"Daily Motivations"
Feedback is the breakfast of champions. -- Ken Blanchard
"The Patriot Post"
"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government." --- Edward Abbey
"You can't stop a politician, even by defeating him." --- Will Rogers
"The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. In fact, what we see now is a market correction to foolhardy government policy. Congress' move to bailout lenders and borrowers whomade poor decisions will simply create incentives for people to make unwise decisions in the future." --- Walter Williams
"The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it." -- James Madison
"My comments" - oyh
If you believe, practice, and/or love Judeo-Christian values, you may find Barack Obama "one brick short" of a full load (an idiot). Click the "link" below for your own observation and evaluation.
Obama and his mocking of the Bible.
http://www.youtube.com/v/4FCNKwHRCQM
"One News Now"
Media ignores Obama's socialist past
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 10/13/2008 10:05:00 AM
A conservative media analyst says the mainstream media is not only downplaying Barack Obama's connection to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, but also choosing not to report on the Democratic presidential nominee's past membership in a socialist organization.
Bob Knight of the Culture and Media Institute believes the media are so busy examining the GOP presidential ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, hoping to uncover some dirt, that they are not looking into Obama's questionable connections, including that with former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Knight contends the media are trying to portray Ayers as a "rehabilitated" terrorist whose bombing of the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol was merely a "youthful indiscretion."
"Ayers is still involved in radical efforts to socialize children into left-wing views beginning in kindergarten," Knight says. "That's what he does as an education expert; he's by no means reformed."
The media, according to Knight, is also attempting to cover up the fact that Obama was endorsed by and also a member of a political party established by the Democratic Socialists of America. "When a candidate is revealed to have had ties to a far-left or far-right party, that should be news," he adds. "The fact that Obama has been linked to this socialist party would be of interest to most Americans, which is why the mainstream media are suppressing that fact."
While running for the Illinois State Senate, Obama signed a contract with the Chicago "New Party," which was established by the Democratic Socialists of America.
"The email Bag"
SIGN IN A WHITING, INDIANA STORE FRONT WINDOW
'WE WOULD RATHER DO BUSINESS WITH 1000 ALQAEDA TERRORISTS THAN WITH ONE SINGLE AMERICAN SOLDIER!'
This sign was prominently displayed in the window of a business in Whiting, Indiana . You are probably outraged at the thought of such an inflammatory statement.
However, we are a society which holds Freedom of Speech as perhaps our greatest liberty.
And after all, it is just a sign. You may ask what kind of business would dare post such a sign.
Answer: Owen's Funeral Home
(Who said morticians had no sense of humor?)
You gotta love it!!!
God Bless America
"World Net Daily"
WorldNetDaily
ExclusiveProof Obama backed ruthless foreign thug
Set up direct Senate contact for Kenyan opposition leader
Posted: October 10, 200812:05 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Sen. Barack Obama designated a personal aide as his direct contact for the 2007 Kenyan presidential campaign of Raila Odinga, who later was appointed prime minister after his election loss was followed by widespread, deadly violence that destroyed or damaged 800 Christian churches, according to e-mails obtained by WND senior staff writer Jerry Corsi during a trip to Kenya.
Corsi attempted to release this and other information at a Tuesday press conference in Nairobi. The WND reporter and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author was detained by Kenya security officers as soon as he entered the hotel to make his presentation. He was held incommunicado and without food for the entire day before being permitted to board his regularly scheduled flight out of the country to London, where he is currently recuperating from the ordeal.
As WND has reported, Obama openly campaigned for Odinga during the Illinois Democrat's 2006 Senate "fact-finding visit" to Kenya.
Odinga called for protests over alleged voter fraud after losing the December 2007 general election. The resulting protest violence left an estimated 1,000 members of the dominant Kikuyu tribe in Kenya dead and an estimated 500,000 displaced from their homes.
The links between Obama and Odinga were documented by copies of two e-mails obtained by Corsi during his meetings in Kenya with various government officials and others.
The e-mails, apparently sent by Obama himself, referenced the senator's aide, Mark Lippert. The e-mails were provided to WND by an insider in Kenya who fled Odinga's Orange Democratic political party and requested anonymity because of the danger of retaliation.
The e-mails, identified as coming from Obama's Senate office, are addressed to "railaaodinga" at a yahoo.com address.
A WND e-mail to the same Obama address generated an automated response and a list of contacts for Obama's offices. A WND e-mail sent to the Odinga e-mail address didn't generate a response.
One e-mail purportedly from Obama, dated Dec. 22, 2006, read, "I will kindly wish that all our correspondence [be] handled by Mr. Mark Lippert. I have already instructed him. This will be for my own security both for now and in future."
It is reproduced here with the e-mail address of the person who forwarded it to WND redacted:
Lippert is a long-term Obama Senate staff member identified by the Chicago Sun-Times as a member of Obama's "inner circle of foreign policy experts." The Sun-Times has said if Obama is elected president, his secretary of state and national security advisers are expected to come from this inner circle.
In December 2006 Odinga was in the early stages of planning to run as the Orange Democratic candidate against President Mwai Kibaki.
The e-mails from Obama's office to Odinga's presidential campaign seem to show Obama and Odinga, who once told the BBC he is Obama's cousin, had discussions about Odinga's 2007 campaign.
WND was unable to reach the Obama campaign for a comment, as the campaign telephone system disconnected a WND call three times in a row without any provision to leave a message.
Get the book that started it all – Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation," personally autographed – for only $4.95, available today, but only from WND!
The former Orange Democratic official who provided the e-mails to WND asked for anonymity because of concerns the disclosure of his identity could endanger his life in a volatile political atmosphere in Kenya where Odinga's fellow Luo tribal members staged sometimes violent protests against Kibaki's supporters, who primarily are Kikuyu.
Sen. Obama's relatives in Kenya are Luo.
The former Orange Democratic official reported abandoning the party and opposing Odinga because of concerns Odinga had manipulated tribal violence in Kenya to gain political power.
During Corsi's trip to Kenya, WND also confirmed the role of the anonymous party source in implementing an Odinga campaign strategy which the source claimed was shared with Obama's Senate office. The strategy is described in a document titled "Executive Brief on the Positioning and Marketing of the Orange Democratic Movement & 'The People's President.'"
The document at one point suggests: "It is possible to trigger a class war by painting the Kibaki Government as an insensitive, uncaring group of Muthaiga Golf clubbers. Available research also suggests that this strategy could also resonate with poor kikuyu youth who feel economically marginalized by their own government. As part of this strategy the party should seek to elevate the emotions within all youth constituents who may it successful, be willing to vote for us in the protest. Visible signs of class disparity will provide important fodder for this theme."
WND previously reported Obama was in telephone communications with Odinga on nearly a daily basis during the Democratic primary in New Hampshire in January.
The second e-mail, again from Obama's Senate address to Odinga's e-mail, stated, "Thanks for contacting me about Mr. Lippert through email. Contact him through mark_lippert.obama.senate.gov."
Chapter 4 of Corsi's "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," titled "Kenya, Odinga, Communism and Islam," refers to the strategy document, but its authenticity was confirmed by the former Oorange Democratic official during interviews with Corsi in Kenya over the last week.
The document describes an Odinga strategy of exploiting "anti-Kikuyu sentiments," a clearly racial strategy aimed at inflaming long-standing tribal animosity to gain electoral advantage for Odinga.
The last point of the campaign document describes what happened when Odinga lost the December 2007 election: "Ethnic Tensions/Violence as a Last Resort."
Sen. Barack Obama with Raila Odinga
Obama continued to support Odinga's effort to share Kenya's head-of-state with President Kibiki even after the wave of Odinga-prompted violence that followed his defeat.
Some pundits in the U.S. already are suggesting that if Obama is not elected, there could be violence. On CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" show, James Carville said, "But you stop and contemplate this country if Obama goes in and he has a consistent five point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there."
According to a Wall Street Journal article posted on the Obama campaign website, Lippert is doing double duty: in civilian life as Obama's chief foreign-policy adviser and in the military as a Lieutenant JG who is planning to serve as an intelligence officer for the Navy SEALS.
The site gives Lippert, 34, credit for helping "hone" Obama's anti-war views.
The website report states: "Over the past two years, Sen. Obama and Lt. Lippert have traveled around the globe together, played one-on-one basketball and shared each other's shoes. Lt. Lippert has continuing email exchanges with the senator's half sister in Africa. Sen. Obama encouraged Lt. Lippert to get engaged. Sen. Obama calls Lt. Lippert, 'one of my favorite people in the world.'"
Lippert previously worked at the State Department and at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Suitland, Md.
The report says Lippert accompanied Obama as an adviser to Russia and then to Kenya.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Daily Motivations - 20081013
NOTE: My computer had a major incident on Tuesday morning, due to my downloading of Microsoft Internet Employer Beta 2. I had to take my computer to the hospital @ Tekshop of NC, Inc. on US Hwy 74 West of Monroe, NC. Jim Rankin is absolutely the best and also the most reasonable in prices. Over the years since 1962, Jim has "restored all my files" three (3) times, believe it or not. I have just Saturday afternoon got back on line. Don't ever, ever install Beta 2. Jim Rankin @ Tekshop of NC, Inc. is the most professional with all knowledge, and again as well, the least expensive.
"Daily Motivations"
But where was I to start? The world is so vast. I shall start with the country I know best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No: my home. No: my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself. -- Elie Wiesel
"The Patriot Post"
"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." -- Benjamin Franklin
"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." -- Nathan Hale
"World Net Daily"
Is the Federal Reserve the protector of America's money policy and financial well-being, as routinely portrayed by the establishment press?
Or is it, as critics have long alleged, an unaccountable, private banking cartel siphoning off citizens' wealth and manipulating America's economy for the benefit of a hidden elite?
A stunning, in-depth documentary now answers this question – and the answer is more than surprising. It's shocking.
"The Money Masters: How Banks Create the World's Money" is comprehensive and authoritative. This three-and-a-half-hour fast-paced historical documentary throws back the veil of deceit hiding the origins and operations of the corrupt banking elite that clandestinely controls America far more than most people realize.
But many of those in power, past and present, do realize:
"I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." – Thomas Jefferson
"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money." – Daniel Webster
"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." – James A. Garfield
"All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin credit, and circulation." – John Adams
What is happening to (y)our world with (y)our children? What else is being taught in (y)our public schools? Can your believe it? Will you believe it?
QUEERLY BELOVED
School takes 1st-graders to see lesbian teacher wed'This is an overt indoctrination of children who are too young'
Posted: October 11, 2008
7:30 pm Eastern© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Photo courtesy Liz Hafalia, San Francisco Chronicle
A public school in San Francisco bused 18 first-graders to City Hall yesterday, so the youngsters could scatter rose petals in celebration of their lesbian teacher's wedding.
The students, from Creative Arts Charter School, waited on the steps for their teacher with bags of pink rose petals, bottles of bubbles and, at least for some, with political buttons asking Californians to vote down Proposition 8, a ballot measure that seeks to define marriage in the state as a union between one man and one woman.
"She's a really nice teacher. She's the best," 6-year-old Chava Novogrodsky-Godt told the San Francisco Chronicle, wearing a "No on 8" button on her shirt. "I want her to have a good wedding."
As WND reported, supporters of California's Proposition 8 have claimed that combining legalized same-sex marriage with the state's mandate that schools "teach respect for marriage and committed relationships" would result in kindergartners being taught the virtues of homosexual marriage. Opponents have called such arguments fabrications and scare tactics.
Yesterday's field trip wasn't quite kindergartners, but it was close.
"It shows that not only can it happen, but it has already happened," said Chip White, press secretary for the Yes on 8 campaign.
"It's just utterly unreasonable that a public school field trip would be to a same-sex wedding," White told the Chronicle. "This is overt indoctrination of children who are too young to have an understanding of its purpose."
The school's interim director Liz Jaroflow, however, defended the field trip to a homosexual wedding as academically justifiable.
"It really is what we call a teachable moment," she told the Chronicle. "I think I'm well within the parameters."
Jaroflow also told the Chronicle that despite the potential objections of some the decision was not controversial for her, and that "it's certainly an issue I would be willing to put my job on the line for."
According to the Chronicle, the field trip was a surprise to the teacher, Erin Carder, and originally proposed by a parent.
"How many days in school are they going to remember?" asked parent Mark Lipsett. "This is a day they'll definitely remember."
Carder married Kerri McCoy on the office balcony of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the ceremony.
As the couple held hands on the balcony overlooking the City Hall's rotunda, Carder proclaimed, "With this ring I thee wed!" shouting the last word for emphasis.
The couple told the Chronicle that they have participated in campaigning against Proposition 8 and planned to travel around the city after the ceremony in a motorized trolley car with banners reading "Just Married" and "Vote No on 8."
Two families of children in the class chose not to give permission for the trip, their children remaining at the school with another first-grade class.
"Newsmax.com"
Barney Frank Hit Over Boyfriend’s Fannie Mae Role
Critics are crying “conflict of interest” over Democratic Rep. Barney Frank’s live-in relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses while Frank was on the House Banking Committee.
Moses was Fannie Mae’s assistant director for product initiatives from 1991 to 1998.
He was also openly gay Frank’s live-in boyfriend during that time, while the Massachusetts lawmaker was on the committee that had jurisdiction over government-sponsored Fannie Mae,
Fox News’ Bill Sammon reported.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the center of the recent financial meltdown, the relationship is coming under increased scrutiny.
“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute.
“He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
“But everyone wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”
A top Republican House aide told Fox News: “He writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws? No media ever take note?”
Frank and Moses met in 1987 and lived together in Washington, D.C., until they split up in 1998.
National Mortgage News disclosed that Moses “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.”
Critics charge that such programs led to the mortgage meltdown and the recent government takeover of Fannie Mae, according to Fox News, which noted that Fannie Mae and its financial cousin Freddie Mac “are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.”
In 1994, Frank thwarted efforts by President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development to impose new regulations on Fannie Mae.
Editor's Note:
Fannie, Freddie Collapse: Templeton Predicted Credit Crisis
Obama Enlisted Black Congressmen to Back Bailout
Barack Obama made calls to members of the House Black Caucus and convinced them to switch their votes and support the Senate-passed $700 billion bailout bill.
Several lawmakers told The Associated Press about receiving calls from Obama, who told them that if elected he would help hard-pressed homeowners keep their houses.
Obama originally kept the bailout measure at arm’s length when House leaders began their all-out push to convert members who had voted "no" on Monday, Sept 29. But he called several wavering Democrats who ended up voting "yes" the following Friday.
Obama "made numerous calls" and "helped us gather the votes on the Democratic side to pass this legislation," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of his party's House caucus.
In all, 33 House Democrats switched to the "yes" side, along with 25 Republicans.
Obama said in a statement after the House vote that the nation "is facing one of the greatest financial crises in history." The bill's passage, he said, "was absolutely necessary to prevent an economic catastrophe that could have cost millions of jobs and forced businesses across the country into bankruptcy."
In the first vote Monday, 13 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) voted “no,” helping to defeat the measure. It lost in a 228-205 vote. Had the CBC members voted “yes,” the measure would have gotten the 218 votes needed for passage.
Obama keyed in on five of the CBC members: Reps. Elijah Cummings and Donna Edwards of Maryland, John Yarmuth of Kentucky, and Mike Thompson and Barbara Lee of California. All five switched their votes to support the bill after hearing from Obama, Newsmax correspondent Phil Brennan reported.
According to Cummings, Obama told him that if he won in November he would order an official of the Treasury Department to work with homeowners facing foreclosure to restructure their loans. He added that Obama promised he would try to make changes in bankruptcy laws allowing judges to reduce the amount of the mortgages borrowers owe.
"It's not too often you get the future president telling you that his priority matches your priority," Cummings told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Rep. Yarmuth said Obama had described the bill as "just patching up a hole in the boat to get it to port."
Editor's Note:
Obama’s Economic Wrecking Ball Coming For You
Obama's Plan: Mohamed Atta Gets His Driver's License
Dear Fellow American:
We have just weeks to go before Election Day . . . time is running short for us to avert a major disaster for our country. That disaster's name is President Barack Obama.
But this disaster can be averted. I'm confident about this - even though the slanted media are overstating Obama's inevitability.
But the numbers don't lie.
The latest Zogby poll had John McCain trailing Obama by two points. Just two points!
Despite the full-court press to destroy McCain and Sarah Palin, Katie Couric's antics against her, and a daily onslaught of media spin . . . McCain is still within striking distance.
The stakes have never been higher for the future of the country.
We either patriotically turn the country over to a man who has proudly served his nation in war time and peace - or we face electing a man who has a checkered past, a man who has counted domestic terrorists among his friends, and a man who spent 15 years in a church where his pastor regularly damned and condemned the United States.
Barack Obama is not simply a risky choice as our next president - He is a dangerous one.
This is why I have taken the helm here at the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee.
Here at the National Republican Trust, we understand our mission. It's simple. It will also drive the left-wing media nuts.
Here's the plan: We will tell the American people the truth about Barack Obama!
Every time John McCain or Sarah Palin tries to tell the truth about Obama, they are painted as mean-spirited and negative.
We here at the National Republican Trust can do the job McCain and Palin can't.
But we need your help. Time is urgent - it's crunch time.
You Can Help Us - Donate Today by Clicking Here Now
The latest reports show Obama outspending McCain by 3-to-1 in key states.
Millions of dubious new voters with the help of groups like ACORN are being registered to put the most extreme liberal in the history of the presidency in the White House.
But I'll shock you: that's OK!
Let them spend millions in getting new "voters" and millions more in TV ads.
I believe truth is more powerful than lies. How powerful?
Well, so powerful, in fact, that I believe one airing of our TV ads will equal at least 10 airings of theirs.
This issue will nail him.
In the closing weeks of this election, Obama is trying to remake himself as a moderate to win over lower-income, white, Democratic and independent voters.
He wants to hide the facts about his record. He is the most extreme liberal ever to be nominated by a major party.
We all know his 100 percent liberal rating in Congress, his support for the TOTAL gun ban in Washington, D.C., his opposition to protecting babies born alive, and his support for tax increases.
But there is one issue almost all Americans agree on: Illegal aliens should not be given driver's licenses.
Help Expose Obama's License Plan - Click Here Now
Mohamed Atta's Florida driver's license.
Not after 9/11.
Did you know that Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 ring leader, had a valid Florida driver's license?
Did you know 13 of the 19 hijackers had obtained valid driver's licenses? Armed with these licenses, eight of the hijackers even registered to vote!
Here is the shocking fact: Obama strongly supports giving illegal aliens in America driver's licenses.
He said as much during two Democratic debates earlier this year.The head of Homeland Security said such thinking was dangerous for national security.Even Hillary Clinton backed away from
Obama's radical driver's license plan.
Obama's position is not a new one: We discovered that Obama has been a major proponent of driver's licenses for illegals since his days as an Illinois state senator.
We have no doubt that, as president, Obama will also champion this radical plan.
With Osama bin Laden still at large, with al-Qaida promising "spectacular" attacks on the U.S homeland, with the threat of them using weapons of mass destruction against our cities - biological, chemical, and nuclear - can we risk putting such a man in the Oval Office?
Doesn't he remember what happened on 9/11? More than 3,000 Americans were murdered.Doesn't he want to prevent that from ever happening again?
If he supports driver's licenses for illegals, the answer is clear.
We need to inform millions of Americans about this man and his risky judgment.
We are days away from our new TV ad exposing Obama's support for driver's licenses for illegals.
But we need your help. We're already preparing our ad budget in key swing states. The more you can donate to us today, the more we can spend in the coming days.
And don't forget, you can donate a maximum of $5,000. Your spouse can also make a $5,000 donation.
With $5,000 we can saturate a whole city/market in a key swing state for one whole night.
But even $1,000 helps us. With $1,000 we can run 10 TV ads in a key market.
Whatever you can give, $500, $250 or any amount, can make a huge difference.
We at the National Republican Trust PAC appreciate your support and love of our country. We will not fail you. Too much is at stake.
Help Expose Obama's License Plan - Click Here Now
Thank you.
Yours for America,
Scott WheelerExecutive Director
P.S. If you agree with this letter, you can help in two ways. First, donate to us, and let us fight for you. Second, forward this e-mail and letter to at least 10 of your friends and family. Encourage them to read it. We can reach millions of Americans if even a fraction of our readers do this.
"Daily Motivations"
But where was I to start? The world is so vast. I shall start with the country I know best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No: my home. No: my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself. -- Elie Wiesel
"The Patriot Post"
"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." -- Benjamin Franklin
"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." -- Nathan Hale
"World Net Daily"
Is the Federal Reserve the protector of America's money policy and financial well-being, as routinely portrayed by the establishment press?
Or is it, as critics have long alleged, an unaccountable, private banking cartel siphoning off citizens' wealth and manipulating America's economy for the benefit of a hidden elite?
A stunning, in-depth documentary now answers this question – and the answer is more than surprising. It's shocking.
"The Money Masters: How Banks Create the World's Money" is comprehensive and authoritative. This three-and-a-half-hour fast-paced historical documentary throws back the veil of deceit hiding the origins and operations of the corrupt banking elite that clandestinely controls America far more than most people realize.
But many of those in power, past and present, do realize:
"I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." – Thomas Jefferson
"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money." – Daniel Webster
"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." – James A. Garfield
"All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin credit, and circulation." – John Adams
What is happening to (y)our world with (y)our children? What else is being taught in (y)our public schools? Can your believe it? Will you believe it?
QUEERLY BELOVED
School takes 1st-graders to see lesbian teacher wed'This is an overt indoctrination of children who are too young'
Posted: October 11, 2008
7:30 pm Eastern© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Photo courtesy Liz Hafalia, San Francisco Chronicle
A public school in San Francisco bused 18 first-graders to City Hall yesterday, so the youngsters could scatter rose petals in celebration of their lesbian teacher's wedding.
The students, from Creative Arts Charter School, waited on the steps for their teacher with bags of pink rose petals, bottles of bubbles and, at least for some, with political buttons asking Californians to vote down Proposition 8, a ballot measure that seeks to define marriage in the state as a union between one man and one woman.
"She's a really nice teacher. She's the best," 6-year-old Chava Novogrodsky-Godt told the San Francisco Chronicle, wearing a "No on 8" button on her shirt. "I want her to have a good wedding."
As WND reported, supporters of California's Proposition 8 have claimed that combining legalized same-sex marriage with the state's mandate that schools "teach respect for marriage and committed relationships" would result in kindergartners being taught the virtues of homosexual marriage. Opponents have called such arguments fabrications and scare tactics.
Yesterday's field trip wasn't quite kindergartners, but it was close.
"It shows that not only can it happen, but it has already happened," said Chip White, press secretary for the Yes on 8 campaign.
"It's just utterly unreasonable that a public school field trip would be to a same-sex wedding," White told the Chronicle. "This is overt indoctrination of children who are too young to have an understanding of its purpose."
The school's interim director Liz Jaroflow, however, defended the field trip to a homosexual wedding as academically justifiable.
"It really is what we call a teachable moment," she told the Chronicle. "I think I'm well within the parameters."
Jaroflow also told the Chronicle that despite the potential objections of some the decision was not controversial for her, and that "it's certainly an issue I would be willing to put my job on the line for."
According to the Chronicle, the field trip was a surprise to the teacher, Erin Carder, and originally proposed by a parent.
"How many days in school are they going to remember?" asked parent Mark Lipsett. "This is a day they'll definitely remember."
Carder married Kerri McCoy on the office balcony of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the ceremony.
As the couple held hands on the balcony overlooking the City Hall's rotunda, Carder proclaimed, "With this ring I thee wed!" shouting the last word for emphasis.
The couple told the Chronicle that they have participated in campaigning against Proposition 8 and planned to travel around the city after the ceremony in a motorized trolley car with banners reading "Just Married" and "Vote No on 8."
Two families of children in the class chose not to give permission for the trip, their children remaining at the school with another first-grade class.
"Newsmax.com"
Barney Frank Hit Over Boyfriend’s Fannie Mae Role
Critics are crying “conflict of interest” over Democratic Rep. Barney Frank’s live-in relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses while Frank was on the House Banking Committee.
Moses was Fannie Mae’s assistant director for product initiatives from 1991 to 1998.
He was also openly gay Frank’s live-in boyfriend during that time, while the Massachusetts lawmaker was on the committee that had jurisdiction over government-sponsored Fannie Mae,
Fox News’ Bill Sammon reported.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the center of the recent financial meltdown, the relationship is coming under increased scrutiny.
“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute.
“He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
“But everyone wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”
A top Republican House aide told Fox News: “He writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws? No media ever take note?”
Frank and Moses met in 1987 and lived together in Washington, D.C., until they split up in 1998.
National Mortgage News disclosed that Moses “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.”
Critics charge that such programs led to the mortgage meltdown and the recent government takeover of Fannie Mae, according to Fox News, which noted that Fannie Mae and its financial cousin Freddie Mac “are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.”
In 1994, Frank thwarted efforts by President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development to impose new regulations on Fannie Mae.
Editor's Note:
Fannie, Freddie Collapse: Templeton Predicted Credit Crisis
Obama Enlisted Black Congressmen to Back Bailout
Barack Obama made calls to members of the House Black Caucus and convinced them to switch their votes and support the Senate-passed $700 billion bailout bill.
Several lawmakers told The Associated Press about receiving calls from Obama, who told them that if elected he would help hard-pressed homeowners keep their houses.
Obama originally kept the bailout measure at arm’s length when House leaders began their all-out push to convert members who had voted "no" on Monday, Sept 29. But he called several wavering Democrats who ended up voting "yes" the following Friday.
Obama "made numerous calls" and "helped us gather the votes on the Democratic side to pass this legislation," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of his party's House caucus.
In all, 33 House Democrats switched to the "yes" side, along with 25 Republicans.
Obama said in a statement after the House vote that the nation "is facing one of the greatest financial crises in history." The bill's passage, he said, "was absolutely necessary to prevent an economic catastrophe that could have cost millions of jobs and forced businesses across the country into bankruptcy."
In the first vote Monday, 13 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) voted “no,” helping to defeat the measure. It lost in a 228-205 vote. Had the CBC members voted “yes,” the measure would have gotten the 218 votes needed for passage.
Obama keyed in on five of the CBC members: Reps. Elijah Cummings and Donna Edwards of Maryland, John Yarmuth of Kentucky, and Mike Thompson and Barbara Lee of California. All five switched their votes to support the bill after hearing from Obama, Newsmax correspondent Phil Brennan reported.
According to Cummings, Obama told him that if he won in November he would order an official of the Treasury Department to work with homeowners facing foreclosure to restructure their loans. He added that Obama promised he would try to make changes in bankruptcy laws allowing judges to reduce the amount of the mortgages borrowers owe.
"It's not too often you get the future president telling you that his priority matches your priority," Cummings told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Rep. Yarmuth said Obama had described the bill as "just patching up a hole in the boat to get it to port."
Editor's Note:
Obama’s Economic Wrecking Ball Coming For You
Obama's Plan: Mohamed Atta Gets His Driver's License
Dear Fellow American:
We have just weeks to go before Election Day . . . time is running short for us to avert a major disaster for our country. That disaster's name is President Barack Obama.
But this disaster can be averted. I'm confident about this - even though the slanted media are overstating Obama's inevitability.
But the numbers don't lie.
The latest Zogby poll had John McCain trailing Obama by two points. Just two points!
Despite the full-court press to destroy McCain and Sarah Palin, Katie Couric's antics against her, and a daily onslaught of media spin . . . McCain is still within striking distance.
The stakes have never been higher for the future of the country.
We either patriotically turn the country over to a man who has proudly served his nation in war time and peace - or we face electing a man who has a checkered past, a man who has counted domestic terrorists among his friends, and a man who spent 15 years in a church where his pastor regularly damned and condemned the United States.
Barack Obama is not simply a risky choice as our next president - He is a dangerous one.
This is why I have taken the helm here at the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee.
Here at the National Republican Trust, we understand our mission. It's simple. It will also drive the left-wing media nuts.
Here's the plan: We will tell the American people the truth about Barack Obama!
Every time John McCain or Sarah Palin tries to tell the truth about Obama, they are painted as mean-spirited and negative.
We here at the National Republican Trust can do the job McCain and Palin can't.
But we need your help. Time is urgent - it's crunch time.
You Can Help Us - Donate Today by Clicking Here Now
The latest reports show Obama outspending McCain by 3-to-1 in key states.
Millions of dubious new voters with the help of groups like ACORN are being registered to put the most extreme liberal in the history of the presidency in the White House.
But I'll shock you: that's OK!
Let them spend millions in getting new "voters" and millions more in TV ads.
I believe truth is more powerful than lies. How powerful?
Well, so powerful, in fact, that I believe one airing of our TV ads will equal at least 10 airings of theirs.
This issue will nail him.
In the closing weeks of this election, Obama is trying to remake himself as a moderate to win over lower-income, white, Democratic and independent voters.
He wants to hide the facts about his record. He is the most extreme liberal ever to be nominated by a major party.
We all know his 100 percent liberal rating in Congress, his support for the TOTAL gun ban in Washington, D.C., his opposition to protecting babies born alive, and his support for tax increases.
But there is one issue almost all Americans agree on: Illegal aliens should not be given driver's licenses.
Help Expose Obama's License Plan - Click Here Now
Mohamed Atta's Florida driver's license.
Not after 9/11.
Did you know that Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 ring leader, had a valid Florida driver's license?
Did you know 13 of the 19 hijackers had obtained valid driver's licenses? Armed with these licenses, eight of the hijackers even registered to vote!
Here is the shocking fact: Obama strongly supports giving illegal aliens in America driver's licenses.
He said as much during two Democratic debates earlier this year.The head of Homeland Security said such thinking was dangerous for national security.Even Hillary Clinton backed away from
Obama's radical driver's license plan.
Obama's position is not a new one: We discovered that Obama has been a major proponent of driver's licenses for illegals since his days as an Illinois state senator.
We have no doubt that, as president, Obama will also champion this radical plan.
With Osama bin Laden still at large, with al-Qaida promising "spectacular" attacks on the U.S homeland, with the threat of them using weapons of mass destruction against our cities - biological, chemical, and nuclear - can we risk putting such a man in the Oval Office?
Doesn't he remember what happened on 9/11? More than 3,000 Americans were murdered.Doesn't he want to prevent that from ever happening again?
If he supports driver's licenses for illegals, the answer is clear.
We need to inform millions of Americans about this man and his risky judgment.
We are days away from our new TV ad exposing Obama's support for driver's licenses for illegals.
But we need your help. We're already preparing our ad budget in key swing states. The more you can donate to us today, the more we can spend in the coming days.
And don't forget, you can donate a maximum of $5,000. Your spouse can also make a $5,000 donation.
With $5,000 we can saturate a whole city/market in a key swing state for one whole night.
But even $1,000 helps us. With $1,000 we can run 10 TV ads in a key market.
Whatever you can give, $500, $250 or any amount, can make a huge difference.
We at the National Republican Trust PAC appreciate your support and love of our country. We will not fail you. Too much is at stake.
Help Expose Obama's License Plan - Click Here Now
Thank you.
Yours for America,
Scott WheelerExecutive Director
P.S. If you agree with this letter, you can help in two ways. First, donate to us, and let us fight for you. Second, forward this e-mail and letter to at least 10 of your friends and family. Encourage them to read it. We can reach millions of Americans if even a fraction of our readers do this.
Daily Motivations -20081007
"Daily Motivations"
Courage is a door that can only be opened from the inside. -- Terry Neil
"The Patriot Post"
"[A] wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." --- Thomas Jefferson
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,subsidize it." --- Ronald Reagan
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists ornot, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." --- Ernest Benn
"Human Events"
Obama-ACORN Root Causes of Mortgage Crisis?
FBI Investigates U.S. Financial Crisis - Where Did $1 Trillion Go?
The high-risk subprime mortgage social engineering community service experiment by left-wing ACORN and Obama has created the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression. The full reach of the corruption and scandal may never be known but those who created it must not be rewarded. The architects, primarily left-wing Democrats, created laws, took donations, looked the other way and instead were too busy overseeing donations to their own presidential campaigns and robbing main street blind. Now these same left-wing Democrats blame everyone else and get up on their high horses and say, "we are here to save you" from the crises they created.
"The email Bag"
13 YEARS TO THE DAY OF BEING ACQUITTED FOR MURDER IN THE DEATH OF NICOLE BROWN AND RON GOLDMAN, OJ SIMPSON WAS FOUND GUILTY OF KIDNAPPING, ARMED ROBBERY AND 10 OTHERS CHARGES IN LAS VEGAS. 13 APPEARS TO PLAY AN ERIE PART IN THIS SCENARIO AS THE CRIME TOOK PLACE ON SEPTEMBER 13TH, THE TRIAL LASTED 13 DAYS AND THE JURY DELIBERATED 13 HOURS.
MOST PEOPLE BELEIVE OJ GOT AWAY WITH MURDER 13 YEARS AGO AND THAT THE JUSTICE OF LIFE CAME CALLING. I AGREE! FOR THOSE OF US WHO BELIEVE THAT GOD IS IN CONTROL OF ALL THINGS INCLUDING JUSTICE, THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT. HE COULD GET A LIFE SENTENCE FOR THIS VERDICT, HE ESCAPED A LIFE SENTENCE 13 YEARS AGO.
WE SHOULD TAKE THIS AS A LESSON. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE JUSTICE ...............IT MAY NOT COME SWIFT, NOR IN THE SAME MANNER YOU EXPECT BUT IT WILL IN THE END COME!
OUR AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM IS FULL OF CORRUPTION AND OFTEN THE INNOCENT BECOME THE VICTIM OF THIS CORRUPTION. HOWEVER GOD HAS SAID; VENGEANCE IS MINE! WHEN YOU HAVE DONE YOUR BEST TO FIGHT A WRONG, LET GO AND LET GOD HAVE CONTROL AND WAIT FOR HIM TO WORK, YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!
GOD HAS BLESSED THE BROWN AND GOLDMAN FAMILIES AND ALLOWED THEM TO SEE THE EVIL THAT CAME INTO THEIR LIVES GET WHAT HE DESERVES! MAY HE THE BLESS THE REST OF US WHO HAVE ENCOUNTERED SUCH EVIL ALSO!
CAROL CROSBY MURDOCK
Courage is a door that can only be opened from the inside. -- Terry Neil
"The Patriot Post"
"[A] wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." --- Thomas Jefferson
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,subsidize it." --- Ronald Reagan
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists ornot, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." --- Ernest Benn
"Human Events"
Obama-ACORN Root Causes of Mortgage Crisis?
FBI Investigates U.S. Financial Crisis - Where Did $1 Trillion Go?
The high-risk subprime mortgage social engineering community service experiment by left-wing ACORN and Obama has created the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression. The full reach of the corruption and scandal may never be known but those who created it must not be rewarded. The architects, primarily left-wing Democrats, created laws, took donations, looked the other way and instead were too busy overseeing donations to their own presidential campaigns and robbing main street blind. Now these same left-wing Democrats blame everyone else and get up on their high horses and say, "we are here to save you" from the crises they created.
"The email Bag"
13 YEARS TO THE DAY OF BEING ACQUITTED FOR MURDER IN THE DEATH OF NICOLE BROWN AND RON GOLDMAN, OJ SIMPSON WAS FOUND GUILTY OF KIDNAPPING, ARMED ROBBERY AND 10 OTHERS CHARGES IN LAS VEGAS. 13 APPEARS TO PLAY AN ERIE PART IN THIS SCENARIO AS THE CRIME TOOK PLACE ON SEPTEMBER 13TH, THE TRIAL LASTED 13 DAYS AND THE JURY DELIBERATED 13 HOURS.
MOST PEOPLE BELEIVE OJ GOT AWAY WITH MURDER 13 YEARS AGO AND THAT THE JUSTICE OF LIFE CAME CALLING. I AGREE! FOR THOSE OF US WHO BELIEVE THAT GOD IS IN CONTROL OF ALL THINGS INCLUDING JUSTICE, THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT. HE COULD GET A LIFE SENTENCE FOR THIS VERDICT, HE ESCAPED A LIFE SENTENCE 13 YEARS AGO.
WE SHOULD TAKE THIS AS A LESSON. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE JUSTICE ...............IT MAY NOT COME SWIFT, NOR IN THE SAME MANNER YOU EXPECT BUT IT WILL IN THE END COME!
OUR AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM IS FULL OF CORRUPTION AND OFTEN THE INNOCENT BECOME THE VICTIM OF THIS CORRUPTION. HOWEVER GOD HAS SAID; VENGEANCE IS MINE! WHEN YOU HAVE DONE YOUR BEST TO FIGHT A WRONG, LET GO AND LET GOD HAVE CONTROL AND WAIT FOR HIM TO WORK, YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!
GOD HAS BLESSED THE BROWN AND GOLDMAN FAMILIES AND ALLOWED THEM TO SEE THE EVIL THAT CAME INTO THEIR LIVES GET WHAT HE DESERVES! MAY HE THE BLESS THE REST OF US WHO HAVE ENCOUNTERED SUCH EVIL ALSO!
CAROL CROSBY MURDOCK
Daily Motivations - 20081006
"Daily Motivations"
There are as many ways to recognize people as there are people to recognize. You just have to use your brain to find them. Next time you think you've exhausted the possibilities, think again…and again! -- Eric Harvey
"The Patriot Post"
"No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave." --- Alexander Hamilton
"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." -- Samuel Adams
"For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects." -- James Madison
"CBN.com"
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/359202.aspx
Hamas Political Advisor: "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election"
April 17, 2008
Barack Obama is looking for as much support as he can get. But he doesn't need this support. The main political advisor to the Prime Minister of Hamas, Ahmed Yousef said the following in an interview the other day with World Net Daily and WABC radio host John Batchelor.
"We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election."
"He has a vision to change America."
"The email Bag"
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 8:49 AM
Subject: more info on questionable loans
In 2005 John McCain cosponsored a bill to deal with mortgage problems at Fannie MAE & Freddie MAC.
Senator John McCain warned of the problems with the mortgage market in 2005. He cosponsored a bill (Senate Bill 190, 109th Congress, 2005-2006)
to improve oversight of Freddie MAC and Fannie MAE.
It was stopped by Democrats & good old boy GOP types.
From: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109190&tab=summary&page-command=print
2005-2006 (109th Congress)
S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
Sponsor:
Sen. Charles Hagel [R-NE]
Cosponsors [as of 2007-01-08]
Sen. Elizabeth Dole [R-NC]
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]
Sen. John Sununu [R-NH]
A bill to address the regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes.
Status: Introduced - Jan 26, 2005 - Reported by Committee
-
Voted on in Senate
-
Voted on in House
-
Signed by President
-
This bill never became law. This bill was proposed in a previous session of Congress. Sessions of Congress last two years, and at the end of each session all proposed bills and resolutions that haven't passed are cleared from the books.
Last Action:
Jul 28, 2005: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.
Congressional Research Service Summary
The following summary was written by the Congressional Research Service, a well-respected nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress. GovTrack did not write and has no control over these summaries.
1/26/2005--Introduced.
Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 -
Amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board.
The Greenlining Institute: Does the financial crisis have its origins in Berkeley?
Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Yesterday I followed a link to a new article by Matthew Vadum which named The Greenlining Institute (among similar nonprofits) as the actual cause of the current financial crisis threatening the US economy. I did a double-take: The Greenlining Institute? You mean the one in Berkeley? Answer: Yes. The very same.
I (and countless other people) often zip past the nondescript office on Berkeley’s University Avenue containing the Greenlining Institute — one passes it on the way in and out of the city, as University leads from the freeway to downtown and the U.C. campus.
Unlike most people, though, several months ago I took note of the office as I passed it one day, and asked myself, “The Greenlining Institute” — what the hell is that? When I got home, out of curiosity I googled it and spent a couple minutes trying to decipher their Web site, to little avail. A very few other scattered articles seemed to indicate that the Greenlining Institute existed solely to bully banks and financial institutions into giving loans to otherwise unqualified minority borrowers.
The Greenlining Institute’s own mission statement says,
The Greenlining Institute’s mission is to empower communities of color and other disadvantaged groups through multi-ethnic economic and leadership development, civil rights and anti-redlining activities.
…but Matthew Vadum puts it much more bluntly:
Financial Affirmative Action
When the history of the Great Economic Meltdown of 2008 is written, in-your-face shakedown groups like the Greenlining Institute will be held to account.
Greenlining, headquartered in Berkeley, California (where else?), is a left-wing pressure group that threatens nasty public relations campaigns against lenders that refuse to kneel before its radical economic agenda. Its principal goal is to push politicians and the business community to facilitate “community reinvestment” in low-income and minority neighborhoods.
The Greenlining name is a play on the unlawful practice of “redlining.” That’s when financial institutions designate areas, typically those with a high concentration of racial minorities, as bad risks for home and commercial loans. The Institute wants banks to give a green light to loans in these areas instead.
Recently profiled by John Gizzi, Greenlining uses carrot-and-stick tactics to blackmail public agencies, banks, and philanthropists to achieve its objectives. The Institute brags it has threatened banks into making more than $2.4 trillion in loans in low-income communities.
On a trip through Berkeley today I once again noticed the office, and this time stopped to take these pictures. But there was no news to be found there: just a building, with no one around. And I’m not the kind of person to just walk right in and ask to interview someone. Not that it would have done me much good: undoubtedly I would have been given the usual rigamarole about unfair housing and the need to redistribute wealth to help minorities.
There’s been a lot of finger-pointing on all sides about this financial crisis, but much of it misses the point. The off-topic details about CEO salaries and bond markets and mergers and bailouts and who voted for what all chase the horse after it’s already left the barn. The key question is this:
Once upon a time, banks only loaned money to individuals who could qualify for a home mortgage; and then sometime recently, they changed their practices and started loaning money to a lot of people who didn’t qualify and could not afford to pay back the loans. And when they started defaulting, and when real estate values starting dropping, the entire industry collapsed, because there was no equity to pay back the loans. The banks lost money, the customers lost money, and it all went down the toilet. Which, of course, many people had predicted. So the question is: Why? Why did banks start making countless risky untenable loans to unqualified customers?
And the answer is: Because they were afraid of being called racists by the legal bullies at the Greenlining Institute and other similar “community organizers.”
It all started with The Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law originally passed during the Carter administration and then ramped up during the Clinton years, that was originally designed to prevent racist lending practices by banks who wouldn’t loan money to minorities, even if they were qualified. But over time the law was twisted to force banks to make loans to minorities even if they weren’t qualified — which all may sound very peachy keen in Fantasy Utopia Land but which inevitably spells long-term financial suicide for a bank.
The Greenlining Institute’s self-appointed role is to identify those banks which by Greenlining’s reckoning haven’t doled out enough money to underqualified minority borrowers, and then threaten them with lawsuits, protests, and accusations of institutional racism if the banks don’t start opening their wallets ASAP. And the banks caved. Greenlining brags that they have unparalleled access to banking boardrooms, and they successfully squeezed $2.4 trillion (yes, trillion) in “CRA commitments” (i.e. loans to unqualified borrowers) out of terrified banks. Nearly every bank and financial institution you’ve ever heard of seems to kowtow to Greenlining.
Who are these people? And how did they gain so much power, while flying so far under the radar? Their latest push is to force the banks to convert the adjustable rate mortgage loans given to dodgy borrowers into fixed-rate loans, which would further punish the banks financially.
The American Anachronism blog lists some of the other pressure groups who bully banks — including the now notorious ACORN.
I don’t have any answers. Just a lot of questions. And a queasy feeling that there may be a lot more to the financial crisis than we’ve been told.
Further reading:The Greenlining Institute: Shakedown Artists, also by Matthew Vadum
"Boston Globe"
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / September 28, 2008
'THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it."
That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. As the Massachusetts Democrat has explained it in recent days, the current financial crisis is the spawn of the free market run amok, with the political class guilty only of failing to rein the capitalists in. The Wall Street meltdown was caused by "bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector," Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." And that philosophy goes "back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, 'Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.' "
In fact, that isn't what Reagan said. His actual words were: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Were he president today, he would be saying much the same thing.
Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits -- many of whom have been learning lately just how pitiless the private sector’s discipline can be -- they weren't the ones who "got us into this mess." Barney Frank's talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn't wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so - or else.
The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued.
All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit.
As long as housing prices kept rising, the illusion that all this was good public policy could be sustained. But it didn't take a financial whiz to recognize that a day of reckoning would come. "What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?" I asked in this space in 1995. "Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . .. . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which of today's self-congratulating bankers, politicians, and regulators plans to take the credit?"
Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Now that the bubble has burst and the "systemic risk" is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess." Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.
There are as many ways to recognize people as there are people to recognize. You just have to use your brain to find them. Next time you think you've exhausted the possibilities, think again…and again! -- Eric Harvey
"The Patriot Post"
"No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave." --- Alexander Hamilton
"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." -- Samuel Adams
"For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects." -- James Madison
"CBN.com"
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/359202.aspx
Hamas Political Advisor: "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election"
April 17, 2008
Barack Obama is looking for as much support as he can get. But he doesn't need this support. The main political advisor to the Prime Minister of Hamas, Ahmed Yousef said the following in an interview the other day with World Net Daily and WABC radio host John Batchelor.
"We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election."
"He has a vision to change America."
"The email Bag"
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 8:49 AM
Subject: more info on questionable loans
In 2005 John McCain cosponsored a bill to deal with mortgage problems at Fannie MAE & Freddie MAC.
Senator John McCain warned of the problems with the mortgage market in 2005. He cosponsored a bill (Senate Bill 190, 109th Congress, 2005-2006)
to improve oversight of Freddie MAC and Fannie MAE.
It was stopped by Democrats & good old boy GOP types.
From: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109190&tab=summary&page-command=print
2005-2006 (109th Congress)
S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
Sponsor:
Sen. Charles Hagel [R-NE]
Cosponsors [as of 2007-01-08]
Sen. Elizabeth Dole [R-NC]
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]
Sen. John Sununu [R-NH]
A bill to address the regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes.
Status: Introduced - Jan 26, 2005 - Reported by Committee
-
Voted on in Senate
-
Voted on in House
-
Signed by President
-
This bill never became law. This bill was proposed in a previous session of Congress. Sessions of Congress last two years, and at the end of each session all proposed bills and resolutions that haven't passed are cleared from the books.
Last Action:
Jul 28, 2005: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.
Congressional Research Service Summary
The following summary was written by the Congressional Research Service, a well-respected nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress. GovTrack did not write and has no control over these summaries.
1/26/2005--Introduced.
Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 -
Amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board.
The Greenlining Institute: Does the financial crisis have its origins in Berkeley?
Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Yesterday I followed a link to a new article by Matthew Vadum which named The Greenlining Institute (among similar nonprofits) as the actual cause of the current financial crisis threatening the US economy. I did a double-take: The Greenlining Institute? You mean the one in Berkeley? Answer: Yes. The very same.
I (and countless other people) often zip past the nondescript office on Berkeley’s University Avenue containing the Greenlining Institute — one passes it on the way in and out of the city, as University leads from the freeway to downtown and the U.C. campus.
Unlike most people, though, several months ago I took note of the office as I passed it one day, and asked myself, “The Greenlining Institute” — what the hell is that? When I got home, out of curiosity I googled it and spent a couple minutes trying to decipher their Web site, to little avail. A very few other scattered articles seemed to indicate that the Greenlining Institute existed solely to bully banks and financial institutions into giving loans to otherwise unqualified minority borrowers.
The Greenlining Institute’s own mission statement says,
The Greenlining Institute’s mission is to empower communities of color and other disadvantaged groups through multi-ethnic economic and leadership development, civil rights and anti-redlining activities.
…but Matthew Vadum puts it much more bluntly:
Financial Affirmative Action
When the history of the Great Economic Meltdown of 2008 is written, in-your-face shakedown groups like the Greenlining Institute will be held to account.
Greenlining, headquartered in Berkeley, California (where else?), is a left-wing pressure group that threatens nasty public relations campaigns against lenders that refuse to kneel before its radical economic agenda. Its principal goal is to push politicians and the business community to facilitate “community reinvestment” in low-income and minority neighborhoods.
The Greenlining name is a play on the unlawful practice of “redlining.” That’s when financial institutions designate areas, typically those with a high concentration of racial minorities, as bad risks for home and commercial loans. The Institute wants banks to give a green light to loans in these areas instead.
Recently profiled by John Gizzi, Greenlining uses carrot-and-stick tactics to blackmail public agencies, banks, and philanthropists to achieve its objectives. The Institute brags it has threatened banks into making more than $2.4 trillion in loans in low-income communities.
On a trip through Berkeley today I once again noticed the office, and this time stopped to take these pictures. But there was no news to be found there: just a building, with no one around. And I’m not the kind of person to just walk right in and ask to interview someone. Not that it would have done me much good: undoubtedly I would have been given the usual rigamarole about unfair housing and the need to redistribute wealth to help minorities.
There’s been a lot of finger-pointing on all sides about this financial crisis, but much of it misses the point. The off-topic details about CEO salaries and bond markets and mergers and bailouts and who voted for what all chase the horse after it’s already left the barn. The key question is this:
Once upon a time, banks only loaned money to individuals who could qualify for a home mortgage; and then sometime recently, they changed their practices and started loaning money to a lot of people who didn’t qualify and could not afford to pay back the loans. And when they started defaulting, and when real estate values starting dropping, the entire industry collapsed, because there was no equity to pay back the loans. The banks lost money, the customers lost money, and it all went down the toilet. Which, of course, many people had predicted. So the question is: Why? Why did banks start making countless risky untenable loans to unqualified customers?
And the answer is: Because they were afraid of being called racists by the legal bullies at the Greenlining Institute and other similar “community organizers.”
It all started with The Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law originally passed during the Carter administration and then ramped up during the Clinton years, that was originally designed to prevent racist lending practices by banks who wouldn’t loan money to minorities, even if they were qualified. But over time the law was twisted to force banks to make loans to minorities even if they weren’t qualified — which all may sound very peachy keen in Fantasy Utopia Land but which inevitably spells long-term financial suicide for a bank.
The Greenlining Institute’s self-appointed role is to identify those banks which by Greenlining’s reckoning haven’t doled out enough money to underqualified minority borrowers, and then threaten them with lawsuits, protests, and accusations of institutional racism if the banks don’t start opening their wallets ASAP. And the banks caved. Greenlining brags that they have unparalleled access to banking boardrooms, and they successfully squeezed $2.4 trillion (yes, trillion) in “CRA commitments” (i.e. loans to unqualified borrowers) out of terrified banks. Nearly every bank and financial institution you’ve ever heard of seems to kowtow to Greenlining.
Who are these people? And how did they gain so much power, while flying so far under the radar? Their latest push is to force the banks to convert the adjustable rate mortgage loans given to dodgy borrowers into fixed-rate loans, which would further punish the banks financially.
The American Anachronism blog lists some of the other pressure groups who bully banks — including the now notorious ACORN.
I don’t have any answers. Just a lot of questions. And a queasy feeling that there may be a lot more to the financial crisis than we’ve been told.
Further reading:The Greenlining Institute: Shakedown Artists, also by Matthew Vadum
"Boston Globe"
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / September 28, 2008
'THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it."
That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. As the Massachusetts Democrat has explained it in recent days, the current financial crisis is the spawn of the free market run amok, with the political class guilty only of failing to rein the capitalists in. The Wall Street meltdown was caused by "bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector," Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." And that philosophy goes "back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, 'Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.' "
In fact, that isn't what Reagan said. His actual words were: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Were he president today, he would be saying much the same thing.
Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits -- many of whom have been learning lately just how pitiless the private sector’s discipline can be -- they weren't the ones who "got us into this mess." Barney Frank's talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn't wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so - or else.
The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued.
All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit.
As long as housing prices kept rising, the illusion that all this was good public policy could be sustained. But it didn't take a financial whiz to recognize that a day of reckoning would come. "What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?" I asked in this space in 1995. "Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . .. . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which of today's self-congratulating bankers, politicians, and regulators plans to take the credit?"
Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Now that the bubble has burst and the "systemic risk" is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess." Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)