The Bright Side of President Obama

Conceding defeat of conservative values in lieu of extreme liberalism is not an easy thing to do. But, it's clear this morning that Democrats and liberals (assuming there is a difference) have been given the majority of power across the political spectrum. So, let's try to look for a bright side...

1. A black man has become president of the United States of America. Just 50 years ago, the black man was still being subjected to clear-cut discrimination in many areas of life.
   
2. There will be kids in the White House. We haven't, as a country, had multiple young children in the Rose Garden since the Kennedy presidency.
   
3. The President and Congress cannot blame each other for partisan politics. Democrats have a clear majority in the House of Representatives, the Senate -- and now a Democratic President.
   

On a lighter, more humorous note, it would have been awesome having a hot looking First Lady, a hot "First Daughter" and a hotter Vice President. Oh well, it's early and the day talking heads haven't gotten started yet this morning.

I'm sure there are bright sides to an Obama presidency -- though I could come up with only three so far. I'll truthfully try to think of more. Your "bright side" comments are welcome -- but let's keep it apolitical. 

It's a Dark Day in America - Socialism Wins the White House

In my opinion, it's a very dark day in America. With the majority of Electoral College votes being called for Barack Obama, it looks like socialism, liberalism and extremism will win the White House. Right now, Fox News Channel and NBC both show: Obama = 220 / McCain = 138.

For the record, I could care less what color Barack Obama's skin is. What I do care about is his record -- and he is clearly the most liberal Senator in recent history. He has sold the American people a lie -- that he is moderate, non-partisan and prepared for the Oval Office. As much as I hate that innocent citizens will suffer, the vindictive side of me hopes we (America) gets what we deserve for voting socialism into the White House.

I have to give 'em this much -- The Democrats and liberals (assuming there is a difference) did their job. They got the vote out -- and seem to have won many key elections across America. Unfortunately, the trend is pretty clear that Barack Obama will win the presidency. Just thinking about the bitchy attitude of Michelle Obama as our First Lady makes me want to puke. Sorry, but that's how I feel about her. And then there's the incredulous Joe Biden as Vice President. Where has integrity in the highest echelons of our government gone?

In my state, it looks like John McCain won the electoral vote, Kay Hagan (D) has beat Lady Dole and Beverly Perdue (D) will be our next governor (beating Pat McCrory). 

It's 10:45pm ET here in North Carolina. I don't see any big surprises coming, so it's time for bed. Before I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord our country to keep. We're going to need it!

The Sub-prime Crisis Was Created by Democrats

Partially from a commentary on PoliticUsUSA.com

So many people are turning a blind eye to the fact that the Democrats, especially Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, are responsible for the present state of our economy.

1977: President Jimmy Carter (D) signs the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) into law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc. Results: Statistics show that CRA has not helped decrease crime nor significantly improved so-called poor communities.

1992: Representative Jim Leach (R- Iowa) warned of the danger that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the very few who held stock in the agencies.

1993: President Bill Clinton's administration extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rules turning the quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks. Both were also growing into entities handing out favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption -- and now the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

1994: Despite warnings, Bill Clinton unveiled his National Home Ownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways Congress never intended.

1995: President Bill Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite the rules of home finance. Robert Rubin's group reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans in order to receive a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of ethnicity -- specifically minority loans were approved almost carte blanche.

1997 - 1999: Bill Clinton , bypassing the newly Republican led Congress, enlisted Andrew Cuomo (then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development) to assist in allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Representative Barney Frank (D) and Senator Chris Dodd (D), Congress doubled-down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing the agencies to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% holdings for normal banks. Since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could borrow at lower rates than commercial banks, their enterprises' boomed!
With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no documentation", "no income verification" -- requiring no money down and no verification of income.
Worse still was the cronyism: 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990's Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidies of as much as $182 billion. Some analysts say that much of those billions went to the priviliged shareholders and not to poor communities.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's excesses. Congress held hearings the following year, but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key Congressmen and radical groups (such as ACORN), ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. "We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks," Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.

2000: Treasury Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the "special status" afford by the CRA and Clinton's expansion of it. Democrats raised a ruckus, as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by a politically connected CEO. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets," Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. That was the last chance, during the Clinton era, for reform.

2001: Republicans tried repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie, but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform. Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, who ran key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants, were especially critical of any reforms.

2003: President George Bush proposed what the NY Times called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago". Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.

2005: Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress: "We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk". Senator John McCain, along with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, "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". Senator Harry Reid (D) accused the GOP of trying to "cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding home ownership". The bill went nowhere.

2007: Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over half of the twelve trillion dollar US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall Street to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in 2007, sub-prime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was fifteen years in the making.

2008: Presidential candidate John McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths. President Bush urged reform a recorded 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats' talking points about this being a "Republican" disaster. A few Republicans are complicit, but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That's why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!

It's clear that the Democratic Party cannot be trusted with our tax dollars. Adding the extreme liberalism of Barack Hussein Obama will NOT turn our economy around -- but only make things MUCH worse. If you truly want to know how bad it can get, cast your vote for Obama. As for me and my house, "NObama - Keep the change!"

Recession Talk is Simply a Trick By Mass Media Bent on Putting Democrat in White House

Last week, Barack Obama proclaimed “As most experts know, our economy is in a recession.” Hillary Clinton made similar statements last fall. Yet, as any economist knows, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and we haven’t even had one single quarter of negative growth reported. The economy slowed down significantly during the end of last year, but that was after a sizzling annual GDP growth rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter.

Let's look at the numbers: Housing has obviously been a big drag on the economy, but many other sectors of the economy, such as exports, have been doing well, some extremely well. For example, aerospace exports increased by over 13 percent last year. Seasonally adjusted civilian employment is 650,000 people greater than it was a year ago. Personal income grew at a strong half of one percent in just February. Gas prices are going up. The economy is slowing.

Talk of recession is seemingly everywhere. While the majority of people rate their personal finances positively, consumer confidence in the economy has plunged to a 16-year low, well below what it was during the last year of the Clinton administration when we were in a recession. The media’s focus on the negative side of everything surely helps explain people’s pessimism. In a recent interview Fox’s Neil Cavuto claimed this bias “is all part of the media’s plan to get a Democrat in the White House.”

Let's look at some more numbers: A Nexis search on news stories during the three-month period from July, 2000 through September, 2000 using the keywords “economy recession US” produces 1,388 stories. By contrast, the same search over just the last month finds 3,166. Or, even more telling, take the three months from July through September last year, when the GDP was growing at a phenomenal 4.9 percent. The same type of Google search shows 2,475 news stories. Over 78 percent more negative news stories discussed a recession when the economy under a Republican was soaring than occurred under a Democrat when the economy was shrinking.

During the 2000 election, with Bill Clinton as president, the economy was viewed [by the media] through rose-colored glasses. According to polls, voters didn’t realize that the country was in a recession. Although the economy started shrinking in July 2000, most Americans (through the entire year) thought that the economy was fine. But over the last half-year, the media and politicians have said we were in a recession even while the economy was still growing.

TOPIC: Charles Barkley? Really?!? What Does He Know Anyway?
Article from ChristiansUnite.com
Day Gardner, President, National Black Pro-Life Union, submits the following:
It is interesting that there is so much noise about Charles Barkley's remarks about abortion and Barack Obama. Barkley made the comments last Friday in an interview with CNN's The Situation Room news show and also referred to pro-life advocates as "hypocritical." He also stated that the word "conservative" makes him sick to his stomach. Really, Mr. Barkley? Conservative, conservative, conservative! (Just kidding).

Mr. Barkley was once a very talented basketball player, but this does not qualify him as a great thinker [or even an intelligent person]. If he were, he would understand that abortion is not a Republican or Democratic issue; it's a simple matter of life and death. (Has he ever seen what an aborted child looks like?) The good news is that there ARE many pro-life Democrats! There are Democrats of strong moral fiber who will not bow to the beast. There are Democrats who stand fierce in support of saving the lives of unborn children even at the risk of loosing the support by their political party. Unfortunately, Barack Obama is not one of them!

When Wolf Blitzer asked Barkley to explain his callous anti-Christian remarks, Barkley condemned Christians for wanting to be "judge and jury." But that's just it, Mr. Barkley -- women who become pregnant are judging their own innocent child by making the determination that the child growing inside is somehow not worthy of life and therefore, sentenced to a horrific, violent death by abortion. There are two victims in abortion -- one dead, the other injured. Women need not kill their children due to fear or pressure from boyfriends, husbands or parents. Young girls and women need to realize that it is not necessary to kill their children to have productive lives. Both mother and child are precious in God's eyes!

The word of God says pre-born children are people from the moment of conception, PSALM 139:13-16. The Bible also says if anyone harms a pregnant woman so that her baby dies--that person should be punished "an eye for an eye", EXODUS 21:22-25. So, who is Charles Barkley? He's just a former basketball player, no more -- no less.

Source material: AP & Washington Post
TOPIC: Stupid is as stupid does...
And John Kerry is just plain stupid for making such derogatory remarks regarding our troops. This isn't the first time Senator Kerry has said one thing and then tried to cover up by saying he meant something else.
When are liberals gonna learn? They cannot put down our military, while hugging trees and aborting babies -- and get away with it.
I saw this picture on Drudge Report a few minutes ago. It needs no caption or explanation.
Roger Runningen, writing for Bloomberg, says, members of Kerry's own party criticized his remarks about the Iraq war and U.S. troops that he said were a "botched joke'' directed at President George W. Bush. Democrats sought to distance themselves from Kerry's comments, which Bush and Republicans said were insulting to troops serving in Iraq. Kerry, while campaigning in California Oct. 30 for gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, said: "Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.''
President Bush made an excellent comment regarding our troops, "The members of the United States military are plenty smart and they are plenty brave, and the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology." Vice President Dick Cheney elaborated further, "As a leading Democratic senator, John Kerry needs to learn that the men and women serving in Iraq aren't there because they didn't study hard or do their homework," said Cheney. "The all-volunteer force represents the very best of this country. They're smart, patriotic, exceptionally well trained, and dedicated to their mission. They are heroes, and they are the pride of the United States of America."
Kerry now claims the comments were aimed at Bush, not the armed forces, and Republicans were feigning outrage over a poorly delivered joke. "If it was a botched joke, show me the punch line,'' White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino said today. "The president saw the same remarks everyone else did.''
"Of course, now Senator Kerry says he was just making a joke, and he botched it up," VP Cheney wrote, according to excerpts e-mailed to reporters. "I guess we didn't get the nuance. He was for the joke [the war] before he was against it."
Democrats also have criticized Kerry's comments. In Montana, Jon Tester, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Senator Republican Senator Conrad Burns, also sought to distance himself from Kerry. "Senator Kerry's remarks were poorly worded and just plain stupid,'' Tester said in a statement late yesterday. "He owes our troops and their families an apology.'' Asked by talk show host Don Imus why he did not "apologize for the misunderstanding," Kerry said, "Well, I did. I said it was a botched joke. Of course, I'm sorry about a botched joke. You think I love botched jokes? I mean, it's pretty stupid."
On that Mr. Kerry, we can agree.