The Respectfully Republican Conversation

pinoideae

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FEB

Wow, you guys were burning the midnight oil. What time is it in Canada?

Pansy-Southern Bella!! I love it. I just might have to change my screen name.

I woke up really early and could not get back to sleep. I HAD A DREAM. I really did. I dreamt that I was walking around Hyde Park(that is Obama's neighborhood), the Day After. Everyone was walking around all morose. I said, what's the matter, did Obama lose? And they said yeah, and I started cheering, and I was about to be run out of dodge when I woke up. I sure hope my dream comes true. As I said, after watching alll the pundits, it will be a miracle if he does. I am praying for a miracle.

FEB

By the way Shirley, I am going to make you hate me some more. Last week I had to break down and buy some new pants because mine are falling off. I bought a pair of shorts, size 6. The best part, they were on sale for 6 bucks. But I must say that sizes sure have changed since I was a kid. I wore a size 6 in high school and I am still 20 pounds heavier than I was then. They are just making the pants bigger to make us feel better. I definitely do not look thin. But I am so happy to finally get rid of the menopause midriff that I think was a major contributor to my bc.

Rosemary44

They know how much those mortgage securities are worth.  In some cases like today, they're worth nothing because the people who got loans to flip houses and  who couldn't come close to affording the payment, so the home becomes a forclosure with no money coming in.  Until that home goes back on the market, at a reduced amount in most cases, and sold, that particuliar security is worthless.  Multiply that by thousands and the companies holding them goes under. 

The thing to know is that they will be worth something in the future.  All homes have a value unless they are tear-downs, even then the land has value.  Because they bought the securities at the top of the market, it might take years to regain that worth again.  And that's only if we hold the securities for years.

So if we are buying those securities at full price of what the companies paid for them, we the people, are getting screwed. If they make a deal to pay full price to the holding companies, I'm against it.  I know they want to put liquidity back in those companies so they can have money to lend again.  That's nice.  But has anyone changed the lending practices yet?  Will that be covered in the deal they're working on now?  Will a bill say all lending will be done using basic requirements of having a job, having a downpayment, decent credit and otherwise be able to pay for the amount being borrowed?  I haven't heard one word about this problem being corrected yet.

If we buy these securities, yes, eventually we will get our money back but not all of it if we are paying full price for them today.  If we give them $800 billion it's anyone guess what we will see back from that investment.  It will all be according to when they sell, individually, and how much they sell for.  Can we lose all $800 billion, no if it is truly being used to buy the securities without any earmarks for Acorn, Obama's old employer from his Chicago community organizing days.

What a sham that earmark was.  Can we really trust any bill coming from the Dems anymore?

FEB

 Lost in all the debate news this week is the news that the feds now have enough evidence to indict our "wonderful" Illinois gov. Blagoivitch. Whether or not he will be brought to trial is another matter. Our last gov, a rep. is now in jail for the same type of payouts that Blag is doing. We will see if this dem can get away with the same scandal that brought down the republican party in Illinois and let to Obama's rise. This is the dirty politics that Obama comes from. Of course the national press ignores it. Now if this was Arizona. . .

Remember, way back when, I mentioned how Obama aid and advisor Valerie Jarrett who led his  public housing campaign years ago that was supposed to get rid of the projects and built all these nice homes where they would live in communities with people who are actually paying for their homes? Well the whole thing has turned out to be a waste of money.People did not want the risk of buying townhouses in these areas and the whole thing is a bust. Read on:

September 22, 2008, 5:00 a.m.

Obama's Real-Estate Bust
He did for Illinois taxpayers what shady mortgage lenders have done for the economy.

By David Freddoso

Last week, Sen. Barack Obama compared the Savings and Loan bailout of the late 1980s to the situation of the mortgage-securities markets today:

Too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax rules set by Washington to gamble that they could make big money in speculative real estate. . . . [T]hey made hundreds of billions in bad loans, knowing that if they lost money, the government would bail them out. And they were right. The gambles did not pay off, our economy went into recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar?

Indeed, it does sound familiar - it sounds a lot like what Barack Obama did to Illinois taxpayers as a state senator in Springfield. Using his elected office and his clout, Obama helped Tony Rezko and other unscrupulous low-income housing developers obtain millions of dollars in state grants, tax credits, low-interest loans, and regulatory advantages.

Taxpayers had no serious chance of recouping these "investments" in Rezko and other developers. And many beneficiaries went one step farther, depriving the public of even the benefits they could have gotten. These developers took government help to build low-income housing, and then let their buildings deteriorate into uninhabitable slums.

To date, the most complete account of this sad story is Binyamin Appelbaum's piece in the Boston Globe. Not only does it demonstrate the monumental failure of the low-income-housing policy that Obama vocally championed as a state senator, it gives a detailed look at how some of Obama's donors and friends - the beneficiaries of that policy - neglected their own housing developments at the expense of the inhabitants.

There is no indication that Obama approved (or even knew) of the massive and systemic neglect of these properties in his own state-senate district. But there is also no question that he was an enabler in these transactions. He cosponsored at least six bills to give special tax breaks, tax credits, building-and-maintenance subsidies, and zoning exemptions to the developers. In 1998, he wrote letters to state and city officials requesting $14 million for a project developed by Tony Rezko and another close Obama friend - the politician's old law-firm boss, Allison Davis.

In his Globe piece, Appelbaum describes the low-income Grove Parc Plaza complex, which was developed by Davis:

Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Sewage backups seem to be a common problem in Davis's low-income slums - another of his buildings, Appelbaum reports, was cited in 2007 "after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments."

Valerie Jarrett, Obama's campaign adviser and the subject of a recent fawning interview by Katie Couric, is the chief executive of the company that managed that Grove Parc slum until just recently. Appelbaum writes that her company managed another housing complex until its condition became so poor that the federal government seized it in 2006.

Cecil Butler, another Obama donor, had his Lawndale Restoration complex confiscated by the government in 2006 "after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations."

Appelbaum's piece gives some sense of just how closely Obama was, and still is, tied to the slum-lord world. He's taken contributions from its big players and pushed legislation favorable to them. His closest ally in that sphere has been Rezko, who raised $250,000 for Obama's campaigns before being convicted on unrelated corruption charges earlier this year.

Rezko had been leveraging his fundraising abilities to win alliances with other politicians long before Obama got his start. He applied for his first subsidized-housing loan from the City of Chicago six days after Mayor Richard M. Daley's election in 1989. Within the first six years of Daley's reign, Rezko's company, Rezmar, received $24 million in government loans and $8.5 million in federal tax credits. Over the following decade, it would rake in more than $100 million in loans from the city, state, and federal governments, as well as private bank loans to fix up 30 Chicago buildings for low-income public housing.

Despite all this cheap and free taxpayer money, all of Rezko's 30 buildings eventually ran into financial difficulties. As of 2007, 17 had gone into foreclosure. Six were boarded up and abandoned.

The City of Chicago sued Rezmar at least a dozen times for failing to heat its properties. During the winter of 1997, Rezmar claimed it lacked the funds to heat a 31-unit building in Englewood on the south side of Chicago - one of eleven Rezmar buildings in Obama's state-senate district. Tenants there went without heat from late December 1996 through mid-February 1997. Despite his company's financial hardship, Rezko signed a $1,000 check for the campaign fund of the newly elected state senator Barack Obama on January 14, 1997.

When Barack Obama talks about risky real-estate investments and failures of government oversight, remember how he put Illinois taxpayers on the hook for some of the worst real-estate investments of all - investments in his close friend and in other slum landlords who took the public's money and betrayed their trust.

- David Freddoso is a staff reporter for National Review Online and author of The Case Against Barack Obama.

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Rosemary44

LInda,

How I remember those days of size 6.  I had put on some pounds in my late 30's and went on a severe diet.  No food.  When my clothes got too big, I still remember going in to buy jeans, I started at size 12.  Try them on, too big.  Ok, get dressed, go out and get 10, same thing.  I was in and out of my clothes till I found one that was just right..size 6.  Joy to the world.  Those were the days.

Shirley, I wouldn't take B-12 unless you need it.  You have to get a blood test first to see if your low on anything.  You just ask for a vitamin blood test. 

// 

I guess we know the candidates really well because I heard nothing new from them last night.  What disappointed me was McCain had a chance to hammer home the gross spending plans Obama has planned for us.  I heard that his programs that's he touting is worth $1 trillion.  Tax and spend.  Obama says he has the money for them, baloney!   We have the money for nothing.

His taxing, sure 95% get a tax cut.  Wonderful.  We pay it all back in the cost of goods going up because he's upping the taxes on small and large businesses who will pass that cost on to us, and then we add to that the burden of paying more for gas because they're blocking drilling.

No matter who won the debate last night, it was meaningless to me.  McCain has to hammer Obama's plans for our dismal future home so that everyone understands completely what is coming to us.

Rosemary44

"When Barack Obama talks about risky real-estate investments and failures of government oversight, remember how he put Illinois taxpayers on the hook for some of the worst real-estate investments of all - investments in his close friend and in other slum landlords who took the public's money and betrayed their trust."

And never once did Obama ask for an investigation as to where that money was really going.  He couldn't because he was in bed with them all.  He didn't know the work wasn't getting done?  Oh please.  I'm in pain knowing half of America will vote for him.  Mostly, because they really don't keep up with all that is in his history or are willing to forgive him for it because they like to be patriotic and pay more at tax time and at the pump.  That's all I can figure.

FEB

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pinoideae

Media Jumped on Pro-Obama Poll, But Was the Sample Screwy?

By Rich Noyes (Bio | Archive)
September 26, 2008 - 12:51 ET

• 
• 

Wednesday morning, ABC News and the Washington Post released a new poll showing Barack Obama leading John McCain by 9 points, 52% to 43%. The next day, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal released a poll showing a much tighter race - 48% for Obama, 46% for McCain.

Any guesses as to which poll excited the press more? And which poll has come under fire for over-sampling Democrats?

ABC, naturally, reported its own poll on Wednesday's Good Morning America, with Diane Sawyer touting at the top of the broadcast: "Breaking news this morning: Barack Obama gains ground in a new ABC News poll, a nine-point lead over John McCain." The on-screen graphic exclaimed: "Obama Surges Ahead"

Chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos was giddy: "Diane, you have to go back to 1948 for the last time when a candidate, having this kind of a lead in late September, lost."

The ABC poll was so thrilling to journalists, it was also part of the political discussion on CBS and NBC that same morning. CBS's Harry Smith confronted Republican Karen Hughes: "We look at brand new poll numbers this morning, nationwide poll numbers, and all of a sudden Barack Obama has jumped out to this nine-point lead."

And NBC's Today made room for their competitors' poll in their news round-up. "The financial crisis is the number one issue concerning voters, according to a new poll out this morning. It shows Barack Obama gaining ground over John McCain in the race for the White House. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has Obama now leading McCain by nine points; two weeks ago in the same poll, McCain had a two-point edge over Obama," newsreader Hoda Kotb told viewers.

As for the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the head-to-head numbers didn't even excite NBC that much. Political Director Chuck Todd went over them in a Wednesday night preview on Nightly News, which did not lead the broadcast but came about 10 minutes into the program.

After going through numbers showing how McCain "was getting clobbered on the economy over these past two weeks," Todd mentioned: "Oh, by the way, we did have a head-to-head number here, this narrow lead for Obama, 48 percent to 46. This is a slight change from our last poll, showing a little drift toward Obama."

The next morning on Today, the discussion of the poll also downplayed the head-to-head match-up, and neither CBS nor ABC were excited enough by the narrow margin to mention any of their competitors findings.

But the ABC poll has come under fire, both from the McCain campaign's pollster Bill McInturff and from Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who worked on the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, for over-sampling Democrats.

As MSNBC's "First Read" blog reported Wednesday morning: "Those identifying as Democrats in the ABC/Washington Post poll outweighed Republican by 16 points, a wider-than-usual number, McInturff said. ‘It's way different than what other pollsters are showing,' McInturff said, citing many polls showing about a four-to-nine point Democratic Party ID advantage."

After the NBC/Journal poll came out, Hart pointed out the same reason to doubt the ABC/Post poll:

The Journal/NBC News poll comes a day after a national poll conducted for the Washington Post and ABC News found Sen. Obama with a nine-point lead. Mr. Hart, the Journal's Democratic pollster, argued that these results were skewed because their sample included a disproportionate number of Democrats. Democrats had a 16-point advantage in the Post/ABC poll, which is considerably higher than most polls have found historically and this year.

The Journal/NBC poll found an eight-point advantage for Democrats.

In a posting to ABC's Web site polling director Gary Langer defended his methodology:

Partisanship is measured by asking if people think of themselves as Democrats, Republicans or independents. That's unleaned party ID. A next step is to ask independents which party they lean toward. That's leaned party ID.

Unleaned party ID is more telling - it's more rooted in actual partisan sentiment; it lets us look separately at independents, the quintessential swing voters; and it's the number that's comparable to what we learn from the exit polls on Election Day.

As noted, unleaned party ID among likely voters in our latest poll is 37-30 percent. Its average since we started following likely voters in June has been about the same, 36-31 percent. Among the broader population of registered voters it's 38-28 percent, exactly matching its 2008 average in ABC/Post polls. Our leaned party ID among registered voters, also as noted, is 54-38 percent. Among likely voters it's 52-41 percent.

The real question is whether the ABC poll that so titillated the media is the first sign of a pro-Obama trend, or merely a stray data point in a statistically-tied horse race. Both ABC/Post and NBC/Journal looked at relatively few voters (780 likely voters and 1085 registered voters, respectively) compared to the big Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls that present a three-day rolling average of 2,700 and 3,000 voters every day.

And those polls have shown no sign of validating the big swing towards Obama that ABC/Post theorized. As of Friday morning, Rasmussen shows a five-point advantage for Obama, while Gallup has them tied at 46% each. The RealClearPolitics average shows a 3.7 percent advantage for Obama - a clear swing from the trend of two weeks ago, but hardly an affirmation of ABC's numbers.

But as the knee-jerk reaction to the ABC News/Washington Post poll shows, the media's interest in individual polls has less to do with an appreciation of their carefulness or exhaustiveness than with their ability to generate a sensational (pro-Obama) storyline.

Hmmm, I have to wonder about another news type that has been exposed for poll fixing in the past.

Paulette531

" mce_src="" alt="" border="" hspace="" vspace="" width="" height="" align="" />My response to the debates...

" mce_src="" alt="" border="" hspace="" vspace="" width="" height="" align="" />

My response to the debates, my yard signs! Behind the one with the picture is one of six piles of debris from Ike. 

Anonymous

I am sick of this bailout being so political.  WSJ  is reporting that ACORN is part of the package. 

Fifty percent of people polled are against this bailout.   Now some pundits on Fox are saying that they think that ACORN will be out of the bill.  We'll see. 

As far as the debate..I call it a draw.  You could certainly tell that Obama was coached.  McCain needs to talk about the future.  I hope your right, Linda, and that he has something up his sleeves in the other debates.  And if they don't leave Palin alone to be herself she's going to screw up.  Like I said in another post...I hope they don't try to "remake" her.  I was then talking about her appearance.  Now I'm talking about her pesonality. 

Why hasn't the media jumped all over Biden's gaffe about Roosevelt on TV in 1929.  Was that a "senior" moment.  Perhaps he was tired.  No one talkes about his aneurysms back in the eighties.

I think it's so funny when Reid was jumping up and down accusing McCain of messing things up by going to Washiington.  McCain did nothing.  LOL  The dems have to blame someone for their failure/s.

Linda, I like you less!  LOL  You need a little bit of meat on those bones.  I would love to get rid of my belly.  That does take work, motivation, and one's mouth being wired. 

suzfive

Shirley - Obama practiced for three days in Florida before the debate - you bet he was coached. The media has not jumped all over Biden for his gaffe on FDR because "It's just Joe"! I know on the other thread ---------------------------> everyone is worried about McCain's health - there is no guarantee that Obama will live another 4-8 years either. He is a smoker. Even though he has supposedly low cholesterol and normal blood pressure - so did my sister who had a heart attack in her 40s. Her only risk factor - she was a smoker. I know his campaign says he is trying to quit but with the pressure of the campaign and presidency I wonder how successful that will be. The media will jump on McCain and Palin if they so much as sneeze and give a free pass to Obama and Biden. Katie Couric was interviewing Biden when he made that gaffe and her facial expression did not change - I don't think she knew who was president when the stock market crashed. My son who is in 6th grade said "Oh my gosh - Hoover was President when the stock market crashed in 1929". Even he knew that FDR was not elected until 1932.

pinoideae

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pinoideae

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saluki

Regarding Biden gaffs--- This is an odd article---I'd be laughing on this take but wonder if there is a kernal of truth---

Make me glad I turned down having this stuff injected into my shoulder to help with my brachialplexapathy.............

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/botox_and_numbskulls.html

pinoideae

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pinoideae

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Daffodil

SNL isn't bothering to lampoon Biden~~~

pinoideae

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anneshirley

I don't post here often and when I do it's never with malicious intent--although I suppose people always say that before they start their criticisms.  But I really do think McCain should drop Palin before the debate with Biden.  I was almost as enthusiastic as you all when he first decided to put a woman on his ticket, but now that I've heard her in interviews I believe she will destroy him, and his reputation.  When I said this to my husband, he said what you all will probably say, how could he do that without looking like a fool.  I think he can, to an extent.  They could appear together and acknowledge that the recent financial crisis, which came to a head after she was picked, make it necessary to have someone on the ticket with very a very strong financial background.  He could then choose Romney (maybe a Bloomberg but I doubt he'd take it).  It's better than going down in flames, I think.

saluki

AnneShirley

I have to think Palin was given a bunch of possible questions by the campaign and told how to answer them.........

I think they should back off and let her rip----Either we will see a confident woman who can think on her feet---or she will crumble.---We need to find out now.  

PS--I for one enjoy when you post over here......A difference of opinion is one thing---candidate bashing, condescension, lies, propaganda and name calling (not by you) is quite another.

pinoideae

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Anonymous

OMGOSH!  I'm listening (as painful as it is) to Pelosi talking about this bailout.  She blamed all of this on BUSH.  She stands up there with Reid, Barney, and Dodd.  How dare she!  And, she said, Reid gets a little impatient and said ENOUGH'S ENOUGH on arguing (I suppose) about the bill.  I guess he shut up everyone!  On the screen it says..eight years of oversight!  Yeah, why didn't they listen to McCain a couple of years ago when the dems shot down the Freddie and Fannie reform!  It's hard to get a loan.  My friend must have wonderful credit because our bank loaned her money for a new car. 

I hate politics!  Oh, Reid really admires Dodd.  Oh, gee, now I have to listen to Barney.  I wonder if I can wind him up and make him dance.  Gosh, now I guess it'll be Dodd's turn.  They act like a republican didn't have a thing to do with this bill.  Good, Dodd's going to be brief!  Very brief (holding breath).  Bless their heart...1:30 in the morning I guess the Speaker ended this..I don't know...and he sad to be here.  Failure to descipline, failure to force..to regulate or whatever.  It's none of the dem's fault.  Oh, SHUT UP ALREADY!  No, I'm not talking to myself.  I'm talking to the TV.  I have a brick somewhere but I can't find it!  Would I go to jail if I hit Dodd with a brick through the tv?  I hope ACORN wasn't added in that bill or I'm going to croak!  The dems have tried that.  Did they get their way.  Yes, I'm going nuts!

Shirley

Anonymous

This is the administrations problem.  We did the best we could.  I wonder how much is added in there?  Its on the internet.  It's been approved in a bi-partisan way. 

50% of the American people are not for this bill.  I've seen the polls on Fox..yes on Fox!!!  One guy said that the reason why they don't want the bill to pass is because we don't understand.  No, I don't understand.

I'm talking to myself.   

Anonymous

Oh, BTW, they want a bipartisan vote.  The dems don't want to be holding the bag by themself.  Geez, they don't want to be blamed for this bill.

The repubs are coming out to speak.  It's so bipartisan that they couldn't come out together.  And their still some who don't want this bill...I'm sure it's the repubs. 

www.speaker.gov

and www.financialservices.house.gov

I think I got that right.  So far those don't work.  I don't know if it's not up yet. 

pinoideae

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saluki

Telling ya Shirley re: Pelosi and Biden's gaffs--I would say its too much Botox!  Its affecting them. LOL   But then, what is Charlie Rangel and Chuck Schumer's excuse?

psalmist

Food...politics...chemo...this is the most hilarious, informative, and offbeat thread I have ever seen.  GREAT reading!!!

Anonymous

Psalmist, we're here for entertainment!  LOL

I think we may just start a "political junkie recipe thread."  Why?  Because we need ONE more political thread. 

Anonymous

Susie, I'll have to think about that..Rangel and Schumer. LOL

Too funny.  Just heard Biden's gaffe again.  However, Kerry is saying that it was just a slip of the tongue.  HOWEVER, if Palin had said such a thing she'd been smeared by every liberal media outlet.  I haven't had time to read the NYT (my favorite media..NOT!).  I heard they've really written some GOODIES about McCain.  ARRGGGHHHHH!