Talking with the left

I have just read about an experience of another blogger here at WordPress.  Their post was about the reaction of an individual who took issue with the banner the blogger had hung from the front of his home with a message encouraging voters to “Vote yes on proposition 8”.  Proposition 8 is an initiative measure on the 2008 California General Election ballot titled Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. If passed, the proposition would “change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.”

You can read the post here

His experience was the same as mine whenever I have engaged in “discussion” with liberal “thinkers”.

In my case the topic was about national and foreign policies. While I had given facts, figures, documented quotes, studies, charts, graphs, etc. etc. I was always met with tirade, rant, yelling, name calling, hateful remarks and also being accused of being narrow minded. Clearly they were shooting the messenger.

In the end I am always left with the thought that I am arguing with an emotional 4 year old throwing a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. You can’t win with emotionally charged and intellectually lazy individuals who go out of their way to tear down traditional institutions. When confronted with facts they can’t repute they unleash their emotions and launch into personal attacks. Your case is no different.

In my final analysis I blame the lazy voters who stays home the first Tues. in November. We get what we deserve.

The way our country is evolving, in a few more decades Islam will be well established and their leadership will deal with the types who visited your neighborhood.

In the meantime, brace yourself. If Obama gets in office, nothing is sacred.

Report: Secret Service Says ‘Kill Him’ Allegations at Palin Rally Unfounded

A Secret Service agent called charges that a man yelled “kill him” in reference to Barack Obama during a Sarah Palin rally “unfounded” .

The summary of the story goes as follows: After an October 14, 2008 Sarah Palin rally the Scranton Times reported that “one man” in the audience yelled something offensive and incendiary. The story reports there were remarks of “terrorists”, “kill him” and “off with his head”.

This was the basis for Representative John Lewis’s remarks which accused Mr. McCain of race-baiting and xenophobia. Mr. Lewis’s remarks referenced earlier years in America and recalled events of mob lynchings, churches being torched and deaths. In essence, Mr. Lewis pointed an accusing finger at Mr. McCain to label him as an unabashed racist.

The accusation advanced by Mr. Lewis is intellectually putrid. Mr. Lewis judges John McCain and Sarah Palin to be guilty by association to a single audience member, a stranger who harbors ill-will. Mr. Lewis holds Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin personally responsible. It is hard for me to understand how Mr. Lewis got to be where he is by being so obtuse, but there is a part of me that wants to point to affirmative action, but I won’t; that would be “wrong”.

If this wasn’t enough to enrage any thinking American wanting nothing more for his country than righteousness and fairness there is now a new element of this story to ponder.

The FBI got involved. Threats of the nature reported by the story are not ignored by the FBI. They did their job to discover the truth and to possibly bring charges against these radicals. (I will even call them terrorists.) People like this who seek to cripple our political process and to injure and kill need to be put in jail. Rightly so.

However, there is a problem. The FBI interviewed their own agents to discover what they may have heard. They stand and mingle among the people in and around the audience. They are alleged to be everywhere. Certainly they would have heard these reported remarks and would have converged on the idiot(s) to be shepherded away for questioning. The agents heard nothing. The FBI also interviewed other members of the rally with the same result. It appears no one heard the reported remarks. The FBI then interviewed reporter David Singleton / STAFF WRITER who is the only one to have heard and reported the alleged remarks emanating from the audience. All he can say is that he heard it… allegedly.

The FBI’s investigation is on-going. As it looks now the reporter “invented” the incident and placed it into his story. At best, it was dishonest. At worst, sinister.

So – there we have it.

• We have the press injecting into their reporting lies and falsehoods designed to do what, incite? agitate? slander? victimize? influence thinking? This is not only wrong – it is dangerous to this country and to her people.

• We have Mr. Lewis who then used the mainstream press to launch emotionally loaded swill against Mr. McCain and his campaign and to call him a racist and agitator wanting to herald in the dark days of an earlier America. It is presented to America as if it were fact. (Meanwhile, we cannot get a valid birth certificate of Mr. Obama. Even as I write this there are investigators in Hawaii who are not being allowed to put down their 10 dollar fee to acquire a public document recording Mr. Obama’s birth. In fact, it is Mr. Obama who is denying their access to it. What on earth is there on a birth certificate that is so sensitive that Mr. Obama does not want anyone to see? )

• We have the press eager to advance the reporter’s fabricated event as fact at a time when Americans are getting set to cast their vote for the man who will occupy the most powerful seat in government, yet we cannot get the press to even adequately dig into Mr. Obama’s associations with William Ayers, Acorn, his associations with officials in pre-meltdown Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae or to even report on where Mr. Obama was born.

Don’t look now, but the press is attempting to employ that old Jedi Mind Trick, waiving their hand across our collective faces and uttering “These aren’t the issues you are looking for. Move along.”

The liberals should be as concerned. They should know that if the press can skew stories in such a way as to paint a group of Americans in a certain light they should know that it can happen to them, too. Ah, but the press is staffed with people of the same ilk, so we know that can not happen.

If the press did their job, they would have discovered the truth as did the FBI but like so many times before, the press fails the people…. intentionally.

There is a double standard flowing through our mainstream media. It is fomented by ABC, CBS, NBC, MS-NBC, PBS (funded with tax dollars), The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Harold, et. al. Some of us know about this double standard while others choose to ignore or deny its very existence. Some of us know it has existed in this country for a long, long, time.

And the beat goes on.

Representative John Lewis reaction to McCain campaign “hostility”.

Representative John Lewis reacts to audience members divisive comments at campaign stop by blaming McCain.   Keep in mind all that Mr. McCain did was cite fact.  No more.  No less.  Just the facts.   He can no more be held responsible for reaction to those facts than I can be held responsible for Mr. Lewis’s obtuse viewpoint on the matter.

As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing today reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed one Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Governor Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.

This is simply an example of hypersensitivity. How does anyone raise facts about the behavior of any given person without being attacked from an emotional level and in the process having to defend against irrelevant accusations?

Say for a moment a young boy sees his four year old sister set fire to the family cat and he reports the event to his mother who retorts, “Leave your poor sister alone. She would never do such a thing. You’re just picking on her! Now go to your room young man!!!”

The attack from the mother comes from an emotional level and chooses to ignore an accusation firmly based upon fact. A conscious choice is made to dismiss an allegation because of a strong emotional attachment and a general disbelief that the little girl is capable of doing wrong.

Don’t shoot the messenger just because you don’t like the message, especially when the message is based upon fact. Doing so only makes you look like an over protective and emotional mother.

Further, If McCain and/or Palin are at the podium to deliberately bring the crowd to a froth ready to lynch then that is one thing which should never be defended. However, again, this isn’t the case.

The fact there are a few idiots in the crowd should be viewed by any thinking American as being just that and should not serve to detract from the facts presented by McCain and Palin.

In my opinion, Mr. Lewis who owes McCain and Palin an apology after his vile attempt to link them to rioting in the streets and organizing lynch mobs and should seek out the members of the audience to address his grievance.

America – no principles, no scruples, no honor.

Polls are showing that Obama’s association with Bill Ayers – bomber of the U.S. Capitol building during the late 60’s and therefore a domestic terrorist – carries no importance to the majority of Americans. Of those polled 87% do not believe Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers is a valid campaign issue.
View the poll here.

Why is that?   Why is it not important that a possible future president of the most powerful and greatest country in the world launched his political career from the living room of a domestic terrorist, a self-described communist?

Why would anyone seek out and align with racists, anti-Americans and Marxists unless they considered themselves to be a sympathizer of their beliefs, motivations and ideals.

We have a presidential candidate who actually makes it a personal policy to associate with individuals like Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists. – Barack Obama

But what can we expect from a country with a growing population who has over the past few decades grown to hate her country, has popular cultural figures publicly sympathize with her enemies and encourages others to do the same? What else can we expect from a country that believes it is more important to abandon her founding principles to embrace socialist/Marxist policies?

We’ve been at this bailout thing for a long time

Apparently, America is so rich we don’t know what to do with it.

$11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Story here

$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Story here

$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Story here

$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Story Here

$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the  American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Story here

$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Story here

30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Story here

$90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
Story here

$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Story here

The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens.  In particular,  their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
Story here

During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries.  Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Homeland Security Report:

The National Policy Institute, ‘estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of  between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.’
Story here

In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.
Story here

‘The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States ..’
Story here

The total cost is $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR. In two years we could pay the Wall Street bailout!

Fed Agrees to Loan AIG $37.8B

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday agreed to provide insurance giant American International Group Inc. with a loan of up to $37.8 billion, on top of one made to the troubled company last month.

Full story here

AIG Draws Fire for Executives’ $440,000 Post-Bailout Retreat at Posh California Resort

WASHINGTON – Less than a week after the federal government had to bail out American International Group Inc., the company sent executives on a $440,000 retreat to a posh California resort, lawmakers investigating the company’s meltdown said Tuesday.

Full story here

CEO Bludgeoned to Death in India by Fired Employees (Can Barney Frank be next please?)

This story ran in late September 2008, but I find it even more relevant today than before.  You can take the title above as is and perform a search and the story will come up.  The opening couple of paragraphs read as:

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of recently fired workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who had dismissed them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi.

Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, an Italy-based manufacturer of car parts, died of severe head wounds Monday afternoon after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said.

That could be your chosen CEO or even your representative or senator getting his/her just due.

Back in the ’90s and during the opening years of 2000, the United States, and the world, too, no doubt, outsourced just about anything it could.

With the GSE meltdown,  the subsequent drop in everyone’s 401K and watching some CEOs walk away from their orchestrated fiasco with millions of dollars in bonuses, to say sentiment in the U.S. toward these events and CEOs is disgusting falls a bit short of accuracy.

I wonder if the U.S. can outsource CEO flogging to India.  I feel pretty confident saying we probably have a pent-up demand right now.

My first nominee would be Barney Frank, but something tells me he would actually like it and scream like a little girl.

Just a thought.

Impeach Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd

Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the Chairs of the House and Senate committees, respectively, must resign their positions on these committees and impeachment proceedings against them must begin immediately.

Both Frank and Dodd have demonstrated their incompetency as the Chairs of these committees, engaging in economic policies which bring the U.S. closer to centrally planned economies such as Marxian economies.  Frank and Dodd are making decisions this country can literally not afford and threaten the world’s economies.

Our government must not be in the business of being in business and therefore must bring its involvement with the Government Sponsored Enterprises known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to an immediate end.

Socialism has no future in the United States, unless of course, you vote for Barack Obama.

Read about the meltdown time line here.

Barney Frank screws Director at Fannie Mae, then the rest of us.

…  an alternate title might be …

Barney Frank and boyfriend Herb Moses, executive at Fanne Mae, are just the tip of the iceberg of a larger underlying problem.

From this article we learn that Representative Barney Frank, (D-Mass.) who is a homosexual (the term “Gay” is subversion to make the behavior palletable to the rest of us) had a boyfriend who worked at Fannie Mae. If his boyfriend, Herb Moses, worked in the mail-room that relationship might be overlooked, but Frank’s boyfriend was Director of Housing Initiatives at Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998, when Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie Mae.

The article states

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.”

Now, we have a lot of things to be angry about. If you’re fuming and can’t think straight right now, I’ll highlight them for you, since I’ve had a little time to stop the bleeding from my eyeballs.

1. There is Barney Frank himself just because he is the way he is.
2. There is his behavior while he is being himself.
3. There is his lack of scruples and ethics (covered that, I know), engaging in questionable behavior with the head of a government body he and his committee preside over.
4. There is the media, all too willing to give Democrats a pass while those Democrats screw heads of Fannie Mae and by extension, the rest of us.

For those who are now regaining their normal blood pressure and the tunnel vision fades away, you might have a few questions.   Some of them might even be among the following list.

1. Does anyone see a problem with our media?
2. Is the media blind?
3. Is the media – ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Public Broadcasting System et. al. – so busy advancing the agenda of the Democrat Party and its socialist leaning value systems that the media in the U.S. are incapable of showing America how these socialist policies – some of which are represented by the very existance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are a failure to the people and the country as a whole?
4. Is the media in bed with the Democrat Party?
5. Does the Democrat Party also have influence over the media just as they have over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Think about this the next time you’re waiting in line at the check-out counter at the grocery store as you ponder the cover of the National Inquirer.  Think about the pablum the media wants to feed us. Think about who is directing our (voting public) attention.

Better yet, just think.

Then go vote every one of those sons of bitches out of office this November.  If we do not do this, we deserve what we get, just as we have been getting for decades.  Send a ripple through the psyche of America in the process, too.

Just do it.

Are GSEs Constitutional? (Probably, but perhaps they shouldn’t be)

I singled-out the paragraph below which comes from The Wall Street Journal online edition entitled “Fannie Mae’s Patron Saint” which talks about Barney Frank.

By early 2007, Mr. Frank was in charge of the House Financial Services Committee, arguing that he had long favored some kind of reform. “What blocked it [reform] last year,” Mr. Frank said then, “was the insistence of some economic conservative fundamentalists in the Bush Administration who, to be honest, don’t think there should be a Fannie Mae or a Freddie Mac.” What really blocked it was Mr. Frank’s insistence that any reform be watered down and not include any reduction in their MBS holdings.

The 30,000 foot question I have is this; Why is the U.S. government in the business of being in business, creating so called Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE)? My untrained-wanna-be-Constitution-law-brain wants to call that activity “unconstitutional”, but hey, I’m just a stoo-pid U.S. tax payer.

Here’s my other concern; Throughout the evolution of the Republican’s and others’ efforts to bring oversight into the business practices and policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the likes of Barney Frank and his ilk continually defended the GSEs. The glaring problem? They hold no expertise or qualifications as accountants or financial analysts to allow them to espouse binding opinions about the health of these GSEs.  In fact – in a court of law – their so-called “expert” opinions would not be admissible. Yet we allow their opinions to trump the wisdom and insight of others who do.

My country is upside-down.

Democrat quotes about the health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Article and video can be seen at the Wall Street Journal web site

Take a deep breath and read some of the excerpts below. If it is upsetting to you, it should be.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.): “Through nearly a dozen hearings, where frankly we are trying to fix something that wasn’t broke, Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines.”

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.): “Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines. Everything in the 1992 act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY): In a hearing several years ago about a report on the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from their regulator, Armando Falcon, Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Director, Falcon came under fire. Meeks said; “The GSEs have done a tremendous job. There has been nothing that was indicated that’s wrong with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac has come up on its own,” adding the regulator was trying to give the two a “heart surgeon [sic] when they really don’t need it.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.): “The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.): In the same hearing several years ago about a report on the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from their regulator, Falcon, Frank attacked Falcon: “I don’t see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems.”

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.): “I, just briefly will say, Mr. Chairman, obviously, like most of us here, this is one of the great success stories of all time.”

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.): “And my worry is that we’re using the recent safety and soundness concerns, particularly with Freddie, and with a poor regulator, as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie’s mission.”

Franklin Raines, former head of Fannie Mae: “These assets are so riskless that their capital for holding them should be under 2%.

Richard Syron, former head of Freddie Mac: “If I had better foresight, maybe I could have improved things a little bit. But frankly, if I had perfect foresight, I would never have taken this job in the first place.”

Note: Raines was forced out of Fannie Mae in December 2004 after the Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into alleged accounting problems at Fannie Mae involving an estimated $6 bn in accounting problems. The Office of Federal Housing Oversight sued Raines in 2006, accusing him of aiding accounting shenanigans at Fannie, which allegedly involved the delay of reporting losses so top executives could earn large bonuses.

The suit attempted to recover the $50 mn Raines in pay got based on billions of dollars in overstated earnings. In total, OFHEO demanded $110 mn in fines and a clawback of $115 mn in bonuses for three executives accused, including Raines.

Raines, Fannie’s former chief financial officer and its former controller settled the case in April 2008, agreeing to pay fines totaling about $3 mn, paid for by Fannie’s insurance policies.

Raines also agreed to donate the proceeds from the sale of $1.8 mn of his Fannie stock and to give up stock options, though the options were worthless. Raines also gave up an estimated $5.3 mn of “other benefits” said to be related to his pension and forgone bonuses. In the end, Raines kept most of his largesse–in 2003 alone, his compensation was estimated at over $20 mn.

Democrats have long history of stone-walling Republican efforts to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

You’re gonna love this. It’s enough to make you want to throw up. If Voting America had a brain they would get off their McDonald’s fed fat ass an vote every fricking Democrat out of office. But they won’t. They fear that if they do, their entitlements (read as government teat) will dry up.

We are heading down the road to a socialist country. Read about the GSE meltdown time line here.

How Did Your Senators Vote?

TOTAL:

Yea: 74

Nay: 25

NAME	VOTE	VOTE
Akaka (D-HI)	Y
Alexander (R-TN)	Y
Allard (R-CO)		N
Barrasso (R-WY)		N
Baucus (D-MT)	Y
Bayh (D-IN)	Y
Bennett (R-UT)	Y
Biden (D-DE)	Y
Bingaman (D-NM)	Y
Bond (R-MO)	Y
Boxer (D-CA)	Y
Brown (D-OH)	Y
Brownback (R-KS)		N
Bunning (R-KY)		N
Burr (R-NC)	Y
Byrd (D-WV)	Y
Cantwell (D-WA)		N
Cardin (D-MD)	Y
Carper (D-DE)	Y
Casey (D-PA)	Y
Chambliss (R-GA)	Y
Clinton (D-NY)	Y
Coburn (R-OK)	Y
Cochran (R-MS)		N
Coleman (R-MN)	Y
Collins (R-ME)	Y
Conrad (D-ND)	Y
Corker (R-TN)	Y
Cornyn (R-TX)	Y
Craig (R-ID)	Y
Crapo (R-ID)		N
DeMint (R-SC)		N
Dodd (D-CT)	Y
Dole (R-NC)		N
Domenici (R-NM)	Y
Dorgan (D-ND)		N
Durbin (D-IL)	Y
Ensign (R-NV)	Y
Enzi (R-WY)		N
Feingold (D-WI)		N
Feinstein (D-CA)	Y
Graham (R-SC)	Y
Grassley (R-IA)	Y
Gregg (R-NH)	Y
Hagel (R-NE)	Y
Harkin (D-IA)	Y
Hatch (R-UT)	Y
Hutchison (R-TX)	Y
Inhofe (R-OK)		N
Inouye (D-HI)	Y
Isakson (R-GA)	Y
Johnson (D-SD)		N
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)	Y
Klobuchar (D-MN)	Y
Kohl (D-WI)	Y
Kyl (R-AZ)	Y
Landrieu (D-LA)		N
Lautenberg (D-NJ)	Y
Leahy (D-VT)	Y
Levin (D-MI)	Y
Lieberman (ID-CT)	Y
Lincoln (D-AR)	Y
Lugar (R-IN)	Y
Martinez (R-FL)	Y
McCain (R-AZ)	Y
McCaskill (D-MO)	Y
McConnell (R-KY)	Y
Menendez (D-NJ)	Y
Mikulski (D-MD)	Y
Murkowski (R-AK)	Y
Murray (D-WA)	Y
Nelson (D-FL)	Y
Nelson (D-NE)		N
Obama (D-IL)	Y
Pryor (D-AR)	Y
Reed (D-RI)	Y
Reid (D-NV)	Y
Roberts (R-KS)		N
Rockefeller (D-WV)	Y
Salazar (D-CO)	Y
Sanders (I-VT)		N
Schumer (D-NY)	Y
Sessions (R-AL)		N
Shelby (R-AL)		N
Smith (R-OR)	Y
Snowe (R-ME)	Y
Specter (R-PA)	Y
Stabenow (D-MI)		N
Stevens (R-AK)	Y
Sununu (R-NH)	Y
Tester (D-MT)		N
Thune (R-SD)	Y
Vitter (R-LA)		N
Voinovich (R-OH)	Y
Warner (R-VA)	Y
Webb (D-VA)	Y
Whitehouse (D-RI)	Y
Wicker (R-MS)		N
Wyden (D-OR)		N

The New Citizenship Test

The Citizenship and Immigration Services has re-designed the citizenship test for immigrants who want to become naturalized Americans, revamping the questions for the first time since 1986.

The exam — designed with the input of adult educators, English teachers and community organizations that work with immigrants — asks questions about American history, the U.S. government, the rights of citizens and geography. Immigrants must also pass an English writing test.

10 Questions from the test and their answers are listed below:

1. What does the Constitution do?
2. What do we call the first 10 amendments to the Constitution?
3. Name one branch or part of the government.
4. We elect a U.S. representative for how many years?
5. How many justices are on the Supreme Court?
6. How old do citizens have to be to vote for President?
7. When is the last day you can send in federal income tax forms?
8. There were 13 original states. Name three.
9. Who was president during World War I?
10. Name one U.S. territory.

The Answers:

1. Sets up the government, Defines the government, Protects basic rights of Americans
2. Bill of Rights
3. Legislative, Executive, Judicial, Congress, the President, the courts
4. 2 years
5. 9
6. 18
7. April 15
8. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia
9. Woodrow Wilson
10. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam

House Speaker Pelosi Used Political Donations to Pay Husband’s Firm

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

WASHINGTON —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid her husband’s real estate and investment firm nearly $100,000 from her political action committee over the past decade, a practice that she voted to ban last year and that her party condemned as part of the “culture of corruption” when Republicans did it.

The Washington Times is reporting that the California Democrat’s husband, Paul F. Pelosi, owns Financial Leasing Services Inc., which has received $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting fees from the speaker’s “PAC to the Future” over the PAC’s nine-year history.

Last year, Pelosi supported a bill that would have banned members of Congress from putting spouses on their campaign staffs. The bill banned not only direct payments by congressional campaign committees and PACs to spouses for services including consulting and furndraising, but also “indirect compensation,” such as payments to companies that employ spouses.

The bill passed the House in a voice vote but died in a Senate committee.

Last week, Pelosi’s office defended the payments, saying they were legal because she is compensating her husband at fair market value for the work his firm has performed for the PAC.

Ethical watchdogs called Pelosi’s arrangement “problematic.”

Click here to read entire story

Nancy Pelosi shows her ass on the eve of America’s most important moment.

Nancy Pelosi, a clinical liberal, allows her emotions to eclipse what little intellect she has.

She would have served herself and this country very well if she had read the information provided to her on the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac-AIG meltdown beginning in 2001 which has been published at the link provided above. Instead, she chose to ignore the calls for reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Government Sponsored Enterprises directed by Democrat Barney Frank and chose to direct her attention and energy to criticize President Bush while mentioning wispy, nebulous and unquantified “failed economic policies”.  Some say her putrid comments soured the deal.

In my opinion, the Democrats, recognizing Pelosi’s gaff and wishing to spin it to their advantage, point to her speech as the reason many Republicans (ignoring the many Democrats) who rejected the so-called bailout bill.

The fact is, the bill as it was written was bad for the country and deserved to be thrown out for the trash it was.

Nancy Pelosi would have done herself a favor by studying the following facts before allowing her ass to override her brain.

2001

April: The Administration’s FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is “a potential problem,” because “financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.”

2002

May: The President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  (OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, 5/29/02)

2003

January: Freddie Mac announces it has to restate financial results for the previous three years.

February: The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) releases a report explaining that “although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations,” “the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them.”  As a consequence, unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market.  (“Systemic Risk: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Role of OFHEO,” OFHEO Report, 2/4/03)

September: Fannie Mae discloses SEC investigation and acknowledges OFHEO’s review found earnings manipulations.

September: Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies before the House Financial Services Committee to recommend that Congress enact “legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises” and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements.

October: Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.

November: Council of the Economic Advisers (CEA) Chairman Greg Mankiw explains that any “legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk.”  To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have “broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards” and “receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE.”  (N. Gregory Mankiw, Remarks At The Conference Of State Bank Supervisors State Banking Summit And Leadership, 11/6/03)

Source:   http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080919-15.html