"A banana republic with nukes."
The collapse of the deal. A bipartisan rebellion in the House killed the $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street yesterday, sending global stock prices plunging...dealing Bush his worst legislative defeat ever.
New Rule: Just because you live in the middle of nowhere doesn't make you more authentic than me. It just means you have a much longer drive to the airport.
Now, ever since Sarah Palin came along, this election has been falsely framed as a contest between salt-of-the-earth, small-time maverick westerners and snooty eastern elites. You know, there's people who go to church on Sunday, and there's people who go to brunch.
Even fast-talking, cross-dressing Rudy Giuliani - the former mayor of New York City - accused Obama of being too cosmopolitan. That's like being called a douche-bag by Andy Dick.
And...and listen to Mitt Romney from the same convention. He said, "If America really wants change, it's time to look for the sun in the west, because it's about to rise and shine from Arizona and Alaska." Of course, if the sun actually did rise in the west, that would mean the earth is spinning backwards and we'd all fly into space. But, then Mormons were never big on science. As you well know.
But, what Mitt was getting at is that the East Coast is where all the liberals, with their bad ideas, come from. You know, bad ideas like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As opposed to the brilliant ideas that have come out of the west like frontier justice and wearing cowboy boots with a suit.
The ideas this nation was founded on came from the most cosmopolitan people of their day, the founding fathers, who believed in science, who looked to Europe for wisdom, and who had no use for ignorant hicks like Bush and Palin.
Truth is - the truth is, as America moved west and got farther away from its birthing in Boston and Philadelphia, it became less American, not more. We keep hearing about small-town values, you know, like shooting wolves from an airplane or forcing your daughter into a doomed, loveless marriage.
Cities are about diversity of thought. Small towns are about...well, crystal meth. And, last year, police found 42 meth labs in Sarah Palin's home county. Drug addiction is a terrible thing, but apparently it beats living in Wasilla sober.
There's so much meth in this town, I'm surprised the Palins didn't have a kid named "Tweaker."
Heads up folks, we are all witnessing the birth of a new federal agency...sired by Wall Street. All those people who booed Healthcare for all citizens, calling it socialism, are now applauding this new beast, Wealthcare.
"Will latest bailout plan work? No one actually knows"
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration swung for the fences Friday with an unprecedented bailout of the financial sector that will cost taxpayers "hundreds of billions of dollars." It jolted markets back to life for the day, but questions remained about whether the bold effort would actually work.
Truth is, no one knows. America and its financial markets haven't been down this road before.
...Congressional leaders from both parties agreed to work through the weekend to craft legislation that would authorize the Bush administration's plan to buy up all of the mortgage-backed securities at the root of the problem and get them off the books of banks and other lenders.[..]"
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/52779.html
So, we the taxpayers are getting stuck with the gambling debts of those mortgage-backed pillagers, corporate raiders and hedge fund looters...who were taking home beaucoup booty and living high.
We're told the tab will be between $500 billion and $1 trillion...depending on just how worthless that worthless paper they are holding might be...
Of course, we couldn't expect the plundering class, the speculators, the grifters and grafters, to pay it, could we? So, as always, we the taxpayer will foot the bill for being stolen from...
Yes, I understand that our government must intervene, bail out our financial institutions and markets, to keep our economy from tanking any further...but it still pisses me off.
Few care that this big mess was caused by executives who gambled with company funds so they could personally pocket buckets of cash -- all enabled and encouraged by the Bush Administration's anti-accountability, "Free Market" ideology.
I see nothing wrong with a tax hike on those who are profiting from this bailout. Levy a surtax on everyone making $250K a year or more in the banking and financial industries.
A few days ago they they were crying poor me...today they're probably back to snorting coke off the stomachs of supermodels.
I hate it that those who are responsible for bringing our nation's markets to the brink of disaster will get off scot free. Congress needs to push for real accountability and create iron-clad deterrents to keep corporate looters from ever putting us taxpayers (and shareholders and workers) in this pickle again.
Listening to Sarah Palin speak without a TelePrompter is like listening to George Bush try to speak Inuit.
A couple of days ago Palin was at a friendly town hall meeting and gave an interesting answer about...well, I'm not sure what it's about. But it has something to do with energy:
"Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8
Make sure to click on the video to see the whole thing. It's fun seeing Wolf Blitzer puzzled.
She sounds very much like a student who crammed all night and now has everything all mixed up. I think she's saying that we're going to plant our flag on molecular fungi and hold back bags of it so it doesn't get exported except according to the bans we allow or don't allow to feed our hungry by degrees...oh, I give up.
Hey, maybe that's her debate strategy -- make every answer so completely incoherent that Joe Biden's head explodes.
We can mock her all we want...but those who see her as a Mommy who'll save all the unborn babies, those who see her as a Hot Mama, those who'll vote with the reptilian brain, are going to give her a 50 percent chance of being our President.
Yep, Wall Street's biggest players were gambling everything from your savings account to your pension fund in a wild secret casino game...with no house dick looking over their shoulders.
It tickles me how the GOP talking heads were all over the news trying the blame this financial disaster on the 2 year Democratic Party control of congress, The truth lies a lot closer to John McCain...in fact, right inside his campaign.
Hello? Why isn't anyone pointing out to voters that McCain's current advisors and benefactors are major contributors to the current market failure...that McCain has lobbyists for Fannie and Freddie as advisers?
And who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but the lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm.
Phil Gramm is McCain's chief economic adviser...they've been best buddies since they served together in the House. The same Phil Gramm who brought about the Gramm Leach Bliely act that DEREGULATED THE BANKS.
See, back in 1999 Gramm pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown. While Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown -- hammering out a $384-billion spending bill -- Gramm slipped in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
It was the banking deregulation bill that destroyed Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms. A fantastic gift to his friends in the financial services industry, friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career.
Apparently, no one in Congress had read this 262-page bill that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown.
So...a $62 trillion market, nearly four times bigger than the entire US stock market, was free from regulations and rules...no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.
Then there was Enron -- a generous contributor to Gramm's political campaigns -- who had lobbied for a provision to be in the bill. One that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight. Which allowed Enron to run wild, wreck California's electricity market...and cost consumers billions before it collapsed.
Deregulation lets ALL the foxes into ALL the hen houses.
Phil Gramm bankrupted Middle America, is thick as thieves with John McCain and has been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win.
That's right...a guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy.
The same guy who called us a nation of whiners for being concerned about the economy.
Why isn't Obama hammering McCain about this?
I had to put on my sun glasses as I looked out across the GOP convention. That Sea of White hurt my eyes!
Compare it to the Democratic convention...which showed the REAL America...a melting pot of lovely diversity.
Okay, the speech. I expected Sarah Palin to give a good speech. After all, she's a former TV newscaster who knows how to read from a TelePrompter... and she had three days of round-the-clock rehearsal.
She was professional, cutesy, but not at all empathetic. Given all the warnings about not underestimating her, I was expecting a lot more.
You could tell the speech was written by the Bush/McCain gang -- peppered with a lot of "pause for applause." Of course, the R's at the convention loved it, she fires up the ever-shrinking base of the GOP. But I don't think she's going to sway many moderate, Independent voters...especially women.
They should've had her come out a fringed cowboy jacket and skirt like Annie Oakley, cracking a whip to the tune of “Mariah.” Now THAT would be a showstopper.
Seriously, they can dress it up with a pretty face, but it was all just more smears, lies and distortions from the Bush/McCain campaign. Where were the new ideas on how to fix all of the major problems and disasters caused by eight years of Bush/McCain policies and failures?
When centrist women voters learn that Palin opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, opposes stem cell research and, as governor, opposed funding for state pre-kindergarten programs...the moderates and Independents will feel less favorable toward her.
Here's more "Compassionate Conservatism"...
ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.[..]
She tells parents of special needs children that they will have a friend in the White House...but in reality Palin slashed funding for schools for special needs kids by 62%.
The Annual budget for 2007, which preceded Gov. Palin was $8,265,300.
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/08_OMB/budget/EED/comp2735.pdf
The Annual budget for 2008, enacted by Gov. Palin is $3,156,000.
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/08_OMB/budget/EED/comp2735.pdf
The Annual budget for 2009, enacted by Gov. Palin is $3,156,000.
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/09_omb/budget/EED/comp2735.pdf
This is a cut in special needs services to children in Alaska of 5,109,300 , or 62%.
In other words, she threw them under the short yellow bus.
Anyway, these parents are such a small constituency that she probably thinks she can safely make promises to them, then betray them without suffering any political consequences.
Her speech was filled with sarcasm, no facts, definitely no empathy for anyone outside her base ... I didn't hear any economic policy other than "Drill Here, Drill Now"
Dems need to blast past all that noise and sparkle, and not worry about being soft on her because she's new or a woman...or that it's sexist to attack her. After last night's performance, she will never again be seen as soft or a novice.
Those easily-disproved lies about Obama's record just don't seem all that savvy to me...or clever. She came across as self-righteous...almost bullying. Hopefully some "undecideds" are getting the same impression.
She didn't sound like a reformer at all, she sounded like the other angry old white men.
So...that's it? This is what the G0P has to offer after 8 long years under the worst President ever? Two narrow-minded, flip-floppers who preach do as we say not as we do?