The Solution to the Bailout

Partial transcript from The O'Reilly Factor with Newt Monday night.
O'REILLY: Now, I have supported the bailout because I believe if the government doesn't stabilize the economy now, foreign investment will pull out of America. Now you know how important foreign investment is to this country's health. So I don't like this bailout. I agree with you that the government is incompetent and corrupt in some areas. But I don't see any other choice at all but to do it.

GINGRICH: Well, let me give you two choices immediately. First, there's an accounting rule called mark to market. We were warned against doing it by the European Central Bank in 2004. Two economists — Chicago Bank Today came out and said if we would simply repeal it — this is an overreaction to Enron — if we would simply repeal it, they think 70 percent of the problem would go away. That's $500 billion of the bailout would disappear.
Second, I have no problem with the workout. We'll let you work out your bad debt. But I am deeply opposed and I will actively oppose any bill which has the Treasury buying bad paper because that's a bailout. That's not a workout.

70% of the problem solved and it doesn't cost you a cent!
Read this...
Maybe the Banks Are Just Counting Wrong
and
Bailout fails — Move on to Mark-to-Market Reform

Good News for OK and HB1804

Group Condemns Sarah Palin for Not Killing Trig

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A writer for a libertarian group has written perhaps the most scathing attack on pro-life vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin since the Alaska governor was announced weeks ago as John McCain's running mate. Nicholas Provenzo condemns Palin for the birth of her baby Trig, who has Down syndrome.

Provenzo, who writes for the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism, not only bashes her for allowing Trig to be born, but says she should have made the so-called morally justifiable decision to kill him in an abortion.Read the rest HERE.

A powerful column by Bob Lonsberry

Drown Out What I Can't Stand to Hear

We were married by a Catholic priest in the chapel at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

We had the reception at the NCO Club.

That was 25 years ago today.

This would have been our silver anniversary. Our kids would have thrown us a party, and family and friends would have come from far and wide. We would have posed for pictures that would have hung years from now in our grandchildren’s rooms.

But none of that is going to happen.

We divorced years ago. I don’t remember exactly how many. It was my fault. I crashed the plane. And now this day will pass in silence. We all will politely ignore the significance of the date. Our children will never get to throw that party, that picture will not hang in our grandchildren’s rooms.

It’s Humpty Dumpty.

And I write this because my dread of this day has made me think of the countless others who have or who will pass a similar sorrowful milestone. It’s hell when dreams die, when happily ever after isn’t how the story ends. It’s hell when it’s your fault, it’s worse when it’s not.

It’s one thing to throw away your own happiness, it’s another to rob someone else of theirs.

You think of stuff like that on days like this.

You think of what should have been and what cannot be, and you know what drives drunks to drink. Some nightmares you don’t wake up from. They are just the way it is.

And hell may trump that for duration, but not for intensity.

I may never have figured out how to love, but I sure do feel its absence. I’m not good at knowing I’m happy, but I’m keenly aware of being sad.

But this isn’t a maudlin introspection, a George Jones song written without meter or rhyme, it is a recognition that there’ve been a lot of people down this road, and that I’m sorry for them.

And if I could shout to all who follow behind, I would give warning, “Don’t come this way. This is the swamp. Don’t come this way.” Stay faithful, never quit, make it work. Simple, trite, and true. No other success can compensate for failure in the home, and no bandage can cover that wound.

I’ve gone on, whatever that means. I have a new wife, and more children, and I love them and am grateful for them. And consequently I can only be grateful for the circumstances that brought them to me. But it was a hard journey and a high price, and I expect to pay it for all eternity.

I am the third successive generation of my family to divorce, My grandparents, my parents and I. We each failed at the only thing that mattered. It has been nearly a hundred years since a silver anniversary has been celebrated in my family. What a horrific curse and a poisonous legacy. All I can do now is look to my children and pray that they are better than I.

I have a handicap of memory, and cannot remember many things. I need other people to remind me and tell me about events from the past. My former wife is who I ask when I have a question about my mother or grandmother, or even the people from my hometown. My current wife helps me remember more recent events. It is an odd series of black holes.

But this I can’t forget. This I am doomed to remember.

It’s Humpty Dumpty.

And that is all I will say about this. Today will be just another day. I will go to work and try to make the shows worthwhile. I need to go through some pictures for the stations’ websites, I need to get a haircut, I need to write a column for tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get in a run and maybe I’ll go pick some more apples for cider.

And I’ll ignore what today would have been.

I’ll turn up the volume of life to drown out what I can’t stand to hear.

Bob is a great talk show host with a real gift for writing. You may have heard him on my show from the DNC convention a few weeks ago. I think this piece will strike a cord with many of you.

PlaniTulsa another look?

Randy Bright joins me, PC, for another look at PlaniTulsa Wednesday
morning at 7:05AM CT. Here's some required reading to bring you up to speed.

Learning the lessons from Portland

Planning raises concerns

New Urbanism needs more attention

Smartcode requires a lot more study

Guess who is IS THE SECOND BIGGEST RECIPIENT OF FANNIE MAE/FREDDIE MAC, MONEY?

According to OpenSecrets.org, Barack Obama was the second largest recipient of political contributions from recently bailed-out, quasi-government lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The first? Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd.

According to OpenSecrets.org, recently bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave $4.8 million to lawmakers - 57% to Democrats between - 1989 and 2008.

Chris Dodd took in $165,400.

Barack Obama raked in $126,349 -- nearly 6 times what his opponent, John McCain took from Fannie and Freddie.

It took McCain all 20 years to take in $21,550 in pork from F+F; an average of $1,078/yr.

Barack Obama swallowed up $126,349 in one fifth the time, for an average payout from F+F of $31,587/yr.

Also: Lehman Brothers

Since 1989, bankrupt Lehman Brothers's employees and political action committee have given $9.2 million to federal candidates, parties and political action committees, with 54 percent of that going to Democrats.

In the current Congress, 271 lawmakers have collected nearly $3 million since 1989, with 72 percent going to Democrats. Democratic presidential candidates and senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama top the list of all-time recipients for the company, collecting $410,000 and $395,600 respectively.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of both the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, hauled in $181,450, while Sen. Chris Dodd, chair of the Senate banking committee, has collected $165,800.

Anatomy of a Loss

Excellent read!

The Audacity of Defeat
Russ Smith

What if the impossible happens and Obama loses the election? Among Democrats, expect a rash of rage, depression, angst and finger-pointing at the media.

It’s three a.m. on Oct. 31 and a frantic broker awakens you. He’s advising making substantial investments that day in the stocks of Lilly, Pfizer and other manufacturers of anti-depressants, as well as high-end booze, say Grey Goose vodka and Hillary Clinton’s whiskey of choice, Chivas Regal. The calculations buzzing through your head are not insignificant. Barack Obama holds a two-point lead over John McCain in the Gallup poll for the Nov. 4 presidential election, and that slender margin suggests—given the undeniable factor of racism when Americans retreat to the privacy of the ballot booth—that for the third straight time a Democratic candidate will be defeated. Your own preference in the contest is irrelevant: there’s money lying on the table and only a fool would ignore the market’s indications.

A month ago, as any honest Democrat will tell you, this scenario was nearly inconceivable. The Republicans had nominated an elderly and inarticulate candidate in McCain, who was marred not only by his association with George Bush, but distrusted by the critical conservative base as well. He was expected to choose an equally dull running mate—maybe Gov. Tim Pawlenty (who?), the robotic Mitt Romney, or even Sen. Joe Lieberman, the onetime Democrat who’s distrusted by both parties—and though Obama had tapped longtime Sen. Joe Biden, whose bouts with sometimes indelicate verbosity were well-known, that was of little concern. Obama’s campaign was a fund-raising juggernaut and the candidate promised to campaign in nearly every state, especially “red” ones, not only demonstrate to he’d be a president of “all the people” but also help Congressional Democrats expand their majorities. It was payback time for the “stolen” elections of 2000 and 2004 and the revenge promised to be rich indeed.

I was reasonably certain that Obama would win convincingly, and perhaps by a landslide. In fact, although favoring McCain, I’d resigned myself to at least four years of the charismatic Illinois one-term senator, despite the nervousness that he’d turn out to be a less pious Jimmy Carter or, a latter-day Adlai Stevenson. What the hell, it’s not as if the Republicans have distinguished themselves in the past four years, McCain included. Besides, one benefit of a turnover at the White House would be the resumption of political conversation with Democratic friends; too many personal and professional relationships have been fractured in the past eight years. Read the rest HERE.

When Obama wakes up on 11/5/08 and realizes he blew it he will have no one to blame but himself. It was his to lose. Had he picked Hillary he would have been unstoppable, but pride got in the way, he bought into his own messianic hype.

Generous Joe!

PRESIDENTIAL CHARITY DONATIONS-- BIDEN GAVE A WHOPPING AVERAGE OF.... $369 A YEAR

Tax records show that Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife gave an average of $369 a year to charity during the past decade.


Presidential nominee Barack Obama's campaign released10 years' worth of tax returns for Biden, the senator from Delaware, and his wife Jill, a community college instructor. The Bidens reported earning $319,853 last year, including $71,000 in royalties for his memoir, "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics".

The Bidens reported giving $995 in charitable donations last year - about 0.3% of their income and the highest amount in the past decade. The low was $120 in 1999, about 0.1% of yearly income.

Joe Biden redefines the word TITHE

RNC Video Tribute to Michael Monsoor

In the movie, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri” an adaption of a James Michener novel about the Korean War. The hero, U.S. Navy Lt. Harry Brubaker played by William Holden dies at the end of the movie along with two other soldiers attempting his rescue. The film ends with Admiral Tarrant receiving confirmation of Brubaker’s death. Alone and introspective, he verbally wonders where Brubaker and all the others under his command could have found the bravery to do what is asked from them. The movie ends with a famous quote: “Where do we get such men?”