Obama Regime Brings Back Subprime Mortgages + MUCH More!

Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page
May 11, 2011



Story #1: Obama Regime Brings Back Subprime Mortgages

RUSH: Now, I have a story here that's simply unreal, and it's from last week. I purposely sat on this story to see if I would see it anywhere else. I've had it in the stack since May the 5th, almost a week. It's from Business Week magazine, a story by Clea Benson, headline: "A Renewed Crackdown on Redlining -- In the wake of the subprime implosion, the Obama Administration has stepped up its scrutiny of disadvantaged neighborhoods' credit access.
Community activists in St. Louis became concerned a couple of years ago that local banks weren't offering credit to the city's poor and African American residents. So they formed a group called the St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance and began writing complaint letters to federal regulators.

"Apparently, someone in Washington took notice. The Federal Reserve has cited one of the group's targets, Midwest BankCentre, a small bank that has been operating in St. Louis's predominantly white, middle-class suburbs for over a century, for failing to issue home mortgages or open branches in disadvantaged areas. Although executives at the bank say they don't discriminate, Midwest BankCentre's latest annual report says it is in the process of negotiating a settlement with the US Justice Dept. over its lending practices."

Can I translate this for you? They're bringing back subprimes. Bringing back the subprime mortgage. It's simply unreal. While we're all being distracted by other news, everybody but me, the regime and the Federal Reserve are again forcing banks to give mortgages to people who cannot afford them, which is exactly what got us into our current mess. That's 90% of why we're where we are today. And you note here that the government's now telling banks where they have to put their branches. The Justice Department's telling this little bank company where they have to open branches, just like the National Labor Relations Board told Boeing, "You cannot open a plant in South Carolina." And it's being ramrodded -- if I read the whole story to you, you'd hear this -- it's being ramrodded by the same guy, Thomas Perez at the Justice Department, who opposed prosecuting the New Black Panthers.

The guy at Holder's Department of Justice who refused to prosecute the Black Panthers is pushing this new loan program for people that can't afford it, minority loans to people who can't pay them back. Thomas Perez was also the lawyer in the Justice Department who led the charge against the Arizona immigration law. So it looks to me like while everybody's focused on all these other things, hello subprime mortgages again, hello granting loans. This is exactly how it started in the first place. I know a lot of people want to blame Wall Street, but this is exactly how it started. Substitute the name Clinton for Obama in here and Janet Reno for Holder, and it's exactly what happened. And they are threatening all of these people in the banking business with untold investigations and who knows what results they would provide if they don't do this. And this group, the name of the group, the St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance. What do you bet that's just ACORN under a new name? So the cycle is continuing. Chew on that.

Story #2: Daniels Trying to Convince Wife to Let Him Run

RUSH: There is a Mitch Daniels story today at the Huffing and Puffington Post. It says here that Governor Daniels does want to run for president. The last hurdle that remains is ongoing discussions between him and his wife, Cheri Daniels, over whether she is ready to face questions about their past. Apparently they got divorced and then remarried, and there are stories that she's not crazy about being first lady, doesn't want to go through all this stuff you have to go through on the campaign trail. I've heard that in a couple places, and now the Huffing and Puffington Post has the story that Mitch and his wife divorced in the nineties and she married somebody else and took the kids and then they got remarried later on and that she's not particularly excited about being first lady or the whole rigors of the campaign. (interruption) Is Mrs. Daniels proud of the country? I'm sure she is. I'm sure she wouldn't have to say so. Now, Moochelle Obama said so 'cause it was the first time in her life, when Barack was running.

Story #3: Photo Shows Obama Talking Down to Little Mitch

RUSH: Now, I got a picture here. Daniels supporters, you ought to be outraged at this. This is not accidental. AP has published a picture of Mitch Daniels being greeted by Obama on an airport tarmac somewhere. And the caption: "Obama is greeted by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels as he steps off Air Force One in Indianapolis Friday, May 6, 2011." Now, this picture shows Obama leaning way over, way down with his hand on Mitch's shoulder, as though he's talking to a little boy. Want to see it here? Let me turn the camera off. I'll zoom in here on the Dittocam for those of you watching so that you can see what I'm talking about. I mean this kinda stuff is not accidental.

Moochelle Obama has to lean down to talk to Barack. I mean, she's like 6'1" or 6'2", but you don't see those pictures. They don't publish those pictures where somebody's leaning down and putting their hand on little Barack's shoulder.

Story #4: Proposal: Higher Taxes for Parents of Obese Children

RUSH: I've got something about obesity here in the stack. This is a story from St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Ill. Lawmaker Says Raising Obese Kids Should Cost Parents at Tax Time." State Senator Shane Cultra, a Republican from Onarga, Illinois, said it's the parents' responsibility that have obese kids, take the tax deduction away for parents that have these fat kids.

"Cultra has not introduced legislation to deny parents the $2,000 standard tax deduction, but he floated the idea Tuesday, when lawmakers took a shot at solving the state's obesity epidemic. With one in five Illinois children classified as obese and 62 percent of the state's adults considered overweight, health advocates are pushing a platter of diet solutions including trans fat bans and restricting junk food purchases on food stamps." And now eliminating the standard deduction for kids, two grand, if they're obese. A Republican, Snerdley. A Republican with this idea. We've already got the fat police. We're just moving them to the IRS now.

Story #5: Obamacare Oral Argument and the Broccoli Question

RUSH: Interesting reporting on the oral arguments yesterday to the Fourth Circuit on Obamacare. They use the vegetable argument. I've got two stories here. The first one is from USA Today. "About 20 minutes into Tuesday's hearings, Appeals Court Judge Diana Gribbon Motz told Liberty University lawyer Mathew Staver that she was surprised a certain topic had yet to come up: 'the broccoli question.' 'There is a lot of talk in the papers about if Congress can do this, it can require people to buy broccoli,' Motz said," talking about the central point of Obamacare meaning the mandate that you have to buy health insurance or get fined or go to jail, and the constitutional question is, can Congress, can the government, can anybody order you to do that? Because if they can order you -- this is her point -- if they can order you to buy health insurance, can't they order you to eat your vegetables? Can't they demand that you eat broccoli? Where does this stop?

The judge was telling the lawyers, "Why haven't you asked me this? I've been waiting for this question. I've been waiting for this analogy. Why haven't you asked me?" She said she had a broccoli question herself for the lawyers. She didn't wait for the question. "Could the Congress prohibit people from buying broccoli, or to make it more real-world, prohibit people from buying trans fats, because of its bad effects?" Now, if you have to change the question -- this is what's happening here -- the question before everybody is, is it constitutional to mandate the purchase of health insurance? So in order to advance the argument or to illustrate it, let's change the question, let's change health insurance to broccoli. Now, if you have to change the question to fend off the unpleasant conclusion, aren't you in trouble? It would seem to me you're in trouble.

Now, another judge had a different question, different story. From The Politico: "The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals peppered the health reform law’s challengers with intense rounds of questioning on Tuesday, suggesting that it could rule against both Virginia and Liberty University -- two of the four cases racing toward the Supreme Court this spring and summer. Oral arguments in both cases were held back-to-back Tuesday in front of a randomly selected panel of three judges -- who all happened to be appointed by Democratic presidents. ... But it’s the vegetable question -- broccoli or asparagus, depending on the judge -- that continues to be one of the most significant obstacles for the law’s supporters."

Now, the writers of both stories say, as they watched and as they heard the questions, it seemed to them that the judges are gonna rule for Obamacare here and against the states who are suing on the basis of it's unconstitutional. But they won't answer the broccoli question, they won't answer it. You've got a question here central to the argument, the judges are asking, the lawyers will not answer it, the Obama lawyers will not answer the question. So I don't know, this is central to the whole thing. How can you sit there, the judges, well, you can say that they're gonna find for Obama 'cause two of them were appointed by Obama. We know how this works. And they can say, "Yeah, we asked the question. Don't accuse us of being judicially biased here. We explored every avenue here." The can say this in the aftermath, but still, isn't it a legitimate question, "If they can make you buy health insurance, where does it stop? And if they can make you buy something, can they also by the same token order you not to buy something?"

Well, they do do that. I mean, telling a woman what she can't do with her body. We do that in the prostitution laws. I know it changes the argument. They've taken the argument away from health care and they're substituting vegetables for it. My point is when you do that, you're losing the argument. And that's why the Obama lawyers don't want to answer the question. And yet, the reporters say it's a slam-dunk for the Obama team, and it may well end up being. We do know that there are Democrat judges, and there are Republican judges, there's no question about it.

Story #6: Record-Low Percentage of Black Males with Jobs

RUSH: "Employment Rate for Black Men at a Record Low," in America. "If the election of America's first African-American president was expected to give blacks an economic boost, it hasn't emerged yet. Indeed, the percentage of African-American men with a job has dropped to its lowest level since records began in 1972, according to the government's monthly jobs report released last week. Even as the economy added a better-than-expected 244,000 jobs, the percentage of black males over 20 who are currently employed dropped slightly to 56.9, the Labor Department's April report shows.

"For whites, the equivalent figure is 68.1 percent. Before this recession, the percentage of black adult men with a job had never dropped below 60 percent, according to Labor Department statistics." Now, they're a gonna say, "Well, yeah, that's exactly right. It's worse than we thought, and it's what we inherited from Bush! We're starting to show progress, though. Look at those 244,000 jobs. Nobody expected that. Things are looking up here. We don't want to change horses in the middle of the stream. We really don't. Now that we got this correction going, and now that we got our recovery going, we don't want to."

That's gonna be the campaign: "These Republicans are gonna come in and they're gonna undo everything we've done that's finally now taking us out of this deep problem that was worse than we ever knew. We had no idea how bad this was. We knew it was bad, but they hid it from us, and it's taken much longer than we expected for our policies to start showing a positive impact." I know how this is gonna go. You're probably upset that I'm giving it away. No. If anything, folks, they'll change the campaign now that they know I'm on to it. One thing I know about marketing campaigns: They are to be executed, not explained.

So the regime does not like me explaining this.