Paul Ryan On Crony Capitalism

At the end of a predictably dull and meandering column in last weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan launched into an attack on crony capitalism.

She began by fingering Franklin Raines and James Johnson for having taken advantage of Fannie's and Freddie's GSE status to reap outsized bonuses while wrecking the companies and leaving them to be seized by the government at a cost to taxpayers of some $140B.

Next, Noonan mentions Paul Ryan as having the good sense to identify, in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, such crony capitalism as what occurred at the GSEs.

He railed against 'corporate welfare,' which is an accurate charge.

Perhaps his most concise line, as recounted by Noonan, was this one,

"The 'true sources of inequity in this country are the corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless. The real class warfare that threatens us is 'a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society.' "

Noonan concluded her piece opining,

"If more Republicans thought- and spoke- like this, the party would flourish. People would be less fearful for the future. And Mr. Obama wouldn't be seeing his numbers go up."

She's right. Thus my anger at recent news concerning my own Congressman, Leonard Lance's involvement in another bid to give more power to Fannie.

Ryan's remarks explain why those who consider themselves of common interest with the Tea Party, like me, grow disgusted with even elected Republicans. In my state, the GOP is far more liberal than it is further west. My own Representative clearly embodies that against which Paul Ryan rails.

I wonder if Ryan even acknowledges Lance and, if so, what he thinks of my Congressman.

Ryan's clear speaking and thinking suggest he could, if he has the stomach for it, eventually occupy the Oval Office. He has the sensibilities and intellect to get there. But the rest of what is required to be elected, including the sort of character assassination being visited upon Herman Cain this week by anonymous parties, could be too much for the Wisconsin Representative.

Big Brother Lance Is Watching

Sitemeter is wonderful. It gives so much information about my readers.

For example, as expected, my post yesterday concerning my hacked-up pol of a Representative, Leonard Lance, R-NJ, drew the expected visits from the US House's Information Systems. I have an IP address, but it's the same one for four different visits on my post about Lance, from computers using four different operating systems.

Two visits were touch n' go's, but the last two were for over two minutes, and one viewed two pages. I'm guessing perhaps yesterday's post, and the prior one about Lance.

Just so you know, though, a little political blog like mine publishes one post critical of a sitting US Representative and- WHAM!- the House or Senate webcrawlers are all over it.

In a way, it's a good thing. Maybe one of Lance's staffers who is smarter than he is- not too hard to imagine- will explain to the idiot that he shouldn't be favoring his crony capitalist housing campaign contributors when he will be exposed for it.

Regardless of what you think of him, Jefferson was right. Newspapers and their modern technological descendants shine bright lights on suspect, stupid behavior of our elected representatives.

In this case, perhaps Lance, dim-witted as he is, will realize his mistake and retract his signature on and support of this dumb idea of further empowering the two money-losing GSEs.

Why I Despise My Congressman- Leonard Lance

I don't respect my Congressman. Don't like him, either. He's one of those hacked-up former state pols who slithered into a largely red district, but was never ready for prime time on the Hill.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal named him- Leonard Lance, R-NJ, as a signatory to a letter from Bill Posey, R-FL, asking to raise Fannie's and Freddie's maximum loan limits again.

This is the sort of boneheaded crony capitalism about which Paul Ryan spoke in a speech referenced in Peggy Noonan's weekend column in the Journal. About which more later this week.

I wish I could have voted for someone more conservative and less, well, hacked-up than Lance in 2010. He's an embarrassment to the GOP. His 'finest' moment had to be when he had question time in front of Ben Bernanke, and all he could manage was to stumble through the script written by his aides, which contained no questions, but, rather, video/sound bites for Lance's next campaign.

Disgusting.

So is Lance's empty-headed agreement to give two GSEs which have cost taxpayers $142B in losses more lending authority. I liked the Journal's comparison of Posey's claim that the amendment won't cost taxpayers "one dime," so reminiscent of Bubba Clinton's promise, in 1995, that doing the same back then wouldn't "cost the taxpayers on extra cent?"

Yeah. Right.

Political Bad Lip Reading

Due to connectivity issues arising from the recent October snowstorm, I haven't really composed deep thoughts on the past few days' political goings on.

So I'm presenting two politically-oriented Bad Lip Reading clips.

Obviously, I find this first one more humorous. It's Wonderboy.

The second one is of Rick Perry. Not as funny, in my opinion.