bink765's Blog

http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=9299280

HILARIOUS.

My favorite portion of the article...

"Still that's not right. I'm disappointed. I'm glad for the president, but I'm disappointed in this system," said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker.

Just a taste babe, just a taste.  Get used to it honey.

Let me first say, "Congratulations Mr. Obama".  

I do mean it.  He won the election.  He won it.  The people have spoken.

It's up to us as Americans to make sure we keep both houses and the White House in check now.  We as Americans will do what we've always done.

If we see something wrong we will cry, "Foul" and will be heard.  We have that right and we will execute that right.

Let your hearts not be troubled.  This is still America and we will still prosper because it's in our blood.

This is a time in our lives where we have to accept but be cautious of what happens in Washington.  This man will have a very difficult presidency.  He will be watched by most of us and we will not let this country go down the proverbial drain.

Be vigilant, be watchful and be first and foremost Americans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCeD1RcJjAg

I really do hope that this is an isolated incident and this is not what is to become of our country.

I have a question.

Why is it that even though Senator Obama has spent almost twice as much as Senator McCain, is McCain this close in this election?

Obama has raised $639 Million and spent $573 Million. 

McCain has raised $360 Million and spent $293 Million.

You would think by these numbers Obama would have 20 point lead in all polls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBMdWxcFXQg

I'll let you be the judge on this one.

Was it a slip or what it intentional?

OK, I've had it!!!

I am usually pretty nice on here when it comes to politics and pretty open minded and try to see both sides before commenting but this is the last straw.

I watched the clip of Obama telling us that we essentially are selfish for not wanting to spread the wealth.

Sorry, but I work hard for the money I EARN!!  Yes, I said it.  I EARN MY MONEY.  I am not wealthy but aspire to be one day or at the very least upper middle class.

If I am making decent wages (as I believe I have over the last 3 years) I am very generous with my money.

I donate to many organizations in many different ways. 

I send money
I donate clothing
I donate electronics when I no longer need them or have purchased newer models.
I donate furniture
I donate my time to Habitat for Humanity
I donated my time to help hurricane victims in the past

WHAT THE HECK ELSE TO YOU WANT FROM ME????  I am a very generous person and usually help people when I see someone in need.  True need.

By this I mean people who have fallen on hard times to no actions of their own.  They've been laid off, they have a medical condition that keeps them from making their own way, they've lost a family member that was a bread winner, etc.  These are people who can't help their situation.  They need help and I try to help provide it. 

I do all of this because I've had more than I needed so I share and help out.

Nuff said on that portion.

WHY...I ask WHY, should I give my money to you Mr. Obama?  Are you a better judge of who needs help? 

If you were, why haven't you even helped your own?  Haven't you ever heard the saying, "Charity begins at home"? 

You have NO RIGHT, NO RIGHT to tell me who I should be helping!

A must read.  Not sure of the validity of this article but if she was an actual speech writer for the campaign it carries weight.  She sounds totally broken in this story.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-
28/so-long-obama/3/

In the past I realize that there have been mock Presidential Elections in school.  I remember this from when I was a child when Reagan was running against Jimmy Carter.  Our class had a secrete ballot on who we thought should win.  I remember thinking while voting that my mom and dad had said a few positive things about Reagan so that's who I voted for.

Reagan won by all but two votes in my class and it was easy to tell which kids voted for Carter because they were very disappointed by the results.  Not vocally but kids automatically started looking around for people who were not cheering.

At the playground later that day those kids were ridiculed because they had not voted along with the majority in the classroom...this was wrong.  I was the only kid who would play with them because I figured they had done nothing wrong.

NOW

My daughter brought home a very authentic looking Voter Registration Application from school last night.  It even has phone numbers and website information to find your local voter registrar in the State of Texas. 

1-800-252-VOTE (8683)
TDD 1-800-735-2989
www.sos.state.tx.us

They are registering for a Student Mock Presidential Election and the candidates are McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden.

My daughter is 7 years old and does not have a clue of what the issues are in this election and by no means could formulate an opinion on who to vote for.

If I were an educator I would like to have a mock election in order to teach students how the election process works.  However, I would not use real candidates because of my past experience in seeing how children can be treated when they are not with the majority.

Why not have two of the most popular teachers run against each other and then whichever teacher wins they are able to choose what lunch or snack is being served that Friday for the students.

This would teach the kids about the electoral process but remove all the bad feelings that are automatically generated when an election of this magnitude is being played out.

Obviously, I went straight to the Principle of the school about this to ensure students are not required to participate in this process.

I am concerned that in an election of this sort with raw feelings on both sides that students will not act with decorum towards other students that do not vote with the majority.

This is just a really bad idea because most adults can't have an intelligent debate with each other how do you expect students to be able to hold back their feelings on this issue?

These people are just the best.  Will we see the end of ACORN after all of this?  Who knows maybe they can get more federal funding when Obama gets in office.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93LPR783&show_
article=1

Link:  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB
153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink
&exprod=permalink

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending By STEVEN A. HOLMES Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

TEACHERS GET HIT ON THE BUTTONBy YOAV GONEN, Education Reporter SLIDES = new slideshow("SLIDES"); SLIDES.timeout = 5000; SLIDES.prefetch = -1; SLIDES.repeat = true; s = new slide(); s.src = "/seven/10022008/photos/new02.jpg"; s.text = unescape("The UFT has distributed buttons like this."); s.link = "/seven/10022008/photos/new02.jpg"; s.target = ""; s.attr = ""; s.filter = ""; SLIDES.add_slide(s); if (false) SLIDES.shuffle(); The UFT has distributed buttons like this.

Last updated: 11:43 am
October 2, 2008
Posted: 3:50 am
October 2, 2008

The teachers union has been handing out thousands of Barack Obama campaign buttons to its members, sparking a clampdown by education brass.

The Department of Education - which has a long-standing policy barring teachers from wearing campaign buttons in schools - is set to send out an e-mail this week from Schools Chancellor Joel Klein laying down the law.

MORE: Bellwether-state polls ringing for Obama

MORE: Ifill Awful: Foes

MORE: Bam's plans for tax cuts don't add up

HURT: What Sarah & Joe must do to score a knockout

"Schools are not a place for politics and not a place for staff to wear political buttons," said department spokeswoman Ann Forte.

"We don't want a school or school staff advocating for any political position or candidate to students and we don't want students feeling intimidated because they might hold a different belief or support a different candidate than their teachers."

United Federation of Teachers official LeRoy Barr told his members in a recent e-mail that union chief Randi Weingarten is fighting the DOE decision.

Officials of the union - which has endorsed Obama - said they didn't know of any schools where button-wearing teachers were told to zip it, but they said they were exploring the matter "to ensure members' rights to free speech and expression."

While department officials said the courts are on their side in the matter, many city teachers say their right to wear partisan buttons is a matter of free speech.

Several cited a landmark 1969 Supreme Court ruling involving students who planned to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. It affirmed that constitutional rights don't get dropped "at the schoolhouse gate."

"It's not teaching kids to vote for Obama; rather, it's showing them the democratic process in action," said Patrick Compton, a social-studies teacher at Lafayette HS in Brooklyn, who said he has been wearing an Obama button handed out by the union.

"It is shocking to me, truly, that in this day and age, the school system wants to diminish, rather than increase, participation in our democratic system."

Other teachers said they were extremely careful not to let free speech morph into any kind of partisan preaching.

"As long as you don't preach to the children about who you should vote for, I don't see anything wrong with it," said Ellen Eisenger, a teacher at PS 35 in Queens. "It's still America."

Last week, employees at the University of Illinois received an e-mail forbidding them to wear partisan political buttons on campus, while teachers at a high school near Santa Cruz, Calif., agreed to remove their "Educators for Obama" buttons in class after complaints from a parent who supports John McCain.

yoav.gonen@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.co
m/seven/10022008/news/regionalnews/teachers_get_hit_on_
the_button_131776.htm

Link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/02/teacher
s-union-e-mail-touting-obama-draws-backlash/

Teachers union e-mail touting Obama scorned

Michael Drost (Contact)
Thursday, October 2, 2008

An e-mail distributed by a Virginia teachers union encouraged members to bring politics into the classroom by wearing blue in support of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama and simultaneously suggested that the union's voter registration efforts include those "you teach."

The Virginia Education Association (VEA) e-mail drew strong criticism Wednesday from elected Republican officials and some residents after the state Republican Party obtained a copy. The author of the e-mail conceded Wednesday that the e-mail should have been worded differently. The VEA is an affiliate of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.

"Schools should be perfectly neutral," Virginia resident Julie Aurora said Wednesday. "They should teach students how to think, not what to think."

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76645

ELECTION 2008
VP debate moderator Ifill releasing pro-Obama book
Focuses on blacks who are 'forging a bold new path to political power'

---

Posted: September 30, 2008
8:35 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Gwen Ifill

The moderator of Thursday's vice-presidential debate is writing a book to come out about the time the next president takes the oath of office that aims to "shed new light" on Democratic candidate Barack Obama and other "emerging young African American politicians" who are "forging a bold new path to political power."

Gwen Ifill of the Public Broadcasting Service program "Washington Week" is promoting "The Breakthrough," in which she argues the "black political structure" of the civil rights movement is giving way to men and women who have benefited from the struggles over racial equality.

Ifill declined to return a WND telephone message asking for a comment about her book project and whether its success would be expected should Obama lose. But she has faced criticism previously for not treating candidates of both major parties the same.

During a vice-presidential candidate debate she moderated in 2004 – when Democrat John Edwards attacked Republican Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton – the vice president said, "I can respond, Gwen, but it's going to take more than 30 seconds."

"Well, that's all you've got," she told Cheney.

Ifill told the Associated Press Democrats were delighted with her answer, because they "thought I was being snippy to Cheney." She explained that wasn't her intent.

But she also was cited in complaints PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler said he received after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin delivered her nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., earlier this month.

Some viewers complained of a "dismissive" look by Ifill during her report on Palin's speech. According to Getler, some also said she wore a look of "disgust" while reporting on the Republican candidate.

At that time she said, "I assume there will always be critics and just shut out the noise. It is surprisingly easy."

Ifill, who also works with her network's "NewsHour," is making preparations to moderate this week's debate between the two candidates for vice president, Palin and Democratic Sen. Joe Biden.. She told BlackAmericaWeb.com she thinks debates "are the best opportunity most voters have to see the candidates speaking to issues."

She said she is concerned only about getting straight answers from candidates.

"You do your best to get candidates to answer your question. But I also trust the viewers to understand when questions are not answered and reach their own conclusions," Ifill told BlackAmericaWeb.

"Four years ago, when neither John Edwards nor Dick Cheney proved capable of answering a question about the domestic epidemic of AIDS among African-American women, viewers flooded me with reaction," she said.

She said she will make her own decisions about what questions to ask, adding "the big questions matter."

In the Amazon.com promotion for her book, Ifill is described as "drawing on interviews with power brokers," such as Obama and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In an online video promoting her book, she is enthusiastic about "taking the story of Barack Obama and extending it."

It focuses on four people, "one of them Barack Obama of course," she said.

"They are changing our politics and changing our nation," she said.

On Amazon.com, Ifill is praised for her "incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama."

"Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history," the review says.

She told AP her view of Obama: "I still don't know if he'll be a good president."

She also describes how she met him at the 2004 Democratic convention and since then has interviewed the Illinois senator and his family.

She also boasted that by the time of the debate, "I'll be a complete expert on both" Palin and Biden.

The debate will be held at Washington University in St. Louis, which has posted information about the evening's events online.

Ifill's profile there describes her as a longtime correspondent and moderator for national news programs and includes her service as moderator of the 2004 debate between Edwards and Cheney.

However, there's no mention of her upcoming book. Nor does the website for the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is organizing the meetings of the candidates, mention her book.

Bailout marks Karl Marx's comeback
Posted: September 29, 2008, 8:03 PM by Jeff White

By Martin Masse, mortgage crisis Link:  http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/arch
ive/2008/09/29/bailout-marks-karl-marx-s-comeback.aspx

Marx’s Proposal Number Five seems to be the leading motivation for those backing the Wall Street bailout

In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.

Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very page, have made declarations in favour of the massive “injection of liquidities” engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package.Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001.

“Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?” Marx would likely wonder.

At first glance, anyone who understands economics can see that there is something wrong with this picture. The taxes that will need to be levied to finance this package may keep some firms alive, but they will siphon off capital, kill jobs and make businesses less productive elsewhere. Increasing the money supply is no different. It is an invisible tax that redistributes resources to debtors and those who made unwise investments.

So why throw this sound free-market analysis overboard as soon as there is some downturn in the markets?

The rationale for intervening always seems to centre on the fear of reliving the Great Depression. If we let too many institutions fail because of insolvency, we are being told, there is a risk of a general collapse of financial markets, with the subsequent drying up of credit and the catastrophic effects this would have on all sectors of production. This opinion, shared by Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and most of the right-wing political and financial establishments, is based on Milton Friedman’s thesis that the Fed aggravated the Depression by not pumping enough money into the financial system following the market crash of 1929.

It sounds libertarian enough. The misguided policies of the Fed, a government creature, and bad government regulation are held responsible for the crisis. The need to respond to this emergency and keep markets running overrides concerns about taxing and inflating the money supply. This is supposed to contrast with the left-wing Keynesian approach, whose solutions are strangely very similar despite a different view of the causes.

But there is another approach that doesn’t compromise with free-market principles and coherently explains why we constantly get into these bubble situations followed by a crash. It is centered on Marx’s Proposal Number Five: government control of capital.

For decades, Austrian School economists have warned against the dire consequences of having a central banking system based on fiat money, money that is not grounded on any commodity like gold and can easily be manipulated. In addition to its obvious disadvantages (price inflation, debasement of the currency, etc.), easy credit and artificially low interest rates send wrong signals to investors and exacerbate business cycles.

Not only is the central bank constantly creating money out of thin air, but the fractional reserve system allows financial institutions to increase credit many times over. When money creation is sustained, a financial bubble begins to feed on itself, higher prices allowing the owners of inflated titles to spend and borrow more, leading to more credit creation and to even higher prices.

As prices get distorted, malinvestments, or investments that should not have been made under normal market conditions, accumulate. Despite this, financial institutions have an incentive to join this frenzy of irresponsible lending, or else they will lose market shares to competitors. With “liquidities” in overabundance, more and more risky decisions are made to increase yields and leveraging reaches dangerous levels.

During that manic phase, everybody seems to believe that the boom will go on. Only the Austrians warn that it cannot last forever, as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises did before the 1929 crash, and as their followers have done for the past several years.

Now, what should be done when that pyramidal scheme starts crashing to the floor, because of a series of cascading failures or concern from the central bank that inflation is getting out of control? It’s obvious that credit will shrink, because everyone will want to get out of risky businesses, to call back loans and to put their money in safe places. Malinvestments have to be liquidated; prices have to come down to realistic levels; and resources stuck in unproductive uses have to be freed and moved to sectors that have real demand. Only then will capital again become available for productive investments.

Friedmanites, who have no conception of malinvestments and never raise any issue with the boom, also cannot understand why it inevitably leads to a crash.

They only see the drying up of credit and blame the Fed for not injecting massive enough amounts of liquidities to prevent it.

But central banks and governments cannot transform unprofitable investments into profitable ones. They cannot force institutions to increase lending when they are so exposed. This is why calls for throwing more money at the problem are so totally misguided. Injections of liquidities started more than a year ago and have had no effect in preventing the situation from getting worse. Such measures can only delay the market correction and turn what should be a quick recession into a prolonged one.

Friedman — who, contrary to popular perception, was not a foe of monetary inflation, but simply wanted to keep it under better control in normal circumstances — was wrong about the Fed not intervening during the Depression. It tried repeatedly to inflate but credit still went down for various reasons. This is a key difference in interpretation between the Austrian and Chicago schools.

As Friedrich Hayek wrote in 1932, “Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion. ... To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about ...”

The confusion of Chicago school economics on monetary issues is so profound as to lead its adherents today to support the largest government grab of private capital in world history. By adding their voices to those on the left, these confused free-marketeers are not helping to “save capitalism”, but contributing to its destruction.

Financial Post Martin Masse is publisher of the libertarian webzine Le Québécois Libre and a former advisor to Industry minister Maxime Bernier.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,428641,00.html

Nice work — if you can get fired from it.

That's just what one Alan H. Fishman might have thought when he woke up Friday morning.

Fishman was the new chief executive officer for Washingon Mutual — WaMu — the nation's largest savings and loan, which was taken over Thursday night by federal bank regulators and quickly dumped in a fire sale to JPMorgan Chase for the Wal-Mart-like price of $1.9 billion.

But don't cry for Fishman, who reportedly was sky-high — literally — last night, on a flight from New York to Seattle, when WaMu collapsed. Even though he's only been on the job for less than three weeks, he's bailing out with parachute worth close to $20 million, according to an executive compensation analysis conducted for the New York Times by James F. Reda Associates.

That's right, $20 million for 17 days on the job ... and his company failed.

Fishman, who formerly was chairman of Meridian Capital Group, apparently was much coveted by WaMu, which was counting on him to lead the failing thrift out of mortgage troubles that pushed the bank to a $3.3 billion second-quarter loss.

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, WaMu threw a $7.5 million bonus at Fishman when it hired him on Sept. 8, and guaranteed him an immediate cash severence of $11.6 million — both of which he gets to keep.

He also was eligible for annual bonuses of up to 365 percent of his annual base pay — set at $1 million — to go with millions of shares of company stock.

Fishman does lose out on a big bonus that would have kicked in had he remained on the job through 2009.

Documents show WaMu was going to pay their new boss $8 million to simply not screw up and get fired — all negotiated as the Seattle-based banking giant's loses climbed to an estimated $20 billion.