It's Still The Economy-- And We'll See Who's Whipping Whose Ass

Back in the 1980's I used to listen to radio stock investor Bob Brinker. I learned some solid fundamentals of investing by listening to his show and years later I turned my friend Roland on to the weekly program as well. I always had a problem hearing him ranting and raving about his golfing and his far right extremist policies between the good investment advice and eventually I couldn't take it anymore and just stopped listening. All the George Bush propaganda was just too much to take. Yesterday I found out the Republican blowhard is still on the air and still selling Republican snake oil to anyone who will listen. Roland still listens and he told me that Brinker had gone on a vicious tear against another media stock prognosticator, Jim Cramer. When I saw the video about the Republicans' propensity for recreating Herbert Hoover economic situations, I understood why Brinker went bonkers. Watch:



Meanwhile, Obama made a speech today unveiling his Economic Rescue Plan for the middle class. It's a comprehensive four-part plan to deal with the immediate crisis that builds on proposals he has previously announced and includes several major new ideas. Reactionary ideologues, like Brinker, will hate it, no matter how helpful it is for ordinary Americans.

1.      JOB CREATION: A New American Jobs Tax Credit. Obama is calling for a temporary tax credit for firms that create new jobs in the United States over the next two years.
 
2.      RELIEF TO FAMILIES: Penalty-Free Withdrawals from IRAs and 401(k)s in 2008 and 2009. Obama is calling for new legislation to allow families to withdraw 15% of their retirement savings – up to a maximum of $10,000 – without facing a tax-penalty this year (including retroactively) and next year.  
 
3.   RELIEF TO HOMEOWNERS: 90 day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners that are acting in good faith. Financial institutions that participate in the Treasury's financial rescue plan should be required to adhere to a homeowners code of conduct, including a 90-day foreclosure moratorium for any homeowners living in their homes that are making good faith efforts pay their mortgages.
 
4.      RESPONDING TO THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: A Lending Facility to Address the Credit Crisis for States and Localities. Obama is calling on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to work to establish a facility to lend to state and municipal governments, similar to the steps the Fed recently took to provide liquidity to the commercial paper market.

Obama's plan also calls for temporarily eliminating taxes on unemployment insurance benefits; keeping all options on the table to help our automakers weather the financial crisis; having the Fed and Treasury prepare for guaranteeing a broader range of liabilities of the banking system; and instructing Treasury to help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, loans for multi-family dwellings and credit card loans.

McCain's erratic campaign yesterday reiterated that they have no new proposals for the economy, something McCain doesn't understand anyway, and that they'll just stick with what they've already laid out there-- a hodge-podge crazy-quilt of the worst of Josef Stalin, Herbert Hoover, George Bush and Phil Gramm. Even mainstream conservatives are repulsed by McCain's bizarre response to the economy. Expect 24/7 gutter tactics from McCain and Palin-- then pathetic tears of remorse from McCain after his defeat in November.

McCain's Mortgage Plan: Another Desperate, Dangerous Gimmick

Other than one by the United Lobbyists' Collective of K Street, every poll, survey and focus group showed that Obama handily beat McCain in the debate on Tuesday. The only other "news" from that event was that McCain, desperately groping for a "game-changer," threw out a proposal for the federal government to buy every badly performing mortgage from the banks. While his far right extremist base screamed bloody murder, mainstream Americans scratched their collective heads and asked what the hell is McCain talking about.

This morning the editors of Republican Party propaganda tabloid, National Review, echoed what their columnists have been writing all week, that McCain's proposal is unacceptable to conservatives. They prefer the bill written by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, because under their bill the borrower must live in his house (i.e., no investment properties); the borrower must show that he has been spending at least a third of his income on mortgage payments since March of this year; and the borrower must also show that he can afford to make lower payments if his lender agrees to a write-down. They estimate that these rules narrow the mortgages covered to 400,000 and "excludes people who borrowed to buy investment properties in order to flip them for a profit... excludes people who are hopelessly in over their heads and simply cannot afford the homes they’re in and... excludes people who could afford to pay their mortgages if they wanted to but have instead decided to mail the keys to the bank rather than continue making payments on a house that is worth less today than when they bought it."

We never thought we would defend the Frank-Dodd legislation, which we bitterly opposed last summer. But it looks downright prudent compared to what McCain has proposed. McCain’s plan is a full bailout for lenders, and it cannot do much more than the Frank-Dodd bill without letting “ruthless borrowers” and other reckless types off the hook. It is time to acknowledge that the government has gone as far as it can without creating a level of moral hazard that is unacceptable. Give Frank-Dodd-- and the Paulson plan-- time to work.

And that's from McCain's base! Economists and editorial boards around the country looked at it and decided it was just another McCain Hail Mary pass or cynical gimmick, like picking Sarah Palin, like making believe he was suspending his campaign to "rush" to Washington and save the day, like shortening the Republican Convention by making believe he was needed in New Orleans, etc. Robert Farley looked it over for the St Petersburg Times and explained why people are calling it "a desperate campaign stunt by a candidate who's popularity in polls is dropping largely due to people concerned about the economy. The plan is likely to be a tough sell to McCain's conservative base, many of whom are uncomfortable with the whole bailout plan to begin with. "It creates a big moral hazard," said Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "If I thought McCain was going to be elected, I'd stop paying my mortgage now and stick my nose in the trough."

The Concord Monitor points out that McCain is once again helping all his campaign contributors but not American taxpayers: "McCain's plan would bail out homeowners who can't meet their payments and foundering lenders, who bet that home values would continue inflating forever. But it would saddle taxpayers, many of whom struggle to pay their own bills, with an enormous burden."

Even McCain's cronies on the editorial board of the aggressively reactionary Wall Street Journal say there's no upside for taxpayers in his proposal: "McCain's obvious political intention is to show struggling homeowners that he cares. Perhaps the best argument for the McCain idea is that it is likely to be far less expensive than the Second New Deal that Barack Obama is likely to propose on January 20 if he wins. But Mr. McCain's plan to transform Treasury into a major mortgage lender, and running the operation at a potential $300 billion loss, raises more questions than it answers... And unlike the Paulson plan, the McCain proposal appears to offer no upside for taxpayers. They take all the losses up front and don't participate in any rebound in house prices, so borrowers who overextended and lenders who made reckless loans are made whole, and taxpayers get the bill."

Even more discerning analysis comes from Paul Krugman who pointed out that "McCain's bailout plan manages to take everything that's wrong with the Paulson plan and make it worse" and CNNMoney.com has an analysis that McCain's crooked lobbyist cadre isn't going to embrace:

McCain Mortgage Plan Shifts Costs To Taxpayers: Under McCain's newly announced plan, the government would take the hit for writing down mortgage balances for at risk borrowers: Under a mortgage rescue plan announced at the debate Tuesday night by Senator John McCain, much of the burden of paying to keep troubled borrowers in their homes will shift to taxpayers… "[McCain's] original plan relied on lenders taking the hit," said Holtz-Eakin. "This bypasses that step." Instead, taxpayers pay for it, with the funding already provided by the $700 billion bailout bill. That could prove to be very unpopular with homeowners who aren't in trouble, as well as ordinary Americans who objected to the Hope for Homeowners plan as a bailout for delinquent borrowers and irresponsible lenders. Christopher Mayer, Paul Milstein Professor of Real Estate at Columbia Business School, isn't convinced that the McCain proposal makes sense. "As the plan stands now, it helps the people who got into the most debt, and it helps the lenders, but it doesn't really help the housing market," he said.

The NY Daily News says it's a giveaway to the banks: "Out of the blue, McCain has just proposed a large, no-strings-attached gift of taxpayer cash to bank executives who failed at their business of risk management, and to bank shareholders who failed at their business of hiring executives. That's simply corrupt." And Victoria McGrane at Politico sums up the mood of everyone who's read it: half-baked. A careful examination was done by the Obama campaign's Economic Policy Director, Jason Furman in you want to really get down into the weeds with this thing which is probably very much DOA.

McCain Lost Another Debate-- Even Republicans Hated Him!

Another bad day for McCain. Forget that the A.P.-- which has been an offshoot of the Republican campaign-- declared, once and for all what everyone who has paid attention already knew: i.e., that Palin stretches truth in campaign speeches. What happened today that is most important is that McCain continuously stretched the truth at the debate and presented himself as a mean little unlikable troll. And the instant polls and focus groups didn't like his performance today. The CBS poll went for Obama- with 39%, while 35% thought it was a tie and 27% thought McCain won. Obama also won the NBC News focus group of undecideds in Pennsylvania by around 60% to McCain's 40%. The CNN panel of analysts scored it for Obama 69 to McCain's 29. And the CNN poll gave it to Obama 54-30%.

Uncommitted and independent voters didn't like McCain's nasty demeanor. CNN polled likability:

Obama

Favorable: 64% after debate (60% before)
Unfave: 34% after debate (38% before)

McCain

Favorable: 51% after debate (51%)
Unfave: 46% after debate (46%)

This went over especially badly:



At a focus group I watched here in L.A., the question "Which of these guys would you rather see on your TV screen for the next 4 years," only 3 people out of 20 said McCain. Even the people who agreed with McCain on more issues than with Obama were saying they would slit their wrists rather than hear him calling them "my friends" ever again after November.

And even Fox's focus group awarded the win to Obama! GOP pollster Frank Luntz: "We seem to be getting winners out of this. Obama did better overall. " Maybe they didn't like-- as most Republicans didn't-- his offer of a bail-out for mortagage holders, something right wing bloggers are howling about. Malkin: "Disaster: Mitt Romney apparently wasn’t made aware of McCain’s new $300 billion housing entitlement plan. And Fred Thompson could barely muster up enthusiasm for McCain." And nasty til the very end, McCain refused to shake hands with Obama at the end. What an asshole! Steady hand on the tiller??? It sounds like a slogan for Obama!

McCain's Allies Deserting Him-- Soon Only Palin's Terrorist Buddies Will Be Willing To Pal Around With Him

Turns out the only difference was a muzzle, not lipstick

McCain and his pet pit bull (with the lipstick) like to say they represent business. In McCain's case, marrying a rich gangster's pretty daughter certainly paid well but unless you want to count that as "business," the only relationship McCain has had with business is taking bribes, millions and millions of dollars in bribes, conveniently defined as "contributions" by the Congress in which he and hundreds of other crooked pols serve. Meanwhile, business has had a look at his so-called healthcare plan and can barely keep from choking on its own vomit.

[O]fficials, with [staunchly Republican] organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business, predicted in recent interviews that the McCain plan, which eliminates the exclusion of health benefits from income taxes, would accelerate the erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance and do little to reduce the number of uninsured from 45 million.

That is largely the argument made in recent days by Mr. McCain’s opponent, Senator Barack Obama, who has revived a dormant campaign debate over health care with an intensified attack on the McCain plan. Conscious that the issue plays well with swing voters, Mr. Obama devoted a speech on Saturday to characterizing Mr. McCain’s plan as “radical” and a “Washington bait and switch,” and he has reinforced the message in four television advertisements.

McCain's once devoted allies in the media, his base, are, for the most part-- though not the part from Fox nor people who make believe David Broder isn't terminally senile and long past his trip to the glue factory-- disillusioned that their hero turns out to be the biggest scumbag in the history of contemporary American politics. Gee, did they get it wrong! Time Magazine's Joe Klein is so disgusted with McCain's "descent into ugliness" that he's reticent to cover all the "manure" the campaign is farting out in every direction.

It is appropriate that the prime vessel for this assault is Sarah Palin, whose very presence on a national ticket is an insult to your intelligence. She now has "credibility," we are told, because she managed to read talking points off notecards in the debate last week with unwitting enthusiasm.

Over the weekend, she picked up on an article in the New York Times, which essentially says that Barack Obama and the former terrorist Bill Ayers have crossed paths in Chicago, served on a couple of charitable boards together, but aren't particularly close. To Palin-- or her scriptwriters-- this means that Obama has been "palling around" with terrorists.

...[T]his is rather rich coming from Palin, who is married to a man who belonged to a political party-- the Alaskan Independence Party-- that wanted to secede from the union.

Watch and judge for yourself who's palling around with our nation's enemies:

McCain: "Healthcare? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Healthcare"

Obama goes into tomorrow's debate with McCain, way ahead in the polling-- both nationally and electoral-vote wise-- and with the media willing to discuss the lies and negativity McCain's camp has been getting away with. Even the NY Daily News, referring to the candidate they are likely to endorse as "McNasty," exposed a McCain campaign staffer who told them why the campaign has descended into the gutter: "It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice. If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

And that was best illustrated today when McCain's devastating health care cuts came out in the Wall Street Journal. It's probably the nail in his political coffin. McCain would pay for his already completely inadequate and outmoded health plan with gigantic reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, cuts that will amount to something like $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

At a time when Americans are craving modern health care insurance similar to the rest of the industrialized world, McCain is basically saying he's all for bailing out his pals on Wall Street but that we can't afford healthcare for our seniors and our working families.

The Republican presidential nominee has said little about the proposed cuts, but they are needed to keep his health-care plan "budget neutral," as he has promised. The McCain campaign hasn't given a specific figure for the cuts, but didn't dispute the analysts' estimate.

In the months since Sen. McCain introduced his health plan, statements made by his campaign have implied that the new tax credits he is proposing to help Americans buy health insurance would be paid for with other tax increases.

But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain's senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. Medicare spending for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 is estimated at $457.5 billion.

While McCain is hiding behind Holtz-Eakin's deceptive explanations of his plans to actually make Bush's era even worse for average families and behind his lipsticked pitbull's wild gutter attacks on Obama, the Democratic nominee laid out his entire health care plan from top to bottom over the weekend-- and in plain English.

This morning I was talking with L.A.'s most respected and knowledgeable radio talk show host, Johnny Wendell, and he had an interesting perspective on what is being viewed as yet another serious McCain stumble. "As the Dow tumbles to a four figure fumble and McCain embraces a trillion plus in Medicare cuts that would reduce senior health care to the level of over 60's scrounging for dog food in 1932, there is panic in the halls of the hallowed church of Die Partei Republikkkanische-- if William Ayers were a brigade of Weathermen and Jerry Wright a battalion of Black Panthers, it would matter naught-- the salvos from "Wasilla Spice" and her senescent servant may as well be in Sanskrit for all the effect they'll have on 11/4."

Will The Senate Bailout Version-- Now A Larded Up "Rescue" Bill-- Fly In The House Tomorrow? Plus Bonus Video: Has McCain Lost His Mind?

Bipartisan screwing of America: the Mitch and Chuck Show

It's going to be difficult for 12 House members-- assuming none of the YES votes turn to NO votes-- to flip flop. They're going to be closely watched in their own districts. Pressure from voters against the bill is intense. Of course, pressures from the business interests who finance their careers is also intense. I've been looking for clear indications of the leadership's strategy for how to craft a Senate bill that would win in the House. Would they appeal to the far right Republicans and make an already lousy bill even worse or would they appeal to progressives by making the bill more friendly to ordinary working families. Obviously going to far towards appealing in either direction could peel off votes from the center.

It looks like they most took a non-ideological, bipartisan approach: pork. As we discussed earlier, much of the impetus to go along with the Bush Regime Shock Doctrine tactics and pass this disastrous bill came from members of Congress-- Rahm Emanuel and John Boehner in the House and slimy bribe takers like Norman Coleman, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Max Baucus and John Sununu in the Senate.

Senators with tough re-election battles used different calculations to arrive at different decisions. Gordon Smith, who is trailing Jeff Merkley (an adamant foe of any bill that doesn't address the real financial concerns of working families) in their Oregon contest, voted in favor of the bill-- and in favor of the special interests that have showered him with "donations" for many, many years. He's using the Bush Regime's Shock Doctrine as cover-- just the way he did when he supported Bush's attack on Iraq. Smith:

“I’m hearing from small business, I’m hearing from retirees, and views on this are changing. Businesses in Oregon are being notified that their loans will not be renewed-- and these are creditworthy businesses. And if we stand by and watch the obliteration of our financial system, shame on us.”

A less seasoned senator, Mississippi's appointed replacement for Trent Lott, Roger Wicker, voted NO. He's also in a tight race and his opponent, Ronnie Musgrove, has been gaining on him. “I don’t think the sky is falling," he said. “What was the rush? Why didn’t we have hearings? Why didn’t we use regular order? We were told two weeks ago that unless we acted immediately, within hours the sky was going to fall. Well, the sky didn’t fall. Even so, we have rushed this through. $700 billion, potentially, in liabilities to the taxpayer without hearings, without the opportunity for amendments in committee… on something of this magnitude, I think, is ill-advised."

Having recently come out of the House Republican caucus himself, Wicker is far more in touch with it than most of his colleagues. Many House Republicans feel the same way he does. And they like the idea of being able to tell their voters, no matter how cynically, considering the last 8 years, that they aren't really Bush rubber stamps.

When you hear the words "fait accompli" you know Master of the Universe Rahm Emanuel has his greasy hands on the communications levers. And that's the message the House Leadership is trying to get out today, in the hopes of creating an irresistible force towards passage. I remember when he and Hoyer used that same phrase in Democratic primaries in 2006-- against Representatives Jerry McNerney, John Hall, and Donna Edwards. The "new" bill is so much more geared towards the right that the Democratic Leadership expects to actually lose some support from their own caucus, mostly Blue Dogs. That explains why Hoyer said Republicans need to deliver 35 more votes than the 65 they had Monday.

Republicans indicated that they expect support to grow in their conference, now that the AMT patch has been added to the bill along with a measure temporarily increasing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) maximum for bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000. Aides to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he’d spoken to senators and green-lighted the plan.

Aides said GOP members were also heartened by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to loosen “mark-to-market” accounting rules on banks.

“We hope that the new FDIC provision, as well as the SEC’s action on mark-to-market … and the inclusion of the AMT patch and other extenders will increase the appeal of this package to House Republicans,” a Republican aide said.

Blue Dogs were growling at the Senate. “I know some of them are old and stodgy. They need an opportunity to clear their heads,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA). “Maybe that’s why we need to pass mental health parity. They need their meds.”

Republican conservatives were strong enough to defeat Monday’s bill only because they had enough left-of-center, anti-Wall Street Democrats vote with them.

The House Republicans who voted “no” are a majority of their own caucus (133 out of 199 total) but aren’t numerous enough to defeat, or pass, anything by themselves.

Can House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her GOP counterpart John Boehner find the dozen votes necessary to pass a “tweaked” bill?

Three crucial factors are working to Pelosi’s advantage:

• Time: House members are feeling even more restless about the economic uncertainty, the fast-approaching elections and their need to campaign back home.

• Some House Republicans are rethinking their “no” votes.

• Most of the 95 Democrats who voted “no” on Monday don't come from electorally competitive districts, so it's not risky for them to switch. And Pelosi needs to convince only a few of those safe Democrats to vote with her.

But the focus Wednesday was entirely on wooing House Republicans... Additions to the rescue plan package are designed to attract House Republican votes.

According to this morning's CongressDaily one liklely flip-flopper is reflexive rubber stamp John Shadegg (R-AZ) who opposed the bill Monday but is "leaning toward supporting it" now. "Shadegg cited the raising of the FDIC cap and a SEC decision to offer guidance on mark-to-market accounting rules that require companies to value assets at current prices, not their value when they mature." Progressives who voted NO don't see anything in the Senate bill to make them change their minds. Maybe McCain can change House Republicans minds-- once he makes up his own mind. Or is he just complete out of his mind? McCain this morning (obviously grappling with senility):

McCain's Erratic Stands On The Economy Jeopardizing A Recovery

I'm not voting for either former Vietnam captive

OK, OK, everyone knows that McCain doesn't know anything about economics-- he's admitted it over and over-- and most people have figured out that he also isn't interested and just wants to get into the White House so he can start some wars and make up for whatever psychological problem is still haunting him from his failures in Vietnam. And Sarah Palin isn't exactly an economist either. But McCain doesn't need failed corporate plutocrats like Carly Fiorina and sleazy, crooked lobbyists like Phil Gramm to tell him what he has to say about the economy. All he has to do-- which is what he has been doing lately-- is go back to his old voting record and do the old McCain flip-flop.

Every single position he has supported-- from massive and irresponsible deregulation to more tax cuts for the wealthy-- has turned out to be wrong, dead wrong. So now all he has to do is talk about how he opposes everything he's ever stood for. And this morning he tried a new one. Many of McCain's supporters have a great deal of money in their checking accounts that federal insurance doesn't insure. The FDIC only insures bank deposits up to $100,000. What about all McCain's millionaire supporters? Well, following Senator Obama, McCain quickly came out for upping the federal insurance on deposits from $100,000 to $250,000. This is especially interesting since McCain has always opposed this-- loudly. In fact, in 1991 McCain introduced an amendment that limited insurance on Individual Retirement Accounts.

That same year, just two years McCain was caught in a massive bribery scandal, the Keating Five, which he was able to wriggle out of, he blamed the failure of Savings & Loan banks-- which he was an active participant in defrauding and robbing-- on "the perversity of Federal Deposit Insurance." Here's what he said then-- very different from what he's saying today: "The perversity of Federal deposit insurance is exemplified by the taxpayer bailout of the savings and loan industry. Mr. President, I think it is generally acknowledged that the failure of the savings and loan industry, to a
large degree, can be directly attributed to the unwarranted expansion of deposit insurance by the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Basic coverage was increased from $40,000 to $100,000. No longer was deposit insurance for the small depositor. It became the safety blanket for large, sophisticated depositors and freewheeling bankers."

More recently (last February), the Boston Globe reminded voters of McCain's key role in the Keating Five scandal that was a test run for today's Wall Street meltdown, trying crooked political hacks to avaricious bank executives.

"The story of how the 'Keating Five' senators allegedly pressured regulators to lay off a failing Arizona S&L became a major scandal, and marked a turning point in McCain's life-- the near-death of his political career… The events of 1987, when McCain met with regulators, and 1991, when the Senate Ethics Committee concluded that he used 'poor judgment' in the matter, are only dimly remembered by many. … McCain met Keating in 1982, during McCain's successful run for
Congress, and soon began accepting offers from Keating to fly McCain's family on a corporate plane to Keating's house in the Bahamas. McCain did not pay for most of the trips until years later, when the matter became public. Keating, meanwhile, complained regularly to McCain that a proposed regulation would hurt his business. … He cosponsored a resolution sought by Keating, but it failed to postpone the regulation."

McCain's spectacular flip flops are normally on issues like the FDIC which he was against years ago and now supports, But today he was flip flopping in a matter of minutes from one position to another. While the Republican Party was releasing an ad blaming Obama for supporting the unpopular bill to infuse liquidity into the credit system-- which Republicans, not understanding it, killed yesterday-- McCain was urging Americans to support the exact same bill!

While McCain and his surrogates have been running around like a bunch of chickens without heads sending mixed messages, sowing discord, politicizing the issues and telling every audience what they think it wants to here-- even though they contradict each other, Obama has been calm, clear and consistent. This crisis has shown, once again-- as if people still needed more proof, that McCain is erratic, ineffective and untrustworthy. Listen to Obama this morning and compared that to McCain's crazy-quilt of hysterical, always changing pronouncements:

Debate Prep 101-- And Debate Analysis 102

This morning Paul Krugman gave us a peek into a closed session among bailout negotiators in which Paulson agrees with Nancy Pelosi that bad faith by extremist Republicans-- stoked by a self-serving, opportunistic national disease called John McCain-- is what caused the bailout negotiations to break down. The Mike Pence-led extremists, he reminds us, were first and foremost nihilists with what Krugman termed a "complete nonsense proposal"-- "a holiday on capital gains taxes."

How is that possible? Well, if a party runs on economic nonsense for 25 years, eventually many of its foot soldiers will be people who actually believe the nonsense.

...And after the way the Bushies and their allies double-crossed the Democrats again and again in the aftermath of 9/11-- demand national unity, then accuse you of being soft on terrorists anyway-- there’s no way Pelosi and Reed will do the responsible but unpopular thing unless the Republicans agree to share ownership.

So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch.

As a friend said last night, we’ve become a banana republic with nukes.

Not all economists thinks this crisis is as life threatening as the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein does. We're all angry with Wall Street manipulators-- some of us think they should meet the same fate as the Indian CEO who recently stepped out of line. Some of us can think abstractly enough to take that one step further and be equally angry with the political operators-- from Rahm Emanuel (D-IL- $729,200) and Spencer Bauchus (R-AL- $483,350) to Chris Shays (R-CT- $362,720), John Boehner (R-OH- $357,000) and Eric Cantor (R-VA- $318,650)-- who have enabled these Wall Street crooks and wish them the same fate. Pearlstein, less bloodthirsty than myself, says even if we confiscated all the ill-gotten wealth from all the Wall Street crooks, "it would come to several billions of dollars. That's a rounding error compared with the size of the financial problem we're facing here." That sounds ominous. It's just the beginning.

The financial situation is now downright scary. Don't look at the stock market-- that's not where the problem is. The problem is in the credit markets, which are quickly freezing. I won't bore you with technical indicators like Libor and Treasury swap spreads, but if you talk to people who work these markets every day, as I have, they report that the money markets are in worse shape than they were last August, or even during the currency crises of 1998.

Banks and big corporations and even money-market funds are hoarding cash, refusing to lend it out for a day or a week or a month. Even the best companies are having trouble floating bonds at reasonable rates. And the shadow banking system-- the market in asset-backed securities that ultimately supplies the capital for most home loans, car loans, college loans-- is almost completely shut down.

People are so nervous, and there is so much distrust, that all it would take is one more hit to trigger the modern-day equivalent of a nationwide bank run. Financial institutions would fail, part of your savings would be wiped out, jobs would be lost and a lot of economic activity would grind to a halt. Such a debacle would cost us a lot more than $700 billion.

...[T]his isn't primarily a bailout for Wall Street-- it's an attempt to jump-start certain credit markets that have broken to the point that nobody is buying, driving down prices to the point where they are well below any reasonable estimate of their long-term economic value.

The basic idea is to use special auctions to recreate a market for these securities with many competing sellers and one buyer (the Treasury), so that a credible "market" price can be established. If that price turns out to be below what those securities are now valued at on the banks' balance sheets, then banks will have to take the loss. If the price turns out to be higher, then banks may be able to record gains. The point isn't to bail out institutions that have made bad bets and suffered credit losses, but to provide a buyer of last resort so the market can begin pricing again.

Are there other ways to structure this market rescue? Sure. You could try to deal with the underlying problem by taking additional measures to prevent foreclosures. Or you could create a mechanism for the government to invest fresh capital in troubled banks, in exchange for stock. In fact, both approaches are possible and envisioned under the administration proposal now under discussion. But neither, by itself, is likely to quickly restore confidence in the financial system and relieve the current crisis.

... [I]t is important to give the Treasury secretary and the people he hires a good deal of flexibility in designing and experimenting with the mechanics of this rescue. The reality is that these guys will be operating in uncharted territory, making things up as they go along. That means there are no assurances that any particular approach will work and no assurances that this will be the final solution. It also means that, just as we entrust generals to fight a war, we are going to have to trust the Treasury to find a way out of this crisis.

Now that notion-- "trust us," coming from the least trustworthy admin- istration in the entire history of the United States, really is as scary as anything else. And, like I said earlier, there are other economists who paint a less dire picture. In fact, "many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that the Wall Street bailout's a dangerous rush job" and that the end of the world is not nigh. "It's more hype than real risk," said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist and son of the late economic historian John Kenneth Galbraith. "A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that. So it's mainly relevant to the financial industry."

Ian Welsh over at FDL takes a hard line against the Greed and Selfishness Republican ideology that caused the problem and urges responsible leadership not to look for compromise with these antisocial misfits but to get going with the task of repairing what their shameless greed and corruption has broken.

The Republicans have offered two solutions-- the Paulson plan, which was a complete power and money grab, and now the House Republican plan which is that the solution is to do more of what caused the problem-- deregulate Wall Street and hey, presto, deregulation will fix what's wrong!

So, is the correct solution to compromise the Frank or Dodd bills with more deregulation and more power and money for Paulson and Bush to use however they see fit with no real oversight?

But wait, you say. The Dodd bill and the Frank bill are pretty sucky themselves. That's true, still both are better than Paulson's plan or the absurd House plan of "deregulation will fix the problems caused by deregulation!"

And why are they sucky? Because they started with the Paulson bill and because Frank and Dodd compromised with Paulson all through negotiations.

When put that way it's, I hope, self evident, that the more partisan the solution-- the more things like bankruptcy protection and help for people to keep their houses, and serious taking pieces of companies which are helped out-- all things not in the original Paulson plan and as far as I can tell not in the House Republican plan, are better.

They are partisan ideas. They are democratic ideas. They are in fact progressive ideas.

They are not bipartisan ideas. Republicans don't want people to get bankruptcy protection. They don't want judges to be able to let them keep their houses. They don't want the government to get 10% preferred shares like Buffett got when he bailed out Goldman, whenever the government bails out a company.

Bipartisanship means compromise and compromise with the Republicans on this means a lousy bill. In fact, starting with the Paulson bill is what made the Frank bill so awful, and the Dodd bill is better than the Frank bill because it departs further from Paulson. But because it's still based on Paulson, it still isn't actually a good bill, just a better bill than Frank's or Paulson's.

Newt Gingrich also has partisan ideas-- all proven losers-- and he's inspired some of the weakest minds in Congress, the Michele Bachmanns, Eric Cantors (living proof that not all Jews are financial whizzes) and the Paul Ryans, all crazed ideologues with predictable approaches celebrating... Greed and Selfishness, what else?

Gingrich brings a clarity of mind and simplicity of action that is a tonic to a Republican Party that seems uncertain of its core principles and ambivalent about its presidential standard bearer. Even before John McCain announced he was suspending his campaign and riding to the rescue in Washington to find a bipartisan solution to the financial crisis, Gingrich saw the impasse on Capitol Hill as an opportunity to recast the Republican Party on the side of Main Street. "It's very clear that their bias is entirely in favor of the big banks and Wall Street," he says of the Bush administration's $700 billion bailout plan presented by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "This is the decisive moment of defining McCain. If he comes out on the side of the taxpayer, then there will be a McCain wing of the Republican Party that will be dramatically different than the Bush wing."

Gingrich's not-so-subtle message: Bush is irrelevant. It's in McCain's hands as the leader of his party to drastically reconfigure the Paulson bailout or he will suffer the same ignominious political fate as George H.W. Bush. Gingrich put out a statement hailing McCain's eleventh-hour intervention. "This is the greatest single act of responsibility ever taken by a presidential candidate and rivals President Eisenhower saying, 'I will go to Korea'." Eisenhower's pledge was enough to reassure voters that if elected he would find a way to resolve the Korean conflict. McCain's high-octane involvement in the bailout is meant to convey the same sense of stature and leadership, and to provide cover to reluctant Republicans to support a deal that runs counter to everything they thought they stood for.

McCain alone can bring along enough Republicans to make a deal stick. "The Democrats are not going to go out on a limb for an unpopular position and give Bush money five weeks before an election unless Republicans deliver the votes," says Gingrich. "And the Republicans I believe cannot deliver the votes. So they'd better be designing Plan Two because I think Plan One is dead."

Never one to hold back, Gingrich unleashed his views about the original bailout plan in a torrent of words, calling the authority Paulson wants over the financial industry "a bureaucratic dictatorship" that is "outside the law" and will lead to a "20-year bureaucracy of corruption and cronyism." He's sounding the cry of what he calls the Reagan-Thatcher wing of the party, newly energized by a familiar fight against the corporate country-club wing he says is "boxed in by a Goldman Sachs chief of staff and a Goldman Sachs Treasury Secretary," so they're not receptive to alternatives (Paulson and top White House aide Josh Bolton are alumni of the investment house). "If they don't have any better ideas, they should resign, and the president should get a new team."

OK, all that said, what should we be looking out for tonight? What greasy oily notions have Phil Gramm and the rest of the lobbyists drummed into poor old McCain's cob-webbed brain? McCain, who has rubber stamped every single deregulation since he got into Congress after World War I or II, will claim he warned about a brewing financial crisis. His continued support for freewheeling creditors-- who continued giving him freewheeling campaign "contributions" in return for that support-- belies his bogus claims that his misapprehensions about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were significant in any way.

Now that economic catastrophe is making populism popular. McCain is trying to jump on the bandwagon, a bandwagon he has spent a couple dozen years in Washington sabotaging. Suddenly he's all about controls on Executive Pay and opposing golden parachutes. He's just spent an entire career on the other side of the barricades. When Obama sponsored a "say-on-pay" bill that would have required public companies to hold a nonbinding shareholders vote on CEO pay early in 2007 McCain opposed it-- loudly. He's always been for the bosses. He's always been against regular working families; always.

Along the same lines, expect him to claim he's been a "leader" on the housing crisis. Unless he explains that he's been part of the crew that has led us into the housing crisis, he'll be doing what has become the hallmark of his campaign: lying... and parroting much of what Obama says.

And then there'll be the lies we hear every day on Fox: he's never taken any earmarks (false); he has a "perfect"-- or even halfway good-- record on veterans issues (even more false); he has an energy plan that will create jobs through energy independence (yes, it sounds like what Obama and Democrats are offering but McCain's version is a total sham, which goes a long way towards explaining why he's been given more money by Big Oil than anyone else running for any office anywhere in America); he'll balance the budget in 4 years (even the Fox propagandists can barely keep a straight face when they repeat this bullshit). Oh, and there are 100 other lies in his bag... so enjoy the debate and see how many you can catch.


UPDATE: McCAIN CAN'T STOP LYING

He just repeated a debunked Republican talking point that Obama has "the most liberal voting record is the Senate." In reality, Obama's voting record is the 46th most liberal. McCain is the 20th most reactionary. Where's McCain's flag pin? Does he hate America? That tie seems to say he hates the world. Is he bitter about having lost a Miss Congeniality contest?

Anyway, Miss Congeniality bristled and got his bloomers all tied in knots when Obama mentioned that Henry Kissinger has said repeatedly that he favors negotiating with Iran without preconditions. I thought Miss Congeniality would explode; maybe if he sees this video he will. Fingers crossed!

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic has the stats on a CBS/Knowledge Network poll of undecided voters:

40% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. 22% thought John McCain won. 38% saw it as a draw.

68% of these voters think Obama would make the right decision
about the economy. 41% think McCain would.

49% of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 55% think McCain would.

In fact, all the instapolls and focus groups seem to be giving the win to Obama. I thought he was pretty weak so it must have been because McCain came off so nasty, grumpy, condescending, muddled, and... potty-mouthed-- and so defensive of the status quo which he still doesn't realize people hate and identify with his decades of crappy voting and catering to special interests. Final verdict: Obama kicked McCain's saggy, mean, old white ass

Did McCain Learn Anything From His Keating Five Experience?

Early in his congressional career McCain was taking bribes-- to the tune of $112,000 in campaign contributions-- from Charles Keating, a family friend and crooked banker for whom he was caught strong-arming federal regulators. Eventually McCain's interference on behalf of his pal Keating-- who was also involved in very lucrative business deals with McCain's gangster (former jailbird) father-in-law and with his wife Cindy-- cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. You see, even if McCain didn't invent the Blackberry, he did invent the Savings and Loan scandal. At the time the McCains would regularly bundle off in one of Keating's private jets to his private retreat at Cat Cay in the Bahamas. Although right wing propagandists try to say McCain was "cleared," he wasn't. He was formally "admonished" by his colleagues on the very lax Senate Ethics Committee.

McCain calls his Keating Five experience "the worst mistake of my life," although God only knows how that stacks up to the torture in Vietnam he never stops talking about. But the real question is... what did he learn from being caught in the clutches of a crook like Keating and barely escaping with his political career intact? Apparently it wasn't to stop taking bribes in return for political favors and it wasn't to stop associating with unsavory characters who are eager to get at the taxpayers' money. What he learned was to stop going to the Bahamas... Instead he goes to Bermuda to colelct money from Republican fat cats who shelter their wealth so they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes the way the rest of us do. In fact, the head of the McCain economic brain trust-- his probable first choice to run the economy if McCain-Palin is victorious in November-- Phil Gramm is a senior vice president and lobbyist for a shady Swiss bank that is under investigation for helping rich folksshelter money in Bermuda. His clients may be whining about other things-- like the cost of yachts and cays-- but not about taxes.

How You Feelin' About Banks? And McCain?

Who's that scary little man behind the curtain?

The McCain lobbyist brigade-- take AEI scumbag and senior McCain economic advisor Kevin Hassett for example-- is working overtime to try to blame the financial collapse on Democrats. It's absurd but... well, the severe deterioration of the education system, the super abundance of brain cell toxic fast food, a drastic shrinking of Americans' attention span and a near iron grip by the reactionary forces on the media all adds up to a people susceptible to exactly this kind of absurdity. Limbaugh was squawking and oinking yesterday about how Obama is an Arab. Today a pastor in a Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Tennessee is repeating it.

Or am I wrong? A CNN poll released late yesterday finds that twice as many Americans blame the Republicans as blame the Democrats for the Wall Street calamity. And Diageo's polling this morning is showing the same thing.

In the new survey, released Monday afternoon, 47 percent of registered voters questioned say Republicans are more responsible for the problems currently facing financial institutions and the stock market, with 24 percent saying Democrats are more responsible. One in five of those polled blame both parties equally, and 8 percent say neither party is to blame.

The poll also indicates that more Americans think Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, would do a better job handling an economic crisis than McCain, the Republican presidential nominee. Forty-nine percent of those questioned say Obama would display good judgment in an economic crisis, 6 points higher than the number who said the same about McCain. And Obama has a 10 point lead over McCain on the question of who would better handle the economy overall.

And the latest electoral projections show Obama with 312 electoral votes with Ohio, Nevada, Florida, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina all teetering. I'll believe KKK Nation voting for an African-American when I see it. Meanwhile I'll just keep reading Naomi Klein (not a relative) and preparing myself for even greater shocks in the future. Last night she wrote that another "shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place...)."

The best summary of how the right plans to use the economic crisis to push through their policy wish list comes from Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On Sunday, Gingrich laid out 18 policy prescriptions for Congress to take in order to "return to a Reagan-Thatcher policy of economic growth through fundamental reforms." In the midst of this economic crisis, he is actually demanding the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which would lead to further deregulation of the financial industry. Gingrich is also calling for reforming the education system to allow "competition" (a.k.a. vouchers), strengthening border enforcement, cutting corporate taxes and his signature move: allowing offshore drilling.

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right's ability to use this crisis -- created by deregulation and privatization-- to demand more of the same.

Will Chris Dodd's intervention save us from the tender mercies of Bush and Paulson? It could be better-- and there's no reason on earth why it shouldn't be. Damn shame they don't just throw Bush, Paulson and the rest of the crooks in prison and put Bernie Sanders in charge, No? How about Mojo Nixon then?

A Prescription For Disaster: John McCain's Health Care Intentions

I never like suggesting what someone's intentions or motivations are. But in this case, McCain has laid everything out himself. Like we mentioned late Friday, McCain wrote a shocking article in Contingencies, although, to be fair, he wrote it before the extremist deregulation policies he has always backed, imploded and caused him to do another of the serial flip flops that have become the hallmark of his shiftless campaign. Where does McCain really stand on health care? That's easy! Wherever the lobbyists who have bought his soul tell him to stand on any given moment. This year the Insurance Industry has given McCain more than any other member of the House or Senate ($1,312,155) and in his entire shameful career in Congress, doing their bidding every step of the way, the pay-off has been immense-- close to $2 million. Money like that adds up. McCain learned one thing from getting caught taking money from Charles Keating-- to cover his tracks better. Funny about the bad timing on his Contingencies article:

Would You Think I'm Exaggerating If I Told You McCain Wants Us All To Die?

Although he's probably close to death, McCain doesn't need to worry about the basic health care system. If he gets sick he can just jump on his private jet and go anywhere in the world for the best team of physicians and specialists without thinking about the cost. The rest of us? Well, he has a plan for us-- and Paul Krugman just made sure we'd all know about it. In the NY Times this evening he provided a link to an article McCain wrote-- or that one of his lobbyist buddies wrote for him-- in the new issue of Contingencies called "Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American."

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

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

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago-- and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!

Not only is McCain trying to kill you, if you have a brother-in-law clueless and racist enough to be voting for him, he's trying to kill you too!

And if McCain's health care plans don't kill you, and you live to a ripe old age, his plans for Social Security will make you wish you were dead.

McCain came under fire on Friday from defenders of the current Social Security system after his aides signaled to the Associated Press that the current market turmoil has not altered his support for changing the retirement program to allow individuals to invest some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds.

"His midnight conversion from aggressive deregulator to market critic is apparently incomplete," said Jared Bernstein, the senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

"He still wants to privatize Social Security to subject retirees to the possibility of this kind of market turmoil, "he added. "Imagine what this would have meant to those in the cohort unlucky enough to reach retirement age in a market climate like this one."

McCain May Not Have Helped Invent The Blackberry, But He Was Part Of The Team That Invented Banking Scandals And Bailouts

Is there a relationship to John McCain's Keating 5 Scandal, which led to the taxpayers losing $3.4 billion, and the current Wall Street meltdown? You bet there is! Crooks & Liars has the story. Both scandals are direct results of Greed, special interest's/political corruption and the arrogance of Power. And McCain was at the heart of both. Although his disgraceful role in the Keating 5 scandal was largely whitewashed and he got away with an admonishment, his role as the head of the Senate Banking Committee where he came down firmly against federal regulatory agencies on behalf of the special interests paying him off with millions and millions of dollars in political "donations," will be tougher to deny.

The new film, Third Term helps put McCain's relationship to his ethics shortcomings into perspective. David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch sums it up nicely: "Fast-forward twenty years to now, we have a huge mortgage crisis on our hands. It’s the result of years and years and years of a deregulatory approach that Senator McCain has supported."

He did not learn his lesson. The S&L collapse was a failure of adequate regulation, with the banks running wild, making dodgy investments with high risk-high reward margins. If that sounds familiar, it should... It’s the same thing that’s happening now, as banks fail, and as our housing market collapses. And the people responsible for this new crisis are the ones McCain has surrounded himself with, men like Phil Gramm and his banking lobbyists. He will offer the same kind of deregulatory policies that led to the banking collapse of the early ‘90s.

Take a look at this short clip from the movie, which puts the whole mess into perspective:



Just like he did before, at the time of his Keating 5 Scandal, McCain is desperate to blame everyone else and take no responsibility. That is the hallmark of his disgraceful career. McCain railing against the "Washington culture of lobbying and influence peddling," blaming this culture of the Wall Street crisis, and insisting that Obama is "square in the middle of it" is quintessential McCain, someone any colleague from the Senate, short of gay cypher Lindsey Graham and Holy Joe Lieberman-- both of whom have pinned their political futures to McCain's star-- will tell you is the least trustworthy, least believable, least honorable man in the U.S. Senate, regardless of political party.

Even the Wall Street Journal's notoriously right-wing editorial board is fed up with his devious campaign and is telling its readers that he "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street... McCain clearly wants to distance himself from the Bush Administration. But this assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also un-Presidential... It wasn't very long ago that he blamed speculators on the long side for sky-high oil prices. Then oil prices fell. Now Mr. McCain wants voters to believe speculators are responsible for driving mismanaged financial companies to ruin. The irony is that this critique puts Mr. McCain in the same camp as some of the Wall Street CEOs who have led their firms so poorly. They also want someone (else) to blame... In a crisis, voters want steady, calm leadership, not easy, misleading answers that will do nothing to help. Mr. McCain is sounding like a candidate searching for a political foil rather than a genuine solution."

This morning Bush and Obama were calling on the whole nation to put partisanship aside and come together to fight the common enemy. McCain, clearly sensing that he is the common enemy lashed out viciously and desperately with more false negative, Rovian TV commercials trying to blame Obama while spewing an endless regurgitation of lies and distortions.

McCain Stumbles Through Another Day, Says He'd Fire Chris Cox... But None of His Economic Advisors Have Called Him Senator Hoover Yet

The last I remember hearing about right-wing financial ideologue Chris Cox, an icon if the Greed and Selfishness wing of the Republican Party, is that he was a contender as a running mate for John McCain. The thinking was that since McCain's skin crawls when he's in the same room with so-called economics whiz Mitt Romney and since even McCain admits he's completely clueless about-- and uninterested in-- economic matters, they would find him a knowledgeable and respected right-wing economics expert. Cox had been a rubber stamp southern California congressman from 1989 til August of 2005 when he resigned to become Bush's SEC chair.

Looking to duck decades of responsibility, McCain has been running around like a chicken without a head looking for someone to blame for the Wall Street debacle. His latest victim is Chris Cox, who he knows wouldn't dare punch back.

ABC News' David Wright reports: At a joint rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Thursday, Republican John McCain McCain slammed the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) for being "asleep at the switch" saying that if he were president, he would fire Chris Cox, the chairman of the SEC since 2005 and a former Republican congressman.

McCain said the SEC has allowed trading practices such as short selling to stay in place that turned the "markets into a casino."

"The regulators were asleep, my friends," McCain said. "The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president. And in my view has betrayed the public trust. If I were president today, I would fire him."

But while the president appoints and the Senate confirms the SEC chair, a commissioner of an independent regulatory commissions cannot be removed by the president.

Cox is far more liked, admired and respected by serious conservatives than is McCain so it should be interesting to see if they start squawking much. He did get some response from senators who know McCain well. “This is typical McCain-style politics,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Go after the first person you can to divert attention from your failures.” Chuck Schumer was even harsher: "Instead of firing Cox, McCain should explain how his policies differ from President Bush on this issue. And if not, maybe he should ask that Bush be fired, instead of Cox.” Or maybe Bush and McCain should have a debate to see which one is more similar to Herbert Hoover.

McCain has wobbled through the last few days of economic crisis. On Monday – with the markets reeling from news that Lehman Brothers had fallen into bankruptcy the GOP presidential candidate said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

In an appearance on the Today Show Tuesday, he said: “We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else."

But on Wednesday, he appeared on Good Morning America and said that the government had no choice but to bail out the troubled insurance company.

"On the bailout itself, I didn't want to do that," he said. "But there were literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investments, whose insurance were at risk here, and they were going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption."

In today’s Gallup Tracking Poll, McCain trails Barack Obama by four points-- a nine-point swing from the peak of his bounce after the Republican National Convention.

McCain is coming across as confused and desperate. And he's starting to turn into a national joke. "Sen. McCain bragged about how as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, 'Nice job. Nice job,'" Obama said at a rally at a baseball stadium in Las Vegas. "Where is he getting these lines? The lobbyists running his campaign?... I'm not making this up, you can't make this up. It's like a Saturday Night Live routine."

And speaking of Republican goofballs who McCain thought weren't as qualified as Sarah Palin to be (vice) president, take a look at Chris Matthews excoriating far right extremist Eric Cantor (R-VA) and the GOP disinformation machine:



UPDATE: OBAMA ON McCAIN'S EMPTY BLUSTERING ABOUT FIRING CHRIS COX

Obama's response was pitch-perfect:

"I think that's all fine and good but here's what I think," Obama said. "In the next 47 days you can fire the whole trickle-down, on-your-own, look-the-other way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path. Don't just get rid of one guy. Get rid of this administration. Get rid of this philosophy. Get rid of the do-nothing approach to our economic problem and put somebody in there who's going to fight for you."

Financial Markets And Economic Policies Confuse And Annoy McCain... So He Just Makes Stuff Up

McCain's head must be exploding. All he wants to do is fight wars and he's been dragged down into complicated discussions of macroeconomic policies that he doesn't understand or care about. His economic policy advisors-- Phil Gramm, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Carly Fiorina-- have gotten him into trouble again and again. At any given time at least one or two of them have been given "time outs" by McCain for boneheaded remarks that are killing his campaign. And then there's Sarah Palin, a two-legged embarrassment and a walking indictment of McCain's judgment and his commitment to the most basic well-being of our country. If McCain wants boneheaded comments, he doesn't need Gramm, Holtz-Eakin, Carly Fiorina or Palin; he's got himself-- and I'm not just talking about him forgetting the differences between Sunnis and Sh'ia, Iran and Iraq or even Spain and Bolivia.

Even his base-- the mainstream media-- is stunned how he has been stumbling around blindly and stepping all over his own (very mixed and mixed up) message since the financial crisis exploded onto the front pages of every newspaper in the country on Sunday, leaving the Palin phenomena where it always belonged-- on the cover of the National Enquirer.

As McCain watches the Palin bounce evaporate and as Bush prepares to come out of McCain-friendly hiding and address the nation on the financial meltdown his policies have caused, McCain is trying to remember what he's for and what he's against. Yesterday he tried negating decades of clear anti-regulatory voting records and statements by claiming that he and Palin would regulate, regulate, regulate. Today, when Obama was basking in the glory of an endorsement by equal pay heroine Lilly Ledbetter (in contrast to the endorsement that McCain had trumpeted yesterday by some decadent, snobbish, social-climbing baroness), McCain seems to have forgotten that he's been a relentless and vociferous opponent of equal pay for many years. Coming from an era when no one could find voting records-- and never having adapted to the computer age-- McCain is utterly unaware that when he makes statements, people can contrast them to his votes.

Yesterday he was trying to combat the embarrassment of the endorsement by the stinking rich, and much detested Lady de Rothschild by claiming that he supports equal pay for equal work too. He never has in the past-- never. It's just more hopeless McCain flip-floppingYesterday: "I want to assure you, that we not only have a role model, but we will hire people and we will make sure people come to our administration wherever there is discrimination. We will eliminate it, we will fight it, and if necessary we'll TAKE THEM TO COURT. We'll do those things."

Yet the last time McCain had a chance to do something about unequal pay (April 23) he skipped the Senate vote [HR 2831, Vote #110] on, ironically... the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The next day the A.P., a news organization extremely biased in McCain's favor, ran this headline: "McCain opposes equal pay bill backed by rivals" and reported that "he opposes a Senate bill that seeks equal pay for women because it would lead to more lawsuits." The day before he said pay disparity was due to education and job training, proving he lacks a basic understanding of the problems regular women-- not like Cindy and Carly and Baroness de Rothschild-- face in the workplace. Back on July 17, 2000 McCain voted to impose a Budget Act point of order tabling a Harkin amendment to "provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex." That was consistent with a couple of votes in 1985 against passage of the bill to establish a commission to oversee a study of the federal workforce to determine whether differences in pay and classification have arisen because of discrimination on the basis of sex, race or national origin." And yet his response to the financial meltdown this week, catastrophic for so many American families: "let's start a commission to study it." I'd suggest he read today's Wall Street Journal instead, and then get out of the way for someone prepared to deal with the crisis.

The financial crisis that began 13 months ago has entered a new, far more serious phase.

Lingering hopes that the damage could be contained to a handful of financial institutions that made bad bets on mortgages have evaporated. New fault lines are emerging beyond the original problem -- troubled subprime mortgages -- in areas like credit-default swaps, the credit insurance contracts sold by American International Group Inc. and others. There's also a growing sense of wariness about the health of trading partners.

The consequences for companies and chief executives who tarry -- hoping for better times in which to raise capital, sell assets or acknowledge losses -- are now clear and brutal, as falling share prices and fearful lenders send troubled companies into ever-deeper holes. This weekend, such a realization led John Thain to sell the century-old Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. Each episode seems to bring government intervention that is more extensive and expensive than the previous one, and carries greater risk of unintended consequences.

Expectations for a quick end to the crisis are fading fast. "I think it's going to last a lot longer than perhaps we would have anticipated," Anne Mulcahy, chief executive of Xerox Corp., said Wednesday.

"This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There is no question about it," said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist who worked with fellow academic Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve chairman, to explain how financial turmoil can infect the overall economy. "But at the same time we have the policy mechanisms in place fighting it, which is something we didn't have during the Great Depression."

How can McCain be expected to understand it? He was just a small child riding around on a burro in his native Panama when Republican policies of Greed and Selfishness plunged the U.S. into the Great Depression. And now he is surrounded by economic advisors who want to role back all the reforms from that era meant to protect consumers, workers and society in general. In fact, his chief economic advisors claim there is no real crisis and that Americans are whiners and exaggerators and just have "psychological" problems. McCain doesn't remember how many homes he owns; he's not hurting. I suspect Lady de Rothschild, who claims Barack Obama is an elitist, may have a similar problem keeping track of all her estates spread out over several countries. I don't know if in-and-out of serial bankruptcies Trump, another decadent parasite who endorsed McCain, knows how many homes he owns either. Larry King should have asked him.

Two High Profile Endorsements For Swing Voters To Consider

Obama proud to have the support of Lilly Ledbetter; McCain hides from Lady de Rothschild endorsement

McCain's opposition to regulating the excesses of capitalism goes back to the beginning of his career. And he's never wavered-- until yesterday. Now he and Sarah Palin are all about regulating the evil Wall Street. Let's look at the facts, the facts about a man who boasted to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal last year that they would never meet a bigger deregulator than himself. That was the ole Straight Talkin' McCain. Now he's shifting like a chameleon who just saw four boomslang and vine snakes approaching from each direction and a Cuckoo Hawk circling overhead.

Today's Washington Post goes easy on his flip flop on regulation but even they can't deny his very clear and consistent record.

A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth.

Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end "reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed" on Wall Street.

It's as absurd as the idea of McCain, whose campaign is the most lobbyist-driven political campaign in American history, will get into power and somehow banish lobbyists-- unless he means take them all off K Street and install them in the Executive Branch. Among the several hundred lobbyists doing all they can to elect McCain are 84 who worked for the financial services industries he's been running all around denouncing for two days! He's taken over $24 million from the finance, insurance, and banking industies, over $14 million of which has flooded into his campaign coffers since he clinched the Republican nomination in March.

But if you think this is the only Double Talk Express hypocrisy on parade today you must have not gotten any of the e-mails about the McCain campaign's newest celebrity backer, Lady de Rothschild, who has claimed Obama is "an elitist" and that she's backing McCain. This is the height of absurity. Here we have one of the most detested and snobbish women in the entire word, someone known as an icon of Greed, Selfishness and decadent self indulgence, calling a working class hero an "elitist" on the day he was endorsed by Lilly Ledbetter, the Alabama woman whose fight for equal pay led her to the United States Supreme Court and inspired the 2007 fair pay legislation that bears her name. Lilly Ledbetter is an all-American heroine, Baroness de Rothschild is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with conservatism and right-wing politics. Ledbetter:

"There is only one candidate who has stood up for women like me.  Who has consistently fought to help women who are working hard every day for our families and aren't being paid fairly. That's why I'm proud to endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States.  The priorities of the Obama-Biden ticket are clear.  Senator Obama and Senator Biden will stand up for families like mine."

Lilly Ledbetter, unlike Lady Rothschild, isn't looking to be appointed ambassador to the Court of St James. And she wasn't part of throwing a London fundraiser for McCain that the FEC is investigating for illegal in-kind contributions from foreign nationals seeking to influence an American election. As my friend Marcy said "Does Lady Rothschild think Obama is elitist because he will make rich people like her pay her fair share of taxes?"

McCain can have Lady de Rothschild and her whole repulsive parasitic ilk. Barack Obama should be proud to have a woman of character and substance like Lilly Ledbetter standing with him-- and the Will Galison Orchestra: