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Is the American Dream dead?
None of the above
The left loonies are trying to kill it..... They caused the current "crisis" Why do you think they dont want any investigation into the cause of the Mortgage meltdown???? It started With Jimmy Carter, was intensified by Bill Clinton and Obama's advisor Raines brought it all home with his corruption..... By the way.... Obama took $126,000.00 from Fannie Mae for What????????? CORRUPTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -
The Fix Is In. VP Debate "Moderator" In The Tank For Obama. How's This For A Non-Partisan Moderator???
The fix is definitely IN.
ELECTION 2008 WorldNetDaily Exclusive VP debate moderator Ifill releasing pro-Obama book Focuses on blacks who are 'forging a bold new path to political power' -----------------------------... Posted: September 30, 2008 8:35 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh -----------------------------... WorldNetDaily Gwen Ifill The moderator of tomorrow's vice-presidential debate is writing a book to come out on the day the next president takes the oath of office that aims to "shed new light" on Democratic candidate Barack Obama and other "emerging young African American politicians" who are "forging a bold new path to political power." Gwen Ifill of the Public Broadcasting Service program "Washington Week" is promoting "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," in which she argues the "black political structure" of the civil rights movement is giving way to men and women who have benefited from the struggles over racial equality. Ifill declined to return a WND telephone message asking for a comment about her book project and whether its success would be expected should Obama lose. But she has faced criticism previously for not treating candidates of both major parties the same. During a vice-presidential candidate debate she moderated in 2004 – when Democrat John Edwards attacked Republican Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton – the vice president said, "I can respond, Gwen, but it's going to take more than 30 seconds." (Story continues below) "Well, that's all you've got," she told Cheney. Ifill told the Associated Press Democrats were delighted with her answer, because they "thought I was being snippy to Cheney." She explained that wasn't her intent. But she also was cited in complaints PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler said he received after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin delivered her nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., earlier this month. Some viewers complained of a "dismissive" look by Ifill during her report on Palin's speech. According to Getler, some also said she wore a look of "disgust" while reporting on the Republican candidate. At that time she said, "I assume there will always be critics and just shut out the noise. It is surprisingly easy." A clip of Ifill's coverage of Palin can be seen here: PBS viewer Brian Meyers of Granby, Conn., said he was "appalled" by Ifill's commentary directly following Palin's convention speech. "Her attitude was dismissive and the look on her face was one of disgust," Meyers said. "Clearly, she was agitated by what most critics view as a well-delivered speech. It is quite obvious that Ms. Ifill supports Obama as she struggled to say anything redemptive about Gov. Palin's performance." Columnist Michelle Malkin, in a post on her blog today, wonders how Ifill can objectively moderate the debate tomorrow night with the personal interest she has in the election's outcome. "My dictionary defines 'moderator' as 'the nonpartisan presiding officer of a town meeting.' On Thursday, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill will serve as moderator for the first and only vice presidential debate. The stakes are high. The Commission on Presidential Debates, with the assent of the two campaigns, decided not to impose any guidelines on her duties or questions. "But there is nothing 'moderate' about where Ifill stands on Barack Obama. She's so far in the tank for the Democrat presidential candidate, her oxygen delivery line is running out," Malkin writes. "Ifill and her publisher are banking on an Obama/Biden win to buoy her book sales. The moderator expected to treat both sides fairly has grandiosely declared this the 'Age of Obama.' Can you imagine a right-leaning journalist writing a book about the 'stunning' McCain campaign and its 'bold' path to reform timed for release on Inauguration Day – and then expecting a slot as a moderator for the nation’s sole vice presidential debate?" Malkin cited Ifill's previous reporting on Obama for "Essence" magazine, an article titled, "The Obamas: Portrait of an American Family." Ifill's "neutral analysis" about Michelle Obama, Malkin said with irony, was, "A lot of people have never seen anything that looks like a Michelle Obama before. She's educated, she's beautiful, she's tall, she tells you what she thinks and they hope that she can tell a story about Barack Obama and about herself. …" Fox News commentator Greta Van Susteren reported the McCain campaign didn't know about the book. "It simply is not fair – in law, this would create a mistrial," she said. Coming to Ifill's defense was Juan Williams, a senior correspondent with National Public Radio. "I think Gwen has been a terrific journalist," he told Fox News. But Williams admitted the appearances could cause difficulties. "She spent a lot of time with Obama. She praises him in the book," he said. "The book's success [is] invested in Obama. … Suddenly everyone's going to be saying Gwen Ifill is somewhat biased against Gov. Palin." Ifill, who also works with her network's "NewsHour," told BlackAmericaWeb.com she thinks debates "are the best opportunity most voters have to see the candidates speaking to issues." She said she is concerned only about getting straight answers from Palin and Democratic rival Sen. Joe Biden. "You do your best to get candidates to answer your question. But I also trust the viewers to understand when questions are not answered and reach their own conclusions," Ifill told BlackAmericaWeb. "Four years ago, when neither John Edwards nor Dick Cheney proved capable of answering a question about the domestic epidemic of AIDS among African-American women, viewers flooded me with reaction," she said. She said she will make her own decisions about what questions to ask, adding "the big questions matter." In the Amazon.com promotion for her book, Ifill is described as "drawing on interviews with power brokers," such as Obama and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. In an online video promoting her book, she is enthusiastic about "taking the story of Barack Obama and extending it." It focuses on four people, "one of them Barack Obama of course," she said. "They are changing our politics and changing our nation," she said. On Amazon.com, Ifill is praised for her "incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama." "Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history," the review says. She told AP her view of Obama: "I still don't know if he'll be a good president." She also describes how she met him at the 2004 Democratic convention and since then has interviewed the Illinois senator and his family. She also boasted that by the time of the debate, "I'll be a complete expert on both" Palin and Biden. The debate will be held at Washington University in St. Louis, which has posted information about the evening's events online. Debate officials have made inactive their media page on the Debates website, and officials did not respond to a WND e-mail requesting a comment. Ifill's profile on the website describes her as a longtime correspondent and moderator for national news programs and includes her service as moderator of the 2004 debate between Edwards and Cheney. However, there's no mention of her upcoming book. 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Will you join the cult of Barack Obama?
No, I am already in a cult
The cult of truth.... Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign Monday, September 29, 2008 9:23 PM By: Kenneth R. Timmerman Article Font Size More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won't disclose. And questions have arisen about millions more in foreign donations the Obama campaign has received that apparently have not been vetted as legitimate. Obama has raised nearly twice that of John McCain's campaign, according to new campaign finance report. But because of Obama’s high expenses during the hotly contested Democratic primary season and an early decision to forgo public campaign money and the spending limits it imposes, all that cash has not translated into a financial advantage — at least, not yet. The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee began September with $95 million in cash, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The McCain camp and the Republican National Committee had $94 million, because of an influx of $84 million in public money. But Obama easily could outpace McCain by $50 million to $100 million or more in new donations before Election Day, thanks to a legion of small contributors whose names and addresses have been kept secret. Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). Federal law does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 during the election cycle. However, it does require that campaigns calculate running totals for each donor and report them once they go beyond the $200 mark. Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200 threshold. “Contributions that come under $200 aggregated per person are not listed,” said Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the FEC. “They don’t appear anywhere, so there’s no way of knowing who they are.” The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. Only $39.6 million of that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has identified. It is the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms of 2002. Biersack would not comment on whether the FEC was investigating the huge amount of cash that has come into Obama’s coffers with no public reporting. But Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for CRP, a campaign-finance watchdog group, dismissed the scale of the unreported money. “We feel comfortable that it isn’t the $20 donations that are corrupting a campaign,” he told Newsmax. But those small donations have added up to more than $200 million, all of it from unknown and unreported donors. Ritsch acknowledges that there is skepticism about all the unreported money, especially in the Obama campaign coffers. “We and seven other watchdog groups asked both campaigns for more information on small donors,” he said. “The Obama campaign never responded,” whereas the McCain campaign “makes all its donor information, including the small donors, available online.” The rise of the Internet as a campaign funding tool raises new questions about the adequacy of FEC requirements on disclosure. In pre-Internet fundraising, almost all political donations, even small ones, were made by bank check, leaving a paper trail and limiting the amount of fraud. But credit cards used to make donations on the Internet have allowed for far more abuse. “While FEC practice is to do a post-election review of all presidential campaigns, given their sluggish metabolism, results can take three or four years,” said Ken Boehm, the chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center. Already, the FEC has noted unusual patterns in Obama campaign donations among donors who have been disclosed because they have gone beyond the $200 minimum. FEC and Mr. Doodad Pro When FEC auditors have questions about contributions, they send letters to the campaign’s finance committee requesting additional information, such as the complete address or employment status of the donor. Many of the FEC letters that Newsmax reviewed instructed the Obama campaign to “redesignate” contributions in excess of the finance limits. Under campaign finance laws, an individual can donate $2,300 to a candidate for federal office in both the primary and general election, for a total of $4,600. If a donor has topped the limit in the primary, the campaign can “redesignate” the contribution to the general election on its books. In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.” A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25. In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375. Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit. There can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed these contributions, since Obama’s Sept. 20 report specified that Good Will’s cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $9,375. In an e-mailed response to a query from Newsmax, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt pledged that the campaign would return the donations. But given the slowness with which the campaign has responded to earlier FEC queries, there’s no guarantee that the money will be returned before the Nov. 4 election. Similarly, a donor identified as “Pro, Doodad,” from “Nando, NY,” gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25. For most of these donations, Mr. Doodad Pro listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You,” just as Good Will had done. But in some of them, he didn’t even go this far, apparently picking letters at random to fill in the blanks on the credit card donation form. In these cases, he said he was employed by “VCX” and that his profession was “VCVC.” Following FEC requests, the Obama campaign began refunding money to Doodad Pro in February 2008. In all, about $8,425 was charged back to a credit card. But that still left a net total of $11,165 as of Sept. 20, way over the individual limit of $4,600. Here again, LaBolt pledged that the contributions would be returned but gave no date. In February, after just 93 donations, Doodad Pro had already gone over the $2,300 limit for the primary. He was over the $4,600 limit for the general election one month later. In response to FEC complaints, the Obama campaign began refunding money to Doodad Pro even before he reached these limits. But his credit card was the gift that kept on giving. His most recent un-refunded contributions were on July 7, when he made 14 separate donations, apparently by credit card, of $25 each. Just as with Mr. Good Will, there can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed the contributions, since its Sept. 20 report specified that Doodad’s cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $10,965. Foreign Donations And then there are the overseas donations — at least, the ones that we know about. The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as “UK,” the United Kingdom. More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680. But others came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France. Until recently, the Obama Web site allowed a contributor to select the country where he resided from the entire membership of the United Nations, including such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unlike McCain’s or Sen. Hillary Clinton’s online donation pages, the Obama site did not ask for proof of citizenship until just recently. Clinton’s presidential campaign required U.S. citizens living abroad to actually fax a copy of their passport before a donation would be accepted. With such lax vetting of foreign contributions, the Obama campaign may have indirectly contributed to questionable fundraising by foreigners. In July and August, the head of the Nigeria’s stock market held a series of pro-Obama fundraisers in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. The events attracted local Nigerian business owners. At one event, a table for eight at one fundraising dinner went for $16,800. Nigerian press reports claimed sponsors raked in an estimated $900,000. The sponsors said the fundraisers were held to help Nigerians attend the Democratic convention in Denver. But the Nigerian press expressed skepticism of that claim, and the Nigerian public anti-fraud commission is now investigating the matter. Concerns about foreign fundraising have been raised by other anecdotal accounts of illegal activities. In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a public speech praising Obama, claiming foreign nationals were donating to his campaign. “All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man,” the Libyan leader said. “They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency..." Though Gadhafi asserted that fundraising from Arab and African nations were “legitimate,” the fact is that U.S. federal law bans any foreigner from donating to a U.S. election campaign. The rise of the Internet and use of credit cards have made it easier for foreign nationals to donate to American campaigns, especially if they claim their donation is less than $200. Campaign spokesman LaBolt cited several measures that the campaign has adopted to “root out fraud,” including a requirement that anyone attending an Obama fundraising event overseas present a valid U.S. passport, and a new requirement that overseas contributors must provide a passport number when donating online. One new measure that might not appear obvious at first could be frustrating to foreigners wanting to buy campaign paraphernalia such as T-shirts or bumper stickers through the online store. In response to an investigation conducted by blogger Pamela Geller, who runs the blog Atlas Shrugs, the Obama campaign has locked down the store. Geller first revealed on July 31 that donors from the Gaza strip had contributed $33,000 to the Obama campaign through bulk purchases of T-shirts they had shipped to Gaza. The online campaign store allows buyers to complete their purchases by making an additional donation to the Obama campaign. A pair of Palestinian brothers named Hosam and Monir Edwan contributed more than $31,300 to the Obama campaign in October and November 2007, FEC records show. Their largesse attracted the attention of the FEC almost immediately. In an April 15, 2008, report that examined the Obama campaign’s year-end figures for 2007, the FEC asked that some of these contributions be reassigned. The Obama camp complied sluggishly, prompting a more detailed admonishment form the FEC on July 30. The Edwan brothers listed their address as “GA,” as in Georgia, although they entered “Gaza” or “Rafah Refugee camp” as their city of residence on most of the online contribution forms. According to the Obama campaign, they wrongly identified themselves as U.S. citizens, via a voluntary check-off box at the time the donations were made. Many of the Edwan brothers’ contributions have been purged from the FEC database, but they still can be found in archived versions available for CRP and other watchdog groups. The latest Obama campaign filing shows that $891.11 still has not been refunded to the Edwan brothers, despite repeated FEC warnings and campaign claims that all the money was refunded in December. A Newsmax review of the Obama campaign finance filings found that the FEC had asked for the redesignation or refund of 53,828 donations, totaling just under $30 million. But none involves the donors who never appear in the Obama campaign reports, which the CRP estimates at nearly half the $426.8 million the Obama campaign has raised to date. Many of the small donors participated in online “matching” programs, which allows them to hook up with other Obama supporters and eventually share e-mail addresses and blogs. The Obama Web site described the matching contribution program as similar to a public radio fundraising drive. “Our goal is to bring 50,000 new donors into our movement by Friday at midnight,” campaign manager David Plouffe e-mailed supporters on Sept. 15. “And if you make your first online donation today, your gift will go twice as far. A previous donor has promised to match every dollar you donate.” FEC spokesman Biersack said he was unfamiliar with the matching donation drive. But he said that if donations from another donor were going to be reassigned to a new donor, as the campaign suggested, “the two people must agree” to do so. This type of matching drive probably would be legal as long as the matching donor had not exceeded the $2,300 per-election limit, he said. Obama campaign spokesman LaBolt said, “We have more than 2.5 million donors overall, hundreds of thousands of which have participated in this program.” Until now, the names of those donors and where they live have remained anonymous — and the federal watchdog agency in charge of ensuring that the presidential campaigns play by the same rules has no tools to find out. -
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Obama lawsuit/ not qualified to be President?
I support this lawsuit!
Did you see the latest Pelosi Scandal? ON Drudge this morning! EXCLUSIVE: Pelosi paid husband with PAC funds $99,000 for rent, utilities, accounting fees Jennifer Haberkorn (Contact) Wednesday, October 1, 2008 Comment Print Listen Font Size Share Got a Question? You Report EXCLUSIVE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed nearly $100,000 from her political action committee to her husband's real estate and investment firm over the past decade, a practice of paying a spouse with political donations that she supported banning last year. Financial Leasing Services Inc. (FLS), owned by Paul F. Pelosi, has received $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting fees from the speaker's "PAC to the Future" over the PAC's nine-year history. The payments have quadrupled since Mr. Pelosi took over as treasurer of his wife's committee in 2007, Federal Election Commission records show. FLS is on track to take in $48,000 in payments this year alone - eight times as much as it received annually from 2000 to 2005, when the committee was run by another treasurer. Lawmakers' frequent use of campaign donations to pay relatives emerged as an issue in the 2006 election campaigns, when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal gave Democrats fodder to criticize Republicans such as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and Rep. John T. Doolittle of California for putting their wives on their campaign and PAC payrolls for fundraising work. Last year, Mrs. Pelosi supported a bill that would have banned members of Congress from putting spouses on their campaign staffs. The bill - which passed the House in a voice vote but did not get out of a Senate committee - banned not only direct payments by congressional campaign committees and PACs to spouses for services including consulting and fundraising, but also "indirect compensation," such as payments to companies that employ spouses. "Democrats are committed to reforming the way Washington does business," Mrs. Pelosi said in a press release at the time. "Congressman [Adam] Schiff's bill will help us accomplish that goal by increasing transparency in election campaigns and preventing the misuse of funds." Last week, Mrs. Pelosi's office said the payments to her husband's firm were perfectly legal, insisting she is compensating her husband at fair market value for the work his firm has performed for the PAC. But ethical watchdogs said the arrangement sends the wrong message. "It's problematic," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit ethics and watchdog group. "From what I understand, Mr. Pelosi doesn't need the money, but this isn't the issue. ... As speaker of the House, it sends the wrong message. She shouldn't be putting family members on the payroll." A senior adviser to Mrs. Pelosi described the payments to FLS as "business expenses." -
What should Congress do next?
Come up with a new plan.
Fire Pelosi for fraud and being stupid! EXCLUSIVE: Pelosi paid husband with PAC funds $99,000 for rent, utilities, accounting fees Jennifer Haberkorn (Contact) Wednesday, October 1, 2008 Comment Print Listen Font Size Share Got a Question? You Report EXCLUSIVE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed nearly $100,000 from her political action committee to her husband's real estate and investment firm over the past decade, a practice of paying a spouse with political donations that she supported banning last year. Financial Leasing Services Inc. (FLS), owned by Paul F. Pelosi, has received $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting fees from the speaker's "PAC to the Future" over the PAC's nine-year history. The payments have quadrupled since Mr. Pelosi took over as treasurer of his wife's committee in 2007, Federal Election Commission records show. FLS is on track to take in $48,000 in payments this year alone - eight times as much as it received annually from 2000 to 2005, when the committee was run by another treasurer. Lawmakers' frequent use of campaign donations to pay relatives emerged as an issue in the 2006 election campaigns, when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal gave Democrats fodder to criticize Republicans such as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and Rep. John T. Doolittle of California for putting their wives on their campaign and PAC payrolls for fundraising work. Last year, Mrs. Pelosi supported a bill that would have banned members of Congress from putting spouses on their campaign staffs. The bill - which passed the House in a voice vote but did not get out of a Senate committee - banned not only direct payments by congressional campaign committees and PACs to spouses for services including consulting and fundraising, but also "indirect compensation," such as payments to companies that employ spouses. "Democrats are committed to reforming the way Washington does business," Mrs. Pelosi said in a press release at the time. "Congressman [Adam] Schiff's bill will help us accomplish that goal by increasing transparency in election campaigns and preventing the misuse of funds." Last week, Mrs. Pelosi's office said the payments to her husband's firm were perfectly legal, insisting she is compensating her husband at fair market value for the work his firm has performed for the PAC. But ethical watchdogs said the arrangement sends the wrong message. "It's problematic," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit ethics and watchdog group. "From what I understand, Mr. Pelosi doesn't need the money, but this isn't the issue. ... As speaker of the House, it sends the wrong message. She shouldn't be putting family members on the payroll." A senior adviser to Mrs. Pelosi described the payments to FLS as "business expenses." -
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QUIZ: What does Sen. Obama and myself (Jen GPAC) have in common?
None of the above..
O'S DANGEROUS PALS BARACK'S 'ORGANIZER' BUDS PUSHED FOR BAD MORTGAGES Comments: 72Read Comments Leave a Comment By STANLEY KURTZ Chutzpah: ACORN's drive to lower mortgage standards paved the way for the meltdown - yet last week, it was holding protests like this one in Florida, trying to get a cut of the financial-market-rescue bill.Posted: 3:53 am September 29, 2008 WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit. In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers. In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it. THE seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Commu nity Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades. CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers. Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA - and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN. In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America's financial institutions. Banks already overexposed by these shaky loans were pushed still further in the wrong direction when government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on world markets. Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster. ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies. Long the director of Chicago ACORN, Talbott is a specialist in "direct action" - organizers' term for their militant tactics of intimidation and disruption. Perhaps her most famous stunt was leading a group of ACORN protesters breaking into a meeting of the Chicago City Council to push for a "living wage" law, shouting in defiance as she was arrested for mob action and disorderly conduct. But her real legacy may be her drive to push banks into making risky mortgage loans. In February 1990, Illinois regulators held what was believed to be the first-ever state hearing to consider blocking a thrift merger for lack of compliance with CRA. The challenge was filed by ACORN, led by Talbott. Officials of Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, her target, complained that ACORN pressure was undermining its ability to meet strict financial requirements it was obligated to uphold and protested being boxed into an "affirmative-action lending policy." The following years saw Talbott featured in dozens of news stories about pressuring banks into higher-risk minority loans. IN April 1992, Talbott filed an other precedent-setting com plaint using the "community support requirements" of the 1989 savings-and-loan bailout, this time against Avondale Federal Bank for Savings. Within a month, Chicago ACORN had organized its first "bank fair" at Malcolm X College and found 16 Chicago-area financial institutions willing to participate. Two months later, aided by ACORN organizer Sandra Maxwell, Talbott announced plans to conduct demonstrations in the lobbies of area banks that refused to attend an ACORN-sponsored national bank "summit" in New York. She insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on downpayments and underwriting - for example, by overlooking bad credit histories. By September 1992, The Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott's program as "affirma- tive-action lending" and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities. And Talbott continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks "kicking and screaming" into high-risk loans. A September 1993 story in The Chicago Sun-Times presents her as the leader of an initiative in which five area financial institutions (including two of her former targets, now plainly cowed - Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings) were "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories." What made this program different from others, the paper added, was the participation of Fannie Mae - which had agreed to buy up the loans. "If this pilot program works," crowed Talbott, "it will send a message to the lending community that it's OK to make these kind of loans." Well, the pilot program "worked," and Fannie Mae's message that risky loans to minorities were "OK" was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history. IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama. When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff. He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama's legal services for a "motor voter" case and partnered with him on his 1992 "Project VOTE" registration drive. In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks. More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift. That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted. MORE, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report ac knowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations. Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship." Hmm. Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological. Sound familiar? The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts. And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts. In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama's first campaign for state Senate, saying, "We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer." IN short, to understand the roots of the subprime-mort gage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama. -
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Who won the Presidential debate and why?
John McCain
Obama was dazed and confused and fidgeting around like a child...... Obama is not Presidential..... Especially since he has been hiding under his bed with the market crisis..... Will not tell us if he supports the bailout or not and says..... "call me if you need me"....... WHAT A JOKE OBAMA IS!!!!!!!!!! -
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When it comes to Obama's relationship with Ayers, do you think it is guilt by association or guilt by participation?
Guilt by participation.
How many bad choices does Obama get? Ayers was a close friend.... Obama started his political carreer in Ayers home..... You want articles? I can post links! Obama has shown himself to be worthless..... He has been hiding under his bed during the mortgage meltdown and has been hiding from McCain for the last 6 months when McCain has been asking him to appear at town hall meetings....... the office of the President of the United States is above Obama's Pay grade! -
Seriously, and for the LAST TIME... WHO SUCKS MORE?
The Jonas Brothers suck more. And they look like Screech from Saved by the Bell had sex with Ker...
I bet Sister Jean was the mother and Hussein Bear was the father.......... two losers have two losers! -
John McCain Suspends Campaign Debate: Why?
John McCain suspended his campaign because...
He is trying to do his job.... Obama has been hiding under his bed during this crisis....... What a loser Obama has shown himself to be when the turds hit the fan..... He cant make a decision! WHERE HAS HE BEEN? NO LEADERSHIP..... NO COMMON SENSE NO JUDGMENT.... JUST AN EMPTY SUIT!!!!!! NOBAMA! -
John McCain has suspended his Campaign to headed back to Washington to help tackle the US financial crisis. Do you respect his decision?
Yes I respect his decision. He is once again showing Country is First.
Obama has been hiding under his bed during this crisis....... He has demonstrated no leadership and shown himself to be worthless... as we already knew....... Now he is saying McCain is trying to avoid the debate!!!!!! What a little WOOSEY!!!!!!! Obama has been hiding for SIX MONTHS when McCain has been asking him to attend town hall meetings!!!!!!!! ANYONE THAT VOTES FOR OBAMA IS EITHER A MORON OR NOT PAYING ATTENTION..... -
