One Little Victory...

It has been difficult to tear myself away from Bloomberg over the past couple of days as I'm sure many of you would agree...

Still, this sad episode in our country's history has one small silver lining: The House voted down the $700 Billion Bailout Bill on Monday, September 29th, 2008. This is very good news, indeed...

You and I just avoided buying the Banks' mortgage portfolio offal and converting it to US Government (and taxpayer's) ownership. The idea being the Banks would have their books cleared of bad mortgages and the renewed mark-to-market valuations would allow them freer access to lending capital and hence greater credit liquidity in the marketplace.

Yes, the taxpayers courtesy of George Bush, Nancy Pelosi, and Henry Paulson and all the supporting members of Congress want to sell you a sh*tload of bad paper while their PAC and corporate supporters get to freshen up their books to continue this shameless money grab. Sounds good, no?

So back to that silver lining... The failed measure came after Nancy Pelosi chose to use the event to restate partisan rhetoric and blame assignation to the House Republicans. She was rewarded with not only 133 House Republicans, but also 95 of her fellow Democrats voting down the measure. Let there be no doubt that there was tremendous pressure from the voting populace for the Congress to, just once, do the right thing...

Here's the voting record for those who are interested:

http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=63183&cat=0

The "Friends of Liberty" in the equation are those that voted "nay"... Some names from that column include: Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Duncan Hunter, Conyers, Duncan, Forbes, et al. They are to be congratulated for now.

Notable supporters of adding another $700B to our more than $9 Trillion in public debt are: Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Tom Tancredo...

But let's explore the most disturbing two supporters of this bill: They are your two presidential candidates Barry Obama and John McCain

McCain stated: "This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with," McCain said on ABC's This Week. "The option of doing nothing is simply not an acceptable option."

Obama, in a typically non-committal statement was able to offer: "My inclination is to support it... While I look forward to reviewing the language of the legislation, it appears that the tentative deal embraces these principles"

Wow! Now why would these guys support this poor excuse for legislation? Well, McCain has rather nervously endorsed this out of caution and fear of appearing uninvolved and unaware in terms of the economy, especially as the media has chosen to paint him into a corner on that issue.

With Obama, the case worsens... Stanley Kurz of The National review brings the association with ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) into clearer light, as he writes:

"According to the New York Times, Obama’s memberships on those foundation boards, “allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in grants” to various liberal organizations, including Chicago Acorn, “whose endorsement Obama sought and won in his State Senate race.” As best as I can tell, Acorn maintains both political and “non-partisan” arms. Obama not only sought and received the endorsement of Acorn’s political arm in his local campaigns, he recently accepted Acorn’s endorsement for the presidency, in pursuit of which he reminded Acorn officials of his long-standing ties to the group."

So who cares if he is associated with ACORN?

You do! Michelle Malkin reports on her website the following:

"...Lindsay Grahamnesty told Fox that the Mother of All Bailouts includes a reported $100 million more in funding for the left-wing housing entitlement thugs and heavily tax-subsidized fraudsters at ACORN. Under the original bailout proposal, apparently, a large portion of any repayment of the $700 billion would go to Barack Obama’s good friends at ACORN with a smaller allocation to debt repayment. Readers heard him say it was 20 percent."

Aware of this and many other potential re-election threatening issues attending the Bill, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted the issue down, as the following CBS news report suggested before the vote took place.

Regardless, House Republicans are saying that unless the possibility of ACORN seeing any money from this bailout is eliminated, there's no deal. "Doling out favors to ACORN and other liberal special interest groups are a non-starter for House Republicans," said Behner spokesman Kevin Smith. "If Rep. Frank wants to keep ACORN in the bill he can secure the necessary Democratic votes for passage because he'll need every one of them."

Bottom line: We dodged a bullet for the moment. Tomorrow is likely to bring a new, revised Bill with other flaws, but for now our nation's maxed-out Credit Card avoided a $700B charge

Best,

Mike