The 2008 US Presidential Election Thread

[Lula]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080930/ap_ ... n_pakistan

they must be getting dizzy from all this spinning

[separate_wayz]

How's this for creepy!! I think the woman leading the singing is Kim Jong-Il's concubine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9b0xr06qA

Wow. People are truly stupid, and then they procreate and make more stupid little people.

By the way .... I think I liked this song better, when it was originally sung in German.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQxmt8f5 ... re=related

[treetopovskaya]

i think it's funny people waste their time looking for & posting yt clips or articles on mccain or palin. what about the awesome dem candidates obama & his runnin mate biden? instead of spending time & energy on the reps why not tell us why you think obama/biden should win the election (maybe... just maybe you might change some minds & get them some votes)... they are both so awesome there should be plenty to say...

yeah... right.

obama has proved at least to me he is all talk no action. saying that mccain can do his job by phone. wtf? mccain walks the walk & talks the talk... obama... all talk... & even that he doesn't do well. he rambles. get to the freakin point... if there is one.

if i ever have trouble fallin asleep i should just play obama talkin... ZzZzZZzz...

[The_Noble_Cause]

obama has proved at least to me he is all talk no action. saying that mccain can do his job by phone. wtf? mccain walks the walk & talks the talk......

Great.
So he stopped his campaign (which turned out to be a lie) to go to a White House meeting where it was reported that he said NOTHING.
Posed no questions.
Nothing.
Then it was revealed he was handling the situation by phone after all, after launching volleys of attacks toward Obama for doing the same thing.

The McCain that stands before you today isn't even a ghost of his former self.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/28 ... ons-phone/

if i ever have trouble fallin asleep i should just play obama talkin... ZzZzZZzz...

More damning still, I simply can't visualize myself having a beer with him.
Duhhhh.

[The_Noble_Cause]

Can someone explain to me how in the world this helps Obama?

Because moreso than even Obama, McCain has placed himself front and center of this issue.
Even taking premature credit for the bill's passing.

[The_Noble_Cause]

You can't rewrite history TNC. Come on. McCain was villified by Reid for even daring to come to DC. He blamed McCain for screwing up his Socialist deal with Paulson and Dodd. Even CBS reported that Paulson asked Graham to get McCain involved because they needed McCain to ruffle up Pubbie votes.

The people said no TNC. What do you say about that?

I'm not rewriting history. I'm answering your question as to how this helps Obama .
Tho both are for the bill, McCain made it look like he was spearheading the effort, even threatening to boycott the debate until it got passed.
The bill failed.

[classicstyxfan]

thanks for the info. i was really asking about the bailout bill not passing and what it all meant. i've done some reading and understand that basically they'll try to pass another version. and didn't deregulation have something to do with all this? come on, you act like it is all the fault of carter and clinton and we all know there are many to blame from both sides.

I tried my best last night to give a readers digest version. Investors Business Daily.com sums things up nicely.....



http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDA ... e=20080924

How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable

BY TERRY JONES

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 9/24/2008

One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?

The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way.

Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac, (FRE) even into the early 1990s, weren't the juggernauts they'd later be.

While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's rules.

In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse.

Despite warnings of trouble at Fannie and Freddie, in 1994 Clinton unveiled his National Homeownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways Congress never intended.

Addressing the National Association of Realtors that year, Clinton bluntly told the group that "more Americans should own their own homes." He meant it.

Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and other minorities to enter the middle class.

Though well-intended, the problem was that Congress was about to change hands, from the Democrats to the Republicans. Rather than submit legislation that the GOP-led Congress was almost sure to reject, Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite the rules in 1995.

The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, "made getting a satisfactory CRA rating harder." Banks were given strict new numerical quotas and measures for the level of "diversity" in their loan portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted to expand or merge with another.

Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else.

"Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance," wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute.

But those rules weren't enough.

Clinton got the Department of Housing and Urban Development to double-team the issue. That would later prove disastrous.

Clinton's HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, "made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis," the liberal Village Voice noted. Among those decisions were changes that let Fannie and Freddie get into subprime loan markets in a big way.

Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage, allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments, vs. 10% for banks.

Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that required no money down and no verification of income.

By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market — a staggering exposure.

Worse still was the cronyism.

Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans.

Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384 politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie.

Over that time, the two GSEs spent $200 million on lobbying and political activities. Their charitable foundations dropped millions more on think tanks and radical community groups.

Did it work? Well, if measured by the goal of putting more poor people into homes, the answer would have to be yes.

From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners.

The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.

Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a failed legacy of the Clinton era.

OK Clinton seems to have had a hand in creating the current situation.....are you saying all of these banks were FORCED to make loans that were not in their own best interest ? didnt they do it because they thought it just might be profitable for them ? are you also saying the pubs didnt have 6 years in control of both the White House and congress in which they could have made changes to Fannie & Freddy if they saw a need ?

There is plenty of blame to be placed here, and its way too simplistic to try and lay it all in one parties lap. I just have one question though.....if this situation was important enough for McCain to suspend his campaign last week, and it still hasnt been resolved, what changed enough to lift the suspension ??? if anything, the situation is more dire this week vs last...did he now suspend his "america first" philosophy ???? just curious........

[Lula]

big money to be raised for obama campaign

http://www.nme.com/news/bruce-springsteen/40121

in a nutshell- bruce springsteen and billy joel are confirmed for an october fundraiser in new york. seats are 500-10000. i don't think i'll be making this, my contribution of 15 bucks is a little short

i searched for a news story to counter my posting of the latest mccain spin. sorry i couldn't find anything damning on the first page of google news.

i'm an obama supporter, have been from day one. i like his proposed policies on healthcare, education, and his diplomacy first attitude to name a few. i don't support mccain. he is nothing like the man he was 10 yrs ago, which is a shame, cuz i liked his attitude. i don't buy his "country first" not in the least. he couldn't run on obama's message of change and now his country first is laughable as he is back on the campaign trail criticizing obama for the same thing he is doing. he tried to turn the bailout into a political advantage and that blew up in his face. gone is the true maverick, unfortunately. i see obama as the man for our generation, i just do.

i mean nothing personal to any poster here. this is the political thread and we all have our own views, doesn't make any of us right. posting you tubes and news stories is par for the course.

[Don]

big money to be raised for obama campaign

http://www.nme.com/news/bruce-springsteen/40121

in a nutshell- bruce springsteen and billy joel are confirmed for an october fundraiser in new york. seats are 500-10000. i don't think i'll be making this, my contribution of 15 bucks is a little short

i searched for a news story to counter my posting of the latest mccain spin. sorry i couldn't find anything damning on the first page of google news.

i'm an obama supporter, have been from day one. i like his proposed policies on healthcare, education, and his diplomacy first attitude to name a few. i don't support mccain. he is nothing like the man he was 10 yrs ago, which is a shame, cuz i liked his attitude. i don't buy his "country first" not in the least. he couldn't run on obama's message of change and now his country first is laughable as he is back on the campaign trail criticizing obama for the same thing he is doing. he tried to turn the bailout into a political advantage and that blew up in his face. gone is the true maverick, unfortunately. i see obama as the man for our generation, i just do.

i mean nothing personal to any poster here. this is the political thread and we all have our own views, doesn't make any of us right. posting you tubes and news stories is par for the course.

You don't have to explain yourself This thread has so many blow hards on both sides of the issue, I don't think you are going to offend anyone with your beliefs or opinions.

[treetopovskaya]

mccain met with house republicans and pushed to get these provisions included in the bill to limit the power of the secretary of the treasury, and include government oversight. he also pushed to get some of the dems pet projects removed from the bill... including the dems voter registration organization ACORN. ACORN is being investigated in over 11 states for voter fraud right now. obama was a spokesman and lawyer for ACORN.

here is obama's game plan for the bailout... call me if you need anything... because he knows nothing about it. he can't even offer to help persuade any other politicians to support it??? mccain was there, trying to make things better while obama worried about gaining in the polls by bad-mouthing mccain.

of course dems & bias lib media are going to say mccain did nothing to help... they don't want him to take any credit even if it is only a small bit of credit. dems want obama to win, and mccain to lose, so they will say what they can to make mccain look bad. people need to look at/for the truth for themselves.

obama has proved at least to me he is all talk no action. saying that mccain can do his job by phone. wtf? mccain walks the walk & talks the talk......

Great.
So he stopped his campaign (which turned out to be a lie) to go to a White House meeting where it was reported that he said NOTHING.
Posed no questions.
Nothing.
Then it was revealed he was handling the situation by phone after all, after launching volleys of attacks toward Obama for doing the same thing.

The McCain that stands before you today isn't even a ghost of his former self.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/28 ... ons-phone/

if i ever have trouble fallin asleep i should just play obama talkin... ZzZzZZzz...

More damning still, I simply can't visualize myself having a beer with him.
Duhhhh.

[Barb]

Obama is going to win this election. This is what we can all expect for the next 4 years.

[Lula]

i don't get the pic he's invisible?

[treetopovskaya]

slogan for obama...

"if ya need me... call me"

}:C))

[Barb]

i don't get the pic he's invisible?

Empty suit.

[Lula]

i don't get the pic he's invisible?

Empty suit.

oh duh!

[RossValoryRocks]

i'm an obama supporter, have been from day one.

Come on Lula...that's not true...for most of the Primary season you AND Dean said it was Hillary you supported!

[Lula]

i'm an obama supporter, have been from day one.

Come on Lula...that's not true...for most of the Primary season you AND Dean said it was Hillary you supported!

no stu. dean supported hillary, me- obama. we even fought over it. my vote in the primary was for barack. i will say i was fine with either one tho.

[Saint John]

How anyone could vote for a guy that was mentored and married by an open racist is beyond me. Add to that his ties to Bill Ayers and it's obvious this guy is not only unqualified for the job, but he's not even a good American.

[Lula]

none of this even matters anymore if it is true that the colonel is not serving potato wedges any longer!

[Barb]

How anyone could vote for a guy that was mentored and married by an open racist is beyond me. Add to that his ties to Bill Ayers and it's obvious this guy is not only unqualified for the job, but he's not even a good American.

By the time they figure out who he is, it will be beyond too late. Romney should have been the Reps candidate. He'd be kicking ass right now. McCain just looks pathetic to me.

[Rick]

none of this even matters anymore if it is true that the colonel is not serving potato wedges any longer!

[S2M]

none of this even matters anymore if it is true that the colonel is not serving potato wedges any longer!

BLASPHEMY!!!!!

[RossValoryRocks]

none of this even matters anymore if it is true that the colonel is not serving potato wedges any longer!

WHAT?!?!? We need to get congress to pass a potato wedge bailout package right now before we go into a potato wedge recession, or if this bailout isn't passed in the next 24-48 hours into a potato wedge depression!

No free potato wedges for CEOs though!

[Saint John]

Golden Showers for all CEO's!!!

[The_Noble_Cause]

mccain met with house republicans and pushed to get these provisions included in the bill to limit the power of the secretary of the treasury, and include government oversight. Also pushed to get some of the dems pet projects removed from the bill... including the dems voter registration organization ACORN. ACORN is being investigated in over 11 states for voter fraud right now. obama was a spokesman and lawyer for ACORN.

No proof of this whatsoever.
McCain, the notorious 14-hour binge gambler, rolled the dice & came up snake eyes.
He publicly called off his campaign, flew into Washington like the last son of Krypton, and essentially staked his political fortune on its passage.
It failed.
If you can prove McCain had a hand in the removal of the ACORN provision I'd love to see it....from the omnipotent "lib media" or elsewhere.

here is obama's game plan for the bailout... call me if you need anything... because he knows nothing about it. he can't even offer to help persuade any other politicians to support it??? mccain was there, trying to make things better while obama worried about gaining in the polls by bad-mouthing mccain.

How does McCain's physical presence make the situation better?
That's like "fighting 'em over there, so we don't have to fight 'em here."
Sounds great, if you're running on one blinking neuron.

[The_Noble_Cause]

By the time they figure out who he is, it will be beyond too late. Romney should have been the Reps candidate. He'd be kicking ass right now.

That would require Romney to figure out who he is first.
Is this Romney the small varmit hunter, or the too slick by half corporate turnaround messiah?
His scary and decidedly non-Conservative views on executive power notwithstanding, what he did to the family dog is reason alone to ban him from elected office.

[Lula]

what did mittens do to the family dog?

[treetopovskaya]

doing something is better than doing nothing. if mccain's presence did nothing, then why does anybody have to be there? we'll see who is in it to help when the senate votes on their own bill on wednesday. do you think obama will cancel his 3-hour speeches to make an appearance in dc? and do you think he will vote present? or will he actually take a stance? do you think he will read the bill before voting? does he know what the bill is for?

mccain met with house republicans and pushed to get these provisions included in the bill to limit the power of the secretary of the treasury, and include government oversight. Also pushed to get some of the dems pet projects removed from the bill... including the dems voter registration organization ACORN. ACORN is being investigated in over 11 states for voter fraud right now. obama was a spokesman and lawyer for ACORN.

No proof of this whatsoever.
McCain, the notorious 14-hour binge gambler, rolled the dice & came up snake eyes.
He publicly called off his campaign, flew into Washington like the last son of Krypton, and essentially staked his political fortune on its passage.
It failed.
If you can prove McCain had a hand in the removal of the ACORN provision I'd love to see it....from the omnipotent "lib media" or elsewhere.

here is obama's game plan for the bailout... call me if you need anything... because he knows nothing about it. he can't even offer to help persuade any other politicians to support it??? mccain was there, trying to make things better while obama worried about gaining in the polls by bad-mouthing mccain.

How does McCain's physical presence make the situation better?
That's like "fighting 'em over there, so we don't have to fight 'em here."
Sounds great, if you're running on one blinking neuron.

[Lula]

heard on the news tonight that obama, biden and mccain will all be there to vote tomorrow. i wonder if there are significant revisions or what???

[RossValoryRocks]

heard on the news tonight that obama, biden and mccain will all be there to vote tomorrow. i wonder if there are significant revisions or what???

The bill that lost in the House will definately be passed by the Senate, then they can start work on the compromise with the house.

But it's ALL window dressing. The politicians: Obama, Biden, McCain et al are trying to cover their asses with this bill.

It will help in the SHORT term, perhaps the VERY short term but is going to be VERY damaging to the country as a whole.

We should vote ALL their asses out, every...SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM! All the house this election, 1/3 of the Senate this time, 1/3 in 2010 and the rest in 2012.

It's about time the government OF the People, FOR the people, and BY the people was actually RUN BY THE PEOPLE again.