Redstate

Posted at 7:04pm on Jul. 11, 2008 BREAKING: Bank Collapses. Feds cite Sen. Chuck Schumer as "immediate cause" of collapse

By Erick

Federal regulators just seized and shut down IndyMac, a major mortgage specialist.

The Pasadena, Calif., thrift was one of the largest savings and loans in the country with about $32 billion in assets. It now joins an infamous list of collapsed banks, topped by Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co., which failed in 1984 with $40 billion of assets.

IndyMac specialized in Alt-A loans, a type of mortgage that can often be offered to borrowers who don't fully document their incomes or assets. The company sold most of the loans it originated but continued to hold some on its books. As defaults piled up, IndyMac's finances deteriorated.

The bank will be run by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a federal regulator, and will reopen Monday.

Now the question is, did Senator Chuck Schumer cause IndyMac's collapse? The Office of Thrift Supervision, that regulates entities like IndyMac, says "the immediate cause" of IndyMac's collapse was Senator Chuck Schumer.

In a written statement, the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulated IndyMac, said "the immediate cause" of the failure was statements made by Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat. Mr. Schumer in late June publicly raised concerns about the bank's solvency.

"Although this institution was already in distress, I am troubled by any interference in the regulatory process," said OTS Director John Reich.

This is huge -- that a federal regulatory agency would precisely finger a United States Senator as being responsible for a present financial disaster. And why? Because Schumer demands camera time and soapboxes to keep his power. And this time, he stepped up too high.

Now taxpayers will foot Schumer's bill.

Posted in Archived | Banking crisis | Chuck Schumer | FDIC | IndyMac | New York — Comments (14)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:43pm on Mar. 24, 2008 Governor Paterson, Al Sharpton and Drugs

By GordonTaylor

It has been another whirl wind day surrounding Gov. Paterson and his escapade. It has become an escapade, it's no longer gossip and innuendo. And so the story continues like this.

After receiving some very bad advice from his long time and now former friend, former NYC Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch, and exposing his seemly underbelly, it seems our esteemed new Governor turned to another long time friend for advice this past weekend, Saturday to be exact, the right Reverend Al Sharpton. We do not yet know what advice he was seeking, and can't imagine what the Reverend would be able to tell him, except about spending campaign cash without gettig caught.

Yes, it does continue below, unfortunately.

Posted in David Paterson | Democratic Governors | New York | State Politics — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:32am on Mar. 24, 2008 Hey, folks who donate to a D campaign should be OK with this kind of thing, shouldn't they?

After all, they're the ones who tend to rail against "Moralists" and the like

By Jeff Emanuel

Our own Gordon Taylor has already been doing a great job keeping tabs on the Sexploits of new NY Governor David Paterson. Here's another story to add to the growing pile: the New York Times reported Saturday that, last week (finally), Gov-by-default Paterson "reimbursed his campaign committee...for two stays at a Manhattan hotel that he has acknowledged using to carry on an extramarital affair." Nice of him to pay back the kind folks who donated to his Tryst Fund.

Further, "Henry T. Berger, an election lawyer for Mr. Paterson, also told reporters that the governor used his campaign credit card to buy furniture and men’s clothing in 2004," though the lawyer said that is was pretty much OK because Paterson "reimbursed the committee at the time for the $2,138 in spending."

Having now addressed this, the Governor's representatives are moving on to doing what Democrats do in situations like this: accusing those who dare shed light on their wrongdoing of being [fill-in-the-blank here]-ist.

Read on.

Posted in David Paterson | Democrats | New York | Paying for Sex — Comments (13)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:00am on Mar. 24, 2008 Could Bad Advice Land David Paterson In Jail?

By GordonTaylor

David Paterson made some bad decisions in life regarding sleeping around and using campaign monies for personal use. Now, it appears he has made another bad decision, one that could land him in jail if this is pursued any further.

Paterson turned to his old friend, former Deputy Mayor and long time Democratic operative Bill Lynch for advice on his past philandering ways with staff members and strangers alike.

Lynch, as you might remember, cost New York City's first Black Mayor David Dinkins his office in a re-election bid by giving him bad advice. Dinkins was known for being indecisive and just a bad Mayor and much of his advice came from his Deputy Mayor, Lynch. Now he has done the same thing for Paterson, giving him bad advice by telling him to come clean with his past transgressions.

Paterson gave an outstanding inaugural speech on the day he was sworn in, and then following day he disclosed his infidelities that he and his wife admitted to. Now, no one canremember a word he spoke on Monday, as the frenzy continues around is admissions given on Tuesday.

A second source close to Paterson bitterly exclaimed, "Lynch helped the city's first black mayor lose office, and now he's helping the state's first black governor do the same."

Read on . . .

Posted in David Paterson | Democratic Governors | New York | State Politics — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:37am on Mar. 18, 2008 Trading One Fornicator For Another

By California Yankee

Just hours after he replaced Elliot Spitzer as the Governor of New York State, David Paterson, was answering questions about his own fornication:

In a series of interviews in recent days, David Paterson told the New York Daily News that he had started an affair with "a woman other than my wife" in 1999 and continued it for two or three years.

Posted in Democrats | Elliot Spitzer | Fornicator | New York — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:51pm on Mar. 10, 2008 It's Been a Bad Couple Weeks for the Reality-Based Community

By Jeff Emanuel

Nothing like that "Culture of Corruption" Bit Coming Back to Bite You, Is There?

Posted in Democratic Governors | Democrats | Illinois | Kansas | Massachusetts | Michigan | New York — Comments (29) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:01pm on Jan. 27, 2008 Elections Have Consequences

He's Not So Tough When The Bad Guys Don't Carry Blackberries

By Dan McLaughlin

Eliot Spitzer, like Rudy Giuliani, first made his name as a tough, hard-nosed prosecutor. Both men earned the dislike of big business for their aggressive approach to white-collar crime.

But the reason why Spitzer will never be Rudy is that he never did have the stomach to take on anybody but legitimate businesses - and certainly not violent criminals. Now, New York State is getting a bitter taste of the Spitzer approach to violent convicts.

In New York, you see, the Parole Board is run by a gubernatorial appointee, presently a Spitzer appointee named George Alexander. And what has been the result of the new management? Look at the numbers:

235 violent felons, including 215 convicted murderers, have been released by the state parole board in the first year of Gov. Spitzer's administration, records show. That's 58% more than the 148 violent felons paroled in 2006, the last year of Gov. Pataki's tenure.

Some were locked away for crimes so heinous that previous state Parole Boards refused to set them free up to five times before their luck changed under the Spitzer administration, a Daily News analysis has found.

Read On...

Posted in Democratic Governors | Eliot Spitzer | New York | State Politics — Comments (19)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:09am on Dec. 27, 2007 The Latest Adventures Of The Nanny State

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

I hate cats, myself. But this is unbelievable. If New York City intends to scare residents and potential residents away, it could not do better than to allow stories like this one to receive widespread circulation.

Posted at 12:18pm on Dec. 19, 2007 New Yorkers aka Liberals on Rudy

By Michelle Oddis

This video (posted yesterday by The Seminal, an “independent media viewpoint outside of partisan politics and corporate control”) captures your day to day New Yorker sharing their honest opinion on Rudy Giuliani. Initially I was interested...unfortunately, as usual, listening to the voices of most New Yorkers puts me in a foul mood. Keep in mind I myself grew up in a suburb of the Big Apple and have been privy to their extremist rants on several occasions.

Watching this clip reminds me exactly why Giuliani has liberal tendencies... in a place like New York City, you must.

Even worse was the substance of their “insight.” I don’t expect everyone to have a working knowledge of national or local politics, but people who have little to no argument only a disliking of anything "Republican" -- and then arrogantly act like their opinion is fact -- really drive me crazy.

The clip starts out decent but gets progressively hard to listen to:

Posted in 2008 | Liberals | New York | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (31) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:04pm on Nov. 8, 2007 It's Corruption, Stupid

By Erick

Holy Cow! And this is coming from the New York Times. It must be really, really bad if they're willing to bash Charlie Rangel.

Check this out.

The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has proposed legislation that would effectively halt some current tax audits of people who get a tax break for living and operating a business in the United States Virgin Islands.

Many beneficiaries of the tax break are campaign contributors to the lawmaker, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, according to data collected by CQ MoneyLine, which tracks political contributions.

At least one of them, Richard G. Vento, is currently under audit, according to court filings. Mr. Vento gave $4,400 last year to the Baucus-Rangel Leadership Fund, which supports Mr. Rangel and Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee.

So much for the Democrats making the GOP out to be the corrupt party.

Here we have the powerful Ways and Means Chairman trying to use the power of Congress to stop his friends campaign donors from getting audited.

Maybe Congressman Rangel needs to be audited?

Mr. Rangel’s proposal would end any such audits involving years before 2004. That upsets Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican responsible for legislation that year that tightened rules governing taxes on Americans in the Virgin Islands.

“Congress rarely takes action that affects ongoing I.R.S. audits,” Mr. Grassley said in a statement, “so it’s striking that House leaders are proposing changes in the statute of limitations for U.S. taxpayers who are newly claiming residency in the Virgin Islands.”

Sadly, the President is such a nice guy, he won't sick the feds on Mr. Rangel like the Democrats would do to the GOP. Why is it that our guys don't do that?

It'd be interesting to compare the number of prominent Democrat activists who have been audited in the past eight years compared to the number of prominent Republican activists who got audited during the Clinton Administration.

Posted in Charlie Rangel | Congress | New York | new york times — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:37pm on Oct. 28, 2007 Re: Democrat Retirement Creates Open Seat in NY-21

By Soren Dayton

I had heard whisper of McNulty's retirement, but I had not seen confirmation. McNulty is one of the few remaining pro-life Dems. Look for press releases from NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and Emily's List declaring victory.

Posted at 12:07pm on May 15, 2007 MajorityAP Leveling Playing Field

By Erick

Over the past few weeks, we've been keeping a close eye on how the Majority Accountability Project would embrace its mission to "Keep the Majority Accountable," and level the playing field.

Today, they hit a homer against one Freshman Democrat in upstate New York, Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20) and it's a case worth-noting as a model for what's to come this cycle.

It started with MajorityAP.com breaking the news that Kirsten Gillibrand had traveled to both London and France for campaign donations.

Traveling overseas to raise money isn't against the law (as long as the contributions are not from foreign nationals). But coupled with Gillibrand's own statements which she lashed out at her opponent, former Rep. John Sweeney, it's another case of saying one thing to get elected - and doing another once elected. "Hypocrisy" is a great way to describe it.

Read on . . .

Posted in Kirsten Gillibrand | New York | NY-20 | Targets — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »