Barney Frank Disses John McCain

From CBS News...

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a chief author of the economic rescue package, doesn't think much of John McCain's late entry into the negotiations.

"McCain is Andy Kaufman in his Mighty Mouse costume - 'Here I Come to Save the Day,'" Frank said as he left a Thursday morning caucus meeting with House Democrats, saying the Republican presidential candidate's decision to enter the mix "is not helpful."

"He hasn't been involved," Frank said. "He doesn't know anything about it."

Frank, who has been working furiously to finalize legislation granting Treasury the authority to buy hundreds of billions in distressed mortgage-related assets, believes McCain's entry "injects an...element of partisanship" into already tenuous negotiations.

"We are making very real progress," the visibly tired chairman said. "This is a stunt. I hope people will be able to ignore it. He doesn't bring anything to it."

What if the Whole World Voted for Our President

Here's a cute idea covered by John Walkenbach on his blog - it's worth a look.

Letterman Disses McCain

McCain's Suspended Campaign

Wonkette puts John McCain's grandstanding into perspective. A few quotes below - click the link to read the whole piece. It's good.

It really depends on what you mean by “suspend,” doesn’t it? John McCain’s maverick move to suspend his campaign so he can grandstand on something he knows literally nothing about — the American Economy — isn’t actually a suspension of anything. It’s a stupid stunt to get more campaign press coverage. And nothing is suspended at all. Go to McCain’s website, and you’ll see he’s still collecting campaign contributions and still running his trashy anti-Obama video spots.
...

Then, every few weeks, he does some showboat bullshit about being “above politics” or whatever, and an ever-decreasing number of political reporters briefly note this stunt, and then it’s all totally forgotten again.

Try to remember an example from, say, three weeks ago. Right, the GOP convention. Hurricane Gustav looked like it might pound New Orleans and the Republicans sure didn’t want to share prime time with the poor black people drowning, again, so McCain’s campaign decided it was all about “country first” and just canceled the first night of the convention and most of the second night.
...

McCain also “suspended campaigning” when he ran for president eight years ago. After telling the press (his base) that he was going to announce his run in March 1999, he melodramatically “postponed” the announcement because of the U.S. bombing of the Serbs in Kosovo (and the rest of Serbia).

Another Great Quote....

I've seen this posted in a couple of places - and it's well-worth repeating here.

From Republican Congressperson Mike Pence.

I must tell you, there are those in the public debate who have said that we must act now. The last time I heard that, I was on a used-car lot," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana. "The truth is, every time somebody tells you that you've got to do the deal right now, it usually means they're going to get the better part of the deal."

25 Comments on the Wall Street Bailout

Some of these should become classics...

*"I'm not going to fire you; you can still be called Congress. But you don't have any power."

— Jon Macey, Yale Law School professor and deputy dean, providing an allegory for Secretary Paulson's proposal


*"As of now we [journalists] are, as a group, behaving just as we did the
last two times the administration sought to rush through a hastily
thought out, ill-conceived plan. Why in the world are we being so
gullible and naive?"

— Former New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston


*"If you think the Bailout of All Bailouts...won't saddle American taxpayers with billions, if not trillions, of risky obligations, you don't know politics... Never before in the history of American capitalism has so much been asked of so many for...so few."

— Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor

Clinton Responds to Chris Rock on the Daily Show

Part 1


Part 2

Chris Rock to Bill Clinton - "Hillary Lost!"

From the Letterman Show...

A Flood of Acerbic Images

Presidential Candidate Debate - Parody

If the debate DOES take place this Friday, what might it look like? Some practice questions and answers from the McCain camp are posted in a op-ed column in the Baltimore Sun...

Q: Mr. McCain, you were intimately involved with Charles Keating and the savings-and-loan debacle of the late 1980s and were censured by the Senate Ethics Committee for having poor judgment. Given your involvement in that scandal, how can you be trusted to be the president of the United States?

A: I would like to remind you that I was cleared in that matter. And I would also like to remind you that I was a POW in North Vietnam for more than five years. I think that's all I need to say on the issue of trust.

Presidential Candidates Address the Financial Crisis: Compare and Contrast

America's Gift Store

A clever place on the web - America's Gift Store features items that remind of us of the American war on terror. Below - the Abu Ghraib coffee table. There are 11 other items.


Link to the site...

Another Discussion on the Economy: Real Time

Ron Paul Speaks Against the Bailout

McCain's Worst Week Ever

Letter From Heart to John McCain

God knows if this is real or not - I followed the links as far as I could easily go, then the trail died out. I found it on Gawker.

Click on the image to view larger - it has adult language - but it is quite funny.

Satruday Night Live Skit Featuring "John McCain"

Socialism

I have to be careful here - I am a liberal - and I do agree with a moderate dollop of socialism in our government - but not to the exclusion of private ownership of business and resources - unless it is necessary for the general welfare. That's obviously a judgment call and I'm not sure that I'm the one to make that call on the balance between free markets and government control.

HOWEVER, where I'm going with this is - I spend a lot of time scouring the Internet for photos, videos, commentary on things of interest to me and I frequently run into images produced by conservative groups that label Democrats as socialists and commies. So it tickles me to think of Bush, Cheney & Co. as being the folks to try to ram a bill through Congress that is probably the most Communistic act ever undertaken by our country. It's cute.

Here are some photos of some of my favorite socialists...

From Acerbic Politics

From Acerbic Politics

From Acerbic Politics

From Acerbic Politics

Housecleaning

Periodically we all need to do a thorough house cleaning. We need to sweep down the cobwebs, wipe up the dust and mop the floors. No matter how special we think we are in this life, there are just some dirty jobs that need to get done - or the problem grows, mold begins to form and we all get sick.

The bailout of the American financial institutions may be the wrong move at the wrong time. We're covering up the problem without doing the housecleaning that needs to be done. Greedy SOB's will be rewarded for their bad economic behavior and the problem is swept under the rug until the dirt (mold) shows up in some other part of the house.

Is it the right move to bail out the big investment houses at taxpayer expense? I don't know - but it seems to me like the alternative should be given some consideration...

From Alternet.. Click on the link to read the whole article.

Wall Street Is Licking Its Chops at the Bush Team's Multi-Hundred Billion Dollar Giveaway Plan

By William Greider, TheNation.com. Posted September 21, 2008.

If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public.

Financial-market wise guys, who had been seized with fear, are suddenly drunk with hope. They are rallying explosively because they think they have successfully stampeded Washington into accepting the Wall Street Journal solution to the crisis: Dump it all on the taxpayers. That is the meaning of the massive bailout Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has shopped around Congress. It would relieve the major banks and investment firms of their mountainous rotten assets and make the public swallow their losses -- many hundreds of billions, maybe much more. What's not to like if you are a financial titan threatened with extinction?

If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public -- all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called "responsible opinion." If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics -- exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion. As I have been saying for several months, this crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political parties, take your choice.

Perceptions Are An Important Part of the Political Process

The last President (and the only President within the last 60 years) t0 cut spending and balance the federal budget for 3 straight years was Bill Clinton - a Democrat. (CNN wrote, in September of 2000, "It is the third year in a row the federal government has taken in more than it spent, and has paid down the debt. The last time the U.S. government had a third consecutive year of national debt reduction was 1949, said the official."

The Republicans, on the other hand, love to spend money they don't have - just like the vast majority of Americans. There is clearly a strong love by people who love to spend money they don't have for government leaders who spend money they don't have.

And one of the things you've got to love about John McCain's bid for the Presidency is that he's clearly ready to spend MORE of the money the government won't have as he plans to cut taxes even further at a time when the government is pending over a trillion dollars to bail out rich folks.

What is even more intriguing about the stupidity of the average American is the fact that they still cling to the Republican canard that Democrats are all "tax and spend liberals."

What a hoot. You've got love it. And what prompted this tirade of mine? See the following two charts which show that, even though 95% of Americans would get a tax DECREASE under Barack Obama's economic plan for the country, over 50% believe their taxes will go up under his Presidency.

I guess it makes sense that our nation should go bankrupt when the majority of our citizens are financial and political idiots.

I'm Confused...

The following is from Taegan Goddard at Political Insider...

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight...

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers: a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig, and Track: you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating: you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl (sports caster), 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DUI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.