Our distinguished lineup includes:

Isaac Robert Toussie, “one of Long Island’s biggest developers” who, at 29 years old, raked in $20 million from selling subprime mortgages to “inner city minorities” who couldn’t afford Toussie’s overpriced, apparently dilapidated houses. Toussie’s favorite activity before receiving a presidential pardon was apparently flashing his ill-gained wealth by driving around the neighborhoods in Rolls Royces and Bentleys. Toussie’s father is “one of the largest landowners on Long Island” according to The New York Times and I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the pardon, but the elder Toussie has given large donations to the RNC this year.

How exactly did Isaac Toussie find himself on the wrong side of the law? “In May, 2001, Issac Toussie pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court on Long Island for illegally obtaining federal housing loans.” Put more informatively, Raw Story reports that Toussie “pled guilty to inflating the incomes of at least 100 families to make them eligible for federal loans in the lead-up to the worst housing crisis the United States has ever had.” Toussie avoided millions of dollars in restitution that the federal government was seeking from him.

In other words, this guy ripped off the federal government to the tune of millions while buying himself Rolls Royces and Bentleys and taking part in the activities that have in part caused our current economic crisis while already getting a break in not having to pay back the money, and he is worthy of a presidential pardon? Next, this guy will be wanting his own bailout.

John Allen “Johnny”/”Sonny” Aregood of Riviera, Texas, who pled guilty to harboring and transporting illegal aliens in 1996. He also has received more than $200,000 in farm subsidies to his farm, Aregood Farms, from 1995 to 2006, so I would say the federal government has more than compensated him (or his family) for any damage his federal conviction may have caused him. His son illustrates books about earless cats.

Of course, some of these people deserve a second chance. Eric Charles Blanke, of Parker, Colorado, says he pled guilty to “making impressions of obligations of the United States” (AKA counterfeiting) and says that he’s sorry and has lived with being a felon for 15 years.

David Lane Woolsey was convicted of digging up tribal Indian lands in 1992 and allegedly said at the time, “Better I dig it up than have the cows trample it.”

Perhaps most deserving of pardon (since the crimes they were convicted of shouldn’t be crimes at all), some of the 19 had been convicted for marijuana dealing, like Steve Doyle Cavender of Florida, convicted for possessing (with intent to distribute) marijuana in 1972.

The one commutation issued today (rightly) went to Reed Raymond Prior, sentenced to a mandatory life sentence for one count of methamphetamine distribution.

UPDATE: In an unprecedented move and to his credit, Bush has rescinded Toussie’s pardon.

Who, eight years ago, could have predicted that Al Gore’s right-hand sidekick Lieberman would be one of the biggest backers of the GOP ticket in 2008, with Powell not far behind espousing how great the Democratic nominee is? (Meanwhile, Joe Biden doesn’t know what he’s saying, as usual.)

It’s too bad that the Powell-Obama and Lieberman-McCain non-partisan lovefests have come about for the pettiest of reasons: Powell is upset that Bush made him look like a fool in front of the world at the UN. Lieberman is upset that Democrats didn’t support him in his primary race against Ned Lamont in Connecticut after he came out and supported the Iraq War so strongly. Does either really have America’s best interests at heart, or are each looking forward to their respective Cabinet appointments in Obama and McCain administrations?

(I long ago lost most of my respect for Colin Powell– who couldn’t have with his appearance before the United Nations? This is also the man keeping gays out of the military.)

If I were Obama, I would therefore be less proud about getting Powell’s endorsement and revel in the endorsement of London mayor Boris Johnson, who is a libertarian (on some issues, at least) and a former Tory member of Parliament. In other words, this is not necessarily an obvious person to stump for Obama. Johnson defeated “Red Ken” Livingstone for the office of mayor earlier this year, and that’s enough for me to love him forever. But he’s also one of those politicians I wish America had, one who can say what he really thinks and still get elected. What a concept.

Anyway, what Boris thinks now is that Obama should be elected for many of the same reasons I’ve mentioned in favor of Obama’s candidacy: the rest of the world will respect it, the Republicans haven’t earned it, McCain has offered little reason to think he can do better, and electing a black man would show the rest of the world that America is truly an accepting place. I agree these are good reasons, but none of them have to do with Obama directly. Johnson obviously respects McCain, but is mostly basing this on the current Republican administration in general. He doesn’t like Obama’s policies and says he hopes that his tax plan is blocked by Congress (I wouldn’t count on that). Melanie Phillips of The Spectator responds that Boris has succumbed to “Neocon Derangement Syndrome”:

How else to explain the fact that for paragraph after paragraph he exults that an Obama victory will be a triumph for black people because he is black – only to conclude that such a victory will demonstrate that being black is a total irrelevance?!

Johnson writes in his Obama endorsement:

It would be tough for any candidate to receive the Republican baton from Dubya, and McCain can be proud of doing as well as he is.

His chief problem is that he does not seem to offer any hope of repair to those American ideals.

Or, to put it another way, it is not clear how America under McCain would recover her standing in the eyes of the world.

Sure, Obama might be a socialist who ruins the health care landscape for aspiring medical doctors like myself. But, even if he’s really bad, it’ll be a different kind of bad than we’ve had the last eight years.

That certainly is the best reason to vote for Obama, and it’s a difficult one to argue against; Radley Balko agrees.

Since Hillary gave up, Obama has lost his luster for me. He doesn’t bring any sort of change I or any self-respecting libertarian can really believe in. The Wall Street Journal lays out some of the reasons succinctly.

Now, of course we also come to the other side of the coin. History teaches us that George W. Bush talked a good game in 2000 (no nation-building, Americans aren’t the police officers of the world, smaller government is good, etc.) and if you went on substance rather than style and voted for the idiot, you were voting for someone who immediately jettisoned his campaign promises and increased the size of government more than any Democrat in at least 40 years. He doubled the size of some government agencies (including the Department of Education), introduced the largest entitlement program since the beginning of Medicare with the Medicare prescription drug “benefit,” and wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars using America to act as 911 for the world. Al Gore is a real small government guy compared to W.

So now, do we trust Obama- who seems like he can think through things and maybe listen to the other side, although he never actually votes that way– or McCain, whom some have called “the most reliable Democrat” in the Senate and someone who thinks we should spend 100 years in Iraq, someone who actually has reached out to the other side, even if a little bit too much.

McCain once said he didn’t know as much about economics as he should, something that is true about almost all Americans including myself; Obama doesn’t know that much about economics, either, but he doesn’t admit it, so on that respect I think McCain seems more forthright about his weaknesses and more willing to surround himself with advisers who do know what they’re talking about.

Is Obama going to “reach across the aisle” as he likes to say and give us libertarians anything to cheer about? Is McCain going to reach across the aisle too much and give us nothing?

This is why a libertarian– even in a swing state– might be better off keeping a clear conscience and voting for Bob Barr.

The bailout bill that the Senate will vote on tonight is different than the one the House voted down two days ago. It raises the FDIC cap from $100,000 to $250,000, among other token measures.

I didn’t really start noticing the propoganda about the FDIC until I realized how worthless it was, after my own bank, Netbank, failed a year ago. The FDIC facilitated ING’s purchase of what was Netbank, which is the only thing of worth that they do.

They just can’t insure every American’s personal accounts up to $250,000. The fact that actual senators (or more likely, their staffs) have inserted this into a Congressional bill is perpetrating a fraud.

In isolated incidents such as that of Netbank, another bank will buy the failed bank’s holdings and make good on them, just like ING did. In a rash of closings like those we have seen, the government may “have” to do it because it’s not financially sound, but they won’t be able to. The FDIC was created to prevent runs on banks, and because some people trust the FDIC, it may in fact help prevent that.

However, if there is any type of massive failed bank situation where millions of Americans want the FDIC to pony up, it won’t be able to. It doesn’t have the funds, despite collecting premiums from banks all along. It doesn’t have $100,000 for every $100,000 customer, let alone $250,000. It has $50 billion ($8 billion of which went for IndyMac) to insure $1 trillion in deposits.

Lew Rockwell writes:

“Today? The president moves about like Caesar Augustus, with a vast, graded court of civil and military aides, doctors, secretaries, valets, hairdressers, makeup artists, bodyguards, drivers, baggage handlers, cooks, food tasters, Praetorian guards, snipers, centurions, bulletproof limos, a portable hospital, and an armored rostrum. And that’s when he travels in the United States.

When Bush visited Ottawa, members of Parliament were refused entry into their own legislature by the massed power of the Secret Service, in violation of Canadian law. When Bush visited London, 5,000 additional police were assigned to protect him. Parks and streets and neighborhoods were closed. Riflemen thronged the roofs. The queen was horrified by the trashed condition of the grounds and great rooms of Buckingham Palace, but that meant nothing as versus the security of the emperor.

He counts far more than any other human being on earth. So, of course, every event is staged to the extreme. The president is spoken to by no regular person…”

A regular person speak to Bush? That gave me my laugh for the day.

While Bush apparently needed 5,000 police officers during his stay in London, in Israel starting today he will be protected by 10,500 Israeli police officers.

The Guardian writes of Bush’s visit: “… Hundreds of hotel rooms across Jerusalem have been booked for Bush’s group… Eight truckloads of equipment have already arrived in advance of his two-night stay. All the hotel’s rooms will be taken by his entourage – tourists have had their bookings cancelled.”

What an innovative way to maintain good relations with the world! Cancel all the tourists’ bookings in your own hotel, then snap up all the rest of the hotel rooms so they can’t come at all! I for one am glad we have a goodwill ambassador like Bush doing this great work for us, aren’t you?

(Credit to Lew Rockwell.com for the graphic.)

UPDATE: The Economist writes: “As for the White House’s wish to be ‘well perceived in the world’, the less said the better.”

Tags: Bush’s entourage, Bush entourage, Bush Secret Service, Bush Israel, Bush 10,000 Israel

“It’s what I do during my presidency. I go around spreading good will and talking about the importance of spreading freedom and peace.”