There is at least one point that where I disagree with Jim Angle : we had an opportunity to avoid this mess by never getting into it. There is no authority in the Constitution for Congress to authorize a Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae type entity. None at all. There is no authority in the Constitution for Congress to pass a Community Reinvestment Act. There is no authority in the Constitution for the President to sign such acts. We got into this mess by government doing what is was never allowed to do. This is like letting your three year old drive the SUV and shaking your head when he wrecks the Explorer. And then buying him a new one-with pedal extensions and GPS navigation!
Time and time again the government screws up big time then comes to the rescue with another band aid for cancer.
And why would we trust these people to come up with a solution?
That makes as much sense as having Ted Bundy be the grief counselor for his victim’s family.
I now hear that the Dems in Congress want to punish the execs of Wall Street. Only after Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are frog walked off the floor of Congress. And after the execs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac share a cell with Bernie Ebbers.

I got up this morning at 3:15 a.m. to get ready to pickup my Mom for our great adventure to cross the 35W Bridge.
My concern was that we would get there too early when I heard that MNDOT and the Highway Patrol were going to slow down the crossing. After I picked up Mom, I had planned to get to the Bridge by going over to Hiawatha Avenue and coming in from the south. We heard on the radio that the Highway Patrol was not letting anyone line up for the Bridge crossing. So, I took a detour south on Hiawatha to make sure we didn’t get to the Bridge too early. It worked out well.
As we approached the Bridge, it appeared that befitting a new bridge, there was a traffic jam. Well, as we got a bit closer, we saw about 100 yards ahead of us a whole slew of flashing lights and I realized that we were behind the rolling barricade composed of MNDOT trucks and Highway Patrol cruisers that were opening the Bridge. This meant that Mom and I were one of the first 100 cars across the Bridge!
And as took low quality videos with my cell phone:
Here is the approach (the flashing lights you see to the mid center right is the rolling blockade):

Here we are on the Bridge:

And here we are at the end of the Bridge from the south(you’ll notice that the rolling blockade has exited to the right at the University/4th Street S.E. exit):

And here we are on the immediate return trip from north to south (and zip-zap and we’re over the bridge!) As we exited at East Hennepin for the return trip, I asked Mom if she’d be interested in a real first: the first accident on the new 35W Bridge. She decided that that would not be a resume enhancing event for her.:

I have no idea what the background noise is as on my original you hear my Mom and me in the background.
Well, anyhow, it was a momentous morning.

Power Line and Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air have the best short explanations of the one of the trunks (not roots) of the current financial disaster brought to you the people under the marble dome in Foggy Bottom.
BTW, the real roots of the crisis: no constitutional authority for Congress in all this. Congress functioning as a democracy rather than a constitutional republic.

It as if they haven’t learned a thing:

“Fed rescues AIG with $85 billion loan for 80% stake” (There is no place, repeat no place in the Constitution that allows this or even hints at the government owning an insurance company)

“Pelosi orders wide Wall Street probe” (Notice, not a probe of the crisis, but only of Wall Street).

If I may translate: “Trust us not to investigate ourselves, ignore history and economists and blame Bush, Wall Street, Big Banks, greed, Republicans all in one move.”

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root” Thoreau
Last week, as we heard the news that the new 35W bridge would probably be completed this week, my Mom and I planned on driving across it the first day it was open for public traffic. We were returning from the funeral of a classmate of my Dad’s who had also become a friend of Mom’s and we took the scenic route across the 10th Avenue bridge that parallels the 35W bridge. I commented that they should open the 35W bridge at 2:00 a.m. so as to avoid traffic jams. when I saw the 5:00 a.m. opening, it occurred to me that at 2:00 a.m. the drunks would still be out being bottle brave and stupid. At 5:00 a.m., they’d be either sober or sleeping. So, I’m planning an early morning pickup of Mom and a cell phone camcorder recording of “Amendment X’s Most Excellent Adventure on the New St. Anthony Bridge… With His Mom in Tow”. What does this have to do with my blog title? I’ll get to that now.

When the bridge went down, and I’ve blogged on this, that many people said that it would take five years to replace. well, I’ve got enough construction background to be dangerous and have faith in real American know how and ingenuity , so I corrected the five year people. I said that if the government got out of the way, the bridge could easily be built in under two years. So, the powers that be “fast tracked” the new bridge (read: got the hell out of the way by cutting and burning a whole slew of red tape and regulations. In other words, they struck at the roots of inefficiency and delay) and “Shazamm and Kazowee!!!”. The Bridge is done in under a year from start up. I truly love being wrong to the good side.

The “banks”: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, WAMU, Bear/Stearns, etc. So, what happened here? In a word: government. In a phrase: insuring the moral hazard. The thought on Wall Street “They bailed out Bear/Stearns. They’ll bail out us.” Like the floods in North Dakota in the 1990’s, people kept building their houses on the flood plain of the Red River of the North because, well after all, the government would step in and help them build anew. Insuring/ensuring the moral hazard. The big wakeup call on Wall Street: Secretary Paulson said to the meeting of bankers on Saturday:”No government money guys. Find a way out of this yourselves.” And scramble they did. The little known secret is that this was a hand grenade with the pin pulled and the spoon released. It was going to explode. It happened to explode now. It was all set up during the Clinton years with the silly notion of “affordable housing” which means “welfare/subsidized housing” and “the right to own a house”. People who couldn’t buy the house they were in were given loans. Freddie Mac and Fannie May were the major underwriters of loans and/for mortgages that people couldn’t pay back. Then Bear/Stearns, Lehman Brothers, et al started to issue “mortgage backed securities”. Then Alan Greenspan started to flood the market with low interest rates to banks and the banks went out and loaned money like there was no tomorrow. The bubble was created. And no bubble lasts. When the bubble burst, it was a ripple effect. And we see the disaster now: the government created the bubble, then protected the bubble and now blames everyone else when the bubble bursts. And Bernake has started down the same path as Greenspan. Who pays for it all? You do. I do. My widowed eighty old mother does. The single Mom does. The newlyweds do. The retirees who depend on their retirement funds.
The good news: Secretary Paulson stood by that line in the sand and said “No bailout boys.” The bad news: McCain and Obama have no clue as to the real problem. They will pile on new regulations that will finally fix what all the old regulations didn’t. They will “make Wall Street pay”. They will cut at the branches of the problem but not strike at the roots. They will put a new band aid on the old band aid but not treat the underlying wound. How do I know? John McCain just said that people need to held responsible (I agree); that Wall Street has been reckless and will be held responsible. Nothing said about Congress being held responsible. Nothing about holding the Federal Reserve responsible. Nothing said about the executives at Freddie Mac and Fannie May and their huge contributions to left wing Democrats. But Wall Street responds to the market disruptions and distortions from Washington and then Wall Street is “held responsible”.
My point on all this plus the 35W bridge? Things work well/best when the the government is out of the way.
But “holding Wall Street responsible”, “holding Big Oil responsible” make for a better sound bite then “The Congress and the Federal Reserve are out of control and need to be regulated”. Well, Congress is regulated-by Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution and the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Sorry- Congress is supposedly and is supposed to be regulated by…oh,forget it. People like me are ignored.
A few links for further reading:
Cato Institute
John Lott
Investors Business Daily
Masters of the Universe
Hot Air
Be sure to listen to Glenn Beck on CNN in the evening this week as he exposes the financial disaster that is engulfing America and what really needs to be done. And next week he’ll be talking about energy.

As I look at this mess and what McCain and BHO and Congress will and will not do and as I look over the horizon at the looming three hundred foot tsunami headed for us called Social Security and Medicare, I’m reminded a quote from Will Smith in “I, Robot”-“Yah know, somehow saying “I told you so” just doesn’t seem to cut it!”
And I fear that that is
what I and others will be saying in a few years.

Amendment X often criticizes my eating habit –
Such as my latest discovery “Chick Fried Bacon“
(Winner Best Food Texas State Fair)

But science proves that maybe us Meatatarians are onto something:

Eating veggies shrinks the brain
MELBOURNE: Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.

As a proud member of PETROV (People for the Ethical Treatment of Rutabaga and Other Vegetables) I feel vindicated.

I was in Kansas City, MO at a rugby tournament when there was a double dose of news: The Saturday Night Massacre and the first Arab Oil Embargo. At that time we imported just over 20% of our daily oil consumption. We now import nearly 60%. And that all arrives via sea lanes.
Investors Business Daily has an article which shows how Congress has made us incredibly vulnerable.
Our good close personal buddy, pro-liberty Hugo Chavez, has invited the Russian Navy to engage in joint naval exercises in the Caribbean. Now, considering that as we import so much of our oil from overseas, this joint exercise points again to why we need to drill now!
That we depend for so much of our oil on the kindness of others that are not favorably disposed to kindly view us and now we face a military threat that could disrupt oil deliveries should move (repeat SHOULD move) the left wing controlled Congress to protect the vital interests of the United States.
My suggestion: write to Amy Klobuchar and cite the IBD article. Write to Norm Coleman and tell him to resign from the Gang of 16. And again cite the IBD article.
If you live in any Congressional district where you have a Democrat representing you, write to them.
Go here to locate the Senators’ and Congressmens’ addresses.
I just sent the following letter to Senator Klobuchar:

Senator:

I have just read an alarming article in Investors Business Daily ( http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=305766737761086 ).

Hugo Chavez has invited the Russian Navy to engage in joint naval exercises in the Caribbean.

As the United States now imports nearly 60% of it’s oil, the joint naval exercise points to a direct threat to our oil supply via the sea lanes.

This again points to the need to have access to our own domestic oil supplies.

I therefore urge you to eliminate any and all impediments to drilling for oil in any and all areas of the United States. This would include eliminating any and all extreme environmental regulations and sharply reducing frivolous lawsuits against oil production.

Respectfully,

Finally got the new pictures from the 2008 convention up on Ella’s site.

Just click on Ella’s Adventures in either menu bar or go to:

http://www.savagerepublican.com/ella

I’ll let you fill in your own comment