An amendment added in conference committee to the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes bill, with the support of the Obama/Holder Justice Department, radically expands the power of the Federal Government to target political enemies and those exercising their point of view on blogs.
The DOJ Blog Squad is monitoring and targeting conservative blogs and whipping liberal blogs into line. Amendments to H.R. 2647 allow the Attorney General to designate anyone as a hate group.
The Amendment states:
"(2) DEFINITION OF HATE GROUP.--In this subsection, the terms 'group associated with hate-related violence or 'hate group mean the following:
...(G) Other groups or organizations that are determined by the Attorney General to be of a violent, extremist nature."
"(3) EVIDENCE OF ASSOCIATION OR AFFILIATION WITH HATE GROUP. The following shall constitute evidence that a person is associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence:
(C) Individuals known to be involved in online activities with a hate group, including being engaged in online discussion groups or blog or other postings that support, encourage, or affirm the groups extremist or violent views and goals.
(D) Individuals who are known to have in their possession photographs, written testimonials (including diaries or journals), propaganda, or other materials indicating involvement or affiliation with a hate group. Such materials can include photographs, written materials relating to or referring to extreme hatred that are clearly not of an academic nature, possession of objects that venerate or glorify hate inspired violence, and related materials, as determined by the Attorney General."
Amendment text was inserted by impeached federal judge now turned US Representative Alcee Hastings. Eric Holder has hired former Democratic campaign bloggers to work at the DOJ in what appears to be a secret propaganda unit. The bloggers are housed in the Office of Public Affairs (the press office). Their job is to place "anonymous comments, or comments under pseudonyms, at newspaper websites with stories critical of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama." One of the bloggers is former DNC and John Edwards staffer Tracy Russo.
#1
Very germane comment Moose - this is essentially the Canadian model perfected by professional suer Warman. Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant have been counterstriking for a few years now, and recently testified before Parliament.
Pretty ghastly stuff. Wonder if the ACLU has a position on this?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/15/2009 16:59 Comments ||
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#6
Can I be a Dallas Cowboy fan, hate the Washington Redskins, advocate violence on game day & not be arrested? I always hope Redskins suffer violently on game day.
Watching Washington policymakers in action, I sometimes think they make mistakes because of unrealistic goals, flawed thinking, blind obedience to party or dubious information. And sometimes I think they make mistakes because they are -- how to put this? -- clinically insane.
There is no other way to explain what is going on at the Federal Housing Administration, which provides federal guarantees for home mortgages. Given the collapse in real estate prices, the weak economy and the epidemic of foreclosures, banks are acting with more caution than before. They now commonly require home buyers to make down payments of 20 percent to qualify for a loan. But the FHA often requires only 3.5 percent.
That's the equivalent of playing pool with a guy named Snake, and it's had two predictable effects. The first is that the agency is insuring about four times as many home loans as it did just three years ago. The other is that the number of FHA-approved borrowers who are not repaying their loans is climbing. Since last year, the default rate has jumped by 76 percent.
Another likely consequence looms: you and I eating the losses. A former executive of mortgage giant Fannie Mae told a congressional subcommittee that the FHA "appears destined for a taxpayer bailout in the next 24 to 36 months." Commissioner David Stevens had to assure the subcommittee that it would not need help -- well, unless there is a "catastrophic home price decline."
But who says there won't be? It's not as though anyone at the FHA foresaw the housing bubble or the housing bust. Yet now it feels confident betting its $30 billion cash reserve that prices won't fall.
Just a few years ago, after all, everyone assumed that U.S. home values were bound to keep rising. In fact, on average, they have dropped by a third since the peak of the market. If prices can drop by a third, they could certainly drop some more.
That's why many private lenders wouldn't touch a 96.5 percent loan with a 96-foot pole. One dip in the economy, and the house is worth less than the mortgage. That's an invitation for the owner to stop paying, drop the keys in the mailbox and find a place to rent -- an invitation hordes of people have already accepted.
What most foreclosures have in common is that the mortgage holder owes more than the property could sell for. "Not everybody who has negative equity goes into foreclosure, but nearly everybody who goes into foreclosure has negative equity," says Paul Willen, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
But Stevens sees no reason the agency should raise its down payment requirement to 5 percent. "All that's going to do is retard recovery," he says, by making it harder for people to buy homes.
But guess what? It should be harder for people to buy homes. Making it too easy to buy homes is what caused the foreclosure epidemic, which led to the financial crisis, which helped crater the economy.
Right now, the real estate market is adjusting to the new environment, where Americans are not willing to pay as much because they perceive that when you buy a house, you cannot be certain of making money on the investment and, in fact, may lose your shirt. The FHA's easy-money policy is supposed to prevent that adjustment, and push up prices, by assuring that people who cannot afford the risks of home ownership will be able to buy.
If many of the loans turn into pumpkins, that's OK. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., actually told The New York Times, "I don't think it's a bad thing that the bad loans occurred. It was an effort to keep prices from falling too fast." In other words, soaring defaults are not a bug. They're a feature.
But as Willen points out, prices didn't rise during the boom because there was reckless lending. There was reckless lending because everyone thought prices would rise. But the FHA imagines that it can cure the problems created by easy credit by promoting more easy credit.
Is it fair to call that approach shortsighted? Imprudent? Economically fallacious? Sure. But mainly, it's just plain crazy.
#8
Why not? I think Bawney probably made a bundle on covering it up all these years. How much went to his 'campaign'? And lets not forget the sweetheard deals with Countrywide members of congress (ahem... Dodd...) made.
#10
Even if he didn't personally profit Barney helped engineer the whole Fanny May slippery loans thing with the intention that low income people who couldn't' get loans could get houses. Those people got houses and the collapse helps his party gain a larger share of the economy. He had no political fall-out to boot. I'd be amazed if Barney saw any downside to this. I'm equally amazed he doesn't keep quiet about it though.
If President Barack Obama escalates the disastrous war in Afghanistan, Arianna Huffington has some advice for Vice President Joe Biden: resign.
Planting The Huffington Post, her popular news and aggregation site, in an ever firmer place to the left of the Obama administration, Huffington cited the arguments Biden has made in private against Gen. Stanley McChrystals request for 40,000 additional troops in Afghanistan, and wrote that if the president does decide to escalate, Biden, for the good of the country, should escalate his willingness to act on those reservations.
Huffingtons attack on the escalation plans under consideration by the White House ran under a banner headline which said: Arianna: Why Joe Biden Should Resign. ...
I don't know what's more absurd: the idea that Arianna Huffington is influential beyond the moonbat-American community, or the idea that Joe Biden has any principles he'd be willing to resign over--or any principles, period--or any idea where he is and what he's doing at any particular moment.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/15/2009 11:04 ||
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#1
She just wants Pelosi to be VP, a heartbeat away from President.
#2
Her first mistake is to demand Joe Biden do anything on principle ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/15/2009 14:26 Comments ||
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#3
What principle, exactly? He isn't an adviser, he's the constitutionally elected vice-president. He doesn't even report to the president, constitutionally speaking.
It would be like me resigning my job as a tech support goon because McCain wasn't elected last November. Sure, I worked like hell to avoid that outcome, but it's totally orthogonal to my day-job.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/15/2009 17:02 Comments ||
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#4
And tonights Talk: A fireside chat between Arianna and Joe in la-la land studio....
Leeesten Joe, Excuse me but I waazint done, and yes, Ive got more to say..and excuse me, but without me, you are just Joe. You neeed to leesten Joe, you know. My job is to stop anything that would never---could never---be allowed to succeed and that, Joe, eeez like Afghanistan, Iraq, any of the stans, you know. I am like a wall of defense against anything military. And you're like, what?, checking for lint on yore lapels or something while this sheetz happening. Im not saying your, like, completely useless. But really what is it you do Joe?
#7
heh - I think he might already have been a twink in the subconscious, she just brought it out. I mean, really, wouldn't living with her daily turn you off wymyns?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/15/2009 20:37 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Watching Washington policymakers in action, I sometimes think they make mistakes because of unrealistic goals, flawed thinking, blind obedience to party or dubious information. And sometimes I think they make mistakes because they are -- how to put this? -- clinically insane.
