Let’s just skip the preliminaries on this one and move right into the meat of Erika Christakis’s little revelation at “TIME Ideas.”

Apparently she was just a bit put out that anyone would object to the Obama Birth Control mandate.  She writes:

“Let’s see what our society would look like if we all had the luxury of imposing our unfettered will. At a minimum, the Catholic bishops and employers resisting contraceptive coverage should be willing to pay for the care of all those unwanted children. Or perhaps they’d be willing to spend some time in jail in protest. At my taxpaying expense, of course.”

While on the surface it appears that Christakis is a bit miffed about objections to the Obama Birth Control mandate, a closer examination of her bullet points reveals the underlying motives. Christakis, I believe, is schilling for the anti-religious movement, and here is why:

Not coincidentally she quotes the World Health Organization, while making various assumptions. I will leave to you the examination of her article HERE. The important thing to note is that the World Health Organization, a department of that unholy institution we know as the United Nations, had its roots established by notables, Brock Chisholm and J.R. Rees. This is one of Brock Chisholm’s early declarations:

“The responsibility for necessary changes in human behavior rests clearly on the sciences working in that field. Psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists,economists, and politicians must face this responsibility. … the only psychological force capable of producing these perversions (guilt, fear, isolationism…) is morality, the concept of right and wrong… . We have been very slow to recognize the unnecessary and artificially imposed inferiority, guilt and fear, commonly known as sin, under which we have almost all labored and which produces so much of the social maladjustment and unhappiness in the world. For many generations we have bowed our necks to the yoke of the conviction of sin. We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents, our Sunday and day school teachers, our politicians, our priests… If the race is to be freed from its crippling burden of good and evil, it must be psychiatrists who take the original responsibility… . There is something to be said for taking charge of our own destiny, for gently putting aside the mistaken old ways of our elders if that is possible. It cannot be done gently, it may have to be done roughly or even violently… “

Please Google “Brock Chisholm” and J.R. Rees for more information, for I assure you, the Obama Birth Control mandate, and the response from Catholics, both Lay and Clergy is most certainly what it is, because they understand that the mandate is indeed an attack on religion, and specifically the Christian religion, however much it is denied by the Socialist Cultists.

Vanguard of Freedom

Vanguard of Freedom Network

Let me be really clear right here about a couple of things. First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I spent 15 years in the mortgage banking industry. Second, the problems in the mortgage industry were created by the Congress and were exacerbated by Administrations of both parties. To his credit, President Bush made a half hearted attempt to reform mortgage lending and was met with a full-on war from Democrats who, by that time, controlled the Congress and who went into full media mode holding hearings that lavished praise on the Democrats who were running F&F into the ground. I’ll put it in perspective. The biggest proponents of the actions of F&F and regulators acting under the authority of a number of legislative acts, primarily the Community Redevelopment Act, were the likes of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Sheila Jackson Lee and their ilk who, combined, don’t have a double digit IQ.

At any rate, when the housing and mortgage markets headed south in 2005, the die was cast because F&F owned most of the mortgage paper in the US and to say it was rapidly turning into toilet paper would be kind. So far, F&F have cost the US taxpayers $150B in bailout costs and that will certainly go up, the only question is how much. Prior to 2008, F&F were quasi non-governmental units and in 2008 they were taken over by the government to prevent a crash in the housing industry. And yes, if you were wondering, I typed that with a straight face.

The problem in the industry right now is fairly simple. There is a huge oversupply of housing and a shrinking pool of qualified buyers. As long as the Administration and some of Congress are meddling with the market in an attempt to inflate housing prices, the problems in the real estate industry will drag on. The market is nowhere near the bottom and it will continue to struggle until it gets there.

Let’s look at the problem of oversupply. MLS listings in many major markets are running at ten to eighteen months supply based on sales. A healthy market would be in the vicinity of five months. In addition to the houses currently listed on MLS, you can add in roughly double the MLS numbers being held by banks “real estate owned” (REO) departments that are not currently listed. So we’re at about three years supply. Then add in the houses that are in the foreclosure process where a notice of default has been issued but the trustee sale has not been executed because of a combination of legal issues related to foreclosures and the fact that the banks would rather have the inventory on their books as a default than in their REO department. Double the MLS numbers again, we’re at five years supply. Please note that this number doesn’t include homes that are in default but the foreclosure process hasn’t started. It’s a real number, but for sake of argument we’ll ignore it. Oh, and that doesn’t count houses that their owners would like to sell that can’t be sold because it’s currently worth less than the mortgage. So, we’ve got five to seven years supply available today.

Let’s look at borrowers. Oops, make that “qualified” borrowers. If you’d like to qualify for a mortgage, you have to have good-to-excellent credit (scores of 640+), income that you can verify with either W2s or tax returns, a down payment of 3% to 20% and a debt ratio of typically less than 30%. If you’re self employed and manage to avoid paying much in income tax, typical of self employed folk, even with fantastic credit you can forget about qualifying for a mortgage. I don’t have a “good statistic”, but from personal experience I’m guessing the pool of qualified buyers – and I’m not including non-FHA subprime borrowers – is down something like 30% since 2005.

OK, huge pool of inventory, small pool of borrowers. Got it? Remember “supply and demand”? Lesson? Prices have to come down a whole lot more and until they do, the “housing industry” is going absolutely no where. Please look beyond the headlines when you see things like “Housing is up 4% in January…” because somewhere way down in the article you’ll usually find something about prices dropping in the same month. The bottom line is this: the industry is a big mess, thanks to Federal regulators, and more action at the Federal level is only going to make the problem last longer.

The Washington Post – of all places – summarizes the problem we’re facing with F&F quite well…

The private market has not bounced back with the rest of the economy. Policymakers are concerned about the risk to taxpayers presented by the government’s large footprint in the mortgage market. The Obama administration plans to publish more details about overhauling housing finance in the coming months.

“The housing sector will continue to be a drag on our economic recovery until we end the ongoing bailout of Fannie and Freddie and replace the existing government-backed mortgage finance system with a purely private market solution,” said Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), chairman of the congressional subcommittee that overseees the firms.

However, that is not a universal view. Top administration advisers — and many outside economists — say the government must still play a significant role in housing.

Salient points:

1. The private market for mortgages has not bounced back because of the regulatory outreach history of the federal government and it will not “bounce back” until the government is out of the market.  The risk of dealing with regulators is way too high for the reward of servicing three percent mortgages.
2. The Administration will be publishing “more details” about overhauling housing finance – read “increasing regulation” – in the next few months.  See point one.
3. Rep. Garrett is absolutely right.  And, in addition, it needs to be made clear that the private market owns the moral hazard that goes with defaults.
4. As long as the government is playing a role in housing, the market will never “recover”.  Ever.  They created this mess thanks to overreaching legislators and regulators and no one in their right mind would chose to participate on a private basis, the risk far outweighs the reward.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

When it comes to powerful people and institutions, I have a fairly pronounced streak of cynicism. I tend to think that most high-ranking politicians harbor secret authoritarian dreams — after all, the kind of people who crave power (ie; politicians) are the the ones we should least trust with it. But most of them are smart enough to keep their mouths shut about this fantasy.

President Obama, though, has been strangely open about his own desires:

Earlier in the day, the president let his frustration over the stalled debt talks seep into an address on Latino issues, confessing that he’d like to “bypass Congress and change the laws on my own.”

He told the National Council of La Raza, “Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. I promise you.”

Then there was this:

Facing growing opposition to his economic proposals and dimming prospects that Congress will pass other parts of his agenda, President Obama told a Hispanic group in Washington Wednesday that when it comes to the issue of immigration, “I’d like to work my way around Congress.”

“As I mentioned when I was at La Raza a few weeks back, I wish I had a magic wand and could make this all happen on my own,” Obama told a meeting of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “There are times where — until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again — I’d like to work my way around Congress.”

Then comes this comment, at a White House event today:

Mr. Obama called on Congress to send him the payroll tax bill to sign this week. But, referring to Mr. Biden, he warned that if lawmakers kept blocking his other proposals, “Joe and I are going to act.”

This is deeply troubling. Obama’s message to Congress is this: You can either pass my proposals, or you can reject them and watch me implement them anyway. Heads, I win; tails, you lose. The flippancy of this remark — and its failure to attract headlines — is telling, given Obama’s history of comments that confirm this mindset.

The “temptation” to ignore Congress and act “on his own” — that is, in an authoritarian manner — might be unleashed in his second term, when he is no longer accountable to anyone. We’ve already received a taste of this — recall Obama’s blatant disregard for advise-and-consent traditions, for instance.

It’s a timely reminder about why our Constitution implements systems of checks and balances. The Constitution distrusts human nature and motives and relies not on man’s goodness, but on institutional incentives, to keep our political system stable. It is unfortunate that we have a president who is mired in authoritarian fantasies, but at least we’re fortunate enough that he’s imprudent enough to be so open about them — and to live in a system where we still have the tools to counteract them.

-Alex Knepper

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

There is a great piece over at Real Clear Politics today that asks a simple question… aren’t high gas prices what Democrats want?

Gas prices are spiking. That’s great news, right? We have to wean ourselves off the stuff. At least that’s what we’ve been hearing for years. Oil is dirty. We import it from nations that hate our guts (like Canada!). And moreover, we’re running out. Oil is “finite.” Finite much in the way water is finite.

So why aren’t Democrats making the case that the spike in prices is a good thing? Isn’t this basically our energy policy these days? How we “win the future”? If high energy prices were to damage President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects, it would be ironic, considering the left has been telling us to set aside our “dependency” — or, as our most recent Republican president put it, “addiction” — for a long time.

The White House is now running at full speed trying to blame the previous administration for its woes in energy costs. Which is amazing considering the fact that Republicans, not Democrats, have gone out of their way to try and free up regulations aimed at creating lower energy costs. If Obama and his ilk in the Senate were serious about working to help provide some relief for the 99%, what’s the deal with this madness?

The following bills – each a part of the Republican American Energy Initiative and Plan for America’s Job Creators – have been passed by the House and are stuck in the Democratic-controlled Senate:

• Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act (H.R. 1230) – this bill has been languishing in the Senate since early May. It requires the Secretary of the Interior to promptly conduct offshore lease sales that have been delayed or canceled by the Obama administration.

• Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act (H.R. 1229) – this too was passed by the House in early May. It would end the administration’s de facto moratorium on energy production in the Gulf of Mexico in a safe, responsible and transparent manner.

• Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act (H.R. 1231) – this bill has been awaiting a Senate vote since mid-May. It would “lift the president’s ban on new offshore drilling by requiring the administration to move forward on American energy production in areas containing the most oil and natural gas resources.”

• Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011 (H.R. 2021) – the House passed H.R. 2021 in June. It would help end federal permitting delays and unlock access to an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Alaska.

While Senate Democrats ignore these bills, the White House has locked up more American resources andthreatened a new national energy tax that would destroy jobs and raise prices on families. Click here for a chart from the House Natural Resources Committee showing the impact of the five-year moratorium on offshore energy production proposed by the administration.

So it’s absolutely 100% fact that Democrats in the Senate are blocking each and every initiative aimed at providing relief on energy costs. But do Democrats seriously want gas prices to increase? Well, let’s take it directly from what one of them said back in 2008.

A Democratic senator on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee inadvertently explained why her colleagues have no intention of ending the moratorium on offshore oil drilling or increasing the areas open for exploration and production – no matter how popular the idea might be with gas prices soaring.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV’s “Money and Politics” last night, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., explained Democrats don’t want to increase supplies of oil and gasoline because they want to wean Americans off of petroleum products. 

Asked point-blank if Democrats in the Senate would consider how increasing the supply of oil would lower the prices that are pinching U.S. consumers, Cantwell replied: “Oh, we definitely want to move beyond petroleum. And so there will be a supply side offered by the Democrats and it will include everything from battery technology to making sure that we have good home domestic supply, and looking, as I said about moving faster on those kind of things like wind and solar that can help us with our high cost of natural gas.”

Amazing, isn’t it? They seem to want gas prices to sky-rocket when it benefits them politically through the green industry, but when their desired end goal begins to be seen, they go the other direction because of political ramifications?

I’ll leave you with this oldie but goodie.

Obama and his Democrats know full well their actions (and inactions) result in sky high energy costs. It’s what they’ve been after for years now.

-Eric Odom

A woman pushing a baby stroller was hit by a stray bullet.  The woman was in the border town of El Paso, TX but the bullet came from across the border, in Mexico and was part of a Mexican gun battle that took place during a car jacking.

The 48 year old woman was shot in the upper right calf and was subsequently taken to University Medical Center of El Paso.

A press conference was conducted by El Paso Mayor, John Cook and El Paso County Sheriff, Richard Wiles.  Cook cautioned the public to not panic over the incident and insisted that El Paso is still a safe place to live.

Cook is talking about the same El Paso which has been designated the most dangerous border town in America.  It was given this distinction by California’s Tribune Weekly Chronicle which also included Brownsville, Laredo and McAllen (all Texas towns) on the list of the top 8 most dangerous border towns.

Two occurrances were cited, by the Chronicle, as reasons for  El Paso being named number one.

1)      El Paso borders on infamous Juarez, Mexico.  A year ago a barrage of stray bullets made their way across the border into El Paso, striking City Hall—allegedly the result of a gun fight taking place across the Rio Grande.

2)      Two months following that incident, another stray bullet was shot across the border, from Juarez, hitting the University of Texas at El Paso campus.

But, in addition to these two incidents, the Chronicle reports that since the drug war began in 2008, “thousands of lives” have been lost in El Paso.

Fortunately, the woman with the stroller is not amongst El Paso’s casualties, but that’s probably no solace for those who have lost loved ones due to the insecurity of the Mexican/US border.

-Candice Lanier