Both Parties Pursue ‘Wal-Mart Mom’ Demographic

The Wal*Mart mom Demographic… Who comes up with this tripe. As I have said before, If you shop at Wal*Mart, you give up your right to complain. You are voting with your Wallets. If you Husband or Wife get’s laid off because their job can be done cheaper* elsewhere, how much are you saving. And, you can’t complain about layoffs or a shrinking tax base or the housing crisis. These belong to you. Embrace your creations…

*cheaper at what cost?

Actaully it’s not tripe, its terrifying!!!

Bobby: It’s amazing that the women interviewed would have loyalty to Hillary. All those years Hillary sat on the board of WalMart, then sat in the White House, WHAT did she DO to promote equal pay for women-at WalMart or anywhere else? She was mute when women at WalMart were being denied luncbreaks,when Sam Walton was vilifying unions and workers’ right to organize;later,when her husband was signing NAFTA(although that was Daddy Bush’s invention). Time for a change.YEP, WAY past time. Politicians and diapers need to be changed ,frequently, for the same reasons. And on THAT issue, I think ALL WalMart moms definitely can relate!

Democrats are not prepared to pass their bailout proposal by themselves. If they were, they would have done so on Monday.
Instead, they withheld the votes of their most vulnerable congressmen and let the package fail. 

Never before in the history of our nation have we faced such a grave crisis: one of the most radical political figures ever to be nominated by a major party is just minutes away from becoming President of the United States.

That man is Barack Obama.

He promises to change America forever. If elected, he will do just that — but in ways you make not like.
Remember Obama is the most liberal member of the United States Senate.

He received a 100 percent Liberal Rating from the National Journal, making him the most left-wing Senator in Washington — more liberal than even Democratic senators like Ted Kennedy.

If you look at Obama’s record, you will understand just how dangerous this man is.

He even has terrorist friends he won’t denounce. One such man is William Ayers, a leader in the radical terrorist group the Weatherman Underground. The group bombed several government buildings, including the Pentagon, killing civilians and police officers.

In 2001, Ayers said he had no regrets for his actions and wished he could have done more. 

The ties between Obama and Ayers are tight. Both served on two non profit boards and they worked closely together. Ayers even hosted a political event at his home for Obama.

Obama has acknowledged he is a friend of Ayers and defends his association by saying he, Obama, was only 8 years old at the time of the Pentagon bombing.

However, Obama has no explanation as to why he is still a friend of Ayers.

Obama has even been endorsed by radicals such as Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan.

No one can deny hearing about Obama’s relationship with the America-hating Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

There should be little doubt that William Ayers and Louis Farrakhan and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright are rooting for Obama — because he is one of them.

In keeping with such friends, Obama has promised to meet with radical leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without “preconditions” even though Ahmadinejad has promised to “wipe Israel off the map” and “destroy” America.

Even radical Hamas terrorists have praised him.

“We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election,” Ahmed Yousef, senior Hamas leader was quoted by ABC radio as saying.
And then there are Obama’s dangerous economic plans for America.

He wants to almost double the capital gains tax. He wants to strip the FICA tax cap off every worker making more than $97,500. He wants to increase the dividend tax. He wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire — giving almost every American family an automatic tax increase.

He has called for more than $800 billion in new spending programs.

He is so radical he even backed driver’s licenses for illegal aliens — even though such a move would help future terrorists move freely in the United States.

He is the most pro-abortion candidate in the history of the country. In 2001, as a state legislator in Illinois, he opposed a bill to protect live born children — children actually born alive!  He was the only Illinois senator to speak out against the bill.

He opposes gun rights. He has long history of trying to deny ordinary citizens access to guns.

He originally backed Washington D.C.’s total ban on private handguns — a ban that was overturned. The NRA rated him an “F” on gun positions and says he is one of the most dangerous anti-gun politicians in the nation.

Never forget that Obama is a Harvard educated elitist. To him we Americans are simply “bitter” and he has mocked us saying “[they] cling to their guns and their religion.”

Hillary Clinton was late in recognizing the threat Obama posed to her campaign, but once she did, her strategy worked.

When Hillary exposed Obama publicly, her campaign saw a major turnaround.

Hillary won every major state primary in the nation with the sole exception of Obama’s home state of Illinois.

And even though Obama was “anointed” by the media and Democratic elites, Hillary went on to win eight of the last 10 Democratic primaries.

How did Obama beat Hillary for the nomination?

Well, using a loophole in Democratic rules, he was able to rack up large majorities in caucus states where he outspent and out organized her.

But in large, contested states she won almost every time. Why? Because when Democrats heard what Obama really stood for, they turned on him.

Make no mistake about it: If we let Americans know the truth about Obama, John McCain can win this election!

But we must employ Hillary Clinton’s strategy.

We must expose Obama for the dangerous radical he is.

11 Racist Lies Conservatives Tell to Avoid Blaming Wall Street for the Financial Crisis

By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America’s Future. Posted October 2, 2008.

Conservatives are twisting the facts beyond the breaking point to support their revisionist history. But don’t be fooled. Conservative pundits and politicians have piled onto the excuse like shipwreck victims clinging to a passing log: The real blame for the current economic crisis, conservatives would have you believe, lies not with anything they did, but rather with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act—a successful Carter-era program designed to get banks to stop covert discrimination, and encourage them to invest their money in low-income neighborhoods.

It’s always easy to tell when the cons are completely lost at sea. The lies get more absurdly preposterous—and also more transparently self-serving. But when they go so far as to openly and unapologetically latch onto race and class as an excuse for their woes (which this is, at its heart), you know they’re taking on water fast—and scared of going under entirely.

You can hear the conservative commentators burbling this CRA fable from the Wall Street Journal to the National Review; from Rush to YouTube. Neil Cavuto put the essence of the argument right out there on Fox News: “Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.” See! It’s all the liberals’ fault for insisting on social justice!

Conservatives are twisting the facts beyond the breaking point to support their revisionist history. But don’t be fooled: the financial crisis was caused by conservative financial follies and bankers run amok and nothing more. Here are the basic myths they’re trying to push about the CRA—and the facts that will enable you to fire back.

1. The CRA was a liberal boondoggle designed to con banks into funding housing for undeserving, unqualified minorities.

False. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was the result of decades of disinvestment in poor and working-class neighborhoods. It was designed to put an end to “red-lining”—a widespread practice in which banks refused to write mortgages for houses in certain neighborhoods, no matter who was applying or how creditworthy they were.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 had made it illegal for real estate agents and banks to discriminate against homeowners on the basis of race. Red-lining soon emerged as a not-so-subtle way to continue this discrimination, by declaring, ahem, certain neighborhoods as unfit to invest in. By 1977, the results of this practice were becoming all too obvious, so Congress stepped and gave lenders a choice: if you want the FDIC to insure your deposits, you need to knock off the redlining.

The CRA didn’t force lenders to make riskier loans than they would have otherwise. It simply required that they take each applicant on his or her own merits. It wasn’t about preferential treatment. It was just about basic equality.

2. The CRA forced banks to lower their standards and make loans to all low-income families and people with poor credit—and find banks that refused to comply.

No. The CRA has encouraged banks to lend fairly and responsibly for over 30 years. It does not impose fines. It does periodically examine FDIC-backed banks, and issues them a CRA compliance rating.  However, a bank will not receive a high rating unless it is also maintains “safe and sound banking practices.”

In other words, the CRA requires banks to lend to working-class families and people of color—but only when those people have been deemed as creditworthy as anyone else.

3. The housing bubble burst when too many people with home loans mandated by the Community Reinvestment Act failed to make their mortgage payments.

False. The CRA only applies to FDIC member banks and thrifts. Back in the 1970s, these institutions were responsible for most of the country’s mortgage lending. But starting in the 80s and on up to the present, we saw a huge boom in lending businesses-- such as finance companies like Countrywide—that weren’t banks, and didn’t take deposits that required FDIC insurance. Thus, they didn’t have any obligation to the CRA. And they were free to set their own lending standards, which were often far less cautious than those required of FDIC-insured banks

4. The bulk of the “junk” loans that have been packaged into mortgage-based securities are CRA loans.

False. An analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data in the country’s 15 biggest metropolitan areas found that 84.3% of the high-cost loans made in 2006 were originated by NON-CRA lenders—including 83% of high-cost loans to low- and moderate-income individuals. The Federal Reserve notes that, across the country, non-CRA lenders were TWICE as likely as CRA lenders to issue subprime loans to vulnerable borrowers.  5. If the government had just set the lenders free to do their thing, the market would have prevented this. It’s just another example of how government oversight always leads to market failure.

Wrong again, buckaroo. As explained just above, up to four-fifths of these loans were issued by financial institutions that operated with little or no federal regulatory oversight. In fact, in 2006, only ONE of the top 25 subprime lenders was a CRA institution. Likewise: the vast majority of the top 20 issuers of risky interest-only and option ARM loans were NOT CRA-affiliated lenders.

If anything, the CRA example proves—once again—that government oversight not only works; it’s ESSENTIAL to maintain safe and sane capital markets.

6. The CRA is just another failed liberal handout program.

No. The law is estimated to channel upwards of $1 trillion into distressed neighborhoods across the country—including both inner cities and rural areas without much access to investment funds—WITHOUT putting up any TAXPAYER money beyond what it takes to operate the CRA itself. The cons like to talk about the “ownership society.” There is no ownership without access to capital. For 30 years, the CRA has been making private capital available to qualified people who want to bootstrap themselves into home and business ownership, and a secure place in the middle class.

7. OK—if it works so well, why do we still need it? Haven’t the banks finally figured by now out that redlining was a stupid idea?

If only. The very fact that the conservatives are trying to blame the mess on the CRA is, in itself, ample proof that we still need anti-redlining laws on the books. Fifty years into the civil rights era, and a different millennium, SAME UGLY STORY: “See? This is what happens when you give money to minorities and poor people. You end up wrecking the country!”

8. If we can’t blame the CRA, then who can we blame? How about the federal banking agencies, which outright told banks to go ahead and adopt risky lending practices?

Nice try, but still wrong. According to the National Community Reinvestment Association, the document cited above offered three new guidelines to lenders—NONE of which are applicable to the CURRENT subprime crisis.

The first guideline was that the lack of proper credit history shouldn’t be counted as a negative factor for potential homebuyers. Banks could use other evidence to assess the borrower’s payment habits, including the timely payment of rent, utility bills, and other scheduled loans. Borrows still need to prove that they’re reliable; they’re just allowed to use documentation besides a credit report.

The second was to remind bankers that some households with debt ratios above the standard 28/36 criteria might still qualify for home loans. This guideline is VERY conservative by today’s standards. Many problematic subprime loans were granted to borrowers with debt-to-income ratios above 50 percent, which was in NO way sanctioned by the 1992 guidance document.

The third was that lenders could count Social Security, second jobs, and other verifiable income streams as valid sources of income when evaluating loan applications. But most subprime loans failures aren’t related to alternative income sources. The REAL problem has been with “liars’ loans,” in which the reported income streams are never verified at all.

9. Well, then...it must be Bill Clinton’s fault, right? In 1995, Clinton changed the Community Reinvestment Act to allow the securitization of CRA and subprime mortgages. That’s what started all this.

Talking point regurgitation at its WORST. The 1995 revisions to the CRA only changed the way in which a bank’s CRA compliance is evaluated. They made no mention of mortgage securitization at all. Under the 1995 rules, banks are rewarded ONLY for making mortgages in their communities, NOT for re-selling mortgages as securities.

10. OK, then—it’s the Democratic Congress’s fault! President Bush and Senator McCain tried to stop the subprime mortgage crisis, but Democrats blocked their efforts.

It’s not lying. It’s a GIFT for fiction. This one’s actually made it into a TV ad. The claim is that Bush and McCain supported the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which would have created a new government agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other federal housing programs.

However, there’s NO pony in this manure pile. This bill would have done nothing to stop the rash of subprime lending that preceded the housing bubble. It only provided oversight for Fannie and Freddie—but it said NOTHING at all about the COMPANIES that issued subprime mortgages.

11. No serious conservative economist would have ever approved of the CRA.

False. In March 2007, Federal Board Chairman Bernanke—NO liberal he—noted that CRA has HELPED institutions discover and enter new markets that may have been previously under-served and ignored by insured depositories.

These myths are floating around everywhere this week—a Big Lie that’s being repeated so often that Americans may well start to believe it. The real objective of the “blame the CRA” campaign is to PRE-EMPTIVELY DISCREDIT any future progressive proposals that involve using government regulation to make the capital markets behave—and to get the free-market fundamentalist faithful back in the fold.

Time to fire back, and replace the Big Lie with some REAL truth!~~~~~~~~~~~~Alternet

The analogy is absolutely right on . . .

Maxine tells it like it is!!!!

I bought a bird feeder. I hung
it on my back porch and filled
it with seed. What a beauty of
a bird feeder it is, as I filled it
lovingly with seed. Within a
week we had hundreds of birds
taking advantage of the
continuous flow of free and
easily accessible food.

But then the birds started
building nests in the boards
of the patio, above the table,
and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was
everywhere: on the patio tile,
the chairs, the table ...
everywhere!

Then some of the birds
turned mean. They would
dive bomb me and try to
peck me even though I had
fed them out of my own
pocket.

And others birds were
boisterous and loud. They
sat on the feeder and
squawked and screamed at
all hours of the day and night
and demanded that I fill it
when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even
sit on my own back porch
anymore. So I took down the
bird feeder and in three days
the birds were gone. I cleaned
up their mess and took down
the many nests they had built
all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like
it used to be.... quiet, serene
and no one demanding their
rights to a free meal.

Now let’s see.
Our government gives out
free food, subsidized housing,
free medical care, and free
education and allows anyone
born here to be an automatic
citizen.

Then the illegal came by the
tens of thousands. Suddenly
our taxes went up to pay for
free services; small apartments
are housing 5 families; you
have to wait 6 hours to be seen
by an emergency room doctor;
your child’s 2nd grade class is
behind other schools because
over half the class doesn’t speak
English.

Corn Flakes now come in a
bilingual box; I have to
‘press one’ to hear my bank
talk to me in English, and
people waving flags other
than ‘Old Glory’ are
squawking and screaming

in the streets, demanding

more rights and free liberties.

Just my opinion, but maybe

it’s time for the government
to take down the bird

feeder.

If you agree, pass it on; if not,
continue cleaning up the poop!

(another mess the Liberal Democrats created)

Now lets see, the government is bailing out the nonregulated loans of foreign investment bankers who were the largest investors in Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac and AIG. THESE are the owners of non FDIC insured mortgaes,. The dregulation of non insured hedge funds,mortgage companies and Enron(endrun ) avccounting led by McCains best friend Phil Gramm is the CAUSE of credit crunch NOT a handful of homeowners. Also,BASEL I,which internationally relaxed the rules for bankers to do risky OFFSHORE ,off the books deals as long there were EXTRA cash reserves to cover them.Open books to the Basra Accord members OR THEY will no longer be allowed to deal with U.S. banks.THAT’s what this is about. The time extension for the US to come into compliance is up!

WEEKEND EDITION
Brokers threatened by run on shadow bank system
Regulators eye $10 trillion market that boomed outside traditional banking
By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
(MarketWatch)—A network of lenders, brokers and opaque financing vehicles outside traditional banking that ballooned during the bull market now is under siege as regulators threaten a crackdown on the so-called shadow banking system.
Big brokerage firms like Goldman Sachs (GS:GS , which some say are the biggest players in this non-bank financial network, may have the most to lose from stricter regulation.
The shadow banking system grew rapidly during the past decade, accumulating more than $10 trillion in assets by early 2007. That made it roughly the same size as the traditional banking system, according to the Federal Reserve.
While this system became a huge and vital source of money to fuel the U.S. economy, the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing credit crunch exposed a major flaw. Unlike regulated banks, which can borrow directly from the government and have federally insured customer deposits, the shadow system didn’t have reliable access to short-term borrowing during times of stress.
Unless radical changes are made to bring this shadow network under an updated regulatory umbrella, the current crisis may be just a gust compared to the storm that would follow a collapse of the global financial system, experts warn.
Such vulnerability helped transform what may have been an uncomfortable correction in credit markets into the worst global credit crunch in more than a decade as monetary policymakers and regulators struggled to contain the damage.
“The shadow banking system model as practiced in recent years has been discredited,” Ramin Toloui, executive vice president at bond investment giant Pimco, said.
Toloui expects greater regulation of big brokerage firms which may face stricter capital requirements and requirements to hold more liquid, or easily sellable, assets.
‘Clarion call’
“The bright new financial system—for all its talented participants, for all its rich rewards—has failed the test of the market place,” Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said during a speech in April. “It all adds up to a clarion call for an effective response.”
Two months later, Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and others have begun to answer that call.
“The structure of the financial system changed fundamentally during the boom, with dramatic growth in the share of assets outside the traditional banking system,” he warned in a speech last week. That “made the crisis more difficult to manage.”

Anyone surprised Larry doesn’t like birds?

Here in Texas, Larry, dove hunting is a big thing. Many hunters put out bird feed (corn) to attract the dove so they can shoot them.

How does that fit into your “analogy”?

Who knows, Larry? If you keep going the way your are perhaps Dick Cheney will invite you to go quail hunting with him.

Ken V: And all this time, I thought Larry was FOR the birds.