I am Joe!

Iowahawk gets serious about Joe the Plumber.

First, a pre-emptive apology for the intentional non-humor to follow. I promise that all future non-humor will be strictly unintentional.

We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.

Please read the whole thing, but this is especially important:

If it's meta-memes and meta-meta-narratives these media headlice want, so be it. I hope you will join me in expressing a simple bit of solidarity with this guy, Spartacus style. I AM JOE. I am a Wal Mart schlub in flyover country who changes my own oil and unclogs drains without a license. I smoke and drink beer and toss the football in the front yard with my kid, and I figure I can fend my way without handouts from some Magic Messiah's candy bags. Most everyone in my family and most everyone I grew up with is another Joe, and if you screw with them, you screw with me.

Are you a Joe? Say it proud. Leave it on every goddamn newspaper comment section and online forum. Let these pressroom and online thugs know you won't stay silent when they try to destroy the life of a private citizen for speaking his mind -- because for every one of them, there are a million Joe Wurzelbachers. And for that we should all be thankful.

I AM JOE! I work for $7 an hour as a front desk clerk/maintenance man. I have $1600 $1300 (thanks Dems) in a mutual fund. That mutual fund's capital gains will be taxed under Obama before I even see the money. Even before capital gains are taxed Obama will tax any oil companies in the fund. Any companies in the fund that make over $250,000, which is every company in the fund, will now be required to provide health care for employees or get taxed on their payroll for a government plan. My employer, a family hotel business that currently offers no benefits, makes over $250,000. Will I be required to pay part of any plan Obama mandates? At $7 an hour I can't afford to have anything else deducted from my check. If I wanted health insurance I could quit drinking and buy it. It's my damn responsibility and choice. Now I have to worry that my boss may cut back on the number of employees he has and just give the rest more overtime. I was last hired so I will be first fired.

I also drive 70 miles a day to work and back. Tax the big bad oil companies? Hey stupid, the oil companies, or any company you tax, will eventually pass that cost on to the consumer or go out of business. I certainly make less than $250,000 and yet I can already see where Obama will stress my paycheck, my savings, my 401K and maybe my job. The fact that he has bought off millions of voters by saying he will share the wealth, i.e. cut them a check, doesn't work for me. I know that Marxism has never worked. My niece however, who will vote for the first time, if she votes, will vote for Obama. Why? She doesn't like rich people. The class envy the Democrats have been pushing for years has come home to roost.

Bail Out!

You’ve got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don’t despair: You can still buy a house.

April 1995 Chicago Sun-Times

Obama is blaming the current financial crisis on "deregulation" and failed Bush economic policies when his and his party's fingerprints are all over this mess. In 1985 as a director at Chicago’s Woods Fund Obama was trying to get more tax dollars to support ACORN as well as sending money from his and Ayers' Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Community organizations like ACORN would picket banks that they felt were "redlining" minorities based solely on where they lived. Other intimidation by ACORN included breaking into private offices and protesting at banker’s homes. Rutgers University political scientist Heidi Swarts describes ACORN members in her book Organizing Urban America as “militants unafraid to confront the powers that be.” “This identity as a uniquely militant organization is reinforced by contentious action.” An ACORN supporter,Swarts says ACORN organizers “tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists...the only truly radical community organization.” Obama may say "This is not the ACORN I knew!" but he did. As an ACORN lawyer and trainer how could he not? He also oversaw a Woods Fund report bragging that they managed to fund ACORN despite its tactics.

Obama was also among the legions of lawyers sueing banks for not making as many loans in poor minority neighborhoods as in rich white neighborhoods. In the lawsuit that Obama helped on they admitted that 58% of loans to minority neighborhoods were approved whereas 81% of loans in "white" neighborhoods were approved but that 23% differance was due to racism, not the fact that poor people tend to be riskier borrowers. Citibank settled with Obama's firm and agreed to ease restrictions on low income mortgages as did many other lending institutions that were similarily sued.

When banks began complaining that they couldn't make anymore risky loans because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refused to buy them up for sale on the "secondary market" Democrats in Congress forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy the loans. During the '90s they required ever-increasing subprime-lending quotas on Fannie and Freddie.

When the Republicans took back Congress Rep. Marge Roukema,(R-NJ), who chaired the House Banking subcommittee, held hearings. She was afraid that the race card was being played forcing lower credit standards. She also felt that new CRA, (Community Reinvestment Act), regulations that the Democrats were pushing for could amount to an illegal quota system. The hearing was contentious to say the least. 50 to 100 ACORN members were present. Led by ACORN President Maud Hurd they stood up chanting, "CRA has got to stay!" and "Banks for greed, not for need!" The protesters then demanded the microphone. They were arrested but when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) had a "sit-in" at the jail they were let go.

Needless to say all the Republican efforts to stop the insanity failed amongst stong opposition from Democrats, especially from Barney Franks.

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.):

I worry, frankly, that there's a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios. . . .

I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. . .

Let me ask Gould and Raines on behalf of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, do you feel that over the past years you have been substantially under-regulated?

Mr. Raines?

Mr. Raines: No, sir.

Mr. Frank: Mr. Gould?

Mr. Gould: No, sir. . . .

Mr. Frank: OK. Then I am not entirely sure why we are here. . . .

I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety and unsoundness than, in fact, exists.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that Franks didn't see any problems with Fannie. This is the man who didn't realise his boyfriend was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's apartment. He was also living with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses for seven years while also serving on the House Banking Committee which had oversight of Fannie Mae. No conflict of interest there, right? Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs." Another affordable housing cheerleader and Banking Committee member was Senator Chris Dodd who, as a "Friend of Angelo", Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO, got preferential rates when he refinanced two properties with Countrywide in 2003.

Of course minority loans weren't the sole culprit in this mess, The Community Reinvestment Act applied to depository banks but many other institutions such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers weren't under the CRA. House flippers and other investors that assumed the bubble in real estate would never burst are also to blame. No doubt some banks used preditory lending tactics to meet quotas and then quickly bundled those loans for sale to Fannie and Freddie. Some other culprits that no one wants to talk about are illegal aliens and the banks that sought out their business. Remember when Bank of America started to issue credit cards to customers without social security numbers?

In recent years, banks across the country have begun offering checking accounts and, in some cases, mortgages to the nation's fast-growing ranks of undocumented immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic. But these immigrants generally haven't been able to get major credit cards, making it hard for them to develop a credit history and expand their purchasing power.

The La Raza Development Fund has been getting loans for illegals for decades.The Washington Post saw it coming.

Immigrants are emerging as among the first victims of a growing wave of home foreclosures in the Washington area as mortgage lending problems multiply locally and across the country.

Nationally, 375,000 high-interest-rate loans were made to Hispanics in 2005, and nearly 73,000 of them are likely to go into foreclosure, said Aracely Panameno, director of Latino affairs for the Center for Responsible Lending. About 1.1 million homes in the United States are expected to go into foreclosure in the next six years, and many native-born Americans are likely to be stuck with burdensome loans. But immigrants are getting hit first in part because their incomes tend to be lower and many have lost construction jobs.

Aside from DC other illegal alien sanctuaries such as Loudon County, Virginia, California’s Inland Empire, Stockton, San Joaquin Valley, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, have also been hit hard by foreclosures. Former Clinton Secretary of Housing And Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros admits:

people came to homeownership who should not have been homeowners

He helped Clinton and the Dems water down mortgage restrictions then got in on the building binge by joining the boards of KB Home and Countrywide Financial as well as becoming a developer himself.

Joining with KB, he built 428 homes for low-income buyers in what was a neglected, industrial neighborhood. He often made the trip from downtown to ask residents if they were happy.

“People bought here because of Cisneros,” says Celia Morales, a Lago Vista resident. “There was a feeling of, ‘He’s got our back.’ ”

But Mr. Cisneros rarely comes around anymore. Lago Vista, like many communities born in the housing boom, is now under stress. Scores of homes have been foreclosed, including one in five over the last six years on the community’s longest street, Sunbend Falls, according to property records.

Way to help the jente wey!

As quasi-government intities Fannie and Freddie were always seen as being backed by the taxpayers. They are a natural catch basin for every bad loan that no one else will touch. Now those bad loans belong to us but please don't start counting the profits we will make on these loans. Neither candidate will foreclose on those who can't afford their houses, loans will be restructured or even flat out forgiven at our expense. Not one condition that brought us here has been changed with the bailout. In fact huge amounts of new capital have been given to the very banks that brought us this disaster. Franks and Dodd will not be put under oath. Illegals will continue to get credit. ACORN will continue to get taxpayer funding even with the current voter fraud investigations into the organization. I foresee no immediate relief from our slide into socialism, in fact the resulting mess has actually helped Obama in the polls. From a little ACORN he helped plant the seeds of destruction that may get him in the White House.



Note: Most of what we know about ACORN and Obama come from the great efforts of Stanley Kurtz at NRO.