Legacy

In 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed the Community Redevelopment Act (or CRA) into law. As a result of "national grassroots pressure for affordable housing", it forced banks to underwrite risky mortgage loans in order to meet the needs of "the entire community."

In 1995 the Clinton administration strengthened the regulations of the Community Redevelopment Act. The CRA enabled consumers to secure mortgages with "no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant's ability to make payments; [and] no down payment."

As the mortgage industry grew, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (government-sponsored entities, or GSEs) became a kind of "jobs program for out-of-work Democrats".

Clinton administration friends and staffers managed the GSEs including Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Jamie Gorelick and Rahm Emmanual. This small group of executives paid themselves nearly $200 million in only six years' time.

The Democratic executives kept journalists and Republicans at bay by spending "close to $150 million on lobbying" in ten years.

Chris Dodd (head of the Senate Banking Committee), Barack Obama and John Kerry were the top three recipients of Fannie's money, together collecting around $360,000.

Over this same time-frame during President Clinton's tenure, the U.S. suffered through a seemingly endless series of terrorist attacks that were treated as "law enforcement" issues.

The attack on the USS Cole was the eighth consecutive unanswered terrorist attack on American interests during the Clinton administration.

The attacks culminated in 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in history. It smashed a United States blinded by the Clinton administration's artificially erected "wall" between the military and intelligence communities.

After the 1996 election, the Clinton administration also came under fire for accepting campaign donations from operatives of the People's Republic of China.

Persons who appeared to be agents of the Chinese government funneled contributions to the Democratic National Committee in direct violation of US election law.

The resulting investigation was hampered significantly because nearly 100 witnesses either refused to be questioned, pled the Fifth Amendment against self incrimination, or left the country altogether. Even so, 22 people were convicted for fraud or for funneling Asian funds into the U.S. elections.

Operative Johnny Chung, allegedly using money from the Chinese army, gave more than $500,000 to Democrats at the same time Clinton was approving a controversial transfer of satellite launch technology to China.

Let's not forget Clinton's 1994 veto of a bill that would have opened up a small segment of Alaska's ANWR region to oil exploration. At the time, Sen. Chuck Schumer said, "If we started drilling in ANWR today we wouldn't have a drop of oil for ten years." That was fourteen years ago.

Say, that's quite a legacy. But can America really afford another Clinton or Carter presidency?

McCain-Palin 2008.

Linked by: Fausta. Thanks!

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Barack Obama calls signals from Jimmy Carter's playbook

* Price controls on oil? Check.
* A windfall profits tax? Check.
* Taxpayer-funded boondoggles on solar energy? Checkety-check.
* Taxpayer-funded boondoggles on synthetic fuels? Check and mate, biznatch!


Yes, ripped from today's headlines are the very strategies set in motion by the worst president in history: James Earl Carter.

Let's pause a moment here and reminisce about 8% unemployment, 15% inflation, and 17% auto loan rates.

Screencap: Dept. of Energy Official Timeline. Chart: Tax Foundation.

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General Obama calls for shifting troops to Afghanistan

Headline in today's Wall Street Journal: "Obama calls for shifting troops to Afghanistan."

On the first stop of his weeklong foreign tour, Sen. Barack Obama Sunday called for shifting U.S. military forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, which he called "the central front on our battle against terrorism."

One tiny problem: that announcement was made without consulting General Petraeus, seeing the situation in Iraq, listening to any of Iraq's leaders or consulting with other experts. But no one should be surprised: Obama has a long history of botched predictions made in a complete absence of information.

Last week Charles Krauthammer observed:

[What would Iraq] look like if what Obama had proposed at the beginning of '07 had occurred. He would have had all our troops out four months ago, which means we would have al-Queda in control of large elements of Iraq with a strong base... It means that Iran would have the control that it had before the central government kicked Iran and its cohorts, allies, and clients out of the southern areas of Iraq. It would have tremendous influence over Iraq.

And probably the central government would have a collapsed, and it would be in the middle of a civil war and possibly genocide.

The best argument against Obama, the best antiwar argument to use against him, is to say that if we had listened to him we'd be in a position where we would be looking at a strategic calamity on our hands, as I described, also, a humanitarian one, which would impel us to have a third Iraqi war.

Which could, of course, have also touched off a world war.

As Jimmy Carter reminds us daily, the price of presidential stupidity is high. Vote accordingly in 2008.

Update: Exhibiting all the courage of Carter: "after talking for two years about timetables to remove troops from Iraq, Barack Obama goes to Baghdad and wimps out... He didn't even bring it up with the Iraqi Prime Minister!"

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Barack Obama's disastrous choice in advisers

A couple of months ago PrairiePundit caught this snippet in The New York Sun.

A foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama is scheduled to arrive in Syria today as the leader of a RAND Corp. delegation.

Zbigniew Brzezinski will travel to Damascus for meetings as part of a trip Syria's official Cham News agency described as an "important sign that the end of official dialogue between Washington and Damascus has not prevented dialogue with important American intellectuals and politicians."

It's also a sign that Barack Obama is following in Jimmy Carter's footsteps. Brzezinski, of course, was Carter's National Security Adviser.

Mr. Peabody, set the wayback machine to 1979.

The shallow machiavellanism of Brzezinski led him to the notion that Islam was not to be worried about because it was a "bulwark against Communism" and Muslims could help destroy the Soviet Union...

Brzezinski was not slightly wrong about Islam and about Iran -- he was totally, completely wrong.

And so, under his watch, the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini -- a man who Carter called a "man of God" -- began. Iran's radicalized government became the central breeding ground and exporter of a virulent, extremist brand of terrorism. Iran funded, trained and equipped Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah and Ansar al-Islam, to name but a few.

Does Brzezinski have any regrets about his disastrous strategic choices?

Asked if he has regrets about [US policy to support radical Islamists to undermine Russia], he responds, “Regret what?

...What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” The interviewer then says, “Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.” But Brzezinski responds, “Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam….

Even after 9/11, Brzezinski maintains that the Carter administration's strategy was sound.

Now he wants to extend his losing streak to an Obama administration facing a nuclear Iran. Perhaps that explains why the hairs on my neck are standing up.


Related: Set the Wayback Machine to 9/10/2001, Mr. Peabody! Hat tip: Larwyn

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Barack Obama and the future of automobiles

By 2025, Barack Obama:

...would like 25% of U.S. electricity to be generated from clean, renewable sources including wind, solar and geothermal with a Renewable Portfolio Standard. Obama calls for $150 billion to be invested over 10 years in clean energy and infrastructure to support it.

Rewind to June 20, 1979:

President Carter announces program to increase Nation's use of solar energy, including solar development bank and increased funds for solar energy research and development.

In the little land we like to call reality, our economy runs on oil. No matter how many green initiatives we sponsor, there will be significant time required to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.

Ignoring the shortfall puts our entire economy -- and, by extension, our national security -- at risk.

Vote accordingly in 2008.

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Echoes of the peanut man: déjà vu all over again

A blast from the past, courtesy of the Department of Energy's official website (emphasis mine):

* Price controls on oil
* A windfall profits tax
* Taxpayer-funded boondoggles on solar energy
* Taxpayer-funded boondoggles on synthetic fuels

Yes, ripped from today's headlines are the very strategies set in motion by the worst president in history: James Earl Carter. Let's pause a moment here and reminisce about 8% unemployment, 16% inflation, and 17% auto loan rates.

So when today's Democrats call for these very same measures, let's remember that Barack O'Carter is running for office (I hear that's the name he prefers.)

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Cojones: Congressional Democrats openly endorse communism

Silly me: I thought communism was dead. But it appears to have risen like a phoenix on Dianabol -- at least in the minds of Congressional Democrats and Obama supporters.

Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) wants oil refineries to be "owned by the people of the United States." In other words, he'd put refineries in the hands of big government -- presumably a new agency. Say, the Department of Refinining and Gas Rationing.

Interviewed on Fox, Obama supporter Malia Lazu of Oil Change International essentially stated that Hugo Chavez was on the right track when he nationalized Venezuela's oil industry.

"This isn't shareholders' oil, this is our oil."

Didn't I read about this during the rise of the Soviet Union, say, circa 1917? Stealing private property and making it the government's?

But wait! There's more!

"When Congress can set prices, we can set prices."

Price controls: those worked out well in the 1970's!

"We need a nationalized oil structure."

Most Americans would immediately recognize this as the first step on the road to Communism and economic ruin. In other words, another Carter administration.

Beldar adds:

The Dems are well into the stage of “irrational exuberance” which foretells the pop of their political bubble. When a Congressmen on the House Ways & Means Committee can propose nationalizing the energy industry without realizing that voters may notice that “Hey, that’s communism!” then they’re well and truly drunk off of their own fumes...

They're marketing communism and think no one will notice? Pass the yohimbe, Norton.

This isn't a game. This is the energy industry we're talkin' about. It sustains our entire economy.

And Democrats believe government can do it better?

One look at the local DMV should disabuse any rational person from that notion.

But these aren't rational people. They're Communists and nothing except another economic disaster will get it through their thick skulls.

More: Michelle Malkin

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Barack O'Carter: anything but oil

Let me see if I get this straight.

No drilling. No nuclear. No coal. No refineries. Oh, and a bunch of new "Windfall profits" taxes on energy companies.

While alternative energy sources remain an admirable goal, they are decades away from becoming serious alternatives to oil.

...If we lost all oil and gas products tomorrow, ...the world would simply collapse. There would be an immense depression beyond anything we saw in the 1930s -- the economy would go back to a primitive state. There would simply not be a functioning society. It would be as if there had been nuclear war, minus the casualties from blast and radiation... In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is.

Does the name Barack O'Carter ring a bell?


Linked by: Gateway Pundit. Thanks!

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The Iconography of the Shovel

The American Thinker's Ed Lasky notes that the iconography of Barack Obama is just beginning.

We saw it... [with] the bike-riding. Obama at the beach; Obama playing basketball... The campaign will not have to SAY anything; subliminally, it works.

Of course, McCain cannot lift shovels of dirt because of the injuries he was subjected to during his captivity in North Vietnam.

That will not be told.

It just seems the mainstream media has a shorter memory than the American people.

Hat tip: Larwyn
Linked by: Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities. Thanks!

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