Only Clinton rated worse than Obama at 100 days

"President Obama's media cheerleaders are hailing how loved he is. But at the 100-day mark of his presidency, Mr. Obama is the second-least-popular president in 40 years.

According to Gallup's April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama's current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/28/
baracks-in-the-basement/

The UAW owns General Motors; with White House aid, Karl Marx's vision has been realized

My last all-American-made car was a 1976 Dodge Aspen. It ground up its own transmission three times. On one of those occasions we were driving toward grandmother's house, 250 miles away, for Christmas.

About 100 miles from our destination the shifter stopped working while the car was in the third of four gears. Stopping was no longer an option. By carefully adjusting my speed while approaching intersections and building up speed to climb hills I was able to navigate all of the obstacles and finish the trip.

But it was a white-knuckle journey that left me seethng with rage.

Years later, I told the story to an acquaintance who had spent his working career in Detriot auto plants, although he was not an auto worker. He told me that he had watched as line workers ate lunch, tossing their wrappings into gas tanks still lying open on the factory floor.

Later, those line workers would seal the two halves of a gas tank with the trash still inside. My acquaintance thought it was funny.

I no longer cared because I hadn't owned an American-made car for more than 20 years.

Now the perpetrators of the Dodge Aspen and dozens of other instant lemons, through the UAW, own General Motors. Does anyone, other than the United States government, think that's a good thing? Does anyone, other than the government, think that we've forgotten or forgiven the trash that was foisted on us over the years by the auto industry?

It was Honda, Toyota and other Japanese auto makers that forced General Motors and the other American car companies to mend their ways in the manufacturing plants. But that mending came about because the plants were run by managers who answered to executives of corporations engaged in competition for markets.

Who will the UAW answer to? A one-party government that regularly demonstrates contempt for free markets while building a statist system in which government allocates ownership of failed corporations instead of leaving those decisions to the bankruptcy system. That's how General Motors came to be owned by the UAW.

Some of us may shudder at the prospect of White House oversight. Air Force One, after all, just made a $329,000 flyover photo-op that sent New Yorkers scurrying for cover.

But Karl Marx would have nodded with approval, amazed at the eventual success of his 1848 screed that called on workers to overthrow their bosses and take control of the factories.

Even Marx, who thought big, would not have imagined that the White House would be a party to the fulfillment of his Communist Manifesto.

Muslims are quietly conquering the West

If you believe that demography is destiny, this excellent video won't leave you feeling optimistic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

Dems pondermg delay on cap and trade carbon tax

"The House may not vote on a climate change bill this year, according to a high-ranking Democratic leader.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told The Hill on Monday that leaders could opt not to bring a climate measure to the floor if the bill has little chance of passing the Senate.

Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), had previously indicated they would pass a climate bill through the House by the August congressional recess."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/van-hollen-
climate-bill-could-wait-2009-04-27.html

Al Gore, a huckster-messiah in our own time

For sheer pomposity, few can rival Al Gore, a coinventor of man-made global warming. Here's an informative video:

http://townhall.com/blog/g/fd2ee54b-241c-48af-8c5c-b952fe8a6aa5

Waxman trading favors for votes on cap and trade

"In exchange for votes to pass a controversial global warming package, Democratic leaders are offering some lawmakers generous emission “allowances” to protect their districts from the economic pain of pollution restrictions.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, represents a district with several oil refineries, a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions. He also serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which must approve the global warming plan backed by President Barack Obama.

Green says Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who heads the panel, is trying to entice him into voting for the bill by giving some refineries favorable treatment in the administration’s “cap and trade” system, which is expected to generate hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years. Under the plan, companies would pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide, but Green and other lawmakers are angling to get a free pass for refineries in their districts."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/To-get-votes-
Waxman-offers-cap-and-trade-breaks_04_24-43592342.html

In Anti-American America, hispanic immigrant employment rises even as citizen employment falls

"So gargantuan is America’s post-1965 immigration disaster that there is now an immigration dimension to every public issue. Nowhere is this more so than in employment—and nowhere is the phenomenon more pressing, given that unemployment has now reached a level (8.5 percent) not seen since 1983—and is projected to reach double digits by year end.

As usual, the federal government’s statistics on immigration’s impact of on employment are so fragmentary that it almost appears someone doesn’t want to know. Specifically, it does not release monthly data on immigrant vs. native-born American employment.

Because of this malfeasance, in 2004 we unveiled our proprietary effort to track American worker displacement: the VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (VDAWDI). We tracked monthly growth of Hispanic versus non-Hispanic employment, expressing both as an index number of 100 as of the start of the Bush Administration in January 2001. We used Hispanics as a proxy for immigrant employment because such a high fraction of working age Hispancs (54 percent) a are immigrants.

VDAWDI rose dramatically from January 2001 to late 2007, when it reached 124.1.. Then it stalled and finally declined when employment collapsed in late 2008.

But despite the recent decline, Hispanic (= immigrant) employment is still (as of March 2009) up a whopping 22 percent. In contrast, non-Hispanic (= American) employment was actually lower than it was at the start of the Bush administration."

http://www.vdare.com/pb/090423_vdawdi.htm

Skeptic: global warming fanatics are failing

"We are often told that tackling global warming should be the defining task of our age — that we must cut emissions immediately and drastically. But people are not buying the idea that, unless we act, the planet is doomed. Several recent polls have revealed Americans’ growing skepticism. Solving global warming has become their lowest policy priority, according to a new Pew survey.

Moreover, strategies to reduce carbon have failed. Meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, politicians from wealthy countries promised to cut emissions by 2000, but did no such thing. In Kyoto in 1997, leaders promised even stricter reductions by 2010, yet emissions have kept increasing unabated. Still, the leaders plan to meet in Copenhagen this December to agree to even more of the same — drastic reductions in emissions that no one will live up to. Another decade will be wasted.

Fortunately, there is a better option: to make low-carbon alternatives like solar and wind energy competitive with old carbon sources. This requires much more spending on research and development of low-carbon energy technology. We might have assumed that investment in this research would have increased when the Kyoto Protocol made fossil fuel use more expensive, but it has not."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/opinion/25lomborg.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Unity: the last refuge of a fascist schemer

WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Al Gore, the leading American voice on climate change, urged lawmakers Friday to overcome partisan differences and take action to reduce greenhouse gases, but Democrats and Republicans sparred even more vigorously over the cost of dealing with global warming.

Gore, who won a Nobel prize for his work on climate change, told a congressional hearing that "the dire and growing threat" of a warmer earth requires the parties to unite to deal with the environmental threat. He endorsed a House Democratic bill that would limit carbon dioxide and other pollution linked to warming.

"It is a challenge that this Congress must rise to," Gore said. "I wish I could find the words to get past the partisan divide that both sides have contributed to. ... It shouldn't be partisan. It should be something we do together in our national interest."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090424/ap_on_go_co/us_climate_hearings_37

Dems front Al Gore, ban global warming skeptic

"UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.

'The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,' Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. 'They are cowards.'

According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building."

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/429/Report-Democrats-Refuse-to-
Allow-Skeptic-to-Testify-Alongside-Gore-At-Congressional-Hearing

Is Obama a liberal, moderate or conservative? Yes, but he's also an excellent neofascist

By selectively rescuing some corporations and industries while allowing others to fend for themselves, President Obama is asking for trouble. No one likes to be passed over by a savior, especially those who actually will fade into history if they are passed over.

As time goes by, and the U.S. government runs out of Chinese money, the list of those passed over will grow. As a result, even if the Republican Party remains stuck on stupid, more and more voters will long for the next chance to vote against Obama.

Another strange phenomenon also is at work. Obama frustrates those of us who love language and are determined to use words accurately.

Given the long sweep of history, what are we to call Obama's approach to governance?

Liberal? A case can be made. It is obvious that one of Obama's central objectives is to reduce disparities in income.

Moderate? A case can be made. He hasn't pulled the plug on his predecessor's effort to pacify and normalize Iraq even though his campaign themes suggested that this would be at the top of his agenda.

Conservative? Odd as it may seem, Obama is continuing some of the worst policies of his predecessors, allowing the teachers unions to continue to mismanage the public schools while showing no interest in policy initiatives, such as charter schools and vouchers, that could force improvement in those schools or drive them out of business.

Absent a traditional course in his presidency, I have chosen to describe it as "neofascist," in light of Obama's emphasis on statist remedies and his remarkable willingness to run roughshod over privately owned corporations.

The trump card was played by historian Roger Griffin, who wrote, "The core mobilizing myth of fascism which conditions its ideology, propaganda, style of politics and actions is the vision of the nation's imminent rebirth from decadence."

Could Obama's politics be described more accurately than that?

Carbon tax won't pay for Obama's ubergovernment

"In the service of his ultimate mission -- the leveling of social inequalities -- President Obama offers a tripartite social democratic agenda: nationalized health care, federalized education (ultimately guaranteed through college) and a cash-cow carbon tax (or its equivalent) to subsidize the other two.

Problem is, the math doesn't add up. Not even a carbon tax would pay for Obama's vastly expanded welfare state. Nor will Midwest Democrats stand for a tax that would devastate their already crumbling region.

What is obviously required is entitlement reform, meaning Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That's where the real money is -- trillions saved that could not only fund hugely expensive health and education programs but also restore budgetary balance.

Except that Obama has offered no real entitlement reform."

http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/04/24/obama_the_grand_strategy

Common sense may kill Dems' global warming bill

"Congressman Henry Waxman played to the crowds this week with high-profile hearings designed to boost his climate legislation. To listen to the Energy and Commerce committee chair, a House global warming bill is all but in the recyclable bag.

To listen to Congressman Jim Matheson is something else. During opening statements, the Utah Democrat detailed 14 big problems he had with the bill, and told me later that if he hadn't been limited to five minutes, "I might have had more." Mr. Matheson is one of about 10 moderate committee Democrats who are less than thrilled with the Waxman climate extravaganza, and who may yet stymie one of Barack Obama's signature issues. If so, the president can thank Democratic liberals, who are engaging in one of their first big cases of overreach."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124052841876150301.html

Washington creature John McCain faces challenge

"Social conservatives tolerated John McCain as the party's nominee, but never trusted him, and he now appears to be facing a serious primary from the right in Arizona next year.

Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure in the movement to clamp down on illegal immigration, will announce tomorrow at an event on the Mexican border that he's resigned from the group to run in the 2010 Senate primary."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0409/McCain_facing_2010_primary.
html?showall

Government may soon own bailed out banks

Call it "creeping fascism."

By transforming carbon dioxide from a harmless gas essential to plant life into a dangerous gas that must be controlled to avoid widespread disaster, the Environmental Protection Agency is inviting the Obama administration to exercise unprecedented power over the natural resource and industrial sectors of the American economy.

Next up: lasting control of banks and other financial institutions.

The New York Times reported Monday that the White House is considering a conversion of hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money to common stock in the banks that received it. By doing so, the Times reported, the administration "can shore up the nation’s banking system without having to ask Congress for more money any time soon," according to officials.

"In a significant shift, White House and Treasury Department officials now say they can stretch what is left of the $700 billion financial bailout fund further than they had expected a few months ago, simply by converting the government’s existing loans to the nation’s 19 biggest banks into common stock.

Converting those loans to common shares would turn the federal aid into available capital for a bank — and give the government a large ownership stake in return."

The proposed move raises again a question that first came up when the Bush administration proposed the bank bailouts last year. Why doesn't the government take preferred stock in the recipient banks in exchange for the bailouts?

This would have kept the government out of direct management of the banks.

By proposing a payback in common stock, the Obama administration is demonstrating that it wants power over the banks commensurate with its stock holdings.

"...some critics would consider it a back door to nationalization, since the government could become the largest shareholder in several banks," the Times acknowledges.

"The Treasury has already negotiated this kind of conversion with Citigroup and has said it would consider doing the same with other banks, as needed. But now the administration seems convinced that this maneuver can be used to make up for any shortfall in capital that the big banks confront in the near term."

Treasury has about $135 billion left from the $700 billion commited to bank bailouts, but the Times reports that "the nation’s banks are believed to need far more than that to maintain enough capital to absorb all their losses from soured mortgages and other loan defaults."

EPA takes charge of the weather, plans to deprive plants and trees of carbon dioxide, other gases

My tribe paid a high price for venturing into the distant wilderness without first consulting the Environmental Protection Agency.

Some reached the coast of what would become Newfoundland, where their settlement was unearthed decades ago. Others settled in what became Iceland, where they set up a primitive democracy that still endures a thousand years later.

Another group of Norwegian Vikings hauled up on the shores of Greenland, which appeared to them a land of milk and honey. They established farms, and appear to have prospered for more than three centuries.

As things turned out, they had happened upon Greenland during a period of warming. Then the ice came back and all of them died. The Little Ice Age, which ranged from approximately 1350 to 1850, had arrived.

In retrospect, it seems so simple that even a cave man could figure it out. Weather changes, sometimes remarkably fast and furiously, sometimes slowly but ferociously. Those who are in the wrong place often die.

Now, however, the weather is about to play a new, unprecedented political role, and the EPA is becoming the point of the spear in a neo-fascist scheme devised by the Obama administration to take unprecedented control of the American economy.

The EPA has ruled that current higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and related gases are the "unambiguous result of human emissions."

Scientific research shows that the more greenhouse gases there are in the atmosphere the more heat is trapped, raising the earth's temperature.

The EPA has endorsed that research and determined that "natural variations" in climatic conditions, such as solar activity, couldn't explain rising temperatures.

Okay. How, then, does the EPA explain the warming that transformed Greenland from a big block of ice into fertile land that my fellow Norwegian tribesmen farmed for about 350 years?

No one was there when they arrived. What, if not solar activity, had turned up the temperature in Greenland? The EPA has to answer that question or I, for one, will deliver the derisive laughter that propaganda organization so richly deserves.

To reach its desired conclusion, long in the making, the EPA draws two arguable conclusions:

1. Higher temperatures are undesirable and must be prevented.

2. Higher temperatures can be stopped by government regulation of carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas that humans exhale and plants inhale, and other greenhouse gases.

Never mind that the evidence for global warming - a less-than-one-degree rise in average temperature over 100 years - is worthy of derisive laughter.

Never mind that the average temperature has actually been falling for the last seven years.

By happenstance, Energy Secretary Steven Chu addressed some of these questions at the just-concluded Obama-Chavez festival in Trinidad and Tobago, where he warned that the Caribbean region faces "very, very scary" rises in sea levels and intensifying hurricanes, while Florida, Louisiana and even northern California could be flooded.

But skeptics promptly pounced on Chu's claims.

"Secretary Chu still seems to believe that computer model predictions decades or 100 years from now are some sort of 'evidence' of a looming climate catastrophe," said Marc Morano, executive editor of ClimateDepot.com and former top aide to global warming critic Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.

"Secretary Chu's assertions on sea level rise and hurricanes are quite simply being proven wrong by the latest climate data. As the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute reported in December 12, 2008: There is 'no evidence for accelerated sea-level rise.'"

Hurricane activity in both hemispheres is at 30-year lows, Morano said, and experts such as MIT's Kerry Emanuel and Tom Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "are now backing off their previous dire predictions."

Trouble is, neither skepticism nor contrary evidence will deter the neo-fascists, who are determined to take control of the economy because free enterprise and consumer preferences haven't delivered the result they want: a nanny government that determines which cars we drive across a landscape dotted with windmills and "Obama Saves" signs.

Obama's remedies don't fit the problem

"...I had made my train journey to Washington from Princeton University. There I had been lecturing, 30 years on, about how Margaret Thatcher confronted economic crisis when she first came to power in 1979. The point that strikes one is that it was the crisis which, above all, galvanised her, captured her intellect, harnessed her energy. Like Churchill in relation to the Second World War, she felt that all her life had been a preparation for that hour. Her vision of what was wrong with her country, and how to put it right, was seen entirely through the prism of the crisis.

The same cannot be said of Barack Obama. This is not merely because he has no previous experience of governing. It is because his idea of what he wants to do is really something quite different from what is actually happening to his country. In his inauguration address, he spoke of the need to get on with the business of "remaking America". For him, that economic stuff is not really part of the remaking, but a distraction from it. His vision of a more social-democratic country was conceived almost without reference to the greatest economic catastrophe to hit America for 80 years. He barely had to argue, or even think about it before or during the campaign. It shows. He says that his education, energy and health reforms must happen so that "such a crisis [the financial one] never happens again", but he merely asserts the link: he does not prove it.

Through his astonishing personal qualities, allied with his ethnicity, Mr Obama feels like the right man to be President. But perhaps he has come at the wrong time."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/
5173804/Obamas-house-of-prosperity-may-yet-be-a-castle-in-the-air.html
.

Husband of Illinois rep pleads to crimes

CHICAGO (AP) — The husband of an Illinois congresswoman pleaded guilty Wednesday to tax violations and bank fraud for writing rubber checks and failing to collect withholding tax from an employee.

Robert Creamer, a political consultant married to four-term U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, could face four years in prison on the two felony counts when he is sentenced Dec. 21.

"In my heart, I know that these mistakes do not define or diminish this good man, or the good work that he has done over the last 40 years or that he will do in the future," Schakowsky, D-Ill., said after her husband's court hearing.

Schakowsky has not been accused of any wrongdoing

Creamer, 58, a prominent Chicago political consultant, was accused of swindling nine financial institutions of at least $2.3 million while he ran a public interest group in the 1990s.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-31-congresswoman-husband_x.htm

Hispanics call for census boycott...Huh?

If this news report is accurate, the United States should immediately slam the door on immigration from hispanic countries, whether legal or illegal, on grounds something has gone seriously wrong with the hispanic gene pool.

"Some Hispanic advocacy groups are calling for illegal immigrants to boycott the 2010Census unless immigration laws are changed. The move puts them at odds with leading immigrant rights advocates and creates another hurdle in the Census Bureau's quest to count everyone in the USA.

The National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders, a group that says it represents 20,000 evangelical churches in 34 states, issued a statement this week urging undocumented immigrants not to fill out Census forms unless Congress passes 'genuine immigration reform.'"

Huh? Wouldn't a boycott mean that hispanics would be under-counted? Or even uncounted? Isn't this obvious, even to immigration champions who regularly stamp their feet and threaten to wreak havoc in their adopted country if their adopted country doesn't cater to their every whim?

But then, my perspective may be all wrong. I am assuming that hispanics want to follow the traditional path of immigrants: grow in numerical strength, elect sympathetic politicians, eventually run immigrants for office.

Perhaps, in the era of Obama, with Chicago's Daly political machine operating out of a branch office in Washington, this is ancient history. From now on, perhaps ACORN's thugs will see to elections, while immigrant pressure groups supply the foot soldiers.

Back to the news report in USA Today:

"Similar grass-roots campaigns are unfolding in Arizona and New Mexico to protest state and local crackdowns on illegal immigrants. Asking immigrants to be counted without giving them a chance to become legal residents counters church teachings, says the Rev. Miguel Rivera, president of the Latino religious coalition.

When the Census counts growing numbers of Hispanics, the counts are often used to support crackdowns on illegal immigrants, he says. About 38% of the churches' 3.4 million members are undocumented, he says. The Census Bureau does not ask people if they are here illegally.

"Our job is to count every single person," says Raul Cisneros, Census spokesman. "We are disappointed that any organization would urge anyone to not participate in the 2010 Census."

Rick Perry's star rises on state sovereignty issue

"Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s star is rising among a new constituency — the anti-tax “tea party” crowd — in the wake of his recent endorsement of a Texas state House resolution affirming the state’s sovereignty.

The resolution urges that “all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.”

The Republican governor’s public embrace of that language — a thinly veiled reference toward the conditions set by the Obama administration’s financial stimulus package — and his efforts to reject some of the stimulus funds have made him popular among the big government opponents who attended Wednesday’s “tea party” events across the nation."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21295.html

Chna dumping dollars in favor of copper

"Hard money enthusiasts have long watched for signs that China is switching its foreign reserves from US Treasury bonds into gold bullion. They may have been eyeing the wrong metal.

China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons.

Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group, which ships commodities to China, said Beijing is trying to extricate itself from dollar dependency as fast as it can.

The West is a black hole with all this money being printed. The Chinese are buying raw materials because it is a much better way to use their $1.9 trillion of reserves. They get ten times the impact, and can cover their infrastructure for 50 years."

"The next industrial revolution is going to be led by hybrid cars, and that needs copper. You can see the subtle way that China is moving into 30 or 40 countries with resources," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/5160120/
A-Copper-Standard-for-the-worlds-currency-system.html

You should never let a good tea party go to waste

To paraphrase a political parable we all heard recently, you should never let a good Tea Party go to waste.

The original version went like this: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." That was Rahm Emanuel's explanation of the federal government's unparalleled grasp of power in the early days of the Obama administration, when it rammed through Congress trillions of dollars in spending authority and grabbed control of banks, insurers and car companies.

Now it's our turn to pass judgment on those actions.

My thesis is that the public's business is no longer done in Washington. What is done in Washington is the work of lobbyists and political pressure groups which, in some cases, pursue objectives that would appall a normal citizen.

Just as television shows are designed to attract audiences for commercials, Washington's purpose is to gather members of congress and other movers and shakers in one place, where they are readily accessible to lobbyists and other persuaders.

In the current session, at President Obama's behest, Congress enacted a huge spending bill without a single member having read it.

This illustrates how far we have come. George Washington described the Senate as the saucer where the coffee would cool, having arrived from the House too hot.

Contrast that vision with the priorities of Obama, who saw to it that a huge spending bill was rushed through the House unread because time was short.

That outlandish display of arrogance and contempt for American history is one of the reasons the Tea Parties are taking place today.

One way to break up the seaminess and corruption of Washington is to overhaul the system by allowing, or even requiring, members of congress to vote electronically from their home districts or states on most matters.

Sessions in the Capitol would largely be reserved for controversial measures or those involving issues of national security.

Two benefits of such a scheme are obvious. One, members would spend much more time in their districts where they would get an earful before the vote instead of afterward. Two, voters would be better able to size up their senator or representative and ask themselves, "Do I really want this person to represent me?"

This is just one idea. Others may have better ideas about how to rein in a government that seems to become more and more brazen in defiance of the public will and common sense.

Not quite three months ago we had a new administration, confronting a recession, that deployed apocalyptic visions to bull-rush through Congress a series of unparalleled spending plans ostensibly designed to end the downturn and restore growth.

I observed at the time that emergency measures enacted during recessions are actually designed to end those recessions in a time frame that allows the incumbent party to escape punishment in the next congressional election. I still believe that to be the case.

At this point, the Obama administration can find only "a glimmer" of improvement in the economy. More than $10 trillion has been committed, and all we have to show for it is a glimmer.

This was a power grab. Instead of a consumer-driven economy in which rank and file citizens define what this country will be, we will have a neo-fascist government that determines what will be produced and who will manage our corporations.

Do you think, as I do, that global warming is a crock trumped up by neo-fascists to overcome consumer preferences and gain control of the economy?

It won't matter. The neo-fascists don't care what anyone else thinks.

In the new era, ACORN thugs will take pains to see that elections come out right.

They have their own man in the Oval Office.

White House sees Tea parties as right wing recruitment for white extremist militias

In a strained attempt to discount Wednesday's Tea Parties, the Obama administration is encouraging Americans to view the protests as nothing more than a campaign by right wing extremists and racists "to swell the ranks of white power militias."

The Washington Times, an ostensibly conservative newspaper, reported Tuesday, "The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in 'rightwing extremist activity,' saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias."

A more sensible report, shorn of political correctness, would have read as follows:

"The Department of Homeland Security, which has failed to perform its obligation to protect the nation's borders, is engaging in a world-class head fake by issuing bogus warnings about right wingers at a time when millions of Americans are taking to the streets in opposition to a radical president who routinely criticizes his own country, praises its muslim enemies and seems hell-bent on destroying America's finanacial underpinnings."

The Times: "A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines 'rightwing extremism in the United States' as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

"It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

My rewrite:

"The controversy comes at a time when, for the first time, many Americans have come to believe that the biggest threat to their health and welfare springs from their own government. That government triggered a housing bubble by engaging in a 30-year-social engineering project to put low-income earners in homes they couldn't afford. When the economy softened, and many of the beneficiaries of that project defaulted, the housing market collapsed and a worldwide recession began.

"Now, millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Meanwhile, illegal aliens still stream across the Mexican border, taking jobs from teenagers and struggling citizens at the bottom of the economic ladder, and the president and his even more befuddled Democrat majorities in Congress plan to grant citizenship to an estimated 12 million illegals already in the United States."

"Many Americans are, understandably, enraged by the anti-American behavior of their alleged leaders. The president does not improve matters by habitually criticizing America's past while mindlessly exaggerating the contribution of muslims. Young students might wonder whether history books are short-changing Mohammed by not listing him as one of the founders."

The Times: "The White House has distanced itself from the analysis. When asked for comment on its contents, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said, "The President is focused not on politics but rather taking the steps necessary to protect all Americans from the threat of violence and terrorism regardless of its origins. He also believes those who serve represent the best of this country, and he will continue to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and benefits they have earned."

"The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff's departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

"It says the federal government 'will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months' to gather information on 'rightwing extremist activity in the United States.'

"The joint federal-state activities will have 'a particular emphasis' on the causes of 'rightwing extremist radicalization.'

"Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban said the report is one in an ongoing series of assessments by the department to 'facilitate a greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the U.S.'

"The report, which was first disclosed to the public by nationally syndicated radio host Roger Hedgecock, makes clear that the Homeland Security Department does not have 'specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence.' It warns that fringe organizations are gaining recruits, but it provides no numbers.

My rewrite:

You have been warned. This message from the Obama administration is designed to set the scene for Wednesday's Tea Parties, which are intended to manifest widespread public opposition to Obama's apocalyptic assessment of the economic outlook and the reckless government spending he and his allies have enacted as a remedy.

The Obama administration wants people to believe that the Tea Party protests are merely a manifestation of right wing hatred of his beneficent regime.

The Times: "The report says extremist groups have used President Obama as a recruiting tool."

By my assessment, the president is an excellent recruiting tool for the Tea Parties, and this ham-handed effort to identify the Tea Parties with right wing extremism should swell attendance even more.

I am, by nature, sedate. I'll be at the Tea Party at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial.

Muslim pirates contribute fo America as targets

Addressing the parliament in Turkey, President Obama recently said, "We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world - including my own country.”

Putting aside for the moment the 3,000 people killed in the Twin Towers on 9/11, as well as numerous murderous bombings in the Middle East, not to mention the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while turning a blind eye to thwarted follow-up attacks in the United States, and totally ignoring all of the immigrant muslim fathers who have murdered their daughters for behaving like American teenagers, Obama said reassuringly that America “is not and never will be at war with Islam...the United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans.”

Today, muslims made still another contribution to America's well-being, this time involuntarily. They provided valuable target practice to Navy Seal sharpshooters, who killed three of the four pirates holding an American merchant ship captain in the Gulf of Aden.

The fourth pirate was captured, giving him a chance to make even further contributions to the future of America by volunteering information on the operations of Somalia's pirate-friendly culture.

Kumbaya, anyone?

Some Floridians are paying for cops twice

"After her sport utility vehicle sideswiped a van in early February, Shirley Kimel was amazed at how quickly a handful of police officers and firefighters in Winter Haven, Fla., showed up. But a real shock came a week later, when a letter arrived from the city billing her $316 for the cost of responding to the accident.

“I remember thinking, ‘What the heck is this?’ ” says Ms. Kimel, 67, an office manager at a furniture store. “I always thought this sort of thing was covered by my taxes.”

It used to be. But last July, Winter Haven became one of a few dozen cities in the country to start charging “accident response fees.” The idea is to shift the expense of tending to and cleaning up crashes directly to at-fault drivers. Either they, or their insurers, are expected to pay."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30162245/

My take:

This bold and imaginative maneuver by Winter Haven opens up unlimited possiblities for tax-loving politicians and bureaucrats. Coming soon: taxes on sunshine consumption, air that passes through your lungs, the space your body occupies, 911 calls, your personal wear on tear on roads and highways.

Assessment of these taxes will, of course, require unprecedented monitoring of your every move, the cost of which you will pay.

In short, we're all going to be New Yorkers.

George Will: What's next? Will government take money from Wal-Mart and give it to Kmart?

WASHINGTON-Rampant redistribution of wealth by government is now the norm. So is this: It inflames government's natural rapaciousness and subverts the rule of law. This degeneration of governance is illustrated by the Illinois Legislature's transfer of income from some disfavored riverboat casinos to racetracks.

Illinois has nine licensed riverboat casinos and five horse-racing tracks. In 2006, supposedly to "address the negative impact that riverboat gaming has had" on Illinois horse racing, the Legislature -- racing interests made huge contributions to Gov. Rod Blagojevich -- mandated a transfer of 3 percent of the gross receipts of the four most profitable casinos, those in the Chicago area, to the state's horse-racing tracks. This levy, subsequently extended to run until 2011, will confiscate substantially more than $100 million.

What is to prevent legislators from taking revenues from Wal-Mart and giving them to local retailers? Or from chain drugstores to local pharmacies? Not the tattered remnant of the Constitution's takings clause."

http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/04/12/
racing_past_the_constitution

Obama delineates post-America world

"Like it or not, the United States of America is no longer the world's policeman. This was the message of Barack Obama's presidential journey to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iraq this past week.

Somewhere between apologizing for American history - both distant and recent; genuflecting before the unelected, bigoted king of Saudi Arabia; announcing that he will slash the US's nuclear arsenal, scrap much of America's missile defense programs and emasculate the US Navy; leaving Japan to face North Korea and China alone; telling the Czechs, Poles and their fellow former Soviet colonies, "Don't worry, be happy," as he leaves them to Moscow's tender mercies; humiliating Iraq's leaders while kowtowing to Iran; preparing for an open confrontation with Israel; and thanking Islam for its great contribution to American history, President Obama made clear to the world's aggressors that America will not be confronting them for the foreseeable future."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=
1238562949505&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Game theory debunks Geithner rescue

"Game theory tells us that a risk neutral gambler would pay $50 dollars for a coin flip that paid $0 for Heads and $100 for Tails. Game theorists would call $50 the value of the bet.

Suppose someone is willing to fund your gambling problem, and lend you $80 at zero interest. Better still, if you lose the bet you don’t have to pay him back. Under that scenario, the same gambler would pay $90 for the bet, giving him an even chance of winning or losing $10.

This is a microcosm of what the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) is intended to do: create an incentive for investors to pay $90 for a bet that is only worth $50. It is bad economics and bad public policy and it is probably fraudulent. Congress should act pre-emptively to halt Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s latest scheme."

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/04/
game_theory_exposes_ppip_as_fr.html

Was subprime mortgage collapse a result, not a cause, of the global recession?

"In 1983, economist James Hamilton of the University of California at San Diego showed that "all but one of the US recessions since World War Two have been preceded, typically with a lag of around three-fourths of a year, by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum." The years 1946 to 2007 saw 10 dramatic spikes in the price of oil -- each of which was soon followed by recession.

In The Financial Times on Jan. 3, 2008, I therefore suggested, "The US economy is likely to slip into recession because of higher energy costs alone, regardless of what the Fed does."

In a new paper at cato.org, "Financial Crisis and Public Policy," Jagadeesh Gokhale notes that the prolonged decline in exurban housing construction that began in early 2006 was a logical response to rising prices of oil and gasoline at that time. So was the equally prolonged decline in sales of gas-guzzling vehicles. And the US/UK financial crises in the fall of 2008 were likewise as much a consequence of recession as the cause: Recessions turn good loans into bad.

The recession began in late 2007 or early 2008 in many countries, with the United States one of the least affected. Countries with the deepest recessions have no believable connection to US housing or banking problems."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04092009/postopinion/
opedcolumnists/it_didnt_start_here_163630.htm?page=2

In White House, global cooling is warming, and liberal fascism is on the march

Not content with frenzied spending, President-for-the-time-being Barack Obama is now preparing to extend panicky policy-making to other realms.

His science advisor, John Holdren, has told the Associated Press that officials regard global warming as so dire that they are talking about engineering the climate. One possible approach: shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said that such an experimental measure would be used only as a last resort.

Bear in mind that, the AP reports, twice in a half-hour interview, Holdren compared global warming to being "in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog."

If Holdren is to decide when the last resort must be unleashed, the decision may already have been made.

In light of the disastrous consequences of previous government social engineering projects, such as subprime mortgages, one shudders to think of the potential results of atmospheric engineering.

Unintended consequences, of course, do not figure in public discussion of panic-driven presidential actions or proposals. That's why panicky policy making is so much in favor.

The question is especially pertinent because the administration's feverish and costly spending on bailouts and stimulus plans has failed to produce discernible signs of economic recovery.

Moreover, the world's average temperature has been falling, not rising, for the last seven years. If the administration can claim that global warming is dire at a time when it actually is vanishing, who is to say what would trigger deliberate high-level pollution as a remedy?

Obama's apparent vision of an American society in which government intrudes more and more on individual and corporate decision-making relies on a series of building blocks.

Global warming is vital. If the propagandists can persuade the public that it is real, and human life itself is at stake, there is no limit to the extent of government inroads that might be tolerated.

Obama's administration already has gained control of major banks, car manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler, and insurance companies. The fairy tale of global warming could lead to government control of the energy industry and pave the way to extensive control of other industries.

Liberal fascism is on the march in America.

Thomas Sowell, as usual, has figured it out

"Socialists believe in government ownership of the means of production. Fascists believed in government control of privately owned businesses, which is much more the style of this government. That way, politicians can intervene whenever they feel like it and then, when their interventions turn out badly, summon executives from the private sector before Congress and denounce them on nationwide television."

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTM2NmJkOWI0ZDkwNDQ1YmQ1YTAzZDk0OGEzOTNlZjU=

Warren Buffett profits from TARP funds

"Warren Buffett promoted the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), and lambasted the greed on Wall Street, yet he is one of the main benefactors of the TARP largesse according to a Sacramento Bee story.

Buffett endorsed Barack Obama for President last year, and Obama tapped Buffett to be a member of the candidate's economic team. Obama requently referred to Buffett's endorsement during the campaign as proof that he had the capability to deal with the troubled US economy.

Buffett's holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, profited from TARP in several ways according the the Bee story:

Overall, Berkshire owns more than $13 billion of stock in the top recipients of TARP funds – including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., US Bancorp, American Express Co. and Bank of America Corp., all considered by analysts to be in deep trouble before the federal infusion. The more the bailout props up these financial companies, the more secure Berkshire's investments.

That total, The Bee found, ranks Berkshire fifth among all investors in TARP-assisted companies. Berkshire's TARP holdings constitute 30 percent of its publicly disclosed stock portfolio. That proportion reflects at least twice as much dependence on bailed-out banks as any other large investor.

Buffett increased his bank holdings in September, while openly pressing Congress to pass the bailout."

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/warren_buffett_profits_heavily.html

China's bid to supplant U.S. dollar is real

WASHINGTON -- We are in a race between economic recovery and economic nationalism. At last week's G-20 summit, leading nations agreed to roughly $1 trillion of additional lending, mostly through the International Monetary Fund, to help end the worldwide slump. But beneath the veil of consensus, countries are maneuvering to protect their economies and blame someone else for the crisis. Will the world economic order overcome these stresses or give way to a global free-for-all, characterized by rampant protectionism, nationalistic subsidies and preferences?

Emblematic of the tension is a recent proposal by Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), to replace the dollar as the world's major international currency. In a paper, Zhou argued that today's crisis reflects "the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks" of the dollar-based global economy. The PBOC is China's Federal Reserve; Zhou is no obscure bureaucrat.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/a_global_freeforall.html

Is Obama "shockingly ignorant?" Yes

"We have a rock star president who for the first time in American history fired the President of a private corporation, General Motors, then immediately flew to Europe with an entourage of 500 courtiers and a worshipful media, bowed waist-deep to the King of Saudi Arabia, and proceeded to accuse his own country of arrogance.

In France, of all places.

Does anybody else think this guy is shockingly ignorant? I wonder if he has ever really talked to a concentration camp survivor, or a Cuban refugee, or a boat person from Vietnam? Or a Soviet dissident. Or a survivor or Mao's purges.

Not to mention families with fallen American soldiers in the graveyards. Yes, he's going to Normandie, but will he apologize for our arrogance there, too? Does he really understand anything beyond the PC history of the world? Or will he just lie in his photo op at the American Cemetery at Normandy?"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/those_arrogant_americans.html

My take: That Obama's glittering resume bears little resemblance to the man became obvious to me when he ordered the White House bust of Winston Churchill be returned to England, a decision that could have been made only by someone ignorant of the fact that Churchill had lived in the White House while England was under siege by the German Luftwaffe during World War II. The White House was England's War Room. Obama obviously didn't know.

Yea, Detroit's a tough town alright

DETROIT (AP) Police in Detroit have ruffled some feathers after they cracked down on an organized pillow fight at a downtown park.

The Detroit News reports that police at Campus Martius Park prevented the feathery fight Saturday by disarming pillow-toting participants. The bout was part of a worldwide event organized on social networking Web sites.

Michael Davis of Hamtramck says police confiscated the 32-year-old man's pillows but returned their cases. He says he was told that he needed a permit.

Scott Harris of Ferndale told the News that it's "not illegal to own a pillow."

Detroit police spokesman James Tate says cleanup was the issue.

http://cbs3.com/watercooler/pillow.fight.park.2.976528.html

Bailed out paid millions to Obama's aides

"Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, pulled in more than $2.7 million in speaking fees paid by firms at the heart of the financial crisis, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America Corp. and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers.

He pulled in another $5.2 million last year from D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund for which he served as managing director from October 2006 until joining the administration.

Thomas E. Donilon, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, was paid $3.9 million last year by the power law firm O’Melveny & Myers to represent clients including two firms that received federal bailout funds: Citigroup and Goldman Sachs."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20889.html

Does Obama want lasting control of banks

"I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn't much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street's black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell 'em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

It is not for nothing that rage has been turned on those wicked financiers. The banks are at the core of the administration's thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

Risk analysts say insurance industry at risk due to heavy reliance on risk offset scams

"The picture we have assembled is frightening and suggests that, far from just AIG, much of the insurance industry has been drawn into the world of financial engineering and has thus become part of the problem. Below we present our preliminary findings and invite your comments.

One of the first things we learned about the insurance world is that the concept of "shifting risk" for a variety of business and regulatory reasons has been ongoing in the insurance world for decades. Finite insurance and other scams have been at least visible to the investment community for years and have been documented in the media, but what is less understood is that firms like AIG took the risk shifting shell game to a whole new level long before the firm's entry into the CDS market.

In fact, our investigation suggests that by the time AIG had entered the CDS (credit default swaps) fray in a serious way more than five years ago, the firm was already doomed. No longer able to prop up its earnings using reinsurance because of growing scrutiny from state insurance regulators and federal law enforcement agencies, AIG's foray into CDS was really the grand finale. AIG was a Ponzi scheme plain and simple, yet the Obama Administration still thinks of AIG as a real company that simply took excessive risks. No, to us what the fraud Bernard Madoff is to individual investors, AIG is to the global financial community.

As with the phony reinsurance contracts that AIG and other insurers wrote for decades, when AIG wrote hundreds of billions of dollars in CDS contracts, neither AIG nor the counterparties believed that the CDS would ever be paid. Indeed, one source with personal knowledge of the matter suggests that there may be emails and actual side letters between AIG and its counterparties that could prove conclusively that AIG never intended to pay out on any of its CDS contracts.

The significance of this for the US bailout of AIG is profound. If our surmise is correct, the position of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that the AIG credit default contracts are "valid legal contracts" is ridiculous and reveals a level of ignorance by the Fed and Treasury about the true goings on inside AIG and the reinsurance industry that is truly staggering."

http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAstory.asp?tag=351

Regulators knew for years about shoddy practrices and losses at Fannie & Freddie

"The group of which I am president has discovered new documents that prove government negligence in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse was longer and more prevalent than we had imagined. Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, has uncovered new documents that show that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues, and executive compensation issues, even while leftists in Congress continued to block attempts to regulate the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).

Judicial Watch obtained the documents from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated December 4, 2008. Judicial Watch requested records related to members of Congress activity regarding the policy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase lending to individuals with poor credit risk, as well as correspondence and records about contacts between FHFA and Fannie and Freddie."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=569C5314-23DE-4962-91C2-509031957520

What's worse than a brain dead liberal?

If a professional baseball player had the success rate of America's public schools, especially the ones in Detroit, he'd be taking his bats in Dubuque.

The new icon of America's universities is Ward Churchill, an academic buffoon who has plagiarized the work of others and was fired for research misconduct. He wants his job back so he can go back to disgracing the University of Colorado.

And yet, Rasmussen Reports has found that 60 percent disapprove of Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat House speaker who makes the old phrase "brain dead liberal" seem inadequate.

Where are people getting the insight, wisdom and judgment necessary to reach such a conclusion?

Senate smacks down Obama scheme

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate rejected a proposal by President Barack Obama to finance an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system by limiting the ability of the well-to-do to take tax deductions for charitable contributions.

The chamber unanimously approved an amendment to a pending budget plan that rejects the proposal to limit the size of itemized deductions that can be taken by those earning more than $250,000.

Obama proposed using the estimated $318 billion such a change would generate to help finance a health-care overhaul, which he says will cost at least $630 billion. Lawmakers said they feared the effect of such a tax change on charities.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAKl4RpzgwpY&refer=worldwide

Obama and his colleagues grope for villain

The bloated egos attending the G20 conference in London congratulated themselves on a historic accomplishment Thursday, having pledged $1.1 trillion they don't have to combat a problem they continue to misdiagnose.

The new demon they are going to slay is secret international banking that allows high-rollers to move money anonymously.

What did secret banking have to do with the oollapse of the U.S. housing market and the resulting recession?

Probably nothing.

What about hedge funds, which also had a target pinned to their backs? Probably nothing.

If the G20 dandies really wanted to deal with the basic problem, they would have called for the immediate abolition of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Had those two government-sponsored enterprises not existed, millions of bad credit risks would not have gotten mortgages, the housing bubble would not have happened, and international dandies would not now be pretending to pick up the pieces of a wrecked world economy.

Why do the dandies ignore Fannie and Freddie? Because any suggestion that Fannie and Freddie were central to the debacle would rankle Barack (Alexander the Great) Obama, whose Democrat Party used both Bannie and Freddie as a hiring hall for out-of-work politicians and a source of big-time campaign contributions.

What Fannie and Freddie did was to separate home mortgages from the traditional constraint of risk. Under the previous system, a local lender would assess the credit-worthiness of applicants. Those who had a long record of paying their bills on time, as well as adequate incomes, received mortgages at modest interest rates. Those who didn't have good records had to pay higher interest rates, and sometimes were refused any mortgage.

All that changed when Fannie and Freddie came on the scene. Now, local lenders cared little, or not at all, about credit-worthiness because they held the morgage for only a day or two before selling it to Fannie or Freddie.

Fannie and Freddie didn't have any big worries either becaue they quickly bundled mortgages as securities and sold them to investment banks, which bundled them again. The concepts of risk and credit-worthiness vanished, only to reappear suddenly and ominously when the American economy flattened out and the bad risks began defaulting on mortgages.

Government policy and public pressure groups such as ACORN, with whom Obama had a long relationship, were major contibutors to the debacle. Head fakes, like the ones so absurdly on display in London, won't change that history.

Why hasn't Obama fired these losers?

"Now that we're all agreed that the government can make hiring and firing decisions based on infusions of taxpayer money, I can think of a lot more government beneficiaries who are badly in need of firing.

Just off the top of my head, how about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and everybody at the Department of Education?

How about firing all the former Weathermen, like Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, whose university salaries are subsidized by the taxpayer?

Nearly every university in the country accepts government money. Is there any industry in America more in need of some "restructuring" than academia? What's Berkeley's "business plan" to stop turning out graduates who hate America?

And what is Obama's justification for keeping Shirley M. Tilghman as president of Princeton University as long as Princeton employs prominent crackpot Peter Singer?"

http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2009/04/01/why_is_rick_wagoner_fired_and_nancy_pelosi_still_working

AG rejected finding against D.C. voting rights act

"Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

A finding that the voting rights bill runs afoul of the Constitution could complicate an upcoming House vote and make the measure more vulnerable to a legal challenge that probably would reach the Supreme Court if it is enacted. The bill, which would give the District a vote in the House for the first time, appeared to be on the verge of passing last month before stalling when pro-gun legislators tried to attach an amendment weakening city gun laws. Supporters say it could reach the House floor in May."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033104426.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

Nobel economist Stiglitz denounces bank bailout

"THE Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal to deal with America’s ailing banks has been described by some in the financial markets as a win-win-win proposal. Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose.

Treasury hopes to get us out of the mess by replicating the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down, with a proposal marked by overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/opinion/01stiglitz.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

You just spent $42,105 to toxify America's future

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.

New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=armOzfkwtCA4&refer=worldwide