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With the election next week, let's review the arguments against Obama.
Obama and Taxes.
Obama states that he will have the IRS write checks, called refundable tax credits, to 95% of the public. He will actually be sending them checks from the IRS. But 40% don't pay taxes. So what Obama calls a tax cut is actually a transfer of wealth. Since even Obama doesn't claim that only the top 5% of Americans will be paying taxes, this will be a transfer of wealth from tax-payers like yourself, to non-taxpayers.
From Jack Kemp and Peter Ferrara:
With the bottom 40 percent of income earners in America not paying any federal income taxes, such tax credits would not reduce any tax liability for these workers. Instead, since they're refundable, they would involve new checks from the federal government. These are not tax cuts as Obama is promising. They are new government spending programs buried in the tax code and estimated to cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years.
...Obama argues disingenuously that his tax increases would only affect higher-income workers and "corporate fat cats." But it is precisely these top marginal tax rates that control incentives for savings, investment, entrepreneurship, business expansion, jobs and economic growth. While he wants to tax the rich, the burden will fall on the poor and the middle class.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Additional tax advantages for lower and middle income people will be enacted: a 10% mortgage tax credit that would average about $500 per household per year, a $4,000 tax credit for college tuition, a tax credit covering half of child-care expenses up to $6,000 per year, and even a $7,000 credit for purchase of a clean car.
More important, all but the clean car credit would be "refundable," meaning people will get a check for them if they owe no taxes, which is simply a transfer of income from the government to individuals. In reality this is the beginning of a new series of entitlements for middle-class families, the longer-term effect of which will be to make those families more dependant on (and so more supportive of) larger government. The Tax Policy Center estimates that these refundable tax credits would cost the government $648 billion over 10 years.
If you own stock (and many Americans earning under $250k do), when you sell them, you'll pay more in Capital Gains Tax, which Obama has said he will raise from 15% to 20%. The strange thing is that Obama is bent on raising the Capital Gains Tax despite the fact that doing so will lower, rather than raise, government revenue. (See this Penn & Teller video, including video of Obama stating he will raise the Capital Gains Tax even if this will result in lower revenue to the government.)
From an op-ed piece in yesterday's Washington Post:
So where would the money come from for [Obama's] tax cuts and new spending? Largely from raising other taxes: the ones that have the biggest impact on economic growth. Obama would let key parts of the Bush tax cuts expire, causing the top tax rate on ordinary income to go back to 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent today. The capital gains and dividend tax rates would rise to 20 percent from today's 15 percent. Obama might also impose Social Security tax at a rate of up to 4 percent on wages and self-employment income above $250,000, starting in 2019.
These tax increases are not as bad as some Obama statements during the Democratic primaries suggested they would be, and they fall well short of what some of his conservative critics claim. For example, Obama does not propose to tax dividends at 40 percent or to impose the full 12.4 percent Social Security tax on high earners.
His real proposals, however, would still be plenty damaging. If rewards for America's entrepreneurs and firms are reduced through higher marginal tax rates, their incentives to earn, invest and create jobs will be diminished. Americans will have less incentive to save, and firms will have less incentive to pay dividends. Tax avoidance will become more profitable. A smaller capital stock will mean a less productive economy and lower wages for middle-class and other workers. These disincentive effects also mean that the revenue gain is likely to be smaller than Obama envisions.
In sum, Obama may very well give Joe the Plumber a tax break, but only if Joe does not become too successful. Obama is offering real tax favors for the middle class, but not real benefits for the economy.
So you really have to be careful with Obama's clever rhetoric. He calls tax increases and redistribution of wealth, a tax cut. But it's not a tax cut. It's a transfer of money from your pocket to the pockets of people who don't currently pay taxes. It would make Americans dependent on government, a la Europe. Are you sure you want to elect a President who proposes to do that?
Obama and Redistribution of Wealth
We now know that Obama supports "spreading the wealth around," i.e. taking money from tax-payers to give to non-tax-payers. We know it from Obama's statement to that effect to Joe the Plumber; we also know it from Obama's statement in a 2001 interview on Chicago Public Radio (link to audio). This is Obama in the interview:
The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers and the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted.
[.....]
And that hasn't shifted. And one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the ground, that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power, through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.
That's the kind of change Obama wants: "redistributive change." He wants to redistribute the wealth. Redistribution of wealth is a key tenet of Marxism:
Marx thought it was only a matter of time before the working classes of the world, realizing their common goals, would unite to overthrow the capitalists and redistribute the wealth. He felt the establishment of communism would be the inevitable outcome of a historical process.
Obama's Lifelong Alliances.
This is something that has many Americans very concerned. Some of the names most people are familiar with by now include:
But the one you may be least familiar with, is former Kenyan Presidential candidate, Raila Odinga.
Obama and Raila Odinga
Add to that list the Marxist Raila Odinga, leader of the socialist "Orange Democratic Movement" of Kenya, and former candidate for President of Kenya - on whose behalf Obama personally campaigned in 2006.
This was not Mr. Odinga's first brush with notoriety. Like his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the main opposition leader in the 1960s and 1970s, Raila Odinga is a Marxist. He graduated from East Germany's Magdeburg University in 1970 on a scholarship provided by the East German government. He named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States. Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the 1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.
Mr. Odinga spent eight years in prison. At the time, he denied guilt but later detailed he was a coup leader in his 2006 biography. Statue of limitations precluded further prosecution when the biography appeared.
Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.
Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. "The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials," Mr. Obama announced.
"Kenyans are now yearning for change," he declared.
There it is again: Obama says "change" and he means change to a leader who supports Marxism. Obama supported Odinga, the self-admitted leader of a bloody coup.
By the way, Odinga leads a party that is guilty of mass-murder - just in case you're interested in that little detail of a man Obama supported politically. That's the kind of change Obama supports in Africa. After losing the election, Odinga called for demonstrations. Mass murders followed:
About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000.
The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda genocide of a decade earlier.
By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.
The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama's father.
While this was going on, Odinga said, "I think they are ready to come to the table. Our people will continue to protest." (See this link to a Canada Free Press article with video - see 2:56 in the video).
Odinga "became popular with the country's poor, by pledging to distribute the wealth more evenly." (3.:40 in the video). (That should remind you of Obama.)
"Odinga vowed to end Kenya's cooperation with the United States in the War on Terror." (5:31 in the video). Remember - Obama campaigned for this guy.
Video of Obama campaigning beside Odinga, on behalf of Odinga, starts at 6:38 in the video.
American Liberals: given that Obama campaigned on behalf of Odinga - a Marxist, a murderer as the leader of the bloody coup attempt, and a leader of genocide - is it possible that Obama has the same values that you have; has the same goals for America that you have; is it possible that you can vote for such a man?
Obama's Economic Policies
Obama had previously pledged to cut taxes for families making $250,000 or less. Last night's Obama TV ad dropped that without explanation to $200,000. (5:00 in the video). This may be a red flag to some who had thought he meant $250k when he said it.
Obama promised last night to "eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas." (5:13 in the video). This is protectionism. From U.S. News and World Report:
...[Obama] is interested in advancing policies that could have serious wealth-destroying effects: higher taxes on high earners, protectionism, government-controlled health insurance, the card check bill abolishing secret ballots in union elections, which could have the effects on much of the private sector that United Auto Worker contracts have had on what used to be called, quaintly, the Big Three U.S. automakers. Will voters in the Philly suburbs, and their equivalents in target and nontarget states, like the consequences? Bill Clinton kept their votes when, after the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, tax rates were no longer raised and capital gains tax rates were cuts, when local and state officials reversed the disastrous Lindsay policies on crime and welfare. But such a scenario seems unlikely from where we sit now. And while Clinton took office when the economy was in recovery, Obama, if he wins, seems likely to give his inauguration speech (as already drafted by John Podesta, or as later drafted or revised by his own hand) when we are headed down toward the trough of a recession of unknown duration.
The irony here is that voters motivated by anger at the decline in their wealth seem about to elect a president who has promised to embark on wealth-destroying policies.
He proposes tremendous new spending programs, then absurdly claims, "None of this grows government." (5:30).
Obama wants to massively increase government oversight and control of American business, after the socialist pattern of European states.
Obama promised to "freeze foreclosures for 90 days." (5:21 in the video).
He promises to "invest $15 billion a year in energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy, like wind, solar, and biofuels, creating 5 million clean energy jobs over the next decade - jobs that pay well and can never be outsourced." (10:20). That's 5 million more Americans working for the government. (But he won't grow government!) Five million more Americans that are getting paid well - out of your tax dollars - because the government made the decision to hire them. Remember how efficient government is in everything it does? That's who's going to be an employer of 5 million more Americans, using $15 billion a year of taxpayer money, under Obama.
He promises to "help auto companies retool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America." (10:43) American car companies are being hammered precisely because foreign auto workers get paid so much less than American workers, that the American car companies can't compete on price. Forcing American car companies to keep workers here, will do nothing to stop this. But Obama's going to give money to the car companies (to help them "retool") and then give money to Americans to help them buy the cars: "I'll also make it easier for you to afford these new cars with a tax credit, so we can get as many on the road as possible." (10:45) Where's all this money going to come from? Taxes.
This is socialism. It's destroyed many European states. Obama wants to bring it here.
CONCLUSION
If you like a Socialist, someone whose policies are poison to the American economy at a time when that economy is in trouble, a man with no executive experience whatsoever, a man who supported the Marxist, mass-murderer Odinga, then Obama is the guy for you.
But if you want the American economy to recover, and if you love independence from Government interference, and the American economic policies that make America strong and vibrant, a beacon to the whole world, then you must vote for McCain.
In this entire Presidential election campaign, Obama never revealed to us that he's a Marxist - until Joe the Plumber got it out of him. Obama kept it hidden from us. Now audio has surfaced from an interview Obama did with Chicago Public Radio in 2001, in which Obama says it out loud again in no uncertain terms. You can hear Obama saying this:
The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers and the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted.
[.....]
And that hasn't shifted. And one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the ground, that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power, through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.
That's the kind of change Obama wants: "redistributive change." He wants to redistribute the wealth. Redistribution of wealth is a key tenet of Marxism:
Marx thought it was only a matter of time before the working classes of the world, realizing their common goals, would unite to overthrow the capitalists and redistribute the wealth. He felt the establishment of communism would be the inevitable outcome of a historical process.
Of course that's what Obama believes. All his life-long mentors and friends are Marxists, Communists, America-haters, and/or terrorists. From the Jawa Report:
It's not just that Barack Obama's father was a Marxist economist or that his mother Stanley came from radical far-left roots.
It's not just that Obama's childhood mentor Frank Marshall Davis was a famous communist poet.
It's not just that Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor, counselor and spiritual mentor of 20 years is a racist, America-hating radical.
It's not just that Michael Phleger, Obama's other spiritual mentor is every bit as extreme as Wright.
[.....]
It's not just that Obama's political and financial benefactor William Ayers is an unrepentant radical socialist terrorist.
It's not just that Bernadine Dohrn regrets that she didn't kill more people back in the 1960s.
It's not just that Alice Palmer, Obama's political mentor in Chicago, was a communist propagandist.
Add to that list Rev. Jim Wallis, an America-hater who has called the U.S. "the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs."
Add to that list Obama's own father, the Communist Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. - the one to whom Obama dedicated "Dreams of My Father:"
Obama Sr. described his own economic plan, his counterproposal, as it were, as "scientific socialism - inter alia - communism." Yes, Obama's father was a communist who wanted to put socialist theory into action - by "force."
Add to that list the Marxist Raila Odinga, former Prime Minister of Kenya, on whose behalf Obama personally campaigned in 2006.
This was not Mr. Odinga's first brush with notoriety. Like his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the main opposition leader in the 1960s and 1970s, Raila Odinga is a Marxist. He graduated from East Germany's Magdeburg University in 1970 on a scholarship provided by the East German government. He named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States. Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the 1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.
Mr. Odinga spent eight years in prison. At the time, he denied guilt but later detailed he was a coup leader in his 2006 biography. Statue of limitations precluded further prosecution when the biography appeared.
Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.
Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. "The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials," Mr. Obama announced.
"Kenyans are now yearning for change," he declared.
There it is again: Obama says "change" and he means change to a leader who supports Marxism. Obama supported Odinga, the self-admitted leader of a bloody coup.
By the way, Odinga leads a party that is guilty of mass-murder - just in case you're interested in that little detail of a man Obama supports politically. That's the kind of change Obama supports in Africa.
About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000.
The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda genocide of a decade earlier.
By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.
The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama's father.
American Liberals: Obama does not believe what you believe. He is not worthy of your support. He will attack many of the things you care about, including your livelihood, which will be endangered by his Marxist, Socialist, Communist goals.
Obama is a Manchurian Candidate: he campaigned while keeping his true goals a secret from the people. His true goals, like those of his life-long mentors and friends, are to attack America's foundations and remake it along the Marxist and Socialist lines of the failing states of Europe.
Obama's got a great strategy for dealing with something he has done that turns out to have been a huge mistake: just keep claiming it wasn't a mistake.
Remember when Joe Biden said Hillary would have made a better V.P. and everyone was thinking Obama would have to dump Biden and ask Hillary to come on board? Obama responded by saying he was glad he'd chosen Biden as V.P. And it worked - the Biden controversy went away. But there was a cost: MSM had to start making itself look absurdly foolish by ignoring all of Biden's subsequent mega-gaffes, including '3 letters: J-O-B-S', and this week's monster gaffe, in which Biden alerted the world that the election of a President as weak and inexperienced as Obama, would surely invite a crisis when he was inevitably tested by foreign leaders.
Or how about the Surge, which Obama claimed would not work - which Obama opposed - but which in fact turned the tide and enabled us to have victory at last in that conflict? Obama nonsensically kept claiming that the surge didn't work. But again it came at a price: MSM had to stop asking him about the surge in order to cover for him - providing another example for the public to see how in the tank the MSM is for Obama.
Then there was Obama's famous statement at a Democratic debate that he would personally sit down across the table from Ahmadinejad, without preconditions. You can see Obama saying this on video here. Obama for months claimed that wasn't a mistake:
...the high point of Ahmadinejad's week must have been Friday night, after his return to Iran. That was when John McCain and Barack Obama met in Mississippi for their first debate, and Obama reiterated once again his determination to meet Ahmadinejad "without preconditions" if he is elected in November.
Now we have a new disastrous mistake from Obama: his comment about "spreading the wealth" is hammering the Obama campaign, as it exposes Obama to voters everywhere as a socialist, confirming what his life-long ties with a seemingly endless stream of Marxists, socialists, and America-haters already told us: that Obama is a socialist who is opposed to capitalism and a strong, successful America. And Obama is trying to deal with it in the same old way: by claiming it wasn't a mistake. Here you can see him claiming he's not sorry he said it, in an interview with Good Morning America:
GMA: Any regrets that you -
Obama: No -
GMA: No, not that you met Joe the Plumber, but the fact that you said, "spread the wealth."
Obama: Not at all.
By denying that something this big, this well-known, this widely-reviled is a mistake, Obama just digs himself deeper into the same hole.
From Iowahawk:
I hope you will join me in expressing a simple bit of solidarity with this guy, Spartacus style.
Don't miss this great video from Penn & Teller (NSFW):
[The title of this post is inspired by that of Michelle Malkin's powerful post, "Crush the Obamedia narrative: Look who’s 'gripped by insane rage'"]
Yesterday a good friend of mine told me that he had heard, and regarded it as common knowledge, that deregulation was the cause of the bad home mortgages that are key to the current financial crisis. So evidently this blatant canard, put forward by Obama, has not yet been widely enough debunked.
When Obama says that deregulation is the cause of the bad home loans, he is not speaking accurately, and he knows it. In fact, it was government regulation that caused it. From Investors Business Daily (link):
In 1977, President Carter and a Democrat Congress created the Community Reinvestment Act mandating that banks must meet the credit needs of everyone in the banks' community, including uncreditworthy borrowers. It was done for a good social purpose and had the greatest intentions - expanding home ownership. And, through the 1980s and into the 1990s at least, it seemed to work.
However in 1995, President Bill Clinton imposed more and stronger regulations and performance tests. These coerced banks into significantly increasing their loans to low-income borrowers in economically-troubled communities, or face possible fines and expansion restrictions.
These new rules encouraged banks to bundle their risky subprime loans together with prime loans and re-sell them in packages to other financial institutions, thereby freeing the original lenders from any further risk. Thanks to the new rules and oversight from the CRA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got involved in a big way, buying literally trillions of dollars of the questionable loans from banks and feeding the dangerous cycle that had begun.
Eventually, it turned into a kind of pyramid scheme that overwhelmed some lending organizations when housing prices softened in late 2006 and 2007.
So what's the big lesson to be learned here by the public? That this financial crisis was the result of yet another Big Government program that had great intentions but created devastating unintended consequences that hurt millions of people.
It was not the fault of African American groups, which naturally want to help their people. Nor was it the fault of America's free enterprise system, or a lack of enough regulation. No, it was Big Government once again trying to run a private industry.
You can't take one dollar and loan it 50 times. Watch out when Big Government spenders tell you they can run our entire medical industry, give you far better care and save you lots of money.
From the Wall Street Journal (link):
Jimmy Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act into law in 1977. The Clinton administration turned this Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being. Thus it was made practically compulsory for an investment bank to loan mortgage money to literally anyone who came along or face the wrath of government bureaucracy. The banks were so pressed to abide by this government mandate that they felt the need to offer a new kind of loan to make their product appear even more attractive the sub prime loan. Thus the story goes on.
For the next ten years, the banks were forced to abide by the law and deliver their quota of minority and subsistence wage earner loans. When I say subsistence wage earner loans, I mean that the banks were forced to accept Social Security and unemployment payments as earned income for mortgage purposes. Some companies quit asking for income verification altogether and provided the now infamous 'liar loans' simply to meet some government standard set by national legislative fiat. Meantime, we the people made hay on the stock market and congratulated ourselves on how smart we were and how well we were doing.
Obama was part of forcing the banks to make these bad loans. From the NY Post (link):
WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.
In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.
In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.
THE seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.
CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.
...Chicago ACORN sought out Obama's legal services for a "motor voter" case and partnered with him on his 1992 "Project VOTE" registration drive.
In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.
More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.
...The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.
And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts.
In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama's first campaign for state Senate, saying, "We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer."
IN short, to understand the roots of the subprime-mort gage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.
Then you'll truly know what community organizers do.
Obama was a lawyer in a lawsuit against CitiBank to force it to make these same kinds of bad loans. From the Chicago Sun-Times (link):
Obama represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods.
John McCain opposed what was going on at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in 2006. Here's the letter, signed by McCain and other Republicans - but not by one Democrat. The Democrats killed this effort, which could have mitigated, or perhaps even averted, this crisis. (link):
McCain made a speech to Senate about this later on May 25, 2006, warning:
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
The bill never got out of committee.
In the first presidential debate, Obama claimed that he had also warned about the impending crisis:
Two years ago, I warned that, because of the subprime lending mess, because of the lax regulation, that we were potentially going to have a problem and tried to stop some of the abuses in mortgages that were taking place at the time.
Last year, I wrote to the secretary of the Treasury to make sure that he understood the magnitude of this problem and to call on him to bring all the stakeholders together to try to deal with it.
The letter he is referring to appears to be here. The letter asks Paulson "to convene a homeownership preservation summit" to discuss, among other things, more requirements from the banks, not less - including, requirements for banks to "intervene" in (i.e. pay for) loans that that the loan-holders, can no longer afford:
How to facilitate and encourage appropriate intervention by loan servicing companies at the earliest signs of borrower difficulty.
Obama's statement that he warned of the crisis and attempted to fix it is inaccurate. Obama warned of the crisis and proposed changes that would have worsened the financial harm to the banks.
Conclusion: People need to be aware that deregulation was not the cause of the bad home loans that brought on the financial crisis; it was wrongful regulations that forced banks to make these bad loans to people who were not in a position to repay them.
THE MYSTERIES
There are some strange mysteries about Obama, which he is stonewalling everybody on. Let's look into them.
Mystery #1: Why, as editor of Harvard Law Review, did he never publish one single article, even though publishing articles in the Harvard Law Review can be key to success for a legal career?
Mystery #2: Why, fresh out of college, did he give up his $50k a year job in NY to move suddenly to Chicago, where he didn't know anybody?
Mystery #3: How can it be that in Chicago, with no experience other than community organizing, Obama was appointed Chairman of the Board of a commission that gave away $50 million?
Mystery #4: How can it be that Obama does not have one life-long friend who can step forward and vouch for his character during this Presidential campaign?
Not one single article did he publish in the Harvard Law Review, even though he was editing it. How can that be?
Why did he suddenly quit his job and move to Chicago where he didn't know anybody? Wasn't there community organizing to be done in New York?
How, with no prior acquaintances in Chicago, did Obama get put in charge of giving away $50 million?
And why doesn't he have even one life-long friend to come forward and vouch for his character at such a time as this? From the NY Times:
Obama has declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release is Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years...
No friend from later years has emerged either, to vouch for Obama's character. Why?
INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS
Since Obama is stonewalling and refuses to explain, it is of interest to investigate. Here are relevant facts:
Obama's Connections to Radicals Helped Him Get Into College
Obama was helped into Harvard by Khalid al-Mansour. Khalid Al-Mansour is a radical, and can be seen on video here calling for people to kill white people.
"I was introduced to (Obama) by a friend who was raising money for him," Sutton told NY1 city hall reporter Dominic Carter.
"The friend's name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas," Sutton said. "He is the principal adviser to one of the world's richest men. He told me about Obama."
Sutton, the founder of Inner City Broadcasting, said al-Mansour contacted him to ask a favor: Would Sutton write a letter in support of Obama's application to Harvard Law School?
"He wrote to me about him," Sutton recalled. "And his introduction was there is a young man that has applied to Harvard. I know that you have a few friends up there because you used to go up there to speak. Would you please write a letter in support of him?"
Sutton said he acted on his friend al-Mansour's advice.
"I wrote a letter of support of him to my friends at Harvard, saying to them I thought there was a genius that was going to be available and I certainly hoped they would treat him kindly," Sutton told NY1.
Obama's Connections to Unrepentant Terrorist Ayers Helped Him Get Started in Politics
Author and Journalist Andy Martin (video link, 1:06 minutes in):
I think a community organizer, in Barack Obama's case, is somebody that was in training for radical overthrow of the government. You have to really stretch to believe his story that he was living in New York City, he was earning 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year, and he left this to come to Chicago, to a city where he knew no one, to suddenly start quote, organizing, unquote, people. In my opinion, Barack Obama had already been influenced by his radical ideology and philosophy, probably had met William Ayers in New York, and was coming here to lay the foundations for what he thought would be some sort of political movement that he would be a part of.
From Dick Morris:
In Chicago, Obama was named the chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), which gave away $50 million. Obama was mysteriously named Chairman of the Board of the CAC by domestic terrorist William Ayers.
The records of the administration of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), released last week by the University of Illinois, show that the Ayers-Obama connection was, in fact, an intimate collaboration and that it led to the only executive or administrative experience in Obama's life.
After Walter Annenberg's foundation offered several hundred million dollars to American public schools in the mid-'90s, William Ayers applied for $50 million for Chicago. The purpose of his application was to secure funds to "raise political consciousness" in Chicago's public schools. After he won the grant, Ayers's group chose Barack Obama to distribute the money. Between 1995 and 1999, Obama distributed the $50 million and raised another $60 million from other civic groups to augment it. In doing so, he was following Ayers's admonition to grant the funds to "external" organizations, like American Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to pair with schools and conduct programs to radicalize the students and politicize them.
Reading, math and science achievement tests counted for little in the CAC grants, but the school's success in preaching a radical political agenda determined how much money they got.
Barack Obama should have run screaming at the sight of William Ayers and his wife, Bernadette Dohrn. Ayers has admitted bombing the U.S. Capitol building and the Pentagon, and his wife was sent to prison for failing to cooperate in solving the robbery of a Brink's armored car in which two police officers were killed. Far from remorse, Ayers told The New York Times in September 2001 that he "wished he could have done more."
Obama had political ambitions from his earliest youth. From ABC:
Fermina Katarina Sinaga Suhanda, Obama's third-grade teacher, remembered him distinctly because he looked different.Obama was raised from the ages of 6 to 10 in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he was likely exposed to radical views of America.
"He's the only black, he's the only one with curly hair," she said, adding that he was also bigger than the other children.
She also remembered a telling essay from the Illinois senator.
"He wrote like this," Suhanda said in Bahasa, the local language. "I am Barry Soetoro. I am in third grade [at] Fransiskus Asisi Elementary School."
He wrote about his friends, parents, Indonesia and ended the essay with "I want to be the president."
ANSWERS
Here is a single coherent narrative that is consistent with these facts, and explains all four mysteries.
Obama knew from an early age that his views were consistent with those of people who had radical views of America, such as those who later met and helped him, including the radical al-Mansour and the unrepentant terrorist Ayers. He was also gifted from an early age in producing rhetoric that cloaked those views in acceptable-sounding language. Obama's talents and political ambitions were recognized by Khalid Al-Mansour, who helped him get into Harvard with the specific view of pushing forward a young man who shared Al-Mansour's views.
Answer to Mystery #1 - Why Obama Published Not One Paper in the Harvard Law Review: Al-Mansour and Obama agreed that Obama would never publish any papers in the Harvard Law Review, so as to never give the public any clue as to Obama's true views about this country.
Answer to Mystery #2 - Why Obama Gave up a $50k-a-Year Job to Move to Chicago: In New York, Obama's talents came to the attention of unrepentant terrorist Ayers. Ayers told Obama that he would send Obama to Chicago to prove himself. If Obama proved himself in Chicago, Ayers would reward him by putting him in a tremendously powerful position, with the intention of ultimately getting Obama into politics, possibly even into Congress. Ayers wanted Obama to be in Chicago because Ayers knew it would be far easier to get Obama elected in Chicago, than in New York. Obama was willing to give up his job in exchange for the powerful patronage of the unrepentant terrorist Ayers.
Answer to Mystery #3 - How Obama, with Little Suitable Experience, Was Put in Charge of Giving Away $50 Million: Ayers made Obama Chiarman of the Board of the CAC specifically to help Obama amass local political power and stature, so as to help him get elected to Congress. The local power and stature that comes to the person in charge of giving away $50 million is substantial.
Answer to Mystery #4 - Why Obama Doesn't Have One Life-Long Friend Who Can Vouch For Him During This Presidential Campaign: Obama's views made it impossible for him to associate with most people, out of fear that his views would be discovered and exposed. As a result Obama's life-long friends have been radicals such as himself, including Ayers, Reverend Wright, Michael Pfleger, Tony Rezko, and others whom Obama must now pretend not to know.
If people reading this have a cogent theory other than this that explains these, the top four strangest mysteries about Obama, please post it in the comment section.
CONCLUSION
In its history, this country has never been in so much danger - the danger of having a president who has a view of this country so radical, that he must disavow all his life-long friendships.
From last night's debate:
...when asked if I wanted a portfolio, my response was, no. But Barack Obama indicated to me he wanted me with him to help him govern. So every major decision he'll be making, I'll be sitting in the room to give my best advice.
Obama said he wanted Biden "in the room" with him on "every major decision" to "help him govern"? Is this another mega-gaffe from Biden that the MSM will ignore? Or does Obama feel the need to rely on Biden every moment? If the latter, it's a surprising confession of weakness from Obama.
The blogosphere has done a fantastic job of tracking down the laws that forced banks to make loans to people who couldn't afford them:
* The original Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law in 1977 by Jimmy Carter. Its purpose, in a nutshell, was to require banks to provide credit to "under-served populations," i.e., those with poor credit.
The buzz word was "affordable mortgages," e.g., mortgages with low teaser-rates, which required the borrower to put no money down, which required the borrower to pay only the interest for a set number of years, etc.
* In 1995, Bill Clinton's administration made various changes to the CRA, increasing "access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities," i.e., it provided for the securitization, i.e. public underwriting, of what everyone now calls "sub-prime mortgages."
Bottom line? It forced banks to issue $1 trillion in sub-prime mortgages.
$1 trillion, i.e., a thousand billion dollars in sub-prime,i.e., risky, mortgages, in order to push this latest example of social engineering.
But there's at least one more piece of the puzzle - and it's one more case of government regulation that strangles industry, and that contributed in large measure to the current financial crisis. It's the so-called "mark-to-market" regulations:
Newt Gingrich has gone on the record with a solution to the crisis that is the best I have seen so far. Rather than pass a $700 billion bailout, suspend the accounting rules that are causing the liquidity crisis to begin with.
In the past few years, accounting rules changed and these changes are in part causing the current crisis. Specifically, the problem is mark-to-market accounting where all assets are required to be valued at current market prices. If the market is temporarily depressed, it can cause an artificial crisis.
Mark-to-market regulations were passed as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley bill (SOX), which leading figures in both parties have expressed doubts about since that bill's passage:
It would seem that SOX was implemented to prevent the type of problems we're seeing today. Guess not.
According to Mike Huckabee we ought to kill SOX. It's not working, he says.
Democrats aren't too keen on SOX either. A spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi told The New York Sun in 2006:
"We cannot afford to disadvantage small companies with overly burdensome regulatory requirements."
The good news is that the government is already recognizing the error of these regulations, and is acting to repeal them so as to address the current crisis:
Financial crisis: SEC cheers finance companies with mark-to-market ruling
The Securities and Exchange Commission brought some much needed cheer to the US financial sector after issuing accounting guidelines that could help curb the billions of dollars of writedowns reported by the country's leading banks.
The US regulator told banks that despite fair-value accounting regulations they did not have to use only fire-sale prices to value bad assets but could also use their judgement.
The move led to a late rally in US stock market with the Dow Jones index up 485.2 to 10850.7 while the S&P 500 rose 58.3 to 1164.7, its biggest one-day rise in six years.
Fair-value accounting requires companies to value their assets at current market prices. Banks have been forced to push through billions of dollars of writedowns in recent months after valuing assets at the same prices raised by ailing companies undergoing last-ditch sales.
The SEC move effectively allows banks to switch from mark-to-market accounting to hold-to-maturity accounting, commentators said.
"If you plan to hold an asset to maturity or at least for the foreseeable future, why should you be forced to value it at the same price being realised during the worst financial crisis in living memory?" said one trader.
Fair-value accounting has come under growing criticism in recent days amid claims it has unjustly forced banks to write down tens of billions of dollars of assets that could regain their value in the years ahead.
Question for the blogosphere: to what degree, is this only an artificial, paper crisis? To what degree is it that so many powerful banking institutions have been destroyed, merely because of a bad accounting regulation, that forced their loan packages to be accounted for at unfairly low rates?
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