Obama / Feinstein 2012?

Aug 20 2012 Published by under salt

If Joe’s gotta go, and Hillary’s a no-go, then Senator Diane Feinstein would be a formidable choice.

She’s pissed at Obama for the egregious, (I say treasonous) leaks over which she has oversight as a senior member of the Intelligence Committee. I believe she also sits on Foreign Relations. Even apart from her impressive credentials and her (liberal!) politics, however, she’s no intellectual slouch. She’s been a solid Democrat, solid Senator, and gracious leader. She would be an excellent choice (dammit).

It was also her house in Georgetown where the deal was done to make Hillary Secretary of State and not the VP in late 2008. It was her dining room, reportedly, where those discussions took place.

She was also a latecomer to ObamaCare and had to be dragged over the finish line. She negotiated more water for the Central Valley farmers who were drying up due to the stupid Delta Smelt.

All of this is indicative of a close relationship & a covenant of trust between Obama & the Senator. The kind of relationship where he might call her and say “If you lay off me about my treasonous leaks, I’ll put you on the ticket.”

Remember where you heard it first.

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Obama’s Excellent 2012 Adventure

Nov 21 2011 Published by under salt

It occurs to me that Michelle Obama being booed at NASCAR is just the beginning.

You’ll note that the Obamas’ appearances of late have all been very tightly choreographed.  They almost always pack a crowd with friendlies, then keep the camera from doing any wide shots, thus betraying how much the crowds have shrunk since 2008.

You can’t campaign for President only in front of friendly crowds.

I know my Tea Party friends will comport themselves with dignity.

I will remind them to please always bring a video camera and have someone with you taping everything, because you will be set up to be the fall guy for some crank the other side tries to plant as Tea Party.

Keep calm, and carry on ;)

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Obama 2008: Iran NOT “serious threat”

Nov 16 2011 Published by under salt

Then Senator Barack Obama, May 18, 2008, on the campaign trail in Oregon:

“They don’t pose a serious threat to us… If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance.”

He based this gem of foreign policy reasoning on the observation that they are a “tiny” little country.

Uh-huh.

Guess he never factored in waiting for the Mahdi, dramatic advances in computer chips & GPS guided technology and how the whole smack is one hell of a lot cheaper and easier to get now than it was in the 1980′s (When the Soviet Union loomed large, which he cited as the last time we faced a real threat from a real country.)

But… Annie… He’s super-smart so he couldn’t possibly be this facile in his understanding of the world, right?  Plus, he said this waaaaay back… in… 2008…

I swear to God you cannot make this stuff up.

Do I need to even bring up what would happen in Palin or Cain said this?

You can see the video clip here.

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Herman’s “10 Day” / “57″ State Problem Explained

Nov 02 2011 Published by under salt

99% of America either:

(1.) Doesn’t follow the hour-to-hour developments on the ‘non-sexual’-but-’offensive gesture’-sex-’harassment‘-non-story, which is now what the Establishment analysts of both Parties (technically correctly) describe as a process’ vs. ‘substance’ problem.   It’s now become HOW Herman answers the questions, NOT a story on the veracity of the original charge in the first place. 

(2.) Yup… But even if his answers are ‘evolving’… Nobody cares!

Know why?  Because NORMAL people think like Herman did, which is what got him in this mess. 

Herman thought the truth would set him free. That’s why, even thought he had a heads up about this, he didn’t assemble a team of ‘Spinners.’

I firmly believe he thought he could just tell the truth… as he remembered it… coming back to him, as it understandably would after 12 years, in ever-more detailed bits…

I am personally troubled by the fact that Herman failed the ‘emergency on the trail’ management test, yes, I am.  But I am unmoved by it because I know, down to my bones, that it was a mistake made by an honorable man, who – and this is the real core of this – until he’d touched the Progressive Power grid, didn’t realize the voltage of that evil.  What’s new, is that the Establishment G.O.P. contributed to the electric shock.

Now he knows D.C. in this unique moment in time, when we have a culture, helped along by Obama, of pitting American against American… and Establishment (read: CORRUPT) GOP against New (read: HONORABLE) Tea Party.

My man Herman’s a fast learner.  He’ll not make this mistake again.  On the trail…

…Or in the White House.

BTW:  Remember Obama’s horrible, dreadful, inexplicable FLUB on drivers’ licenses for illegals during the ’08 campaign debates?  A flub made even though Hillary had been burned in the previous debate?  Nobody on MSNBC regarded Obama’s LACK OF FRIGGING DEBATE PREPARATION – KNOWING HE WOULD GET THE DAMNED QUESTION as DISQUALIFYING, did they?

UPDATE:  Morning Joe is jumping all over Herman for a clip they played of him which, to their ear, indicated that Herman thought China didn’t have nukes.  Uh… No, you dishonest brokers.  He’s using the normal, vernacular short-hand that everybody uses which is to describe they ability to nuke us from there.  Got it?

UPDATE II:  Just while writing the above paragraph, Andrea Mitchell and the panel lamented that the Republican Party is giving Herman ‘a pass’ and ‘not asking the questions’ they should ask…

Someone find me a puppy so I can kick it! AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?  DO THEY HAVE NO SELF-AWARENESS WHATSOEVER?  OMG!

Pass?  GETTING A PASS, ANDREA????????????????????????

You mean like you gave Obama ‘I’ve been to 57 states so far’ A PASS?????

And that’s not even the WORST, STUPID thing he’s said, before OR AFTER the White House!

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Redistribution Overdrive

May 11 2011 Published by under salt

subprime push

Oh, those poor Wall Street dupes. They thought Bam-Bam was gonna let them keep their 0% $2 trillion dollars. Nope. Just long enough for them to get comfortable and let their defenses down. Now he’s threateni…er…  telling them,I got my man Eric Holder with 20 new friends down there at the DOJ just waitingto prosecute you for discrimination you rich white fat cat oppressors. Better get lending boys!

But don’t worry.  I’m sure it will turn out great, just like it did last ti…

… Well, lending to people based solely on skin color is good becau…

… Well, it’s not just skin color because that would be racist, but lending to people with really cr*ppy credit is okay becau….

Yeah.  The biggest theft in human history continues.  Your dollar is being devalued all to cr*p, and being spent quickly on politically preferred groups before it crashes irretrievably, at which point those who did not see this coming will be utterly, totally, completely dependent upon the federal government, therefore, utterly and completely in their control, therefore utopia.

ObAmerica.

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IBD on CRA: Separating Fact From Fiction

Mar 31 2011 Published by under salt

Posted 03/29/2011 06:26 PM ET

Investors’ Business Daily Truth-Speak on the September 2008 Crash.

 

Community Reinvestment Act: Separating Fact From Fiction – IBD – Investors.com.

Community Reinvestment Act: Separating Fact From Fiction

 
Cover-Up: Acorn clones using the Community Reinvestment Act to shake down banks aren’t happy with our campaign to expose the truth about the CRA’s central role in the financial crisis.

The Greenlining Institute is typical. The Berkeley, Calif.-based community organizer fired off a letter to us complaining about our March 21 editorial “WaMu: Guilty Only Of CRA Compliance.”

In it, we argued that Washington Mutual, a CRA poster boy in the run-up to the crisis, is now a convenient whipping boy for the same regulators who pressured the bank into making the “reckless” multicultural loans they’re suing it over today.

“IBD’s continued insistence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for the subprime mortgage meltdown has been refuted by virtually every reputable authority in the field,” wrote Greenlining spokesman Bruce Mirken. “That includes nine of 10 members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, including three out of four Republican appointees.”

The Greenlining official added: “While some cling dearly to the myth that the CRA was the culprit, simply repeating a statement endlessly does not make it true.”

Greenlining’s pique is understandable. It helped fuel the subprime crisis by using the CRA to leverage large banks like WaMu for record loan set-asides for uncreditworthy minorities. Then it extorted even more money when the banks announced merger plans, filing protests with federal regulators to delay their bids.

Greenlining even got a sweetheart WaMu mortgage for its own headquarters, according to the new book “The Great American Bank Robbery.”

Now that the risky CRA loans that Greenlining pushed have led to record foreclosures, renewed inner-city blight and a widening of the racial “mortgage gap,” Greenlining is lobbying Democrats to broaden the CRA’s powers to close the mortgage gap and the “growing racial wealth gap.”

In testimony last year, its executive director proposed subjecting all of corporate America to anti-discrimination regulation, not just banks.

Greenlining also worked behind the scenes with the Democrat-led Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, or FCIC, which misled the public by whitewashing the CRA’s role in the crisis. The dishonesty in its final report, now in bookstores, is breathtaking — from its twisting and censoring of key facts to its shameless revising of history.

In light of the Obama administration’s stated goal of expanding the CRA, separating fact from fiction regarding this issue is of towering importance — to set the historic record straight and to prevent another financial calamity.

FICTION: Because the CRA was passed in 1977, long before the subprime crisis, it couldn’t have caused the recent explosion in bad loans.

FACT: The toothless 1977 regulations fully expired in July 1997, when President Clinton rewrote them to toughen CRA enforcement as part of a crusade to close the “mortgage gap” between blacks and whites.

For the first time, banks were required to show results. One of the five performance criteria in the “lending test” — the most heavily weighted component of the CRA exam — was adopting “flexible lending practices” to address the credit needs of poor borrowers in “predominantly minority neighborhoods.” Banks that didn’t bend their underwriting rules risked flunking the exam.

Ex-Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lawrence Lindsey, a staunch CRA defender, acknowledges that the changes “did contribute to a downgrading of credit standards.”

Under Clinton’s CRA “investment test,” moreover, banks for the first time earned CRA credit for purchasing subprime securities. A wave of these securitizations in the secondary mortgage market and on Wall Street began in 1997, which also happened to mark the start of the housing bubble.

Other changes transformed the once-dormant act into a weapon in the hands of Acorn, Greenlining and other shakedown groups who were quick to brand banks with prudent lending requirements as “racist.”

Clinton empowered the groups by making their public comments about bank lending in urban areas a key part of CRA evaluations and giving CRA credit to banks that provided them grants and other payola.

FICTION: ”Many of these (CRA) loans were not very risky,” the FCIC report claims.

FACT: Studies show that CRA loans have higher delinquencies and defaults and act as a major drag on bank earnings. In 2008, CRA loans accounted for just 7% of Bank of America’s total mortgage lending, but 29% of its losses on home loans. Also, banks with the highest CRA ratings tend to have the lowest safety and soundness ratings.

FICTION: Only 6% of subprime loans were originated by banks subject to the CRA, so the vast majority of risky lending was not tied to the law.

FACT: Among other things, the figure does not count the trillions of dollars in CRA “commitments” that WaMu, BofA, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and other large banks pledged to radical inner-city groups like Acorn, Greenlining and Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA) after they used the public comment process to protest bank merger applications on CRA grounds.

The CRA requires the Federal Reserve to consider the CRA performance of the bank seeking such approvals. It’s the law’s chief enforcement mechanism. And community organizers exploited it to a fare-thee-well.

All told, they shook down banks for $4.6 trillion in such commitments before the crisis, boasts a report by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, or NCRC, the nation’s top CRA lobbyist (which conveniently removed the report from its website during the FCIC hearings).

FICTION: The Fed “never considered pledges to community groups in evaluating mergers and acquisitions,” the FCIC report claimed, failing again to tell the full story.

FACT: The Fed based its decisions in large part on input from CRA advocacy groups, who gave a thumbs up or down to the proposed mergers depending on how much the banks pledged in new urban lending. So these pledges were a form of ransom that banks paid to groups holding their expansion plans hostage.

“Banks had the impression that they could not obtain regulatory approval of a merger or acquisition unless they made all the advocates ‘go away happy,’” said former JP Morgan Chase officer Mark Willis, as quoted in “The Great American Bank Robbery.”

Don’t take his word for it. Listen to Washington’s top CRA lobbyist tell it.

“The federal agencies are required to consider public comments in issuing CRA ratings and rendering decisions on merger applications. Comments on a bank’s CRA record often bolster the bank’s performance,” NCRC President John Taylor said in 2007. “CRA agreements are often negotiated between banks and community groups during the merger application process.”

FICTION: ”These commitments were generally promises by financial institutions to lend,” claimed FCIC Chairman Phil Angelides, and they weren’t necessarily fulfilled.

FACT: The NCRC said banks followed up on their commitments. A study by the Brookings Institution concluded that they “consistently” met their targets.

The University of Connecticut tracked $1 trillion in loan commitments pledged since 1993 and found that by 2000 the banks had made well over $600 billion of the loans.

FICTION: “These loans performed well,” the FCIC report maintained.

FACT: Brookings found that the loan commitments were set aside for low-income minorities with “marginal credit scores” and posed a higher risk. They were even riskier than regular CRA loans, because the banks delegated underwriting authority to the nonprofit shakedown groups, which had no experience judging credit risk.

NACA thinks traditional underwriting standards are “patronizing and racist.” It advertises that anyone — “regardless of how bad your credit is” — can qualify for the mortgages it’s arranged through special deals with banks. Not surprisingly, one study found that its delinquency rates were eight times higher than the national average.

Banks reported delinquency rates ranging from 5% to 50% on loans made pursuant to their merger-related commitments.

Yet the FCIC refused to investigate the more than 300 CRA agreements that banks and community organizers entered into before the subprime bubble burst.

Despite repeated requests by Commissioner Peter Wallison, the panel never examined the performance of the trillions in loan commitments.

“Commission management constrained the staff in their investigation into CRA by limiting the number of document requests and interviews and by preventing staff from following up with the institutions,” said Wallison, a former Reagan Treasury official.

Without seriously looking into the issue, the FCIC published a report absolving the CRA of any blame for the financial crisis.

Why would Chairman Angelides steer blame away from the CRA? Because he’s a big fan of the CRA. And as California state treasurer, from 1999 to 2007, he steered billions in state funds into unsafe CRA mortgages securitized by Freddie Mac.

At the time, Greenlining advised Angelides on where to invest California state funds, even providing him with its own CRA report card on “good” and “bad” banks. He has also personally benefited from CRA projects brokered by his real estate development firms, according to “The Great American Bank Robbery.”

As part of the CRA racket, Angelides should have been a witness in the crisis investigation, not its chief inquisitor. With the cover-up complete, he now hopes that CRA critics will go away.

“The debate about the role of the CRA should now be over as evidence presented in the commission’s report is clear,” Angelides declared earlier this month.

 

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