TOBY PETZOLD

I’m waiting for chattering sphincters like CNN’s Bill Schneider to explain to us how the failure of a Democrat-controlled Congress to pass a bailout bill is a “major blow” to John McCain’s campaign. What the fuck is he talking about?! Is there no longer even the pretense to coherency in what these propagandists do? The American public, in its collective wisdom, is overwhelmingly opposed to the bailout. To the extent that McCain’s influence with the House Republicans helped to kill this thing, that would be a good thing, Bill. For both the American taxpayer and for McCain. How do you not understand that? I suppose when the first purpose of your career as an analyst is to whore yourself out for the Democratic Party, it doesn’t really matter whether Nancy Pelosi is a liar who somehow couldn’t move forty percent of her own caucus to sign off on something that was apparently only intended to be used against their Republican opponents. 

It is absurd how the economic events of the past two weeks have been spun into a peculiarly Republican problem by people like Schneider. Last time I checked, the Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress. If La Pelosi had wanted, she could have whipped another dozen or more of her caucus into committing itself to this enormous bailout. The fact that she did not is the best evidence yet that her only intention was to pass something wildly unpopular that she could then dump on the Republicans’ laps in the name of “bipartisanship.” No way, lady. Try again.

I congratulate the House Republicans for resisting not only Bush and Paulson, but even Boehner and Cantor. Those guys aren’t the ones who have to worry about a rightfully suspicious public. When McCain chose to stand by those who refused to be bullied and goaded by Pelosi, it said to me that he knows how to take principled risks. Good for him and good for us all.

On the subject of this massive government bailout trying to snake its way through Congress, be sure to read this editorial in the Investor’s Business Daily:

Prior financial bailouts, or “rescues,” such as those involving savings and loan failures, and Chrysler, have over time actually made money for the government. It may be the case here as well, as assets bought by the government at bargain prices return to marketable values and are auctioned off.

One of the sticking points in resolving the crisis was a poison pill in the Dodd/Paulson compromise that would move 20% of profits from the bailout into the Housing Trust Fund, a slush fund for political action groups such as ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and the National Council of La Raza.

Barack Obama has long-standing and extensive ties to ACORN, which is an organization of corrupt “community activists” who shake down local authorities to extract public money for identity politicians —like Obama himself. Why don’t the asshole propagandists in Big Media who do so much to manipulate public knowledge and opinion ask Obama about his ties to ACORN? Is it because that would bring scrutiny to an organization thats members have been convicted of voter fraud in several states?

Obama cut his community organizer teeth with ACORN. As a young lawyer he represented the group in a suit against the state of Illinois, which was concerned that postcard registration and a new motor voter law might invite fraud. ACORN later invited Obama to train its staff in leadership seminars.

ACORN has a political arm that endorsed Barack Obama for president in February and has stepped up its registration efforts to help elect a future benefactor. The Obama campaign admits to failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as payments to a front group called “Citizen Services Inc.” for “advance work.”

Under the guise of stabilizing the market and propping up these giant banks and insurers, the chickenshit Democrats are trying to make off with billions of dollars for their own benefit. The whole deal is sickening.

Those are the words of the Governor of Missouri Matt Blunt. They weren’t part of some heated exchange or some sort of mistake; they are in a press release issued by his office:

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.”

What is it that Obama and his cultists are doing that would elicit such condemnation? Read on:

On Wednesday, Obama’s Missouri campaign announced U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill would lead a group of Democratic lawmakers, prosecutors and one sheriff “who will be proactive in letting voters in the Show-Me State know the truth in the face of the distortions by the McCain campaign,” according to a news release.

The group includes prosecutors from St. Louis, Dunklin, Lafayette, Cass, Clay, Ripley, Audrain and Jackson counties volunteering to be surrogates for Obama on their own time.

The Missouri Truth Squad will “respond quickly, forcefully, and aggressively when John McCain or his allies launch inaccurate claims or character attacks about Barack Obama, or when they distort Barack Obama’s record or plans.”

I can’t wait for these filthy vermin to wake up the morning after the election of President-elect John McCain and feel the shame down to their bones. Especially the inexcusable hack McCaskill. They’re so determined to foist the lying socialist gasbag Obama on our civilization for their own political benefit that they’ve lost all sense of proportion. To hell with them all.

Watching C-SPAN on a Saturday night and there’s a man with the floor from Michigan’s 11th Congressional District who I am completely digging. Old school eloquence. Not dumbed down and plenty offended. Tell it, brother! Not ready to go along with Nancy Pelosi’s opinion of you as “unpatriotic” for not supporting a $700 million bail-out of plutocrats and con artists? Good. Don’t go out like a sucker. Kick ‘em in the nads. Represent your constituents’ interests. If Bush and Reid and Pelosi and Paulson want the money that badly, then let them take it. But you can hold your head high, Mr. McCotter.

God Bless America.

The only real mistake McCain is making is not making eye contact with Obama. He’s looking down too much. Otherwise, I think he’s doing pretty well. His attention to details is at least as good as Obama’s. Neither is doing too poorly, although there’s considerable stiffness.

The indispensable Stanley Kurtz writes in today’s National Review Online:

New evidence strongly suggests that Barack Obama has been less than forthcoming about the role that unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers may have played in choosing him to lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, I have obtained an e-mail message from former CAC executive director, Ken Rolling, to Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett, two of CAC’s three co-founders. Bill Ayers was the third founder. In Rolling’s message, sent the morning after I first requested access to CAC records housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he admits to avoiding a reporter’s inquiries about who picked Obama to head CAC. Rolling also appears to prime Chapman and Hallett to avoid telling the press the whole story of how Obama was chosen, and provides them with an apparently incomplete story to use instead.

Obama’s time with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is relevant for a number of reasons: it is the only executive experience the man can really claim and it is an experience involving public education, radical politics, and huge money. The CAC story is also inextricably bound up in the story of Obama’s entry into politics. Don’t his idolatrous kool-aid drinkers want to know more about his life’s story?

Big Media is as silent as the grave about this period in Obama’s life —but wide awake and curious about every little detail of Sarah Palin and her family’s life. One cannot deny the incredible double standard ruling the coverage of this campaign. It is —as a matter of both intellectual intergrity and civic morality— appalling.

McCain and Obama are both sitting United States Senators. Do they undergo some legal transformation by being nominated for the Presidency that would keep them from, you know, going to Washington and doing their jobs? If this is a stunt, it’s one that Obama obviously isn’t prepared for. Witness his belief that the debate is still on for Friday. Witness the fact that McCain is going back to Washington where he can be available to move a bipartisan agenda —whereas Obama is off talking somewhere for a camera or an adoring crowd.

McCain’s going to get his mug in the public eye plenty more in the next few days than he otherwise would have, so I am starting to see this postponement thing as a solid move.

I heard about McCain’s proposal to postpone this Friday’s debate with Obama when I got home a while ago —and it sounds like a stunt. However, stunts often work, so why not this one? McCain isn’t saying to cancel the debate —the topic of which is his bailiwick, anyway— but to postpone it for the purpose of being in Washington and making things happen on this $700 million bailout that the Treasury and the Fed are demanding. Can we have some action from the next President on this, please? Maybe some leadership? Not a bad plan when you think of it. Lots of obligatory media coverage in the nation’s capital. Images and stories about McCain turning to action against his own self-interests. Do it. The American People will see that at least one of the nominees is doing something.

And now Obama says no? He says he wants the debate to go on? Uh, you don’t get a veto, Barry. Not now, not ever. But go ahead and show up. I’m sure the usual Big Media cocksuckers’ parade are already there and waiting to give you yet more time in front of an audience to, you know, talk.

Haven’t had enough of that yet.

The Ace of Spades explains the Panic of ‘08 (emphasis mine):

This was a fifteen year campaign by the Democrats, ACORN, and Fannie and Freddie’s executives to loosen up mortgage requirements to the point where there simply where no requirements at all.

Net result? Trillions of federally guaranteed dollars flow into the housing market that shouldn’t have been there — suddenly buying a house becomes the easiest possible purchase you can make. All you need is a signature and a smile.

If the federal government were guaranteeing a trillion new dollars for no-money down car purchases with no credit checks or proof of employment or income, what do you think would happen to the price of cars?

They’d triple. For a while.

Housing market turns into dangerously overinflated bubble. Which is what always happens when a trillion fresh, cheap, easy dollars flow into a sector and begin chasing the same limited pool of goods.

I think that’s the best explanation I’ve heard yet. Fannie and Freddie removed the moral hazard —not only for the borrower but the lender.

Now is no time for your lies, hippies. Just admit that when identity politics meets the marketplace, the artificial sweeteners must be measured over ever more carefully.

If Obama wants to restructure people’s mortgages to keep them in houses now owned by the Federal Government, then those same people who are in over their heads can reassign their Social Security taxes to be applied against their mortgages. Consequently, these people can agree to a reduction in retirement and other benefits as a pledge to their fellow-taxpayers at the end of the road.

What’s happening is scary and I don’t pretend to understand it all. With probably a trillion dollars at stake, the solution had better be far-sighted and as fundamentally sound as possible.

No bail-outs for any credit card holders, though. A home mortgage is one thing, but the plastic disease can reap all the grimness it desires.