary income from $3,000 to $15,000.
— John McCain will strengthen incentives to save, invest, and restore the liquidity of markets. John McCain proposes a reduction in the maximum tax rate on long term capital gains to 7.5 percent in 2009 and 2010.
— John McCain will provide a tax cut for Americans who have lost a job by exempting unemployment benefits from taxation. According to the latest statistics, over 3.6 million Americans are currently receiving unemployment benefits. John McCain recognizes that at a time when families are hurting, and the prospects of future job losses increase — we should stop taxing unemployment insurance benefits for 2008 and 2009.
Obama Economic Proposals
— A new American jobs tax credit. Obama is calling for a temporary tax credit for firms that create new jobs in the United States over the next two years.
— Penalty-free withdrawals from IRAs and 401(k)s in 2008 and 2009. Obama is calling for new legislation to allow families to withdraw 15 percent of their retirement savings – up to a maximum of $10,000 – without facing a tax-penalty this year (including retroactively) and next year.
— 90-day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners that are acting in good faith. Financial institutions that participate in the Treasury’s financial rescue plan should be required to adhere to a homeowners code of conduct, including a 90-day foreclosure moratorium for any homeowners living in their homes that are making good faith efforts pay their mortgages.
— A lending facility to address the credit crisis for states and localities. Obama is calling on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to work to establish a facility to lend to state and municipal governments, similar to the steps the Fed recently took to provide liquidity to the commercial paper market.
— Obama’s plan also calls for temporarily eliminating taxes on unemployment insurance benefits; keeping all options on the table to help our automakers weather the financial crisis; having the Fed and Treasury prepare for guaranteeing a broader range of liabilities of the banking system; and instructing Treasury to help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, loans for multi-family dwellings and credit card loans.
Good article on how the poll samples have been changing. Too bad the polls don’t use the same sampling metrics…we can’t even fully trust the polls this year.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/10/02/cooking-ap-polls-radically-changes-party-mix-fabricate-obama-trend
(25) Of course the polls are part of the voter fraud, etc…make people think their vote won’t count so they stay at home and if for some miraculous reason McCain does win Obama can follow in Odinga fashion and call for “civil” disobedience and we can enjoy about 90 days of riots and a lot innocent people dead.
Paul now would be a good time to chime in with: “Can’t we all just get along?” 🙂
Whoops – I’m wrong in terms of
Fannie Contributions according to this:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html
Dems got 57% of the total since 1989 on this chart.
The lobby firms got far more than this however and I’d continue to insist that McCain’s Davis, which was Fannies key lobbying firm, really challenges the idea that McCain is blameless in the Fannie Mae fiasco, let alone the Washington spending and lobbying madness that makes all this bad thinking and errors multiply.
Glenn the poll sampling has not been changing, and the poll methodologies are generally good for the big media polls which all show similar results for a good reason – they are doing a good job.
I don’t have time to debunk that newsbusters piece fully but it’s clearly a bogus claim (do you seriously think FOX News is in on the poll conspiracy?)
I think that “study” misunderstood the fact that the sample attributes – not the sampling technique – have changed as Obama’s popularity increases. If you met their “requirements” for polling objectivity- ie poll sample attributes that were always equal – you would *always* show a *tie* in every poll! The whole point of polling is that the attributes of the sampled folks change over time – they are simply pointing that out.
(27) Fannie Mae does not agree with your assessment of Davis Manafort being their key lobbying firm. Quite the contrary. The contract to Davis/Manafort was less than $200k annually which is less than other firms got.
You should be more worried about Timmons…lol he was paid a lot more than Davis. He was one of the primary lobbyists for Freddie Mac for 8 years…
The fact that McCain has received money from Freddie and Fannie is enough to implicate him. As I have always said they should all be investigated.
However, there is a stark contrast between McCain’s involvement and Obama’s involvement with Fannie Mae. Obama is working directly with the crooks who bilked Americans out 10’s and 10’s of millions of dollars and raised 100’s of thousands of dollars for Obama’s campaign and they work as economic and housing advisors…LOL – THERE IS NO COMPARISION HERE.
FACTS:
Obama was #2 on the Fannie Mae list.
McCain was dead last on the list…lol
Reins cooked books and booked over $90 million personally
Reins is big donator to Obama and his other kronies…
Johnson bilked millions and is a big fund raiser for Obama and is an advisor on his campaign
So to put your suggestion into context:
McCain has a lobbyist on his campaign that didn’t break the law and his firm was paid $15k a month for Fannie but the firm or Davis hasn’t done any work for Fannie in over 2 years.
As compare to…
Obama took donations and had fund raisers with two of the key principals in destroying our housing market in this country and he still worked with these two after it was widely known of their escapades…until it got too hot for Obama and he threw them under the bus. Yet there is still proof that Johnson and Reins are still involved with the Obama campaign.
You can make that Davis argument all day Joe but when you directly compare the two – McCain definitely wins this battle.
When you tie in all the other connections that Obama has to the Fannie crowd, ACORN, Dodd, Frank, etc and then realize that McCain asked for regulation on them and Frank, Dodd, etc killed it…it goes even further in McCain’s favor.
(28) The popularity is factored in with voter registrations…lol…why do you think ACORN is putting in so many bogus DEMOCRAT registrations in all the key battleground states?
That’s the point…make it look like Obama is sweeping, create the momentum, sweep the polls, call into radio shows, etc to stifle any opposition so that the general perception is that Obama is doing so well – end result demoralize the Republican base so they don’t take the time to vote.
They have been pulling this trick since Jefferson.
Even with all this effort must of the polls still show this is a very close race and that does not look good for Obama.
We will know in 3 weeks…
And you know Joe these bad associations, relationships, example of continued bad judgment on Obama are not going to go away. There is some level of truth in every single of them and any single one would be enough to knock someone out of the race.
Barack Obama politically is just not a decent guy.
Whether you like the National Inquirer or not I know AMI doesn’t run any articles unless they have at least two independent sources and they spend a fortune on investigators getting their information.
One thing AMI does understand is what happens to your company and its employees when a domestic terrorist strikes. They took a huge hit on the anthrax attacks and their headquarters had to be filled with a special form of cement – looking in 100% of the items that all those employees had to leave behind and AMI had to pay for most of it and they to this day have to pay for 24/7 security around the facility – it has cost AMI a fortune and they cannot do anything with the property they are stuck with it and stuck with paying to support this huge block of cement for a long time to come.
So it wouldn’t surprise me that an organization as powerful as AMI is a little concerned about Barack and his associations and you might expect a couple more stories before the election hits.
…Under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act enacted by Congress in 1994, the Fed was given the authority to oversee mortgage loans. But Greenspan kept putting off writing any rules. As late as April 2005, when things were seriously beginning to go wrong, he was saying that subprime lending would work out for the common good—without government interference. “Lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants,” he declared at the time. …
Allayn GreenRandSpam. He literally believed that a mortgage document prepared by Yale lawyers and Harvard MBAs would be rejected as not being in their best interests by a poor couple when a realtor was waving a brand-new home in front them. Or that a mortgage lender and a house builder and a real estate agent would give a flip whether they could ever make their payments when they could cheat a little bit, collect their money, and sell the loan into an eager private secondary market.
All the authority required to regulate exotic subprime lending had been granted. Greenspan refused to implement it. No Dempcrat told him not to; in fact, they were begging him to do it.
Bernanke discovered that some exotic subprime loans were defaulting by the 2nd monthly payment. In 2006 he issued instructions that forced lenders to desist most exotic subprime lending. The supposedly weak F&F regulator immediately contravened HUD’s order that F&F buy exotic subpprime and count it as quality subprime by instructing F&F to immediately begin adhering to Bernanke’s prohibition of exotic subprime.
That option had been available to Greenspan in 2001, 2002, 2003, etc. – right up to the day of his retirement.
But by the date of Bernanke’s action, it was too late. The gigantic glob of exotic subprime had been created, and it was slamming into foreclosure like a runaway freight train. Bernanke even found examples of exotic subprime that were defaulting on the first monthly payment.
JCH you only want to see the part of the picture that your far left prescription will allow you to see.
Go read the docket showing Obama suing Citibank under CRA to force it to make bad loans…
The Democrats and specifically Dodd, Frank and Obama are directly to blame for the housing meltdown. They all had their hands deeply into this using government to force bad practices (wasn’t de-reg) and then used their government power to cover it up. Total conspiracy.
http://www.mediacircus.com/2008/10/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/
The left is lucky they have their MSM pundits in the bag or this wouldn’t even be a race.
The CRA lending has a good record throughout the 2000s. They did not force lenders to do exotic subprime.
Most of the CRA lenders actually wanted their borrowers to succeed, and their foreclosure rate is significantly lower the Bush “Kenny Boy” CEOs in the private sector. The foreclosure rates there are off the charts.
Lastly, if a person/entity thought Citibank was violating federal law, then that person has a right to hire a lawyer and sue. Would you like to live in country where there is no redress? Seriously?
And your extreme-right position allows you to see what? Lol. Ultimately, you have no ammo.
On who gets the most money, it’s basically irrelevant. It’s what they do that matters. It’s what the bills actually say that matters. It’s whether their positions were correct or not. S-190 would have done nothing to avert the current catastrophe. It contains zero language that would have curtailed exotic subprime lending.
Greenspan and Bush had one great fear. Greenspan had interest rates on the basement floor. If inflation were to get out of control, he would have been in a Volcker situation. Fannie and Freddie were making a killing on the spread between their asset portfolio and their cost of money, which is very low due to the implied federal guarantee. If the Fed was placed into the position of aggressively fighting inflation with extra-high interest rates, that spread would have gone the other way and placed F&F in a very bad place – possibly requiring a bailout of several tens of billions of dollars. Greenspan and Bush wanted to avoid that potential situation by privatizing the risk – selling off the assets to the Bush CEO buddies.
In addition, it had the side benefit of putting F&F directly under Bush’s control, and he would have been able to further demand that F&F buy tons of exotic subprime – something Alphonso Jackson ordered them to do. Gotta sell 5.5 million houses to people who can’t make payments somehow.
That is what the sticking point on S-190 was all about. Nothing else. Everybody was in broad agreement on all other aspects of F&F reform in 2005. And none of the reforms on the table would have made a single bit of difference.
Bush and Paulson have ended up having to socialize the risks because Greenspan and Bush stubbornly opposed regulating exotic subprime, and that is the risk that ended up mattering.
(34) JCH your Bush/Frank/Dodd/Pelosi bail-out is working wonders…lol
for the rest of your post…yada ya ya…
Paulson, Bernake and Cox should all be investigated to.
Bush became a Democrat some time ago…have no idea why???
And once again you skirt the issues when most of American squarely lays blame on the housing market and particularly CRA, Fannie Mae, you don’t want to accept that because that means you have to admit there are some bad people in the Democratic party that needs to go…and oh yeah – Barack has his fingerprints all over this to.
If the truth ever gets out to the masses it will be all over for Barack.
Considering how MSM keeps consistently losing viewers and far left wacko publications likes NYT are pretty much bankrupt it should give you a pretty good indication that people are pretty much sick of having the news spoon fed through the left filter. Americans want the truth and they want to decide.
Isn’t the left supposed to be pro-choice anyway?
(35) Boy you play fast and loose with the facts:
(1) Problems with the newspaper industry are hardly unique to the NYT – the entire industry is hemorrhaging – right, left and center. The NYT problems are not indicative of a political issue but rather widespread problems that are plaguing virtually all print media of every political slant.
(2) If your right about American’s wanting the truth, then everyone should be tuning into Fox and Fox alone, but that is not what is happening. Most American’s gather from a variety of resources depending on their political views.
(3) “If the truth ever gets out…it will be all over for Barack.” – this was hashed in depth earlier. No candidates have been vetted quite the way McCain and Obama have. The good, the bad and the ugly is all out there for American’s to judge and weigh for themselves.
If American’s are such sheep and subject to the whims of the “liberal, elitist” MSM how did Bush get elected twice?
American’s will vote their votes on November 4th and we”ll find out what their judgment is. They are not the sheep you suppose them to be.
(36) Paul maybe you should spend some time reading about Ayers in this FBI report not available from FOIA.
Ayers is no different than Bin Laden.
Any person or party that gives Ayers a pass is interested in only one thing. The destruction of the USA.
You want facts…read the doctrine and nice things Ayers did.
There is more and more evidence that now connects Ayers to Obama and Khalidi in NYC @ Columbia. Ayers and crews are not only terrorists they are complete traitors to America.
It is incomprehensible to me that anyone would ever even say hi to Ayers or Dohrn. What kind of place is Chicago to let people like this out and about?
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm
“What kind of place is Chicago to let people like this out and about? …”
I believe it’s a toddlin’ place, so letting people walk out and about is sort of in its nature.
Yes, my father, who charged up green beach and fought to capture Mt. Suribachi, wants the destruction of the USA.
Yours, maybe, but not his.
MORE HOLES IN YOUR THEORIES:
Factcheck.org has a thorough and balanced discussion of this Ayers nonsense, but wait – it gets better. Glenn has tried to paint Factcheck as biased because it gets funding from the Annenberg Foundation. Ah, yes, they must be biased because – as they point out on their website:
“For the record, the Annenberg Foundation’s president and chairman is Leonore Annenberg, the founder’s widow. Public records show she’s given $2,300 to the McCain campaign, which announced on Oct. 8, that she has endorsed him for president.”
So much for that flimsy argument.
And that bastion of liberal elitist mainstream media, the Wall Street Journal, had this on Ayers today:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122402888900234543.html
Please excuse me now while I go drive a semi-truck through the enormous holes in Glenn’s logic and arguments.
(40) ROFL…Paul that is the best you can do. The token liberal over at WSJ.
Let me give you some clarity to your new buddy Thomas Frank.
Attracted like a barn fly to a pile of fresh bull excrement, the Wall Street Journal’s resident lefty hack, Thomas Frank, reveals that he is friends with the unrepentant would-be mass murderer William Ayers.
In a column today titled, “My Friend Bill Ayers,” Frank attacks critics who have the temerity to point out that being a friend and political ally of someone whose terrorist group, the Weather Underground, aspired to murder hundreds of U.S. soldiers and their friends at a dance at Fort Dix is probably a very bad skeleton for a presidential candidate to have in his closet. Critics note that it is an especially bad thing when that terrorist leader is unrepentant and vows even now that he would do it again.
Frank argues this is all a big misunderstanding. Ayers is a great guy, Frank writes, who’s changed his ways and learned to live within the system he still says he wants to violently overthrow.
Excerpts from Thomas Frank’s article:
I can personally attest to the idiocy of it all because I am a friend of Mr. Ayers. In fact, I met him in the same way Mr. Obama says he did: 10 years ago, Mr. Ayers was a guy in my neighborhood in Chicago who knew something about fundraising. I knew nothing about it, I needed to learn, and a friend referred me to Bill.
Bill’s got lots of friends, and that’s because he is today a dedicated servant of those less fortunate than himself; because he is unfailingly generous to people who ask for his help; and because he is kind and affable and even humble. Moral qualities which, by the way, were celebrated boisterously on day one of the GOP convention in September.
I can personally attest to the idiocy of it all because I am a friend of Mr. Ayers. In fact, I met him in the same way Mr. Obama says he did: 10 years ago, Mr. Ayers was a guy in my neighborhood in Chicago who knew something about fundraising. I knew nothing about it, I needed to learn, and a friend referred me to Bill.
Bill’s got lots of friends, and that’s because he is today a dedicated servant of those less fortunate than himself; because he is unfailingly generous to people who ask for his help; and because he is kind and affable and even humble. Moral qualities which, by the way, were celebrated boisterously on day one of the GOP convention in September.
Frank is the writer who laments the supposed stupidity of his fellow Kansans for being duped into supporting American values like, for example, a love of capitalism and freedom. He is the master of leftist condescension who wrote the influential liberal tract, What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.
As I wrote in April when the WSJ gave Frank a podium thus making him the in-house subversive, Frank leans heavily on the Marxist concept of “false consciousness.” He contends that the people of Red State America are too stupid or brainwashed (or both) to realize that voting Republican and/or supporting conservative public policy proposals is not in their best interests.
No wonder Frank is friends with Ayers, an “unfailingly generous” man who wants to turn America into a massive open-air Communist concentration camp.
Just days ago jury selection began in the trial of five accused Islamist terrorists who also wanted to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix.
Perhaps in a few years Frank will befriend those enemies of America too.
(39) Paul – Anneburg is the same that gave Ayers over 100 million dollars…yeah like they are EVER going to say anything anywhere near negative about Ayers…
Are you really that naive?
Why doesn’t Barack come clean about his relationship Ayers?
Why doesn’t Barack allow people to access his college records?
Why doesn’t he answer questions about his college days, friends, teachers?
Who is Barack Obama really?
People want to rip on Kurtz but he is the only one that I know that fought to gain access to the CAC papers that were sequestered by U of Chicago, then scrubbed clean and then allowed Kurtz to see it.
Meanwhile the left loon goon squad sends an army up to Alaska but they keep giving a pass on Obama…
Paul it certainly is your right to vote for a socialist Obama and with his vote you will get all his lovely friends that will certainly improve America for people like Chavez and Castro and Putin.
If Obama this is what you will see in his first 100 days:
Unemployment will hit 9% and we will be in a depression
Small businesses will stop taking credit cards and will go ALL cash.
Small businesses will fire most employees that support Obama.
America will become the #1 tax expensive country for corporations – jobs will be lost and corporations will move very aggressively to hire overseas, etc.
Companies are getting a jump on it RIGHT now…several tech firms are slashing US headcount ahead of the election some up to 30%.
Go ahead and vote to empower the same exact people that caused the biggest scandal in US history – ACORN, Fannie Mae.
Obama – Pelosi – Dodd – Frank
A group that has never seen a tax they didn’t like nor a crime they couldn’t forgive.
It’s really bugging you McCain going to lose isn’t it ? I know, I felt the same way in ’00 and ’04. Life goes on, you’ll get over it.
Ben Smith’s post today says it all…
excerpt
Voting for Obama anyway
The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. “Well, I don’t know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I’m sick of paying for health insurance at work and that’s why I’m supporting Barack.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Voting_for_Obama_anyway.html?showall
We require you to take a test to drive, had a photo id to get into most building or an airplane, you even have to wait to get a gun and go through a check.
But you can vote without any knowledge, no photo id you can even impersonate a Disney character or a Dallas Cowboy – we can’t protect against voter fraud because that would lead to voter suppression – yeah suppression of the fraudulent voters.
(43) Actually I think McCain will win. When you look at the polls of likely voters without the Democratic resampling and registration fraud it is 3 points or less.
Obama needs at least 6 points or more to have a chance.
When people pull the curtain they will make the right choice for America.
An American Hero or A Kenyan Fraud.
Doesn’t it bother you Paul that Obama won’t be these things to bed?
(43) Paul I would have voted for Hillary if she were the nominee, even though she is pretty far left – I know everything about her. I know exactly what she is going to do and it would only be for four years.
The problems the Democrats have now is they have to win – if they don’t…there are going to be major problems for the party.
If McCain is elected he will get to the bottom of all the scandals in DC and that is NOT good news for Pelosi and crew.
McCain will tell the American people tonight that he will get to the bottom of the problems and he will probably point right at Obama and state – that is something you CANNOT do. It will strike a big cord with independents.
Glenn here’s the Rick Davis Fannie Mae info I’m talking about. Are you excluding the work for the ‘advocacy group’?
My point is not that these guys are compromised all that much because obviously candidates put the country ahead of petty money interests (I don’t say that naively, though I realize few agree).
Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: September 21, 2008
Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say….
Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.
“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.
Glenn – How can you exclude FOX, Lou Dobbs, Limbaugh, Hannity etc, etc from the “Mainstream Media”? The idea that there is a conspiracy to keep news out of the public eye is nonsense.
FOX and the conservative spin machine is bending over backwards to keep the most partisan attacks going strong.
(47) Joe I don’t agree with lobbyists and I have said McCain should dump them and said it to McCain as well.
But Rick did nothing wrong. I might not agree with the cause but he did what he was hired to do.
Barney Frank in July told the world Fannie and Freddie were fine and going forward everything is going to be fine. – He needs to be investigated for that.
Chris Dodd got sweetheart mortgages – he needs to be investigated for that.
Reins and Johnson…well they are self-explanatory, scum.
Obama – Hired and paid both Reins and Johnson at different times of his campaign and was #2 on the all-time Fannie Mae list – It should be investigated.
(48) MSM equates to the major television networks and newspapers not cable outlest like Fox or CNN even though Fox smokes even the networks now in the ratings.
When I have time I read a lot of sources both left and right. The only one I tend to avoid is MSNBC or NBC News for many many reasons – they are just not worth the time.
The bias this year is unprecedented…
(47) Now if McCain got a lot of money from Fannie…that would be a very different situation.
The fact that he didn’t take a lot of money for them coupled with the fact that he called for more oversight and DIDN’T vote for de-regulation really says a lot.
Even though Hillary today claimed she was the one that called for oversight of Fannie Mae and she didn’t remember McCain ever even talking about it…the hypocrisy of the left. When someone like Hillary has to be in the tank that badly you know the gig is up and they have thrown all in for this election because if McCain wins…it is big trouble for the Democrats.
People will vote for a McCain-Pelosi situation as the perspective of Obama-Pelosi really sinks in.
BTW if the literally anyone but Pelosi was the speaker of the house I would consider voting for Obama because I know it wouldn’t be a far left blank check.
More great news about Chicago – gee they grow all kinds there.
The son of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush will spend six months in jail after pleading guilty to having sexual encounters with two female inmates and arranging encounters with another while serving as a state prison official.
Jeffrey M. Rush, 42, of the 700 block of Brookfield Court in Lake Zurich, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three counts of official misconduct and agreed to a sentence of 180 days in the Kane County Jail and three years probation, according to a release from the Kane County State’s Attorney’s office.
Two of the charges stem from sexual relationships Rush had with two female prison inmates between Feb. 1 and June 18, 2007, while he was serving as head of security at the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center at 1329 Lake St. in Aurora, the release said.
Of course the Chicago Sun-Times forgot to mention that Rep Bobby Rush is a Democrat and a former Black Panther…
Vote suppression, generally sponsored by the right, is very likely to affect far more votes than ACORN fraud favoring the left. Especially true given the huge press on ACORN it may actually have a suppression effect which is clearly part of the FOX strategy).
However based on what I’ve seen it seem clear that neither the Acorn pay for registration stuff nor the suppression stuff will impact the outcome. Even with Bush v. Kerry in Ohio I doubt the suppression effort had enough affect to keep Kerry from winning there.
Florida 2000 is of course a different story since it was more than anything the Butterfly Ballot fiasco in Palm Beach that gave the election to Bush. Gore lost about 2000 votes when people *also* marked Buchanon due to the bad design.
The will of the people was not thwarted by parties or the supreme court or the media. It was thwarted by … bad design and bad luck.
Glenn McCain is NOT last on the Fannie list – he’s in the middle with 22k.
McCain is reasonably considered the *most* compromised because the head of his campaign was a key Fannie Lobbyist (and therefore had total access to McCain yet he was incapable of looking objectively at the situation).
I’m not diminishing that the people you are freaking about deserve a lot of blame, including Obama. But the partisan approach makes no sense here, especially due to the extensive lobbying from McCain’s campaign chief.
Are you seriously suggesting that Rick Davis’ lobbying had nothing to do with the crisis? The *job* of lobby people is to market propaganda to gullible bureaucrats. People like Davis should be *on trial* for deceptive manipulation, lying to congress, etc.
I would make lobbyists subject to truth disclosures where anything they said could be used against them in court and they’d be held responsible for their activities.
McCain, John S AZ R $21,550
(53) The key point is we need a realistic voting system that can validate registrations.
We need to look toward the ATM network and people using their ATM card with PIN or a voter card with PIN.
Dump the electoral so states don’t get screwed over campaigning and force the campaign ads to be national – it will force a major tone change in the quality of the ads as well.
The election should run for 7 days with votes collected from any ATM and the popular vote should decide.
The House position, etc should be decided during the same vote, two candidates from either party up for the Speaker o the House and since it is a national position the entire country should decide upon it.
The ATM network could be used for referendums as well – could be quite handy.
Of course the ATM network needs to be beefed up a bit however it has to be more secure than the stupidity we practice now.
(54) I know Davis’s firm hasn’t been active on Fannie Mae for over two years…so I don’t really know how much impact he had with the problem one way or another.
Here is the list of recipients of Fannie and Freddie from 1989-2008
http://www.audacityofhypocrisy.com/2008/09/18/all-recipients-of-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-campaign-contributions-1989-2008/
McCain is dead last.
(53) Thank you, Joe, for reminding us all what “the will of the people” was in 1980 – a sobering fact that has been nearly forgotten.
543,816 more American’s wanted Al Gore, but Florida’s snafu and power of the Supremes won the day for the shrub. To think about how many young men and women would still be alive today had the outcome been different….it’s enough to make you cry.
It also not a reach to think, had we avoided the huge drain on our military resources by not invading Iraq, that Bin Laden would be dead or in a cell by now.
(54) Joe keep in mind Fannie Mae had at least 51 lobbyists…LOL. By Fannie Mae’s own statement Rick did very little with Fannie Mae and only spoke to a PAC in 2006.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/2008-07-17-fannie-freddie-lobbying_N.htm
(54) The amount per month to Rick Davis is disputed and is somewhere between 15k-30k per month. Considering the total amount received by Rick Davis is somewhere in the range of a couple hundred thousand dollars (which is a lot of money to most people)…Freddie and Fannie spent close to $200 million on lobbyists…so let’s keep it in perspective.
Rick Davis was a very small fish in a very large pond.
One point about Ayers and Dohrn…I don’t think most people understand that Dohrn was still active in underground terrorist activities until 1982. This isn’t some Vietnam war protest in the 60’s.
They were involved in armored car heists, bombings, etc…and people got killed including policeman, etc.
When you read through the FBI files it is shocking and to think they got off on a technicality and the irony of Ayer’s capitalist wealthy father helped get him off the charges.
This would like having Charles Manson as a professor in a University today if he had gotten off on a technicality.
Regardless of what Ayers and Dohrn have done lately there is no way these people are decent people – it’s impossible and to top it off…have they ever apologized or asked for redemption?
Ayers response is…they didn’t do enough and he would do the same thing all over again and he wouldn’t rule it out happening again.
His answer yesterday when the Chicago Tribune caught up with him at his university office – refused comment and said life happens…
It might be of interest that on his office door had pictures of cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal (former NPR commentator) and another killer Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.
And if you want to accept Ayers as ok to be friends with Obama then look at their track record together.
Arguably Obama’s most executive experience – a $160 million dollar failure.
The results speak for themselves. The overall concept was an incredibly stupid idea and the Annenbergs must have been on crack.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=308875824685359
Joe here are the latest cable numbers…
Bolstered by the second presidential debate, the economic crisis and continued interest in the election, Fox News Channel was the most watched network on cable in primetime last week, beating out entertainment networks TBS and USA and sports juggernaut ESPN.
Fox News drew a 2.7 household rating and 3.4 million viewers for the week, according to Nielsen Live + SD data.
The network was last on top of the rankings during the Republican National Convention in early September, and before that during Hurricane Katrina.
TBS finished second with a 2.4 household rating and 3.3 million viewers, while USA was a close third with a 2.2 rating and 2.8 million viewers. ESPN drew a 2 rating with 2.63 million viewers.
CNN and MSNBC also saw a boost in the network standings, with CNN the fifth most watched cable network for the week with a 1.8 rating and 2.38 million viewers, and MSNBC was ninth overall with a 1.3 rating and 1.55 million viewers.
From B&C
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/ca6605531.html
Now Michelle Obama is hiding things and making it difficult…
More from Ben Smith.
Liza Mundy writes about the Obama campaign’s efforts to shut down her reporting of a straightforward biography of Michelle Obama:
How hard was it? How uncooperative was the Obama campaign? I am so glad you asked! Here’s an example: Back in June, the New York Times ran a front-page piece about Michelle Obama. A few months earlier, she had made her now-famous comment about how this election was the first time in her adult life that she’d been really proud of her country and become the target of a vast Internet conspiracy to portray her as anti-patriotic and full of racial animus. The Times piece was about the campaign’s efforts to soften her image, and in it, Michelle expressed astonishment at the vitriol directed her way, venturing that anyone who spent time with her would know that’s not what she is about. “I will walk anyone through my life,” she declared.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/How_uncooperative.html
You keep talking about deaths, Glenn. How about the 4183 American casualties in Iraq ? The 30,702 wounded ? The hundreds of thousands in Iraq civilian casualties ? – these deaths aren’t pictures on a door. These are bodies in a bag…grieving mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.
John McCain supported that invasion and the President who initiated it. He supported it then and he supports it now. So don’t blather on about Ayers like he’s some big deal. 4183 sons and daughters is a BIG DEAL – and that big deal is going to cost John McCain the presidency.
(64) Paul you wan’t to believe that we didn’t have to go into Iraq. The fact of the matter is we did sooner or later and even for the reason of eliminating Saddam Hussein – he himself has killed or been responsible for killing millions.
Here you want to talk about 4183 soldiers who gave their lives for their country – it is a horrible cost but his war is certainly the least costly war in our history.
As a world leader it is our responsibility working with other NATO countries to protect our interests.
To ever even think of bringing the value of lives of American soldiers anywhere near a comparison to Ayers is really insulting Paul – they don’t belong together in any conversation. Have you forgotten that Ayers was trying to bomb soldiers at Fort Dix? Ayers is Un-American and a traitor.
I believe you have a Rodney King philosophy and it just doesn’t work in the real world. Saddam Hussein killed 40 members of his own family. He and sons all got what they deserved.
Look at Dar fur and other places, Rwanda, etc…we need to be a lot more active in those places as well. But thanks to the idiots in congress that want to politicize the issues, American solider lives and the lives of innocents in other countries getting slaughtered we do next to nothing. That isn’t vision, that isn’t leading.
People like Harry Reid and others that open their mouths like they do during war-time really just don’t get it. Even Joe Biden understands this.
And Paul you better get ready for more…because regardless of who is in next Iran will require confrontation and it will not be through diplomacy. We all better hope that execute our next war with extreme prejudice instead of this set our people up to get killed BS. Commander Petraeus stopped playing games and started fighting to win.
My families military heritage goes back to the Revolutionary war and my ancestors were original members of 12 founding cities of this country. Our family has paid the sacrifice time and time again and yeah it totally sucks to lose family and relatives but it sucks even more to lose them and have scumbags like Ayers and Dohrn walking around and scoffing at the brave sacrifices Americans have made for our liberties and ability to protect peacefully and have our voice heard.
Please don’t ever go here again Paul – as they say…this dog will never hunt.
Joe did you hear Obama is complaining to the NYT’s that without Fox he would be up 3 points higher in the polls…lol
Now here is something for you to chew on…according to Fox and Frank Lunz the Fox audience has a lot of Republicans but the actual stats put the split almost even in terms of Republicans,Leaning Republicans, Democrats, Leaning Democrats.
One of the things that Lunz does that I think it very effective is he forces anyone involved in their analysis to quantify whether they favor one part over the other – so as to say an Independent must identify which party they more closely affiliate to.
This new twist in the campaign is an interesting one.
Glenn:
Wikipedia reports that Davis firm (Davis Manafort?) worked on Fannie Mae *until the Government took Fannie over*. Davis has distanced himself from lobbying a few years ago, obviously because being the right hand man to a President is *the* lobby dream job. Although I’d hold Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and maybe even Obama responsible for ignoring lobbyists I would not let those lobbying bums off the hook so easily. Nothing has distorted our Democratic principles more than the Washington money tree combined with the problems of political spending. It’s why the founders wanted small government – you generally should not give politicians money and expect them to spend it wisely on other’s behalf.
McCain was NOT last – the list from that totally biased blog was a copy of what I linked to above, except they conveniently distorted things by simply dropping dozens of all the names below McCain so he looks good. This is classic stuff for that type of blog – distort the truth while suggesting the media is distorting things.
Glenn I certainly agree with Obama that the FOX character assassination tactics have hurt him though that’s part of the game. I’m concerned that FOX has managed to get a lot of stuff into CNN and other outlets.
Glenn how did the conspiratorial MSM fail *so dramatically* in 2000 and 2004 to get “their” candidate elected? The answer is that they don’t have an agenda the way Fox does. On average I’m sure many of the anchors favor the Democrats because they share the same sensibilities, but that’s totally different from, say, some on Fox who have open contempt for opposing views.
I don’t understand your point about Lunz, though note that the FOX Opinion Dynamics polls are of high quality – they are linked at RealClearPolitics.com and generally match CNN and the other good polls, all of which show Obama with a large lead.
The *garbage* polls are those where people watching a network call in or text in – all you get there are characteristics of the network audience which in the case of FOX is overwhemlingly Republican. Hannity’s school of pseudononsensical journalism uses these all the time, and unless he’s a bald faced liar he’s too dumb to understand why they are worthless.
The *huge irony* is that McCain might have won the whole thing if he’d taken a very high road and stuck to the straight talk he’s known for. If Obama wins it will hopefully change campaign strategy into the future, as Obama’s tactics have avoided bringing up McCain’s very challenged past of boozing, womanizing, school problems, etc, etc. The contrast with Obama is really striking in terms of leadership ability. McCain’s a good “buddy”, not a good leader.
(67) Joe 22k compared to $120k+ come on…
According to Fannie Mae Rick Davis wasn’t active since Sep or Oct 2006 two years ago.
I don’t know the terms of their lobbyist contract but I think it is pretty clear both by dollar amount and Fannie Mae themselves that Rick was a small fish and not active himself for two years.
(68) What is interesting about Lunz is that he forces people to choose.
So when he shows independents they are either Democrat or Republican and the trend lines are much more interesting because of it.
I agree on the other polls and when you see the latest CBS poll with the Democratic oversampling I just think it was a blatant attempt to try to show the negative ads were not having an impact.
Every election the ads get very negative. I agree that Obama lately has been more positive however his pundits both in Congress and elsewhere have been pretty vicious and the ad about McCain doesn’t even use email was pretty bad and part of the first salvo of the negative runs by both campaigns.
I personally don’t care for the negative although some are kind of funny especially from the 527’s…lol.
I wish there were debates every week from the point of the conventions and the questions were really interesting (off talking points) and the candidate were allowed to debate even if it took 10 minutes to answer. If should be like a baseball game…have it go for 3 hours if need be not these stupid rules we have now…it is all too comfortable and fixed and I think the moderators must agree to not participate in the public discussion during this phase. IE. they can news anchor but cannot report anything about the campaign or render an opinion.
The debates should be way more important than they are and I think it would be a really good idea to play the debates the next day in schools in all classes.
I thought it was amazing the both Ifill and Brokaw rendered opinions after their debates.
Do you remember when Bernie Shaw asked Dukakis that question?
(65) You think our invasion was justifiable, I strongly disagree. You think sooner or later we had to go in there; that is rampant speculation at best.
For most people when they vote in a few weeks it will be the economy, not the war, that drives them to vote for Obama…but there are millions of Americans for whom this election is still very much about the war and all its related, rather odious baggage. Vietnam was bad enough, you could at least understand the rationale given the times and sentiments prevalent in the Cold War…but Iraq was/is all about a longstanding NeoCon agenda of getting a democracy in a critical Middle East Oil state. It was sold as part of the war on terror but, in fact, had nothing to do with that and they knew it going in – they just lied to the American public and spun a convoluted web of deceit and half-truths to justify the unjustifiable.
You know Joe it is stuff like this that is just unbelievable and I just don’t understand how people can say stuff like this?
U.S. Rep. John Murtha says his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could reduce Barack Obama’s victory margin in the state by 4 percentage points.
The 17-term Democratic congressman tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story posted Wednesday on its Web site that, as he put it: “There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93R4AS82&show_article=1
(71) Paul I guess you forget the far left human rights groups screaming for something to be done in Iraq for years…convenient you want to forget that.
Vietnam was stupid all the way around and history has proven that true.
I think history will show Iraq was a good thing in the long run. The real shame of Iraq is how the press never reports the good things that have happened over there. To think of the % of people that actually vote over there under the threat of getting killed while doing it and their turn-out numbers easily eclispe our best turn-outs by 2-3 times.
That girls and women in schools are allowed to actually learn something useful.
The lists of positive accomplishments are huge but you never hear about them. I know about them because family members tell me what they say first hand.
I believe you would have a different perspective if the war were over in two years and our casualties were a lot smaller…we blew it at Fallujah and Sadr City…that was the turning point where the politicization took to new levels and our military command incompetence was staggering.
Let me give you an example of how Fallujah could have been handled. We evacuate all the civilians give them proper escort and provide temporary living quarters. Then we level Fallujah 100%, go in and rebuild the city with all modern infrastructure and the proper detection equipment to detect weapons, etc. Bring the people back into the city, create a decent perimeter to keep the bad guys out and let the Iraqis see how the Western world really lives but melded in with their culture and beliefs. It would have been a huge victory and a major point of support with the Iraqi people and it could have been the model for rebuilding many of their cities.
al-Sadr that was to a level of stupidity that goes beyond anything – he should have either been taken into custody when we had the chance or just taken him out with his top LT’s…that was really stupid and to this day he is in Iran and created the main channel for Iran to bleed into Iraq.
Things could have been a lot better and I agree the intelligence going in was flawed but I am not 100% that we were completely lied to by the administration just to go in there. Unfortunately we will never know because of the classified nature of the information.
Joe you missed it Lanny Davis just said on Fox that most definitely the news network is fair and balanced and that Obama has been treated more than fairly on the network.
Now keep in mind that doesn’t include Hannity and Colmes…lol
Lanny went on to point out that other news networks don’t allow both sides to present that frequently they get shouted over.
So you can’t get much more of a left pundit than Lanny Davis.
I think about the stupid things that have been said in the last year or so around Obama…
Obama himself stating people in PA cling to their guns and bibles, that we are air raiding villages and bombing civilians.
Murtha today claiming an entire region is racist because they are old…
Schumer with Indy Mac
Frank about Fannie Mae
Rev Wright with GD America
Jackson with Israel and he wants to cut Obama’s nuts off
Reid about the surge being lost and war is over and so many more from him
Biden, I don’t even know where to begin with him…
Pelosi with her speech before the bail-out vote
Farrakhan and Obama is the messiah
These people have been around politics for a long long time and just can’t believe they actually can stand up with a straight face and say some of this crap.
I suspect the truth will come out some day and my position will be vindicated. Certainly there is plenty of evidence already that points that direction (that we were knowingly lied to). I agree there is plenty going right there, and the people will be much better off eventually – and in many respects are better off already…and I don’t think it is fair to say the press doesn’t report the good news because I have heard of most, if not all, of the positives you allude to, and I heard them via the press.
But there are millions of places on the globe that call for intervention and we don’t – Darfur being one of the most pressing and tragic examples of somewhere we should be showing leadership and are not.
(75) Paul we can agree on that Dar fur for sure.
Rwanda was a horrible lack of leadership on our countries part – very shameful…
(74) How could I forget John Lewis…
Glenn the amazing thing about Obama is that you can find virtually nothing questionable that he’s said even after a long time in politics. I actually think this is a problem – ie Obama may be too “mild” and compromising in temperament, but it’s a far cry from the idea that he’s a dangerous radical – a position that has no support in what Obama has said or done. If you strip away the weak “guilt by association” stuff you are left with the real guy – a thoughtful and bright leader who represents many of the best traits of a great country.
Schumer and IndyMac?
This guy appears to differ:
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/07/appraisers-wows.html
(78) Problem with Schumer’s statement is it lead directly to a bank run that precipitated the collapse. Granted there was plenty of other problems but they interviewed dozens of customers and they all said based on Schumer’s comments they came and took their money out of the bank.
Point is Schumer didn’t have to say that publicly it was the same thing when at the beginning of this fiasco someone leaked that a major insurance carrier was in dire trouble and everyone would know their name…next day the entire insurance industry tanked in the market.
The overall problem is this has a huge affect on people’s 401k’s etc. The investor deserves better from our loud mouth politicians. Doesn’t mean you ignore the problem but Schumer would have been a lot more effective working with the regulators, etc to get the issue resolved.
Same thing with the military…when they open their mouth our soldiers die – EVERY SINGLE TIME they do it, every time a politician makes a negative statement about the military we demoralize our troops and empower the enemy – it is fodder for them to rally.
Non-politicians can say whatever they want but politicians need to hold their tongue.
Just in the last couple of days there have been so many racially charged comments made by Democratic Senators and Rep’s that it will cause racial problems where they didn’t exist before.
(77) Joe I know you really want to believe that…but how do you really know? There are so many things he is hiding and there are so many questions he doesn’t answer and there are so many situations that he keeps evolving the story about and then when he is finally cornered he throws whomever is involved under the bus.
Perfect example is Rev Wright and quite frankly I would be concerned with anyone who sat in that church and listened to that crap, got married by him and had their kids baptized by him…
I don’t know about Barack…too many dots connect up to bad things for me.
I would like to believe otherwise but at this point I just don’t see it and McCain is going to win this one.
And I will tell you why next week 😉
Darfur hopefully will be handled by Joe Biden who is one of the few folks who are familiar with that tragic situation and who favors military intervention.
(81) I am sure he can give some good insight to McCain.
Ha – I think Lannie Davis just wants another meal ticket from FOX. They have a few good anchors who keep it real (Shep Smith), but most are unbelievably biased to the extent you could not possibly mistake their “take” on issues.
How often have you seen FOX report favorably on any Obama supporting issue? This in a country where he’s got majority support, so “bias” is almost here by definition.
Pundits get paid very well and a real challenge with all the news outlets is that they pay people to talk or just look good – whether they make sense or not. I think one of the Fox anchors main qualifications is swimsuit model!
(83) Swimsuit model…what’s wrong with that? Joe I never even thought that before what other secrets have you stored in your noggin?
This takes the cake from Obama today with NYT:
“I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told liberal journalist Matt Bai. “[T]he way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latté-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?”
Echoing Hillary Clinton’s infamous “vast right-wing conspiracy” charges, Obama implied FNC is part of a larger problem.
“I guess the point I’m making,” he went on, “is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful.
“People want to know that you’re fighting for them, that you get them. And I actually think I do. But you know, if people are just seeing me in sound bites, they’re not going to discover that”
But ACORN, etc are not an entire apparatus, etc…aye yi yi.
At least FOX isn’t funded by Congress…
Joe are you sure Obama is that far ahead with this type of whining doesn’t sound like he is feeling too comfortable?
Also doesn’t sound very much like a leader, hee hee…couldn’t resist that one.
BTW on debates wouldn’t it be great if the candidates could ask each other 3 questions?
(83) BTW Joe you can’t blame them all for going over to FOX I hear the pay and benefits are excellent plus you get to be hanging around swimsuit models all day.
Transvestite Involved in ACORN Scandal Flashes Reporter
OMG…LOL…CLASSIC
This absolutely shows just how legitimate ACORN really is.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e43_1224086229&p=1
I don’t think FOX is bringing this forward…other than the transtesticle flashing it is bizarre what is happening with these registrations and in this case the person also submitted multiple absentee ballots as well.
Like I’ve said, anybody who makes investment/money decisions based upon a politician’s statements deserves the natural selection that follows.
IndyMac was going down. 290 institution of that type have failed since 2001, and press releases are not what is causing it.