ATF Breaks Up Skinhead Ring That Wanted to Go After Obama; This is a Small Taste of Things to Come

The government announced today that it was charging two skinheads with plotting to kill Senator Obama and dozens of others in a blaze of hatred and gunfire. It's likely that this is the tip of the iceberg, and other plots are being planned.

The skinheads fully expected to be killed in the attempt to gun down Obama in a drive-by suicide attack. Luckily they were stopped before they could carry out this plot.

I hope that, regardless of the way the election goes, that the President stays alive and healthy for the entire term.

Fairness Doctrine is Fair in Name Only: It is Legalized Assault on First Amendment

With the Barak Obama/John McCain thing nearly over, Democrats in Congress are turning up the rhetoric to restore the Fairness Doctrine to push conservatives off the AM dial.

It's fair in name only. It will target only conservatives as they hold the lion's share of the market, and will ignore the smaller--and just as provocative--leftists and others who make just as many damning statements on their programs as Limbaugh, Savage and Hannity do.

And with the dawn of the internet, it's also unnecessary.

Liberal programs don't do well on the radio, as the Air America Radio experience showed us. But commentators like Rush Limbaugh rake in the dough because they understand marketing and advertising, which was the primary reason that Air America went under. They didn't follow a conventional business model that Limbaugh and the other successful opposition programs do.

All talk of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine should be shelved permanently.

OPEC Calls Emergency Meeting: What, They Didn't Make Enough Money When Oil Was $147 a Barrel??!

OPEC is calling an emergency meeting of the cartel next week to discuss solutions to the falling oil prices. It's dropped more than 50% (to it's ACTUAL price in my opinion) since hitting $147 a barrel earlier this year.

How many trillions did they make when oil was $147 a barrel?

What? What? $3.9 trillion at current production rate of 27 million barrels a day? And that's for ONE day??!

So what are they yelling about now? From the Jakarta Post on September 10th: OPEC President Chakib Khelil's comments, however, indicate that most members would rather accept less-costly crude than cut back and risk renewing the market turmoil that in recent months set one price record after another.

They sure aren't complaining about the size of their bank accounts from said record prices. And if we don't trust what our own oil executives are saying about how much they spend on R&D with regards to justifying high fuel prices, we sure can't trust anything that OPEC says about oil prices either.

They can make due with $68 a barrel.

Horrific Nebraska Child-Abandonment Law Needs to be Repealed NOW: Seventeen Kids Abandoned So Far

Back on September 25th, I wrote about the new Nebraska law that allows parents to abandon kids at local hospitals up to the age of 17, and not just infants. A father had just dropped off nine kids at a Nebraska hospital, and I predicted that the floodgates were open.

A blind man could have seen this one coming; Nebraska legislators have decided to hold a hearing on the new law after parents began dropping off their teenagers in increasing numbers. And for the first time since this abomination became law, parents are starting to drive in from neighboring states to abandon their kids in Nebraska too.

Who's the IDIOT or group of IDIOTS who came up with this STUPID plan? What were they thinking was going to happen? And how many kids are going to suffer devastating mental issues from being abandoned like garbage at a dump by their parents/guardians?

Yes, there's only 17 kids who have been abandoned since this law came into effect, but it's 17 new child placement cases, which is far too many. According to Nebraska officials, none of the kids were in life-threatening situations at home. The older kids said during interviews with child welfare experts that they had frustrated parents trying to deal with the issues normally associated with raising kids, and teenagers in particular and gave up.

This law is draconian, and I hope that the Nebraska legislature reverses a terrible mistake and takes care of the kids that it is partially responsible for orphaning. And it takes steps to strengthen their family and child welfare programs so the parents have more choices than abandoning their families to the state.

Voting for #2: My Choice is Already Made

I voted absentee today and dropped it in the mail with mixed feelings on the matter.

And for the first time, I didn't vote for the headliner on the ticket; I voted for the #2 slot this time around, because I think there's a distinct possibility that the VP nominee on the ticket will be President sometime before the end of the new Administration.

Our country still has a problem with violent racism, and I think that some redneck will inevitably take a shot at Obama. We'll almost certainly see a surge in racial hate groups, especially with the economy in the shape it's in now if Obama is elected President. They'll blame him for their not being able to hold jobs; and whatever excuse that they can come up with to go after him. And we'll have a problem with domestic terrorism as well as international terrorism.

And McCain's age is something to be concerned with. We know that the person who is the President ages a lot faster than normal, due to the heavy work schedule, stress and other issues. McCain is 72 now, with a history of heart trouble. That's an issue.

I hope that both stay alive and healthy, whether they are elected in November or not.

But for my vote, I was thinking about a possible President Biden or President Palin running the country. Biden has too many liberal votes and causes to his name for my taste, and I wish Palin had a little more experience on the political side of things. But ultimately I voted for the candidate who best matched my social views.

We also know that the President will surround himself or herself with the best economic advisers that can be found, so they don't necessarily need to be an expert on the economy themselves, so long as the advisers are expert's experts on the topic.

It's a bonus if the President does have experience in the business world, but what they have to be able to do is comprehend it, and then communicate it in a way that makes sense to the public.

The same thing can be said about every aspect of the Presidency; hopefully the President will chose wise advisers.

Stock Market Continues Adjustment: $700 Billion Mistake Didn't Make a Dent

I wrote on September 28th the following: No $700 billion ever made can stop a crash of a financial system that people have lost their trust in and believe is unstable.

And today's stock market results bear that out: the Dow was down over 800 points today before the market underwent a last-minute rally, which allowed the Dow to close down 300+ points instead of the 800 points that looked likely as the clock ran out.

The problem now is that the global markets are crashing as well. A lot of Western countries do not have an FDIC to safeguard their deposits as we do, and when a government rushes in to save a bank, it has adverse effects on their own stock markets, which are also tied into Wall Street. And investors are panic selling, because they believe that the financial system is weak and unstable.

Welcome to the dark side of globalization.

Is it too late to revoke the bailout? If it isn't going to work, then they should not proceed with it at all.

This has been the strangest bill in quite a while; the size of it is HUGE; Wall Street didn't want it, the politicians say they didn't want it but attached $150 billion in pork to buy off their colleagues to vote for it, Wall Street put it's reaction on public display by losing hundreds of points on the days that the House and Senate voted on this bill; then they said it probably wasn't the fix that was needed. Then Wall Street lost hundreds of points more over worry that the money won't come fast enough. And the taxpayer's on the hook for the entire $850 billion package with little to no hope for a return.

The entire mess should be repealed and re-thought; throwing money away like this is UTTER stupidity!

Now the States Want Handouts Too: California and Massachusetts Put in Their Wish Lists

Well, well, well.

Now the states are lining up for handouts too, wanting the same kind of deal that Wall Street got. Two states--California and Massachusetts--want money as well.

The floodgates are now open; where will this end? And how many states will try to climb on this gravy train?

And I oppose bailing out the states. They should not be treated like banks; they need to make cuts to their budgets so they can operate within their means, just as the federal government must as well. The states need to start lowballing their expectations for monthly income so that they can budget responsibly.

All bills and debts eventually come due, and yet everybody wants the federal government to pay for everything, in the here and now. WE CAN'T AFFORD IT:

The Gross National Debt

Eventually the time will come where the federal government will have to crash it's own budget to pay what it owes to foreign banks; it's going to be really ugly when it does. This is no way to run a government.

This gravy train shouldn't leave the station or see the light of day. The states are responsible for their OWN budgets.

$700 Billion Bailout/Mistake is Actually $850 Billion With Vote Buyoffs

The $700 bailout of Wall Street's Folly will actually be $850 billion with the bribes paid out to members of Congress to change their votes from "nay" to "yay."

Here is the list of pork that was added to the bill:

• $100 million for the construction of a race track.
• $49 million to spread the taxes out from the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster over three years.
• $239 million payout to fishermen who suffered losses during the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
• $3.3 billion for a "Secure rural schools and community self-determination program."
• $3.3 billion in tax cuts for people who don't pay state taxes.
• $478 million for Hollywood.
• $148 million for wool subsidies.
• $33 million for development costs to American Samoa.
• $10 million for a fringe benefit to employers whose employees ride their bicycles to work.
• $322 million for manufacturers of efficient appliances--not for people who buy them!
• $192 million for rum duties. The pirates will be very happy about this provision.
• $2 million for production of wooden arrows for children.

The provisions listed above are the most objectionable ones (in my opinion) in the entire objectionable bill; here is the complete list as compiled by the Taxpayers for Common Sense watchdog group.

House Passes Senate Version of $700 Billion Mistake: Wall Street's Folly is Now Washington's Folly Too

The House rushed through passage of the $700 billion bailout bill, and President Bush hurriedly signed it, clearing the way for this new chapter of the fiasco to proceed.

And Wall Street didn't even bat an eye. When the Senate passed the bill, Wall Street rewarded it with a 350 point loss. When the House and the Administration did their thing today, Wall Street yawned, turned over and lost another 157 points.

Why?

Because now they don't think that this was the right thing to do. Thanks a lot, guys.

In the meantime, here is the complete list of Representatives who changed their vote:

Republican Representatives: Alexander, Barrett, Biggert, Boustany, Buchanan, Coble, Conaway, Dent, Fallin, Frelinghuysen, Gerlach, Hoesktra, Knollenberg, Kuhl, Myrick, Ramstad, Ros-Lehtinen, Schmidt, Shadegg, Shuster, Sullivan, Terry, Thornberry, Tiberi, and Wamp. One note: Welling didn't vote for the first time in his tenure.

Democratic Representatives: Abercrombie, Baca, Berkley, Braley, Carson, Cleaver, Cuellar, Cummings, Edwards (MD), Giffords, Green, Hirono, Jackson (IL), Jackson-Lee, Kilpatrick, Lee, Lewis (GA), Mitchell, Ortiz, Pascrell, Pastor, Rush, Schiff, Scott (GA), Solis, Sutton, Thompson(CA), Tierney, Watson, Welch (VT), Woolsey, Wu, and Yarmuth.

One important note: Jim McDermitt (D-WA) was the sole Representative to switch his 'yea' vote to 'nay' the second time around.

I don't think any of the Representatives listed above or any of their colleagues that voted 'yea' for this bill should be returned to Congress for another term by their constituents.

This is a huge and costly mistake. It should have been a $700 billion loan, not a freebie.

Time for some incumbents to be turned out of office. Specifically, 75 senators and 263 Representatives.

And we've only seen the beginning of this bailout. Now everyone will want one too.

House Did the Right Thing in Voting Down $700 Billion Mistake-In-Progress: Yesterday's Massive Stock Market Sell-Off Looks Silly Today

Yesterday's rejection of the $700 billion bailout plan of Wall Street's Folly by the House of Representatives was exactly what was needed. The vote SHOULD have been 435-0 against the plan, but some badly misguided Representatives were not on the side of the American taxpayer.

And yesterday's knee-jerk reaction on Wall Street was sheer panic, nothing more. They badly overreacted to a very bad plan that even Wall Street is lukewarm about, as evidenced by today's stock market results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered 485 points of the 777 points that they lost yesterday. The way that it goes up and down, they could make that back within a day or two.

I REALLY enjoyed Speaker Pelosi's pre-vote speech. I could just see the votes flying straight out the window and into the nearest toilet. Nice job, Speaker Pelosi. Yesterday's vote was symbolic of both her speakership and of Democratic control of Congress. More from the do-nothing majority party.

Now, Congress should offer to LOAN Wall Street $700 billion, in exchange for certain concessions on the part of companies that accept the lifeline: a large share of their profits go back to repaying the taxpayer, in addition to repayment plans to the U.S. treasury, and so forth. And they can NEVER leverage mortgages again, and can only borrow a percentage of their total net worth, not thirty times their total net worth.

THAT'S fair to the taxpayer, and will allow the companies to survive. And if a company goes under, the proceeds from the sale of assets of the company go to reimbursing the U.S. treasury.

NO corporate handouts, Congress.

Foreclosed Property, Former Owners and New Owners: Who's to Blame More?

I was reading this Fox News story about a former homeowner stalking the family who bought his foreclosed home.

It started when the former homeowner couldn't keep up on his $532 a month mortgage payments and lost his home. He filed a legal appeal just before the auction was set to begin, then showed up at the auction to try to stop the sale. He was unsuccessful, and a developer bought the property, who then sold it to the current family.

And since then he's allegedly been stalking the family and has been charged numerous times with assault on the original investor, and trespassing against the current homeowners. And every time the charges were dropped because it was ruled that he was incompetent to stand trial, leaving him free to harass the family to the breaking point. It has been going on for eight years now.

And the family recently gave up, moving out of the house and losing much of their investment.

What a sad story. The legal system won't prosecute the guy, won't institutionalize him and won't intervene to keep this family safe. It isn't their fault that the original homeowner lost the house.

The former homeowner is a serial stalker and needs to be dealt with by those who have the power to get him some help. Someone needs to take some responsibility down there.

Wall Street is Putting WAY Too Much Faith on This Rescue: Government Needs A More Viable Plan

Wall Street needs to settle down.

They're putting WAY too much faith on one flawed plan, and if it gets delayed or doesn't happen, they need to be open to other alternatives before flying off the handle.

No $700 billion ever made can stop a crash of a financial system that people have lost their trust in and believe is unstable. The stock market IS overvalued by at least 1/3. It will be unfortunate if the inevitable adjustment comes in a short amount of time; it would be better if it was staggered over a decade or so, rather than in one week, as some business analysts are predicting.

It WON'T be the end of the world.

But I repeat my opposition to putting the taxpayers on the hook for Wall Street's Folly. They are expecting something for nothing, and that isn't right.

The mortgage meltdown is a separate problem from the leverage meltdown, and they are trying to fix one while ignoring the other. Leveraging should be outlawed and taken off the table permanently, so we never get into this kind of situation again. The people who authorized these kinds of shady financial dealings need to be in jail.

And I'm glad that the FBI is looking at the worst offenders to see if some kind of fraud was going on.

Surprise, Surprise: Obama Says He Should Get Credit for Curing Wall Street Folly: Since When?

Barack Obama blasted John McCain again, saying that McCain didn't do anything to deserve credit for the $700 billion mistake-in-progress plan, while he did.

Yeah, right.

Last time I checked, Obama scurried his butt out of Washington first. He also didn't want to even be in Washington (which I think was a smart initial move.) McCain stuck around, then left Washington to go to Friday's debate, then turned around and came back to Washington to confer with his GOP colleagues. Obama belatedly returned.

Obama said he deserved credit for making sure that there were taxpayer protections in the plan, but the fact is that his Democratic colleagues and many Republicans were calling for the same things long before Obama even realized that it was going to be a campaign issue.

Both candidates were equally ineffective and should have stayed out of Washington to begin with. Obama's statements are highly hypocritical.

And the "plan" that they came up with is not much of one.

On to Palin vs. Biden. Hopefully they have more of a pulse than their bosses did during Friday's debate.

Wall Street Should Fend for Itself: They Made That Bed, Now They Should Sleep in It

I am now opposed to bailing Wall Street out of it's "toxic debt" problem that it alone is responsible for. The American taxpayer should NOT be made to pay for Wall Street's Folly, beyond what has already been agreed to.

In my opinion, the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and Bear Sterns were correct, because of their interconnecting relationships to the U.S. and global currency markets. The damage from the collapse of those companies would not have been confined to Wall Street. Lehman Brothers was not bailed out because it was self-contained, as many of the other companies who stand to benefit from this $700 billion mistake-in-progress are.

The standard that the Bush Administration followed before should be the standard that is used now in deciding which companies to save, and which ones to allow to go by the wayside.

The other companies who have "toxic debt" need to get on a payment plan and pay off their debt. If the government wants to help, they should negotiate and set a fair interest rate with the creditors, which will allow the companies to clean up their own friggin' mess. People have to do the same thing; why should it be different for a company that goes into deep debt?

This is entirely appropriate for a system that cheers when blue-collar workers lose their jobs and pensions, while the system sees it's stock value soar. Why then, should blue collar taxpayers be stuck with the company's bill?

SHAME on Wall Street!

And the government needs to come up with a better plan.

Presidential Candidates Need to Get the Hell Out of Dodge: Their Presence at White House Didn't Help Matters

Talks aimed at alleviating the U.S. financial crisis ended in failure, with both sides blaming the other. And the presence of the presidential candidates didn't aid the summit in finding a solution to Wall Street's Folly.

They need to get OUT of Washington and put some distance between themselves and the ongoing fiasco at the White House. And McCain needs to get it in gear and quit wasting time on pointless political gestures. He needs to show up at that debate tomorrow night and give Obama what-for, or risk becoming a has-been former presidential candidate.

What a stupid stunt!

Nebraska Needs to Change It's "Safe Haven" Law: Dad Drops Off NINE Children at Hospital

Nebraska has the most liberal "safe haven" law in the country, and there are some major problems happening as a result.

"Safe haven" laws are laws that allow for mothers to drop off infants at hospitals, fire departments, police departments and government offices. Most of the states have them, but Nebraska went much further than all of them.

They allow children up to age 17 to be dropped off, and not just infants.

And a Nebraska dad did just that, dropping off nine kids between the ages of one and seventeen at an emergency room late Wednesday night. What a horrifying story! Nebraska needs to strengthen it's child welfare system and work to keep the families together, not allow parents to discard their families that they were responsible for creating.

Now that word of this is spreading, they may have a HUGE problem on their hands when others start doing the same thing. What were the legislators down there thinking?

Congress is Asking Administration All the Right Questions: $700 Billion Bailout is Unbelievable

Democrats and conservative Republicans in Congress appear to be asking all the right questions about the Administration's plan to take over all of the "toxic debt" that Wall Street ran up.

The Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Chairman appeared before Congress for a second day to push through the Bush Administration's bail-out plan. Congress gave the two a frosty reception again and started right in on the proposal, asking for modifications to the plan. And it appears that there has been a tiny bit of progress.

The Democratic position is that the plan should also help common people who are struggling with their mortgages and are in danger of foreclosure. They want to change the bankruptcy laws of the nation so that struggling homeowners can be thrown a lifeline too and restructure their mortgages.

Conservative Republicans think that this plan is financial socialism, which they don't agree with and won't support. They want everyone to stop and think this thing through before enacting a bad plan that gets rushed through just because the Administration wants it.

One of the committee members asked if it was possible to give Wall Street a fraction of what was asked for in the plan: $150 billion instead of $700 billion, with the possibility of the Administration coming back and asking for more. They got a big "NO!"

I'm still not convinced. I think that $700 billion is just the start and they'll come back and ask for another $500-$750 billion in six months. We can't afford that!

U.S. Navy Should Escort Russian Ships into Venezuelan Waters

It would be really funny if the entire U.S. Atlantic Fleet sortied and rendezvoused with the four Russian Navy ships heading to Venezuela and provided close escort for the Russians into Venezuelan waters.

The little commie runt in Venezuela would be SCREAMING his head off, wouldn't he?

Government Needs to Take Steps to Ensure That Current Wall Street Trouble Doesn't Happen Again

I've been holding off commenting on the current Wall Street crisis until I could understand what was happening and why. Here's how it breaks down:

1. People wanted to buy houses that were too expensive for them.
2. Mortgage companies wanted people to buy expensive houses too.
3. Banks lowered their standards to a point that people didn't even have to show that they had a job or could afford the monthly payments.
4. People got the loans and "bought" their houses with a mortgage.
   
5. Investment banks used a system referred to as "leveraging", which means that they borrowed money from other banks and countries to buy up the mortgages so that they would receive the income from the borrower. Since the interest rate on the mortgage was higher than the interest rate on the loan that the investment bank took out to purchase the mortgage, a profit would be made by the investment bank.
6. Some banks kept borrowing money to buy up more mortgages and make more money. Several of the big banks accumulated debt more than thirty times their TOTAL value.
7. Housing collapse began; people began to default on their mortgages.
8. So many people defaulted that the banks couldn't pay back their own debts that they had accumulated.
9. "Toxic debt" was the term coined to describe the debts that the investment banks accumulated to buy up mortgages.
10. On Friday, President Bush announced that the government would buy up the "toxic debt" to shore up the faltering financial sector. The U.S. taxpayer gets stuck with the trillion-dollar bailout. Some people need to go to JAIL.
    

That's it in a nutshell.

And I am not in favor of this move until we're told EXACTLY how much this is going to cost.

There's plenty of blame to go around:

• People shouldn't have taken out loans that were beyond their ability to pay back.
• The banks should NEVER have allowed these loans to be authorized.
• The government should NEVER have eased the leverage restrictions that were in place until the late 1990s. This was a total screw-up.
• Both parties are to blame as well. The party that SHOULD have seen this crisis coming DIDN'T, and the party that did didn't do ANYTHING about it.
  
• In addition, the Fed should have done much more to keep the dollar strong, which is their MANDATE.
• The government should have been cutting expenses at the same rate as their tax cuts. $1 of tax cuts should have translated into at least $1 of spending cuts. They should have been cutting our $10 trillion debt load up to a week ago, before committing the government to an additional $1.5 trillion (minimum) that they've taken up to save Fannie May, Freddie Mac, and all the banks that have failed in 2008. Put another way, this week has been the most expensive government spending surge in HISTORY.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has spent $600 billion in 2008. It has $30 to $45 billion left in reserves, which is approaching the minimum mandated by federal law. What happens if another 10-20 banks go under and they each have $3 billion in covered deposits?

Who's leveraging the GOVERNMENT??!

Pakistan Claims to Have Opened Fire on U.S. Choppers: Conflicting Accounts

Here's the conflicting versions of an "incident" involving U.S., Pakistani and tribal forces:

Pakistan security force: "Pakistani forces and local tribesmen opened fire on two U.S. helicopters who attempted to land along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border on the Pakistani side. The helicopters fled back across the border to Afghanistan."

Pakistan Foreign Ministry: "Local tribesmen opened fire on two U.S. helicopters escorted by U.S. gunships who attempted to land along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border on the Pakistani side. Pakistani security forces were not involved. The helicopters fled back across the border to Afghanistan."

Pakistani Army: "We deny it. Our border wasn't violated. But we did hear shooting in the area. We don't know where the firing was directed."

Tribesmen: "We saw that U.S. forces were gathering across the border, so thousands of tribesmen who were upset that the U.S. came in on September 3rd and killed twenty civilians gathered and were guarding the area. Good thing the U.S. left, otherwise the people were ready to give them the welcome that they deserved."

Pentagon spokesman: "The incident described by Pakistan didn't happen."

It seems like everyone has a version of what did or didn't happen.

It's probable that someone with an itchy trigger finger in the village got spooked, and everyone joined in the firing, without having a real target in sight. Once the firing stopped, someone claimed that U.S. helicopters had tried to land, and that's how the story spread.

I'm inclined to go with the Pakistani Army and Pentagon explanations. What a confusing story.