Buckeye RINO

My representative to Congress, Democrat Marcy Kaptur, has recently been possessed by an alien puppetmaster from the planet Austere in the galaxy Libertad.  Since this dramatic change, she has voted down a bailout bill that would have socialized our nation’s economy, and has appeared on CNN with, no, not Campbell Brown or one of those anchors in the tank for Obama, but with independent populist Lou Dobbs, talking about reforming Wall Street with zero taxpayer dollars and market solutions!  Who knew?  (I know you can’t believe it, so check out the video clip here.) Note to aliens: Don’t be in any hurry to relinquish your control over my representative to Congress.  I like the new Marcy Kaptur better than the old Marcy Kaptur.

I suppose I shouldn’t be poking fun at her at a time when she’s doing the right thing.

On a more serious note, my parents’ representative to Congress, Bob Latta, was in Seneca County yesterday talking about his views on the bailout bill.  I’m a little bit troubled by the Tiffin Advertiser-Tribune’s account of what Latta said the upside to the bill was.

The $700 billion would not have been allocated all in one lump sum. An initial sum of $250 billion would have been allocated, with another $100 billion later after authorization by the president, and another $350 billion with additional congressional approval.

I like the upside of Marcy Kaptur’s proposal a whole lot better: $0.

Note to Latta:  Even the initial sum of $250 billion is way too much.  I want those billions from AIG and the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailouts back RIGHT NOW!

However, Latta did identify a very ugly downside to the bailout bill.

Latta said the bill would allow the secretary of the treasury to bail out virtually any kind of bad debt: mortgages, student loans, credit card debt, and even car loans.

“They could say we’re going to dump all that credit card junk on the American taxpayers,” Latta said. “That’s scary. How are you going to securitize that?”

Latta said he and many other legislators, including Democrats, were troubled because FDIC leaders were not included in discussions about the bailout.

Latta said a $700 billion bailout would increase the national debt to more than $11 trillion.

OK, so, taking that last fact first, Mr. Latta, do you want to revise your statement about the $250 billion being part of the upside?

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on the bill tonight, but it has been amended since it had been presented in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Senators are expecting that Representatives in the lower House of Congress will like this package better, because there are a few more bells and whistles.  This bothers me to no end, knowing that for the bailout attempt to fail, nearly everybody who was against it last time needs to be against it the next time.

This time, the FDIC, which Latta said wasn’t in the mix before, is now in the mix.

OK.  I can support the change to FDIC if it was a stand-alone bill.  It’s not enough to sway me to support this bailout bill.

This time, tax cuts will be in the mix.  I support tax cuts, but if they are part of this bailout bill, I’ll vote against them.

The fundamental crux of the matter is that this bill gives Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, friend to the Wall Street crooks and enemy of the taxpayer, $250 billion of taxpayer money right up front, and perhaps $700 billion over all (and maybe more, since the precedent has already been set) to bailout whoever he pleases, with no judicial review.  He already acted on behalf of Bear Stearns without getting permission from the American people.  He already acted on behalf of AIG without getting permission from the American people.  He was able to coax Congress into going along with a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  He’s been a crybaby that threw a tantrum to get this latest bailout approved, but it didn’t work.  Now he’s handing out candy to get this bailout approved.  Paulson and his Wall Street cronies have been more manipulative than any spoiled rotten brat I know.  Has it occurred to anyone on Capitol Hill and in the MSM that Paulson has been wrong with every move he makes?  Has it occurred to anyone that on Capitol Hill and in the MSM that Paulson has quietly assured his Wall Street cronies that the fix is in, and that he guaranteed to them that he’ll deliver the goods?  If we want accountability and oversight, it has to start with denying any of this bailout money.  It has to start with not granting additional power to the Secretary of the Treasury.

To our Senators and Representatives on Capitol Hill, I implore you to not pass anything at the present time that includes billions of taxpayer dollars and makes a czar out of the Treasury Secretary.  Start with the Marcy Kaptur plan of $0.  Add my new “Ellis Island” plan.  Have Congressional hearings about the Mike Spence plan.  Don’t pass this socialist takeover with Paulson as head of the Communist Party.

Yes

• Boehner (R)
• Pryce (R)
• Hobson (R)
• Regula (R)
• Wilson (D)
• Ryan (D)
• Space (D)

No

• Tiberi (R)
• Turner (R)
• LaTourette (R)
• Chabot (R)
• Schmidt (R)
• Latta (R)
• Jordan (R)
• Kaptur (D)
• Kucinich (D)
• Sutton (D)

By no means are we out of the woods when it comes to economic crisis.  I’m not cheering the fact that our economy will be rocked severely.

I am happy, though, that I still live in the U.S.A., not the U.S.S.S.A (the United Soviet Socialist States of America).

Congress must still take action, but the message is clear:  Stop the march toward nationalization of our financial sector.  Stop the march toward socialism.

We can regulate.  We can reregulate.  We can stop the fraud and the cheating.  We will be financially in dire straits, but we’ll still be free, and the market will eventually correct itself.

My favorite John Kerry quote (though referring to different circumstances when delivered at the DNC in 2004):  “The future doesn’t belong to fear.  The future belongs to freedom.”

These are excerpts taken from Congressional hearings about the dealings of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae back in 2004.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

Raines characterized housing as a riskless investment asset.  Wow!  That turned out to be dead wrong, but that’s not all this YouTube video reveals.

Why do the Congressional Democrats say that they will only greenlight a $700 billion bailout bill if they’ve got the support of a significant number of Congressional Republicans?  The Democrats are in the majority in both houses, and the U.S. President is siding with them, so why the uproar over the Republican holdouts?

The reason why some Republicans are holding back is because the bailout converts our financial sector from capitalism to socialism, and they don’t believe we should be socialists.  I agree.  I don’t think we should be socialists.  I’m sure Congressional Democrats understand where these Republican holdouts are coming from.

Therefore, if the Congressional Democrats are so certain that these Republican holdouts are in error, and they think they have the correct solution, then they should act on their convictions, just as the Congressional Republican holdouts are acting on their convictions.

The ball really is in the Democrats’ court, but I guess they don’t really want the ball to be in their court.  Why do the Democrats hesitate?  Do they also feel an inner conflict?  If so, then perhaps they’ll have enough of an open mind to consider my question:  Are Americans capitalists or socialists?  What’s your answer?  If the former, then go back to the drawing board and figure out something besides bailing out with the taxpayers’ money.  If the latter, then ACT!!!

I happened to see this AP article by way of Yahoo that says Connecticut Democrat Party leaders want to exile U. S. Senator Joe Lieberman.  It made me laugh.

The G.O.P. is making no such moves against those who endorsed Obama for U.S. President at the Democrat National Convention.  The G.O.P. is more tolerant of diverse opinions.

In Ohio, the Democrats made a move to banish Marc Dann, but they did the right thing because of Dann’s ethical lapses.  No one in Connecticut is accusing Lieberman of promoting a frat house culture within his Senate office.  Apparently, Connecticut Democrats expect their politicians to be mere puppets.  If you can dance without strings, then you don’t qualify to be a Democrat in Connecticut.

One of the Democrats, Audrey Blondin, pushing for a censure resolution against Lieberman said:

“If you have someone who says they’re a Democrat, who is registered as a Democrat and is a national figure supporting a candidate who is opposed to all the ideals and beliefs and positions that we hold as Democrats, he’s diluting — in my opinion — the meaning of our party.”

Oh, no!  The Democrat Party in Connecticut could be diluted!  If left unchecked, the reliably blue state could turn red!  (I wish!)  And Lieberman would be the cause!  (Yeah, I suppose the extreme ideological intolerance by the Democrats as shown by their vilification of Lieberman wouldn’t turn anybody off.)

Go ahead, Connecticut Democrats.  Start an inquisition.  Purge your party of all infidels.  I wouldn’t want you to feel as if your party had become diluted.

I’m talking about the benefits of opening the floodgates of LEGAL immigration.

Let me be very clear at the outset that I support securing our borders, including continuing with construction of the border fence.  Also, those who are in the country illegally ought not to be first in line to receive legal status.  I favor a beefed up Border Patrol and ICE.  Some businesses and the politicians that those businesses own have benefited from an underground labor market that undermines the legitimate labor market.  Those guilty of such should be prosecuted for human trafficking crimes.  I oppose new guest worker programs because we already have provisions in place for temporary work visas and because we have no effective strategy for dealing with those who overstay their temporary guest visas.  Michelle Malkin also makes a connection between illegal immigration and the high-risk-taking on Wall Street that has brought the nation to the brink of a depression, or socialistic taxpayer-financed bailout, or both.

By the way, on the topic of the bailout, I do not favor it.  I don’t want to see a socialization of our economy.  I don’t have confidence that the bailout will avert severe economic shocks.  I think that the House of Representatives passed a bailout measure quickly because all 435 Representatives are up for election at the beginning of November, and they want to delay the day of reckoning until after these incumbents have retained their seats, whereas only about one-third of the Senate is up for election in any given even-numbered year, which is why they are being more deliberative than the House.  I know that without the bailout, the nation would endure severe economic shocks, but I think the American people are rooted in their views of justice and facing the music.  Our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have suffered devastating times through two world wars and the Great Depression, and heroically survived to tell the tale, and so the current generation of Americans have within them the mental toughness to see beyond the current calamity, as many other Americans besides myself are opposed to continued bailouts, especially when the collective price tag reaches above a trillion dollars.  Many of us instinctively know that if the Federal government tried to swallow up whole segments of the private sector in this socialist tsunami that the Federal treasury, itself, would become insolvent, and our government would default in addition to the other economic woes, thus devaluing our currency and destroying the security of government-issued bonds.  Artificial attempts, for purely political purposes, to manage the market corrections that must take place will only prolong the time it will take for recovery to begin, as shown by the Japanese and the financial crisis that enveloped them in the mid 90’s.  I do, however, favor transparency, oversight, accountability, and unambiguous regulations to curb such scandalous financial practices in the future.

How do we recover?  With credit frozen up, with houses for sale with more being foreclosed upon, with business failures and job losses looming, how do we begin to pick up the pieces?  There are many things that the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith economics will put in motion for equilibrium to be restored, but I want to elaborate on expanding legal immigration and how it could help economic recovery.

Think of a river with levees along the riverbanks.  Think of a flood.  The levees will hold for awhile, but levees can be breached when the rivers are swollen enough.  Also, think of the fertility of river bottoms, and the ecosystem within the river.  When a natural river is artificially channeled, the ecosystem of the river is altered.  Though floods can devastate structures, they can also improve the fertility of the soil along the river bottoms.  So do we want to allow flooding from time to time to maintain the fertility of the soil and viability of the stream?  Or do we want protection from flooding devastation?  Innovations in civil engineering in recent years have allowed us to have the best of both worlds, with mechanisms that can limit the risk of devastation, yet allow for nature to run its course some of the time.

For scores of years from the foundation of our country until the very early part of the 20th century, we permitted immigrants to flood our soil, and our nation flourished.  But after a couple of decades into the 20th century, the flood of immigrants was too overwhelming, and we constructed the bulwarks to shut off the flow.  For the better part of a century now, we’ve constricted legal immigration, setting artificial ceilings on who can migrate here from where and for what purpose.  The demand to migrate here, though, has breached our flood control measures.  Therefore, we have standing pools of illegals within our population, and those waters are brackish.  Some of the illegals crossed our borders without papers.  Others came with temporary papers that have since expired.

The underground economy resulting from the presence of illegals has besieged the above-ground economy, as sweatshop work conditions violate human rights, wage levels are eroded, the tax base is eroded, and government outlays for medical care, crime-fighting, and public education have increased.

Those who want to come to the USA through the front door, especially for permanent resident visas, experience delays that can last for years.  A university student from overseas can get a visa in a matter of weeks.  Why does the vetting process for a temporary visa, for example, an F-1 visa for a university student, require much less time than does the vetting process for a permanent visa?  Many of our current population of illegals have overstayed their temporary visas, so, should we have vetted them more carefully before issuing the temporary visa?  Or should we just have better enforcement actions against those who’ve overstayed?  Or should we totally rethink the concept of temporary visas and provide conditionally permanent visas, instead?  The lengthy delays in granting the permanent visas are swelling the ranks of those who never make an attempt to come through the front door in the first place.

I think immigration reform measures should beef up INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, not just the Border Patrol and ICE.  A beefed-up INS can help ICE follow up with those who have overstayed their visas.  A beefed up INS can have an increased capacity for vetting those who apply for visas.  A beefed-up INS can speed up the processing time for immigrants coming through the front door.  A beefed-up INS can handle a larger workload that comes with allowing greater numbers of immigrants.

Let’s open the floodgates to legal immigration, with conditional permanent visas (a visa designed for permanent residency that has conditions which allow for revocation within the first five years).  The flood will fertilize our soil at a time of economic devastation, and within a couple of seasons, we will have a great harvest, recover from the devastation, and, if we choose, close the floodgates again.  The criteria beyond establishing that they are not criminals or terrorists?  Those applying for the permanent resident visas must be able to buy a residence with cash, and they must sign a waiver that they must not apply for government assistance (welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, government student loans–requirement waived for individuals honorably discharged from the U.S. military) within the first five years of residence.  How they earn their living is something we can let them work out on their own so long as they aren’t living off of government assistance and so long as they are in the above-ground economy (working in the underground economy would be just cause for visa revocation and deportation).  Just the fact that they can buy a residence with cash can help our housing market recover during a credit crunch.  The swell of population in the above-ground economy will increase demands for goods and services, further stoking the economy’s recovery, plus our tax base will be expanded.

If some compassionate Hollywood types want to sponsor some immigrants by plunking down cash to get them a house, so be it, so long as the immigrants can make it through the vetting process.

So what do we do about the low demand for homes sitting vacant in Ohio, in Florida, in Michigan, in every state in the country?  Let’s turn on the supply-side spigot by allowing good people from beyond our borders to have a chance at the American dream.  The bursting of the housing bubble is what brought down the entire financial house of cards, so addressing the housing crisis at the bottom-up level can assist with the recovery.  While these new legal immigrants embark upon the American dream, our American nightmare can be speeded toward its conclusion so we can wake up to a new America.

With Obama and Democrats throwing the kitchen sink into the bailout plan, it’s obvious that the bailout is not just for Wall Street or Main Street.  It’s really an attempt to bail the Congress out of DISMAL approval ratings, as Congressional incompetence has been put on display during this crisis.  The MSM usually hides Congressional fumbles, but there’s no way to avoid shining a spotlight now.  The Republicans in Congress that are most ready to jump on the bailout bandwagon are also the Republicans most in need of image makeovers, too.  Senators and Representatives are hoping to score points by all their talk of helping Main Street, but I’m not so sure Main Street is convinced this bailout is about them.  This is a pathetic attempt by Congress to appear to be heroic when they’ve already been exposed as self-dealing schemers whose actions show they want to continue to live their lives of privilege and to dodge responsibility for their abject failures.

In my prior post, I stated that Bob Barr is right.  John McCain and Barack Obama should not appear on the Texas ballot because, according to Texas law, McCain and Obama did not meet the deadline to have their names appear on the ballot.

So I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s possible for John McCain to win without Texas.  I went to the web site for Real Clear Politics, where they have an interactive map so that you can play around with various scenarios.  Just click on a state, and the interactive map will allow you to designate it as McCain, Obama, or toss-up.

Since Bob Barr is not an option, I changed Texas to toss-up, and left it that way.  I assumed Obama had locked up California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.  I also assumed McCain had locked up Alaska, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina (that might be a tall order to even assume that McCain has grabbed onto Missouri and North Carolina).  So the battleground states that I was experimenting with were New Hampshire, Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

If 34 electoral votes from Texas go to Bob Barr, it’s possible that no one would claim a majority of the Electoral College.  If that were to happen, it’s almost certain that Barack Obama would be the next president, because the U.S. House of Representatives votes to choose the president when the Electoral College fails to reach a majority decision.

The number of electoral votes needed to capture a majority of the Electoral College is 270.  McCain needs at least 270.  If McCain ends up with 269 or less, Obama wins.

Playing around with the map, I discovered that it is possible for McCain to win without Texas, but it’s a tall order.  How tall?  McCain would need some big states in his corner, like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, plus at least three, perhaps more, smaller states (McCain would need to cobble together at least 30 more electoral votes from the combination of smaller states with those big four in his pocket).  That’s already a tall order to sweep Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, let alone win the other battlegrounds.

If McCain could pick up Florida plus all the Great Lakes states except for Illinois and New York, he could do it.  That means McCain would have to grab Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in addition to the big four.  If he lost either Minnesota or Wisconsin, he could still win if he managed to pick up Colorado.  If he lost both Minnesota and Wisconsin, he’d have to get Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico all in his corner.  If he lost the smallest of the big ones, Michigan, he’d have to nab Virginia and New Hampshire to replace it.  If he lost Indiana, he’d have to pick up Virginia.  Many envision Obama winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, though.  McCain would have to have Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado in order to counter that.  But if Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are all comfortably in the Obama camp, then New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado are probably also in the Obama column.  Ouch.

You get the picture.  A McCain win without Texas will require some surprises in a few states.  It’s not impossible, but it is daunting.

Go ahead.  Play with the interactive map at Real clear Politics.  You know you want to.

Bob Barr is right.  John McCain and Barack Obama should not be on the ballot in Texas.

The state of Texas has already printed absentee ballots with the names of McCain and Obama on them, even though they failed to meet deadlines imposed by Texas law.

The fact that the ballots already have the names of McCain and Obama on them demonstrates how this will likely turn out in the end:  Barr’s principled stand will be defied by the powers that be in Texas.

Even though I favor McCain, and even though I don’t know how McCain reaches the minimum threshold of 270 electoral votes to become the next president without the 34 electoral votes of Texas (listed as safely in McCain’s camp anywhere you look from any polling source or news organization), I admit that it would be wrong to include the names of McCain and Obama on the Texas ballot.

If I were a Texas voter, I’d be angry at any state legislator that didn’t attempt to remedy the problem in advance.  Texas legislators know (or ought to know) what the election laws are, including the deadlines for getting on the ballot.  They also knew well in advance when the conventions were going to be held.  They had ample opportunity to act in order to accommodate the schedule of the two major parties.  But they did not.

If I were the judge hearing Bob Barr’s case, I’d strike the names of McCain and Obama from the ballot, and not feel sorry for the state legislators that had to put up with the earful that angry voters will be sure to give them.

34 electoral votes for Bob Barr.

But I think we’ll find that judges aren’t immune to politics, and will rule against Barr, which will make me very unhappy with the judges.

But Barr is right.

From the Norwalk Reflector: “Norwalk Furniture is history.”

I’m more concerned about firms like Norwalk Furniture going belly up than I am about Wall Street firms going belly up.  Can you guess why?

A lot is not yet known about this, and I just heard the news headline myself, but if it’s true, I don’t want any more to do with the Democrat party and it’s Big Brother vision of America.

Though I am Republican, I have often engaged in split-ticket voting.

If Palin’s personal e-mail has been hacked, that, to me, is akin to Watergate.