hispanicpundit (Free subscription) | 07/24/2008
“It wasn’t until 1968 that Fannie was privatized….The main reason for the change was surprisingly mundane: accounting. At the time, Lyndon Johnson was concerned about the effect of the Vietnam War on the federal budget. Making Fannie Mae private moved its liabilities off the government’s books, even if, as the recent crisis made clear, the [...]
Greg Mankiw's Blog (Free subscription) | 07/23/2008
The New Yorker looks at the GSEs . One tidbit: It wasn’t until 1968 that Fannie was privatized....The main reason for the change was surprisingly mundane: accounting. At the time, Lyndon Johnson was concerned about the effect of the Vietnam War on the federal budget. Making Fannie Mae private moved its liabilities off the government’s books, even if, as the recent crisis made clear, the U.S. was still...
The Mess That Greenspan Made (Free subscription) | 07/21/2008
James Surowiecki writes in the New Yorker about the duck-billed platypuses otherwise known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac noting a Johnson-era accounting change that was instrumental in creating the mess that exists today. The G.S.E.s are curious, because there’s no obvious reason for them to exist in the form they do: instead of creating private companies to do all these jobs, the government could...
History News Network (Free subscription) | 07/21/2008
One of the great pleasures of my work is being able to find and read or listen to documents and recordings from the presidencies and congresses of the early Cold War era. Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon? They’re all still very much alive in my brain. So, too, is John F. Kennedy, most recently because of a story by R. Jeffrey Smith in the Washington Post (“ Terrorism Funds May Let Brass...
Power Line (Free subscription) | 07/18/2008
Three polls taken in June showed Barack Obama running even with John McCain in Virginia. No Democratic presidential candidate has carried Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Obama's internal polling must also show Virginia to be close because the Obama campaign is adding 20 new offices in the state, bringing the total to 30. McCain, by contrast, has five offices. Part of the drive to open offices...
Where's the Outrage? (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
A so-called swing state in the 2008 election is Virginia. Polls show the race in that state as very close. Will Barack Obama be able to carry Virgina in 2008? Doing so would make him the first Democrat to carry the state in a Presidential election since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Yes— Barack Obama will win Virginia in 2008. The spirit of Richmond, Virginia native Arthur [...]
The Hollywood Liberal (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Poll Suggests Deep-Red South Dakota May Be In Play Wow. A new Rasmussen poll suggests that Barack Obama could be putting in play the very red state of South Dakota, which hasn’t voted Democratic for president since the 1964 Lyndon Johnson landslide. The numbers: McCain 47%, Obama 43%. Compare… [...]
Slog (Free subscription) | 07/11/2008
FiveThirtyEight has a fairly comprehensive link-happy list of all the Obama comparisons that have been made in the last few months. Obama has been compared to both Bushes, Bob Dole, John Kerry, Richard Nixon, and just about every politician ever to be involved in presidential politics except Taft . In other news, the Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle website has been transformed into an incredibly...
Right Wing News (Free subscription) | 07/11/2008
It is one of the longest wars America has fought, and it has been completely within our borders. On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared "all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States." This "all-out war"...
UNCoRRELATED (Free subscription) | 07/10/2008
Based on a true story, "Good Morning, Vietnam" starred Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer, an anti-war funny man, disk jockey who regaled the soldiers with his amusing rants against the establishment and how ugly Lyndon Johnson's daughters were while playing classic rock and roll. Welcome to the liberal-left reality show, where "based on a true story" means it may vaguely--very vaguely resemble the...
Climate Progress (Free subscription) | 07/09/2008
America is a land of opportunity. But when it comes to climate change and national security, it has been a land of lost chances (see Part 1). The nation’s top scientists have warned presidents at least as far back as Lyndon Johnson that climate change is an issue that should not be ignored. We have known [...]
NDN (Free subscription) | 07/08/2008
Peter Beinart, from a nifty op-ed in the Post: In "The Best and the Brightest," David Halberstam chronicles Lyndon Johnson 's absolute terror of appearing soft on communism. Having seen fellow Democrats destroyed in the early 1950s because they tolerated a Communist victory in China, Johnson swore that he would not let the story replay itself in Vietnam, and thus pushed America into war. The awful...
Vox Verax (Free subscription) | 07/06/2008
By Peter Beinart Washington Post Sunday, July 6, 2008 In "The Best and the Brightest," David Halberstam chronicles Lyndon Johnson's absolute terror of appearing soft on communism. Having seen fellow Democrats destroyed in the early 1950s because they tolerated a Communist victory in China, Johnson swore that he would not let the story replay itself in Vietnam, and thus pushed America into war. The...
The Mason Conservative (Free subscription) | 07/06/2008
And Jim Bowden explains why. You know, i've been reading these Lyndon Johnson biographies and there is a great quote in one by Sam Rayburn where he says, "it only takes a jackass to knock a barn down, but it...
Bill Baar's West Side (Free subscription) | 07/05/2008
From Tom Hayden at Progressives for Obama , Obama's position, which always left a trail of unasked questions, now plants a seed of doubt, justifiably, among the peace bloc of American voters who harbor a legacy of betrayals beginning with Lyndon Johnson's 1064 pledge of "no wider war" through Richard Nixon's "secret plan for peace" to Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal and the deep complicity of Democrats...
