Unsurprising Economic Meltdown, and Hope For The Future...

This was forwarded to me, so I cannot be positive of the author. Regardless of author, it is a worthwhile take on where we: unfathomable hundreds of billions of dollars are in the process of being shoveled from our kids pockets into the hands of the super-rich.

Unsurprising economic meltdown, and hope for the future...

Steal from the poor and give to the rich: this is the policy that we have in recent days seen the U.S. Government unhesitatingly and irresponsibly sanction by bailing out the big gamblers and law-breakers with tax-payer money. At least now this short-sighted and destructive approach to governance is undeniably out in the open. We saw this happen in the 1980s with the savings and loan scandal and bail-outs, and we are seeing now, as we saw then, people like John McCain, Phil Gramm and the usual assortment of corporate pirates get off scot-free and continue on their paths of self-advancement and cronyism. The mismanagement and plundering of our nation's wealth and the cavalier drive to burden future generations of its citizens with crushing debt have been hallmarks of U.S. government practice for quite some time, but never to the unprecedented degree that we have experienced during the eight years that the Bush Administration has plundered the treasury for the benefit of a tiny, very wealthy minority. Hopefully voters will keep this in mind when deciding whether they wish to continue in the same vein with McCain, or give change a chance to happen with an Obama administration. Perhaps, too, the mainstream media outlets, in response to the now undeniable financial and moral crises we face, will get back to allowing issues more pressing and significant than the personal and ethical foibles of Ms Palin to take precedence in their daily election "coverage." I have my doubts about their willingness to do so, but there is always hope.

--Viggo Mortensen.

As David Sirota writes at In These Times:

[T]his week’s White House legislation demanding Congress surrender its power of the purse, and give an unelected appointee—in this case, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—the power to hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money to “any financial institution,” “without limitation…on such terms and conditions as determined by [him].” In a nation priding itself on separating powers between the branches of government, the bill explicitly states that decisions by Paulson may not even “be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

Whether the bill passes or not, the drafting of it—even the mere thinking of it—is the single most clear sign that all of the major tenets of American democracy are on the auction block these days: from constitutional checks and balances, to legislative and judicial oversight to electoral accountability itself.

Read more Sirota.

Of course, the mainstream media is getting the focus wrong. The news reports I have heard have been along the lines of "Congress is refusing to act on White House bill" when the headlines should be "White House pushes no-strings-attached billions for wolves who have raided and wrecked the hen house but now promise to rebuild it, tries to override legislative branch in so doing."

P.S. - It has been confirmed by a trusted source that Viggo Mortensen did indeed write the piece above.

McCain as "risky"

Yes. He. Is. Enough with the more-of-the-same message. A McCain presidency won't be more of the same, it will be far far worse. As the kids like to say, Bush on steroids.

Say no to Bush's blank check

I usually leave the action items for Ted to post but with Congress ready to consider the biggest raid of our treasury ever it's imperative that you call your Congressperson today and tell them to reject the Bush administration's plan to bailout Wall Street.

There is no oversight in this bill. Not by Congress. Not by the courts. There is no protection for your tax dollar (let alone a return). There is no punishment for those who have taken the profits and ran. And, most important, why should we trust the Bush administration to do the right thing when they've proven time and time again that they are simply incapable of doing any such thing? Why?

Obama has been saying the right things calling this bailout "a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan." He needs our support and needs to hear from us.

Nancy Pelsoi has been saying the right things: "We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street and hope for a better outcome." She needs our support and needs to hear from us.

Harry Reid sounds wishy-washy. He needs a push and needs to hear from us.

At a minimum tell them and your congressperson that oversight and conditions are needed. At a maximum we need a better solution altogether.

Find your House member here.

Find your Senator here.

Contact the media here.

Say no to Bush's blank check.

The End of an Era

This kind of sucks.

[And seeing Bernie just made it suck more.]

Truth in Comics

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Quote of the Day

"Any member of Congress who looks at the plan to give Hank unchecked power to transfer $700 billion from the Treasury to his friends' companies and has any reaction other than "You've got to be fucking kidding me" does not deserve to hold office." -- Atrios on the blank, gazillion-dollar check we (the people) are about to give Wall Street. Unfuckinbelievable.

John McCain's de-regulation paper trail

Despite John McCain's hail-Mary of a campaign strategy casting himself and his co-maverick, Sarah Palin, as champions of regulation he has always been very much against anything of the sort. Obviously McCain is hoping all of America suddenly comes down with a case of amnesia. The only problem with this wing-and-a-prayer approach to campaigning is that John McCain has left a paper trail. A paper trial as fresh as, well, an article written this month. Here's John McCain in his own, de-regulation loving, words [via Krugman]:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

John McCain can hide, he can run, he can campaign like he hasn't been part of the Washington establishment for almost 30 years, but he can't change the fact that the "we" in the above quote very much included him and that "we" has now cost the American tax payer billions and billions of dollars.

John McCain's bad judgment on Iraq has cost us billions and now his bad judgment on the economy has done the same. It's time to hold John McCain accountable for his bad judgment.

Meme has more.

Obama on McCain and the economy

It really is telling when McCain gives a speech meant to expound on his ideas for saving our economy and all he can do is blame Obama. Well, Obama took notice and here's his response:



Panic much, John?

The Myth of The Free Market Crashes. Again.

John "I'm fundamentally a deregulator" McCain's economic ideology is responsible for the current financial catastrophe. There, I said it.

People will try to defend McCain saying, "This has nothing to do with deregulation or theories of unfettered 'free markets,' this is the result of greed."

Ummm, no. Like blaming the heroin abuser for overdosing after leaving him locked in a room full of heroin under the supervision of the heroin addict, it's a hollow argument.

Greed has been a part of human nature, Western Civilization, and Wall Street for way longer than the 30 years that the "free marketeers" have been controlling things. What kept that greed from eating it's own on a massive scale between the Stock Market Crash and now was prudent, thoughtful, comprehensive regulation.

Regulations and regulators that free marketeers like John McCain have been watering down since the first Reagan administration.

From a New York Times Op-Ed: "The myth of free markets ended with the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Actually, it ended with their creation. "

From a must-read piece in the HuffPo by James Moore:

Conservative Republicans always want the government to stay out of business and avoid regulation as long as they are making lots of money. When their greed, however, gets them into a fix, they are the first to cry out for rules and laws and taxpayer money to bail out their businesses. Obviously, Republicans are socialists. The Bush administration has decided to socialize the debt of the big Wall Street Firms. Taxpayers didn't get to enjoy any of the big money profits on the phony financial instruments like derivatives or bundled sub-prime paper, but we get the privilege of paying for their debt and failures.

Moore goes on to explain the current dire financial straits as well as those that lead to the Savings & Loan bailout in the 1980s, in which John McCain and the infamous "Keating Five" played a large part. Read more Moore.

From David Sirota at Campaign For America's Future:

[John McCain's] formative regulatory experience was being a member of the Keating Five pressing federal financial regulators to stop doing their job in advance of the S&L crisis (ie. the most analogous crisis to today's Wall Street meltdown). McCain...voted for the ill-advised repeal of the key Depression-era law that might have prevented the rampant consolidation and speculation that brought on today's emergency.

Here's some sober analysis of where our financial system now stands from the Financial Times: "This will come to be seen as the greatest regulatory failure in modern history."

Barack Obama put it best when he said of Free Market Convervatism, "When regulators are chosen for their disdain of regulation and we gut the ability of regulators to enforce the law, then the interests of the American people are not protected. It's an ideology that intentionally breeds incompetence in Washington and irresponsibility on Wall Street." Watch for yourself:

Savage: Fanning The Flames Of Racism

On the September 16 broadcast Michael Savage's syndicated radio show, discussing a caller's comment that "Muslim fundamentalists" are "walk[ing] around Northern Virginia as if they own the place," Savage asked, "Why would a nation that is as evolved as America, and as liberal as America is socially, want to bring in throwbacks who are living in the 15th century? Now you have to ask yourself, what's the benefit? What is the societal benefit of bringing in throwbacks, some of whom are no doubt terrorists, and some of whom are gonna produce children who will become terrorists?"

Please contact stations in your locale that carry his program that Savage's hateful racist fear-mongering is unacceptable. Please help keep this divisive, disgusting man from further fanning the flames of racial hatred.

Bomb, bomb, bomb... Spain?

Well, it's bomb or McCain had no clue who the leader of Spain is or that Spain is part of Europe. Either way it's all very Palin-esque of him and really fuckin' scary.

Update: We have our answer and it was bomb:

In a letter to the Washington Post, Scheunemann claims McCain knew who Zapatero was and was simply articulating his policy of refusing to commit to “a White House meeting with President Zapatero.”

A refusal to meet with a NATO ally. I don't feel much better. These people just don't know how to admit mistakes.

McCain Interferes With Investigation Palin Agreed To

As mentioned here the other day, McCain and Palin allies are suing to try to stop the investigation into Troopergate, or at least delay it so that no evidence comes to light before the election.

Alaska State Representative Les Gara writes at HuffPo:

[O]n August 29 [the McCain campaign] needed to find a way to stop the Legislature's investigation. They tried asking the Republican leaders to call it off, and take one for the team. But the Senate President and others honorably said no. So they came up with an argument that the State Personnel Board -- 3 people appointed by Governor Palin and her Republican predecessor Frank Murkowski - had "exclusive jurisdiction" to investigate wrongdoing by the Governor.
The Legislature wasn't amused. So Governor Palin then filed a complaint against herself. That, they said, put "jurisdiction" in the hands of their friends at the Personnel Board. They argued that since the Personnel Board was now proceeding with an "investigation," the Legislature couldn't. To put icing on the cake, on Monday the Governor's attorneys moved to dismiss the Governor's case against herself. They said, and I loosely paraphrase again -- that they tried really hard and just couldn't find any evidence that the Governor did anything wrong.

No matter how you spin it, Governor Palin promised to comply with this Legislative Investigation. McCain's folks got her to change her position. And the Legislature that voted for the investigation did so on a bi-partisan basis. End of story. End of headline.

Read more at the Huffington Post.

USA Joins The English Premier League?

Now that the US government owns 80% of insurance giant AIG, does that mean that the Manchester United Football Club is now also owned by the USA? Will we see the "AIG" on the front of those uniforms replaced by "USA?"

Why not? Abu Dhabi owns Manchester City F.C., and since the British government took over Newcastle-based bank Northern Rock, it now owns Newcastle United F.C., right?

McCain Tried To Privatize Social Security

Had John McCain and his buddy George W. Bush been successful in their social security privatization efforts, that Social Security "crisis" the conservatives are always going on about would be happening right here, right now, as Wall Street collapses before our eyes.

Hell, McCain's been pushing the idea of privatizing social security since Bill Clinton was in office.

Had the McCain-supported awful conservative Social Security privatization scheme (the cornerstone domestic policy goal of GWB's second term, mind you) been enacted, Social Security dollars would be amongst the billions being lost right now.

McCain talks about reforming Wall Street (to be fair, he talks about reforming everything, indiscriminately), but he's the candidate who tried to spoon-feed the Wall Street "old boys network" money many Americans need to live on after retirement.

Can you imagine? The conservative lie of an "Ownership Society" revealed as a sham slogan. Again.



And in case you are wondering if McBush knows what he's talking about when he lists off the acronyms for financial regulatory bodies...he doesn't.

Read more here, and here. Then forward this info along to every senior, child of a senior, near-senior, and Florida resident you know. Thank you.

Quote of the Day

"And now he tells us that he's the one who's gonna' to take on the old boys network. The old boys network? In the McCain campaign that's called a staff meeting. Come, on!" -- Barack Obama staying on offense and scoring some points on old John McCain.

Mature leadership for hard times

Barack Obama goes long with a new two-minute ad.

Sarah Barracuda

Salon:

"'Sarah Barracuda' -- she's proud of that name now, she uses it in her campaigns," said her former mentor. "But she got that name from the way she conducted herself with her own teammates. She was vicious to the other girls, always playing up to the coach and pointing out when the other girls made mistakes. She was the coach's favorite and he gave her more playing time than her skills warranted. My niece was on her team; she was a very good player. I used to sit there in the stands, and I would wonder, Why on earth is Sarah getting so much playing time?"

Read more and weep.

Palin Suing To Prevent Trooper Investigation

Who you calling guilty?

According to CNN.com, the lawsuit alleges those leading the probe "are conducting a McCarthyistic investigation in an unlawful, biased, partial and partisan political manner in order to impact the upcoming Alaska general and national presidential elections."

Funny, sounds like Ken Starr! So the karmic table turns! Well, hopefully this investigation will differ int that it turns up real dirt in a reasonable amount of time.

McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan: "I think it's fair to say that the governor is not going to cooperate with that investigation so long as it remained tainted and run by partisan individuals who have a predetermined conclusion."

Doesn't this just make her look even more guilty? The evidence of her guilt shown on ABC News and other legitimate news outlets has been damning. Of course, FAUX News has Palin's back, but anyone who watches the propaganda arm of the Republican Part for news has already downed the Kool-Aid.

I mean, seriously, why block the investigation if there's nothing to hide?

Throwing a monkey wrench into the works may delay the findings until after the election. That's probably what the obstructionist lying liars are banking on.

I wonder if President McCain would pardon Vice President Palin if she is found guilty of having abused her power as governor by wrongfully firing Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner, or would he instead say, "Thanks for your help, hockey mom. Have fun at the penitentiary! Joe Lieberman, you will be breaking ties in the Senate for the next four years..."

McCain on his heels...

...this should be the media meme tomorrow and forward. He's been forced to explain himself on lies. He's been forced to explain himself on fundamentals. He's offering commissions as solutions. He's been twisted in knots over regulation. His surrogates have to answer question about BlackBerrys. And his Palin bubble has burst. This is the reality of the race today. McCain in on his heels. Pass it on.

How to kill a hypocritical PUMA

Convervatives Are Phonies

They don't even believe their own drivel. They sure can sell it, though.

It's not just John McCain flip-flopping on everything from condemning pandering to "agents of intolerance" to pandering to "agents of intolerance," nor going from fiercely opposing Bush's tax cuts to championing the idea of making Bush's cuts permanent. Nor his flip-flops on Afghanistan, gay marriage, the Confederate flag, the "cakewalk" in Iraq, and of course, torture.

Nor is it just the FAUX News conservatives like Bill O'Reilly flip-flopping on whether out-of-wedlock teen pregnancies are the fault of the parents (in the case of a Spears) or none of our business (in the case of a Palin), nor Karl Rove flip-flopping by saying that the governor of Virginia (who was previously Lt. Governor and before that the mayor of a city of 200,000) was not experienced enough to be Vice President but then changed his tune for the governor of Alaska (and before that the mayor of a city of under 10,000) singing her praises as the perfect choice for Vice President.

This illness afflicts many other God-fearing conservatives, including some average, every day hypocrites that listen to WRKO-Boston conservative talk show host Reese Hopkins.

Referencing the out-of-wedlock teenage pregnancy in the Palin household, Hopkins dared question the Palins' parenting skills on the air. Hopkins got 125 protest e-mails from listeners telling him that Bristol Palin's pregancy is no big deal. As if the parenting skills of people whoe promote abstinence-only yet have a pregnant teenage daughter isn't something to question! As if FAUX News wouldn't have a nightly round table discussions onthe subject had the out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy happened under the roof of a Democratic public figure!

Hopkins had previously spoken at length about the Gloucester High teen pregnancy pact controversy earlier this year, and his listeners wrote in about those pregnant teens as sluts with horrible parents. Cross-referencing the 125 e-mails about Palin with the ones about Gloucester HS, Hopkins found 70 listeners who had completely flip-flopped.

Read about more of these phonies at Campaign For America's Future.

Quote of the Day

"I could walk from here to Lansing, and I wouldn't run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well -- unless I ran into John McCain." -- VP pick Joe Biden highlighting John McCain's cluelessness.

"Adjustments" In Our Financial Markets

In another Officer Barbrady moment, President Bush today said that Americans "are concerned about the adjustments that are taking place in our financial markets."

Nothing to see here, folks, move along, the economy is fine, it's just 'adjustments' is all.

My boy McCain and our fellow Republicans at the convention, they have it right -- when you hear people comparing today's situation with the stock market crash and The Great Depression and stuff like that, that's just the "angry left" talking.

Sure my brother Jeb has been directly involved with Lehman Brothers, but don't worry about him, either. He'll be fine. The way we conservatives have Corporate America set up it's heads we win, tails the taxpayers lose.

Who needs regulation when you've got it rigged like that?

Deception is all he has left

Will the U.S. financial system collapse today?

Shorter Paul Krugman: Yikes

McCain Big Oil/ McCain Health Records

Big Oil Campaign Contributions:



John McCain's Health Records:

Truth in Comics

If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.