October 14, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

SHAMEFUL DISCRIMINATION IN FRESNO

The San Joaquin Valley is where tolerance and compassion come to die. This is a place inhabited by a horde of mouth-foaming right-wing reactionaries and it even extends into the Catholic Church. The right-wing is in a major tizzy over a California Supreme Court decision allowing gay people to marry. It will "destroy traditional marriage," we're told. A Catholic priest named Geoffrey Farrow spoke out. He admitted that he is gay and is voting against the hateful Proposition 8 favored by the right-wingers. So Farrow has now been cast out without a salary or benefits. How Christ-like is that? This article by Duke Helfand and Catherine Saillant is at www.latimes.com:

A week ago, Father Geoffrey Farrow stood before his Roman Catholic parishioners in Fresno and delivered a sermon that placed him squarely at odds with his church over gay marriage.With Proposition 8 on the November ballot, and his own bishop urging Central Valley priests to support its definition of traditional marriage, Farrow told congregants he felt obligated to break "a numbing silence" about church prejudice against homosexuals.

"How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives?" he asked parishioners of the St. Paul Newman Center. "I am morally compelled to vote no on Proposition 8."Then Farrow -- who had revealed that he was gay during a television interview immediately before Mass -- added a coda to his sermon."I know these words of truth will cost me dearly," he said. "But to withhold them . . . I would become an accomplice to a moral evil that strips gay and lesbian people not only of their civil rights but of their human dignity as well."

On Thursday, Fresno Bishop John T. Steinbock removed Farrow, 50, as pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center, which primarily serves students and faculty at Cal State Fresno.

RIGHT-WING SMOKESCREEN ON HOUSING CRISIS

In a desperate attempt to blame someone else for the housing crisis right-wing bloviators have tried to blame Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Supposedly, Democrats in Congress resisted tougher regulation of Freddie and Fannie. Freddie and Fannie then allegedly made unwise subprime loans to "those" people who couldn't pay them back. Voila! Housing crisis. As usual, the facts don't support the right-wing claims. This article by David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hallis at www.truthout.org:

Conservative critics claim that the Clinton administration pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make home ownership more available to riskier borrowers with little concern for their ability to pay the mortgages.

"I don't remember a clarion call that said Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster," said Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

Fannie, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., don't lend money, to minorities or anyone else, however. They purchase loans from the private lenders who actually underwrite the loans.

It's a process called securitization, and by passing on the loans, banks have more capital on hand so they can lend even more.

This much is true. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families.