News, Research & Insights for American Homeowners, Patriots & Constitutional Conservatives
If only ...
Monday, the Senate began to debate the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, and the House takes up its version of the legislation later this month. The bill would do exactly what its title implies: It would make insider trading of stocks and securities by members of Congress, their spouses and their staff members expressly [...]
UNC's Center for Community Capital has posted a new analysis of 19.5 million mortgage loans originated between 2000 and 2008 finding that mandatory down payments of 10% would lock out nearly 40% of all creditworthy borrowers while a 20% down payment would exclude 60%. The study finds a significantly higher exclusion rate for African American and Latino borrowers. The authors (Roberto Quercia of UNC, Lei Ding of Wayne State University, & Carolina Reid from the Center for Responsible Lending) do find valuable default-reduction benefits of other forms of strong underwriting as the Dodd-Frank Act already requires (through the "QM" and "QRM" classifications), but signal caution about the significant access costs of government-mandated down payment levels that government regulators may be currently considering.
Assets in the dumpster -- sound familiar?
Well, why not just toss out millions in assets? Isn’t that what the Obama administration did in subsidizing Solyndra in the first place? The CBS affiliate in San Francisco catches Solyndra in the act of destroying millions of dollars in glass tubes after a court ruled that the company was spending more than they were [...]
Founder Jimmy Wales takes heat for it.
In protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act, Wikipedia will go dark tomorrow. From 5 a.m. GMT tomorrow to 5 a.m. GMT Thursday, the English version of the website will be inaccessible to anyone around the globe. Instead, an explanatory letter will greet visitors and urge Wikipedia fans to contact Congress to express disapproval of [...]
Fallout.
“Yet the act of desecrating an enemy’s body is as old as war, perhaps most famously described by Homer in ‘The Iliad,’ when Achilles drags Hector’s lifeless body behind his chariot before the eyes of a shocked and despairing Troy. Nancy Sherman, a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University who has written a book about [...]
Stop and GoDaddy.
Just congressional consideration of legislation that amounts to Internet censorship might have unintended consequences. As the House Judiciary Committee prepares to vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act and as the Senate prepares to debate the Protect IP Act on Jan. 24, opponents have demonstrated the creativity, efficiency and depth of their commitment to quash the bills. [...]
The 1.6% long shot.
For a man who supposedly doesn’t have the faintest clue what his own ATF is doing while bodies pile up in the hundreds in Mexico, thanks to Operation Fast and Furious, Eric Holder is rather busy sticking his nose into the business of states — and perhaps spelling the end of disparate treatment by the [...]
Defining the picking of winners and losers
At the Weekly Standard today, Daniel Halper has what should be a must read essay regarding T. Boone Pickens and the NATGAS Act currently being considered in congress. This is one of those subjects where I frequently find myself dealing with conflicting feelings. I am, without question, a huge supporter of the domestic energy potential [...]
Common sense prevails.
If a positive conclusion exists to be written, I’m more than happy to write it. Earlier this summer, I highlighted a George Washington University law professor’s intention to sue Catholic University of America for its administration’s decision to reinstate same-sex dorms. The professor argued CUA’s decision violated the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act and [...]
Common sense prevails.
If a positive conclusion exists to be written, I’m more than happy to write it. Earlier this summer, I highlighted a George Washington University law professor’s intention to sue Catholic University of America for its administration’s decision to reinstate same-sex dorms. The professor argued CUA’s decision violated the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act and [...]
“There are things that are more important than someone’s re-election.”
On its face, the bill crafted by Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Chris Coons (D-DE) looks modest enough. The aptly-named AGREE (American Growth, Recovery, Empowerment, and Entrepreneurship) Act takes parts of job-growth proposals from both sides of the aisle with wide bipartisan support and rolls them into one proposal. The two eliminated those components that [...]
3 pm ET!
We now interrupt our normal TEMS programming schedule to give viewers a double dose of awesome. On today’s show at 3 pm ET, Senator Marco Rubio will join us to discuss his new jobs plan, the AGREE Act, which he and Democratic Sen. Chris Coons rolled out today. In the second half, Rep. Darrell Issa [...]
Why else would the president not know the obvious?
The president repeatedly asks where the Republicans’ jobs plan is. The other day, he even criticized the House of Representatives for failing to act on the issue of jobs, for dilly-dallying with a measure to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as the national motto. It kinda begs the question: Does the White House have an [...]
Republican obstructionism.
Let no Democrat anywhere ever say again that Republican obstructionism is to blame for the inaction of Congress and the president on jobs. Not only has the Republican House of Representatives passed 15 of its own jobs bills, but, today, the House also passed part of the president’s American Jobs Act, according to The Washington [...]
So much for the foreign-policy election.
After yesterday’s interview with Fox’s Lauren Green, I decided to take a closer look at her question for my column at The Week. Can Obama successfully shift the 2012 election from a referendum on the economy, where he will be at a big disadvantage, to the arena of foreign policy and war? After all, Obama [...]
The American Job Act.
As Barack Obama climbs back aboard the campaign presidential outreach bus, it’s apparent that the President has a laser focus on jobs. Well, one job in particular, anyway — his own. Obama took his American job Act out on the road again, and the RNC has a new TV spot out to greet him, and [...]
The president's plan is working.
Last night, the first individual piece of the American Jobs Act to face a vote in the Senate met defeat. I know, I know: Hard to believe Republicans would vote against giving $35 billion to states and cities to hire and retain “teachers and first responders.” Sure, we’re in debt and the last stimulus failed — [...]
"Nothing wrong with it"?
How popular is the American Jobs Act? For something that’s dead in its proposed form, it’s … still not wildly popular. Barack Obama’s bus tour stopped at a local fire station in North Chesterfield, Virginia to tout his jobs bill, which got stopped in the Senate by 47 Republicans and two Democrats. When Obama mentions [...]
"Act of Valor."
Via Jonathan Last, this is as close as most of America will ever get to watching real SEALs in action. How do I know? Because the troops here are all played by … active-duty Navy SEALs. Really. It started out as a training video and things just sort of ballooned: Act of Valor has an [...]
"'Right away' is a relative term."
In Dallas today, the president blasted Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) for the House Majority Leader’s rejection of an all-or-nothing approach to the American Jobs Act, repeatedly calling on Cantor to “come down” to Dallas to explain why he opposes the bill and urging the House to “at least put this jobs bill up for a [...]
In either the House or the Senate.
Remember when Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress to introduce his American Jobs Act, exhorting them on national television to “pass this bill immediately”? Obama used that phrase in various forms 17 times despite the fact that he didn’t actually have a bill to present to Congress until a week later. And as [...]
Mystery solved.
The Hill explains Harry Reid’s lack of urgency in scheduling Barack Obama’s jobs bill — perhaps better than Alexander Bolton intended. Reid has put the Americans Jobs Act off to the side while he pursues presumably more important legislation, which attacks China over its currency manipulation. It has no chance of passage, and even if [...]
"Watch ye purses & bury yr loot."
Thanks to a couple of obscure fellows named Mark and John who decided using pirate lingo made playing racquetball more fun — and even more thanks to humor columnist Dave Barry who made their antics national news, Sept. 19 (that’s today!) has been “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” since 2002. No doubt Dave Barry [...]
"Watch ye purses & bury yr loot."
Thanks to a couple of obscure fellows named Mark and John who decided using pirate lingo made playing racquetball more fun — and even more thanks to humor columnist Dave Barry who made their antics national news, Sept. 19 (that’s today!) has been “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” since 2002. No doubt Dave Barry [...]
Don't know much about history...
Barack Obama went to Fort Hayes High School in Fort Hayes, Ohio last week to sell Ohioans on the American Jobs Act, but maybe he should have stopped for a class in local history first. Obama promised that his bill would get spent in part renovating buildings at Fort Hayes, but Obama seemed to be [...]
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