This weekend marked an anniversary of sorts, the date that Al Gore FINALLY gave his concession speech, and George W. Bush was able to take his place as President of the United States.  It’s hard to believe that was only 8 years ago, a lot of history has taken place in that time, but the recounts, the now famous hanging chads, that was all we were hearing about in the news until finally, that great day when it came to a conclusion.

It came down to a Supreme Court decision that left Gore feeling disappointed and defeated, and many wonder if he has ever gotten over the loss. This was a difficult defeat for Al Gore who had the popular vote, but didn’t win the electoral votes, especially in the “hanging chad” State of Florida.  Still, the red and blue county map of the US at that time was VERY red, in fact, it was for this past election as well.

President Bush went on the face one of the most challenging presidencies in history as far as I’m concerned, and Al Gore received a Nobel Prize for his work on what many consider to be the controversial subject of global warming…but even if Global Warming turns out to be something that never happens, his help in making us aware of our environment is appreciated.

Hi readers, here’s something I received by email today from a very upset friend, guess it’s making the rounds, but it’s full of good info…unless some of it isn’t correct…read and decide, comment if any of it isn’t true. And if it is, be sure it influences your vote!

The following is a condensation of a series from the “Investor’s Business Daily” explaining ‘What Caused the Loan Crisis’:

1977: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act into Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc.

Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.

How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market? Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way.

1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the20principals and the stockholding few.

1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.

1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.

1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat at majority to Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin’s Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robt. Rubin’s Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.

1997 - 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and 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 their enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often ‘no doc’, ‘no income’, requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians,=2 0mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990’s Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as much as $182 Billion, most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.

Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority home ownership rates are shrinking fast.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie’s excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. ‘We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks,’ Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.

2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the ’special status’. Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO’s who knew how to reward and punish. ‘We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation’s housing and mortgage markets’ Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.

2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.

2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called ‘the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago’. Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.

2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: ‘We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk’. Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, ‘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 sy stem and the economy as a whole’. Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP ;of trying to ‘cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding home ownership’ The bill went nowhere.

2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in ‘07, subprime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was 15 years in the making.

2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Bush urged reform 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats’ talking points about this being a ‘Republican’ disaster A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That’s why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!!

If you doubt any of this, just view the videos below and listen to your lawmakers own words. They are condemning!

Postscript: ACORN is one of the principle beneficiaries of Fannie/ Freddie’s slush funds. They are currently under indictment or investigation in many states. Barack Obama served as their legal counsel, defending their activities for several years.

I know I’m supposed to be writing about the debates, the polls, the negative advertising, what I think about Barack Obama -v- John McCain, but today I just have to comment about something I’m passionate about, and that is RESPECT!

I don’t appreciate negative advertising, from either side, but that seems to be the way it is in the game of politics.  But what appals me even more is the new movie that is out that claims to be a biography (lying is “in” too!) about our President, called “W”.  How sick can you get?  Not only does it mock a man that should be respected, but it mocks the God that many of us worship and serve.  I’m angry, mad, disgusted!

As if that isn’t enough we have to have a movie out that’s only purpose is to put down Christianity.

Have you ever heard of the “Antichrist”?  It/he was prophesied in the Bible as being a big part of the “end times”, the last days before Jesus Christ is to return to earch, yes, the same Christ that is being mocked today.   If the things we are seeing today aren’t “antichrist”, I don’t know what is.

We should be ashamed of ourselves as people and Nation for letting things like this go on. No matter WHO becomes leader of our Nation, whether it be John McCain, or Barack Obama, they will receive my respect, and I will be praying for them.

Today someone who means a lot to me wrote and asked me some questions about who I’m voting for and why, with some specific questions about some of the current issues, and how my Christian views play into my decision.  I wrote a long reply, sharing some of my thoughts.  They are a bit random at times, and  I’m not saying all of them are right. Since I spent so much time on that, I thought I’d share some of it with you below, enjoy getting into my head a bit…now that’s a frightening thought:-)

It’s funny you are writing this, I was just thinking about these things. Hubby is more in tune with some of the specifics that you ask about, and when he is of the frame of mind will answer them I am sure. I hope you can follow this, as I re-read it, it goes on some tangents :-)

For a time, both of us were not feeling terribly excited about the election this year as each candidate isn’t quite what we’d (I’d) want. I’m concerned about the needy, and where the line should be drawn between personal responsibility and helping those in need. I see many Christians volunteering to do wonderful things, and think there should be more of that.

I always want to be a Nation that welcomes people to come to our country LEGALLY to enjoy it’s freedoms, and have always loved the fact that we have been a nation that embraced what is on the Statue of Liberty (*I copied and pasted below), yet it’s hard to know the enemy any more in this strange war we find ourselves in that has been brewing for a long, LONG time while we were complacent.

As for abortion, it is an extremely important issue, and so are all the other things. It’s just that there are plenty of voices on both sides for the other things, economy, etc., but only Judeo-Christians will stand up for babies forming in their mother’s wombs that are not yet born, so that may be why they are a voice for that one issue that wouldn’t be heard otherwise.

I was just today thinking about whether having a Christian -v- non as President mattered, and why it is such a big issue, I don’t remember it mattering that much when our parents were voting, except for the talk about Kennedy being a Catholic when he was elected, but I was too young to really understand why that was an issue.

At first, I just put the “Christian” part out of my decision, and listened to as many speeches by the candidates as I could. I came away believing McCain was the tough, yet in some ways gentle, type of person we need in office at this time in history because we are a Nation at war whether we like it or want to acknowledge it or not, and he will not duck and run, but face it head on. He has been refined by time and experience in a way Obama has not. We CAN’T take our guys out of Iraq sooner than is wise, and we need a President who will admit who the enemy is and face the enemy head on.

I want us to continue to be the Nation that helps other Nations by giving our lives for them, that is what we are doing, just like we did in past wars, as agonizing as that is……

It wasn’t until the confusing years of the 1960’s and the Viet Nam war, a war with a Draft, that we changed…at least in my lifetime…when we did leave before the job was finished and had soldiers who had given their all, and are were forever marked by it, come back to anti-war protests instead of an appreciative America. I have long believed it is the grown up anti-war hippies that are making up many of the philosophies of the democratic party…at the same time that doesn’t mean there weren’t any lessons to be learned, I’m talking about the extremes.

Yes, we wish we could go back to the days gone by when everything SEEMED fine, the days when Clinton was screwing around in the White house, or the days when Reagan was President and we saw the end of the Soviet Union (at least for a while), but that’s not where we are, and just voting for the guy on the other side of where we are now isn’t going to change that. The “present administration”, a term used often, is at a stand-still because of politics…the Democrats are the majority in the congress/house and holding up almost anything our Republican president wants to do, while they constantly speak against him.

Anyway, I digress, I came to terms with McCain as President…Obama simply does not have the experience, and there are to many things he says that I simply don’t agree with, and I am concerned about the brain-washing he received while in the church he attended.

Sarah Palin was a nice addition to the ticket, I like her, she is REAL, someone you feel like you could comfortably sit down and talk to, and she is a Christian, yes, yes, that is important to me. I’d be a fool if it wasn’t.

When I think of Bush, who liberals and some media have been brain-washing us to hate for about 8 or more years, I think of Moses….just because Moses lead the people, and was before God all the time on their behalf, it didn’t always guarantee “change” because people are stupid, we all want our own way, especially when the going is tough like it was wandering in the wilderness. God had to intervene many times with his judgment, and I wonder if we are seeing some of that today.

I have rambled…. Bottom line, at least for today, I’m voting McCain/Palin, I think that they are the people for the time that we are in even if I don’t agree with every single thing they say.

God bless, and God bless America,

[Me]

PS - I thought I heard not that long ago that the ozone layer was doing better, and the “hole” in it was smaller now? I don’t trust all scientists. Did you see the movie “Expelled” with Ben Stein yet?

——————–

*The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

I didn’t blog yesterday, but did something that has become a bit of a tradition….I watched MSNBC’s special, the news reporting of the events of 9/11 played at the exact time they happened, now 7 years ago yesterday, so that you are re-living the experience.  It was interrupted only for the President when he spoke at the memorial, I am glad he was given the respect he deserves in doing that.

Then last evening, I watched some talk shows, and on one of them, Rudy Giuliani was interviewed.  When he was asked something along the lines of why he thinks it is that many as a Nation are either forgetting about 9/11, and why we are no longer united as a Nation like we were then, he suggested that it could be related to the elections and party politics. 

We are in the midst of our second election since September 11, 2001, in which the nation is deeply divided by what they are told to think about “the present administration”, what they are told to think about the war, what they are told to think about how things were handled after 9/11, depending upon what isle they camp. Yes, I’m generalizing, not everyone is blindly following, but many are.  We are divided - democrats - republicans - and the chasm seems to be getting wider so that we as a Nation are falling in.  I don’t know what the answers are, I, too, will be voting for who I believe is the best candidate, who once again is within the party I’ve voted most of my life. But I wish the ads, the process, wasn’t as nasty as it has become recently. It doesn’t impress me to see two men, Obama and McCain at the site of 9/11 (less than an hour from our home, btw) on TV one day, and attacking each other the next.

I do know that I never want to forget 9/11.  I want to view the following images at least once a year, and be reminded, and be thankful for “the present administration” which has had to make decisions few administrations ever have had to face.  Thank you.

By the way, the video includes some of those who jumped from windows, if this disturbs you, dare I say watch it anyway?

The Republication National Convention really got started today, I just finished listening watching Laura Bush praise her husband and our President; watching our President, George Bush, speak by satellite; watched a moving tribute to Ronald Reagan; listened as Thompson gave a great speech highlighting events in John McCain’s life, including his POW experience with details I had not heard before…also did a few comparisons between the two candidates, and finally, there was a speech by Joe Leiberman who stated he was speaking as a Democrat for a Republican.  I get a little confused, as I thought he was an Independent, must be one of those political twists I just don’t understand, but the speech was well done, very well done.

Like the first nights of the Democratic convention, I enjoyed it, but was not swept off my feet by anything.  I wasn’t any more convinced than I already am to vote for my party.

Tomorrow night we have our Vice Presidential Candidate who has been tossed around in the media all day today speaking, it should be an interesting night!

More tomorrow!

…that is the question.  I have read absurd things eluding to Hurricane Gustov being an act of God against the Republicans…ugh. Frankly, the first couple days of the Democratic National Convention were nothing to get excited about, and if we as a Nation can be focusing on our friends in the south, offering our help where needed, and prayer, it is a far greater thing than politics….there’s plenty of time for politics in the days to come.

As my husband says, if anything negative happens in New Orleans, the naysayers will find a way for it to be “the current administrations” fault, and if not, somehow there will be something to blame on the Republican administration, if possible.  Actually I’m hoping for better than that.

I am looking forward to seeing the ultimate affect of Hurricane Gustov on the Republican National Convention, sometimes the unscripted things in life can bring about it’s greatest moments…this is what I’m counting on….already hearing of McCain and convention organizers setting up telethons to help our friends in the South.

Laura Bush will speak about the hurricane relief later today, plans are still in the making for how the Convention will work.  Cindy McCain will be teaming up with her.  Most of the speeches by President Bush and VP Cheney have been canceled…more later.

Watching, waiting, praying.