Fannie-Freddie fiasco is Dems' baby

Cut through the doubletalk that obscures the financial mess in Washington and on Wall Street, and these points are obvious to everyone paying attention: • Congress used the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to force banks to make risky loans to "help" people buy houses they could not afford.

• As early as 2001, President Bush and Republicans warned that Freddie and Fannie's financial house was unstable and could wreak havoc on the economy.

• Fannie and Freddie spent more than $200 million lobbying Congress to ignore the problem.

• Subservient Democrats, like Barney Frank, dutifully declared that Freddie and Fannie were safe and sound and blocked reform.

Now, no one can dispute that Freddie and Fannie were certainly unsound. So, who pays for Congress' failure to reform? Taxpayers, of course: up to $4 trillion in lost savings and investments plus more than $1 trillion in new government debt.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want us to believe that the financial fiasco is the fault of deregulation. Poppycock.

In 1999, before George W. Bush took office, the New York Times' Steven Holmes reported that the Clinton administration was pressuring Fannie Mae to expand mortgage loans to "people with less-than-stellar credit ratings." Through CRA, banks were strong-armed to make risky loans and threatened with fines of up to $500,000 per violation if they didn't reach government quotas. Banks were encouraged to hire "community groups," like ACORN, to find "qualified" borrowers.

Not surprisingly, when banks were offered the chance to dump those risky loans on Fannie and Freddie, they jumped at the chance.

Holmes reported, in 1999: "Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times (but) . . . may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s."

In 2001, the Bush administration warned of "strong repercussions in the financial markets" if Fannie and Freddie encountered financial trouble. Treasury Secretary John Snow repeatedly warned that federal regulators didn't have enough authority to properly supervise Fannie and Freddie.

As recently as August 2007, President Bush urged Congress "to get them reformed, get them streamlined, get them focused."

Democrats ignored those warnings:

Rep. Barney Frank said he did not want to "focus on safety and soundness . . . . I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation toward subsidized housing."

Rep. Maxine Waters claimed, "We do not have a crisis . . . Everything (in CRA) has worked just fine."

And Sen. Christopher Dodd, No. 1 recipient of Fannie and Freddie campaign cash, called them "great success stories."

Fannie and Freddie spent more than $200 million and employed over 140 lobbyists to avoid just the kind of scrutiny that Republicans urged. They throw around millions in campaign contributions, targeting key members of Senate and House finance and banking committees.

Ironically, Barack Obama doesn't sit on those committees, yet he ranks as the No. 2 recipient of Freddie and Fannie campaign cash after just four years in the Senate.

Last week, Associated Press reported that three years ago Freddie Mac even paid a consulting firm peel off enough GOP votes to kill a reform bill sponsored by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

"What we're dealing with is an astounding failure of management" that was "driven clearly by self interest and greed," Hagel said.

With unanimous Republican support, Hagel's reform bill sailed through committee, but Freddie's lobbying fusillade found enough weak-kneed Republicans to help its loyal Democrats derail the bill.

Three years later, we cannot know if reforms proposed by Bush, Snow and Hagel would have averted the current crisis, but we certainly know that Fannie and Freddie's Democrat defenders were dead wrong.

Given Democrats' complicity in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, it is utterly astounding that confused voters could actually reward them on Election Day.

Mark Hillman of Burlington, Colorado, served as Senate Majority Leader and State Treasurer. He is now Republican National Committeeman for the state. To read more or comment, go to www.MarkHillman.com.

Say it: He's a socialist

There is a fundamental difference between Marxism, provider of the Socialist philosophy, and Christian teachings. The difference makes the two world views incompatible, in other words, you cannot be both. Whoever says that they are compatible either lies or is ignorant. Marxists believe that a non-Socialist society is to blame for what is wrong with people and therefore, change has to begin with those who are responsible for society, mainly the rich. Others, not they, have to change and the others are in the end all those who oppose Socialism. People are either forced to comply or they are killed, as happened in Nazi Germany. If you put right what is wrong in society, so goes Marxist theory, you will heal injustice and people, products of a hostile society, will become their good selves. Healing is created by installing more and more Socialists in office, Socialist immorality and Socialist programs. Obama has not touched corruption and moral issues. His plans for dealing with issues are of economic nature and are pure Marxism, blaming the non-Socialist enemies and distribution of money to bribe poor voters, make them dependent on government and cement with it your power. Marxism's concepts lead to the welfare state – and on to a totalitarian system built on lies where government is central. There is no real concern for people; power is at the heart of all their projects.

Christianity teaches that what is wrong is the fallen nature of man, who gives in to the evil inside. Moral change in people and restoring the broken relationship with God will change what is wrong in society. Christian teachings are at the heart of our Constitution. Responsibility for oneself is a pre-condition for a healthy society. That is why America is special and prosperous. Government's task is to clear the way for initiatives of their citizens and not block it. John McCain's and Sarah Palin's priority to clean up the government and bring it back to the people is exactly what America needs. They know as we do that Republicans especially those at the center in Washington are also responsible for ousting our Constitution from American society with devastating consequences. John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting at this corruption, beginning with their own ranks. Their priorities are job creation, drilling, and fighting inflation. They are pro-life and so is the Republican Party.

Senator Obama answered the question of the Reverend Warren regarding when life begins during a national television interview with "This is above my pay grade". I think he lied. The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated, "I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over centuries the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition…. We don't know. The point is that it shouldn't have an impact on a woman's right to choose." I think she lied. She is neither an ardent nor a normal Catholic; she is a godless Socialist pagan. Colorado Archbishop Charles Chaput commented "Democrats don't know Christianity." No woman has a right to have her child killed.

I heard Senator Biden say that he is pro-life but cannot force his religious views on others. So he is part of the abortion gang like a myriad of Democratic colleagues who also like to be on both sides.

The Democratic Party with the leadership of Obama, the Clintons, Reid and Pelosi and comrades is an illegitimate party which is destroying the Constitution which leads to spiritual, political and economic disaster. It is illegitimate because of policy principles like abortion and also Darwinism being taught in schools. Instead of protecting life this party promotes killing life. The Republican Party on the other hand is legitimate in principle with a majority which wants to do what is right but lacking a national and personal purpose and therefore are so often appeasing what is wrong. Nobody wants to risk his position. It is the Appeaser's Party. There are too many who are looking after themselves first and their country second..

One central theme is enough to clarify why I say that the Socialist Democratic Party is illegitimate. Their policies are Marxist and not American and they promote immorality. It was the Soviet Union, for instance, which was the first state making abortion legal already at the beginning of the twenties. Having grown up in the godless totalitarian Nazi society it is appalling for me to watch that in America politicians can speak of their "Christian faith" and at the same time make abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexuality their party policy. The consequence is the destruction of families and the concept of family without that those who practice or promote these concepts are thrown out of their churches or out of power by their voters. Unfortunately corruption has also entered Christian churches. Democrats are not fit for American Constitutional government.

No government or parliament across the globe has the authority to overrule God. The godless national Socialists, called Nazis, did it and my family, Jewish people, all Germans, and Europeans paid dearly for it because I and millions of others did not see our own evil inside. American soldiers shed their blood to liberate us from Nazi power. It pains me to see America on the same track. Not only those who actively promote the godless programs allowed by our government establishment but also those who for personal reasons or lack of backbone appease them will pay for it, here and when they face their creator. I know the consequence of a godless government. America must have a God fearing government. The abortionists are closer to the Nazis than to our founding fathers. Both base their philosophy and action on lies.

According to an article of Gary Parker, president of the Alabama Policy Institute, in our newspaper Press-Register Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, the national abortion provider, said, "I am still having trouble expressing the depth of my anger about McCain's choice of a running mate." She and Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL, Pro-Choice America, were featured speakers at the Democratic National convention in Denver. They endorsed Obama who supports federal funding for abortions. As Illinois state senator he voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Bill, which would have prohibited the killing of late term babies that survive attempted abortions. You wonder on what information Obama voted. Does he play superficially with human life? The following information is easy to come by. Pelosis' statement at the beginning of this article clearly means that it doesn't matter whether the baby inside the womb of the mother is alive or not we will kill it anyway.

There are various ways to perform an abortion but abortion is said to be more dangerous than child birth. In a late-term partial birth abortion, which is also used for advanced pregnancies, the cervix is dilated to allow passage of a ring forceps. A foot or lower leg is located and pulled into the vagina. The baby is extracted in breech fashion until the head is just inside the cervix. The baby's legs hang outside the woman's body. With the baby face-down, scissors are plunged into the baby's head at the nape of the neck and spread open to enlarge the wound. A suction tip is inserted and the baby's brain is removed. The skull collapses and the baby is delivered. Sharp and suction curettage is continued until the walls of the womb are clean.

Suction Aspiration is the most common method of abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. General or local anesthesia is given to the mother and her cervix is quickly dilated. A suction curette (hollow tube with a knife-edged tip) is inserted into the womb. This instrument is then connected to a vacuum machine by a transparent tube. The vacuum suction, 29 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner, tears the fetus and placenta into small pieces which are sucked through the tube into a bottle and discarded.

Another procedure is called Dilatation and Evacuation and is performed during the second trimester, 4-6 months of pregnancy. A pliers-like instrument is needed because the baby's bones are calcified, as is the skull. There is no anesthetic for the baby. The abortionist inserts the instrument into the uterus, seizes a leg or other part of the body and, with a twisting motion, and tears it from the baby's body. This is repeated again and again. The spine must be snapped, and the skull crushed to remove them.

Let me educate Obama, Pelosi and their abortion gang who are exposing an unbelievable superficiality and disdain for human life in dealing with this subject of central importance for our nation. After all, according to the statistics around 50 million killings of living human beings took place since the Supreme Court with one vote majority made unconstitutional abortion legal. The Nazis murdered 6 million Jews and 10 million others – Germans, Slavs, gypsies, handicapped, Christians, their opposition and others.

Life begins at conception. Modern technology allows observing what happens in the uterus of a woman and how fast in only 5 weeks a fetus grows from the size of a sesame seed to a baby developing brain, backbone, heart and everything else what makes a person. Science explains that it is possible that from one cell sex, the color of the eyes and hairs and a myriad of other features can be determined. 18 days after conception there is a heart beat, after 40 days the fetus has brain waves. Nothing changes in the 9 months of pregnancy, everything just grows. My wife Dina and I can watch on photos how our grandchild to come grows from the size of sesame seed to a baby. We also saw in Fox News a video of another baby in the womb of her mother, a bit elder than our grand child. It is fascinating! Abortionists must be stopped killing human beings

We are living in the middle of humanity's insurrection against God. The insurrection consists of the organized abandonment of God's commandments in the once Christian Western world, and the establishment of a global social and political infrastructure, which is contrary to His order but capable of integrating Christian voters with a toothless Christian understanding. The United States are now spearheading this movement. At the same time this nation still has a strong moral substance with people committed to reverse the trend into disaster. America will never win the ideological war unless it can defeat the lies which dominate our society. Change must come, but there must be moral change, each person beginning with oneself. Stop lying, make restitution, and stand up for truth. America should be spearheading lasting freedom across the world. Only freedom based on our Constitution and the absolute truth of God can last.

The Howard Beal election

It's hard to turn on the TV these days. The news and images from Washington are like a train wreck. The height of hypocrisy: the crooks who made this mess posturing for a bailout on the backs of the taxpayer... looking stern and serious while they sit in gilded offices paid for by the investment banks and mortgage firms -- those that provided them with cheap loans to their poor constituents, while profiting handsomely from complex, opaque financial instruments that no one understands. While Washington slept the market ran wild, fueled by impossibly cheap money and overabundant credit. The Wall Street Journal ran a picture of J.P. Morgan the other day. He looks like a banker: stern, serious, practical. I wonder if he'd have given people $400,000 stated income loans; not a piece of paper to prove their earning or their ability to pay it back. That's what we did in the hyper-fueled lending world of Freddie and Fannie. You need to buy a house. Can't afford it? No problem, we'll cover you. Can you imagine J.P. Morgan doing anything so stupid?

And now comes the final indignity: the "bail out". The House yesterday decided not to pass a $700 billion bailout bill. They did so to prove that we are still a free market. They did so to save their reelection chances. They did so to protest the Bush Administration and their total mishandling of this crisis from start to finish. Whatever the reason: it failed. And rightly so.Does anyone really think that the Bush, Paulson or Bernanke have any idea what is really going on here? Fortune Magazine reported last week that the $700 billion number that Paulson chose has no analysis behind it:

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Wow. How comforting is that? We know that markets operate on psychology, and that the large number is designed to provide confidence in the market that the government has a big enough solution to take care of the problem. I understand that.

But I also understand something that George W. Bush and his team have never understood: this is also a political issue during a presidential election. The Bush Administration remains totally tone deaf to the concerns of the American people. While the $700 billion number may calm financial markets, it has shocked, dismayed and infuriated the American taxpayer.

Hello? Is anyone out there? Does George Bush really want Barack Obama to become president? It sure looks that way.

In fact, Bush's handling of this issue looks a lot like the war in Iraq before General Petraeus went to Baghdad. It looks incompetent, poorly planned and poorly executed. It looks just like the mess that Gens. Casey and Abizaid got us into, with American soldiers dying daily amid violence and chaos on the television. Total mis-management. The American people lost confidence in Donald Rumsfeld in 2004. And what did the President do? He held his course, kept Rummy on and took a beating in the 2006 midterm elections. Bush was shocked to take such a shellacking. He didn't understand the level of discontent among the voters then -- and he doesn't understand it now. Americans in vast numbers are angry at Washington. Mad as hell, as Howard Beale famously yelled out the window in the movie Network. And they aren't going to take it anymore.

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Who will pay the ultimate price for this debacle? John McCain. He's been swallowed whole by this mess and his campaign will never recover. Yes, he miscalculated -- the whole "suspending his campaign" gambit backfired. Frankly, his instincts on the bailout were wrong; his behavior showed him as a legislator. A compromiser. Not as an executive who had to make a tough call in a crisis. He temporized and vacillated.

In fact, McCain missed a golden opportunity: He could have taken the momentum and initiative away from Obama and come out forcefully against the bailout from the beginning. He could have stood up in the debate and said:

I'm against this because I don't believe in taxpayers footing the bill for what is essentially a $700 billion entitlement program. Yes, I know the situation is serious and that we need to provide relief to the credit markets. But there is a better, less-intrusive way to do this: change the "market-based" accounting rules so that firms can revalue their portfolios to something that reflects their true intrinsic value. Provide loans and guarantees that the firms will pay interest on, etc. etc. etc.

But McCain didn't do that. He didn't see the opportunity for bold action and decisive decision-making. He could have put Obama in a corner. And with public opinion running 2:1 against the bailout, the polls would have been on his side.

In the end, this is the kind of crisis that either makes or breaks a candidate. The odds were against McCain from the beginning, but his handling of this issue has fallen short. He was dealt a bad hand by Bush and his bumbling lieutenants; in this case, running against Bush would have been smart for McCain. But it was the kind of "game changing" opportunity that comes about only once in a campaign. If you seize it, you win. If you don't, you lose.

So far, McCain hasn't seized it, and unless Palin pulls out a miracle against Biden and McCain can rally in the last two debates, the Republicans will lose on November 4.

Obama in a landslide?

In a weekend piece from the U.K.'s Telegraph comes a story that should be news to voters in the key states of Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado: Barack Obama thinks he's going to win the 2008 election in a "landslide".  "Barack Obama's senior aides believe he is on course for a landslide election victory over John McCain and will comfortably exceed most current predictions in the race for the White House. 

Their optimism, which is said to be shared by the Democratic candidate himself, is based on information from private polling and on faith in the powerful political organisation he has built in the key swing states.

Insiders say that Mr Obama's apparent calm through an unusually turbulent election season is because he believes that his strength among first time voters in several key states has been underestimated, both by the media and by the Republican Party. "

Obama and his campaign are further convinced that he can win no fewer than nine of the states carried by George Bush in 2004 -- putting him on track to win as many as 340 electoral votes. 270 are needed to become president.

This confidence comes from an assumption that I find dubious: that current polls are underestimating the level of new voter registration that the Democrat's have achieved in their get out the vote drives:

"Public polling companies and the media have underestimated the scale of new Democratic voters registration in these states," the campaign official told a friend. "We're much stronger on the ground in Virginia and North Carolina than people realise. If we get out the vote this may not be close at all."

"Their confidence that good organisation will more than compensate for latent racism will be reassuring to some Democrats, who were concerned by a poll last weekend that found Mr Obama would be six points higher in the polls if he were white. "

In my mind the Obama camp is suffering from having drunk too much of its own punch: voter registration drives are notoriously bad predictors of election outcomes. And this is particularly true if the registration drive is focused on young voters -- which Obama's certainly has been. Young voters are famous for saying they will vote and then not showing up on election day.

As far as the "latent racism" issue goes -- I also think it is overstated. In fact, I think that a reverse sort of racism -- of the politically correct variety -- may be upwardly skewing Obama's polling numbers. I have a sense that many voters tell pollsters that they will support Obama because they don't want to come off as racist or "uncool". It is a natural part of our psychology to be attracted to a black candidate as part of a greater social good, and it is part of a politically correct pressure for people to be seen as socially progressive.

But I don't believe this necessarily translates to the voting booth -- when in private, people cast a vote for president. My guess is that race will have less to do with that decision, and that policies and experience will be the determining factor. And on that score, I don't think that Obama has an advantage over John McCain. I believe that the polling doesn't accurately reflect the hesitation many people have about putting an unknown Obama into power, and that a greater percentage of those polled will choose McCain as a safer alternative.

This may not be enough to win McCain the election -- but it should provide some pause to the Obama campaign in thinking that they will win this in a landslide. I predict as close a race as Gore-Bush in 2000 -- unless something dramatic happens on either side to radically upset the balance.

It isn't surprising, however, that Obama is so confident. Afterall, he is the one we've been waiting for. Right?

Memo to Dems: We're not subjects

We Americans generally understand and appreciate the value of our citizenship. We know that we are fortunate to be living in the freest, most prosperous and most powerful country on earth. We thank our lucky stars that we were born in the United States rather than in Russia, China or Zimbabwe, and welcome new citizens from abroad to our shores. However, not enough of us understand that our citizenship is a boon not only, or even primarily, because it is American citizenship, but because of what our citizenship actually entails. The United States Constitution secures the “privileges” and “immunities” of American citizenship. These ultimately derive from the natural rights affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, and are referred to as the “blessings of liberty” in the Preamble to the Constitution.

Our natural right to liberty is secured, not granted, by the government. So our rights can, under that protection, be called “privileges and immunities” because they belong solely to American citizens.

When the Constitution refers to “privileges and immunities,” it is securing rights which are  enjoyed equally by all citizens. In other words, no citizen legitimately enjoys a right at someone else’s expense, either monetarily or in some other way. This confusion between rights and what has been called entitlements is at the heart of the difference between citizens and subjects.

Of course, our citizens are subject to the authority of the Constitution and the laws, but they are certainly not subjects of the president, Congress or the Supreme Court, nor of state and local governments. The people are, in fact, the ultimate sovereign, having agreed to establish a government in the first place by their uncoerced consent, giving it their continued support through periodic free elections.

Subjects, on the other hand, enjoy only those rights which have been conferred on them by whatever government happens to exist, and by whatever means it was established and has been maintained — including force or fraud.

Unfortunately, one of the most powerful temptations of free citizens is to seek privileges for themselves at the expense of others. There are, truth to tell, enabling politicians who are more than happy to appeal to, if not to stir up, this sentiment, by means of which they can assemble majorities that elevate them to office, and provide support for the passage of confiscatory legislation that redistributes the wealth of one class of citizens to another.

This is also a fundamental difference between our two major political parties. Democrats emphatically favor treating their fellow citizens as mere subjects to be manipulated and looted in order to secure their own political power, although they will do all that they can to mislead people who stand to be looted or others who do not approve of the forced redistribution of wealth.

Republicans have always been opposed to redistributionist schemes in principle, but some of them have felt compelled not to oppose those programs when they are popular with the citizens. Frequently, their strategy is to advocate less expensive or oppressive programs than the Democrats.

It is a testament to the lasting legacy of Ronald Reagan that he managed to place Democrats on the defensive. They stopped calling themselves liberals because Reagan had convinced millions that liberals stand for precisely the wealth redistribution programs that responsible and self-supporting Americans oppose. They now prefer the label "progressive," which is no better but less odious to the public.

More specifically, Democrats misrepresent the various government programs that they favor by trying to pass them off as “investments,” rather than forced transfers or drains on the public treasury. Somehow, by Democrat logic, investments made by Americans who are enterprising enough to persuade others to stake their money in corporations and businesses are not legitimate investors, even though no one was, or could be, forced to fork over their money to them.

Today, Democrats want to seize the profits of American oil companies to finance so-called “soft energy” alternatives to fossil fuels, as if the former were bleeding the country and the latter were forcibly held back by the power of the oil companies. In fact, it is much cheaper and more efficient to pump oil and natural gas than to rely on ethanol or windmills, notwithstanding anyone’s contrary wishes.

We are bombarded with never-ending streams of government programs to solve every purported problem. It is up to our citizens to remember that they are not obliged to accept politicians’ claims at face value and to take all necessary steps to ensure that they are not converted into mere subjects of powerful politicians or interest groups that see their fellow citizens as fair game for their schemes.