Reading Between the Lines

The immoral greed of Atlas Shrugged destroys a community

2011-07-03T12:26:00.001-05:00

Since this story is still drawing comments, let me add one more:

This relationship between Clearwire and TeleTech was obviously a scam to avoid paying severance pay, among other benefits. They shuffled employees back and forth in a time-line short enough to comply with the WARN Act and at the same time deny severance to those it knew it would terminate.

The excuse by TeleTech is laughable. In less than one month, they reanalyzed their entire operation and decided that they needed to dump the employees. What a lie.

This was planned from the beginning to avoid the costs associated with severance and whatever other benefits the employees would have earned.

Clearwire and TeleTech are two very sleazy operations.

But on a very human level, what do you have to do to yourself to become the official liar (aka spokesperson) for them? What do you have to tell yourself each day that you know you are going to lie your fanny off, and do it all with a straight face? What a degenerate crew.

OK, add more misery to the problems we face in The Great Depression V. 2.0. Three hundred fifteen lives are being destroyed while the people at the top collect their bonuses and expense out their lifestyle.

Thank the author of Atlas Shrugged for providing the rationale that unlimited, immoral greed is good. You are being destroyed by the Top 1% of households who now pull in 24% of all personal income. It is most likely that you are not in that 1%, and to support them is in your own way signing your economic death warrant.

They aren't creating jobs with their tax breaks, they are hoarding cash, investing in metals and other commodities, making bets in the stock market, and otherwise making sure they continue to get a bigger slice of the pie by destroying the Middle Class - that's you.

Just a thought to keep in mind the next time you think these people are like you, and that your best interests and theirs are identical.

They aren't.
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A local look at 315 lives lost to the Great Depression V. 2.0

2011-07-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

I've added this article from the local Pensacola News Journal as an example of how the Great Depression V. 2.0 is killing the life out of our economy, and our society.

It's the story of shuffling 315 people between two companies in order to avoid paying any severances. The master company, Clearwire - an entity that gives every impression of being near-bankrupt - and TeleTech, a sub-contractor who agreed to accept the 315 people Clearwire wanted off the payroll.

TeleTech announced it would take them, but in just one month, announced all 315 would be terminated. An obvious scam to get around the federal WARN Act, a toothless bit of feel-good legislation that some sold-out stooge of the ruling elite bragged about at re-election time.

I took this article as an opportunity to note that we are in The Great Depression Version 2.0, and we need to admit it.

See the article for how people are being destroyed in this economic disaster, and take a look at the following commentary to think about why, and what can be done to fix it.

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The Great Depression Version 2.0 - it's time we began to deal with our economic realities admitting the truth about us being in a Depression.

Depressions are long-term events. That's why you hear the foolish talk about this being the upside of the now-ended Great Recession.

But the truth is that if you look at the Great Depression of the '30s, you'll find the same ups and downs. The economy doesn't just hit a certain level and stay there. It varies up and down; what makes it a Depression is that the long-term range of economic activity remains unacceptably low. Recessions are part of the Depression's long-term record.

In our local experience, we see in the Clearwire debacle the reality of the modern internationalism of the economy. The lesson here is simple: No owner is going to pay more for labor than absolutely necessary.

You can't beat the cheap overseas wages.

And if the CEO didn't go for those low-cost jobs, he or she would be unemployed by the Board in short order.

That's the Real World folks.

The real problem with our economy is that people are out of money. They've shut down the credit cards, the homes are being foreclosed, the cars and trucks are being repossessed, and the energy industry is celebrating with the finance industry the cold-blooded looting of our wallets.

When your economy is based on consumerism - 70% of ours is powered by your ability to purchase - then what you better do is figure out how to get money back into our hands.

We can't afford welfare - and we can't afford warfare. We can't shelter the Third World within our borders, and we can't continue to emulate the Roman Empire and bankrupt ourselves with endless wars.

End the "welfare enslavement" of urban America, and end the "foreign aid enslavement" of America's population.

Put the money back into our pockets, and we'll pop right back to prosperity.
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Muslim woman sues Abercrombie & Fitch over hijab

2011-06-27T18:20:00.001-05:00

I posted on this because it is an example of poor management in the most visible way. Here is the lead from the story; check out the link to it if you want to see the entire article:

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110627/ap_on_bi_ge/us_abercrombie_headscarf_firing

SAN FRANCISCO – A former stockroom worker for Abercrombie & Fitch Co. sued the clothing retailer in federal court Monday, saying she was illegally fired after refusing to remove her Muslim headscarf while on the job.

Hani Khan said a manager at the company's Hollister Co. store at the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo hired her while she was wearing her hijab. The manager said it was OK to wear it as long as it was in company colors, Khan said.

Four months later, the 20-year-old says a district manager and human resources manager asked if she could remove the hijab while working, and she was suspended and then fired for refusing to do so.

It's the latest employment discrimination charge against the company's so-called "look policy," which critics say means images of mostly white, young, athletic-looking people. The New Albany, Ohio-based company has said it does not tolerate discrimination.

Still, Abercrombie has been the target of numerous discrimination lawsuits, including a federal class action brought by black, Hispanic and Asian employees and job applicants that was settled for $40 million in 2004. The company admitted no wrongdoing, though it was forced to implement new programs and policies to increase diversity.

"Growing up in this country where the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion, I felt let down," Khan, now a college student studying political science, said at a news conference. "This case is about principles, the right to be able to express your religion freely and be able to work in this country."

Abercrombie defended its record in a comment provided to The Associated Press, saying diversity in its stores "far exceeds the diversity in the population of the United States."

"We comply with the law regarding reasonable religious accommodation, and we will continue to do so," said Rocky Robbins, the company's general counsel. "We are confident that when this matter is tried, a jury will find that we have fully complied with the law."

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco comes after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in September that Khan was fired illegally. Khan's lawsuit was filed in conjunction with the EEOC's lawsuit.

It is not the first time the company has been charged with discriminating against Muslim women over the wearing of a hijab.

In 2009, Samantha Elauf, who was 17 at the time, filed a federal lawsuit in Tulsa, Okla., alleging the company rejected her for a job because she was wearing a hijab.

The EEOC filed another lawsuit for the same reason, saying the company denied work to a hijab-wearing woman who applied for a stocking position in 2008 at an Abercrombie Kids store at the Great Mall in Milpitas, Calif.

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And so I posted:

This isn't going to earn me any thumb's up around here, but I'm hoping that some around here recognize that your mind is like a parachute; it only works when it's open.

A & F is wrong.

1) They hired her wearing the head scarf. If they had a problem with it, then they should not have added her to the payroll.

2) She works in the stockroom, not the sales floor. She will not affect the A & F "look."

3) Her face is not covered, so it doesn't interfere with on-the-job communications, or present a safety hazard due to restricted vision.

4) The hypocrisy of A & F is incredible. They talk all about "diversity," but fire someone who is diverse from their "look."

While I have no love for Islam, the idea that you hire someone knowing how they dress, and then firing that person for continuing to dress as-hired is wrong. How the CEO of A & F let this get by his or her desk is probably the most telling aspect of this farce. There were a thousand ways to keep everyone happy, and not one manager at any level figured it out.

Time for the Board to clean house. Your senior management team is a bunch of air-headed losers: You are getting sued big time; you are creating bad publicity for the company; and you look like a bunch of fools who can't handle the most elementary workplace conflict resolution.

Maybe that's why your sales are sinking faster than the Lusitania.
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http://kennethelamb.com
http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com

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What do you think?

The Great Depression Version 2.0

2011-06-10T10:57:00.001-05:00

The only way you can identify a Depression is over time. Looking at small time-segments of the Great Depression reveals a series of "recessions" and upticks. It is only by looking at the entire time span of 1929 to 1940 that you can label it a Depression.

We are now approaching a time frame to quit lying to ourselves about this being "The Great Recession" - that we are theoretically out of - and admit this is The Great Depression Version 2.0.

While it's true corporations are showing great profits, and the criminals on Wall Street and the banksters are raking in fantastic bonuses - it is also true that those outside that bubble are going down in flames. In the words of WalMart's CEO, "Our core customers are running out of money."

Those "core customers" are the bulk of America's consumers. And they are the ones that drive 70% of the American economy. If you want a vibrant economy, you better make sure they have money in their pockets.

But they don't. And the reason why is because those who can control prices - oil comes to mind as one category - are doing so without a single care about destroying their own consumer base. Was there really anyone out there who didn't expect to see things collapse when gas hit $4.00 per gallon?

But the Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia need $7,000 annually per subject to buy their support and stay in power. So we see that going under $80 a barrel is not going to happen irrespective of supply and demand. Every oil producing country is in a similar situation - they must keep oil priced high and independent of actual market forces to stay afloat.

The answer is what none of the people on Wall Street want to hear: You've got to quit sending US dollars out to other countries and start dropping that money into the hands of Americans. That means out of Libya, out of Yemen, "No," we aren't going to bail out Greece . . . you know the list.

And you've got to stop allowing the immigration situation to continue to fester with what amounts to a near-open border with Mexico. The money no longer exists to continue to feed the welfare system so many of them use.

What happens when you make that cut? Well, I don't think you're going to see peaceful soup lines forming in Harlem. The reality is that our welfare system was designed in the mid-60s to buy domestic peace by supporting the lowest economic category - and thus keep that category from burning down the cities.

So here we are - The Great Depression Version 2.0. Only this time there won't be a peaceful acceptance of a collapse of the economy.

So banksters, Wall Street criminals, all of the rest who have destroyed our economy for their personal enrichment - there will soon be a day when you will be terrified to walk down Fifth Avenue because of wilding gangs striking in an instant and disappearing into the night. There will be no sympathy for you. People will pass your lifeless body and say they are glad to see you dead.

Yes, welcome to The Great Depression Version 2.0.
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Obama Toxic?

2009-03-22T17:11:00.003-05:00

Obama's "Katrina Moment"?

2009-03-22T17:06:00.004-05:00

As always, please circulate this among your email lists, blogs, and others with whom you connect. Pass this on to your friends, email lists, and blogs. The address for this article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2009/03/obamas-katrina-moment.html

To get all that appears in Reading Between the Lines, go to the home page at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth

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Has a "Katrina Moment" Arrived?

By Frank Rich

A CHARMING visit with Jay Leno won’t fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses won’t fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won’t fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans’ anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed. It would be foolish to dismiss as hyperbole the stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editor published by The Times last week: “President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived.”

Six weeks ago I wrote in this space that the country’s surge of populist rage could devour the president’s best-laid plans, including the essential Act II of the bank rescue, if he didn’t get in front of it. The occasion then was the Tom Daschle firestorm. The White House seemed utterly blindsided by the public’s revulsion at the moneyed insiders’ culture illuminated by Daschle’s post-Senate career. Yet last week’s events suggest that the administration learned nothing from that brush with disaster.

Otherwise it never would have used Lawrence Summers, the chief economic adviser, as a messenger just as the A.I.G. rage was reaching a full boil last weekend. Summers is so tone-deaf that he makes Geithner seem like Bobby Kennedy.

Bob Schieffer of CBS asked Summers the simple question that has haunted the American public since the bailouts began last fall: “Do you know, Dr. Summers, what the banks have done with all of this money that has been funneled to them through these bailouts?” What followed was a monologue of evasion that, translated into English, amounted to: Not really, but you little folk needn’t worry about it.

Yet even as Summers spoke, A.I.G. was belatedly confirming what he would not. It has, in essence, been laundering its $170 billion in taxpayers’ money by paying off its reckless partners in gambling and greed, from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup on Wall Street to Société Générale and Deutsche Bank abroad.

Summers was even more highhanded in addressing the “retention bonuses” handed to the very employees who brokered all those bad bets. After reciting the requisite outrage talking point, he delivered a patronizing lecture to viewers of ABC’s “This Week” on how our “tradition of upholding law” made it impossible to abrogate the bonus agreements. It never occurred to Summers that Americans might know that contracts are renegotiated all the time — most conspicuously of late by the United Automobile Workers, which consented to givebacks as its contribution to the Detroit bailout plan. Nor did he note, for all his supposed reverence for the law, that the A.I.G. unit being rewarded with these bonuses is now under legal investigation by British and American authorities.

Within 24 hours, Summers’s stand was discarded by Obama, who tardily (and impotently) vowed to “pursue every single legal avenue” to block the bonuses. The question is not just why the White House was the last to learn about bonuses that Democratic congressmen had sought hearings about back in December, but why it was so slow to realize that the public’s anger couldn’t be sated by Summers’s legalese or by constant reiteration of the word outrage. By the time Obama acted, even the G.O.P. leader Mitch McConnell was ahead of him in full (if hypocritical) fulmination.

David Axelrod tried to rationalize the lagging response when he told The Washington Post last week that “people are not sitting around their kitchen tables thinking about A.I.G.,” but are instead “thinking about their own jobs.” While that’s technically true, it misses the point. Of course most Americans don’t know how A.I.G. brought the world’s financial system to near-ruin or what credit-default swaps are. They may not even know what A.I.G. stands for. But Americans do make the connection between their fears about their own jobs and their broad understanding of the A.I.G. debacle.

They know that the corporate bosses who may yet lay them off have sometimes been as obscenely overcompensated for failure as Wall Street’s bonus babies. As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, chief executives at businesses as diverse as Texas Instruments and the home builder Hovnanian Enterprises have received millions in bonuses even as their companies’ shares have lost more than half their value.

Since Americans get the big picture of this inequitable system, that grotesque reality dwarfs any fine print. That’s why it doesn’t matter that the disputed bonuses at A.I.G. amount to less than one-tenth of one percent of its bailout. Or that CNBC — with 300,000 viewers on a typical day by Nielsen’s measure — is a relatively minor player in the crash. Or that Edward Liddy had nothing to do with A.I.G.’s collapse, or that John Thain, of the celebrated trash can, arrived after, not before, others wrecked Merrill Lynch.

These prominent players are just the handiest camera-ready triggers for the larger rage. Passions are now so hot that even Bernie Madoff’s crimes began to pale as we turned our attention to A.I.G.’s misdeeds, just as A.I.G. will fade when the next malefactor surfaces.

What made Jon Stewart’s takedown of Jim Cramer resonate was less his specific brief against CNBC’s cheerleading for bad stocks than his larger indictment of the gaping economic inequality that defined the bubble. As Stewart said, there were “two markets” — the long-term market that Americans earnestly thought would sustain their 401(k)’s, and the fast-moving, short-term “real market” in the back room where high-rolling insiders wagered “giant piles of money” and brought down everyone with them.

No one is more commanding on this subject than our president. In his town-hall meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Wednesday, he described the A.I.G. bonuses as merely a symptom of “a culture where people made enormous sums of money taking irresponsible risks that have now put the entire economy at risk.” But rhetoric won’t tamp down the anger out there, and neither will calculated displays of presidential “outrage.” We must have governance to match the message.

To get ahead of the anger, Obama must do what he has repeatedly promised but not always done: make everything about his economic policies transparent and hold every player accountable. His administration must start actually answering the questions that officials like Geithner and Summers routinely duck.

Inquiring Americans have the right to know why it took six months for us to learn (some of) what A.I.G. did with our money. We need to understand why some of that money was used to bail out foreign banks. And why Goldman, which declared that its potential losses with A.I.G. were “immaterial,” nonetheless got the largest-known A.I.G. handout of taxpayers’ cash ($12.9 billion) while also receiving a TARP bailout. We need to be told why retention bonuses went to some 50 bankers who not only were in the toxic A.I.G. unit but who left despite the “retention” jackpots. We must be told why taxpayers have so little control of the bailed-out financial institutions that we now own some or most of. And where are the M.R.I.’s from those “stress tests” the Treasury Department is giving those banks?

That’s just a short list. In general, it’s hard to imagine taxpayers shelling out billions for a second bank bailout unless there’s a full accounting of every dime of the first, and true transparency for the new plan whose rollout is becoming the most attenuated striptease since the heyday of Gypsy Rose Lee.

Another compelling question connects all of the above: why has there been so little transparency and so much evasiveness so far? The answer, I fear, is that too many of the administration’s officials are too marinated in the insiders’ culture to police it, reform it or own up to their own past complicity with it.

The “dirty little secret,” Obama told Leno on Thursday, is that “most of the stuff that got us into trouble was perfectly legal.” An even dirtier secret is that a prime mover in keeping that stuff legal was Summers, who helped torpedo the regulation of derivatives while in the Clinton administration. His mentor Robert Rubin, no less, wrote in his 2003 memoir that Summers underestimated how the risk of derivatives might multiply “under extraordinary circumstances.”

Given that Summers worked for a secretive hedge fund, D. E. Shaw, after he was pushed out of Harvard’s presidency at the bubble’s height, you have to wonder how he can now sell the administration’s plan for buying up toxic assets with the help of hedge funds. It will look like another giveaway to his own insiders’ club. As for Geithner, people might take him more seriously if he gave a credible account of why, while at the New York Fed, he and the Goldman alumnus Hank Paulson let Lehman Brothers fail but saved the Goldman-trading ally A.I.G.

As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all.
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Used by Permission

Is Obama listening?

2009-03-22T16:53:00.006-05:00

As always, please circulate this among your email lists, blogs, and others with whom you connect. Pass this on to your friends, email lists, and blogs. The address for this article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-obama-listening.html

To get all that appears in Reading Between the Lines, go to the home page at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth

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Obama Told Us To Speak Out, But Is He Listening?

By William Grieder

The president is getting what he asked for, but perhaps not what he had in mind. During the campaign, Barack Obama beckoned Americans to put aside their cynicism about politics and re-engage as active citizens. They are now doing so with red-hot anger. They are outraged by events and forcing their way into congressional affairs and behind closed doors where policy wonks discuss issues with cerebral civility. The president is now trapped between these two realms -- the governing elites who decide things and the people who are governed. Which side is he on? If he does not choose wisely, the anger could devour his presidency.

The immediate impetus is the latest outrage from the financial sector. AIG, the failed insurance giant on government life support, proceeded to hand out $165 million in employee bonuses. Because Washington has pumped $170 billion into this zombie corporation, people quickly grasped that AIG was redistributing their tax money. On March 13, the White House sent out Larry Summers, the president's economic adviser, to explain things. Government has no choice, Summers said, because this is a government of laws and we must honor contracts. On Monday, the president scrapped that line, hoping to dodge the outrage.

Something fundamental has been altered in American politics. Encouraged by Obama's message of hope, agitated by darkening economic prospects, many people have thrown off sullen passivity and are trying to reclaim their role as citizens. This disturbs the routines of Washington but has great potential for restoring a functioning democracy. Timely intervention by the people could save the country from some truly bad ideas now circulating in Washington and on Wall Street. Ideas that could lead to the creation of a corporate state, legitimized by government and financed by everyone else. Once people understand the concept, expect a lot more outrage.

Public anger is likely to be a recurring episode, because the president has budgeted another $750 billion to rescue the financial system from its troubles. If Congress gives him the money, people will be watching where it goes. Obama is vulnerable to the blowback. In his address to Congress last month, he promised, "This is not about helping banks, it's about helping people." The first half of his statement is demonstrably not true, as people see for themselves and as bankers parade their arrogant excess. The second half is merely wishful.

Populism was the highly creative, self-made movement formed by desperate farmers in the late 19th century. It is disparaged in elite circles, but it generated vital ideas that ultimately reshaped government and democracy. We are not there yet, not even close. But the impulse for small-d democracy could be very healthy -- if the political system learns to listen and respond.

At the center of this story is Obama, who inherited the Democratic Party's awkward straddle between monied interests and working people. I voted for him joyfully and sympathize. His message to the nation last week reflected his dilemma. "I don't want to quell anger. People are right to be angry. I'm angry," he told reporters on Wednesday. Then he pivoted: "What I want us to do is channel our anger in a constructive way."

What's changed the president's situation? During the past nine months, gigantic financial bailouts amid collapsing economic life made visible the crippling divide between governing elites and citizens at large. People everywhere learned a blunt lesson about power, who has it and who doesn't. They watched Washington rush to rescue the very financial interests that caused the catastrophe. They learned that government has plenty of money to spend when the right people want it. "Where's my bailout," became the rueful punch line at lunch counters and construction sites nationwide. Then to deepen the insult, people watched as establishment forces re-launched their campaign for "entitlement reform" -- a euphemism for whacking Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid.

Of course, popular alienation has been around a long time. But the stakes for the country are now far more grave. My new book -- "Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country" -- asserts that we're at the end of the long and mostly triumphant era that started with victory in World War II. We are going to change as a country, for better or worse, like it or not.

If people and the president do not stand up for just solutions, politics as usual will prevail. Congressional leaders are once again rushing to enact hasty "reforms" that might get the financial monkey off their back, but will permanently damage our democracy. Elite opinion wants to empower the Federal Reserve to act as the "super-cop" protecting the financial system against systemic risk in the future. This idea is another instance of rewarding failure. The Fed was blind to the systemic risk accumulating during the past two decades and it failed utterly to head off the excesses -- the explosion of debt and Wall Street's fraudulent valuations. The central bank, in fact, with its erratic monetary policy, was a central source of what destabilized the economy.

Why would politicians make this cloistered and unaccountable institution more powerful, when the Fed has been derelict in its historical obligation to protect the "safety and soundness" of the system? Reforms ought to head the opposite way -- forcing the Fed into daylight and the same regular order required of government agencies.

A few weeks ago, a freshman congressman, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), became an Internet celebrity with the video of him grilling the Federal Reserve vice chairman at a House hearing. The Fed is in the process of handing out almost $3 trillion. Can you tell us which firms and banks are getting money? Grayson asked. Donald Kohn said that would be inappropriate. It might discourage some banks from taking the public's money. More outrage ensued and last week, after a good pounding from citizens, the Fed folded and named some names.

A new regulatory regime that puts the secretive central bank in charge of everything would sanctify the policy of "too big to fail" that Fed officials have long followed but never honestly acknowledged. It would also revive the Wall Street club, albeit smaller than before, with which the Fed has been so cozy. If the largest bank holding companies are given privileged proximity to the source of government protection, then everyone in finance and commerce will want to become a bank holding company, too. We are already seeing this happening as former investment houses like Goldman Sachs and non-bank financial firms decide to join the system. Why not General Electric and Microsoft? Where does this end? What does it mean for smaller enterprises that lack the scale and influence?

Whatever the intentions, this "reform" would effectively legitimize the existence of a corporate state. This concentrated power would be neither socialism nor capitalism, but a grotesque hybrid that combines the worst qualities of both systems. Government and politics would become even more responsive to big money, but also able to tamper intimately with private enterprise, picking winners and losers based on political loyalties, not on performance. Capitalism with its inherent tendency toward monopoly would have the means to monopolize democracy.

Barack Obama can resist all this, if he chooses, but he seems conflicted. Obama's approach so far is devoted to restoring Wall Street's famous names, and his economic advisers tell him this is the "responsible" imperative, no matter that it might offend the unwashed public. Obama evidently agrees. He does not seem to grasp that the tone-deaf technocrats are leading him into a dead-end.

The president needs to hear a second opinion -- millions of them.

People are angry, but they want this president to succeed. Mobilized citizens can help him to prevail. If he goes with the other side, they will bring him down.

William Greider is national affairs correspondent for The Nation. He is author of "Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country" and, most recently, "Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country."
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Used by permission

US as a bigger Zimbabwe

2009-03-22T16:38:00.004-05:00

Describing Barack Obama

2009-03-20T04:25:00.005-05:00

I haven't posted in some time simply because of the press of business. But I came across this from an ABC News site and had to post it for all to see. Written by a forum poster, it is the most concise series of statements yet describing Obama:

- A “reverend and mentor” who GD’s America...
- A wife who has never been “proud” of America...
- A man who has never held a job – but the most important one in the world...
- A man who runs on transparency – then seals his college records...
- A man who claims citizenship – then hires a team of lawyers - to “not” allow scrutiny...
- A man who campaigns on the runaway spending and a deficit of eight years – then doubles it in less than 50 days...
- A man who bans lobbyist – then attempts to hire one...
- A man who condemns cheats and dishonesty – then accepts the same to run the treasury...
- A man who signs a law – but does not read it or know what it contains....
- A man who preaches “equality for all” – then targets and punishes 5% unequally...
- A man who pledges to reduce the tax for 95% - then raises them for 100%...
- A man who fails to accept responsibility for a congress who wrote the laws - and spending bills - the past two years – and continues to attack a president who didn’t...
- A man who is willing to provided for those who attacked this country – while degrading those trying to defend it...
- A man who follows the belief that upholding the immigration laws of America – is unpatriotic and un-American...
- A man who pledges allegiance to the constitution and laws of the land – then null and voids a perfectly legal contract protected by the constitution...
- A man who speaks of responsible behavior – then projects the opposite...
- A man who voices “free choice” – then systematically silences the voiceless...
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Marriage is not a right, the Gay Revisionists' Big Lie

2008-12-28T20:25:00.006-06:00

You will be hearing more about the fact that marriage is a regulated activity - and not a right. I sent the following to Frank Rich following his article blasting P-E Obama for inviting the Rev. Mr. Rick Warren to do the inaugural invocation.

The points I make terrify the Gay Revisionists and their supporters. So long as they can keep the conversation focused on a bogus "right" to be married - and keep people brain dead enough to not take their "criteria" for the right to be married to its logical end-points, they will dominate the public debate.

The purpose of this short form of what will become a fuller article on this issue is to quickly illustrate that if you use the Gay Revisionists' criteria of 1) Consenting adults; 2) who desire a committed relationship; 3) that bestows on them the benefits of marriage, then you immediately open up marriage to Polyamorists, polygamists, incest, and a host of others who will then use the sophomoric Gay Revisionist criteria to rationalize why they too have the "right" to be married.

Of course, the NY Times and Mr. Rich will never answer these issues; to do so destroys the Gay Revisionists' Big Lie that marriage is a right, self-evident as such through deependency upon the criteria cited above. But then, who ever said that Mr. Rich and the NY Times understand the concept of debate - they still live in a world of believing freedom of the press belongs to whomever owns it. They slime, and then permit no reply.

But reply there will be, regardless of their totalitarian practices. Actually, I'm waiting to see how P-E Obama responds to their snipping. In case you haven't noticed, he's not very good about accepting nagging criticism, and the Gay Revisionists are the biggest group of nags in America.

Enjoy this summary response; I'll post more as I develop the topic.

As always, please circulate this among your email lists, blogs, and others with whom you connect. The quicker we destroy the Gay Revisionists' Big Lie that marriage is a right, the quicker we restore sanity to the marriage debate.

Pass this on to your friends, email lists, and blogs. The address for this article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/12/marriage-is-not-right-blasting-gay.html

To get all that appears in Reading Between the Lines, go to the home page at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth

+++++++

Mr. Rich and the Gay Revisionists he promotes need to deal with the reality that marriage is not a right; marriage is a regulated activity licensed by the state.

The Gay Revisionist (GR) position is that any two consenting adults, desiring a "committed relationship" that enjoys the benefits that marriage bestows have an unconditional "right" to marry. The state, the GRs contend, has no interest in the marriage beyond filing it as a public record.

But that isn't the way it works in America - or anywhere else on Earth. From the beginning of recorded history, no one anywhere on Earth has ever had a "right" to marry.

Around the globe, marriage is not a right - it is a regulated activity. Every government ever instituted from tribal councils to nation-states have created qualifications that regulate who does, and who does not, qualify for the state's permission to marry, manifested in the modern form as a marriage license.

Nobody anywhere on Earth has a "right" to get married - everyone must meet whatever qualifications the state sets to get a license - the license being the government's permission to marry. The marriage participants must meet certain criteria to qualify for the state's permission to receive a state-issued license.

The Gay Revisionists ignore this reality. They focus on the state's regulation of gender, acting as though this is the one and only criterion involved.

But the state also regulates age, the number of participants in a marriage, current marital status, mental fitness, familial relationship, time between applying for the license and when it becomes effective, how long the license stays effective, who can perform the ceremony, the number and qualifications of witnesses to the ceremony, when and how the license must be returned to a particular state authority to create a permanent record in the public files, and physical fitness in terms of being free of specific diseases, among others.

Let's test the Gay Revisionist criteria of consenting adults desiring to enter into a committed relationship. If the GR position were adopted, then what interest does the state have in the number of participants in the marriage?

Using the Gay Revisionists' criteria of the desire of consenting adults to enter into a committed relationship, the Polyamorists can reasonably ask, "Who are the Gay Revisionists to play 'god' and limit it to two people? We want an unlimited number of consenting adults who want to enter into a committed relationship and enjoy the benefits of marriage. Why only two? Why not 10, or 50, or an unlimited number of persons?"

Why not indeed? A hundred consenting adults desiring a committed relationship among themselves is just as vulnerable a regulation as is gender. So, adopt the Gay Revisionist position on what constitutes a valid state interest in who marries and now you have an unlimited number entering into a marriage to satisfy the Polyamorists' "right" to marry.

The Polygamists now ask, "Who are the Gay Revisionists and the Polyamorists to play 'god' and regulate how many adults can enter into marriage simultaneously? If gender and number of participants in a marriage are out the door, then so is marital status - being limited to one marriage at a time - out the door with it."

What are the Gay Revisionists going to say? The Polyamorists and the Polygamists meet the Gay Revisionists' criteria of consenting adults desiring a committed relationship that bestows the benefits of marriage.

Now let's get to the more shocking marriages: An adult parent and his or her adult child want to marry. Or what about all the adult children - and the adult children of those adult children - wanting to marry? Or what if adult siblings want to marry?

Who are the Gay Revisionists to play god and say "No!" to their desires? They are consenting adults, desiring to enter into a committed relationship that enjoys the benefits of marriage.

They meet the Gay Revisionists' criteria - and with today's birth control technology, the argument that children produced by the marriage run the risk of genetic deformity is a non-starter; society can ensure only genetically healthy embryos go through gestation, or the couple in the case of male and female can submit to permanent sterilization.

So despite the Gay Revisionists' ballistic rage at this example, the truth is that it too meets the Gay Revisionists' terms: Consenting adults, desiring to enter into a committed relationship, enjoying the benefits bestowed upon that relationship by marriage.

It is the logical end point of their argument that marriage is a right. If marriage is a right, and not a regulated activity - then each scenario above is a valid implementation of that "right."

The repulsive thought of countless adults in countless marriages, including incestuous ones, is why marriage is not, and never has been, a "right."

Marriage is a regulated activity, and will remain so, no matter the sophomoric arguments arising against it.
-30-

Massive wire fraud by Obama's campaign?

2008-10-29T14:03:00.020-05:00

I sent this to the Washington Post and the NY Times today in response to a story in the Post about the Obama campaign's collection of monies from credit cards. It appears the Obama campaign is breaking laws left and right on this.

The Washington Post story, "Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations," is found at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/28/AR2008102803413_pf.html

Pass this on to your friends, email lists, and blogs. The address for this article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/credit-card-fraud-another-obama-lie.html

To get all that appears in Reading Between the Lines, go to the home page at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Here is the email:

In your story today, it was stated by the Obama campaign that there is no way to verify a person's name using a credit card. The quote from the story is:

"When asked whether the campaign takes steps to verify whether a donor's name matches the name on the credit card used to make a payment, Obama's campaign replied in an e-mail: "Name-matching is not a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card processing industry. We believe Visa and MasterCard do not even have the ability to do this."

That is not true.

To verify a credit card holders name, the merchant (in this case the campaign) uses a collections web site page to punch in the credit card number, and then a code that the merchant does not have the card in-hand. The credit card terminal then asks for:

1) The digits of the person's address (I live at 3625 De Loach St., so the merchant punches in "3625"). The web page collects that as part of the donation process.

2) The digits of the person's zip code. Again, the web page collects this.

3) The 3-digit CCI code (4 for AmEx) on the back of the card. Broken record: The web page collects this to correlate the credit card account number with the CCI code, thus validating it is the correct account number.

4) The invoice number; in this case a contribution tracking number. The web page generates this when the donor hits the submit button.

5) The amount of the purchase; in this case, the amount of the contribution. The donor fills in the amount on the web page.

If everything does not match up, the credit card is rejected.

In the case you cited of Ms. Biskup, had the Obama campaign set-up their credit card processing to honestly confirm the giver is who he or she says he or she is, they would have set up their donation page to collect all that information - just as hundreds of thousands of other web merchants do every day.

The credit card processing computer would have thrown out all the donations placed in Ms. Biskup's name because the fraudulent credit card holder would lack, at the least, the CCI code, and unless there was a sophisticated identity theft, the fraudulent donor would also lack the home address digits and the zip code.

Even if the fraudulent donor had the address information, and the zip code, and the CCI, the Obama processors would have stopped taking donations when the legal limit was reached because it has to be attributed to a specific name and address, and in the example you gave in the story, the name would have come up in the Obama database as over the limit.

In the case of pre-paid credit cards, the name prohibition remains in place. It is nothing for today's financial databases to cross-reference a name and a donation. When the legal limit was reached, the database would reject any further donations from that name.

The truth is that there are safeguards in place to avoid credit card fraud, and these are meant to protect consumers from fraudulent merchants who attribute false sales to them, as much as protect merchants from fraudulent consumers. What the Obama campaign told you is not true.

I own a computer manufacturing company, and have database experts who can comment on the story. I also can put you in touch with Merchant Services for Visa and MasterCard who can discuss the security arrangements in place to handle these issues. I am available to talk with you about this.

Kenneth E. Lamb

Another thought I had while re-reading the post is this:

Each of the credit card transactions that had a fraudulent name, or address, or whatever else that was fraudulent, has to go back to the bank in the form of "charge-backs." If it's not an honest representation of who made the donation, it is by definition fraudulent.

A charge-back is when the bank goes into your account, and "charges back" to itself the amount of money that would not have been placed into the account if the bank knew about the fraudulent representations at the time the campaign made a "claim" for the credit card deposit.

What complicates this for the Obama campaign is this: a deposit from the credit cards by the bank to your account is really a form of a loan - you get the money, but it's yours to use so long as nothing comes up later to cause the charge-back to kick into effect. It's in the service agreement with the credit card processing agent.

In this case, we have massive - and I feel doubtless - criminal credit card fraud. The Obama campaign took money it had the ability to know it had no legal right to accept. Now watch how this turns into a form of bank fraud called wire fraud. (In this case "wire" fraud because it is fraud using communications lines to commit the fraud.)

Take the $275,000 that the Post story said is attributed to Ms. Biskup on Obama's campaign donations report. Leaving aside the obvious question of how that number got by the campaign's finance operation, it is reasonable for the banks to now charge-back against the campaign the money it "lent" to the campaign in the form of credit card deposits. The name attributed to the transaction is fraudulent, making the transaction itself fraudulent.

Put another way, if the campaign could not identify the card owner - which I've shown is not true - then the campaign should have declined the transaction. It is the merchant's obligation to verify who is making the charge. That is the reason for capturing all the information I outlined earlier. Instead, it processed the transactions with a reckless disregard for the truth.

The inability of the campaign to repay those charge-backs constitutes a form of borrowing - fraudulently - by the campaign. It took a loan from the bank it has no way to repay. It defrauded the bank out of its money.

On top of that, the potential charge-backs represent an interest-free loan. The Obama campaign couldn't help but know that if caught, it would have to repay the charge-backs, but in the time between the deposits into the campaign account, and the repayment to the bank, the campaign is getting an interest-free loan. Is that legal?

I doubt it.

But more important than anything else is what it says about the integrity of the Obama campaign and Obama himself. These people are criminals, plain and simple.

Add a few thousand charges of wire fraud to the list of Obama's "changes" for America.
-30-

Biden / Obama: Death of the press corps

2008-10-27T16:26:00.005-05:00

You've heard about the interview Joe Biden flopped with WFTV in Orlando with anchor Barbara West. The Obama camp got mad because the station didn't lob soft balls.

What to do? The Obama campaign told the station it will not get another interview with the Obama campaign again.

And these guys are telling America we can trust them our freedoms?

And hey - all you journalists who sold out by giving Obama a pass every time you had a story that would show the world what Obama is really all about: What'cha going to do when they come for you?

Tell all your friends, email lists, and blogs to see this interview at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/biden-obama-death-of-press-corps.html

Or send them to the home page of Reading Between the Lines at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Fox and Friends discuss the Obama campaign temper tantrum.

-30-

Obama unmasked on his socialist cultural values

2008-10-27T11:39:00.005-05:00

Here's the interview Obama gave in 2001 that broke on Fox News and the Drudge Report that everyone is talking about!

Listen, and decide for yourself what he will do if elected.

This is another nail in the coffin of his integrity.

Share this with your friends, email lists, and blogs. The address is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-unmasked-on-his-socialist.html

Or visit the home page of Reading Between the Lines at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered

-30-

A Global Depression - Is the Worse Yet to Come?

2008-10-26T18:27:00.008-05:00

I can relate to this - I began calling for this financial downtown about 18 months ago. Like the few others who dared question the "Masters of the Universe," what could I possibly know that people making millions didn't already know - and dismiss as just so much poppycock?

Well, here we are. But there is no joy in being right about a Depression that will destroy the lives of millions around the globe.

The past decade will go down as the most financially gullible ever. I can still hear the DotCom Bubblers (or should that be babblers?) who proclaimed the concept of profit and loss was gone forever - Internet companies would run on invested money no matter their inability to show a profit.

That didn't work.

Then we had the real estate bubble. You would think that it was written in Holy Scripture that real estate prices only go up; I can still see those angry landowners at zoning meetings screaming about their right to do whatever they wanted with their land, and that none investing in real estate need concern themselves with the idea they might lose money - in short, that real estate might be like any other investment; you might see a profit or not, there is risk involved in all investments.

Adding to that bubble were the out-of-control financial wizards of Wall Street. They made a pact with the Affirmative Action Crowd - these people who now seek the White House. Simply, it is that anyone with enough energy to sign a mortgage was entitled to be a home owner.

Of course, they lied to themselves about the fact that mortgage holders must be able to pay the mortgage. That was a small detail that came after the wizards and their affirmative action allies pocketed their pound of flesh at the closing. Now the citizens of countries around the world are making those payments en masse as bailouts to the banks and mortgage companies.

The last desperate bubble for these thieves was energy. Hugo Chavez screamed "$300 a barrel!" joined by the Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russia's de facto "President for Life" Vladimir Putin singing backup.

A chorus of Arab potentates joined in the fun taking their blood money extorted from the West as leverage against supporting Israel - the real target of the price gouge. Put enough pressure on the West and watch them desert the only nation on Earth that successfully brought democracy and human rights to the Middle East.

Now oil sinks below $65 a barrel, down about 53% from highs reached only weeks ago. OPEC meets in frantic session to stem the bear market, but it is too late to put the Depression Genie back into the bottle. They will watch their sovereign wealth funds implode like the rest of the world, and their latest scheme straight from the deepest pits in Hell to destroy the Israelis is thwarted again - Allahu Akbar, indeed.

Below is the story of another man who saw the coming tragedy and cried out in warning. But like so many of us, he was ignored.

He is ignored no longer.

Pass this article on to your friends, email lists, and blogs. The address is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/global-depression-is-worse-yet-to-come.html

Or get all the articles and videos reflecting the best in commentary and analysis by starting at the home page of Reading Between the Lines, at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Nouriel Roubini: I fear the worst is yet to come

When this man predicted a global financial crisis more than a year ago, people laughed. Not any more . . .

By Dominic Rushe
Copyright 2008 The London Times - Used with Permission

As stock markets headed off a cliff again last week, closely followed by currencies, and as meltdown threatened entire countries such as Hungary and Iceland, one voice was in demand above all others to steer us through the gloom: that of Dr. Doom.

For years Dr. Doom toiled in relative obscurity as a New York University economics professor under his alias, Nouriel Roubini. But after making a series of uncannily accurate predictions about the global meltdown, Roubini has become the prophet of his age, jetting around the world dispensing his advice and latest prognostications to politicians and businessmen desperate to know what happens next – and for any answer to the crisis.

While the economic sun was shining, most other economists scoffed at Roubini and his predictions of imminent disaster. They dismissed his warnings that the sub-prime mortgage disaster would trigger a financial meltdown. They could not quite believe his view that the US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would collapse, and that the investment banks would be crushed as the world headed for a long recession.

Yet all these predictions and more came true. Few are laughing now.

What does Roubini think is going to happen next?

Rather worryingly, in London last Thursday he predicted that hundreds of hedge funds will go bust and stock markets may soon have to shut – perhaps for as long as a week – in order to stem the panic selling now sweeping the world.

What happened? The next day trading was briefly stopped in New York and Moscow.

Dubbed Dr. Doom for his gloomy views, this lugubrious disciple of the “dismal science” is now the world’s most in-demand economist. He reckons he is getting about four hours’ sleep a night. Last week he was in Budapest, London, Madrid and New York. Next week he will address Congress in Washington. Do not expect any good news.

Contacted in Madrid on Friday, Roubini said the world economy was “at a breaking point”. He believes the stock markets are now “essentially in free fall” and “we are reaching the point of sheer panic”.

For all his recent predictive success, his critics still urge calm. They charge he is a professional doom-monger who was banging on about recession for years as the economy boomed. Roubini is stung by such charges, dismissing them as “pathetic”.

He takes no pleasure in bad news, he says, but he makes his standpoint clear: “Frankly I was right.” A combative, complex man, he is fond of the word “frankly”, which may be appropriate for someone so used to delivering bad news.

Born in Istanbul 49 years ago, he comes from a family of Iranian Jews. They moved to Tehran, then to Tel Aviv and finally to Italy, where he grew up and attended college, graduating summa cum laude in economics from Bocconi University before taking a PhD in international economics at Harvard.

Fluent in English, Italian, Hebrew, and Persian, Roubini has one of those “international man of mystery” accents: think Henry Kissinger without the bonhomie. Single, he lives in a loft in Manhattan’s trendy Tribeca, an area popularised by Robert De Niro, and collects contemporary art.

Despite his slightly mad-professor look, he is at pains to make clear he is normal. “I’m not a geek,” said Roubini, who sounds rather concerned that people might think he is. “I mean it frankly. I’m not a geek.”

He is, however, ferociously bright. When he left Harvard, he moved quickly, holding various positions at the Treasury department, rising to become an economic adviser to Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.

Then his profile seemed to plateau.

His doubts about the economic outlook seemed out of tune with the times, especially when a few years ago he began predicting a meltdown in the financial markets through his blog, hosted on RGEmonitor. com, the website of his advisory company.

But it was a meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in September 2006 that earned him his nickname Dr. Doom.

Roubini told an audience of fellow economists that a generational crisis was coming. A once-in-a-lifetime housing bust would lay waste to the US economy as oil prices soared, consumers stopped shopping and the country went into a deep recession.

The collapse of the mortgage market would trigger a global meltdown, as trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unravelled. The shockwaves would destroy banks and other big financial institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, America’s largest home loan lenders.

“I think perhaps we will need a stiff drink after that,” the moderator said. Members of the audience laughed.

Economics is not called the dismal science for nothing. While the public might be impressed by Nostradamus-like predictions, economists want figures and equations. Anirvan Banerji, economist with the New York-based Economic Cycle Research Institute, summed up the feeling of many of those at the IMF meeting when he delivered his response to Roubini’s talk.

Banerji questioned Roubini’s assumptions, said they were not based on mathematical models and dismissed his hunches as those of a Cassandra. At first, indeed, it seemed Roubini was wrong. Meltdown did not happen. Even by the end of 2007, the financial and economic outlook was grim but not disastrous.

Then, in February 2008, Roubini posted an entry on his blog headlined: “The rising risk of a systemic financial meltdown: the twelve steps to financial disaster” (This links to a PDF version of the article. For an HTML version, click here.)

It detailed how the housing market collapse would lead to huge losses for the financial system, particularly in the vehicles used to securitise loans. It warned that “ a national bank” might go bust, and that, as trouble deepened, investment banks and hedge funds might collapse.

Even Roubini was taken aback at how quickly this scenario unfolded.

The following month the US investment bank Bear Stearns went under. Since then, the pace and scale of the disaster has accelerated and, as Roubini predicted, the banking sector has been destroyed, Freddie and Fannie have collapsed, stock markets have gone mad and the economy has entered a frightening recession.

Roubini says he was able to predict the catastrophe so accurately because of his “holistic” approach to the crisis and his ability to work outside traditional economic disciplines. A long-time student of financial crises, he looked at the history and politics of past crises as well as the economic models.

“These crises don’t come out of nowhere,” he said. “Usually they arrive because of a systematic increase in a variety of asset and credit bubbles, macro-economic policies and other vulnerabilities. If you combine them, you may not get the timing right but you get an indication that you are closer to a tipping point.”

Others who claimed the economy would escape a recession had been swept up in “a critical euphoria and mania, an irrational exuberance”, he said.

And many financial pundits, he believes, were just talking up their own vested interests. “I might be right or wrong, but I have never traded, bought or sold a single security in my life. I am trying to be as objective as I can.”

What does his objectivity tell him now? No end is yet in sight to the crisis.

“Every time there has been a severe crisis in the last six months, people have said this is the catastrophic event that signals the bottom. They said it after Bear Stearns, after Fannie and Freddie, after AIG [the giant US insurer that had to be rescued], and after [the $700 billion bailout plan]. Each time they have called the bottom, and the bottom has not been reached.”

Across the world, governments have taken more and more aggressive actions to stop the panic.

However, Roubini believes investors appear to have lost confidence in governments’ ability to sort out the mess.

The announcement of the US government’s $700 billion bailout, Gordon Brown’s grand bank rescue plan and the coordinated response of governments around the world has done little to calm the situation.

“It’s been a slaughter, day after day after day,” said Roubini. “Markets are dysfunctional; they are totally unhinged.” Economic fundamentals no longer apply, he believes.

“Even using the nuclear option of guaranteeing everything, providing unlimited liquidity, nationalising the banks, making clear that nobody of importance is going to be allowed to fail, even that has not helped. We are reaching a breaking point, frankly.”

He believes governments will have to come up with an even bigger international rescue, and that the US is facing “multi-year economic stagnation”.

Given such cataclysmic talk, some experts fear his new-found influence may be a bad thing in such troubled times. One senior Wall Street figure said: “He is clearly very bright and thoughtful when he is not shooting from the hip.”

He said he found some of Roubini’s comments “slapdash and silly”.

“Sometimes the rigour of his analysis seems to be missing,” he said.

Banerji still has problems with Roubini’s prescient IMF speech.

“He has been very accurate in terms of what would happen,” he said. But Roubini was predicting an “imminent” recession by the start of 2007 and he was wrong. “He hurt his credibility by being so pessimistic long before it was appropriate.”

Banerji said on average the US economy had grown for five years before hitting a bad patch.

“Roubini started predicting a recession four years ago and saying it was imminent. He kept changing his justification: first the trade deficit, the current account deficit, then the oil price spike, then the housing downturn and so on. But the recession actually did not arrive,” he said.

“If you are an investor or a businessman and you took him seriously four years ago, what on earth would happen to you? You would be in a foetal position for years. This is why the timing is critical. It’s not enough to know what will happen in some point in the distant future.”

Roubini says the argument about content and timing is irrelevant. “People who have been totally blinded and wrong accusing me of getting the timing wrong, it’s just a joke,” he said. “It’s a bit pathetic, frankly. I was not making generic statements. I have made very specific predictions and I have been right all along.”

Maybe so, but he does not sound too happy about it, frankly.
-30-

Obama Brown Shirts Hack Ohio Computers?

2008-10-25T09:42:00.003-05:00

Is this the change you want in your life from Obama's Brown Shirts?

Kenneth
+++++++

Government computers used to find information on Joe the Plumber
Investigators trying to determine whether access was illegal

By Randy Ludlow
Copyright 2008 The Columbus Dispatch - Used with Permission

"State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama's tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. "It's outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama's allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question," he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay's statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. "Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully," he said.

The attorney general's office is investigating if the access of Wuzelbacher's BMV information through the office's Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway computer system was unauthorized, said spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi.

"We're trying to pinpoint where it came from," she said. The investigation could become "criminal in nature," she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16.

Records show it was a "test account" assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general's office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

Brindisi later said investigators have confirmed that Wurzelbacher's information was not accessed within the attorney general's office. She declined to provide details. The office's test accounts are shared with and used by other law enforcement-related agencies, she said.

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show.

Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher's information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch.

Sgt. Tim Campbell, a Toledo police spokesman, said he could not provide any information because the department only had learned of the State Highway Patrol inquiry today.
-30-

Obama Brown Shirts Pull Bogus Ohio Ballots

2008-10-25T09:35:00.003-05:00

BAM STAFFERS PULL THEIR BOGUS OHIO BALLOTS

By JEANE MACINSTOSH
Posted: 4:28 amOctober 25, 2008

Thirteen campaign workers for Barack Obama yesterday yanked their voter registrations and ballots in Ohio after being warned by a prosecutor that temporary residents can't vote in the battleground state.

A dozen staffers - including Obama Ohio spokeswoman Olivia Alair and James Cadogan, who recently joined Team Obama - signed a form letter asking the Franklin County elections board to pull their names from the rolls.

The letter - a copy of which was obtained by palestra.net, a Fox News affiliate - came a day after prosecutor Ron O'Brien publicly urged out-of-state campaign workers for both Obama and John McCain to "examine your conscience" before the elections board beings begins opening absentee ballots today.

Earlier in the week, O'Brien spoke with lawyers for both camps and urged them to make sure their staffs met permanent-residency rules, or face possible felony charges.

Also pulling his ballot yesterday was Hofstra University grad Jake Smith, an Obama volunteer who had voted in Knox County, Ohio.

On Thursday, O'Brien cut a deal with 13 out-of-staters, including four from New York, who tossed out their already-cast ballots and admitted they didn't meet residency requirements.

-30-

"Obama 'admits' Kenyan birth?" from WND

2008-10-23T13:29:00.007-05:00

When a person fails to answer a lawsuit, the claims made in the lawsuit are considered to be legal "facts." All that is left is how to enforce the suit's grievances.

Barack Obama has failed to answer a lawsuit filed in federal court, and so now its claim that Obama is not a natural US citizen is a "fact," and that means he can't legally be President.

Is this the legal detail Obama missed, and will it cost him the White House?

Pass this story on to all your friends, email lists, and blogs. The specific address is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-admits-kenyan-birth-from-wnd.html

Or come to the home page of Reading Between the Lines at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Obama 'admits' Kenyan birth?

Campaign doesn't respond to claims in lawsuit over birth certificate

Posted: October 21, 20089:22 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2008 WorldNetDaily - Used with Permission

Pennsylvania Democrat Philip J. Berg, who filed a lawsuit demanding Sen. Barack Obama present proof of his American citizenship, now says that by failing to respond Obama has legally "admitted" to the lawsuit's accusations, including the charge that the Democratic candidate was born in Mombosa, Kenya.

As WND reported, Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court in August, alleging Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus ineligible to serve as president of the United States. Though Obama has posted an image of a Hawaii birth certificate online, Berg demands that the court verify the original document, which the Obama campaign has not provided.

Now Berg cites Rule 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which states that unless the accused party provides written answer or objection to charges within 30 days, the accused legally admits the matter.

Since Obama has only filed motions to dismiss and has not actually answered the charges in the lawsuit, Berg claims, according to Rule 36, Obama has legally admitted he is not a natural-born citizen.

Now Berg is asking the court for a formal declaration of Obama's admission and asking the Democratic National Committee for another presidential candidate.

In a statement released today, Berg argues that he filed Requests for Admissions on Sept. 15, meaning Obama had until Oct. 15 to answer or face the consequences of Rule 36.

"Obama and the DNC 'admitted,' by way of failure to timely respond to Requests for Admissions, all of the numerous specific requests in the Federal lawsuit," Berg's statement reads. "Obama is 'not qualified' to be president and therefore Obama must immediately withdraw his candidacy
for president and the DNC shall substitute a qualified candidate."

Berg's original lawsuit leveled several charges at both Obama and the DNC – accusing the former of lying about his place of birth, faking his birth certificate and fraudulently running for office; and accusing the latter of not properly vetting its candidate.

Though it hasn't given Berg the evidence he seeks, the Obama campaign has publicly answered allegations that the candidate was born in Kenya and faked his Hawaii birth certificate.

"Smears claiming Barack Obama doesn't have a birth certificate aren't actually about that piece of paper," says the "Fight the Smears" section of Obama's website, "they're about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen.

"The truth is, Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States of America," the campaign website states. It also includes images of a Hawaii birth certificate bearing the name Barack Hussein Obama II.

Berg has also taken the controversy public through his website and through repeated public offers to revoke the lawsuit if Obama will produce legal documents that establish his citizenship.

Without those documents, Berg has chosen to file two additional motions in district court in Philadelphia. The first asks the court to notify Obama and the DNC of what Berg understands they have now legally "admitted," and the second asks for an expedited ruling, given the quickly upcoming Nov. 4 election.

"It all comes down to the fact that there's nothing from the other side," Berg told Jeff Schreiber for his blog, America's Right. "The admissions are there. By not filing the answers or objections, the defense has admitted everything. He admits he was born in Kenya. He admits he was adopted in Indonesia. He admits that the documentation posted online is a phony. And he admits that he is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president of the United States."
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The Hill.com: Police prepare for unrest

2008-10-22T14:26:00.004-05:00

Now the possibility of civil unrest after the election rears its ugly head.

Pass this on to your friends, email lists, and blogs at this specific address:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/hillcom-police-prepare-for-unrest.html

Or better yet, tell them to go to the home page of Reading Between the Lines at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Police prepare for unrest

By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 10/21/08 07:58 PM [ET]
Copyright 2008 by The Hill.com - Used with Permission

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.

Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.

Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.

Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.

In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.

“Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes,” said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.

“I think it is a big deal — you got an African-American running and [a] woman running,” he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. “Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south.”

The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama’s loss badly.

Political observers such as Hilary Shelton and James Carville fear that record voter turnout could overload polling places on Election Day and could raise tension levels.

Shelton, the director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, said inadequate voting facilities is a bigger problem in poor communities with large numbers of minorities.

“What are local election officials doing to prepare for what people think will be record turnout at the polls?” said Shelton, who added that during the 2004 election in Ohio voters in predominantly black communities had to wait in line six to eight hours to vote.

“On Election Day, if this continues, you may have some tempers flare; we should be prepared to deal with that but do it without intimidation,” said Shelton, who added that police have to be able to maintain order at polling stations without scaring voters, especially immigrants from “police states.”

Carville, who served as a senior political adviser to former President Bill Clinton, said that many Democrats would be very angry if Obama loses. He noted that many Democrats were upset by Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) loss to President Bush in the 2004 election, when some Democrats made allegations of vote manipulation in Ohio, the state that ultimately decided the race.

Experts estimated that thousands of voters did not vote in Ohio because of poor preparation and long lines.

Carville said Democratic anger in 2004 “would be very small to what would happen in 2008” if the same problems arose.

Carville said earlier this month that “it would be very, very, very dramatic out there” if Obama lost, a statement some commentators interpreted as predicting riots. In an interview Tuesday, however, Carville said he did not explicitly predict rioting.

“A lot of Democrats would have a great deal of angst and anger,” said Carville, who predicted that on Election Day “the voting system all around the country is going to be very stressed because there’s going to be enormous turnout.”

Other commentators have made such bold predictions.

“If [Obama] is elected, like with sports championships, people may go out and riot,” said Bob Parks, an online columnist and black Republican candidate for state representative in Massachusetts. “If Barack Obama loses there will be another large group of people who will assume the election was stolen from him….. This will be an opportunity for people who want to commit mischief.”

Speculation about Election-Day violence has spread on the Internet, especially on right-wing websites.

This has caught the attention of police departments in cities such as Cincinnati, which saw race riots in 2001 after police shot a young black man.

“We’ve seen it on the Internet and we’ve heard that there could be civil unrest depending on the outcome of [the election,]” said Lt. Mark Briede of the Cincinnati Police Department. “We are prepared to respond in the case of some sort of unrest or some sort of incident.”

Briede, like other police officials interviewed, declined to elaborate on plans for Election Day. Many police departments have policies prohibiting public discussion of security plans.

James Tate, second deputy chief of Detroit’s police department, said extra manpower would be assigned to duty on Election Night. He said problems could flare whichever candidate wins.

Either party will make history and we want to prepare for celebrations that will be on a larger scale than for our sports teams,” Tate said.

He noted that police had to control rioters who overturned cars after the Tigers won the 1984 World Series.

“We’re prepared for the best-case scenario, we’re prepared for the worst-case scenario,” he said. “The worst-case scenario could be a situation that requires law enforcement.”

But Tate declined to describe what the worst-case scenario might look like, speaking gingerly like other police officials who are wary of implying that black voters are more likely than other voting groups to cause trouble.

Shelton, of the NAACP, said he understands the need for police to maintain order. But he is also concerned that some political partisans may point their finger at black voters as potential troublemakers because the Democratic nominee is black.

Shelton said any racial or ethnic group would get angry if they felt disenfranchised because of voting irregularities.

Police officials in Chicago, where Obama will hold a Nov. 4 rally, and Philadelphia are also preparing for Election Day.

“The Chicago Police Department has been meeting regularly to coordinate our safety and security plans and will deploy our resources accordingly,” said Monique Bond, of the Chicago Police Department.

Frank Vanore, of the Philadelphia Police Department, said officials were planning to mobilize to control exuberant or perhaps angry demonstrations after the World Series, which pits the Phillies against the Tampa Bay Rays.

He said the boosted police activity would “spill right over to the election.”
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Obama Supporter Assaults Female McCain Volunteer

2008-10-17T15:26:00.005-05:00

When Barack Obama told his supporters to get into the faces of those supporting John McCain, here is the way one person took it to mean:

Obama Supporter Assaults Female McCain Volunteer in New York

"As the media fumes over nonexistent hate at Palin speeches, it ignores leftists who go berserk on city streets."

From Pajamas Media "Sending the MSM Down the River"
Copyright 2008 - Used with Permission

While the Democrat-leaning media continues to scare undecided voters with bedtime stories about some mythical angry McCain supporter whom nobody has seen, here is a real district attorney’s complaint documenting an unprovoked assault by an enraged Democrat against a McCain volunteer in midtown Manhattan: “Defendant grabbed the sign [informant] was holding, broke the wood stick that was attached to it, and then struck informant in informant’s face thereby causing informant to sustain redness, swelling, and bruising to informant’s face and further causing informant to sustain substantial pain.”

The overly formal document doesn’t mention this important detail: the victim was a small, quiet, middle-aged woman wearing glasses, and the attacker was a loud, angry man who went into orbit at the mere sight of McCain campaign signs.

On a Monday afternoon, September 15, 2008, three McCain volunteers were holding campaign signs and distributing leaflets on a busy corner of 51st Street and Lexington Avenue.

As they were peacefully talking to each other, they were approached by a man who, in the words of the victim, provided the impression of “a rather benign, doughy-looking guy — not a person I would have expected to assault me.”

He rushed towards them, grabbed a McCain sign off a volunteer’s hands, and tore it apart. That didn’t seem enough.

This is how the victim describes it:

I said, “What are you doing? You can’t do that!” And he was red in the face screaming, “You people are ridiculous!” And I said, “Yeah, whatever, but you can’t do that.”

So I reached for the sign that he ripped up, and he grabbed another sign, broke it, and ripped it to shreds. And when I said, “You can’t do that,” he took the stick from the sign and started beating me on the head with it. He broke the skin on my head, he scratched my wrist, and almost broke my glasses, and then he left.

I followed him down the stairs to the subway until I could get the police and I said, “You’re not going to get away with it.” And as soon as he saw the police he immediately went calm. He still had the stick in his hand, and you could see the injury on my face, and he admitted it. He was arrested. He actually said, “I don’t know why I did this. It’s just those signs, and this election, it has me so upset.”

Some people are losing control, and it’s not the people on the right. Never have I seen that behavior with any of the people on my side of the fence. … It’s just not our way. Look at us, most of us have never been protesters. … Do I feel that the left is aggressive and potentially violent? Yes, because we’ve all seen it. I certainly have … firsthand!

What came over him? Probably a hangover after that MSNBC election coverage. He might as well have continued living a benign life if the one-sided media election coverage and the Democratic Party’s scorched-earth propaganda strategy hadn’t turned this New Yorker into an enraged, quixotic attack machine slaying Republican “dragons” in the middle of a liberal city.

I suspect that if the roles were reversed and some angry Republican man had launched an unprovoked attack on a frail, bespectacled, Obama-supporting female the media would have had a field day, never letting this story off the front pages up until the election.

Will the media run with a story of an Obama supporter who went berserk at the sight of McCain signs and repeatedly struck a woman volunteer on the head with a stick?
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Joe Scarborough - Criticizing Obama off limits

2008-10-17T07:19:00.005-05:00

When I hosted my news-interview program called Your Turn yesterday on WEBY AM-1330 (covering listeners in FL, AL, MS, and LA) a caller talked about Barack Obama's supporters reminding him of the Brown Shirts. He was referring to the totalitarian manner Obama's supporters adopt in doing anything possible to quash criticism of their candidate.

Another asked how an attorney could support Obama, given his record of lying, and his solicitation of a sheriff and two prosecutors in MO to threaten Obama opponents with the state's criminal laws if the opponents "lied" - in the sole opinion of the prosecutors and sheriff.

Talk about "a chilling effect" on free speech.

Now comes Joe Scarborough with his column today in the Pensacola News Journal entitled "Criticizing Obama has been made off limits." I urge you to pass it along to all your friends, email lists, and blogs. The hyperlink to this specific article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/pensacola-news-journals-joe-scarborough.html

Or, send them to the Reading Between the Lines home page for all the great articles across a wide range of issues:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Criticizing Obama has been made off limits

By Joe Scarborough
Copyright 2008 Gannett Newspapers - Used with Permission

Before the vice presidential debate, we learned that the moderator was writing a fawning book about the transform- ative effects of the "age of Obama."

The media gave Gwen Ifill a free pass for her ethical breach, despite the fact she misled the debate commission about her book.

While I was concerned about Ifill's lapse of judgment, I was a bit curious about what the PBS star thought the "age of Obama" might look like.

I don't have to wonder anymore.

Let me give you a few helpful survival tips for the next four years.

The most important rule in this coming age is to remember that one must take great caution when criticizing Barack Obama.

Remember, even Democratic hero Bill Clinton was accused of being a bigot for calling Obama's political biography a "fairy tale."

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro was compared to David Duke for suggesting that Barack Obama gained some advantages from being black.

Sarah Palin and John McCain joined the "Bigot's Club" this week when they dared to criticize The One Who Shall Not Be Criticized.

Palin was slandered for pointing out that Barack Obama launched his political career at the home of an unrepentant domestic terrorist.

The Associated Press grimly warned that any criticism of that former terrorist, William Ayers, was tinged with bigotry — despite the fact that the last time anyone checked, Ayers was white.

The New York Times' Frank Rich did what most hyperventilating leftists do when on defense, by comparing McCain and Palin's campaign to the rise of Nazi Germany.

The major networks all jumped into the fray and breathlessly read Democratic talking points, charging that McCain was encouraging angry mobs and racist rallies.

Interestingly enough, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell told me McCain's crowds were no more intense than those found at Democratic rallies. But let's not get bogged down with the facts. After all, this is a bright new age.

To understand just how much political correctness will chill free speech in this sunny era, look no further than John Lewis' statements this past weekend.

The Obama supporter and civil rights hero compared McCain and Palin to George Wallace and the bombers who killed four little girls in a Birmingham church in the early '60s.

How ironic that Obama's allies are trying to link Sarah Palin to domestic terrorists who were jailed before she was even born, while Obama's connections with William Ayers are off limits.

The double standard is as frightening as it is unfair.

But fairness and open-minded debate may not be welcomed in this new age we are about to enter.

Last month, St. Louis circuit attorneys warned citizens that they would be subject to criminal prosecution if they made statements that these Obama-supporting attorneys considered "false."

Wow.

How interesting that the same merchants of hate who spent the last eight years spitting out the most vile charges against George W. Bush are suddenly champions of polite political discourse.

The left is in hysterics, free speech is on ice, and somewhere Gwen Ifill is smiling.

The Age of Obama is already here.
+++++

Joe Scarborough is the host of Morning Joe on MSNBC. E-mail him at joe.nbc@gmail.com.
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Liberal Outrage: A Pro-McCain March In Manhattan

2008-10-12T22:45:00.004-05:00

A brave band of McCain-Palin supporters exercise their legs by taking a group walk through the Upper West Side of NYC.

And how do the refined, dignified, intelligentsia of New York treat this informal group of flag-waving McCain-Palin supporters?

You won't want to miss this 5-minute video!

Send this hyperlink to all your friends, email lists, and blogs:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/liberal-outrage-pro-mccain-march-in.html

Or go to the home page of Reading Between the Lines for all the great articles that cut through the clutter and help you see for yourself the effects of today's news on your lifestyle:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

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Ted Belman of Israpundit: Obama's missing years

2008-10-09T23:01:00.014-05:00

The denial of Bill Ayers by Barack Obama is one of the most deceitful lies told. I will write a more expansive article why it is beyond belief that Obama did not know about Ayers, and his infamy. Leave it for this article to say that Obama has all the credibility in his denial of Ayers as he has in his denial of the Rev. Dr. Wright's racist rants.

Here is some information for you to pass on to friends, email lists, and blogs. The direct link to this article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/commentary-by-ted-belman-of-israpundit.html

Or, send them to the home page of Reading Between the Lines for all the articles in our ever increasing library of posts:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Obama and Ayers are kindred spirits
Why Won’t Obama Talk About Columbia?

Commentary by Ted Belman of Israpundit expanding on the article by Andrew C. McCarthy of National Review Online. - Portions of the following are copyright 2008 National Review Online - Used with Permission

The years he won’t discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about.

Barack Obama does not want to talk about Columbia. Not even to his good friends at the New York Times, who’ve so reliably helped him bleach away his past — a past neck-deep in the hard Left radicalism he has gussied up but never abandoned.

Why?

I suspect it is because Columbia would shred his thin post-partisan camouflage.

[McCain/Palin ticket keep saying its a matter of judgement or honesty. Wrong. The big story is that they were kindred spirits and shared the same values and visions and goals.]

You might think the (New York) Times would be more curious. After all, the Democrats’ presidential nominee has already lied to the Gray Lady about the origins of his relationship with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Back in May, in a cheery profile of Obama’s early Chicago days, the Times claimed (emphasis is mine):

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Mr. Obama also fit in at Hyde Park’s fringes, among university faculty members like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, unrepentant members of the radical Weather Underground that bombed the United States Capitol and the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Mr. Obama was introduced to the couple in 1995 at a meet-and-greet they held for him at their home, aides said.

+++

Now look, anyone who gave five seconds of thought to that passage smelled a rat. Ayers and Dohrn are passionate radical activists who lived as fugitives for a decade. There’s no way they held a political coming-out party for someone who was unknown to them.

Obviously, they already knew him well enough by then to feel very comfortable. They might have been sympathetic to a relative stranger, but sponsoring such a gathering in one’s living room is a strong endorsement.

And now, even the Times now knows it’s been had. In this past weekend’s transparent whitewashing of the Obama/Ayers tie, the paper claimed that the pair first met earlier in 1995, “at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper” That storyline is preposterous too, but it is also a marked revision of the paper’s prior account (which, naturally, reporter Scott Shane fails to mention).

Why the change?

The tacit concession was forced by Stanley Kurtz and Steve Diamond — whom the Times chooses not to acknowledge but who hover over Shane’s sunny narrative like a dark cloud.

Despite all manner of stonewalling by Obama, Ayers and their allies, these commentators have doggedly pursued information about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That’s the $150+ million “education reform” piggy bank substantially controlled in the nineties by Ayers and Obama, who doled out tens of millions of dollars to Leftist radicals — radicals who, like their patrons, understood that control over our institutions, and especially our schools, was a surer and less risky way to spread their revolution than blowing up buildings and mass-murdering American soldiers.

As Diamond observes, in a 2006 speech in Venezuela, with Leftist strongman Hugo Chavez looking on, Ayers exhorted: “Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La education es revolucion!”

Be clear on that much: Whether clothed as a terrorist or an academic, Ayers has made abundantly clear in his public statements, both before and after he established a working relationship and mutual admiration society with Obama, that he remains a revolutionary fueled by hatred of the United States.

And while Obama now ludicrously pleads ignorance about Ayers’s terrorism — the terrorism that made the unabashed Ayers an icon of the Left — understand that this rabid anti-Americanism is the common denominator running through Obama’s orbit of influences.

Yes, Ayers is blunter than Obama. As he so delicately told the Times, America makes him “want to puke.” The smoother Obama is content to say our society needs fundamental “change.” But what they’re talking about is not materially different.

Such sentiments should make Obama unelectable. So, when it comes to his own radical moorings, Obama is engaged in classic liar behavior. He changes his story as the facts change — and the burden is always on you to dig up the facts, not on him to come clean.

Yesterday, asked to comment on the Ayers relationship, David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser, hilariously chirped, “There’s no evidence that they’re close.” Translation: Get back to us when you can prove more damaging information — until then, we don’t need to further refine our perjury.

And then Axelrod gave us still more lies: “There’s no evidence that Obama in any way subscribed to any of Ayers’ views.”

Oh yeah? Well, Mr. Axelrod, how do you explain Obama’s breathless endorsement of Ayers’s 1997 Leftist polemic on the criminal-justice system, A Kind and Just Parent? As Stanley Kurtz has recounted, Ayers’s book is a radical indictment of American society:

We, not the criminals, are responsible for the violent crime that plagues our cities; even the most vicious juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults; prisons should eventually be replaced by home detention; American justice is comparable to South Africa under Apartheid.

Obama’s reaction?

He described the book as “a searing and timely account” — a take even the Times concedes was a “rave review.”

Obama and Ayers shared all kinds of views. That is why they worked so well together at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), funding the likes of Mike Klonsky, a fellow SDS and Maoist associate of Ayers who, as Steve Diamond relates, used to host a “social justice” blog on Obama’s campaign website.

With Obama heading the board of directors that approved expenditures and Ayers, the mastermind running its operational arm, hundreds of thousands of CAC dollars poured into the “Small Schools Workshop” — a project begun by Ayers and run by Klonsky to spur the revolution from the ground up.

Precisely because they shared the same views, Obama and Ayers also worked comfortably together on the board of the Woods Fund. There, they doled out thousands of dollars to Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church to promote its Marxist “black liberation theology.”

Moreover, they underwrote the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founded by Rashid Khalidi, a top apologist for Yasser Arafat. As National Review’s David Pryce-Jones notes, Khalidi once directed WAFA, the terrorist PLO’s news agency.

Then, like Ayers, he repackaged himself as an academic who rails at American policy. The AAAN, which supports driver’s licenses and public welfare benefits for illegal aliens, holds that the establishment of Israel was an illegitimate “catastrophe.”

Khalidi, who regards Israel as a “racist” “apartheid” state, supports Palestinian terror strikes against Israeli military targets. It’s little surprise that he should be such a favorite of Ayers, the terrorist for whom “racism” and “apartheid” trip off the tongue as easily as “pass the salt.”

And it’s no surprise that the like-minded Obama would be a fan. Khalidi, after all, has mastered the Arafat art of posing as a moderate before credulous Westerners while (as Martin Kramer documents) scalding America’s “Zionist lobby” when addressing Arabic audiences.

The Obama who decries “bitter” Americans “cling to guns or religion” when he’s in San Francisco but morphs into a God-fearing Second Amendment enthusiast when he’s in Pennsylvania — like the Obama who pummels NAFTA before labor union supporters but has advisers quietly assure the Canadians not to worry about such campaign cant — surely appreciates the craft.

Obama and Ayers not only demonstrated their shared view of Khalidi by funding him. They also gave glowing testimonials at a farewell dinner when Khalidi left the University of Chicago for Columbia’s greener pastures. That would be the same Columbia from which Obama graduated in 1983.

Khalidi was leaving to become director of Columbia’s Middle East Institute, assuming a professorship endowed in honor of another Arafat devotee, the late Edward Said. A hero of the Left who consulted with terrorist leaders (including Hezbollah’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah) and was once photographed hurling rocks at Israelis from the Lebanese border, Said was exposed by researcher Justus Reid Weiner as a fraud who had created a fictional account of his childhood, the rock on which he built his Palestinian grievance mythology.

We know precious little about Obama’s Columbia years, but the Los Angeles Times has reported that he studied under Said. In and of itself, that is meaningless: Said was a hotshot prof and hundreds of students took his comparative-lit courses.

But Obama plainly maintained some sort of tie with Said — a photo making the Internet rounds shows Obama conversing with the great man himself at a 1998 Arab American community dinner in Chicago, where the Obamas and Saids were seated together.

Said had a wide circle of radical acquaintances. That circle clearly included Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. When they came out of hiding in the early 1980s (while Obama was attending Columbia), Ayers took education courses at Bank Street College, adjacent to Columbia in Morningside Heights — before earning his doctorate at Columbia’s Teachers College in 1987.

Said was so enamored of Ayers that he commended the unrepentant terrorist’s 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days — the book in which the haughty Ayers brags about his Weatherman past — with this glowing dust-jacket blurb:

+++

What makes Fugitive Days unique is its unsparing detail and its marvelous human coherence and integrity. Bill Ayers’s America and his family background, his education, his political awakening, his anger and involvement, his anguished re-emergence from the shadows: all these are rendered in their truth without a trace of nostalgia or “second thinking.”

For anyone who cares about the sorry mess we are in, this book is essential, indeed necessary, reading.

+++

Sorry mess, indeed.

For his part, Ayers is at least equally enthralled by Said, of whom, even in death, Ayers says “here is no one better positioned … to offer advice on the conduct of intellectual life[,]” than the man who was “over the last thirty-five years, the most passionate, eloquent, and clear-eyed advocate for the rights of the Palestinian people.”

After they left Columbia, both Obama and Ayers went to Chicago: Obama to become a “community organizer” (the director of the Developing Communities Project, an offshoot of the Gamaliel Foundation dedicated to Saul Alinsky’s principles for radicalizing society); Ayers, two years later, to teach at the University of Illinois. Diamond details how they both became embroiled in a major education controversy that resulted in 1988 reform legislation.

Ayers’s father, Tom Ayers, a prominent Chicago businessman, was also deeply involved in the reform effort. Interestingly, in 1988, while Obama and Ayers toiled on the same education agenda, Bernadine Dohrn worked as an intern at the prestigious Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin — even though she could not be admitted to the bar due to her contempt conviction for refusing to cooperate in a terrorist investigation.

How could that happen? It turns out that Sidley was the longtime outside counsel for Tom Ayers’s company, Commonwealth Edison. That is, Ayers’ father had pull at the firm and successfully pressed for the hiring of his daughter-in-law.

The next summer, though he had gone off to Harvard Law School (another impressive accomplishment he prefers not to discuss), Obama returned to the Windy City to work as an intern at Sidley. Dohrn was gone by then to teach at Northwestern.

A coincidence?

Maybe (Diamond doesn’t think so), but that’s an awful lot of coincidences — and a long trail of common people, places and experiences — for people who purportedly didn’t know each other yet managed to end up as partners in significant financial and political ventures.

In short, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama moved in the same circles, were driven by the same cause, and admired the same radicals all the way from Morningside Heights to Hyde Park. They ended up publicly admiring each other, promoting each other’s work, sitting on the same boards, and funding the same Leftist agitators.

You could conclude, as I do, that it all goes back to a formative time in his life that Obama refuses to discuss.

Or you could buy the fairy tale that Bill Ayers first encountered an unknown, inexperienced, third-year associate from a small Chicago law-firm over coffee in 1995 and suddenly decided Barack Obama was the perfect fit to oversee the $150 million pot of gold Ayers hoped would underwrite his revolution.

-30-

Ben Stein: Why our children have no conscience

2008-10-09T21:14:00.011-05:00

I received this from my friend, Laura Velardi. It is accredited to Ben Stein. It is a thought-provoking commentary I urge you to share.

For all your friends, email lists, and blogs, the specific link to this post is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/ben-stein-on-cbs-news-sunday-morning.html

Or get all the great articles from Reading Between the Lines at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

A commentary by Ben Stein, aired on CBS News Sunday Morning

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against.

That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina).

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... Terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school . The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on
your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they Will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... No one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein
-30-

Camille Paglia: Sarah Palin is, "Nobody's dummy"

2008-10-08T22:36:00.005-05:00

This article by Camille Paglia (that we just didn't have space to run in its entirety, although the portion below is unedited - please go to Ms. Paglia's hyperlink to enjoy all she writes on this topic!) of Salon.com speaks an incredibly important message: feminism is being held hostage by a school of Loony Tunes Leftist thought that claims a self-anointed appointment as "definers" of what is, and what is not, feminism.

Or to put it another way, the Loony Tunes Left is as totalitarian as any band of tyrants, anytime in history. They allow no dissent; they attack with murderous intensity; they contrive a false reality; they use loaded terms such as "homophobe" to make the sanity of their opponents the issue rather than the quality of their thinking.

These so-called feminists are haters, through and through. And they are uncompromisingly vicious in spewing out their hate. Dare to suggest they are wrong on an issue, and they will smack you with a relentless barrage of personal slander, taunts, ridicule, and in-your-face insults.

While you may be a thinker, they are nothing but parroting screamers.

The style of the article is to first publish a letter received by Ms. Paglia, and then offer her response.

Share this article with your friends, email lists, and blogs. If you want to refer them to this specific article through a hyperlink, then tell them to find it at:

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Kenneth
+++++++

Nobody’s dummy

Liberals underestimate Sarah Palin’s vitality and — yes — smarts at their own peril.

By Camille Paglia
Copyright 2008 Salon.com - Used with Permission

Dear Ms. Paglia:

As I see it, the Palin Effect is a double-headed hydra. On one side you have Todd Palin, who is clearly a vibrant, macho force in his family’s life. Just as clearly, he has effectively embraced the role as a primary caregiver. What does it say that he and Sarah have a mutually aggrandizing partnership/marriage? A successful professional woman who embraces a masculine male rather than castrate him? Heaven forfend! Personally I see it as the benign (and noble) conclusion of the feminist movement. I guess fish don’t need bicycles, but some of them want one. And they’d rather it come with some cojones.

Discussing the Sarah Palin effect is quickly becoming a national psychosis, to which I doubt I could add much. The only thing I haven’t seen discussed is a comparison between her popularity and what Rush Limbaugh hilariously and intuitively called Bill Clinton’s “Arousal Gap.” I think we’re seeing that Todd Palin isn’t the only man’s man out there who has a healthy appreciation for a strong member of the opposite sex. Here is another benign and admirable consequence of the feminist movement.

Steve Gurney
Niceville, Florida

Ms. Paglia replies:

Yes, both Todd and Sarah Palin, whom most people in the U.S. and abroad had never even heard of until six weeks ago, have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism.

Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin’s performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin’s digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn’t — judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.

The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses. The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin’s brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don’t we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.

And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don’t think sex — I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry — including two overpowering celebrity icons with whom I have worked.

One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is “dumb.” Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can’t see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism — the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.

As someone whose first seven years were spent among Italian-American immigrants (I never met an elderly person who spoke English until we moved from Endicott to rural Oxford, New York, when I was in first grade), I am very used to understanding meaning through what might seem to others to be outlandish or fractured variations on standard English. Furthermore, I have spent virtually my entire teaching career (nearly four decades) in arts colleges, where the expressiveness of highly talented students in dance, music and the visual arts takes a hundred different forms. Finally, as a lover of poetry (my last book was about that), I savor every kind of experimentation with standard English — beginning with Shakespeare, who was the greatest improviser of them all at a time when there were no grammar rules.

Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate structures of her discourse — which did seem to fly by in fragments at times but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.

Even if she disappears from the scene forever after a McCain defeat, Palin will still have made an enormous and lasting contribution to feminism. As I said in my last column, Palin has made the biggest step forward in reshaping the persona of female authority since Madonna danced her dominatrix way through the shattered puritan barricades of the feminist establishment. In 1990, in a highly controversial New York Times op-ed that attacked old-guard feminist ideology, I declared that “Madonna is the future of feminism” — a prophecy that was ridiculed at the time but that turned out to be quite true. Madonna put pro-sex feminism on the international map.

But it is now 18 years later — the span of an entire generation. The instabilities and diminishments for young women raised in an increasingly shallow media environment have become all too obvious. I had grown up in a vibrant pop culture with glorious women stars of voluptuous sensuality — above all Elizabeth Taylor, sewn into that silky white slip as the vixen Manhattan call girl of “Butterfield 8.” In college, I feasted on foreign films starring sexual sophisticates like Jeanne Moreau, Anouk Aimée and Catherine Deneuve. Sex today, however, has become brittle and superficial. Except for the occasional diverting flash of Lindsay Lohan’s borrowed bosom, I see nothing whatever that is worth a second glance. Pro-sex feminism has worked itself out and, like all movements, has degenerated into clichés. And even Madonna, with her skeletal megalomania, looks like a refugee from a horror movie.

The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient persona of the mother — without losing career ambition or power of assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive.

The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin’s bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition — without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She’s no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she’s pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite — which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend.

And by the way, I think Tina Fey’s witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin’s cadences and charm, she can’t capture the energy, which is a force of nature.
-30-

CBS Reporter's Notebook: How the Other Half Lives

2008-10-08T20:02:00.011-05:00

One of the Main Stream Media (MSM) journalists from CBS News decided to swap campaigns. Here is how it looked to Dean Reynolds, late of the Obama campaign, as he discovered things he never recognized before he put the two presidential candidates on a comparison sheet.

Now a thought that the national press corps should already be thinking: Obama has no respect for you. You're easy; no, to be more accurate, you're cheap. You are a floozie who went down on sight. You demanded nothing for your love, you prostituted yourself for ego satisfaction and the need to "prove" your racial un-bias.

You think you are going to get rich because your book giving "the insider's story" of the first black elected president of the United States will be so much better than the hundreds of others that will all release along with yours the day after the election. Boys and girls, you are deluded.

If he is elected, the contempt shown to you now will be nothing compared to what will be shown after the election.

You already know Obama will sign-up prosecutors and sheriffs to enforce "the party line" because that's what he did in Missouri.

You already know Obama will pull the plug on your Internet operations because that is what he did to anti-Obama bloggers at BlogSpot.com.

You already know Obama will lie to you at the drop of a hat, because that is what he did in his autobiography, and what he has done throughout his campaign.

And if you dare say a word about it, he will call out his most vicious supporters in Congress - Barney Frank comes to mind - and accuse you of being racist, because you have already put yourself into the position of doing Obama's every bidding. No longer doing his bidding will be positioned as allowing your "repressed racism" come bubbling to the top.

If you think I'm wrong on that one, look at how the Gay Revisionists scream "homophobe" at anyone who dares oppose the Gay Agenda. So in Barney Frank you have both the Gay Revisionist mindset, and the black racist mindset.

Oppose Obama, and you're cooked.

Send this to your friends, emails lists, and blogs. The article's hyperlink is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/cbs-news-reporters-notebook-seeing-how.html

Or get them to the Reading Between the Lines home page so they can keep up with the latest on a wide range of intellectually stimulating topics:

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Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Reporter's Notebook: Seeing How The Other Half Lives

By Dean Reynolds
Copyright 2008 - Used with Permission

(NASHVILLE, TENN.) - After most of the previous 12 months covering Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, it was interesting, instructive and, well, relaxing to follow John McCain for the last few days. The differences between the two are striking.

Obama is the big time orator, McCain is the guy who struggles with a teleprompter or even note cards strategically placed nearby. Obama's crowds are larger, more enthusiastic. McCain's events are smaller, but to my eye, better choreographed. And now with the addition of Sarah Palin to some of his events, McCain can boast of crowds that match Obama's in energy.

There is an urgency to the McCain campaign now that I don't think was there before. Due to the fact that he is running second, no doubt, but it may also be because McCain has a finishing kick. Whatever the case, he is sharper on the stump than he was before. (Though I would suspect a candidate running behind would want to schedule two or three appearances per day, instead of the one McCain usually does.)

It is true that McCain enjoys taking questions from the audience in town hall-style settings. That doesn't mean he is the master of that kind of forum, it just means he's good at it. He likes to converse with voters. Obama does it well too, but seldom achieves that intangible bond with the people that all politicians crave -- or fake.

Behind the scenes, where the public is not allowed, there are other differences.

Obama's campaign schedule is fuller, more hectic and seemingly improvisational. The Obama aides who deal with the national reporters on the campaign plane are often overwhelmed, overworked and un-informed about where, when, why or how the candidate is moving about. Baggage calls are preposterously early with the explanation that it's all for security reasons.

If so, I would love to have someone from Obama's campaign explain why the entire press corps, the Secret Service, and the local police idled for two hours in a Miami hotel parking lot recently because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. It was not an isolated case.

The national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans. Nor is there much sympathy for those of us who report for a newscast that airs in the early evening hours.

Our shows place a premium on live reporting from the scene of campaign events. But this campaign can often be found in the air and flying around at the time the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is broadcast.

I suspect there is a feeling within the Obama campaign that the broadcast networks are less influential in the age of the internet and thus needn't be accomodated as in the days of yore. Even if it's true, they are only hurting themselves by dissing audiences that run in the tens of millions every night.

The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps.

When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who've been following him for thousands of miles around the country.

Go figure.

The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.

The other day in Albuquerque, N.M., the reporters were given almost no time to file their reports after McCain spoke. It was an important, aggressive speech, lambasting Obama's past associations. When we asked for more time to write up his remarks and prepare our reports, the campaign readily agreed to it. They understood.

Similar requests are often denied or ignored by the Obama campaign aides, apparently terrified that the candidate may have to wait 20 minutes to allow reporters to chronicle what he's just said. It's made all the more maddening when we are rushed to our buses only to sit and wait for 30 minutes or more because nobody seems to know when Obama is actually on the move.

Maybe none of this means much. Maybe a front-running campaign like Obama's that is focused solely on victory doesn't have the time to do the mundane things like print up schedules or attend to the needs of reporters.

But in politics, everything that goes around comes around.
-30-

AP asks if Sarah Palin is too attractive to be VP

2008-10-08T13:02:00.009-05:00

When it comes to trying to find any excuse to diss Sarah Palin, the Main Stream Media (MSM) is an endless sewer. Not a day goes by without another slam for the governor.

You realize, of course, this is all based on the financial incentives of writing books about Barack Obama, a la Gwen Ifill. I've explained to my readers and radio program's listeners that what is driving a very large portion of the MSM cheer-leading - now completely undisguised, and completely unapologetic - is the lust journalists have to hit it big with a top-selling book about "the insider's story" of Obama's election to the White House.

Of course, he's got to be elected if you are going to hit it big, so that is why they are going out of their way to do everything they can to get him elected.

Or to put is in a more earthy environment, the MSM is completely prostituted to Obama.

Now comes the need to destroy not only the thorn in Obama's flesh, but the one in Hillary Clinton's as well. So we get the sexual question, "Is Sarah Palin too attractive to be the VP?"

How warped is that? Do you think we'll ever see the MSM look at the Democrat nominee and say, "Gee, is Barack Obama too hot to be Pres?"

The article notes that some would call that what is being done to "Sarah-cuda" is sexism. I say, "Well, yeah!! What else do you call it when one standard is applied to a candidate that is not applied to the other dealing with the difference based on gender?"

Here's the AP story for your reading pleasure. Pass it on to your friends, email lists, and blogs. The direct hyperlink to this article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/ap-asks-if-sarah-palin-is-too.html

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Kenneth

++++++

By Ross Colvin - Analysis
Copyright 2008 Associated Press - Used with Permission

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a former beauty queen running to be the United States' next vice president, challenges the old saying, "Washington is Hollywood for ugly people."

The Republican's looks have grabbed arguably even more attention than her conservative political views. When he met her, Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, called Palin gorgeous, and readers of the men's magazine Maxim voted her one of the planet's sexiest politicians.

Good-looking, cute, even "hot" -- these are just some adjectives used to describe Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, even as some commentators and party insiders question her competence to serve as president-in-waiting and others call the obsession with her appearance sexism.

McCain surprised many by picking Palin, a self-described moose-hunting "hockey mom" largely unknown on the national political scene, as his No. 2 in late August, but she proved hugely popular in the first few weeks following her nomination and lifted the Republican campaign out of the doldrums.

"She indeed brought a fresh face into the Republican campaign and stole a lot of Barack Obama's freshness for a critical couple of weeks. I'm sure it has not hurt her that that fresh face is a pretty face," said pollster John Zogby.

The good looks of Obama, McCain's Democratic rival for the presidency, have also garnered some media attention, but it has paled in comparison to the attention given Palin's.

The skewed coverage has led to charges of sexism from Palin supporters and others who say it belittles her candidacy. It has also put the spotlight on this question: How much do looks help win elections?

"Obviously Jack Kennedy trumped on the way he looked," Zogby said. "On the other hand Lyndon Johnson, a gangly Texan, ran against a strikingly handsome Barry Goldwater (and won). Jack Kennedy, Bill Clinton, the looks certainly worked for them ... but looks alone are not going to carry the day for you."

'HOTTEST' GOVERNOR, COLDEST STATE

Palin's appearance has made for some tricky campaigning.

McCain's campaign released an attack ad in September accusing the Democrats of sexism after Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, joked that one key difference between himself and Palin was that she was good-looking.

Days earlier, however, delegates from Palin's home state of Alaska turned up at the Republican convention proudly sporting badges announcing that they had the "hottest" governor from the coldest state.

Palin referred to the attention her looks garner in an interview with Vogue magazine, before her nomination.

"I wish they'd stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots. A reporter once asked me about it ... and I assured him I was trying to be as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses," she said.

So, is the attention to her wardrobe and physical appearance legitimate?

"I think the discussion of her looks is a measure of the sexism left in our society, that instead of focusing on her opinions there is so much discussion (of her looks). If you go online and look at the number of hits on her when she was a beauty queen, they are pretty dramatic," said Professor Barbara Risman, head of sociology at University of Illinois at Chicago.

SEX CARD

A search by Reuters found that a 44-second video of Sarah Palin in a swimsuit in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant had been viewed more than 700,000 times on the YouTube website since being posted on September 26.

San Francisco Chronicle editorial writer Caille Millner, who has accused the McCain campaign of tokenism in its nomination of Palin, contends that the talk of Palin's appearance is appropriate.

"It is perfectly fair to bring this up -- did McCain bring her on the ticket because she is good-looking and has sex appeal and this is something his campaign lacked?" she said.

In any case, the comments on Palin's appearance are nothing new.

"Since women started running in large numbers statewide or for the Senate, which was in 1992, studies show that all print media spent much more time talking about what a woman looked like and what she wore than they did about their male counterparts," said Professor Karen O'Connor, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University in Washington.

O'Connor and some other commentators believe Palin is acutely aware of her attractiveness and plays up to it.

"There is the 'babe factor.' It's almost as if she is cultivating that," O'Connor said.

But University of Illinois at Chicago's Risman says that could backfire if true.

"In professional settings women who exaggerate femininity are not taken as seriously because ultra-femininity and power and prestige are seen as opposites in our culture."

(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)
-30-

London's Daily Telegraph: 1929 all over again?

2008-10-07T21:50:00.007-05:00

This is one of those articles you read to add depth and perspective to your understanding that history does repeat itself, and for whatever reasons, humanity never seems to learn.

Share this article's direct link with your friends, email lists, and blogs:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/londons-daily-telgraph-adds-perspective.html

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Kenneth
+++++++

Remember 1929 – what seemed to be the end was only the beginning

The dismemberment of Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers’ former chief executive, before a Congressional committee on Monday was a compelling, albeit brutal, event.

By Jeff Randall
Last Updated: 10:21PM BST 07 Oct 2008
Copyright 2008 The Daily Telegraph - Used with Permission

His televised humiliation was orchestrated by a veteran Democrat, Henry Waxman, whose simple question about Fuld’s alleged $480m of earnings – Is that fair? – hit the banker like a haymaker, rendering him speechless.

As the cameras focused on Fuld’s haunted stare, there was a sense of action replay. Hadn’t we seen this freak show, or at least something remarkably like it, long before Lehman went under – a display of furious inquisitors wiping the floor with Wall Street’s loftiest reputations?

Yes, history was repeating itself: “As the ghosts of numerous tyrants, from Julius Caesar to Benito Mussolini will testify, people are very hard on those who, having had power, lose it or are destroyed. Then anger at past arrogance is joined with contempt for present weakness.

“The victim or his corpse is made to suffer all available indignities. Such was the fate of the bankers. They were fair game for Congressional committees, courts, the press and comedians.”

These are the observations of economist J K Galbraith in The Great Crash, 1929. First published in 1954, his analysis of the greed and self-delusion that led to the unravelling of America’s stock market and the subsequent Depression is undimmed by time.

Replace 1929 with 2008 and the story, I’m afraid, is eerily familiar: a speculative orgy, crescendo, climax and crash. As this plays out, important people – business and political leaders – rely on “the power of incantation” to keep the rest of us calm. Their efforts are doomed to fail.

“Cause and effect run from the economy to the stock market, never the reverse. In 1929, the economy was headed for trouble,” wrote Galbraith.

As now, too few understood this. Many who foresaw disaster kept quiet. There was a conspiracy of silence. “The foolish thus [had] the field to themselves.”

In the 1920s, says Galbraith, America’s economy had been weakened by “bad distribution of income... bad corporate structure... bad banking structure... dubious state of the foreign balance... and poor state of economic intelligence”. Who can say with certainty that today it is different? Who now wants to defend the promoters of a one-way bet on property? Any takers?

For those hoping that the stock market’s recent “correction” will be followed by a swift recovery, Galbraith puts a wealth warning on suckers’ rallies. “The singular feature of the great crash of 1929 was that the worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximise the suffering.”

It’s worth remembering that a full recovery in the stock market took more than 20 years. During that time, in July 1932 the Dow Jones index was 89pc below its top. In Britain, the reaction was less severe: the market merely halved.

Amid the carnage, there were buy-backs of stock by investment trusts, desperate to shore up their share prices. This resulted in a massive outflow of cash, just when liquidity was at its most precious. “They bought their own worthless stock,” wrote Galbraith. “Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves.”

Sadly, it was not the last. In 2006, Royal Bank of Scotland spent £1bn buying 54.3m of its own shares at an average price of £18.37. As late as December that year, it paid £141m for 7.1m shares (average price: £19.79). Yesterday, RBS shares fell by 39pc to just 90p. What cost £1bn is priced at £49m today.

RBS was not alone. Even after the credit crunch hit the headlines in September last year, when Northern Rock crumbled, Halifax-Bank of Scotland was busy buying its own shares at fancy prices. In 2006-07, HBOS spent £1.5bn (average share price: £10.01). Yesterday, it joined the infamous “Ninety Per Cent Club” of losers, after the bank’s shares dropped 37pc to 94p.

What drove HBOS to carry on with its madcap scheme? Galbraith’s musing on the short journey from hubris to nemesis helps provide an answer: “If one has been a financial genius, faith in one’s genius does not dissolve at once... The cash went out and the stock came in, and prices were not perceptibly affected or not for long. What six months before had been a brilliant financial manoeuvre was now a form of fiscal self-immolation.”

That was certainly true for Lehman’s Dick Fuld. In the end, he was sucking up his own exhaust. He took his last year-end bonus, about $40m, entirely in shares. They went down the drain with the rest of his bank. Before this mayhem subsides, much treasure and many more egos will follow. The comedians await.
-30-

Jim Cramer/Mad Money: Sell! Now!

2008-10-07T00:34:00.002-05:00

-30-

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: The financial nightmare

2008-10-06T23:20:00.009-05:00

Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report turned my on to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of London's The Daily Telegraph. He is their global financial columnist, and without a doubt, one of the world's most respected.

"Thank you, Mr. Drudge! This guy is must-reading."

OK, so the bottom line is that you got played for a fool if you bought into the $1-trillion bailout bill Congress passed. You probably didn't notice that the day it passed, the Fed shoveled $630-billion out the door, and is still pumping out hundreds of billions more even with its passage.

The so-called "death spiral" we are seeing, according to Mr. Evans-Pritchard, so bad that he says the world is within days of a complete financial meltdown. It's reasonable to ask why the bailout bill - heralded as the answer to the question of how to stop this disaster in its tracks, is doing nothing of the sort. Re-read the paragraph above; the Fed is throwing hundreds - and hundreds - of billions of dollars at this, and the move they throw, the more this monster wants to eat.

Why? Because buying up the so-called "toxic assets " of the US financial system is not, and never was, the answer. All that bit of insanity did was feed the money-lust of the world's financial institutions for more.

The reason they lust for more is because the real answer to the world's problem is recapitalizing the world financial system. In short, the so-called "Masters of the Universe" stole the world blind, and pocketed the money into their own accounts.

What we really have is a 21st Century Bonnie & Clyde experience; the difference is that our generation's Bonnies and Clydes use computers instead of guns to steal from the world's depositors, and they use corporate jets and a completely corrupt US government to get-away from the law instead of a straight-six Ford.

You have to recapitalize the world's banks because these modern-day bank robbers drained them dry.

There are some lessons here:

1) You are not rich, and way more than likely, you never will be rich - not on the level I use the word. When the CEO of Washington Mutual - WaMu for its officially shortened name - can walk out the door with $19-million in compensation for 3 weeks work, that type of legalize theft is the level I'm talking about as "rich." I don't know who you are that is reading this, but I won't lose any money betting you are not playing in that league.

What that all means then is that you are the one who is being stolen from, and not the one doing the stealing.

2) The next time some idiot comes up to you screaming that taking that type of compensation away from the truly rich constitutes "class warfare," tell the idiot he or she is correct. But not for the reasons the idiot screams.

This class warfare is already being waged on you by the truly rich. They spoils of their class warfare on you is that you are being drained dry by the truly rich.

In short, the class war is already begun; are you going to defend yourself from their war on your life's earnings? Then you better start telling the idiots to get out of your face so you can see clearly as you take your shots at the truly rich to get back what they stole from you.

Those two ideas will do for tonight. I have to be up early tomorrow to get ready for Sarah-cuda's visit to Pensacola.

Here is the article by Mr. Evans-Pritchard to end your night.

Send this article to to your friends, email lists, and blogs, by sending or posting this link to this article:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/ambrose-evans-pritchard-of-londons.html

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++

Germany takes hot seat as Europe falls into the abyss

We face extreme danger. Unless there is immediate intervention on every front by all the major powers acting in concert, we risk a disintegration of global finance within days. Nobody will be spared, unless they own gold bars.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:37PM BST 06 Oct 2008

Investors will learn today whether the Paulson bail-out - fattened to $850bn (£480bn) by Congress - can begin to halt the death spiral in the credit system. So far, the response looks terrible.

Germany is now in the hot seat. The collapse of a rescue deal for Hypo Real Estate on Saturday threatens a €400bn (£311bn) bankruptcy that nearly matches the Lehman Brothers debacle for sheer scale.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been forced to pull her head out of the sand, guaranteeing all German savings, a day after she rebuked Ireland for doing much the same thing. Reality intrudes.

During the past week, we have tipped over the edge, into the middle of the abyss. Systemic collapse is in full train. The Netherlands has just rushed through a second, more sweeping nationalisation of Fortis. Ireland and Greece have had to rescue all their banks. Iceland is facing an Argentine denouement.

The US commercial paper market is closed. It shrank $95bn last week, and has lost $208bn in three weeks. The interbank lending market has seized up. There are almost no bids. It is a ghost market. Healthy companies cannot roll over debt. Some will have to sack staff today to stave off default.

As the unflappable Warren Buffett puts it, the credit freeze is “sucking blood” out of the economy. “In my adult lifetime, I don’t think I’ve ever seen people as fearful,” he said.

We are fast approaching the point of no return. The only way out of this calamitous descent is “shock and awe” on a global scale, and even that may not be enough.

Drastic rate cuts would be a good start. Central bankers still paralysed by a misplaced fear of inflation – whether in Europe, Britain, or the US – have become a public menace and should be held to severe account by our democracies. The imminent and massive danger is now self-feeding debt deflation.

The lesson of the 1930s is that any country trying to reflate in isolation will be punished. The crisis will ricochet from one economy to another until every one is crippled. We are seeing it play again in this drama as our leaders fail to rise above their narrow, parochial agendas.

The European Central Bank – which raised rates into the teeth of the crisis in July – has played a shockingly destructive role in this enveloping slump. Its growth predictions this year have been, and still are, delusional. Neglecting its global role, it has vastly complicated the fire-fighting efforts of Washington.

It could have offered “cover” to the US Federal Reserve this spring when Ben Bernanke was forced by events to slash rates to 2pc. It could at least have signalled an end to monetary tightening. That is how an ally ought to behave.

Instead, it stuck maniacally to its Gothic script, with equally unhappy consequences for both sides of the Atlantic, as well as for China, Japan, and India. The euro rocketed yet further, which it turn set off an oil shock as crude metamorphosed into an anti-dollar with leverage.

The ECB policy was self-defeating, even on its own terms. It merely drove headline inflation even higher, while deeper forces of underlying debt deflation pulled the real economies of Germany, Italy, France, and Spain into a recessionary vortex.

Far from offering reassurance, the weekend mini-summit of EU leaders served only to highlight that nobody is in charge of this runaway train. There is still no lender of last resort in euroland. The £12bn stimulus package is risible.

Angela Merkel has revealed her deep limitations. It was she who vetoed French efforts to launch a pan-EU rescue package, suspecting that any lifeboat fund would prove to be Trojan Horse – a way of co-opting German taxpayers into colossal transfers of wealth to Latin Europe.

In that she is right, but it is too late now for dysfunctional EU political games. By demanding that those who caused the damage should pay for it, she crossed the line into caricature, or worse.

Her comments echo word for word the “we’re alright Jack” attitudes of Euro-pols during the first US banking crises in 1930-1931, until the storm hit Europe and the entire cast was swept away by furious electorates, or simply shot. Thankfully, this EU stupidity is at last drawing serious criticism.

“We have to make sure Europe takes its responsibilities, like the US: action must be taken quickly and in a concerted manner,” said IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

As for the US itself, it has not yet exhausted its policy arsenal. It can escalate further up the nuclear ladder. The Fed can cut interest rates from 2pc to zero. If that fails, it can let rip with the mass purchase of US debt.

“The US government has a technology, called a printing press,” said Fed chief Ben Bernanke in November 2002. (His helicopter speech).

In extremis, the Treasury/Fed can swoop into any market to shore up asset prices. They can buy Florida property. They can even buy SUV guzzlers from the car lots in Detroit, and mangle them in scrap yards. As Bernanke put it, the Fed can “expand the menu of assets that it buys.”

There is a devilish catch to this ploy, of course. It assumes that foreign creditors will tolerate such action.

Japan entered its Lost Decade as the world’s top creditor, with a vast pool of household savings to cushion the slump. America starts its purge with net external liabilities of $3 trillion, and a savings rate near zero. Foreigners own over half the US Treasury debt, and two thirds of all Fannie, Freddie, and other US agency bonds.

But the risk of a dollar collapse is one for the distant future. Right now the world faces the opposite problem. There is a wild scramble for dollars as a $10 trillion pyramid of global lending based on dollar balance sheets “delevers” with a vengeance.

This is a “short squeeze” on those who have used the dollar for a vast global carry trade. International banks are facing margin calls on their dollar leverage. It is why the Fed is having to provide $1.25 trillion in dollar liquidity for the entire global system, according to estimates by Brad Setser from the Center for Geoeconomic Studies.

The crisis engulfing Europe, Asia and emerging markets, makes life easier for Washington. The United States is becoming a safe-haven again.

The Fed can now hope to pursue monetary stimulus “a l’outrance” without being slapped down by the currency, debt, and commodity markets. Take comfort where you can.
-30-

William Kristol/NYT: Palin and "The Wright Stuff"

2008-10-06T22:56:00.009-05:00

Well, it was just a matter of time until the New York Times - where I got razzed on the national desk as their "token Pentecostal" - would publish something worth groveling to get permission to reprint. In case you wonder why I don't run ads, it's because a non-commercial environment reprint is free, but a reprint in a commercial environment is not.

Now you know the secret for getting reprint permissions anyone can afford!

Today, the NY Times decided to do their own token equal attention op-ed space to William Kristol of the Weekly Standard who crosses over into the Times columns once a week. He interviewed Gov. "Sarah-cuda" Palin.

It made the Drudge Report in short order. It took Reading Between the Lines a little longer, but here it is, surrounded by lot's of great stuff you can link and send out to your email list, or blog.

The link for this specific article is:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/well-it-was-just-matter-of-time-until.html

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
++++++++

The Wright Stuff

October 6, 2008
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company - Used with Permission

I spoke on the phone Sunday with Sarah Palin, who was in Long Beach, Calif., preparing to take off on her next campaign trip. It was the first time I’d talked with her since I met her in far more relaxed circumstances in Alaska over a year ago. But even though she’s presumably now under some strain and stress, she seemed, as far as I could tell, confident and upbeat.

In terms of substance, some of what she had to say was unsurprising: She doesn’t have a very high opinion of the mainstream media, and she believes an Obama administration would kill jobs by raising taxes. But she said a couple of things that were, I thought, either personally touching or politically provocative.

At one point, noting that Palin had remarked ruefully almost a week ago that her son Track had been, since his recent deployment to Iraq, in touch with his girlfriend but not his mother, I asked whether she had subsequently heard from him.

Palin told me she had. “He called the day of the debate, and it was so wonderful because it was the first call since they were deployed over there, and it was like a burden lifted even when I heard his voice.” Palin said that she told him that she had a debate that night. “And he says, ‘Yeah, I heard, Mom,’ and he says, ‘Have you been studying?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I have,’ and he goes, ‘O.K., well I’ll be praying.’ I’m like — total role reversal here, that’s what I’ve been telling him for 19 years.”

That was Palin the hockey mom — or rather the military mom.

As for the campaign, Palin made clear — without being willing to flat out say so — that she regretted allowing herself to be overly handled and constrained after the Republican convention. She described the debate on Thursday night as “liberating,” and she emphasized how much she now looked forward to being out there, “getting to speak directly to the folks.”

Since she seemed to have enjoyed the debate, I asked her whether she’d like to take this opportunity to challenge Joe Biden to another one.

There was a pause, and I thought I heard some staff murmuring in the background (we were on speaker phones). She passed on the notion of a challenge. But she did say she was more than willing to accept an invitation to debate with Biden again, and even expressed a preference for a town hall meeting-type format.

Since their debate drew more than 70 million television viewers — some 20 million more than watched John McCain and Barack Obama the week before — I trust that various civic associations, universities and media organizations will have invitations in the mail to Biden and Palin pronto.

And, really, shouldn’t the public get the benefit of another Biden-Palin debate, or even two? If there’s difficulty finding a moderator, I’ll be glad to volunteer.

Palin also made clear that she was eager for the McCain-Palin campaign to be more aggressive in helping the American people understand “who the real Barack Obama is.” Part of who Obama is, she said, has to do with his past associations, such as with the former bomber Bill Ayers. Palin had raised the topic of Ayers Saturday on the campaign trail, and she maintained to me that Obama, who’s minimized his relationship with Ayers, “hasn’t been wholly truthful” about this.

I pointed out that Obama surely had a closer connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than to Ayers — and so, I asked, if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright?

She didn’t hesitate: “To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”

I guess so. And I guess we’ll soon know McCain’s call on whether he wants to bring Wright up — perhaps at his debate with Obama Tuesday night.

I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”

And maybe I’d add, Hockey Mom knows best.
-30-

The Register: "Sudden outbreak of democracy"

2008-10-06T02:18:00.004-05:00

Here is an interesting take on the way America reacted to the bailout plan, as noted by a member of Great Britain's The Register, whose slogan is "Biting the hand that feeds IT." (I-T, as in Information Technology).

Kenneth

++++++

By Andrew Orlowski • Get more from this author
Posted in Government, 3rd October 2008 18:47 GMT

Something very spooky happened in the United States last week. The chances are you noticed it too, many days before it was reported.

Tuesday found me in New York, on my first stateside visit in a couple of years. The details of the Bailout plan had just been revealed and the slow burn of outrage was apparent everywhere.

Admittedly, this was New York.

(Long-time readers will know I was the San Francisco correspondent for El Reg for six years and was frequently asked by Europeans: "What do Americans think of ... x?" To which the only honest answer is, "I can't tell you what Americans think, but here in San Francisco ...")

The outrage isn't the spooky part. The really odd thing is that if you had to rely on the mainstream US newspapers and TV channels - and nothing else - you'd wouldn't know something remarkable was happening. Which is that the Treasury Secretary's Bailout Plan had united parts of America who spend most of their energy hitting each other over the head, in common opposition to the proposal.

It was the moment that politicians dread the most. This was not merely an outbreak of popular discontent, but a phenomenon which breaks down those convenient labels the political marketing people like to use, to shield their masters from people's true desires and intentions.

Not just coarse labels like "Left" and "Right" - but the really dumb, patronizing demographic ones like "Soccer Mom" and the nadir of modern politics, those found in Mark Penn's "Microtrends." Niche marketers will have to start from scratch.

Conservatives, libertarians, and lefties all raised objections to the Bailout for very sound reasons of their own.

The idea that the state should bail out feckless private enterprises offended both conservatives and libertarians, who take moral responsibility seriously.

The left wanted their traditional adversaries put in jail, not given a gift of new lease of life with the public's money.

People discovered that to "Change Congress," you simply need a ballot box - or the threat of one.

All this was reflected on political sites, forums and blogs - but not a hint of this sentiment was expressed by the professional media.

So when Congress rejected the Bill on Monday, America's punditocracy expressed its shock. It also reported that the markets were "astonished" - the markets being presumed to have a better grasp of what American citizens want than American citizens themselves.

All week, the media had refrained from comment that might embarrass the political class. In fact, the first professional column I read which was reflected the true feelings of many US citizens around me was written from 3,500 miles away and published in London's Sunday Times.

(Editor's Note: Yeah, I'm going to find the Times article and get it posted - Kenneth.)

-30-

Carol Platt Liebau: "Do You Know the Real Obama?"

2008-10-05T22:49:00.010-05:00

I just got this article by Carol Platt Liebau published on the TownHall.com site. Here is the unedited version for you to pass on to your friends, email lists, and blogs.

For this specific article, use the link: http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/from-townhallcom-carol-platt-liebau.html

For all the great articles, audio clips, and video captures on Reading Between the Lines edited by Kenneth E. Lamb, use this hyperlink: http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Link! Link! Link!

Kenneth
+++++++++++

Do You Know the Real Barack Obama?

By Carol Platt Liebau
Used with Permission

As the 2008 presidential campaign hurtles into its final days, John McCain confronts a choice: He can either start telling the public about the real Barack Obama, or he can lose.

For much of his career, McCain has been a media darling. He could count on the press to carry his water as long as he was a “maverick” Republican, driving more conservative members of his party crazy.

But as he surely knows by now, when it comes to Barack Obama and the press, all bets are off.

In covering Obama, the press has adopted a “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy designed to boost the least-vetted, least-known candidate ever to seek the presidency. It isn’t by accident that the media has denied all less-than-glowing stories about Obama the kind of consistent, sustained coverage that allows them to penetrate public consciousness.

If McCain is going to have a chance at winning, he must make sure that the public becomes thoroughly acquainted with the real Barack Obama – the most radical presidential nominee ever. And because the press evidently intends to abdicate its responsibility to acquaint voters with the less-popular parts of Obama’s record, he’ll have to rely on paid advertising to do it.

For starters, McCain should consider running a series of “Did You Know” ads about Barack Obama. He should ask voters, “Did you know that:

Barack Obama has multiple ties to those responsible for the present economic crisis?:

Franklin Raines, the immediate past CEO of Fannie Mae – who has collected a $90 million golden parachute while driving Fannie into the ground – has advised Obama on housing issues.

Jim Johnson, yet another former Fannie Mae CEO, resigned from Obama’s vice presidential search team when it was revealed he had received a sweetheart home mortgage deal.

Despite serving in the Senate for only four years, Obama himself has been the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac largesse in the entire Congress, ahead even of former presidential candidate John Kerry, who’s spent two decades in the Senate?

Obama’s long-time political ally, radical group ACORN, played a key role in pressuring banks to offer loans to those who were unlikely to be able to pay them back. ACORN has taken credit for pressuring banks to accept undocumented income as a basis for offering loans, for offering loans without using credit scores, and for making 100% financed loans available to low-income people.

There is more, of course. Do voters know:

That, in apparent defiance of federal election law, the Obama campaign refuses to identify individual donors who have provided almost half the funds for his campaign, including obvious fakes like “Mr. Good Will” and “Mr. Doodad Pro”? And that 11,500 donations to his campaign – totaling almost $34 million – may have come from overseas? Or that two Palestinians living in a Hamas-controlled refugee camp spent $31,300 in Obama’s online store? Who are all these people, and why won’t the Obama campaign obey the law and identify them?

That Jeremiah Wright wasn’t Obama’s first radical mentor? As a young man in Hawaii, Obama had a quasi-filial relationship with radical Frank Marshall Davis – an avowed member of the Communist Party of the USA. In fact, in his memoirs, Obama concedes that he attended “socialist conferences” and encountered Marxist literature. (Now imagine the outcry if a Republican presidential candidate had such ties to a Nazi).

That the People's Weekly World – the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the USA – has rhapsodized about Obama’s presidential campaign, calling it a "transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term"? (Think about how the press would react if a fascist newspaper heaped such praise on McCain.)

That Obama has routinely tried to intimidate his critics into silence? His political organization spearheaded a massive campaign against a Chicago radio show that invited one of his critics to appear – even after being asked (and refusing) to send a representative to balance the program, hosted by a non-partisan University of Chicago psychology professor. Worse, his campaign sought to chill free speech by establishing a “truth squad” of Missouri prosecutors and sheriffs, which threatened a “vigorous response” to any ad presenting information about Obama that they deemed to be “inaccurate.” And there are other examples.

That even as America struggles to “bail out” our own struggling economy, Obama backs a global bailout? His Global Poverty Initiative would assess $2500 per taxpayer, according to Investor’s Business Daily, to fund a global war on poverty administered by the UN and its agencies.

That despite touting his academic credentials as a rationale for initiating a campaign for president just two years after leaving the Illinois state legislature, Obama refuses to release either his college or his law school transcripts – just as he sought to keep records of his working relationship with former terrorist Bill Ayers on The Annenberg Challenge (a left-wing educational foundation) safely under wraps? What is it that he doesn’t want voters to know?

Repeatedly, we’ve heard the media denounce the “rumors” about Barack Obama that are, supposedly, circulated on the internet exclusively by the bigoted and the ignorant. But Americans sense that there is more to Barack Obama than they’ve been told. Having witnessed the media’s own bias and favoritism, they’ve come to suspect – reasonably – that even if any of the rumors were true, the press might choose to conceal them until the election is safely over. What’s more, they wonder: What else is the press not telling us?

Certainly, it would be terribly wrong for John McCain to traffic in rumors. But he doesn’t need to. The truth is more than enough. There are facts that the American people deserve to know – and which the press isn’t telling them. By filling in the gaps that the media has left unmentioned, John McCain isn’t just doing himself a service. He’s doing journalists’ job for them, and allowing Americans to make an informed decision when they head to the polls next month.
-30-

So Biden wants to take you to Katie's Restaurant?

2008-10-05T22:15:00.010-05:00

You've got to love this: Remember when Joe Biden talked about how "in touch" he is with Middle Class America in the VP debates? And how he could take you for a walk down Union Street in Wilmington, and visit Katie's Restaurant?

Read what was reported in today's Washington Post, passed on to Reading Between the Lines via FactCheck.org.

Pass this link on to your friends to read this example of what the Democrats consider VP material . . . and speaking of being qualified to be VP, what about Biden's story about Roosevelt dealing with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, addressing the nation by . . . going on TV . . . in 1929? While Hoover was still president?

Hey Joe, don't ya know Roosevelt was elected in 1932?

And these yahoos have the audacity to say Biden's ready for the White House?

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

Kenneth
++++++++++

In today’s Washington Post, Michael Dobbs, a.k.a. The Fact Checker, writes about a few more stumbles from the debate, including a couple items that we didn’t have in our story on Friday.

Dobbs, a former diplomatic reporter, says Sen. Joe Biden was wrong when he said the U.S. and France “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.” He was correct in saying that there was talk of sending NATO forces to the country in 2006.

Dobbs also cites Biden’s invitation to voters to “go down Union Street with me in Wilmington [Delaware] or go to ‘Katie’s Restaurant.’ ” That restaurant closed in the 1980s and has been replaced by a chain. The Wilmington News Journal wrote about the error, as well.
-30-

FactCheck.org: "FactChecking Obama"

2008-10-05T21:49:00.007-05:00

A little something extra to document America's favorite pathological liar, Barack Obama, from FactCheck.org.

Pass this link around to your friends so they can see it for themselves:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/factchecking-obama-he-stuck-to-facts.html

Kenneth
+++++++++

FactChecking Obama: He stuck to the facts, except when he stretched them.

Summary

We checked the accuracy of Obama's speech accepting the Democratic nomination, and noted the following:

Obama said he could “pay for every dime” of his spending and tax cut proposals “by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens.” That’s wrong – his proposed tax increases on upper-income individuals are key components of paying for his program, as well. And his plan would leave the U.S. facing big budget deficits, according to independent experts.

He twisted McCain’s words about Afghanistan, saying, “When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources.” Actually, McCain said in 2003 we “may” muddle through, and he recently also called for more troops there.

He said McCain would fail to lower taxes for 100 million Americans while his own plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of “working” families. But an independent analysis puts the number who would see no benefit from McCain’s plan at 66 million and finds that Obama’s plan would benefit 81 percent of all households when retirees and those without children are figured in.

Obama asked why McCain would "define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year"? Actually, McCain meant that comment as a joke, getting a laugh and following up by saying, "But seriously ..."

Obama noted that McCain’s health care plan would "tax people’s benefits" but didn’t say that it also would provide up to a $5,000 tax credit for families.

He said McCain, far from being a maverick who’s "broken with his party," has voted to support Bush policies 90 percent of the time. True enough, but by the same measure Obama has voted with fellow Democrats in the Senate 97 percent of the time.

Obama said "average family income" went down $2,000 under Bush, which isn't correct. An aide said he was really talking only about "working" families and not retired couples. And – math teachers, please note – he meant median (or midpoint) and not really the mean or average. Median family income actually has inched up slightly under Bush.
-30-

American Jewish Students to Protest Olmert Plan

2008-10-05T20:57:00.005-05:00

Note to readers: I didn't get this up in time for the protest dates, but I am posting this anyway so you will be aware of the issue, and know who to contact to help in the future.

As I work out my interaction with Israpundit, I expect to become timely.

Kenneth

+++++++++++++

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127545

by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) A group of North American Jewish students are planning a coast-to-coast demonstration to protest the Olmert plan and the silence of American Jewish leaders, specifically over the looming threat of a second Disengagement as well as the possibility that Israel may hand sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the Palestinian Authority.

Jewish students from the sixth grade through high school were urged in an e-mail flyer sent out Tuesday to "Stand Up to Prevent…" with a graphic photo of a lone Jewish pioneer attempting to ward off an onslaught of Yassam special police forces.

According to organizer Yosef Rabin, director of the United Jewish Student Council (UJSC) the protest is set for Thursday September 18 and is scheduled to take place 10 minutes before the first class, thus comprising the first lesson of the day.

The group also sent format suggestions for the student protestors, including a list of psalms for the protestors to say (chapters 121, 130, 142), shofar blowing, singing and dancing.

The attachment also includes the order of the special prayers for the nation and land of Israel compiled by former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.

The demonstration
is expected to last approximately the length of one class period, or 45 minutes.

"We are striking in response to the silence of the Jewish leadership on the planned expulsion of 300,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria, division of Jerusalem and the abandonment of the holy Temple Mount," Rabin said in an internet chat interview with Israel National News.

"Jewish students across North America are saying No! No expelling Jews. No dividing land. No abandoning Har HaBayit (Hebrew for Temple Mount)," he said.

Blessings and Warnings from Israeli Sanhedrin
According to Rabin, Rabbi Yeshayahu Hollander, a leading rabbinical judge in the nascent Sanhedrin that formed in Jerusalem several years ago and continues to struggle for mainstream recognition, has given his blessing to the project.

"Rabbi Hollander wrote, 'Shalom friends, Your plans are excellent, may HaShem bless you – and Am Yisrael – with your success…

'Considering the behavior of the majority of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel, we have no Zchuss to remain in the Land. The reasoning of Rabbi Kook [that the non-observant are doing the great mitzvah of building Eretz Israel] no longer applies: in his time they were building with the purpose of creating a Jewish State. Today the "elite" are building the for purpose of lining their pockets, and others with the purpose of destroying the Jewish identity of the State of the Jews. Jews who do not want to stand up and support a political fight for our Jewish Birthright in the complete Holy Land of Israel right now should begin to work on the most likely result of their attitude: Millions of Jews looking for refuge.

'….If Israel is not defended properly, there will surely be a catastrophe. The present "elite" are not capable of creating a deterrent which would stop the Iranians to try to A-bomb Israel. A reasonable estimate is that the people comprising the political leadership in Israel today will not use Israel's capabilities even in retaliation….

'…People – Jews – who do not want to stand up and support a political fight for our Jewish Birthright in the complete Holy Land of Israel right now should begin to work on the most likely result of their attitude: Millions of Jews looking for refuge.

'First of all – political activity to ensure a place for the survivors. Secondly – funds for their physical deployment outside the Middle East, building homes, healthcare – physical and mental healthcare, retraining facilities for adults, schooling for children – all these necessities should begin to be taken care of NOW by those who do not support a fight NOW.

'In the hopefull case when these funds are not needed, that should be used to ensure schooling in a Jewish Day School for all Jewish children. This would be the best way to prevent marrying non-Jews.

Fear Stalks the Students – 'This is Not the 60's'
Although the idea of a coast-to-coast strike itself is popular, and many students expressed interest, Rabin also noted that "many of them are very scared."

Many of the students, he said, are afraid of suspension or even being expelled from their schools, and have sent letters saying they "really want to do this but are a little nervous." Rabin added that almost every letter ended with the writer promising to try and organize something anyway, despite the fear.

"You have to remember that children in America have not known activism, unlike Israeli children, especially those living in Yesha [Gaza, Judea and Samaria –ed.]," he said. "They have never been exposed to this type of activism so the first time it is a daunting task."

In a twist completely opposite from that of the 60's, the group is counting on the older generation to get involved. "We are going to be working hard to bring parents and grandparents to strike with the students," he said, noting that this was the generation of the activism and protests of the 1960's and 1970's. "This will soften the attitude of the schools toward the kids and help calm the fears of the students.

"This is not the 60s or 70s. Boy, have times changed," he commented ruefully.

One school director wanted to commit his entire student body to the cause, he noted – but the Rosh Yeshiva nixed the plan, saying, "If the Torah U'Mesorah were to come out with the recommendation that all of these Jewish school children should take certain action, then we would certainly be involved." Without the endorsement of the national umbrella, however, the Rosh Yeshiva was unwilling to take a stand on his own.

Nationalists Form Pact to Fight Expulsion II in Israel
Residents of Judea and Samaria have formed the Samaria Pact to fight Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Vice Prime Minister Chaim Ramon's attempt to offer people money to leave their houses.

Leaders of the movement met on Monday to form a new agreement against what they called the "continuation of disgrace that took place in Gush Katif, which only brought more tragedy upon us."

Gush Emunim co-founder Benny Katzover said the group is preparing to fight against evacuations and will not wait until the last minute to fight expulsions. Yossi Dagan of Homesh First explained, "We are going from defense to offense. We will continue to build and expand."

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You go girl: Sarah-cuda attacks!

2008-10-04T23:38:00.003-05:00

Sarah-cuda, the just launched endearing name for Gov. Sarah Palin, is sinking those pearly whites into Barack Obama! Watch as she uses the New York Times to shred Barack.

Quoting the AP copy on the video, "At a campaign stop in Carson, Calif., Governor Sarah Palin lashed out at Senator Barack Obama's ties to controversial figure Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground."

-30-

Sarah Palin and our Top 10 campaign articles

2008-10-04T13:05:00.013-05:00

Now that we know Sarah Palin is more than a match for Joe Biden, let's take a look at Sen. Biden's deviance from the truth.

On this Palin item for a moment, allow me to speculate that it is impossible to come away from listening to the shrill, hysterical hate thrown at her by the Loony Tunes Left and not ask what underlying psychological dysfunctions within them stir their madness.

My personal interpretation is that the nerve being struck is the deadly fear that Sarah Palin will be America's first female president. To understand the depth of what I mean by that, follow this next thought closely:

It is not just the idea of her being the first female president per se, but rather the realization that it means Hillary Clinton will not - that is their real, terrifying nightmare.

After all the work, after all the ethical contradictions, after all the schmoozing, after all the scratching of her supporters' itchy ears, it will all be for naught. Hillary Clinton lies awake at night, as do her so-called "feminist" hordes, and they collectively face the reality that their world is nothing but a lie.

"Hills" was jilted for a man, and not just any man. No, she was jilted for a man who has never done anything for women in America - other than support the misogyny that black women, burdened with the matriarchal culture that is black America's shame, contend with in their real world of holding together the family without the man who fathered it.

Tell us, Sen. Obama, in your 20 years at the Rev. Dr. Wright's church of racist hate, when did you stand up and tell women that they must take back their dignity, and take back their self-respect, from a hip-hop culture of pimps, murderers, dopers, and violent men targeting women for their wrath?

This does not escape Hills' female supporters. They know in their hearts that Barack Obama has done anything he needed to do to get in with the hip-hop culture's richest stars, and in doing so, make legitimate as a role model for youth their female focused death-culture.

They grasp the idea that Sarah Palin is now America's favorite daughter, a role model of success beyond their own wildest dreams while Hills is castigated to the darkness of political exile. This brings out all their deepest hate, and because their self-inflicted political correctness dams the rivers of their mind and doesn't allow it to flow at the real cause of their anger - Barack Obama - they substitute Sarah Palin for their irrational attacks.

That, my friends, is the real reason Sarah Palin is the target of their relentless hate. It is because they aren't allowed to target the real reason - Barack Obama, the man who stole their dream and jilted them for his own ego.

It is impossible not to recognize that America is in love with Sarah Palin. It is not a mere circumstance of happenstance that she drew the largest TV audience ever in the history of the VP debates, and in fact, the largest even including the presidential debates.

(NOTE: A.C. Nielsen has to call the Reagan debate the largest because it rounded all audience estimates at that time, and does not do so now. But empirical evidence recalculating the audience numbers prove conclusively that if they had not rounded the figure up, then Sarah Palin is the biggest audience draw ever in the history of televised debates. That folks, is an American love affair, and it scares the Clintons to death.)

To understand what is at stake in this election, here are "16 reasons why Sarah Palin could not be an Obama Democrat:"

1) She's intelligent.

2) She lives in a functional family.

3) She knows there is a God, and she isn't He.

4) She's well-adjusted.

5) She doesn't lie as a matter of course.

6) She doesn't feel a need to down shots at a "workin' man's" bar to prove she's "one of the boys."

7) She knows when life begins.

8) She knows what happens when life ends.

9) She dresses with dignity.

10) She's not in competition with men to prove she is an equal to any of them.

11) She doesn't use cursing as a substitute for articulation.

12) She doesn't have a need to wear pants as a statement of gender equality.

13) She is happy with life.

14) She recognizes her humanity - and her humility.

15) She doesn't care what Hollywood thinks.

16) She doesn't care what the Loony Tunes Left thinks.

Now, on to the 14 lies of Joe Biden, told during the history-making VP debate.

I got this email this afternoon, here it is to link and send to others. To make it easy, just copy and paste this to your email, or blog:

"Reading Between the Lines" by Kenneth E. Lamb

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

The article is entitled, "16 reasons Sarah Palin can't be an Obama Democrat, 14 lies Sen. Biden told America, and our TOP 10 articles about the campaign!"

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/16-reasons-sarah-palin-cant-be-obama.html

Now, on to getting out the truth. Here is the unedited email:

Please see our campaign’s response to Joe Biden's debate performance tonight. During the debate, Joe Biden lied more than a dozen times by our count:

"Joe Biden graduated from his trademark verbal gaffe to outright lie in tonight’s debate. Each time Senator Biden was on his heels, he looked directly into the camera and lied -- more than a dozen times by our count. He lied about John McCain's record, his own record, and Barack Obama's dangerous policies.

Governor Palin showed the American people tonight why a McCain-Palin Administration will bring real reform, leadership, and straight talk to Washington.” --Tucker Bounds, spokesman McCain-Palin 2008

JOE BIDEN'S 14 LIES TONIGHT

1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.

2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.

3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”

4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.

5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.

6. ALTERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.

7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people's health insurance coverage -- they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false

8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska -- she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it's not a windfall profits tax.

9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.

10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation -- he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.

11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.

12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.

13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”

14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won't pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.
+++++++

There you have it: 16 reasons why Sarah Palin could never be an Obama Democrat, and 14 lies Sen. Biden told America in the VP debate.

Now, do your Truth Squad duty, and get this out to everyone you know. The quickest, and easiest way is to send them either of the links above. Not only will they see this post, but they will be able to save the blog's main address ( http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/ ) in their Favorites or Bookmarks and get the latest, most accurate information about the campaign.

Here is the list of our current Top 10 articles about the race, and as you can see for yourself, Sarah Palin is the center of much interest. Just click on the title and it will take you to the article. Think about including them with the information you forward from here to your friends, campaign email lists, and blogs.

Or make it easy on your friends, and just send them this article's hyperlink - The article is entitled, "16 reasons Sarah Palin can't be an Obama Democrat, 14 lies Sen. Biden told America, and our TOP 10 articles about the campaign!"

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/10/16-reasons-sarah-palin-cant-be-obama.html

Think Link!:

1) Who let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go bust?

2) From the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "The speech Palin never gave: Ahmadinejad dreams of Final Solution"

3) Sandra Bernhard: Palin Would Be Gang-Raped By Blacks in Manhattan

4) From the San Francisco Chronicle: "Palin Derangement Syndrome: Obama's Worst Enemy?"

5) Barack Obama's "crass" comments are infecting the entire party

6) Barack Obama's Palin problem

7) Sarah Palin from someone who knows her

8) Drudge Report posts FactCheck.org report on the slime thrown by loony tunes leftists at Sarah Palin

9) Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal scores on Barack Obama: "Mr. Obama's answers here seemed to me strange and disturbing."

10) Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post: Barack Hussein Obama becomes our political messiah
-30-

Who let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go bust?

2008-10-03T10:26:00.004-05:00

Try this on for size if you want the truth about who was letting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go down the tube:

-30-

Barack Obama's Brown Shirts: MO prosecutors

2008-09-28T16:49:00.006-05:00

It continues to escape me how anyone can miss the Obama Brown Shirt mentality. If this guy gets elected president, I'm going to tell all my journalism colleagues that they brought it on themselves when they get the same treatment Pensacola News Journal columnist Reginald T. Dogan got when he visited an Obama office and found out that any dissent from the "party line" made him, in his own words, "persona non grata."

And I need to note, the Obama Brown Shirt mentality is color-blind; Mr. Dogan is black.

Read it for yourself in his column entitled, "Obama campaign should not avoid elephant in the room."

Here's part of his column - it gets even better the further you read, so be sure to hyperlink to the entire column linked above:

"I'm persona non grata at the Barack Obama headquarters in Pensacola.

"I ruffled some feathers Monday after I popped in at the campaign office on DeVilliers Street. I was accused of asking "uncomfortable questions" by the campaign's communications director in the district office in Tallahassee.

"I wanted to talk about a Newsweek magazine article that referred to a national poll showing that white Democrats may not be admitting that they won't vote for a black candidate because they fear appearing racist.

"The AP-Yahoo poll suggested that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race easily could be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004.

"But before I could ask my first question, an Obama field manager told me I needed approval from the Tallahassee office to talk to anyone. Then, another field manager told me I could talk to volunteers but not paid staff.

"I talked with two volunteers, who seemed eager to answer my questions, before the first field manager called her boss in Tallahassee.

"My interviews were interrupted when the manager handed me a telephone with Kevin Cates, the communications director, on the line telling me that I needed permission from him before talking to staff or volunteers.

"Later, I learned he also called the News Journal with the same message.

"I've got to tell you I find it disconcerting and heavy-handed that a campaign that prides itself on openness, honesty and fair treatment would hamper free speech and open dialogue."

Well, it gets even better. The Obama Brown Shirt mentality now includes signing up prosecutors who support his campaign to make public statements that they will file charges against anyone they consider to be "lying" about Barack.

And what constitutes some of the lies?

Well, saying his tax plan will result in problems for the middle class. Or that his promises about social welfare can't be accomplished. Or anything else these prosecutors consider to be "a lie."

And that could be anything at all.

I used to think of Barack Obama as just a pathological liar who was entirely too shallow to be president.

But now I see that what we are really talking about is the far-left wing of politics imposing their own brand of authoritarian thought policing on the nation. And their ability to sign up county and city prosecutors in MO to actually carry out these prosecutions tells me that Barack Obama is the most serious threat to constitutional rights since - well, since the GOP caved in to the Paulson crisis and took judicial review of the treasury secretary's actions out of the bailout bill hammered out this weekend.

It's true - we really can loose our freedoms. And the juxtaposition of these two events shows it is coming from both the right, and the left, wing of the political spectrum.

OK, here is the story on Barack Obama and the ends his authoritarian Brown Shirts will go to to stop anyone from criticizing "The One."

Last thought: You remember the talk about how there are 18 letters in Obama's full name, which is 3 sixes . . . nah, it couldn't be. That's just crazy religious nut talk . . . right?

Here's the article from WorldNetDaily:

Backlash to Obama officials squelching political speech

Law enforcement threats, intimidation likened to 'police-state tactics,' by Missouri governor

Posted: September 27, 20087:25 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily - Used with permission

Following legal threats by Missouri state law-enforcement officials supporting Barack Obama against presidential campaign ads that appeared to be false or misleading, Gov. Matt Blunt today likened the intimidation to "police state tactics."

"St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign," said Blunt in a statement released today. "What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment."

The statement came after the law enforcement officials pledged to form a "truth squad" to halt ads that, among other things, claimed Obama was not a Christian or that he was not planning to cut taxes on Americans other than the wealthy.

"If they're not going to tell the truth, somebody's got to step up and say, 'That's not the truth. This is the truth,'" McCullogh told KMOV-TV in St. Louis.

The effort appeared to be part of a move by the Obama campaign to block advertisements to which it objects. The campaign also sent "threatening" letters to several news agencies in Pennsylvania and Ohio demanding they stop airing ads exposing Obama's gun stance, according to the National Rifle Association.

"This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson," said Blunt.

"I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson's thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election."

Blunt concluded: "Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them.

Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts – not a free society."

The NRA's Political Victory Fund also condemned the effort as censorship.

"Barack Obama and his campaign are terrified of the truth," said Chris W. Cox, chairman of organization.

"Sen. Obama's statements and support for restricting access to firearms, raising taxes on guns and ammunition and voting against the use of firearms for self-defense in the home are a matter of public record. NRA-PVF will make sure that everyone knows of Obama's abysmal record on guns and hunting."

The Obama campaign declined to respond to a WND request for comment.

The NRA said Obama sent "cease and desist letters" to news outlets in the two states, "denouncing the ads and demanding their removal from the airwaves."

"Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in our nation's history. That's the truth," said Cox. "NRA-PVF has the facts on our side. No amount of running from or lying about his record and then intimidating news outlets in the hope of deceiving American gun owners and hunters is going to work. Those strong arm tactics may work in Chicago, but not in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and not as long as NRA-PVF has anything to say about it."

The warnings were from Obama lawyer Robert Bauer, who told station managers that in order to stay in the Federal Communication commission's good graces, they should not air the ads.

Josh Marquis, an Oregon prosecutor who serves as a spokesman for the NDAA, said the comments from Missouri don't sound like the McCulloch he knows.

"I'm really surprised. I know Bob," Marquis told WND.

The KMOV report said the Obama campaign asked members of Missouri's law enforcement to target anyone who "lies" or issues misleading television ads. Formation of the Obama "Truth Squad" was the result, the report said.

McCulloch declined to return a call from WND seeking comment.

The KMOV report said the campaign was being conducted by McCulloch and another prosecutor, Jennifer Joyce, along with a number of sheriffs throughout the state.

"They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year. They also say they plan to respond immediately to any ads and statements that violate Missouri's ethics laws," the report said.

"We want to keep this campaign focused on issues," Joyce told the station. "We don't want people to get distracted. Missourians don't want to be distracted by the divisive character attacks."

The campaign was assembled to "set the record straight," they said.

Officials with the Missouri Sheriff's Association declined to talk about any sheriffs who might be involved in the campaign.

At the blog Gateway Pundit, the reaction was immediate.

"St. Louis and Missouri Democrat sheriffs and top prosecutors are planning to go after anyone who makes false statements against Obama during his campaign. This is so one-sided I can't even [begin] to describe how wrong this agenda is," writes blogger Jim Hoft.

Hoft said Joyce and McCulloch "are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out falsely against Barack Obama."

Missouri blogger Doctor Bulldog commented: "Don't think they will stop with just the local radio and television stations. Oh, no. We bloggers are NEXT on the chopping block! It doesn't matter if it is the truth. It only matters if Obama deems it a lie (i.e. – something that can cause damage to his bid to be president). Basically, NO ONE is free to criticize Obama here in Missouri!!!"

In the St. Louis Examiner, a commentary said, "Look, politicians are all about lies. It may be annoying (I find it entertaining), but that's for their opponents and good-government groups to counter – not law enforcement. ... Even if the officeholders joining the 'truth squad' are nominally stepping out of their official roles in order to put on their (political) party hats and play politics, it's inappropriate. They wield too much power to use it to wag their fingers at people who say un-nice things about political hopefuls. Prosecutors and sheriffs are, after all, normally thought of as people with the clout to put their targets behind bars."

Marquis told WND politicians keep their right to have a political opinion and express it, but the DA's organization strives hard not to be partisan.
-30-

London Telegraph: Default by US government?

2008-09-28T16:42:00.004-05:00

A default by the US government is no longer unthinkable

So, here we are – the start of a new world order. After the tumultuous events of the last fortnight, the global economic landscape will never look the same again.

By Liam Halligan
Copyright 2008 The London Telgraph - Used with permission

Power has tangibly shifted – away from the United States and the Western world generally, and towards the fast-growing giants of the East. That’s been happening for some years now.

But September 2008 marks the moment when the scale of our excesses, the extent of our debts and the moral bankruptcy of our financial regulatory system finally began to be truly exposed.

I say began to be exposed. Back in March, Standard and Poor’s, the US ratings agency, estimated some $285bn (£156bn) of mortgage-backed securities would eventually be written-off by the global banking sector. On Friday, almost unnoticed amid the panic, that forecast was upped to $378bn.

In reality, total credit losses will be much higher — at least $750bn in my view. But the extent of the 33 per cent one-off increase in S&P’s estimate speaks volumes. It reflects just how little anyone truly knows about either the ultimate size of the sub-prime losses or who ultimately holds the related securities. But with one in ten US mortgages now “delinquent” or “in foreclosure”, and house prices still falling, such “toxic waste” is burning holes in balance sheets wherever it sits. That’s why this crisis is far from over.

It’s difficult to overstate the enormity of what happened last week.

By any standard, the collapse of Lehman Brothers was a dramatic — and alarming event. One of the biggest names on Wall Street, the 158-year old bank was consumed by the scale of its losses and crippled by executive feuds. Deemed by the US Federal Reserve to be “sufficiently unconnected” to the rest of the global financial system, Lehman was allowed to fold.

In contrast, American International Group, the world’s largest insurer, was judged “too interconnected” to collapse. So the Fed effectively “nationalised” AIG – the biggest rescue of a private firm in human history.

And it’s only a few weeks, of course, since the even more expensive bail-out of quasi-government lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – which, between them, account for a mind-boggling $5,300bn of mortgages, around half of America’s home loans.

On top of all that, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson sent an $800bn financial rescue plan to Congress. He wants to create a second “Resolution Trust Corporation” – or government-owned asset management company – to take on illiquid mortgage-related debts. The original RTC was established to rescue the US Savings and Loans Associations that went bust in the 1980s.

And by the way, the Fed has also just offered another $125bn of liquidity to banks outside the US that are desperate for dollars and can’t access America’s frozen credit markets – a move co-ordinated with central banks in Japan, the Eurozone, Switzerland, Canada and here in the UK.

The combination of these measures – each of them of enormous significance in its own right – sent stock markets shooting-up on Friday. America’s S&P 500 rose 4.03 per cent and London’s FTSE 100 soared 8.84 per cent, its largest one-day rise ever.

But, despite the end-of-week euphoria and trader-talk that “the only way is up”, despite America’s undoubted resolve and Paulson’s determination to do “whatever it takes”, the situation remains very fragile.

Nothing better reflects the amount of fear among banks in America – banks everywhere – than the sky-high rates they’re continuing to charge when lending to each other. Ordinarily, inter-bank (or Libor) interest rates are only slightly above base rates.

But with so much uncertainty remaining about the scale and occurrence of “sub-prime” – and with desperate bank executives still so reluctant to “fess-up” their losses – the US Libor rate on money to be paid back in three months is now a staggering 1.5 per cent above base. In recent weeks, Libor rates have shot up in other countries too.

Paulson’s latest liquidity injection has lowered over-night Libor rates for now. But, despite the torrent of cash the US has directed at the credit markets, longer-term inter-bank rates have stayed stubbornly high, and some have gone up further. In other words, even the banks themselves don’t think the rescue plan will work. Expect more – and bigger – liquidity operations in weeks to come.

The trouble is, though, as the bill for these bail-outs keeps rising, so does the possibility that the political consensus will crack and there’ll be an almighty, and debilitating, dust-up. Paulson’s RTC plan, in theory, could restore confidence. By taking sub-prime loans off banks’ books, it could de-ice the inter-bank market, restoring credit lines to households and firms and preventing the “credit crunch” from shifting wholesale, in that fabled phrase, “from Wall Street to Main Street”.

But, in the run-up to the US election in November, Democrats in Congress – and even some Republicans – may decide they’re simply not having it. How much more can the US taxpayer take? It sounds insane, but the liabilities being taken on by the Fed and the US Treasury are now so enormous that the government itself could default. No?

Check out the chart showing the recent spikes in the US 10-year credit default swap. In other words, the market is now pricing-in the genuine possibility that the US will struggle to pay-back some of its long-term T-bills.

That possibility is still deemed to be quite low. But the ultimate financial question – until recently, unthinkable – is now being asked. Yes siree, the mighty US government could default.

That’s how much the world has changed.
-30-

Daily Telegraph: $700-billion won't detox banking

2008-09-28T16:30:00.006-05:00

US Economy: Even Hank Paulson's bail-out plan cannot detox global banking

Can the rescue package really halt our slide into a new Depression, asks Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 3:30AM BST 27 Sep 2008
Copyright 2008 The London Telegraph - Used with permission

Even if Congress backs the Paulson bail-out, the $700 billion blast cannot save the US, Britain or the world from the deepest economic slump since the Thirties. If Congress balks, God help us.

The credit system is suffering a heart attack. Inter-bank lending is paralysed. Funds are accepting zero interest on US Treasury notes for the first time since Pearl Harbour, because no bank account is safe.

Wherever you look – dollar, euro, sterling Libor (the rate at which banks lend to each other), or spreads on credit derivatives – the stress has reached breaking point. If borrowers cannot roll over the three-month loans that are the lifeblood of business, they will default en masse.

“Money markets are imploding. If no action is taken very soon, there is a significant risk that the global economy will collapse,” says BNP Paribas. Almost every trader says much the same thing. So does US treasury secretary Hank Paulson, who as Toby Harnden reports, literally dropped on bended knee to beg help from Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Republican refuseniks – defying their president – have a grim responsibility if they now tip America over the edge, setting off the “adverse feedback loop” that so terrifies the US Federal Reserve. Like players in a Greek tragedy, they seem determined to repeat the “liquidation” policy that led to the Great Depression – and to Democrat ascendancy for years.

Lehman Brothers’ collapse showed the chain of inter-connections that can cause mayhem across a clutch of different markets. That was just one bank – albeit with $630 billion or so in liabilities.
Credit is the lubricant of a modern economy. A seizure now would probably lead to the bankruptcy of General Motors and Ford in short order, but it would not stop with the US car industry. Waves of job losses would set off a self-feeding spiral. Yet more people would default on their mortgages (and car loans), driving house prices down even further. That, in turn, would threaten the solvency of the best banks. That is the way to Armaggedon.

As Mr Paulson says, US taxpayers are on the hook whether they like it or not. A $700 billion fund to soak up toxic debt and stabilise the credit market is the cheapest way out. It is certainly cheaper than Depression.

Hopes that the world can cruise happily on as the US buckles have been dashed by the violent downturn across Europe and Asia over the summer. The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates for ships has plummeted by two thirds since May. Japan’s economy is already contracting. China’s may be close behind: a third of all textile factories in Guangdong have closed this year. House prices are tumbling in Shenzen, Beijing, Shanghai.

Albert Edwards, global strategist at Société Général, says Asia built its boom on shipping goods to the US: “The emerging market boom is going to collapse and this will shake investors to the core. The great unwinding has only just begun.”

In Europe, an arc of states from Scandinavia down through the core of the euro zone is already sliding into recession. German GDP shrank by 0.5 per cent in the second quarter. Its manufacturing orders have fallen for eight months in a row, for the first time since records began. Spain is at the onset of a calamitous bust after a property bubble that surpassed even the excesses in America.

This is debt deflation – partly imported from America, partly home-grown. It is global. There is nowhere to hide. Even oil-rich Norway took emergency action this week to shore up its banks.

How will it all end? Europe assumed – wrongly – in the early Thirties that it could withstand the Atlantic gales after the collapse of the Bank of the United States in December 1930. However, Austria’s Credit-Anstalt failed in the early summer of 1931, setting off contagion across the central European banking system.

In the end, it was America that muddled through. The US produced Roosevelt: Europe lost half its democracies. We now live in more benign times, but unlike America, it is far from clear whether the eurozone has the machinery to rescue its economy in a fast-moving crisis. EU rules prohibit big fiscal bail-outs. There is no EU treasury to take charge.

America’s serial bail-outs – nearing $1.6 trillion, or 12 per cent of GDP – are playing havoc with the US budget. The deficit is above 6.7 per cent, near a 60-year peak. But claims that the US is going bust are frivolous. The US Treasury is not taking on permanent debt: it is behaving like a giant wealth fund, hoovering up mortgage securities selling far below their real value for reasons of panic. Famed investor Warren Buffett expects it to make “a considerable amount of money”.

The system will recover, but it may take a slow purge for a decade or more to rid us of the debt toxins. There will be no quick rebound this time.
-30-

US attorneys taking "pre-emptive strike" to court

2008-09-28T14:16:00.005-05:00

Do you remember reading about an alleged conspiracy to kill soldiers at Ft. Dix in New Jersey?

It's been under the radar for quite some time, but the case is important because it shows that the US government is redefining conspiracy prosecutions into a form of "pre-emptive strike" model.

A quick quote out from the story tells why it is important:

"The case will be watched closely because it represents a type of pre-emptive prosecution that has grown more common in U.S. terrorism cases since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — which troubles some experts.

"'Lately, the government has been instructing its informants and taking a more active approach in planning and participation' of illegal acts, said Henry Klingeman, a former federal prosecutor who was the defense lawyer in another New Jersey terrorism case three years ago."

Read it for yourself; the trial opens Monday, Sept. 29, 2008.

Kenneth

+++++++++++

Trial to examine alleged plot to kill soldiers

By Geoff Mulvihill
Posted : Sunday Sep 28, 2008 9:50:41 EDT
Copyright 2008 Army Times - Used with permission

CAMDEN, N.J. — The arrests seemed like a startling wakeup call to America: Federal authorities said a group of would-be terrorists were foiled in a plot to sneak onto a New Jersey military base and kill soldiers.

The federal government argues that the May 2007 arrests of Serdar Tatar, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer and the brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka saved innocent lives. Defense lawyers contend there was no plot and that the government paid an informant to get them to discuss one.

The trial, which opens with jury selection Monday, isn’t a whodunit. The key question will center on whether the men would have done it.

The case will be watched closely because it represents a type of pre-emptive prosecution that has grown more common in U.S. terrorism cases since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — which troubles some experts.

“Lately, the government has been instructing its informants and taking a more active approach in planning and participation” of illegal acts, said Henry Klingeman, a former federal prosecutor who was the defense lawyer in another New Jersey terrorism case three years ago.

The trial will test the government’s strategy in terrorism prosecutions, said Robert Chesney, a Wake Forest University law professor who studies domestic terrorism law.

Unlike many terrorism cases, the Fort Dix case doesn’t involve the transfer of money to people who intended to do harm — it’s about people accused of planning to take lives themselves. “It’s a very important case,” Chesney said.

The five suspects in the alleged Fort Dix plot all face charges of attempted murder and conspiracy to murder uniformed military personnel; four of them are also charged with weapons offenses. All have been in federal custody since they were arrested and face life in prison if they’re convicted.

It could take three weeks or more just to seat a jury of 12 from the 1,500 citizens who have been called. Testimony could last for months.

The government’s investigation into the alleged plot began with a tip from Brian Morgenstern, a clerk at a Circuit City electronics store in Mount Laurel.

He called police in January 2006 after he was troubled by a video that customers asked him to convert to a DVD. Authorities say the home-shot footage featured men at a firing range shouting “Allah Akbar,” Arabic for “God is Great.”

The government then paid Mahmoud Omar, an Egyptian national on probation in a bank fraud case, to infiltrate the group.

The 39-year-old Omar recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with the younger men, all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who had lived for several years in the southern New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia.

The government alleges the plotters were homegrown — a cab driver, three roofing workers and a convenience store clerk who had applied for jobs as a police officer — and that they did not have any connections to outside terror groups. But prosecutors say they were influenced by other terrorist acts, cheering and laughing at gruesome propaganda videos that show Americans being killed.

Federal prosecutors plan to try to show that Dritan Duka tried to buy an AK-47 in Camden as early as 2005, and that Shnewer suggested other targets, including the White House, FBI and CIA headquarters, the U.S. Capitol and Philadelphia International Airport.

They also will allege that Tatar helped plan the attack using a map of Fort Dix he took from his father’s pizza shop, which is just outside the New Jersey Army installation used mostly to train reservists for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Prosecutors also will try to establish that the men took two trips to Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains for training missions that included shooting at firing ranges with automatic weapons.
Agron Abdullahu, a supermarket baker who was on the trips, pleaded guilty last year to providing weapons to some of the others, who are illegal immigrants. Abdullahu, who is now serving a 20-month prison sentence, is not expected to testify at the trial. He has denied any knowledge of a plot.

Prosecutors will also likely detail how Omar brokered a deal for the men to buy (from federal agents) a small arsenal of three AK-47s, two M-16s and four handguns.
Defense lawyers have portrayed Omar as the mastermind of any plot that existed and show that most of their clients were oblivious to any plan.

Michael Riley, who is representing Shain Duka, said the defense will probably play more, and longer, snippets of recorded conversations than prosecutors will. The defense will try to show that while their clients may have liked to shoot guns and held anti-American views, they were not moving ahead with a plan to kill.

“Our guys are saying, ‘What are you talking about?”’ when an attack is mentioned, Riley said.
In one taped conversation, Shnewer makes it seem like Omar is the leader of the group: “I am at your services as you have more experience than me in military bases and in life,” he tells Omar, according to a court filing.

Shnewer’s lawyer, Rocco Cipparone, has said he will consider using an entrapment defense, trying to persuade jurors that if there was a plot, his client was led into it by Omar.
Legal experts say the government has expanded the use of conspiracy laws in terrorism cases since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

John Parry, a law professor at Oregon’s Lewis and Clark University, said the government sometimes charges people with being in a conspiracy to carry out terrorism even if they did not take steps to carry it out.

“I’m skeptical, personally, that we’re in such a serious emergency that we should be pushing the envelope of conspiracy laws,” Parry said.

The government’s ramped up emphasis on terrorism — often using conspiracy laws — has led to convictions in a handful of alleged plots that were never carried out — but some suspects have also been cleared in similar cases.

At a speech to judges in Pennsylvania in June, Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged that bringing charges in plots that have not been executed may make it harder to get a conviction.

But he said it’s the right thing to do.

“I would rather explain to the American people why we acted when we did, — even if it is at a very early stage — than try to explain why we failed to act when we could have,” Mukasey said.
-30-

Daily Telegraph: Cold-blooded story of WH summit

2008-09-28T02:31:00.004-05:00

Ready to read the most cold-blooded rendition of what went on at the White House this past weekend when Pres. Bush held his "summit" to send the Paulson plan to Congress, and loot the US Treasury for about $1-trillion - the real cost of the bailout?

To grasp how much money that represents, the entire M1 money supply - that is, US dollars in circulation everywhere in the world; every cash drawer, every wallet, every penny jar of change - every single penny of US dollars - is about $1-trillion. So what we are talking about here is somehow manufacturing double the number of dollars that exist everywhere on Earth.

And we are talking about manufacturing them - literally - overnight.

How reliable is this number to do the job? Read this quote, and then decide if you should laugh - or cry:

"They had good reason for skepticism. On Tuesday, a Treasury Department press spokeswoman admitted the $700 billion figure was not based on any particular data point, adding with astonishing candor: 'We just wanted to choose a really large number.'"

OK folks, this is the type of planning going into this crisis from the people who got us into this crisis. Why do I not feel reassured knowing they are in charge?

And frankly, where in the world is my congressman, Jeff Miller? Have you heard from yours either?

Well, read it for yourself in this unedited article. Once again, the London Telegraph does the job; it's a "take no prisoners" fact-telling story that will put the quality of what you've read in the US news to shame.

This is must-reading for anyone who wants to be on the inside of this crisis. But keep the Valium handy when you do.

Kenneth

+++++++++++++++++++

US economy in crisis: How did it come to this?

America’s effort to see off a new depression unravelled last week. Washington correspondent Tim Shipman watched the bail-out talks descend into gridlock .

Unattributed to any one staffer

London Telegraph

Last Updated: 9:48PM BST 27 Sep 2008

When the two men who want to run the world’s most powerful nation took to the stage for the first presidential debate on Friday night, more than 60 million Americans tuned in. But not everyone in Washington was watching Barack Obama and John McCain.

In the White House, the men who currently hold the reins of power in America were on the phone to Capitol Hill, where grey-faced congressional aides were holding late-night meetings trying to thrash out the deal they hope can prevent meltdown in the world economy.

Asked whether he would be watching the debate, in which Mr Bush’s name was used as an insult, or the deadlocked negotiations, in which his standing is little better, one White House official said: “A bit of both – but I’d rather not watch either.”

It was a week that began with a financial crisis, perhaps the gravest in eight decades, and ended with a political crisis over the already infamous bail-out plan to invest $700 billion of public cash buying up the bad debts of failing banks.

Into this maelstrom stepped a president with little economic literacy and still less authority; a presidential candidate whose political judgment seemed as constant as the fluctuating stock market; and, at the heart of it all, a treasury secretary who ended the week literally on his knees, begging for deliverance from the vicissitudes of Washington politics.

At issue was nothing less than the fate of the world economy, the future of free market capitalism and the credibility of the most powerful nation on earth – perhaps even its status as lone global superpower.

This time last week, treasury secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson, a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, was pretty pleased with himself. His plan, all three pages of it, had been welcomed across the political spectrum.

Roy Smith, a former colleague of Mr Paulson at Goldman Sachs and Professor of Finance and International Business at New York University, told The Sunday Telegraph: “He clearly emerged as the central leader in the administration. Normally, treasury secretaries don’t get that sort of latitude. He’s the principal government decision-maker on economic policy. Period.”

But Mr Paulson’s world quickly fell apart when the American public and Republican congressmen showed themselves unwilling to take dictation from a former Wall Street plutocrat.
Calls and emails to congressional offices on Monday and Tuesday ran 200-to-one against the plan. Polls showed that six out of ten voters could not understand why taxpayers should pay to save reckless Wall Street firms.

They had good reason for scepticism. On Tuesday, a Treasury Department press spokeswoman admitted the $700 billion figure was not based on any particular data point, adding with astonishing candour: “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Mr Paulson, unused to the ways of Washington, had failed to explain that his plan was necessary to prevent a credit freeze which would stall the flow of money through the arteries of the world economy, with consequences similar to those of stopping the flow of blood around the human body.

Prof Smith said: “They lost control of the media description of it. That magnified misunderstandings which have been fodder for a political system of demagoguery and posturing.”

He said Mr Paulson has had to undergo a lot of on-the-job learning: “He’s also had to learn that, in the political context in Washington, CEOs are often emasculated quite quickly.”

It was not just the public that did not understand the rescue plan, nor why it was necessary. When Mr Paulson met with congressmen and senators on Tuesday and Wednesday, he found that many lawmakers were similarly clueless.

An aide to a senior Democratic senator said: “It might as well be in Arapahoe for most of them. Paulson had to spell it out like he was talking to a bunch of first-graders.”

In these impromptu lessons, Mr Paulson found Left-wingers scandalised by help for rapacious capitalists sitting side-by-side with Right-wingers who saw in his plan a socialist scheme to tamper with their precious markets.

In closed-door meetings with senior Democrats, Mr Paulson accepted compromises (limits on executive pay at the banks needing help, and more support for struggling mortgage holders) that allowed the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to line up their troops in support of the plan. The White House soon won over Senate Republicans, too. But when the 199 House Republicans gathered, just four raised their hands to back Paulson’s proposals.

And more was needed to sell the deal to the nation. Step forward George Bush, whose political capital has long been deep in the red. His televised address on Wednesday night laid out a vision of plummeting house prices and pension funds. “Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.

Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, accused Mr Bush of pushing the “fear” button: “He said the clock was ticking. This seems like a bad episode of 24.”

In the panelled splendour of the Capital Grille, a favoured haunt of the political smart set, a former White House speechwriter reflected the view that the presidents doom-mongering could actually make things worse: “If we didn’t need a bail-out before that, we do now.”

But in private talks on Capitol Hill, the Bush administration was pushing an even bleaker picture. A Republican familiar with the warnings issued by the Treasury Department away from the cameras, said the New York stock market should brace for a collapse of up to a third of its value if the deal failed to materialise. “The economy is dropping into the john,” he said. “We could see falls of 3,000 or 4,000 points on the Dow in just a couple of days.

“What’s being put around behind the scenes is that we’re looking at Thirties stuff. We’re looking at catastrophe; huge, amazing catastrophe. It’s one of those things that no one can quite grasp or understand. Everybody is extraordinarily scared.”

This harum-scarum offensive seemed to bear fruit and the tentative basis of a deal was hammered out by Thursday lunchtime. But by then, John McCain had made another of the political gambles for which he is becoming known. The Republican presidential candidate, whose unsure performance on the economy (declaring the fundamentals sound just as the stock market plunged, opposing the bail-out of insurance giant AIG the day before supporting it) had seen his poll numbers decline, declared that he was suspending his campaign to return to Washington and help finalise the deal. From a man known as Senator Hothead for his profanity-laced negotiating style, this was like a bull announcing to the inhabitants of the china shop his intention to do a little browsing.

Mr McCain succeeded in persuading Mr Bush to invite the principal players, and his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, to a Thursday-afternoon summit in the White House. His move also emboldened the House Republicans.

What happened next will go down as the biggest White House drama since The West Wing left our screens two years ago. President Bush lost control as tempers flared in the cabinet room. John Boehner, the Republican House minority leader, torpedoed the Paulson plan, offering up an alternative proposal that would force banks to buy insurance for their failing securities instead of giving them public money.

Mr Paulson explained that the idea was unworkable and declared: “We can’t start over.” But the rebels were not done. Republican Senator Richard Selby then produced a five-page list of 192 economists and business school professors who oppose the plan. That was a red rag to Mr Bush, who snapped back: “I don’t care what somebody on some college campus says,” saying he would trust Mr Paulson instead.

The President then summarised the dangers of inaction to the world economy in characteristically blunt terms: “If money isn’t loosened, this sucker could go down.”

With the deal on life-support, Mr Paulson then chased after furious Democrats, dropping to his knees, only half-jokingly, to beg Nancy Pelosi not to blow up the legislation. Through it all, Mr McCain, who knew Mr Boehner’s plans in advance, far from helping to engineer a compromise, sat mute.

Moderate Republicans were furious at Boehner’s band of brothers. Jim Nuzzo, a White House staffer under the first President Bush, branded the House Republicans “immature brats who have put ideology before country”.

“We’re at a point in our nation’s history when they need to grow up. If McCain can’t get the House Republican leadership to give him 100 votes to do something that the President wants, the treasury secretary wants, the Fed chairman wants, then he doesn’t have a set of nuts that’s worth a damn.”

If he can deliver them over the next 24 hours, it may yet boost Mr McCain’s credibility. Those 100 votes are critical political cover for the Democrats who fear they might lose 20 to 30 congressional seats in November if they alone pushed through an unpopular bill.

The Democratic Senate aide, steeped in seven years of military metaphors from the war on terror, said: “We were prepared to strap on the suicide bomb vests and pull the pins together. But we’re not committing suicide if the Republicans won’t do the same. It’s mutually assured destruction, or nothing.”

In the long run, the true significance of the opposition of the House Republicans may not be the narrow politicking but their stance on the broader historic issue of whether America, a country built on capitalism, will have to accept more government intervention in the market.

The Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, most recently an adviser to Mitt Romney, warned that this would mean accepting aggressively socialistic measures that would leave conservatives unable to explain why the same paternal state we called upon to rescue Wall Street can’t bend down a little lower to provide government-paid health care, energy subsidies and every imaginable social service.

Senior Democratic congressman Barney Frank admitted that things are changing. “This is a very serious policy step that the American government is taking. It’s a fundamental shift in the relationship between the public sector and the private sector.”

The week-long quest for a deal deemed vital and urgent left many cursing Washington’s collective failure of leadership. It was not just smug Europeans, like the German finance minister Peer Steinbrück, who saw last week as the moment America compromised its status as an economic superpower.

Pat Buchanan, the former Republican presidential candidate, claimed that the crash of 2008 will usher in a more sober and much diminished America, branding the credit crisis “a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself. The party’s over. What we are witnessing today is how empires end.”

The days of gridlock raise questions about whether the prize that Mr Obama and Mr McCain are fighting over will be worth the candle come January. In the debate, both candidates acknowledged that the financial belt-tightening will force them to modify their economic plans.

Tom Daschle, a likely chief of staff in an Obama White House, predicted the next president would have, at best, a 50-50 chance of winning a second term because of the looming economic downturn.

The rows on Capitol Hill exposed a continuing cultural divide between New York capitalists and Washington bureaucrats. Slate magazine’s Timothy Noah pointed out that the expansion of government after the Great Depression meant that Washington became Wall Street’s principal rival when it came to running the world. Which wielded more power: the financial markets or the government? If last week is anything to go by, neither of them looks capable of running a corner shop, let alone a world.

As the Senate aide put it after China used a week of American political and economic decline to demonstrate its emergence as a rival power: “They’ve just put men in space. We can’t get 400 congressmen to agree that preventing another depression is a good idea.”

Copyright 2008 the London Telegraph - Used with permission.

-30-

Daily Telegraph: Financial crisis engulfs banking

2008-09-28T00:40:00.006-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, right now the first-tier US news organizations are too often politically tainted by their spin on the presidential election for me to post them as objective sources of information. Therefore, I am turning to the British press, in particular the London Telegraph, for coverage.

Of course, if a US source can report on this crisis without spinning it for their favorite presidential candidate, I'll post it. But at this point, all readers are warned up-front that the quality of information - and its slant - for first-tier US information organizations is all to be taken with a large helping of salt.

The following article will provide more a historic summation of events, because of the pace at which the financial crisis story is moving. Read it to provide yourself with an understanding of the environment surrounding whatever comes out of Washington Sunday and thereafter this coming week.

Kenneth

+++++++++++++++

Deepening financial crisis engulfs the banking industry

As Washington Mutual became America’s biggest bank failure and politicians argue over the terms of a $700bn rescue plan, a solution to the global credit crisis looked more remote than ever.

By Louise Armitstead
Last Updated: 10:23PM BST 27 Sep 2008

It has already become an iconic moment. On Thursday, Henry 'Hank’ Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary and a man with a personal fortune estimated at $700m (£380m), bent down on one knee before the most powerful woman in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, and begged her to save his plan to rescue Wall Street.

It didn’t work. Ten days after America announced a $700bn bailout for its stricken banks, weary financiers on both sides of the Atlantic went home for the weekend convinced their futures were in the hands of a group of American politicians whose priority was an election in a month, not the markets on Monday.

President Bush repeatedly pleaded with Congress to back the deal. “This sucker could go down,” Bush told them, apparently referring to the teetering US economy.

Congressional staff worked until 2am on Saturday morning and resumed again at 7am in an attempt to reach an agreement on the bailout – which could be the most extensive peacetime state intervention in the financial system since the Great Depression – by the time the markets open in Asia tomorrow.

However, Congressmen were under intense pressure to reject the bailout, which would allow the US government to buy toxic housing-related investments from banks.

A source close to the meetings said: “American Congressmen are being lobbied by voters at a scale of nearly 100 to 1 to vote against this bailout. It could be politically lethal to be seen as the ones taking the side of Wall Street against the people.”

Not, screamed Wall Street, as dangerous as the impact on financial markets if it were not granted. Last week Warren Buffett, America’s richest man and most famous investor with a huge retail following, tried to impress the importance: “This is sort of an economic Pearl Harbor we’re going through. I’m sure we didn’t want to go to war in 1941. There are times when events force a timetable on you and force action. If they think about it for three weeks, it will be very different and more difficult.”

Bob Diamond, boss of Barclays Capital and new owner of Lehman Brothers in America, told The Sunday Telegraph: “The reality is that the world needs a functioning financial system and it’s up to everyone involved to make sure this happens.”

Another senior banker said: “I don’t think people realise how serious this is. We are facing a full-scale meltdown of the financial system and liquidity is drying up. Imagine not being able to withdraw cash from the banks to buy food. This, in financial terms, is what’s happening. There is no way this bailout can’t happen. It’s about confidence and the blow would be huge.”

Bankers pointed to the events of last week as proof. While the markets had soared last Friday on news of the bailout, within days the uncertainty surrounding it had again unleashed fresh fear into the markets.

Overnight last Sunday, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were converted from independent to ordinary regulated banks, adding shocking emphasis to the depth of the crisis: Wall Street as it had long been known ceased to exist.

Then as politicians wrangled, the interbank lending market froze.

On Thursday, regulators seized control of Washington Mutual, making it the biggest banking failure in US history. Then shares in Wachovia, the fourth largest bank in the US, fell 27 per cent on Friday. In the panic, fresh doubts were poured on the future of Morgan Stanley as its credit default swap rate widened dramatically, a sign of extreme distress.

By now all eyes were fixed on the bailout as the market’s only hope.

Yet this weekend, City pessimists argued that Paulson’s plan might not work, even if it does get through Congress. They said confidence in the banks was shattered beyond repair when Paulson let Lehman Brothers fail and that no amount of US taxpayer money set aside to buy toxic assets from banks will get banks to start lending to one another again. Neither will it get investors to start buying bank shares again.

Instead, they argued, investors and banks themselves will keep scouting for – and steering clear of – institutions perceived to be the weakest links in the financial system. This self-fulfilling process could well lead to a 1930s-style domino effect of failing banks.

“I think Paulson has gone for the wrong model,” a senior London banker said on Friday. “The model he chose was the one used to bail out bankrupt US building societies in the 1980s. The model he should have chosen was used to inject government funds directly into banks in the 1930s.”

Others argued, the panic was being overblown by self-important bankers who ought to take responsibility for their own mistakes during what Gordon Brown has condemned as the “age of irresponsibility”. They pointed to the fact that plenty of banks have managed the downturn perfectly well and are now in a position of strength.

Barclays, which made write-downs early in the crisis, has bought Lehman Brothers’ US operations from administration in a move that propelled the British bank up the table of global powerhouses.

This weekend, Diamond said: “All banks have assets they’d prefer not to have on their balance sheets. If you’d asked me a month ago if we were going to buy an investment bank, the answer would be very, very unlikely. This unique opportunity came very quickly. Opportunities only come along in crises.”

Similarly, Deutsche Bank has quietly made four acquisitions over the summer.

But even the strong banks recognised the importance of the US bailout to the wider economy.
Michael Cohrs, head of global banking at Deutsche Bank said: “Our losses, while modest are not acceptable. But we continuing to work hard to ensure we are in the best shape to cope with this crisis. Ensuring stability in the US markets is important for us all. The bailout will not solve the problems but if doesn’t happen it will be yet another negative. There’s a psychology to a crisis and more bad news compounds the problems.”

Last week was meant to be a fresh start. After the collapse of Lehman, the fire sale of Merrill Lynch and HBOS and the nationalisation of AIG, news of the Fed’s planned bailout announced on Thursday was supposed to be the bottom line. On Friday soaring markets reflected a new optimism in the financial system .

Instead, on Monday morning, the two last remaining investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, admitted they had been forced to seek humbling rescue measures too.
The most prestigious titans of finance had relinquished their independent status and became standard, regulated banks. Wall Street as it has long been known ceased to exist.

Morgan Stanley then rapidly announced talks to sell a stake to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial while it emerged that Warren Buffett had bought a stake in Goldman on very favourable terms.
One rival said: “The real shock was Goldman. If Goldman were in trouble, we all were.”

It was a reality Goldman’s chief executive Lloyd Blankfein had been fighting for nearly two weeks.

On Friday, September 12 Blankfein joined 30 other bosses for a crisis meeting called by the Fed in New York. They had been told that Lehman was in big trouble and would probably collapse if a buyer could not be found .

Blankfein was considered a leader of the pack, not just because he was the boss of Wall Street’s smartest bank, but he was old chums with the chairmen of the meeting, Paulson, from the US Treasurer’s Goldman days.

He was also on the 'strong side’ of the room – among those considered to have best withstood the financial maelstrom of the past year .

While Bear Stearns went bust and others haemorrhaged unprecedented losses, Goldman adopted the lofty role of adviser and stabiliser.

Yet it was in this meeting that a new reality was realised. The dire problems of Lehman, AIG and Merrill made it clear that this was no longer about weak or strong institutions but about a huge crisis of confidence from which none of them were safe.

One Goldman insider said: “In days after that meeting the atmosphere in the bank changed very quickly from the normal bravado to horror. The worst part was when our share price hit 80p. It was truly frightening.”

More threatening for the bank’s senior management was the distinct possibility that credit rating agencies would downgrade Goldman. The move would mean the cost of borrowing money would soar, putting severe pressure on the lifeblood of the bank.

Arch-rival Morgan Stanley was similarly panicked and abandoned all pretence, loudly searching for a buyer or an investor.

In the middle of the mayhem, Blankfein turned to Buffett, the one man in America who commanded both capital and, more importantly, confidence.

Initially, Buffett said he wasn’t interested. For six months he had rejected similar pleas for help from a raft of other embattled financial institutions, starting with Bear Stearns in March. But on Tuesday last week, his position changed. Just before lunch, Buffett said he was sitting with his feet on his desk in Omaha sipping a Cherry Coke and nibbling at some mixed nuts when he received a desperate call from Byron Trott, head of Goldman in Chicago and charged by Blankfein to secure a deal.

Blankfein knew Buffett – sources say the pair had been introduced by Paulson. But Buffett was close to Trott, whom he had once described in an investment letter as a “rare investment banker who puts himself in his client’s shoes . . . I trust him completely”.

In this phone call Trott simply asked Buffett to name the terms under which he would invest in Goldman and the bank would try to hammer out a deal. Hours later, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway had pledged to invest $5bn in Goldman. He also received the right to buy $5bn worth of Goldman shares at $115 per share.

Later Buffett said: “The price was right, the people were right, the terms were right and I decided to write a cheque.” He joked he had lots of cash which had to be spent. “Otherwise, it’s a bit like saving up sex for your old age – at some point you’ve got to use it.”

Within hours, the 'Buffett effect’ had sent Goldman shares soaring and netted him millions of dollars in paper profit.

But it was clear that Buffett recognised the situation was bigger than a single deal or a single bank. The next day he went on CNBC, the American cable channel, to stress the importance of the proposed bailout, and said the financial system was in grave danger and could take “years and years to repair”.

Although America listened to its most admired investor, he still failed to satisfy their increasingly angry question: why?

The financial system was structured after the 1929 Wall Street Crash and in the light of the Great Depression that followed.

Beforehand the banks had been run as an old boys’ club: when problems arose, the weakest institutions were helped along by the strongest, mostly to save their collective good names.
As the Great Depression set in, greedy bankers were blamed for taking too much risk and jeopardising the world economy.

Even so it was accepted that investment banking played a crucial role in the economy .

Peter Hahn of CASS business school said: “Investment banks were, as they are now, crucial for facilitating business and disseminating wealth. As security traders they allow company owners to sell part of their shares, freeing up money to spend and invest while allowing other to share in the growth of their company. To this day, countries with no securities system often have a big concentration of wealth in a few families – in the Middle East, for instance.”

Even so the US government decided the system needed to be properly controlled .

The Securities Act of 1933 brought standardisation to the securities industry, in particular disclosure to the equity and bonds markets, while the SEC was created as the watchdog. In addition, the Glass-Steagall Act divided firms into commercial banks, who took deposits and offered loans to companies, and securities firms that traded on the markets and kept their risks entirely separate from retail savers.

As such, firms such as Goldman Sachs were not really banks but securities dealers.

Hahn said: “In return for the privilege of being able to raise deposits from the public, the banks were heavily regulated and as such grew with a reputation of prudence, safety, watched by the strongest government institutions. The securities banks with their higher risks were kept away from savings.”

But in the following decades and with the onset of globalisation, the burgeoning financial system began to outgrow this structure.

The UK, for instance, had developed in a broadly two-tier sense. The merchant banks, such as Barings, Schroders, Hambros, were small but offered everything from deposits to securities trading to the rich while the clearing banks developed for mass savings.

American securities banks were quick to see the advantage of the more integrated and efficient rules in London.

Hahn said after Big Bang, the integrated system in London allowed for far greater competition and securities trading was “far more efficient and cheaper than New York”.

In 1990 the Rule 144A was passed to introduce competition into securities market and started the erosion of the Glass-Steagall Act by allowing institutional trading of unlisted and unregistered securities. The next big landmark was 1998 – Travellers Group bought Citicorp to add to Salomon Brothers creating an integrated bank which swept away the separation.
By now American regulators were more interested in formulating international banking rules being drawn up in Basel.

But when these rules were introduced, they were aimed at retail banks leaving the burgeoning investment banks to grow relatively unchecked. One expert said: “The only real monitors were credit rating agencies, dominated by Moody’s and Standard & Poor. These were ill-equipped to understand the radically changing products.”

Another oversight was the US insurance market where there has never been a national regulator only state ones.

One insurance expert said: “Essentially insurance went unchecked by professionals. It all worked fine for small players. But huge firms like AIG were becoming international. How was the New York State insurance guy supposed to understand a credit default instrument sold in London?”

Last week experts said that, in hindsight, the lax rules allowed the financial system to completely reinvent itself given a strong enough catalyst. This came in the form of the telecoms and media boom at the turn of the millennium.

A senior London banker said: “During the tech bubble the value of securities was rising so fast that it no longer became good enough for investment banks to just trade on behalf of clients, they wanted to own the securities too. Margins were particularly small in the debt markets – you could do a £10bn eurobond trade for BT and take away a tiny margin. Banks bought debt but also started creating more complicated financial instruments and derivatives that became part of financing. Hybrid capital was born and the 'off-balance sheet vehicles’ were designed to hold the risk.”

The risk systems at the credit rating agencies were not sophisticated enough to keep up and, despite their complexity, many were given AAA ratings. As well as the bank, insurance companies, which were searching for yield enhancing products to match their increasingly liabilities due in part to the ageing population, started lapping them up.

Experts argue that it was at this time that renumeration policies also started encouraging huge risk appetites at the banks.

Peter Hahn : “Bank bosses have been incentivised like tech bosses. If you’re a shareholder in Intel, you want the management to pull all the stops into developing the next chip because if they don’t and Samsung produces a better chip which captures the market, Intel could be bust. If it does go bust, it doesn’t effect anyone else.

“The difference with a bank is a boss can say: 'you want me to make more profits? No problem, I can just go out and buy more risk and deal with the problems later’.” One top UK investor agrees: “At RBS, Fred Goodwin was paid a bonus for doing the ABN deal. Actually, the board should have said, by doing the deal you have radically increased the risk profile of the bank, you’ll get the bonus when the acquisition has proved itself. The pay structure has rewarded risk taking rather than solid, tangible success.”

The hubris reached its zenith with the development of sub-prime mortgages in the US. The ease of originating loans was matched by a hunger to take them on and package them within the banks. Cheap credit flooded the markets and was eagerly taken up by the soaring ambitions of corporates, private equity firms and hedge funds.

One banker said: “The cycle was bound to turn eventually but since it did last summer, it’s the structural problems that have proved to be the real danger.”

Every day for the past two weeks, bosses at the investment banks in London and New York have been meeting to discuss the future of their businesses.

One said: “Large parts of the system are simply gone. Today the wholesale funding market is broken. Securitisation is shut, the bond markets are difficult and costly and other creditors are unreliable.”

Without the funding, the independent investment banks who relied on it must find another source. It is expected that Goldman and Morgan Stanley will buy big retail banks in the US to secure a deposit base.

A far higher level of regulation also seems likely, both from central banks and legislators.
One banker said: “We must accept large-scale intervention. The ban on short-selling is just an example. Perfectly ordinary practices will be banned or regulated into expediency until the system is back to health. This will hit banks, hedge funds, private equity firms and then have a knock-on effect on accountants and lawyers.

“We’re entering a whole new world. The question is, when it is safe to start building it?”

Who said what about the financial meltdown

US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on why the $700bn bailout package must be passed: “We must do so in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten American families’ financial wellbeing, the viability of businesses both small and large, and the very health of our economy.”

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke: “Action by Congress is urgently required to stabilise the situation and avert what otherwise could be very serious consequences for our financial markets and for our economy.”

George W Bush: “Our entire economy is in danger.”

Democratic Congressman Mike McNulty on the rush to approve the bailout fund: “We have been told repeatedly by this administration that the economy is fundamentally sound and then, all of a sudden, they say the economy is going to collapse. That is unacceptable.”

Warren Buffett, after investment in Goldman Sachs: “You can’t keep money around for ever. It’s like saving sex for your old age.”

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF: “The consequences for some financial institutions are still in front of us.”

Copyright 2008 the London Telegraph - Used with permission.
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Daily Telegraph: The Trillion Dollar Dictatorship

2008-09-27T23:36:00.007-05:00

Forget $700-billion as the price tag for the bailout; as this article from the London Telegraph shows, the US is up for a $1-trillion bailout. But what's another 45% uptick from what the politicians want us to believe?

This entire farce shows how totally incompetent the US Congress, the administration, and all the regulatory agencies are in doing their oversight responsibilities. The bottom line they are selling us is, "Even through we are responsible for getting the world into this mess, and even though we are failures at every attempt prior to this one to solve it, this time we have the answer and everything will work out right.

"Trust us. Let us do this with a specific provision to eliminate court review of our actions (the most important unreported aspect of the bailout legislation - did you know it will be beyond the reach of any judicial review? How do you feel about dictatorship? That's what it will be as currently written.)"

Well, this is a fast moving story, and I'll do my best to get with it. For regulars looking for new content, I apologize for not posting the past 3 days. I'm back, picking the best unedited articles I can find for your intellectual stimulation.

Kenneth

+++++++++++++

It’s not just Wall Street with its back to the wall

I’m in shock. Can this crisis get any worse? My instinct is it can. My deep concern is it will.

By Liam Halligan
Last Updated: 8:25PM BST 27 Sep 2008

This time last week, the world was breathing a sigh of relief. The “bailout” had just been announced – and share prices shot up in celebration.

Financial markets were jubilant US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was coming to the rescue.

Even inter-bank rates – what banks charge to lend to each other – were falling. So last weekend, as Paulson purred, we all saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

Yet, as we now know, that light was an oncoming train. Last weekend I warned, despite the euphoria, the bailout could cause an “almighty, debilitating political dust-up”. Unfortunately, that’s what happened.

Having spent the last few days in the US, I can vouch voters are very, very angry about feather-bedding a bunch of overpaid bankers. Even in New York, a city that lives and breaths high finance, the tabloids screamed “Fraud Street” – aimed directly at the Wall Street crowd.

Just six weeks before the most hotly contested Presidential contest in decades, it’s not surprising the politicians have waded in. In Congress, many Democrats, and even Republicans, have refused to approve the bailout.

Some want extra home-owner protection. Others say that would spook the banks even more. Almost everyone wants limits on bankers’ salaries. And there is sense, too, that huge government bailouts are “socialist” and “un-American”.

All week, the financial markets have gyrated – mostly downward – as the bailout has flirted with extinction. On Monday, as money sought a safe haven, oil spiked 16 per cent, another one-day record, to $120 a barrel.

Huge developments have come and gone – with almost no reflection or comment. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley surrendered their investment bank status. Washington Mutual failed – the biggest bank collapse in US history.

The Bank of England stepped up, pumping £40bn into our credit-starved money markets. And now, Bradford and Bingley could be the next “Northern Rock”. These massive events have just happened. Yet all eyes remain on Congress. Will the bail-out be agreed? What happens if it isn’t?
The sums involved are simply unprecedented. Rather than $700bn, the US government won’t get away with spending less than $1,000bn – a trillion dollars.

The reality of “pork-barrel” politics is that many in Congress won’t vote to bail out Wall Street unless they get money for their vested interests too. In recent days, the ailing US auto industry has moved into poll position – and looks set for $30bn. Michigan and Ohio – the big car-making states – could swing the US election. Neither party will stand in their way.

At a trillion dollars, then, the money at stake isn’t far short of what economists call US M1 – total cash in circulation in the world’s biggest economy. That’s almost 7 per cent of America’s entire GDP.

With Wall Street warning of an almighty crash on Monday unless a bailout is agreed, a deal of sorts will emerge this weekend – if only something preliminary. But I’m not sure it will work.

The idea is that Paulson’s Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) will buy toxic mortgage-backed securities from banks – so de-icing the inter-bank markets. But at what price?

Something between “hold to maturity” and “fire-sale”, says the Federal Reserve – leaving huge scope for uncertainty. But TARP will only inspire confidence if the market feels the total sum pledged will mop up the sub-prime mess. And that can’t be judged if a deal is announced but the price regime isn’t clear.

What’s more, many banks – in an act of on-going self-delusion – have “priced” their sub-prime securities at only a slight discount to face-value.

But when TARP steps in, and establishes genuine prices, many banks will be forced to make even more writedowns. So far, around $510m of sub-prime losses have been “fessed-up”. Ironically, Paulson’s bailout could see that escalate two- or even three-fold – so sparking a new wave of panic.

Consider, also, that the situation will remain very fragile until US house prices stop falling. The more prices drop, the more sub-prime loans will default, causing banks to incur more losses. But as new data showed last week, America’s housing market may yet have further to fall.
US house prices are already down 17 per cent from their 2006 peak. The problem is the huge overhang of unsold homes – which remains at almost 11 months’ supply, worse even that during the recession of the early 1990s.

But my biggest problem isn’t that the Paulson plan is too vague (inevitable, given the political stakes) or that US house prices will keep falling (a fact of life). My problem is that this bail-out is utterly misconceived.

The idea of buy bank’s illiquid assets sounds good in theory. But it won’t solve the main issue – namely, the banks have very little capital to lend anyway, even if their sub-prime losses disappear.

Congress should be approving a direct recapitalisation of US banks – as the Swedish government was forced to back in the mid-1990s – rather than messing about with TARP. I fear that’s eventually what will happen. So this bailout is only round one.

Liam Halligan is chief economist at Prosperity Capital Management

Copyright 2008 London Telegraph - Used with Permission
-30-

Lunatic Fringe: PETA wants human breast milk

2008-09-24T12:53:00.004-05:00

This is truly an insane group; PETA wrote the founders of Ben and Jerry's ice cream asking they substitute human breast milk for cow's milk.

OK, PETA, tell us how are you going to:

1) Screen the breast milk for disease and impurities?
2) Maintain its sanitation to the factory?
3) Allocate lot numbers to track end-user problems?
4) Build up a cadre of equally insane women to deny milk to their baby in exchange for using it for ice cream?

That's the best I can do to treat this idea with any semblance of respect. PETA is totally insane; that just takes it to a more obvious visibility.

Here's the story:

PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human Milk

POSTED: 2:21 pm EDT September 23, 2008
UPDATED: 10:28 pm EDT September 23, 2008

VERMONT -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

"PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says.

PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health.

"The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk."

In a statement Ben and Jerry's said, "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

Read PETA's letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers - and cows - would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health.

Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to 17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President
++++++++++++

Copyright 2008 WNBC - Used with permission
-30-

New York Times: Bailout Needs Punitive Action

2008-09-23T13:29:00.004-05:00

OK, when the NY Times starts to sound like a conservative financial advocate, you know things on Wall Street are truly a mess.

This quote from the article tells the story in a heartbeat:

“This administration is asking for a $700 billion blank check to be put in the hands of Henry Paulson, a guy who totally missed this, and has been wrong about almost everything,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

“It’s almost amazing they can do this with a straight face. There is clearly skepticism and anger at the idea that we’d give this money to these guys, no questions asked.”

This article tells a story I've long told my radio program listeners: The people at the top of the US government's financial agencies were clueless about the coming crash, and everything they've done up to now is a failure.

Now they want you to cough up another $700-billion. Sure.

Let's see, Lehman Bros. pulled $8-billion out of Europe the week before filing for bankruptcy. Why? So they could fund a $2.5-billion bonus fund for top management.

A bonus for taking a company into bankruptcy? What's wrong with this picture?

Barclay's, which bought Lehman, had to borrow $100-million to make its European payroll.

Here is the article for your edification:

Experts See a Need for Punitive Action in Bailout

By PETER S. GOODMAN
September 23, 2008

As economists puzzle over the proposed details of what may be the biggest financial bailout in American history, the initial skepticism that greeted its unveiling has only deepened.

Some are horrified at the prospect of putting $700 billion in public money on the line.

Others are outraged that Wall Street, home of the eight-figure salary, may get rescued from the consequences of its real estate bender, even as working families give up their houses to foreclosure.

Most economists accept that the nation’s financial crisis — the worst since the Great Depression — has reached such perilous proportions that an expensive intervention is required. But considerable disagreement centers on how to go about it.

The Treasury’s proposal for a bailout, now being negotiated with Congress, is being challenged as fundamentally deficient.

“At first it was, ‘thank goodness the cavalry is coming,’ but what exactly is the cavalry going to do?” asked Douglas W. Elmendorf, a former Treasury and Federal Reserve Board economist, and now a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “What I worry about is that the Treasury has acted very quickly, without having the time to solicit enough opinions.”

The common denominator to many reactions is a visceral discomfort with giving Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. — himself a product of Wall Street — carte blanche to relieve major financial institutions of bad loans choking their balance sheets, all on the taxpayer’s bill.

There are substantive reasons for this discomfort, not least concerns that Mr. Paulson will pay too much, thus subsidizing giant financial institutions.

Many economists argue that taxpayers ought to get more than avoidance of the apocalypse for their dollars: they ought to get an ownership stake in the companies on the receiving end.

But an underlying source of doubt about the bailout stems from who is asking for it.

The rescue is being sold as a must-have emergency measure by an administration with a controversial record when it comes to asking Congress for special authority in time of duress.

“This administration is asking for a $700 billion blank check to be put in the hands of Henry Paulson, a guy who totally missed this, and has been wrong about almost everything,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

“It’s almost amazing they can do this with a straight face. There is clearly skepticism and anger at the idea that we’d give this money to these guys, no questions asked.”

Mr. Paulson has argued that the powers he seeks are necessary to chase away the wolf howling at the door: a potentially swift shredding of the American financial system.

That would be catastrophic for everyone, he argues, not only banks, but also ordinary Americans who depend on their finances to buy homes and cars, and to pay for college.

Some are suspicious of Mr. Paulson’s characterizations, finding in his warnings and demands for extraordinary powers a parallel with the way the Bush administration gained authority for the war in Iraq.

Then, the White House suggested that mushroom clouds could accompany Congress’s failure to act. This time, it is financial Armageddon supposedly on the doorstep.

“This is scare tactics to try to do something that’s in the private but not the public interest,” said Allan Meltzer, a former economic adviser to President Reagan, and an expert on monetary policy at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. “It’s terrible.”

In part, Mr. Paulson’s credibility has been dented by his pronouncements in previous weeks that the crisis was already contained.

Some suggest this was a well-intentioned effort to stem panic. But the aftermath complicates his quest for the bailout.

“If you view your public statements as an instrument of policy, people don’t believe you anymore,” said Vincent R. Reinhart, a former Federal Reserve economist and now a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

The biggest point of contention is over whether and how taxpayers would benefit if the bailout succeeded in righting the financial system, sending banking stocks upward.

In Mr. Paulson’s plan, the Treasury would have the right to buy as much as $700 billion worth of troubled investments, with the taxpayer recouping the proceeds when those investments were sold over coming years.

But many economists — Mr. Elmendorf among them — argue that taxpayers should get more out of the deal, securing stock in the banks that make use of the bailout. The government could then sell off that stock at a profit when conditions improve.

A similar approach was used successfully in Sweden in the early 1990s when its financial system melted down.

Others argue that any bailout must pinch the people who have run the companies now needing rescue, along with their shareholders, addressing the unseemly reality that executives have amassed beach houses and fat bank accounts while taxpayers are now stuck with the bill for their reckless ways.

“It absolutely has to be punitive,” Mr. Baker said. “If they sell us the junk, then we own the company. This isn’t a way to make these companies and their executives rich. This should be about keeping them in business so the financial system doesn’t collapse.”

Other questions center on how to value what the Treasury aims to purchase — an issue that goes to the heart of the crisis itself.

The financial system got to its dangerous perch by betting extravagantly on real estate. When housing prices began plummeting and borrowers stopped making payments, financial institutions found themselves with huge inventories of bad loans.

Not simple loans, but complex investments created by pooling millions of mortgages together and then slicing them into pieces. These were the investments that Wall Street bought, sold and borrowed against in cooking up the money it poured into housing.

The trouble is that these investments are so intertwined and complex that no one seems able to figure out what they are worth. So no one has been willing to buy them.

This is why banks have been in lockdown mode: with mystery enshrouding both the value of their assets and their future losses, banks have held tight to their remaining dollars, depriving the economy of capital.

Now, the Treasury aims to clear the fog by buying up these investments. But their value is as mysterious as ever.

“There’s a tendency for people to think these are stocks and bonds and you know what the price is,” said Bruce Bartlett, a former White House economist under President Reagan. “The problem is people are operating in a world in which nobody knows what the hell is going on. There’s some naïve assumptions about how this would function.”

If Mr. Paulson pays the market rate — whatever that is — that presumably would not be enough to persuade banks to sell. Otherwise, they would have sold already.

For the plan to work, Treasury has to pay a premium.

“It’s a straight subsidy to financial institutions,” said Martin Baily, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration, and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “You’re essentially giving them money.”

Mr. Baily favors the basics of the Paulson plan, albeit with some mechanism that would give the government a slice of any resulting profits.

And yet he remains troubled by the dearth of information combined with the abundance of zeroes in the bailout request.

“I’d like a clearer statement of what we were afraid was going to happen that requires $700 billion,” Mr. Baily said. “Maybe they don’t want to talk about it because it would scare everybody, but it’s a bit much to ask.”
-30-

New York Times: Minimizing Your Own Risks

2008-09-23T13:21:00.003-05:00

Minimizing Your Own Exposure to Risks

By RON LIEBER
September 20, 2008
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Co. - Used with permission

Every piece of your financial life involves at least a bit of risk. What made this week extraordinarily rare, and so terribly frightening, was that all of the threats were on display at once.

Sure, investing for retirement involves some ups and downs. But this week, the stock market took the biggest one-day fall in seven years (though it bounced right back as the week ended), and money market funds, long considered rock solid, needed a rescue package.

And yes, plenty of people worry about job security from time to time. But with thousands of financial services jobs gone or in jeopardy and the economy threatening to slow further, you had to wonder whether your job might be next.

Then there was insurance. Maybe once a decade, a big insurance company is on the brink.

This week, the global giant American International Group had a near-bankruptcy experience, leading scores of people to worry themselves sick over their annuities and life insurance policies from that company and others.

And as Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. reminded everyone in his remarks on Friday morning, all of these developments have the mortgage mess at their root, leaving anyone who owns a house (or wants to) wondering whether real estate prices will ever find a bottom.

The stunning confluence of these events was bad enough. But the fact that the federal government may be on the hook for untold billions of dollars just made the pain worse.

I don’t know how or where this will end, and neither do any of the experts.
It’s a humbling time for everyone, and it makes it extremely hard to assess all of these personal risks and come up with a decisive plan of action.

The temptation is to either make drastic changes in your financial life or do nothing and hope that the impact is not too severe.

So here’s another idea, a middle path of sorts. Consider a few modest but concrete things you can do that could reduce your exposure to four of the big areas of risk — investments, job security, your mortgage and insurance — that have been front and center this week.

Some of these suggestions may have more impact for you than others, but they all can help you feel as if you’ve taken back some measure of control.

Investments

Before you do anything with your portfolio, ask yourself this: Do you still believe in capitalism?

Several financial planners I spoke with felt the need to stop and reaffirm the fact that companies will still need to raise money from investors — any quasi-Socialist, short-term federal government intervention aside.

Andrew Orr, a financial planner in Orlando, Fla., says clients with money in index funds are investing in 17,000 companies that seek to generate earnings and pay dividends.

That, he says, is a sustained bet on capitalism itself. “Capitalism is not always pretty. But it’s evolved and gotten better, and there are clearly going to be more protections to come.”

If you’re under 50 or so, you can start by protecting yourself against the biggest investment risk of all, outliving your savings.

Thomas Fisher, a financial planner in Cambridge, Mass., said that this risk was one that people generally underestimate. “Our parents haven’t usually run out of money,” he said. “There has been a whole generation of people with pensions.”

Those days are gone, though. And as he took calls this week from clients considering bailing out of the stock market, he said he realized how few people actually understood the big picture.

The most acute long-term risk is, in fact, too little risk. Unless you’re saving a huge chunk of your income in cash, you’ll need consistent exposure to more risky investments like stocks to produce a suitable retirement balance.

Keep your stock allocation lower if you must for a few months to sleep at night, but don’t get rid of it altogether.

Most people get back into stocks once you explain this. A bigger challenge now is the one facing those who are in or close to retirement and whose portfolios have declined in the last year.

Rebecca Rolfes, a 59-year-old marketing executive in Chicago, has ridden out down markets before, but now her time horizon is shrinking at the same time as her assets. “I keep going on my mutual fund sites but not actually doing anything,” she said.

Even if you can’t bring yourself to make big changes to your portfolio, spending just a bit less money in retirement may make a huge difference.

“Small changes in retirees’ burn rate will affect them far greater than what the market will do today,” said Bill Schultheis, of Sagemark Wealth Management in Kirkland, Wash., and the author of “The Coffeehouse Investor.”

That’s because overspending is a risk you can actually control, even if you can’t predict how the markets perform. “I’ve found that many clients really like that, because they like to be in charge.”

He noted that spending on grandchildren was often a huge item for retirees.

If you can’t bring yourself to cut back there, consider the cost of eating out. He says he is often surprised by the amount people spend on that.
Job Security

Aside from the job losses at financial services companies in the news, there was also concern the economy could slow significantly and ultimately affect employment levels everywhere.

This week, people who work for themselves seemed to feel better about their prospects than those who work for large companies. “It feels safer than having a job with a single employer,” said Mike Sanislo, who helps companies with new product development through his firm High Energy Consulting in Woodbury, Minn.

He says he expects to lose clients every so often, but his business doesn’t fall apart when one goes away.

Though you may not be ready to chuck it all and hang out a shingle, it’s worth considering the approach that Kathy Santos has taken.

Ms. Santos, a webmaster in Pepperell, Mass., has a job by day at the environmental nonprofit group Earthwatch Institute, but is developing a Web design and photography business on the side, Rhino Hill Studios, to spread out her income risk. She also picks up a bit of extra money as an emergency medical technician for the town.

Mortgages

All the problems that funny mortgages have caused have hopefully taught important lessons about interest rate risk. This is something you can control.

If you’re applying for a new mortgage, a fixed-rate mortgage means no risk that the rate will rise. If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage and have enough equity in your house to refinance, get a fixed-rate loan.

Here’s another certainty for those skittish about investing: If you put extra money beyond the minimum toward the monthly payment on a 6 percent mortgage, you’re effectively earning 6 percent by ridding yourself of that extra debt (though the number may be a bit less if you’re taking advantage of the mortgage interest tax deduction).

That’s what Nell Eakle of Sterling, Ill., has been doing, even though she had to ratchet down the overpayment because of a bout with breast cancer.

“We just want to be a little bit ahead,” she said.

An added bonus is that the extra payments mean the mortgage will hit zero about two years ahead of schedule.

A few caveats here. Given the tightened policies among home equity loan providers, you may not be able to easily get this money back out of your house anytime soon.

Also, it makes more sense to first pay down 18 percent credit card debt, or max out any 401(k) match that your employer provides, even if you’re parking the money in cash.

Insurance

A.I.G.’s crisis suggests one simple tactic to reduce your exposure to troubled institutions: Split your life insurance policies and annuities among more than one provider.

Meanwhile, many of the things that insurance protects against are precisely the sorts of risks over which people have the most control.

In uncertain times, there’s some small comfort in taking measures to avoid having to use the insurance at all.

“Stay in during the first snowfall,” said Kevin Albaugh, an engineering consultant in Williamsville, N.Y. “That will shake out all of the people who don’t know how to drive on it. That’s usually when you see a bunch of S.U.V.’s off the side of the road.”

Michael Fripp of Carrollton, Tex., says the only risk he can control is the health risks from the stress.

“The financial risks are beyond my control (and a little beyond my understanding),” he wrote in an e-mail message this week. “I am bicycling to work, walking with the kids and ignoring the 401(k) balance.”
-30-

Israel's Haaretz: Palin and Ahmadinejad's Dreams

2008-09-22T14:27:00.004-05:00

Jewish voters who are immune from the anti-Palin hate syndrome are backing Sarah Palin in ever increasing numbers.

(For an example of a Jewish community center's hate for Gov. Palin, click on this hyperlink and read, Sandra Bernhard: Palin Would Be Gang-Raped By Blacks in Manhattan. It is the story of the D. C. Jewish Community Center's support - and pride - for producing a profanity-filled show that is anti-Christian in the extreme. If Gentiles produced something equivalent to it, directing the hate toward Jews that is directed toward Palin, the Anti-Defamation League would go off like a nuclear bomb.)

Educated Jews who put intellect before emotion are pushing hard to make sure the world knows about her support for Israel. She understands, and articulates, uncompromising support for the nation.

Part of getting the word out comes from this article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Nothing even close to this is coming out of the Obama camp. But that doesn't really surprise anyone who is keeping up with the election; Obama told the world he would meet with the Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "without preconditions." Barack Obama is such an empty suit.

Gov. Palin would have delivered the speech below had Sen. Clinton not thrown a hissy-fit because Gov. Palin was invited to the same protest outside the UN headquarters Sen. Clinton was invited to attend.

The official line is that Sen. Clinton backed out for political reasons, but the inside scoop is that Hills was afraid Sarah would garner more positive attention than the senator. After all, Hills is so yesterday . . .

Here is the unedited article for your review:

The speech Palin never gave: Ahmadinejad dreams of Final Solution

By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent
Coppyright 2008 - Used by permission

In the speech which Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was to have delivered at a Monday rally protesting the UN appearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, she was to have said that the Iranian president "dreams of being an agent in a 'Final Solution' - the elimination of the Jewish people."

Her appearance in the rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza was cancelled in a flap between protest organizers and Hillary Clinton, who had also been scheduled to speak.

Clinton aides were quoted as saying that they had been "blindsided" by the decision to invite Palin, which they called a partisan move. In the ensuing controversy, Clinton withdrew her participation, and Palin's invitation was rescinded.

The text of the speech follows:

I am honored to be with you and with leaders from across this great country - leaders from different faiths and political parties united in a single voice of outrage.

Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York - to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan - and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for.

Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world.
We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator's intentions and to call for action to thwart him. He must be stopped. The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place.

He dreams of being an agent in a "Final Solution" - the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a "stinking corpse" that is "on its way to annihilation." Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman -not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world.

The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year.

The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions.

How has Ahmadinejad responded?

With the declaration that the "Iranian nation would not retreat one iota" from its nuclear program.

So, what should we do about this growing threat?

First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq.

If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions will be bolstered.

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today.

Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe. But Iran is not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world.

It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world's most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today.

They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran's desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish.

Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran's official ideology and murder is part of its official policy.

Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government's threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments.

It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens.

By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric.

Under Ahmadinejad's rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens. If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed. If she walks down a public street in clothing that violates the state dress code, she could be arrested.

But in the face of this harsh regime, the Iranian women have shown courage. Despite threats to their lives and their families, Iranian women have sought better treatment through the "One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws."

The authorities have reacted with predictable barbarism. Last year, women's rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 20 lashes and 10 months in prison for committing the crime of "propaganda against the system."

After international protests, the judiciary reduced her sentence to "only" 10 lashes and 36 months in prison and then temporarily suspended her sentence. She still faces the threat of imprisonment.

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that "Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that" effort.

Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

John McCain and I could not agree more. Senator Clinton understands the nature of this threat and what we must do to confront it. This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.

Period.

And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world
to hear: Stop Iran!

Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime's dangerous behavior.

Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran's behavior.

Tomorrow, Ahmadinejad will come to New York. On our soil, he will exercise the right of freedom of speech - a right he denies his own people.

He will share his hateful agenda with the world. Our task is to focus the world on what can be done to stop him.

We must rally the world to press for truly tough sanctions at the U.N. or with our allies if Iran's allies continue to block action in the U.N.

We must start with restrictions on Iran's refined petroleum imports. We must reduce our dependency on foreign oil to weaken Iran's economic influence.

We must target the regime's assets abroad; bank accounts, investments, and trading partners.

President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.

We must sanction Iran's Central Bank and the Revolutionary Guard Corps -which no one should doubt is a terrorist organization.

Together, we can stop Iran's nuclear program. Senator McCain has made a solemn commitment that I strongly endorse: Never again will we risk another Holocaust.

And this is not a wish, a request, or a plea to Israel's enemies. This is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us.

It is John McCain's promise and it is my promise.

Thank you.
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Al Franken / SNL: Example Derangement Syndrome

2008-09-22T13:05:00.012-05:00

As everyone reading about the presidential elections knows by now, Al Franken, running to become a US Senator from MN, participated in creating a Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch about Sarah Palin.

And what was it that Mr. Franken and his buddies at SNL thought would be a real belly-buster?

Mr. Franken and the SNL writers wrote a sketch about Todd Palin committing incest with his daughters.

That's right: incest with his daughters.

How sick do you have to be to even imagine it, let alone broadcast it nationally? Well, that's how sick the anti-Palin crowd is.

We brought to you the article from the San Francisco Chronicle entitled, From the San Francisco Chronicle: "Palin Derangement Syndrome: Obama's Worst Enemy?"

We added the article entitled, Sandra Bernhard: Palin Would Be Gang-Raped By Blacks in Manhattan.

Both are available from our list of links on the left-side of the page.

The depths of their sick minds seems to be without a bottom. Now they give us a broadcast skit about Todd Palin as an incestuous father. That's sick . . . really, really sick.

What would happen if someone put on national TV a skit about Barack Obama lusting for his own daughters, and having sex with them? Can you imagine the outrage that would follow?

But when it is the lunatic left doing the sick thinking, well, have you heard any moral outrage from any Obama supporters, or Barack Obama himself?

The Obama phenomenon is becoming ever more twisted. Read this report for yourself, and decide:

NBC jokes: Todd Palin has sex with daughters'Saturday Night Live' skit suggests Sarah's husband guilty of incest

Posted: September 21, 2008
2:18 am Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2008 WorldNetDaily - Used with permission

A week after a high-profile send-up of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live," the NBC comedy show returned to making fun of the Alaskan governor in a skit where New York Times reporters sought to probe the possibility Palin's husband, Todd, was having sex with the couple's own daughters.

"What about the husband?" asked a Times reporter during a mock assignment meeting for the paper.

"You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska."

The assignment editor for the Times, portrayed by actor James Franco, responded: "He very well could be. Admittedly, there is no evidence of that, but on the other hand, there is no convincing evidence to the contrary. And these are just some of the lingering questions about Governor Palin."

The skit featured a photo of one reporter and an on-screen message that stated, "In 2009 [reporter] Howland Gwathmey Moss, V was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Times series on unproven, yet un-disproven incest in the Palin family. Sadly, he was to die 3 months later, run over by a snow machine, driven by a polar bear."

The final shot showed an image of a New York Times page, with headlines that included:"While No Direct Evidence of Incest in Palin Family Emerges, Counter Evidence Remains Agonizingly Elusive" and "In a Small Alaska Town, Doubts Still Linger."

The sketch seemed to be designed to mock how out of touch journalists from the Big Apple are when it comes to their knowledge of Alaska, with left-leaning, Manhattan-dwelling reporters mistaking a snowmobile for a "baptizing machine," a crucifix and a NordicTrack exerciser in photographs held up for them.

Some viewers expressed outrage.

"It is time the Palin family brought out the big guns. They need to sue General Electric, NBC, 'Saturday Night Live,'" said Al Barrs of Bascom, Fla.

"This is clearly criminal and defamation of character of an entire family and state. All the above needs to be taken to their knees big time once and for all."

"What if somebody did one with this kind of humor on Obama and his daughters?" asked Jim Cash of Chattanooga, Tenn. "What an uproar there would be. This line of humor is tasteless and moronic and about as low as they could go. There simply must be an uproar over this. We cannot let this just pass."

But others, such as Ana Jimenez, believe the episode was all in good fun, since the program is a comedy show.

"Anyone that watched Saturday's show and believed the skit in which it was suggested that there was incest in the Palin household needs to have [his] head examined," said Jimenez.

"The purpose of the joke (tacky and crude as it was, I did not care for it at all by the way) was to show how out of touch journalists are – not an attack on the Palin household. Sheesh, get a grip!"

NBC's website for "Saturday Night Live" normally contains video clips of the show's comedy routines, but, interestingly, the clip of the incest sketch was never posted online.

The show opened with a brief skit making fun of truth-enhanced TV ads John McCain was approving for his campaign. One ad claimed that since Barack Obama was in favor of universal health care, that meant coverage for everyone in the entire universe, including terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

The Politico reported the opening scene was crafted with the help of former castmember Al Franken, a Democrat currently running for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota.

The season premiere of "Saturday Night Live" last week featured comedic actress Tina Fey returning to the show to portray Gov. Palin in a joint appearance with Hillary Clinton, played by Amy Poehler.
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London Times: Leading Scientist Urges Creationism

2008-09-21T10:54:00.004-05:00

This will give advocates - and opponents - of Creationism something to talk about: The Royal Society of Britain said Creationism should be taught in schools. Of course, the Denialists went ballistic, and it cost the scientist his job with the academy, as explained in a later article.

But take time to find out about his courage in the face of ranting Denialists.

When the Denialists can explain how you can create a universe from Absolute Nothing- no mass, no energy, no time, no space, no light, no imaginary "black void," and no force acting purely within the natural world, and no force acting outside the natural world, they might actually have something worth listening to.

Until then, they are fools who can't explain how the elements of the Big Bang were created.

But as it stands, all they can do is roll the clock back to the instant of The Big Bang - allowing that only Spontaneous Generation, a concept that does not exist in the natural world, is the only way to explain how the components of the Bang got there. It is "An Inconvenient Truth" they avoid like the plague.

In short, the universe cannot exist through a purely "Natural Laws" explanation. It requires a force outside the Natural Laws - it requires a "Super" natural intervention.

Oh, how the Denialists hate that reality. It takes them down from their self-anointed god status and brings them back to being less than the supreme intellect of the universe. Their inflated egos really can't handle that.

They demean Believers for thinking there exists - in their condescending words, "an imaginary friend" - but they can't tell you how you start with Absolute Nothing, and end up with a universe.

The Denialists are the ones living with an imaginary explanation - at the instant of The Big Bang, they have nothing but their imaginations to believe it all just popped into existence on its own.

Here is the initial report from the London Times:

Leading scientist urges teaching of creationism in schools

By Lewis Smith, Science Reporter and Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
Published Sept. 12, 2008

Creationism should be taught in science classes as a legitimate point of view, according to the Royal Society, putting the august science body on a collision course with the Government.

The Rev. Michael Reiss, a biologist and its director of education, said it was self-defeating to dismiss as wrong or misguided the 10 per cent of pupils who believed in the literal account of God creating the Universe and all living things as related in the Bible or Koran. It would be better, he said, to treat creationism as a world view.

His comments put him at odds with fellow scientists as well as the Government. Former Fellows of the Royal Society include Charles Darwin, who first proposed the theory of evolution.

National curriculum guidelines state that creationism has no place in science lessons. The Government says that if it is raised by students, teachers should discuss how creationism differs from evolution, say that it is not scientific theory and that further discussion should be saved for religious classes.

Professor Reiss, a biologist, was speaking at the British Association’s Festival of Science in Liverpool. Other scientists were vociferous in their response, saying that creationism should remain entirely within the sphere of religious education.

Professor Lewis Wolpert, of University College Medical School, said: “Creationism is based on faith and has nothing to do with science, and it should not be taught in science classes. It is based on religious beliefs and any discussion should be in religious studies.”

Dr John Fry, a physicist at the University of Liverpool, said: “Science lessons are not the appropriate place to discuss creationism, which is a world view in total denial of any form of scientific evidence. Creationism doesn’t challenge science: it denies it!”

However, Professor John Bryant, a biologist at the University of Exeter, agreed that creationism should be discussed as an alternative position of the origins of man and earth.

“If the class is mature enough and time permits, one might have a discussion on the alternative viewpoints,” he said. “However, I think we should not present creationism as having the same status as evolution.”

The Royal Society’s support for the presence of creationism within the classroom points to a remarkable turn-around. Last year the society issued an open letter stating that creationism had no place in schools and that pupils should understand that science supported the theory of evolution.

A spokesman for the organisation, which counts 21 Nobel Prize winners among its Fellows, confirmed yesterday that Professor Reiss’s views did represent that of its president, Lord Rees of Ludlow, and the society.

He said: “Teachers need to be in a position to be able to discuss science theories and explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism isn’t.”

The Rev Tim Hastie-Smith, the new chairman of the Headmasters and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents 250 leading independent schools, said that creationism was taught in science classes at his school, Dean Close in Cheltenham, as a theory that some people believe in, not as a fact.“If we get creationist books sent to us then we give them to the science department to be discussed. We want children to be aware of it.”

Teachers would try to be sensitive if a pupil believed in creationism.

Professor Reiss, a Church of England clergyman, said: “Just because something lacks scientific support doesn’t seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from a science lesson.”

Many children who go to school believing in creationism come from Muslim or fundamental Christian families, he said. While making clear to them that it is widely rejected by scientists, teachers should ensure they avoid denigrating creationist beliefs.

The theories

Creationism

The Universe and living organisms originated from acts of divine creation. This belief embraces the Biblical account and rejects theories in which natural processes are central, such as evolution. Some creationists have accepted geological findings and other methods of dating the Earth, insisting that such accounts do not necessarily contradict Biblical teachings

Evolution

Different kinds of living organisms have developed and diversified from earlier forms. Darwin’s theory of gradual evolution holds that this development took place by natural selection of varieties of organism better adapted to the environment and more likely to produce descendants
Intelligent Design

Certain features of the Universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by an undirected process such as natural selection. Proponents insist that it is not based on the Bible, claiming that its roots include the teachings of Plato and Aristotle, who, they say, articulated early versions of the theory

Sources: New Oxford Dictionary of English, Times Database

Copyright, 2008 The London Times; Used with permission
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Greenspan’s sins return to haunt us

2008-09-21T10:43:00.003-05:00

Everyone loves "Uncle Sugar," a term normally applied to the United States government, but in financial circles it was also applied to Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the Fed.

Following is an analysis of his tenure, and how his actions laid the foundation for last week's financial crisis, from the Financial Times of London:

Greenspan’s sins return to haunt us

By David Blake
Published: September 18 2008 18:39

Back in 2002, when his reputation as “The Man Who Saved the World” was at its peak, Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, came to Britain to pick up his knighthood. His biggest fan, Gordon Brown, now the UK prime minister, had ensured that the citation said it was being awarded for promoting “economic stability”.

During his trip, Mr Greenspan visited the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee. He told them the US financial system had been resilient amid the bursting of the internet bubble. Share prices had halved and there had been massive bond defaults, but no big bank collapses.

Mr Greenspan lauded the fact that risk had been spread, using complex derivative instruments. One of the MPC members asked: how could this be? Someone must have lost all that money; who was it? A look of quiet satisfaction came across Mr Greenspan’s face as he answered: “European insurance companies.”

Six years later, AIG, the largest US insurance company, has in effect been nationalised to stop it blowing up the financial world. The US has nationalised the core of its mortgage industry and the government has become the arbiter of which financial companies should survive or die.

Financial markets have an enormous capacity for flexibility, but market participants need to be sure that there are rules, and a referee willing to impose them. Permanent damage has been done to the financial system, despite the extraordinary measures of Messrs Henry Paulson, the US Treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, to address the problems that stem from the actions of their predecessors. As Mr Paulson has suggested, he is playing a hand dealt by others.

Many blame the Greenspan Fed for this mess. They are right, but not for the reason often cited. It is unfair to say low interest rates are to blame. In the past decade, there is no evidence the US suffered from excessive growth leading to inflation. The economy needed low interest rates and a fiscal stimulus to avoid a severe recession. The Fed was right to do its bit.

Where Mr Greenspan bears responsibility is his role in ensuring that the era of cheap interest rates created a speculative bubble. He cannot claim he was not warned of the risks. Take two incidents from the 1990s.

The first came before he made his 1996 speech referring to “irrational exuberance”. In a Federal Open Market Committee meeting, he conceded there was an equity bubble but declined to do anything about it. He admitted that proposals for tightening the margin requirement, which people need to hold against equity positions, would be effective: “I guarantee that if you want to get rid of the bubble, whatever it is, that will do it.” It seems odd that since then, in defending the Fed’s inaction, he has claimed in three speeches that tightening margins would not have worked.

The second incident stems from spring 1998 when the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission expressed concern about the massive increase in over-the-counter derivatives. These have been at the heart of the counter-party risk in the crisis. Mr Greenspan suggested new regulation risked disrupting the capital markets.

At the turn of the millennium, with no move to tighten margin requirements, a feedback loop sent share prices into orbit. As prices rose, more brokers were willing to lend to buy more shares. As share prices went up the buying continued, until the bubble burst. To create one bubble may be seen as a misfortune; to create two looks like carelessness. Yet that is exactly what the Greenspan Fed did.

Bruised by stock market losses, Americans bought houses. The mortgage industry used securitised bonds to ensure that the people who initiated the mortgage did not worry about getting paid back; risk was packaged and sold to others. This time Mr Greenspan did not just stand aside. He said repeatedly that housing was a safe investment because prices do not fall. Home owners could wait out any downturn. Is it any surprise that so many people thought if the world’s financial genius held this view it must be all right?

Even as things went completely wild, Mr Greenspan dismissed those who warned that a new bubble was emerging. It was just a case of a little “froth” in a few areas. Later, after waiting until 2007, two years after he left office, he conceded that “froth” had been his euphemism for “bubble”.

“All the froth bubbles add up to an aggregate bubble,” he told the Financial Times.

This time, as with the equity bubble, the mistake was not to set interest rates too low; it was to stand back as wildly imprudent policies were pursued by mortgage lenders. Indeed, any lender would have been encouraged by his words in April 2005: “Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending.”

Well, he was right about the rapid growth in subprime lending.

Mr Greenspan was in charge of supervising and regulating much of the banking industry for two decades. The Fed says it is responsible for ensuring “safe and sound banking practices”. It is right that other regulators should have stepped in, too – the US regulatory structure has not kept pace with market changes.

But given the Fed’s institutional importance and Mr Greenspan’s personal stature, does anyone doubt that the Fed could have used its limited powers to ensure a closer examination of what was going on?

Mr Greenspan realises that something big has happened and describes it as a “once in a hundred years” event. But then, you do not get Alan Greenspans coming along every day.

The writer is an executive in an asset management company. He writes in a personal capacity

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008 - Used with permission
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Joe Scarborough: Dumb is as dumb does

2008-09-19T08:11:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, I posted an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the hate the Democrats, their MainStream Media (MSM) handmaidens, and their cheering section in the left-wing lunatic section of the stadium show towards Sarah Palin. Their hate for her is truly psychotic in its intensity.

While none of the members of the aforementioned groups has the integrity to admit it, they are whack jobs who hate Gov. Palin for not being like them when it comes to their overwhelming propensity to diss God, define feminism by their "self-anointed" agenda, and recoil in horror at her functional family.

Now comes this article by Joe Scarborough, a man with whom I've had many issues that keep me from being part of his fan club. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and following is an article that is certainly one of those two possible occasions:

Joe Scarborough: Dumb is as dumb does for Democrats

By Joe Scarborough

Pensacola News Journal
Sept. 17, 2008

Stupid is as stupid does. And this week, the Democrats are showing again just how dumb they can be.

Why is it that Democrats and some of their allies in the press go into every election believing they are going to win in a landslide because of their moral and intellectual superiority?

How many times can the same party have the issues breaking their way but lose a national election because they underestimate their opponents?

When in office, Dwight Eisenhower was dismissed by Democrats as an old bumbling fool who spent most of his presidency on the golf course.

Ike won two landslide victories.

Ronald Reagan was dismissed as an amiable dunce. Smug editorial writers mocked Reagan as a B-list actor with a third-rate mind.

The Gipper left his liberal critics speechless after massive victory margins in 1980 and 1984.
George W. Bush has spent the last eight years being every late-night comedian's punch line. Like Reagan, Bush has been the constant target of smug editorial writers.

But somehow, the president Democrats liked to dismiss as an idiot figured out how to beat them in 2000 and 2004.

Four years after the liberal establishment was left reeling from a second Bush victory, their arrogance just may elect another Republican ticket deemed as dumb by elites in Manhattan and Washington.

The degree of smugness shown by the Democrats and the national media toward the McCain-Palin ticket has been stunning.

On Monday, a Barack Obama supporter introduced the Democrats' vice presidential nominee by attacking Palin personally.

"Barack Obama has made an intelligent choice for the vice-presidency. How so very different this is from that bucket of fluff that the Republican candidates have chosen for the same position."

Do Democrats really want to compare Barack Obama's political resume and life story with Sarah Palin's?

Is it really a wise move for Democratic leaders to treat a governor and former mayor with such disrespect when their own candidate has such a thin resume?

Of course not. But too many Democrats just can't help themselves.

Monday, Joe Biden proved that point in spades when he attacked Republicans as the stupid party.

Biden said the GOP attacked Barack Obama because "they're not just used to somebody really smart. They're just not used to somebody who's really well educated. They just don't know quite how to handle it."

Sen. Biden's attack followed a New York Times column on Sunday accusing the GOP of making the country a dumber place to live.

Another Times columnist concurred, saying that Palin could be responsible for dimwits taking over the United States of America.

"I've gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail," wrote Bob Herbert on Saturday.

Could it be that the real stars of "Clueless: 2008" are once again the self-appointed philosopher kings who end up electing Republicans by attacking them as uneducated idiots unworthy to hold public office?

But every four years they wake up the day after a presidential election only to find that it was they who were ignorant.

It just may happen again if all these self-anointed intellects don't stop acting so dumb.
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Sandra Bernhard: Palin Would Be Gang-Raped

2008-09-19T08:11:00.005-05:00

I came across this at NewsBusters, and thought you should read it. It is fitting that it again shows the pseudo-intellectual aspect of the anti-Palin ranters. They are gross, course, trash, masquerading as "intelligentsia."

In their way of self-anointed superiority, we who think them lower than slime at the bottom of the ocean are just too IQ-challenged to grasp their intellectual superiority.

The lies these people tell themselves to rescue their egos from the darkness of their souls . . .

Read, and judge for yourself:

Sandra Bernhard: Palin Would Be Gang-Raped By Blacks in Manhattan

By Tim Graham

The Washington Post isn’t the only daily D.C. newspaper to rave about Sandra Bernhard’s anti-Palin ranting. Wednesday’s Washington Examiner joined in, with the headline "Comedienne delivers enraged optimism." Barbara Mackay claimed "in the end, oddly and subtly, Bernhard’s message is positive."

That’s not the impression you’d get from the blog of Theater J, where Bernhard is appearing. It has video of Bernhard calling Palin "Uncle Women," a "turncoat b—h" and a "whore." One complaint on the blog that Bernhard crosses a line of political incorrectness draws a defense from

Ari Roth of Theater J that really drops the curtain on how coarse this show is:

In fact, the play wears its politically VERY correct heart on its sleeve with its indictment of America as "A Man’s World, It’s a White Man’s World, It’s a F–ked Up White Man’s Racist World" and can only be suggested to be racist in its content if one is hell-bent on protecting White Folk for Sandra’s blistering indictment.

When Sandra warns Sarah Palin not to come into Manhattan lest she get gang-raped by some of Sandra’s big black brothers, she’s being provocative, combative, humorous, and yes, let’s allow, disgusting.

The fact that the show has a few riffs like this does not — to my mind — make it a "disgusting show." There’s too much beauty, variety, vitality, and intelligence to label the entire show as "disgusting." I’ll agree with you that we produced this show because we did find it to be edgy — because we wanted to give right wing conservative Jews a good run for their money by being on the receiving end of some blistering indictments from Sandra.

Does it go over the edge sometimes? On the gang-rape joke, yes. Sure. Not much else. It goes over the edge and then comes right back to the cutting edge. [Profanity editing is mine.]

Forgive me if gang-rape jokes don't greet my ears as oddly and subtly positive, as the Examiner suggests, and forgive me if gang-rape jokes aren't "a rotating sprinkler that a spectator washes in most happily," like the Washington Post insists.

Roth insisted to the complainer that the D.C. Jewish Community Center is loving their Bernhard show, and partied with Bernhard on opening night. They’re in tune with her right-bashing rage:

We’re proud of our producing -- proud of Sandra’s sense of timing -- taking the fight out to the house and to the street beyond, channeling so much of our rage and frustration at the bizarre recent twists of fortune since Karl Rove trotted out Sarah Palin for John McCain to briefly meet and then get in bed with.

Sandra’s face is hanging 10 feet tall in a banner over the DCJCC steps and we’re proud that she’s a new emblem and ambassador for our theater and our center. She’s not the only one who represents us. But her large heart, her generous talent, and her big mouth are all a big part of who we are.

"Who we are" at this theater clearly isn't someone who's interesting in presenting anything other than rage. The video itself, presented like a commercial for the show, explains who the show is intended to please. The average person probably wouldn’t find it the least bit funny. But if you really, really hate Sarah Palin or Christian conservatives, this show is for you. Here’s some of what she says in the promo:

Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the s--t and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat b---h! Don’t you f--kin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls--t! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b---h!

Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your f--kin' cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bulls--t moment.

Is it too broad an interpretation to suggest that when Bernhard attacks Palin's "new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls--t," she means the New Testament? It sounds like she's telling the Christian to stay away from "her" Old Testament, as if Christians don't have an Old Testament in their Bible. It's quite clear that the D.C. Jewish Community Center is not attempting an interfaith dialogue with this rantfest.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center
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SF Chronicle: Palin Derangement Syndrome

2008-09-18T12:25:00.006-05:00

If there was one newspaper that would have come up last on my list of American newspapers that will actually show a glimmer of truth about the McCain/Palin ticket, the San Francisco Chronicle is it.

The article below is an accurate foretelling of the future Barack Obama can expect from what will become increasingly shrill pronouncements during the campaign.

And it also tells the truth about the anti-democracy mindset of many of his supporters.

First a couple of background paragraphs to set the stage for the Chronicle article.

For an example of what I mean by shrill, in a speech yesterday (9/17/2008), Obama told his modern day version of Germany's National Socialist Brown Shirts:

"'I want you to argue with them and get in their face,' he said."

As one poster commented, does this mean wholesale hacking of email accounts? (I guess we know the answer to that from the news that Obama's supporters hacked Sarah Palin's personal email account. Blatant criminal activity does not require them to think outside their own box.)

Physical destruction of McCain supporters' property? (They key autos in Hollywood that have McCain stickers on them) Rushing the podium at McCain rallies?

Now that Obama has given them permission to interpret "argue with them and get in their face" as they see fit, exactly what can we expect from the Obama supporters' Brown Shirt mentality?

This site suffered the Obama Brown Shirts going through blogs and having Google shut them down. It's all documented by Anna Phillips of the NY Sun.

What's next from this modern day version of Germany's National Socialist Brown Shirts?

Now let's take a look at what the Chronicle printed through its SF Gate news site about the public's reaction to Obama's Brown Shirt tactics against Sarah Palin:

Palin Derangement Syndrome: Obama's Worst Enemy?

Cinnamon Stillwell
Wednesday, September 18, 2008

There's a new affliction sweeping the nation, and it's known as Palin Derangement Syndrome. The phenomenon is similar to Bush Derangement Syndrome, a term coined by political columnist Charles Krauthammer to describe the personal animosity and irrational hatred directed at President Bush by his leftist opponents.

But this time, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, is the object of wrath.

The feeding frenzy began with the news of Palin's selection, but it was her electrifying speech at the Republic National Convention last month that really set it off. In one fell swoop, Palin managed to energize the Republican base, breathe life into the McCain campaign, launch some very effective jabs at Barack Obama, and quite possibly, attract the support of the 18 million Hillary Clinton voters.

The attacks on Palin have ranged from patronizing to vicious to fantastical.

She has been caricatured as an inexperienced rube, a baby-making automaton, an uneducated underachiever, a bad mother, trailer-park trash, a rightwing religious fanatic, a sexual fantasy, and of course, a fascist. No subject has been deemed taboo in the effort to take Palin down.

What her detractors don't seem to realize is that in the process of insulting Palin, they are insulting the majority of the country. If being a self-made success story, a working mother, a church-going member of a small-town community, and a believer in moderate to conservative political viewpoints disqualifies Palin, what does that say about mainstream America? The inherent condescension at the heart of the anti-Palin campaign is coming across loud and clear and it may actually be boosting her popularity.

The sexist tenor of the attacks on Palin is only furthering this process.

Some of the worst comments have emanated from self-professed feminists who seem to resent the path Palin has taken in life, even as it parallels their own. The always independent-minded Camille Paglia is a notable exception, but by and large, the liberal, female establishment has turned on Palin .

Never mind that Palin -- with an amazing record of professional accomplishment, a happy marriage, and five beautiful children -- is the personification of the feminist "women can have it all" ideal.

What all the attackers have in common is an almost pathological hatred and attendant desire to project upon Palin all of their worst fears, prejudices, and in some cases, fantasies. In the pages of Salon Magazine, for instance, writer Gary Kamiya likened her to a "dominatrix," while University of Michigan Middle East studies professor Juan Cole compared her to a "Muslim fundamentalist" and a member of the Taliban.

In what constitutes the lowest of the low, a number of Palin's opponents have focused on her children or rather, their apparent resentment that she has chosen to have children. The National Review's Byron York catalogued several of these in a recent column for The Hill.

As he noted: Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, wrote that Palin's "greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman" and denounced "the Republican Party's cynical calculation that because [Palin] has a womb and makes lots and lots of babies … she speaks for the women of America.

"Carol Fowler, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said that Palin's "primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion."

Other adversaries have questioned Palin's ability as a mother and in particular, a mother with a special needs baby, while still others have used her teenage daughter's pregnancy to undermine her credibility. But Palin's domestic challenges are shared by millions of Americans and tend to elicit more sympathy than condemnation. And everyone knows a male politician would never be asked such questions.

Always eager to proffer their political opinions, a host of Hollywood celebrities have issued their own high-minded objections to Palin. Lindsay Lohan weighed in with her condescending belief that Palin is only "qualified to be" a "television anchor."Matt Damon likened Palin's candidacy to a "really bad Disney movie," and Gina Gershon went so far as to impersonate Palin in a vicious and unfunny clip that culminates in her stripping down to a bikini. The list goes on, but every time another one of these desperately out-of-touch with America celebrities tries to belittle Palin, it has the opposite effect.

Despite her impressive resume, Palin has been dogged by accusations that she lacks experience and foreign policy know-how. Democrats have pointed to the first part of her recent interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson as a "gotcha" moment simply because Palin asked Gibson to clarify what he meant by the Bush Doctrine.

As columnist Charles Krauthammer points out, the Bush Doctrine has held four different definitions over the course of the last eight years and has never been finally determined by the Bush administration. The term was, in fact, originated by Krauthammer. But Palin's detractors have ignored this inconvenient fact, as well as failing to notice that Gibson's pompous manner and ridiculously suspicious questions have become the real story.

Generally speaking, a public backlash over perceived media bias against Palin may be brewing. US Weekly'sdecision to run a trashy cover story on Palin titled, "Baby, Lies & Scandal" (two months after a glowing cover story on the Obamas) has reportedly resulted in thousands of cancellations. In a larger sense, a September 4 Rasmussen poll notes that "51% of American voters think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November."

The media has been fixated on Palin for weeks and one is hard pressed to go a day without hearing some or another allegation being trotted out. The worst example was when mainstream media outlets ran with a lurid rumor originating with an anonymous diarist at the leftist blog Daily Kos that insinuated that Palin's son Trig was actually her grandson.

The falsehoods surrounding Palin on the Internet have been so widely reproduced that FactCheck.org, a nonpartisanw Web site, posted a listing of corrections aptly titled, "Sliming Palin.

"The all-out assault on the genuine and likable Palin is certainly a blessing in disguise for the Republican Party. Not only is it galvanizing Republicans, but the nasty tone and hysterical nature are turning off potential Democratic voters. In particular, those Democrats who, in the words of Obama speaking after a fundraiser at the Getty mansion in San Francisco earlier this year, "cling to their guns and religion."

When Palin referenced Obama's gaffe in her RNC speech, calling him out for speaking about Americans "one way in Scranton and another in San Francisco," it was evident that she had her finger on the pulse of the Democratic Party's discord.

So too Palin's praise for Hillary Clinton and her reference to the "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling." In building on McCain's already existing strategy of reaching out to Hillary voters and others disaffected with the DNC leadership, Palin demonstrated a political savvy that the Obama camp never saw coming.

In choosing Palin as his running mate, McCain displayed the boldness and forward-thinking that his Democratic rival Obama has yet to embody. By picking the conventional Joe Biden over Hillary Clinton as his running mate, Obama failed to live up to his own mantra of "change." He also failed to recognize a politically smart move when it was staring him in the face, as Clinton would have presumably brought millions of votes with her.

In fact, rumors that the Obama ticket would seek to unburden itself of Biden and replace him with Hillary in the coming weeks have been circulating, and at least one Huffington Post columnist has suggested as much. Some have speculated that Democrats may be experiencing a bout of buyer's remorse over their choice of Obama to head the ticket.

Obama's empty rhetoric about "hope" and "change" certainly pales in light of the actual reform implemented by Palin in Alaska and by McCain throughout his career. Meanwhile his brief resume and lack of political savvy and even at times, personal likability (his odd sense of humor comes to mind) have become liabilities.

But Obama's worst enemy is not himself, or even Sarah Palin, but rather, the ranks of his own rabid supporters. If they keep it up, McCain could be laughing all the way to the White House.

Cinnamon Stillwell is a San Francisco writer. She can be reached at cinnamonstillwell@yahoo.com. She also writes for the blog at campus-watch.org.
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