Even as Americans wrestle with the after-effects of one of the most hare-brained social enngineering projects ever devised, subprime mortgages on a mass scale, the government refuses to face reality.
In a new report to the World's Worst Man-made Catastrophe, the United Nations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and some of her co-conspirators write this:
"The recession in the United States was fueled largely by a housing crisis, which coincided with some discriminatory lending practices." Those practices, the report strongly implies, resulted in a market where "fewer than half of African-American and Hispanic families own homes while three quarters of white families do."
So, it wasn't the mortgages-for-everybody scheme devised by Washington politicians and the Federal Reserve that caused the housing bubble and subsequent collapse. It was the antecedent to those policies, also known as a policy of mortgages only for those who could afford them, that was the problem.
Being an organization run by liberals and radicals, some from the third world, the UN demands victims. Being Democrats, Clinton and her coconspirators are willing to supply victims, even if the supporting story line boggles the mind.
Writing in American Thinker, Jack Cashill notes that "the U.N.'s 192 Member States assess their respective human rights performance over the preceding four years and submit a report on the same to the HRC, the U.N. Human Rights Council.
"During this past year, under the guidance of our HRC, Hillary Rodham Clinton, "senior representatives" from "more than a dozen" federal entities wandered the country listening to the self-serving laments of various liberal pressure groups. At the end of the process, they compiled these gripes into a 29-page report and sent it to the U.N. HRC for review.
"Among the reviewing states of the HRC are human rights luminaries like Cuba, Russia, Red China, Saudi Arabia, and -- when not busy sending "emergency transaction" e-mails -- Nigeria.
"Our State Department calls the UPR process "a unique avenue for the global community to discuss human rights around the world." Any sane person would call it a self-deluding boondoggle and, if its recommendations are followed, a self-destructive one as well.
"I could write a book on the various absurdities of the report we submitted -- e.g., a soulful plea for the rights of the transgendered and not a word on those of the unborn -- but let me focus on one that has the potential to wreak havoc anew on the world's economy: the call for "fairness and equality in housing."
"The recession in the United States," the report insists, "was fueled largely by a housing crisis, which coincided with some discriminatory lending practices." Those practices, the report strongly implies, resulted in a market where "fewer than half of African-American and Hispanic families own homes while three quarters of white families do."
"To prevent similar crises in the future," the report continues in its smugly accusatory way, "the federal government has focused resources and efforts to determine whether and where discrimination took place, as well as to ensure greater oversight going forward." As proof of the administration's eagerness to solve the problem, the report cites its "major financial reform legislation."
"I wish I were making this up, but our official 2010 UPR submission to the United Nation argues that discrimination against minorities in the housing market somehow caused the economic crisis and that the misbegotten Dodd-Frank act will somehow repair it. It is no wonder that the authors of this report oppose capital punishment. Upon reading it, even Sister Helen Prejean would want them taken out and shot.
"While the Obama apparatchiks were busy compiling this report, I was busy writing a book -- Popes and Bankers -- on the real causes of the economic crisis. What they see as the solution I see as the cause, and I can prove my point.
"To make the accusation of discrimination work, the report writers had to ignore the most telling set of data, namely default rates. In 2004, the Department of Housing and Urban Development did a comprehensive study of FHA loans that originated in 1992. The sample size was substantial -- nearly 250,000 loans.
"Given that the FHA insures only modest loans for low- and moderate-income people, the cross-racial comparisons were for comparable properties. What the study revealed, among other results, was that after the seven prosperous years from 1992 to 1999, blacks were defaulting on their loans more than twice as frequently as whites, and Hispanics were defaulting three times more frequently.
"Here is the crucial point: if minorities had been held to a higher standard than whites, their default rates should have been lower than whites, not higher. These numbers suggest the opposite and the obvious: blacks and Hispanics were held to lower standards and have been for at least the last forty years. Chinese-Americans, by the way, actually did have lower default rates than whites.
"As to why black homeownership rates are lower, only the willfully blind can fail to see the problem: namely, the government-induced collapse of the two-parent black family. In 1993, the average income for households headed by divorced women was 40 percent that of married couples; for unmarried women, it was only 20 percent. As the numbers suggest, many of these women could not manage homes of their own. Homeownership rates for female-headed households have struggled to stay above 50 percent. For married couples, by contrast, the rates have hovered consistently in the 80th-percentile range.
"With blacks vastly overrepresented among single-parent families -- by 1993, 57 percent of black children were growing up in a single-parent household, as compared 21 percent of white children -- white homeownership rates inevitably outstripped those for black homeownership. By the early 1990s that gap was at least 25 percentage points, around 70 percent for whites and in the low 40s for blacks.
"The writers of the UPR report, however, refuse to acknowledge family breakdown as a problem, let alone as an explanation for the disparity in homeownership rates. Their preferred explanation for every unequal outcome in every endeavor is the inevitable "discrimination."
"Worse, the report writers -- and indeed, the Obama White House -- seems unaware that the forced march of unqualified buyers into the homeownership field was the single most explosive variable in the subprime blow-up.
"They seem unaware that the Clinton administration demanded that banks quantify -- under duress -- the progress they were making in giving loans to "LMIs," people of low and moderate income.
"They seem unaware that the government encouraged banks to use "innovative or flexible" lending practices -- aka "predatory loans" -- to reach their LMI numbers.
"They seem unaware that HUD, which Congress had made the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 1992, began to pressure these agencies to set numerical goals for "affordable housing" even if that meant buying subprime mortgages.
"In 2004, under extreme government pressure, homeownership rate reached a new peak. "'Stop! We're at 69 percent homeownership. We should go no further. These are people who should remain renters,'" former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros wished someone would have said at the time.
"Cisneros added that it was "impossible to know in the beginning that the federal push to increase homeownership would end so badly."
"In 2010, everyone knows how badly the push ended -- everyone, that is, save the clowns who wrote the UPR report and the jokers who approved it."
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
Friday, September 3, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
As conservatism rises at home, liberals posture abroad
PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer demanded Friday that a reference to the state's controversial immigration law be removed from a State Department report to the United Nations' human rights commissioner.
The U.S. included its legal challenge to the law on a list of ways the federal government is protecting human rights.
In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brewer says it is "downright offensive" that a state law would be included in the report, which was drafted as part of a UN review of human rights in all member nations every four years.
"The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a state of the United States to 'review' by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional," Brewer wrote.
Arizona's law generally requires police officer enforcing other laws to investigate the immigration status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants.
Critics say it would lead officers to target Hispanics. Supporters, including Brewer, say the law prohibits racial profiling and other human rights abuses.
The U.S. Justice Department sued to block the measure, arguing federal law trumps the state's authority to enforce immigration laws.
A federal judge in July sided with the Justice Department and blocked enforcement of the law's most controversial provisions a day before it was scheduled to take effect.
In its report, the State Department does not specifically allege that Arizona's law would lead to racial profiling.
"A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world," the report says. "The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined."
A State Department spokesman had no immediate comment on Brewer's letter.
The U.S. included its legal challenge to the law on a list of ways the federal government is protecting human rights.
In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brewer says it is "downright offensive" that a state law would be included in the report, which was drafted as part of a UN review of human rights in all member nations every four years.
"The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a state of the United States to 'review' by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional," Brewer wrote.
Arizona's law generally requires police officer enforcing other laws to investigate the immigration status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants.
Critics say it would lead officers to target Hispanics. Supporters, including Brewer, say the law prohibits racial profiling and other human rights abuses.
The U.S. Justice Department sued to block the measure, arguing federal law trumps the state's authority to enforce immigration laws.
A federal judge in July sided with the Justice Department and blocked enforcement of the law's most controversial provisions a day before it was scheduled to take effect.
In its report, the State Department does not specifically allege that Arizona's law would lead to racial profiling.
"A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world," the report says. "The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined."
A State Department spokesman had no immediate comment on Brewer's letter.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
48% view Obama's views as extreme, whatever that means
Forty-eight percent (48%) of U.S. voters now regard President Obama’s political views as extreme. Forty-two percent (42%) place his views in the mainstream, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
By comparison, 51% see the views of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as mainstream. Thirty-five percent (35%) think Clinton’s views are extreme. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided.
Among five top contenders for the White House in 2012, only former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is viewed as more extreme than the president. Just 38% say Palin’s views are mainstream, while 55% regard them as extreme.
Mitt Romney, the ex-Massachusetts governor who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, is considered mainstream by 45% and extreme by 33%. Twenty-two percent (22%), however, are not sure about his views.
Forty-four percent (44%) say the views of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, another unsuccessful 2008 GOP hopeful, are in the mainstream. Thirty-eight percent (38%) think Huckabee is extreme, and another 18% are not sure.
It’s important to note that the questions did not define “mainstream” or “extreme.”
By comparison, 51% see the views of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as mainstream. Thirty-five percent (35%) think Clinton’s views are extreme. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided.
Among five top contenders for the White House in 2012, only former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is viewed as more extreme than the president. Just 38% say Palin’s views are mainstream, while 55% regard them as extreme.
Mitt Romney, the ex-Massachusetts governor who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, is considered mainstream by 45% and extreme by 33%. Twenty-two percent (22%), however, are not sure about his views.
Forty-four percent (44%) say the views of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, another unsuccessful 2008 GOP hopeful, are in the mainstream. Thirty-eight percent (38%) think Huckabee is extreme, and another 18% are not sure.
It’s important to note that the questions did not define “mainstream” or “extreme.”
Monday, July 26, 2010
Greenberg and Carville cleverly insert "socialist" into political conversation, signaling a Clinton challenge to Obama in 2012
For pundits looking for signs that Hillary Clinton is thinking—just thinking—of perhaps challenging President Obama in 2012, there are suddenly plenty of tea leaves to be read.
Former aides to Bill Clinton are popping up in news stories criticizing the President's performance and making dour predictions about the Democratic Party.
Why else are Clinton loyalists joining the fray other than to soften up Obama for a Hillary left-cross come, say, the summer of 2011, when she cites high unemployment and a country in malaise in deciding to run for President again?
The biggest jolt from the Clinton camp came compliments of Stan Greenberg, who used to poll for President Clinton, and James Carville, the campaign consultant who got him elected.
Their firm, Democracy Corps, put out a new poll that showed Republicans leading Democrats 48%-42% in the race to control the House of Representatives. It showed Democrats trailing Republicans on almost all economic issues. It showed Obama with the sinking job-approval number of 45%. Voters think, by big majorities, he is a big spender and too liberal.
A number of polls have shown similar numbers.
But then came clincher—the poisonous "S" word—the word even Republicans do not dare utter for fear of raising the wrath of the New York Times and Washington Post.
The two former Clinton aides asked respondents if the word "Socialist" describes Obama very well or well. Answer: 55% said yes.
Republicans, you have your gift. A good majority of Americans think the President is a Socialist. Feel free to use the adjective yourselves, compliments of two Democratic operatives who used to work for the Clintons.
Carville and Greenberg are not alone.
Former aides to Bill Clinton are popping up in news stories criticizing the President's performance and making dour predictions about the Democratic Party.
Why else are Clinton loyalists joining the fray other than to soften up Obama for a Hillary left-cross come, say, the summer of 2011, when she cites high unemployment and a country in malaise in deciding to run for President again?
The biggest jolt from the Clinton camp came compliments of Stan Greenberg, who used to poll for President Clinton, and James Carville, the campaign consultant who got him elected.
Their firm, Democracy Corps, put out a new poll that showed Republicans leading Democrats 48%-42% in the race to control the House of Representatives. It showed Democrats trailing Republicans on almost all economic issues. It showed Obama with the sinking job-approval number of 45%. Voters think, by big majorities, he is a big spender and too liberal.
A number of polls have shown similar numbers.
But then came clincher—the poisonous "S" word—the word even Republicans do not dare utter for fear of raising the wrath of the New York Times and Washington Post.
The two former Clinton aides asked respondents if the word "Socialist" describes Obama very well or well. Answer: 55% said yes.
Republicans, you have your gift. A good majority of Americans think the President is a Socialist. Feel free to use the adjective yourselves, compliments of two Democratic operatives who used to work for the Clintons.
Carville and Greenberg are not alone.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Pete du Pont: Obama is "problematic," Hillary for president
America's economy is failing to produce jobs, increase growth or raise confidence, and it will likely get even worse next year. Our federal government's spending has increased to $3.7 trillion this year from $2.98 trillion in 2008. Publicly held national debt is up by $2.4 trillion in less than two years, to about 63% percent of GDP from 40%, and is expected to reach 70% by 2012. Add in the unemployment rate, which has remained above 9.4% for over a year, and America is clearly failing economically.
Next January the economy will be further depressed by increasing tax rates. The top income tax rate will rise to 39.6% from 35%, and the phase-out of itemized deductions and personal exemptions will effectively lift the top bracket to about 40.8%. On New Year's Day the tax on dividends is scheduled to go up to 39.6% from 15%, and come 2013, ObamaCare will add another 3.8%.
Other bad public policies will further drag down the economy. ObamaCare will increase individual costs and expand the deficit. Failing energy policies, from Washington's inept response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to its effort to limit tapping America's oil supplies, will drive up our use of imported foreign oil beyond the current 67% of our country's oil consumption.
Add together all these increases in government regulation, spending and taxes and a dim employment outlook, and the result is a dramatic national decline in support of the White House, Congress and their administration of our national policies.
So what can be done to change America's policies and make our economy stronger? For one thing, we could elect a president with different thinking. Almost any Republican candidate would have that, and, as we will see in a moment, there is one obvious Democrat who would change our course too.
And why would the Democratic Party want to do that? Because the re-election of President Obama is becoming more problematic. The latest Rasmussen Reports polls show the dramatic decline of the presidential approval index, the difference between those who "strongly approve" of Mr. Obama's performance and those who "strongly disapprove." It began at plus 25% when the new president was sworn in, and has steadily declined to minus 13%.
It isn't just the president whose poll numbers are falling fast. According to recent Harris polling, Vice President Biden viewed favorably by 26% of the public and unfavorably by 45%. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does even worse, 20% positive to 49% negative. A June Nevada poll gave Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, 33% approval and 52% disapproval.
But the greatest contrast and most interesting statistic is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ratings: 45% favorable and only 35% unfavorable.
That is not surprising, and there are some obvious factors that suggest she might have a chance of defeating President Obama if she were to challenge him for the 2012 Democratic nomination.
Next January the economy will be further depressed by increasing tax rates. The top income tax rate will rise to 39.6% from 35%, and the phase-out of itemized deductions and personal exemptions will effectively lift the top bracket to about 40.8%. On New Year's Day the tax on dividends is scheduled to go up to 39.6% from 15%, and come 2013, ObamaCare will add another 3.8%.
Other bad public policies will further drag down the economy. ObamaCare will increase individual costs and expand the deficit. Failing energy policies, from Washington's inept response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to its effort to limit tapping America's oil supplies, will drive up our use of imported foreign oil beyond the current 67% of our country's oil consumption.
Add together all these increases in government regulation, spending and taxes and a dim employment outlook, and the result is a dramatic national decline in support of the White House, Congress and their administration of our national policies.
So what can be done to change America's policies and make our economy stronger? For one thing, we could elect a president with different thinking. Almost any Republican candidate would have that, and, as we will see in a moment, there is one obvious Democrat who would change our course too.
And why would the Democratic Party want to do that? Because the re-election of President Obama is becoming more problematic. The latest Rasmussen Reports polls show the dramatic decline of the presidential approval index, the difference between those who "strongly approve" of Mr. Obama's performance and those who "strongly disapprove." It began at plus 25% when the new president was sworn in, and has steadily declined to minus 13%.
It isn't just the president whose poll numbers are falling fast. According to recent Harris polling, Vice President Biden viewed favorably by 26% of the public and unfavorably by 45%. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does even worse, 20% positive to 49% negative. A June Nevada poll gave Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, 33% approval and 52% disapproval.
But the greatest contrast and most interesting statistic is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ratings: 45% favorable and only 35% unfavorable.
That is not surprising, and there are some obvious factors that suggest she might have a chance of defeating President Obama if she were to challenge him for the 2012 Democratic nomination.
Fund raiser for Obama and Hillary Clinton gets 12 years
NEW YORK – A wealthy Manhattan investment banker who was once a top fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton and other big-name Democrats has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for bank fraud.
Hassan Nemazee (hah-SAHN' nah-MAH'-zee) was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.
He had reached a plea deal in March. He has admitted to three counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud.
Prosecutors say he forged signatures and concocted bogus account statements to conceal a scam in which he was using proceeds from new loans to pay off older ones.
Nemazee had been the national finance chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. He also raised money for President Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats.
Hassan Nemazee (hah-SAHN' nah-MAH'-zee) was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.
He had reached a plea deal in March. He has admitted to three counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud.
Prosecutors say he forged signatures and concocted bogus account statements to conceal a scam in which he was using proceeds from new loans to pay off older ones.
Nemazee had been the national finance chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. He also raised money for President Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Under the title "Dumb and dumber," a prof schools Hillary
Hillary Clinton, in a recent address at the Brookings Institution: "The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues [the U.S. is] -- whether it's individual, corporate or whatever the taxation forms are...Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere, and guess what --- they're growing like crazy. And the rich are getting richer, but they're pulling people out of poverty."
Economics Prof. Ralph R. Reiland, in a piece titled Dumb and Dumber, responded in the American Spectator:
"In fact, Brazil doesn't have the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba wins that race to fully bloated statism and excessive confiscation of income and wealth. And guess what --- they're not growing like crazy and there's still a shortage of fish even though the country is surrounded by water.
Fishing isn't easy, explains Nick Miroff, a correspondent who covers Cuba for GlobalPost.com, when "Cuba's communist government is so paranoid about illegal departures to the United States that it strictly controls who can own or use boats."
Imagine a nice day on the water. You're nothing, a peon, and the government is everything. You're on a dinky raft held together by some inner tube strips from a '59 Chevy, trying to hook a fish for dinner when some gun-toting government enforcers pull up in a speed boat. "Hey, nutso," they holler (that's "estar mal de la azotea" in Spanish, i.e., "to be off one's nut"), "you a mental case, crazy enough to try to escape to the U.S. hell from the workers' paradise?"
Then the water cops confiscate your fishing rod and you feel lucky that you weren't dropped in a dungeon for 10 years for excessive individualism and trying to steal a sea trout from the people.
Hillary also got it wrong about Brazil growing fast by way of excessively squeezing the rich and by having the highest tax-to-GDP rate. The top marginal tax rate on income in Brazil is 27.5 percent, a substantially lower rate than the 35 percent (and soon to be 39.6 percent) top rate in the United States.
Similarly, the top corporate tax rate in Brazil is 34 percent, lower than the combined federal and state corporate tax of 39.1 percent in the United States, the second-highest rate in the industrialized world (only Japan's 39.5 percent combined rate is higher than the U.S. rate, but 24 states in the U.S. have a combined corporate tax rate higher than top-ranked Japan). In other words, if Hillary Clinton is saying that the U.S. should copy Brazil's tax structure in order to get the economy moving and stimulate job creation, that would mean a cut in the U.S. corporate tax rate and a one-third cut in the top U.S. income tax rate, the opposite of her call for higher taxes on the rich.
More broadly, Mrs. Clinton is ignoring the volumes of evidence that show a negative correlation between tax hikes and economic growth.
Economics Prof. Ralph R. Reiland, in a piece titled Dumb and Dumber, responded in the American Spectator:
"In fact, Brazil doesn't have the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba wins that race to fully bloated statism and excessive confiscation of income and wealth. And guess what --- they're not growing like crazy and there's still a shortage of fish even though the country is surrounded by water.
Fishing isn't easy, explains Nick Miroff, a correspondent who covers Cuba for GlobalPost.com, when "Cuba's communist government is so paranoid about illegal departures to the United States that it strictly controls who can own or use boats."
Imagine a nice day on the water. You're nothing, a peon, and the government is everything. You're on a dinky raft held together by some inner tube strips from a '59 Chevy, trying to hook a fish for dinner when some gun-toting government enforcers pull up in a speed boat. "Hey, nutso," they holler (that's "estar mal de la azotea" in Spanish, i.e., "to be off one's nut"), "you a mental case, crazy enough to try to escape to the U.S. hell from the workers' paradise?"
Then the water cops confiscate your fishing rod and you feel lucky that you weren't dropped in a dungeon for 10 years for excessive individualism and trying to steal a sea trout from the people.
Hillary also got it wrong about Brazil growing fast by way of excessively squeezing the rich and by having the highest tax-to-GDP rate. The top marginal tax rate on income in Brazil is 27.5 percent, a substantially lower rate than the 35 percent (and soon to be 39.6 percent) top rate in the United States.
Similarly, the top corporate tax rate in Brazil is 34 percent, lower than the combined federal and state corporate tax of 39.1 percent in the United States, the second-highest rate in the industrialized world (only Japan's 39.5 percent combined rate is higher than the U.S. rate, but 24 states in the U.S. have a combined corporate tax rate higher than top-ranked Japan). In other words, if Hillary Clinton is saying that the U.S. should copy Brazil's tax structure in order to get the economy moving and stimulate job creation, that would mean a cut in the U.S. corporate tax rate and a one-third cut in the top U.S. income tax rate, the opposite of her call for higher taxes on the rich.
More broadly, Mrs. Clinton is ignoring the volumes of evidence that show a negative correlation between tax hikes and economic growth.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Big Dem donor admits stealing $291.8 million
Hassan Nemazee, 60, who once ran a private equity firm, admitted in Manhattan federal court to defrauding Bank of America Corp of more than $142 million, Citigroup Inc of $74.9 million and HSBC Holdings Plc of $74.9 million to pay his debt to Citigroup.
During the plea proceeding, Iranian-born Nemasee, who owned several multimillion dollar properties and had interests in various companies and hedge funds, said he had tried to get out of financial difficulty starting in the 1990s.
"It was my intention to repay ... but the hole that I dug was larger and I borrowed more," said the gray-haired, dapper Nemazee, who appeared embarrassed and contrite.
"I am deeply ashamed of my conduct, for the harm that I inflicted on the banks and most especially my family," he told U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in a somber voice as family members sat in court.
Nemazee, a former member of the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee, was a U.S. citizen whose family left Iran after the revolution there in 1979.
The committee contributes to candidates for public office in the United States regardless of party affiliation and works to support Iranian American candidates and issues important to that community, such as immigration.
Nemazee admitted to three charges of bank fraud and one charge of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he had obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the banks and used fake documents to show supposed ownership of collateral.
Nemazee was listed as one of the top "bundlers" of contributions to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website run by the Center for Responsive Politics.
He typically donated more than $100,000 annually to Democratic Party political candidates, including Obama and now-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
During the plea proceeding, Iranian-born Nemasee, who owned several multimillion dollar properties and had interests in various companies and hedge funds, said he had tried to get out of financial difficulty starting in the 1990s.
"It was my intention to repay ... but the hole that I dug was larger and I borrowed more," said the gray-haired, dapper Nemazee, who appeared embarrassed and contrite.
"I am deeply ashamed of my conduct, for the harm that I inflicted on the banks and most especially my family," he told U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in a somber voice as family members sat in court.
Nemazee, a former member of the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee, was a U.S. citizen whose family left Iran after the revolution there in 1979.
The committee contributes to candidates for public office in the United States regardless of party affiliation and works to support Iranian American candidates and issues important to that community, such as immigration.
Nemazee admitted to three charges of bank fraud and one charge of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he had obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the banks and used fake documents to show supposed ownership of collateral.
Nemazee was listed as one of the top "bundlers" of contributions to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website run by the Center for Responsive Politics.
He typically donated more than $100,000 annually to Democratic Party political candidates, including Obama and now-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
With memories of Jimmy Carter dancing in their heads, Democrats may see Hillary as better bet
But, just say, the Real Great Talker continues his spiraling descent in the polls over the next 12-18 months; already the Democrat is barely tied with Any Republican in opinion polls looking toward 2012.
Even worse, a majority of Americans have already decided they don't want Obama to have a second term.
And just say under Obama's leadership and insistence on his unpopular healthcare bill over jobs, all the spending and exploding deficits, plus the certainty of new taxes to cover his costs, the Democrats in Congress get thoroughly thrashed by the GOP come November. Maybe they even lose control of both houses.
This week a new poll showed Americans now preferring the GOP on a generic congressional ballot. And despite eagerly optimistic recent administration economic claims, the unemployment rate is likely to hang high, and now comes a new ABC News Poll finding national consumer confidence actually waning, not building.
Do you think then maybe by a year from now some Democratic Party bigwigs and money people might be whispering to each other that this arrogant Illinois guy is pulling a Jimmy Carter, constructing a disastrous single term that teed up 12 straight years of Republican White House rule?
Well, it turns out, there is another Democrat -- another former senator, in fact -- hanging around now free of political tussles with an enhanced resume burnished on the world stage, thanks to Obama himself.
And a new CNN/Opinion Research Poll has just revealed that even today Americans like that other Democrat more and dislike that other Democrat less than they do the incumbent Democratic president.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Almost $6 million of "stimulus" paid to Hillary Clinton's +08 pollster, Burson-Marsteller
Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.
Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.
Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was issued to Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, according to federal records.Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive broadcast signals.
The adviser, Alfredo J. Balsera, who heads a public-affairs firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., helped craft Obama’s Hispanic advertising message.
Republicans on Tuesday criticized the federal spending on the advertising project as a waste of taxpayer dollars. They noted that the advertising campaign took place on May 5, only 39 days before the digital television transition was scheduled (June 12)
GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) held a news conference Tuesday to blast 100 “wasteful” projects funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus package Congress passed earlier this year, concluding that at least $7 billion of the $217 billion spent through November was wasteful and mismanaged.
Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.
Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was issued to Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, according to federal records.Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive broadcast signals.
The adviser, Alfredo J. Balsera, who heads a public-affairs firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., helped craft Obama’s Hispanic advertising message.
Republicans on Tuesday criticized the federal spending on the advertising project as a waste of taxpayer dollars. They noted that the advertising campaign took place on May 5, only 39 days before the digital television transition was scheduled (June 12)
GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) held a news conference Tuesday to blast 100 “wasteful” projects funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus package Congress passed earlier this year, concluding that at least $7 billion of the $217 billion spent through November was wasteful and mismanaged.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Supremes to hear appeal of FEC ban on Clinton film
From Reason
"'When the government of the United States of America claims the authority to ban books because of their political speech," says Citizens United, " something has gone terribly wrong.' A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court seems to agree.
Next week, for the second time, the Court will hear oral arguments in Citizens United v. FEC, a case that poses the question of whether the Federal Election Commission violated the First Amendment when it prevented the conservative group from showing a highly critical documentary about Hillary Clinton on cable TV during the 2008 primary season. The Court scheduled the unusual second round of arguments after it heard the lengths to which the federal government had been driven in defending its suppression of Hillary: The Movie."
"'When the government of the United States of America claims the authority to ban books because of their political speech," says Citizens United, " something has gone terribly wrong.' A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court seems to agree.
Next week, for the second time, the Court will hear oral arguments in Citizens United v. FEC, a case that poses the question of whether the Federal Election Commission violated the First Amendment when it prevented the conservative group from showing a highly critical documentary about Hillary Clinton on cable TV during the 2008 primary season. The Court scheduled the unusual second round of arguments after it heard the lengths to which the federal government had been driven in defending its suppression of Hillary: The Movie."
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