Ogre’s Politics and Views

So, now that the bailout failed and the end of the world didn’t happen, despite the dire reporting, what’s the actual factual information about the stock market? Let’s see…

The DOW, as of noon Monday, just before the Congressional vote: about 10,800. Tuesday, 2pm: 10,709.

The media reports are complete and total lies, plain and simple. There is no crisis. Doing nothing IS the solution — and it’s the right one financially, constitutionally, and morally. Let us be free. Any other bailout or “rescue” action is anti-freedom, plain and simple.

Update: News reports on Wednesday SCREAMING that the stock market is “plummeting” while the Senate debates — lies again. Reality: 11:00 on Wednesday: DOW 10,600.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Tags: Freedom, Government by Ogre
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Now keep in mind, in order to make this picture more accurate, you need to add two government “employees” with guns. One next to the taxpayer/customer, pointing the gun at you; and another behind the investment banker, forcing them to point the gun at the taxpayer.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: America, Government by Ogre
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I’m SO tired of the whining and complaining. I just want freedom — something I’m simply not allowed in America today.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: America, Freedom, Government by Ogre
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An informed voter is not only a wise voter, he or she is probably also a good American. In this regard, the press has always been the cornerstone in the foundation of American democracy … that is, until the press became such an advocate of socialism and liberal politics that it can no longer be relied upon to convey “fair and balanced” information.

For this reason, Ogre’s Politics and Views joins with several others in a Noobama08 blog burst each Tuesday of the week until Election Day. If we cannot obtain the truth about our politicians from an unencumbered press, then we’ll form a cooperative to distribute information independently.

Stanley Kurtz is a journalist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Kurtz’ article in the Wall Street Journal explains why Barack Obama is untrustworthy for the office of the President of the United States. He lacks integrity … and if it is one thing we do not need in the White House, it is yet another dishonest politician.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

Tags: 2008 Elections by Ogre
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HOORAY! HOORAY! HOORAY! It’s party time!

WHAT A VICTORY! This is AWESOME! This IS a victory for freedom — and yes, that means Democrats, Pelosi, Bush, McCain, and Obama all LOST.

As of right now, the House vote to pass the hundred trillion dollar giveaway HAS FAILED! I’m going to have a party, everyone to my house!

Votes show 206 to pass it, 227 against! This is GREAT NEWS FOR FREEDOM! This is the BEST news I have heard in a VERY, VERY LONG TIME! This is awesome. The House members are walking around wetting their pants in the chamber at this loss. THIS IS GREAT! PARTY!

Side note: 60% of Democrats supported the bailout; 32% of Republicans did. Some news media is already spinning this as “about 100 Democrats and 100 Republicans opposed this.” How about honestly reporting a strong majority of Democrats supported it, and an even stronger majority of Republicans opposed it. Nah, that would be too honest for the media, wouldn’t it?

Side note #2: Those who are blaming the DOW down 675 on the vote — the DOW was down at least 500 points BEFORE THE VOTE WAS TAKEN (It was at about 10,600 before the vote).

Note #3: It’s at least an hour after the vote and the DOW has NOT fallen 200,000 points, as PROMISED by Bush, Paulson, and tons of others who demanded this bill pass.

Note #4: Word is now that the House has canceled their pre-election vacation for campaigning so they can stay in session to ram this bailout through — and Obama says he doesn’t give a DAMN what the people want, he’s going to force the Congress to pass this bill.

Note #5: It’s been a couple hours. Democrats are whining to no end. The sky has not fallen one bit. In other words, doing nothing has had NO ILL EFFECTS whatsoever. None.

I see this rejection of socialism has spurred more lies:

Nobody wants to bail out Wall Street, and we understand Americans might be opposed to bailing out Wall Street … This is not a bailout,” he said.

Liar, liar, liar. I wish someone in the media would have the balls to call these people liars. I know, I’m dreaming to think the media will ever be responsible in America again.

Note #6: Some moron analyst on Fox News has now predicted that because of this failure, “Credit has been tightening all day. And now with this sell-off, as credit tightens more, it appears that NO MONEY will change hands tomorrow at all.” So there you have it, the latest fear-mongering: the world WILL end tomorrow, according to Fox News.

Note #7: Lots and lots of complaining — and there’s some actually complaining that the price of oil is down because the vote failure. In other words, because of the vote, oil is CHEAPER — and that’s being reported as a bad thing. More evidence that the people talking about and reporting on this thing are completely and totally disconnected from working people in America.

Note #8: Top 10 DOW Jones drops:
#10: 07/21/1933, -7.84%
#9: 10/26/1987, -8.04%
#8: 03/14/1907, -8.29%
#7: 08/12/1932, -8.40%
#6: 12/18/1899, -8.72%
#5: 11/06/1929, -9.92%
#4: 10/29/1929, -11.73%
#3: 10/28/1929, -12.82%
#2: 10/19/1987, -22.61%
#1: 12/12/1914, -24.39%

Today: -6.98% It’s not even close to The Worst Day In The History Of The World, as Pelosi, Franks, Paulson, McCain, Obama, and Bush all predicted — and the news media is claiming. The sky is NOT falling, no matter how much these selfish bums claim it is.

Note #9: Hey LOOK — even without Congress passing the mother of all bailouts, the federal government went and gave away almost $700 billion. No, really. The feds didn’t need the $700 billion bailout from Congress, because they had it all along. And yet they STILL claim they “need” ANOTHER $700 billion. Okay, that’s $1.4 trillion or the sky falls now. And they promise they won’t ask for any more bags of 700 billion dollars. Oh, and note that all the activity on the DOW today happened AFTER the fed already threw $700 billion at the problem.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tags: America, Government by Ogre
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I’m thinking this an insult to the Three Stooges. Even they could manage things better than the current wall street group, especially including the government slimeballs, I mean employees, involved in this current economic freedom-crushing nightmare.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: Government, News by Ogre
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I guess it would be more accurately called a “government error.” Or maybe a taxpayer error — in electing the slimy bastards who are supporting this.

I’m watching the slimy, selfish bastards who are voting for this in the US House now. Quite noteworthy is that it is the Democrat Party who more strongly supports this huge pile of free cash for huge corporations. And yet there will still be people who honestly believe the Democrat Party stands for the “working man” when that cannot be further from the truth.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: America, Freedom, Government by Ogre
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Yes, it certainly looks and sounds like the super-huge mother of all bailouts, the total screw job of the American taxpayer, and the crushing of economic freedom in America is a done deal. However, despite all the lies and complete lies of the politicians in Washington, let me point out a clear image that very accurately describes this new law:

And I use that picture because I don’t want to use any perhaps more accurate pictures that would include large green things and taxpayers bending over. There is nothing good in this bill. That’s just the way it is. Just in case you still thought there was actually any difference between McCain and Obama, they’re both strongly supporting this socialist plan, too:

The option of doing nothing is simply not an acceptable option,” McCain said. Obama said he was inclined to back it “because I think Main Street is now at stake.”

Translation: Hey, my big money donors are giving me heat. I’ve GOT to give them this cash so they can give ME more cash! After all, how do you expect me to run for election? I MUST vote to take cash from taxpayers to give to people I like, so they will give me cash. That’s how this country works.

“Here are the facts: For two weeks I was on the phone every day with (Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson and the congressional leaders making sure that the principles that have been ultimately adopted were incorporated in the bill,” Obama said

Translation: I did nothing, and I know nothing. I have been very consistent in my insistence that I just walk around and make it look like I know something. Since lots of big-money donors support this, I support it, too. And I talked to some important guy, so that makes me important.

I received a copy of the bill that’s going to be voted upon today. This thing used to be one paragraph. That’s all, ONE paragraph. The damn thing has ballooned to 110 pages! I want to know how many Congressmen have read all 110 pages. My bet is that exactly ZERO have done so. Yet they’re going to vote to approve this pile of crap. There’s also another petition that’s asking for your signature to stop this crap.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: Freedom, Government by Ogre
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My advice to you? Don’t bother checking your “retirement” plans right now. They’re actually worth about as much as that government-run retirement scheme these days…

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tags: America, Freedom, Government by Ogre
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I’m not sure that any on-online petitions have any effect. And certainly in this case, the Congress is more interested in their contributors than in the people of America (taxpayers), so as far as I’m concerned, the bailout is a completely done deal. But in case it’s not, I’ve written all my representatives in Washington, and here’s a petition to Stop the Bailout if you’re so inclined.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tags: Government by Ogre
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GREENVILLE, N.C.—The Pitt County Republican Party and an aggrieved voter have filed a lawsuit today in Pitt County Superior Court against the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee ( a Washington, D.C. based “527” ) and the DLCC North Carolina PAC (a North Carolina “Campaign Committee.”) The lawsuit accuses the 527 D.C. based organization and the NC PAC of engaging in illegal campaign activities.

Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that the NC PAC is really the alter ego of the 527 D.C. organization. The 527 D.C. organization accepts and spends corporate contributions, which are unlawful for North Carolina political committees. The lawsuit also alleges improper reporting and failure to report by the organizations.

The lawsuit also alleges the unlawful activity of “giving in the name of another,” a crime which ultimately led to the incarceration of former Speaker Jim Black. It is noteworthy that Jim Black was at one time the Finance Chairman of the 527. The lawsuit is asking a Pitt County Superior Court Judge to enter an injunction prohibiting the 527 and its alter ego from making expenditures in this year’s election.

Kieran J. Shanahan, Principal of the Shanahan Law Group, who is serving as legal counsel to the Plaintiffs said: “The injunction sought in this lawsuit is essential to the voters in North Carolina if we are to have a fair and honest election conducted on a level playing field.” Shanahan further stated: “It is regrettable that the Board of Elections has ignored its own staff’s warnings about this situation and that it has failed to act to protect the integrity of the voting process in North Carolina.”

Some of the charges in the lawsuit include:

* That the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which is based in Washington, D.C., accepted corporate contributions and illegally transferred them to the DLCC North Carolina PAC in an effort to influence legislative elections in North Carolina.
* That the Washington D.C. based Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee failed to properly file any disclosures with the N.C. State Board of Elections.
* That the Washington D.C. based Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee raised and accepted money in its name, then transferred the money to the DLCC North Carolina PAC as contributions purportedly under the original contributor’s name.

Kimberley Hendrix, the Plaintiff suing as an aggrieved voter, said: “The people of North Carolina are tired of folks from outside of North Carolina trying to influence our elections. And, if you are going to get involved, you need to play by the rules.”

THE COURT HAS SCHEDULED A HEARING ON PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION ON OCTOBER 10 IN THE PITT COUNTY COURTHOUSE, GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: North Carolina Government by Ogre
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You know, if Palin were actually running for President, I think EVERYONE would be a lot better off — and I might actually be able to vote for her.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: 2008 Elections by Ogre
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Cost of Bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: $25,000,000,000.00 + $6,000,000,000,000.00 in (worthless) assets.
Cost of Bailing out AIG: $85,000,000,000.00
Cost of Bailing Out GM, Ford, and Chyrsler: $25,000,000,000.00
Cost of Bailing Out other world markets: $30,000,000,000.00
Cost of Bailing out tons of other big businesses: $700,000,000,000.00

Total cost so far to the US Taxpayer to bailout crappy businessmen: $6,865,000,000,000.00

Cost to the taxpayer PER YEAR to JUST pay the interest on that debt: $2,259.00 EACH. That’s over $2,000 that each and every taxpayer will have to pay every year, forever, just to pay the interest on that new debt.

Yes, that’s over $10 TRILLION dollars of debt that will be placed upon your children to support greedy irresponsible companies.

Hope that this foolish action by the government may change people and wake people up and start a real revolution for freedom and against the oppressive government of America today: Priceless.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tags: Freedom, Government by Ogre
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No matter what you think of Ron Paul, you should read his very accurate response to Bush, Congress, and the morons who are running this country into the ground:

Dear Friends:

The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.

We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market’s attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.

Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I’d only be repeating what I’ve been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.

Still, at least a few observations are necessary.

The president assures us that his administration “is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets.” Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned?

We are told that “low interest rates” led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed.

Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or “wildcat capitalism” (as if we actually have a pure free market!).

Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: “Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk.”

Doesn’t that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn’t that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn’t the federal government shown that the “many” who “believed they were guaranteed by the federal government” were in fact correct?

Then come the scare tactics. If we don’t give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary “the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet.” Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.

It’s the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year.

The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days.

F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks’ manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:

Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.

To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end… It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.

The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history.

The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?

Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a “rescue plan”? I guess “bailout” wasn’t sitting too well with the American people.

The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you’re supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them.

I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment section, and learn.

H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: Freedom, Government by Ogre
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Indeed, it would be funnier if the biggest empty suit in history was not seriously trying to get elected as president of the United States. Seriously, this is his entire campaign — worse, it’s actually working on a LOT of people.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: 2008 Elections by Ogre
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Paul Murdoch channels Allahpundit

Two years ago Allahpundit (who works for Michelle Malkin) made a very strange judgment. He accepted that the original Crescent of Embrace design for the Flight 93 memorial pointed roughly to Mecca (to be exact, it points within 2 degrees of Mecca), but said that worrying about the orientation of the crescent reeked of “truther-iness.”

“A good rule of thumb,” said Allah:

if you need a protractor to properly express your outrage, you’ve probably gone too far.

Orientation on Mecca may sound esoteric, but it is certainly not esoteric to Muslims, who are supposed to face Mecca five times a day for prayer, and often carry special compasses for that purpose.

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Popularity: 8% [?]

Tags: Terrorism by Ogre
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I think one of the most interesting pieces of information about the recent flurry of reports that everyone else in the entire world wants to vote for Obama (except Americans) is that the very same people who want Obama to win honestly strongly dislike America. That’s a clear indication that if you hate freedom, if you hate the American ideal of hard work and freedom — then it’s highly likely that you support Obama.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: 2008 Elections by Ogre
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Wow. I’m quite surprised. Ron Paul has endorsed the Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. I’ve been on board with Baldwin’s campaign for quite some time now — and I really like the Constitution Party. The only bad news, for those living in North Carolina, is that the Republicans and Democrats that control North Carolina simply will not allow you to vote for Chuck Baldwin. If 90% of voters wrote in Chuck Baldwin’s name on the NC presidential ballot, every one of those votes would be thrown out. Isn’t that just great? North Carolina is a banana republic, controlled by Democrats for over 100 years. I wish we had a republic in North Carolina. It would be nice to be free.

The only chance, however, to increase ballot access this time is to vote for the Libertarian candidates in North Carolina. That is the ONLY party in North Carolina that has committed to opening up ballot access and allowing people to vote for anyone they want. If you support freedom and want to see a tiny bit of election freedom returned to you in North Carolina, you have to vote for the Libertarians. No, I don’t care what part of their platform you disagree with — if you want to vote for Constitution candidates, or even Green candidates in the future, please support you local Libertarian candidate — and Mike Munger for governor!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Tags: Official Election Endorsements by Ogre
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The news bits are all over the board on this issue as Congress considers whether or not they will take an additional $700 billion from working people to give it to big business and Wall Street. Allow me to at least try and put a little tiny bit of truth behind the words you might be hearing:

“What they have sent us is not acceptable.” — Chris Dodd, D

In other words — this bill doesn’t give us ENOUGH bribes! We will only pass this bill if we get to spend MORE of the taxpayers’ money.

“We have got to look at some alternatives.” — Richard Shelby, R

Translation: Oh, I love this one, but I realize that recent surveys show 71% of Americans opposed to it, so I can’t come right out and support it openly or I might lose my next election.

Ben Bernanke bluntly warned reluctant lawmakers they risk a recession with higher unemployment and increased home foreclosures if they fail to pass…Bernanke sketched a scenario in which neither businesses nor consumers could borrow money

What he is claiming is that the world will end if this $700 billion transfer of money doesn’t happen. In reality, his pals will be out a lot of money and their jobs if this doesn’t pass. And the economy might actually contract to a level supported by capitalism — which just can’t happen according to government today. Foreclosures and unemployment are not things that the government in a free society should be concerned with — but this isn’t a free society any more, is it?

“Nobody is happy” about the bailout request, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Translation: Government, Democrats, Republicans, and Big Business ABSOLUTELY LOVE the bailout — but they know people don’t like it, so they can’t say so.

“I understand speed is important, but I’m far more interested in whether or not we get this right,” said Dodd, D-Conn.

Translation: How in the world can we pass this great socialist bill without letting taxpayers know that we’re screwing them?

“The financial markets are in quite fragile condition and I think absent a plan they will get worse,” Bernanke said.

Translation: Give us this money OR ELSE.

“I believe if the credit markets are not functioning, that jobs will be lost, that our credit rate will rise, more houses will be foreclosed upon, GDP will contract, that the economy will just not be able to recover in a normal, healthy way.”

“a normal, healthy way” means one guided by freedom and capitalism. This simply cannot be allowed to happen, according to the government and government representatives.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., “I am emphatically against it.”

Representative Issa will be a target in the next election, you can be sure. It took guts to stand up against this one.

The legislation that the administration is promoting would allow the government to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets held by endangered banks and financial institutions.

In other words, the government will literally take cash from taxpayers and buy assets and things worth exactly zero dollars. They WANT to pay $700 billion with ZERO return on their money — ZERO. That’s exactly $700 BILLION in taxpayer cash down the toilet.

“You worry about taxpayers being on the hook?” he replied at one point. “Guess what — they’re already on the hook.” Paulson

Blatant LIE. Complete lie, and Paulson knows it. SOME taxpayers are on the hook — and A LOT of people “on the hook” aren’t even taxpayers — they’re bums. This bill puts the entire burden of the irresponsible on ONLY the responsible. Someone should have called Paulson on this — it’s a TOTAL, DAMN LIE and he knows it. This statement was clearly made with malicious intent.

This crap is “the single most effective thing we can do to help homeowners, the American people and stimulate our economy.”

Once again, still true: the scariest words ever uttered: We’re from the government and we’re here to help. The only way this statement is remotely true is if you believe the world “help” means “bend over because we’re really going to screw you.”

And finally, there are a FEW good guys on the side of freedom and right:

Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the panel’s senior Republican, was even more blunt. “I have long opposed government bailouts for individuals and corporate America alike,” he said. Seated a few feet away from Paulson and Bernanke, he added, “We have been given no credible assurances that this plan will work. We could very well spend $700 billion, or a trillion, and not resolve the crisis.”

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., added, “This massive bailout is not a solution. It is financial socialism and it’s un-American.”

If this bill passes, there will be no chance for economic freedom in America again. The economy might have a slight, short-term increase, but in the long-term it will suffer dramatically.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tags: Freedom, Government by Ogre
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Isn’t it amazing how different people can see the same thing with different minds? Sure, you can talk about opinions and differences of opinions — but quite often it’s radically different interpretations of factual information. I guess that’s one thing that puzzles conservatives so much — people who deal in factual information cannot truly comprehend the insanity of those who do not.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tags: America, Liberal Whining by Ogre
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