A Good Imagination and a Pile of Junk

Transparency. We’ve been hearing about the need for transparency in the financial system for months. Between Barney Frank’s bloviatiations (fucking ironic since he’s the chairman of the House Financial Services committee, but I digress), and pundits across the spectrum; from CNBC to FOX.

Even Paulson has come out more than once on the topic.

But they’re not going to do it:

Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

Here. We’re going to spend 2 TRILLION dollars of your money. But we’re not going to tell you what we’re going to do with it.

Trust us.

We’re from the government.

We’re here to help you.

It’s insane. inSANE.

What I don’t understand is why people are talking about what the President Elect to do about the economy before January 20?

He’s not the President.

Settle down folks.

On my way home from my buddy’s house yesterday, the morning after, I blasted a couple thousand words into my laptop about the whole thing.

On and off I’d been noodling around with it, editing, adding and removing, etc.

But today I got a link to Steven Den Beste’s treatment.

I smiled, then deleted the file, since there was about 40 percent overlap in the points I was trying to make.

Well, a voting public gets the government they deserve.

Scary shit from Greg Stillson Obama:

ZOGBY SATURDAY: Republican John McCain has pulled back within the margin of error… The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday, one day, polling. He is beginning to cut into Obama’s lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all…

(Text on Drudge, quoted from Zogby)

…and in other news….

Obama’s aunt is an illegal alien living in Southie who’s made a $260 donation to his campaign.

You can’t make this shit up people.

A young teenage girl was about to finish her first year of college. She considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat but her father was a rather staunch Republican.

One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to taxes and welfare programs. He stopped her and asked her how she was doing in school.

She answered that she had a 4.0 GPA but it was really tough. She had to study all the time, never had time to go out and party. She didn’t have time for a boyfriend and didn’t really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying.

He asked, “How is your friend Mary.” She replied that Mary was barely getting by. She had a 2.0 GPA, never studied, but was very popular on campus, went to all the parties all the time. Why she often didn’t show up for classes because she was hung over.

Dad then asked his daughter why she didn’t go to the Dean’s office and ask why she couldn’t take 1.0 off her 4.0 and give it to her friend who only had a 2.0. That way they would both have a 3.0 GPA.

The daughter angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair, I worked really hard for mine and Mary has done nothing”.

The father slowly smiled and said, “Welcome to the Republican Party”.

(h/t to flmom over at Malkin)

$25,000 Reward for Obama/Ayers/Dohrn/Khalidi Tape
Dirty Harry suggests a benefactor can offer $100,000.

Well, I don’t know if one will step forward. I can guarantee, though, that if the goods are delivered the blogosphere can contribute $20,000. In a matter of hours.

Maybe more. More would depend on the tape.

This offer includes is particularly directed towards Los Angeles Times employees. Maybe ones that just got fired. Or will get fired in the next couple of weeks.

Hat tip to SondraK

I thought this fully bipartisan condemnation of MSNBC has been pretty heartening.

Both sides of aisle rip MSNBC

In a room full of television industry executives, no one seemed inclined to defend MSNBC on Monday for what some were calling its lopsidedly liberal coverage of the presidential election.

At this point I’m wondering if the unifying political issue of our time isn’t going to shape up to be the rejection of establishment media, establishment politicians and the general detachment of “The Powers That Be” from the rest of us.

I’ve been getting some ideas about a nonpartisan (yes, me) grass roots effort to rein in some of this.

Dunno. Market’s going to open in 10 so I’ve got to go contend with that. But I’ll have more about this in the coming couple weeks.

(fixed the homonym, thanks Ian o/)

Again he denies without explaining simple facts, then… well, watch…

(hat tip to Michelle Malkin)

and people are going to VOTE for these clowns? What are you nuts? Regardless of the actual answers to the questions, they simply refuse to answer. I really won’t have that in the White House.

Look you can’t say that redistributing wealth isn’t socialist. You can’t. It’s fundamentally dishonest.

This shit just sounds more and more like Biden and Obama are backtracking on the meaning of the word “is”.

Unfortunately this time the tv station knuckles under the Democratic Thugocracy.

I love it. He makes such an unabashed fool of himself here…

That you end up with headlines like this:

Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden

You’d better not criticize the master!

Fucking disgraceful.

I wasn’t gonna say anything ’cause god, if I was wrong….

But now I’ve heard it in a few places.

“Girl attacked and mutilated in Pittsburgh”

Look, something really bad clearly happened to her, and that’s sad. But damnit who would even think that way?

Someone on another blog (ace?) captured it best: “It just smells a little too Tawana Brawley”

More from Malkin

To fake something like that is fucking sick. I don’t care what side you’re on, it’s things like that which pollute trust in a marked way and on a really vast scale.

Of course if it’s on the up and up… well…

nah, I just can’t imagine it.

UPDATE: and from this article in True Crime Report, the following:

“Police planned to administer a polygraph test to Ashley Todd, 20, because her statements about the attack conflict with evidence from the Citizens Bank ATM where she claims the incident occurred, police said.”

UPDATE: Jesus Christ. Story at Ace… and Drudge

Police tell KDKA that a campaign volunteer has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

The scumbag bitch needs to be put in prison.

I’m hearing an awful lot out there about the donations accepted on The Messiah’s website not doing basic matching checks on names and card numbers and just cashing the donations.

A couple commenters mention they filled out fake information for a minimum donation and having had it accepted. These aren’t just fake names, they’re names and addresses that don’t match the credit cards being used to pay for them.

Just try that at amazon.com, paypal, or buy.com. It’s the easiest thing in the world to verify. If it’s not being done it’s intentional. That’s just it. There’s no ambiguity. IF true, it’s willful and criminal.

And if true, this is an utterly outrageous violation of our system of government. I don’t expect an honest investigation any time soon; certainly not in time for the election.

Add to this the fake ACORN registrations (even an internal investigation suggested they were in violation of several federal laws) and I’m frightened.

Look, if the Obamessiah gets into the white house then it needs to be legitimate. Not because he bought the election with hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal campaign donations. Not because he was voted in by an army of registrants that don’t exist or are long deceased.

Personally, he disgusts me utterly. He’s vague and duplicitous, having no qualities other than personality cult charisma that qualify him for the office. I disagree with his policy proposals so completely that I have to keep checking myself. In fact he reminds me of a carnival psychic; someone who says little, suggests much, and leaves you free to superimpose whatever you want to hear over the top of their words so that you walk away thinking they’re a genius.

When push comes to shove, I do not believe that Obama is acting in good faith. I believe he’s trying only to get elected and is tailoring his speeches and positions to appeal to whomever he’s addressing at the time.

If he’s elected fairly, he’ll be the president; he’ll be my president.

Because that’s how the system works…

or ought to.

BTW: The acorn fraud isn’t something that can be reasonably disputed with ACORN employees and volunteers coming forward admitting it.

Then there’s the Illegal Campaign Donations

Here’s where I initially found out about the Illegal Campaign Donations issue. They just posted a follow up article.

Orson Scott Card.

…Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It’s as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn’t there a story here? Doesn’t journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren’t you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

…

Next up? Satan’s snowball factory.

All, ALL voter registrations submitted by ACORN need to be removed from the rolls. Every one.

At an Obama rally, the audience chants “Oh-Bah-Ma”

At a McCain/Palin rally, they chant: “U-S-A”

It’s sorta all you really need to know.

“Is Acorn Stealing the Election?”

It is reasonable to ask whether ACORN is in fact a criminal conspiracy to subvert the voting rights of Americans. Which makes it all the more remarkable that Barack Obama paid ACORN $800,000 to register new voters, and then lied about it, falsely telling the Federal Elections Commission that the $800,000 went to a group called Citizen Services Inc. for “advance work.”
…
Today John McCain addressed ACORN’s increasingly problematic role in the campaign at a rally in Wisconsin, one of the states in which dozens of ACORN employees are under criminal investigation

dozens, DOZENS of ACORN employees are under criminal investigation.

They’re sure trying.

Or how about:

NUTS!

CLEVELAND - Two Ohio voters, including Domino’s pizza worker Christopher Barkley , claimed yesterday that they were hounded by the community-activist group ACORN to register to vote several times, even though they made it clear they’d already signed up.

ACORN has to go.

Whassamadda? Don’t think your guy can win on basic honest voting? So it’s ok to stack the deck as long as it “serves your narrative”?

Fucking pathetic.

This shit just keeps getting better:

Kenya detains Corsi during Obama probe
Officials scuttle WND reporter’s news conference on investigation
Posted: October 07, 2008
7:26 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

WND senior staff writer Jerry Corsi

NAIROBI, Kenya – The government of Kenya is holding WND senior staff reporter Jerome Corsi in custody after police picked him up at his hotel just prior to a scheduled news conference in which he planned to announce the findings of his investigation into Barack Obama’s connections in the country.

Corsi, the author of the No. 1 best-selling book “The Obama Nation,” was picked up by authorities at his hotel at 9:45 a.m. and detained at Nyayo House, the provincial headquarters for Nairobi.

“Just as we were about to start the 10 a.m. press conference at the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi, Kenyan immigration approached us and detained us,” Corsi told WND by telephone this morning. “Tim Bueler, my publicist, and I are now in the immigration offices, with our passports taken. The immigration officer told the press, ‘There is no problem, and Dr. Corsi is a friend of Kenya.’”

Of course there’s no problem.

Saturday Night Live filmed a skit where they had Pelosi, Barney Frank, and George Soros giving essentially the straight dope about this fucking mess and their complicity in it.

NBC pulled it down.

Of course they can skewer Palin all day which frankly is fine. Tina Fae (Fay? Fey? *shrug* too lazy to go look it up) is awesome, if waning. But when they produce a skit that is disparaging of the liberals, it’s got to go.

Satire is vital. It’s importance in any culture is not to be underestimated. Lewis Black nailed it when he said (of the arabs) that one of their biggest problems is that they’ve no sense of humor.

You’ve got to ask yourself what is wrong when you can’t speak badly about The Party. When you’re not ALLOWED to make the joke.

The skit isn’t earth shattering. It’s not their best material. But it’s pretty cute, and plenty funny enough to be on the show…

But for the fact that The Party won’t allow it.

Here it is.

I know I get venomous and hot headed about this stuff. Certainly beyond the level of reasonable conversation. But that’s what this little online place is for me, a place to vent. But I think the action here is really pretty important. Damnit. What does it say when you’re not allowed to make the joke?

Now, I’ve got a local copy (because I’m a data packrat and mildly OCD about saving things to my 2T drive.) But I’m not going to post it here because at 17 meg… sheesh…. I don’t think my income can bear the increase in traffic that would result.

Here’s a couple links I’ve found:

The Torrent (unverified by me.)
The Google search by which I found it

This crisis started in our housing market in the form of subprime loans that were pushed on people who could not afford them. Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread. This corruption was encouraged by Democrats in Congress, and abetted by Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis. I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed. But the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place.

Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in. As recently as September of last year he said that subprime loans had been, quote, “a good idea.” Well, Senator Obama, that “good idea” has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

To hear him talk now, you’d think he’d always opposed the dangerous practices at these institutions. But there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest he did. He was surely familiar with the people who were creating this problem. The executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have advised him, and he has taken their money for his campaign.

He has received more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other senator in history, with the exception of the chairman of the committee overseeing them.

John McCain

And to think there are actually people who believe a word that comes from Barney Frank or Obama.

I guess as long as he smiles when he lies the facts don’t matter.