Link:
An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President’s Men and thinking: That’s journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
What is a risky loan? It’s a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
[. . .]
I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. ”Housing-gate,” no doubt. Or “Fannie-gate.”
Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.
As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled “Do Facts Matter?” ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): “Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury.”
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was … the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was … the Republican Party.
Read it all. And pass it along to Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid and Senator Obama and Senator Biden and Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd and . . .
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
Yes indeed
Brenden_Arnoldus Thursday, October 23rd at 12:22AM EST (link)He’s written some great books, like the Ender’s Game series. There are other articles of his just as worth while, though some are quite long.
Pesky Democrats
TheRightOnemoby Thursday, October 23rd at 7:12AM EST (link)If they were that effective as the minority party how effective will they be as the majority party
And the !@#@!#!@Q$#@!$##@ fact is
hunter (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 7:44AM EST (link)McCain has been disinclined to point this out in anything close to an effective or timely manner.
I am so effin’ angry about this.
I have posted and posted and posted about this for way over a month.
When Bear Sterns blew up in August of 2007, I took my money out of the market because I saw this coming.
The only person who make me madder about this is Bush:
Where in the !@#@!##@!$#@heck has he been?
If Republicans had blown up one of the pillars of the US and world economy, and Clinton had been Prez, he would have taken our heads- rightfully- and spit down our necks.
But Republicans?
“ooooooohhhhhh, we have to be bipartisan. The democrats might call us names.”
And we have reduced ourselves to where a lefty SF writer is now our spokesman?
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This race should be a toss out of corrupt lazy greedy democrats.
Instead, we are close to hiring the thieving rats who stole the money to run the bank.
Where in !@#k is John McCain and Bush on this?
hunter
55555555555
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 7:51AM EST (link)I share the !@##$$%%^^^&& feeling. Rs need to grow a pair and stir it up.
Tim Schieferecke
It is like asking a pilot...
izoneguy (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 8:06AM EST (link)….what is your experience? And he replies “Oh I have crashed a few times, killed less than a hundred people but I walked away each time without a scratch! So, where did you want to fly to today?”
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
I am just poor country boy
hunter (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 8:06AM EST (link)But I did used to trade MBS, and I even gave talks in the 1990′s about hos the economic health of the US is completely dependent on the health of FNMA and FMAC and the secondary market.
So we see this:
Clinton squandered our national security over political correctness- (under the legal leadership of Gorelick).
And FNMA and FMAC were destroyed by political correctness, under the leadership and looting of…Gorelick.
But the real question is this:
In the first debate, why did McCain decline to point out this fact:
“Senator Obama, your attempt to blame me and the Republicans for this mess with FNMA is insults the intelligence of the American people. The looters at FNMA and FMAC were high democrat party members. and after the finished looting and wrecking those fine organizations, they went to work in your campaign, not mine.
I and the Republicans have been warning about the dangers you and your party were putting FNMA in for years. You and your party ridiculed those warnings. How dare you stand here in front of America and pretend your side is offering any sort of solution.”
Why? Why? Why?
Would it upset Rick Davis?
@#$@!$@!#$!!!!!!!!
hunter
I think we'd make pretty good speech writers for McCain.
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 8:36AM EST (link)I’d do it for free. If anything is to be learned from President Bush’s terms, it is that you have to take to the bully pulpit, and I’m talking daily if you have to. The American people respond to strong, principled, and VOCAL leadership. Through his silence, Bush has allowed these !@#$#%^^&& stinking libs to write the narrative of his presidency. I just cannot understand why he never fought back. He could have shut these !@#$%^&* libs down by taking the media filter out and smashing it with a sledgehammer. He had a duty to do so. I tell you one thing, I am sick and tired of this nihilistic fetish of “bi-partisanship”. There never has been and never will be ANY reciprocation from the leftists idiots, so why do our R leaders always have their panties in a bind “to find middle ground”? Phewy! I don’t want to get along with these socialists, I want to defeat them. That is part of the reason I love Sarah Palin so much. She calls a spade a spade, and she does it with a smile. When she takes power, they won’t be able to hide behind a president that doesn’t defend himself. Sarah will show future elected male Rs how to be men.
Tim Schieferecke
I like you guys
ender79 Thursday, October 23rd at 9:29AM EST (link)and I agree fully. I’m tired of seeing Republicans just take crap and not swing back. It seems like the only people the Democrats are cool with fighting are Republicans, and Republicans don’t seem to want to push back.
I don’t care if the truth is non-partisan! The truth ALWAYS pisses someone off. Name names! Call them on their BS! At the very, very least DON’T LET THEM PIN THE BLAME ON US! How many times have you heard “8 years of failed economic policy” as the cause for this “economic meltdown”? Geez.
And then, God forbid a Republican says something “controversial,” or our own guys pull campaign funding.
Cowboy up, Republicans! For all our sakes!
(Also, I felt compelled to comment on an Orson Scott Card thread. I’m a big fan.)
OSC gets it right again
Augustine Thursday, October 23rd at 9:32AM EST (link)Another year of the endless Obama fawning by the media and the whole country will know that the emperor has no clothes. I think that this election cycle will wind up destroying the credibility of the media and will hasten their financial ruin, regardless of who wins.
Oh and Mr. Card for the love of God will you please burn all your sequels to “Ender’s Game”.
“Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.” – Fahrenheit 451
Tourettes Syndrome
1SGinTN (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:37AM EST (link)I’ve got it too. :>)
Tu Ne Cede Malis
-Virgil
it
2BlueStar Mom (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:40AM EST (link)*()&^&’s me off too!
http://havestethoscopewilltravel.blogspot.com
It sounded soooo good ...
1SGinTN (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:41AM EST (link)when Rush read it on air yesterday. I’m glad this guy Card is a Dem saying these things. When we say it – crickets. Maybe it will get some traction.
Tu Ne Cede Malis
-Virgil
Except our Tourettes is only triggered
Tim_Schieferecke (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:50AM EST (link)with the visual or audio stimulus of seeing or hearing a lilly livered, sap sucking uber socialist democrat. #$$%%%^^^&&, I just visualized Pelosi, !@##$$%%%^^. Make it stop! Make it stop!
Tim Schieferecke
Traction?
Augustine Thursday, October 23rd at 9:56AM EST (link)No way this will get traction in the MSM. The MSM might listen to something like this once they file for bankruptcy. Right now the MSM is too busy being Obama’s handmaiden. OSC is more of a Joe Lieberman Democrat who happens to be an honest man and is willing to say what he thinks.
“Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.” – Fahrenheit 451
Oh OSC
leftylurker (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 9:56AM EST (link)I’ve always been upset that one of my favorite SciFi writers was so red.
He has a book, Empire, which I think some here might like. It’s no Ender’s Game, but it is some nice partisan pulp.
Don’t get any ideas from it though!
=)
That might be the wrong example to use
RobW (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 10:51AM EST (link)Perhaps you could use a better example of presidential qualifications than a pilot who’s crashed multiple planes.
There's plenty of blame to go around
RobW (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 11:03AM EST (link)I think it’s fair to say that any view that blames the financial crisis on only one factor is overly simplistic. This is a very complex breakdown in a very complex system, and it’s silly to pretend we know the one thing (or person) to blame for all of it. Yes, Dems share a responsibility for what Card mentioned, but the GOP had partial or full control of Congress during that time, and there’s plenty of other reasons for the crash (even economists are split on it).
Here, Here!
dt (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 12:22PM EST (link)I completely agree. Well said!
Wrong, RobW
hunter (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 2:29PM EST (link)The pivotal factor was the corruption of FNMA.
Democrats ran it, democrats covered it up, democrats looted FNMA, democrats from FNMA went to work for Obama. FNMA gave Obama, Dodd and Frank tons of money.
Gorelick, democrat legal ‘genius’ Jamie Gorelick looted FNMA under cover of her legal ‘opinions’.
Don’t talk to me about this sanctimonious ‘share the blame’ bs.
I blame Bush for not raising heck about this when Bear Sterns went under.
I blame McCain for not at least highlighting the fact that he tried to stop this years ago.
I blame the democrats for cynicism bounded only by their greed in dealing with this.
hunter
You did know
wubba Thursday, October 23rd at 11:21PM EST (link)that Orson Scott Card advocates overturning our government, right?
Butterfly Effect
Michael DeWeese (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 11:33PM EST (link)http://www.redstate.com/diaries/michaelbdr/2008/oct/15/butterfly-effect/
Brain Dead Republican
He makes a point with his stories
Michael DeWeese (Diary) Thursday, October 23rd at 11:37PM EST (link)He wrote SciFi because he thought that was the only way to adequately explore the extrapolations of society and its directions. I have loved all his stories, but then I have loved SciFi since grade school. I am gald to see he sees the crisis for what it is.
http://www.redstate.com/diaries/michaelbdr/2008/oct/15/butterfly-effect/
Brain Dead Republican