Democratic congress squarely to blame for Financial Crisis

I must admit, I've been largely confused over the current financial crisis .. never have been one to follow economics .. relying, instead, on others more versed to explain the complicated mechanics of money to me whenever I needed to follow something. The current blur of terms is enough to puzzle a lot of us .. hedge funds, securities, Fannie Mae .. the list goes on and on.

I think most of us just pretend to understand the complex machine that Wall Street and the financial market has become. The machine has grown bloated in complex schemes that appear designed simply to wring money out of money for people who prefer this scheming over working to earn an honest dollar. That's always been my opinion of bankers, brokers and the like.

I'm not going to get into the complex structure behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (where did they get those stupid names, anyhow?), but I really don't need to. I also frankly don't know if we should rescue the situation, either. All I need to know on this account is that the government tried to limit Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their power 3 years ago and was defeated roundly by the democratic-controlled congress .. unanimously .. every time. The dems fought to keep these two financial institutions running strongly and without oversights or limits .. to facilitate those who are less affluent (minorities and the poor) to buy large and previously unaffordable upscale homes and Barnie Frank has his name all over that one. It was a shortcut in a mad dash to bring the poor into the middle class without it having to actually earn that place. That's what I call putting lipstick on a pig.

And that's really as much as I need to understand. Whatever spin comes out of it, that's the naked truth to the matter. Well, it's certainly backfired over the years. The republicans tried to reign it all in and got defeated and, now that the project has failed, the dems want them to take the blame for it.

Stand by for more spin. Nancy Pelosi, chief spinmaster for the largely democratic congress, is trying feverishly to lay the blame for all this on the Bush administration. Anything that she can successfully stick to Bush will vicariously stick to McCain because that's the relationship hollywood and the liberal press have been working hard to establish.

See how it works? If they thought they could blame the Pearl Harbor attack on Bush, they'd give it a try .. and it'd be about as true, too.

Ask yourself: who would be behind easy low interest mortgage loans for the poor? Let's see .. which party fits that one? Hmmmm .. see how easy it is when you simplify things and think for yourself?

Am I my half-brother's keeper?

I became intrigued last week with an account on the internet regarding a half-brother of democratic candidate Barack Obama .. who shares the same father as the senator, and who lives on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. Always mindful of the false stories that have been spawned lately in this cruel and combative campaign, particularly from the democrats, I was cynical and suspicious at first. Was this payback mud-smearing from the supporters on our side of the fence or was it genuine? Surely the Obama campaign would refute such stories as they crop up, first springing from an interview with Vanity Fair of Italy magazine, and then growing from several follow-up internet interviews by private journalists. Surely the Obama campaign would address these stories and deny them, or at least spin the issue.

The revelations were surprising, to be sure: The 26-year-old man, whose name is George Hussein Onyango Obama, acknowledges that he is indeed Barack Hussein Obama's half-brother and even cites an entry in Barack's book acknowledging such a brother in Kenya. Could this be true; no denials have yet been issued from the Obama camp either on this somewhat obscure story .. so I slowly began to give it some credence, little by little. As it turns out, this guy's the youngest of several half-brothers .. the son of a woman known only as "Jael" and a well-traveled 'father'.

What I found hard to believe was the fact that this slight young man lives in abject poverty and perpetual peril .. in a violent miasma of political unrest, starvation, and filth .. which is common for that part of the world .. subsisting on about a dollar a day. His home is basically a small hut, barely enough to keep out rain or vermin .. or intruders. It appears that intruders are the most dangerous component of life in this cesspool known as Huruma. George Obama, in a net interview with Telegraph.co.uk, related " .. Huruma is a tough place, last January during the elections there was rioting and six people were hacked to death. The police don't even arrest you they just shoot you. I have seen two of my friends killed. I have scars from defending myself with my fists." ... adding, somewhat proudly " I am good with my fists".

I was baffled the first time I read the account in Vanity Fair of Italy .. how could this be true? How could such an affluent family not send some aid to a blood relative in such a place? How could a senator not at least attempt to rescue his own half-sibling from this hellhole by perhaps sponsoring him for a visa? How about helping him to immigrate out of Kenya and gain U.S. citizenship? At the very least one would expect a family with assets in the millions to send some cash to the fellow time and again .. to help him along. I mean, $50 would put this guy in much better shape than he is in now.

Now I understand a liberal press ignoring a story like this .. we've been seeing this lopsided reporting going on for the better part of a year .. pillorying the governor of Alaska for her daughter's pregnancy or Senator McCain for his age .. however, they apparently don't regard this as newsworthy .. or they direly hope that this doesn't hit mainstream America until after November. And, in light of this liberal non-coverage, I can even understand how the Obama people are conspicuously silent on the subject. Ignore it and it just might go away, courtesy of the press with one blind eye .. but deny or spin it and it might hit the street. That's the corrupt kind of coverage we're becoming accustomed to .. the numbing of American values .. the filtering of journalism to achieve their end. Yes, we're getting used to it, almost like the F word in casual speech.

But what I just can't seem to understand is the core issue at the center of this whole embarrassing revelation: How is the senator ignoring his own flesh and blood in the first place?

And what does this say about Obama's family values? What does it say about his spiritual beliefs, his church, or his immediate family members who are also related to that wiry little man in the wretched hut? How can a man's private actions clash so dramatically with his public words and he still enjoy such support and acceptance in the political arena? How can we be so blind to this kind of character flaw that we can allow ourselves to be herded along like sheep .. with hollywood and the liberal press in attendance as our shepherds .. to November's polls? How can we allow ourselves to be sold such a bill of goods so obviously tainted .. so very not yet ripe .. so very inexperienced and disingenuous .. as this unfaithful half-brother Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois?

As for the concept of support, George had this to say of his relationship with his half-brother in the Telegraph interview: " No one knows who I am. I live like a recluse, no one knows I exist. If anyone says anything about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed".

And in that sense, George Hussein Onyango Obama is richer than a lot of Americans because he has enough moral fiber and intelligence to actually feel shame.