The handwriting is almost certainly on the wall for head coach Jim Zorn of my beloved Washington Redskins. Jim Zorn says he wants to stay and finish the job but, does any SERIOUSLY think Jim Zorn will still be the coach as of say next Wednesday? I don’t.

I am fairly certain that the one thing Dan Snyder and Bruce Allen spoke about before Bruce Allen said he’d come aboard was that Bruce runs the team and Dan Snyder stays away and signs the checks. Sort of like how Bobby Beathard handled Jack Kent Cooke. Otherwise, I don’t see Bruce Allen agreeing to take the job.

That said, will Bruce Allen hire Mike Shanahan? Everyone seems to think so.

Adam Hankins over at BleacherReport.com thinks so too and says that the Shana-plan may include quite a few changes:

Now that Jim Zorn’s firing is a foregone conclusion, Redskins fans can look forward to the positive changes of the near future. Dan Snyder has his finger on the trigger of the deal to bring Mike Shanahan to D.C.

What are some of the moves that can be expected from Shanahan?

1. First, and most obvious, the entire coaching staff will be replaced with his own people. Who is on that list? Kyle Shanahan, his son and for now the Houston Texans offensive coordinator, will be the new Redskins offensive coordinator. As for the rest of the staff, we can only speculate until the actual announcements.
2. Mike Shanahan will want to have his own hand-picked quarterback to develop. Consistent success on offense is dependent on having a franchise quarterback, and Shanahan knows this as well as anybody in the league.Look for Jason Campbell to be gone before next season, and for the Redskins to pick either Sam Bradford or Jimmy Clausen in the draft. In addition, Shanahan will probably bring in a veteran to handle the offense until the rookie can learn the ropes.
3. A lot of veterans will be cut or traded. Shanahan and Bruce Allen will be making some extreme changes to the roster. They will actively concentrate on rebuilding with youth, and cleaning up the salary cap in a year when there will be no implications. Don’t be surprised by some shocking moves such as trading Chris Cooley and LaRon Landry and cutting Clinton Portis.

You can read more of Adam’s excellent analysis here.

Cross posted to SportingNews.com

On Christmas Eve, Reuters reported that the U.S. housing regulator approved a compensation package of between $4 million to $6 million for the CEOs of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants.

The U.S. housing regulator has approved pay packages for the chief executives of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the range of $4 million to $6 million, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has approved the pay details for Fannie’s Michael Williams and Freddie’s Charles Haldeman, which the housing companies are expected to spell out in a securities filing on Thursday, the paper said.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together own or guarantee half of all U.S. mortgages, were seized by the U.S. government and put into conservatorship in September 2008 at the peak of the credit crises.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment that was sent outside of regular U.S. business hours.

This is a huge double standard being applied here by the liberals in charge of the Government. Not too long ago, the Obama administration and many liberal leaders in Congress excoriated the multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses of Wall Street. Here, President Obama slams Wall Street over almost $20 billion in bonuses. Here, President Obama says ‘I did not run for office so that I could help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.’ Here, President Obama doesn’t tell the whole truth in his recent weekly address when he says the following:

But much of it was due to the irresponsibility of large financial institutions on Wall Street that gambled on risky loans and complex financial products, seeking short-term profits and big bonuses with little regard for long-term consequences.  It was, as some have put it, risk management without the management.  And their actions, in the absence of strong oversight, intensified the cycle of bubble-and-bust and led to a financial crisis that threatened to bring down the entire economy.

He completely forgets to mention that the Government (the liberal establishment) twisted the arms of the banks to force them to make said loans.

But yet, it’s okay to let the CEOs of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac off the hook for compensation. What’s the difference between these folks and say folks at AIG or one of the other bailed out Wall Street firms? They were both taken over by the Government. The Government says to Wall Street ‘okay we tok you over now you can only make $500K a year.’ Do they do the same with Fannie & Freddie? No.

The difference? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been longtime corrupt places for liberals like President Obama to get their friends cushy jobs. Friends such as Franklin Raines, Jamies Gorelick and more made millions of dollars all the while creating a housing bubble that led to the recent recession. When a person like President Bush tried to reform and tighten the regulation overseeing these two corrupt institutions, the liberals, like Barney Frank went nutso. Ed Morrissey wrote last year:

By 2004, all of the elements of the current financial collapse had been in place for several years.  The aggressive approach to enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) started under Bill Clinton in 1998, and the seemingly endless appetite for paper by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had turned massive amounts of bad loans into mortgage-backed securities to spread their cancer throughout the system.  In 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten regulation and oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress was told yet again that disaster loomed.  The Democratic response is instructive to seeing who really sat back and allowed this collapse to occur.

You think that’s the worst of it? You’d be wrong. Also on Christmas Eve, the Obama Administration removed the bailout cap from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So, we taxpayers will be on the hook for billions of even more dollars at these two corrupt institutions as the Obama administration basically handed over its ATM card to them.

Why are the Democrats doing this? Payback for all the contributions to people like Senator Dodd and then Senator Obama that’s why.

Was this the hope and change we were promised?

As a Conservative, what we have championed all along this health care debate is YOUR right to keep the plan you want and to keep the Doctor you want. What we have also been championing is the right for you to have the freedom to make your own health care choices.

The Senate and House versions of Obamacare will mean the end of freedom when it comes to the health care choices I mentioned above. The American Enterprise Institute has taken a look at the Senate plan and gives us the info on what we can expect should this Obamanation pass:

The plan before the Senate creates a set of 50 state-based insurance “exchanges” that are established as markets for health plans. Consumers must buy policies from their employers or through the exchanges–but, either way, their choice of coverage is limited to one of four basic insurance plans that the government sanctions.

Private insurers will still compete to offer policies but must model their coverage on one of these four templates. In short, the Senate bill explicitly standardizes health benefits and then establishes elaborate mechanisms (including subsidies and penalties) to pay for them.

Here’s the rub: While these four plans vary from low- to high-cost options, the benefits offered under them are pretty much the same. The difference between the cheaper and pricier plans is mostly the amount of cost sharing (e.g., you pay less for insurance if your co-pays are higher).

In effect, the plan creates a single national health-insurance policy. Consumers’ only real option is to trade higher co-pays for lower premiums. But we’ll all get the same package of benefits established by a series of new agencies and an “insurance czar” seated in Washington.

Once the exchanges are in place, the individual market–the ability to go directly to an insurer and buy a health-care policy–will disappear. You’ll have only two places to buy insurance, in the exchanges or through your workplace.

Now tell me, does that sound like freedom to you?

We still have time to kill this bill as it is currently written as Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com explains, the White House may be putting off the Congressional conference of this bill at least until February.

Walmart, through their ‘Live Better’ series of commercials, has been showing us how we can all live better by shopping at Walmart. In the latest commercial of the series, they have hit the jackpot with a very moving holiday commercial with actors portraying our troops overseas and a very awesome little boy who makes a wish for his Dad. This commercial is very reminiscent of the Budweiser ad from a few Super Bowls ago which had a bunch of troops being applauded through the airport as they arrive home.

Every time I see this commercial, it just tugs at the heart strings. That to me is what makes a great commercial and how I determined it to be the best commercial of 2009.