Arkansas Blog

Interesting article in the Chicago Sun-Times:

The Center for Responsive Politics takes a look at Wall Street donors to McCain and Obama as the country grapples with the financial crisis weeks before the presidential election.

How did Wall Street's largest firms also become some of the largest donors to John McCain and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns? Take a look at the candidates' rosters of bundlers on OpenSecrets.org, and it becomes clear.

McCain's list includes at least 69 individuals who, according to his campaign, have raised a total of at least $11.4 million for his campaign. That makes the struggling investment industry his top source of bundlers. (Bundlers are those wealthy individuals who hit up their coworkers, family and friends to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, in addition to any contributions from their own pockets.) In the second spot is the real estate industry, where at least 55 individuals have delivered a total of $9.5 million or more to McCain. Overall, the finance, insurance and real estate sector has hauled in $30 million for the Republican candidate -- far more than any other sector.

Obama's list gives the appearance that he has not leaned so heavily on Wall Street, although since his campaign has ignored repeated requests from the Center for Responsive Politics and other watchdog groups to disclose his bundlers' employers and occupations, these figures are probably undercounts. The securities and investment industry is Obama's second-largest source of bundlers, after lawyers, and at least 56 individuals have raised at least $8.9 million for his campaign. The larger finance, insurance and real estate sector has produced $13.4 million for Obama, making it his most generous sector.

I had yet another person try to convince me today that Obama is the Anti-Christ.

I then had another person say he was not going to vote for Obama cause "He is one of them Rag-heads."

Oh, I guess Obama is going to steal all our white women too. As if a highly intelligent man such as Barak Obama would have to "steal" any woman.

I live in a world of Goobers and Morons.

When I was a little boy, we used to play a game where we wore a blindfold and tried to put a slip of paper on a drawing of a donkey we couldn't see. I thought of that as I watched the chattering class, blindfolded and frantically trying to pin the blame for the Wall Street debacle on everything but the real donkey, the Democrats, whose symbol is . . . guess what?

Right - a donkey, and that's where the blame lies, on Barrack Obama's Democratic Party.

To find the donkey, you need to go back to the Clinton administration, which decided that everybody and his kid brother was entitled to a mortgage even when they didn't begin to qualify for a home loan.

In saner days, banks designated certain areas as no-loan zones - depressed neighborhoods where lending money to potential home buyers was not just a risky investment, but a certain future foreclosure.

Critics of the practice called it "redlining," and President Clinton and his chums on Capitol Hill decided that banks should no longer act like banks and lend money only to home buyers who could afford to handle the monthly payments. Now all bets would be off and people not the least bit creditworthy - and speculators - would be entitled by law to obtain mortgages even when it was obvious they couldn't afford to handle them.

Enter those now infamous quasi-government banking instruments known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which poured fresh money into the banking system by buying mortgages from banks. Over the long haul, they managed to load up their portfolios with billions upon billions of dollars of risky mortgage paper that banks had been forced to offer and then dumped on them.

The scandal of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dwarfs the Enron debacle. In Enron, people went to jail. With the Fannies, some just walked away with millions.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers can be blamed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two big mortgage banks that the Feds recently bailed out with big bucks. As Fox News has pointed out, they used huge lobbying budgets and political contributions to keep regulators off their backs.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top three U.S. senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats, and No. 2 was Sen. Barrack Obama, who as Fox noted had only been in the Senate four years but still managed to grab that No. 2 spot ahead of longtime colleagues John Kerry and Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

According to Fox, Fannie and Freddie were where big-time Washington Democrats went to work and pocketed millions. Franklin Raines, Clinton's White House Budget Director, ran Fannie and collected $50 million.

Jamie Gorelick, an official in Clinton's Justice Department - the woman who built the "wall" that prevented the FBI from targeting terrorists before 9/11 - worked for Fannie Mae and took home $26 million. Big-time Democrat Jim Johnson, who headed Obama's VP search committee, also hauled in millions from running Fannie Mae.

Obama brazenly blames John McCain and the GOP for the current Wall Street mess when it's clear none of it was due to Republican policies. The truth of the matter is that it was McCain and three GOP colleagues who sought to reform the government's lending policies three long years ago after the Bush administration had failed two years earlier. On May 25, 2006, McCain spoke on behalf of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, and warned against the debacle we are now facing if it failed to pass.

He told the Senate that a report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight charged that "Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives."

McCain warned, "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole."

McCain predicted the entire collapse we now are suffering through. He stressed the falsification of financial records to benefit executives, including Obama advisers Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson.

Now Obama has the nerve to try to pin the blame on McCain and the GOP when the facts show that the blame must be pinned on the Democratic donkey.

© 2008 Mike Reagan

Did Max really boot chasv???? I must have missed *the last straw*.....must have been really

over the edge as I felt he was on the edge long ago.

I really question McSames sanity, even more, after his confusion today with Spain, Mexico

and South America..........scary stuff.

"I live in a world of Goobers and Morons."--scottie

I feel your pain...'cause I'm living there, too. I'm gonna have to take a sabbatical from relatives/neighbors as well as the news. Good thing I love my family.

I am not an Obama fan...in the sense I am a Hillary fan; but the Muslim/anti-Christ crap is nuts, mean and degrading to the rumor mongers. At this point, I would welcome a good ole 'Republicans are fiscal conservatives' argument.

"In the video clip here, Michael Reagan suggests killing Arab and Muslim babies in the most cruel and inhumane fashion, thus revealing the disgusting and mentally depraved mindset of the neocons. For Reagan and the neocons, there will be peace "when everybody in the Middle East is dead."
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Yeah, but, jazzy, at least the country has Palin covering Methuselah McSame's ass. She could see Russia from Alaska, after all...and she fished/was a newscaster.

Miz Z, heard 2 reports of lots of people leaving after Moosemama spoke and Gramps took

the mike.

He is keeping her as close as white on rice.

I think it could be a mistake....she shows up his age, he looks like an old drug store wooden

Indian standing there looking clueless, with his jaw about to give birth.

Hard to confirm this but this is what I hear

Parson Huck appointed a young lady to the UCA administration/board. Problem is that she ISN"T a college graduate, yet she is the secretary and therefore is charge with signing every single diploma. During graduation she not only wears a gown and hood, but she wear that of a doctoral graduate.

Guess it is easy to get on the fasttrack if you believe in the Huck.

Max, how about a posting about the Sarah Palin rape kit controversy?!

I'd like to hear how a woman who claims to represent what women can achieve explains This one away...

I work in an Emergency Dept. of a large hospital out of state, and we get, on average, about one sexual assault victim a day.... national averages are that 1 in 3 women are rape survivors...

This story only increases my feeling that this election has propelled our country into some sort of twilight zone where such a woman could Actually be president.

Vote Against McCain/Palin! Do it for your wives, daughters, mothers, grandmothers, etc etc etc. Nader, Barr, Anyone but this ticket!

Max
SERIOUSLY....lose the mid-page video and advertisement. The sidebar ads are good/bad enough and I visit this site about half as often that little ad and constant ZaZa video is there. This was NOT a good move for the blog and only makes me want to go to ZaZa LESS! Did you get some sort of major kickback to leave this thing there? Who thought it was a good idea? Get rid of it!

I would like to hear obama explain why he accepted so much money from Fannie/Freddie and other financial industry contributors that are regulated by the government.

I don't think there is a chance in hell that the percentage of rape survivors approaches 1/3 unless you include every Ole Miss coed who screwed like an otter on Saturday night and woke up sober on Sunday.

Well, SL--or is S*&*L?--according to propublica.org, it's more like this:

"In the current election cycle, Sen. McCain has received $169,000 from the mortgage companies and their affiliates ... [M]eanwhile, Sen. Obama has received $122,850 from the Fannie and Freddie's employees and PACs since coming in office."

Put THAT in your Kook-Aid pipe and smoke it, or whatever you do.

I wouldn't doubt if it were 1 in 3. No telling how many husbands have raped their wives.

Hehe, I like "Kook-Aid", but I meant "Kool-Aid".

The reason why so many say he's the anti-christ, or worse is that they can't point to any real reason to be against him. Most who say that are just racists but don't want to tell you that's why they'd never vote for him. Although I've had a few tell me to my face that's the only reason why. Hard to believe it's the 21st century sometimes.

Jake, Obama is tied to Wall Street.

When Pallin gave her speech at the RNC, the Obama campaign raised about 10 million in the hour after the speech. Roger Altman and Lawrence Fink and three others from the Clinton Administration worked the phones hard. And that's fine.

At about 3:00 p.m. this afternoon, President Clinton sat down with Maria Bartiromo of CNBC and gave an interview. He knows far more about the mortage crisis, CDO's, Alt A mortgages, SIV's and AIG than McCain, Pallin, Obama and Biden collectively know. And Bush.

DBI, Where are you? Is the world just too depressing, presidential politics [polls] got you down?

and...Norma, Where is the report on Babs?? Did I miss a post??

click on blue name for the Maria Bartiromo interview with Pres. Clinton.

And woops, I forgot to mention Cheney.

Hey, louie, did you show up for today's meeting wearing your yellow T-shirt? You know.....the Hempstead County meeting. Wish I could have joined you. Go Scrappers!

Oh dear, the bloom is coming off the rose.

clicky

How long before the public & MSM recognize that, kidding aside, McCain appears to have seriously impaired mental faculties? Alzheimer's/dementia are the LAST thing anyone wants to make light of or make crude jokes about, HOWEVER...from his MULTIPLE Sunni/Shia lapses, the Afghan border and lots of other stuff in the interim, to his repeated bungling of his viewpoints on the economy during the past 48 hours, to today's BIZARRE comments regarding if he'd meet with the Prime Minister of SPAIN, conflating it with "the hemisphere" and Latin America he is CLEARLY impaired!!! He was scary before (or disregarding) any of this stuff, and I still can't get over his SEETHING ANGER when challenged by Joe Scarborough & Mika Brzezinski Tuesday. When responding to direct questions, for many weeks now, he often just sorta bumbles along, obviously scrambling to make ANY sense, often failing.

What would happen if this becomes SO blatant and obvious that he has to withdraw?!! Is there a process for replacing a (presidential) candidate during the campaign? I recall Eagleton, but this is for PRESIDENT...

Just for kicks, try keeping your focus on HIS face when he is being questioned, or when side-kicking Caribou Barbie Moosejaw. Also notice the recent facial expressions and body language of Cindy - often looks as if she would rather crawl in a hole or tell him to STFU!!! Anyone else picking up on these non-verbals?
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Sarah said she would put the Federal "checkbook" online. Problem is Obama already did it:
Click blue name

Also, I wonder what would happen to the rest of us if refused to show up when we were subpoenaed like Todd Palin?

Did you here the one about the women who is raped by a gorilla?

"Wit is educated insolence." Aristotle

bejesus,
I watched that Michael Reagan clip. What a sick bastard. To advocate blowing up a baby is just criminal. Do these people have no heart? I sent this to my local newspaper, because sometimes they run his column. I dared the editor to run it again. Ever.
And anyone on this blog who tries to defend Michael Reagan is just as sick. And definitely not Christain.

Chasv gone? And somebody else? Dang. That's what I get for not paying attention all the time. I missed the dustups.

And Jazzy! You know, I always thought that the campaigning came first, didn't you? You know, press the flesh and get all those folks sold on you, right? (How much solo campaigning has Miss Sarah managed so far?)
Well, anyway, she has to go to New York City and meet her some real world leaders -- the folks she might have to reckon with if her sugar daddy turns his toes up. Funny -- I thought all that stuff came AFTER elections and inaugurations. Maybe somebody knows something we don't?

(Frenchie feeling better?)

Why does this make me think of American politicians? Clicky

Did not John McCain last week say he thought the economy was pretty good. Now, today he was huffing and puffing for the head of the SEC to be fired? Am I mistaken?

Look, the next President of the United States needs to be someone who is in contact with the financial leaders of this country.

This B.S. game of claiming "we are going to clean up this town" is a joke. A patronizing joke. The joke is on us. The joke is on the people who invested in these companies and lost a lot of money this week. The joke will be on us taxpayers when these companies get their 300 billion dollar bailout and then slash and burn jobs and outsource to other countries.

The President of the United States is the last person in this country that needs to be an 'outsider'. This person needs to be intelligent, articulate, and street smart enough to lead the WHOLE country. Not just the Red States, not just the Blue States.

Michael Reagan doesn't have to advocate it.. Our own AR politicians (all of them) make sure we are doing it right this very moment. Bombing innocent people in at least three countries...for billions of wasted dollars a week... That's who we are and what we do... above all else, in the most bipartisan fashion.

I second MarvinG about the ad/recent video in the middle of the blog page. It's only been there for a few days but it's annoying enough I was getting ready to comment about it myself.

me too...

Nanc, Nanc. The "Babs" report is all at my clicky name. She really didn't sing much (three songs), but she helped raise over $11 million for Obama.

A 6.5 on a Richter Scale of 10. But hey. Comp City pour moi. I was just happy to be part of the occasion and grace the evening with my aura.

Nancy Reagan can't stand Michael Reagan. RR never cared for him either. People are gradually figuring out why.

And it could be worse. That video ad could be inserted within the comments of ever post!

Notice how, now that everyone is aware that strangelove is a liar whose word cannot be trusted, he's resorted to taking long, greasy infodumps in the middle of the page? Whew--something stinks!

eark: "And it could be worse. That video ad could be inserted within the comments of ever post!"

You've reminded me of a story I heard in 1980 in Zurich from someone who had lived in the Soviet Union. In the old Soviet Union you would never complain about sharing a bathroom with five families. If you complained, you would soon be sharing a bathroom with twenty families. That's what I always call Soviet-think. Of course we've been cured of that here in the states: "Don't complain about the George W. Bush administration, it could always be......... whoops, no it couldn't possibly be worse."

I don't like the ad in the middle, either. (I bet it works, though. At least until it doesn't seem new anymore. Then we'll all be irritated by it.)

The ad in the middle of the blog page is not so bad. Somebody's got to pay the bills to keep the website online.

The one ad that was really annoying was that dinosaur ad several months ago. Whenever the mouse pointer got near it, it would start with that infernal roaring sound.

Nanc...I am having a little dose of burnout. Even though the lies just keep on coming, how many times and ways can you say McCain & Palin are lying sumbitches? And how many times can you say Cheney is the most evil man to walk the face of the earth since Adolph Hitler? And how many times can you say George W. Bush is seriously retarded, and a puppet and that McCain is in the mid stages of Alzheimer's?

And it is depressing. And the bailout of the Wall Street chosen few is straight socialism, but on the other hand I'm too old to start Great Depression II. My smarty wife sold off all the Fannie Mae securities about 2 months ago...so whew! And our house is paid off and we have no loans or credit card debt. And our bank account was almost zeroed out with this semester's tuition payment, plus books. So...we're in great shape for a world economic meltdown. But if we're so smart....why am I not happy with current events?

Oh...before I forget...Michael Reagan is a douche bag. I don't look for advice from winos or schizophrenics and you're a moron if you spend 2 seconds listening to a fat guy who would be selling vacuum cleaners if his cold and distant dead father hadn't been hired by the old Nixon men to play President for 8 years.

chasv finally stepped over the line and is gone. It will be hilarious when he comes back under a different name....we'll spot him one sentence into his attempted post. Such a hateful old man and will be until he draws his last breath and goes nowhere. Too bad he won't know that I'm right and he's wrong when he dies. I'd almost be willing to spend an eternity in hell to prove him wrong. Where his type finds comfort in sitting on that big right hand of the Lard....I find comfort in the idea that there is a millennium of nothing for me after I die. I'm getting tired! I need a few million years of rest before I come back as a toad.

One more thing....my wife and her abrasive but brilliant brother has determined that Palin didn't want no rape kits handed out because those type of rape kits (hell...maybe all of them) contain contraceptive devices and no wingnut Bible-beater worth her salt is going to spend the Christian taxpayer's money so some woman (probable slut in their eyes) can kill the 4 cells growing in her body and get off scott free from a sex act she probably invited with their slutty slutty ways.

We're seeing everyday how super extreme Palin's Christo-nazi views are. Which forces me to repeat...I think the woman is Trig's grandmother. The facts we know do not add up. The facts that are missing are equally strong. As crazy as all this seems....I bet if we ever know the truth it will turn out so bizarrely that we'll bleed from every orifice for a few days. As scary as Cheney has been all these years.....the McCain-Palin team is scarier.

What on earth are the Republicans up to? Neo-cons die hard. Expect an October-November surprise and stock up on your orifice gauze next time you're at Wal-Mart.

PS Those old enough to remember.....in my opinion Sarah Palin is the 2008 version of Anita Bryant. And remember how well it all turned out for beautiful Anita. Will someone shove a fruit pie in Palin's face and will she cry too?

Just for fun....click my name to see Anita getting her share of the American pie. I hate FK'in haters!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGH... It's Blog Like a Pirate day..Sept 19. Use only a simulated prosthetic hook to type all day.

Oh. My. God.

Just awakened from a horrible nightmare.

Let me share it with you, at clicky bluename.

here's another video of the pie in the face

click on blue name

Proof of the conspiracy.

Helena-West Helena, Ark. -

"ABC's Good Morning America program will be broadcasting live from Helena on Thursday, Sept. 25. Several weeks ago, the Chamber was contacted by Bill Cunningham, Good Morning America producer and was questioned about the area, hotel accommodations, location on the river, etc. He went on to say that Helena was selected as one of the stops across the nation to be featured in the national morning program's series entitled "50 States in 50 Days."
The series is taking America's heartbeat and perspective on the two major party candidates for president of the United States. Helena was selected as the Arkansas stop because of its unique location on the banks of the Mississippi River."

Hey, isn't Helena a Southern Demo stronghold?
.

>>I really question McSames sanity, even more, after his confusion today with Spain, Mexico

and South America..........scary stuff.<<

I've been saying for months that there is something serious going on with McCain's mental faculties. It's a given that he is a mean, wives-abusing, condescending old man, but he's also very close to needing a keeper. The rigors of this campaign may well do him in, and he may have hitched his old azz to a female that might clean his plow and make him wish he had stayed far away. Palin has already begun to relegate him to second seat. She does love the spotlight.........

>>I am not an Obama fan...in the sense I am a Hillary fan; but the Muslim/anti-Christ crap is nuts, mean and degrading to the rumor mongers.<<

We had a little respite for a few days from the slime, but the hurricane is history and Obama's star is rising again, and so it's time to slime again. Republicans don't seem to know how to have serious policy debates and discuss the differences - they just burn your house down.

There is much about Obama that I don't like, but hands down my Democratic son would be a safer choice for the WH than Palin/McCain (she comes first now), so I defend Obama even from my son's mother-in-law who told him and his wife they would "burn in hell if they voted for any Democrats". His in-laws also told him that Ike, Katrina, 9-ll and all of the bad things that have happened in the last 50 yrs were caused by.............(drum roll)..................."legal abortions".

Sometimes people are just too stupid to share oxygen with and they are definitely too stupid to control the outcome of any election. Time for Democrats to come out in droves and fight sheer stupidity...............whether you like Obama or not.

Wouldn't ya know it. Our hard working Walton's (made it the old fashioned way-inheritance)
are still in the top Ten of the Worlds Richest:

The top 20 rich Americans are

1.Bill Gates -57Bn
2.Warren Buffett- 50Bn
3.Lawrence Ellison-27 Bn
4.Jim Walton 23.4Bn
5.S Robson Walton 23.3Bn
6.Alice Walton 23.2
7.Christy Walton and family 23.2 Bn
8.Michael Bloomberg
9.Charles Koch
10.David Koch
11.Michael Dell
12.Paul Allen
13.Sergey Brin
14.Larry Page
15.Sheldon Adelson
16.Steven Ballmer
17.Abigail Johnson
18.Jack Taylor and family
19.Anne Cox Chambers
20.Donald Bren
09.17.08, 6:00 PM ET
(subject to change without notice)

Are we a democracy or what:

Gates actually lost his crown to Warren Buffett for a few months this spring, but Buffett's shares in Berkshire Hathaway have fallen 15% since February"

You see, everybody is taking a hit on this spin out.

.

déjà vu

"Sept. 10, 7:40 am: USA - Diebold/Premier says too late to fix new voting machine time-out feature - 2-min. delay kicks voters to provisional ballots. Says 1,700 locations, 34 states affected."
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The starve-the-beast doctrine is now firmly within the conservative mainstream. George W. Bush himself seemed to endorse the doctrine as the budget surplus evaporated: in August 2001 he called the disappearing surplus "incredibly positive news" because it would put Congress in a "fiscal straitjacket."

Like supply-siders, starve-the-beasters favor tax cuts mainly for people with high incomes. That is partly because, like supply-siders, they emphasize the incentive effects of cutting the top marginal rate; they just don't believe that those incentive effects are big enough that tax cuts pay for themselves. But they have another reason for cutting taxes mainly on the rich, which has become known as the "lucky ducky" argument.

Here's how the argument runs: to starve the beast, you must not only deny funds to the government; you must make voters hate the government. There's a danger that working-class families might see government as their friend: because their incomes are low, they don't pay much in taxes, while they benefit from public spending. So in starving the beast, you must take care not to cut taxes on these "lucky duckies." (Yes, that's what The Wall Street Journal called them in a famous editorial.) In fact, if possible, you must raise taxes on working-class Americans in order, as The Journal said, to get their "blood boiling with tax rage."
-Paul Krugman, "The Tax-Cut Con," The New York Times, September 14, 2003

"ABC's Good Morning America program will be broadcasting live from Helena on Thursday, Sept. 25. Helena was selected as the Arkansas stop because of its unique location on the banks of the Mississippi River."

The real reason Helena was chosen is that the first presidential debate will be held 70 miles away the next day on the Ole Miss campus. Since it will already be in the 'hood, the network can meet its "Arkansas obligation" and at the same time save the expense of future travel to the state.

Thanks eark, your link to the pie in the face of America's Sweetheart is the one I was remembering, but couldn't find last night. Every time Anita Bryant cries a homosexual gets his human rights under the law!

"You see, everybody is taking a hit on this spin out."

Speak for yourself.

Just having a reflective day over here. And feeling sadden by the state of racial affairs in America. Now I understand about loyalty to your party, standing up for your ideals and voting privelege. However, it is a sad day in America when people except any excuse and make up any reason to not vote for a man who is mulatto for president, despite the weakness of the other parties ticket. Is Obama perfect? No. But he has consistently stuck to the issues and to the same message and has not insulted our intellgence with pandering, lies, and emotional drivel to distract us from the issues. The Obama/Biden ticket holds the strongest promise for repairing our weak governement, pulling us all together again as one nation and giving us a little hope in some of this despair without making us forget our responsibility to be good citizens. Seriously, the black/white thing is a pathetic reason to keep driving us into the ground with this economic upheavel, taxpayer's burdens increasing and increased cost of living. Sorry, but an old man and a moosehunting mama with the same ole agenda (i.e. deregulation which has led to this mortgage crisis along with fiscal irresponsibility by citizens) can't get it done!

P.S. Really Just because someone's mother decided to name them an Arabic name, doesn't make them muslim. If that was the case are all kids who are given African names, Africans? Or all kids with Irish names Irish? Really. And as far as the antichrist... Read the Bible...the antichrist is supposed to come from EASTERN EUROPE... so much for that theory.