Must-read: Fannie Mae's Easy Credit

Nine years ago, Steven Holmes of the New York Times wrote admiringly of the way Bill Clinton and the Democrats could claim credit for "Eas[ing] Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending."

It amounts to a map of how Bill Clinton and Democrats created this crisis.

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. [snip]

Fannie Mae officials stressed that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites... [snip]

The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent... [snip]

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers.

Democrats will read this and weep.

[but will anyone else read it? Or hear of it on TV? Highly Recommended > ]

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Accountability

Why is there none for Democrats?

You know the old joke about Winston Churchill seated next to a woman at a posh dinner party?

Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?” The socialite responds: My goodness, Mr. Churchill. . . . Well, I suppose I would.”

Then Churchill replies, “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”
Lady: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!”

Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.”

It is a funny — though not ha-ha funny — double standard: When the GOP ran the show, it was always held responsible for every “bad” outcome. Now that the GOP is in the minority, it’s still held responsible for every “bad” outcome.

I suppose it’s a similar standard that somehow allows the Democrats in charge of overseeing the financial sector to whine that there hasn’t been enough oversight without even the slightest sting of embarrassment...

[again: the Democrats didn't need a single Republican vote to pass the bailout bill. That's where media's bias comes in as more than just a frustration - it does this nation harm...]

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Obama Advisor Pledged $1 Trillion in Sub-Prime Loans As Fannie Mae CEO

[HT:SN]
James A. Johnson--the man chosen by Sen. Barack Obama to lead his vice presidential search committee---served as head of the Federal National Mortgage Association, or ''Fannie Mae,'' from 1991 to 1998, receiving a reported $21 million in compensation upon his departure.

As CEO of Fannie Mae, Johnson set a goal of buying up $1 trillion in 'low-income' mortgage loans, a move that eventually helped trigger what would become the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

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Meltdown melts McCain

The Republicans blame Democratic efforts to expand home ownership for minorities and the poor by loosening credit requirements. The Democrats blame Republicans for loosening the regulatory oversight on all the debt that flowed from those bad loans.

The mainstream media interpretation has generally emphasized (surprise) the Democratic view of things because the meltdown happened on a Republican president’s watch and because that Republican president happened to be the despised George W. Bush.

[this is why I believe Obama will win: don't underestimate the length the old media will go to get him elected, and their influence over too many Americans who still get their 'news' primarily from TV]

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SO MUCH FOR EUROPEAN TIRADES AGAINST AMERICAN GREED

It took a weekend to shatter the complacency of German finance minister Peer Steinbrück: "American problem," the fruit of Anglo-Saxon greed and inept regulation that would cost the United States its "superpower status."

Pleas from U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for a joint U.S.-European rescue plan to halt the downward spiral were rebuffed as unnecessary.

However: [long list of EU bank failures in one week... snip]

The drama has exposed Europe's dark secret for all to see: EU banks took on even more debt leverage than their U.S. counterparts, despite the tirades against ''le capitalisme sauvage'' of the Anglo-Saxons.

It turns out that European regulators have allowed even greater use of "off-books" chicanery than the Americans - and that Paulson may have saved Europe, says the Daily Telegraph.

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AP: Palin is a Racist

Talk about an idiotic assertion, but the Associated Press just claimed that Governor Sarah Palin is a racist for saying that Obama used to ''pal around with terrorists.'' According to the AP's Douglass K. Daniel, Palin is a racist because the word "terrorist" is construed now-a-days to mean a ''dark-skinned radical Muslim'' so that makes her a ''racist'' in his blinkered view.

[but it ran - and the AP is the most widely disseminated news clearinghouse on the planet...]

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And now, the Mother of all Biden Gaffes (updated)

My jaw hit the floor when I heard Biden say this:

"Here's what the president said when we said no. He insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, "Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them." What happened? Hamas won.
When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it."

Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."

Wha? Who? Kicked Hezb'allah out of where? Urged we send who into what? This is really an incredible gaffe - far more serious than anything Sarah Palin has ever said anywhere.

Let's allow a "Foreign Policy Insider" quoted at The Corner, to try and untangle this web of lies, misstatements, and downright loony contentions: [long, detailed, obviously factually accurate - nothing like the above...]

UPDATE:

Michael Totten - who has been to Lebanon several times and knows the people and politics as well as any journalist in America - writes in Commentary:

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody - nobody - has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

Joe Biden has literally no idea what he's talking about.

It's too bad debate moderator Gwen Ifill didn't catch him and ask a follow up question: When did the United States and France kick Hezbollah out of Lebanon?

The answer? Never.

[it's ok, I'm sure the press will now swarm all of this... {breath, holding, not.}]

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Biden's Big Lies: All 14 of them

The McCain campaign was out of the box quickly last night, releasing a damning list of 14 lies told by Joe Biden during the debate.

We highlighted below the biggest lie he uttered - that Obama never said he would meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition.

Now come 13 more Pinnochios that are breathtaking in their shamelessness:

[boy is the media gonna have a field day with these babies! ..... hello? ..... anyone?]

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U.S. to the rescue of Iraqis

[HT:MD]
Balad, Iraq -- The U.S. military's main combat hospital in Iraq has increasingly switched to helping Iraqis. As the numbers of wounded American soldiers have fallen, the hospital is now saving the lives of a remarkable 93 percent of Iraqis who come with devastating injuries. It's another sign of the radical improvements in health care made at combat trauma care units in war time.

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Was Obama telling the truth about al Qaeda?

During the first Presidential debate in Mississippi Senator Obama claimed that “...al Qaeda is resurgent, stronger now than at any time since 2001.” By what measures has the Senator come to this conclusion? Let's look at this question. [snip]

The 1990's was al Qaeda's peak. Obama's assertion that they are stronger now is pure fantasy. The loss in Iraq has substantially reduced the number of young Muslim men willing to 'go to jihad'. It has handed al Qaeda a political, strategic, and public relations disaster. Former jihadis and even religious leaders in Saudi Arabia now decry al Qaeda. [snip]

According to Strategy Page the Pakistan military is taking the fight to the Taliban in the frontier region. Large Pakistani force has identified Taliban strongholds and is taking them down with air and indirect firepower. The Pakistani military seems to have learned that just sending truck loads of troops in to get captured is a bad idea. Now it is preparing the objectives with overwhelming firepower and following that with overwhelming force. Somebody in Pakistan is learning from the US military. [snip]

The overarching point being that the Al Qaeda is not stronger now by any conceivable measure that Obama could put forward, unless he is simply looking at casualty numbers as the one and only metric. They go up, we are losing, they go down, we a winning. But that's a silly way to measure success in war. In that case, I regret to inform you that the allies lost WWII on D-Day because we suffered over 4,000 KIA on the beaches of France...

[long but provides rational insight into the complex situation that is Pakistan - Recommended > ]

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Iran says it will not stop uranium enrichment

Tehran - Iran will not stop uranium enrichment even if it is guaranteed supplies of nuclear fuel from abroad, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday.

Iran's ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, was quoted as saying on Thursday in Brussels that Iran would consider renouncing enrichment if it was assured of fuel supplies from abroad..

[i.e., the game goes on - while the centrifuges spin...]

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Hezbollah’s Terror Camps for Kids

A new report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) looks at Hezbollah’s annual summer camps for Shiite teenagers and children in southern Lebanon. The summer camps are centers for inculcating kids with Iranian radical Islamic ideology, anti-Israeli hatred, the personality cult of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

One youth group with a summer camp of its own, Al-Shabab, is for children under the age of 10. Last August 21 Al-Akhbar, a Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspaper, reported that Al-Shabab was founded in 2000 in villages near the Israeli border and that Hezbollah has a massive presence in those villages.

The camp itself is in a Hezbollah compound south of the Litani River which, according to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, is precisely the area between the border and the Litani that was supposed to remain “free of any [forces] other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL….” [snip]

The camps are stark evidence that Hezbollah’s threat to Israel goes beyond terrorism and warfare in the present and encompasses turning Lebanon into an actively hostile country for generations to come. The Shiites, among whom Hezbollah carries out its indoctrination and cultivates its future cadres, may already constitute half the population as the generally better-educated Christian and Sunni communities emigrate [flee] in considerable numbers...

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AN EXHAUSTING WAR ON EMISSIONS

In 1991, Norway became one of the first countries in the world to impose a stiff tax on harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the country's emissions should have dropped; instead, they have risen by 15 percent.

Norway's carbon tax was born in 1990, and even though the Norwegian industries argued that the levy would cripple their ability to compete internationally and threaten jobs, they compiled.

However, the government's plan has backfired. StatoilHydro's overall emissions have more than quadrupled, reaching 8.9 million tons annually. Moreover, the number registered cars rising 27 percent over 10 years. Even though a gallon of gas costs around $10, Norwegians keep paying to drive since two-thirds of them live in the country and work in the city.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, though. By making it more expensive to pollute, carbon taxes should spur companies and individuals to clean up. Norway's sobering experience shows how difficult it is to cut emissions in the real world, says the Journal.

[ah, but it was good for government coffers...]

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A shattering moment in America's fall from power

OUR gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.

You can see it in the way America's dominion has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity...

[all because of our suicidal energy policies - i.e., oil...]

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Leftists have blocked U.S. drilling for too long

In 1993, our Congress passed a bill to drill offshore and the Southern U.S. for oil. This bill was vetoed by President Bill Clinton and was not overridden. He set a moratorium of 20 years for drilling, which was a very bad decision against America.

If we were drilling in the U.S. and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and building refineries and pipelines along with atomic plants, we could have been employing over one million workers in the process and in operation of the refineries and plants.

According to Investor's Business Daily, there are roughly 1 trillion barrels of oil contained in shale in the United States and Canada. We have tremendous amounts offshore and in Alaska. Also, we have a very large amount of natural gas offshore.

You would think Washington politicians would want to do something positive to bring down destructive gasoline prices. Instead, Nancy Pelosi has shut down the House of Representatives so that there would be no vote on drilling, and she also had the lights turned off so that CNN couldn't broadcast the Republicans protesting what had happened... [snip]

The president of Mountain States Legal Foundation says it bothers him when he knows that huge deposits of oil are available in the U.S. but politicians such as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have blocked our access to it. That's why I am not being unfair when I blame these liberals for high gas prices and our nation's growing dependence on foreign oil...

[we'll be voting on a lot next month...]

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Liberalism needs another bailout

California

So California needs a bail out. The state government is out of money. The Golden State, blessed with incredible beauty, perfect weather, fabulous soils, plenty of coast line and even much of the world's high tech and entertainment revenue, has managed to run out of money and is now asking Henry Paulson to tack on seven billion for their government.

Grey Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Assembly has managed to do what Fidel Castro has done - run a paradise into the poorhouse. There are many problems with the state, not the least of which that many businesses have fled the state and taken their jobs and tax revenues elsewhere. For a number of years in a row, California has the country's "worst business climate."

California is locked into extremely generous labor contracts which not only offer high salaries and benefits but which promise generous retirement benefits, including gold plated health care for life. Years ago, a study concluded that state employees were paid about 30% more than their private sector counterparts for jobs of comparable skill level and responsibility. And California state employees are not widely renowned for their competence or hard work. To say the least.

These personnel costs are the major reason California cannot pay its bills. Private sector employees of steel coompanies, airlines, and auto manufacturers (among others) have lost some of their gold plated retirement benefits. Why should state employees be any different?

[A: the people we keep sending back to Sacramento are owned by the labor unions]

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Bill Ayers looming again in Obama election
WASHINGTON--Barack Obama's association with former terrorist, now urban educator Bill Ayers is looming in the closing days of the presidential race, as Obama's past once again becomes part of his present.(Snip) I wrote a column last Apil--during the Democratic primary clash-- explaining why Obama knowing Ayers never became an issue for him in Chicago. You may not agree, but that's the way it's been in the city...
['now an educator' - how nice]
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Teachers who have consensual sex with pupils should not face prosecution, says union
Child protection experts have reacted with fury after the head of a teachers' union said staff who have sex with pupils over 16 should escape prosecution. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, claims teachers who have affairs with pupils over the age of consent should not face jail.
[vouchers: let me count the ways we need you...]
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Sarah Palin and the Experience Factor

In the past few years we've seen "WMDs were the sole reason for invading Iraq", "CO2 is the major driver of climatic trends", and "Karl Rove is the Devil Incarnate", to consider only three. Each case is demonstrably false, yet each case has been allowed to dominate the public [media] debate.

In the 2008 election, one of these ruling myths is "Sarah Palin does not have the experience to be vice-president."

Out of all four candidates, Sarah Palin is the only one with any of the requisite executive experience required for office. She is the sole candidate who has ever run anything larger than a college debating society. If she is not qualified, none of them are, and we'd better dump ‘em all and start over.

The value of having been a governor is obvious, the progression from there to the presidency apparent. Not so with senators. Whatever it is they do when not traipsing around Washington in their purple-trimmed togas, it has nothing in common with executive experience. [i.e., one of a hundred votes {with all the 'cover' that brings} vs. being the one ultimately responsible - too true.][snip]

And finally, there's the fact that she has no foreign policy experience. None. Zero. Why, no less than Charles Gibson clearly demonstrated that on the tube, with plenty in the way of sighs and head shakes, too.

...except for the easily demonstrated fact that Governor Palin, on August 27th of this year, completed a pipeline agreement with Canada, which is a foreign country. The agreement had been stymied for over two decades by various interests in Alaskan state government. Palin got it wrapped up in that busy eighteen months. [ it's the largest public works project in US history][snip]

Americans like governors -- somebody with hands-on experience at running a state who can demonstrate that experience...

[more, Highly Recommended > ]

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'An American Carol' does humor right

Tucson, Arizona Other than the awful Blue Collar comedy crew, you don't see a whole lot of humor come from the political right. The tasteless, wrongheaded but consistently entertaining "An American Carol" is David Zucker's effort to show the satire sword can swing both ways. (Snip) Taking a reverse Colbert approach, Zucker attacks Michael Moore by exaggerating his political stances and exposing logical fallacies.

[it had its moments]

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