Posted on 10/08/2008 8:13:33 AM PDT by jazusamo
This is the last part in a two-part series.
In my column yesterday, I explained how Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, did the equivalent of falsely shouting, "fire" in a crowded theater. He did that by repeating a rumor (a false rumor) that a major insurance company was about to go bankrupt.
That caused insurance stocks to plunge more than $25 billion. Later, having already demonstrated his idiocy, he demonstrated a majority leader who is unable to use the English language when he explained what he was only trying to say was "conditions in the financial sector" were bad. His spokesman went on to admit he knew of no bankruptcy and had not talked to any insurance officials.
In this column, I'd like to turn to idiocy in the House, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, majority leader. I must say she does a perfect job of representing the anti-American, anti-military, anti-family values views of her constituents in ultra-liberal San Francisco. Unfortunately, she doesn't do a good job of representing the rest of the U.S.A.
Ms. Pelosi upon becoming majority leader said, "the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history." Well, as Investor's Business Daily (Oct. 2) so wisely observed both Ms. Pelosi and her Congress need an ethics bailout. Like Sen. Barack Obama, she does the opposite of what she says.
Investor's Business Daily reports (from the Washington Times) that "over the last decade, the speaker funneled $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting charges from her political action committee to Financial Leasing Services, a real estate and investment firm owned by her husband, Paul Pelosi - a practice the House voted to ban last year with Pelosi's support (the bill failed in the Senate). Since her husband became treasurer of the speaker's PAC to the Future, the payments have quadrupled, according to Federal Election Commission records."
Since her husband became treasurer of the political action committee, rent quadrupled from what it was earlier in the year. A senior Pelosi adviser explained that was due to San Francisco's expensive real estate market. Wait a minute, no market has quadrupled in less than a year that I know of.
Investor Business Daily observes, "Pumping cash from your own campaign to your husband's firm is a strange way of trying to turn the institution over which Pelosi presides into the 'most ethical Congress in history.' "
But like Mr. Reid, Ms. Pelosi has already demonstrated her idiocy on previous occasions. Most recently, just as a nonpartisan bailout bill was to be voted on, Ms. Pelosi launched into a five-minute rant, rave and rage blaming everything on the Republicans. How is that for a spirit of bipartisanship?
Cartoonists had a field day, with Ms. Pelosi speaking a sentence that goes like this: We're going to solve this problem in a nonpartisan basis, knowing the whole problem was caused by the Republican's reckless, failed, anything-goes policies totally lacking in regulation and discipline within the system.
Here are a few more members of the most ethical Congress in history, also sitting on Ms. Pelosi's side of the aisle:
1. Sen. Chris Dodd, head of the banking committee, took a sweetheart mortgage from Countrywide. Should a man with that kind of conflict of interest be presiding over the bailout legislation?
2. Sen. Kent Conrad, still Budget Committee chairman, did the same.
3. Then there's Rep. William Jefferson whose freezer contained $90,000. He may soon be indicted on multiple corruption counts, but is still a voting member of the most ethical Congress in history.
4. One of the ethics superstars of the Democratic Congress is Rep. Charles Rangel, head of the committee that writes the tax law, who the IRS recently discovered wasn't paying his taxes. He called for Rep. Jefferson to step down, but as his refrigerator contained none of the tax money he cheated the government out of, he doesn't have to step down.
5. And joining this hit parade of the most ethical Congress is Rep. Barney Frank. He was one of the chief protectors and leaders in the effort to deregulate Fannie Mae and let it destroy the economy. Now Bill Sammon of Fox News reports it turns out that Mr. Frank had a relationship with the director of product initiatives at Fannie Mae. He worked there from 1991 to 1998, when Mr. Frank was on the House Banking Committee, with jurisdiction over Fannie Mae. Dan Gainor of the Business and Media Institute said, "It's absolutely a conflict. He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?"
6. This is not to mention the closely related conflict of the big recipients of contributions related to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Dodd led the list followed by Mr. Obama. It was remarkable he would be so high on the list of recipients, as he had only been on the taking end for a few years. He was only number two on the list but he was the fastest on the take member of Congress. Of course, Freddie and Fannie were basically campaign engines for the Democratic Party and people like Sens. Dodd, Obama and Hillary Clinton. Consequently, they can blame a big part of the blame for the financial meltdown that required the $750 billion bailout.
This conflict may be at the heart of the present financial crisis. While he had his relationship with a Fannie Mae executive, Mr. Frank was blocking attempts by the Republicans to impose tougher regulation on Fannie Mae. Thus, Mr. Frank and the Democrats can be credited with causing the present financial crisis.
Ironically, the Democrats are criticizing Sen. John McCain for his stance on deregulation. But it was Sen. McCain who, on two occasions, proposed tougher regulatory controls on Fannie and Freddie that may have averted the present crisis. Needless to say, his proposed reforms were blocked by the Democrats.
If the Democrats, led by Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi, can inflict this kind of damage on the economy and so dramatically lower the ethical standards of Congress, can you imagine what the triumvirate of Obama/Pelosi/and Reid could do to the country? I was trying to comfort a friend who feared the damage that an Obama presidency would do in one term of four years. The only consolation I could give my friend was that the country would probably not last another four years if led by Mr. Obama and a Democratic Congress. They would quickly destroy the economy, degrade our military and make us fatally vulnerable to the Islamofascists. We are without a doubt the greatest and strongest country in history. But no country could be great and strong enough to withstand four years of Mr. Obama!
This two-part series started by noting two important issues raised by Gov. Sarah Palin - Mr. Obama's association with an unrepentant terrorist and his anti-military, anti-American slander of American servicemen.
Here are a couple of other issues that should be raised:
* Why is it that terrorist, communist, Marxist and socialist organizations have endorsed Mr. Obama? One old communist who endorsed him is none other than Fidel Castro. Last spring, Mr. Castro said Mr. Obama is "the most progressive candidate for the U.S. presidency." His endorsement by a top Hamas official was not even repudiated, as an Obama spokesman said they appreciated the comparison between Mr. Obama and John F. Kennedy made by that spokesman. Of course, it is not surprising socialists would be so enthusiastic about a Mr. Obama candidacy. He talks the talk of capitalism but his proposals and plans walk the walk of socialism.
* Mr. Obama would create a Supreme Court and a federal judiciary that would be able to rule America from the bench. Mr. Obama doesn't believe in strict construction of the constitution guided by the Founder's intent. He believes in the Constitution of a "living document." That's a fancy way of saying the judges do anything they want to do. He has even said he wants judges who feel the plight of the ghetto dweller, the single mother, etc. In other words, he will appoint judges ruled by emotion rather than by law.
* He and the Democratic Party are out to establish the Fairness Doctrine, which should be called the Unfairness Doctrine. This required balance and fairness on the airwaves. But it is pushed now to kill conservative talk radio. The Democrats have found that liberal media cannot win or even survive in the free market.
So they would establish a fairness doctrine, which, in theory, requires both sides of every issue to be presented. But in practice, it would make it impractical for radio stations and networks that feature conservative hosts to even survive. They would literally "balance" themselves out of existence due to the problems of meeting bureaucratic rules on "fairness."
The Reagan Administration abolished the doctrine more than 20 years ago, because it was a restraint and an undue obstacle to free expression. This is a critically important issue, as one of the important restraints on the unfair, biased, fraudulent and dishonest mainstream media is conservative talk radio. Mr. Obama and the Democrats spell the end to talk radio and to an important aspect of free speech in America.
* Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin should also press the issue of the bias of the mainstream media. Its attempt to elect Mr. Obama represents one of the great pieces of journalistic malpractice in history and can only be stopped if public opinion wakes up to what is happening. That requires the problem be explained and publicized by the candidates, so the public can better understand what is happening. The public ought to start boycotting that media and turning to alternative media that tells both sides of the story and are not in the tank for one candidate or another.
* One of the key issues almost totally neglected by the mainstream media is the Obama campaign's attempt to shut down free speech involving criticism of Mr. Obama. A WGN radio show out of Chicago was going to interview two of the leading and most authoritative critics of Mr. Obama, Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso, who is author of one of the best books on Mr. Obama, The Case Against Barrack Obama. The Obama campaign organized its supporters to flood the station with calls in protest. The campaign asked supporters to call and confront these speakers, before they could even get a chance to state their views. The Obama campaign also made false accusations against the two speakers.
For example, it said of Mr. Freddoso, a highly respected author, that he peddles "baseless lies," engages in "dishonest, extreme hate mongering" and has made a career out of "vicious partisan attacks." Unfortunately, the words used to describe Mr. Freddoso should best be used to describe Mr. Obama's attempt here to silence free speech. The Obama campaign is dealing in "baseless lies" and "dishonest, extreme hate mongering." The Obama campaign, already clearly described as socialist in outlook, is now beginning to take on a patina of fascism and of Storm Trooper tactics.
For someone who wants a quick course on the fraud that is Mr. Obama, I would recommend a great trilogy on the subject: The Obama Nation,by Jerome Corsi; The Audacity of Deceit, by Bran O'Leary; and The Case Against Barack Obama, by Mr. Freddoso. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's book, Fleeced, also has an especially powerful chapter on what Mr. Obama's program would do the nation. This is vital as the two greatest frauds in American political history are the mainstream media and its outright campaigning for Mr. Obama and its candidate, Mr. Obama.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us
I fear if he’s elected many things may change and none for the better.
We won’t be able to replace those precious babies if Obama is elected.
Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR1RD2-fabA
To be honest I wasn’t paying much attention to what BO was saying but it seems like he did say something about writing that letter. I’d like to see someone ask him to see a copy and hear him explain how its been misplaced. He’s an out and out liar, IMO.
Thanks for linking that video, it spells it out explicitly.
ping
Don’t do that again.
AM
!
My apologies, I should have posted that warning to BufordP.
BufordP, don’t do that again.
AM
USA 2009 could be a replay of Russia 1917.
No problem, you hurt my feelings but I’m okay now :)
Thanks for straightening it out, AM.
btt
LOL
.....took a sweetheart mortgage from Countrywide.....
Has Dodd made any payments? Did he repay any interest or principal? Was the house a de facto outright gift?
Where are the payment check stubs?
I’d guess number three.
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