The blog is back up and running.   Took most of the day to figure it out, but we got it fixed.   So on with the regularly scheduled blogging.

And here is a good video of the Fred on the economy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I would love for Fred Thompson to be the RNC Chairman. I was saddened when he dropped out of the Race for the Presidential Candidate for the GOP. But I think that he got in too late and from what I hear, his mom was very ill through most of his run. But with him at the helm of the GOP, I think that the GOP will get turned around and get back on track and bring the Party back to the Conservative side. The GOP has moved to far to the center and it has shown in the last few elections. Many of the base, Conservatives, stayed home or voted for 3rd party candidates.

I know there are few others that are running also. Lt Gov Steele is vying for the Chair and has the backing of Newt Gingrich. And I would fully support Steele also. But I think that Thompson is a bettre pick, but Steele would definitely be my second choice.

Go Fred Go Get the Red Pcik Up back out of the garage and help bring the GOP back home.

H/T to Flopping Aces

Fred Thompson may try for RNC post

By Jennifer Brooks • Gannett Tennessee • November 12, 2008

Fred Thompson seems to be seriously considering a run for the leadership of the national Republican Party, as the GOP prepares to rebuild from the rubble of the 2008 election.

Supporters of Thompson, a onetime presidential candidate and former Tennessee senator, are hopeful that he might run for chairman of the Republican National Committee, a position that would make the former actor public face of the GOP.

“I’m extremely excited that he’s considering it,” said Scooter Clippard, a Middle Tennessee businessman who spearheaded national fundraising for the Thompson and McCain campaigns. “It’s time for a change. Fred Thompson would be the absolute best person to articulate that message for the party.”—dnj.com

Dear FredPAC Supporters,

Senator Fred Thompson will appear on Meet the Press this Sunday morning.  We urge you to watch the program.  And, if there are any undecided voters in your household or neighborhood, do what you can to get them to watch too.

In a campaign that has been more intensely fought than any in a generation, Senator Thompson has consistently cut through the haze of diversions and clearly defined what is at stake.  His video released last week has been viewed by over 50,000 and forwarded to many times that many more people.It has received rave reviews.

When the video was released last Friday, the response was so overwhelming our server crashed three separate times!  Capacity has been greatly expanded.So, if you were unable to view the video, I strongly urge you to view it now at www.fredpac.com.

Send the video to everyone in your address book.  We have a good bit of evidence that the video changes minds, that it gets people to think about what is really on the line this year.

And if at all possible, please send a donation to Fred PAC by going to https://www.fredpac.com/Contribute.aspx Fred PAC only has what dedicated, concerned citizens like you send. We have been working as hard as we can to elect solid, conservative candidates to Congress and advance First Principles at all levels of government.  So please, be as generous as you can in these final days.

Please tune in to Meet the Press this Sunday to see Senator Thompson’s closing arguments in support of liberty and First Principles.

Sincerely,

Will Andrews

Fred PA

UPDATE: You can see Fred give this talk at http://www.fredpac.com/Index.aspx

Courtesy of NRO, here is some wisdom from Fred Thompson about the importance of this election.

Re: Unleashing Fred   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Fred’s rally:

It’s time for those of us who are concerned about our nation’s future to focus on what is at stake in this year’s elections. This is a time of great challenge for our country. We know that somewhere in the world our worst enemies either have, or are trying to get their hands on, the most dangerous weapons known to man.  Small rogue nations are developing nuclear weapons and threaten our allies.  Large nations are engaged in massive military buildups.

At home we are girding for the possible onset of a recession. Very soon we will go to the polls and set a path that will determine how we respond to these challenges. It will be a decision that we will make not only for ourselves but very possibly for generations to come. . . .

Senator Obama and his campaign see an historic opportunity—a political opportunity.  They know that in times of fear and uncertainty the promise of a safe haven is well received.  But there is no sanctuary in what they offer.

Their “haven” is the same old tired refuge of liberalism: the federal government.  And the candidate – the least experienced, most liberal in two generations – represents a last gasp at imposing the failed 1960s radical, leftist agenda that could never succeed in normal times. 

Let me make it as plain as I know how.  If Senator Obama is elected President with a Democrat majority in the House and Senate, this country will make a dramatic shift to the left, such as we have never seen before.  Senator Obama and the Democratic Congress will be unrestrained and unrepentant in making our country as never before more divided and more dependent upon a dramatically larger and intrusive federal government.

[snip]

. . . [H]ow we respond to our economic challenge is more important than the crisis itself. For the last 25 years the United States, and indeed the world, has enjoyed unprecedented prosperity.  You wouldn’t know it from listening to Obama, but worldwide over 1 billion people have been able to lift themselves out of poverty.  This is due to America’s influence, from our defense of freedom in World War II to the Cold War, to the ascendency of our free-market capitalism, the adoption of open trade policies, and globalization.  Yet some say our current financial difficulties are evidence that we should turn our back on our founding, free market principles … that it’s time for big changes. 

But in a world that is increasingly inter-connected by jobs, trade and global finance, how our economy is viewed by the rest of the world is extremely important to America’s economic well being. The worst thing in the world we could do is appear to be unfriendly to investment and trade with an economy constrained and made uncompetitive by layers upon layers of new regulations, and bogged down in the divisiveness of class warfare.  Yet if you are to take them at their word this is precisely the direction that an Obama administration and a Democratic Congress would take us, turning a short term recession into a long term economic decline for the United States.

And while our regulatory regime needs to be examined and improved, we should be clear: capitalism is not the cause of our nation’s economic challenges. The subprime mortgage crisis was not rooted in lack of regulation, but in bad policies made by Democrats in Congress that forced banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford the houses they were buying. These are the same politicians who protected the excesses and fraudulent conduct of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are the same ones who now want to control the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars to solve the problem they helped create, and who tried to slip $200 billion into the first bailout bill for their political cronies in ACORN, the organization that is now systemically perpetrating voter registration fraud around the country.  This record, Obama and the Democrats say, entitles them to total control of all of the levers of power in Washington.

[snip]

The liberal agenda is based upon the belief that there are elites among us who know more and know better than the rest of us.  And that with the application of their intellect and power … and our money … they can impose regulations and establish programs, bureaus and agencies that will solve all the problems of the masses’.

Senator Obama and his supporters essentially see society not as dynamic and changing or full of opportunity.  They see one that is divided by economic classes into which every one of us is permanently assigned.  In their worldview, those in a lesser economic class are presumably resentful and envious.  So it’s the government’s job to level things out … or as Senator Obama would say “spread the wealth around.” . . . . 

This is the reason why they do not understand Joe the Plumber.  Because he doesn’t have a higher income today they assume that he never will and that he believes he never will. They expect him to resent anyone whose doing better than he is, instead of planning to do better himself. They don’t understand the Joes of the world.  Never have.  Never will. 

This political philosophy has a long tradition. At best it can be labeled a benign welfare state.  But history tells us that it can lead to tyranny or economic turmoil or both.  And … most important … it has never found favor in the United States – not during the Great Depression, in times of war, or any other time. 

It’s because in this country we have a different view.  We know that people do better when given opportunity and responsibility.  It has to do with our view of the nature of man.  . . . .  We believe that man was meant to be free—entitled to be free.  It’s an inalienable right, endowed by our Creator.  When free and inspired man can achieve great things – for his family, community and his nation.  In fact this belief is what we built our nation on.

[snip]

Let there be no doubt that an Obama administration and a heavily Democratically controlled Congress would change the face of this nation.  Only you can decide whether or not the ways in which they would change it would be a good thing.

I don’t believe it.  And John McCain doesn’t.  . . . Responsible change is the essence of conservatism.  We must change in order to preserve what is best about our country.  We have always been able to accommodate constructive change without turning our back on our first principles.  We must do it again. 

However, that does not include staking everything upon the eloquence and inexperience of one who has toed the extreme liberal and partisan line his entire political life, much as he tries to blur that fact now. 

This is the choice that we have in this election.  Let’s hope for our nation’s sake that we choose well.

Read the whole thing here:  10/24 11:01 AM

Let’s not lose heart.  Get everyone you know to vote.  There are long lines of people voting early in Dade County in Florida.  Somebody on FOX is interviewing them right now and you can tell they were all bussed in.    Chicago tactics are spreading country-wide.  It’s essential we get out the vote. 

And let’s also hope that a victorious McCain finds a place in his administration for the marvelous and wise Fred.

Julia(Stix’s Mom)

Fred Thomson in Townhall

 

The Danger of Government Guarantees

I’ll bet it came as a surprise to most folks that the financial stability of the world as we know it depends upon the survival of a couple of outfits called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yet that’s what the so-called experts are telling us. Moreover, we taxpayers are now being asked to guarantee Fannie and Freddie’s tab, one that could make the $124 billion S&L bailout of the late 1980s look cheap.

So how did we get stuck with this bill? Well, Congress wanted to “do something” about what it saw as a “housing problem.” To them that meant that they should create an even bigger problem.

So Congress passed laws that made it easier for hopeful home-buyers to buy houses … even when they couldn’t afford them. Then the Fed and other regulators helped, in the form of easy money and loose credit standards for mortgages.

Not surprisingly demand for houses grew, home prices rose, lenders financed additional questionable mortgages, fueling even higher prices and so on. You get the picture. This is called a bubble.

Then an amazing thing happened – apparently impossible to foresee. Home prices did not continue to rise forever! Home prices came down and easy money dried up, causing the above mentioned cycle to reverse. In other words, the bubble burst.

So you’d think the in-over-their-heads homebuyers and the mortgage bankers would take the hit, and the market would right itself. No reason for an international meltdown here, right?

Not so fast my friends. Years earlier Congress established Fannie and Freddie as purchasers of these mortgages, which they could bundle up, repackage and sell to investors, freeing up more mortgage money. As government creations tend to do, the two companies grew until they either owned or guaranteed about half the nation’s $12 trillion dollars in mortgages.

Fannie and Fred were “government sponsored enterprises” which means heads they win, tails you lose. If they make money stockholders, creditors and Fannie and Freddie employees – some making millions annually – get the benefit. But now that mortgages have hit the skids, with mounting losses, the taxpayers potentially face trillions in exposure. This is because there is an “implicit” (read “actual”) government guarantee of Fannie and Freddie’s obligations and both are now too big to be allowed to fail. This is called the “bailout phase,” which will probably lead to a bigger bubble in the future.

Lost in this immense, complex mess is the root problem most people are missing: the government is gradually becoming the guarantor of seemingly every important aspect of American secular life, creating incentives and bureaucracies that cause failure and invite fraud.

In Fan and Fred’s case, it was in no one’s interest to turn off the bubble machine. Just the opposite. The system induced borrowers to take on financial obligations they could not afford and lenders to lower lending standards. Fannie and Freddie went along because their managers’ compensation depended on the firms’ short term financial performance. And investors continued to buy complex security packages they didn’t understand, because the securities were viewed as government-backed.

Heavy campaign contributions by those benefiting from this scheme induced Members of Congress to avert their gaze from the ugly mess that was unfolding.

You’d think we’d have learned by now: when the backstop of the federal treasury makes it easier for politicians, lenders, borrowers, welfare recipients, government contractors, or anyone else, to serve their own self interest at the expense of the taxpayer, many will do just that.

That is why we continue to see self-dealing, moral lapses, outright fraud and lack of management and oversight in a wide array of programs and government-sponsored entities, from housing to Medicare, education and the Small Business Administration, all costing taxpayers billions, even trillions of dollars.

Our Founding Fathers knew more than a little bit about human nature. It is one reason why in the Constitution, the federal government was given certain delineated powers and no others. I hate to burst another bubble, but our government simply doesn’t have the authority or the capability to be the guarantor or insurer of our every need or desire. Isn’t it time we started sending that message loud and clear to the big enablers in Washington?
 

To read more of Senator Thompson‘s writings, please visit us on the web at www.fredpac.com