Question One and Other Tax Issues

Before I get to "Question One," let's just have another look at the redistribution theories of Obama....

Obama and Biden have proposed a threshold of $250,000 for determining who should be taxed more and who should be granted a "tax break." A Biden spokeman David Wade said, “As Obama and Biden have always said, under their plan no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase one cent." Per Biden, “if your family makes less than $200,000 — as 95 percent of workers and their families do — you’ll get a tax cut.”

Biden explains that Obama doesn't want to "spread the wealth" from the rich to the poor, he merely wants to restructure the Bush tax cuts to benefit lower income workers.... Allow me to make an observation: since the lower income workers already pay no federal income taxes, the benefit, if any, is or must be receiving the wealth of the top 5% of income earners. The top 5% (or $250,000 and over per family -- according to Obama) will have their income tax burden "restructured" upwards. It seems to me that "to benefit" is indistinguishable in practice from "spreading the wealth."

Also, if I may, I'd like to point out that any "tax cut" paid by the slice of the population from the 44th precentile to the 95th percentile is simply stealing less of what the government already steals from that segment. Such reapportionment of theft only corresponds to greater theft further out the income curve. That is, Obama is not "giving" you anything ... he merely promises to steal less. Note that Obama has NEVER in his life yet voted for a tax cut to anyone for any reason -- and here he is merely playing with numbers: this is not a tax cut to the electorate as a whole, though it is tarted up to resemble that, and "since it won't affect you, don't worry about it". The contrary is true: given that he promises some $4.5 trillion in new spending over 4 years, his "tax cut" is going to wind up costing the electorate a lot more in taxes over that period.

The people who Obama wants to give money to -- his constituency of voters -- already spend substantially all they make. America is not a country of savers ... wage earners at the lowest level in Japan and throughout Asia save and live frugally, whereas here, if you make it, you spend it. So consider the instance of the $600 economic stimulus check sent by Bush and the Congress in June ... did it do ANY good? Most likely, it just paid for some credit card debt if the recipient was fiscally prudent, or bought a new TV made in China if it was the average Joe (of Jane) Schlub. If it was a bottom 44% (no tax payer type) it almost certainly went on goods which only serve to increase our foreign debt. Net of the exercise? The government wrote a check to China. Great idea.

So if that same constituency gets money taken from the successful in Obama's "plan," how is that going to benefit our economy or country as a whole? The simple answer is that it won't. Since that top 5% already pays the majority of all taxes paid (don't forget State taxes and local taxes where the same is still true), the few cannot ever give enough to raise the living standards of the many in any fiscal way. And the goods and federal/state/local government services the rape of the 5% is meant to pay for? It will disappear into the maw of ever larger government. True, we will have to hire more federal employees to adminster the great hand-out ... but none of it will ever get to those who think that by electing Obama they will benefit. Ever.

The top 5% are the top 5% by virtue (largely) of being responsible for the production of goods and services in our economy. They are the only savers at a meaningful level and the only ones to create jobs for others. Their money was generated by and generates economic growth in the country, not fogetting sheer hard work. If you take away the incentive ... Atlas Shrugged.

NOW TO QUESTION ONE

Massachusetts is one seriously corrupt place to live ... makes New Orleans look good. And most corrupt of all is our State House, filled to the brim with double-dipping politicians, cronies, bag men/women, theives, liars, tricksters, con-men ... our State politicians. And almost ALL of them Democrats. This is what a Democrat-led society looks like. This is how it operates and how efficient we may expect Obama's reign to be. Pretty grim in other words. So some brave individuals got together to circulate a petition to place the repeal of the State income tax on this year's ballot: Question One.

Needless to say, every single Demo-thief in the State House is up in arms about this. So too, the unions that benefit from the fiscal irresponsibility of the corruption on Beacon Hill. The teachers are apoplectic, as are the police and fireman's unions -- as well as every other group dependent on the government tit for sustenance. Those brave souls running the free needle exchange for junkies in Newton? Against. The mobile T transport workers? Against. Everyone that receives a State pension after 20 years -- defined benefit plan, none of your market risk rubbish for them -- they are frightened that the spigot might somehow be shut off.

So crazed are these union interests that they are spending upwards of $10 million in advertising to defeat the proposal. And this is not just local money, these are the national unions that are digging into their pockets to defeat this: the threat is a tax payer revolt, nationwide, on a local level. And if it works and real people have more cash in their pockets, Obama's crusade might look a whole lot less representative of the "people." Just a thought ... but does a hard pressed teacher in Ft. Lauderdale give a rat's ass about Massachusetts? Does that teacher who had union fees extorted from their paycheck want to buy air time in the Commonwealth with their precious wges? Thought not.

What is the great weapon these politicians, unions and other parasites use for scaring us to vote against the ballot initiative? They say that police and fire services will be cut, that teachers will be fired, that health services will suffer. Be serious! No governor or mayor is going to cut those services. Instead, we can expect that the housing for illegal immigrants could get cut, that reception centers for the "open city" of Boston might be impacted, that legal services designed to support illegals / criminals might suffer. And so what? Why should I pay for people breaking the law anyway? "Illegal immigrant" means precisely that. And I don't care if there is no Spanish language ballot available at the polling station, I don't want to pay for interpreters so that a family of illegals can get free housing in Boston -- and I certainly don't want to pay for the education of their children who shouldn't be here in the first place.

Sorry, that seems harsh given that this is NO fault of the children at all, rather entirely the doing of their parents ... but equally, that makes this societal and emotional blackmail on their parts: "please feed and house my children...." If we could just take those children and care for them, instill a law-abiding working ethic in them and send your sorry, illegal, parental butts home to where you came from ... fine. But no ... children are used as pawns in the game of extortion. Worse, if you are an illegal and manage to procreate while in the U.S. illegally, then you have a legal hook onto this land and my tax dollar. And I object.

Question One is for all of us that object. Object to irrational and greedy politicians stealing from Massachuestts residents in a myriad of ways. My tax dollars are meant to provide essential services that only a broad-based government can provide, not to further the political goals and extend what constitutes "services" to whatever might provide for incumbency for corrupt politicians. THAT is what the Framers intended.

In voting "for" question one, we may be placing a burden on our local communities, one that may force difficult questions at budget time, especially given prop 2 1/2. But even with higher property taxes as a result of decreased or eliminated State aid, I will be vastly better off than paying for the crap that Beacon Hill has determined that I should be responsible for. Far better off. The average return to the Massachusetts taxpayer is $3,700. Each.

Wonder where the cut-off is in Massachusetts as to who pays income tax? At this juncture, I don't even care.

What if the shoe was on the other foot?

What if it was Obama who was the Republican? What if McCain was a Democrat (not that he isn't in the grand scheme of things)? What if Palin were a Democrat and Biden a Republican ... wouldn't things be different.

Do you think for an instant that this display would not cause furious outrage in the Press across the land?



Yes, that is Palin hung in effigy in in West Hollywood. But since the "victim" is a Republican and the perpetrator a Democrat ... this is OK. Chad Michael Morisette claims that this should be "seen as art, and as within the month of October."

IF someone had put Obama in that noose ... well we'd have rioting and certainly someone would be in custody. Yet, a female politician hung in effigy, a woman, some 8 days before an election (the nature of the election season nullifies any notion of a Halloween pass on this) is permissible in that twisted liberal state and in our land. McCain is juxtaposed with this travesty ... emerging from a flaming chimney.

So what if the shoe WERE on the other foot? What would the attacks be? What would be permissible?

If Obama were Republican:

- The media would brand him a Republican terrorist, untrustworthy, dangerous, a part of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy;
- He'd be accused of being an "Uncle Tom" (Jesse Jackson's slur against Bill Cosby) -- you can't he black and fiscally conservative;
- The New York Times would want -- nay DEMAND -- to know that Obama was born on U.S. soil (why isn't the NYT interested whether Obama is in fact even eligible for the office of President?);
- The press would want to know where he got the money to buy he first house ($800K is not chump change for someone with student loans and no rich family, but with connections to terrorists and indicted property swindlers);
- The press would want to know what his grades were at Columbia, Occidental College and Harvard (Obama won't release his transcripts);
- Democrats would want to know who his friends were in College and why substantially ALL of them appear to have Muslim or Middle Eastern / Pakistani names;
- Liberals would want to know why half of Obama's blood family live in African poverty;
- Everyone would want to know where he planned to get the money from to spend an additional 4 trillion dollars in programs;
- The press would cite his relationship with Rev. Wright as proof of religious extremism;
- Liberals would cite his adherence to Black Liberation Theology as "racist";
- Left wing press would attempt to show each vote that he made to pass a spending bill was also a vote "with Bush";
- Liberals would characterize Obama's support for late-term abortion as "murder" and "genocide";
- The NYT would scream about the "Fairness Doctrine" as an unconstitutional restriction on free speech;
- All left wingers would be spastic about the prospect of an anti-democratic Republican "super-majority" and the prospect of deeds without the benefit of due process, and increased taxation for all as the evil specter of the Vast Right Wing conspiracy;
- Obama would have to prove that he was not a "sleeper" or Manchurian Candidate ... where did he go on his trip around the world as a college drop out -- we know he did visit Pakistan for an extended stay, and Indonesia ... both radical muslim safe havens; AND
- Hillary would be the Democrat nominee....

If Palin were a Democrat:

-- Nobody would give a shit about her wardrobe (Bill Clinton at least once held up Air Force one for his haircut -- at over $50,000 per hour running costs, Edwards likes his $400 haircuts, Hillary has had more work done on her than Joan Rivers and she still looks like they need to use more putty);
-- Her choice to be a working mom would be heralded as an ideal, not a liability of a terminally vain and self absorbed small-town huckster;
-- Her choice to have a Down's baby would show her care about all living creatures and the sanctity of life;
-- Her love of fishing and hunting would be reframed as her love of the outdoors, her sensitivity to nature and the need for culling, as well as the need for all of us to preserve our environment for posterity;
-- Her love of small town politics a sign of her down-to-earth background, away from the military-industrial complex;
-- a second coming of Jimmy the Peanut and his saintly care for all the peoples of the Earth, including the Hamas terrorist organization;
-- A blow against the sexist Republicans that (again) can only nominate two alpha males to represent their interests;
-- Her relative inexperience would be a "breath of fresh air" and "what we need";
-- Her numerous colleges a sign of her feminist struggle to acquire an education in an oppressive system rigged for misogynist males;

If Biden were a Republican:

-- The press would allege that he threatened World War Three within 6 months against all of America's enemies and stated we should trust Obama's ineptitude and freshman incompetence;
-- Democrats would deride him as the least fresh Washington insider ever to be placed on the ticket as a candidate for VP -- more like the fish in the trash compactor over a hot Memorial Day weekend;
-- The NYT would doubtless (and correctly) label him a congenital liar -- making up stories about FDR, his own education, his plagiarism, his failure to achieve or chief sponsor any meaningful legislation;
-- Stewart and Leno would do a skit on "come on down to my local hang out "Katies" in Wilmington (DE) for lemonade, never mind that it went out of business a decade ago and that I prefer scotch to lemonade";
-- Democrats would cite to Biden's own admission that another candidate was a better pick as proof positive that he was right;
-- Some media figure (Couric the Poisonous?) would point out that Biden's statements on the bailout agreed with McCain's (Democrat position) -- that the bailout of AIG would be a bad thing and is entirely different from his Obama's position;
-- The media would point out that Biden flatly stated that Obama was not ready to be president during the primaries;
-- The statement that paying higher taxes was "patriotic" would imply that the 44% of Americans who paid NO federal tax were less than patriotic Americans ... an insult to the "hard working men and women across the country" -- imagine the uproar;
-- Biden's mockery of McCain for failing to be able to use a computer would be seized upon by Liberals as the most crass insult to the disabled of America;
-- The left wing media would brand his penchant for hearing himself speak as evidence that he was a "blowhard."

AND if McCain were a Democrat:

Nobody would say much at all. You see, McCain IS a Democrat --the distinction in this race is that he is running against a full-fledged socialist, and it has been a long time since someone so overtly antithetical to the American dream has had the nomination as against McCain. Either way, the Dems win.

An essay to read

Taken here directly from the web without permission, it is so important that I will take the risk of publication. Mr. Card, if you by some means read this and object, please tell me and I will remove it.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission.

Manchurian Candidate #3

Bill Ayers ... IS a friend of Barack Obama's. Michael Barone from U.S. News & World Report makes this clear. But first ... who is Bill Ayers and what does he represent?

To make things clearer, you need to know more than his terrorist background ... he came from a family of wealth and prestige: he father, Thomas Ayers, was the CEO of Commonwealth Edison Company, also as "ComEd" (not ConEd), the largest electric utility in Illinois. T. Ayers was a close friend and political supporter of the Daleys, father and son. As you would need to be to do business in a city as fantastically corrupt as Chicago under [pick one] Daley. As Barone writes: [t]he voters of Chicago and Illinois respect family ties in a way that voters in no other state or city do. The current Mayor Daley is, of course, the son of the late Mayor Daley; the two Daleys have been mayors, and effective and competent mayors, of Chicago for 40 of the last 53 years. The attorney general of Illinois is the daughter of the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. The governor of Illinois is the son-in-law of the Democratic ward committeeman in the 33rd Ward. The congressman from the 2nd Congressional District is Jesse Jackson Jr. Jackson's predecessor-but-one in the district was Morgan Murphy Jr., whose father was chairman of (get this) Commonwealth Edison.

Clear?

Jet back to Ayers, whom Obama claimed (t0 Stephanopoulos -- talk about "in the tank") "was just a guy in the neighborhood," deciding to attend Teacher's College at Columbia Univ. at age 40. There he supposedly had an "epiphany" under Maxine Greene, who urged teachers too "tell children about the evils of the existing, oppressive capitalist social order." (WSJ 10/17/08). Greene wrote of promoting an educational system that would portray "homelessness as a consequence of the private dealings of landlords, and arms buildup as a consequence of corporate decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private property-holder's choice." (WSJ). Imagine how this sounded to Ayers, who has written of his moment of infamy, "Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon. The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them." Nice that. Even though he didn't actually do it himself, rather the Weathermen did.

Ayers continues to be a terrorist and is unashamed of his actions: from the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001. "I don't regret setting bombs," Ayers is quoted as saying. "I feel we didn't do enough."

Ayers had found his niche. And moved back to Chicago after getting his PhD to take a job being handed out by Daley Jr., to people such as Bobby Rush (former chairman of the Chicago Black Panthers), Louis Gutierrez (leader of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party). Daley hired him to train school teachers and participate in teh $160 million Annenberg Challenge grant -- which distributed funds to school reform projects, including Acorn supported schools. One Barack Obama became the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge organization in 1995.

And oh, by the way, Ayers is now tenured "professor" at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His Urban Education course includes the "Pedagogy of the Opperssed" by Paolo Freire, a Brazilian marxist leader, among other radical texts. Ayers' faction of loonies is advancing: Ayers was elected Vice President for curriculum of the American Edication research Association -- "the nation's largest organization of education professors and researchers." (WSJ).

Ayers and Obama ... it is well known (or should be) that Obama launched his State Senate campaign in Ayers' living room -- at an event hosted by Ayers, so there can be no mistaking pure happenstance. Obama has admitted it: "maybe I should have picked some other place...." Also well known is that Obama and Ayers attended meetings together for the Annenberg gig from 1995 through 2001. They sat on the board of the Woods Foundation together for almost three years. They are friends. And Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist and far-left loony. Did I mention that UIC refuses to release documents that might shed light on the connection between Obama and Ayers?

We may not see Ayers in the Lincoln Room of the White House, but the road to the White House was launched in his living room and Obama has never even tried to disassociate himself from Ayers -- "the guy around the neighborhood." Maybe your neighborhood, maybe your social neighborhood -- but never mine, Mr. Obama.

Next: Acorn -- den of thieves. And Barack knows it.

Manchurian Candidate #2

Installment #2 of why you should be scared.

AND not only is Obama a socialist, he appears to be a racist too. I'd like to write and think otherwise, but there remains a certain problem in this regard -- his membership in Rev. Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), a church championing black liberation theology. I have not yet heard an explanation of Obama's involvement that passes the straight face test, and the press refuse to cover it properly -- although if Romney had been running against him, you can bet that we'd be hearing about Mormonism's ugly side (which Romney would need to explain to me too).

What follows is publically available FACT (as close as I can reasonably determine).

TUCC expressly embraces and embodies the black liberation theology laid out by James Cone -- it is part of TUCC's mission statement. As a 20 year member of TUCC, the church where he was married, where his children were baptized, Barack Obama aligned himself with the tenets of that philosophy. Specifically, Obama's attendance and support of TUCC is a stamp of approval of Cone's (and hence Jeremiah Wright's belief system): "if God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community." Cone's words. “This country was founded for whites and everything that has happened in it has emerged from the white perspective,” Cone has written. “What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.”

Just a few more bon mots from Cone: “[b]lack theology,” says Cone, “refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community … Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.” Rev. J. Wright states, "I do not in any way disagree with Cone, Jim is a personal friend of mine." (Speech at National Press Club when asked about Cone's theology and teachings).

And do not forget the 2003 sermon ... "God damn America" -- Rev. Wright's words. At that time, Obama was not yet in the U.S. Senate, still in Illinois and we may presume in attendance at TUCC. Are you really surprised that Obama would not wear an American flag pin in lapel? Surprised that the future First Lady stated that the first time she ever felt proud of America, to be American, was when her husband looked sure to secure the nomination as the Democrat candidate for President?

Barack Obama has NEVER expressed regret or flatly stated that this theology is/was wrong. He claimed not to hear the most outrageous crap spouted in his place of worship. Claimed not to hear that "his church" held white America as responsible for the AIDs epidemic ... as a white plot. Obama seems indifferent to the notion that his Pastor, his "moral sounding board" felt that America had 9-11 coming to it.

The subject of Cone/Wright's theology within the TUCC is extensive and could occupy a book, but that is not the issue: there are lots of whackos in the Land, why should they be any different. However, in this instance the possible future president of the United States is involved. We need clarification.

Barack: come out and state that you are truly color-blind and that ALL men (and women) are created equal, that we bleed the same red blood. Right now you are tainted with the brush of a racist theology / philosophy and have consistently eluded a direct address of the problem. Do so, and I will only call you a socialist.

Bill Ayers: Barack, you have not come clean here either. More to come.

The Manchurian Candidate

And it is not McCain. Even though McCain spent the requisite time in the captivity of Communists who enjoyed torture, he is not the Red Under the Bed. That would be Obama.

Today: taxation.

Obama is a socialist, through and through. "Joe the Plumber" (who it turns out is neither a plumber, nor named 'Joe'), helped Barack let that cat out of the bag, even though only its whiskers could have been said to still reside in that bag -- the left wing press still refuses to recognize it and claims the bag contains laundry. I digress ... Barack told the nation last night that he intended to "spread the wealth around" -- his version of "trickle up economics."

He said, "my attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." That, my friends and neighbors, is socialism ... it is taking from the rich to give to the poor for the sole reason that he thinks that income redistribution is a good idea. It also flies in the face of the immutable fact of human existence: if you take away incentive, you take away growth. In the end, you take away hope. You cannot name a single successful socialist nation: they have all been bankrupted or have turned away from the Marxist-Leninist ideals of that social structure.

And we are nearly bankrupted ourselves, largely due to the political goal of universal home ownership, irrespective of the affordabililty of the goal. Make no mistake, income redistribution has been the intention all along: give the poor houses and insure this through the taxpayer. It becomes income redistribution when you consider the following: since the poor pay almost no taxes (see chart below), it is the "rich" that pay almost all the taxes ... and hence wind up being the guarantors of Barney Frank's and Chris Dodd's socialist fantasies.


Note that the source of this data is unimpeachable ... the very organization that is charged with raping the producers of goods and services in the U.S. Even so, this graph is fraught with spin: notice how it shows the bottom 50% earns 13% of the available income and pays only 3% of taxes? That (is meant to) highlight that 50% of the population is soooo poor that they only make 13% of the income. What it also means is that the top 50% pay virtually ALL federal taxes.

As part of the bottom 50% you may not earn much ... but you bascially don't pay anything. However, add in all the governmental support, welfare, housing allowances, food stamps, entitlements, plus things like Mass Health transportation vouchers etc., a lot of which is sppported by federal money channeled through the States ... and the bottom 50% may have effective incomes far higher than presented. But since it is not "earned", but rather merely received, federal taxation does not apply. Say you "received" your house from your employer (or you company bought it for you) ... don't you think that the IRS might want to classify that as "income?"

It seems wrong that someone sitting in a state supplied apartment, receiving unemployment insurance or welfare, food stamps, free education for kids, etc. should suddenly be entitled to a larger piece of the pie that they did absolutely nothing to help create. And to pay for it, the government under Obama will take more from those making the pie by virtue of the fact they wanted to and worked hard to "make pie" in the first place. Where is social equality when you take from one person to give to the other who is too lazy to try to earn for themselves?

And who the hell is Obama going to take the money from? He tells us he wants to hit only the top 5% ... to give middle class people tax cuts. He figures that nobody cares about the top 5% who are rich, they had all the breaks anyway -- irrrespective of what effort may have been expended to achieve that status. And who or what is the "middle class?" Is that the middle 50%, including 25% who do not pay taxes and the next 25% (part of the top 50%) that pays 21% of all taxes?

Who knows? But what is clear is that income redistribution will smack the poop out of those 5% who already pay almost 60% of our federal budget. It is a naked grab: the tyranny of the ballot box where a majority of a population in a society can simply vote to redistribute wealth to themselves, irrespective of their contributions to that society. Surely the mark of a decadent society, a society dedicated to emotive response and support of the indolent. Joe 5% is right to be scared. And so should every other person in the top 50% ... there is a slippery slope: today $250k in [profit/revenue/whatever] is "rich." Tomorrow it may be $100k.

Obama was (intentionally) less than clear in describing what will constitute the $250k threshold ... is that gross revenue, gross profits, profits after depreciation, amortization and recapitalization, or net profits before living expenses/wage distribution etc.? Regardless, Obama threw a marker down stating that he intend to tax those who are successful so that those behind the successful person can share in it too and develop their own success. That sounds wonderful, except that it is utter and complete bullshit. In the United States you can be that success through hard work and taking a few risks ... those behind that success are often content to drink a few more beers down at the bar and spend less time trying to succeed. And with a bit of extension, if this tax regime comes to pass, maybe more of the producers will simply ask themselves, "what is the point." And go to the bar to have a few beers and watch the game. That means less employment for those "behind."

Tomorrow: allegations of racism.

Watching the debate

I am writing as I listen.... It probably helps to drink red wine, too.

McCain is trying to get Obama to put his dukes up ... get him to face and address the failings of his political ideas ... and Obama is resolutely keeping to the script: if there is a draw, Obama wins.

Looking at CNN -- which has this gimmick emo-meter line that scrolls at the bottom of the screen, it is amazing how different women respond than men do to the same line of crap (no matter who says it). Also amazing is how much more women respond to Obama than men: disturbingly, he emotes ... about hope and now more 4 years of Bush and the women go through the roof in approval. At the same time, the men are below the 50% line ... is that an accurate reflection of our society? Women repsond to their emotions and men to facts? And given the fact that more women vote than men ... we get a President that ignores facts? Believes in fairy tales of socialist economics? Talk about 8 years of Bush and then 4 more years of fantasy ... the reality is that fantasy would come from the Dems.

Of course, given the incompetency of the McCain campaign, 4 years of that is no bargain, either.

Obama is less than forthcoming about ACORN. I have blogged about these bandits before -- friends of Pelosi -- and given the facts coming to light about outright registration fraud, Obama should be distancing himself from these far-left sphincters pronto ... but he is not. Why? Worse, they are Democratic footsoldiers -- and theoretical 501(c)(4) registrants (which means politicially neutral by federal law) and they shamlessly promote Obama: where is law enforcement? Where is the outrage in the press? The press and Democrats went ballistic claiming stolen votes in Ohio and before that, Flordia. Nothing was ever proved there, except that the majority was shown to be far larger for the GOP by a bipartisan investigation. For these same people to ignore PROVEN voter fraud just because it is for the left is a departure from all norms. It is a travesty.

Obama struck a huge blow listing his future advisors and possible White House cabinet members ... a healthy dose of quality. McCain? Sounded like he was going to have Fred and Barney as White House Counsel and Chief Staff.

Obamas health care plans are complete voodoo. It is "paying a little upfront" so that overall health care costs will go down," findng cures (citing diabetes) so that we all pay less. Uh, huh. And if you cannot afford your insurance, you can pay into the Federal program ... THAT is the camel's nose under the tent, the opening to a huge federal health program in the classic socialist shape. This, of course, leads to NATIONAL HEALTH. Which, in turn, means that if you are sick you have the choice of federal care or private care ... and if you can afford it and you are sick, you go private to save your life: just as in the UK and Canada. So the middle class are in effect taxed to support a huge plan for the poor and have to pay on top of it all for their own private care; remember, Obama plans to remove the FICA cap ... you pay on every dollar made.

Supreme Court ... McCain came off well , but Obama held as a prerequisite "fairness and justice to the American people." That is scary to me: I want the Supremes to rule on the Constitution, not create an endrun by judicial legislation. Obama wants to be able to give "guidance to the Courts." Obama: wrong. That is the role of the Legislature -- by definition in the Constitution, and as a "lawyer" (and supposedly a very bright one, too) you OUGHT to know that and be on board with that. Otherwise, we face a nightmare of conflicting court rulings and violations of the laws supported by politicians.

Obama is clear about parental responsibility ... "turn off the TV and Video games...." If you promise to legislate that, I will vote for you.

More thought, less sense.

Greed -- while good -- is probably the genesis of the Fiasco. This makes these crises inevitable ... given the human condition. No matter how clever we think ourselves, we still manage to find a way to screw up. And the more I reflect on and learn about the interconnection of the financial markets, the more I am convinced that we are definitely too clever for our own boots.

Fundamentally, the markets have too much debt out there. Simply too much borrowed or pledged, which in turn permits expansion, profits and human advancement ... greed for more. I believe I may have heard someone on CNBC (although I heard last night maybe it was NPR?!) opine just about the same thing --- so I can't claim original thought here. And certainly every business newspaper or magazine has long articles on the same subject, but I feel the need.

And in thinking about too much debt, I am again struck by the sheer magnitude of the Credit Default Swap, or CDS risk.... Could CDSs be culprit #1? Sure mortgages might have been the trigger that brought the house down, but maybe they are merely symptomatic of "too much debt." Consider CDSs ... essentially, they are insurance that covers against a given bond (or counterparty) going into default. Being unable to meet the terms of the bond (or debt servicing or what have you) causes the insurance to be triggered: you buy an XYZ Corp. commerical bond from, say, Lehman and then you buy a CDS from Citi -- you pay a certain percentage of the face value of the bond to Citi. When XYZ defaults, the writer, Citi, owes you the face value. Voila, insurance. Nice and easy, safe too.

All this seems pretty normal, except that in the CDS market, other people can insure themselves against risks they don't have: I can buy insurance on the XYZ bond, even though I do not own it. Another way of looking at this is this: I can buy insurance against a fire at YOUR house, or on YOUR life while being completely unconnected to you ... I might not even know you or that you exist, except that some slimeball CDS salesperson offered the contract on your life to me. When I used to be a trader at Citi, we had an interesting pool ... sort of like your March Madness, except that it was called the "Ghoul Pool." Various brokers were in on it too, if I recall. The idea was we all threw in $20 betting on which famous person was going to die next. In hindsight, it was a CDS market. I remember people betting on Mother Theresa, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante for age, various rock stars in the expectation of an overdose ... you get the idea.

Back to business.

Against $5 trillion or so of outstanding bonds, some $60 trillion of insurance has been written against it. And the writers of the insurance are emphatically not able to cover the risks they have insured ... and that is why Lagarde wet herself getting Paulson to bail AIG. AIG couldn't possibly cover its risks in a systemic failure and the counterparties that then sold or netted their AIG risk against other counterparties can't cover their risks either. You see, nobody knows against who a given risk may have been laid off against. This sort of problem is nothing new, I can recall considering the whole mess of currency options and the outstanding notional against some pretty pathetic counterparties (Drexel anyone?).

While everyone was/is secure, and there was/is good netting ... you get low counterparty default risk. But with some of the largest players in the CDS market not very good credit risks ... you get a large problem. Hedge funds with 500 million to a billion in assets wrote policies (entered into CDS agreements) for hundreds of billions. While the subject of the CDS remained in good order, no problem, and the hedge fund earned millions on its bet (selling the CDS). But when Bear Stearns went down the tubes, the hedge funds couldn't cover. Worse, the banks that depended on the coverage from the hedge funds didn't get it ... leading to a capital requirement that they didn't have ... or struggled to meet.

Which explains why the Fed let Lehman tank and not Bear Stearns -- the Bear was a huge player in the CDS market: small capital supporting huge risk. It may also explain why banks and other financial firms that should be able to meet their capital requirements with a surplus left over to lend out ... can't and aren't. The whole CDS market was/is completely unregulated. Any attempts and suggestions were shot down -- quickly (2002 the CFTC tried to extend jurisdiction, but failed and various legislators have tabled suggestions) with the assistance of lobbyists here and around the globe. The scam was simpy too good to pass up. Again I think of the word "Ponzi."

Worse still, there still isn't any way to assess a potential counterparty's exposure to CDSs except to ask: it becomes a "full faith" crapshoot. Which bank is going to open its Kimono to the other? "Lemme see how stupid you have been and I will show you how stupid I have been. Then we can negotiate to see if we might not start lending to each other again?" It may have to happen exactly like that. That is precisely what JP Morgan did that night early in the 20th Century during a banking panic. The trouble is ... JP is dead.

All this is not to say that CDSs are not useful. The CDS market reflects to a highly sophisticated degree the market's estimation of a particular counterparty's risk. If your CDS rate goes up, it reflects the fact that the market considers you to be an increasing risk. Like watching your name get listed on the Ghoul Pool.

There are moves afoot to establish a clearing house for CDSs, which should serve to address risks outstanding, for the benefit of all to see. But right now ... would you bet on a hedge fund to insure you? And there is absolutely nobody around to assess the creditworthiness of the hedge fund? Consider some small dodgy bank (with lots of Brunei oil money) in Jakarta, sells a CDS to a larger bank in Kuala Lumpur. That risk was first purchased in Jakarta from a hedge fund located in the Caymans but run out of New York -- sold by a Master of the Universe. The KL bank then nets that CDS out with ... Soc Gen in Paris. The hedge fund makes lots of silly bets that Lehman couldn't be allowed to fail ... "its too big, just like the Bear, so buy its paper." Ooops. And because of netting agreements, Soc Gen is left holding the bag? Because Soc Gen had no way of knowing that the end of the domino chain was a 20-something weenie behind a screen in a high tech office in Tribeca? Er?

So some bank or other lends too much on real estate, gets caught as the CDO mess starts to cave and then watches its CDS rate skyrocket ... then fail altogether. The run is on. AIG might be the ultimate example yet uncovered. Truly too big to fail, because of a little known product, but with trillions outstanding. Many trillions. Many trillions more that the total face value of mortgages outstanding in the United States. Ouch.

Just a thought, mind you, just a thought. And if you want to find a safe place to stash money, make sure your bank didn't have a CDS desk. This might wind up making the subprime mess just a sideshow.

I stand corrected. And still ...

I stand corrected by a reader of the Stg. 300 billion owed by Bradford and Bingley in the UK. I confused some of the statistics in my head ... B&B is "only" Stg. 50 billion, and the "300" number came from the (now disavowed) E 300 billion proposed by France as a bailout fund for ill-tidings to come.

Strange, how 50 billion pounds sterling is somehow not so bad now. We are talking about almost $90 billion. And the fact that Congress slipped a quickie $25 billion for guaranteed loans to U.S. automakers is hardly news. Consider what that would have been greeted with but one year ago ... 25 BILLION. Just so that our moribund and incompetent auto makers can regain some semblance of competitiveness. And it won't work: Detroit has managed to screw every opportunity that has come its way, so why should this be any different? They had a decade of fat years during the SUV craze to develop engines for leaner times, to retire debt, to fund pensions ... but what did they do? Pad the quarterly report. Squander development funds on increasingly ludicrous vehicles.

So I guess, $90 billion for a bank whose primary function was to lend to U.K. home buyers is not that shocking. I mean, consider California -- maybe a bit bigger in land mass than Britain, maybe a bit more in GDP. If you take California and consider how badly it has pooched itself in the past 5 years, why can't the Brits have a little cesspit of their own? 

But all this wonderful dog-poo is just an Anglo-American problem: German Finance minister "Peer Steinbrück [l]ast Thursday ... told us that the financial crisis was an "American problem", the fruit of Anglo-Saxon greed and inept regulation that would cost the United States its "superpower status". Pleas from US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for a joint US-European rescue plan to halt the downward spiral were rebuffed as unnecessary. (Daily Telegraph).

And we know that the Germans are never wrong, ... right? Four days later Herr Steinbruck was bailing out Hypo (Real Estate), a Bavarian concern, to the tune of E30 billion. Chump change, again, although more than our little GM/Ford slush fund.  Herr Steinbruck also appears to have visited a re-education camp over the weekend ... "Europe," according to him, "was staring into the abyss." Really? I am sure that Mr. Paulson enjoyed your observation.

Within a day Fortis and Dexia were bailed out by their respective governments ... the Irish then guaranteed all deposits ... "someone" in France floated the idea of the E300 billion liferaft for Europeans banks.... The Euro-kimono had fallen open: the Euro sector banks have maybe more debt leverage than the Americans who were going under. Clever accounting prevents the Euros from the mark-to-market problem (which may be addressed here in the U.S. in the coming weeks), but the Europeans are clearly hypocrites at the very least.

It turns out that the French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was the person who begged Mr. Paulson to save AIG. The reason: AIG had written $300 billion in credit default policies to French banks. It was, she admits, for "regulatory capital relief, rather than risk mitigation." Translation: they bought the policies so that they could lend more ... extend the leverage.  If AIG had gone "tits-up" the French banking system could have gone under minimum capital water ... blub, blub, blub. That could set off an interbank lending catastrophe in Europe. Thanks again, Mr. Paulson. Raspberry to you, Mr. Steinbruck.

But what does all this mean for the Euro? Nothing good ... with Spain and Ireland in the deep doo-doo and the Germans staunchly in favor of holding tight to anti-inflationary measures, there are tensions that could force the Euro to the breaking point. Remember, for better or worse, the U.S. has a federal banking system with a single Treasury and a Federal Reserve system quite different from the hodge-podge of European banking. In Europe, each country can and does intervene for its own best interests, without regard for the effect of the other EU countries. When Ireland unilaterally guaranteed all deposits, it poked a huge hole in banks throughout the rest of Europe. Why keep your loot in the U.K. with a paltry 50K put option when across the Irish Sea it is all safe? Net: there is a virtual run on capital.

Spain is up to 11 pct unemployment and rising fast with the implosion of its housing market. Expect 18+ pct within 6 months are projects runout of money and balances on pre-paid work runs out. Because NOBODY will invest a cent into developments there right now. Will the Germans want to bail them out for the sake of Euro-solidarity? No, I thought not.

Another attempt

I am going to make another attempt at making clear the "whats and whys" of this mess out there, and as a start, I am going to take as given that "greed" was what induced people to take out mortgages that they could not afford. Without that, there would be no credit mess.

I have stated previously, "greed IS good." It is what drives the economy ... without greed, there would be no urge or impetus to advance (we'd be happy supping a beer from a mug in whatever passed for a primitive Barcalounger, beating our wives over the head, huntin' and shootin,' wives doing most of the work, men being men -- sounds kind of Red State). But greed is not necessarily good when it is for power -- for power's sake. As in the greed for political office.

And in this respect greed did play another role in creating the credit crisis (hereinafter simply "Mess"). You see, politicians are always on the look out for ways of currying favor with their electorate in order to ensure that they will continue to remain in office. That is the goal of most every politician in Washington -- I totally refute the notion that they have any desire to help people in their Districts. In the end analysis, the politicians like being in Washington, like being "powerful," like the perks, the pensions, the medical care, the fawning adulation of their supporters -- it is egomania writ large. If they were better looking, they'd be actors.

So, around 1992 (that would be when Bill Clinton ascended the throne, in case you forget), Congress started pushing Fannie and Freddie ("F&F") to increase their purchases of mortgages going to low and moderate income households. In 1996, at the behest of the Clinton administration, HUD gave F&F targets: 42% of their purchases HAD to go to low and moderate borrowers. This rose to 50% in 2000 and through Congress, 52% in 2005. Sounds bad already, doesn't it?

In 1996, HUD required F&F to allot 12% of their purchases to "Special Affordable" loans. Egads, what are those? Those are borrowers with less than 60% of the median income in a given area. This "special" allotment rose to 20% in 2000 and 22% in 2005. The 2008 goal was 28%. F&F, true to their puppet masters, met their goals: remember which Party has been in control of F&F since 1992 -- and it ain't the GOP. In meeting their goals, F&F bought hundreds of billions of subprime and adjustable rate loans. As the Journal reports, these loans were often made to persons buying property with deposits of less than 10% down.

F&F also sought to make a few pennies (and bonuses for their own Fat Cats) by buying lots of those subprime CDOs for a little extra yield. Wall Street was happy to sell them to F&F, and Congress saw that its will and intent was being met. Everyone was happy -- except, perhaps, for certain politicians who saw that long-term financial stability of the system was required in order for them to benefit from their position over the long term: John McCain being one of them. But in the meantime, F&F was getting "poor people" into houses, thereby meeting a political goal. The White House liked it because it was "off balance sheet." After all, F&F was not an instrument of the Government. Democrats loved it because "their people" were being enfranchised, moving into houses that ultimately the taxpayers at large will have to pay for, because in many cases the loans were made to persons who could not rationally be expected to pay for them. The F&F guarantee was a taxpayer guarantee: and if you know ANYTHING about who pays the taxes in this country, you know it is not the people receiving L&M preferrential mortgages. If the Ponzi scheme fails, it turns into income redistribution!! Perfect for Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi.

As the WSJ points out, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was revisited in 1995 with the goal of encouraging local banks to increase the number of loans to L&M income households. Bear Stearns (remember them?) floated these bastards, guaranteed by F&F. Interestingly, even F&F objected to doing this until they discovered that these loans kept their own non-performing assets artificially low. Beautiful: more bonuses for us!

Then the Tech Wreck induced the Fed to lower rates for everyone -- to delay the inevitable pain that should follow such a fool-hardy bout of excess. So the money moved to the next best Ponzi scheme: property. And at this point, with Congressional and White House backing, the mania took off. Everybody wins, as long as the market continues to rise.

But there is no such thing as a one-way street in global markets. Never has been. Likely never will be. So in pointing fingers, the largest finger really should be pointed at the same group of blood-sucking leeches that propose that we, the tax payers, should bail ourselves out of a mess that is really of their self-serving creation.

Regardless of your socio-political stripe, lending to bad credit bets has always been bad business. And Congress does not have the best interests of the taxpayer at heart. Never has. And likely never will.

And just to remind you who pays the taxes:

Income Category	1977	1979	1981	1983	1985	1987	1989	1991	1993	1995	1999 (Projected)
Highest 20%	68	67	66	68	68	72	72	72	75	77	79
Fourth 20%	20	20	20	20	19	18	17	18	17	16	16
Middle 20%	10	10	10	10	9	8	9	9	8	8	7
Second 20%	3	4	4	3	3	3	3	2	2	1	1
Lowest 20%	0	0	0	0	0	0	-1	-1	-1	-2	-2
All Families	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Top 1%	20	19	17	20	21	24	24	23	27	29	29
Top 5%	38	37	36	38	39	43	44	42	46	49	50
Top 10%	50	50	49	51	52	56	56	55	59	61	63

I Feel LIke Voting For Obama

What? Not that I have not said that before, but you have got to admit that his campaign is not making the gaffes and errors that McCain's is.

Case in point: the "Bailout" vote.

The Bailout went down 228-205 in the House. Pelosi made her speech right before the vote and it may or may not have turned off (or the stomachs) of enough GOP members to ditch the proposal. But it did not hinge on the GOP in the first place. And THAT is what the GOP and McCain should have been loudly trumpeting as soon as the vote tanked.

You see, Pelosi can't even run her own Party, let alone get anything passed in the House. Wonder why disapproval of Congress is 90% or better? Consider: how many Democrats did not vote for the proposal ... 95 of them. And Pelosi gives them a pass to spend her venom attacking the GOP members who were already hostile before the bill ever went to the vote. And which Democrats voted against the bill? How about the heads of the Hispanic and Black caucuses? How about 14 California Democrats (there was not enough in the bill to prevent foreclosures) liberals from Pelosi's home state? You can be sure those individuals are on her poop list.

Anyone else? Oh, yes ... just about every Congressperson in a district with a close race. Why? Because about 90% of Americans are against this pig for one reason or another.

McCain only needs to show Pelosi speaking her vile -- and partisan -- lies and distortions with a side bar of actual statistics and truths for even the dumbest brick that might vote. For example, Pelsoi's speech cited "right wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no discipline, no regulation...." All McCain has to do is play the speech while citing a list of attempts at reform squashed by the Democrats in the last 8 years -- during which Democrats controlled the House. Put Barney Frank's smiling mug up there and cite how he opposed regulation of Fannie and Freddie in 2005 in a bill proposed by McCain. Even a box of oatmeal could understand that the people of the United States are being lied to.

So why isn't McCain out there with commericals pointing out to the elctorate that "THIS" is the face of a Democrat-controlled Congress ... and it would not get better with a Democrat president? All Obama has to recite is McCain = Bush. And the deal is done.

If the incompetence of the GOP is this bad, I think we may be better off voting for a party that will also lie and cheat our foreign enemies -- assuming that they won't all of a sudden roll over an play dead for Ahmadinejad and Putin. Oh, heck ... now I am worried again.

An unbiased press?

Gwen Ifill the "neutral" PBS Washington Week commentator is due to be the moderator for the Vice Presidential debates. Who is the McCain camp deserves getting the sack, 'cause there has been some malpractice (if political consultants can be said to have a "practice") going on.

Ifill is about to publish a book, "The Breakthrough," that "aims to 'shed new light' on Obama and other 'emerging young African American politicians' who are "forging a bold new path to political power." Uh huh. Ifill, in case you might not have noticed, is also "African-American." She also works for PBS ... not exactly a hotbed of conservative political thought, but known to be "in the tank" for just about any liberal cause or candidate.

Now how can McCain's managers let her under the tent flap to "moderate" the debate? Did someone remember to take their stupid pill? Their "I want to throw this election through blatant mishandling pill?" Did any GOP operative bother to review her reporting on Palin after her convention speech: Ifill looked and sounded as though she had been forced to savor a toe-jam sandwich. Admittedly, she would be preferable to Couric ... but how about Baba WaWa? Walters is unarguably of the left-leaning pursuasion, but also a consumate professional who would never let personal opinion interfere with her profession.

For those who doubt ...: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1755855/the_breakthrough_gwen_ifill/

"Enjoy."