Just Make Stuff Up by Victor Davis Hanson on National Review Online
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Friday, June 12, 2009
Citizens petition to Barack Obama
"I owe those unions... When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don't mind feeling obligated." - Barack Obama, Audacity of Hope
Dear Friend:
Barack Obama may indeed owe the Big Labor Bosses. But his election did not give him a "mandate" to dramatically expand their forced unionism power... and your PETITION below sends that message loud and clear to our new President!
As a member of Congress, I can tell you that we now face OVERWHELMING challenges in stopping these forced unionism power grabs. Generating massive grassroots pressure is our only hope.
Because it is vital that he understands HE HAS NO MANDATE to give his Big Labor patrons new powers to enslave millions of additional workers in unions and steal their income through confiscatory dues... and your PETITION below will do just that!
If the union bosses get their way, you and I will pay the price in higher taxes, bigger government, and more job-killing, freedom-crushing forced unionism.
Make no mistake: We fail at our nation's peril! I hope you agree. And that I hear back from you without delay.
Sincerely,
Steve King (R-IA)
United States Congressman
Please sign the petition here:
http://www.righttoworkfoundation.org/king1.aspx?pid=B1&gclid=CM-T8baVhZsCFQQVswodJxRdpw
Dear Friend:
Barack Obama may indeed owe the Big Labor Bosses. But his election did not give him a "mandate" to dramatically expand their forced unionism power... and your PETITION below sends that message loud and clear to our new President!
As a member of Congress, I can tell you that we now face OVERWHELMING challenges in stopping these forced unionism power grabs. Generating massive grassroots pressure is our only hope.
Because it is vital that he understands HE HAS NO MANDATE to give his Big Labor patrons new powers to enslave millions of additional workers in unions and steal their income through confiscatory dues... and your PETITION below will do just that!
If the union bosses get their way, you and I will pay the price in higher taxes, bigger government, and more job-killing, freedom-crushing forced unionism.
Make no mistake: We fail at our nation's peril! I hope you agree. And that I hear back from you without delay.
Sincerely,
Steve King (R-IA)
United States Congressman
Please sign the petition here:
http://www.righttoworkfoundation.org/king1.aspx?pid=B1&gclid=CM-T8baVhZsCFQQVswodJxRdpw
US Attorney General: Defense attorney for terrorists
Pay attention to Eric Holder’s law firm and Gitmo detainees
By Michelle Malkin • January 23, 2009 02:41 PM
A good friend writes:
[A]s nearly 100 of the remaining detainees are Yemenis, reflecting that country’s refusal to assure security for repatriated Yemenis, note that AG nominee Eric Holder is a senior partner with Covington & Burling, a prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm, which represents 17 Yemenis currently held at Gitmo.
From the C & B website:
The firm represents 17 Yemeni nationals and one Pakistani citizen held at Guantánamo Bay. The Supreme Court will soon review the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that ordered the dismissal of a number of habeas petitions filed by Guantánamo detainees; some of our clients are petitioners in the Supreme Court case. We expect to play a substantial role in the briefing. We also plan to petition the Supreme Court to hear our Pakistani client’s appeal from the D.C. Circuit’s order dismissing his case. Further, we are pursuing relief in the D.C. Circuit under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 for all of our clients. On a separate front, we filed amicus briefs and coordinated the amicus effort in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in which the Supreme Court in the summer of 2006 invalidated President Bush’s military commissions and in which we have obtained favorable rulings that our clients have rights under the Fifth Amendment and the Geneva Conventions.
Covington & Burling’s Gitmo bar roster has included some of the most radical detainee advocates; see David Remes, who peeled down to his underwear at a press conference in Yemen to draw attention to his clients’ plight and Marc Falkoff, who published a book of detainee poetry and who, in the book’s intro, compared their heroic struggle to the Jews held in concentration camps and Japanese Americans held in internment camps during WWII. [One of Falkoff's "gentle, thoughtful" young poets--a Kuwaiti "cleared for release" and repatriated in 2005--blew himself up in a truck bomb in Mosul last March, killing 13 Iraqi army soldiers and wounding 42 others.]
The fact that Mr. Holder, while Deputy Attorney General, pushed for the release of 16 violent FALN terrorists against the advice of the FBI, the US Attorneys who prosecuted them and the NYPD officers who were maimed by them, suggests that he was perfectly willing to put politics before the national security interests of the country. He is not suited for the job of attorney general, which is central to the issues surrounding the disposition of war on terror detainees.
By Michelle Malkin • January 23, 2009 02:41 PM
A good friend writes:
[A]s nearly 100 of the remaining detainees are Yemenis, reflecting that country’s refusal to assure security for repatriated Yemenis, note that AG nominee Eric Holder is a senior partner with Covington & Burling, a prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm, which represents 17 Yemenis currently held at Gitmo.
From the C & B website:
The firm represents 17 Yemeni nationals and one Pakistani citizen held at Guantánamo Bay. The Supreme Court will soon review the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that ordered the dismissal of a number of habeas petitions filed by Guantánamo detainees; some of our clients are petitioners in the Supreme Court case. We expect to play a substantial role in the briefing. We also plan to petition the Supreme Court to hear our Pakistani client’s appeal from the D.C. Circuit’s order dismissing his case. Further, we are pursuing relief in the D.C. Circuit under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 for all of our clients. On a separate front, we filed amicus briefs and coordinated the amicus effort in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in which the Supreme Court in the summer of 2006 invalidated President Bush’s military commissions and in which we have obtained favorable rulings that our clients have rights under the Fifth Amendment and the Geneva Conventions.
Covington & Burling’s Gitmo bar roster has included some of the most radical detainee advocates; see David Remes, who peeled down to his underwear at a press conference in Yemen to draw attention to his clients’ plight and Marc Falkoff, who published a book of detainee poetry and who, in the book’s intro, compared their heroic struggle to the Jews held in concentration camps and Japanese Americans held in internment camps during WWII. [One of Falkoff's "gentle, thoughtful" young poets--a Kuwaiti "cleared for release" and repatriated in 2005--blew himself up in a truck bomb in Mosul last March, killing 13 Iraqi army soldiers and wounding 42 others.]
The fact that Mr. Holder, while Deputy Attorney General, pushed for the release of 16 violent FALN terrorists against the advice of the FBI, the US Attorneys who prosecuted them and the NYPD officers who were maimed by them, suggests that he was perfectly willing to put politics before the national security interests of the country. He is not suited for the job of attorney general, which is central to the issues surrounding the disposition of war on terror detainees.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Liberal Housing Crash
June 11, 2009
The Liberal Housing Crash By Christopher Chantrill
The American people are pretty well convinced that the mortgage meltdown was the fault of greedy bankers, stupid borrowers, and the odd Friend of Angelo Mozilo like Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT). That's hardly surprising, since the mainstream media has shown a vivid disinterest in getting to the bottom of it all.
That's why we have Thomas Sowell. His latest book, The Housing Boom and Bust, is a workmanlike analysis of the housing crisis. It's short enough, at about 50,000 words, for anyone to get through on a weekend.
Needless to say, Dr. Sowell does not find that the meltdown was all the fault of greedy bankers -- or even foolish borrowers. He puts most of the blame on politicians and activists that insisted that the US had an "affordable housing" crisis when it didn't. The government agencies that implemented the will of the political sector -- the Federal Reserve System, Fannie and Freddie, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development -- they were the guilty suspects with actual fingerprints on the victim.
When analyzing a political scandal, our liberal friends usually like to expose the "myths" that the stupid American people were in thrall to. Dr. Sowell does not descend to such oversimplification, but we will.
Myth #1: The Housing Boom was Nationwide. No it wasn't. It was concentrated in just a a few places. News reports and scholarly research have found that even during the boom affordable housing "has been the norm across most of the country, but with glaring exceptions[.]" Writes Dr. Sowell:
Almost invariably... these are places where severe local government restrictions on land use, and other impediments to building, have driven the cost of houses and of apartment rents to levels that take as much as half of the average family's income[.]
In cities like Dallas and Houston where there are few restrictions on land use, home prices have not skyrocketed; nor have they collapsed in the downturn. "In Dallas the home price decline was only 3 percent."
Myth #2: Greedy Bankers Foisted Sub-Prime Loans on the Poor. Oh no they didn't. It was government. You see, liberal politicians and activists were convinced that banks were unjustly denying loans to minorities and low-income borrowers. They even had studies to show that minorities were discriminated against. The solution? Force. Liberals would force the banks to loan money to less-qualified borrowers.
Various community activists across the country have been able to pressure banks into making concessions in money or in kind, in order to get those activists to withdraw their objections to pending mergers or to banks opening new branches in another state, for example.
Myth #3: Lack of Regulation Caused the Crisis. Actually the regulators were part of the problem. With the politicians cheering them on, the regulators were all over the banks forcing them to lower their lending standards. And when the regulators finally did try to restrain the banks, the politicians reined them in.
When the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight... turned up irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting and in 2004 issued what Barron's magazine called "a blistering 211-page report," Republican Senator Kit Bond [R-MO] called for an investigation of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, tried to have their budget slashed, and sought to have the leadership of the regulatory agency removed. Democratic Barney Frank [D-MA] likewise declared: "It is clear that a leadership change at OFHEO is overdue."
These three myths are familiar. They are verses from the favorite refrains of the liberal songbook. You can also find them in the "whereas" sections of countless liberal Enabling Laws. Whereas there's a national crisis; Whereas business is to blame; Whereas government doesn't have enough regulations: Now therefore... more liberal administrative power is the answer.
Then the liberals act surprised when the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in, and government ends up hurting the very people liberals want to help. The result of cranking up house prices in San Francisco is that "the black population has been cut in half since 1970."
Who knew?
Whatever your grand vision, you cannot ultimately escape from the costs of your vision, writes Sowell.
One of the biggest differences between economic decisions in the market and political decisions in government is that costs are an inescapable factor in economic decisions, while political decisions can often ignore costs[.]
But not forever.
For some legitimate functions of government, like defense, excessive cost goes with the territory. When you are defending against Hitler, you crank up the National Debt to 150 percent of GDP and worry about paying it off later.
But cranking up the National Debt over 100 percent of GDP to clear up the mess after some liberals had a dream of "affordable housing" that they thought other people should pay for is something different. After paying for that, people might just decide they want to change their governing elite for another one.
Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his roadtothemiddleclass.com and usgovernmentspending.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.
Post taken from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/the_liberal_housing_crash.html at June 11, 2009 - 12:48:59 PM EDT
The Liberal Housing Crash By Christopher Chantrill
The American people are pretty well convinced that the mortgage meltdown was the fault of greedy bankers, stupid borrowers, and the odd Friend of Angelo Mozilo like Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT). That's hardly surprising, since the mainstream media has shown a vivid disinterest in getting to the bottom of it all.
That's why we have Thomas Sowell. His latest book, The Housing Boom and Bust, is a workmanlike analysis of the housing crisis. It's short enough, at about 50,000 words, for anyone to get through on a weekend.
Needless to say, Dr. Sowell does not find that the meltdown was all the fault of greedy bankers -- or even foolish borrowers. He puts most of the blame on politicians and activists that insisted that the US had an "affordable housing" crisis when it didn't. The government agencies that implemented the will of the political sector -- the Federal Reserve System, Fannie and Freddie, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development -- they were the guilty suspects with actual fingerprints on the victim.
When analyzing a political scandal, our liberal friends usually like to expose the "myths" that the stupid American people were in thrall to. Dr. Sowell does not descend to such oversimplification, but we will.
Myth #1: The Housing Boom was Nationwide. No it wasn't. It was concentrated in just a a few places. News reports and scholarly research have found that even during the boom affordable housing "has been the norm across most of the country, but with glaring exceptions[.]" Writes Dr. Sowell:
Almost invariably... these are places where severe local government restrictions on land use, and other impediments to building, have driven the cost of houses and of apartment rents to levels that take as much as half of the average family's income[.]
In cities like Dallas and Houston where there are few restrictions on land use, home prices have not skyrocketed; nor have they collapsed in the downturn. "In Dallas the home price decline was only 3 percent."
Myth #2: Greedy Bankers Foisted Sub-Prime Loans on the Poor. Oh no they didn't. It was government. You see, liberal politicians and activists were convinced that banks were unjustly denying loans to minorities and low-income borrowers. They even had studies to show that minorities were discriminated against. The solution? Force. Liberals would force the banks to loan money to less-qualified borrowers.
Various community activists across the country have been able to pressure banks into making concessions in money or in kind, in order to get those activists to withdraw their objections to pending mergers or to banks opening new branches in another state, for example.
Myth #3: Lack of Regulation Caused the Crisis. Actually the regulators were part of the problem. With the politicians cheering them on, the regulators were all over the banks forcing them to lower their lending standards. And when the regulators finally did try to restrain the banks, the politicians reined them in.
When the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight... turned up irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting and in 2004 issued what Barron's magazine called "a blistering 211-page report," Republican Senator Kit Bond [R-MO] called for an investigation of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, tried to have their budget slashed, and sought to have the leadership of the regulatory agency removed. Democratic Barney Frank [D-MA] likewise declared: "It is clear that a leadership change at OFHEO is overdue."
These three myths are familiar. They are verses from the favorite refrains of the liberal songbook. You can also find them in the "whereas" sections of countless liberal Enabling Laws. Whereas there's a national crisis; Whereas business is to blame; Whereas government doesn't have enough regulations: Now therefore... more liberal administrative power is the answer.
Then the liberals act surprised when the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in, and government ends up hurting the very people liberals want to help. The result of cranking up house prices in San Francisco is that "the black population has been cut in half since 1970."
Who knew?
Whatever your grand vision, you cannot ultimately escape from the costs of your vision, writes Sowell.
One of the biggest differences between economic decisions in the market and political decisions in government is that costs are an inescapable factor in economic decisions, while political decisions can often ignore costs[.]
But not forever.
For some legitimate functions of government, like defense, excessive cost goes with the territory. When you are defending against Hitler, you crank up the National Debt to 150 percent of GDP and worry about paying it off later.
But cranking up the National Debt over 100 percent of GDP to clear up the mess after some liberals had a dream of "affordable housing" that they thought other people should pay for is something different. After paying for that, people might just decide they want to change their governing elite for another one.
Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his roadtothemiddleclass.com and usgovernmentspending.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.
Post taken from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/the_liberal_housing_crash.html at June 11, 2009 - 12:48:59 PM EDT
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard: Flashback: Obama Said Terrorists Shouldn't Get Miranda Rights
What this video, The Miranda issue is simply laughed aside, as if it was preposterous to even raise the subject.
And two months after his Inauguration, President Obama reiterated, "Now, do these folks deserve miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not."
Then he says "Dont mock the constitution" He is saying that terrorists should be given the same rights as American citizens. BY AMERICA. the problem with that logic is.. THEY ARENT AMERICAN CITIZENS! THEY DO NOT GET THE SAME RIGHTS WE DO. (Unless we are talking about citizens committing terrorism. If thats the case then they do deserve due process.) For the most part we are talking about enemy combatants. This is a joke, that he Barack Obama who consistantly flouts federal law (his handling of the Chrysler bankrupcy) and goes against the spirit and letter of constitutional law would have the nerve to use that language. But therein lies the "Audacity of Hope" The audacity of him who believes that because he has proclaimed his mandate, he can lie, cheat and steal as long as he feels that he is achieving the greater good. (This is not conjecture, this is a philosophy taken from one of his favorite mentors, Saul Alinsky; Read his manifesto "Rules For Radicals." Obama taught these principles as a professor.
So much for the smirk and sarcasm. I guess the joke's on us.
BTW: It was Sarah Palin who said at the GOP convention: "Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."
What this video, The Miranda issue is simply laughed aside, as if it was preposterous to even raise the subject.
And two months after his Inauguration, President Obama reiterated, "Now, do these folks deserve miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not."
Then he says "Dont mock the constitution" He is saying that terrorists should be given the same rights as American citizens. BY AMERICA. the problem with that logic is.. THEY ARENT AMERICAN CITIZENS! THEY DO NOT GET THE SAME RIGHTS WE DO. (Unless we are talking about citizens committing terrorism. If thats the case then they do deserve due process.) For the most part we are talking about enemy combatants. This is a joke, that he Barack Obama who consistantly flouts federal law (his handling of the Chrysler bankrupcy) and goes against the spirit and letter of constitutional law would have the nerve to use that language. But therein lies the "Audacity of Hope" The audacity of him who believes that because he has proclaimed his mandate, he can lie, cheat and steal as long as he feels that he is achieving the greater good. (This is not conjecture, this is a philosophy taken from one of his favorite mentors, Saul Alinsky; Read his manifesto "Rules For Radicals." Obama taught these principles as a professor.
So much for the smirk and sarcasm. I guess the joke's on us.
BTW: It was Sarah Palin who said at the GOP convention: "Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."
Miranda Rights for Terrorists
The Weekly Standard: Miranda Rights for Terrorists
Unbelievably, the Obama administration is extending our Constitutional rights to those trying to kill us. Even though he said he wouldnt give Miranda to terrorists.
Unbelievably, the Obama administration is extending our Constitutional rights to those trying to kill us. Even though he said he wouldnt give Miranda to terrorists.
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