Daily Motivations - 20080930

"Daily Motivations"

Whenever you witness non-inclusive, discounting, or discriminatory words and actions, you have a choice. You can choose to remain silent, which allows these behaviors to thrive. Or you can speak up on behalf of respect. -- Leslie C. Aguilar



"The Patriot Post"

"Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions - The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny mediated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth." -- George Washington



"The e-mail Bag"

Subject: Alaska Nat'l Guard from Sue Wood

I believe the following is important information [we probably will not hear via the News Media].......that American voters need to have. If you agree, pass it along. Thanks.

Alaska National Guard

Before you dismiss the fact that Sarah Palin is Commander of the Alaska National Guard, consider this:

Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptorDefense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from Ballistic missile attacks. It’s on permanent active duty, unlike Other Guard units.

As governor of Alaska , Palin is briefed on highly classifiedMilitary issues, homeland security, and counter terrorism. Her Exposure to classified material may rival even Biden's and Certainly by far exceeds Obama's.

She's also the commander in chief of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF), a federally recognized militia incorporated into Homeland Security's counter terrorism plans.

Palin is privy to military and intelligence secrets that are vital to The entire country's defense. Given Alaska 's proximity to Russia , She may have security clearances we don't even know about. According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to Keeping secrets.

She can be entrusted with our national security, because she Already is.



WET PANTS

Come with me to a third grade classroom..... There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, 'Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat.'
He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, 'Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!'

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie.

She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You've done enough, you klutz!'
Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, 'You did that on purpose, didn't you?' Susie whispers back, 'I wet my pants once too.'

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good..

Remember.....Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.

Each and everyone one of us is going through tough times right now, but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can. Keep the faith.

My instructions were to pick four (4) people that I wanted God to bless, and I picked you. Please pass this to at least four (4) people you want to be blessed.

This prayer is powerful, and prayer is one of the best gifts we receive. There is no cost but a lot of rewards. Let's continue to pray for one another.

The Prayer:

Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and those that I care deeply for, who are reading this right now. Show them a new revelation of Your love and power. Holy Spirit, I ask You to minister to their spirit at this very moment. Where there is pain, give them Your peace and mercy. Where there is self-doubt, release a renewed confidence through Your grace. Where there is need, I ask you to fulfill their needs. Bless their homes, families, finances, their goings and their comings. Amen.

If the Lord lays upon your heart to send this to more than four '4' people, you are truly blessed



"Bloomberg"

How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis: Kevin Hassett
http://repptide.com/commenting.php?value=5323&perm=pr36529

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

More Photos/DetailsSept. 22 (Bloomberg)

The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.

Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.

But really, it isn't. Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.

Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street's efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-m ortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.

In the times that Fannie and Freddie couldn't make the market, they became the market. Over the years, it added up to an enormous obligation. As of last June, Fannie alone owned or guaranteed more than $388 billion in high-risk mortgage investments. Their large presence created an environment within which even mortgage-backed securities assembled by others could find a ready home.

The problem was that the trillions of dollars in play were only low-risk investments if real estate prices continued to rise. Once they began to fall, the entire house of cards came down with them.

Turning Point

Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it's hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.

It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end.Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission's chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie's position on the relevant accounting issue was not even ``on the page'' of allowable interpretations.

Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a ``world-class regulator'' that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.

Greenspan's Warning

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say t he current mess couldn't be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,'' he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

Different World

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of t he Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: "It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.''

Mounds of Materials

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Man y who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that's worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election.)





Liberty Counsel - www.LC.org
September 29, 2008

Google Comes Out of The Closet And Blast California Marriage Amendment

Google's cofounder and President of Technology, Sergey Brin, posted a statement Friday on the company blog against Proposition 8, the proposed constitutional amendment that would protect marriage in California as the union of one man and one woman. It is unfortunate that Google is taking the side of those who try to undermine traditional marriage.

Read our News Release for more details.

Of course, google.com is not the only search engine on the internet.



"My Comment"

By defeating the ‘bailout’ on Capitol Hill, America won. Taxpayers were saying no to this ‘giveaway’, with noone facing responsibility. By defeating the ‘bailout’, America lost. The direction of our economy must be corrected. In the end, American taxpayers are demanding for all legislation be directed toward the elected officials on Capitol Hill, as well as others on Wall Street, and anywhere else where unprofessional, unethical, and/or criminal activities rest. The entire leadership on Capitol Hill was made aware of the coming problems, yet noone as a group in leadership, chose to make the corrections until the ending of many financial institutions. Today and tomorrow, you will see ‘business as usual’. Americans are calling all on Capitol Hill to pass legislation to clean up corruption on Capitol Hill, Wall Street, and of others as applicable. Capitol Hill needs some major surgery. Do not allow the cancers to grow. - Oscar Y. Harward