September 30, 2008

Covering Up The Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam

Corruption is rampant, and hypocrisy abounds, and we are expected to pay for it, unfortunately.

Just watching this video makes me almost physically ill, and two of the people on here, make it especially so. Maybe, the old saying, "What you don't know, won't hurt you," applies when it comes to the present situation.

Unfortunately, I do know quite a bit about at least two of the speakers in the video: Barney Franks, and Maxine Waters.

Barney Frank (D., Mass.) who blamed the Republicans for causing yesterday's bailout bill to fail, benefited quite handsomely from Fannie Mae, not to mention that his former "spouse" just happened to be the CEO of Fannie Mae at one time.

The other one, Maxine Waters (D-Calif) was named as one of the "most corrupt" members of Congress two years in a row because of her abuse of power in order to benefit her family, financially.

She is, also, well-known for her defense of the people involved in the Los Angeles riots of 1992.

She said, in part: "If you call it a riot it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion."

She also said it was "a spontaneous reaction to a lot of injustice" and "The anger in my district is righteous. I'm just as angry as they are."

Well, Ms. Waters, there are a lot of angry people right now, who are pretty tired of the injustices foisted on them by greedy companies and crooked organizations which have been aided and abetted by corrupt politicians.

Rebellion could be in the backs of their minds, for sure...I wonder how "righteous" you would consider that to be.

September 28, 2008

The Government Bailout


"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
-Thomas Jefferson

I don't know about you, but I don't think that the Government bailout is going to fix anything. I think that the Government should back off, and let the financial institutions fix themselves, and things would work out in the long run. After all, Wall Street has been in pretty bad shape for several years, and things have gone along fairly well.

I think a lot of people would like for us all to panic, so that they can step in and purchase banks and institutions for a nickel on the dollar, just like in 1913, (when the entire country was in an economic collapse) which by-the-way, was the year that Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution of the United States, was overlooked, and the Federal Reserve System was put into place.

Remember what happened when the Battle of Waterloo was falsified, and Nathan Rothschild, of London, using this knowledge, stepped in and purchased the entire banking system of England? Well, they pretty much have been in control ever since, with hundreds of companies, and varied businesses, all over the world. These companies do not carry the Rothschild name, however, you would probably recognize many of them. JP Morgan Chase, which bought out Washington Mutual, comes to mind.

To get a general idea of the Rothschilds' operations, this is a link to their home page.

There is much information to be found concerning the Rothschild Dynasty, and it is enlightening, to say the least. One needs all the information obtainable in order to understand the present fiasco.

Whether or not the bailout is going to accomplish anything good remains to be seen. Personally, I think Government bailouts are getting much too close to Socialism to suit me.

I think Andrew Jackson, when he was running for the Presidency (in 1826) put it pretty succinctly: "You are a den of vipers. I intend to wipe you out, and by the Eternal God I will rout you out...If people only understood the rank injustice of the money and banking system, there would be a revolution by morning."

So go ahead and stock those shelves and keep the gas tank filled..it might be a good idea.

September 27, 2008

They Had To Know It Would Happen

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's."From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry."

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

Read the rest of this enlightening article here.

September 26, 2008

Where Are They Now?



Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street.

Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae’s accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, “Raines, who long defended the company’s accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn’t proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that “mistakes were made” and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company’s books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years.”
Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.


Raines left with a “golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear.


The Government noted, “The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.”

These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the mis-stated Fannie Mae profits.

Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard “was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a “stable pattern of earnings” at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, “Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae.”

On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant’s income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company’s board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.

Howard’s Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!

Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you’ll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson’s 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million.”

Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.

Johnson’s Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?


FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor


TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama


JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama’s Vice Presidential Search Committee


IF OBAMA PLANS ON CLEANING UP THE MESS - HIS ADVISORS HAVE THE EXPERTISE - THEY MADE THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

*The article above was sent to me by a friend, via email. I am not sure if he is the author, or if someone else sent it to him, but I thought it was worth sharing.

September 21, 2008

You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up


After browsing through the book and magazine section of a well-known retail store (which shall remain nameless, but if you think hard enough, you will get it) a very irate customer demanded to see the store manager.

Manager: How may I help you, ma'am?

Customer: I just want to know why you have all the bad books about Obama, but you don't have HIS award winning book?!!

Manager: Which books are you talking about?

Customer: Well, you have THIS book, which is ALL LIES (The Obama Nation, written by Jerome Corsi) and THIS one (not sure which one that was) and you only have THIS one (written by someone else, with foreword by Barack Obama) and THIS ONE (written by Obama) but you don't have Barack's prize-winning book!

Manager: Ma'am, what is the title of the book by Obama that you're talking about?

Customer: Well, I don't know the title of it, but it won a prize!

Manager: Ma'am, if you don't know the title of the book that you're wanting to read, I'm afraid I can't be of much help.

Customer: You probably won't do anything about it, anyhow, because all of your stores are all REPUBLICAN, and you make all your employees vote that way, too!

Manager: Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I've worked for this company for many years, and nobody tells me how to vote..I vote for the candidate of my own choosing.

Customer: Oh, then you are going to vote for Barack?

Manager: I didn't say that..I said that I vote for the candidate of my choice, and my choice is McCain.

Customer: MCCAIN?!!! Why on earth would you want to vote for that guy?

Manager: Well, for one, I happen to be a Viet Nam veteran, and John McCain is a hero in my eyes.

Customer: THAT'S NO REASON TO VOTE FOR ANYBODY!!

Manager: That's not the only reason, there are many others, such as the fact that he believes in many of the same things which I believe in, and we have the same moral values, which means a lot to me. And then, of course, there are the other reasons, which we don't have time to go into.

Customer: Well, maybe I could change your mind about voting for Barack. I'm voting for him because he is what this country needs. He is for the people.

Manager: No, I don't think that's going to happen. Now, is there anything else that I can do for you?

Customer: Well, you're not going to do anything, anyway, because of the way you believe!

Manager: Alright, then, ma'am..you have a good evening.

Customer: Mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble (as she leaves in a huff)

While my husband was relating this to me, I sat with my mouth hanging open..but I don't know why! Evidently, she and Senator Obama are on a first-name basis!


September 18, 2008

Unmasking The "Anonymous" Protest Group

It is apparent that there is no depth to which these people will not sink in their efforts to slander and humiliate Governor Sarah Palin, and her family.

The awful thing is, that it is being done for no reason other than the fact that she is a woman of integrity, and high moral values. For this, alone, she is being called "white trash."

If she had decided to abort the innocent life of her infant, who could have been an inconvenience in the pursuit of her career, I wonder if she would have been, in their eyes, a woman to be admired?

How skewed has the thinking become in certain elements of our society.


The organization originally alleged as hacking into Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account, known as "Anonymous," has been identified as a "left wing group" by Caleb Howe (the group was videotaped staging some unusual protests at this year's Republican National Convention).

Photobucket

There's some question, however, as to the ideological identification of "Anonymous" as a leftist protest organization.

As one commenter at my previous post indicated:

I think calling Anonymous a group of "liberals" is a stretch. More like bored 14 year olds.
Further, according to information provided by
Michelle Malkin:
Anonymous is not exactly a group. It is people using the umbrella of a web discussion board for cover to be as offensive, funny, strange, or whatever as they want.
The Anonymous hackers are associated with the /b/ message board groups of 4chan.org, an image-posting site modeled after a similar webpage in Japan. The New York Times recently published a feature story on Anonymous-style hackers, with this description:

Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven turnover, the culture of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled with slang that you are too old to understand.
But the original agenda of Anonymous hackers in the Palin case has been to protest the tax-exempt status of the Church of Scientology, and they've recently gone public with a series wider protests against organized religion:

Hackers who launched a massive online attack against the Church of Scientology are now turning to real-world protests to draw attention to what they call a "vast moneymaking scheme under the guise of 'religion."'

The loosely organized group of hackers, who meet up and coordinate attacks through Internet Relay Chat channels, have set Feb. 10 for a wave of protests at Scientology locations worldwide.

In anonymous postings on the group's Web site, organizers said they are trying to raise awareness about the threats to free speech posed by the church's lawyers, who, the group claims, aggressively try to silence critics by threatening lawsuits. The church said its lawyers follow standard procedures for protecting copyrighted materials.
As noted, in February, the group staged protests in Boston:

A group of more than 50 masked protesters gathered yesterday outside of the Church of Scientology of Boston headquarters on Beacon Street to demonstrate against the policies of the church. Protesters said the event was part of a worldwide demonstration against the church by Anonymous, an informal Internet-based group.

Donning Guy Fawkes masks modeled after those worn in the 2005 film "V for Vendetta," or face coverings improvised with T-shirts or scarves, participants began to assemble in front of the building at the corner of Beacon and Hereford streets around 11 a.m.

The story of Fawkes, an Englishman sentenced to death for attempting to blow up the House of Lords with kegs of gunpowder in 1605, was revived in the fictional "V for Vendetta," in which a crowd of people wear identical masks to challenge the government.
The Guy Fawkes paraphernalia is important in identifying the ideological orientation of Anonymous.

As fans of
the movie know, "V" is a revolutionary anarchist who dresses with a Guy Fawkes mask. The film is explicitly anti-fascist and anti-totalitarian, featuring allusions to the "warmongering" policies of the United States government (read the Bush administration).

Anarchism itself is a radical ideology favoring the total elimination of the state and the eradication of private property (a tenet anarchists share with communists). The wearing of Guy Fawkes masks by Anonymous protesters signifies a complete identification of the state as the ultimate threat to human freedom, which is combined with a revolutionary agenda toward the destruction of state institutions and the establishment of a utopian society of universal liberty and human equality.

Further, Anonymous, in its anti-Scientology program - expanded this year to include all church organizations accused of forming a "vast moneymaking scheme" - can be identified ideologically as representing radical left-wing anti-clericalism.

Anti-clericalism is an extreme left revolutionary ideology that seeks to overthrow the iron alliance of church and state in all aspects of the political and public in state-society relations. Revolutionary anti-clericalism emerged particulary during the European Enlightenment of the 16th century, and it saw
the full actualization of its violent ideological program against the Catholic Church during the Jacobin stage of the French Revolution of 1792.

According to
the latest Malkin report, a lone hacker is claimed to have breached Sarah Palin's personal e-mail accounts. However, at present, the identification of the attacker is unsubstantiated. As Wizbang notes:

Everyday I am learning that there doesn't seem to be a rock bottom for the scum who support Obama. Today we learned that a left wing nut hacked into Sarah Palin's private - PRIVATE - email account and splashed the contents all over the internet. Gawker is a website without any scruples and is promoting Palin's private information even though it was illegally obtained.
Even even if it turns out that the Anonymous hacker (who ILLEGALLY breached Governor Palin's proviate e-mail files) is a solo, non-ideological operator, the response on the establishment political left and the netroots blogosphere has been absolutely disgusting, and is in essence a total endorsement of the violation of the Palin family's dignity and privacy.

See, for example, Lindsay Beyerstein, at
the nihilist Firedoglake:

The contents of the inbox confirm that Palin was using her private account for government business. We already knew that Palin's advisers urged her to use private accounts, a la RNC email accounts, in order to circumvent FOIA requests and skirt subpoenas.
Beyerstein apparently has no problem with the hacker's reprehensible actions, which are subject to five years in federal penetentiary upon trial and conviction.

But, of course, that's typical of those on the political left. As
Victor Davis Hanson noted yesterday, the current attacks on Sarah Palin and the GOP ticket have "no parallel in modern election history."

The hacking of Sarah Palin's personal e-mail files is so far the most diabolical attack on the GOP vice-presidential nominee to date. Even if we find that a lone, totally unhinged Internet "lulz" geek got lucky in breaching Governor Palin's personal data, the failure of the left-wing political establishment to completely and unequivocally repudiate this most vile "dirty trick" of campaign 2008 reveals the total, unremitting project of ideological demonization among political actors of the contemporary left-wing Democratic establishment.


In sum, there's nothing, absolutely nothing, that's beneath the radical left-Democrat Party alliance in its sickening, immorally grotesque grab for power this year.



September 15, 2008

Remnants Of Ike

Our neighbors' car.
The car is under this tree.

Maybe, I'm dull and boring, but things going on around me, last night, were far from it!

Around seven o'clock, the wind had picked up, quite a bit, and had begun blowing things around on the back deck. The glider blew across the floor, and was stopped by a storage compartment, so didn't hit the window. We went out, and moved everything else up against the privacy fence on the side of the deck.

About fifteen minutes later, we heard a lot of sirens, and my husband commented that they were being kept busy tonight.

At seven-thirty, he left to go to his store, and came back in, only a couple of minutes later, saying that he guessed he wasn't going anywhere for awhile.

It's pretty far back to our family room/kitchen area from the front of the house, but I don't know how we missed what was going on out front!

The wind had taken out part of a very large tree next door to us, and it fell across the power lines, and they were lying over the street, and right across our driveway. The street was filled with police cars and fire trucks, and people yelling for everyone to stay on their porches, to avoid coming in contact with live wires which were lying all around. They also had each end of the street barricaded to prevent traffic from coming through.

Our son was out, but we were able to get him on his cell to tell him what was going on. We were concerned because, as it got later, it was hard to tell whether the street was still barricaded, and we didn't want him driving into a potential disaster.

Being the clever guy that he is, though, he parked in one of the parking lots on a street behind us, and climbed over our back fence!

Many of the houses lost power, but we didn't, except for a few hours, when they started working on the lines around one o'clock this morning.

The car in the pictures belongs to our neighbor, and he is very thankful that he didn't lose his life, also. He had just started out to move his car, and stopped for a couple of minutes to talk to some other neighbors across the street, where other trees had been falling. If he hadn't done that, he would have been in the car.

The remnants of Ike wreaked havoc all over NE Ohio, last night, with many injured, and at least one twelve year old died when a tree fell on him.

The sound of the wind was so loud, that you could hardly hear yourself speak. It lasted for at least an hour, intermittently, and it was frightening. News reports are that the winds were over seventy miles per hour.

One can only imagine the horror of a hurricane at full force.


View of the workers, this morning, cutting the tree away from the car.



Another view from my upstairs window of the smashed car.

Click on pictures for enhanced view.

September 12, 2008

We Will Never Be The Same


Yesterday, I thought about posting something about the tragic event of that day, seven years ago, but I didn't..I just didn't know what to say, and everything I tried to say, just didn't sound right.

I will never forget that day, or what I was doing. I thought about it all day, yesterday, in a purely selfish way, I suppose, because I was with my Aunt Polly on that day, and she was still full of life, and happy to have me there with her, and now she is gone.

My mom had passed away, only five months before, and I spent a lot of time with Aunt Polly, drawing strength and comfort from her, knowing that she had loved my mother, her sister-in-law, and that Mama had loved her so much. She was able to share things about my family that I hadn't known before, which surprised me, because it filled in some missing blanks in my own knowledge of my mom's family.

So, on that morning in September, hearing Aunt Polly stirring around in the kitchen, making coffee, and getting ready to make biscuits, listening to her favorite station on the radio, we had gotten up, headed for the kitchen when the phone rang. A plane had just hit some big building in New York.

Turn on the TV, she had said, and we did, just in time to see the second one hit. We were stunned. We didn't know what to think. We stood, transfixed, staring at the television screen, not really comprehending what was happening. We just knew it was awful.

Not knowing what might happen, we headed for home, in the next state, so we could be with our son. Nothing felt certain, and for the next days and weeks, we joined the rest of the world in this horrible feeling of uncertainty about what was happening in our country, and grieving for the loss of life, of hopes, and dreams of so many, and felt helpless.

I just received an email with a link to a photo essay, talking about America before Pearl Harbor, and how that day, December 7th, 1941, forever changed it.

Well, a lot has happened since then, some good, some bad, but what happened on September 11th, 2001, changed everything in such a way, that it is hard to fathom the reality of it. I don't know if we ever will, but I know that we all need to do everything possible to see that it never happens again.

The photo shown is from the essay. I think some of you may find them interesting, and at least, nostalgic.

September 07, 2008

Sanctity Of Life Far Right Extremism?



The following essay was posted by Donald Douglas at American Power.

I, too, am appalled at the idiotic ideology of the far left extremists, so my thanks to Donald for allowing me to cross-post this excellent piece.

In my essay, "The Secret Life of Senator Infanticide," I confessed that Barack Obama's consistent votes against Illinois' Born Alive Infant Protection Act was perhaps the most disturbing revelation so far on Obama's extreme left-wing ideology (and that really is saying a lot).

Frankly, I was appalled (and nearly sick) reading stories of
babies left to die in soiled-utility closets. Knowing that readers of this blog might share my indignation, I distributed my essay via e-mail to dozens of regulars.
Some responded by redistributing the post on their own pages (thanks
here and here), but others were not so pleased with my pro-life audacity. Especially upset was Elaine from Elaine's Place, a generally nice women with whom I've had occasional contact, who sent this uncharacteristic attack in response:
Here I thought you were a nice Reagan neocon and instead I find you are a right wing extremist, in the same category of left wing extremist Wade Churchill. I was shocked....then mad...........then just plain disappointed. And what's really frightening is you are in a teaching position! I shudder at the thought.
Well, you know, I shudder at the thought of the indifference to life among Obama defenders, including the many, many more like Elaine who've become so enamored of the oratorical powers of "The One," that they've checked their intellectual faculties at the gates of Mile High.
So on that point, next to
Andrew McCarthy and Elizabeth Scalia, this week's essay by Jeff Jacoby - on the power of life in the John McCain-Sarah Palin presidential ticket - is unsurpassed in moral clarity: "A Stark Choice on Abortion":

DURING a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania last March, Senator Barack Obama was asked about teenagers and sexually transmitted diseases.
He replied that "the most important prevention is education," including "information about contraception." Then he added: "Look, I've got two daughters - 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake,
I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16."

If Obama had deliberately set out to appall prolife voters, he couldn't have uttered four words more jarring than "punished with a baby." The equation of any new child with punishment set teeth on edge, and Obama's campaign quickly
issued a clarification. The candidate, a loving father of two, believes that "children are miracles," it said; he only meant to underscore the importance of reducing teen pregnancy. But Obama's unscripted words needed no clarifying. They tartly encapsulated the extreme position on "choice" he has staked out in his career.

What brings Obama's revealing turn of phrase to mind, of course, is the pregnancy of Governor Sarah Palin's unmarried 17-year-old daughter.
"Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned," Palin and her husband
announced in a statement. "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support. Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family."
Granted, Obama was engaging in a hypothetical speculation, while the Palins were dealing with a real-life family challenge. Still, what a contrast! To the Democratic nominee, a teenage daughter's unforeseen baby is a punishment to be prevented; to the Republican Veep-designee, it is a blessing to be embraced.

Jacoby also mentions Obama's clinical, lawyerly dodge of the issue at last month's Saddleback Civil Forum, adding this:
And when has a Republican ticket ever been so unabashedly prolife? Senator John McCain, long one of the Senate's reliably prolife votes, is a father of seven, including an adopted orphan from Bangladesh. His running mate lacks McCain's voting record, yet her bona fides are even more impressive: When Palin and her husband learned last winter that she was carrying a baby with Down syndrome, they never considered not having him. More than 90 percent of pregnant American women in the same position choose abortion. Palin chose life....
Ambiguities may muddle the 2008 campaign, but not when it comes to abortion. The next president and vice president will be the most pro-choice in US history. Or the most pro-life.
With the selection of Sarah Palin, social issues have emerged as the undeniable dividing line in the 2008 election.
The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans on the sanctity of life couldn't be more clear, and frankly, if there's any extremism involved here, it's on the far left-wing end of the spectrum.

September 02, 2008

You'll Never Guess



Well, I guess it's no secret anymore, who the people really want in the Oval Office.

To find out, go here

Let me know what you think about it...I know I was really surprised!