Our own intrepid Matthew is going to break a huge story within an hour (at least that is the plan as I type). He has discovered documents that clearly demonstrate Barack Obama received the endorsement of a socialist group that required candidates to seeking their endorsement to sign a contract that mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with that socialist party.

This VIDEO below explains why Barack’s campaign cannot give a straight answer about when he decided that Bill Ayers had been a terrorist:

Watch it here

As you will see when Matthew’s piece goes up, Barack signed onto a socialist agenda back in 1996. When, if ever, did he decide it was wrong? Why has he hidden this part of his life? Is America ready to trust a guy who lies about his past socialist ties to help pull America out of the economic ditch it is in.

Stay tuned.

I would have much less of an issue with the bailout if it was handled this way. With my one million six hundred thousand dollars, I could buy a house for cash if I wanted it. Or start a new business. Or donate it to charity.

The problem is, this is the same general idea that Obama has. Taking a whole pool of money and dividing it up evenly. Truth is, I did nothing to earn that one million six hundred thousand dollars. There are people who truly have earned it and they deserve to keep it.

Even when we think of a new way to look at socialism, its still socialism and it's essentially unfair. Joe Biden said during the debate with Sarah Palin that he called redistribution of wealth "fairness" and I just have to wonder if the people who are sacrificing at the top believe its fair, and since they probably do not, is that fair?

Fairness is an arbitrary measure. Life isn't fair, and it's not fair for those who work so hard to be bled to support those who prefer laziness to industriousness.

Here are a few tidbits that you may not find on today’s Internet

Obama was an active member of the now-defunct socialist New Party!  “Chicago DSA is affiliated with the national Democratic Socialists of America.”  From October 1996: “Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).” November 2006: “New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate seat from Chicago.” [More to follow in separate post, such as Obama's ideas on social wages and redistribution of wealth.---Matthew] [...]

N.

I reported around the time of the Republican convention that when Obama stagnated and McCain gained in the polls, the stock market surged.  Now with the seeming inevitability of an Obama nation, the stock market is plummeting like never before.  If we had an honest media, they would report this.  Send help now!

You see, the problem is - no one is certain that anyone else's credit is worth the paper it is printed on.  Now the Fed will "guarantee" that paper so that companies will lend again.  There will be no more fears that the company on the paper will go belly-up because we, the people (and our children and grand children) will cover if there is a default.

Another fine bailout - brought to you by Socializilla.

Socializilla - the friendly government dinosaur from the 19th and 20th centuries.  The big (obese, actually) green mutated bastard is just trying to be a good, friendly neighbor and is here to help.

Keep your hands away from his mouth, as he can devour an entire paycheck, business sector or inner city with his helpful social policy.

I am aware of one socialist party with two different names but one of which was assimilated by ACORN and the other established by ACORN. The first of these two parties is "New Party" and the second of the parties is "Working Families Party".
The first socialist party is centered in Chicago and the second in New York State.

In Chicago, The New Party placed at least one candidate onto the Board of Aldermen. I exposed this in my first article, Obama's ACORN. The goal of this party is to place members on city councils and even the presidency to destroy the country/system as we know it from within. Make no mistake Obama knows who and what this party is about. Read about Obama and New Party here at Red State. An excerpt from Red State in their piece titled, "Obama Sought Endorsement of Marxist Third Party in 1996":

The New Party's modus operandi included the political strategy of "electoral fusion," where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth. By so doing, the New Party often was able to influence candidates' platforms. (Fusion of this type is permitted in seven states -- Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont -- but is common only in New York.) Read more about The New Party here from their own website:

Though Illinois was not one of the states that permitted electoral fusion, in 1995 Barack Obama nonetheless sought the New Party's endorsement for his 1996 state senate run. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers.

In 1996, three of the four candidates endorsed by the New Party won their electoral primaries. The three victors included Barack Obama (in the 13th State Senate District), Danny Davis (in the 7th Congressional District), and Patricia Martin, who won the race for Judge in the 7th Subcircuit Court. All four candidates attended an April 11, 1996 New Party membership meeting to express their gratitude for the party's support.

Here is an excerpt from "Obama and the New Party" at Red State:

In 1995, the New Ground, the newsletter of the Chicago Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, noted, “In Chicago, the New Party's biggest asset and biggest liability is ACORN.

“Like most organizations, ACORN is a mixed bag. On one hand, in Chicago, ACORN is a group that attempts to organize some of the most depressed communities in the city. Chicago organizers for ACORN and organizers for SEIU Local 880 have been given modest monthly recruitment quotas for new New Party members. On the other hand, like most groups that depend on canvassing for fundraising, it's easy enough to find burned out and disgruntled former employees. And ACORN has not had the reputation for being interested in coalition politics -- until recently and, happily, not just within the New Party.”

Naturally, Barack Obama was an active part of ACORN at the time, helping it legally in court and helping it organize voters. By 1996, ACORN and the New Party were essentially the same body. Along with the Democratic Socialists of America, the New Party endorsed Barack Obama in his State Senate bid.

Obama began seeking the New Party endorsement in 1995. He had been running in a four way primary against his former boss, Senator Alice Palmer, herself a far left radical, and two other individuals. But an election law quirk gave Obama the upper hand. In order to get on the ballot, candidates had to collect signatures of voters. Printed names were not allowed. Obama challenged the petitions of his rivals and was able to get every one of them thrown off the ballot. By the time the ballot was drawn up for the 1996 election, Obama’s was the only name in the race.

Nonetheless, Obama still coveted the New Party endorsement. The New Party required candidates who received the endorsement sign a pledge of support for the party. Obama did not need to support a party that was, in effect, a front group for communists; yet he still chose to. The July issue of the New Ground noted that 15% of the New Party consisted of Democratic Socialists of America members and a good number of Committee of Correspondence members.

And now Obama has the endorsement of the Working Families Partyin New York state. Read about the Working Families Party from their website here. It shouldn't come as a surprise that there is a link to the Working Families Party on the New Party website. Why should there be no surprise? Because they are basically one and the same organization. And to make things worse they are both outcroppings of ACORN. Remember above in the Red State article they described how ACORN assimilated the New Party.

Are these parties dangerous? They want do more than make an Open Ballot System....See this from their website:

WFP in Other States
The Working Families Party was founded in New York, but now we’re on the move.

In 2002, our first sister party was born next door, the Connecticut Working Families Party.

We’re building WFPs in Oregon, South Carolina, and Delaware too.

Expanding Fusion to Other States: the Open Ballot Voting Project

The Working Families Party requires people who support their cause to sing a pledge. It isn't a stretch to believe they require the politicians they endorse to require a similar signed pledge just as the New Party did. So the short and long of it, Obama has signed a pledge simply stating he is a "socialist".

It is time for the American electorate to open their eyes .... if Obama gets into the White House, ACORN wins. Their socialist policies win. And they will destroy our system of government from within. (Read about their efforts in New York State here in this piece from the New York Times.) Remember with Obama it is buyer beware!

Along with the New Party and Working Families Part endorsement Obama was also endorsed by the Chicago.

1.  William Ayers.  This is not a distraction because if it was the New York Times wouldn't be covering it or CNN's Anderson Cooper on his 360 show.  The Obama campaign has lied repeatedly about this so it must be something worth hiding.  We've heard everything from Bill Ayers just lived in the neighborhood to Barack Obama's kids went to school with Ayers (forget the fact that Ayers kids are in their twenties) to Barack Obama was at that party at Ayers house because he was there with the state Senator who's seat he was vying for - not because Ayers was hosting the party specifically as a kickoff to Obama's political career.  This is a huge weakness for Obama.

2.  Touch on his other associations like Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezco and Raila Odinga - the communist dictator in Kenya who Obama helped to get into office.  These all show a lack of judgement and also cause one to question how somebody could spend so much time with radical Marxists and not believe in that sort of thing.  Kind of like an Atheist hanging out with Christians all the time or vise versa - wouldn't happen.

3.  How about those illegal foreign donations Barack?  He's had to give back thousands so far to Palestinians, but there is more to come.  The Obama campaign is now under investigation to see how many of these little donations are from foreign sources and that is why they are being hidden.  McCain has been open about his donors which can be found online, but not Obama.

4.  How do you lower taxes on 95% of the population?  That is what Obama claims he will do.  Never mind that less than 75% pay taxes.  That means people not paying in will get rebates, at least that is what I would have to assume.  More free money everybody.

5.  Pound him on the economy, John!  We win with the economy.  Distance yourself from Bush as you outline your plan specifically which calls for keeping the tax cuts and cutting even more taxes.  Point out which programs you will be cutting from the budget since times are tight.  And pound on all the spending Barack has planned.  Ask him over and over how he plans to pay for it and remind him that he says, "How can we afford not to?"  What an irresponsible jackass.  Tell the public how much the deficit will go up with an Obama presidency.

6.  Socialism - use the word and tell people that this is what Obama is describing when he says "fairness" and tells people that the government can do everything for them.  Call his programs socialism.  Point out that all that volunteering he is going to have kids do to get free college is going to cost the government.  Let's see, they work 100 hours and get $4,000 towards college.  That means the government will pay these kids $40 an hour.  That's not volunteering and that is government spending.  You can't fool me.

7.  And finally, continue to do what you have been doing by describing Obama as a closed book.  He's secretive and won't release his records.  That always means that somebody is hiding something.  And we know what he is hiding. 

Best wishes to John McCain tonight.  He will win this thing if he goes in there and fights for it.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.  Obama will destroy the country McCain fought for and loves and he needs to keep that in mind and get passionate about this thing.  Or maybe he could send Sarah in there with John McCain make-up on.  We know we have a fighter in her!

Sen. Barack Obama said today that, while his rival John McCain seeks to "distract you with smears" and "Swift Boat-style attacks" in the last weeks of the campaign, he would keep focused on economic issues and what he described as McCain's shortcomings.

( Source -> )

Curiously, around the same time that Obama tried to portray himself as one who was taking the moral high road, his campaign released an ad, a documentary, and launched a web site (link) smearing McCain for his connections to the Keating Five scandal ( Source ). I guess Obama figured that since the Keating Five scandal was related to economic issues, he could pass off this obvious and massive smear campaign as a legitimate focus on economics rather than an exercise in blatant hypocrisy.

Now for a little background on the Keating Five scandal. Charles H. Keating, Jr. was the chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association that collapsed in 1989. Lincoln had earlier been the subject of a regulatory investigation that five senators, McCain included, were accused of having inappropriately intervened in. These senators became the subject of an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.

McCain, who had been friends with Keating since 1981 and had received numerous political contributions from him, did indeed meet with regulators on Keating's behalf. One of the regulators, William Black, took detailed notes during the second meeting with the senators, which stated that McCain made the following comments:

"One of our jobs as elected officials is to help constituents in a proper fashion," McCain said. "ACC (American Continental Corp.) is a big employer and important to the local economy. I wouldn't want any special favors for them. . . .

"I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper."

( Source -> )

McCain said later that he was only there to ensure that Lincoln Savings and Loan was treated fairly. Once he found out about the criminal referral being made against Lincoln, McCain cut ties with Keating. The Senate Ethics Committee determined that no action should be taken against Senator McCain. An excerpt from their statement:

Based on the evidence available to it, the committee has given consideration to Senator McCain's actions on behalf of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The committee concludes that Senator McCain's actions were not improper nor attended with gross negligence and did not reach the level of requiring institutional action against him. The committee finds that Senator McCain took no further action after the April 9, 1987, meeting when he learned of the criminal referral.

Senator McCain has violated no law of the United States or specific Rule of the United States Senate; therefore, the committee concludes that no further action is warranted with respect to Senator McCain on the matters investigated during the preliminary inquiry.

( Source -> )

Robert Bennett, the Democrat who served as special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee, now says that McCain should never have been included in the investigation in the first place ( Source ). On top of that, McCain has expressed regret for his actions as well:

"The appearance of it was wrong," McCain said. "It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."

( Source -> )

So now let's take a look at the facts. Barack Obama is attacking John McCain for his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. But McCain was long ago exonerated of any wrongdoing in the matter, and the Democratic special counsel to the ethics committee says he should never have been investigated in the first place. Despite all this, McCain still takes responsibility for the appearance of his actions and regrets doing what he did. This amounts to nothing more than a smear campaign against McCain by the Obama campaign. The fact that Obama is bashing McCain for his personal attacks while simultaneously leading this smear onslaught against him just makes this even more despicable.

But what about William Ayers? Is associating him with Barack Obama fair? For anyone who doesn't know who he is, here's a bit about him:

Ayers, 63, spent 10 years as a fugitive in the 1970s when he was part of the "Weather Underground," an anti-Vietnam War group that protested U.S. policies by bombing the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and a string of other government buildings.

( Source -> )

His wife, Bernadine Dohrn, was also a member of the terrorist group. Both of them in written and television interviews have indicated that they do not regret what they did and wish they had done more. This family is a class act, right? Perhaps the most condemning connection to Obama, which is mentioned in the article I cited above, is the party that Ayers and Dohrn hosted for him in their home at the beginning of his political career to introduce him to the neighborhood. You have to think...what does it say about a man who is going to associate himself with proud anti-American terrorists? I know I would never give Ayers or Dohrn the time of day, whether it was simply acknowledging them in a friendly manner or serving on a board or on a panel at a university with one of them (as Obama did with Ayers). Why would Obama do this?

One possibility is that he agrees with the radical terrorist acts they committed. I certainly hope not. Another possibility would be that he is apathetic about it. In other words, maybe he doesn't care about the horrible things they have done and was more worried about his political career. And a final possibility is that he is appalled by their terrorist acts but decided that advancing his political career was more important to him than his principles.  But that explanation wouldn't make much sense, would it?  If he deemed his political career more important, then he wouldn't have any upstanding principles.  It would seem that the only explanations are that he agrees with the terrorist acts they committed or that he was too politically ambitious to care about standing up for what was right.

Obama is still not open and honest about the aspects of his relationship with Ayers, dismissing any references to it as smears or irrelevant, and has yet to apologize for his associations with him and Dohrn.  Is attacking Obama for these associations fair?  Of course it is.  And if we have to, maybe we can disguise our personal attacks as a focus on economic issues as the Obama campaign does.  How about this?  Ayers was a member of a Communist terrorist group and to this day is proud of what he did.  Obama was associated with him.  Does Obama want to change our economy from capitalist to communist?  You know, that question wouldn't really be that far out there considering the socialist agenda that liberals like him tend to pursue.

First, through most of human history, there was often some frontier where people could head if they wanted to found a community with like minded individuals, and live according to their own concepts of government. Not many people would do this, but enough so that there have been many times throughout history where, somewhere on the edge of the map, a society would be present with promises of fresh ideas. We're currently in one of the periods of history where no frontier remains: the world has been divided up by various governments. This time, we also have satellite imagery that proves there's no more frontier.

The federalist nature of how the U.S. was designed to enshrine a decent amount of freshness: divide up most of government into many independent partitions that can experiment with different ideas of how to run society. You wouldn't necessarily be able to go found a society to your liking, but you would at least have more choices - and if you and a community of like minded citizens wanted to change one of the governments, well, there's a lot less effort to change a state government than the whole federal government. Unfortunately, mostly (but not wholly) due to the liberals, the federal government has ballooned in size and scope far beyond original intentions. State governments are increasingly irrelevant compared to the federal government. Take a look at corporate taxes, for instance. States have varying philosophies on corporate taxation, but when the federal government imposes such a high corporate tax rate, what does the state difference matter?

This election will, almost certainly, not solve our problems. Yes, the choice of our President makes an immense difference in foreign policy, and the president's bully pulpit can enact a certain amount of domestic change, but it is really congress that enacts that change. Our congress is hopelessly partisan, corrupt, and ineffective. Unless something drastically changes that no poll has even remotely foreseen, this is not going to be any different next year, or probably any time in the near future.

America faces huge domestic problems. I'm sure all of you reading this know of the immense problems looming in America's future regarding social security, medicare, and medicaid. The next several years are crucial for dealing with these. As you look at our situation globally, it is clear that we are also falling behind in education, and that how we handle our economy, both in terms of regulation and taxes, is also increasingly uncompetitive on a global scale. I'm pretty sure the bulk of the left is entirely wrong on these issues, in fact, I can pull up plenty of empirical evidence to support my view. That's not my point though. Not only will neither side's view really get implemented fully, but we can't try out different policies in different states to find what really works. The left's opinion may be workable on some of these issues, but we won't know.

As elections approach, rhetoric is also heard of moving elsewhere if your side doesn't win. This is in many ways understandable. Who wants to be part of a system that has plenty of signs of looming failure? But when the U.S. leads the world, and so many other countries will follow our lead, where would you go? Where can you go?

Unfortunately, checking out just isn't really an option.

The final frustration may be that so many who would agree with this will continue to try and increase the scope of the federal government.

It has not been a good week for the Republic. It took quite a bit of trampling of the Constitution, but the bailout bill passed, as I suspected it would.

The bailout failed the first time it was brought to the House. Undaunted, the Senate pressed on by attaching the bailout as an amendment to another House-passed bill that was pending in the Senate. The new bailout version had new taxes, so according to the Constitution it should not have originated in the Senate.

The rallying cry heard all over the Hill the past two weeks was that Congress must act. Our economy is facing a meltdown. Would this bill fix it? Nobody could really explain how it would. In fact, few demonstrated any real understanding of credit markets, of derivatives, of credit default swaps or mortgage-backed securities. If they did, they would have known better than to vote for this bill. All they knew was that this administration was saying some frightening things, and asking for a lot of money. And when has Congress ever been able to come up with a better solution to a problem than to throw more of your money at it? So that is what Congress did, enacting a financial PATRIOT Act in the process.

In its embarrassment at being called a "Do-Nothing Congress" the 110th Congress took decisive action and did SOMETHING. No matter that it was the wrong thing. In fact, it wasn't until the Senate had a chance to load it up with even MORE spending, when it was finally inflationary and horrible enough, at $850 billion instead of a mere $700 billion, that it passed – and with a comfortable margin, in spite of constituent calls still coming in overwhelmingly against it. 57 members switched their vote!

The market went down anyway. Our nation is now just that much more in the hole. You will pay your part of this mess through inflation, and very likely hyperinflation.

Sometimes doing nothing is much better than thrashing about aimlessly – when one is caught in quicksand, for example, or when one doesn't understand economics and finds oneself in the position Congress was in for the past two weeks, with decades of irresponsible monetary policy coming to a head. Why should we trust the same people who said just a few months ago that the economy was perfectly sound? The same people who just knew there were weapons of mass destruction? The same people that crammed the PATRIOT Act down our throats? Why not consult the people who had the foresight and understanding to see this coming? They would have recommended such logical actions as repealing the Community Reinvestment Act, which forces banks to make bad loans, or allowing the market to set interest rates instead of the Federal Reserve system. How about abolishing the Federal Reserve altogether? There are many things that could have been done, but don’t expect Congress take a course of action that comes from a place of understanding and competence when they could just spend money.

This bailout will be the legacy of the 110th "Do-Something" Congress, along with record-low approval ratings. Here's hoping the 111th Congress will be a "Do the Right Thing" Congress, and will focus on repealing and abolishing what is wrong with government instead of reinforcing it.

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

By Stanley Kurtz

What if Barack Obama's most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you'd know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I'd wager, does Barack Obama.

This is a story we've largely missed. While Obama's Acorn connection has not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal "motor-voter" bill. In fact, Obama's Acorn connection is far more extensive. In the few stories where Obama's role as an Acorn "leadership trainer" is noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama's ties to Acorn.

An Anti-Capitalism Agenda
To understand the nature and extent of Acorn's radicalism, an excellent place to begin is Sol Stern's 2003 City Journal article, "ACORN's Nutty Regime for Cities." (For a shorter but helpful piece, try Steven Malanga's "Acorn Squash.")

Sol Stern explains that Acorn is the key modern successor of the radical 1960's "New Left," with a "1960's-bred agenda of anti-capitalism" to match. Acorn, says Stern, grew out of "one of the New Left's silliest and most destructive groups, the National Welfare Rights Organization." In the 1960's, NWRO launched a campaign of sit-ins and disruptions at welfare offices. The goal was to remove eligibility restrictions, and thus effectively flood welfare rolls with so many clients that the system would burst. The theory, explains Stern, was that an impossibly overburdened welfare system would force "a radical reconstruction of America's unjust capitalist economy." Instead of a socialist utopia, however, we got the culture of dependency and family breakdown that ate away at America's inner cities - until welfare reform began to turn the tide.

While Acorn holds to NWRO's radical economic framework and its confrontational 1960's-style tactics, the targets and strategy have changed. Acorn prefers to fly under the national radar, organizing locally in liberal urban areas - where, Stern observes, local legislators and reporters are often "slow to grasp how radical Acorn's positions really are." Acorn's new goals are municipal "living wage" laws targeting "big-box" stores like Wal-Mart, rolling back welfare reform, and regulating banks - efforts styled as combating "predatory lending." Unfortunately, instead of helping workers, Acorn's living-wage campaigns drive businesses out of the very neighborhoods where jobs are needed most. Acorn's opposition to welfare reform only threatens to worsen the self-reinforcing cycle of urban poverty and family breakdown. Perhaps most mischievously, says Stern, Acorn uses banking regulations to pressure financial institutions into massive "donations" that it uses to finance supposedly non-partisan voter turn-out drives.

According to Stern, Acorn's radical agenda sometimes shifts toward "undisguised authoritarian socialism." Fully aware of its living-wage campaign's tendency to drive businesses out of cities, Acorn hopes to force companies that want to move to obtain "exit visas." "How much longer before Acorn calls for exit visas for wealthy or middle-class individuals before they can leave a city?" asks Stern, adding, "This is the road to serfdom indeed."

In Your Face
Acorn's tactics are famously "in your face." Just think of Code Pink's well-known operations (threatening to occupy congressional offices, interrupting the testimony of General David Petraeus) and you'll get the idea. Acorn protesters have disrupted Federal Reserve hearings, but mostly deploy their aggressive tactics locally. Chicago is home to one of its strongest chapters, and Acorn has burst into a closed city council meeting there. Acorn protestors in Baltimore disrupted a bankers' dinner and sent four busloads of profanity-screaming protestors against the mayor's home, terrifying his wife and kids. Even a Baltimore city council member who generally supports Acorn said their intimidation tactics had crossed the line.

Acorn, however, defiantly touts its confrontational tactics. While Stern himself notes this, the point is driven home sharper still in an Acorn-friendly reply to Stern entitled "Enraging the Right." Written by academic/activists John Atlas and Peter Dreier, the reply's avowed intent is to convince Acorn-friendly politicians, journalists, and funders not to desert the organization in the wake of Stern's powerful critique. The stunning thing about this supposed rebuttal is that it confirms nearly everything Stern says. Do Atlas and Dreier object to Stern's characterizations of Acorn's radical plans - even his slippery-slope warnings about Acorn's designs on basic freedom of movement? Nope. "Stern accurately outlines Acorn's agenda," they say.

Do Atlas and Dreier dismiss Stern's catalogue of Acorn's disruptive and intentionally intimidating tactics as a set of regrettable exceptions to Acorn's rule of civility? Not a chance. Atlas and Dreier are at pains to point out that intimidation works. They proudly reel off the increased memberships that follow in the wake of high-profile disruptions, and clearly imply that the same public officials who object most vociferously to intimidation are the ones most likely to cave as a result. What really upsets Atlas and Dreier is that Stern misses the subtle national hand directing Acorn's various local campaigns. This is radicalism unashamed.

But don't let the disruptive tactics fool you. Acorn is a savvy and exceedingly effective political player. Stern says that Acorn's key post-New Left innovation is its determination to take over the system from within, rather than futilely try to overthrow it from without. Stern calls this strategy a political version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Take Atlas and Dreier at their word: Acorn has an openly aggressive and intimidating side, but a sophisticated inside game, as well. Chicago's Acorn leader, for example, won a seat on the Board of Aldermen as the candidate of a leftist "New Party."

Obama Meets Acorn
What has Barack Obama got to do with all this? Plenty. Let's begin with Obama's pre-law school days as a community organizer in Chicago. Few people have a clear idea of just what a "community organizer" does. A Los Angeles Times piece on Obama's early Chicago days opens with the touching story of his efforts to build a partnership with Chicago's "Friends of the Parks," so that parents in a blighted neighborhood could have an inviting spot for their kids to play. This is the image of Obama's organizing we're supposed to hold. It's far from the whole story, however. As the L. A. Times puts it, "Obama's task was to help far South Side residents press for improvement" in their communities. Part of Obama's work, it would appear, was to organize demonstrations, much in the mold of radical groups like Acorn.

Although the L. A. Times piece is generally positive, it does press Obama's organizing tales on certain points. Some claim that Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, exaggerates his accomplishments in spearheading an asbestos cleanup at a low-income housing project. Obama, these critics say, denies due credit to Hazel Johnson, an activist who claims she was the one who actually discovered the asbestos problem and led the efforts to resolve it. Read carefully, the L. A. Times story leans toward confirming this complaint against Obama, yet the story's emphasis is to affirm Obama's important role in the battle. Speaking up in defense of Obama on the asbestos issue is Madeleine Talbot, who at the time was a leader at Chicago Acorn. Talbot, we learn, was so impressed by Obama's organizing skills that she invited him to help train her own staff.

And what exactly was Talbot's work with Acorn? Talbot turns out to have been a key leader of that attempt by Acorn to storm the Chicago City Council (during a living-wage debate). While Sol Stern mentions this story in passing, the details are worth a look: On July 31, 1997, six people were arrested as 200 Acorn protesters tried to storm the Chicago City Council session. According to the Chicago Daily Herald, Acorn demonstrators pushed over the metal detector and table used to screen visitors, backed police against the doors to the council chamber, and blocked late-arriving aldermen and city staff from entering the session.

Reading the Herald article, you might think Acorn's demonstrators had simply lost patience after being denied entry to the gallery at a packed meeting. Yet the full story points in a different direction. This was not an overreaction by frustrated followers who couldn't get into a meeting (there were plenty of protestors already in the gallery), but almost certainly a deliberate bit of what radicals call "direct action," orchestrated by Acorn's Madeleine Talbot. As Talbot was led away handcuffed, charged with mob action and disorderly conduct, she explicitly justified her actions in storming the meeting. This was the woman who first drew Obama into his alliance with Acorn, and whose staff Obama helped train.

Surprise Visit
Does that mean Obama himself schooled Acorn volunteers in disruptive "direct action?" Not necessarily. The City Council storming took place in 1997, years after Obama's early organizing days. And in general, Obama seems to have been part of Acorn's "inside baseball" strategy. As a national star from his law school days, Obama knew he had a political future, and would surely have been reluctant to violate the law. In his early organizing days, Obama used to tell the residents he organized that they'd be more effective in their protests if they controlled their anger. On the other hand, as he established and deepened his association with Acorn through the years, Obama had to know what the organization was all about. Moreover, in his early days, Obama was not exactly a stranger to the "direct action" side of community organizing.

Consider the second charge against Obama raised by the L.A. Times backgrounder. On the stump today, Obama often says he helped prevent South Side Chicago blacks, Latinos, and whites from turning on each other after losing their jobs, but many of the community organizers interviewed by the L. A. Times say that Obama worked overwhelmingly with blacks.

To rebut this charge, Obama's organizer friends tell the story of how he helped plan "actions" that included mixed white, black, and Latino groups. For example, following Obama's plan, one such group paid a "surprise visit" to a meeting between local officials considering a landfill expansion. The protestors surrounded the meeting table while one activist made a statement chiding the officials, after which the protestors filed out. Presto! Obama is immunized from charges of having worked exclusively with blacks - but at the cost of granting us a peek at the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy side of his community organizing. Intimidation tactics are revealed, and Obama's alliance with radical Acorn activists like Madeleine Talbot begins to make sense.

"Non-Partisan"
The extent of Obama's ties to Acorn has not been recognized. We find some important details in an article in the journal Social Policy entitled, "Case Study: Chicago - The Barack Obama Campaign," by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago Acorn leader and a member of Acorn's National Association Board. The odd thing about this article is that Foulkes is forced to protect the technically "non-partisan" status of Acorn's get-out-the-vote campaigns, even as he does everything in his power to give Acorn credit for helping its favorite son win the critical 2004 primary that secured Obama the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate.

Before giving us a tour of Acorn's pro-Obama but somehow "non-partisan" election activities, Foulks treats us to a brief history of Obama's ties to Acorn. While most press accounts imply that Obama just happened to be at the sort of public-interest law firm that would take Acorn's "motor voter" case, Foulkes claims that Acorn specifically sought out Obama's representation in the motor voter case, remembering Obama from the days when he worked with Talbot. And while many reports speak of Obama's post-law school role organizing "Project VOTE" in 1992, Foulkes makes it clear that this project was undertaken in direct partnership with Acorn. Foulkes then stresses Obama's yearly service as a key figure in Acorn's leadership-training seminars.

At least a few news reports have briefly mentioned Obama's role in training Acorn's leaders, but none that I know of have said what Foulkes reports next: that Obama's long service with Acorn led many members to serve as the volunteer shock troops of Obama's early political campaigns - his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for Congress in 2000 (Foulkes confuses the dates of these two campaigns.) With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago Acorn leaders, by the time of Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and Acorn were "old friends," says Foulkes.

So along with the reservoir of political support that came to Obama through his close ties with Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and other Chicago black churches, Chicago Acorn appears to have played a major role in Obama's political advance. Sure enough, a bit of digging into Obama's years in the Illinois State Senate indicates strong concern with Acorn's signature issues, as well as meetings with Acorn and the introduction by Obama of Acorn-friendly legislation on the living wage and banking practices. You begin to wonder whether, in his Springfield days, Obama might have best been characterized as "the Senator from Acorn."

Foundation Money

Although it's been noted in an important story by John Fund, and in a long Obama background piece in the New York Times, more attention needs to be paid to possible links between Obama and Acorn during the period of Obama's service on the boards of two charitable foundations, the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation.

According to the New York Times, Obama's memberships on those foundation boards, "allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in grants" to various liberal organizations, including Chicago Acorn, "whose endorsement Obama sought and won in his State Senate race." As best as I can tell (and this needs to be checked out more fully), Acorn maintains both political and "non-partisan" arms. Obama not only sought and received the endorsement of Acorn's political arm in his local campaigns, he recently accepted Acorn's endorsement for the presidency, in pursuit of which he reminded Acorn officials of his long-standing ties to the group.

Supposedly, Acorn's political arm is segregated from its "non-partisan" registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, but after reading Foulkes' case study, this non-partisanship is exceedingly difficult to discern. As I understand, it would be illegal for Obama to sit on a foundation board and direct money to an organization that openly served as his key get-out-the-vote volunteers on Election Day. I'm not saying Obama crossed a legal line here: Based on Foulkes' account, Acorn's get-out-the-vote drive most likely observed the technicalities of "non-partisanship."

Nevertheless, the possibilities suggested by a combined reading of the New York Times piece and the Foulkes article are disturbing. While keeping within the technicalities of the law, Obama may have been able to direct substantial foundation money to his organized political supporters. I offer no settled conclusion, but the matter certainly warrants further investigation and discussion. Obama is supposed to be the man who transcends partisanship. Has he instead used his post at an allegedly non-partisan foundation to direct money to a supposedly non-partisan group, in pursuit of what are in fact nakedly partisan and personal ends? I have no final answer, but the question needs to be pursued further.

In fact, the broader set of practices by which activist groups pursue intensely partisan ends under the guise of non-partisanship merits further scrutiny. Consider the 2006 report by Jonathan Bechtle, "Voter Turnout or Voter Fraud?" which includes a discussion of the nexus between Project Vote and Acorn, a nexus where Obama himself once resided. According to Bechtle, "It's clear that groups that claimed to be nonpartisan wanted a partisan outcome," and reading Foulkes's case study of Acorn's role in Obama's U.S. Senate campaign, one can't help but agree.

Radical Obama
Important as these questions of funding and partisanship are, the larger point is that Obama's ties to Acorn - arguably the most politically radical large-scale activist group in the country - are wide, deep, and longstanding. If Acorn is adept at creating a non-partisan, inside-game veneer for what is in fact an intensely radical, leftist, and politically partisan reality, so is Obama himself. This is hardly a coincidence: Obama helped train Acorn's leaders in how to play this game. For the most part, Obama seems to have favored the political-insider strategy, yet it's clear that he knew how to play the in-your-face "direct action" game as well. And surely during his many years of close association with Acorn, Obama had to know what the group was all about.

The shame of it is that when the L. A. Times returned to Obama's stomping grounds, it found the park he'd helped renovate reclaimed by drug dealers and thugs. The community organizer strategy may generate feel-good moments and best-selling books, but I suspect a Wal-Mart as the seed-bed of a larger shopping complex would have done far more to save the neighborhood where Obama worked to organize in the "progressive" fashion. Unfortunately, Obama's Acorn cronies have blocked that solution.

In any case, if you're looking for the piece of the puzzle that confirms and explains Obama's network of radical ties, gather your Acorns this spring. Or next winter, you may just be left watching the "President from Acorn" at his feast.

- Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and an NRO contributing editor.
- Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Read this editorial.  http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=308185654524278  Barney Frank's Bankrupt Ideas 

This is INSANE.  What is the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.  By that definition,  Barack Obama and Barney Frank are lunatics.

An anonymous learned individual had this to say regarding this editorial on the housing crisis:

The political culture of Chicago is more accommodating than perhaps it should be to a morally dubious figures like Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and others. Having accommodated himself to them, Obama now tries to distance himself as if nothing ever happened.

Jennifer Rubin at CommentaryMagazine.com writes:

But this is true of Obama's entire circle of comrades and associates, of course. He didn't know who they were, or wasn't all that close to them, or never happened to be there when their life-long habit of excoriating evil America was demonstrated. It is all of a piece.

But more than hypocrisy is at work here. It is not just far Left, American-hating radicals he now disowns. You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. Rashid Khalidi can believe that Obama finds no one suffers more than the Palestinians. Jews can buy that he was moved by the Holocaust from a summer camp experience. Voters in his Congressional race in 1990 can be told that there is no difference ideologically between him and 100% ADA-rated Bobby Rush, but the rest of the state in 2004 (and eventually the country) can buy that he's a post-partisan reformer. Terrorists come to believe he shares their scorn for America, but Iowa voters hear him talk about his appreciation that only in America could his story have happened. Primary voters in Ohio are coddled with protectionist promises - and then privately scorned while he is talking to San Fransciso liberal donors.

There is no end to it - everyone gets the version of Obama that perfectly fits his own world view. It is not hypocrisy. It's fraud. Whatever he told or shared with Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, or Pfleger counts for no more that what he told or shared with other now inconvenient groups and individuals. He's sold the same piece of political real estate to multiple buyers for multiple, conflicting uses.

But one thing has been consistent. He has never, ever attacked political corruption, whether in Chicago or Washington. To the contrary, at the Woods Fund, the Annenberg Challenge and the U.S. Senate he's laddled out earmarks and goodies to a long list of friends and associates - Wright, Pfleger, Will County ( home of FBI target Larry Walsh), Allison S. Davis, ACORN, etc. The one consistency has been his fidelity to political supporters. Everyone else and every political position were disposable.

Now is precisely the time for firm convictions, strict ethical propriety and the firmness to turn away those who put private interests above the public good. We may be on the verge of electing a candidate who lacks all of these traits.

As I continue reading George Orwell's 1984, I observe more startling revelations.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The above mantra is scattered thoughout the book and the statements are the "three slogans of the Party." Let's break it down, shall we?

War is Peace: The only way to achieve peace is through war. Which seems to be the consensus of most world leaders.

Freedom is Slavery: Look no further than the Patriot Act, and the belief that in order to be "safe and free" we must give up our fundamental rights as outlined in the Constitution and become slaves to the government. A pretty socialistic view.

Ignorance is Strength: The ignorance of the public is strength to the government. The less the people know what is going on, the more the government can do to further gain control. Through mass distractions in entertainment (televised Rock, Paper, Scissors?) and disinformation in the mainstream media, the public is kept unaware of what is happening. It eventually reaches the point where society is completely ignorant of the past and present with no hope of a future.

Also in the book, protaganist Winston Smith was employed in the Minsitry of Truth. His job was to re-write newspaper articles to make them relevant to the current time. If someone was "vaporized", all previous information of them was erased, making it to where they don't exist. All knowledge of the past, before the Revoloution, was forgotten and rewritten by the Party.

We have a system similar to that in the world today. As the saying goes, "History is written by the winners." Our schools and government continue to perpetuate the lie the Christopher Colombus discovered America. History textbooks are filled with half-truths and misinformation.

The world of 1984 is a totallitarian socialist regime. "Ingsoc," which is referenced many times, means English socialism in Newspeak. Are we heading toward Amsoc?

Explored and then conquered by France and then Great Britain, Canada became a "federal dominion" in 1867.  It is now a federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, and its government is best described as "a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth as its head of state."

Why bring up Canada?

Because one day soon, the USA may look very much like her - minus the Queen.  Much of what Canada is and does WORKS.  No doubt about it.  It's a wealthy nation.  It has low unemployment.  Its socialist leanings are similar to or the same as Great Britain's.  Canada works ... for Canadians.

Generally speaking, the things Canadians enjoy we Americans enjoy.  Ask Canadians if they are free and they'll tell you, "Yep."

But Canada isn't America.  (You Canadians ... don't take this wrong ...)  Canada is not as great, prosperous, generous, strong, or entrepreneurial.  No one would consider Canada the "leader of the free world" or the biggest bull in the financial china shop.  One reason is Canada's population is about 32 million, give or take.  That's only 1/10th of the population of the USA.  So ... Canada is bigger geographically, and much smaller when it comes to population.  With all the natural resources within its borders, Canada has a lot going for it ... but it isn't America.

Personally and practically, I don't want to pay the taxes Canadians do.  And I don't want to buy into their medical program.  Canada WORKS ... but not for me.  I love to visit Canada, but I don't want to live there.

With all that up front - in my opinion America is headed ... NOT TOWARD THE CANADIAN SOCIALIST MODEL - the model that works up there, but toward a much more dangerous model of socialism.  We're heading toward a more controlling/dictatorial form of government, where a very few will control the lives of multitudes.  The USA is headed backwards ... toward 1984.  Big Brother.  A propaganda machine run by an elite media. 

Oh, brother.

Think about it.  Any comments?

My last post was an extreme review of Gwen Ifil's involvement in the VP debate--which Sarah Palin won hands down by the way--um, okay and Biden wasn't half bad frankly.

I must confess first that Gwen did a pretty "fair" job and for that I am thankful--I'm sure all the press and pressure from the revelation of her book had no effect on the way in which she conducted herself--but then again--we will never know, will we?

After hearing the debate I was not suprised at all to hear the VP of "hope and change" also talk about fairness.  He said that where he comes from, fairness is defined by giving tax breaks to the middle class and making the "rich" pay more.  Interesting...

Well let's see about that.  Here is the breakdown of the Delaware State Income Tax system:

(notice that even the picture on their website let's you know that your money is going to some future project)

-- No tax on the first $2,000
-- 2.2 percent on taxable income between $2,000 and $5,000
-- 3.9 percent on taxable income between $5,001 and $10,000
-- 4.8 percent on taxable income between $10,001 and $20,000
-- 5.2 percent on taxable income between $20,001 and $25,000
-- 5.55 percent on taxable income between $25,001 and $60,000
-- 5.95 percent on taxable income more than $60,000.

It would appear that Senator Biden is correct, the richest people pay the most--however, amazingly people that make $5000 A YEAR pay $66 in taxes.  Funny, people that make $5000 a year in the US pay nothing.

But here is the real kicker--rich is apparently defined as anyone making more than $60,000 a year.  OF course, this is perfect since the median income of people from Delaware is $55,436 according to a 2005 report of the US Census Bureau.  Plus Delaware has a poverty rate of over 10%!  Now Senator Biden makes a healthy $319,000 which is touted by the press as "one of the least wealthy Senators."  But--one of the richest men in Delaware.

I wonder if Senator Biden's real view and that of his annointed running mate's is that people that make $60000 a year or more are "rich."

The reality is that many of you are going to line up at the polls next month and vote for a man who wants to redistribute wealth in this Country based on his single-minded ideas alone.  In other words, Obama thinks that he will be better at managing your money than you are and better at deciding what you "should" make.

So here is my new definition of Fairness under the Obama Presidency:

"Making sure that all people, no matter their race, religion, sexual preference, gender, work habits, narcissism, addictions, neurosis, attitude, sense of entitlement, laziness, lack of education, drug use, criminal background, number of children out of wedlock, SDTs, terrorist affiliations, patriotism, talent and ability, work ethic, ethics at all, apathy, recklessness, negligence, motivation, lack of goals, determination, drive, integrity, honor, honesty, dishonesty, or age have the same exact income, benefits, health care, car, house, and job as everyone else."

Now that is called real fairness.  After all--keeping money that you earned is unfair to those who simply do not earn it. 

In fact Obama already got started on this in December 2007 when he and Sen. Hagel sponsored the Global Poverty Act.  It would commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7% of our gross domestic product (or over $800 billion) on foreign handouts, which is at least $30 billion over and above the exorbitant and wasted sums we already give away overseas.  The purpose is to redistribute wealth to the areas of our world where people are living on less than $1 a day--places like Uganda for example--which is run by a mad dictator.

This is part of Obama's hope to bring the US in line with the United Nation's Millenium Development Goal.  That declaration also calls for a "currency transfer tax," a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources," a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy production - oil, natural gas, coal," "fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."

So see, Obama's energy plan to help with gas prices and the oil crunch is to simply tax our own natural resources further and the carbon content which of course is causing all of the worldwide poverty.  I wonder if this is why Delaware's poverty is 10.2 percent?  It must be global warming.  Hmmmm....  In any event, it is certainly more fair than letting a bunch of poor people in undeveloped countries suffer while we here at home are actually living off what we earn--how ridiculous is that?

Well, I hope you now fully understand the new definition of fairness and Obama's intentions--but don't you DARE question him on it, after all--he is the One (at least that is what CNN keeps hinting at).

-Murphy

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

1. Pay off the national debt.

2. Stop government spending

3. Reduce the size of the government, cut each department by two thirds for starters.

4. Reduce taxes for everyone

5. Eliminate government intervention in  education, welfare, housing, and emergency management(FEMA)

6. Set real goals for the military to "win."

7. Repeal the law that caused the sub-prime loan meltdown.

8. Let us spend our money, instead of letting the government do it for us.

If he can do all of the above, we'd all have the money for health care and education.

 He won't do it because he doesn't have balls big enough.

He would rather sit on a throne and dole the riches earned by the hard working people of this country to the WORLD. He sounds like a "chip off the old block" to me.

Conservatives frequently point to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Socialist instruments of world domination. The World Bank and the IMF in their zeal for profits have been responsible for saddling the industrialized nations and the third world countries with debt which keeps the peoples of those countries mired in poverty. This is the very opposite of socialism.

Free - by which the Corporatist Oligarchy means UNRESTRAINED - market capitalism is the ultimate wealth redistribution instrument. Repeated profit taking MUST eventually destroy the less wealthy groups of people within society.

Suppose that I pay you 5 “credits” for the time it takes you to produce 1 “unit” for me. I then charge 10 credits per unit. You must produce 2 units to be able to purchase 1 unit. You then give me 10 credits for 1 unit. I have made 5 credits of profit BUT you have also, in effect produced 2 units at no coast to me. Most profit for this exchange is, therefore, 25 credits.

Now suppose that I raise the price of a unit to 15 credits. You must then produce 3 units to purchase 1 unit.

What if you cannot afford to “pay” that much for a unit? I offer to lend you all 15 credits if you repay me 20 credits. It sounds good, but look closely.

You will repay me 20 credits, so I make 5 credits of profit. You will also now produce 4 units for me which in effect do not cost me anything because you will return to me the 20 credits which I pay you to produce them. I, therefore, make an additional 60 credits of profit. My profits thus far - 65 credits for the cost of 15 credits. If I continue this process YOU must eventually owe me EVERYTHING that you can earn.

That is certainly not Socialism. It is unrestrained capitalism.

It is true that the tactics of the Corporatist Oligarchy are, in fact, wealth redistribution. This redistribution is not from them to the government. It is from YOU to the oligarches - which, of course includes, from you THRU the government to them.

They have no social agenda - except to keep the citizenry divided. A divided mass of people is, of course, much easier to dominate and to exploit.

Now, that was found at near the bottom of the BBC business 'more from business' section. Not hidden away at all...

In this speech he made various bold statements about how the market must be moral and celebrate some bullshit list of ethics based around 'working hard' and 'responsible risk taking'. Um, Gordon, you need to work on that list mate, it's pretty shit.

But there was one part that was, shall we say, terrifying:

"But there is a wider set of issues: this financial crisis has gone to the heart of how you create a good economy and a good society."

Now, that is Marx plain and simple. A good economy creates a good society. No it doesn't, but Gordon seems to believe it does and that is a cause for concern. The market is there to make money and deliver dividends to its shareholders and that is that. In the process of making money good things can happen, look at Supermarkets and their drive for organic food, quality produce, even recycling.

This is the very free market philosophy that the Left detest. They hate the market and trusting it, because they know best and must tell and control everything.

"We believe in markets. We also know that our success as a market economy - and indeed the operation of the market itself - depends upon upholding values which the market alone cannot generate.

"Successful market economies need trust which can only be built through shared values.

"My values, the values of the country, celebrate hard work, effort, enterprise and responsible risk taking - qualities that markets need to ensure that the rewards that flow are seen to be fair."

No Gordon, you don't believe in the market, you believe in a controlled market, a market that acts how you want it to act, a market that you know ful well will only act that way if you make it.

There are exceptions. HSBC is the biggest company in the world and has a risk averse policy running it. This is why it is one of the only banks to have its shares go up rather than crash in the current nightmare. However, HSBC has chosen to be this way, it is the way it was founded and the way its board and shareholders want it run.

So what is 'responsible risk taking'? A myth. How do you take a risk carefully? You could argue taht it is based on what you are willing to lose weighed against the possible gains. This is what the City alrady does, and it turns out that nearly every risk is worth it. The banks that are now in the shit are not stupid, it may appear they are, but they are not. They gambled that they would make huge gains, which they did, and all would be well by the time any problems popped up, if at all.

Why did they do it? Because Gordon Brown and every other world leader allowed the market to do it. There was no need to allow, say, short selling, but they did because it was all rosey. Simple regulation that is fair and predictable is all that is required, Brown wants full blown state control over what is traded, how and when, what circumstances.

This comes from a man that has created the most fucked up, irresponsible economy in the western world. We have the highest level of debt in both the personal and the business department, by a mile.

This is the man who spent 10 years claiming prudence whilst pissing it away on utter shit like pay rises and a vast expansion of not just the public sector, but Whitehall.

The man is full of shit. He is irresponsible, he is wasteful and it is him that has put everyone in this situation. His solution is to now lurch towards state control and leftish, naightmarish control of the economy as well as everyone's lives.

Marx would be proud of his timely intervention to use the capitalist state to create a socialist one.

The reason on a larger scale that it is causing bankruptcies at a very basic level is because the ways it has been done, it is like borrowing money from a bookie to play a bet. That works find, if the bet wins.

But, when it doesn't and the money isn't available to pay the borrowed money back plus the play on the bet - there is a "constrained relationship" with the bookie. Or, in other words - that bookie gets real short tempered and will collect one way or another.

A lot of really big companies and banks, and well-respected businesses were making very large bets on borrowed money and then took another bet to insure against the first bet until after awhile, the debts had to paid. Apparently, there weren't enough real moneys to pay them, nor to continue to play in this game.

The other thing that might make sense - while most of it doesn't make sense - is that for every one dollar that these companies and banks actually had, they were allowed to borrow twelve dollars or as much as forty dollars against it. Now, who gets to do that? This has been common practice.

This has caused many Americans to be out of work, lose their homes and has forced them into bankruptcy because when the companies where they worked started trying to make themselves look profitable, they laid off people to do it.

The fact is, many companies and banks still went bankrupt also when it was discovered that they didn't have the money to pay off the debts called due, were no longer profitable or solvent and couldn't get any money for things they owned.

Among the investment bankers there were a set of "assets" that weren't any more than a contract for a bet that some homeowner somewhere would pay off their mortgage. These companies has bought huge packages of mortgages that were sold together as a lot. Then they paid someone else to insure the package for how much would be owed if some of these mortgages didn't get paid off, which hedged the bet.

sounds like betting on football sort of, doesn't it - except in the billions and trillions of dollars. And a lot more risky.

I think, if they had stopped at that point and not gone into the next round of stupidity - well, maybe it would be different. But, since many investment houses could borrow $40 for every $1 of assets, they did (using these packages as dollars of assets) - which converted the packaged "bets" and "insurance" to hedge the bets - into cash which they used to do some more of the same game.

It looks like after a time, there were stacks and stacks of what was being valued as if the bets had been won and that, on accounting records, appeared like the cash value of all the mortgages in the package added together (like they were the total value of what could eventually be paid off, if the homeowner made good.)

Well, if your money's no good - you're not going to pay off a bookie with it and that is exactly what happened. There was a piece of paper for somebody's house in Tulsa or somewhere mortgaged for $300,000 principle plus interest with a homeowner in foreclosure. Then, that isn't the same as $300,000 cash any longer. And, the property probably couldn't bring more than $15,000 auction off in foreclosure.

It seems complicated, but really it isn't. If I tell you that something is worth a certain amount and it isn't - that is a lie. But, when businesses, assets, stocks and things like that are treated this way - it is way more than a lie. And, it means that it sure can't be used to make good on debts as if it is cash money or a building or equipment or anything of value.

This is why so many companies are on quicksand right now and the plan offered by Secretary Paulson of the Treasury is being used to buy up the worthless things that the whole bunch of them had been using like money, when it wasn't and they didn't have anything real to back it up.

Obviously, everything is pretty close to the vest in the business and corporate world. So, with everybody holding these bets they couldn't pay off and borrowed moneys they couldn't pay back, after awhile nobody wanted to loan any of them any money to play with anymore. Who would?

The President's advisors and the Treasury Dept. think this bailout and buyout of everybody's bets on the table will allow them to all trust each other enough to start lending real money and paying back real money again. And, hopefully, to make real profits again. This probably would've worked a lot better, if other countries hadn't been conned into buying these bets too. There's no telling if the bailout will work to get this done or not.

By the way, the falling of the economy doesn't absolutely cause bankruptcies. It can contribute but essentially that is up to the flexibility of the participants, whether in a household or in a business. It isn't an absolute. And, in our day and time, bankruptcy is used sometimes as a process in which to regroup, consolidate resources, protect some opportunities and then go at things again.

But, just as in a hand of poker, it isn't always right to hold the cards and bet on them. It isn't always a winning hand to throw them in until the four aces or royal flush comes along to play them. It is all in how its done.

- cricketdiane

To ignore the ideology and goals of these groups and to accept them as "model citizens" today, shows a willingness to accept their means of achieving their goals.

How many times does Barack Obama think he can get away with his "see no evil" act?