Update: As of Monday, the House has rejected the bailout. Stocks are going down, down, down ...

Ramstad, the U.S. Rep. for the Third District voted "No" on the bailout

Here's how the Minnnesota contingent voted:
Bachmann: No
Ellison: Aye
Kline: Aye
McCollum: Aye
Oberstar: Aye
Peterson: No
Walz: No

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml

"Congress should adopt the plan to insure mortgage-backed securities through payment of insurance premiums by the holders of these assets."

No doubt the meaning of this statement is perfectly plain, but would someone mind helping me to get it? What insurance plan is referred to here? Wasn't it PART of the $7x10^11 bailout plan? Is there going to be a separate bill for just the insurance component? When is THAT going to be voted upon? After the credit markets freeze up?

And what the heck IS insurance on a mortgage-backed security? What exactly would it do for the holder? Guarantee that the security would not dip below a certain value? What value would that be??? Isn't the problem that holders of such assets can't SELL them? How does insuring them help them to be sold? Will buyers of such securities have to purchase their own insurance on them? How much will payouts to insurance claims likely cost the government under this plan? With the outright purchase of the risky securities, wasn't there at least the theoretical possibility that a profit could be made on the investment? How will the same be possible with an insurance plan? Will an insurance plan guarantee that we taxpayers will never recoup the cost of payouts to insurance claimants?

Forbes offers some more explanation about where that $700 billion comes from:

http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/09/24/bailout-paulson-congress-biz-b...

Barack is Arab?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/06/obama-birth.html

I found this interesting.

Barack Obama is not even legally a black American. He only has one black great-great-grandmother on his father's side while the other 7 were Arab.

That makes him 50% white, 43.75% Arab, and 6.25% black. 12.5% is the minimum required to legally claim any racial status in America.

Obama would quallify as the first Arab-American president, NOT the first black president. That is why they keep saying "African-American" and NOT black because they know he is African Arab and not African black.

Of course the little black-lie will be told over, and over, and over again and he will rely on those eigth-grade educations he recently reffered to his black supporters as having to get them to buy it.

Remember, this is A POST from a blog in the LA Times. I cannot factually say whether it is correct. One needs to perform their own research.

Biden’s mouth doesn’t know what Obama’s is saying

The CLOWN strikes again.

Previously I had written about how Obama doesn’t seem to have control of his campaign staff, and how this could serve to be a recipe for disaster in his presidency. Well it gets worse. Obama’s VP pick Joe Biden is renowned for putting his foot in his mouth, and over the recent days, he has shown he has little knowledge of policy stances of his running mate. Listen to these statements…
AUWAERTER: Senator, Senator, wind and solar are flourishing here in Ohio, so why are you supporting clean coal?

BIDEN: Say that again? I didn’t hear what you said.

AUWAERTER: Wind and solar are flourishing here in Ohio, so why are you supporting clean coal?

BIDEN: We’re not supporting “clean coal.” Guess what. China’s building two every week. Two dirty coal plants. And it’s polluting the United States. It’s causing people to die.

AUWAERTER: So will you support wind and solar?

BIDEN: Absolutely. Before anybody did. The first guy to introduce a global warming bill is me, 22 years ago. The first guy to support solar energy is me, 26 years ago. It came out of Delaware. But guess what. China is burning three hundred years of bad coal unless we figure out how to clean their coal up. Because it’s going to ruin your lungs and there’s nothing we can do about it. No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them over there make ‘em clean because they’re killing you.

These statement’s contrast directly with the campaign’s official policy.

Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology.
Obama’s Department of Energy will enter into public private partnerships to develop five “first-of-a-kind” commercial scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology.

Obviously the campaign has gone into damage control, but is showing uncomfortable squirming in trying to spin Biden’s comments.

“Senator McCain knows that Senator Obama and Senator Biden support clean coal technology,” says Biden spokesman David Wade. “Senator Biden’s point is that China is building coal plants with outdated technology every day, and the United States needs to lead by developing clean coal technologies. The Obama-Biden comprehensive energy plan will invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean energy technologies, including incentives to accelerate private sector investment in commercial scale zero-carbon coal facilities. The Obama-Biden Department of Energy is committed to developing 5 ‘first-of-a-kind’ commercial scale coal-fired plants with carbon capture and sequestration here in the United States.”

Well yes, we can all go on to your website and read your policy. The question is did Biden get the memo to go to his running mate’s website and read it for himself?

The problem with their campaign is that consistency of their message is all screwed up. Which mouth do we listen to? It is true that Obama can afford to put forward opposing statements, as many Democrats are willing to project there own hopes onto the Democratic campaigners, believing what they want to. So people can believe whichever policy line they fancy, even when presented with the direct contradiction. Are they mixing their message for political expediency? Did Biden lie to Auwaerter, simply to appease her because he wanted her to feel that he was “on her side”? That will not matter, even though at the bottom of it all, is a lie that the Obama campaign cannot spin no matter how they try. Their followers will dismiss the ‘gaffe’ and cast their vote thinking they will get THEIR man.

An interesting excerpt from the book MEET THE NEXT PRESIDENT by Bill Samon discusses the comment by Barack Obama in his 2006 memoir, The Audacity of Hope, likening Obama to the ‘ultimate Rorschach test’. (What is a Rorschach test?)

“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views”
http://sadimtouch.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/bidens-mouth-doesnt-know-what...

Obama underground
Founding Brothers
What’s behind Obama’s early rise?

By Stanley Kurtz

New evidence strongly suggests that Barack Obama has been less than forthcoming about the role that unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers may have played in choosing him to lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, I have obtained an e-mail message from former CAC executive director, Ken Rolling, to Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett, two of CAC’s three co-founders. Bill Ayers was the third founder. In Rolling’s message, sent the morning after I first requested access to CAC records housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he admits to avoiding a reporter’s inquiries about who picked Obama to head CAC. Rolling also appears to prime Chapman and Hallett to avoid telling the press the whole story of how Obama was chosen, and provides them with an apparently incomplete story to use instead. Although it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions from this evidence, it does raise serious questions about Barack Obama’s own account of the process by which he was chosen as CAC board chair.
My FOIA request to UIC yielded several documents, most of which had already been provided to University of Chicago law student Jason Wilcox through an earlier FOIA request. The documents produced by the Wilcox request have been described and discussed in detail by Steve Diamond at his “Global Labor and Politics” blog.

Important new information has also been added by a story in the Chicago Tribune.

Based on all of this material, let’s reconstruct what happened behind the scenes, beginning on August 11, 2008, the day I first contacted UIC requesting access to the CAC archives.

First Contact
In “Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown?” I tell the story of how UIC’s Richard J. Daley Library reversed its initial decision to allow me access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The Chicago Tribune has since revealed that I was barred from the collection following an August 11 call to UIC from former CAC executive director, Ken Rolling. In the Tribune story, Rolling appears to claim that contact with UIC came at his own initiative. Steve Diamond questioned Tribune reporters further on this issue, and was told that Rolling claimed to have unilaterally contacted UIC library on August 11, after seeing reports about CAC on the Internet at about that time.

Yet August 11 happens to be the day I first contacted UIC’s Daley Library requesting to see the CAC archive. How likely is it that Rolling called UIC requesting that the documents be restricted on the same day, purely by coincidence? It seems far more likely that some as-yet-unidentified person at UIC tipped Rolling off to my request, prompting his demand that the records be embargoed.

In any case, we know that on August 11, the same day I asked to see the CAC records, Rolling quietly called on the library to close them to the public. Thus, on August 13, I was told by Special Collections head, Ann Weller: “The donor of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Records has alerted us to the fact that we do not have a signed deed of gift. We do not have the legal right to make the material available. The donor is working with us to resolve this issue and we hope to be able to provide access within the next few weeks.” We know from several documents released by UIC that Rolling presented himself as the “donor” of the CAC records.

It therefore appears that as soon as I contacted UIC asking to see the CAC archive, Rolling moved to block my access, claiming “donor” status, and providing UIC with a legal reason to close the records. Steve Diamond makes a powerful case that none of Rolling’s arguments hold legal water. With CAC defunct since early 2002, CAC as an institution and Rolling as its former head had no standing to assert themselves. It appears from at least one of Rolling’s e-mail messages that he also tried to assert himself, individually, as “the donor,” a status that he never held. Moreover, no deed of gift is needed to transfer ownership of the records. Physical transfer suffices. If Diamond is right, then in supplying UIC Library with a bogus legal argument about the need for a signed deed of gift, Rolling was not only moving to bar me from the records, he was also laying the groundwork for removing the documents from the library and taking them into his own possession. This is confirmed by an August 19 radio interview in which a UIC spokesman said that if a signed agreement could not be obtained, “we’ll simply return the materials to the owner.”
So on August 11, the same day I first contacted UIC, Rolling (perhaps after being tipped off by an as-yet-unknown UIC contact) offered the university a highly questionable set of legal claims, which not only served to block my access to the CAC records but also began to build a case for a complete withdrawal of the records from university control. And now, as a result of my recent FOIA request, we know that on August 12, Rolling made a second important move.

Avoiding a Question
At 9:07 A.M. on the day after I first contacted UIC library in search of the CAC records, Rolling e-mailed Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett, who, along with Bill Ayers, founded CAC. (Warren Chapman is now UIC vice chancellor for external affairs, and this UIC connection explains how my FOIA request was able to capture Rolling’s e-mail.) I present the text of Rolling’s message, headed, “New York Times story: CAC,” in its entirety here:

Anne and Warren:

I gave your contact info to Sam Dillon, Education Reporter for the NYTimes who is doing a story on McCain vs. Obama’s education platform (McCain has a one-pager; Obama has a 17 page, 10-point platform). Dillon was sent to me from the Obama campaign to discuss Barack’s role in the Annenberg Challenge. – I have spent at least 4 hours in interviews with Sam Dillon who is trying to understand everything he can about the Challenge to see where Barack’s experience with it influenced his education reform views or where Barack had influence on education policy and/or practice during those years. Sam is pretty thorough in his questions and one question or response leads to many other things he is interested in learning about the Challenge. – The Challenge is just one phase of Barack’s ‘education interests’ that Dillon is exploring. He’s also trying to learn about Barack’s community organizing days and how education reform was part of them.

Sam would like to talk with either or both of your to understand how the “ad hoc group” you two and Bill Ayers lead [sic], aarived [sic] at the structure of the founding board and the Collaborative. He is trying to understand how Barack got “picked” for the CAC board, by whom, why, etc. – I have avoided that question head-on though I believe Barack was Debbie Leff’s/Joyce nomination.

I think the article will be friendly and is truly looking to see the influences on or by Barack re: education/school reform in Chicago, ete. [sic]

Let me know if you talk to Dillon?

All the best.

Ken

While I am not offering definitive conclusions about this letter here, I’ll present what I think is the most plausible reading. Readers can decide for themselves whether I’m right.
The day after he blocked my access to the CAC records, Rolling wrote an early morning letter to Ayers’s CAC co-founders, directing them to a New York Times reporter he believed to be friendly. Rolling’s message included what appear to be subtle instructions on how to handle the matter of Obama’s choice to be head of CAC. This suggests that Rolling was trying to preemptively shape the public story of Obama, Ayers, and CAC, before I or others could investigate the issue.

The most interesting part of the letter is Rolling’s admission that in the face of a reporter’s interest in the question of who picked Obama to head the CAC board, he (Rolling) “avoided that question head-on.” Why should Rolling avoid the question of who chose Obama for the CAC board, especially with a reporter he deems friendly? Could Rolling have something to hide? And by making the point, is Rolling subtly suggesting to Chapman and Hallett that they, too, should avoid the question of who picked Obama to head CAC?

Right after Rolling confessed to avoiding the issue of who chose Obama for the CAC board, he said, “I believe Barack was Debbie Leff’s/Joyce nomination.” That is what the Obama campaign has said in response to my own inquiries. But if Joyce Foundation president Deborah Leff was responsible for elevating Obama to the chairmanship of CAC, why “avoid the question head-on?” Why not just tell the reporter about Leff? Rolling’s behavior strongly suggests that, whatever Leff’s role in Obama’s hiring, it is far from the whole story. Rolling appears to be supplying Chapman and Hallett with the Leff answer as the best available option if the question of Obama’s appointment becomes unavoidable. But Rolling’s underlying message seems to be to avoid the issue of who chose Obama altogether, if possible.

Once you see that Rolling is avoiding the issue of who appointed Obama as CAC head, the rest of the letter reads like a anxious warning. When Rolling says that, “Sam is pretty thorough in his questions and one question or response leads to many other things,” he appears to be warning Chapman and Hallett about the can of worms they could be getting into when questioned by this reporter, if they’re not careful. In context, Rolling’s request to be informed if Chapman or Hallett do talk to the reporter comes off as eagerness to control a dangerous story, and perhaps to get information about what’s happening to the Obama campaign. (Recall that the Obama campaign first sent the New York Times reporter to Rolling.)

Questions to Press
While Rolling’s letter raises more questions than answers, it seems clear that we’re not being told the whole truth about who chose Obama to lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. In particular, the Obama campaign’s claim that Deborah Leff and Patricia Graham may have put forward Obama’s nomination can no longer be taken as the last word on the subject. The Rolling letter strongly suggests that Obama and his allies are not being fully forthcoming on this issue, quite possibly in an attempt to disguise the fact the Bill Ayers had a substantial role in elevating Barack Obama to the chairmanship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. More generally, in the immediate wake of my attempt to gain access to the CAC records, Rolling appears to have been maneuvering, both to block my access, and to make sure that the full story of who chose Obama as CAC head would not come out.

Given the Rolling letter, here are some questions that need to be asked:

1. Why did Ken Rolling contact UIC on August 11, 2008? Was he tipped off to my inquiry on the same day by someone at UIC? If so, who?

2. Was Ken Rolling in touch with anyone in the Obama campaign on August 11, or shortly thereafter. Has Rolling been in touch with Bill Ayers since August 11? Has the Obama campaign been in touch with any of the CAC founders, Chapman, Hallett, or Ayers, since August 11? In other words, has the Obama campaign been working through Rolling or the other CAC founders, including Ayers, to help manage this story?

3. What is the full story of Obama’s elevation to the chairmanship of CAC, and what role did Bill Ayers play in the choice of Obama?

4. Did Obama and Ayers know one another prior to their time at CAC?

The Obama campaign’s initial response to this issue notwithstanding, the question of how a young and inexperienced lawyer like Obama was chosen to head a foundation created by Bill Ayers in 1995 is still very much open. Ken Rolling, Warren Chapman, Anne Hallett, and indeed, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers must now provide some answers.

— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTM4ZmU1NGFkODJlMjhmYjkxMjg4Y2Q0NTV...