Mark Steyn weighs in on the opposition-to-BO = racism equation. During the campaign, Steyn talked to many voters about whom they hoped would win. Steyn would say he hoped McCain would win (although he was a reluctant supporter).

And at that point the worldly liberal Democrat who had sought my views would nod thoughtfully and agree: yes, McCain would win. Not because of Sarah Palin. But because Americans were too racist to stomach the thought of a black man in the White House.

I never cottoned much to this argument. If you spent 20 minutes on the campaign trail almost anywhere, it seemed clear that many voters felt the first 43 chief executives did not reflect the rich tapestry of the American community and were panting to cross “Vote for a black president” off their to-do list. On the morning of Nov. 5, I thought about all those Democrats so convinced of their fellow Americans’ ingrained racism. As my comrade Victor Davis Hanson put it, we conservatives were wrong about the election results, but those liberals were wrong about their country. Which you would think might prove chastening.

But apparently not. We are now eight months into the 44th presidency. The Obamessiah has come down to earth. He’s now just another 50/50 president, his approval ratings having fallen further faster (according to some polls) than any occupant of the Oval Office since Truman. The obvious explanation for this would seem to be his ambitious, expensive, transformative and radical agenda: the governmentalization of health care, cap-and-trade environmental legislation, the federal takeover of the automobile industry, the gazillion-dollar flopperoo of the non-stimulating “stimulus,” more debt, more deficits, more taxes, more regulation, more government, everywhere you turn. This would be a tough sell for even the smoothest pitchman.

But sometimes the obvious explanation is too obvious. Those “tea party” protests? “This is about hating a black man in the White House,” explained the eminent thinker Janeane Garofalo. “The only thing missing is a noose,” huffed L.A. Weekly about a poster showing Obama as the Joker. It turned out to be the work of a left-wing Palestinian from Chicago, but why get hung up on details? If you oppose the massive expansion of government and multi-trillion-dollar expenditures, you’re a racist.
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I suppose it’s possible that opposition to the federal government’s annexation of one-sixth of the U.S. economy is being driven by nostalgia for segregated lunch counters. And no doubt, if you write for the New York Times or teach race and gender studies at American colleges for long enough, it seems entirely reasonable, listening to a patient profess satisfaction with her present health insurance arrangements, to respond, “You know, if you re-sewed the back of that hospital gown so your ass wasn’t showing, your Klan sheet would be as good as new.”
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After being interviewed on TV about my own antipathy to the Democrats’ reforms, I received an email from a (white) lady in New York who said that, if only I were to agree to a course of treatment, I’d soon realize that my opposition to Obamacare stemmed from submerged racial paranoia rooted in “fear of the Other.” Actually, I’ve been opposed to government health care my entire adult life, and wherever I’ve been on the receiving end of it: in Canada, medicare was introduced by a bunch of pasty white guys; in Britain, by a bunch of pasty white blokes; in Bulgaria (where I had the misfortune to be treated for a torn ligament), by a bunch of Commie monobrowed Slavs. Okay, that last one is racist. But you get my point: no black males were involved in my deep-seated racial paranoia about government health care.
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The surest sign you’re suffering from “fear of the Other” is the reflexive urge to attribute it to anyone who disagrees with you: indeed, the people who most seem to fear “the Other” are those ever more fevered in their insistence that opposition to Democrat policies is nothing to do with the policies. The tea party protesters are not merely “racists” and “Nazis” but also “teabaggers,” a designation applied to them by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the voice of the people and Gloria Vanderbilt’s son. “Teabagging” is apparently a sexual term for dunking the scrotum hither and yon as if it were a sachet of Lapsang Souchong. Not being as expert in this field of study as CNN anchormen, I am unclear as to whether the teabagger is the chap dangling the scrotal sac or the lucky recipient. But, in considering the ease with which its political application spread through the media, one is struck by the strangely fierce need of Mr. Cooper and his fellow journalists not merely to report on the protesters but to sneer at them.

Very entertaining. Do go read the entire piecehttp://www2.macleans.ca/2009/09/24/dislike-obama-you-must-be-racist/

Is this really a good thing where the FBI is setting up potential terrorists in the US with bomb-making material and then arresting them when they portend to carry out an attack on US soil? This happening yesterday… I wonder if this dynamic will be used as an excuse by the government for ordering Martial Law?

h… w…. msnbc.msn.com/id/33019180/ns/us_news-security/

h t t p :// w ww. buyingofthepresident .org /index .php/ interviews /michael_ vachon/

Soros was deeply involved with Rohjatyn, a long term adviser to the Democratic Party. Where on August 22, 2006, he was appointed by Lehman Brothers as chairman of its international advisory committee and as a senior adviser to its chairman, Richard S. Fuld, Jr. If you remember, it was another Soros cult member, Hank Paulson who announced the BK of Lehman Bros which triggered our Banking collapse. The incestuous relationship between this elite power group is just mindboggling… all steeped in the same principles of Money, Greed and Power.

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Soros sorry over decimation of OTP’s share price

by Robert Hodgson
30 March 2009

The State Financial Supervisory Authority (PSZÁF) imposed a record EUR 1.6 million fine on the New York-based Soros Fund Management last week for breaking rules on influencing the market while trading on the Budapest Stock Exchange.

In a statement to state news agency MTI, Hungarian-born billionaire financier George Soros said he was “sincerely sorry” about the share deal that led to the penalty. Soros Fund Management made a last-minute bulk sale of stock in the Hungarian bank OTP on 9 October. PSZÁF said the transaction led to the price of OTP stock plummeting by over 14 per cent.

“The case is especially upsetting to me because of my close personal attachment to Hungary,” Soros said in his statement, promising that his firm would cooperate to the full with the Hungarian authorities. “I would like to stress that I no longer oversee the running of Soros Fund Management. I withdrew last year and now only direct deals on my own account,” Soros added.

Shares in OTP bank continued to fall through October as the economic crisis in Hungary deepened. They are now trading at roughly half the price they did before the Soros Fund Management deal. PSZÁF said its investigation had revealed that Soros Fund Management had borrowed 390,000 OTP shares on the same day in order to carry out the “short sell”.

“Going short” is financial jargon for a type of transaction in which an investor stands to make a profit through a fall in the value of certain stocks. Commonly, a speculator will borrow a quantity of a certain stock or commodity then promptly sell it. The dealer gambles that the price of the stock will fall before the deadline to return it to the lender arrives.

The fine imposed on Soros Fund Management is the largest that the Hungarian financial regulator has ever imposed for a deal of this type. PSZÁF set the penalty at four times the profit it estimated that the firm had made from the deal.

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Then you have this… Soros crying in his beer… even though he claims he not running his fund himself.
I’m sure he gives the orders when to sell-

Soros fund to turn to court over fine

Monday, 04 May 2009

Soros Fund Management, the New York-based company founded by billionaire financier George Soros, has coughed up the HUF 489 million (EUR 1.70 million) fine levied by Hungary’s State Financial Supervisory Authority (PSZÁF) for short-selling OTP shares last October. The firm’s trade was credited with driving the value of stock in Hungary’s largest native bank through the floor. The fund manager intends to dispute the fine in court, the financial daily Napi Gazdaság reported.

h.. w… budapesttimes.hu/content/view/11517/28/

Recall that just a week ago I wrote “Volcker Launches Bombshell on Wall Street and Washington.” I highlighted Volcker’s direct hit:

While the insiders on Wall Street and Washington pander about real financial regulatory reform, former Fed chair Paul Volcker yesterday hit ground zero on this hotly debated topic.

The heart of financial regulatory reform is centered on the implementation of leverage by our largest financial institutions. The leverage is exercised in a wide array of activities, both on and off-balance sheet. The capital utilized by the banks in these activities is credit that has not and will not flow directly through to the economy. Why? The banks believe that they will generate a greater return on the capital via proprietary activities rather than facilitating client business and addressing customer needs.

Yesterday, Volcker locked, loaded and unleashed another volley on the wizards in Washington and their incestuous brethren on Wall Street.

Whatever you may think of Volcker as a central banker, I hold him in high regard for elevating the debate at this critical point in our country’s economic history. Regrettably, President Obama’s adviser, Mr. Larry Summers, has taken Mr. Volcker’s chair away from the table. Yes, this is the same Mr. Summers who The New York Times described this past April as having received A Rich Education . . .

Mr. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard president who is now the chief economic adviser to President Obama, earned nearly $5.2 million in just the last of his two years at one of the world’s largest funds, according to financial records released Friday by the White House.

Impressive as that might sound, it is all the more considering that Mr. Summers worked there just one day a week.

Although I digress from my focus on Mr. Volcker, I find it enlightening that the man in Washington who has pushed Volcker away from the table stuffed himself at the Wall Street trough. Back to Mr. Volcker.

Volcker reiterated his views that the fundamental manner in which banks allocate capital must change in order to regain and then preserve future economic prosperity. He castigates those on Wall Street for having achieved ‘business as usual’ while he deferentially but clearly holds those in Washington in disdain for allowing it.

The San Francisco Chronicle (why couldn’t I find commentary by a major financial media outlet?) picked up an AP story of Volcker’s assault and writes, Obama Plans Maintain ‘Too Big to Fail’:

A top White House economic adviser says the Obama administration’s proposed overhaul of financial rules preserves the policy of “too big to fail,” and could lead to future bailouts.

Volcker said he does not differ with the administration on most of its proposals, and takes “as a given” that banks will be bailed out in times of crisis.

But he said he opposed bailouts of insurance firms like American International Group Inc., automakers’ finance arms and others.

“The safety net has been extended outside the banking system,” Volcker said. “That’s what I want to change.” (LD’s highlight)

Volcker, 81, has emerged as one of the administration’s internal critics. He serves as head of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, but has said the administration should take a slower, more methodical approach to overhauling the financial system.

For clarity purposes, what Volcker is driving toward is shutting down the internal ‘back room’ casinos, otherwise known as internal hedge funds, operating inside the large Wall Street banks. The capital allocated to those business units is capital that is not and will not flow through to Main Street. In short, Volcker supports backstopping commercial banking activities supporting our economy while not supporting the implicitly risky trading activities connected with banks’ proprietary business units.

Will the banking system survive without these units? Yes. Will they be as profitable? No. Will their stocks be repriced without these business units? Yes.

All this said, Wall Street lost trillions of dollars throughout this meltdown. A significant percentage of those losses has yet to be acknowledged. Our wizards in Washington believe that keeping the back room casino open allows the system to heal itself most quickly.

Do you think for a second that as it heals itself the crowd on Wall Street will be amenable to truly changing the rules? Does Wall Street work for Washington or does that relationship truly run the other way?

Volcker’s direct hit on this Washington-Wall Street charade is not only timely but critically important. Regrettably, his views will receive little attention and less chance of actually being enacted. They still deserve to be spread to the American public.

I salute him for the courage of his conviction.

LD

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Today is the last day of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Closing Plenary Session promises to be one of the most exciting.

Hillary Clinton, United States Secretary of State, will deliver the keynote address, and President Bill Clinton will share closing remarks.

Don’t miss it – watch a live webcast at 1 p.m. EDT