From: Eddie Griffin
TO: Rick Noriega, Candidate for U. S. Senate
Cc: John Cornyn, Incumbent U. S. Senator
Dear Rick,
I watched the debate last night between you and John Cornyn on PBS. While clearly I could have choked the moderator by his throat for botching the job, I am disappointed by your performance. By my evaluation, you scored a C.
Thankfully, you will get another shot at John “Corn Dog” Cornyn in Dallas next week, without the Libertarian candidate Yvonne Schick. Although she was a distraction, she scored a B in performance.
Mr. Cornyny is about cool, calm, and collective as Barack Obama. He scored an A, because he conducted himself as a self-confident incumbent.
Get the picture?
Here again, I repeated to you what I have told you on four separate occasions: In order for Barack Obama to win Texas, you must beat John Cornyn. What part of that strategy did you not understand? You’re not trying hard enough.
(I noticed your skinning and grinning on the question of public campaign financing… because of your under-funded campaign, you favor public financing... Wrong, wrong, wrong!)
I am particularly disappointed with your timid response on Torture. “We don’t do torture.” How is that a different answer than Cornyn? If there were one thing that I insisted that you not forget was the children and innocent detainees inside Guantanamo. There have been three military prosecutors who have resigned, because they know some of these cases are bogus.
Why didn’t you make John Cornyn answer for the US government’s behavior in this war on terrorism? Ask him: Does he feel, as Sarah Palin, that Bill Ayers is a domestic terrorist? Would he approve spying on ex-militants from the 1960s bygone era? Or, would he expand the Patriot Act to include spying on everybody hoping to find one terrorist in our midst of millions?
Rick, you are supposed to be our hope in returning to sanity. But you sound so much like your opponent last night that I could recognize which of you were the Democrat and which was the Republican. And, when you mentioned the name of Barack Obama, you sounded like a church mouse.
How do you defeat John Cornyn, now that you have a bloody nose?
First, you don’t be so modest about being battlefield-proven, a proud Lieutenant Colonial, active in the Army Reserves, and an Afghan War vet. This is an asset gained only by experience, which John Cornyn does not have. He has never had to shed a tear over a comrade on the battlefield. He doesn’t know the pains of war, especially a war provoked by poor decision-making.
He never heard your comment about dealing with Post Traumatic Stress and quality medical care and benefits for veterans. 30 seconds, times up.
Nobody heard you say that Cornyn was a main supporter of George Bush going into war. Nobody heard you criticize George Bush, your commander-in-chief, when you went into harms way on the premise of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Why didn’t you just tell Big Bad John just how you felt as a soldier when you found out that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction?
There is a basic rule of war: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Think not? Consider China and its terrorist list. Some of these Chinese outlaws are US friends. So, who is a terrorist to whom? Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder. The innocent Chinese Muslims now being held in Guantanamo remain illegal confined, simply because Chinese classifies them as “terrorists”.
Why have you allowed your opponents to play so loosely with this Red Scare? Have we become so indoctrinated that we react like Joe Six Pack in the McCarthy era, too afraid to speak up, because someone might accuse us of being “a communist sympathizer”. Is that the cat that’s got your tongue?
Rick, you know when any government can get away with this kind of stuff, along with a blank check to eavesdrop and spying, we have already reach totalitarianism. That is what George Bush and John Cornyn operated... a totalitarian government, where the wishes of the people are the furtherest thing from their minds.
Why don't you ask John how he feels about the Child Soldiers locked up in Guantanamo accused of being terrorist? How does he feel about recent court decision favoring them? Does he, like George Bush, criticize the Supreme Court's decision to hear their cause in the courts?
Ask your opponent those questions, and then ask yourself. Then convince me that you are the man for the job and not just another Democratic Party wimp.
Eddie Griffin
Friday, October 10, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Sarah Palin: He is Not Like Us
sarah@ci.wasilla.ak.us
The first time I heard that phrase, "... not like us", a white woman was telling her daughter why not to play with her friend Toxie, because Toxie was black. "She's not like us," the woman said.
This is daily bread and indoctrination of a whole generation of white children in the 1940's and 1950s. I heard someone say: “He’s not like us.”
But it was not Sarah Palin, who is too young to know the pain and the humiliation and the shame it caused me while I was growing up. It made me feel like there was something dirty on me, like a skin color that smelled like human waste.
One day, I woke up and realized that I was not like them, after all, not like John McCain or his friends who grew up with the same 1950s indoctrination. No, I am not a racist like them. And, they would be liars to say otherwise.
When Sarah Palin says "he's not like us", let's thank God we are not.
From Eddie Griffin,
International Prisoner of Conscious (1977)
The first time I heard that phrase, "... not like us", a white woman was telling her daughter why not to play with her friend Toxie, because Toxie was black. "She's not like us," the woman said.
This is daily bread and indoctrination of a whole generation of white children in the 1940's and 1950s. I heard someone say: “He’s not like us.”
But it was not Sarah Palin, who is too young to know the pain and the humiliation and the shame it caused me while I was growing up. It made me feel like there was something dirty on me, like a skin color that smelled like human waste.
One day, I woke up and realized that I was not like them, after all, not like John McCain or his friends who grew up with the same 1950s indoctrination. No, I am not a racist like them. And, they would be liars to say otherwise.
When Sarah Palin says "he's not like us", let's thank God we are not.
From Eddie Griffin,
International Prisoner of Conscious (1977)
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Unlawful Detention at Guantanamo
U. S. Representative Michael C. Burgess
WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE
1224 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
P: (202) 225-7772
F: (202) 225-2919
U. S. Representative John Conyers
House Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
P: (202) 225-3951
RE: Unlawful Detention at Guantanamo
Dear Congressman:
Please recall my May 29, 2008 correspondence to Congress, Open Tribunal Records on Child Soldier POWs, a copy of which was forwarded to your attention, concerning detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
In the correspondence, I raised some questions about the circumstances under which some of these prisoners were detained, particularly underage combatants, recognized by UN standards as Child Soldiers.
However, I had no idea of this recent development where innocent Muslims were detained for years. (Source:“Judge orders release of Chinese Muslims in US”, by Hope Yen, Star-Telegram)
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ordered the Bush administration Tuesday to immediately free 17 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay into the United States... Over the objections of government lawyers, Urbina ordered their release in Washington D.C. by Friday.
“Because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detentions without cause, the continued detention is unlawful… I think the moment has arrived for the court to shine the light of constitutionality on the reasons for the detention,” Urbina said.
At issue is whether a federal judge has the authority to order the release of Guantanamo prisoners who were unlawfully detained by the U.S. and cannot be sent back to their homeland. The Uighurs, who are Turkic-speaking Muslims in western China, have been cleared for release from Guantanamo since 2004 and ordinarily would have been sent home.
“How many times does the Bush administration need to be told that detainees are entitled to essential rights? All the remaining detainees in Guantanamo Bay must be either charged and tried or released immediately,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
I called your attention specifically to children falsely detained and branded as “terrorists”, specifically the cases of Mohamed el Gharani and Omar Khadr, ages 14 and 15 at the time of their detention, along with 37 other underage detainees in Guantanamo listed by the International Red Cross.
More recently, I brought up the story about Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a former Guanatamo prosecutor, who resigned and later requested immunity to testify on behalf of the defense against the government in the case of Mohammed Jawad, another teenager, accused of terrorism by tossing a grenade into a military jeep in Kabul in 2002, injuring two US soldiers and their Afghan interpreter.
If allowed, Col. Vandeveld would have testified how the government withheld evidence from the defense that would have proven Jawad’s innocence. Instead, his testimony was disallowed, and military sent the colonel to have a psychological evaluation.
According to a report by J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner, Col. Darrel Vandeveld also raises the possibility that Jawad was mistreated in custody -- specifically, by being subjected to sleep-deprivation.
“Vandeveld hasn't just resigned,” the report said. “He's supporting a defense effort to get the charges against Jawad dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct.
With his resignation, Vandeveld follows in the footsteps of at least three other military prosecutors, including former chief prosecutor, Col. Morris D. Davis, who ended up testifying for the defense.”
Graciously, the US Supreme Court allowed these young and innocent detainees to challenge the conditions and circumstances of their confinement. Even presidential candidate Barack Obama lauded the 5-4 decision:
“The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo,” said Obama. “This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law… I voted against the Military Commissions Act because its sloppiness would inevitably lead to the Court, once again, rejecting the Administration's extreme legal position.”
But US Congress still has its head in the sand, while court decision, after court decision, clearly indicates that there is something rotten in Guantanamo?
Eddie Griffin
http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/
http://rootsofhumanity.blogspot.com/
COPY TO:
Magnus Bergmar, Executive Director. Children’s World
magnus.bergmar@childrensworld.org
World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child
Box 150, S-647 24 Mariefred, Sweden
UNITED NATIONS
HUMAN RIGHTS
Ursula Wynhoven
wynhoven@un.org
CC: unicef@unicef.se
The Child Protection Section
Programme Division UNICEF NY
childprotection@unicef.org
www.unicef.org
WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE
1224 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
P: (202) 225-7772
F: (202) 225-2919
U. S. Representative John Conyers
House Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
P: (202) 225-3951
RE: Unlawful Detention at Guantanamo
Dear Congressman:
Please recall my May 29, 2008 correspondence to Congress, Open Tribunal Records on Child Soldier POWs, a copy of which was forwarded to your attention, concerning detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
In the correspondence, I raised some questions about the circumstances under which some of these prisoners were detained, particularly underage combatants, recognized by UN standards as Child Soldiers.
However, I had no idea of this recent development where innocent Muslims were detained for years. (Source:“Judge orders release of Chinese Muslims in US”, by Hope Yen, Star-Telegram)
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ordered the Bush administration Tuesday to immediately free 17 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay into the United States... Over the objections of government lawyers, Urbina ordered their release in Washington D.C. by Friday.
“Because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detentions without cause, the continued detention is unlawful… I think the moment has arrived for the court to shine the light of constitutionality on the reasons for the detention,” Urbina said.
At issue is whether a federal judge has the authority to order the release of Guantanamo prisoners who were unlawfully detained by the U.S. and cannot be sent back to their homeland. The Uighurs, who are Turkic-speaking Muslims in western China, have been cleared for release from Guantanamo since 2004 and ordinarily would have been sent home.
“How many times does the Bush administration need to be told that detainees are entitled to essential rights? All the remaining detainees in Guantanamo Bay must be either charged and tried or released immediately,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
I called your attention specifically to children falsely detained and branded as “terrorists”, specifically the cases of Mohamed el Gharani and Omar Khadr, ages 14 and 15 at the time of their detention, along with 37 other underage detainees in Guantanamo listed by the International Red Cross.
More recently, I brought up the story about Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a former Guanatamo prosecutor, who resigned and later requested immunity to testify on behalf of the defense against the government in the case of Mohammed Jawad, another teenager, accused of terrorism by tossing a grenade into a military jeep in Kabul in 2002, injuring two US soldiers and their Afghan interpreter.
If allowed, Col. Vandeveld would have testified how the government withheld evidence from the defense that would have proven Jawad’s innocence. Instead, his testimony was disallowed, and military sent the colonel to have a psychological evaluation.
According to a report by J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner, Col. Darrel Vandeveld also raises the possibility that Jawad was mistreated in custody -- specifically, by being subjected to sleep-deprivation.
“Vandeveld hasn't just resigned,” the report said. “He's supporting a defense effort to get the charges against Jawad dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct.
With his resignation, Vandeveld follows in the footsteps of at least three other military prosecutors, including former chief prosecutor, Col. Morris D. Davis, who ended up testifying for the defense.”
Graciously, the US Supreme Court allowed these young and innocent detainees to challenge the conditions and circumstances of their confinement. Even presidential candidate Barack Obama lauded the 5-4 decision:
“The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo,” said Obama. “This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law… I voted against the Military Commissions Act because its sloppiness would inevitably lead to the Court, once again, rejecting the Administration's extreme legal position.”
But US Congress still has its head in the sand, while court decision, after court decision, clearly indicates that there is something rotten in Guantanamo?
Eddie Griffin
http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/
http://rootsofhumanity.blogspot.com/
COPY TO:
Magnus Bergmar, Executive Director. Children’s World
magnus.bergmar@childrensworld.org
World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child
Box 150, S-647 24 Mariefred, Sweden
UNITED NATIONS
HUMAN RIGHTS
Ursula Wynhoven
wynhoven@un.org
CC: unicef@unicef.se
The Child Protection Section
Programme Division UNICEF NY
childprotection@unicef.org
www.unicef.org
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
A LETTER TO SARAH PALIN
sarah@ci.wasilla.ak.us
cc TO NETWORK
DEBATE DAY
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
RE: Why I Fear Sarah Palin: Pit Bull Attack Dog
Dear Sarah Palin,
The Revolution of the 1960s is over and we are supposed to be a reconciled nation. But Sarah Palin, you have dug up old bones and revived hurt feelings.
Who is a “domestic terrorist”? Is Palin suggesting putting Bill Ayers back onto the government’s Enemy List, because he was a former member of the Weather Underground?
OMG! If Sarah Palin were in office, how many of us would go on the “domestic terrorist” list? It frightening to think: if she considers the 1960s Weather Underground a “domestic terrorist” group, what would she think of Eddie Griffin, former Black Panther?
Then it dawned on me who Palin and McCain call “terrorists”. That’s what they called us Panthers. Hate groups, they said. In reality, the Black Panthers were the most positive and protective force in the black community, combating a regime of racism.
Remember “Racism”? That’s the rose-colored prism through which Sarah Palin sees terrorism.
Who is a terrorist?
Is Mohamed el Gharani a terrorist, arrested in Karachi in October 2001, at age 14, and now confined in Guantanamo?
Is Omar Khadr a terrorists, arrested in 2002, at age 15, accused of killing a US soldier with a grenade in July 2002?
You can call them “terrorists” if you wish. But they are no more than Children? Now you want to try them like dogs and confine them for life.
The International Red Cross reports another 37 inmates were under the age of 18 when they were seized. One detainee, an al-Jazeera journalist called Sami el Hajj, has identified 36 juveniles in Guantanamo. The Independent World reports as many as 60 juveniles are incarcerated there.
If the young children can be branded as “terrorist”, and the innocent can be criminalized, what would stop a Palin administration from putting former Black Panthers on the “domestic terrorist” list? How much more arbitrary can power get?
Sincerely, Eddie Griffin,
Former Black Panther and international Political Prisoner of Conscious (1977)
cc TO NETWORK
DEBATE DAY
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
RE: Why I Fear Sarah Palin: Pit Bull Attack Dog
Dear Sarah Palin,
The Revolution of the 1960s is over and we are supposed to be a reconciled nation. But Sarah Palin, you have dug up old bones and revived hurt feelings.
Who is a “domestic terrorist”? Is Palin suggesting putting Bill Ayers back onto the government’s Enemy List, because he was a former member of the Weather Underground?
OMG! If Sarah Palin were in office, how many of us would go on the “domestic terrorist” list? It frightening to think: if she considers the 1960s Weather Underground a “domestic terrorist” group, what would she think of Eddie Griffin, former Black Panther?
Then it dawned on me who Palin and McCain call “terrorists”. That’s what they called us Panthers. Hate groups, they said. In reality, the Black Panthers were the most positive and protective force in the black community, combating a regime of racism.
Remember “Racism”? That’s the rose-colored prism through which Sarah Palin sees terrorism.
Who is a terrorist?
Is Mohamed el Gharani a terrorist, arrested in Karachi in October 2001, at age 14, and now confined in Guantanamo?
Is Omar Khadr a terrorists, arrested in 2002, at age 15, accused of killing a US soldier with a grenade in July 2002?
You can call them “terrorists” if you wish. But they are no more than Children? Now you want to try them like dogs and confine them for life.
The International Red Cross reports another 37 inmates were under the age of 18 when they were seized. One detainee, an al-Jazeera journalist called Sami el Hajj, has identified 36 juveniles in Guantanamo. The Independent World reports as many as 60 juveniles are incarcerated there.
If the young children can be branded as “terrorist”, and the innocent can be criminalized, what would stop a Palin administration from putting former Black Panthers on the “domestic terrorist” list? How much more arbitrary can power get?
Sincerely, Eddie Griffin,
Former Black Panther and international Political Prisoner of Conscious (1977)
Monday, October 6, 2008
Obama on McCain & The Keating Five
Obama Campaign Hits Back at McCain With Keating Five Web Video
by Julianna Goldman
Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, after attacks on his character and past associations, is hitting back by highlighting John McCain's ties to the ``Keating Five'' savings-and-loan scandal that embroiled the Republican presidential nominee in the 1980s.
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, e-mailed millions of supporters on Oct. 5 directing them to a new Web site, keatingeconomics.com, dedicated to McCain's ties to the scandal. It features a 30-second Web advertisement and beginning at noon Washington time the site will also host a 13-minute documentary called ``Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis'' produced by the campaign. [Excerpt from http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20081006/pl_bloomberg/ayvd2e8yyjg]
Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis
by Julianna Goldman
Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, after attacks on his character and past associations, is hitting back by highlighting John McCain's ties to the ``Keating Five'' savings-and-loan scandal that embroiled the Republican presidential nominee in the 1980s.
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, e-mailed millions of supporters on Oct. 5 directing them to a new Web site, keatingeconomics.com, dedicated to McCain's ties to the scandal. It features a 30-second Web advertisement and beginning at noon Washington time the site will also host a 13-minute documentary called ``Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis'' produced by the campaign. [Excerpt from http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20081006/pl_bloomberg/ayvd2e8yyjg]
Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis
Friday, October 3, 2008
Columnist Jack Z on Rep. Kay Granger
To: Jack Z. Smith, editorialist Star-Telegram
jzsmith@star-telegram.com
RE: This bailout bill gets fatter and fatter, and poor Kay cannot resist more pork
Dear Jack Z. Smith,
Please send me a copy of your article, “Granger Speaks Candidly on the President and the Economy” (Star-Telegram, October 3, 2008), since it does not appear online (for obvious reasons, of course).
Jack, I share your sentiments when you wrote: Granger, 65, was a good mayor of Fort Worth, (a capacity which you and I observed). She is likable, hard-working and generally intelligent.
But I’ve been disappointed in her overly conservative voting record in Congress and fealty to Bush, who will leave with a legacy of big budget deficits, a foolish and costly war in Iraq, wrongheaded tax policy, reckless spending and skewed spending priorities.
Eddie Griffin Commentary
In hindsight, Kay Granger criticized the administration’s lack of an effective plan for occupying Iraq… expressed doubts about her early support for the invasion and acknowledged that America was guilty of “taking our eye off Afghanistan” as a result of invading Iraq.
But what confounds me is this: Granger called Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s introduction of a financial bailout proposal “the worst rollout of a plan that I have ever seen…”
And what does Ms. Kay do? She voted YES, a cardinal sin against her own conscious. If she thought the Paulson Bailout as “the worst rollout of a plan”, she should have voted NO.
JACK:
This is as classic case of lunacy. Call it the MOONSTRUCK Effect. Now will she confess how wrong she has been in the past on these issues her family, friends, and supporters?
To say, “I hope that I am wrong,” when preparing to cast a vote on one of the most important bills in history, Kay Granger must be moonstruck to lunacy.
Like a woman who cannot loose weight, Kay Granger ate the kahuna of the Paulson Bailout Plan like a pig… lock, stock, and barrel, even at the warning of her colleague Michael Burgess. Even worse, this bailout bill gets fatter and fatter, and poor Kay cannot resist more pork, already $700 million dollars FAT.
Kay Granger cannot lead with 20/20 Hindsight.
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin
http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/
jzsmith@star-telegram.com
RE: This bailout bill gets fatter and fatter, and poor Kay cannot resist more pork
Dear Jack Z. Smith,
Please send me a copy of your article, “Granger Speaks Candidly on the President and the Economy” (Star-Telegram, October 3, 2008), since it does not appear online (for obvious reasons, of course).
Jack, I share your sentiments when you wrote: Granger, 65, was a good mayor of Fort Worth, (a capacity which you and I observed). She is likable, hard-working and generally intelligent.
But I’ve been disappointed in her overly conservative voting record in Congress and fealty to Bush, who will leave with a legacy of big budget deficits, a foolish and costly war in Iraq, wrongheaded tax policy, reckless spending and skewed spending priorities.
Eddie Griffin Commentary
In hindsight, Kay Granger criticized the administration’s lack of an effective plan for occupying Iraq… expressed doubts about her early support for the invasion and acknowledged that America was guilty of “taking our eye off Afghanistan” as a result of invading Iraq.
But what confounds me is this: Granger called Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s introduction of a financial bailout proposal “the worst rollout of a plan that I have ever seen…”
And what does Ms. Kay do? She voted YES, a cardinal sin against her own conscious. If she thought the Paulson Bailout as “the worst rollout of a plan”, she should have voted NO.
JACK:
This is as classic case of lunacy. Call it the MOONSTRUCK Effect. Now will she confess how wrong she has been in the past on these issues her family, friends, and supporters?
To say, “I hope that I am wrong,” when preparing to cast a vote on one of the most important bills in history, Kay Granger must be moonstruck to lunacy.
Like a woman who cannot loose weight, Kay Granger ate the kahuna of the Paulson Bailout Plan like a pig… lock, stock, and barrel, even at the warning of her colleague Michael Burgess. Even worse, this bailout bill gets fatter and fatter, and poor Kay cannot resist more pork, already $700 million dollars FAT.
Kay Granger cannot lead with 20/20 Hindsight.
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin
http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Whatever will make this Lame Duck float?
By Eddie Griffin
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Before the Bailout Rescue Plan come to the table, let me make these recommendation a Homeowner Bailout Plan before Wall Street Bailout.
I APPROVE the proposal to raise the F.D.I.C. limit to $250,000 with an optimistic outlook for incomes and deposit levels of the future. The average American today has nowhere that amount of liquidity. But raising the limit will allow some depositors to escape from risky money market accounts to safe, government-insured havens.
The real solution begins with stopping the bleeding, i.e. the implosion of the housing market. Instead of allowing financial institutions and banks to peel off their non-performing assets, such as foreclosed properties, and sell them to the U.S. government and leave the tax payers stuck with the glut of empty houses, we should utilize the original mortgage bailout provisions, and our equity in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to relieve homeowner now on the brink of foreclosure by re-financing their loans over a longer period of time, and keep mortgage payment at about the same rate.
This will allow homeowners to save their homes and make their payments. The original mortgage holders will be bought out by the American taxpayer, at current market rate, and not at inflated book value.
Seeing that financial institutions cannot implement the mortgage bailout plan already on the books because of the way mortgage loans are packaged and leveraged, the government is better situated to re-finance homeowners’ loan, because of our ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In fact, it would be better to first buy out the private investors in those institutions. Otherwise, those who created the housing problem would be rewarded by the government equity stake riding the market up, or having the government bail them if it these institutions tank.
Wall Street can pay their executives whatsoever they wish, as long as the taxpayer’s money is not involved or put at risk. With government loans and risk must comes government oversight and new regulations. The more asked, the more risk, the more oversight is necessary, and more equity should go to the taxpayer. Otherwise, let Wall Street borrow from China, or wherever else financial executives have their offshore accounts.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Before the Bailout Rescue Plan come to the table, let me make these recommendation a Homeowner Bailout Plan before Wall Street Bailout.
I APPROVE the proposal to raise the F.D.I.C. limit to $250,000 with an optimistic outlook for incomes and deposit levels of the future. The average American today has nowhere that amount of liquidity. But raising the limit will allow some depositors to escape from risky money market accounts to safe, government-insured havens.
The real solution begins with stopping the bleeding, i.e. the implosion of the housing market. Instead of allowing financial institutions and banks to peel off their non-performing assets, such as foreclosed properties, and sell them to the U.S. government and leave the tax payers stuck with the glut of empty houses, we should utilize the original mortgage bailout provisions, and our equity in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to relieve homeowner now on the brink of foreclosure by re-financing their loans over a longer period of time, and keep mortgage payment at about the same rate.
This will allow homeowners to save their homes and make their payments. The original mortgage holders will be bought out by the American taxpayer, at current market rate, and not at inflated book value.
Seeing that financial institutions cannot implement the mortgage bailout plan already on the books because of the way mortgage loans are packaged and leveraged, the government is better situated to re-finance homeowners’ loan, because of our ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In fact, it would be better to first buy out the private investors in those institutions. Otherwise, those who created the housing problem would be rewarded by the government equity stake riding the market up, or having the government bail them if it these institutions tank.
Wall Street can pay their executives whatsoever they wish, as long as the taxpayer’s money is not involved or put at risk. With government loans and risk must comes government oversight and new regulations. The more asked, the more risk, the more oversight is necessary, and more equity should go to the taxpayer. Otherwise, let Wall Street borrow from China, or wherever else financial executives have their offshore accounts.
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