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He’s Just One Person

ArchPundit October 7, 2008 No Comments

Gotta love Fox News trying to excuse using Andy Martin:

Mr. Hannity’s executive producer, John Finley, said that the program was clearly opinion and that the audience — on average 1.5 million to 2 million — knew to take it as such. “ ‘Hannity’s America’ is an opinion show — it’s a show from Sean’s perspective, which is obviously conservative,” Mr. Finley said.

Speaking of Mr. Martin, he added, “It’s one man’s opinion, one of many that was expressed on the show.”

Mr. Martin said he was careful not to present his theories about Mr. Obama as proven fact.

“That is my opinion — expert opinion — if you will,” Mr. Martin said of his commentary on Mr. Hannity’s program. “I don’t pretend to be an exclusively fact-based reporter, though I try as hard as I can to get the facts.”

I don’t hear a repudation there….Is Fox News anti-semitic? Perhaps we need a Hannity’s America devoted to Hannity’s scary ties…

And Remember, Death is Not an Option

ArchPundit October 7, 2008 No Comments

Andy Martin vs. Bill Ayers

Daily Dolt: Hannity Works the Fruitcakes

ArchPundit October 7, 2008 No Comments

Hannity uses Andy Martin to comment on Barack Obama’s dangerous associations:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBvmnDk947U[/youtube]

Yes, THE Andy Martin who started the Obama is a Muslim e-mail and is proud to take credit for it:

Andy Martin Says:
February 1st, 2008 eThank you for crediting me for telling the truth about Barack Obama.At least I don’t have Tony Rezko in my past.

Andy Martin

Teh Awesome if there ever is teh awesome.

The Illinois GOP went so far as to warn party members about the loon when he ran against Sauerberg in the primary

Here’s the extended background:

One challenger, Martin, has been a frequent candidate in Illinois and Florida in the last three decades. His last appearance on the state’s Republican primary ballot was two years ago, when he received 6,095 votes in finishing last in a five-way race in which more than 729,000 ballots were cast.

In 1973, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to allow Martin admission to the bar, saying he lacked the fitness to be an attorney.

Federal courts have repeatedly sanctioned him for what judges said is his filing of hundreds of largely meritless legal actions.

In early January, a Cook County judge tossed a lawsuit Martin filed against the Tribune alleging the newspaper portrayed him in a false light, contending that his name was not surveyed in a poll of the GOP primary candidates for governor that showed he had less than 1 percent support.

Judge Stuart Palmer ruled Martin’s allegations about the poll appeared to be “simply wrong” in that Martin’s name was included in the survey.

Palmer also rejected the lawsuit, in part, because he said Martin had failed to adhere to a federal court injunction preventing him from initiating lawsuits in state courts without filing a document reciting his litigation history.

In his past, Martin also has expressed anti-Semitic views. When he ran for Congress in Connecticut in 1986, the name of his congressional campaign committee included the phrase “to exterminate Jew power in America,” Federal Election Commission records show.

In a 1983 personal bankruptcy case, he referred to a federal bankruptcy judge as a “crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.” In a related court filing in the case, he also expressed sympathy to the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

Sean Hannity ever says something about someone being antisemitic again–he needs to be laughed at harder than usual. Your Fox News Sources at work.

Andy Martin is the guy who reads Mack Bolan novels and thinks he’s Bolan. In reality, he’s a sad little man who desperately craves attention. And Sean Hannity feeds him.

IL-10 52-44 Seals

ArchPundit October 7, 2008 No Comments

Wow.  We haven’t seen the internals and so all caveats apply, but this race certainly looks to be close and definitely winnable  Talking Points Memo reports on the poll done for Roll Call.

What’s interesting here is the first non-partisan poll of late is the only one showing Seals with a lead.  I’m not sure what to make of that.  We are dealing with difficult likely voter models and such, but certainly this is a shot in the arm for the Seals campaign.

One possible interpretation is that the Kos Research 2000 Poll shows Kirk at 44 points as does this poll.  However, Survey USA’s technique are robopolls and so they tend to push everyone to a choice even if they are undecided.  What this could (all caveats again) be saying is that the undecideds are leaning Democratic.

That leaves the race to be one of who can define Dan Seals the most.  If that is indeed the case, I’ll take Seals chances.  Other than Kirk’s poll, Kirk is consistently below 50 percent which is not a good sign for an incumbent.

And Remember Death is Not an Option

ArchPundit October 6, 2008 No Comments

Cubs in the playoffs or the John McCain Campaign

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BNDT-S0HLQ[/youtube]

Invade Missouri!

ArchPundit October 2, 2008 No Comments

Rich notes Dana Millbank has arrived and is concerned about the possibility of Blagojevich invading Missouri ( a little wag the dog you know):

I feel my arrival here has enhanced my domestic policy experience.

It certainly does, because our next door neighbors here are other states. They’re next to the state that I am in.

Missouri has a very narrow maritime border between another state, Illinois, and on our other side, the land boundary that we have with Kansas. We have trade missions back and forth. We do.

It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Illinois as Governor Blagojevich rears his head and comes into the airspace of Missouri. Where– where do they go? It’s Missouri. It’s just right over the border. It is from Missouri that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful state, Illinois, because they are right there. They are right next to– to our state.

Rich suggests going to at least University City–not a random suggestion as it has both the Loop and my house. My only wish is that Hoffman doesn’t run for State House over here.  I’m all for the invasion and promise to provide necessary intelligence to the Illinois National Guard.

In the Interest of Bipartisanship

ArchPundit October 2, 2008 No Comments

There are clearly some Democratic idiots out there too:

http://debate.wustl.edu/contact.htm

Here is a link to the contact page for the folks at Washington University who will be putting on the Debate thursday night. Contact them if you suspect that Ms. Palin will be coaxed through the debate via electronic means. The page has E-Mail contacts who can make sure it doesn’t happen and they should know we care.

http://debate.wustl.edu/contact.htm

I could not care less if no one recommends this post but please keep it kicked so as many people as might be interested can make the call themselves.

Once again: http://debate.wustl.edu/contact.htm

Geniuses, Each and every one.

How Cute, Oberweis blames CRA for the Housing Crisis

ArchPundit October 1, 2008 No Comments

Empirical evidence is apparently not important in Jim’s world.

Via Progress Illinois who has been doing excellent work on the issue.

As I discussed below, CRA loans outperform the loans responsible for the credit market meltdown.

Campaign for America’s Future put up a point by point rebuttal of claims about the CRA.

Let me add, State Farm Insurance has undertaken a project similar to CRA requirements and insures in inner cities where many insurance companies generally refuse to do business or charge exorbitant rates.  They are finding it to be incredibly profitable after about 10 years.

CRA doesn’t require lower standards–in fact it encourages the same standards as other loans in areas that are underserved—including rural areas (farm loans are a significant aspect of CRA).  The institutions that are covered by CRA aren’t having the degree of problems that the institutions that aren’t covered by CRA are. Why? Much stricter regulation.  Go figure.

Furthermore, loans made by Fannie and Freddie products aren’t the problem. Those loans met fairly strong standards for creditworthiness and even required credit counseling in some cases. The problem that got Freddie and Fannie in trouble is investing in Mortgage Backed Securities created by other institutions. They also didn’t focus on the gimmick loans and the adjustable rate mortgage loans and balloon payment loans that have caused loans made at prime rates to default at relatively high rates.  Those ARMs were pushed by the Fed and the market to increase demand for the mortgage products and ultimately are the biggest problem we face.  Freddie and Fannie didn’t do exotic loans and CRA institutions didn’t push exotic loans.  Less regulated entities like Countrywide did.  That’s the core of the problem.

But Jim won’t let those facts get in the way of scapegoating poor people.

Didn’t Expect This

ArchPundit September 30, 2008 No Comments

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrjGsKWmmqU[/youtube]

Today’s Tosser: Illinois Review

ArchPundit September 30, 2008 No Comments

Hysterical:

Get this out to everyone on your personal email list. Here’s what happened, including questions from Illinois Congressman Don Manzullo (R-16) of Barack Obama’s close advisor and Fannie Mae former CEO Franklin Raines per C-SPAN’s objective eye and ear.

Even if you take the case at the worst, calling Raines a close advisor is a lie.  The entire statement he made was that:

The commercial’s main charge is based on an April story in The Washington Post that said Raines has “taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.” Reporter Anita Huslin says Raines told her that during an in-person interview.

Now, compare that to having a campaign manager on the Freddie Mac dole through August, it appears that Illinois Review is descending into self-parody.  Again.

But let’s, again, clarify where the Fannie and Freddie problems come from:

As of April, Sanders said, the rate of serious delinquencies on loans held by Freddie Mac was 0.81 percent. Fannie Mae’s rate of serious delinquencies was 1.15 percent. Those rates compare to market-wide rates of serious delinquency of 1.47 percent for prime mortgages, 8.35 percent for Alt-A mortgages, and 20.74 percent for subprime mortgages.

Fannie Mae and the smaller Freddie Mac either own or guarantee nearly half the entire market of U.S. home loans. The companies purchase mortgages from lenders, keep some for their own investment portfolio, and resell some to Wall Street investors as collateralized debt obligations or asset-/mortgage-backed securities.

“It is clear that Fannie and Freddie are the remaining source of stability and prudent underwriting practices among financial intermediaries,” Sanders said. “It is their willingness to continue to purchase conforming loans that is keeping the U.S. housing market afloat.”

Finance Professor Herbert Kaufman holds the same view. “Fannie and Freddie haven’t been involved in subprime mortgages — those with all the defaults, the real source of the market crisis. Fannie and Freddie, instead, have mainly bought prime mortgages, with strong credit standards and fairly strict lending requirements. Even in this bad mortgage market, the default rate on those prime mortgages is reasonable based on historical precedent.

Fannie and Freddie made good loans. However, they bought bad MBSs to make more money and that’s where the instability comes from.  It’s fair to say they should be regulated more-in fact, requiring all mortgage lenders to meet the same or similar levels of regulation as banks would have greatly limited this entire fiasco–but, you know, regulation is bad….

The way to solve the problem is to return Fannie and Freddie to their initial state and take away the perverse incentives created by being privately held.