Tuesday, September 30, 2008

U.S. archbishop at Vatican says Democrats becoming 'party of death'
By Cindy Wooden
The Democratic Party in the United States "risks transforming itself definitively into a 'party of death,'" said U.S. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Vatican's highest court.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0804933.htm

Bishop calls abortion 'homicide'
Scranton Diocese priests read abortion position letter to parishionersBy Laura Legere
In the letter, Bishop Martino refers to abortion as “homicide” and writes, “It is a tragic irony that ‘pro-choice’ candidates have come to support homicide — the gravest injustice a society can tolerate — in the name of ‘social justice.’”
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2008/09/30/news/sc_times_trib.20080930.a.pg1.tt30bishop_s1.1980663_top.txt

Catholic Answers has a wonderful Voters Guide for Serious Catholics Video. You can find it at http://www.catholic.com/
The Voter Guides booklet says there are five non-negotiables for Christians:
  • Abortion
  • Euthanasia
  • Embryonic Stem Cell Research
  • Human Cloning
  • Homosexual "Marriage"
Please pay attention to the "How Not to Vote" section.
http://www.caaction.com/pdf/Voters-Guide-Catholic-English-1p.pdf

Presidential Voter Guide at kitchentableblog
Investigate the presidential candidates with our in-depth research and analysis on all the important Values Voter issues. From bioethics, marriage and family law to judicial and religious liberty issues, our policy experts present this valuable guide.
http://www.kitchentableblog.com/EF08H02.pdf

Secret, Foreign Money Floods into Obama Campaign
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman U.S. federal law bans any foreigner from donating to a U.S. election campaign.
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Obama_fundraising_illegal/2008/09/29/135718.html

The pro-bailout view:
Recent Market Commentary From Fidelity
Insight on Government Rescue Plan
September 29, 2008
The first lesson learned throughout the history of financial crises is that when financial markets simply stop working on their own, the government may be the only backstop available to prevent a systemic financial collapse that jeopardizes the entire economy.
http://personal.fidelity.com/misc/framesets/iw.shtml

The anti-bailout view:
Commentary: Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer
By Jeffrey A. Miron
So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Bailout marks Karl Marx's comeback
By Martin Masse
In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/09/29/bailout-marks-karl-marx-s-comeback.aspx

Why wasn't the financial Crisis Avoided?
In late 2004, Democrats Defended Freddie, Fannie ... while Republicans were asking for more regulation
http://election.newsmax.com/bailout_fanniefreddy.html

Watch this video on YouTube
It's about who tried to prevent this problem and who helped to cause it. (OK. I'll spoil the ending a tell you. McCain tried to fix this mess years ago. Obama helped create it.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxgSubmiGt8

Monday, September 29, 2008

Since I have an MBA, I am interested in how all this happened and how we are going to get out of this crisis.

Why Didn't We See This Credit Crisis Coming?
This didn't happen overnight. The credit crisis has been building for years.
Graphic shows timeline of credit crisis events with banking and mortgage foreclosures data;
http://apnews.myway.com/image/20080915/FINANCIAL_MELTDOWN.sff_GFX890_20080915183434.html?date=20080929&docid=D93GC9FG0

Stocks fall sharply ahead of bailout vote
There are new restrictions allowing Congress to limit how much of the money goes out the door at once. It also includes caps on pay packages of top executives as well as assurances that the government also would ultimately be reimbursed by the companies for any losses. The Treasury would be permitted to spend $250 billion to buy banks' risky assets, giving them a much-needed necessary cash infusion. There also would be another $100 billion for use at president's discretion and a final $350 billion if Congress signs off on it.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080929/wall_street.html

Let's put this in perspective. What Foreign News sites are saying about how we got in this financial mess:
What it costs: $700 billion. Ok, in relation to some other big things it´s not that much. Financial markets help the world produce that much twice a week. And if we assume that the assets the agency buys are worth at least half of what it pays, then it´s not that far from the cost of the latest US farm bill.
http://johannorberg.net/

Total cost of the 2008 US Farm Bill

In the 2008 farm bill, the current ten-year spending level is approximately $600 billion.
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/twninfo20080522.htm

The US subsidizes farmers. Now we want to do the same with the financial industry?

The Blame Game

Blame the bubble on FDR, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton

Article in theaustralian.news.com.au

As usual everybody blames markets and calls for regulation when there is a financial crisis. But in Dagens Industri today (in Swedish, subscribers only), I remind the readers of some milestones in the pre-history of the crisis:
1933: As part of the New Deal, investment banks are stopped from also acting as commercial banks (which would have given them bank deposits and more stability).
1938: As part of the New Deal, President Roosevelt creates the mortgage association Fannie Mae and in 1970 Congress creates Freddie Mac. With their implicit government guarantees they can offer cheaper loans and expand until they dominate the American mortgage market.
1989: The American government decides to step in and pay for the savings and loan crisis, which sets a precedent: If you take too big risks with mortgage loans, the government will save you.
1995: The Community Reinvestment Act is revised so that banks and thrifts are stopped from targeting the wealthy, and are forced to give home loans to low- and moderate income-households as well. In return they are allowed to re-package and sell those subprime risks to others, which Bear Sterns pioneers in 1997.
2001-2003: Instead of letting the market get rid of bad businesses and loans after the dot com bubble and 9/11, the Fed reduces its rate from 6.5% to 1%. There is only a mild recession, but at the cost of a dramatic expansion of the money supply, that creates a real estate bubble.
These were definitely not the only villains in the story, but if I deliberately wanted to create a financial crisis, I think that this is almost exactly how I would do it.
The prices increased, people borrowed more, and Mae and Mac ran leverage ratios that exceeeded 60 to 1 (cheered on by the Democrats who now blame free markets for the crisis) to keep giving loans to people who could not really afford it. And meanwhile everybody involved thought that they couldn´t really lose, because the government would bail them out.
It only took more traditional interest rates for the bubble to burst (with the help from some new accounting regulations). The independent investment banks that did not have access to bank deposits collapsed and almost brought the whole system down.
All those who now think that the solution is to give more powers to politicians, authorities and central banks should at least go to the trouble of looking at what they did with the powers they already had. Decision makers on the market do act irresponsibly and incredibly short-sighted from time to time. So do decision makers in government.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24421918-20261,00.html


The Financial Mess: How We Got Here
By Abraham H. Miller of American Thinker
I am not suggesting that the CRA [Community Reinvestment Act] by itself led to the current crisis, but the CRA was the first and most important part of the food chain. The CRA caused the expansion in the number of questionable loans that lending institutions made, but Wall Street and insurance underwriters were all to willing to package these loans, enhance their ratings through convenient exercises in fantasy, sell them, and insure them with reserves that were more inadequate than the incomes of the people who got the loans in the first place..
The best thing that can emerge from the current financial crisis is the realization that the government needs to stop directing economic decision making. In a sense, the government is putting out a fire it started when it both created the CRA and assessed lending institutions by how well they were doing in response to the program. When Clinton decided, in his usual arrogance, that he knew better than the market how banks should lend money, the seeds were sown for the current financial disaster.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/the_financial_mess_how_we_got.html

More information on the Community Reinvestment Act:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

http://www.ffiec.gov/cra/

http://www.policylink.org/EDTK/CRA/Why.html

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

How did the economy get in this bad shape?
Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system
By Martin McLaughlin
Nov. 1999
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/bank-n01.shtml

It happened the same way with the health insurance problem.
Blame Congress for HMOs
by Twila Brase
http://www.cchconline.org/privacy/hmoart.php3
Wasn't it Will Rogers that said that when Congress tells a joke, it is a law?

Scaring Us to Death
by Walter Williams
Things are not nearly as gloomy as the pundits say. Most of today's economic problems, whether it's energy, health care costs, financial problems, budget deficits or national debt, are caused by policies pursued by the White House and Congress. As my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell suggested in a recent column, we don't look to arsonists to put out fires that they've created; neither should we look to Congress to solve the problems they've created.
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/09/24/scaring_us_to_death

What Happened to Market Discipline?
by John Stossel
Irresponsibility induced by government-created perverse incentives is the culprit. For decades politicians of both parties have relieved big companies of the responsibility that market discipline would have imposed. The promise -- explicit or implicit -- to bail out companies "too big to fail" weakens market discipline. That invites recklessness.
We do need protection from reckless businessmen. But there is only one way to provide that: market discipline. That means: no privileges, and no bailouts.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Quo Vadis, Catholic vote?
Jeffery T. Kuhner, Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/sep/21/quo-vadis-catholic-vote/
The Catholic bloc is the key swing vote in this year's election that will decide the next president of the United States - and shape our destiny in this watershed moment in history. Catholics must support Sen. John McCain.
Both campaigns are courting Catholics vigorously. Catholics constitute America's largest single religious denomination. The church has 47 million adherents - nearly one-quarter of all registered voters. In pivotal battleground states, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Missouri, they form almost a third of the electorate. Moreover, 41 percent of Catholics are independents.

What if the bailout plan doesn't work?
Under the current plan, the U.S. government will buy up to $700 billion in assets from private holders on Wall Street. That would help banks stabilize their balance sheets, and in theory provide an incentive for banks to begin extending credit among themselves again — a critical component of a functional financial system.
Here’s the good news: If everything goes smoothly, it is even possible that taxpayers will profit from the deal in the long run, as the underlying assets accumulate value over the coming years and the government is able to ultimately sell them back into the market at higher prices than it’s paying now. Of course, it’s also possible that the values will never come back, in which case taxpayers would be on the hook.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080923/pl_politico/13769

Obama: Bailout likely to delay spending programs
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he probably would have to delay the spending programs he has called for during his campaign in light of the massive government bailout being proposed for the nation's financial industry.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/obama

Does that change how you will vote? If you are voting to line your own pockets, then you have been warned that it won't happen. Campaign promises don't mean a thing after the election is over.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Barack Obama's opposition to Born Alive Act
Gianna Jessen was aborted. She had been left to die in a Los Angeles hospital. And she had been rescued.The saline solution had burned her body and the long time without oxygen left her with cerebral palsy.
Gianna is 31 now. She still sings. She even runs in marathons! And she speaks out on behalf of other children aborted and left to die. She has spoken out in a new ad aimed at presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Please watch this video.
BornAliveTruth.org Gianna ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anieuWFWe8s
and this one:
Gianna Jessen of BornAliveTruth.org on Hannity & Colmes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZVf_o1C2nI&feature=related

and this one:
Jill Stanek, former nurse, on Barack Obama's opposition to Born Alive Act
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3041755&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,407882,00.html

Jill Stanek's web site http://jillstanek.com/

Gianna Jessen's web site
http://bornalivetruth.org/
http://www.giannajessen.com/

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/civil-religion/music/2008/09/gianna-jessen-sings/

Monday, September 15, 2008

The US Economy and the Race for President
The US Economy and the Race for President
My German cousin wrote me about the bankruptcy of the US bank, Lehmann Brothers. He is blaming the war in Iraq. He asked my opinion of the race for president. He said he thinks Sarah Palin is a hick and is inexperienced in foreign affairs compared to Obama and Biden. He says McCain is too old.
Since he does not understand how things work in the US, I have to explain things in detail. This is my response to him:
The problems in the economy have nothing to do with the conflict in Iraq. Things are much better in Iraq now.
The economy is a complex issue.
For several years, the banks made it too easy to get a loan for a house. The interest rate set by the Federal Reserve was unusually low. Many people who normally could not afford a house when the rates were higher were able to get a loan. The greedy banks did not make these people prove they could pay the loan, because the bank would sell the loan to other investors. Many investors like to buy mortagages (house loans) because they are usually a safer investment than others.Also, many people bought homes as an investment because the increased demand for homes made the value go up. They would keep the home for only a year, then sell it and keep the profits. This is called "flipping." The loans they took had an adjustable interest rate, which means the rate can go up or down, depending on what the US Treasury charges the bank for the interest. Instead of the rate staying the same or going down as many thought it would, it instead went up. That meant that many people could no longer afford the loan payment and had to sell the home for a loss, if they were able to sell the house at all. Too many ended up losing the house when the bank took the house away from them. So there have been rising mortgage defaults and plunging home values in the U.S due to tight credit markets. When there are more houses being sold than there are buyers, the price of the house goes down.
When the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, the economy cools off. It means fewer houses will be built and fewer business investments, which decreases jobs. If people lose their job, they can't make loan payments.
The U.S. Treasury earlier this month seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are agencies that make loans. They are not really owned by the government, but the Treasury took them over to keep them from going bankrupt. This means the taxpayers are going to have to pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's negligence. That is why there is a need for stricter financial regulation than before.
As for me, the price of a house has no effect. Bob and I paid the whole loan for our house so we own it totally. As long as we don't sell before the economy gets better, we will be OK. We both have good jobs, so only the higher price of gas and food have an impact on us. Financially, we are better off than we were when Clinton was president.
There is a mixture of inflation and recession going on. The price of gasoline is going up because of more competition from China for oil and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico have stopped pumping for oil. The 2005 Hurricane Katrina is still having an effect on this. Also, there are environmentalists that want the price of gas to go up so that Americans will buy less gas. They don't allow drilling for oil in our own country and push for more corn to be turned into gasoline, which makes the price of corn go up. The increase in gas prices to fuel farm machinery and higher corn prices means higher food prices. Usually, in a recession, prices go down and that is not the case this time.
Americans are dependent on gasoline to power our cars until an affordable car is on the market that requires less or no gasoline. I hope that will happen very soon. There is talk of a car that is powered by air compression being on the market soon. It is made in India. One can recharge it by plugging it into the household electric socket. It only goes 175 miles before it needs to be recharged, so it will mean that gas stations will have to make available a way to recharge the tanks. If that happens, we can pay less money to the Arabs. That would make our economy much better because we would have more money to spend on other things.
Please don't believe what the media says about John McCain and Sarah Palin. They have 10 times more experience that Obama. Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska. She manages a multi-billion dollar budget. She has cleaned up corruption in the government of her state. She has made it possible to build a natural gas pipeline through the state that will make our energy cheaper. She had to get Canada to agree to let Alaska do this. That takes a lot of work to make another country agree to this. Sarah Palin is the chief commander of the Alaska National Guard. The Alaska National Guard is on duty full-time because it is so close to Russia. They are our first line of defence against attack from Russia. That mean that the US military has to work closely with the Alaska National Guard. She has done a great job in this role. The Alaska National Guard love how Sarah Palin leads them. If Sarah Palin is a hick, then my husband is one too. Bob loves to go deer hunting. Hunting is a big sport in this country. It is necessary to manage the wild animal population. It shows she has courage and is competitive, though she is still very feminine. I admire her for being a mom to 5 children and still able to work a job.
Obama was a "community organizer" which means he handed out papers for political candidates door-to-door. He was a state legislator for a few years, but wrote no legislation or got any passed. He got elected Senator because the person who ran against him had to quit the race and then the substitute candidate is a radical. Mostly, people voted for Obama because the politics in Illinois is corrupt and people feel sorry for a Black man. People feel guilty about being so racist against Blacks a long time ago. There was a lot of anger in the country against the conflict in Iraq and so he used that anger to get elected to the Senate, where he also has done no real work. He got there after the conflict started, so he can't be hated for voting in favor of it. It is getting better in Iraq in spite of what he has done to stop it. It would be a disaster to stop fighting now. Obama has never been in charge of any government and never had to balance a state or federal government. He knows nothing about how to fix the economy. He promises people he will give them government benefits that will fill their pockets, but has no way of paying for them because you can only tax people so much before the economy gets worse. That is not what is best for the country in the long run. He says he will tax only the rich, but what he would have to do to pay for all this is tax anyone who is making enough to have a spare dollar. He is almost a socialist or communist. We have never had any candidate for the president that is this extreme about the economy.
Obama is a butcher. He voted in favor of letting babies who survived an abortion die by withholding medical care. The legislation would have required doctors to care for a baby after it was born even if the mother wanted it dead. That is infanticide and killing a baby is murder. Obama is a radical extremist when it comes to the abortion issue. He is like Hilter when it comes to respect for human life. We already have a million babies die each year to abortion. Obama would defeat all the effort done in the last 30 years to stop the slaughter of babies.
Sarah Palin is to be praised for giving birth to her baby even though she knew it would be disabled. Her baby is the kind of baby Obama would have voted to kill.
Sarah Palin is the total opposite of Hilliary Clinton. She wears a skirt and lipstick. She is a real woman and mom. She loves her husband and family. She is in this race to serve, not to be famous or popular. She is not doing this to prove women are as powerful as men. She is more like the ideal American woman than Hilliary.
No person has all the experience needed to be president. Yet most of our presidents were governors of states, which is what Sarah is. Being a governor is a better qualification than being a Senator. For example, Ronald Reagan was the Governor of the state of California before he became President and Clinton was the Governor of the state of Arkansas. Governors of states are leaders, not just people who vote on legislation that was written by others. Governors of states have real responsibilies and manage huge budgets. Senators do not. In some ways, she is more qualified than McCain, Obama or Joe Biden.
However, McCain has been a Senator for a lot longer than Obama, so he is more qualified than him. McCain will be a much better manager of the economy than Obama.
Our country has been through times much worse than now, so I have hope that things will be better soon. What goes up must come down, and when the price goes down, the demand goes up. So what goes down will eventually go up. Our economy has done so much better since Reagan, that people forget how bad it was under Jimmy Carter (another former state governor).
Just as Israel was punished for its bad leaders, I fear what will happen if we elect such an incompetent, evil man as B. Hussein Obama. I am praying that the American people will make the right decision. In the news today, polls in 11 battleground states show Obama retains narrow lead as 78 Electoral College votes are still a toss-up. Sarah Palin has made the race for the White House nearly dead-level even.
Even my mom, who is a life-long Democrat, says she will not vote for Obama. She is offended that people say McCain is old at 72. She is 86, so 72 is young to her. That is an amazing change. A lot will depend on whether Catholics vote pro-life. The race is really just starting because most people don't pay much attention until the last 2 months of the campaign when the TV ads start. A lot has changed since it started almost 2 years ago. This race is going to be a lot of mud slinging, dirty politics.
In other news, I am hoping the Pope's visit to France will make more Catholics go back to church. Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for the United States!
Our son, Tim, started college this fall. Our youngest will start next year. I am going to start training as a hospital chaplain on October 9 for 6 months. I will keep my technical writer job, but eventually I want to work as a chaplain. Hospital chaplains minister to the sick. In this way, I would be able to serve God and his Church.
God bless,
Betty
The US Economy and the Race for President
My German cousin wrote me about the bankruptcy of the US bank, Lehmann Brothers. He is blaming the war in Iraq. He asked my opinion of the race for president. He said he thinks Sarah Palin is a hick and is inexperienced in foreign affairs compared to Obama and Biden. He says McCain is too old.
This is my response to him:
The problems in the economy have nothing to do with the conflict in Iraq. Things are much better in Iraq now.
The economy is a complex issue.
For several years, the banks made it too easy to get a loan for a house. The interest rate set by the Federal Reserve was unusually low. Many people who normally could not afford a house when the rates were higher were able to get a loan. The greedy banks did not make these people prove they could pay the loan, because the bank would sell the loan to other investors. Many investors like to buy mortagages (house loans) because they are usually a safer investment than others.Also, many people bought homes as an investment because the increased demand for homes made the value go up. They would keep the home for only a year, then sell it and keep the profits. This is called "flipping." The loans they took had an adjustable interest rate, which means the rate can go up or down, depending on what the US Treasury charges the bank for the interest. Instead of the rate staying the same or going down as many thought it would, it instead went up. That meant that many people could no longer afford the loan payment and had to sell the home for a loss, if they were able to sell the house at all. Too many ended up losing the house when the bank took the house away from them. So there have been rising mortgage defaults and plunging home values in the U.S due to tight credit markets. When there are more houses being sold than there are buyers, the price of the house goes down.
When the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, the economy cools off. It means fewer houses will be built and fewer business investments, which decreases jobs. If people lose their job, they can't make loan payments.
The U.S. Treasury earlier this month seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are agencies that make loans. They are not really owned by the government, but the Treasury took them over to keep them from going bankrupt. This means the taxpayers are going to have to pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's negligence. That is why there is a need for stricter financial regulation than before.
As for me, the price of a house has no effect. Bob and I paid the whole loan for our house so we own it totally. As long as we don't sell before the economy gets better, we will be OK. We both have good jobs, so only the higher price of gas and food have an impact on us. Financially, we are better off than we were when Clinton was president.
There is a mixture of inflation and recession going on. The price of gasoline is going up because of more competition from China for oil and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico have stopped pumping for oil. The 2005 Hurricane Katrina is still having an effect on this. Also, there are environmentalists that want the price of gas to go up so that Americans will buy less gas. They don't allow drilling for oil in our own country and push for more corn to be turned into gasoline, which makes the price of corn go up. The increase in gas prices to fuel farm machinery and higher corn prices means higher food prices. Usually, in a recession, prices go down and that is not the case this time.
Americans are dependent on gasoline to power our cars until an affordable car is on the market that requires less or no gasoline. I hope that will happen very soon. There is talk of a car that is powered by air compression being on the market soon. It is made in India. One can recharge it by plugging it into the household electric socket. It only goes 175 miles before it needs to be recharged, so it will mean that gas stations will have to make available a way to recharge the tanks. If that happens, we can pay less money to the Arabs. That would make our economy much better because we would have more money to spend on other things.
Please don't believe what the media says about John McCain and Sarah Palin. They have 10 times more experience that Obama. Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska. She manages a multi-billion dollar budget. She has cleaned up corruption in the government of her state. She has made it possible to build a natural gas pipeline through the state that will make our energy cheaper. She had to get Canada to agree to let Alaska do this. That takes a lot of work to make another country agree to this. Sarah Palin is the chief commander of the Alaska National Guard. The Alaska National Guard is on duty full-time because it is so close to Russia. They are our first line of defence against attack from Russia. That mean that the US military has to work closely with the Alaska National Guard. She has done a great job in this role. The Alaska National Guard love how Sarah Palin leads them. If Sarah Palin is a hick, then my husband is one too. Bob loves to go deer hunting. Hunting is a big sport in this country. It is necessary to manage the wild animal population. It shows she has courage and is competitive, though she is still very feminine. I admire her for being a mom to 5 children and still able to work a job.
Obama was a "community organizer" which means he handed out papers for political candidates door-to-door. He was a state legislator for a few years, but wrote no legislation or got any passed. He got elected Senator because the person who ran against him had to quit the race and then the substitute candidate is a radical. Mostly, people voted for Obama because the politics in Illinois is corrupt and people feel sorry for a Black man. People feel guilty about being so racist against Blacks a long time ago. There was a lot of anger in the country against the conflict in Iraq and so he used that anger to get elected to the Senate, where he also has done no real work. He got there after the conflict started, so he can't be hated for voting in favor of it. It is getting better in Iraq in spite of what he has done to stop it. It would be a disaster to stop fighting now. Obama has never been in charge of any government and never had to balance a state or federal government. He knows nothing about how to fix the economy. He promises people he will give them government benefits that will fill their pockets, but has no way of paying for them because you can only tax people so much before the economy gets worse. That is not what is best for the country in the long run. He says he will tax only the rich, but what he would have to do to pay for all this is tax anyone who is making enough to have a spare dollar. He is almost a socialist or communist. We have never had any candidate for the president that is this extreme about the economy.
Obama is a butcher. He voted in favor of letting babies who survived an abortion die by withholding medical care. The legislation would have required doctors to care for a baby after it was born even if the mother wanted it dead. That is infanticide and killing a baby is murder. Obama is a radical extremist when it comes to the abortion issue. He is like Hilter when it comes to respect for human life. We already have a million babies die each year to abortion. Obama would defeat all the effort done in the last 30 years to stop the slaughter of babies.
Sarah Palin is to be praised for giving birth to her baby even though she knew it would be disabled. Her baby is the kind of baby Obama would have voted to kill.
Sarah Palin is the total opposite of Hilliary Clinton. She wears a skirt and lipstick. She is a real woman and mom. She loves her husband and family. She is in this race to serve, not to be famous or popular. She is not doing this to prove women are as powerful as men. She is more like the ideal American woman than Hilliary.
No person has all the experience needed to be president. Yet most of our presidents were governors of states, which is what Sarah is. Being a governor is a better qualification than being a Senator. For example, Ronald Reagan was the Governor of the state of California before he became President and Clinton was the Governor of the state of Arkansas. Governors of states are leaders, not just people who vote on legislation that was written by others. Governors of states have real responsibilies and manage huge budgets. Senators do not. In some ways, she is more qualified than McCain, Obama or Joe Biden.
However, McCain has been a Senator for a lot longer than Obama, so he is more qualified than him. McCain will be a much better manager of the economy than Obama.
Our country has been through times much worse than now, so I have hope that things will be better soon. What goes up must come down, and when the price goes down, the demand goes up. So what goes down will eventually go up. Our economy has done so much better since Reagan, that people forget how bad it was under Jimmy Carter (another former state governor).
Just as Israel was punished for its bad leaders, I fear what will happen if we elect such an incompetent, evil man as B. Hussein Obama. I am praying that the American people will make the right decision. In the news today, polls in 11 battleground states show Obama retains narrow lead as 78 Electoral College votes are still a toss-up. Sarah Palin has made the race for the White House nearly dead-level even.
Even my mom, who is a life-long Democrat, says she will not vote for Obama. She is offended that people say McCain is old at 72. She is 86, so 72 is young to her. That is an amazing change. A lot will depend on whether Catholics vote pro-life. The race is really just starting because most people don't pay much attention until the last 2 months of the campaign when the TV ads start. A lot has changed since it started almost 2 years ago. This race is going to be a lot of mud slinging, dirty politics.
In other news, I am hoping the Pope's visit to France will make more Catholics go back to church. Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for the United States!
God bless,


Betty

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Sarah Palin is no ordinary pro-lifer.

Mona Charen says, "Sarah Palin is no ordinary pro-lifer. She is an attractive, intelligent, ambitious, successful woman who has actually lived her convictions." Something about Sarah Palin set them [the media] off before their own politically correct impulses ("Must Avoid Sexism") could inhibit them. By the ferocity of the response, you might have thought Palin was a secret member of a polygamous cult or had forced her daughter to give birth after a rape. But no, she was just the mother of five, hunting, fishing, NRA member, and governor.
"I wonder if it was that baby." Read the article at:http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2008/09/09/is_trig_at_the_heart_of_medias_reaction_to_palin

Nancy Pelosi, when you don't know what you're talking about, would you please be quiet?
The Speaker's war with the Catholic Church has now spilled over to the Congress. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has challenged when life begins. The Roman Catholic Church says life begins at conception. The Speaker, who claims she is an ardent Catholic, says down through the years the Catholic Church has not been able to agree when life begins. Church authorities have hotly disputed her view. Now a group of Pelosi's fellow House Members has weighed in with a sharply worded letter, organized by Representative Thaddeus McCotter, of Michigan. McCotter is part theologian, part street-fighter. Clearly he is one of the most articulate Members who have graced the Floor of the House of Representatives. Read the article at:http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulWeyrich/2008/09/08/the_speakers_unusual_description_of_catholic_dogma
Her actions remind me of the old joke, "Don't confuse me with the facts." I surely hope she has not confused Catholics. At least her actions gave the bishops a reason to correct her.

Prime examples of liberal bias in the media: Newsweek's Anna Quindlen and MSNBC's Chris Matthews
Palin's a Tough, Smart Conservative Woman: Deal With It!
by David Limbaugh
Liberals excel in blinding themselves to their own biases and hypocrisy and blaming conservatives for their own sins, all of which they are showcasing in their frantic reaction to the Sarah Palin nomination.
Not only are they trying to destroy Palin. They are straight-facedly denying it and accusing Republicans of manufacturing this charge to exhibit phony sympathy for women.
Conservatives, after all, couldn't possibly be supportive of female Palin based on merit; it's just a political ploy to purloin Hillary voters. Liberal captives of identity politics just can't comprehend that neither gender nor race matters to conservatives. It's all about the candidate's political philosophy, approach to governance and qualifications to serve -- not those artificial constructs that liberals have exploited through the years.
Don't get me wrong. Palin's beauty and tough-as-nails femininity are refreshing icing on a delicious cake for conservatives, but if she were not demonstrably conservative, they'd be depressed -- not energized.
But you'll never convince the liberal press, which sees everything through the lens of gender and race consciousness and indiscriminately projects that propensity onto conservatives. Read the article at:
http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2008/09/09/palins_a_tough,_smart_conservative_woman_deal_with_it!?page=2

Phyllis Schlafly outlines reasons why the the Democrats' Platform is a bad idea from both a pro-life and from an economic standpoint.
We Can't Afford the Democrats' Platform by Phyllis Schlafly http://townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2008/09/09/we_cant_afford_the_democrats_platform
The past two presidential elections taught the losing Democrats a couple of political lessons. They learned that attacks on guns and defense of abortion are no longer winning issues for them, and this new awakening is reflected in their 2008 party platform adopted in Denver.
The platform grudgingly states, "We will preserve Americans' Second Amendment right to own and use firearms." The powers-that-be in the Democratic Party have learned to tolerate a few pro-gun candidates.
Feminist pressure won't let the Democrats recede from their "proudly" stated 2004 platform position that "Abortion should be safe, legal and rare." This year's platform is just as pro-abortion, but uses slightly softer words, stating that the Democrats support "a woman's ability to make her own life choices and obtain reproductive health care, including birth control" (throughout nine months and with taxpayers' money, of course).
Proclaiming that "we will end the Bush administration's war on science," the Democratic platform promises to "lift the current administration's ban on using federal funding for embryonic stem cells." The genuinely pro-life Republican Platform calls for "a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes."
http://townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2008/09/09/we_cant_afford_the_democrats_platform================

Monday, September 08, 2008

The Demise of the "Sisterhood of Single-Issue Feminists"
If you listened very carefully to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s dynamic speech to the Republican Convention last Wednesday night, you could plainly hear the death cry of single-issue feminism. The nomination of Governor Palin, a pro-life feminist, for Vice President of the United States has put the final nail in the coffin of an increasingly discredited and narrow-minded worldview that believes that women cannot thrive in a world without unrestricted abortion-on-demand. Equally importantly, her historic candidacy promises to transform the tone and complexion of American feminism.
Read this article at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28418

The Best Man Turned Out To Be A Woman
Ann Coulter
John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate finally gave Republicans a reason to vote for him -- a reason, that is, other than B. Hussein Obama.
[The media] claimed Palin was chosen only because she's a woman. In fact, Palin was chosen because she's pro-life, pro-gun, pro-drilling and pro-tax cuts. She's fought both Republicans and Democrats on public corruption and does not have hair plugs like some other vice presidential candidate I could mention. In other words, she's a "Republican." ....
As for former governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, the other also-rans, I can think of at least 40 million unborn reasons she's better than either of them.
Read this article at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28370


A caller to the Rush Limbaugh program last week had a great insight. Sarah Palin, if elected, will be taking to Washington a baby that B. Hussein Obama voted to let a woman abort. What a contrast in values!
Freudian slip? Obama's "my Muslim faith."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/08/obama-mistake-on-being-muslim-seized-by-rivals/ST. LOUIS Sen. Barack Obama's foes on Sunday seized upon a brief slip of the tongue when the Democratic presidential nominee was outlining his Christianity but accidentally said "my Muslim faith."
The three words - immediately corrected - were uttered during an exchange with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week," when Mr. Obama was trying to criticize the quiet smear campaign suggesting that he is a Muslim.
Within one hour of the interview, anti-Obama groups had edited it out of context and were sending it around via e-mail. They also were blogging about it.
Mr. Obama, who is a Christian and often proudly speaks about how his faith has influenced his public service, said he finds it "deeply offensive" that there are efforts "coming out of the Republican camp" to suggest "that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith."
The exchange came after Mr. Obama said that Republicans are attempting to "scare" voters by suggesting that he is not Christian, which McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said was "cynical."
Hmmmm!

Religion Remains Major Dividing Factor Among White Voters - Gallup Poll
John McCain has led Barack Obama all summer among highly religious white voters and continues to do so in the first three days of September, with no sign of change coincident with the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110053/Religion-Remains-Major-Dividing-Factor-Among-White-Voters.aspx


Republicans’ Enthusiasm Jumps After Convention
[The Gallup] Poll finds that the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket has more than matched the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket's convention bounce of last week with a "rebound" bounce, and in the immediate aftermath of the GOP convention McCain and Palin now have a slight edge over their opponents.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110107/Republicans-Enthusiasm-Jumps-After-Convention.aspx


Zogby Poll: Republicans Hold Small Post-Convention Edge
The McCain/Palin ticket wins 49.7% support, compared to 45.9% backing for the Obama/Biden ticket, this latest online survey shows. Another 4.4% either favored someone else or were unsure.
Pollster John Zogby: "Clearly, Palin is helping the McCain ticket. She has high favorability numbers, and has unified the Republican Party. The striking thing here in this poll is that McCain has pulled ahead among Catholics by double-digits. On the other hand, Palin is not helping with likely voting women who are not aligned with either political party. The undecided independent women voters decreased this week from 15% to 7%, but those women went to Obama. Palin is also helping among men, conservatives, notably with suburban and rural voters, and with frequent Wal-Mart shoppers, who tend to be "values" voters who like a good value for their money."
http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1548

Alaska National Guard Commander Praises Sarah Palin's Performance as Commander in Chief

Don't dismiss the fact that Sarah Palin is Commander of the Alaska National Guard-- consider this.

Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptor defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from ballistic missile attacks. It is on permanent active duty, unlike other Guard units.

As governor of Alaska, Palin is briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counter-terrorism. Her exposure to classified material may rival even Biden's and certainly by far exceeds Obama's.

She is also the commander-in-chief of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF), a federally recognized militia incorporated into Homeland Security's counter-terrorism plans.
Listen to this video:
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2008/09/alaska_national.php