Rep. Brad Sherman: Congress Threatened with Martial Law over Bailout

Rep. Brad Sherman:
Congress Threatened with Martial Law
If Bailout Bill Not Passed
Mainstream Media Mum

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A Democrat congressman makes a claim that was televised on C-SPAN that some congressmen were told that if the bailout bill wasn't passed, there would be "martial law in America"--and the Mainstream Media is silent.


"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."
--Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) on C-SPAN





A C-SPAN video of Rep. Brad Sherman speaking to Congress during the bailout bill. Sherman rightly says that "creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere" was in play. After seeing this video, an attempt was made to find out more about Sherman's claim.

Googling was little help.

The Washington Post ran a story October 2 which claimed that Sherman was "spectacularly unpopular" with Democrat and Republican House leadership over his opposition to the bailout bill.

If the House of Representatives was a playground, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) might be most likely to get beat up.

Sherman, who led the House revolt against the bailout bill this week (and will do so again on Friday), has become spectacularly unpopular with both the Republican and Democratic leaderships, not to mention K Street.

Lobbyists and House aides were gossiping this week that House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) angrily told the more diminutive Sherman in front of his colleagues at a Democratic caucus meeting last week to "shut up and sit down."

On the martial law theme, there were a few articles mentioning "a little-noticed story...a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team."

A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well.

It's disturbing that no rebuttal or confirmation of Sherman's claim has been offered.

It's even more disturbing that no Mainstream Media news organization has investigated the scary claim in Sherman's speech.

Perhaps they were too busy hyping the "Financial Meltdown" and shilling for the bailout.


by Mondo
hat tip: Ernest Hancock, Freedom's Phoenix
image: wikimedia

Illegal Immigrantion Video: Illegal Immigration and the Bailout

Illegal Immigration and the Bailout
One More Story you Won't see at MSNBC, CNN, CBS, Time, Newsweek, et.al.



This week's Blogs4Borders' video report takes a look at the connection between illegal immigrants and the massive proposed $700 billion bailout--defeated yesterday in the House of Representatives.

Vigilance Dispatch: Everyone is talking about the massive bailouts. How has illegal immigration fed into the financial crisis that Washington plans to fix using our taxpayer dollars?

Michelle Malkin addressed this very issue last week in "Kill the bailout: Illegal immigration and the mortgage mess": it is "the bailout angle no one wants to talk about: Open borders and the home loan debacle."

You’ve heard a lot about Fannie/Freddie and the minority lending shakedowns, but you haven’t heard most commentators/analysts on either the left or the right talk about the massive illegal alien mortgage racket — a topic I’ve reported on for the past five years. That’s because fault lies at the feet of the crime-enabling banking industry and the ethnic lobbyists and the illegal alien-enabling Bush administration.

They screwed us. Now, they want us to fork over a trillion dollars.

Screw them.

Kill this bailout.

And I second Mark Krikorian: Credit is not a civil right. It’s not a civil right for illegal aliens. For foreign banks. For American banks. For anyone. The bailout proposal, as I noted earlier, now includes student loans and auto loan debt. Will our tax dollars next cover foreign student loan debts? Illegal alien in-state discounted college tuition debt? Where and when will it end?

It's all about buying votes.

Democrats, as the party of a wide collection of special interests, are accomplished masters at the tactic. President Bush, with his Prescription Drug Benefits; and Republicans senators and congressmen--with their EarmarkMania--horned in on the racket.

It was one of Bush's singular failures. Republicans lost their majorities in Congress, at least partially, because of it. The Republican Party is home to a sizable constituency that sees securing votes at the the public expense as wrong.

Little wonder you hear little of this among a Mainstream Media anxious to throw more taxpayers' logs on the financial fire.


by Mondo
image: Atlas Shrugged

Obama, Dodd Received Nearly Quarter-Million From Freddie, Fannie

Received Nearly Half-Million Dollars
From Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae:
Dodd, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, Kanjorski



Dodd, Obama got nearly a quarter-million dollars from Freddie, Fannie


It's like sending the foxes to fix the hole in the chicken coop.

Senators Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, among others, have stepped up to "fix" the financial crisis, brought on in large part by the implosion of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Dodd and Obama were two of the three largest recipients of Freddie-Fannie campaign contributions.


It's like sending the foxes to fix the hole in the chicken coop.

Senators Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, among others, have stepped up to "fix" the financial crisis, brought on in large part by the implosion of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Dodd and Obama were two of the three largest recipients of Freddie-Fannie campaign contributions.




The Freddie-Fannie Five

1. Sen. Dodd, Christopher J (D-CT) - $133,900
2. Sen. Kerry, John (D-MA) -- $111,000
3. Sen. Obama, Barack (D-IL) - $105,849
4. Sen. Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) - $75,550
5. Rep. Kanjorski, Paul E (D-PA) - $65,500


The top five received nearly one-half million dollars from the FMx2. Dodd and Obama received almost a quarter million from the failed quasi-government agencies between the two of them.

From Open Secrets.org, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Democrats":

(For an updated chart that includes contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's PACs and employees to ALL lawmakers back to 1989, including to their leadership PACs, go here.) and data The federal government recently announced that it will come to the rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two embattled mortgage buyers that for years have pursued a lobbying strategy to get lawmakers on their side. Both companies have poured money into lobbying and campaign contributions to federal candidates, parties and committees as a general tactic, but they've also directed those contributions strategically. In the 2006 election cycle, Fannie Mae was giving 53 percent of its total $1.3 million in contributions to Republicans, who controlled Congress at that time. This cycle, with Democrats in control, they've reversed course, giving the party 56 percent of their total $1.1 million in contributions. Similarly, Freddie Mac has given 53 percent of its $555,700 in contributions to Democrats this cycle, compared to the 44 percent it gave during 2006.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have also strategically given more contributions to lawmakers currently sitting on committees that primarily regulate their industry. Fifteen of the 25 lawmakers who have received the most from the two companies combined since the 1990 election sit on either the House Financial Services Committee; the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee; or the Senate Finance Committee. The others have seats on the powerful Appropriations or Ways & Means committees, are members of the congressional leadership or have run for president. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate banking committee, has received the most from Fannie and Freddie's PACs and employees ($133,900 since 1989). Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) has received $65,500. Kanjorski chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs.

The airwaves yesterday were full of Barack Obama making statements and posturing on the crisis.

Nowhere in any of the Obama statements was any mention of his relationship with Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.

The Obama campaign showed rare judgment in this decision.

Yesterday may not have been the right time to mention his failed benefactors.


by Mondo
image: thebidfloor

Bill O'Rielley Channels the Spirit of Karl Marx on Economics

RANT!
O'Reilly's Economic Spin Zone
"Populist Pinhead"






Bill O'Reilly has a Masters Degree in Broadcast Journalism and another in Public Administration, but apparently, he got thrown out of Economics--because he's functionally illiterate in the subject.

Anyone who's watched The O'Reilly Factor knows that if the host were paid a nickel every time he spouted an economic inanity, he'd be a multimillionaire.

And that's no spin.

His favorite topic economically is greed. Greed explains everything economic for O'Reilly. Gasoline prices go up? Greed. Gasoline prices go down? Greed again. Banks pushed into making loans to people who might have had a hard time paying them? Greed.

His failings on economic matters are an embarrassment--except to William Jennings Bryan aficionados.






There's no spinning that Bill O’Reilly is a populist pinhead. That's how Conservative Punk sees him--and that may be giving O'Reilly the benefit of the doubt.

Those on the right and left who are feigning righteous indignation at the “evil corporations” or “heartless Wall Street” are taking the otherwise complex issue of the financial meltdown, and simplifying it in order to appeal to their audience…or so they think. In fact what they’re doing is treating their viewers and listeners like simpletons and idiots. American's are grown ups, they can take a little bit of truth now and again.

On today’s Radio Factor, Bill O went on a tirade against other talk show hosts who don’t share his one sided and simplistic assessment of our current financial crisis is dishonest. Check out the audio at Johnny Dollar’s Place. During his nearly three minute long screed, O’Reilly goes on to blame rich, cigar chomping, private jet flying talk radio hosts of misleading and lying to their audiences about the bailout and the financial meltdown. Ironically, it’s rich, cigar chomping, private jet flying talk show host Bill O who’s misleading and lying to you.

Mark Levin says, "He (O'Reilly) has a fledging radio show that has no ratings and he'll be off radio soon because he's a failure."

O'Reilly's tactic is to bring someone knowledgeable about the mysteries of how the market works on his show and then attack them if the guest doesn't buy into the host's towering ignorance.

The market has determined that O'Reilly's lack of economic knowledge is worth almost a million dollars a year. That's what some sources estimate is O'Reilly's compensation.

Sounds way off-base to us, but we'll not attack the market for determining his worth: that's what markets are supposed to do. We don't think that Bill O'Reilly takes the money because he's greedy.

Guess that would disqualify us from ever hosting the No-Spin Zone.

by Mondo
images: dbkp; ideagrove