Tag Archives: obama

Terrorists and Secessionists

Posted on by
2

“The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government.”

“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

Sound like Rev. Wright? Bill Ayers? Try Joe Vogler, the founder of the Alaskan Separatist Party that Todd Palin was a member of for 6 to 7 years. The AIP founder made the comment in 1991, in an interview that’s now housed at the Oral History Program in the Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Two years later, Vogler was scheduled to denounce America as a tyranny before the U.N. His sponsors? The Islamic Republic of Iran. But before he took the world stage, he was killed by a fellow seccessionist. Here’s another quote from Vogler:

“And I won’t be buried under their damn flag… I’ll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home.”

Vogler advocated renouncing allegiance to the United States. In the course of denouncing Federal regulation over land, he said:

“And then you get mad. And you say, the hell with them. And you renounce allegiance, and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life to Alaska.”

This is the same group Sarah Palin recorded an address for the convention, saying “Keep up the good work”, and now she’s complaining about Obama “palling around” with Ayers. By “palling around”, she of course means being a part of a mainstream (not “radical” as falsely stated by a McCain ad) education committee supported by a Republican governor, with local civil leaders on the board, which included Ayers as well as a former Nixon administration official who has contributed to McCain’s campaign.

Let’s compare these to the infamous Rev. Wright quotes:

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.

Well, John Kerry’s 1989 Committe report concluded that members of the U.S. State Department “provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking… and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers.” And I’ve heard the conservative mantra of “…then build bigger prisons.”

Wright accuses people who say “God Bless America” as worshipping country over God. I’ve been told this is unchristian. I find it to be uniquely Christian. Before Constantine fuzed Orthodox Christianity into the Eastern Roman Empire, Christians were unique among their fellow Jews and Romans in refusing to ally themselves with either the authorities of Rome or Judea. Most religious people today make the mistake of combining the two and kids are even forced in our schools to “pray” to the idol of Lady Liberty with their hands over our hearts in the droning chant typical of brainwashing. Vogler though, along with those who follow him, only wish to replace the American flag with the Alaskan one, even if it means getting founding from Iran to denounce America as a tyrany before the U.N. Considering the historic injustice perpetuated on African Americans, it’s no surprise to me that there are “black separatist” groups. But the idea that Palin’s husband wants Alaska to separate when his wife is taking in all these huge Federal earmarks is ridiculous.

The references to Hiroshima, Palestinians, and South Africa will no doubt piss off conseravtives, but I find these controversies far more open to interpretation than most of the stuff I read from the conservative Human Events newsletter. He’s obviously a conspiracy theorist. But unlike the author of the bestselling book “Obama Nation,” who thinks the Bush Administration caused 9/11, at least Wright is fighting against the side he believes to be perpetrating mass injustice on the population.

Anyone who watched or read Obama’s speech about “A More Perfect Union” knows that he has a completely different worldview than Wright:

“On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

“I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.”

“But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

……

“But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.”

Do you think the AIP does charity work? Somehow I doubt it. Here’s the full speech:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/18/text-of-obamas-speech-a-more-perfect-union/?mod=googlenews_wsj

Maybe this seems to be too far a reach since this is the Vice President’s husband, not the President. But the problem with this objection is McCain could die while in office. If McCain croaks, Palin will be president, and there is a good chance that Todd could become the “shadow president”, just as some have referred to him as the “shadow governor”. The latest ethics panel that found Sarah Palin violated ethics laws and abused her power as governor also pointed out that Todd was heavily involved. An article from globeandmail.com says:

>According to those close to the administration, he attending meetings, sat in on interviews, made phone calls to lawmakers to express his support for his wife’s issues and was copied in on staff e-mails.

>He has been referred to as the “shadow governor” and The New York Times reported that his constant involvement in state business prompted some of the staff in the governor’s office to begin asking, “What would Todd do?” when faced with decisions that would affect his wife’s agenda.

This is not something from the distant past either. Max Blumenthal writes:

“Extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin’s political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy. “Her door was open,” says Chryson — and still is.”

…

“Palin backed [former Alaska Independence party chairman, Mark] Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution’s language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as “Black Helicopter Steve,” to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. “Every time I showed up her door was open,” said Chryson. “And that policy continued when she became governor.” …

Chryson further streamlined the AIP’s platform by softening its secessionist language. Instead of calling for immediate separation from the Uni ted States, the platform now demands a vote on independence. Yet Chryson maintains that his party remains committed to full independence. “The Alaskan Independence Party has got links to almost every independence-minded movement in the world,” Chryson exclaimed. “And Alaska is not the only place that’s about separation. There’s at least 30 different states that are talking about some type of separation from the United States.”

Even Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley and author of “Thank You for Smoking”, has written an article denouncing Palin and arguing for the “conservative case for Obama”.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/aip_founder_professed_hatred_f.php

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/he_lied_about_bill_ayers.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081010.CAMPAIGNPALIN10/TPStory/International

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27105917/
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama

Deregulation and the Financial Crisis

Posted on by
2

Let me start off by saying that a couple of months ago, Rush Limbaugh said he was “dreaming” of a race riot. He was running his “Operation Chaos” platform to get Hillary elected in hopes that it would anger the blacks, cause them to riot and kill a bunch of people, and hopefully that would cause Obama to lose the election. Republicans have always said “Trust the free market” and now the “free market” has grabbed the country by the throat and demanded $700 billion or watch the country disintegrate. What would we do if a bunch of minorities took over the country and demanded that kind of money? We’d probably send in the riot troops. But these hijackers are rich, and rich people can never be blamed for anything, so they’re trying to convince people like you that, like all problems, it was all caused by Clinton and the blacks and the Mexicans.

Conservatives have been backstabbed by their friends on Wall Street and are being forced to eat their own heart or watch civilization crumble. People like Bill O’Reilly can do it, beacause they aren’t hard-core ideologues. But everyone else on Fox News and the radio are against it because that would mean they’d have to admit that you can’t run a country on an ideology of “regulation is always bad” and “government spending is always bad.” The problem is, they don’t have any plan. They just say do nothing, “let Wall Street burn”, and that’s stupid. Conservatives have made their entire careers out of convincing us that prosperity on Wall Street equals prosperity at home (which of course is not true) and now they want you to believe there’s absolutely no connection at all, and the death of Wall Street won’t carry significant aftershocks to Main Street. This is absolutely delusional. Not only will it have devastating effects on other Americans, it’s going to have devastating effects *on the entire world*. To pretend there is no problem (like Republicans have been doing for the past 3 months!!!) and do nothing would probably be the most childish, irresponsible thing the American congress has done in 100 years. At this point, doing anything, even passing a fake bill that did very little, would be helpful in trying to regain foreign confidence in the market, which is absolutely mandatory in order to stop the world economy from going down the drain.

Rush Limbaugh, like the rest of the conservatives, is now acting like Bush and his guys are actually Democrats and its McCain (who course they all hate) who are going to come in and fix things. The idea seems to be that Bush wasn’t right-wing enough (!) and that McCain will be better than him because he’s…. more left-wing on a few minor issues? So what Rush is saying is that the Democrats were for the “Paulson Plan.” Of course, neither side wanted the “Paulson Plan” of making Paulson Supreme Emperor of Unprecedented Powers. The plan that the House Republicans killed was a different plan that called for putting up about half the money. I would rather see a plan that involved putting liquidity into the market without the government purchasing the toxic loans.

Now let’s go to the task of dismissing these lies about the CRA and ACORN:

“– The Community Reinvestment Act caused financial institutions to lend to people who weren’t credit worthy. This is crap. The CRA was signed into law in 1977 — over 20 years before the current crisis. The second problem with this theory is the CRA only applies to banks and thrifts. Most of the mortgage lending during the last boom came from — mortgage lenders who aren’t regulated by CRA.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hale-stewart/whos-to-blame-for-the-mes_b_130044.html

Here’s an article named “ACORN Issue Fueling Bailout Opposition”:

“The draft bill includes a left-wing giveaway that would force taxpayers to bankroll a slush fund for a discredited ally of the Democratic Party,” reads one leadership alert. “At issue is ACORN, an organization fraught with controversy for, among other scandals, its fraudulent voter registration activities on behalf of Democratic candidates. Rather than returning any profits made in the long-term from the economic rescue package, Democrats want to first reward their radical allies at ACORN for their (often illegal) help in getting Democrats elected to office.”

In the end, how much of the bailout’s potential profits are earmarked for ACORN? “None. Absolutely none. All funds would go to state and local governments,” said Steven Adamske, spokesman for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Financial Services Committee and a lead negotiator.”

One of the prinicipal causes in my opinion is that we’ve become corporate socialists. This Administration wants to “capitalize” all the profits of Big Business so that the money stays a the top and “socialize” the risks and losses, so that the middle class picks up the bill for the rich’s mistakes as well. This has caused a liquidity crisis in the middle class which has helped cause all the foreclosures:

“While the average American continues to suffer due to oligarchical policies of the Bush White House that has resulted in steady erosion of worker earnings; higher unemployment; more expensive medical care; higher gas and food prices – the reckless and fiscally irresponsible elitist continue to be bailed out. This White House exerts a free trade policy that advocates that market forces should rule. This was their rational for the absence of homeowner assistance in the housing crisis. Yet when these market forces are exercised against a favored company the White House steps in and again socializes the risk – placing it squarely on the back of the suffering taxpayer……

All of the above sounds quite dire, but most world experts believe our system is even worse! Many believe that the Tier III write-offs required is greater than $2 trillion dollars versus the $1 trillion dollar bandied by the government and Wall Street firms. If this number is valid and given that we have only written down about $350 billion, then we have a much deeper crisis than anyone envisioned. Last year the estimate to rid American companies of the toxic assets was $100 billion. By late spring this year the number had grown to $500 billion; and, now even the conservative estimates are $1 trillion dollars. However, if international experts are right then it is double that figure.

What does it mean to Americans? It means that the Bush Legacy will include a debt of well over $2,000,000 per household in this country and a wealth curve that is skewed greatly. Per the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances the top 5% owns over 59% of all U.S. wealth; the lowest 20% own zero; and, the middle own the balance of 41%. This is the most skewed wealth distribution curve we have experienced since 1929. The trend since 1929 has been a normalized curve that was shaped more along a standard bell curve, which means we maintained a strong middle-class. What has the Bush Administration economic policies really accomplished? It has managed to destroy the class of citizens that has made this country great and left us a new economic system, the American Socialized Capitalism that protects the wealthy.”

http://theamericanscene.com/2008/09/29/bluff-called

From Justin Fox, regarding House Republicans’ plan:

>…that of the House Republican Study Committee, seems to be a joke. It calls for a two-year suspension of the capital gains tax to “encourag[e] corporations to sell unwanted assets.” But the toxic mortgage securities clogging up bank balance sheets are worth less now than when they were acquired. Meaning that no capital gains tax would be owed on them anyway. If you repealed the tax, banks would have even less incentive to sell them because they wouldn’t be able use the losses to offset capital gains elsewhere. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?

And here’s a FactCheck.Org article titled: “Who Caused the Economic Crisis? MoveOn.org blames McCain advisers. He blames Obama and Democrats in Congress. Both are wrong.” Notice that it’s MoveOn.org and McCain, *not Obama* who is doing the lying here. At the bottom of the article it says:

So who is to blame? There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn’t fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn’t do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of “layered irresponsibility … with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role.” Here’s a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

* The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

* Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

* Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

* Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

* The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

* Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

* Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

* Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

* The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

* An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

* Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html

Regarding the crisis, McCain accused Obama of “phoning it in”. Looks like this was true:

>Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a supporter of the bill, made calls to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who publicly credited him with changing their minds.

>Rep. Elijah Cummings and Donna Edwards, both Maryland Democrats, were among them. They said Obama had pledged if he wins the White House that he would help homeowners facing foreclosure on their mortgages. He also pledged to support changes in the bankruptcy law to make it less burdensome on consumers.

>”It’s not too often you get the future president telling you that his priority matches your priority,” said Cummings.

>Obama’s rival, Sen. John McCain, who announced a brief suspension in his campaign more than a week ago to try and help solve the financial crisis, made calls to Republicans. His impact was not immediately clear.

>Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, who said she was switching her vote to favor the measure, said of McCain: “They told me he was going to call me. He didn’t.”

>Looking ahead to election day, she added, “I may lose this race over this vote, but that’s OK with me. This is the right vote for the country.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/03/national/main4497551.shtml

Putting Politics Ahead of Country

Posted on by
Reply

Ok, so McCain “suspended his campaign”, consisting of moving his appearance on David Letterman to a piece with Katie Couric. (McCain insiders say they are looking for another way to suspend the campaign; William Kristol has also called for a second suspension.) The rest of his campaign continued attacking Obama and McCain very slowly made it back to Washington to “lead” on the crisis even though he admitted he had not read the 3-page report on the crisis even after several days. Before he got there, we heard word that they discussions were going good, but soon after McCain got there, House Republicans rebelled. We know that Obama talked during the meeting and McCain didn’t. House Republicans tried to force Democrats to accept the elimination of the capital gains tax (which of course has nothing to do with the crisis) or watch the economy go into a downward spiral, which is pretty much like the cops joining the rioters they’re supposed to bring down and adding in their own demands. So the deal failed. The Dow fell about 780 points and the S&P dropped 8% (as a side note, we all know Phil “America are whiners” Gramm, but McCain’s other economist is Kevin Hassett, who wrote DOW 36,000 right before the Dot Com bubble burst). Now Republicans are blaming the failed vote on Nancy Pelosi giving a speech in which she said the problem was due to a failed economic philosophy of “anything goes” and McCain is blaming Obama and the Democrats for “putting politics ahead of country.”

Noah Millman writes:

> There are lots and lots of reasons not to like this bill. But most of those reasons are Democratic talking points. The GOP alternative proposal was borderline illiterate.

> I’m writing this in haste, without a lot of reflection. But the whole way this has played out has been something of a watershed moment for me. There is only one party in Congress that thinks we are in a financial crisis, only one party in Congress with a functioning leadership.

http://theamericanscene.com/2008/09/29/bluff-called

Megan McArdle writes:

> A journalist friend who spends way more time on politics than I do suggests that if the Democrats cave and include a capital gains tax, it will probably pass–but puts the odds of the Democrats caving at slim to none, since they can now blame any resulting crash on the Republicans.

> I didn’t think it was possible to be more disgusted with politicians than I usually am, but I find it impossible to express the seething contempt that I feel at this kind of opportunism. I don’t mind when they screw with the normal operation of the economy for venal personal gain. But risking a recession in order to get a cut in the capital gains tax? Letting it tank because you can always blame it on the Republicans?

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/so_what_happens_now.php

From Justin Fox, regarding House Republicans’ plan:

>…that of the House Republican Study Committee, seems to be a joke. It calls for a two-year suspension of the capital gains tax to “encourag[e] corporations to sell unwanted assets.” But the toxic mortgage securities clogging up bank balance sheets are worth less now than when they were acquired. Meaning that no capital gains tax would be owed on them anyway. If you repealed the tax, banks would have even less incentive to sell them because they wouldn’t be able use the losses to offset capital gains elsewhere. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?

Bail Out Graph

The Lies of Palin

“Palin could not have asked her girls for permission to accept McCain’s veep offer if she also says she accepted the offer unblinkingly and right away. Palin did fire a police chief even as she insisted to a reporter she hadn’t. She did violate the confidential medical records of Mike Wooten. She hasn’t met with any trade missions from Russia. She does not have any gay friends that anyone can find. She did not oppose the Bridge to Nowhere. She did not sell that plane on eBay. Her Teleprompter did not fail in her convention speech. Alaska’s state scientists did not conclude that polar bears were in no danger. She did deny publicly that humans had anything to do with climate change.

“Alaska does not provide “nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy,” as she claimed. The gas pipeline she touts as her major “mission accomplished” has not broken ground and may never do so. She did not take a pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla. And on and on. Anyone with Google can check all of these out. Including reporters.”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-odd-lies–5.html