Links and Minifeatures 2008 06 19 Thursday (Three Years!)

Cavalcade of Risk

Do The Right Thing (for everybody)

UC Berkeley professor John Yoo on the Boumediene decision

September 10th thinking and how well it's worked for us so far.

Countrywide mortgage and conflicts of interest

Special loan pricing for influential congresscritters (cost: roughly $150,000) = $2.5 Billion of taxpayer bailout money.

1. What does campaign finance law have to say about this?
2. What does racketeering and corruption law say about this?
3. Is there any indication that the underwriters were directed or pressured to approve these loans from above?
4. Did Countrywide hold these loans themselves, or did they sell them off?
5. Were any of these sweetheart deals defaulted on?

I have a pretty fair idea about the answers to 1 and 2, and people do serious time for those sorts of crimes. The answers to 3, 4, and 5 might indicate much worse crimes.

Q and O has a lot to say about how our energy policy came to be such a mess.

After trashing John McCain for hedging on accepting public financing, Obama opts out.

"It's not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections," Obama told supporters in a video message Thursday. "But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system."

That's right, blame your opponent for the 3:1 fundraising advantage you enjoy and decided to take full advantage of. "Oh, my opponent is so evil for raising fully one third of what I have raised."

I find this whole stance more than a little two-faced. Note to Senator Obama: You're not legally required to accept any money.

Barack Obama said Thursday he'll bypass the federal public financing system in the general election, abandoning an earlier commitment to take the money if his Republican rival did as well.

Note to voters: John McCain has not yet committed one way or another. Suppose Senator McCain accepts public financing? Would there be any doubt who would be more beholden to special interests?

And we've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations," Obama said.

Says the man benefiting from George Soros' and his sock puppets. From Open Secrets we find that the vast majority of the 527 money is going to the Democrats.

Democracy 21 has a list of press releases concerning illegal campaign activities of those 527s.

So who looks to be playing this election fair, and who looks to be trying to buy it?

While we're on the subject of Obama, can you believe this level of stupidity and/or pandering?

Obama promises "bottom-up" economic growth

The economy is not working the way it should be, and that's going to be the goal of an Obama presidency - to make sure we've got bottom-up economic growth instead of the kind of tired, worn-out, trickle-down ideologies we've been seeing for so many years

There's a reason most growth is trickle down: It takes money to invest in major new business. Actually, the upfront investment right now is smaller than it has ever been in terms of the average person's earning power. Still, you've got to have some reasonably significant assets in order to fund a business.

Government programs aren't going to help this. How is Joe Ditchdigger supposed to bid on an interstate project? He's not. The assets and ability to build a half mile of interstate - or even just one freeway onramp - are so far beyond Joe as to render any attempt pointless. The small, individual stuff is called, "public assistance," and it doesn't help, either. Lowering taxes, lowering barriers to growth, coming up with loan programs that help people start small businesses - that's the way you help small people start. But the number of folks who become well off working for someone else is pretty much fixed by how many people have managed to start a small business and make it into a big business. The best way to become relatively wealthy always has been, is, and always will be owning your own business.

You don't make union members (which is who he was speaking to) wealthy through government action. The only way to help the union members is to help their employers make a bigger profit, which enables them to pay their workers more next contract time.

The whole concept is either mind-bogglingly stupid, promising something he knows he can't deliver, or possibly both.

Neither of these is a reason to vote for him. Quite the opposite, in fact.

FYI, today marks three years that Searchlight Crusade has been going.

Break out the Mongolian Birthday Chant!

(They do have some of the stanzas wrong, but it gets the point across)

I started on Father's Day, but today is the calendar anniversary