Category: Politics

Irish View of Our Election

We, in Ireland, can’t figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States.

On one side, you have a pants wearing lawyer, married to a lawyer who can’t keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer who goes to the wrong church who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn’t even like the country her husband wants to run.

Now…on the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate Mc terminology, married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.

What in Lord’s name are you lads thinking over there in the colonies?

Thanks to that Leprechaun Joe Greene

Anti-Government Quotes Through History

I don’t make jokes… I just watch the government and report the facts. -Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free! -P.J. O’Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. -Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -Mark Twain (1866 )

Talk is cheap…except when Congress does it. -Unknown

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.-Thomas Jefferson

Continue reading “Anti-Government Quotes Through History”

Why IndyMac failed

The $4 Billion Senator – WSJ.com
The federal takeover of IndyMac Bank over the weekend could cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion. But Senator Chuck Schumer, who helped to precipitate the collapse by publicizing a letter to the bank’s regulator last month, has no remorse.

The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), whose job it actually was to regulate IndyMac, took a different view. “The immediate cause of the closing,” the OTS wrote in a press release, “was a deposit run that began and continued after the public release of a June 26 letter to the OTS and the FDIC from Senator Charles Schumer of New York.” The OTS added: “In the following 11 business days, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from their accounts.” I’ve also heard that at the time IndyMac wasn’t even on the Fed’s Watch List of Banks that could fail.

From the LA Times quoting John M. Reich, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision:

“Leaking his IndyMac letter to the press was reckless and grossly irresponsible. I don’t see how he can be trusted with confidential information in the future. What this incredibly stupid conduct does is put at risk the willingness of regulators to share any information with the [congressional] oversight committees. After this, you’d be crazy to share information with Schumer.”

Wanted – Obama Jokes

Want Obama in a Punch Line? First, Find a Joke – NYTimes.com
Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the ABC late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said of Mr. Obama, “There’s a weird reverse racism going on. You can’t joke about him because he’s half-white. It’s silly. I think it’s more a problem because he’s so polished, he doesn’t seem to have any flaws.”

Mr. Maher said that being sensitive to Mr. Obama was in no way interfering with his commentary, though on HBO he has more freedom about content than other comedians. “There’s been this question about whether he’s black enough,” Mr. Maher said. “I have this joke: What does he have to do? Dunk? He bowled a 37 — to me, that’s black enough.”

Mr. Kimmel said, “His ears should be the focus of the jokes.” Continue reading “Wanted – Obama Jokes”

Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy

Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy – The Boston Globe
The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.

As a result, some people in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods are torn between a natural inclination to support Obama and a concern about his relationships with the developers they hold responsible for Chicago’s affordable housing failures. Some housing advocates worry that Obama has not learned from those failures.

“I’m not against Barack Obama,” said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident. “What I am against is some of the people around him.”

Jamie Kalven, a longtime Chicago housing activist, put it this way: “I hope there is not much predictive value in his history and in his involvement with that community.” Video

Obama Did the ‘Wright’ Thing

Pajamas Media » Conservatives, Rejoice: Obama Did the ‘Wright’ Thing
conservatives have long argued that the black community is desperately in need of a leader who speaks out forcefully against the divisive, destructive worldview of “those who prey on hate” — the worldview of Wright, Sharpton and Jackson, of the race-baiters and the grievance-mongers. Why, conservatives have often asked, won’t somebody, anybody, take on the entrenched “old guard” of African-American political life, the aging charlatans whose continued relevance depends on perpetuating a poisonous culture of blame-whitey victimization?

Well, now it has happened. Barack Obama, a man who commands overwhelming support among African-Americans, and who stands a fair chance of becoming the next President of the United States, used the bully pulpit of his candidacy to unequivocally condemn the very sort of conspiratorial lunacy that is too often tolerated or even applauded within segments of the black community. Continue reading “Obama Did the ‘Wright’ Thing”