Gramm-Leach-Bliley

"Democrats largely supported it at the time, and one of their own, Bill Clinton, signed it. Now they frame it as a Republican bill that helped send the nation on the path to perdition."

Even Bill Clinton has been interviewed recently as saying it was a good idea, and of course, he could have vetoed it. So why do we let the Democrats get away with saying it is the Republicans and deregulation's fault? Here's what happened.

Modernized the rules, says IBD.

The mistakes had nothing to do with the 1999 law.

Pumping up home ownership was good for business and good for the politicians--all of them.

A new multitrillion-dollar market emerged

And what happened from there to cause the collapse needs to be investigated.

Well, maybe, but we sure shouldn't put Barney Frank in charge, he definitely needs to go; and congress definitely shouldn't be patting themselves on the back!

Not everyone in Chicago shrugs

New York Times was late to the story--it is after all, an Obama supporter--about Barack Obama and terrorist Bill Ayers, but Chicago never really cared much, said Editor and Publisher back in April. However,

"Chicago's pundit class is not exactly unanimous on shrugging off the Obama/Ayers connection. Steve Chapman, a Chicago Tribune columnist of libertarian bent who also serves on the paper's editorial board, argued Sunday that the relationship, which he said Obama was disingenuously trying to downplay, does matter.

"It's hard to imagine he would be so indulgent if we learned that John McCain had a long association with a former Klansman who used to terrorize African-Americans," Chapman wrote. "Obama's conduct exposes a moral blind spot about these onetime terrorists, who get a pass because they a) fall on the left end of the spectrum and b) haven't planted any bombs lately.

"You can tell a lot about someone from his choice of friends. What this friendship reveals is that when it comes to practicing sound moral hygiene, Obama has work to do and no interest in doing it." "

And it's true, Bill Ayers hasn't planted any bombs lately; but he also has done no jail time like some of his buddies who committed the same crimes. Do you suppose in 20-30 years the families of the the 9/11 victims will be this casual about criminals?

Maybe it's Chicago's image of their hometown boy--it just doesn't gibe with hanging out with terrorists. They see him as a "cautious, conservative, ultra-pragmatic legislator hack."

"But locally, Obama is far more likely to be rapped for being too palsy, or at least endorsing, the feckless president of the Cook County Board, Todd Stroger. Chicago media critic Steve Rhodes, in his blog The Beachwood Reporter, rarely lets slip an opportunity to contrast Obama's national image as a daring leader who will bring "change you can believe in" with his get-along, go-along relationship with city and Cook County political hacks."

On the campaign trail

Senator John McCain holds a rally at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Gov. Sarah Palin holds rallies in Clearwater and Estero, Florida. John and Sarah are then back in Ohio on the 8th and 9th. Not sure what the attraction of Wilmington, Ohio, is--pretty liberal place. Maybe that's why she's alone. Can talk to those college kids. Joe Biden is in Wilmington, Delaware with no public events planned while he looks for that restaurant that closed 25 years ago that he lied about during the debates. Guess he doesn't get home much.

McCain seems to be wimping out--wants to be the good guy, so Sarah is sent out to soften up the opposition. He must have believed the MSM press back when they were so thrilled he was a RINO--but they will crush him now if he so much as lays a glove on Obama. You know, the crowds like Sarah, and she may be the biggest reason people are supporting him, but I'm just old fashioned enough that I don't think this is her job. Come on John. Let's see some of that toughness that got you through your POW days.

Road to Victory Rally with John McCain and Sarah Palin-Strongsville, OH
Strongsville City Commons
Corner of Rt. 81 and Rt. 42
Strongsville, OH 44136
Doors Open: 2:15pm
Wednesday, October 8th

Road to Victory Rally with Sarah Palin-Wilmington, OH
The Roberts Centre
123 Gano Rd.
Wilmington, OH 45177
Doors Open: 4:00pm
Thursday, October 9th

Vote Democrat

Three Strikes Librarian had this on his site. Pretty good.



Mr. 3 Strikes says he's a straight male, Republican, Catholic Christian Librarian.

Sowell says we don't deserve Obama

"The media alone are not alone in keeping the facts from the public [on the Democrats' responsibility for the meltdown/bailout]. Republicans, for reasons unknown, don’t seem to know what it is to counterattack. They deserve to lose.

But the country does not deserve to be put in the hands of a glib and cocky know-it-all, who has accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the advancement of his own career with rhetoric, and who has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America." Do Facts Matter?

A leader who has never led

"Obama is a cipher, an easy repository for the hopes and dreams of liberals everywhere...But if Obama avoided being battle-tested in 2004 by the grace of God, it's his own timidity that has kept his name clean since. Given his national profile and formidable political talents, he could have been a potent spokesman for Democratic causes in the Senate. Instead, he has refused to expend his political or personal capital on a single controversial issue, preferring to offer anodyne pieces of legislation and sign on to the popular efforts of others...Indeed, Obama is that oddest of all creatures: a leader who's never led. There are no courageous, lonely crusades to his name, or supremely unlikely electoral battles beneath his belt. He won election running basically unopposed, and then refused to open himself to attack by making a controversial but correct issue his own." Link here via Ali Sina.

Sina concludes Obama is a narcissist with a weak sense of self. That I don't know, however, the following is a fairly accurate description of some of his followers who feel personally attacted if you don't like him or think he is bad for America. I would like to see McCain-Palin win, but I don't feel personally attacted if you don't agree.

"The narcissist’s anger and intolerance is projected on his servile followers who also become angry and intolerant of criticism of their leader. Remember the sick symbiosis between the narcissist and his codependents? The followers get their narcissistic supply by elevating the status of their leader. The greater he looks, the better they feel. They see their glory is his glory. Conversely, when the narcissist is criticized, his followers become offended. They take those criticisms personally and their instinct of self defense is triggered. They will become vigilantes and will silence their critics through intimidation, bullying, mocking, threats and violence (like calling those who disagree with Obama, racists)."

Alinskyian trained Catholic laity

“The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost: Obama, ACORN, and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,” by Stephanie Block, The Wanderer editorial, via Illinois Review

"For nearly forty years, The Wanderer has followed the Catholic Campaign for Human Development’s funding of radical, left-wing political organizations, many of them carrying the brand of Saul Alinsky. The Wanderer also covered the first Call to Action conference – the months of “hearings” leading up to it, its orchestrated structure and contrived demands – and our reporters commented on the Alinskyian nature of it, not merely in its tactics but in its outcomes. In hindsight, we can see that organized dissent in the Church was a product of organized parishes, filled with Alinskyian-trained laity.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is responsible for that. . .

. . . Even the politically naïve are fascinated by the pejorative dismissal of Obama as a “community organizer” and his campaign’s rebuttal that to disrespect community organizers is to disrespect Catholic Action. Obama isn’t Catholic. Catholic thought hasn’t subtly filtered into this ecumenical movement. Amoral [Saul Alinsky] thought, on the other hand, has clearly filtered into Catholic circles – to such a degree that some people confuse one for the other."

Polling the pollsters

I asked Google if Pew Research Center was liberal or conservative, because I've been reading Pew research since the late 80s and have always seen it tracking a bit to the left--not horribly, but certainly there. While I was looking for some evidence (haven't found it yet) I turned up this:

Good Morning America on Wednesday reported on a new Quinnipiac poll that highlighted leads for Barack Obama in Florida and Ohio, but completely skipped the network's own national poll that found a tight race. A September 30 ABC News/Washington Post survey concluded that Obama leads Senator McCain by four points -- 50 to 46 percent. In contrast, GMA last week trumpeted an ABC News/Washington Post poll that showed Obama with a nine point lead. On September 24, former Democratic aide-turned journalist George Stephanopoulos touted the larger lead and asserted, "...You have to go back to 1948 for the last time when a candidate having this kind of a lead, in late September, lost." He mentioned that on the issue of the economy, the Illinois Senator is "blowing away John McCain." An onscreen graphic proclaimed: "Obama Surges Ahead." But, just a week later, GMA not only ignored findings suggesting a closer national race, the morning show highlighted a rival poll's state numbers. CyberAlert (which tracks liberal media)

The search developed because I had been listening to an NPR program which interviewed a Pew Research person who reported that confidence in the media was as low as it had been since 1973, and people didn't believe what they were being told about the bailout. But he said the media were misleading us about the bailout--at least I think that's what he said, and that calls and e-mails to Congresses were politically driven. Only the most vocal and political contacted their Congressional representative. Imagine! Wouldn't that be true of bloggers and the foot soldiers in the campaigns, too? On what basis should the electorate be contacting their representatives?

I didn't spend much time looking through the results, because Pew has set the rules for polling and it's difficult to accurately assess your own bias. But I did rediscover (used to know this) that the U.S. has the lowest voting turnout of functioning democracies. 2004 numbers were higher (60%), but usually it's about 50% (The Psychology of Media and Politics By George A. Comstock, 2005).

Everyone who says she doesn't pay attention to polls, including me, is always happy to see her own team go up in the polls.

O'Biden's tales

I had heard that there were at least 14 big ones told by old Joe at the debate Thursday night, but like the foreign money being pumped into the Obama-Biden campaign, we'll probably not see him called on it. But a few have. Here's a piece from Investor's Business Daily:

". . . neither Carter nor Bill Clinton, whose twists and turns before a grand jury led to his impeachment, ever stared into the camera and spouted such a string of outright fabrications as if they were gospel truths the way Barack Obama's running mate did last week.

Thankfully, the blogosphere has been having a field day cataloguing Joe's whoppers. First, as InstaPundit's Michael Totten instantly noted after the debate, Biden — the great, seasoned foreign policy expert who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — falsely claimed France and the U.S. "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon."

Other whoppers on the menu:

accusation that John McCain is soft on regulation, when in fact he tried to beef up regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

falsely claiming that Obama didn't pledge to meet with Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

falsely claiming that Gov. Sarah Palin supported a windfall profits tax on oil companies

saying he's always been for clean coal in spite of his record of voting against it in the Senate

pretending he and Obama are in favor of drilling for oil

lied about the surge

lied about McCain's health care plan

was 2000% off on his claims about war costs

but, and how pitiful is this,
the restaurant he invited folks to in Wilmington hasn't been around in decades!

You Democrats have got yourselves a winner here. Someone who can out-deceive Bill Clinton is quite a master. There are people who believe their own lies and are insulted when called on it. Joe seems to be one of those. Obama, on the other hand, most likely knows he's lying. But, Joe is likeable and I suppose brings some gravitas to the ticket.

Phishing Scams

Have you been getting e-mail from Google reporting you need to download something? Or something from your bank about updating your account? Google doesn’t send those and neither do banks. Ignore them. The messages from the phony Google vary (many domain names), but all tell you that you won’t be able to log in to Google if you don’t comply. Often you can tell right away it is a bogus site, says Dennis at Almost a Newsletter by lightly passing the cursor over the link, but sometimes the crooks are really clever. For more details on the Google, bank, and career sites phishing problem, Dennis suggests Gary Warner’s CyberCrime blog.

I get a lot of e-mail about my debt. Those automatically go in the trash through the filter (I don’t have any debt so I know they are phishing, nor do I have accounts at those banks). Some days I get about 50 messages about "returned, or non-deliverable e-mail." Those are also trashed. Then I’ll get a run of items all in Russian. Trash ‘em. Don’t get caught in the phisher’s net.

After finishing the item at Gary's blog about Google I looked at some other entries and found his a fascinating source. Thank you, Dennis, for the link. Between the porn peddlers and the scammers, the internet has really become a cesspool. I'm beginning to think that those of us who use it for fun or legitimate information are becoming the minority.

I’ve been following Dennis' newsletter for years from back in the 90s when I had a real web site and needed help with code. He’s upbeat, helpful and offers a lot of free tips (but you will want to buy a subscription or his e-books if you do this for a living).

Founders of a library imitated their husbands’ rituals

This year the Ida Rupp Public Library in Port Clinton, Ohio, is 100 years old. Like many libraries in the United States, this one was founded by a women’s club, The Literary and Social Club, now 127 years old. These clubs were an opportunity for women of a certain social stature to get together, study local problems and hear educational programs. The library in my little home town, Mt. Morris, Illinois, was started the same way, and became a public library in the early 1930s. Ida Rupp predeceased her husband Lawrence Rupp, and he donated money to establish a library--even designating the interior colors as azure blue to match her eyes. In my years in academe and in churches, I’ve seen designated funds and portraits come and go, and I salute Ida’s longevity! Apparently, no one has been successful at changing the name or tried to hide the portrait of her and her bird dog.

Over at the BGSU archives are the records of the Literary and Social Club of Port Clinton as of their 100th anniversary in 1981. This organization was instrumental in creating the Lakeside Women‘s Club which also is still functioning.

"The Ladies Social Club was formed in Port Clinton, Ohio, in 1881 for the "mutual improvement" of its members and to "aid the poor of the village." In reaction to their husband's secret lodge meetings, these women created a secret initiation ritual and designated the officers with such names as the "Superb Expounder," the "Assistant Expounder," and the "Guard." From the beginning, these women enjoyed a few hours of social interaction each month with an anti-gossip rule being strictly enforced. Later these ritualistic trappings were dropped and study topics were introduced along with a name change--the Port Clinton Literary and Social Club. Study topics included the history and literature of various countries, U.S. History, the Bible, and American biography and humor, as well as the reading of various literary works.

Civic projects also were undertaken by this Club including the establishment of a public drinking fountain (1895), a public restroom (1910), and the public library (1908). The Club also was instrumental in organizing a sister literary group in Oak Harbor (1882) and the Lakeside Federation of Women's Clubs (1894). Today this organization could well be the oldest literary society still in existence in the State of Ohio. Histories of the Club written by members are included in the collection and provide much detail on its early years."

Plugged in and plugged up

"The Barack Obama presidential campaign has tapped Apple's iPhone to help deliver news and information about the candidate. It's also giving Obama's supporters a new way to help swing the campaign to Obama's favor: a Call Friends feature organizes and prioritizes contacts by key battleground states, making it easier to place grassroots political calls."

You mean Obama supporters have friends who have iPhone who aren't already working for him? I'm shocked.

Speaking of grassroots, I was just raking leaves and stepped in some cat feces. Boy does that stink--travels faster than campaign poop on an Obama iPhone.

What happens to the other housing programs?

There are already programs in place to help distressed homeowners. What happens to those with the bailout? Are we only helping the CEOs of Fannie and Fred, or are we dumping good money after bad on an already failed plan? Are the old programs, worth billions, folded in? Replaced? Thrown out?

Port Clinton, Ohio has received $522,000 from CHIP, Community Housing Improvement Program. The limit, according to the website, is $500,000 but there's an extra $50,000 in there if you say please. According to The Beacon, Oct. 2, "The funds will be used to provide housing rehabilitation grants and loans to at least six homeowners and repairs for at least 9 owners . . ." plus some rental assistance, mortgage counseling, etc., and of course, it will pay the salaries of the folks managing this account--which is $25,000,000 just for Ohio. I wonder how you get to be one of the lucky six? If you can get this much under the mean old Republicans and that hateful President Bush, just imagine what the tooth tax fairy will bring under President Obama!! And you can get your unemployment benefits extended 2, 3 or 4 times under a Republican President, just imagine what it will be under Obama. You may never have to work again. Hope. Change. Just tax those top 5% more.

But I digress. We're talking housing. Look how many people are employed by Ohio CHIP, just by the state--think how this will spread around and help in your county! I see the Planner job is open (on the chart)--I use to be one of those on JTPA. Great job [the title is meaningless].

And what about the American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act--that was $200,000,000 a year under Bush. Will it flourish under the magic wand of Obama? And what about all those community partnerships we've been paying for?

. . .the purposes of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990 (NAHA), as amended, are: (1) to promote partnerships between States, units of general local government and nonprofit organizations, and (2) to expand nonprofit organizations' capacity to develop and manage decent and affordable housing. To assist in achieving these purposes, participating jurisdictions (PJs) under the HOME Investment Partnership (HOME) Program must reserve not less than 15 percent of their HOME allocations for investment in housing to be developed, sponsored, or owned by Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs).

Yes, HOME got in the bailout document. Just glancing through this HUD report I see we the people already had about $20,000,000 in place just to protect low income people from predatory lenders in 2001! Well, guys, how well did that work? Do we get more of this program that didn't work in the bailout?

There are thousands of housing-help links to be tracked--there are a lot of different government agencies dabbling in this. That's why it is so critical to keep poor people poor. Thousands of government workers would be unemployed if this were ever successful! You'll have to do some of this research yourself. I have no horse in this race. But if you own distressed property in a bad neighborhood and you earn less than $60,000 a year, I'd say it would be worth checking the internet to see if you can find a way for me to pay for your repairs.

The criminalization of HIV transmission

The two lawyers who wrote about this in the August 6, 2008 JAMA are probably correct. Making it illegal to infect another person isn't going to save many lives and will probably discourage some from getting the care they need. For the most part, their article is about Africa, although their footnotes are from Europe and US. Even so, their recommendations are so pie-in-the-sky it makes you wonder. Except for the sex part, I think I was collecting U.S. government funded reports on this in the 1970s in the agriculture library. And then the goal was a bit smaller--better crops. (AIDS was in Africa at that time, but no one knew it.)

address women's subordinate socioeconomic positions [mentioned several times in the article]

improve women's status and offer serious protection of women's rights

promote equal status of women in marriage, inheritance, access to credit, and employment

address cultural issues such as dry sex and "wife inheritance"

protect women from violence and ostracism

those with HIV MUST PROTECT OTHERS [my emphasis]

those jurisdictions which have criminalization laws in place must reverse them

Maybe they should cut their teeth on global warming first, then work on completely changing the culture of Africa.

"The case against criminalization of HIV transmission," by Scott Burris and Edwin Cameron. JAMA, August 6, 2008, Vol. 300, no. 5, pp. 578-581.

Barney's ex-lover was director of Fannie Mae

Barney Frank seems to have a wide stance problem with his ex's. One was running a male prostitute ring, one had access to inside information and influence that he shouldn't have. I don't know who the current squeeze is, but some sharp reporter ought to be checking him out for the next big story. Not that it would matter to Democrats. I don't expect this to change anyone's ideas of responsibility for the bailout. Whether it's about Bill Ayers and Barack Obama or Barney Frank and Herb Moses, it's always old, unimportant news to liberals.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard." Link

Obama worship

If you thought that video of little kids singing a hymn to Obama was bad, watch this video of young boys in paramilitary garb strutting and shouting Alpha-Omega and reciting different talking points of the Obama campaign, promising him their lives and careers. North Korean brainwashing anyone?

And to think I was bothered by those Obama logos--the red white and blue sun with the road going nowhere--painted on collapsing Ohio barns. Obviously I hadn't looked far enough.

Democrats for Life will have to buck their own President

Moral leadership on this issue is important. Democrats are about to put a man in office who believes the outrageous abortion rate among black women is just another informed choice, a decision between a woman and her “health care provider.” This is a parent who would have his own daughters get an abortion if it weren’t a convenient time in their lives (or his career). This is a man who will shut down opposition to his views in the media. Does DFL really think Obama is going to buck feminists and the left on this notification issue? Feminists don’t want to save babies lives--even babies born alive, and neither do Team Obama and its obedient workers and followers! “. . . parental-involvement laws reduce the minor abortion rate by 13 to 31 percent when a state enacts laws to require parental consent or notification before a minor undergoes an abortion.” Story here.

I’m on the mailing list for the Pregnancy Distress Center, and when the women’s reasons are listed they are often the boyfriend or her parents doing the pressuring to get an abortion--so what's the plan to reach them?

Thanks, Sarah

For showing the world, particularly the hateful women on the left and the right, who denigrated everything about you, from your accent to your education to your baby son, that women can hold their own. If I could change one thing in the debate, it'd be that Johnnie-one-note "corruption and greed on Wall Street," as if that wasn't the stockholders on Main Street in the pensions, IRAs, 401-Ks, 403-Bs and private investments and annuities who were depending on their elected officials--the other 3 guys you're running with and against--for some oversight of the laws and regulations they themselves have put in place. We need an investigation of the Barney Franks of Congress--like yesterday!

However, many people sold homes during the housing bubble and were thrilled that they were able to choose from bids offering thousands more than the asking price. Their "good fortune" was being fed by deregulation in the 90s, by CRA engineering the poor into bad home deals, by Congress taking money from Fannie and Fred in bipartisanship, by the push by banks to move low to moderate income people into homes they couldn't afford to meet their quotas. You can call it corruption and greed if you want, but some were just ordinary school teachers or business people from Dayton or Columbus, Ohio, taking advantage of a good return on their hard earned money as home prices doubled in a very short time. After the recovery from 9-11 with the Bush tax cuts, our investments soared, and we were enjoying the experience of having an imaginary "third person" in our home who just turned over his paycheck each month with no questions asked. We live on our pensions--hardly the rich fat cats that both the Obama-Biden and the McCain-Palin teams try to portray. When the bubble bursts, and they all do, greed has a different face, and it's never the one we see in the mirror. That imaginary tenant has packed his bags, hired a U-haul and left town.

Well, Sarah, you're a winner in my book. I heard someone say that if you watched on TV you saw one debate, if you only listened, you heard something different, and if you read the debate, you'll get yet a third message. Well, there will be a fourth message, as the media snip and cut away at you. They are very hostile toward you. They are subjecting you to the Justice Thomas take down routine, but you seem to be putting on the full armor. We'll know the truth, regardless of how the MSM spins it, and it didn't come out of Joe Biden's mouth.

We've heard this tune before

I don't know about the neo-nazis I never read their stuff, but the far left anti-semitism is certainly on the rise, encouraged by the huge growth of the USA's Muslim population, which now exceeds the Jewish population. Yes, remember this from the 1930s? Or at least the history books we used to have--it's probably all been revised. It's all the fault of those "Jewish bankers." I tell you, folks, you're buying into a package here with Team Obama and his leftist handlers. The left can always find a reason to blame the Jews and especially our ally Israel.

Store here.

How people you didn't elect control everything you do

This is just one. The Western Climate Initiative. There are many out there--mostly under the umbrella of global warming, which now includes health, safety, education, social engineering, and got its fair share of pork in the new bailout.

The Western Climate Initiative would establish a regional market to trade carbon emissions credits, allowing industries that emit greenhouse gases to buy and sell credits for their emissions. The goal is to cut the region's carbon emissions to below 2005 levels by 2020, a roughly 15 percent reduction. [I read 25% by 2020.]

The initiative, proposed Tuesday by seven western states and four Canadian provinces, covers more polluters than other regional plans adopted in the United States, Canada and Europe. [Yahoo News, AP story.] I would have copied from the WCI document, but couldn't--it's more scary in the "real" language.

I think I see hundreds of these a week--architects, engineers and the building trades are wetting themselves, they are so eager to build green, and by that I don't mean environmental--I mean $$$$. If you see a really ugly building that looks like a box of blocks attached with velcro and tin foil, betcha it's "green."

Cap and trade covers electricity, natural gas and heating fuels emissions as well as industrial emissions and transportation emissions. In short, just about everything that makes our world pleasant and easy and comfortable for us. It doesn't cover hot air by politicians and Al Gore.