E!! The True Conservative Story™

One of RFC Radio’s most popular talk show hosts – Stephen Kruiser of ”Planet Kruiser” which you can catch every weekday at 11 a.m. PST/2 p.m. EST and on Saturdays during the 5-hour KruiserPalooza – named Senator Chris Dodd the Tool of the Week.

VDH @  The Corner agrees and tells us why:

Senator Dodd’s Nine Lives Are about Up   [Victor Davis Hanson]

Let us count them . . .

1. He claimed that he had not the slightest involvement in the AIG bonus exemption that he in fact helped insert.

2 He got more AIG money than anyone in the Congress — more even than Barack Obama, who came in second.

3. He got a sweetheart deal on an Irish “cottage” from a crooked stock-trader.

4. He got two preferential discount mortgage interest deals from the now-bankrupt Countrywide.

5. He was one of the Fannie Mae-enabling overseers at a time it was going broke and giving senators like Dodd himself campaign cash — he topped out near $134,000 higher than anyone else.

6. He got a sweetheart profit deal from a condo joint-buy with crook Edward Downe, Jr.

7. He intervened with the Clinton administration to get the felon Downe pardoned.

8. He misrepresented the value of his Irish cottage that he obtained via the agency of the dubious Mr. Kessinger.

9. He is the nation’s premier hypocrite as he lambastes Wall Street crooks and insiders from his collapsing soapbox.

Well, those are the proverbial nine lives — so, Senator Dodd, time to go: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and lets us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

03/20 09:24 AM

An open letter to the newspapers of America by Orson Scott Card.  A little long but full of facts and well worth the read.

Here’s the opening:

I remember reading All the President’s Men and thinking: That’s journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It’s a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can’t repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can’t make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It’s as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn’t there a story here? Doesn’t journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren’t you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

Read the rest when you have the time.

Hat Tip:  The Venerable Mr. Crum (thanks, honey!)