AND FOR YOU SPANISH-SPEAKERS AMONG US:

Take a gander at the latest excretions from the Obama campaign. Are you buying?



Translation, via FoxNews:

"They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with, the intolerance," the announcer says in one of the ads as a picture of Limbaugh appears onscreen and the talk show host is quoted saying, “Mexicans are stupid and unqualified” and “Shut your mouth or get out.”

"They made us feel marginalized in a country we love so much,” the announcer continues. “John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote, and another, even worse, that continues the failed policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families.”

Says John Hinderaker (of the Law Firm of Power, Line)

I don't think I've ever seen a more deeply contemptible political ad... In the mainstream media, the last week has been consumed by tut-tutting over the supposed "lies" perpetrated by two McCain ads--which, however, were inconveniently true. It will be interesting to see how liberal pundits react to what must be the most dishonest, racist and hateful campaign ad published in many years.

Dittos.

GET OUT YOUR SHOVELS --
MAJOR TOPSOIL
COMIN' YOUR WAY!!

Remember where you heard it first:
The Sarah Palin Phenomenon is Doomed

Why?

The primary reason why the Palin bubble will burst is that the media will decide that they are bored with her...

The interview with Gibson may be remembered as the first brick being pulled out of the wall. The reviews weren't favorable from the media in the segments when Gibson asked Palin questions about foreign policy...

Gibson, as dignified a newsperson as America has now*, treated Palin fairly and didn't resort to hectoring her with "gotcha" questions, either...

The media aren't the bad guys in the Palin discussion.

Jon Friedman of CBS News says so. So there.

* [sad, but true -- ed. -- all emphases mine]


FINALLY

...light is beginning to be shed upon Barack Obambi's 'Lost Years' of post-law school employment and community organza period. It seems that before he heard the Divine Summons to Chicago's south side, The Chosen One had a hard time getting chosen for employment upon graduating from Columbia. For this we have his own words in the first of his two epic autobiographies, Dreams From My Father.

True enough, we suppose. But a couple of people who worked with him in his early, pre-non-profit days, say his own account of this period of his life, ahem, departs somewhat from the facts as they remember them.
[hat-tip: Sweetness & Light] Read the whole thing and enjoy.

DAVID FREDDOSO has been dropping bits-n-bytes from his new book, The Case Against Obama, about those much-touted 'Daley years'. Bring it on.

John Maki at Windy Citizen reports from deep within Chicago's communities and sets some records straight about what those community organgrinder people (himself included) DO, when they do whatever it is they do.

I can't lie awake too many nights wondering how Barry Obambi misspent his youth. But I do worry about what kind of back-room sell-out he may have been working on with the leadership of Iraq. At the New York Post, Amir Taheri spills the beans on Obama's attempt to play liar's poker with the future of Iraq and with the welfare of American military personnel in order to have the resolution of Iraq's democratic future take place on the watch of the next president (that would be Barry). Check it out.

The Obambi campaign has issued something like a denial, which doesn't in fact deny much of anything about this appalling account. Say again?



NOW ABOUT THAT WALL STREET MELTDOWN:
YOUR PRIMER ON HOW WE GOT HERE

(1) WHAT'S WITH THIS WOMAN AND HER WALLS?


When disaster strikes, up in the skies or down on the streets of New York City, why do we keep finding the fingerprints of this woman, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, all over the mess? A few interesting summaries here, and here.




The Clinton Administration: continuing to make memories all Americans will treasure.


(2) EARLY WARNING SYSTEM -- New York Times, September 11, 2003

"New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae"

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

Read it all here.


(3) AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

Investors Business Daily tells the Rest of the Story:

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

(4) WAS NO ONE WATCHING?

Well, yes. The senior Senator from Arizona.

Congressional Record, May 25, 2006:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. 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 system, and the economy as a whole.

(5) AND HOW DID THIS END?

S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005

Last Action: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.

Status: Dead (emphasis MINE)

It never made it out of committee. Chris Dodd, then the ranking member of the Banking Committee and now its chair, was in the middle of receiving preferential loan treatment from Countrywide Mortgage, one of the companies gaming the system in the credit crisis. Meanwhile, Barack Obama took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the lobbyists McCain mentions in this speech, making him the #2 recipient of Fannie/Freddie money. "Obama in just four years in the Senate raked more contributions from Fannie and Freddie than any other Senator in the last 19 years." [h/t NRO, Mark Hemingway at the Corner.

If you're not so much into reading, watch the exciting climax of this epic drama here:




Makes you kinda go, "Hm-m-m-m."

Just wish this particular Arizona Senator would speak up about what he saw and what he tried to do. Have you forgotten, Johnny Mac? Don't fuel those rumours about senility, PLEEEEZE!.

SEEN IN THIS MORNING'S NATIONAL POST,
AND I'M NOT KIDDING

This photo:


And this caption:

Brad Pitt knows the travails of trying to foster socially responsible consumerism. When the actor had to choose a scent for his new line of environmentally friendly body wash for Kiehl's, he ran into a problem: "Not much biodegrades," he said. "There were only three scents to choose from. I chose aloe."

Brad Pitt -- St. Francis of Ass-hatsy.