McCain’s Accusation Regarding the Project
John McCain accused Barack Obama of a seemingly outlandish request for Chicago’s planetarium during the second presidential debate Tuesday, saying that the Democratic candidate backed a “$3 million [earmark] for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?”
The AP fact-checked the claim:
McCain’s phrase suggests Obama spent $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment that projects charts and text on a wall screen. In fact, the money was for an overhaul of the theater system that projects images of stars and planets for educational shows at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium. When he announced the $3 million earmark last year, Obama said the planetarium’s 40-year-old projection system “has begun to fail, leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience.”
But McCain’s remark was enough to make Adler Planetarium officials issue a statement defending the scientific validity of the request:
To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support – which was not funded – to replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere. The Adler’s Zeiss Mark VI projector – not an overhead projector – is the instrument that re-creates the night sky in a dome theater, the quintessential planetarium experience. The Adler’s projector is nearly 40 years old and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer. It is only the second planetarium projector in the Adler’s 78 years of operation.Science literacy is an urgent issue in the United States. To remain competitive and ensure
national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to
pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.Senator McCain’s statements about the Adler Planetarium’s request for federal support do
not accurately reflect the museum’s legislative history or relationship with Senator Obama.
Sen. Dick Durbin and six Chicago-area Congressman, three of whom are Republicans, also agreed to sponsor the unsuccessful $3 million earmark.
Planetariums in New York and Los Angeles recently replaced their Zeiss projection systems with federal funding, the Tribune reports.
Obama dares McCain, “Say it to my face…”
From his interview with Charles Gibson.
GIBSON: Change the subject for a moment. John McCain has unloaded on you in the last 72, 96 hours as has Sarah Palin. McCain is saying, essentially, we don’t know who Barack Obama is, where he came from. I’m an open book, he’s not.OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: Were you surprised, A, that he didn’t bring it up last night at the debate and use that line of attack? And, B, since you must have prepared for it, what were you going to say?
OBAMA: Well, I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face.
But I guess we’ve got one last debate. So presumably, if he ends up feeling that — that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate.
The notion that people don’t know who I am is a little hard to swallow. I’ve been running for president for the last two years. I’ve campaigned in 49 states. Millions of people have heard me speak at length on every topic under the sun. I’ve been involved now in 25 debates, going on my 26th. And I’ve written two books which any — everybody who reads them will say are about as honest a set of reflections by, at least, a politician as are out there.
So, you know, I think that, you know, Senator McCain’s campaign has been focusing on me primarily because they don’t want to focus on the economy. And they’ve said as much. I mean, you’ve had their spokespeople over the last couple of days say if we talk about the economic crisis, we lose.
I mean, you can’t be much more blatant than that. They want to change the subject. And I understand it because the fact is that John McCain has subscribed, for the most part, to the same economic philosophy as George Bush, the same economic philosophy that has governed over the last eight years and has helped to get us in this mess.
When you just can’t say “ni…ni…”, say “That One,” as though picking out a new mule
The proper, respectful and appropriate description for an foe in a debate between two senators is “the senator” or — if there is a desire to get flowery — “my distinguished colleague.”
But Arizona Senator John McCain, who after a quarter century on Capitol Hill surely knows the political etiquette, could not bring himself to refer to Illinois Senator Barack Obama as he would any other colleague.
Discussing a 2005 Senate vote, McCain said, “There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one,” he said, motioning toward Obama. “You know who voted against it? Me.”
That one?
That one?
If Obama had referred to McCain as “that one,” he would have been attacked for showing disrespect or ridiculed for being so new to the Senate that he did not understand the basic behaviors of the chamber.
Either way, it would have been a devastating moment.
And it should be for McCain, as well.
Understand what the Republican nominee was doing.
He did not slip up.
The McCain campaign and its media acolytes have for weeks been spinning the notion that Obama is running as some sort of messianic character who sees himself in something akin to Biblical terms.
In internet advertisements, campaign spin and talk-show commentary, Obama is mocked as “the one.”
A McCain Web commercial from earlier this year compared Obama with the Nazarene. That ad opened with the announcer declaring, “It shall be known that in 2008 the world will be blessed. They will call him ‘The One.’”
The ad proceeds to ridicule Obama’s high-minded rhetoric before closing with the narrator telling Americans: “Barack Obama may be ‘The One.’ But is he ready to lead?”
That commercial has long been recognized as one of the more amateurish cheapshots from a campaign characterized all too frequently by amateurish cheapshots.
Now, John McCain has brought the cheapest of the cheapshots to the debate stage.
It was, for a senior senator who has embarrassed himself too many times during this long campaign, a uniquely embarrassing moment.
Senator Hothead?
“The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Cochran said. “He is erratic. He 
is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.” Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, one of McCain’s conservative Republican colleagues and a man who’s worked with McCain for years.
“I think John McCain is well-known for ‘losing it’ in a variety of circumstances.” Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig
MORE?
Some say “devout,” some say “lapsed”
The nun who prays and washes the leper with her wrinkled, arthritic hands. The pious Sicilian peasant woman for whom it is second nature to invoke the Virgin when her little bambino skins his knee. The simple Joe who goes to Mass every day he can, spits and swears, but would give a stranger his kidney if he thought it would help give another Joe a break in this crazy world. There’s room under the Big Tent of Devoutness for these sorts of people and a lot more like them.
But is devoutness an infinitely big tent? Is everybody (or at least every Catholic) devout? It would appear so, judging from MSM and blogosphere usage of the term. So, for instance, it turns out Michael Moore is a [1] “devout Catholic” despite the fact that he holds some rather important aspects of the Church’s teaching in contempt and tells absurd lies in order to score political points.
[2] King: What about how he’s handled the Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright thing?
Moore: Jeez, you know, I mean I go to Mass still. I’m a practicing Catholic. I’ve been that way all my life. But if I had — if I had gotten up every time I heard a priest from the pulpit in my travels around the country say things like I’ve heard them say, that birth control is a sin, that women should not be priests, that women should have a different role in church …
King: You’d be walking out all the time?
Moore: I would have been walking out so much — that would have been so much aerobic activity for me… I wouldn’t look like this. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our act
ivities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
-Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence
Campaign Now Claims McCain’s Admitted Keating Five Wrongdoing a Smear
Back in 1999, John McCain acknowledged his role in the 1980’s Keating Five savings and loan scandal that rightly stained his career. “The fact is,” he said, “it was the wrong thing to do, and it will be on my tombstone and deservedly so.” But again facing withering criticism as a second financial crisis grips the United States, his campaign today instead claimed McCain’s intervention 20 years ago with federal regulators on behalf of future convicted felon Charles Keating was merely “a political smear job.”
As AmericaBlog and Politico reported, the campaign deployed McCain’s lawyer John Dowd to rewrite history on his client’s behalf during a conference call Monday:
McCain lawyer John Dowd described McCain’s “former relationship with Charles Keating as ’social friends,’” and called the situation a “classic political smear job on John.”
Sadly for McCain, Dowd’s yarn matches neither the facts nor McCain’s self-proclaimed resurrection as a reformer in the wake of his near-death experience in the Keating Five imbroglio.
Earlier this year, the Boston Globe summarized McCain’s close relationship with Keating and his decision to intervene with federal regulators on his behalf: read the rest
Hockey moms in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
by Keith Olbermann
Last Wednesday, Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home of a woman in Akron, Ohio named Addie Polk, in order to evict her. After 38 years in that house, Ms. Polk had fallen behind on paying the mortgage. It was so bad that the company that held that mortgage, Fannie Mae, had foreclosed.
In fact, it was far worse than anybody knew. Addie Polk couldn’t bear it any more. So, rather than be evicted, she shot herself in the chest.
Evidently she will survive. And, after Congressman Dennis Kucinich brought her plight to the floor of the House, Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant you and I and all the rest of us pretty much own now, agreed it would forgive Addie Polk’s debt and, when she gets out of the hospital, let her go back and live in her home again.
That this is already a gothic horror story, you’ll agree. But I left out one detail. Addie Polk is 90 years old.
In the self-pronounced area of expertise of the Governor of Alaska—energy—the real experts of both parties are at a loss to figure out any way, even’drill, baby, drill’, that might lower gas prices before 2018. We are at war in two countries and a lame duck President with no reason to check his own imbalance still has dreams of one more.
And a 90-year-old woman, trapped in the middle of a financial meltdown, shoots herself and she’s still in better shape than the economy. Yet, the Governor of Alaska wants to talk about somebody Barack Obama doesn’t know very well, and what this somebody Barack Obama doesn’t know very well, did, during the year Obama was eight and the Governor of Alaska was in pre-Kindergarten.
And she wants to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And she doesn’t object to being introduced with a reference to Barack Obama’s middle name. Well, this is my suggestion. In much the same way we, America, in the corporate persona of Fannie Mae, have forgiven poor Addie Polk of Akron, Ohio.
We, America, also need to forgive poor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska.
They are both in situations that are beyond their ability to cope.
They are both stuck in a crucible caused by forces they cannot comprehend. They are both unable to understand what they are doing.
After stumbling through a clumsier version of it at Englewood, Colorado, the Governor of Alaska said Saturday at Carson, California:
“Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
She later defended the remark by adding this was an “association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about.”
Governor, Conservative groups have thus far spent ten million dollars this year trying to make something, anything, out of the brief interaction on a charity board between Sen. Obama, and a rehabilitated former domestic radical from the ‘60s and not even Conservatives have been stupid enough to buy the snake oil, that this was either a close relationship or a nefarious one.
But of course, you know better, Governor. You’re smarter than the rest of us. A reporter asks you a horrible gotcha question like’which newspapers do you read’ and it takes you four days to come up with an answer, and somehow it’s the reporter’s fault.
The reporter asks you to name one Supreme Court ruling with which you disagree other than Roe vs. Wade and even though you’d commented on just such a case from Alaska no less not three months ago your eyes turn into a big neon sign reading “Vacancy” and you insist it’s because that evil media asked the wrong question.
So you’re the genius Governor, and it’s your supporters and the undecided voters who are the dopes who are now going to believe the same mickey-mouse crap that Sen. Clinton couldn’t get to stick, and Sean Hannity couldn’t get to stick, just because it’s you adding that word “terrorist” and that phrase “palling around” and dropping the “g” in pal-ling.
And of course, Governor, those same dopes, and we media morons, we are not smart enough to ask about that pesky Alaskan Independence Party, and why you recorded a speech for its convention last March, and why your husband remained a registered member of it until 2002, even though it was founded by a man named Joe Vogler who wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. The way the South seceded, precipitating the Civil War.
The same Joe Vogler who once said:
“The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won’t be buried under their damn flag.”
And who also said:
“I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”
Shoot, Governor, them’s strong words, hah? Did he wink as he said ‘em? You betcha! So, where does Joe Vogler rank on the scales of “terrorists who would target their own country?” Your opponent’s guy Ayers wound up on a volunteer anti-poverty committee in Chicago.
But your guy Vogler wound up founding a group that wanted to rip one of the stars off the American flag! Well, ok, Governor, Vogler’s more your husband’s guy. So it’s your husband who’s been “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”
But I’m assuming you’ve been “palling around” with your husband. But, gee willikers, Governor, you know what’s best. You’re not one of these Washington insiders who would notice that though that’s a straight line connecting you, your husband, and this Alaskan secessionist, you’re standing under a banner with the campaign slogan “Country First” and if somebody out there puts two and two together they might just ask, “which Country dja mean? The Country of Alaska?”
“The heels are on,” you said with another smile. “The gloves are off.”
Well, if you’re telling William Kristol you want to talk about Jeremiah Wright fer sure! So, Governor you don’t mind addressing whether this Pastor Muthee is a terrorist? Do you? We’ve told you before about Pastor Thomas Muthee.
He’s the preacher who visited the Wasilla Assembly of God church a couple of times while the Governor was there, ironically enough, just about as many times as Bill Ayres has met Barack Obama and, see, there was this one time where Pastor Muthee actually laid hands on the Governor.
And I’m sure that sounds like just some crazy anecdote, except there’s videotape. And of course the Governor talked about this moment, the laying on of hands, just last summer.
It was in October, 2005, as the video indicates, when Muthee put his hands on Sarah Palin’s back and said, ”“make a way for Sarah, even in the political arena. Make a way, my God. Bring finances her way, even if for the campaign in the name of Jesus.
“Every form of witchcraft, it will be rebuked in the name of Jesus.
Father, make her way now.”
And the Governor said that ”bold” approach of Pastor Muthee was one ofthe reasons she became Governor and she gives him just oodles ofcredit for puttin’ her on the path.
The problem for the governor is that in 1999 The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pastor Muthee had gotten his start a decade earlier in Kenya, in the Nairobi suburb of Kiambu.
Kimabu was crime-ridden. So this character Muthee showed up, and announced it was the fault of this woman in town who he had decidedwas a witch. And Muthee gave the witch a choice: either be saved, or get out of town.
And the woman initially chose none of the above, but this became lessthan a viable option when Muthee got 200 of the townspeople togetherand they decided, heck, you know, Muthee’s right, she probably is awitch, and the next thing you know the police are raiding her houseand reportedly shooting her snake because if she was a witch, thesnake had to be a demon, and then the woman left town and everybodysaid crime went down and most of the bars closed and this is not onlyhow Pastor Muthee got started but he’s proud of it and he tells thestory in his testimonial videotapes and people in that church inWasilla where he laid hands on the Governor knew all about it.
And they think it was just a Joe-Six-Pack, Hockey Mom kinda thing todo, to let a guy who branded some woman in Kenya a witch, demand thatGod make some different woman the Governor of Alaska!
Governor, what would you call someone who arrives in a suburb, blames a resident for the local crime, organizes a mob to threaten the woman,convinces the authorities to go and raid her home, and then chases her out of the suburb?
C’mon Governor, just give us one answer that has something to do withthe question you were just asked. That’s right you’d call him aterrorist. And since it was in his own country, that would makehimmmm? Yes, very good, a domestic terrorist.
So, you, Governor, you’ve been ”“palling around with terrorists whowould target their own country.” Say it ain’t so, Gov! Say it ain’tso! Of course it is.
The Governor of Alaska ignores Addie Polk and the American tragedythat is a 90-year old woman shooting herself out of shame and panicand who knows what else. Over the mortgage!
Instead the Governor of Alaska wants to start calling peopleterrorists and insisting of Sen. Obama that quote ”“this is not a manwho sees America like you and I see America” and whose rhetoric likethat, and the ”“pallin’ around with terrorists” line were rightlydescribed by the Associated Press yesterday as a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing kind of way of slipping racism into the equation, because it’s a nifty trick to remind the white folk that(psst) Obama is black.
But overriding this sleaziness and dog-gone it, the Governor of Alaskahas got to be the sleaziest politician working the stage at themoment, there is the sheer blessed stupidity of letting herself becomethe bomb-thrower when her own life is full of domestic terrorists.
Governor? Bill Ayres? Your hubby was in this secessionist hate groupfor which you recorded a video.
Governor? Jeremiah Wright? That pastor you credit with helping you become Governor, is either a con man or a psycho who believes he can tell which woman in the village is the witch, and which woman is the governor.
And Governor, there’s also ”“The U.S. Council On World Freedom.” You should ask Sen. McCain about that outfit and why he had to scat away from it 22 years ago.
Or, ask him why yesterday his own brother Joe referred to Northern Virginia as quote ”“communist country.” Or you could ask him about Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Or about why Sen. McCain said about introducing Jeremiah Wright into this campaign, ”“there’s no place for that kind of campaigning, the American people don’t want it,period.”
Or don’t ask. You know best. You’re the one selling the patent medicine. Those of us out here, we’re just the suckers pulling out our greenbacks. Go on talking about this man Ayers and trying to link Obama to that word ”“terrorist.”
But be prepared for others to ask you about your pastor and terrorism.
And for still others to ask you about the First Dude and terrorism.
But not me, Governor.
I forgive you. You are about as guilty here as poor Ms. Addie Polk inAkron. And I hope that after what you’ve done to yourself, you recover as well as she seems to be doing, and that you too get to go back and live in your own home again.
Because if you think the terrorism con, and the racism sting are going to do anything but bury you and Sen, McCain, you need to pick up one of those how-many-ever newspapers you reed and check the headlines to find out what people are really worried about right now.
Otherwise, when you said ”“the heels are on, the gloves are off,” you got as close to telling the truth as you’ve ever gotten, and without really knowing it.
Because, for you and Sen. McCain, Governor, it’s not the gloves that just came off.
Obviously—it’s the wheels.
Church v. Politics
Without citing sources, which are readily available, I will just state without fear of contradiction by any informed person that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church continues to insert itself into American politics, attempting to convince Christians that they cannot vote Democratic without being party to murder. This is, by definition, absolutely false, of course. It is one thing to accept the discipline of the Church in ones own belief system, it is entirely another to attempt to tell those around us who are obeying the law of the land that they cannot participate in legal activity without separating themselves from God and the Church.
This is, of course, a matter of conscience for each believer. While we look to the hierarchy of the Church for guidance in spiritual matters, when we have those in power who have their own earthly political agendas, who cannot admit the “greater evil” of the activities of those in power in Washington, who have fallen to the temptations of wealth and power on this earth from the Prince of Darkness himself, who fail to police their own house for illegal and immoral activity (including, but certainly not limited to, the rape of children), then we must reject those individuals as not worthy to speak for Christ and His Church, of which we are members, and no man can separate us from that to which Christ has appointed us.
Shame and condemnation should be heaped upon those Bishops who use their diocesan authority to communicate their political agenda as the word of God, with the (false) threat of separation from heaven for disobedience to their edicts.
When asked his view on when life begins, Joe Biden stated…”For me, as a Roman Catholic, I am prepared to accept the teachings in my church.” He was condemned for this statement by the hierarchy. What more can the hierarchy demand than obedience in our personal life? Are we to go out and “impose the Gospel on every creature?!” I don’t think so. When the Supreme Court rules on the law of the land in the United States of America, that decision is not subject to review by the Bishops.
It would be a different matter if people were forced to receive abortions by the government, as they are in China. Our freedom in the US is of God. We do not live in a theocracy, nor is that our goal as Christians. The American people will decide what is best for this nation; economics, security, international relations, our standing in the world, energy, transportation, jobs, human rights, health insurance – these are just some of the many issues facing this country. This cannot be decided on one issue only, no matter what the Bishops believe.
Palin’s posing is a disservice to women’s rights
The burning issues of the most important election of our lifetimes are being eclipsed by Sarah Palin’s pretty face. Her pro-family posturing, hollow claims of gender bias and feigned proven toughness weave an emotional narrative particularly persuasive to women. I’m struck by the irony. The very people whose issues have no place in her agenda are being gamed for their votes. How sad this is for all women — past, present and future.
The fight for women’s right to vote in this country was long and brutal. Suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and others called out our government in 1848 at a historic assembly at Seneca Falls, N.Y., but it took another 72 years for the 19th amendment to pass. The suffrage battle of 1917 was the consummate dark chapter in the struggle and carries with it shades of Abu Ghraib — including beatings and forced feedings. Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Dora Lewis et al are little-known patriots whose story should be taken to heart this election season.
In January 1917, the National Women’s Party began a peaceful protest across from the White House. Their relentless demonstration over the months became an international embarrassment for our “democracy” and police were ordered to disband them. Arrests (218 total) began on June 22 with trumped-up charges of “obstructing traffic,” and culminated with a Nov. 15 “Night of Terror.”
Months before this infamous night, the suffragists had been incarcerated with women infected with syphilis and tuberculosis — forced to drink putrid water from a common pail and eat food infested with worms. Their toilet was a bucket not emptied for days.
On the night of the 15th, 40 prison guards went on a rampage. Lucy Burns was beaten — her hands chained above her head as she was left hanging for the night. Dora Lewis was hurled into a dark cell, smashing her head and knocking her unconscious. Her cellmate, thinking Lewis dead, had a heart attack. Affidavits also give accounts of guards dragging, beating, choking, slamming and kicking the women.
Gender politics in this election is making a mockery of this hard-fought battle for democracy, and could permanently subvert what real progress for women means.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain, in cynical deference, introduced Palin for vice president by saying he was proud it was “in the week we celebrate the anniversary of women’s suffrage.” This from a man who (1) voted against a measure to help women get pay equality, (2) voted against extending insurance coverage to pregnant women and infants, (3) voted against funding breast cancer research and (4) voted repeatedly against funding to fight domestic violence — just to name a few.
Palin’s record regarding women is McCain-compatible. Reports from Alaska say she’s done nothing to address rampant sexual abuse, rape and domestic violence. While mayor of little Wasilla, women (mostly poor) were required to pay from $300 to $1,200 for testing to prove they were raped. More shocking, Palin opposes abortion even for victims of rape or incest. According to public-safety experts, Alaska is one of the worst in the nation for rape and sexual abuse of children, with 25 percent of rapes resulting in pregnancies. Are we to suppose that Palin believes the state should force a 10-year-old child raped by her father to endure a pregnancy? Would we want such a draconian law for our daughters?
This “pro-family” small-town woman is a fictional creation — one her handlers hope women voters will buy. She’s scripted and rehearsed for public consumption. But privately she’s receiving a crash course in neoconservative governance: corporate state at home, military hegemony abroad. In other words, she’s being groomed for a seamless VP transition — Dick Cheney in “lipstick and a skirt.”
Women should take heart. While we disagree on a variety of religious and social issues, a common historic struggle unites us. Let’s not forget the grinding work, the thankless sacrifice, the silent pain, the dogged determination of our foremothers that bind us together. They came from all ranks — educated, uneducated, well-heeled, destitute. Their spirit is embodied in the likes of the suffragists Mary Lease, Mother Jones and Rosa Parks. Given our current economic meltdown, it’s ironic that Lease, in 1890, carried on a grass-roots revolt against the corporate predators of her day, calling on farmers to “raise less corn and more hell.” This is the spirit that brought us our democracy.
Sorry, Sarah, threatening a war with Russia or field-dressing a moose does not demonstrate the toughness necessary to defend our Constitution. You’re in need of counsel from women who, armed only with grit and guts, had the courage to face down power and demand that our country live up to its creed.
Bush era coming to a close – but maybe not soon enough?
As the world’s economies reportedly teeter on the edge of collapse after the resounding “NO” by House Republicans to the hurriedly revised plan presented to the House for a vote, it seems an appropriate end to the GW Bush administration. The American people have continued to function under the circumstances of 9/11, years of useless wars, and dropping economic values amid constant lies and misrepresentations up and down the chain of command. It seems as though to participate in any position in the Bush administration one had to start with the requirement of having bad character. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Libby – many others.
As a Christian, it hurts me that this came from a man who claimed to be a “born-again” Christian, saved from alcoholism and a purposeless life. This President, who sent the highly respected General Colin Powell to the UN to falsely assure the world that Iraq was an imminent danger to itself and others, now asks us to believe that if we don’t double the already massive debt this nation faces for generations to come, economic disaster will result. Not even his own party believes him anymore. One would expect that many Democrats would vote against his plan, but the fact is that his party gave him an overwhelming “NO” when told “We must do this or the country will fall into depression.”
A day after the most precipitous drop in the market in one day ever, the market has regained half of what it lost yesterday at this writing. Does the market need a bailout or not? We are told the only way that this will work if almost a trillion dollars is used to buy up bad mortgages. And because of these bad mortgages, the “credit market” has “frozen.” Now no one can get a loan. Small business can’t get short term loans to make payroll, so people will need to be laid off. (The economy has already lost a record number of jobs this year.)
So what kind of a finale can our President come up with? How about declaring emergency martial law, dissolving the Congress, nationalizing all banks and financial institutions? Is it possible that this is an attempt to put the country into such massive debt that many of the “social programs” on the Obama agenda can never be implemented, locking up domestic policy as he has tried to do with foriegn policy? Is it just a money grab by him and his cronies on the way out the door?
This is what happens when the bond of trust between a government and it’s people is broken. After 9/11, the people would have accepted the decisions of our leaders no matter what they said needed to be done. And so this President led us down the wrong road, and as he leaves office, he leaves our relationship as a country with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Korea, Russia and many others in much worse shape than he found it. He leaves our monetary situation as a government in much worse shape than he found it. The cultural wars that he and his supporters stirred up have divided the country in a way never seen before. There is no trust between the government and its citizens, the right and the left. We are no longer a country united with a common purpose defined by a Constitution. The Constitution has been denigrated and trampled on by this administration. We the people have become party to torture. Perhaps a million Iraqis have died in the name of “freedom and democracy.” More Americans have died than in Vietnam.
And now the working people, who work for less and less, if work can be found at all, as more and more jobs are moved overseas to maximize corporate profit, are supposed to take on the failures of these same corporations in the form of a $700 billion bailout? Can we at least force these Corporate Masters of the Universe to “re-create” some jobs in this country? Can this country start producing “something” that it can export beside exporting our jobs?
Maybe we should restart the “Always Buy American” campaign of years ago. I know it would be hard to find all the things we need made in America. I understand there are no American shoes anymore. I wonder if the Garment Workers Union still has any living members? Do they still make steel in Pittsburg, Buffalo or Gary? Are any car parts actually made here anymore, or do we assemble them in Mexico? Are their any family farms left, or has all the land been sold to foreign agribusiness corporations? Are any computers made in this country, or all they all imported from China? Are there any corporations that actually open manufacturing plants in America left? Or are we supposed to bail out these millionaires and billionaires while working in the “service industry” for $12 an hour? Or has America itself been outsourced?
A Bailout No One Wants Except Wall St. Corporations
“I suspect that part of what we’re seeing in the freezing up of lending markets is strategic behavior on the part of big financial players who stand to benefit from the bailout,” said David K. Levine, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis, who studies liquidity constraints and game theory.
It becomes clear that no one on either side in the Congress wants to do this bailout. In fact, Bernanke, Paulson and Bush seem to be the only ones who do want it in Washington. Corporations on Wall Street want it because it would give them that much more capital with which to gamble on derivitives.
I am not an economist – just an ordinary worker (in the tech industry). But from what I see, hear and read, this proposed bailout seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Yes, the economy is struggling, but still growing slowly. Confidence in the dollar would no doubt be alot stronger if Washington and Wall Street showed even the slightest interest in fiscal responsibility. We see in the rest of the world alot of interest in moving to another currency beside the American dollar globally. I have seen indications that if that were to happen, the dollar would lose about 90% of its value.
We do have Americans who are in trouble, often through their own doing, such as taking on a mortgage they cannot afford, substantial credit card debt, and other indications of irresponsible budgetary activity, just like the federal government. Nevertheless, there are indications by those in the industry who claim it costs the economy a quarter of a million dollars per household when mortgages go bad. So, apparently, it would be in the interest of us all to reduce the number of families who are losing their homes.
Does the corporate bailout Wall St. favors do anything for these families? Not that I know of. In fact, from what I understand, the most likely scenario is that the bailout would be used by corporations to make more bad mortgage loans. What’s to prevent it? Certainly nothing in the original administration proposal to Congress.
So, can we agree that a legitimate use of at least a portion of that $700 billion would be to implement some sort of mortgage relief for a certain group of American families in trouble? Then why aren’t the Congress and administration working on something of that nature? What other problems do we have in the economy in which relief or assistance from the feds would make a difference to the taxpayers? Employment is one; how about a program to jumpstart “green” industry and create jobs?
I am sure there are other instances in our society where assistance could be directed to those having the problem, addressing the actual issues needing assistance, rather than a handout to Wall Street so they can continue “business as usual.” How long will it be before they need another bailout?
Neither of the Presidential candidates from the dominant parties or either party in the Congress seem to have a problem with the corporate bailout of Wall Street in principal. There just seems to be details that need to be hammered out until this is a done deal.
And exactly what is the problem they are addressing again? Banks going bankrupt? That’s what happens when bad business decisions are made. Other banks who can do business better will certainly take their place. Why would we not allow those businesses that have earned bankruptcy by the way they do business go the way of Lehman Brothers, and let Wall Street sort itself out? The mess will be cleaned up by those causing the problem.
No corporate bailouts!
Issue of currency should be lodged with the government and be protected from
domination by Wall Street. We are opposed to…provisions [which] would
place our currency and credit system in private hands. – Theodore
Roosevelt
Wall Street Drunk? All of Washington is Drunk!
by BearCreekChronicles
The more I think about last week’s announcement by Sec. Paulson that the taxpayers “must” bail out Wall Street, the more I think President Bush was right some months ago when he said that “Wall Street got drunk.”
I think perhaps at this point the Secretary and the President may still be drunk. As I understand it, there are persons on Wall Street who made commissions as high as one hundred million dollars while knowingly selling worthless bonds to Fanny May and Freddie Mac. Also, the individuals purchasing these instruments knew that they were worthless (or had a pretty good idea that the bond rating was phoney) and the underwriters that rated these bonds as high as AAA knew they were making phoney ratings. The underwriters could do this with a “clear conscience” because insurance companies (such as AIG?) were paid to make the bonds “secure.” We call that fraud where I come from. The Secretary was CEO of one of the major players, Goldman Sachs. The White House Chief of Staff, Joshua Bolton, was (is?) an officer of the corporation. So this would indicate to me that it is more than likely that the President himself knew what was going on on Wall Street as well.
If I am correct in my description, we have fraud at the very highest levels of government. And now the taxpayers are supposed to hand another trillion dollars to this administration on their way out the door to do with what they will – distributing it as they see fit to their friends!? Does anyone besides me believe that several billion will find it’s way into some of these pockets once they leave office? Sort of a “finders fee,” I guess.
No way should the taxpayers be on the hook in any way, shape or form for this scam! By now, the FBI should have many hundreds of those who benefited the most in custody. Congress should be holding impeachment hearings, not making plans to distribute their constituents money to the perpetrators of this fraud.
Both candidates for President should be as far away from this as possible, not meeting with the President to join the conspiracy to defraud the American people. Oh, that’s right. They both received millions of dollars from FM/FM already. They are already deeply involved! They already had prior knowledge. John McCain’s Chief of Staff was on the payroll of one of the FM’s right up to yesterday!
Is there one honest Senator or Representative who will call this what it is? The greatest fraud in the history of the earth!
Voting Against Self-Interest
I personally cannot fathom that anyone would want to return the Bush administration to power after the next election. Yet, evidence is, a McCain administration would be more of the same, except more so. The players in the Republican Party have all moved from the Bush administration into the McCain campaign. I’m talking about people whose names we don’t know, except for Karl Rove. We know that McCain wanted to choose Lieberman or Ridge for VP, but was told he could not do either – Lieberman because he is a Democrat, of course, and agrees with little in the Republican agenda other than staying in Iraq, and Ridge because he is what is called “pro-choice.” So he chose Sarah Palin, believing that many women who had been enamored of Hillary Clinton would see Palin as a “consolation prize” when Hillary did not get the nomination or the VP spot on the Democratic ticket. I suspect there are some women who will vote for the ticket with a woman on it just because of Palin. The vast majority of women who supported Hillary are Democrats, however, and once learning Palin’s view of the issues, could not possibly support someone who has views like hers on Christianity, Choice, Health Insurance, Equal Pay, and so many other issues where she is a world away from Hillary’s well-known positions.”
If we hold the President accountable for things that happened under his administration, which is what we do, that’s why they call it an “administration,” (President Bush called himself “The Decider,”) then we have to look at the things that happened and ask ourselves if we want more of the same. There is little debate at this point that the invasion of Iraq was not justified by the events of 9/11. There is no debate that our economic situation as this administration comes to a close is as dire as could be without total collapse, (which may yet happen in the next few days). Domestically, almost no one except the very, very rich (the top 2-3% of the population) could claim that they are better off than they were eight years ago. We know that a massive surplus as Clinton left office has been turned to a deficit with so many zeros that most of use can’t even say the number (and which double shortly with the action of Treasury) has been run up by the Bush years. Unemployment is historically high. Bankruptcy, foreclosure and collapse is the norm in business, rather than the exception. The scale and depth of the collapse makes the Great Depression look like kid’s day at the zoo. The Congress can share in the blame; 6 of 8 years had a Republican majority in both houses and a Republican president.
I don’t believe that anything could be considered “improved” in the last 8 years. The price of energy has skyrocketed, even though individuals use less and less. International relations with friend and foe alike have never been worse, even during world wars. Many fundamentalist Christians believe the tribulation has already started and they were “left behind.”
With these conditions, doesn’t it seem as though that those who cannot bring themselves to vote Democratic would be voting for Bob Barr, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader or None of the Above? Yet, the polling needle stays tied day after day. I cannot understand it, except for the abortion issue.
Years ago, Republicans realized (as well documented) that they could not get people to vote against their own self interest without a hook of some sort. The “Right to Life” movement has been that magic bullet – that’s for sure. No more emotional issue has captured the public’s imagination. Horrible stories are told of children being murdered after birth. Infanticide, they call it, and they accuse Obama of favoring infancticide. (As far as we know, abortions are performed by doctors, not presidential candidates.) What ever the truth of the issues, does it make sense that evangical and fundamentalist Christians vote for those who (knowingly, I believe) lie about what action they are going to take to outlaw abortion, birth control, sex education and other related issues? Yet, nothing changes. Why?
I believe that it is a misunderstanding of the provisions of the constitution. Slavery is illegal in this country. To tell a woman that she cannot control her own body, ensuring that she is not impregnated, or if impregnated, prevent giving birth, is to make a woman a slave to someone else. The legislature or the courts would have to tell a woman that she cannot regulate her own health issues because the society has an overriding interest in those decisions. That would make a woman in our society little more than a brood mare. Who are you, or who am I, to tell another individual, a fellow citizen, what decisions they must make to ensure a healthy body? Those are decisions that are decided by doctor-patient, or the patients representative in case of being disabled, in every other medical situation. There are no men who can bear children. It is solely a woman’s issue. Your decision regarding your body may not be the same as your neighbors, but you must defend your neighbors right to make that decision for herself just as each person is guaranteed the right not to be arrested for protected speech.
We as Americans are guaranteed “freedom,” and many of our fellow citizens have given their lives to protect that freedom. There can be no justification for attempting to take that freedom away. The question is not “when does life begin” but rather “when there is a conflict between the rights of a woman and an unborn potential child, whose rights take precedence?” The unborn, as a symbiot or parasite, dependant totally on the woman’s body for life, cannot have a prior claim to the life and welfare of the mother, any more than a citizen can go out and kidnap a fellow citizen (or any other human being) and enslave them against their will for their own benefit.
The Supreme Court ruled correctly on these issues, both in Roe v. Wade, but in many other decisions prior regarding slavery. As long as Americans continue to revere our Constitution, a different decision will not be made. It is the very foundation of what makes us Americans.
I believe the Republican leadership knows that they cannot change what has been codified constitutionally and in federal law. Yet they continue to attempt to appeal to the emotions of those of us who have a heart, and believe it wrong to take the life of a Terri Shiavo, not to mention an innocent child. As a result, they are able to convince citizens to vote against their own interests, but in the interests of the very, very rich. As a result, approx. 3% of the worlds population control more than 90% of the material wealth of the entire world, leaving the other 97% of us to subsist (or not, in many cases) on 10% of the worlds wealth.
How many children starve as a direct consequence of an unjust monetary policy? Many millions more, I dare say. Many millions more.
I implore my fellow citizens, please reconsider your vote. See if does not make sense to bring in the kind of people who made the 8 years under the Clinton Administration one of the most properous this country has seen, and not just this country, but many citizens of many other countries as well. Let’s make a rising tide that lifts all boats, not just a very few.
So, Who’s to Blame for this Mess?
In the long run, I think there is a chance that the Treasury Dep’t. will actually make some money selling all these defective instruments they will buy up from the banks so the economy can get back to work. I think there is also a chance that everything the treasury ends up absorbing is pure junk, and that generations to come will end up paying for the last 8 years for many years to come. Time will tell.
But who is to blame for this mess? I think there is much blame to go around.
1. George Bush financed two wars on the credit cards instead of making the Iraqis pay for it.
2. Allen Greenspan made money cheap and advised banks to get that cheap money into the communities to stimulate home sales to folks who would normally not have been able to get a mortgage.
3. The Congress failed to oversee the activities of FM/FM, the Bush administration and the Fed.
4. The housing industry failed in due diligence when making these loans.
5. Most of all, individuals failed to monitor their own finances. Americans who should have realized that just because someone will extend credit doesn’t mean it should be taken. But self-control is not a baby-boomer trait, and we have certainly not passed it on to our children, or their children. We’ve heard all our lives that we are entitled to the American Dream. Nobody mentioned that previous generations had to work for it.
And so now we must share in the burden, whether we as individuals were responsible or not. Let’s pray that the worst that happens is that we and generations to come will end up paying for this party.
By the way, I never did get my invitation. Come to think of it, I never got the one to the Reagan party either. Maybe this time, we will learn from our mistakes. Naaah…
Governor Palin’s Reading List
It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.
Pin the Tail on the Donkey
I watched with interest this morning after Sec. Paulson’s statement regarding working with Congress to take action on the financial crisis in the next week, to see what the first statements coming out of the campaigns would be.
I saw McCain’s reaction first; a reaction which was non-specific as to whether Paulson’s action was the right action in response to what is happening to the markets. McCain’s response was to attempt to tie the crisis to Obama, without specifics as to how he reached that conclusion.
Obama’s reaction was to the point. It indicated that the campaign recognized that the response Paulson proposed to Congress was the only response that can be made which will address the issues behind the crisis.
The American people should take note that at a time when, without overstating the problem, our economy hangs on the edge of immediate and unrecoverable collapse, the McCain campaign attempted to continue to play politics, without even addressing whether they believed Paulson’s action was the correct action, and, if not, just what action should be taken in their view.
What is happening, to my understanding, is that the economy, which runs on the engine of credit, is bound and is coming to a standstill because of the bad mortgage loans that are out there. In order to get those bad mortgages out of the system and allow credit to once again flow, the federal government must create an entity to purchase those mortgages from the various holders, and will then sell them at auction at a very reduced price. The best analogy I can think of as a layman is that it is like taking a fleet enema, or perhaps, like a dam which has formed of logs and mud, and that must be removed before the flow can be restored.
As I understand it, it is the only action which will be effective, and Congress will have no choice to act in a bipartisan manner to quickly remove the bad debt from the system so that Wall Street can get back to generating profit and jobs. It is no time for politics as usual. It is very inconvenient at this time of crisis to change Presidential administrations. Paulson should be kept on by the new administration until this patch is implemented to the system.
If you ever want your money market or 401k to regain it’s value from the 10% or so that it has lost, or for the economy to again create jobs and money, then this is what has to be done, according to every expert in the field that I can find. It is not a time for withdrawing money from the system (at a substantial loss). It is a time to just be patient. It may be 10 years before we see a full “recovery,” but even before the full recovery, the economy will begin to operate in a healthy way again.
That’s my analysis in a nutshell.
