Free Frank Warner

Communist China censors New York Times story on Wen Jiaboa’s filthy riches

The New York Times is reporting this weekend that top Chinese Communist dictator Wen Jiabao’s family has amassed $2.7 billion in the last few years.

For more than two decades, the dictatorship has freed large segments of the Chinese economy, working wonders for the material well-being of millions of Chinese. The partial economic freedom has created a middle class and certainly a new upper class in that nation. But the totalitarian rulers have been sure to take a large cut of the free-market profits.

China remains a slave state with ruthless masters at the helm. The population knows their unelected rulers have stolen their political freedoms. But thanks to tyranny's darkness, the Chinese people can’t find out how much of their hard-earned wealth has been siphoned to the despots.

Frank Warner

 

North Korean dictator vaporizes official who partied after Kim Jung-il died

Kim Jong-Un, North Korea’s new dictator, early this year ordered one of his high-ranking military officials literally “obliterated” because the official went out drinking and partying after Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, died last December 17.

Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was tied to a target and destroyed by a direct hit from a mortar round.

The Kim Jong Communist dynasty has tortured North Koreans with total repression and a control economy that creates little wealth and diverts scarce rescources to the secret police and the building of totally unnecessary atom bombs. Millions have died of starvation, and all hunger for freedom. Adding to the misery, the new dictator, like the old, is executing anyone who looks suspicious to him.

Day and night. Some goofballs still wonder why the U.S. and its allies freed South Korea of its Communist invaders six decades ago. Today, South Korea dances Gangnam-style, and North Korea wallows in a totalitarian nightmare.

Frank Warner

Vice President Joe Biden protected banks ‘too big to fail’

When we were told four years ago that the United States had a few banks “too big to fail,” many of us wondered why we weren’t breaking up those banks instead of bailing out the bankers.

Well, in his new book “The Payoff,” Vice President Joe Biden’s former staffer Jeff Connaughton has the answer: Those big banks have bought off the Democrats as well as the Republicans. Bribery keeps the big banks big.

With the threat of antitrust enforcement over their heads, the big bankers are only too happy to funnel campaign contributions to the top Democrats and Republicans in Washington, and the politicians are happy to accept the bribes. For members of Congress, desperate for the jackpot that flow from perpetual re-election, that funding is a lot bigger and a lot more reliable than small donations from average Americans. And with the government bought off, the bankers can rest assured their high-paying jobs are safe no matter how irresponsibly they run their banks.

Banking cover-up. Our leaders pretend to be tough on big banks, but watch how little they do about banks that do wrong. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created a system that produced $1 trillion worth of reckless home loans, but did Congress and President Obama do anything to break up Fannie and Freddie? No. They’re still around, and we’re still paying for their bad bets.

The Democrats notoriously took over Fannie and Freddie in the 1990s and early 2000s, and pushed those mortgage giants to ignore banking standards and back loans to people who couldn’t possibly pay them back. That was bad enough and, except for Bill Clinton and Artur Davis, the Democrats still are covering up that crime.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Fannie and Freddie were buying off every major politician in Washington, from Democrat Rahm Emanuel to Republican Newt Gingrich. It’s no wonder that both major political parties tolerated the massive malfeasance of those two institutions.

Break 'em up. Connaughton was shocked that Joe Biden dropped from the “banking reform” bill a provision that would have knocked the monster-size banks down to size. I’m shocked he was shocked.

We’ll know our leaders have learned something when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are abolished, when the big banks are split up and when new laws put politicians to jail for accepting any special favor from a bank.

Frank Warner

Is Fidel Castro sicker?

Are the chains of Fidel Castro's tyranny crumbling? Once the dictator-emeritus is gone, his sucker-uppers will face direct challenges to their legitimacy. Might Cuba finally see the free elections that Fidel lied about 50 years ago?

Frank Warner