By Victor Davis Hanson

We are well into revolutionary times, but perhaps not in the way we traditionally think of political upheaval. Instead, insidiously, the law itself is becoming negotiable — or rather, it is becoming subservient to what elite overseers at any given time determine is a higher calling of social change.

Of course, progressive federal judges have been creating, rather than interpreting, law for decades. Yet seldom in memory have we seen such a systematic attack on our framework of laws as the present assault from the executive branch.

Federal immigration statutes mandate a clearly defined American border, which aliens may not cross without authorization. Yet the Obama administration not only does not fully enforce those statutes (in this regard, it is not behaving much differently from the prior administration), but also is preparing to sue the state of Arizona for implementing enforcement that follows the intent of neglected federal laws on the books. Apparently, the president believes that enforcement of existing law is a bargaining chip that can be used to obtain “comprehensive immigration reform” — a euphemism for blanket amnesty.

Other states and even cities are now marching in lockstep to boycott Arizona. Meanwhile, the president of Mexico recently blasted Arizonans from the White House Rose Garden, no less, apparently counting on the president of the United States to go along with this demonization of one of his own states. All this is eerie; it has a whiff of the climate of the late 1850s, when the federal government was in perpetual conflict with the states, which in turn were in conflict with one another, and which often appealed to foreign nations for support.

Recently, as if on cue, the secretary of labor, Hilda Solis, produced a video advising workers to contact her office should they feel that they have been shorted wages by their employers.  Fair enough.  But then she goes on to explicitly include workers who are not documented and to promise them confidentiality, i.e., de facto federal protection for their illegality:  “Every worker has a right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not.”

“Undocumented” is part of the current circumlocution for breaking federal law and residing here illegally.  In short, although Solis is a federal executive sworn to uphold existing federal law, she has decided which laws suit her and which do not. She rightly promises to pursue lawbreaking employers, but quite wrongly not to pursue lawbreaking employees.

Yet when we become unequal before the law, the entire notion of a lawful society starts to erode. If Secretary Solis has decided that lawbreaking aliens can in confidence count on her protection, then can those who don’t pay their taxes (perhaps citing some sort of prejudice) likewise find exemption from Treasury Secretary Geithner?  Can citizens pick and chose their particular compliances — run red lights, but still want shoplifters arrested?  Break the speed limit, but insist that cars stop at crosswalks?  Do questions of race, class, and gender determine the degree to which the federal government considers enforcing existing law?

Recently in Port Chester, N.Y., a federal judge made a mockery of the concept of one man, one vote.  Apparently the magistrate felt that Hispanics in Port Chester needed help to elect someone with whom they can identify along racial lines.  So, to ensure the election of an Hispanic to the village Board of Trustees, the judge created a system of cumulative voting.  Each voter was given six votes, and the explicit hope was that Hispanics would give all their votes to Hispanic candidates, voting on the basis of race rather than policy.  Now we hear this may well become a precedent that the federal government will use to ensure diversity elsewhere.

When an “Hispanic” was duly elected as one of the six trustees, the judge and other observers were pleased that Hispanic voters had achieved the intended result.  There was no thought, of course, about what constituted “Hispanic.”  Does it require three-quarters Hispanic blood?  One-half?  One-quarter?  One-eighth?  Does Puerto Rican count, but not Spanish?  Mexican, but not Portuguese or Basque?  There was also no thought about whether such racial pigeonholing was good for the country.  After all, focusing on race, while violating the cherished notion of each citizen enjoying one — and only one — vote, might also conjure up some disturbing memories from our not-too-distant past.

BP has acted in derelict fashion in the Gulf. But that does not justify the Obama administration’s decision — without a court order and without legislation passed by Congress — to ignore past legal precedent capping oil-company liability.  Instead, this administration promises to “kick ass” and put a “boot on their necks” until BP coughs up, say, $20 billion in reparations.  If a president by fiat can demand $20 billion from a corporation to create a payout fund, why not $30 or perhaps $100 billion?  Or better yet, in South American style, why not simply nationalize BP altogether?

We saw something like this before from the Obama administration, when it bailed out the bankrupt Chrysler Corporation and by executive order overturned the legally determined order of creditors. “Senior” creditors were to have been, by contract, the first paid, while junior creditors waited in line. But the latter group included union workers.  So Obama derided the senior lenders as “speculators” and simply put his own constituents and campaign donors in front of them.  The first sign of a debauched society is that it does not honor contracts, but reinterprets them according to perceived political advantage.

Now there is talk of an executive decree from the Environmental Protection Agency to implement provisions of cap-and-trade legislation that Congress will not pass.  Republican senators are already worried that the administration will likewise simply begin to grant amnesty to illegal aliens en masse, without introducing such a proposal to Congress, which alone has the right and responsibility to make our laws.  And the recent executive order to ban all offshore drilling in the Gulf clearly circumvented the legal process.  (Does the government have the right to shut down every flight if one airplane crashes, or to mothball all nuclear plants should one leak?)  Instead of putting a moratorium on the sort of deep-drilling procedure and pipe fittings that BP used, the Obama administration simply issued a blanket ban on all offshore drilling — as if the real intent was not to allow the crisis of an oil spill to go to waste in the larger environmental effort to reduce carbon emissions.

What do all these ends-justify-the-means examples portend? Mostly, they reflect an effort by a technocratic class to implement social change through extralegal means if it finds that its agenda does not meet with public approval.  In some sense, the Obamians have lost all faith that our democracy shares their vision, and so they seek to impose their exalted will by proclamation — as if they are the new Jacobins and America is revolutionary France throwing off the old order.

In late 2008, the liberal hope was that an elected President Obama, with large Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House, could do just about whatever he wanted.  But then a number of obstacles arose, from occasionally recalcitrant Democratic legislators to bothersome things like filibusters.  In response, Obama was not content with achieving his liberal ends, but sought to change the very means of obtaining them; even New York Times columnists suddenly resented the calcification of American politics, and pointed to the ease with which dictatorial China can simply impose green change.

Note the logic of all this.  Federal officials determine a supposed good and then find the necessary way to achieve it. The law be damned. “Diversity,” unions, environmentalism — any of these anointed causes trumps the staid idea of simply following the letter of the law.

The final irony? It was law professor Obama who campaigned on respect for the rule of law as he serially trashed elements of the Bush administration’s war on terror — almost all of which he subsequently kept or expanded.  Note how what was deemed illegal before 2009 has suddenly become quite legal and worthy of emulation and indeed expansion. (my emphasis)

As Obama’s polls continue to erode and congressional support for his agenda further dwindles, expect his cabinet to continue to seek ways around the enforcement of existing law. You see, in the current climate, the law is seen as retrograde, an obstacle to the advancement of long-overdue social change — which is to be implemented by a law professor and a past fierce critic of George Bush’s supposed constitutional transgressions.

While the media still rail about fanciful threats to constitutional stability from right-wing Tea Party types, we are getting real usurpation — but with a hope-and-change smile.

By permission of Victor Davis Hanson

www.victorhanson.com

Housing Market Plunged in July, Fueling Anxiety – NY Times

Washington Is Spending The Country Into Economic Decline – Wall St Journal

Can Gridlock Check Washington’s Power – Real Clear Politics

`Disappointing’ U.S. Data May Spur New Fed Easing – Bloomberg

Vacationing Obama can’t shed White House entourage … President Barack Obama had a simple task for his first morning on vacation: shoot over to a Martha’s Vineyard bookstore to fill out his daughters’ summer reading list and grab himself a novel. Easier said than done. His SUV, part of a 20-vehicle motorcade, passed through a cordon of Massachusetts State Police motorcycle officers, in a protective cocoon of Secret Service agents. Tagging along for the quick trip Friday were White House communications trucks, an ambulance and two vans full of reporters and photographers.

It was the same drill Saturday when he went to the beach for a picnic lunch with his family. This may be down time for Obama, but like all modern presidents, celebrities and some wannabes, he must move about with a not insignificant entourage. It includes security officers and their array of arms, as well as advisers, friends in and out of politics, and a cook who doubles as a golfing buddy. – AP

Dominant Social Theme: It is all necessary.

Free-Market Analysis: It is not a novel observation, but it probably bears repeating. The vacations that President Obama takes are like some sort of royal procession. It wasn’t so obvious under George Bush because he had his own “ranch” to go to. But like Bill Clinton, Obama is a wanderer when it comes to vacation destinations and thus much is made of his travels. Is there a kind of sub-dominant social theme here? We think so. “This is the most important man in the world and he travels in style that befits his position.”

Of course, we don’t think that Obama is the most important man in the world. We believe he is a kind of manufactured individual who carries the water for a shadowy power elite that evidently and obviously stands behind him. It turns out that, as with George Bush, many of his vague campaign promises degraded into business as usual when it came time for governance.

George Bush, as a titular, small-government republican, did almost everything seemingly in his power to expand government and make use of big-government levers. He went to war on two and even three fronts and maintained the wars for his entire presidency. He attempted (or succeeded) in expanding the federal government’s reach in public education, in religious affairs and most importantly when it came to US domestic spying. His efforts at removing habeas corpus, at combining a dozen or more intelligence agencies under one Homeland Security roof and his determination to rip down walls between agencies to create a unified KGB-type architecture ran counter to the small government, free-market principals he espoused on the campaign trail.

But Barack Obama’s stay in the White House has produced similar disappointments for his followers. Obama abandoned universal health care when the political costs became difficult to bear, and he has not moved aggressively on either immigration or cap-and-trade, “green” issues as his leftist base once hoped he would. He has proven an even larger disappointment as regards foreign policy, removing troops from Iraq but still keeping some 50,000 stationed there. In Afghanistan, he has actually expanded the war in hopes of “winning” it or at least making it difficult for the Taliban to impose their version of victory.

What is clear, when one examines the two most recent presidential regimes, is the remarkable amount of continuity between them. In fact, George Bush had confused Republicans everywhere by attempting to “solve” the immigration problem by in a sense legalizing South American immigrants already in the United States and then by suggesting some sort of guest worker program. His proposals, in fact, can be seen as more radical than what Obama has thus far suggested on the subject.

When it comes to overseas wars, there is almost no difference between the two presidents. Nor is there when it comes to the more shadowy “war against terror.” American intel agencies are still vastly funded; Homeland Security remains an ever larger bureaucratic bungle, sucking in resources like a black hole. Congress, generally, appropriates vast sums for the intel-industrial and military-industrial complex, and this sort of funding remains even as presidents come and go.

If one agrees therefore, at this point, that it makes little difference who is in office – as the state apparatus functions regardless – then we would suggest the outward pomp and ceremony is in a sense compensating for the president’s larger lack of power. The American president’s actual ability to forge a new a course may be limited, but the show surrounding him continually gets bigger. The idea, perhaps, is to create a sense of significance that he actually doesn’t have. He is to be presented as the Great and Powerful Oz so that no one notices the men behind the curtain.

Obama certainly does travel in style. He doesn’t drive himself anywhere. He has a helicopter that he uses even for very short trips within Washington DC. For longer trips there is Air Force One. The retinue he travels with his is extravagant and the press coverage that he receives on his trips, especially the vacations, is downright foolish. One is treated, in the mainstream media, to recitations of menus, golf scores and reading material. It is as if no detail is too minute to cover and no luxury too large to provide.

Conclusion: Like a titular head-of-state, Obama rushes from vacation to vacation with breathless coverage throughout. And while people may speculate as to why he is taking so many vacations, we think we know: There’s just not very much he can do on the job, and his power is actually fairly circumscribed, not by the office but by circumstance and sociopolitical evolution. Picking a vacation destination may be the clearest and most unencumbered decision he gets to make. (my emphasis) But then again, perhaps Michelle and the children do the choosing.

By permission The Daily Bell

http://thedailybell.com/1313/Obamas-Royal-Retinue.html

“The U.S. President was hit by a furious backlash from victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks after he backed the highly controversial plans in a speech on Friday.”

The English newspaper The Daily Mail ran a rather complete article on President Obama’s
initial statement about the mosque location, and then the White House’s  later statement backtracking on his first comments.

• “Friday: ‘Let me be clear: As a citizen and as President I believe that Muslims have the same right … to build a place of worship and a community centre on private property in Lower Manhattan’
• Saturday: ‘I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there’
• Hamas: Muslims ‘have to build everywhere’ so they can pray like Christians and Jews”

“Challenged about his comments during a family trip to Florida at the weekend, the President said: ‘I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there.

‘I was commenting very specifically on the right that people have that dates back to our founding.’”

“But Mr Obama was heavily criticised by a group representing the families of victims of the terrorist attack, who called the plan a ‘deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah’.”

Read more of the responses to Obama’s statements and the rest of this article.

Sometimes religious leaders and Presidents act on good principle but exercise poor judgment. The New York mosque controversy may provide a textbook example.

Plans to construct a mosque and community center in close proximity to Ground Zero may be well intended by Islamic leaders to educate Americans and other visitors about the positive role Moslem-Americans play in American life.

Well before the international conflicts of late 20th Century, Moslems were a small but productive community in America. Many worked in the auto industry in Michigan, where significant numbers settled, and our finest universities boast Moslems among their faculty.

Raised and educated in New York, I played as a child, was later educated and now work with gentle, decent Moslem colleagues born here and abroad who adopted America. And like a cigar maker named Peter Morici did quite close to Ground Zero some 110 years ago, they have every right to do so.

Sadly, the central role Islamic extremism played in the September 2011 attack on the World Trade Center has engendered passions and irrational fears among many New Yorkers and other Americans about Islam, and it might be wiser to locate mosque and community centers further away from the site of the attack.

Like it or not, if the folks you want to reach think you are in their face, they will hear you shouting not reasoning—no matter your intention.

The President was correct when he said Moslems have the right to build a place of worship and community center on private property in Manhattan, in accordance with local laws, and respecting rights strengthens our freedom of religion.

After all, it poses no real threat to anyone and would symbolize our tolerance, courage and strength.

That said, religious freedom is not absolute, any more than is freedom of speech. We can’t conduct worship services in a high school cafeteria, and a judge could determine the area in proximity to Ground Zero is a public shrine and subject to restrictions that serve public peace and order.

The mosque is already a source of great debate in the New York gubernatorial campaign. But neither the President nor the government in Albany will have the last word in the conflict.

Either the Mosque goes up or the State and City of New York must deny necessary permits and defend their actions in court, where those governments would likely lose.

By weighing in, the President only further inflames tempers, and appears to be taking sides in an issue where his principles will likely prevail regardless of whether he speaks.

But speaking as he did, he appeared to be using the controversy to score political points with Moslems and clearly that has backfired. He has been forced to back off his endorsement, and not for the best reasons.

The President doesn’t look very principled or sincere at this moment.

President Obama appears to want to be the nation’s moral leader and decision maker on every social, economic and political issue.

Check the Constitution—that’s not his job and for good reason. No one is that smart, and no one has that much intellect, energy and resources—not even the President of the United States.

President Obama would do well to start picking his battles and doing battle where he can help, and let the rest of America run itself. (my emphasis)

Peter Morici is a professor of international business at the University of Maryland School.

Peter Morici
Professor
Robert H. Smith School of Business
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-1815

http://www.smith.umd.edu/lbpp/faculty/morici.aspx

“Obama’s a Bigger Big Brother Than the Last Guy” says The American Conservative in response to an article in Monday’s Washington Post.

Isn’t this another example of Obama’s breaking some of his campaign promises? I guess they’re not many left that he hasn’t broken. Also, wasn’t Obama strongly opposed to this type of intrusion into our personal lives, when he was Senator Obama and very anti-Bush. So, which policy does he really believe in?

Rather than being a “technical clarification,” this seems like a huge expansion of the government’s powers, and our rights to privacy.

As the Washington Post reports:

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.

But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records.

Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official, said the proposed change would broaden the bureau’s authority. “It’ll be faster and easier to get the data,” said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law. “And for some Internet providers, it’ll mean giving a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL.”

The article added that “Marc Zwillinger, an attorney for Internet companies, said some providers are not giving the FBI more than the four categories specified. He added that with the rise of social networking, the government’s move could open a significant amount of Internet activity to government surveillance without judicial authorization. ‘A Facebook friend request — is that like a phone call or an e-mail? Is that something they would sweep in under an NSL? They certainly aren’t getting that now.’”

Read the rest of this article here.

By Wayne Allen Root

Remember Seinfeld? It was one of the most successful TV series in the history of American television. The show revolved around Jerry Seinfeld and his buddy George Costanza. George was the ultimate loser. Everything he did was a colossal failure.

One day that all changed. George was hired by George Steinbrenner and the world champion New York Yankees. He had hit the lottery — important job, big money, and beautiful women. Seinfeld was in shock. “George how did you do it?”

“Simple,” George said. “One day I woke up and realized I was the world’s most pathetic loser. So I decided to do the opposite of everything I’ve ever done. Every thought, opinion, decision — I now do the opposite. And suddenly… I’m a winner!”

As one of America’s strongest critics of President Obama, I am constantly asked “What would you do differently if you were President?” The answer is simple — EVERYTHING! It’s the Seinfeld solution. Obama is George Costanza. Every decision he makes poisons America. Obama is killing the American Dream. To save America we have to do the OPPOSITE of everything Obama is doing.

Obama’s agenda of big government, big spending, big unions and big debt are driving the American economy to never-before-imagined levels of economic disaster, debt, unemployment, and small business failure. The answer to how we save America and turn around this economy is simple: Do the exact opposite of EVERYTHING Obama has done.

Let’s go down the list:

Obama has spent almost one trillion dollars on a failed Stimulus Package and trillions more on bailouts. Now he wants more. We should ban stimulus, bailouts, and earmarks. They are nothing more than pork barrel spending to buy votes and reward the political class’s cronies.

Obama is imposing on everyone the biggest income tax increase in history. And in a Chicago-style mafia shakedown he is placing most of the tax burden on small business owners. We should do the opposite. Taxpayers and small business owners are the heroes of our economy — they create most of the jobs and taxes. We should reward the taxpayers and job creators with a one-year Income Tax Vacation. The cost would be about the same as Obama’s failed stimulus fiasco and would turn this economic Armageddon into one of the great economic booms in world history. It would be Reagan’s tax cuts on STEROIDS.

Obama has named czars to oversee every aspect of American’s personal and business lives. We should fire them all and ban the word “czar” forever.

Obama has dramatically increased the size, scope, power and spending of government, including with his health care and so-called financial reform bills. We should repeal them both and do the opposite — dramatically decrease the size of government and put more money and power in the hands of the citizens. We should cut overpaid government employees by the millions, stop all raises, and cut their obscene salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America.

Obama doesn’t believe in “States’ Rights,” ordering the U.S. government to sue the state of Arizona. We should kill the lawsuit, secure the borders, enforce immigration law, and respect States Rights’ — as the Constitution demands.

Obama is spending billions on our failing public education system solely to reward his teachers’ union campaign contributors. We should eliminate the Department of Education and transition government out of this area. In the interim we should move education funding to the state and local level, and encourage vouchers to give parents the freedom to pursue alternatives such as home-schooling, private, charter, and religious schools. We should abolish public employee unions and restore to administrators the ability to hire, fire and grant raises based on performance.

Obama supports the Federal Reserve and asks them to print ever-more money, devaluing our currency and stealing every American’s savings. We should audit the Fed, and make it transparent and accountable to the people — with an eye to eliminating it as soon as possible.

Obama responded to the Gulf oil disaster with an oil-drilling moratorium costing 100,000 jobs. Obama’s tragic solution destroys the Gulf economy and makes America more dependent on foreign oil. We should do the opposite, by encouraging more offshore drilling — and allow it closer to shore, where disasters can be more easily prevented.

Obama is adding 18,000 new I.R.S. agents and demanding more tax filings for small business owners. We should aim to eliminate the I.R.S. and streamline bureaucracy for small business.

Obama supported the release of the Lockerbie terrorist bomber. We should have demanded his release to the U.S. so we could give him the death penalty and justice to the families of 270 victims, 190 of whom were American citizens.

Obama has treated friends such as Israel harshly, while treating evil rulers that support terrorism (Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela) with kid gloves, even bowing down to some. We should do the opposite — treat friends with respect, and not give enemies the time of day. We should also do what should have been done decades ago — eliminate foreign aid to despots and adversaries of America across the globe.

Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan. We should do the opposite. This is a no win war. The original purpose and goals have been long since forgotten. Bring our brave troops home.

Obama loves career politicians such as Pelosi, Reid, Rangel, Dodd and Barney Frank. We should support term limits and throw all the bums out of D.C. It’s time to start over.

Finally, Obama has continually violated the Constitution, highlighted by his hate for guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. We should respect and follow the Constitution — the greatest document ever created.

Yes, Obama is our very own George Costanza, the lovable loser of Seinfeld fame. Except that Obama is a Marxist, and he’s not lovable. Obama is leading America towards tragedy, insolvency and bankruptcy. The answer to saving America is clear, simple and effective — DO THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYTHING OBAMA DOES. (my emphasis)

By permission Wayne Allen Root
Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee

www.rootforamerica.com

“Expect more of this from the financial reforms contemplated in Washington.”

Sometimes, while in the midst of analyzing current events, such as the proposed financial regulatory bills, its helpful to look back at some earlier relevant articles or commentary.  And, ask yourself  “Isn’t this what is still happening today in Congress and in Washington?”

One such article is  “An Economy of Liars” written by Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr. for the Wall St. Journal in mid-April.

His main conclusion:  “Free markets depend on truth telling.  Prices must reflect the valuations of consumers;  interest rates must be reliable guides to entrepreneurs allocating capital across time; and a firm’s accounts must reflect the true value of the business.  Rather than truth telling, we are becoming an economy of liars. The cause is straightforward: crony capitalism.”

Driscoll argues strongly that “While protecting citizens against force, both at home and abroad, is the government’s most basic function, protecting them against fraud is closely allied.  By the use of force, a thief takes by arms what is not rightfully his;  he who commits fraud takes secretly what is not rightfully his.  It is the difference between a robber stealing brazenly on the street and a burglar stealing by stealth at night.  The result is the same: the loss of property by its owner and the disordering of civil society.  And government has failed miserably to perform this basic function.”

“Financial services regulators failed to enforce laws and regulations against fraud.”

“Congressional committees overseeing industries succumb to the allure of campaign contributions, the solicitations of industry lobbyists, and the siren song of experts whose livelihood is beholden to the industry.  The interests of industry and government become intertwined and it is regulation that binds those interests together.  Business succeeds by getting along with politicians and regulators.  And vice-versa through the revolving door.”

Driscoll reiterates “We call that system not the free-market, but crony capitalism. It owes more to Benito Mussolini than to Adam Smith.”

Read this full still-timely commentary here.

Click On The Image to Enlarge!

According to Jonathan Weill, a Bloomberg News columnist, “To believe Christopher Dodd the Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, the end of government bailouts is near.  In truth, the financial-overhaul legislation now before Congress would do little to arrest the bailouts already in progress.”

“It (financial-overhaul legislation) will end bailouts, ensuring that failing firms can be shut down without relying on taxpayer bailouts or threatening the stability of our economy,” Dodd said on June 10.

Yes, this is the same Senator Dodd of Countrywide Mortgage fame. “Senator Dodd was among the prominent politicians who may have received favorable mortgage deals from Countrywide, a mortgage lender at the heart of the current mortgage crises. According to an investigation conducted by Conde Nast’s Portfolio, Countrywide’s V.I.P program may have bent rules to offer Senator Dodd a better deal on his Washington town house and Connecticut home mortgages.”

“The end-of-bailouts rhetoric looks even more ridiculous when you consider that both the House and Senate bills explicitly exclude Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the Treasury’s new powers. They’ve drawn $145 billion already from their unlimited credit line from the government.  And it’s not just Fannie and Freddie that are being continuously rescued when the government absorbs their losses. It’s the whole U.S. banking system.”

The U.S. government has little choice, but to keep supporting the likes of AIG, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, otherwise the whole banking system might collapse.

“The real facts are sobering enough.  The last thing we need is for someone of Dodd’s stature to be misleading anyone into thinking this proposal would accomplish something it’s expressly designed not to do. An end to bailouts? We can only dream.”

Read the rest of this story here.