GONZALEZ SAYS COUNT HIM OUT

Matt Gonzalez, progressive VP running mate to Ralph Nader in their independent run for the White House, is not all peachy keen with for the Democratic Party nominee. Read why.

PART OF ME SHARES the enthusiasm for Barack Obama. After all, how could someone calling themself a progressive not sense the importance of what it means to have an African-American so close to the presidency? But as his campaign has unfolded, and I heard that we are not red states or blue states for the 6th or 7th time, I realized I knew virtually nothing about him.

Like most, I know he gave a stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. I know he defeated Alan Keyes in the Illinois Senate race; although it wasn't much of a contest (Keyes was living in Maryland when he announced). Recently, I started looking into Obama's voting record, and I'm afraid to say I'm not just uninspired: I'm downright fearful. Here's why:

This is a candidate who says he's going to usher in change; that he is a different kind of politician who has the skills to get things done. He reminds us again and again that he had the foresight to oppose the war in Iraq. And he seems to have a genuine interest in lifting up the poor.

But his record suggests that he is incapable of ushering in any kind of change I'd like to see. It is one of accommodation and concession to the very political powers that we need to reign in and oppose if we are to make truly lasting advances.

Gonzalez outlines and covers in some detail the miasma that passes for change in the Obama playbook:

1. The War In Iraq...
   
2. Class Action Reform...
   
3. Credit Card Interest Rates...
   
4. Limiting Non-economic Damages...
   
5. Mining Law Of 1872...
   
6. Regulating Nuclear Industry...
   
7. Energy Policy...
   
8. Single-payer Health Care...
   
9. North American Free Trade Agreement...

and a few other loose ends Obama has left along the trail. Read it all.

KUCINICH HAS A SECRET TO TELL

HERE, HERE. CONGRESSMAN Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has come out with damning evidence that full-time Democratic presidential candidate and part-time US Senator—Barack Obama—has thrown Main Street under the bus, resolutely contradicting his flamboyant posture just days ago.

Here is part of an exchange between the Ohio Democrat and reporter Amy Goodman.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, can you explain how it is that the Democrats are in charge, yet the Democrats back down on their demand to give bankruptcy judges authority to alter the terms of mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure, that Democrats also failed in their attempt to steer a portion of any government profits from the package to affordable housing programs?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I mean, those are two of the most glaring deficiencies in this bill. And I would maintain there was never any intention to—you know, well, many members of Congress had the intention of helping people who were in foreclosure. You know, this—Wall Street doesn’t want to do that. Wall Street wants to grab whatever change they can and equity that’s left in these properties. So—

AMY GOODMAN: Right, but the Democrats are in charge of this.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Right. You know, I’ll tell you something that we were told in our caucus. We were told that our presidential candidate, when the negotiations started at the White House, said that he didn’t want this in this bill. Now, that’s what we were told.

AMY GOODMAN: You were told that Barack Obama did not want this in the bill?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: That he didn’t want the bankruptcy provisions in the bill. Now, you know, that’s what we were told. And I don’t understand why he would say that, if he did say that. And I think that there is a—the fact that we didn’t put bankruptcy provisions in, that actually we removed any hope for judges to do any loan modifications or any forbearance. There’s no moratorium on mortgage foreclosures in here. So, who’s getting—who’s really getting helped by this bill? This is a bailout, pure and simple, of Wall Street interests who have been involved in speculation.

Read it all.

Speaking of a taking an Act of Congress...

BAILOUT BILL THROWN UNDER THE BUS

EARLIER TODAY the emergency Wall Street bailout bill was rejected by the House by a substantial margin. Both parties wavered. America the Beautiful lives another day more comfortably in capitalist pinstripes than socialist rags. We the People spoke loudly and spoke clearly. The message was no business as usual for the fat cats. If we are to suffer, so shall they. Now for the trillion dollar question, what's next? House leaders promise another vote. So let's review, especially since Barack Obama has publically said that John McCain should get no credit for the bill, inferring that all credit should go to him, while McCain also stated publically on the morning talk show circuit that he wanted no credit. Now that the bill has failed to pass, one wonders how the two campaigns will spin the facts on the ground.

Much of Obama’s hidden socialist agenda for the United States comes directly from George Soros, and in turn through his network of leftist funded organizations. This includes the influential funding of organizations that advocate abortion, open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, a cap and trade tax, to prevent man-made global warming, huge cuts in defense spending, increasing the minimum wage and the world poverty tax just to name a few.

Soros likes to be considered a “stateless" statesman. In fact, he is more accurately described as the Godfather of World Socialism.

Too bad Poppa Soros has not apparently read or understood the works of Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper’s good friend and author of The Open Society and Its Enemies for which Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) is named.

The stock markets have reeled today, the Dow Jones Industrial falling nearly eight hundred points as word of the failed passage spread, but many of us in the radical centrism blogsosphere have voiced opinions that we may very well prefer a full blown depression and subsequent reorganization risking everything we own to a lightning round bailout of the guilded tycoons at this point. Others of us want simply a closer look at the details before deciding anything, especially prior to having this thing is shoved down our throats.

By the way; these two Democrats voted no:
1) Jesse Jackson, Jr. (huge Obama supporter)
2) Sheila Jackson Lee (huge Clinton supporter)

SIGNS OF LIBERTY IN QUESTION

Why is the University of Mary Washington inhibiting free speech at today's Obama-Biden rally?

NOT ALL COUNTRIES guarantee their citizens the right to virtually unbridled freedom of speech. The United States does. Would someone please tell the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama? And the dozing guardians of liberty at the University of Mary Washington?

Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, is scheduled to speak at a rally at the university today. The public is invited to this forum, on property it, the public, owns. However, signs and banners will not be allowed, according to the organizers and compliant campus officials. Suddenly, UMW is a First Amendment-Free, or at least a First Amendment-Crippled, Zone, subject to the self-serving preferences of politicos.

Why does an Obama rally—or a McCain rally or a Nader rally—justify taking a little off the top of Americans' most fundamental rights?

A UMW spokeswoman says that the Obama campaign required the sign-and-banner ban. That campaign tells us that the ban is for "security" reasons. But a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting presidential candidates, says that the service has no objection to signs at rallies, provided that no "part of the sign could be used as a weapon"—e.g., a heavy metal pole or a sharpened stick. Finally, the McCain campaign tells us, "We encourage people to make signs at our events."

Regarding today's event, one would expect better from a campaign bearing the name of a former professor of constitutional law. (See Ambrose Bierce's definition of a lawyer: "one skilled in circumventing the law.") And one would expect much better from a university that, in pursuit of a day of celebrity, a boost in prestige, and profits from its book store's planned commemorative Obama T-shirts (now scotched), shaves away an American liberty purchased by men who turned white snow red and dry dirt wet with their sacrificial blood. This is a lot to swap for a mess of pottage. Remarks the Rutherford Institute's John Whitehead, who has turpentined the Bush administration's civil-rights record, "The Secret Service has a better free-speech viewpoint than the college."

The First Amendment guarantees the freedoms of religion, speech, the press, peaceable assembly, petition of the government. Will one who aspires to the title Defender of the Constitution begin inhibiting these First Freedoms even before he is ushered into office—at a public university?

Read it all.

l was disgusted when l read last night that the Obama team are picking up buslaods of homeless in Ohio to register them, and at the same time vote! But don't tarry here, folks. There's much more to uncover in this startling and punitive grasp for absolute power by the Obama camp. Doesn't take a weatherman to know whivch way the wind blows. My prediction is that within one year of an Obama presidency, the same people who elected him will be howling for his impeachment.

The handwriting is on the wall, the internet is also under fire since it's just a little too free for some people. Here’s a frightening page that will interest. Its author accuses the Google’s Blogger folks of shutting down, or freezing anti-Obama blogs it hosts. Read with intelligence. Connect the damn dots. Wake up America!

Wife and I went to another DC event last night sponsored by one of the partners at her office. Several staunch Republicans I have known for years, senior citizens and a couple of thirty-somethings, have all either defected to Obama or declared that they will sit this one out. These people know government. They are Washington lobbyists, and those Republicans who now are voting for Obama claim to be protecting their jobs. I suspect the senior partners who have said they will vote for neither candidate, are doing so less because McCain is too liberal for them, but because they don’t want to go on the record. What in the cheesecake is happening to this country?

I feel like the Big Takeover is upon us. This is simply far too much change way too quickly. Something drastic, some Brave New World Order stealth maneuver seems to be happening…

Here's some friendly advice to our Obama-supporting friends—when your interests are aligned with those of Iran's President and Hitler-wannabe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it's time to consider a re-assessment of priorities.

Democrat activists this week gave Ahmadinejad a huge gift that keeps on giving in his circle of despots by sabotaging a major bipartisan anti-Iran rally. More important to these cracked activists than Iran, apparently, was the slick opportunity to marginalize popular Republican vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin.

To recap, the rally was organized by wide coalition of mostly Jewish organizations, including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the respected non-partisan umbrella group that seems to be the closest thing the American Jewish community has to single and unified voice. They assembled an impressive protest of the presence of Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, to sound the alarm over his nuclear weapons program, and to urge world leaders gathered this week in New York to act strongly—and soon—to prevent a nuclear Iran which seems to be in the sole business of threatening Israel, America, and the world.

The organizers secured a number of high-profile speakers, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, recent Democrat presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton and Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It is not yet clear whether Clinton was coordinating with Democrat strategists, but when she found out Palin was also invited, she bailed out. Too bad-having America's two highest profile female politicians together on the same stage condemning the misogynistic (among its many attributes) Iranian regime would have been a powerful image.

Following Clinton's lead, two of the sponsoring organizations-led by left-wing Democrat activists-demanded that Palin be barred from speaking lest the rally be a "partisan" event. The organizers pleaded with both Joe Biden and Barack Obama to speak, but both declined. Although Congressman Robert Wexler, a prominent Obama surrogate, was available to speak, the Democrats (including members of Congress) relentlessly pushed to have the Palin invitation rescinded.

Their argument was part naked pretext and part veiled threat: that maintaining the invitation just might prompt the IRS to investigate all sponsoring organizations' non-partisan tax-exempt status-an interesting understanding of "partisan" considering the invitations to Clinton, Obama, Biden and Wexler. (Perhaps this gives a clue how an IRS run by Obama lieutenants might treat political opponents). In an effort to maintain an appearance of Jewish unity against the evil of Iran, the organizers were forced to cave; Palin was given the boot. Game over. The Democrats won.

And so did Ahmadinejad. This had the makings of rally with impact. Besides being a tremendous show of bipartisan unity opposing Iranian aggression, the massive media attention paid to Palin's appearances would have brought the Iranian danger to the forefront of American consciousness. The rally was also attended by Iranian dissidents, human rights activists, gays, Christians, Jews and Iraqis, all of whom suffer at the hands of the mullahs' regime. Their under-reported causes could have used the publicity boost. Deflating the event by removing its star power did all these groups a huge disservice. We're sure Ahmadinejad cannot believe his good fortune. Thank you, Democrats!

Don't the Democrats vainly claim to be the party of the powerless and the voice of the voiceless? Fighters for human rights and protectors of liberty? They shouldn't flatter themselves. How did they help those causes this week? By strong-arm tactics, stifling dissent and sacrificing their "principles" for some perceived marginal political gain? Aren't those the sorts of things they're supposed to be protesting against? Perhaps they should tell us which principles they won't trample in order to gain fleeting political advantage.

Read it all. And now because of his own draconian positions, wavering back and forth as he tends to do, Obama wants all NRA ads banned from the airwaves. The Obama camp has been threatening television and radio stations to keep them from airing anti-Obama ads. The latest target is the NRA and stations in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this week, the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund released a series of radio and television spots to educate gun owners and sportsmen about Barack Obama's longstanding anti-gun record. In response to the NRA-PVF ads, a clearly panicked Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are doing everything they can to hide Obama's real record by mounting a coordinated assault on the First Amendment.

This camapign has gone to desperate and outrageous lengths to try to silence the NRA by bullying media outlets with threats of lawsuits if they run NRA-PVF's ads. Here is Obama's letter to station managers.

Obama cannot and should not be trusted. Let me remind you of what our Founding President had to say on this critical topic:

“If the Freedom of Speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

—George Washington

VOTING REGULATIONS UPHELD

HERE IS A FOX NEWS REPORT coming on the heels of the SCOTUS ruling upholding recent regulations aimed at curbing voter fraud in the states of Indiana and Washington.

And let's not forget the Obama truthers.

Let's revisit this revealing article by an unflappable Michelle Malkin, conservative pundit extraordinaire, exposing early in the August 29 issue of the New York Post on one of the basic fundamentals of the Obama campaign:

WHERE ARE ALL THE free-speech absolutists when you need them? Over the past month, left-wing partisans and Democratic lawyers have waged a brass-knuckled intimidation campaign against GOP donors, TV and radio stations and even an investigative journalist—who've all dared to question Barack Obama.

On Monday, the Obama campaign demanded that the Justice Department stop TV stations from airing a documented, accurate independent ad spotlighting Obama's longtime working relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama summoned his followers to bombard stations, many of them owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails to squelch the ad.

On Tuesday, the Obama campaign sent another letter to the Justice Department demanding investigation and prosecution of American Issues Project, the group that produced the Ayers ad, and Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who funded it.

On Wednesday, Obama exhorted his followers to sabotage the WGN radio show of veteran Chicago host (and University of Chicago professor) Milt Rosenberg. Why? Because he invited National Review writer Stanley Kurtz to discuss his investigative findings about Obama's ties to Ayers and the underwhelming results of their collaboration on a left-wing educational project sponsored by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The "Obama Action Wire" gave Rosenberg's call-in line and talking points like this:

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse. . . . It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves."

Behind the glowing, peaceful facade lies Barack "The Silencer" Obama and his silent enablers on the left. While mainstream journalists schmoozed with liberal celebrities in Denver, practiced yoga with left-wing bloggers and received massages at the Google convention tent near Barackopolis, Team Obama was on an ugly, aggressive warpath sanctioned by Mr. Civility.

While compassionate Obama prepared to stand before thousands of worshipers at Invesco Field, purporting to give voice to the voiceless, his Chicago-schooled campaign machine was working overtime to muzzle conservative critics. "We want it to stop," ordered one pro-Obama caller to WGN.

Welcome to the future: the politics of Hope and Change enforced by the missionaries of Search and Destroy. But as the chill wind blows, where are the valiant protectors of political dissent?

On Aug. 11, I called the American Civil Liberties Union national headquarters in New York for comment about the Chicago gangland tactics of a nonprofit called "Accountable America" that's spearheaded by a former operative of the Obama-endorsing MoveOn outfit.

"Accountable America" is trolling campaign-finance databases and targeting conservative donors with "warning" letters in a thuggish attempt to depress Republican fundraising. (The official registered agent of Accountable America is Laurence Gold, a high-powered attorney for the AFL-CIO who has testified before the Senate complaining about the use of campaign-finance laws to stifle the speech of union workers—a pet cause of the ACLU.)

The ACLU press office failed to respond to my initial call. On Aug. 13, I followed up through e-mail: "I called on Monday requesting a statement from the ACLU about Accountable America's intimidation campaign against GOP donors. What is the ACLU's position with regard to such efforts? Waiting for your statement."

ACLU press officer Pamela Bradshaw e-mailed back: "Michelle, My apologies that I cannot be of more assistance, but we don't have anyone available. Thanks, Pam."

My reply: "Pam—does this mean you don't have anyone available today, this week or for the foreseeable future?"

On Aug. 20, after a week of silence, I forwarded the message again to the ACLU press office. No response. So, I won't bother asking the ACLU's opinion of the latest wave of speech-squelching moves by the Obama campaign.

Don't say you haven't been warned. Fascism seems to be coming to our own American streets unless cooler heads prevail, and The Two-Fisted Quorum just doesn't think that this war of "real and perceived grievances" can be averted short of a massive but voluntary reorganization of American priorities because, unfortunately, it's also seems very clear that the once treasured cool and hip quotients festering in the fecund minds of the Left are the metastasizing problem here...

ANATOMY OF A CRISIS

THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS is very easily pinned down to a series of legislative acts. Watch the video. Follow the money. Learn just who is the culprit here.

And here's a postscript to the previous entry concerning the Missouri law enforcement "Truth Squad" hot on free speech. The Republican governor of Missouri, Matt Blunt has issued a scathing rebuttal to Obama's campaign:

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts—not a free society.”

No word yet on what the governor has in mind for these two named prosecutors who have signed on to this travesty.

OBAMA'S AWFUL TRUTH SQUAD

HERE WE GO AGAIN. THIS IS NOT an ugly rumor concocted by the vast right-wing conspiracy. But grab hold of your coffee mug, folks. The harsh reality of nasty political campaigning is shifting into high gear. A team of Obama-supporting prosecutors and sheriffs in Missouri is preparing to pursue legal challenges to any presidential campaign ads deemed to be false or misleading. This is a real story folks. Obama thugs from the Show Me State are out for blood and sinew in this no-holds barred election cycle.

How silly does this "Truth Squad" hijinx sound to the average (non-evangelical) American ear? In Missouri, political punditry which does not meet the emerging Obama "audacity of power" critera for truthiness is now legal fodder for his Chicago-machine apparachiks. We've seen this strong-armed tactic before, my friends—here and here.

Fancy this broadcast from the NBC affiliate in St.Louis MO detailing an in-your-face fascist strategy which is richly laughable given the ridiculous nature of American political campaign packaging if it weren't so damned frightening.

KMOV-TV in St. Louis reports District Attorney Robert McCulloch, a past president of the National District Attorneys Association, saying that where the ads could be attributed to an opponent's campaign itself, or even another organization they will act. "If they're not going to tell the truth, somebody's got to step up and say, 'That's not the truth. This is the truth.'"

Free speech? Under the bus. Truth? Don't ask me. Ask Obama!

I've said it before, and have been called a racist and a fearmonger for my troubles, but surely this can only be a hint of things to come as the so-called politically correct crowd ushers The Chosen One into office and flicks its wrecking ball upon us to demolish the American democratic ship of state to make way for its Brave New World Order. This may only be backwater Saint Louis to some of you comfortably numb types, but make no mistake about it. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The fix is in everywhere we care to look. Just ask a PUMA near you for details. Be scared. Be very scared. Then get over it—compose yourself, empower your principles, and make sure you don't neglect to vote this Fuhrer-in-waiting off the national scene forever before he gets a chance to fertilize his roots...

His lock-step followers are not your friends, either. But this ironic bit of advice seems most a propos under these conditions—forgive them, fair America, for they know not what they do. We would be remiss if we didn't also offer up what the Chinese poet once grinned, "May you live in interesting times."

Here's a corraborative read on the story.

DEMOCRATIC CROWN LOSING MARBLES

IF YOU THOUGHT THE three-headed hydra of Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Harry Reid sounded shrill this morning at their partisan press conference while nervously bumbling through this latest wrinkle of the financial meltdown we as a nation as facing, it is because they ARE nervous. Nervous that their hand-picked CHOSEN ONE is not going to save the hour, much less the day, for the party. As Senate Majority Leader, Senator Reid (D-NV) especially has has delivered several rather bizarre announcements throughout this crisis:

When news of the crisis broke, Reid's first response was “No one knows what to do.”

A day later, he insisted that John McCain needs to return to DC to make the GOP rank & file support the bill he was cobbling together with his ideological cronies, then a few hours later he said McCain shouldn’t come to to DC at all, and insists with all the seriousness of a dead possum in the middle of the road, that the scheduled debate on Friday was more important than anything in Washington at the moment.

This morning, after pumping up the tenative agreement as Obama's brain trust, he then lamented that banking is subtle, difficult and complex and that both Obama & McCain don’t know anything about it.

Here's a plan we can all believe in. Harry Reid needs to step down off the chair, leave the rope where it is, and simply leave the building.

And yes, this one folks, is a Democratic scandal, not a Republican one.

BAILOUT SHENANIGANS CONTINUE

DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT in a strongly worded elocution on the House floor, Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter from Michigan is putting this administration and the banking industry on notice that he is on the job, and shining a mean flashlight on the shimmery shenanigans the conspiratorial players in this Wall Street-Pennsylvania Avenue football game have been trying to punt past the American public the past few days as they race to solve the crisis this latest dollars and sense scandal has provoked.

As Pat Johnson on the Confluence blog succinctly put it, "For those who were enriched off war profiteering, and those who enriched themselves during this financial crisis, let them do the “perp walk”. This might drive up my confidence once again. Where is Patrick Fitzgerald? We need him now..."

Confiscate now! If the Feds can write and enforce laws that allow for the confiscation of vehicles, houses, bank accounts, and other pinched derivatives of wealth from the average lame-ass bozo who attempts to throw down a twenty spot on a Friday night for a street hooker or some dirty weed, then surely this gaggle of corporate bandits—wobbly gobbly on their own financial instruments—should face the same swift hands of justice wrapped around its own collective and individual throats, wherever we find them.

Let's save capitalism. Let's punish criminals who commit grand larceny...

MCCAIN DEALS OBAMA A FACE CARD

"WITH SO MUCH ON THE LINE, for America and the world, the debate that matters most right now is taking place in the United States Capitol—and I intend to join it. Senator Obama is doing the same. America should be proud of the bipartisanship we are seeing."

A true leader spoke, when yesterday Obama was playing politics, and today, when Candidate McCain could have buried his opponent with a nod to the facts of Obama's latest absentee snarkyness as this financial crisis consumes everyone but the Chosen One himself, he once again takes the high road!

Concerning the blogosphere debate on which candidate will get a bigger bounce from this fiasco, I think it is too early to tell, but if McCain is dealing Obama a face card by trying to include him in a bi-partisanship maneuver, it can also still be said that he nevertheless controls the deal.

Folks, as the calendar winds down to Election Tuesday, you will have the opportunity to cast your vote for a myriad of third party hopefuls, or to select one of the two major party choices—opting for a proven leader who puts his nation and his honor consistently to the test or settling for a political opportunist who ducks and dabbles in the very worst form of Chicago machine politics...

For more on this meltdown, specifically the public rebellion against a Federal bailout, check out this George Stephanopoulos article comments page. Maybe this bailout should be killed by any means necessary, but I still believe some sort of Federal poop scoop is necessary in terms of stabilizing the global markets. I am hoping Senator McCain comes out against it unless a total reorganization with full and absolute accountability for the industry culprits is reached.

Truth has consequences. Why are we dishing it out for Wall Street again? Wouldn’t it be much cheaper and far more fair to all concerned—especially the taxpayers—to simply quarantine the bad loans and renegotiate with the home owners rather than risk of total devaluation and replacement of our currency? Surely this is not the clandestine but moderately hyped amero caper already on the scene reporting for duty, is it?

Does it mean that each and every asset that is sold at a profit with taxpayer funds will result in 20% being stripped from the public and put into the hands of private organizations such as ACORN, regardless of how many other toxic assets result in total loss to the public e.g. of billions of dollars? If so, it is ensured that this “bail out” will never be in the public interest, but indeed does have Obama's socialist fingerprints all over it. Take a gander at this language in the bill:

TRANSFER OF A PERCENTAGE OF PROFITS.

1. DEPOSITS.Not less than 20 percent of any profit realized on the sale of *each troubled asset* purchased under this Act shall be deposited as provided in paragraph (2).
2. USE OF DEPOSITS.Of the amount referred to in paragraph (1)
1. 65 percent shall be deposited into the Housing Trust Fund established under section 1338 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Regulatory Reform Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4568); and
2. 35 percent shall be deposited into the Capital Magnet Fund established under section 1339 of that Act (12 U.S.C. 4569).

REMAINDER DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY. All amounts remaining after payments under paragraph (1) shall be paid into the General Fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt.

Oh, I see. It's crystal clear now. Let's funnel more graft to the ACORN nuts. Why? Because they are under investigation in several states right now for voter fraud, and they must need the cashflow. Guess the name of their attorney not so long ago or far away? Yep. That very same handsome and articulate Barack Obama—now the unmitigated darling of the DNC, the MSM, his babbling minions, Himself, and his Chicago-styled Revolutionary Guard (not necessarily in that order)...

Check here for a graphic connecting all the ACORN nuts.

This Federal bailout, as it has been floated, seems highly suspicious unless strong multi-level oversight is provided, so that the thieves and culprits of this fiasco are are not further enriched at taxpayer expense. However, all the dust has cleared, here is how one wigwag has put it:

Working people will be far better off if the Paulson plan is passed than if its not. It is more progressive to let taxpayers pay the tab. Why? Because we have a progressive tax system. The top 1 percent pay 28 percent of all federal taxes. The top 5 percent pays 36 percent of all federal taxes. The bottom 40 percent pay no federal taxes.

Thirty million working Americans have traditional pensions that will be unable to pay benefits if the market collapses. Over 34 million working Americans have 401Ks that are mostly invested in the stock market. If the market plunges, their retirement plans plunge. Some 45 million Americans have IRAs with a significant portion invested in stocks. For many Americans this is all they have other than Social Security.

It is far more progressive to let taxpayers pick up the tab than shareholders. The wealthier you are the more taxes you pay. If all your assets are wrapped up in your home (the price will plunge even more if the Paulson plan isn’t passed) and your retirement account a stock market plunge will be devastating.

End of story? Not quite.

THE FRAUD, THE FIX, THE FOOL

Andy Kessler of the WSJ has piped in with some good news in the works which should help ease the tensions of us little folks seared with doubts and fears over this Wall Street monstrosity. But then, why in the world should we believe the holy writ of the very folks who is supposed to scrutinize the swindlers who nuanced this mess?

IN 1992, HEDGE FUND MANAGER George Soros made $1 billion betting against the British pound. In 2007, John Paulson's Credit Opportunities fund correctly bet against subprime mortgages, clearing $15 billion for the year and $3.7 billion for him. Warren Buffett is now hoping to make big money on Goldman Sachs.

But these are small-time deals. My analysis suggests that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former investment banker, no less, not a trader) may pull off the mother of all trades, which could net a trillion dollars and maybe as much as $2.2 trillion—yes, with a "t"— for the United States Treasury.

Here's what's happened so far. New technology like electronic trading meant that Wall Street's bread-and-butter business of investment banking and trading stocks stopped making much money years ago. So investment banks took their enormous capital and at first packaged yield-enhanced, subprime mortgage loans into complex derivatives such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Eventually and stupidly, these institutions owned them for themselves—lots of them, often at 30-to-1 leverage. The financial products were made "safe" by insurance products known as credit default swaps, a credit derivative from companies such as AIG. When housing turned down, the mortgages and derivatives were worth a lot less and no one would lend Wall Street money anymore.

Then the piling on started. Hedge funds could short financial stocks and then bid down the prices of CDOs stuck on Wall Street's balance sheets. This was pretty easy to do in an illiquid market. Because of the Federal Accounting Standards Board's mark-to-market 157 rule, Wall Street had to write off the lower value of these securities and raise more capital, diluting shareholders. So the stock prices would drop, which is what the shorts wanted in the first place. It was all legit.

There is a saying on Wall Street that goes, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." Long Term Capital Management learned this lesson 10 years ago when it got its portfolio picked off by Wall Street as its short-term financing dried up. I had thought the opposite—hedge funds picking off Wall Street—would happen today. But in a weird twist, it's the government that is set up to win the prize.

Read it all.

THE CRIMINAL COLLAPSING OF AMERICA

SHE IS ABSOLUTELY ON THE MARK. We appear to be witnessing a coup. But by whom? Mop-up on aisle seven. Is it even possible to push back on the two dominant political parties? Is it too late? Have the mendacious Tri-lateral Commission globalists finally made their move to wrestle control of whatever resources that remain to them?

Great speech by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio...

As one wit put it, "The whole American banking system needs to be changed. American families need to save more and spend less and pool their resources together to achieve their goals. In that way, they don't have to pay the price for living beyond their means. Cash is king. Those who have lost their jobs and can't pay their mortgages, should either sell or rent out their homes, room by room, and look for something else to do to pay the bills in the meantime. Give up the debit and credit card, and pay with cash."

As much as this pains a "big spender" like myself, this sober but grim assessment and strategy for surviving it, even if still possible, appears to be the elephant in the room.

And where are the two presidential candidates and the tar baby MSM while this meltdown of American financial markets is continuing? Quick on the draw, Senator John McCain suspends his campaign, and rushes back to Congress to join Congresswoman Kaptur to shore up his prescient warning of two years ago. So let's clear up some of the disinformation coming out of the media the past 24 hours or so.

John McCain got involved in the bailout negotiations after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday that the bailout plan would fail unless McCain came in and brought balking Republicans aboard, according to news anchor Bob Schieffer on this morning's Early Show. Schieffer's account stands in stark contrast with the allegation by Democrats like Barney Frank, Harry Reid, and their MSM cohorts that McCain's moves of yesterday were nothing more than a political "stunt."

Present but uncommitted Barack "Listen, I'm skinny but I'm tough" Obama is hiding out in battleground Tampa hypocritically practicing for a foreign affairs debate—obviously serving his nature in refusing as usual to take a stand on this financial ballout plan, preferring to stick his finger in the wind for clues and pay grades, while his Obamabots with every tick of the atomic clock, hustle and bark like frothing maniacs in decrying that Governor Sarah Palin is nothing more than a mental bulimic in everything from raising her five precious children to worshipping the fatted calf of political affairs.

Joltin' Joe Biden—the Human Gaff Machine—seems to have completely dropped off the political radar, even though he is up to his highballs in this failing economy mess, having been in the pocket of Big Finance most of his congressional career. Actually Senator Biden has never been on the radar in this election except to tally his daily blooper, his credentials as a long sitting senator from the Great State of Delaware and two failed presidential runs obviously affording him the opportunity to rest on his laurels.

The mainstream media? Go fish. The MSM would be a laughing stock if not for the undeniably vicious fangs dripping with the blood of journalism's proud history, and its mangled corpse now rotting on the ground, cast aside as ill-suited for these more spectacular times, fangs that it bares for all but its Most Chosen One during this election cycle. The air around DC is thick with intrigue, the stuff of cloak and daggers, political machine tactics, faded hopes and involuntary convulsions, the government itself just another animated corpse masquerading as business as usual.

This has been an ugly, ruthless campaign. Just ask Hillary Clinton supporters. The question on the angry quivering lips of millions of earnestly informed citizens who fear the worst in these Dickensian times, yet whom are still clinging to hopes of electoral salvation one well-equipped leader at a time, is this—will we (let us pray), as a nation of consequence, once brimming with charm, courage and promise, even survive the circular insanities informing this season's election process?

Or will November 4, 2008, actually launch an even uglier civil strife, starting with riots in the cities when one side eventually loses, fair and square, or not? Have we fallen from grace as a nation so far and so fast that The United States of America now resembles a third world dictatorship right down to the inability to transition political power without visiting violence and thuggish atrocity behind the scenes and on Main Street?

Of course with the law of unintended consequences always on our breath, perhaps we are setting ourselves up for yet another wrinkle in the rise of World War III, or worse—some foul amalgamation of all of the above as we rush to transcend race, industry and intelligence by insisting that every living creature on planet earth is somehow a racist, is somehow just plain ignorant, is somehow a troll, is somehow a bot, and we are certain, is somehow too poor for comfort, and thus so very obviously quite irrelevant in our almighty pursuit of liberty and justice for the few who make what seems increasingly to be the cheater's grade?

An enemy in American clothing. And I mean you and your kind, Bozo!

Obviously some once mighty heads need to roll under the bus before we will any of us quite be ready to look ourselves in the mirror again without seeing an enemy of the people, even as not a few very real enemies infiltrate our shores. Let me be absolutely clear. Unless these malignant financiers are prosecuted to the full extent of the law and then some, for fraudulent schemes, America will NEVER recover. Our leadership must not let these people take the money and run. They must pay the price of their plunder. Here is a link to McCain's speech given to former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative just before he departed for Washington.

Even the often ignored but ever so outspoken and vigilant constitutionally-correct congressman from Texas—Ron Paul—doesn't offer much more than a rather vague and anemic response to this very real and unquestionably immediate (or so THEY say) economic crisis. And as we have been saying for some time now, this is only the tip of the global iceberg American industry is facing. Let's just pray that somebody now whirling around the drain will actually grab hold of reality and finally stand up for common decency and equitable justice for all, after all is said and done.

Half of life is just showing up.
—Woody Allen

OBAMA'S RADICAL COMRADES

DESPITE HAVING AUTHORED two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.

This story of course, is very old news to anyone with a dial-up account or better except to the Rip van Winkles working three point five jobs just to keep a roof over theirs and their families' heads. But the Two-Fisted Quorum is relieved to see that someone, even if it is those same corporate longshank boys deeply rooted in the Obama stump that have ignored or whitewashed his campaign to date, have finally turned their duplicitous attention spans to this story.

Guess they just wanted to sell more papers, grab more viewers, burn more bridges, keeping the game rigged for yet another photo finish, regardless of the steep price to true democracy now debatedly in ruins thanks to the collusion of the media in this year's race. The American electorate deserves better. With continuing vapidness, Obama seems to be saying he is entitled to be POTUS, even though he has dismissed nearly every one of his early campaign promises. That leaves the dangling question, just whose surrogate is Barack Obama? So, please read on...

The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers's home.

The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association.

Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I've recently spent days looking through them.

This is false. The facts, however, will spotlight some things about Obama’s "community organizer" days. If you read the Stanley Kurtz article in the WSJ, he makes the Ayers link very clear. The record will show that William Ayers and Barack Obama funneled millions to ACORN and other groups, including teachers and parents who were willing to “educate” children in their radical philosophy. Groups that did not cooperate went unsubsidized. Mao anyone?

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago's public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation's other key body, the "Collaborative," which shaped education policy.

Read it all in the Wall Street Journal.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
—Mahatma Gandhi

HILLARY OFFERS SOLID FINANCIAL PLAN

HILLARY CLINTON IS NOT SQUIRRELED away in the corner knitting a snappy sweater for each of her former rivals. Quite the contrary. Despite Obama's continued pleas that she somehow put away their differences, his dirty tricks, embrace party unity, and campaign for him like the Chosen One he is, she continues to stake her reputation, past and present, on the idea that assisting in this long expected financial crisis of the American republic is far more important than slaving away for any single candidate, particularly one who is failing to measure up to his own hype.

Watch the video and read the Clinton proposals to address the crisis:

Create a new entity to buy up and quarantine toxic mortgage securities that are dragging down the markets which would allow the markets to stabilize. Last spring Senator Clinton was among the first to call for a new entity modeled after the successful Depression-era Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) or the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) created after the Savings and Loan crisis.

Place a temporary moratorium on the most abusive stock transactions, many of which involve the “short-selling” of stocks. Yesterday, Senator Clinton wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging such a moratorium, saying it would provide breathing room for the markets to recover, for investors to make accurate assessments of companies and for regulators to assess what trading practices should be permanently banned.

Convene an emergency economic summit to show the American people their government is working together. Bringing together leaders in the administration and Congress with lenders, consumer advocates, non profits, financial institutions, and all stakeholders will allow a coordinated response to the crisis.

Aggressively pursue and encourage mortgage modifications. Senator Clinton has introduced legislation to remove barriers to mortgage modification and to encourage lenders to voluntarily work with borrowers to keep them current on payments and in their homes.

Restore competent federal oversight of the increasingly complicated financial markets. The rapid evolution of the securities and banking industry overwhelmed the current regulatory framework, resulting in a “shadow banking system” that operates outside of oversight and without accountability.

Require transparency and accountability on executive pay. Senator Clinton has proposed the Corporate Executive Compensation Accountability and Transparency Act to impose new transparency rules on executive pay, end the accounting techniques that hide compensation, and provide shareholders a say in executive compensation packages.

Ensure the accountability of financial institutions borrowing money from the Federal Reserve’s new lending facilities. Taxpayers deserve to know that the companies they are bailing out are on the road to recovery and aren’t throwing more good money after bad.

Senator Clinton urged the administration and the Congress to move quickly to adopt these proposals and prevent the crisis from worsening. “Time is of the essence. Any delay could be ruinous for both financial institutions and confidence in our markets,” she said.

JOHN MCCAIN IS NOT GEORGE W. BUSH

HERE ARE JUST A FEW reasons why John Sidney McCain is not and will never be the carbon copy of the current Bush by any measure (thanks to WMCB at the Confluence). That shaky train has left, folks. Get over it, and study these few more pressing facts:

In 2001, he was one of only two Republican Senators to vote against Bush’s tax cuts.

In 2003 he voted against Bush’s second round of tax cuts, calling it “unwise in a time of war”.

He stood up to his party on the torture issue, getting his Detainee Amendment into the appropriations bill despite howls of protest and threats of veto by Bush.

The McCain-Feingold bill, considered McCain’s finest legislative achievement, is one of the strongest campaign finance reform bills in US history.

He defended John Kerry’s war record from the floor of the Republican National Convention in 2004. Word is Bush was pissed at that.

He tried to get the Climate Stewardship Act passed in 2003, and while he failed, he was one of the only Republicans pushing to address the issue at all. He has angered many in his party by his openness to listen to the facts rather than toe the party line on climate change.

He defended a fellow Republican Senator Jim Jeffords, when he switched to Independent and threw senate control to the Dems. Jeffords was being eviscerated for it, and McCain testily called them “self-appointed enforcerrs of party loyalty”, defending Jeffords.

He has worked his tail off for practical, comprehensive immigration reform, addressing security concerns while staying far away from the xenophobic posturing of some on the right.

He helped expose and bring down Jack Abramoff.

He angered his party by leading the “Gang of 14″ to reach a compromise on filibusters.

He was considered to be a favorite for John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. Biden said so. Others said so. If he is such a hard-core conservative as the Left is now trying to paint him, why did many Dems want him on the ticket 4 years ago?

Is McCain everything I want in a president? Not by a long shot. But he is NOT the Bush clone that the Democrats are so suddenly trying to claim he is. It’s baloney.

Now while I realize that a McCain vote is probably not a vote for the GPE (Greatest President Ever), it is a vote however that I can stomach. Baloney (balogna) has never been a favorite of mine, but I do happen to know what it and other processed meat (can you say SPAM?) tastes like. It's called growing up poor...

OBAMABOTS KICKED TO THE CURB

HERE IN THIS VIDEO a straight talking PUMA named Patsy has lined them up, and knocked them down. The PUMAs continue their assault on the despicable O-hole Brigade and His Precious Majesty, and have declared their intention to do so right down to the wire. It's that important to them. If you don't know what I am talking about, just color yourself uninformed, and either change that with some vigorous research, or simply go back to doing whatever it is that you do in preparation for a presidential election. Old habits do die hard.

Party Unity My Ass!

McCain/Palin '08 with a special something for Ron Paul...

TANCREDO INTRODUCES ANTI-SHARIA LAW

In America we call this police brutality, but Muslims demand sharia law...

IN THE WAKE OF BRITAIN'S recent capitulation to Sharia, this is just the kind of heads up legislation that we in the United States need, and should embrace wholeheartedly.

Let's be clear that Colorado Congressman Tancredo, despite his failed bid for the presidency, is exceptionally courageous—given the current political climate of cringing ignorance if not outright appeasement to accelerating Islamic demands—in introducing this bill, and The Two-Fisted Quorum hopes that it will, at very least, ignite a national debate on the dangers of unchecked Islamic immigration, aggression, and takeover aspirations.

From Borderfire Report:

WASHINGTON, DC—Amid disturbing revelations that the verdicts of Islamic Sharia courts are now legally binding in civil cases in the United Kingdom, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) moved quickly today to introduce legislation designed to protect the United States from a similar fate.

According to recent news reports, a new network of Sharia courts in a half-dozen major cities in the U.K. have been empowered under British law to adjudicate a wide variety of legal cases ranging from divorces and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

“This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction,” said Tancredo. “Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”

Sharia law, favored by Muslim extremists around the world, often calls for brutal punishment—such as the stoning of women who are accused of adultery or have children out of wedlock, cutting off the hands of petty thieves and lashings for the casual consumption of alcohol. Under Sharia law, a woman is often required to provide numerous witnesses to prove rape allegations against an assailant—a near impossible task.

That specific number of MALE witnesses a Muslim woman needs to prove her rape case is FOUR! As if rape can't happen unless it is a gang bang, conducted by turncoats. This is an abomination, a miscarriage of justice, a fraud, a human rights atrocity going on around the world, and soon to a neighborhood near you, if you don't wake up! Do not be fooled by smiling taqiyya-spewing Muslims. They are a 1400 year old sadistic cult with no place in the West. Wake up you silly Americans. This is not a cute episode of South Park or The Simpsons. This is menacing blood and guts stuff. You need to wake up, and see what we are doing to ourselves by allowing this political machine masquerading as a religion to infiltrate our nation and our institutions.

“When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology—an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy—such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty,” said Tancredo. “The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.”

Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the “Jihad Prevention Act,” would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.

Tancredo pointed to the results of a recent poll conducted by the Centre for Social Cohesion as evidence that the U.S. should act to prevent the situation in Great Britain from replicating itself here in the United States. The poll found that some 40 percent of Muslim students in the United Kingdom support the introduction of Sharia law there, and 33 percent support the imposition of an Islamic Sharia-based government worldwide.

“We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives,” concluded Tancredo. “If you aren’t comfortable with that concept, you aren’t welcome in the United States.”

Of course, this will be contested by both the hard Leftists who say they don't believe that national borders of any kind should exist, except when THEY CONTROL the keys to the heated pool, and the equally inspired Muslims who agree to the same thought, EXCEPT WHEN THEY THEMSELVES CONTROL the lands of the ummah.

Oi vey! Pure diabolical non-sense.

NO HUMOR IN THESE HERE PARTS

BY NOW WE'VE ALL heard daytime TV diva Whoopi Goldberg's crass remark to candidate John McCain, "Do I have to worry about becoming a slave again?" Well, slavery on the planet is a very real issue. Here's a pro-active website dedicated to raising awareness and combatting this brutalizing practice, most notably in Arab Africa.

Which leads me to another interesting thought by the thankfully deceased Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran who was quoted as saying in 1979 at the height of the revolution:

"Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

So, Whoopi, what are your thoughts on the surge of Muslim immigrants to the West who believe the same austere motivations of life that their honored Islamic mullah set forth for you and me and a dog named Boo?

TOPPLING A POLITICAL PARTY, ETC.

HERE'S ANOTHER STRONGLY WORDED message from the increasingly radicalized PUMA camp. It seems that indeed the Democratic Party regulars have begun to snatch pages from Adolph's fascist playbook (after all, Naziism, or the National Socialist Party leftist label is self-evident), and are leaving nothing to chance (nee a vote) as they tighten their grip on the party, losing disgruntled millions of their base at the same time.

Eerily, this syncs with what I overheard in a rather strange utterance over dinner with friends at DC's ever so trendy, politically-charged eatery and bookshop—Busboy's and Poets—one evening last December.

I was sitting at the table of a self-professed Marxist political activist plotting and regaling fellow radicals with anecdotes and news of the day. Then I heard this dear fellow suggest in a single phrase that to get the results he and his Naderite cronies wished to achieve, the Democratic Party must be destroyed first. The insinuation was that the Republican Party would only then be strategically vulnerable enough to topple. Not that any of this destructionism makes a lick of sense to me, as a reactionary constitutionalist, even if I were to throw on a Marxist cap for a day, and I think the record will show that I am a piss poor excuse for a venture capitalist perhaps, but a global Marxist, never!

Toppling a political party? Sorry, unintended consequences do tend to foil the best laid plans.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I to date remain friendly with this particular Marxist Naderite, having been introduced the previous September on a trip to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, but we are hardly what I'd call bosom buddies, although he and his friends are indeed of the touchy-feely hug-a-lot crowd—not that there's anything wrong with that.

Okay, back story finished. Here's the PUMA report by Heidi Li...

Action alert: time to make it crystal clear that under no circumstances does Senator Obama get to pick the next DNC chair. CQ Politics is reporting a new twist in the shameless collusion between Senator Obama and the DNC to suggest that, at a time when the Democratic Party is deeply divided, it is somehow Senator Obama's prerogative to pick the next DNC chair.

Apparently the new Democratic Party way is for one chair to overrride rank and file Democrats and use any number of unscrupulous tactics to install his preferred candidate as the nominee and then that nominee turns around and arrogates to himself the right to pick the next chair, even though it remains entirely uncertain that Senator Obama will win the general election or even if he does manage to do so that he will do more than squeak by.

In any event, one thing we know about Senator Obama: he is not very good at forging coalitions among different segments of rank and file Democrats, let alone being able to "unify" the Party or the country. Since the DNC is meant to be the official representative of all Democrats (not that it has even pretended to live up to that job description under the stewardship of current chair Howard Dean), it is patently absurd to put the future of the Party's internal leadership in the hands of Senator Obama. The cycle of egomanical self-servingness has just been ratcheted up.

Since the DNC claims that the reason Senator Obama gets to dictate who the next DNC chair is, it is ever more important for the medium and long term health of the Democratic Party that Senator Obama not win this election. Here's the passage from the CQ Politics story that informs us that Senator Obama's internal party is based on the assumption he will win the general election, and that if he does win the DNC will once again hold a fake election rather than a real vote for the position of chair:

'“We expect Sen. Obama to be in the White House, and it’ll be his decision as to who’ll be nominated” to succeed Dean, said Stacie Paxton, national press secretary for the DNC.

If Obama is elected, he will designate his choice for the chairmanship, and DNC members would be expected to ratify his decision at a meeting immediately after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.'

The story goes on to say:

'If the Democrats do not win the White House, a special party meeting would be called for an election to be held between Jan. 1 and March 1, said DNC officials. Dean and his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, were both elected in meetings during the month of February.'

If this is the way the DNC wants to play this, then there is only thing to be done by Democrats who care about seeing their Party survive the civil war that Senator Obama and Howard Dean have already brought to it. Senator Obama must not win the general election. And his defeat must come at the hands of Democrats who now realize that in the new Democratic Party way no compromise is allowed. If no compromise is allowed, if Senator Obama is determined to make the entire Democratic Party revolve around him and the DNC is willing to be a mere satellite to Senate Obama, then responsible and wise Democrats must make sure that Senator Obama loses this election.

Read it all.

And another clear-eyed look at this crisis is Pat Buchanan's (yeah, I know, but just get over it) latest essay. So we've got Hillary's PUMAs, card-carrying Marxists, and rare Robert Taft conservatives, while certainly not in lockstep, all jostling in somewhat relative agreement.

What's that quip about strange bedfellows?

I read elsewhere that political shock jock Lou Dobbs continues to insist that plans for the North American Union are already underway. But one can't unilaterally form a North American Union with a united currency (the Amero) unless the economies of the U.S. and Canada sink to near equal that of Mexico. This economic crash seems to be a case of "Problem, Reaction, Solution" artificially brought upon us by the Federal Reserve which of course is the enterprise of private bankers.

"We were warned. Here's a quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

And there we have it, folks. The bottom line is that an unelected financial elite has controlled this country since The Federal Reserve Act and Woodrow Wilson. Within a generation we were off the gold standard, and now, we are swamped in a miasma of worthless dollars. And as a result, what's left of any fiscal morality Americans once knew and practiced has left the building, and is whistling Dixie, otherwise known as just another somebody done somebody wrong song...

CHRIS DODD AND BARACK OBAMA

Obama and Dodd. Tight as ticks in the Financial Dawg House.

WORKING FROM TOWNHALL.COM, Amanda Carpenter exposes the Democrat connection to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fiascos with her compellingpiece—Obama Owns Housing Bubble Crisis. You will recognize the names and the faces. All Democrats. Excepting McCain who in 2005 and 2006, warned of the approaching problem that the housing giants were hiding behind closed doors, protected by influential Democrats in the legislature, including Chris Dodd and Barack Obama.

There may be nothing new under the sun, but there is certainly nothing new in Washington.

Why do I say this? Because Obama now places the blame on McCain, as old Washington power. And yet, incredibly, here are the words of one of Obama's own top financial advisors:

In Bubble-lusions: Why most real-estate agents aren't getting rich, published in Slate on September 23, 2007, the author wrote, if you want to make money off the housing bubble, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way: Buy a place with a no-money-down mortgage and then flip it.

In A Reality Check For Home Sellers, published in the New York Times that same day, the author wrote of the conflict between economists and real people, and said people who refuse to sell their houses for less than they paid for them are violating a cardinal rule of the market: stuff is worth what it’s worth. It doesn’t matter what you paid for it...

By being hung up about whether your condominium will sell for what you paid for it, you aren’t just driving yourself crazy trying to get a buyer. You may be threatening the very performance of the economy and driving up the unemployment rate—provided that many others behave in a similar way. What is to be done? Well, if you are holding out for an above-market price to recoup your losses, perhaps you would do well to hear the advice that Professor Joe Blow gives his own family members.

"If you want to sell your house then you list it at the market price and you sell it," he said. If you don’t really want to sell then don’t put it on the market. But don’t say you want to sell and then set the price so high that you spend the year cleaning up every morning, having people walk through your living room and look in your medicine cabinets and reject you. That's just painful—and expensive."

Apparently, this flippant economist's carefully nuanced research offers a simple lesson for everyone out there waiting for a high price to push them back into the black: You must be dreaming.

All of the following are written by Obama economic policy adviser Austan Goolsbee, a provocative thinker whose above language will assuredly not show up in any Obama speech anytime soon.

MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE AGREEMENT

THE TWO CAMPAIGNS AGREED on a framework for four General Election debates, to be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Key elements of the agreement are:

First Presidential Debate
Date: September 26
Site: University of Mississippi
Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security
Moderator: Jim Lehrer
Staging: Podium debate
Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment.

Vice Presidential Debate
Date: October 2nd Site: Washington University (St. Louis)
Moderator: Gwen Ifill
Staging/Answer Format: To be announced.

Second Presidential Debate
Date: October 7
Site: Belmont University
Moderator: Tom Brokaw
Staging: Town Hall debate
Format: The moderator will call on members of the audience (and draw questions from the internet). Each candidate will have 2 minutes to respond to each question. Following those initial answers, the moderator will invite the candidates to respond to the previous answers, for a total of 1 minute, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment. In the spirit of the Town Hall, all questions will come from the audience (or internet), and not the moderator.

Third Presidential Debate
Date: October 15
Site: Hofstra University
Topic: Domestic and Economic policy
Moderator: Bob Schieffer
Staging: Candidates will be seated at a table Answer
Format: Same as First Presidential Debate
Closing Statements: At the end of this debate (only) each candidate shall have the opportunity for a 90 second closing statement.

All four debates will begin at 9pm ET, and last for 90 minutes. Both campaigns also agreed to accept the CPD’s participation rules for third-party candidate participation.

My only question is this. We all know John McCain is somewhat short in stature, and Barack Obama appears to be a tall man, but how short does that make Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd? Huh? Compare the photo at the top of this entry with the one just above it.

TAKING A LOOK AT POVERTY'S LEADERSHIP

WHAT DO THE TOP TEN cities with the highest poverty rate “all” have in common? Answer: Democrat leadership. And let's not try to frame this situation as a variation of which came first, the chicken or the egg:

Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn’t elected one since 1954;
Cincinnati, OH (3rd)… since 1984;
Cleveland, OH, (4th)… since 1989;
Miami, FL (5th) has never had a Republican Mayor;
St. Louis, MO (6th)…. since 1949;
El Paso, TX (7th) Has never had a Republican Mayor;
Milwaukee, WI (8th)… since 1908;
Philadelphia, PA (9th)… since 1952;
Newark, NJ (10th)… since 1907.

The turmoil in the capital markets is bad news and is forcing each candidate to reassess their current pronouncements on the economy. So, let’s ask some questions. Of the two candidates for President, who got the most money from the two financial giants now in the news–Lehman Brothers and AIG?

John McCain received $117,500 from Lehman Bros.
Barack Obama received $370,524 from Lehman Bros.

How about AIG?

McCain got $36,875 from AIG
Obama raked in $75,899 (+205%)

Got that? Barack Obama, the guy who supposedly is not beholden to special interests, took three times as much money from Lehman Brothers and more than twice as much from AIG.

Gee, and who did the now Government financed mortgage broker Fannie Mae give its money to when it wanted to influence a politician?

OpenSecrets lists the top three politicians in which FNMA “invested” from 1989 to 2008.

Top Recipients of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008 Name Office State Party Grand Total

Dodd, Christopher S CT D $165,400
Obama, Barack S IL D $126,349 ($6000 came from the PAC)
Kerry, John S MA D $111,000

What about McCain?

The folks at Fannie Mae didn’t show him a lot of love. According to Open Secrets:

McCain, John S AZ R $21,550 (all from individuals).

Oh yeah, and who tabbed the former head of Fannie Mae to head up his Vice Presidential search team? OBAMA, that’s who. Back in May Barack turned to Jim Johnson, former CEO of Fannie Mae. Who is Johnson?

Johnson served as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998 and has a long history in both Washington politics and business. He served on the boards of numerous companies, including The Goldman Sachs Group, KB Home, and Target Corporation, and has been Vice Chairman of Perseus LLC. He also was a corporate finance managing director for Lehman Brothers. He was an executive assistant for Vice President Walter Mondale (1977-1981) and a U.S. Senate staff member. Johnson also helped screen running mates for Democratic presidential nominees Walter Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004.

When it came time for a tough decision who did Barack turn to? A former community organizer per chance? Hell no! He went with the inside the beltway uber lobbyist.

So, Obama bots, save your sanctimonious bullshit. When it comes to cozying up to big players and wealthy Wall Street types smack in the middle of the lastest scandals and crises, Barack Obama is in a league of his own. That is “change” you want to believe in? What a goddamned joke!!

Deal with reality, John McCain wisely was not in bed with these guys. Will the media ask Barack to explain? Probably not.

And to further drive home the point, here is John McCain back in 2006 railing against the power of lobbyists like Fannie Mae:

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

McCain’s last comment should lead his next batch of Presidential ads. Where was Obama? He was pocketing Fannie Mae cash. Any questions? Breaking news! Prominent Clinton backer Lynn Forester de Rothschild is set to endorse McCain/Palin today. The Obama fallout continues.

Thanks to Larry Johnson of No Quarter.

Addendum: Rumors about de Rothschild coming out for McCain have been confirmed—she called Obama arrogant and not in touch. And here she is with Wolf Blitzer.

Posits another poster named Wolfman Jack: "I think this hits the nail on the head. The Dems ARE “elitist” in the sense of thinking themselves superior, intellectually, culturally, socially, than regular working people. Republicans seem to be more comfortable with working people. I don’t really know why this is. I think of Al Gore eating the corn husk tamale wrapper, or John Kerry not knowing how to eat a Philly cheesesteak. It gives the impression that they only eat in fancy restaurants.

It is one of the main reasons Democrats lose. They are looking down at half of their own voters, or at least seem very out of touch. Obama’s comment about the price of arugula reminded me of Mike Dukakis comment about Belgian endive (he suggested that wheat farmers in the Midwest switch to growing Belgian endive). Obama is not JFK. He is Mike Dukakis.

ALASKA'S OCTOBER SURPRISE WILL FLOP

THANKS TO JIM NANCE FOR THIS BIT of political volleyball gone bad. According to Nance, writing over at Desert Conservative the Democrats will toss another smoke bomb at Governor Sarah Palin in October in hopes of ripping her off the mojo she's earned as a housecleaning politician not a shady dealer (like their own Candidate Y).

As if the Barack Obama biography doesn't reek from an entire career spent skinning the cat...

On Oct. 10th, the Alaskan Democrats hyped up investigation of Palin will release its report. Obviously, these yahoos will do anything to damage Palin. Here are some points about the kangaroo court running the investigation of Palin:

1. The Democrat State Senator pushing the investigation has said that the report will be an October surprise and will be quite damaging to Palin. But one is forced to wonder how does he know the conclusion unless the outcome is already planned by him?

2. The lead investigator and the Democrat State Senator in-charge of the investigation have conflicts of interest because both are friends with the commissioner who resigned. Neither the senator nor the investigator disclosed this fact before the investigation started.

3. There is a picture of the three top Democratic investigators meeting in Obama’s Alaska headquarters.

4. The lead investigator has expanded the investigation beyond its authorized scope and has opened a tip line to get any rumors and gossip of dirt to add to his report.

5. The investigator is planning to use testimony from known anti-Palin political enemies who are offering hearsay that is not supported by any other evidence.

6. The final report will be written by the same Democratic State Senator that has already has found Palin guilty before he has received a report from the lead investigator.

7. The investigator is conducting secret depositions that Palin’s lawyer will not be able to see until after the report is released by the bias Democrat State Senator.

8. This whole thing is about a trooper who has already admitted to using a taser on his own 11 year-old step-son but he has never been charged on assault charges or disciplined for that tasering.

9. Supposedly, the lead investigator is to be independent but the Democrat in-charge of the investigation is directing him on which witnesses to question.

10. The head investigator might have lied in testimony to the committee on Sept. 12th. He said he has received no evidence that Todd Palin has called for the trooper’s firing. Yet, on national TV the resigned commissioner has pushed that claim. This indicates that the investigator is attempting to hide his attacks on Palin until Oct 10th. This proves that the investigator is part of the Democrats’ attempt to destroy Palin.


Democrat in-charge of the committee:
Senator Kim Elton
Senator_Kim_Elton@legis.state.ak.us
State Capitol, Room 506
Juneau, AK 99801-1182
907-465-4947
fax: 907-465-2108

Democrat in-charge of investigation
Senator Hollis French
Senator_Hollis_French@legis.state.ak.us
State Capitol, Room 417
Juneau, AK 99801-1182
907-465-3892
866-465-3892
fax: 907-465-6595

Idiots and confidence men, all of them!

ABC NEWS HEAVILY EDITS PALIN

A TRANSCRIPT OF THE UNEDITED interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson clearly shows that ABC News edited out crucial portions of the interview that showed Palin as knowledgeable or presented her answers out of context. This unedited transcript of the first of the Gibson interviews with Palin is available on radio host Mark Levin's website. The sections edited out by ABC News are in bold. The first edit shows Palin responding about meeting with foreign leaders but this was actually in response to a question Gibson asked several questions earlier...

This hardly secretive mass conspiracy to elect Barack Obama against all odds of qualification and suitability should alarm every persuasion of voting American. Please do not be hookdwinked by this conspiracy. Do your research. Remain clearheaded. Then vote your gut. This is too important an election to leave to the so-called media pundits and corrupted machine operatives. Vote intelligently. Vote with strength of character.

Readers of the The Two-Fisted Quorum no doubt have an inkling of my position, but the ballot box is open to all. So please, cast your vote, but cast with it an eye to the future of this country. Beware if you dare stand tall for our nation of false promises that soon find their undisclosed location swept under the carpet, bombing like so much the hot air which immediately proceeded it.

Read it all...

Guess Who I Am?

I am under 45 years old,
I love the outdoors,
I hunt,
I am a Republican reformer,
I have taken on the Republican Party establishment,
I have many children,
I have a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor’s office.

Did you guess?

I am Teddy Roosevelt in 1900.

Oh, about that button. This year's "New Democrats" have reveled in the fact that they have scored a few pages out of the GOP playbook, after having vigorously pursued a scorched earth primary season which ended in a coup to install a staggering Barack Obama as its presidential nominee, and according to the Hillary blogosphere, literally beating back the minions of the Clinton campaign with rather unwholesome and undemocratic thug tactics. There is strong substantiated talk that Karl Rove set the whole mission in motion, resigning his post with the Bush White House in order to infiltrate the Democrats in somewhat of a Trojan Horse maneuver with Democratic Party strategist and Obama campaign managerDonna Brazile

Brazile most recently added more combustion fuel to the Obama-Palin lovefest by coining the awkward phrase that "Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

But not to be outdone, it wasn't long until another acerbic wit suggested that "Well, let's see. Al Capone was a community organizer. FDR was a governor."

So you see, voting in this election is more an act of faith than any hard evidence that either political party has your best interests in mind, so I think it is time that we think along the lines of JFK's famous dictum about who's best for the country. For me that leaves an easy choice. But then I realize that intelligence and faith are frequently found to be mutually exclusive, and this election cycle seems to insist on proving that this is not the most compelling season to hide behind open-ended slogans and empty suits. I'd prefer to leave those things to the community organizers of the world.

Okay, let's have some SNL fun.