Ok, finally the bombshell. As you should know, Bush, Paulson (Treasury secretary) and Bernake (new head of the FEC, followed Greenspan) have gotten together and created a draft of a bailout plan for the market what got squished. John McCain came out with a plan for the economy's salvage, and Nobama twiddled his thumbs and said "no comment" while waiting for his poll results to come in so his speechwriters could tell him what to say. But the Congress hasn't been able to get its act together, which should totally be a surprise, since they've been able to get it together so often since do-nothing Pelosi took over in '06 (please, infuse sarcasm here).
So today, John McCain announced that he would be suspending his campaign to go help deal with the crisis, seeing as he's a Senator still. This has Obama a little miffed, because his teleprompter is ready to go for Friday, and he figures the people of Chicago can take care of themselves (by the way, if he was such an amazing community organizer, and his good buddy Bill Ayers and he did so much good on all those committees together, wouldn't Chicago be a safer place in general? I'm just saying...). So now he's got all his cultish followers calling John McCain a coward for asking for the debate to be postponed. But who's the real coward?
Obama refused to participate in the town hall meetings McCain's been doing since he started. He's not dropping everything to set aside partisanship and deal with the single greatest crisis facing our nation. He's not out there giving ideas on how to fix this. He didn't want to do more than three debates, and he's left all of his debating for the time when, according to a new survey out today, only 18% of the population hasn't already made up their minds. In other words, Obama doesn't want to lose the followers he gained because of how he says things because of them hearing what he actually says. He doesn't want the message to muddle the delivery.
I think what John McCain has done is incredibly selfless and brave. It takes incredible guts to walk away from this: he will lose momentum, Obama will call him stuff to his back that he would never say to his face, and McCain might lose this election because of what he did today. Should he? Absolutely not. Should he reach across the aisle, like he's said he would? I don't think so, since the Dems are who got us in the mess to begin with, but he will. Should he listen to Reid, who told him not to come? Should anyone ever listen to Reid? The answer, in short, is no.
Some are saying he should send Sarah to Congress in his stead, and Obambi (I like that name for him) should Biden. 2 minor problems with that: 1) Sarah is not a Senator, and has no business being there (yet), and 2) Biden is a senator, and should be there representing the people who put him in the office he currently holds.
In short, the debate should be rescheduled; it would be a dumb debate to have right now anyway (are we still at war? Really?). When they debate, it should be on the economy and what they're going to do to fix it. I mean, we know Obama is going to change it, but I just want to see if he's going to change it into a socialist economy.
Askaconservative!
I was going to do the bombshell here and now, but I think I will do it in the next post because I just thought of something. I realized in my very first post here, I had said that Hillary bowed out of the the Presidential race in hopes of becoming the Veep for Obambi. But did anyone really think that would happen?
Hillary wants the top job. She's never been the type of lady to play second string. The reason she stayed with Billy Bob is because they are the power couple. It wasn't for love or even for money; she doesn't need either (cuz she's a rich robot). It was that undying thirst for power that they both have. Bill hasn't been able to keep his mouth shut since he was termed out, and we all know he was willing to ride on Hillary's skirt tails all the way back to the big house, so they could return all of the stuff they stole on their way out the first time, and he could go back to riding other women's skirt tails in leisure.
That's part of why Hillary lost (everyone could see she just wanted to be Mrs. President), but it's also why, should the Messiah lose, she will be the party nominee come 2012. Here's the facts (as askaconservative sees them):
Hillz doesn't want to pull a John McCain and be 70 by the time she's able to run again (if Osbama wins). So she's going to do everything she can to subtly undermine him. Not enough for anyone to notice; just enough to put the old fart in office so's she can run against him and win (as she was, of course, meant to). You could hear it in her voice at the convention; she did everything but outrightly say, "I think this man should be President and I support him." That's a tactical move on her part: when he loses, she can gather all of the tearful Dems and say, "Hush now, hush. Didn't mother Hillary tell you? You can't move so far left and expect to win in a center/center-right country. It's okay babies, mama's here now and will make it all better in 2012."
The best move Hillary can make for Hillary right now is to tell the media to knock it off about Sarah Palin. The whole "lipstick on a pig" thing, the condescending looks and vocal inflections (I'm looking at you, Charlie Gibson), picking on her pregnant daughter and wondering if she can handle motherhood and the Vice Presidency at the same time. After all, Sarah's the incarnation of everything the feminist movement has been fighting for, except--oh yeah, she's a Conservative. A principled conservative who stands by her beliefs.
However, Hillary did exactly what she shouldn't have done, by pulling out of a demonstration she was scheduled to be at, just because Sarah Palin was there. How awesome would it have been to see them standing together for a common cause, much like her hubby and Bush 1 do for all the oversees tsunamis and earthquakes. But Hillscary has never been able to share the spotlight, and she probably didn't want to stand next to someone who would make her look even older.
I'm really interested to see what happens with the Clintons come November 5. They were played by the far left wing of their party, and their motto has always been "destroy all enemies."
Ok, now I'll do the bombshell. I'm finally back to being on top of things here!
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the US economy is on very shaky ground. And since it's an election year, that means that both candidates have been gleefully sucking at the proverbial teat of voters, hoping that you'll like their plan to dig us out best. But I've been hearing a lot of untruths being told the past few days (and today especially), that I finally had to chime in.
Here's the deal: Back in 1977/8 (I forget which), Jimma Carter signed a Senate bill into law saying that financial institutions could not "discriminate" against people who couldn't afford a higher mortgage--I mean, who were a minority. So, since Fannie and Freddie are government institutions essentially, they started doing a subprime mortgage (which is essentially, we'll tell you it costs this much, but you're going to be giving us your soul before you actually pay it off). Then, in 1997/8, Billa Clinton decided not only to renew, but to enhance the Senate bill-turned-law. He said that you have to give everyone a mortgage, whether or not they can actually pay for it. His logic was, "even if person A loses their house, persons B, C and D won't, and the system will work." Trouble is, if persons B, C and D also take out ridiculous mortgages that they can't afford, even if they're in a higher pay grade (something Obama knows about), then they also get to lose their house.
And then there's what Democrats like to call "the bad guys."
These guys are the lower end mortgage guys just trying to turn a buck. Whether they were doing it legally or ethically, I couldn't tell you because I don't have access to their records (as opposed to the Senate, which I do). So they made a bad situation worse by buying these mortgages, then quickly selling them off to another entity, who would tack on their own extra fees, repackage them, and give them to the lender on their tarnished silver platters.
So, as any idiot could see (and many idiots did), when the dollar started really losing value, the cost of tangible items in the market started going up (gold, gas, food), people couldn't afford their houses. The banks couldn't afford for people to not afford their houses, so they kicked the people out. Then the bank couldn't afford to be losing all that money, so its stock started tanking, and they started closing up shop. First it was Fannie and Freddie, then AIG (since people weren't paying their mortgages, why would they pay for their insurance?), WaMu, Lehman Bros., etc. And now we are on the verge of a huge collapse, and (unfortunately) the only thing to do is bail out the companies.
Now that the history (and economics) lesson is over, here's where it gets political:
Back in 2005, John McCain was one of those idiots who saw this coming, and tried to prevent it. He cosponsored a bill to tighten restrictions on the mortgage lenders (all of them), to try and stop the train on its tracks. Trouble is, it was defeated in a party line vote while still in the Banking and Housing Committee, which is headed by a guy from Connecticut named Chris Dodd. That's important, because Chris Dodd is the single largest receiver of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie, at $133,900. This really isn't that huge, considering this is between 1989-2008. What's really striking is Obama's number.
Keep in mind, Obama's only been in a national office since 2004. So it's really interesting to note that he holds the number three position, receiving $105,849 from Fannie and Freddie, in just 4 years (incidentally, John Kerry is #2, and Hillary Clinton is #4; there are no Repubs in the top 5 and only 3 in the top 10). So is it really surprising that Obama wouldn't want to talk too much smack about the economy?
I'll continue with the bombshell in the next post. Keep reading, and askaconservative!
All right, it's been a while. I would say a lot has happened, but I would be lying. Only two things have happened since last I posted, and I will deal with them seperately. The first is John McCain's brilliant choice of Veep. Can I call them or what? If you'll look back to the only question ever actually asked here at askaconservative, it was who McCain should choose, and Palin was on my short list then. As the days went on, and I started hearing Lieberman's name thrown out there, she got on my shorter list. For the first time in my life, I was contacted by the GOP and asked to chip in. I told them flat out, if it was Lieberman, the answer was no. I also told the very nice young man on the other end of the line that if it were Sarah Palin or someone of her ilk, I would send a check the next day. I sent my money.
As we've all seen, the Obama camp has been passing very large stones ever since. I would say that his camp is exploding, except all the Obamicans who have been posting at the blog sites IN CAPITAL LETTERS AND, POOR PUNCTUATION AND SEPLING. NON THE LESS (if you don't want there to be a stereotype, don't be the stereotype) seem even more likely to wet themselves now than before. I still don't quite understand how people can suspend things like logic and facts, but then, if I did, I would be a Democrat.
Bottom line is this: Sarah Palin was a brilliant choice. She fits all of my guidelines on who he should have picked (and if you want to know what they are, go look for yourselves); she's brilliant, has a sense of humor, and makes John McCain look like he has a heartbeat to keep her away from the White House (and in the Senate, where she would belong). All that blather we heard after her interview with whatshisface from ABC about her not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is, check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine. After all, if Wikipedia has to clarify that there have been four doctrines, why shouldn't Sarah Palin ask for the same clarity?
While I agree that the "lipstick on a pig" thing was ridiculous, it was still interesting to see Obama do it. Wasn't he all about change? There doesn't seem to be anything Obama's been changing during this campaign except for his policies and shorts. I've been hearing him being compared to an empty suit, and falling short--and I'm not sure I disagree. I used to think he was at least fairly smart (he definitely hired the best speech writers this election), but with the Biden choice (and all the backpeddling he's had to do on that), the economy go-around (which he said Biden should have waited before saying anything. Wait for what? The poll results on what people think should be done? Way to lead), the public financing platform, etc., etc., I'm starting to think maybe he's less brilliant and more Manchurian. Do we know of any huge companies that have been giving him lots of money? Oh, wait... (more on that in the next post).
Please ask your questions; askaconservative is itching for a tussle.
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