As is usually the case the conventional wisdom from the main stream media is dead wrong and not supported by any real facts.  Thanks to our friends over at the Cato Institute we can get to the bottom of the sky is falling, doomsday, Depression scenarios that they are trying to use to ram through this 700 Billion bail out package on us.

Here’s a few examples of the histeria that they are spewing:

On Sept. 24, Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag

warned Congress that “short-term lending was virtually shut down.” The

following day, The Washington Post reported that “tightening

[bank] credit conditions are already affecting some consumers and

business.” Just before the $700 billion deal was announced on Sunday,

an alarmed Fox News anchor said, “McDonald’s can’t even get a loan.” (That comment confused a few franchise owners with the company.)

On CNBC Monday, Democrat majority leader Steny Hoyer said the

objective of the rescue package is to “unlock the credit” for consumers

and business. And a Wall Street Journal editorial writer told CNBC, “Until we get the banks lending again, the economy will continue to contract.”

Below you will see the the the actual #s from the Federal Reserve Board, what do you know they actually track these things!

Federal Reserve Board, Asset and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States (H.8).

In August, bank loans to consumers were 9.5% higher than they were a

year earlier–the fastest increase since 2004. The year-to-year

increase in consumer and industrial loans was 15.5%, down only slightly

from a recent record high of 21.6% in March. Real estate loans were up

4.1% for the 12-month period ending this August–flat lately, but not

down.

Also do not forget that it is election season!

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Over at the Online Journal Website they have put together a great list of what the Democrats had to say about Republican efforts to reform Fannie and Freddie.  The following quotes will amaze you when you consider the fact that they are trying to lay all of the blame on President Bush.

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Did Barack Obama forget his own comments on the surge in Iraq or did he forget that he could get a reminder of them on Youtube.com?  Appearently, he relies on his friends in the MSM to forget and to give him a free pass as they do so pretty reliably!

Thanks to Gateway Pundit & Powerline for finding these videos!

Below is a quote from a recent interview on the success of the surge in Iraq that you will see at the 6 minute section of this Youtube video:

“(snicker) What I said was even at the time of the debate of the surge, was if you put 30,000 troops in, of course it’s going to have an impact. There’s no doubt about that. The question is, does it solve our larger strategic questions and do the costs involved, uh, do they outweigh the benefits.”

Below is a quote and the video from an interview Barack Obama did on the surge in Iraq when it was proposed by President Bush:

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there in fact I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressuire off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president’s proposal… I think he is wrong.”

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A former CIA officer who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded said yesterday that the harsh technique provided an intelligence breakthrough that "probably saved lives," but that he now regards the tactic as torture.

Zayn Abidin Muhammed Hussein abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking al-Qaeda member captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, broke in less than a minute after he was subjected to the technique and began providing interrogators with information that led to the disruption of several planned attacks, said John Kiriakou, who served as a CIA interrogator in Pakistan.

I do not subscribe to the notion that waterboarding is torture but one of the big arguments from the left is that "studies show that it does not work, they will just tell you what you want to hear" well I always found that claim hard to swallow, they would be better off denying knowing anything than sending their torturers on wild goose chases that will inevitably bring them more wrath.

I find it amazing that this guy broke in less than a minute and gave info that disrupted several planned attacks and inevitably saved lives, so here is a technique that is not painful, at least not painful enough to deter a reporter from paying someone to perform the technique on him for a special report that he was doing, I do not know about you, but I am not going to pay someone to brake my bones so I can see what it is like to be tortured for a story!

The questioned that liberals need to ask here is, if this attack were to have been targeted at their families, and knowing that would they appose the use of that technique?  I find it hard to imagine that they would!

View the video of the reporter getting his torture below:

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It is truly amazing to see Gore criticizing the 1st President Bush for being too friendly with Saddam and ignoring his ties to Terrorism and his efforts to develop WMDs and obtain Nuclear technology and then to fast forward to the present and listen to Democrats attack the current President Bush for lying about Saddam’s ties to Terrorism and lying about Saddam having WMDs.

In this video you will hear Gore make the following points and more:

• Points out Iraq’s ties to Terrorism and criticizes President Bush for hiding these ties from the American people.
• Criticizes President Bush for refusing to take tough actions against Saddam.
• Criticizes President Bush for ignoring CIA reports, State Dept. reports & other reports that Saddam was seeking to develop WMDs and Nuclear weapons.
• Criticizes President Bush for thinking that Saddam’s behavior would improve out of fear of economic and political sanctions.

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Others on the Democrat side are pushing ahead with other plans. Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."

"Limbaugh isn’t the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio," says a House leadership source. "We don’t have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all political, and we’ll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail."

Read more on this subject at the following sites:

• Hot Air
• Wizbang

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Here’s the beginning text from the auction description:

When "Dingy Harry" Reid and the U.S. Senate turned away from the business of the nation to instead smear a private citizen, forty-one of them sent a letter demanding the "repudiation" of their inaccurate interpretation of Rush Limbaugh’s comments about Jesse Al-Zaid (a.k.a. Jesse MacBeth) and other "phony soldiers" who falsify their service. This letter was delivered to Mark Mays of Clear Channel Communications, Rush Limbaugh’s syndication partner, and widely quoted in the Drive-By Media.

View the aution page here!

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