It's the hypocrisy, stupid.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence. --politico.com

This is the problem with these know-nothing ideologue GOPer Troopers. The world they live in is very small. They only understand something like the Supreme Court through the only thing that matters to them. Abortion. Nothing else is covered in this cloistered, secluded, blindered world they live in. Brown vs. The Board of Education? never heard of it. Gore vs. Bush? The presume you are talking about the election.

I can almost guarantee you John McCain would die in office. He is almost 73, and 5 1/2 years in POW camp comes off the back end of your life. This woman will reside in the oval office.

Stevens, 88 years old
Ginsburg, 75 years old
Scalia, 72 years old
Kennedy, 72 years old
Breyer, 70 years old
Souter, 69 years old.

I strongly recommend you get out the vote.

Oh, and the 3 under 70? Thomas, Alito, and Roberts.

John McCain was the equivalent of an IED in this bailout bill. Wrong move after wrong move. It is sure great to see the GOP just fall apart. Did people really think that republicans were going to vote $700 billion in wingtip welfare with 30 some odd days to go before an election? Even if you were a GOPer in a R+10 district and no real challenger this was the recipe to lose 100 seats in the house, just like that.

I am laughing, but it's a bloodbath on the trading floor here in Tokyo now.

Nancy and Barney look foolish from my point of view. However McCain seems to be taking the blame here. Booyah.

SNL did a Palin-Couric send up... But the writers didn't really have to write that much. Take a look. (click on pic. no embed available)


This would be funny if people's lives weren't at risk. As it is, I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

From the website and trailer;

Taxi to the Dark Side

In the year following 9/11, the Bush Administration's promise to root out terrorists abroad took a perverse, unsettling turn, with the U.S. military embarking on a policy of humiliation and deprivation designed to get political prisoners to talk. The appallingly inhumane tactics used by military prison guards in Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay flaunted the Geneva Conventions while killing untold numbers of prisoners - including innocents like Dilawar, a young Afghan taxi driver whose only "crime" was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is the story of how America lost its dignity in its zeal to win the War on Terrorism: Taxi to the Dark Side.

I very much want to see this, and am at the same time very sure that I won't be able to handle watching it. Would love to hear reviews from anyone who watches. We don't have HBO so I would have to get someone to tape it for me. Not sure I could stomach it. Having said that, I am glad it is being shown.

The GOP and the big money wall street types are rolling out a racist attack to deflect blame for the economic meltdown to minority communities and Clinton/Carter.

They are saying that the cause of the Subprime crisis was the CRA and lending to minorities to buy homes.

This is gaining traction and is dangerous and a total lie. (not that they care about the truth) If you hear this lie you need to push back and push back hard.

This is one of the MOST disheartening attacks and slanders in this campaign. And it is also meant to highlight race in the election AGAIN.

Here are the facts.

Information we have on the CRA. We have heard the conservative talkers try and use this, but, as they say, the truth is far more interesting. Use this to push back--

CRA caused the current financial crisis? Hardly:

CRA does not require banks or thrifts to make loans that are unsafe or unprofitable. In fact, the law stipulates that CRA lending activities must be done consistent with safe and sound banking practices. In fact, most high-cost loans were originated by lenders that did NOT have a CRA obligation and lacked federal regulatory oversight.

According to an analysis of HMDA data in the 15 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas, non-CRA lenders made a disproportionate number of high-cost loans. In 2006, 84.3% of high-cost loans were originated by non-CRA covered entities (overall, non-CRA covered entities originated 69.6% of all mortgages) and nearly 83% of high-cost loans to low- and moderate-income individuals were originated by non-CRA covered entities (overall, non-CRA covered entities originated 67.5% of all loans to LMI individuals).

In 2006, only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was an insured depository institution with a CRA obligation. Although a few others were mortgage/finance company affiliates of CRA covered lenders, these entities do not have a CRA obligation (i.e. Countrywide, CitiMortgage, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage). Similarly, the vast majority of the top 20 producers of risky interest-only and option ARM loans were not CRA covered lenders.

CRA covered institutions, for the most part, did not engage in lending practices that fueled the foreclosure epidemic and subsequent economic crisis.

Background on the Community Reinvestment Act:

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) encourages federally insured banks and thrifts to meet the credit needs of the entire communities they serve, including low- and moderate-income areas, consistent with safe and sound banking practices. The law was enacted in response to concerns about disinvestment and evidence that some lenders were systematically denying credit to certain communities, particularly lower-income and minority neighborhoods, under a practice known as “redlining.”

The benefits of CRA have been substantial: CRA has been credited with increasing home ownership, decent affordable rental housing, small business ownership, community development investments; and critically needed affordable financial services and products (such as remittances, low-cost banks accounts, and bank branches) in distressed communities across the nation.

In March 2007, Federal Board Chairman Bernanke noted that CRA has helped institutions discover and enter new markets that may have been previously under-served and ignored by insured depositories.

This is disgusting, and it is gaining ground. One youtube video explaining the CRA as the cause of the crisis, has had over 700,000 views in 2 days. Ideas on what we can do to stop this?

From True Majority;

On September 25th 2008, progressives came together in 251 emergency rallies in 41 states saying NO to the $700 billion Bush corporate bailout for Wall Street. As a result, the tax giveaway, assumed to be a "done deal" only a few days earlier was stalled and being reconsidered by lawmakers who are stunned by the speed and scale of America's reaction. Instead, Congress turned to work on an economic recovery package for Main Street.

See the videos, photos, and read more here.
crossposted at The Group News Blog

Seriously, Sarah got dissed by Paraguay. I am not kidding.

According to The Washington Note;

Paraguay President Fernando Lugo, while attending both the United Nations General Assembly meetings and the Clinton Global Initiative, shared with friends over dinner some of the other meetings he had been having in New York.

He met this head of state. . .and that head of state. . .and so on. . .

. . .but then the room went silent and then broke into subdued laughter when he confided that he was approached about meeting with GOP Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

President Lugo turned the meeting down.

Ok, that is pretty cold, but honestly, I don't blame him. I think is insulting even approaching world leaders to meet with this no-nothing, unqualified, disaster of a candidate. Sheesh. I bet the leaders who did meet with her, regretted it afterwards. We should have had the UN Nurse write them a get out of class note.

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders and the Bush administration reached a tentative deal early today on a landmark bailout of imperiled financial markets whose collapse could plunge the nation into a deep recession.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the $700 billion accord just after midnight Saturday but said it still has to be put on paper.

"We've still got more to do to finalize it, but I think we're there," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who also participated in the negotiations in the Capitol.

"We worked out everything," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the chief Senate Republican in the talks. He said the House should be able to vote on it today, and the Senate could take it up Monday.

The plan calls for the Treasury Department to buy deeply distressed mortgage-backed securities and other bad debts held by banks and other investors. The money should help troubled lenders make new loans and keep credit lines open. The government would later try to sell the discounted loan packages at the best possible price.

At the insistence of House Republicans, some money would be devoted to a program that would encourage holders of distressed mortgage-backed securities to keep them and buy government insurance to cover defaults.

The legislation would place limits on severance packages for executives of companies that benefit from the rescue plan, but details were sketchy. -- San Jose Mercury News

Yes, I imagine the details are very sketchy.

The unbelievable rush to solve this problem this instant is beyond me. I work on a investment bank trading floor. There is definitely a liquidity problem, meaning a lack of cash. That would be because a lot of people have lost a lot of money. I don't want to downplay that, but that problem will be around in 4 weeks, or 5 weeks or longer.

I cannot understand Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi ramming this thing through this weekend. The big bank that was going to fail Washington Mutual has failed and JPMorgan stepped in literally as the regulators were closing them down. AIG we already know about and are taking care of. In fact, I will bet the AIG is sold back to private investors in a year. It is a very profitable company, this risky dive into credit default swaps was a asinine move that left them exposed for billions, but they are normally very profitable and will recover.

So, I have been asking, and asking what the hell is the rush here? I have no answers. Nobody is giving any.

Despite the changes made during an intense week of negotiations, the heart of the program remains Bush's original idea: To have the government spend billions of dollars to buy mortgage-backed securities whose value has plummeted as hundreds of thousands of Americans have defaulted on their home loans.

"We're very pleased with the progress made tonight," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Yes I would bet you are Tony... I would bet you are.

Everyone who can should contact their congressperson, right now and have them say HELL NO to this deal as it stands. No taxpayer money for CEO's who suck at their jobs. We need to look at provisions for homeowners not wingtip welfare queens.

By now most of you must have heard about the rally of women against Sarah Palin in Alaska a couple of weeks ago. Though the corporate media did not dein to cover the event the bloggers did and the emails and photos have been ciruculating around the globe.

Well we now have Part 2!

At an even larger event the people of Alaska came out in force to reject Palin and let the world know that in spite of her campaign touting how popular she is, Alaskans don't believe she should be VP.

This write up from a local blogger at the mudflats, captures the feeling;

The day started out exactly as I had imagined - a gorgeous slightly chilly fall morning, with sunshine aplenty. I arrived really early, and the sight of an empty park made my stomach shrink, even though the rally was not due to begin for another hour. I made another quick sign. The time went fast. I started hearing honking horns and realized that sign wavers had started to gather along the road. I looked at my watch….12:00. Not nearly as many people as I had hoped. Stomach shrank more. Then I thought….well…it’s a beautiful day. People are out enjoying the weather, and hiking. Maybe I should have hoped for clouds. It would be OK, I told myself. Historically, anything over 25 people at a sign waving event in Anchorage is a rousing success. I had to remember this. And people may have just had one good rally in them and that was that.

I started snapping pictures of signs. There were some really good ones. My favorite? “Hey, Sarah! I can see the end of your political career from my house!” I was cheered. After 20 or 30 minutes of photographing signs, I looked around. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed, but a massive influx had happened. Both sides of the city block between 9th and 10th Avenue were packed! I went across the street to the opposite corner to get a good shot of everyone, and… I was not alone. Cameras everywhere! Local TV news from every station, the Anchorage Daily News, unmarked video cameras in various sizes, photographers with lenses 2 feet long scurrying around, people with hand-held devices talking to protesters…. It took my breath away. I had to stop what I was doing, and just stand, and look.

I said it after the last rally, and I’ll say it again. This does not happen here.

There were 1500 protesters at the last rally. This time there were more. If there weren’t 2000, it was really close.

It seems that there was more coverage of this second rally. Let's hope so. McCain is more than willing to flap his gums about how popular Sarah is back home... Seems like her popularity may be waning. (there are great photos on the mudflats as well, Alaskans seem to be very creative sign makers!)

Sarah Palin discusses the winter tire sale down at Fountain Tire in Philadelphia, where you can save $60 on a set of 4 selected winter tires. Rebates extended to December 31st, 2008 by the manufacturer

Folks, if I was you I would go ahead and head on down to Fountain Tire. Tell 'em Sarah sent you.

CNN poll results were clear:

Who did the best job tonight?
Barack: 51
McCain: 38

Who would better handle Iraq?
Barack: 52
McCain: 47

Who would better handle the economy?
Barack: 58
McCain: 37

h/t talkleft

Paul Newman has apparently passed away. What is there to say. I think the first films I saw him in were Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Harper, Hud, The Hustler, Hombre (a streak of 'H' films there for a while) and of course Cool Hand Luke.

He was smiling... That's right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn't know it 'fore, they could tell right then that they weren't a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker.

I also really enjoyed a smaller film of his The Verdict. Maybe it's the Mick in me.

[Frank is giving his summation to the jury]

Frank Galvin: You know, so much of the time we're just lost. We say, "Please, God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true." And there is no justice: the rich win, the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time, we become dead... a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims... and we become victims. We become... we become weak. We doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs. We doubt our institutions. And we doubt the law. But today you are the law. You ARE the law. Not some book... not the lawyers... not the, a marble statue... or the trappings of the court. See those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are... they are, in fact, a prayer: a fervent and a frightened prayer. In my religion, they say, "Act as if ye had faith... and faith will be given to you." IF... if we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves. And ACT with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts.
[he sits down]

Amen brother. RIP

If you want to, make a donation to : HoleInTheWallCamps

Getting a a cold I think. These vessels are weak. Cures?

oh, I think McCain blinked so much because they jacked his eye up with some chemicals just for the game. Which would also explain the dry-mouth lizard thing.

Ladies and Gentlemen the Republican nominee for Vice President.

Fun online issues quiz from ABC- (this would be a good one to pass around to any undecideds or independents that you know)

ABC has a test at the below address to see who's campaign statements,McCain's or Obama's, you agree with most. They don't tell you who made the statements, of course, but a statement made by each candidate on the same topic (economy, immigration, judiciary, etc.) will be side by side.

You just pick which statement you agree with and, after selecting all 13, you'll find out which candidate's philosophy you support.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/MatchoMatic/fullpage?id=5542139

Share how yours turned out in the thread. I was Obama of course, except I split the two immigration questions?-- they weren't saying anything very different soooo that is not surprising I guess.

Well, I am curious what people think. My take is Obama did a little better than McCain, lets be honest, it may be bullshit, but McCain does have a foreign policy resume. It was good to see Obama hold his own against him. There were more than a couple of good little shots back at McCain... B+ for Obama and a B- for McCain. McCain was too negative, targetting his base.

I have to agree with everybody, I am tired of hearing "John McCain and I agree but".. He's a good guy etc, etc...

Sitting in Tokyo this morning, and watching the beginning of the debate.

Nice dig at McCain in 1st answer. "I can think of no better time to debate than now"

Ok, what the hell was McCain talking about... (He seems totally unprepared)

He keeps talking like it is a townhall event. did someone tell him its a debate?

McCain doesnt want to go back and forth... oy

***ding ding ding... first time he said "My Friends"...

and there is that creepy laugh...

He torpedoed that Boeing bill like he did the Bailout deal.

Nuclear Power! everybody loves that!

Where is McCain's Flag Pin!]

Double Maverick Power Go!!!!

Obama calling him out directly...

Nice pivot by Obama on McCain saying he voted against the troops...

Super Petraeus will save us all!

Nice one, "Thats rich coming from you Mr Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran"

McCain wears bracelets! not that there is anything wrong with that.

A existential threat? what the hell is that?

With the League of Democracies and the Double Maverick and Super Petraeus we will totally kick ass!!!!! America Fuck YEAH!

Honestly, what do you do when the GOP Presidential nominee just lies in a debate... over and over again.

The crowd didnt seem to like that little outburst...

His name is Asif Ali Zardari... not Kidari... the new president of Pakistan

Nice summary by Obama on national security there...





Check out CSPAN Debate Hub it is festooned with stuff!

stolen from FDL

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) on Washington Journal this morning, reports that the calls to his office on the bailout are 50/50.

Fifty percent say "No." And the other fifty percent say "Hell no."...

A Great idea! Lawrence Lessig and a heavy hitting group of online organizers, bloggers and groups have called for McCain and Obama to bring the debates into the Internet age by embracing two "open debate" principles. This is being covered widely in the blogosphere. But everyone can help get the word out.

Open Debate Coalition

Dear Senator McCain and Senator Obama,

We are a coalition of people and organizations across the ideological spectrum asking you to make this year's presidential debates more "of the people" than ever before by bringing them more fully into the Internet age.

Specifically, we ask you to embrace these two "open debate" principles for the 2008 debates:

1. The presidential debates are for the benefit of the public. Therefore, the right to speak about the debates ought to be "owned" by the public, not controlled by the media. During the primaries, a large coalition asked that media companies release rights to presidential debate video to ensure that key moments can be legally blogged about, shared on YouTube, or otherwise shared without fear of legal repercussion.

CNN, ABC, and NBC agreed to release video rights. But one media company threatened legal action against Senator McCain for using a debate clip to spread a message. Such control over political speech is inconsistent with our democracy.

We therefore call upon both candidates to commit to a principle that whenever you debate publicly, the raw footage of that debate will be dedicated to the public domain. Those in charge of the video feed should be directed to make it free for anyone to use.

2. "Town hall" Internet questions should be chosen by the people, not solely by the media.

The two campaigns recently said of the October 7 debate, "In the spirit of the Town Hall, all questions will come from the audience (or Internet), and not the moderator." We agree with the spirit of this statement. In order to ensure that the Internet portion of this debate is true bottom-up democracy, the format needs to allow the public to help select the questions in addition to asking them.

This cycle's YouTube debates were a milestone for Internet participation in presidential debates. But they put too much discretion in the hands of gatekeepers. Many of the questions chosen by TV producers were considered gimmicky and not hard-hitting enough, and never would have bubbled up on their own.

This "bubble up" idea is the essence of the Internet as we know it. The best ideas rise to the top, and the wisdom of crowds prevails. We'd propose debate organizers utilize existing bubble-up voting technology and choose Internet questions from the top 25 that bubbled up. We ask you to instruct the October 7 debate planners to use bubble-up technology in this fashion.

This is a historic election. The signers of this letter don't agree on every issue. But we do agree that in order for Americans to make the best decision for president, we need open debates that are "of the people" in the ways described above. You have the power to make that happen, and we ask you to do so.

Thank you for your willingness to take these ideas to heart. If you have any questions, please contact: OpenDebateCoalition@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Lawrence Lessig; Professor, Stanford Law School, Founder, Center for Internet and Society

Glenn Reynolds; Professor, University of Tennessee Law, and founder of Instapundit.com blog

Craig Newmark; Founder, Craigslist

Jimmy Wales; Founder, Wikipedia

David Kralik; Director of Internet Strategy, Newt Gingrich's American Solutions

Eli Pariser; Executive Director, MoveOn.org Political Action

Adam Green; Director of Strategic Campaigns, MoveOn.org Political Action

Mindy Finn; Republican strategist, former Mitt Romney Online Director

Patrick Ruffini; Republican consultant, Bush/Cheney 2004 eCampaign Director

Arianna Huffington; Founder, Huffington Post

Markos Moulitsas; Founder, DailyKos.com

Jon Henke; New media consultant, including for Fred Thompson, George Allen, and Senate Republican Caucus

Mike Krempasky; Co-Founder of RedState.com

Matt Stoller; Founder/Editor, OpenLeft.com

James Rucker; Executive Director, ColorOfChange.org

Robert Greenwald; President, BraveNewFilms

Kim Gandy; President, National Organization for Women

Carl Pope; Executive Director, Sierra Club

Micah Sifry; Co-Founder, Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com

Shari Steele; Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Josh Silver; Executive Director, Free Press

Carl Malamud; Founder, Public.Resource.Org

Roger Hickey; Co-Director, Campaign for America's Future

More coverage of this effort;

LESSIG: Free Debates: Round Two


WASH POST: Lessig (and others) Asks Candidates to Make Debates More Open


L.A. TIMES: Diverse web coalition asks McCain, Obama to alter debates

CRAIG FROM CRAIGSLIST: Open Debate Coalition: Free the Presidential debate videos

TECH PRESIDENT: This Debate Belongs to You and Me

crossposted on the GNB

What Sen. Dodd had to say about McCain's meeting and his "help" in this time of crisis.

What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours," said an angry Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who had all but declared the deal done earlier in the day. "To be distracted for two to three hours for political theater doesn't help.- Michael D. Shear and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writers

Gotta love it.
Distraction indeed.

Pakistan warned US troops not to intrude on its territory Friday, after the two anti-terror allies traded fire along the volatile border with Afghanistan.

Thursday's five-minute clash adds to already heightened tensions at a time the United States is stepping up cross-border operations in a region known as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

The clash - the first serious exchange with Pakistani forces acknowledged by the US - follows a string of other alleged border incidents and incursions that have angered many Pakistanis.

Speaking in New York, Pakistan's president tried to play down the incident, saying only "flares" were fired at foreign helicopters that he said strayed into his country from Afghanistan. --jpost.com

Would you like to play a game?

This week, NPR's Ron Elving holds the show together as Ken Rudin suspends his role in the podcast to devote his attention to our nation's economic woes. Other topics include: McCain's return to Washington, Obama and what could be his loneliest debate, and a look at Senate seats up for grabs.

Go take a listen. From NPR.

Once again Bush tries to invade Mexico after being attacked by the Japanese at Peal Harbor.

Wow, what a week. If there is a common thread for the Bush administration, besides hubris, its incompetence. This week we got to see just how we got into this banking mess by watching the knuckleheads who helped us get into it, try to shaft us with a plan to “get er done”. As I understood Handout Hank’s plan, we were supposed to hand him the keys to the treasury and he would hand out cash to the people he used to work for.

To understand how this is sending money to exactly the wrong people you need to understand what is happening a little. Firstly, there are a lot of mortgages out there that are being foreclosed on. Half of the home sales in southern California last month were due to foreclosure. That’s a lot. These mortgages were previously packaged up and sold as a group to investors by investment banks. Aka a CDO. Those are… not performing as expected. *cough* *cough*. So investors are seeing them as crap, or as Atrios calls it the big shitpile. What Bush wanted to do was buy these loans, now packaged as CDO’s from the investors and investment banks. Whew! Rich guy is now off the hook. Meanwhile back at the ranch, the foreclosure is still happening and another whole batch of CDO’s are going stinky, better buy them too, etc, etc. This helps out pudgy white Wharton MBA grads, but this “bill” did absolutely nothing for the home owner.

Clearly a smarter move is to help the home owner keep their house, either by adjusting the interest rates or having the Government negotiate with the Bank holding the home mortgage. This way the CDO still has value, probably more value than if the Fed walked in and bought the debt in a fire sale, like they were proposing, or as Prof. Krugman was calling it “Cash for Trash”.

Now that deal is dead. Killed by John McCain’s theatrics, Bush’s panic mongering and some foolish moves by Rep. Barney Frank (?, don’t ask I have no idea what he was doing.) and not surprisingly by the Republican rank and file who I guess just wanted to remind people they are not named “conservatives” for nothing. Handing out billions of taxpayer money for free was crazy talk as far as they were concerned.

My biggest concern this week was the crazy assed rush to solve this, this week! Go, go, go! Threat level bravo!

If the $700 billion was supposedly because Paulson thought he would need $50 billion a month, well, why not just give him $50 billion and punt the ball a little. Let the markets calm down a bit. Why the all fired rush to solve this entire $700 billion dollar problem all by November 5th… oh wait… This problem has taken some time to develop, lets try and put some calming influence into what is now a new market, instead of trying to freak everybody the f*ck out. These strategies of the Bush administration are getting tired and predictable. On to the debates!

John McCain intends to tax middle class health benefits as if they are income. Joe Biden explains:



The rationale, as I understand it (and I'm not an expert, just a citizen), is that you'll be better off buying your health benefits through the magic of the open market.

Yeah. That open market.

I do not think that phrase means what John McCain thinks it means.

So, Senator McCain said he was suspending his campaign during this ECONOMIC CRISIS!!!! (ahhhh run around, be scared, be distracted from my "cratering" poll numbers)

But I guess suspending a campaign does not include;

1. Going on CBS
2. Sending spokesperson Nicole Wallace on Morning Joe

(I'll just go ahead and update this throughout the day! please feel free to play along in the thread. Let's see what other things are not actually considered campaigning during a suspended campaign)

Update 1:
The McCain campaign plans to suspend all advertising and fundraising, in addition to campaign activities. OOOPS Except...NPR's Peter Overby points out that McCain does not need to do any fundraising, since he took $84 million in public financing. The McCain campaign is also receiving money from the Republican National Committee, but the RNC has not yet said whether it will also stop raising money.

Update 2:

(AP) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Sen. John McCain made a "huge mistake" by even discussing canceling the presidential debate with Sen. Barack Obama.

Something amusing, and, perhaps, vaguely disturbing if you are an arachnophobe:


McCain and McSarah are caught in a web of their own making. It's as horrifying as it is entertaining, and I want it to stop soon, so that the adults can take over and set us back on track.

So, will there be a debate? Someone just chatted me that she thinks McCain is going to show up at the last minute. Someone else believes this is all a precursor to somehow dropping the VP debate, because La Palin is not ready for prime time.

I think it's safe to say that this campaign will look very different on Monday from the way it looks now...

"Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored."

-- Gary Hart, May 3, 1987

Then guess what happened?!?

“On May 5, the Herald received a further tip that Hart had spent a night in Bimini on a yacht called the Monkey Business with a woman who was not his wife. The Herald obtained photographs of Hart aboard the Monkey Business with then-29-year-old model Donna Rice, sitting on Hart's lap. The photographs were subsequently published in the National Enquirer[11]. On May 8, 1987, a week after the story broke, Hart dropped out of the race.”

21 years later...

Responding to questions about his campaign manager’s role in a lobbying firm that had Freddie Mac as a client through 2005: “[Rick Davis] has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

-- John Seymore McCain, September 21, 2008

Then guess what happened?!?

“One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis's firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said...”

21 years ago, after one of the leading contenders for the presidency got busted doing something he shouldna oughtna (bad) and lying about it (much worse), his candidacy crashed and burned, and his public career went into the political ICU never to return.

21 years later, after weeks of wild, reckless decisions, temper tantrums, flip-flops and ridiculous, flagrant lies from the McCain campaign, we are left with an open and deeply troubling question: Will it matter?

Although there are some hopeful signs of a fundamental realignment this year, Presidential politics since Nixon has more and more come to reassemble trench warfare over a few yards of No Man’s Land. So half the country is permanently ensorcelled by “America’s Top Model” and considers any mention of politics a rude intrusion into their NCIS SVU CICS TMS CSI ETA WTF 90210 time, and 45% of the rest would not vote for the Risen Christ if he had a (D) after his name.

And in that static, blasted electoral landscape the Rove/McSame campaign is calculating that even the once-upon-a-time Doomsday Weapon of being caught on tape just flat-out lying – repeatedly – will end up doing little more than bouncing the rubble around.

Looking at this picture I really do almost feel sorry for Henry...



I mean what would that asshat have to say to him. Do you think she is even sure who he is? "I loved you in Dr. Strangelove!"...

I admit, there are like 3 separate videos packed into this one, but the message is clear and it made me smile to take the 8 minutes to watch.

Plus it helped clear my head after watching Katie Couric's little bitty sitdown with Sarah Palin.

about which words fail me. and they didn't do her much good either.

He said, He said;

McCain says they should suspend the debate this Friday eve. so that they can go and work on the economic crisis.

Obama says it is now more important than ever for America to hear from the candidates and judge their differences. And so, though he wants to work together this week/weekend in congress, His opinion is that the debate can and should still go on.

I want someone who can walk and chew gum at the same time. Hell yes, the debate should go on.

McCain is using this to hide his weakness on the economy and try to pivot this into "look how hard I am working during this crisis!"

pathetic

Update: Comments from Nancy and Harry calling McCain's bluff.
"The debate should take place as scheduled," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with NPR to be broadcast this afternoon. "We have to be able to do a couple of things at once. That's what leadership requires."

Leaders in the Senate were also quick to call McCain out for what they viewed as a political stunt, one that actually could impair rather than help pass a bailout package's passage.

"I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama's suggestion," said Sen. Harry Reid. "But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation's economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op."

Plenty of other items available over at "America, The Gift Shop", like a Abu Gharib Bobble Head, for the guy who has everything!

News all over the corporate media and the blogosphere has it that Freddie Mac has been paying John McCain's campaign manager hundreds and thousands of dollars all the way up to last month when the government took over.

John McCain's campaign manager and Freddie Mac essentially had what amounts to a secret half a million dollar lay-a-way plan. For almost three years, Freddie Mac made secret, monthly payments of $15,000 to Rick Davis for providing special access to a future McCain White House in exchange. If McCain knew about this, his presidential campaign should be over. If he didn't know about it, he ought to fire Rick Davis immediately," said David Donnelly, Director of Campaign Money Watch. from a statement made to the Huffington Post

What do you expect? More than 100 lobbyists on the campaign staff, including the campaign manager? The message of "Buying the Presidency" has been clear since the get-go. Nice to have some good hard facts and secret cash to point to though!

The Large Badloan Collider


Your mother may have warned you against throwing good money after bad, but your mother never met the Bush Administration’s Large Badloan Collider.

Based on a long-forgotten formula found doodled into the margins of Arthur Laffer’s minor, 1971 work “Money and Tits”, the “Special Theory of Illiquid Relativity” (STIR) posits the provocative idea that the high-speed collision of bad paper and taxpayer money will create conditions very similar to the early “Big Con” state of Primordial Reaganism, when the political universe was a hot plasma of ferociously ridiculous ideology and had not yet cooled and congealed into Tom DeLay, Iran/Contra, Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig, Jerry Falwell, Tim McVeigh, the Plame scandal, Terri Schiavo, Katrina, Iraq, Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove, the US Attorney scandal, the elimination of habeas corpus, or any of the other constellations of epic Republican failures that have marked the last 20 years.

The world’s previous largest Surplus Smasher -- the so-called “S & L Circular Masturbatory Accelerator” – used the same basic elements (taxpayer cash fired into deregulated and looted institutions) to create an almost perfect cloud of supercharged accountability-avoidance matter around the GOP. But even that powerful tool of advanced 20th century fiscal irresponsibility was not up to the challenges of 21st century, global Disaster Capitalism.


The problem with measuring the true size and shape of the current Monetary Universe has always been observing the effects of capitalism’s “dark matter” (or, in as it is known in the technical argot of subprime fiscalists, “that unholy shit-load of bad mortgages”). So when building models of the Universe, fiscalists are inevitably stymied by the fact that, buried deep inside the nucleus of seemingly identical “securitized investment vehicles”, you may find the profitable mortgage on a mall in Peoria arbitrarily bound at the subatomic level to ridiculously risky 3nd mortgages on children’s tree houses in Metarie, Louisiana and trailer parks in Tornado Alley.

And so the Large Badloan Collider was constructed.

In particle economics, a “badloan” is a set of reckless decisions held together by deregulation and fraud, similar to how crack houses are held together by the presence of drugs and the absence law enforcement.

Badloans have excited states known as “financial markets”, so while existing in one state at rest (i.e. sack of worthless paper) they also simultaneously have several excited states, such as “your pensions”, “CEO bonuses” and the “Entire economy of Finland”.

In other phases, badloans may disappear altogether. For example, under very high regulatory pressure, the theory of Dirty Fucking Liberal Fiduciary Dynamics predicts that a property known as “prudence” can emerge from a previously recessive state. Institutional “prudence” would then prevent dupes and hucksters from interacting with the core of the financial system in sufficient quantities to form enough badloans to crash the system.

Of course, while there has been some experimental confirmation of the existence of “prudence” within the Fiscal Universe, most of the Supply-Side fiscalists who now dominate the field dismiss it as “crazy Socialist delusion”, favoring instead the construction of the Large Badloan Collider.

In principle, the Collider’s operations are quite simple: a series of confiscatory measures would extract thousands and thousands of dollars from every man, woman and child in the United States. These dollars would then be accelerated through a tube of highly refined BOHICA,


230 miles in diameter.

Using a series of increasingly hysterical and absurd statements by White House officials, the dollars are gradually accelerated to very nearly the theoretical upper limit at which bullshit can fly -- the so-called “Speed of Lie” – at which point they will be slammed into the global financial system.

“In addition to stabilizing the markets with this massive cash/anti-cash implosion,” newly-appointed Supreme Overlord of the Every-Dime-You-Will-Ever-Earn Paulson said today, “one of the more promising side-effects of this endeavor is that, under the enormous energies unleashed by the collision, newer and even more exotic financial instruments than we have ever seen before may spontaneously pop into existence. For example, it is possible that derivative instruments from the 22nd dimension may materialize for several seconds which could yield a return on investment of up to 1,000,000%!"

Of course, the tolerances are very exacting -- variances of as little as 1/100th of a picogreenspan could ruin the entire experiment and, potentially, destroy the entire space/cash continuum and kill every living thing in existence -- but the Bush Administration believes its absolutely fucking exemplary record of precision in both anticipating and coping with catastrophes over the last seven years makes risking a trillion dollars of other people’s money worth the gamble.

Overlord Paulson also held out hope that the Collider may also finally isolate the elusive “Higgs Teflon”; a material that theory predicts would be able to efficiently convert gross incompetence, criminal mismanagement and treason into pure electoral popularity.

Pitchfork has a great interview of David Byrne; fun, funny, and a kick ass artist. He talks about life and especially about the new album with Brian Eno.

David Byrne frequently stops to think before answering a question. It's a less common practice than one might assume, the sign of a polymath processing new information and decideding from which file-- art, science, music-- to retrieve the right answer. Indeed, Byrne remains one of rock's most thoughtful figures, but he's not above a bit of fun, either. That's likely what drove him again to work with Brian Eno, his former collaborator in both Talking Heads and on their joint outing My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.- from Pitchfork

The new Album is called Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. And you can only get it on the website. This is a voice I have been missing lately, great to hear him and read about him. I have also always enjoyed Eno's work.



Just last year I was reading a great book about Journalling, "The Journal as Art", and David was one of the people discussed in the book. His journal sketches are really quite something. Anyway, I recommend reading the full Pitchfork piece and heading on over to the site and listening to the album.

Below is a list of resources for free, downloadable Obama posters, wallpapers, literature, etc. Please feel free to add any I've missed in the thread.

The Barack Obama website has lots of free downloads too, including flyers, signs, wallpapers, and even videos. Find those here: http://www.barackobama.com/downloads/

Here are some others:

Downloadable, ready-to-print posters:

Add-your-own-text poster (Example: [Your City] for Obama!)

Portrait series and other styles (various sizes)

11" x 17" posters/yard signs

8 ½” x 11” signs

"The New Hope" posters, various colors and sizes

11” x 17” signs, also factsheets

Black and white signs, both national, and for Brooklyn

Other free downloads

Flyers, in English or Spanish


Printable T-shirt decals, stickers, and signs

Iron-on transfers

Business card-sized campaign cards

Wallpapers for your computer

Wallpapers for your iPhone or computer

Button Templates

Generate your own personalized Obama logo

aka. The unemployed black man in a string vest fund.

From the Onion News Network; The coming economic crisis. (larger than the housing crisis)


Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close To Collapse

I just need to stop, just for a moment, to move my soul back from bailouts, handouts, heartache, and setbacks. I hope you will not mind if I hold tight to the thought of the 5th. of November, that we will all remember, and that will be for reasons that my ancestors, contrary to what I used to think, did see.

They did see reason in the times of tears and pain. When troubles ran down like rain upon a river of lies and human perfidy, yeah, I could not allow myself, as an AfricanAmerican woman, to think on it too deeply for too long, because despair can paralyze. But they also knew that balance is inexorable, as do we all. Rev. Dr. King reminded us '...we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream...' And so, I humbly submit, in this time of choosing leadership that is the mirror of ourselves, the American 'we' can gain our strength to fight from the certainty of our new Jubilee, and remembering that we are gathered here and everywhere, and work with all of our hearts to bring about that great good getting up, on the fifth of November, in the morning.


Let us let the poet take us to the river:

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
   flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
   went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
   bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.


The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes

A few months back I was having an interesting conversation with the dynamic Jane of FDL fame and she was making the point that we all needed to be thinking about bringing in other communities and interest groups that might not think of themselves as political. (expanding our base) At the time she mentioned pet owners and dog rescue groups-- since things like green space, and community laws effect them.

This got me to thinking about my interest groups. The biggest ones, of course are those related to foodies, locavores, restaurant people and food bloggers. F and B related issues are my long standing passion. So here is the outcome of that thinking.



If you do any blogging, food writing, and food-blog reading, hope you will consider spreading the word about my little video. Working on ideas for #2.

Anyway, feedback and pr help greatly appreciated. And there will be more action going on at the site foodies4obama.blogspot.com

And a big thanks already to Orangeclouds for promoting it on her terrific food site.

Cross-posted at the GNB

photo tlg, 9/18/08 Barack the Vote Community Organizer Mike

It is important to have fun and support each other.

The election season is draining, emotional, stressful, and a other exhausting adjectives. There are a lot of us who are doing double or triple duty.

Writing and working on issues via the blogosphere
Community organizing
Our regular (paying) jobs

It can all get overwhelming at times and so it is important to remember to enjoy ourselves a little bit too. This election IS urgent, our problems ARE real.

But we also have the chance to build new long last communities and organizing groups that will take us through the coming years as we try to help our leaders get back on track in the actual job of governing.

We will need these strong groups to fight for health care, to promote the green jobs revolution, to reform our failing systems. So reach out to those around you that are coming together around the issues and candidates in this historic year.

Party together, eat and drink together, talk, laugh and cry together.

We will all need each other beyond these 43 days.

The bonds we make now will help us pursue the real change we need.

Yes We Can.

P.S. Don't forget to tell EVERYONE you know to register to vote before it is too late.

Enough Dynamite There, Butch?


The Bush Bust Out in six, easy steps:


Step 1: Get your filthy regulations off of my Free Market

you damn, dirty Commie!



Step 2: Selling bad paper to poor people and then re-selling it to each other will make us all rich!

I am a fucking genius!



Step 3: OK, what the hell

just happened?


Step 4: I'm telling you, I'm broke.

Except for my 28 million dollar salary.
And my 67 million in company stocks.
And my eleven houses.
And the 1.1 billion in my portfolio.
Except for that, I'm b-r-o-k-e, broke.


Step 5: So into the Big Media Subterfuge Centrifuge,

set the dial to "We-know-exactly-where-the-WMD-are-hidden", and presto....

There must be a painful price, or no lesson will be learned.

The recent convulsions in the financial markets have been on the radar for a long, long time – for anyone who was paying any degree of attention and who had two brain cells to rub together. The pages of the more “esoteric” financial magazines, the pages of the better blogs (think about how long Atrios has been talking about "the big shitpile or the diaries and front-page posts on Daily Kos) have all been talking about this impending collapse for more than 8 months.

As long ago as last July, a friend of mine in the financial world made a sarcastic quip: “in the financial world, flat is the new up,” meaning if you could just hold your own, you were doing better than most.

The collapse of Long Term Capital Management in the late 1990’s was one of the harbingers of what has now become nearly routine practice on Wall Street. Some bright young hard-charging economic number cruncher comes up with a new “financial instrument” based on predicted rates of change, margins, and the assumed divergences between stocks, bonds, T-Bills, real estate, and the price of tulips on the Amsterdam bourse. Said bright young fellow (usually they’re male, because a lot of men are pretty dumb like that) then receives a Nobel Prize in economics and gets hired by everyone from Solomon Brothers to Shearson-Lehmann.

That financial instrument is a complicated jumble of past performances, funny little curves, second and third derivatives of those curves, integrated fourier functions showing the power-spectral signal of Cacao market fluctuations in Ghana as related to the average cost of 2nd mortgages in Finland over the last 600 years (amortized in 1993 pesos)… or some such absolute fucking garbage.

That jumble of nonsense is coded into a fast computer, and VOILA!!! The underpants gnomes spring to action and massive, permanent, untold profits ensue forever and ever… until they don’t.

Financial crashes based on speculative stupidity are, sorry to say it, part and parcel of the Capitalist Market System. I mentioned Tulips up above… that was a LONG time ago. There is a huge, long list of financial market crashes based on devaluation of currency, overextension of credit to bad risk debtors, speculation and wild insanity regarding the latest greatest surefire profit-maker.

The Savings and Loan Crisis (THANKS John McCain) under Bush Pére (some coincidences are just... well... not) cost the US taxpaying public about 500 or so billion dollars, and the people who made it all happen got away with little or no punishment (Neal Bush, John McCain, and more). LTCM collapsed, and was promptly bailed out to the tune of 3.6 billion in a move organized by the Federal Reserve Bank (LTCM Crisis Wiki). Some of the creditors cajoled into feeding on the carcass of yet another bright young fellow’s idea include many that are now defunct (Lehmann, Merrill Lynch, and more). Funny how that works.

Now we’re gearing up for the “mother of all bailouts” – at LEAST 700,000,000,000 dollars worth of bad paper to be purchased using government funds (i.e. the Peoples’ money). Said purchases to be overseen and determined by the Secretary of the Treasury: “Handout” Hank Paulson. He will have NO oversight, will not be answerable to ANY elected lawmaker, his decisions are final and uncontestable, and he can bail out anyone he wants. I have seen hints that the purchasing power given to him is 700 billion at any one time, meaning that if he buys 700 billion worth of toilet paper (masquerading as a tranche of mortgages) and sells it for 300 billion, he can then use the 300 billion to buy more. HURRAH!

Handout Hank is “open” to discussing some mortgage relief, but won’t even HEAR of his buddies’ golden parachutes getting deflated in any way, no SIR!

Hell, no, Hank. (Can I call you Hank?).

See the thing about training pets, raising children, reforming addicts, rehabitating criminals… (that last one really applies best, I think)… is that if there is no clear painful outcome for the continued misbehavior (rub the puppies’ noses in it, yes?) then the misbehavior will continue unabated.

This is the third or fourth time in the last 2 decades that the captains of industry and the financial mavens have screwed the pooch to the tune of billions of dollars. Each and every time, the government that these same über-capitalist movers and shakers have spent so much time blaming for all the ills in the world, is begged to come rescue them, bail them out, foot the bill, take the hit, and so forth.

All with OUR money.

700,000,000,000 dollars. That is awfully close to 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. A trillion dollars of taxpayer money used to buy bad paper from the so-called geniuses who devised these stupid “instruments” in the first place. These assholes want their golden parachutes preserved, they want their million-dollar salaries, and they want their high-flying lifestyles. They want to get picked to be Treasury Secretary or Chairman of the Federal Reserve, they want to talk about “market distortions introduced by over-interference by government forces”… they want to talk about privatizing this and that and the other…

But when they get in trouble, oh my oh dear oh help… who do they turn to?

I say no. I say that we, the people, are already in a world of economic hurt, and we can take the hurt and take the pain. If there is 700 BILLION dollars in extra government money laying around, I say we invest that money in things that REALLY matter… like schools, like trains, like alternative energy, like single payer health care.

In fact, if we are going to nationalize the banks, we might as well get out of the whole capital markets thing while the getting is good, turn over all that capital to working for people that need it more.

It really strikes me as funny that the biggest government bailouts in US history, the longest strides toward outright government ownership of massive chunks of the capital markets, have all taken place under Republican administrations in the last 2 decades.

Seems to me that the lunatic libertarian fringe needs a quick reality check, because when I hear them say “Capitalism is the only way that works, and it must be free from government interference, so deregulate and privatize everything now!!” and then I look at what is happening now, and what has happened in the last 25 years… I just shake my head and think “Capitalism for the poor and Socialism for the rich, same as it ever was”…

But enough. There must be a punishment, and a very painful one. Banks must fail, funds must go bankrupt. Those who chose to invest in bad paper, who chose the gimmicky, quick and easy get-rich now schemes to invest their (and their backers’) money, who valued to easy money over the intelligent choice… sorry, but you lose.

Fail.

Get a different job.

Evolution demands that organisms adapt or go extinct. Time to face the music, take your medicine, and get off the government dole all you big, fancy banker types. In fact, maybe we need to nationalize your house, car, and retirement fund in order to help pay for the colossal debt you helped create.

Have a really bad day, capitalist pigs.

Love,

Red Dan

Percent of Americans think the economy is improving. Zero is pretty low.

Also, Our beloved leader George W. Bush is now at a lovely 19% approval, that's a 76% disapproval rating.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire on two U.S. helicopters that crossed into the country from neighboring Afghanistan, intelligence officials said Monday.

Thanks Condi!

A spate of suspected U.S. missile strikes into Pakistan's border region and a raid by U.S. commandos said to have killed 15 people have angered and embarrassed Pakistani leaders while signaling Washington's impatience with Pakistani efforts to clear out militant havens.

During a recent speech to Parliament, newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari, who is considered U.S.-friendly, warned that no country would be allowed to violate Pakistan's sovereignty in the name of the war on terror.

Zardari is on his way to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, and he is expected to meet President Bush. --AP

Anyone want to guess the size of the check he picks up? This is the problem with the Bush administration, there is nothing they can't screw up. Pakistan is shooting at us. Unbelievable.

I just started reading 'Just How Stupid Are We?' by Rick Shenkman. From his Author's Note:

Many of us cannot wait for the headline: "George W. Bush Leaves Office." Along with millions of Americans, throngs around the world will no doubt cheer the news of his departure, as will I.
But as the reader will see, I am convinced that it is too easy to blame our mess on Mr. Bush. And I do not believe that his replacement by a leader who is less partisan and more competent and sensitive to civil liberties will begin to remedy what ails us.
What went wrong, went wrong long before Mr. Bush's ascendancy. His flaws simply gave us the unwelcome opportunity of seeing what heretofore had remained largely invisible.

No kidding.

This is what confounds me: what the hell happened to the mental capacity and thirst for knowledge of the regular Americans I grew up with? It seems as if the McCain/Palin ticket is the culmination of some kind of weird science, an archetype of militant unpreparedness. And there are Americans who see the fumbling foolishness of these two people and feel...comfortable. Reassured. Enthusiastic, even. Cheering wildly for the same criminals who got us all into this mess.

"Worldview?" Gov. Palin? The blind leading the specious means no view at all.

Sigh.

Well, to combat the stupid:

First, I guess, the citizen has to be willing to acknowledge that something very large is very wrong with our nation.
Then, the citizen has to be willing to put their version of the reasons on the table and examine them dispassionately.

Oh man, we are so scre...no, okay, okay, wait, I got this, I got it:

First, the citizen acknowledges that they've been right in the past, and wrong in the past.
Then, the citizen must admit that there are such things as facts.
Then...

lord have mercy.

This could take a while...

In Honor of Steve;

We bring you the end of Yankee Stadium, at long last.

NEW YORK (AP) — Even Yogi Berra knew this was the end. As baseball said farewell to Yankee Stadium, one of the game's most beloved players stood beneath the stands in a full vintage uniform. Now 83, the man who coined the phrase "it ain't over till it's over" put his own stamp on the day.

"I'm sorry to see it over, I'll tell you that," Berra said.

The goodbye completed an 85-year-old run for the home of baseball's most famous team. What began with a Babe Ruth home run on an April afternoon in 1923 ended Sunday with Mariano Rivera retiring Brian Roberts on a grounder to first baseman Cody Ransom, completing a 7-3 victory over Baltimore on a warm September night.

Guess they just couldn't stand the idea that the Mets were building a swanky new home.

I heard they are going to sell off pieces of the stadium to raise money. I can only imagine what Steve would've done with a big hunk of stone from The House the Ruth Built. heh.

Looks like other people were thinking about Steve during this epic event as well.

more Lewis Black on the US economy (old but not dated)

h/t Tanbark

Check out Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the slimy $700Billion theft that the criminals in our government and their corporate cronies are proposing so they can get what they think is theirs while they think the getting is good:

In my view, we need to go forward in addressing this financial crisis by insisting on four basic principles:

(1) The people who can best afford to pay and the people who have benefited most from Bush’s economic policies are the people who should provide the funds for the bailout. It would be immoral to ask the middle class, the people whose standard of living has declined under Bush, to pay for this bailout while the rich, once again, avoid their responsibilities. Further, if the government is going to save companies from bankruptcy, the taxpayers of this country should be rewarded for assuming the risk by sharing in the gains that result from this government bailout.

If a company is too big to fail it is too big to exist!

Please thank him, and spread the word...

get real. I mean 700 billion? And in the buy-out plan, NOTHING for homeowners, Nothing for reform, Nothing for restructuring, AND NO OVERSIGHT???

Our good friend Malacandra summed it all about with his famous photo-shop-snark.



These people are seriously going to try to steal everything that isn't nailed down before Nov. 5th. and they are going to give as many "Shock-doctrine" reasons for it as there are stars in the sky.

I hope that the leadership keeps their foot firmly on the brake pedal for the coming 44 days. In fact, please please don't even put the key in the ignition. The republicans and corportists drive like this is a game of Grand Theft Auto- and running over little old ladies and homeowners is apparently good for extra points.

Handout-Hank Paulson has 0 dollars set aside for American homeowners. Zero, not a dime. $700 billion and no consideration whatsoever for American's who don't wear wingtips. However he can spend 10's of billions on Foreign Banks. In fact according to the reading of the bill he can spend the entire $700 billion on Foreign banks and we can't say shit.

It pisses me off that Wall street and the Bush administration blame the mortgagers. If I force a $10,000 loan in cash to everyone in my neighborhood. Knowing full well some of them are complete deadbeats and many of them certainly won't have the money to pay me back, it is my dumbass fault for loaning them the money. That is the situation here. Now Bush wants the government to step in and pay me back, but send debt collectors after the people in my neighborhood. Which is only being done because we are such great buddies. These people have a lack basic understanding of business and are basically pretty stupid. But then you knew that...

photo from the blog Grizzly Bay

Ok, seriously? She is ready to be VP? Didn't blink? Totally prepared...except for the fact that she can't handle an open debate?! WTF????

...the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates. McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.- NYTimes

I figure they only agreed to the white glove treatment for the Gov. of Alaska in order to get the free to spar format for the top of the ticket. But shouldn't we be making the point to anyone and everyone who will listen-- that if she can't handle Joe Biden in a debate she really shouldn't be next in line for the Presidency. Ok, looks like she can kill animals and use them in her interior design palate, but President?

This joke just keeps getting worse and worse.