Kill the bill and pass the common sense fix

Babalu friend, Pep, sent me a link to something called the "common sense fix" that's being promoted by Dave Ramsey. For those who aren't familiar with Ramsey he hosts a financial talk radio show where he encourages people to get out of debt and invest wisely (a male Suze Ormond if you will).

Here's the fix according to him:

Common Sense Plan.

I. INSURANCE

A. Insure the subprime bonds/mortgages with an underlying FHA-type insurance. Government-insured and backed loans would have an instant market all over the world, creating immediate and needed liquidity.

B. In order for a company to accept the government-backed insurance, they must do two things:

1. Rewrite any mortgage that is more than three months delinquent to a 6% fixed-rate mortgage.
a. Roll all back payments with no late fees or legal costs into the balance. This brings homeowners current and allows them a chance to keep their homes.
b. Cancel all prepayment penalties to encourage refinancing or the sale of the property to pay off the bad loan. In the event of foreclosure or short sale, the borrower will not be held liable for any deficit balance. FHA does this now, and that encourages mortgage companies to go the extra mile while
working with the borrower—again limiting foreclosures and ruined lives.

2. Cancel ALL golden parachutes of EXISTING and FUTURE CEOs and executive team members as long as the company holds these government-insured bonds/mortgages. This keeps underperforming executives from being paid when they don’t do their jobs.

C. This backstop will cost less than $50 billion—a small fraction of the current proposal.

II. MARK TO MARKET

A. Remove mark to market accounting rules for two years on only subprime Tier III bonds/mortgages. This keeps companies from being forced to artificially mark down bonds/mortgages below the value of the underlying mortgages and real estate.

B. This move creates patience in the market and has an immediate stabilizing effect on failing and ailing banks—and it costs the taxpayer nothing.

III. CAPITAL GAINS TAX

A. Remove the capital gains tax completely. Investors will flood the real estate and stock market in search of tax-free profits, creating tremendous—and immediate—liquidity in the markets. Again, this costs the taxpayer nothing.

B. This move will be seen as a lightning rod politically because many will say it is helping the rich. The truth is the rich will benefit, but it will be their money that stimulates the economy. This will enable all Americans to have more stable jobs and retirement investments that go up instead of down. This is not a time for envy, and it’s not a time for politics. It’s time for all of us, as Americans, to
stand up, speak out, and fix this mess.

The best thing about this is that it doesn't cost that much and it certainly won't hurt anything.

If you agree with this, it's important to pass it around and contact your legislators.

Fraud? You betcha!

From Ace of Spades:

But ACORN, the Congressional Black Caucus, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Barack Hussein Obama all worked together to build the bomb. Separating ACORN from Fannie is like saying Al Qaeda could never support Shiite extremists.

This was an inside-outside operation from the getgo -- ACORN providing external "grassroots" demands for these mortgages, the government empowering them to do so, ACORN pressuring banks to make the loans, government sponsored entities Fannie and Freddie removing the risk (or so it was thought) from the loans.

They all worked together on this. They're all on each other's speed dials. ACORN forges up fraudulent voter registrations to help Democrats steal elections; Democrats propose giving 20% of all revenues (not profits, revenues) from the bailout to ACORN, etc.

As this Fannie executive says -- We're all part of "the family."

As Henry and I have pointed out in previous posts, the attitudes that underlie this problem have been institutionalized in the Democrat party. Dare I say it, and I am not using hyperbole, this one of the most massive frauds ever perpetrated on the American taxpayer.

Rev up the time machine again...

Here's another look back the NYT FREE archive to see how this financial crisis got to this point. This time we go back to the year 1999. Some excerpts:

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits...

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.''

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Was it free market capitalism or was it a government intent on tinkering with free markets?

H/T: George Utset

Tolerant and compassionate vandalism from The Messiah's "supporters"

From The News-Journal Online in New Smyrna Beach:

Obama image painted on Republican Club building
Mark Johnson

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama made an appearance here over the weekend at the campaign headquarters of the Republican Club of Southeast Volusia, or at least his image did.

A likeness of the Illinois senator, in purple spray paint, was stenciled on the front window and outside columns of the Third Avenue headquarters overnight Friday.

Club officials reported the vandalism Saturday morning and told police they would be willing to prosecute the responsible party.

"I think it is some un-American, uninformed and misguided individual," headquarters committee chairman Bob McKeen said.

Fellow Republican supporter Jerry Rowen said his sign promoting the John McCain-Sarah Palin candidacy suffered the same fate.

"They also did it across the street to a telephone box," he said Monday.

In addition to spray painting, McKeen has heard of about 50 campaign signs being stolen since Thursday. That includes a 4-foot by 8-foot billboard from the 2300 block of State Road 44 overnight Friday. But he isn't pointing fingers at his Democratic counterparts.

Clyde Walker, president of the Southeast Volusia Democratic Club, was equally disgusted with the vandalism and thefts.

"That is aberrant," he said. "This should not be part of the democratic process."

I have news for you, Mr. Walker: this is the norm now, not the exception. Your party is the modern incarnation of the Brown Shirts.

Consider this...

Despite yesterday's huge drop by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, that index closed today higher than it was on September 24th (last Wednesday). It closed higher than it was two weeks ago, September 17th. The real declines in the stock market have not occurred in the last week. They occurred from May through July when the Dow lost 2000 pts.

Vacationing "delegates"

Vacations are typically for relaxing and taking in new sights and sounds. Most people wouldn’t choose to spend their vacations educating people about politics, but most people aren’t Cuban-Americans, either.

My parents had been planning their vacation to Chile and Argentina for over six months. They planned an extensive two-week tour of the southern tip of South America, with stops at four different hotels in three different countries. Sounds fantastic, huh?

And fantastic it was, though I bet those argentinos couldn’t wait to get rid of those pesky cubanos-americanos. My mom and dad found themselves defending their views on daily basis, whether they interacted with fellow American tourists or local cab drivers. Everywhere my parents went, people were either sympathetic to the Castro regime or just completely oblivious.

Many topics were covered, from the embargo to the truth about Che Guevara. It’s a good thing my mom reads Babalu on a daily basis!

My parents served their patriotic duty, unlike all the tourists in Cuba that Henry spotlights in his posts. Thanks Mom & Dad, for sucking it up and talking politics with ignorant people on practically every single day of your two-week vacation.

How many of you have encountered similar situations while on vacation? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Armando Falcon, American Hero

Earlier today I posted a video of a hearing back in 2004 where the chief regulator of Fannie and Freddie, a gentleman named Armando Falcon, was browbeaten by Democratic legislators because he was calling for greater regulatory authority to control a situation that he judged to be out of control.

Among those who did the browbeating were Maxine Waters (D), Gregory Meeks (D -who was "pissed off" about having to be at the hearing and questioned Falcon's competence and that of his agency), Lacy Clay (D-who played the race card and said the hearing amounted to the "political lynching" of Franklin Raines, who is an Obama economic adviser now after pocketing $90 million as CEO of Fannie Mae), Arthur Davis (D) and of course the chief defender of Freddie and Fannie, Barney Frank (D).

Well Armando Falcon made clear in the hearing, despite the unseemly personal abuse he was subjected to in a setting, that the problems lied with the GSEs and how they did business and not how he and his agency regulated them.

THIS WAS FOUR YEARS AGO PEOPLE.

Armando Falcon was vindicated. If there were justice in the world, voters would toss out the bums mentioned above.

Anyway, I googled Armando Falcon and the first hit I found was this interview he did with a U.S. News and World Report journalist/blogger. This was last month.

More on Falcon here, here, and here.

Sssshhh! There might be another way out of this mess.

Double ssssshhhhh! It was used in Chile 1982.

The People's Republic of the United States - Circa 2010

Here the Children Pose with Our Fearless Leader Obama. Let us all sing praise to Obama.

------------------------------
That video of the kids singing to Obama as if he was St. Obama is creepy. After he wins and socializes everything, I'm sure this scene would not be too far off ....

(For those McFlys who may be confused about the image, it's school children in cuba)

Oh the humanity! - UPDATED

All we heard last night was about sure Armageddon that approached after the boondoggle bailout crap sandwich bill failed. The indicator was a Dow Jones Industrial average that fell by 770 points, the largest point drop in history (but not even close to being the largest percentage drop).

How will the media spin today? The Dow is up 374 points as of this writing with an hour and a half left of trading. Well they are already spinning it. "It's rising on optimism that an agreement will be reached." We were told two weeks ago that the end was near. And each day passes and most people go to work and go home as the day before.

Let me tell you something. The government already stepped in and intervened on Fannie and Freddie acquiring trillions of dollars in mortgages in the process. This $700 Billion bailout is a drop in the bucket compared to that.

Already some alternatives are being floated that are much more attractive to this bailout plan. Keep the pressure on the legislators. Don't let them get away with the giveaway. I don't want to see Paulson's face anymore. He needs to go.

UPDATE (4:08 PM): the DJIA closed up 485.21 points (4.68%).

Republicans, Democrats, they're all the same

Or so some would have you believe. Enjoy this video which summarizes who was concerned about Fannie/Freddie and who wanted the gravy train to continue.

It ain't just us intransigents saying it...

Canada's National Post is, too:

As Friedrich Hayek wrote in 1932, “Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion. ... To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about ...”

The confusion of Chicago school economics on monetary issues is so profound as to lead its adherents today to support the largest government grab of private capital in world history. By adding their voices to those on the left, these confused free-marketeers are not helping to “save capitalism”, but contributing to its destruction.

The New York Sun, R.I.P.

Sad. Very sad. It was one of my daily stops.

It is my duty to report today that Ira Stoll and I and our partners have concluded that the Sun will cease publication. Our last number will be the issue dated September 30, the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I want you to know that Ira and I, and our partners, explored every possible way to avoid having to cease publication.

We have spoken with every individual who seemed to be a prospective partner, and everywhere we were received with courtesy and respect. I tend to be an optimist and held out hope for a favorable outcome as late as mid-afternoon today. But among other problems that we faced was the fact that this month, not to mention this week, has been one of the worst in a century in which to be trying to raise capital, and in the end we were out not only of money but time.

So we are at this sad moment. It is sad for any newspaper to go out of publication, and it is particularly sad for one that is as loved as much as all of us here love The New York Sun and the readers we have won in our six-and-a-half years of publication. But I want you to know that the decision to close the paper has not been an acrimonious one. It is a logical decision following a hard-headed assessment of our chances of meeting our goal of profitable publication in the near future.

I wish...

McCain had said this on Friday instead of some disembodied announcer voice on a TV commerical "Democrats blocked the reforms..."

No Place Like Home?

The Obama campaign just keeps making me sick...and homesick all at the same time

Obama billed his nomination as the historic moment when “the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” to the cheers of adoring “followers” worshiping in the cult of his personality. I was surprised that they didn’t get some trained pigeons to land on his shoulders like somebody else we know. The Senator also spoke of his plans for a “Civilian Security Force” which is eerily reminiscent of [c]astro’s CDR’s, (committees of defense of the revolution). His campaign employs troublesome truth squads in Missouri which basically criminalize dissenting opinions like somewhere where I used to live. His one-word campaign posters are not so subtle odes to Soviet style propaganda posters. And now, just to top it all off, his “followers” are having their children sing songs about his “change” cult. Really cute. All they need are the red scarves.

UPDATE: The video had been made inaccessible at youtube by the person who posted it. Luckily someone ripped it prior to that happening and has reposted it.

Iowahawk does it again.

The XD-235 Obama Teleprompter:

Amen!

I'm not a Harvard economist and I've been saying the same thing:

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Congress has balked at the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Under this plan, the Treasury would have bought the "troubled assets" of financial institutions in an attempt to avoid economic meltdown.

This bailout was a terrible idea. Here's why.

The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.

Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.

This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle.

Update (Val):Here's a YouTube video that confirms the above. Watch and share.

Fidel Castro has brought more objective good to the world than any other figure of the 20th century, living or dead.

Oh really?

If this doesn't get your blood boiling. Nothing will.

Toma chocolate? Paga lo que debes.

Malas pagas y caras duras:

Cuba unable to pay foreign debt

Havana, Sep 29 (EFE).- Cuba can't pay its foreign debt because of the damage done by the 46-year-old U.S. economic embargo, the island's communist government said Friday on an official Web site.

The embargo keeps Cuba from "receiving sizeable revenues from exports of goods and services," said the article published on the Web site Cubadebate.

What was it that I said is Cuba's number one export again?

Conservatives, be careful out there

Bush Derangement Syndrome is getting worse and worse...

"If there was any true justice in this country, the people would drag them [Bush and Cheney] out of the White House, take 'em to the Capitol Mall, and hang 'em by the neck until they are dead, dead, dead."

Bailout went down in flames because of public outcry

The bailout bill which went up for a vote today was doomed for a couple of reasons. As it turns out legislators from all over the country were bombarded by constituent communications urging them not to vote for the bailout. The Democrats that voted for the bill were the ones that are most secure in their re-election bids. The ones who voted against it were those facing serious challenges. Many of Pelosi's closest allies in the House and committee chairs that owe their positions to her voted against it. Republicans as a party were split on the bill, many were uncomfortable with the gigantic price tag, others simply weren't going to help Pelosi while she was banging them over the head with lies about how we got here in the first place.

Everyone is going beserk about the stock market drop. But the market wanted a bill and the market was reacting to not getting it. Tomorrow is a Jewish holiday and so there will be no debate in the House. I suspect the stock market will stabilize as some investors come in to scoop up bargains.

Worst kept secret in America

The media is in the tank for Barack Hussein Obama.

Where were you, Barack Hussein Obama? Where are you now, John McCain?

You know, good old Barry likes to tell everybody "I told you so" about the Iraq war. He made an impassioned speech against the war back when he was a pissant state senator. But where was Nostradamus on the mortgage mess that led to the financial disaster that faces us now? Nowhere. His buddies at ACORN were too busy making money and strong-arming lenders into writing risky loans.

But here's the thing. As the timeline in this video shows, almost since day one, the Bush administration had Freddie and Fannie in its sights but congress didn't want to listen.

This was a failure of both Republicans and Democrats. But while Barack Obama was getting his Senate orientation and planning on announcing his run for president, John McCain was denouncing Fannie and Freddie and calling for them to be reformed and regulated more strictly. Remember these were quasi government institutions operating as a virtual monopoly with a mandate and the protection of the Federal Government. McCain was warning about this meltdown.

Why the hell can't McCain come out with a commercial showing his speech from back then and say that Barack Obama was AWOL on what has now become the most important issue of this election? Is McCain so senile that he can't remember that HE WAS ONE OF THE FEW that saw this mess coming?

Very frustrating.

Beware Oil Price Soothsayers with Business ties to Nancy Pelosi

Sept. 6, 2008 (Reuters) - "Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens said on Monday he continued to believe that crude prices will not fall below $100 a barrel.

Sept. 29. 2008 (AP) "Light, sweet crude for November delivery sank $10.52, or 9.8 percent, to settle at $96.36 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier dropping as low as $95.04.

Your my.barackobama.com quote of the day

This totally appropriate quote for today (given Ruth's post today) from the "community organizer" of all community organizers is courtesy of Lauren Dula.

Posted without commentary

A bailout bleg

Can someone help me find the source of the rumor floating around the blogosphere that, if paid to qualifying individuals, the 700 billion dollar bailout would net millions to each. I'd appreciate it since I'm trying to end an argument and I can't stand being confrontational... :-) Post the source URL in the comments. Thanks!

Statement from Congressman Mike Pence

From Michelle Malkin:

U.S. Congressman Mike Pence issued the following statement regarding the failure of the bailout bill today:

Today Congress took a stand for the American taxpayer and free markets. The American people rejected this corporate bailout and today the People’s House did likewise.

It is now imperative that Congress come together and develop a response to the crisis facing our financial markets that reflects the American people’s belief in personal responsibility and fiscal discipline.

There are alternatives to the massive federal bailout that Congress rejected. I look forward to working with my colleagues in both parties to develop a response to this crisis that puts taxpayers first and preserves the essential freedom of the American marketplace.

Let them drink wine...

Despite the fact that Cuba has been decimated by two hurricanes in recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of homes have been damaged and destroyed, Cuban crops were ruined and there's a real fear of food shortages and epidemics according to Prensa Latina (the Associated Press of the Commie world) Cuba will be attending a "World Wine Tasting Contest."

I shit you not. The commie rag that's reporting this says in their English version:

Cuba will attend next year the World Wine Tasting Championship, whose venue is still to be announced, informed today spokespersons of the Cuban Sommelier Club, satisfied for the high level accomplished by local tourism.

Huh? Satisfied for the high level accomplished by local tourism?

The sources said that alter rigurous [sic] theoretical and practical tests, the best Sommelier in Cuba and representative to that world event, Marcelo Leonel Rodriguez, expert in wines of the Sierra Maestra restaurant of the Habana Libre Tryp Hotel.

Well I guess since the mess from those hurricanes is all cleaned up then it's o.k.

Jeesh.

This is a Camus play.

South Florida House Delegation among the nays

Both Lincoln and Mario Diaz Balart as well as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen voted against what Michelle Malkin rightly calls a crap sandwich of a bailout bill.

This was not a strictly party-line vote however. Democrats such as Kucinich, Conyers, and Delahunt voted against it. In fact 95 Democrats voted against it along with 133 Republicans.

The sky will not fall despite the Dow Jones Average. We've been talking about how something has to be done immediately for two weeks and the sky hasn't fallen yet.

Get back to work congress and put together a good bill that fixes the underlying problems (the perpetuation of easy money loans) and protects the taxpayers.

Rev up the time machine

And go back five years to September of 2003. The housing market was booming (I know, I bought my house the previous month out of fear that if I didn't get out of my condo and into a house, that I would never be able to).

Anyway, back then someone was trying to bring Freddie and Fannie under control. The person, George W. Bush. The New York Times public archive is your time machine...

Read here.

We now know that this reform of Fannie and Freddie was killed by Democrats like Dodd and Frank who now chair the committees that oversee financial services in the Senate and House respectively.

The truth behind the financial market meltdown

The folks at Investors Business Daily, an excellent pub that I read often (with a great political cartoonist Michael Ramirez) have a multi-part series about this crisis (There's audio, if you click the links you can hear each rather lengthy column read out loud so you don't have to read them):

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Maybe McCain should take a listen. That way he'd have something to respond with next time Obama tries to lay the blame for this mess at the feet of conservatives.

If you care about Israel’s survival then say no to Obama

According to the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), Sen. Barack Obama has surrounded himself with individuals whose anti-Israel views are so dangerous, naive and reckless that it raises serious questions about his judgment.

Zbigniew Brzezinski has been an ardent foe of Israel for more than three decades.

General Tony McPeak, Obama’s top military advisor, has a long history of criticizing Israel for not going back to the 1967 borders as part of any peace agreement with Arab states, blames American Jews for the lack of peace in the middle east, and holds view dangerously close to those of Obama’s mentor, Rev. Wright.

Robert Malley, a Palestinian apologist.

David Bonior, former congressional representative who refused to stand by Israel after repeated terrorist attacks.

RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said, “It says something profound that Senator Obama surrounds himself with individuals who are consistently and strongly hostile to Israel, pro-Palestinian, and in the case of Jeremiah Wright, simply anti-American.”

See the RJC's latest ad in their campaign against Obama here.

Bailout bill fails vote in House

Believe it or not, the will of the American people -- We The People -- has been heard and the bailout bill, as presently constituted, has failed to pass the House of Representatives. I think they heard us loud and clear that not only will we not pay for Wall Street's errors, but we won't bail out the corruptocrats in Washington, either.

Orwell's got nuthin' on Obama.

Cartoon by Darlene, via Gateway Pundit, who has excellent coverage of Obama's goon squads in action. Here, here and here.

Paul Newman, 1925-2008

The Election: My Cassandra Moment

There is something terribly scary in the air. Obama's latest campaigning reeks of confidence and condescion toward his opponent, perhaps because he feels his ship coming in as this article indicates. Over at Newsweek, Fineman is taking a victory lap for the candidate before the election.

I was listening to Obama yesterday. The list of those who were to receive government help was seemingly endless. I kept asking myself, "but who is going to pay for it? The top two percent?" I am no fan of Wall Street or the elites, but I had to ask myself whether those who study, struggle and/or even steal their way to the top should have to support those who, many by dint of their own choices- not going to school, addictions, inability to defer gratification- linger at the bottom. Better yet, even those in the middle will now function as their economic foster children. There is some thing categorically wrong with this picture. But believe it or not, that's not what made my hair stand on edge.

It was this link, I received courtesy of George. Mr. Obama's associations with some pretty dark characters has long perturbed me. His prime early influences included a Marxist poet. His pastor for 20 years chants "God damn America." His associates include an indicted businessman who just happened to be involved in Mr. Obama's purchase of a humble million dollar home, and two unrepentant terrorists. (I would advise any Cuban American to take a look at the pictures around the internet at the approach to the guy's office.) Still, I said to myself, "maybe the guy is the only virgin in the cathouse," which while it strained credulity, kept me from full panic mode.

But then I found "Obama Camp" and went into melt down. Why, I had to ask myself. Well, the name Saul Alinsky has been bandied about in terms of Obama's time as a "community organizer." Well, as I understand it, one of Alinsky's principles was that you had to use stealth. Here's a bit from an article (read it) in The Spectator about his views:

Alinsky was a ‘transformational Marxist’ in the mould of Antonio Gramsci, who promoted the strategy of a ‘long march through the institutions’ by capturing the culture and turning it inside out as the most effective means of overturning western society. In similar vein, Alinsky condemned the New Left for alienating the general public by its demonstrations and outlandish appearance. The revolution had to be carried out through stealth and deception. Its proponents had to cultivate an image of centrism and pragmatism. A master of infiltration, Alinsky wooed Chicago mobsters and Wall Street financiers alike. And successive Democratic politicians fell under his spell.

What, I had to ask myself, was it about Camp Obama that caused me such panic? Try this excerpt:

During these training sessions, people like you will be taking their support for Barack to the next level by learning the organizing principles that this campaign and our movement for change are built on.

Camp Obama attendees will receive real world organizing experience that will have a direct impact on this election. Graduates of Camp Obama will go on to become Deputy Field Organizers who will lead this campaign to victory in crucial battleground states around the country.

"Support to the next level." Is this a cult? Is it like Scientologists where you only get their true identity doled out in soupçons as you prove your dedication to the religion? Most damning of all is "Deputy Field Organizers," which smacks of the paramilitary organization. Why? When does politicking cross the line into propaganda? Are we electing a politician? A Savior? A Very Big Unknown?

Those of us who have lived or have lived to see the terrible price paid for the cult of personality have no choice but to fear this candidacy, not because of race, but because of reach. Obama might just be your run of the mill Liberal, and he seems like such a nice guy, albeit a tad arrogant and patronizing. But I for one can't contemplate giving him the keys to the kingdom. I hope my fears are unfounded. I really do. But to me, the sound of approaching hoofs is more likely horses than zebras. Be afraid, people. Be terribly afraid. The best we can hope for is that the man is a shameless opportunist.

(Cross posted at ninety miles)

The real deal on the mortgage meltdown

Failure To Be Real Capitalists Caused Crisis

Investors Business Daily
By LARRY ELDER | Posted Thursday, September 25, 2008 4:30 PM PT

An indictment of greed! A case for more government intervention! Worst financial crisis since the Great Depression! Failure of capitalism! This list includes the "lessons" of the recent turmoil in the financial markets. Nonsense.

Down with greed!

Someone please produce the gun held to the temples of borrowers who put little or no money down, took out "teaser" rates, and then pleaded ignorance or victimhood when the lender — as stipulated in the contract — jacked up the rate. Lenders and borrowers expected government/taxpayers to somehow, some way, step in and shield them from the consequences of their decisions. [like a certain "chick lit" author we're all acquainted with]. This creates "moral hazard" — behavior based upon the knowledge of protection from the bad consequences of reckless or irresponsible behavior. Decisions entail risk, whether personal or financial ones.

We need more regulation!

We have it — lots of it. Ever hear of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight? This agency, which employs 200 people, exists for one thing and one thing only — to "oversee" Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the "government-sponsored entities" that own or guarantee 40% of the nation's residential mortgages. Mere months before Freddie and Fannie's collapse and subsequent government takeover, OFHEO issued a report that saw only clean sailing. The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, mandated that lenders lend to high-risk borrowers — or else. The government actually held up prudent bank mergers if one or both sides did not sufficiently "lend" to borrowers who, under normal circumstances, failed to qualify. Why is the federal government in the housing business in the first place? We need less government, not more regulation.

We are experiencing "the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression"!

Even if this were true, we aren't even close to that catastrophic event. At the Great Depression's nadir, 25% of adults were unemployed, including nearly 50% of urban black adults. Economist David Wheelock of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis says that by the dawn of 1934, nearly half the urban homes with mortgages were in default, and 7.3% of housing structures had been foreclosed. Today, 6.4% of mortgages are delinquent, 2.75% are in the foreclosure process, and 0.6% of all housing units are bank-owned.

But what about since the Great Depression? Take the recession of 1980-81. In 1980, inflation averaged 13.58%, unemployment increased from 6.3 to 8.5%, and the prime loan rate reached an astonishing 21.5%. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, today's delinquency rate is only a little higher than in 1985. And in 1999, the foreclosure rate set records.

According to the FDIC, in the almost two-year period of 2007 and 2008, 15 banks have failed. Similarly, during Clinton's last two years in office, 1999 and 2000, 15 banks failed. In the recession-free years of 1988 and 1989, there were 1,004 bank failures. And since the Depression, the average number of yearly bank failures has been 94.

This exposes the failure of capitalism!

What do you say we actually try capitalism, where private actors reap rewards and assume the risk? "Capitalism," says Kenneth Minogue, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, "is what people do if you leave them alone." People want "hands off" until, that is, they want "hands on." People want homes, many preferring that option even when renting may be more prudent. Many want rent control to shield them from leasing at fair market rates. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promises "world class" education — with taxpayers paying for it. And the federal government, in dramatic contradiction with the limited-government intention of the Constitution, involves itself in health care, guaranteeing private-sector retirement accounts, disaster relief, welfare, unemployment compensation benefits, retirement benefits, etc.

The Federal Reserve Bank, in effect, prints money to pay for things that voters demand — but their taxes cannot cover. The proposed bailout of financial institutions enables the Fed to create hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air. The cost is greater inflation — a stealth tax on us all.

Government, meanwhile, grows and grows.

In 1930, before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, taxpayers paid about 12% of their income to all three levels of government — state, local and federal. Today we pay approximately 40% — even more if you attach a value to unfunded mandates, such as those issued by agencies like OSHA.

So, yes, our recent financial turmoil does suggest failure — a failure to truly practice capitalism and a failure to accept and believe in the value, appropriateness and morality of limited government and maximum personal responsibility.

Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc

Le ronca los cojones

Having a good Monday? Think it's going to be a good week?

Here, let me change that for ya:

H/T Ernesto.

Update: Cigar Mike -- Here are the lyrics in case you don't want to hear the wuss' singing.

Sometimes I get to feeling low
Wish I could just pick up and go somewhere new
Change my point of view
Maybe somewhere I don’t know
Toss the idea to and fro
Not sure what makes it come and go
There it is again sweet music on the wind
Over the Gulf of Mexico

I’m going to down to Cuba someday soon
Following that Caribbean moon
It’s been too long since I’ve been there
I’m going down to Cuba with my friends
Down where the rhythm never ends
Where women where gardenias in their hair

People will tell you it’s not easy
You’re not supposed to go, they say
They say that Cuba is the enemy
I’m going down there anyway

I’m going down to Cuba to see my friends
Down where the rhythm never ends
No problem is too difficult to solve
Yeah times are tough down there it’s true
But you know they’re going to make it through
They make such continuous use of the verb to resolve
They’ve got to deal with that embargo
Enough to drive any country insane
They might not know the things you and I know
They do know what to do in a hurricane
Maybe I’ll go through Mexico
Old Jesse Helms don’t have to know
Anyway all the allies of the new message
Travel to Cuba everyday

I’m going down to Cuba to see my friends
Down where the rhythm never ends
Where by comparison my trouble will just unravel
I’m North American, you know
Don’t like to hear where I can’t go
Free people will insist on the freedom to travel

I’m going to drink the running mojito
And walk out on the malecón
In one hand a monte cristo
And in the other and ice cream cone

I’m going down to cuba with my band
We’re going to formulate a plan
Whereby we obtain that cultural delusion

If I told you once I told you thrice
It’ll put a smile on your face to see a Chevrolet with a soviet transmission
I bet the country cast a spell
And there are things I think of still
Like the beauty of that woman that spoke to me
In the hotel nacional

I’m gonna book my flight today
I’m definitely on my way
Just hold my place and I’ll get back in the race
And I’m back in the USA

U.S. Cuba Policy: Aid Needed, But Sanctions Must Remain

By MAURICIO CLAVER-CARONE

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
September 28, 2008

Hurricane Michelle in 2001 was the most devastating natural disaster to hit Cuba in 50 years. A year before the disaster, the Clinton administration had signed into law a provision by Midwest farm interests easing the trade embargo to allow the sale of U.S. agricultural products. Fidel Castro refused to buy anything because the law also denied Cuba trade financing and credits. Castro would have to pay cash.

Since Michelle devastated the island's food supply, Castro changed his mind and pursued a "one-time cash purchase" of foodstuffs. The Bush administration then authorized this legal purchase as a "good-will" humanitarian gesture.

Over the next five years, however, that "good will" gesture became the Castro regime's platform for a full-scale lobbying assault on trade sanctions. Farm bureaus and agri-business giants joined the Castro government in pressuring Congress to unilaterally lift remaining trade sanctions on Cuba. Thus far, successful bipartisan efforts have managed to stave off policy changes.

Everyone learned a lesson — or did we?

This year, Hurricane Gustav impacted the western provinces of Cuba and has now been followed by Hurricane Ike. The devastation is severe, the suffering of the Cuban people tragic.

U.S. policy allows and encourages humanitarian aid to be delivered to the Cuban people and despite the numerous impediments by Cuban authorities; the United States remains the world's largest provider of humanitarian aid to the people of Cuba. U.S.-based nongovernment organizations are licensed by the Treasury Department to travel, transport and provide unlimited amounts of humanitarian aid to the Cuban people. Unfortunately, the Cuban government has chosen to deny U.S.-based NGOs — and most recently European Union NGOs — entry to distribute any direct-to-people aid.

Similar to pressure applied to the Burmese junta after the cyclone that ravaged that country earlier this year, it is imperative for all Americans to join together and call on Cuban authorities to accept NGO and allow them direct access to the Cuban people.

Equally important, Americans of all political persuasions should be careful not to confuse or distract from these humanitarian aid efforts with calls for suspensions of current U.S. policy toward Cuba. Previous experience has proven that changing U.S. law to unilaterally lift sanctions is fraught with repercussions.

It would simply provide Cuban authorities with a vetting mechanism for those traveling to the island, thus facilitating their ability to condition and siphon funds from the United States, as they have done in the past; while requiring no concessions from Cuba — no entry for NGOs, no access for disaster relief specialists, and no distribution of humanitarian aid. Not to mention, no release of political prisoners, no legalization of independent journalists, labor unions or opposition groups, and no effort to establish a rule of law.

In the same breath as it rejected humanitarian aid, Cuban authorities quickly joined the chorus of those seeking the unconditional lifting of sanctions, and renewed its all-too-familiar call for unrelated trade financing and credits. Obviously, the Havana regime has not changed or lost its focus on distractions, repression and control. In view of this, U.S. policy must not lose or change its immediate focus, humanitarian aid for the Cuban people, and ongoing focus, democratic reform.

Mauricio Claver-Carone is a director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC (www.uscubapac.com) in Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Sunrise in the Ten Thousand Islands

since according to the Dems and their media, the election has been decided by a landslide, Obama is the new savior who will turn water into wine and will cure the sick and raise the dead so that they can vote for democratic candidates, and install the new Order akin to that being promulgated by Hugo Chavez, take everyone's money and make everybody poor, so why even bother. Word from the Obama campaign is that when elected, he'll cure cancer and will give sight back to the blind and he will make the deaf able to hear. Some have said that he walks on water. In fact, Obama's cure to the immigration problem is to make our country into a third world nation so that all the immigrants will want to move back where they came from. He's brilliant. A genius. After all, he graduated from Harvard and was a community organizer. And we all know that the first community organizer was Jesus, or so say the DNC.

While he is doing that, I'm going to hang out in the 10,000 Islands in the Everglades where there is much less BS. I'll use a boat since I cannot walk on water. Down in these parts, if you try to walk on water, you'll get bit by a gator or a bull shark.

Obama: The [f]idel They Have Been Waiting For

Some Cuban exiles have noticed a similarity in the soaring rhetoric of Barack Obama’s speeches to those of (f)idel (c)astro. Some of Senator Obama’s plans sound eerily similar to the practices of the Cuban revolution. These concerns are discounted as exile paranoia, after all what would we, the victims of (c)astro’s totalitarian oppression, know about such things?

Obama’s ideas, campaign slogans, posters and oratory are like candy-candy coated socialism-to leftists and they eat it up.

Henry Gomez, in his series, “Your my.barackobama.com quote of the day” has showcased just how enthusiastically the left has embraced Obamania on this very blog.

Other reminders of the The Obama – (c)astro connection are the che flag in one of Obama’s campaign offices in Houston and “el compañero (f)idel’s” tacit endorsement of Obama as the “most progressive” candidate.

But it’s not just us intransigent Cuban exiles that see the similarities between Obama and (c)astro. Alice Walker, the American author of “the Color Purple” and ardent Fidel admirer, is jealous of the Cuban people because, she says, they have a leader who loves them and that is what she wants for America in the person of Obama. God help us.

Obama is the [f]idel the left has been waiting for.

In a September 20th op ed. Published in The Guardian, Ms. Walker laments of the burden of living in America without a (f)idel – like leader:

However poor the Cubans might be, I realised, they cared about each other and they had a leader who loved them. A leader who loved them. Imagine. A leader not afraid to be out in the streets with them, a leader not ashamed to show himself as troubled and humbled as they were. A leader who would not leave them to wonder and worry alone, but would stand with them, walk with them, celebrate with them - whatever the parade might be.

She then professes her belief that Senator Obama with his campaign promise of collective change, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” is the one to fill that void for the long suffering American people, as undeserving as we may be:

Perhaps with the certainty that though we are as we are and sorely imperfect, we still deserve someone in leadership who "gets" us, and that this self-defeating habit of accepting our leaders' contempt need not continue. Maybe with the realisation that we, the people, are truly the leaders, and that we are the ones we have been waiting for.

Dr Mario Beira, author of the first psychoanalytic study of Fidel Castro and a friend of the blog, did not find Alice Walkers’ delusions as funny as I did and sent The Guardian a response to try to set the record straight. It’s doubtful that the leftist British paper will publish his scholarly rebuke so I asked for his permission to let me post it here. His analysis is called “The Psychology of the Radical Left. A Response to Alice Walker’s Support Of Fidel Castro and Her Endorsement of Barack Obama.” Here’s a little taste:

Is Ms. Walker referring to the same Fidel Castro who threw priests, Jehovah Witnesses, hippies and gays living in the island during the decade of the 60’s into concentration camps simply because of their sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs? Is this the same Castro, we wonder, who banned celebration of Christmas in Cuba in 1969 and who went on to declare the country an atheist state while actively persecuting those who dared to disobey his laws and decrees? Is Ms. Walker referring to the same Castro who, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962, rushed a letter to Chairman Khrushchev in Moscow encouraging him to launch a nuclear strike against the United States knowing full well that such an act would lead the American government to retaliate and to wipe the Cuban island and its inhabitants from the face of the earth?

The whole excellent response is below the fold…

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE RADICAL LEFT. A RESPONSE TO ALICE WALKER’S SUPPORT OF FIDEL CASTRO AND HER ENDORSEMENT OF BARAK OBAMA.

BY: MARIO L. BEIRA

. . . the aspiration to revolution has but one conceivable issue, always, the discourse of the master. That is what experience has proved. What you, as revolutionaries, aspire to is a Master. You will have one.

Jacques Lacan December 3, 1969

The article recently published in The Guardian by poet Alice Walker in support of Barack Obama is couched within a uniquely twisted logic. (See Alice Walker: The US needs a leader who can love the American people, The Guardian, Saturday September 20, 2008, pg 36, Commentary and Debate section). Cubans living in Cuba under Castro, she argues, might be poor and suffering, but they at least, unlike Americans, have had the good fortune and privilege of enjoying a leader who has showered them with love, care and concern for nearly half a century.

Is Ms. Walker referring to the same Fidel Castro who threw priests, Jehovah Witnesses, hippies and gays living in the island during the decade of the 60’s into concentration camps simply because of their sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs? Is this the same Castro, we wonder, who banned celebration of Christmas in Cuba in 1969 and who went on to declare the country an atheist state while actively persecuting those who dared to disobey his laws and decrees? Is Ms. Walker referring to the same Castro who, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962, rushed a letter to Chairman Khrushchev in Moscow encouraging him to launch a nuclear strike against the United States knowing full well that such an act would lead the American government to retaliate and to wipe the Cuban island and its inhabitants from the face of the earth?

Ms. Walker certainly maintains a strange idea of what love entails. Her claim that Castro loves and cares for the Cuban people not only ignores the historical record, but sadly dishonors the many individuals who’ve experienced torture and maltreatment at his hands. The list of Castro’s victims is unfortunately too long to provide here. It includes not only American soldiers captured by the communist enemy during the Vietnam War, but many poets, writers and journalist locked up in Cuban jails today. Ms. Walker might want to refresh her memory on the question of Castro’s love for the Cuban people by reading Before Night Falls, penned by the late Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas. The novel recounts the degradation and abuse Mr. Arenas was made to suffer after he was imprisoned by the Cuban leader in 1973. Accused of “ideological deviation” for being openly gay, the Cuban government proceeded to systematically strip Mr. Arenas of his very dignity and humanity.

Given her concern for human rights and for the suffering of people of color, she might then wish to travel to Castro’s Caribbean island to speak to a multitude of Afro-Cuban political activists who’ve endured degradation, jailing and torture, their only crime being their opposition to the Cuban leader’s dictatorship and a desire to see the Cuban nation grow more open, democratic and free. I am thinking, in particular, of Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez and of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, practicing Christians who are also admirers of the late Martin Luther King Jr. Both men have experienced years of maltreatment, physical and psychological torture in Castro’s gulags.

Dr. Biscet, a medical doctor, was sentenced in 2003 to a 25 year jail sentence for advocating on behalf of human rights in the island. He languishes in one of Castro’s jails today and is seldom allowed outside visitors. Mr. Antunez, the other well known Afro-Cuban dissident, was arrested and imprisoned by Castro at age 25. He served more than 17 years in prison, experiencing torture and abuse in the process. He has been re-arrested on several occasions following his release as he has continued to speak up against the Castro regime and its systematic violation of human rights in the island.

Castro’s government has in fact been disproportionately cruel against Cuban blacks who’ve dared to speak up against his government. Indeed, Ms. Walker might be surprised to learn that the Castro’s government has banned the biography of Martin Luther King Jr. in Cuba, afraid that Afro-Cubans might become familiar with the American Civil rights leader’s tactics of civil disobedience and will start implementing these to help force democratic changes in the island.

The American poet might likewise profit from knowing that the longest serving black political prisoner of the 20th century was an Afro-Cuban named Eusebio Peñalver. After initially supporting and fighting on behalf of Fidel and the Revolution, Mr. Peñalver became disillusioned and critical of the lack of fundamental freedom in Cuba. He began voicing support for democratic changes and was promptly arrested. He served nearly 30 years in prison, enduring regular beatings, psychological harassment and torture in the process. Mr. Peñalver passed away in Miami in May of 2005 where he continued to denounce Castro and his egomaniacal dictatorial style until the end.

Afro-Cubans are not only disenfranchised, but are in fact more likely than whites to be discriminated and to live in substandard housing in Castro’s Cuba. Cuban blacks in fact hold very few positions of power on the island. A 2005 University of Miami report alerts that while Afro-Cubans make up more than 60% of Cuba’s population, they only hold 5% of jobs in the tourist industry, the positions most desired by Cubans residing in the island. Afro-Cubans have little political power under Castro as well. Only 5 % of the membership of the Council of Ministers, and 7 % of the Presidents of Provincial Assemblies, are black. Afro-Cubans also hold little to no power within the Cuban military apparatus; not one of the top 10 individuals in senior military leadership positions, the University report notes, is black. The only place where Afro-Cubans are overly represented in Cuba is in the island’s prison population which is 85 % black.

While in Cuba, Ms Walker might also wish to consult with family members of Jorge Luis Martinez Isaac, Lorenzo Enriquez Copella Castillo and Barbaro Leodan Sevilla Garcia, 3 Afro-Cuban men who, rather than sit atop an inflated flimsy tire inner tube with the hope of safely drifting across the shark filled waters of the Florida Straits, instead decided to commandeer a ferry to escape the island and reach the USA. The ferry eventually ran out of gas and the 3 men were soon arrested by Cuban authorities. Despite the fact that no one was injured during the hijacking attempt, Castro promptly executed the three men on April of 2003. The Cuban government’s treatment of blacks who live in the island has gotten so out of hand that even the Reverend Al Sharpton has begun asking the Cuban government for an explanation of its behavior and practices.

Castro’s total lack of care and concern for the Cuban people speaks loudly through the “social” or “public dangerousness” law that his government began enforcing just a few years ago. The legislation allows Cuban authorities to detain and jail individuals whom they believe are likely to commit a crime against the Castro government in the future. A number of Cubans are actually serving jail time today under this bizarre piece of legislation, convicted only of a “proclivity to commit a crime”. The law, needless to say, has been widely criticized and condemned by human rights groups throughout the world.

Castro’s disdain for Cubans who disagree with his policies is most powerfully confirmed by an incident that has sadly received little to no coverage by the US media. I am referring to the “13 de Marzo” tugboat incident. The vessel in question was stolen on the early morning of July 13, 1994 by 78 Cubans who attempted to use the watercraft to flee the island. Castro’s forces responded by surrounding the tugboat as it was heading out to sea, opening up their powerful water cannons against the vessel and the 78 passengers on board. Their barbaric response led to the death of 41 people, including 10 children who were on board. The incident was vigorously condemned as a crime. Castro, however, not only refused to order an investigation, but quickly pronounced those responsible for the massacre heroes of the revolution.

Unbiased scholars who are familiar with Fidel Castro’s history know full well that the Cuban leader has never been motivated by “love”, but by hate and revenge against the American nation. The nature of Castro unrelenting hate for the US flows directly from his unresolved and unsymbolized trauma with his father, from the fact that Fidel was not only born a bastard - a result of Angel Castro having slept with one of his cooks, a woman thirty years his junior - but was rejected, separated and cast-off from his mother and home on the direct orders of his father as a child. Castro was not only discarded and sent away by Angel Castro, but completely rejected by his godfather, the man after whom he had been named, during his childhood as well. Both men had grown rich and powerful in Cuba as a result of their business dealings with the US owned United Fruit Company; both rejected and failed to bless the future Cuban rebel with their names during his early formative years.

Castro, who was unable to legally claim his father’s surname until he was a teenager, expressed his intentions and feelings for the United States in a letter he penned to his female assistant and lover on June 5 of 1958. “When this war is over”, declared Castro while still in the mountains trying to overthrow Batista, “a new war, longer and much larger, will begin for me: the war that I will wage against them [the Americans]. I realize that this will be my true destiny”. Fidel Castro has certainly managed to live up to his word!

Castro’s long history of disdain for Cubans who disagree with his ideology is not only confirmed by the fact that he typically refers to them as “gusanos” (worms), but by the fact that his government has for decades organized “rapid action brigades” and encouraged its members to visit the home of citizens who either wish to leave the island, or who disagree with his form of government, in order to insult, beat up, humiliate and spit upon them. Castro’s police typically materialize only after these “acts of repudiation” have transpired, usually to either arrest or transfer the victims to the hospital while accusing them of having provoked the violence they’ve endured.

Castro’s immoral behavior against the Cuban citizenry has been denounced by nearly every independent human rights organization in the free world. The extra-judicial executions and violation of basic human rights in Cuba since he took over in 1959 are too many, the number of prisoners of conscience too high for Ms Walker to claim that Fidel Castro loves and cares for the Cuban people. Indeed even when Cubans face unprecedented suffering, as they do today following two powerful hurricanes that recently hit the island, the Castro led government refuses to accept millions of dollars in aid from the USA that would help to alleviate and lessen the suffering of the populace. Castro not only puts politics before people, but has managed to turn a nation that stood near the top of every economic and health indicator in our hemisphere into the economic basket case of the new world. Millions of Cubans live today in the island without adequate housing, only the stars and a super dark sky to look up to at night as they face and ponder a bleak tomorrow.

Ms Walker, however, is proposing something more disturbing and sinister through her article than the idea of our viewing Fidel Castro as a loving and caring hero. She is endorsing Barak Obama, she claims, precisely because of her conviction that the Junior Senator from Illinois, were he to become our President, would treat our citizens as Fidel Castro has treated the Cuban people. God help us! I for one wonder how Mr. Obama will respond to her political endorsement as well as her decision to link him with Castro’s policies and “love” for the Cuban people.

Ms. Walker’s backing of Obama and praising of Fidel Castro is revealing for a number of other reasons as well. She claims, for example, that she is endorsing Obama not only because he loves us like Castro loves his people but also because John McCain is “too old for the job”. Beyond her insulting and discriminatory words against the Republican candidate, Ms. Walker also proceeds to belittle and degrade the American people are the whole in her political piece.

Indeed, one would think that Ms. Walker would just this once be motivated to celebrate and applaud our nation and citizenry for the immense progress it has made on issues related to race discrimination. Just 43 years after the Voting Rights Act was approved in 1965, and a mere 45 years since Dr. King delivered his moving and inspiring I Have a Dream speech in the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, an African-American man has not only been selected by one of our two major political parties as its candidate for the US presidency but is leading in all national poles, the one person most likely to be elected as our next leader. Ms Walker, however, disregards the progress our nation has made on race issues to instead describe Americans as “imperfect to the max, racist and sexist and greedy above all”.

For the record, Americans are just the opposite of greedy. They are in fact the most charitable and generous people in the world, leading the globe, year after year, in voluntary giving and in volunteerism itself. The two wealthiest individuals in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, for example, behave quite different than the ultra rich from other countries. Mr. Gates, founder of Microsoft, has personally given away billions of dollars of his fortune to charity, his largest single donation, 1 billion dollars, was awarded to the United Negro College Fund to help educate African-American men and women. The other self-made American multibillionaire, Warren Buffet, announced in June of 2006 his decision to give away more than half of his vast fortune, donating a staggering $30.7 billion to charity to help improve and lessen the suffering of the global community.

The American nation Ms. Walker so quickly criticizes condemns has been the leading financial contributor to the World Food Program for years as well. A third of the 1.1 Billion dollars that the UN organization had collected as of May of 2008 came from a single source, the American Government. Tellingly, and despite the fact that their profits have reached record highs during the past year as petroleum prices have risen to unprecedented new levels, most oil rich countries and members of OPEC fail to even appear on the list of top donors to the organization.

Ms. Walker’s charges against Americans and the US government, as well as her praise of Fidel Castro and his political ideology, is indefensible. Communism, which she apparently supports, has only produced oppression, poverty and unspeakable barbarism during the past 90 years. The radical left, however, has sadly defended every communist dictator who has appeared on the scene since the triumph of Bolshevism and Lenin’s founding of the Soviet Republic in 1917.

The beneficiaries have included the ruthless and brutal Joseph Stalin, praised by many members of the left during in the 30’s, as well as Chairman Mao, who’s demented Cultural Revolution was applauded by these same leftists during the 60’s. The current intellectual leader of this odd political club, Noam Chomsky, not only joins Ms Walker in admiring and advocating on behalf of Castro, but once attempted to minimize Pol Pot’s murderous genocidal rampage, pointing the finger at the USA as at bottom responsible for the sick doings of “brother number one” during his effort to establish an agrarian Communist utopia in Cambodia in the 70’s.

The deciding and key word here is “utopia”, notion deeply appealing to the radical left. Marxism itself appears to have been founded upon a messianic and utopian ideology. Never mind the killing fields, the concentration camps, the persecution and acts of cruelty and murder against the populace, as long as the leader is laboring to build a classless utopian society we will defend it, all will be forgiven, or explained away, or simply forgotten, reasons the radical leftists. The messianic Communist leaders they applaud are typically viewed by them as being endowed with “political potential”, to translate the French phrase that gave rise to Pol Pot’s own name, something that then leads them to disregard or excuse their behaviors. In the case of the late Cambodian communist leader, more than a quarter of his country’s population was murdered, starved or simply worked to death in his sick effort to count down to year zero.

Pol Pot’s killing fields are mere child’s play, however, when compared to the doings of Mao Tse-Tung, the 20th century’s biggest communist monster. Even Adolph Hitler’s unspeakable malevolence and cruelty falls short of the evil perpetrated by Mr. Mao in China. Despite the fact that conservative estimate put the number of those who died at the hand’s of Mao and his cohorts at 70 million, the Great Helmsman was not only praised by the radical left during his time in power, but continues to be viewed by many of these same leftist today, particularly in France and Europe, as a man whose ideology is inspiring, to be emulated and honored.

The land of the radical left truly knows no logic. Their unapologetic hatred of the US and the American people is in fact so deep that it continues to bring many of its members to blindly support totalitarian regimes throughout the world, if only the regime in question is an enemy of the United States and “imperialism”. It is one thing to see Hugo Chavez embracing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, quite another to hear members of the left applauding their union and working alliance. Have these utopian inspired leftist forgotten the fact that Iran’s government regularly tortures and murders dissidents, actively discriminates against women (the value of a women’s life in Iran is legally “half that of a man”) and persecutes homosexuals, non-Muslims and Jews?

The fact that Iran views the United States as its enemy and, moreover, that the Iranian leadership has called for the annihilation and destruction of the Jewish state of Israel, the only functioning democracy in the entire Middle East, not only leads these leftist to turn a blind eye to the Ayatollahs disturbing human rights record but to keep silent on Ahmadinejad threatening pronouncements.

The same warped logic that rules the mind of radical leftist explains just why Ms. Walker, rather than celebrate and interpret the fact that Obama is receiving wide support from American whites as sign of decreased racism and as evidence of positive change in our land, is instead led to describe our nation and the American people as “imperfect to the max, racist and sexist and greedy above all”.

Radical leftists, if truth be told, have seldom if ever been interested in defending democracy, liberal or otherwise, or in applauding changes brought about by peaceful democratic means. What radical leftists typically mean by “change” is violent radical change, preferably to be realized by revolution and upheaval and under the direction of a single leader or Master. It matters little whether the revolutionary Event unfolds in Havana or Tehran, or whether the leader then proceeds to establish a totalitarian regime that systematically violates the rights of its citizenry, as long as it’s anti-American, reasons the radical leftist: “sign me up!”

I offer these passing remarks as someone who identifies neither with the Left nor Right wing of the political spectrum and as an independent thinker who situates himself in the political middle, somewhere between the foolishness of Alice Walker and the knavery of a Rush Limbaugh. While there’s certainly plenty of stupidity and much to criticize about many of the ideas and arguments proposed by right wingers, the opinions being advanced today by members of the radical left serve to contravene the principles of the Enlightenment, indeed the very values that are central to our spiritual and religious traditions and that have served to shape our ideas of justice, fairness and goodness.

It is promising to see, however, that a number of intellectuals who have traditionally identified with the political left have begun to actively question the logic of some of their more radical comrades. The world’s most famous Continental philosopher writing today, the Marxist Slavoj Zizek, for example, has in the last few years taken active steps to expose and criticize what he pinpoints in his work as the troubling moral relativism of the left. My purpose here has been to offer a few analytic observations on this troubling trend and to respond to Alice Walker’s decision to link Barak Obama with Fidel Castro in the process. The logic of her argument not only defies common sense - for our sake let us all hope that it does - but presents us with clear and convincing evidence of why the left, to play on the title of Bernard-Henri Levy’s latest book, is today facing such dark times.

Mario L. Beira holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and is a Lacanian psychoanalyst. He has lectured nationally and internationally on psychoanalysis and is the author of the first comprehensive psychological study of Fidel Castro, scheduled to be published by Rodopi (Amsterdam) under the title Fidel Castro Ruz. A Psycho-Analytic Study. A Spanish language abridged version of his study was recently published by Verbum, an editorial house based in Madrid, Spain.

The malevolant, overarching strategy of the left and its savior, Barack Obama

The American Thinker weighs in on Obama's connections to the radical left:

America waits with bated breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.

Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama's connections to his radical mentors -- Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama's radical connections since the beginning.

Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama's life comprise a who's who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.

But even this doesn't fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.

"They've done a tremendous job."

Those are the words of Gregory Meeks (D-NY) speaking in 2004 about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Watch the video to go back in time to see the final nails being hammered into the coffin that is the financial disaster we face today. And the fault, surprise, surprise, lies squarely with the Democrats. Sorry guys, but from their own mouth you'll hear it: Meeks, Barney Frank (D-MA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Lacy Clay (D-MO), Arthur Davis (D-AL), and the rest of the merry band of corrupt legislators. And, of course, Obama's financial advisor and former disgraced head of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines.

(H/T LaConchita)

More:

(H/T The American Thinker)

Thank you Jorge E. Ponce

For this...

Your my.barackobama.com quote of the day

This brilliant piece of political analysis is courtesy of Elstun aka BarAK the American media and the American educational system.

The Bailout bill being discussed right now

Here is the latest draft, courtesy of Michelle Malkin. I'm reading it now. It's not pretty.

No, not Heinz 57 Varieties

I said 57 states.

(H/T Gaby A)

A program note for tonight

Our frequent commenter and blog-buddy DrillAnwr (a/k/a Maggie) who write over at PatDollard.com informed me a while ago about Pat's Blog Talk Radio Show tonight, the wonderfully named, Jihadikiller Hour.

The first hour is Cpl (actually I think by tonight he's a Sgt.) Tyler Rock. He's the trooper who fired off the publicized (via Pat and Drudge and Michelle Malkin and Black 5) scathing letter to Sen. Harry Reid a while back regarding his bad-mouthing the troops and the war in Iraq. The second hour is the "Cigar Marine" Silver Star recipient Gunny Nick Popadich who lost an eye in Iraq and has a book coming out.

The link above gives background story and a video folks can review before the show, and the show's actual link will also be provided therein the link now or closer to show time which is 11:00 pm (ET).

I'll be listening and I hope the faithful Babalu readership will listen in as well.

Socialism Or Death [c]astro Style

Reports of the desperation and privation continue to come out of Cuba.

The regime’s lack of response to the devastation wrought by hurricanes Gustav and Ike has exacerbated the already precarious situation of securing one’s daily bread on the island.

Shortages are worse than before, the lines go from dawn to dusk and they’re out of whatever they’re selling in no time.

Yoani Sanchez describes this cycle as “if it’s in, you’re not entitled, if you’re entitled, they’re out.” She is referring to the “libreta,” the ration book which entitles citizens to buy a certain ration of items that determined on the item you are eligible to buy within given time increments.

Rather than accept generous US and EU aid that would at least relieve the hunger and shelter crisis, the regime’s response thus far has been ideological resistance, slogans and more slogans cheered from the sidelines by el compañero [f]idel from his blog.

Prices at the regime’s hard currency stores have gone up, perhaps because the combination of increased funds from abroad and the decreased supplies due to losses from the hurricane has put upward pressure on prices.

Then, there’s the black market, where Cubans buy goods in hard currency “a la izquierda.” Since there’s only one importer in Cuba, the regime, it stands to reason that everything on the black market has to come from the regime and that the only way it gets there is through graft, five finger discount-stealing.

The regime’s inaction has raised tensions, crime and instability to the point where it has publicly addressed it on its nightly “Mesa Redonda” program warning the population that hurricanes Gustav and Ike are nothing compared to the wrath of hurricane [f]idel. The instability created by its latest attempt to “triumph” against mother nature and the empire has created serious instability to the regime in Cuba.

Far from pragmatic, its response to the crisis has been ideological: “Socialism or Death” and they don’t care whether Cubans die from hunger, gunshot or drowning as long as socialism survives.

Chutzpah, redefined

"Pelosi calls House GOP 'unpatriotic'." I thought we weren't supposed to impugn someone's patriotism? Are the gloves off? Oh, I hope so, I certainly hope so. Because we can have a field day with so many of them it's not funny...

Must-reads for Sunday

Two great pieces on the threat the loony left refuses to believe is real: Islamofascism and fundamentalist Islam. First, from John Bolton, an opinion piece in the New York Daily News on our wonderful friend and ally, Iran:

First, negotiating with Iran will not stop its nuclear weapons program. Sen. Barack Obama has said that he will speak with rogue state leaders like Ahmadinejad "without preconditions," implying this is a new idea. In fact, Britain, France and Germany ("the EU-3") have been doing exactly that for over five years. Throughout, they have been surrogates for America, and yet Iran has shown no inclination to terminate its nuclear program.

Negotiation is like all human activity: It has costs as well as benefits. The history of Europe's efforts underscores a significant cost of negotiating with a nuclear aspirant: time. More time is almost always on the proliferator's side, because it allows for the complex work necessary to master the nuclear fuel cycle. The net effect of five years of EU-3 negotiation is that Iran is five years closer to achieving a deliverable nuclear weapon. We cannot afford more of the same.

Second, the text of the speech Geert WIlders gave in New York on the imminent death of Europe:

The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago.

But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see – and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

[...]

This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West. America may hold fast to the dream that, thanks to its location, it is safe from jihad and shaira. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Read them both.

Deal reached on bailout?

We'll see...

Deal reached on financial markets bailout
Sep 28 03:17 AM US/Eastern
By CHARLES BABINGTON and ALAN FRAM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional leaders and the Bush administration reached a tentative deal early Sunday on a landmark bailout of imperiled financial markets whose collapse could plunge the nation into a deep recession.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the $700 billion accord just after midnight but said it still has to be put on paper.

"We've still got more to do to finalize it, but I think we're there," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who also participated in the negotiations in the Capitol.

"We worked out everything," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the chief Senate Republican in the talks.

Congressional leaders hope to have the House vote on the measure Monday. A Senate vote would come later.

The plan calls for the Treasury Department to buy deeply distressed mortgage-backed securities and other bad debts held by banks and other investors. The money should help troubled lenders make new loans and keep credit lines open. The government would later try to sell the discounted loan packages at the best possible price.

At the insistence of House Republicans, some of the program's $700 billion would be devoted to a program that would encourage holders of distressed mortgage-backed securities to keep them and buy government insurance to cover defaults.

The legislation would place "reasonable" limits on severance packages for executives of companies that benefit from the rescue plan, said a senior administration official who was authorized to speak only on background. It would affect fired executives of financial firms, and executives of firms that go bankrupt. Some of the provisions would be retroactive and some prospective, the official said.

The proposed legislation also calls for the financial sector to help make up the difference if the government does not recoup its investment in five years, the official said, but details were unclear.

Also, the government would receive stock warrants in return for the bailout relief, giving taxpayers a chance to share in financial companies' future profits.

To help struggling homeowners, the plan would require the government to try renegotiating the bad mortgages it acquires with the aim of lowering borrowers' monthly payments so they can keep their homes.

The measure's main elements were proposed a week ago by the Bush administration, with Paulson heading efforts to push it through the Democratic-controlled Congress. Democrats insisted on greater congressional oversight, more taxpayer protections, help for homeowners facing possible foreclosure, and restrictions on executives' compensation.

To some degree, all those items were added.

At the insistence of House Republicans, who threatened to sidetrack negotiations at midweek, the insurance provision was added as an alternative to having the government buy distressed securities. House Republicans say it will require less taxpayer spending for the bailout.

But the Treasury Department has said the insurance provision would not pump enough money into the financial sector to make credit sufficiently available. The department would decide how to structure the insurance provisions, said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., one of the negotiators.

Money for the rescue plan would be phased in, he said. The first $350 billion would be available as soon as the president requested it. Congress could try to block later amounts if it believed the program was not working. The president could veto such a move, however, requiring extra large margins in the House and Senate to override.

Despite the changes made during an intense week of negotiations, the heart of the program remains Bush's original idea: To have the government spend billions of dollars to buy mortgage-backed securities whose value has plummeted as hundreds of thousands of Americans have defaulted on their home loans.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Saturday that the goal was to come up with a final agreement before the Asian markets open Sunday night. "Everybody is waiting for this thing to tip a little bit too far," he said, so "we may not have another day."

Hours later, when he and others told reporters of the plan in a post-midnight news conference, Reid referred to the sometimes testy nature of the negotiations.

"We've had a lot of pleasant words," he said, "and some that haven't always been pleasant."

"We're very pleased with the progress made tonight," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "We appreciate the bipartisan effort to deal with this urgent issue."

It was not immediately clear how many House Republicans might vote for the measure. With the election five weeks away, Democrats have said they would not push a plan that appeared sharply partisan in nature.

Common sense on the bailout from the great Ted Nugent

What we have here...is the loss of a Hollywood treasure

"What we have here..is failure to communicate," --to those who think we live, breath and eat politics.

Paul Newman was a notorious pinko--no way around it. But he made all movie-goers' lives a bit richer. The man brought immense pleasure to many of us as we watched him on the screen. ... RIP, amigo.

More debate thoughts

I continue to lament the lost opportunity for McCain to lower the boom on Obama last night. In particular McCain showed that he doesn't know how to disarm Obama's arguments about the Iraq war. At one point Obama said:

Now six years ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically risky to do so because I said that not only did we not know how much it was going to cost, what our exit strategy might be, how it would affect our relationships around the world, and whether our intelligence was sound, but also because we hadn't finished the job in Afghanistan.

McCain might have responded with something like:

With all due respect Senator, at the time you were in Springfield representing the people of the 13th district in the llinois State Senate. You took no risk when you opposed the war, in fact it launched your political career at a national level. It's easy to stand there and second guess those of us who were in a position to make a decision at the time but you were not privy to the intelligence we were receiving.

On the other hand, when violence in Iraq was peaking and you were leading the chorus for a precipitous withdrawal, I did risk my personal aspirations to serve as president and recommended a troop surge and the accompanying shift in strategy because as I've said before I'd rather lose an election than lose a war.

Later Obama said:

And so John likes -- John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong.

And McCain could have come back with:

Actually Senator, the war started in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Hussein never lived up to the terms of the surrender of that conflict and for more than eight years three American administrations of both parties tried to contain the threat posed by Hussein. In the meantime Saddam abused his own people, attempted to assassinate a former U.S. president, cheated on U.N. sanctions, violated the no-fly zones, and expelled weapons inspectors.

It's clear now, as it was then, that Iraq was not responsible for the September 11th attacks but on September 11th, America's eyes were opened to the threat of terrorism from various sources. Iraq was one of those potential sources. Given the above my colleagues and I, Republicans and Democrats, supported the war in Iraq and I would have supported it even if a Democrat had been in the White House because I value our security and the security of our allies more than partisan victories.

Again, I think these answers would have fit into the narrative that McCain is trying to communicate but they would have put Obama in his place. But alas, John McCain is John McCain.

Some Cuba Briefs

I post them in digest form because between the economy and the election, it's getting difficult to keep track of the news.

First off the bat, CANF is complaining that the US Government is curbing Cuba aid, at least according to this article. Actually, the government is not curbing the aid as much as to whom it can go. Their point: if the aid is targeted at a family member, it is a "remittance." If it is "humanitarian," it cannot be sent to a specific individual. Petty as it seems, it does address the problem of the hurricane victims who have no one in the US.

Then despite the disastrous effects of the recent hurricanes, the Cuban Capos expect tourism to rise 13% next year. Sure, if you count the relief workers, or maybe they intend to run Pompeii type tours. Article in Spanish at the Miami Herald here.

My favorite, though, is the announcement that North Korea and Cuba have signed protocols to "exchange goods." Since the "People's Republic" has an even worse (if possible) economy than Cuba, it would be laughable to contemplate what "goods" they intend to exchange, except the North Koreans do have one technology that once interested the Commission in Havana?

Finally, if you're in the Palm Springs area, you might want to go see Peter Moruzzi who is signing his book about, you guessed it, precastro Cuba. I haven't seen it yet, but either way, it should be interesting. The title is Havana Before Castro: When Cuba Was a Tropical Playground, or as my dad would say, "cuando Cuba reía." A few details here and a bit about the book here, including the comment from "Three guys from Miami." Note the difference between the Library Journal review, which makes it seem a companion book to Havana Nocturne (sign of the cross), as does the website here. The comment, however, is more in keeping with what I've been reading. Anybody out there read it? I'm still in the middle of the Bacardi opus.

And if I've offended anyone with my misplaced levity, frankly, Scarlett....

Cross Posted at Ninety Miles.