Copyright Information
All original content is
copyright © 2008-2010
Michael T. Barrett
All other material and brand or product names are copyright and/or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
E-Mail sent to any michaeltbarrett.com address, or the feedback address listed at the top of the page, may be considered for publication unless the recipient is expressly notified otherwise.
Oct
14
The Indictable Barack Obama?
Category: Politics | 4 Comments | 787 words | Print
The following information may come as a complete shock to you, especially if you don’t normally pay attention to blogs and rely solely on the mainstream media for your daily dose of politics. Then again, if you relied solely on the MSM, you wouldn’t be reading this right now, would you?
Four months ago, Tony Rezko, a political fundraiser, restauranteur, and real estate developer in Chicago, was convicted on several counts of fraud and bribery. Tony Rezko is heavily involved in Chicago politics and was instrumental in the campaigns of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Senator Barack Obama. If you have followed political news at all, I am sure you have heard Rezko’s name mentioned in the same sentence with Barack Obama’s more than a time or two.
Rezko has had numerous troubles with the law, and it seems now that he has been convicted he has decided to start singing to the federal authorities in hopes of a lighter sentence. It’s obvious that Rezko knows a lot of secrets within Chicago politics and apparently the information he has is pretty good. If the information he had didn’t contain red meat, I don’t think the feds would be wasting their time sitting down with him. He’s already been convicted, why should they cut him a deal now?
PUMA Pundit has a complete rundown of the information on Rezko’s ties to Broadway Bank and how Barack Obama’s name is connected to Rezko in more ways than one.
Oct
13
A Safe Haven For Irresponsibility
Category: Opinions | 2 Comments | 773 words | Print
Back in August I wrote about the state of Nebraska’s new “safe haven” law that made it legal for parents to abandon their unwanted children at hospitals with no questions asked. I also pointed out that the Nebraska law made it legal to abandon any child under the age of 19.
I was quite sarcastic in that post, pointing out a possible scenario for abandoning a child:
So the next time you come home to find that your 15 year old ate all of the Hostess Twinkies, don’t smack him upside his head, just haul his ass up to your closest hospital and be done with the little bastard. It’s all about you man. Those are your Twinkies!
It turns out, I wasn’t too far from the truth. Quite a few parents who seem to be having trouble “controlling” their children are turning them over to the state and not all of them are from Nebraska.
On October 7th a 14-year-old girl from Council Bluffs, Iowa was driven across the bridge and abandoned. Then today, a woman from Michigan drove 12 hours just to abandon her 13-year-old son too.
Oct
12
The Warning Signs Were There
Category: Economics | 2 Comments | 908 words | Print
Tell the truth now. Did you know there was trouble brewing in the housing market? Did you see the coming economic storm? We’re you shocked when not-so-smart people in our government started espousing the need to ‘bailout’ certain financial companies? Seriously?
The signs have been there for a couple of years. If you’re one to keep your head in the sand (like many politicians on the House Financial Services Committee) you might not have seen those signs, but for those of us who happen to have more than a pea for a brain, we saw the signs. We knew it was just a matter of time before lending institutions would begin to crumble, and now it has happened.
Financial institutions are crumbling and it’s all because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have imploded. Maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so bad if Fannie and Freddie were not required to purchase all of those bad loans in the first place. Then again, things could be much worse. The American people could lay blame on Congress, where it belongs, because they failed to take action that could have prevented this whole mess.
Read more
Oct
11
The Muddy Branchflower Report
Category: Politics | 2 Comments | 655 words | Print
Soon after John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate, we learned of the “Troopergate” scandal. Sarah Palin’s sister went through a messy divorce, and her ex-husband had threatened to kill Palin’s father, drank alcohol in his patrol car, and tasered their 10-year-old son. There is no doubt that he should have been removed from his job, but apparently people were questioning whether or not Sarah Palin, as governor of Alaska, should have been pushing for his removal.
Sarah Palin, herself, asked for a full investigation into the matter, and I am glad she did. In doing so, she brought to light the facts about her former brother-in-law, she brought to light the partisan nature of witch-hunts in Alaska, and most of all she brought to light the fact that she did nothing improper or unlawful when she fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.
Stephen Branchflower was contracted by the Alaska Legislative Council to investigate the matter and issue a report, including recommendations, for action by the Legislature. He released his report on Friday. The full report is available here on 101 Dead Armadillos.
Oct
10
Here we are, one week since the “Great BailOut of 2008″. It’s been one week since some members of Congress stood up and said they thought the items in the bill were a bad idea but they were voting for it anyway. It’s been one week since others told us this was the best thing to do for our country.
Leading up to the bailout we were reassured that it would:
a) restore confidence in the credit industry
b) stabilize the market
c) save us from even greater financial ruin
In the past week, there has been anything but confidence in the credit industry, the market is far from stabile, and retirement plans have lost trillions of dollars. Let’s review the market activity of the past week.
Oct
9
How much do you know about Barack Obama? Do you feel you know all there is to know about him or are there questions left unanswered? Well, one of those unanswered questions has been answered. Barack Obama was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Now, now, before you leave in a huff, take a look at the proof. The documentation in question is not posted on some “right-wing” conservative site, it’s sitting on the website for the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America website. It’s not hearsay, it’s not some sort of “swift-boat” attack. Barack Obama was a member of the Chicago New Party which was affiliation of the DSA. It’s the truth, and you need to hear it before you vote.
Oct
8
Something is wrong with Barney Frank. I’ve suspected for years now that he’s not all there. I don’t know if it has something to do with serving in the House as long as he has, or not, but he’s just not right.
As the discussion of a possible bailout started circulating Washington, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who just happens to be the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was “instrumental” in working to amend the plan so it had a chance of passing on the Hill.
The question is, why would the man who holds a large part of the responsibility for this mess in the first place be allowed to participate in the negotiations for fixing it? It doesn’t make sense. He spent years blocking all attempts to increase oversight at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He spent years working against the best interest of his constituents, his party, and his country.
Oct
7
Do you remember last week, when the U.S. House of Representatives failed to pass the $700 billion bailout and the Dow Jones dropped 777 points?
A whole lot of people, including President Bush, Treasury Secretary Paulson, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told us we needed a bailout bill and we needed it as soon as possible. They said if the bailout bill did not pass, we would be facing a certain financial downfall in our country.
The Senate added the contents from another bill, to make it more appealing for some members, and they passed the bill by an overwhelming margin on Wednesday. Fast-forward to Friday, when the U.S. House passed the revised measure and we were reassured by President Bush, Treasury Secretary Paulson, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others who told us they had done the right thing. Some didn’t like it, but it was the right thing to do for our country.
Oct
6
Last week, the sky was falling. Congress had to hurry and send any bailout bill to the President’s desk for his signature. Remember. It was mission critical. Without the bailout bill, the economy (ours and the entire world economy) could come crashing down at any moment.
On Friday, enough members of the House of Representatives capitulated and the bailout bill passed. So everything is okay now, right? We’re good to go, yes?
Here are some of the pertinent ‘breaking news’ items I have received from BreakingNewsOn in the past four hours:
AP: President’s top advisers say financial markets remain “extremely strained.”
about 4 hours agoAP: President’s top economic advisers pledge to work globally on financial crisis.
about 4 hours agoBRAZIL STOCKS PLUNGE MORE THAN 10 PERCENT; US MARKETS OPEN. DETAILS SOON.
about 3 hours agoDOW JONES FALLS NEARLY 300 POINTS IN FIRST MINUTE OF TRADING. DETAILS SOON.
about 3 hours agoAP: Official: Treasury assistant secretary to be tapped as interim head of $700 billion rescue.
about 3 hours agoDOW JONES INDUSTRIALS INDEX FALLS BELOW 10,000 POINTS AS GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS WORSENS DESPITE $700 BILLION BAILOUT. DETAILS SOON.
about 2 hours agoThe Dow Jones has fallen 340 points, putting the index below the 10,000 mark for the first time since 2004; Nasdaq composite plunges 4%.
about 2 hours agoThe Dow Jones Industrials has fallen 360 points as the Federal Reserve announces $150 billion in 85-day credit through auction facilities.
about 2 hours agoDOW JONES INDUSTRIALS FALLS MORE THAN 400 POINTS. DETAILS SOON.
about 2 hours agoEurope’s Stoxx 600 falls more than 7%, its biggest drop since 1987, Bloomberg TV reports.
about 2 hours agoDOW JONES INDUSTRIALS FALLS MORE THAN 500 POINTS. DETAILS SOON.
about 2 hours agoThe Dow Jones Industrials has fallen more than 570 points in another dramatic day on Wall Street; index now below 9,800 total.
about 2 hours agoAP: EU presidency says all 27 members pledge “necessary measures” to ensure financial stability.
about 2 hours agoBRAZILIAN SHARES PLUNGE MORE THAN 15 PERCENT. DETAILS SOON.
about 2 hours agoAs the financial crisis worsens across the world, the Toronto stock market (TSX) has tumbled more than 1,060 points (about 10%).
about 1 hour agoArgentina’s Merval stocks plummet about 10.83% to 1.348,77 points; Dow Jones now down 460+ points.
about 1 hour agoAP: The Icelandic government says it will guarantee all domestic savings deposits.
about 1 hour agoAP: France’s CAC-40 share index down more than 8 percentage points near end of trading.
about 1 hour agoAP: President Bush says “it’s going to take awhile” for the financial rescue plan to work.
29 minutes ago
What? On Friday we were told that a vote for the bailout bill would prevent this very thing from happening? What does he mean “it’s going to take a while?” What does that mean? Does that mean the market is still going to crash? Does that mean that even with the bailout bill nothing is going to change? Wow. Then, after following all of the news today, I read the following article from James Doran in The Observer.
Fears are mounting that many Wall Street banks and financial firms will refuse to participate in the US government’s $700bn bail-out package, leaving global markets and world economies in a perilous state for months to come.
‘There is a growing feeling that banks … might instead decide to tough it out,’ said Thomas Caldwell, chairman and CEO of Caldwell Financial, a $1bn-plus fund manager.
Now the banks are going to tough it out? You mean they didn’t ‘need’ the bailout? Wow. I thought our Senators and Representatives spent the past week telling us how bad the banks needed this to help “main street” America.
Were they wrong?
Oct
5
Imagine for a moment that a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives sitting on the House Banking Committee which had jurisdiction over Fannie Mae had a wife who served in a high level positon at Fannie Mae.
Would the shit hit the fan or what? Democrats would be calling for him to step down from the banking committee and calling for a a probe into his ethical conduct while serving on that committee.
But what if the same thing happened, but it was Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) involved with the executive at Fannie Mae?
Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.
So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank’s relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. “He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
That’s right. Nothing was done. Nothing at all. Read the entire article to read how Frank blocked all attempts at imposing new regulation on Fannie while his lover was working there. Read the entire article to read how far Frank’s fingers are into this entire mess facing us today.