Maybe (NOT!) a Reason to Vote McCain? UPDATED

Clariifcation: This blog entry, with updates, is about McCain's extreme hypocracy relative to the polished turd, known variously as "Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008" or the "Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008", H.R. 3221, which was passed by the Senate on Saturday 7/26/2008. This abomination act provides unlimited Federal backstop to the GSEs ("Fannie Mae" and "Freddie Mac") , among other follies.

Original Post, prior to UPDATE:

From the St. Petersburg Times I see an editorial from Senator John McCain:

Americans should be outraged at the latest sweetheart deal in Washington.
...
Fannie and Freddie are the poster children for a lack of transparency and accountability.
...
We are stuck with the reality that they have grown so large that we must support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through the current rough spell. But if a dime of taxpayer money ends up being directly invested, the management and the board should immediately be replaced, multimillion dollar salaries should be cut, and bonuses and other compensation should be eliminated. They should cease all lobbying activities and drop all payments to outside lobbyists. And taxpayers should be first in line for any repayments.

Even with those terms, sticking Main Street Americans with Wall Street's bill is a shame on Washington. If elected, I'll continue my crusade for the right reform of the institutions: making them go away. I will get real regulation that limits their ability to borrow, shrinks their size until they are no longer a threat to our economy, and privatizes and eliminates their links to the government.

(Yes I'm outraged, and that's without even talking about the tax break for Chrysler and some subsidy for some Canadian railcar manufacturer that somehow got snuck in.)

I'm not sure I get all that "we must support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" stuff, since Freddie and Fannie are both private institutions with no federal gaurantees, see here and here and here.

So I still can't help wondering if we wouldn't be better off putting them in runout mode and letting the stock and bond holders eat shit. It's probably the fastest way to drop house prices back to where they belong, and nothing good can come out of the housing industry until that happens. ("Where they belong" is where the "typical" buyer can afford the "typical" house with conventional financing - I hope to devote a post to this idea soon.)

Because the way I see it, this economy is in for a lot of pain no matter what the government does; that being the case, we would be better off if we came out the other side without monuments to crony-capitalism like FNM or FRE. Or the rating agencies Fitch, S&P, and Moody. Or Hank Paulson - why can't that less-than-worthless piece of crap leave now, while there is still some sort of economy left?

But barring that access of commonsense, McCain is at least moving talking in right direction on this.

UPDATE:

Good thing I said "Maybe"! SHEESH!

McCain couldn't be bothered to vote against this POS - neither he nor Obama could be bothered to vote.

Further:

Both presidential candidates, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), expressed support for the legislation, though neither took a break from the campaign trail to attend yesterday's vote.

"This is not the bill he would have drafted on his own. But it's time for action," McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said.

And also:

When asked about Congress' progress in passing the housing bill, McCain said he would have voted for the legislation.

Message for DipShit McCain: if you as a Senator, think a bill is outrageous, there's something you can do about it: VOTE AGAINST THE THING, moron!

And in the "Damning with Faint Praise" Category....

(This is all over the place on the net, but apparently this (http://freedomsight.net/?page_id=2523) is where you order it.)

And, Yes, I still have no decision on the election.

Oh Noes - Another Election Option!

(The "Orwell/Kafka '08 The Future is Now" graphic is copyrighted by Robert Reed and is available from him as bumper stickers for $5 each. He can be reached at "trebor1415SPAM AT hotmail DOT com" by removing the SPAM).

"We are at war with Sadam Hussein - we've always been at war with Sadam Hussein."

Now THIS is stupid Leftism

Apparently 3/4 of the Democrats in the House thuink that political correctness is more important than properly describing people and organizations which really, really want to kill as many free people as possible.

From the CounterTerrorism Blog we see:

But on July 16, 2008, H.R. 5959 was presented to the full House of Representatives for debate and adoption, including Congressman Hoekstra's amendment to bar the use of intelligence funding for such "terror lexicon" measures. This time the amendment passed by the margin of 249-180 (with 10 abstentions).

Hoekstra's amendment condemned efforts by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), and the State Department to recommend a "terror lexicon" that prohibits use of words such as "Jihad," "jihadist," "Islamist," "mujahadeen," "caliphate," etc. In this amendment, Congressman Hoekstra called for the House of Representatives to prohibit the use of intelligence funding in support of such "terror lexicon" efforts.

The amendment was incorporated in H.R. 5959 as follows:

"None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act may be used to prohibit or discourage the use of the words or phrases 'jihadist', 'jihad', 'Islamo-fascism', 'caliphate', 'Islamist', or 'Islamic terrorist' by or within the intelligence community or the Federal Government."

Thankfully, with the help of 55 Democrats, this utterly sensible outlawing of "political correctness" over self-defense passed. But fully 178 Democrats (and 2 republicans) voted against this.

I am beginning to understand the total contempt in which the Left is held by the Right-wing blogosphere. This should have been unanimously approved - and more to the point, should never have been needed in the first place.

As for the 178, it includes the repulsive Marcy Kaptur, the clueless Carolyn McCarthy (she has no idea what a barrel shroud is, "I believe it is a shoulder thing that goes up", but it must be banned), the Islamic Keith Ellison. But what the hell are Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Rahm Emanuel, and others thinking?

My Election Dilemma - Solved!

Guess what? More Guns = LESS Crime!!!

That is, when you put more guns into the hands of law-abiding citizens, crime goes down.

Note that gun control takes guns out of the hands of the law-abiding; the criminals keep their guns and so, proportionately, gun control inherently gives more power to criminals.

See Gun Facts for well documented and annotated proof of this, and the debunking of many other myths regarding guns and gun control.


"The right of self defence is the first law of nature."
- St. George Tucker, early Constitutional scholar, writing on the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Happy 4th of July.

Daley v World (and common decency)

From ABC news we see:

"I need a handgun in my home," said Chicago resident Colleen Lawson. "It comes down to an issue of life or death."

In fact, Lawson and her husband do own a handgun. But because of Chicago's ban on handguns, it's illegal to keep it in their home. The weapon was locked up outside the city when three men recently broke into their house.

...

Minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.'s gun ban on Thursday, Lawson and her husband joined others in a lawsuit challenging Chicago's gun ordinance, which has been in place since 1982.

Chicago's mayor said changing the law would be disastrous.

"Why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West? You have a gun, and I have a gun. We'll settle it on the streets," Mayor Richard Daley said.

Well, Richie, here's an amazing concept: as a law-abiding, peaceful gun owner, such a thought never occurred to me. We just don't think that way - it's about self-defense when lives are threatened. As much as I despise your complete corruption and hypocrisy on this issue, it never occurred to me to point a gun at you. The fact that it occurred to you appears to be an example of what psychologists call "projection".

But since YOU, the Dishonorable Mayor Daley, brought it up, bring it on! I am ready any time, any place - I am not the best shooter out here, but I'm sure I can out-shoot an ignoramus like you.